#really liked majimas jacket too idk what it had going on but it was fun | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

arysthaeniru · 3 years

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Hi! Idk if it’s too late for the Drabble requests, if it is then please feel free to ignore this!!! But I wanted to ask for some majima/nishiki? Either before or after nishiki goes apeshit, I’m really not picky. I just love the idea that they interacted after their fight in yakuza 0! Especially since I feel like their situations are kind of similar, even if how they coped was...very different lol. Thank you 🥰

Thank you so much for this request~ I LOVE majima/nishiki as a concept, especially in that nebulous ten-year-period where Kiryu’s gone, it’s really fun to think about. This is like a beginning of a fic where they both go entirely off the rails and turn the entire Tojo Clan upside down, I hope you like it!

The thing is, Majima should leave this well alone. He knows he should. Shimano had as good as told him to leave this hornet’s nest alone, with one quirk of his eyebrow, and Majima’s nothing if not an obedient dog. But the thing is—it wasn’t an explicit order, and he feels the itch of his conscious twinging inside him, the same part of his heart that starts bleeding every time he sees a lost cause, everytime he sees somebody pure and good, bleeding out from the injustice of the world.

He wishes sometimes that Yasuko and Saejima had been stoned-hearted people. Maybe if their internal voices guided him away from this, Majima wouldn’t drag himself into quite so much trouble, saving beautiful people with puppy-dog eyes.

But he had loved them for their love. Their open, bleeding hearts had taken him in, and he’d destroyed them, and now Majima will destroy himself over and over, to repay even an ounce of their kindness into the world.

So even if it’s a bad idea, even if it’ll destroy him and probably Nishikiyama too, he walks up to the newly crowned patriarch at the Tojo HQ. Nishikiyama’s leaning over the scenic bridge staring at Chairman Sera’s koi pond, so, with a casual, dangerous saunter, Majima drawls, “Ya ever hear that story about why koi fish are so damn red? It’s ‘cause they drank the blood of the battlefield to grow all big and strong. But they ain’t never satisfied with that, so they just kept swimming.”

Nishikiyama looks up from the pond, eyes narrowed, body tense, as if he’s one misstep away from simply bolting. Cute. He’s got something of a survival instinct, then.

“...that’s sakura, Majima-san.” he says, finally, turning his gaze away from Majima and back towards the koi. “Sakura trees are buried over the battlefield, and their blossoms are stained red with blood, because they absorbed that blood.”

“Haw?” Majima demands, with a scowl. Well, maybe not that much of a survival instinct. He’d slap one of his family members down for that kind of backtalk. But Nishikiyama’s not a subordinate anymore. A Patriarch in his own right—no matter how stupid Majima thinks that decision was. “Then wassa myth about koi, then?”

“Koi swim up the waterfall, endlessly, futilely.” Nishikiyama says, a bitter curl to his mouth, and he reaches into his jacket, pulls out a cigarette packet. He pauses, as he’s about to tuck it away, and offers one to Majima, stiffly, as if he’s not used to having to think about it. Majima accepts, pulls out his own lighter, and lights them both up. Majima makes sure to aim the ash away from the pond though. He doesn’t abide by littering, and he respects Sera too much to fuck up his shit.

“Seems like a waste of time, don’t it?” Majima asks, low and amused. “Shouldn’t it just swim wherever the fuck it wants to?”

The cigarette smoke makes Nishikiyama’s taut face a little more hazy, blurry, relaxed. Younger too. Majima had thought his becoming Patriarch at 25 had been a transparent move on Shimano’s part, an admission of his own weakness, an admission of how he was dependent on Majima’s mercy, an easy bribe and reward and leash all at once. Even though Nishikiyama’s 27, he seems younger than Majima had been, back then, and the move to make him Patriarch only shows the weakness of Kazama’s hand more clearly.

No wonder Shimano’s gloating so much. Any way you cut it, trying to replace Kiryu with Nishikiyama is a futile decision. But still.

Majima remembers the man who’d fought him in the bar seven years ago, eyes blazing and skin glowing. Not Kiryu, not by a long shot. But something different, something bright in its own right.

Nishikiyama looks at him, confused and puzzled. “I—what the fuck do you want?”

Majima grins, wide and mad and crazed. “Just seems a waste, is all. Dogs are chained, leashed, but koi can swim anywhere. Why try for the waterfall when the ocean’s just as wide?”

Nishikiyama blinks for a moment, and then scoffs, puffing out a breath of resigned, irritated smoke. “Koi are stupid. Can’t hold more than one or two thoughts in their heads. What space do they have for dreams of the distant ocean?”

Majima’s enjoying this, he can’t help it. Kiryu’s never had much patience for the metaphor, but Nishikiyama’s willing to hold this conversation in a space away from where either of them have to admit what they’re doing. It’s refreshing, sometimes, to dance above the lie, an electrifying, terrifying thing. Majima leans his elbows back against the edge of the bridge, turning away from the fish, to tilt his gaze upwards towards the overcast sky.

“Even if yer gonna do something pointlessly, endlessly, ya gotta dream. Doesn’t the koi dream of becoming the dragon? Does it want it? Or is it just doin’ it because it thinks it should?”

Nishikiyama looks away. “Does it matter?”

“It’s the most damn important thing in the world.” Majima says, seriously, and he thinks about who he’d be if he hadn’t had the dream of Saejima and Yasuko and their happy family to tide him through the Hole. He’d let the madness into his soul, he’d had to change in order to survive. But the dream had kept him on the right track. He knows more than anybody, how important it is to hold steadfast to it.

But that’s always been his problem. A loyal dog, too loyal for his own damn good. Once he gets his teeth into something, he can’t ever let go.

Nishikiyama looks down, a stray strand of hair falling down into his eyes. “The ocean just seems so far away.”

Majima snorts. “Then it’s gotta find something’ to tide it over. Somethin’ smaller, something closer. Dream small first, and then ya’ll get better at it. And ya can dream big. Dream about the freedom of the wide ocean.”

There’s a loud booming laugh from the other side of the garden. He and Nishikiyama both glance over, to where Shimano seems to be making some big joke with the Shibata and Kumigawa Family heads. A reminder of how dangerous this game Majima’s playing is. He rolls his neck out and tries to look as infuriating as possible. Nishikiyama, not nearly as stupid as he portrays himself to be, curls his shoulders inwards, as if annoyed, but there’s a thoughtful edge to his gaze anyway.

“Didn’t think you were the type to dole out advice like this, Majima-san.” Nishikiyama says, puffing out some smoke.

Majima cackles, loud and amused. “Gotta switch it up sometimes. Get you all soft and mushy, and then I’m gonna attack out of nowhere, when yer least expecting it.” He fiddles with his sleeves, just long enough to flash Nishikiyama the knife he always has on his person. Nishikiyama’s eyebrows rise, but he doesn’t react, not like Kiryu would have.

“And I suppose the hand that holds the leash is close by.” Nishikiyama says, coolly, something of a smirk touching his lips as he looks away from Shimano and back towards Majima. “The dog’s never thought of turning backwards?”

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, amiright?” asks Majima, lazily, but he feels his heart start to beat a little faster, as Nishikiyama tugs at his own tie, loosening it a little.

Nishikiyama’s eyes lid, and he looks somewhat torn, conflicted. Has Majima hit a sore spot here? Has Nishikiyama got second thoughts about hitching his wagon to Daddy Kazama? Ha. Majima’s been <i>there</i>, too. He understands that much. Nishikiyama licks his lips, stubs his cigarette out against the side of the bridge. “What if it’s stopped feeding you? What then?”

This is the problem with metaphor. So easy to get lost in it. Nishikiyama��s difficult to read, not like Kiryu, who’s an open book, whose every expression gives him away. Majima doesn’t know what their conversation is about anymore. Are they talking about Majima and Shimano? Or Nishikiyama and Kazama? Or more dangerously, are they talking about both?

“Shit if I know! Wonder how long a fish can go without food? ‘Cause a dog’s got patience. It’ll wait forever. It’ll wait until it dies.” Majima whispers, quietly, so quietly he’s not even sure he’s saying it. Majima’s in this for the long game. No matter what, he has to survive, like the bleached, wizen plum tree in the back of his yard. Only one person can kill him, and neither Shimano nor Kiryu nor Nishikiyama can get in the way of that.

This is dangerous. Nishikiyama’s dangerous and he’s playing a dangerous game. Turning away from your expectations is one thing, but betrayal is entirely another. Majima shouldn’t bite. He knows the consequences of betrayal. It has been burned into his bone marrow, he is a creature shaped entirely by betrayal’s fallout. But he’s a stupid thing, and the naked plea in Nishikiyama’s expression is maybe the only thing in the whole world.

He’s always been a sucker for beautiful, broken things.

“I’ve been hungry my whole life, Majima-san.” Nishikiyama whispers, and his gaze has moved down to Majima’s lips, still closed around an almost-burned-out cigarette. Nishikiyama’s tongue flickers out over his lips, leaving them wet and shiny in his wake. “I don’t know how much longer I can go.”

Majima shuts his eye and thinks. If this goes wrong, they’re horribly fucked. The Hole will be nothing compared to what Shimano will do to him now, now that Majima is in a place of real betrayal. If this goes right, on the other hand....

When he opens his eyes, Nishikiyama’s still looking at him. Majima pulls the cigarette out of his mouth, and puffs the smoke out, straight into Nishikiyama’s face. To anybody looking, it would be an act of pure antagonism. But Majima whispers, “Wait a little longer, then,” and it is a promise shared between the two of them. Two left-behind, shattered things, desperately trying to survive. Trying to find meaning in a world devoid of it.

...this is madness. But he’s the Mad Dog of Shimano. Madness is his specialty. The ocean in which he thrives. He’ll join hands with Nishikiyama, against his better judgement, and throw himself into the whirlwinds of chaos, of forging a new path entirely.

#majima goro #nishikiyama akira #yakuza #magikarp ship #rgg #i had a few more requests in my inbox but this is the last one i'm gonna do #gotta get back to writing spiraling downhill #but this was SO fun to indulge in

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