A Better Promise

[madimpossibledreamer]

It got a little melancholy and I couldn’t figure out how to end it because I knew Yakuza 5 is set after this, which kinda hurts worse. Even though this is melancholy, though, I think I got the hopeful tone I wanted, that even through further events it’s not all pain.

Main Points:
Yakuza, follow-up to Living to Die
Summary: It'll never be perfect, but it's theirs, and Kiryu is stubborn and Majima needs to stop self-sabotaging because he deserves this happiness even if he doesn't feel he does.
Word Count: 395
Rating: Teen
Warnings: panic attack, referenced Shimano
Pairing: Majima/Kiryu (finally discussed!)

 

         Goro considers shuffling. Trying to hide, maybe making a fight out of this, but he’s just so tired, the waves are probably hypnotic, lulling him into a false sense of security, and Kiryu, he’s sure, would have none of it. From the way his frown deepens slightly, he’s probably concerned about Goro’s leather pants getting ruined, which it’s absolutely adorable, the things he worries about. He sits and puts his feet in the water, too, within reach but not so close as to crowd. Trying to come up with the perfect words, the perfect way to ask.
         The patriarch considers playing oblivious, but nah, that’d take effort and Kiryu would have none of that, either. He’d find his words eventually, and Goro’d wasted enough of the Dragon’s time, before now. “Ya ain’t gotta ask. It was Saejima.”
         “You didn’t fail him,” he states, gentle knives sharp as a scalpel. Majima shakes his head abruptly.
         Kiryu continues, because he’s not put off (how could he be, he’s seen the absolute worst of Majima and come back for more). These days the patriarch couldn’t probably shake the ex-yakuza if he tried. “You didn’t. It was his choice to let you live. You made sure he had something to come back to. That ceremony said enough.”
         In an unfortunate bit of parallel, Majima’s breath hitches, because yeah, he’d sacrificed and sacrificed and sacrificed some more and it was never enough, never, not for anyone, and yet what one tiger hadn’t considered a fit meal, another had deemed it adequate.
         The Dragon slows, stills, panicking about what to do, probably, but slowly, patiently, he holds out a hand, like one would approach a beaten dog.
         Majima eyes it, uncertain. “I ain’t one for the slow life. Ya know this, Kiryu-chan.” It’s quiet and soft and just an echo of his usual tone.
         His heart skips a beat when Kiryu smiles. “It means enough that you care enough to try. Thank you. Not just for this, for everything. I don’t think I’ve said it enough.”
         “Ya really are the softest marshmallow in the whole world, Kazuma.” Goro accepts the hand, leaning into that strong, muscular shoulder like he’s longed to do. At some point, he won’t be able to help but to yap, to bite, and the world, so unfair, will return, but right here, right now, this is enough.