make amends

[insertusername]

make amends

Remember that terrible shit you did? Time to make it right. Ish.

Top Level with the start of your apology(ies). Public or private. In person or over txt.

Well That Was Awkward ↦ Maybe you’re nervous. Awe struck. Tongue tied. Just a little socially awkward. Whatever. This is going to be bumpy.
Total Catastrophe ↦ You fucked up so hard with this one there might not be any coming back from it.
Not Again ↦ You know this wasn’t the first time. This is kind of your MO.
Sorry Not Sorry ↦ Maybe you’re prideful. Maybe you really aren’t to blame. Either way, this only debatably qualifies as an apology at all.
Wildcard ↦ You know what you did.

Comment to see where their sorry song goes. Maybe it’s an apology you didn’t know you had coming, maybe it’s long overdue, completely unnecessary or anything else. Whether or not you’re feeling forgiving is up to you.

Comments

nishikiyama akira | yakuza 1

[yashin]

They had it coming.

[hundredmil]

[ 'They had it coming,' is what Nishiki says.

'Only the strong deserve to live,' is what his brother would say. He'd drag the arrow back out of the (failed, weak) dead person's throat with a sticky, thick noise that Okuyasu didn't really know the anatomy of but figured was caused by the rough, ribbed part of their esophagus that he could feel on the front of his own neck. Sometimes at night he'd hold his own throat and wonder why that, of all things, had barely left a scar on him. Everything else liked to mar his skin.

'They had it coming.' Okuyasu's not often still, but he is right now. He's staring at the bodies - two of them, limp, at weird angles. Looks like a struggle, he thinks with a wild certainty that comes less from watching crime shows on tv and more from direct experience with what someone fighting back but losing looks like.

His chest feels sorta tight, and when he breathes it's almost like an arrow's blocking the air. ] Y-yeah? Did they-- were they tryin' to kill you first?

[ He probably shouldn't lead the witness with his questioning here, but Okuyasu can't take his eyes off the bodies and he definitely can't think far enough ahead to plan a single thing. ]

[yashin]

[ Well, if the kid planned to keep showing his face around this part of Tokyo, this was a lesson he had to learn eventually.

It was hard to get around just how regrettable this particular delivery was, though. Okuyasu was still a boy, and he can see that the scene he's stumbled in on is still creeping over him like a cold and foggy dawn.

He feels a pang of remorse somewhere in him (for Okuyasu, of course, not the bodies at his feet,) as he watches him take the scene in from his office couch, seated far too calmly for the disarray that crowded around him. A potted plant laying on its side, spattering the carpet with dirt, supplies pulled off of shelves, a box of pens scattered across the floor. The stained knife sitting on the edge of the coffee table and the blood on his shirt. He usually prefers the cleanly end that his gun provides, but some transgressions require a more hands-on approach.

There was a struggle, he isn't wrong about that. But not one that meant a fight.

He watches him coolly from his seat. The end of his cigarette glows against his face and his chest rises.

Nishikiyama brings the cigarette away from his lips and expels the smoke through his nose. ]

Nobody tries to kill me anymore.

[ Not since long before Yuko died. A certain big promotion that had fallen into his lap just a short time after Kiryu was arrested would make such a move a very, very stupid thing to do.

He sits, still, fixed on the boy who had just wandered into his office, and wonders if Okuyasu would make that particular connection on his own. ]

[hundredmil]

[ Nishiki always pauses before he talks, even when he's just giving Okuyasu a ride or meeting up somewhere to eat and have conversations about kinda-nothing, kinda-something. But this is the first time it makes Okuyasu's heart beat double-time to watch him drag at his stupid cigarette and think before he talks, like he's gotta plan out what he's saying. Like Okuyasu's gotta be either avoided or intimidated, because why else would you think about what you're saying so hard?

His hands are in fists at his sides and he sees the knife and that's actually new, his brother and himself haven't needed to use knives since they got stands, not since Keicho first went after their dad to try to— it didn't even work, anyway. Okuyasu's never seen someone killed with a knife before, even if he's not about to forget what his first dead body looked like.

His eyes burn and he can't cry right now, not while he's talking to an adult he thought he trusted about why he's just killed two people, he's gotta act normal or at least tough about this. ]

Why? 'Cause everyone knows you'll kill 'em first? Is that— [ Okuyasu swallows against his throat closing up, and he actually manages to keep from crying for at least another few seconds. ] —Is that why? [ And then immediately, no pause to try to salvage his behavior with acting tough, he takes an angry and terrified step forward and points at Nishiki. ] What the hell's going on? What is this? Y-you better tell me!

[ Somewhere from inside himself or from in the void he sends stuff to, Okuyasu feels The Hand banging against the walls, wanting to come out. ]

[yashin]

[ Nishikiyama is, of course, perfectly aware of how this relationship is crumbling around him. He can see its fragments falling. He knows how exceptionally terrible the situation is, and he can feel the pit it makes in his stomach.

But that doesn't mean he can help the light amusement as he watches him - the smile that occurs to him as he watches how mere silence makes him squirm. He hardly had to try at provoking him. Another few moments of thick quiet, and the boy would probably cross that invisible threshold, that line which nobody else in his life would dare to even toe.

He wonders if he should caution the boy against that - for his own good, certainly, not for Nishikiyama's, or if he should let him learn that lesson himself.

Not that he would listen.

The boy starts spitting out theories, and he's sure that first one is meant to be something biting. It might have been, if he hadn't answered his own question.

But the boy wanted an explanation. The least he could do after this sorry sight was to oblige him. His gaze slides away from his panic, then he rolls his head upward, watching the fan whirl slowly above them for another silent moment as he pieces his thoughts together.

It takes him a moment to figure out how to admit it; ]

They killed somebody they weren't meant to kill.

[ That's what comes out, pensive and low. He turns back toward the heaped corpses and curls his nose. ]

I have to make my examples where I can. Brutes like this-- [ He nudges the foot of the nearest body with the toe of his fine white shoe to indicate, brutes like this, ] --there's only one language they understand.

[ Okuyasu didn't think the Nishikiyama Family Office was really where he operated his dad's computer company, did he? ]

[hundredmil]

[ Okuyasu's hands are curled into fists, and he wants to hit something because he hates this, he hates seeing so much blood again, he hates knowing that someone he cares about is capable of--

Will Nishiki ask Okuyasu to kill someone for him, someday? Will he do that, too?

Okuyasu's eyes burn and he's never been any good at holding back tears for long. They spill over when he blinks, his entire face contorted with anger around the tears that start tracking silently down his cheeks. But Nishiki says 'killed someone they weren't meant to kill' which sounds like a reason, maybe a real one, even though he also says 'brutes like this' and that sounds like--

Like Keicho. Like him, before Josuke saved him. Okuyasu and his brother were brutes, running around town with a bow and arrow and a mission that left a long, red trail. He sniffs hard and his voice doesn't shake too bad when he speaks. ] So they hurt someone you cared about? It was like...protection?

[ He asks it like he's hoping that's the case, because it is. Killing to stay safe is sad and unfortunate but it's forgivable. ]

[yashin]

[ He keeps his eye on the ceiling, watches the passing fan cut his gaze into lazy quarters as he mulls on Okuyasu's reading of his words. On the barely-contained bristling, the tension he could feel from his couch. The boy was close to jumping him, and stupid enough to actually do it. ]

You could say that.

[ It was a kind interpretation, but not an incorrect one. But all the same, he wasn't about to suffer the rogue flame of a candle for some misguided sense of sentimentality for the wick being snuffed. Okuyasu didn't understand now, of course, because he couldn't - but such an attitude would only proliferate if he didn't cut it at its stem. Some regrettable dregs work for him, but he wouldn't let their idiocy create undue loss.

Still, some honesty wouldn't hurt his cause. He takes another lengthy drag from his smoke and exhales it into the fan.

He glances toward the boy. ]

I never personally met the woman.

[ He's glad nobody's here to hear how his voice softens, just a little, at the sight of spilling tears. He looks away quickly. ]

But she was a close relation to someone who... [ How to quantify where he stood with Yumi... he falls away again, pauses, nose wrinkling as he thinks of where to place her. ] She was the sister of someone who I grew up with.

[ And his only avenue to finding her. ]

[hundredmil]

You're being so vague! It's pissing me off! [ It's scaring him, actually, and that jittery energy turns into closed fists and the urge to beat something until directions and answers spill out of it.

But he doesn't want to fight Nishiki. How many ambiguously guardian-shaped figures in his life are going to pull this crap, exactly? Okuyasu can't even quite conceptualize it as letting him down because he's not important enough for that kind of sentiment, to be owed anything, but dammit it hurts all the same to see this crumbling in front of his eyes.

Tears keep streaming down his face but Nishiki finally says enough, outlines just enough of a story, that Okuyasu doesn't leap forward. Inside of him, though, The Hand trembles and reaches out and—

Materializes behind and through Okuyasu, moving with him as he hunches in on himself, arms crossed and shoulders rounded, unhappy and staring. ] S-so it was because these were guys who killed someone important. Okay.

...Right? Like...this is it, right? You killed 'em and now you got your revenge, right? [ Okuyasu thinks of Chili Pepper, of Akira's wild and tattooed face smeared with blood. He understands revenge, or at least he thinks he does.

He looks over the room. It's a mess. Nishiki isn't.

The bodies. They're still just laying there. He feels nauseous looking at them but he swallows it down and keeps talking. ] You... You gotta get rid of these bodies, man. Before someone else walks in on you.

[yashin]

[ He's not about to get any more specific - not with those voices and tromping footsteps working their way down the hall.

Nishikiyama has enough time to do a few things before the men swing the door open. He holds Okuyasu's gaze in his own in cool, pensive silence. He puts out his smoke in the cheesy crystal ashtray on the table. He stands and takes his crisp, white suit jacket from the back of the couch and slips it over his shoulders. Works the buttons with deft hands, and now, the soak of crystallizing wine-purple hardening his clothing is neatly covered.

He's just in time to be presentable as the door is slammed open for four suited, sunglasses-wearing men to swagger in, laughing amongst themselves until they get a look at the room. A second of silence falls over them.

And then, they see Nishikiyama. Four bowed heads, oyaji muttered out in respectful, stunned voices. He takes in the display before turning back to the table and grabbing the sheathed knife sitting on the table's edge. He tosses it with the bodies. ]

Deal with it.

[ All of it. The knife, the bodies, the room. Deal with it.

That's all they need to hear. The men get to work immediately as Nishikiyama strides to the boy's back. He places a softened hand on his shoulder. ]

Come. [ His tone is softened, just a little, his gaze sliding from him to the path ahead. ] We'll talk elsewhere.

[hundredmil]

[ Okuyasu swings around to look at who comes in, and The Hand's stance mimics his own — ready to fight. He doesn't wanna have to kill anyone, let alone all four of these guys, but—

And that's when he turns back to seek some guidance about what to do about it, and sees that Nishiki looks just as calm as before. Okuyasu turns back and sees nothing but respect from these guys, and they take the news of the dead bodies just as calmly as Nishiki himself has been, so far... In fact, all of this feels like a play they've rehearsed, or something. Like it's an agreement they knew ahead of time.

Okuyasu notices Nishiki's touching him because he sees him and looks down at his hand. His shoulder feels numb. His hands feel numb too. He thinks he's stopped crying, and he takes a mechanical step forward on command. The Hand comes with him, because it's got to, but its form wavers, uncertain now. ]

Dude, you... [ Okuyasu has just enough sense to wait until they leave, until the door shuts behind them and now they're in a hallway with at least a thin layer of wood between them and those strangers. ] Are you— They...they work for you?

[ Okuyasu has a bad, but impossible, theory. One that's starting to feel less impossible the more his brain slowly comes back to life enough to think about this. ]

[yashin]

Yes.

[ There isn't much point in vagueness now. Nishikiyama can practically hear the gears grinding in the boy's head. If he hadn't put the pieces together already, then they'd click into place in short order.

The prospect shouldn't please him as it does. He shouldn't feel that thrill tingling at the back of his neck as he stands at the cusp of his own unraveling, at the hands of this boy. He shouldn't feel excited by the impending lifting of the curtain, the moment when they would reach some secluded space and he would be forced to start pulling back the curtain to avail him to atrocities and mistakes.

But some pathetic and sad part of him, way down in the bottom of his lonely chest, is reaching out for it. Connection, even one bound to destroy more than it repaired, was connection. Understanding was understanding, and he can't remember when he was last understood.

Nishikiyama cuts an imposing path through the mundane office hallways. Punch-permed men in loud suits carefully pulled themselves back rather than risk crossing their path. Bowed heads ahead of them, oyaji trailing behind them. A man hurriedly claps the button on the elevator before they reach the door, ducking his head as the others did. Nishikiyama takes all of this tribute in silence over the course of their procession.

The elevator hauls them up. The doors slide open once. The man waiting declines to share his boss' elevator. He pays the same tribute as all of the rest, a bowed head and a quickly murmured oyaji, to a silent Nishikiyama.

The doors slide shut, then after another few seconds of rumbling, open to a tiny little chamber. Nishikiyama steps out and proceeds through the next door to a grey, cloudy expanse of early-evening sky and a square little roof.

The tension is plain. So, Nishikiyama walks out first. ]

We won't be disturbed here.

[ He slips his hands into his pockets as he crosses to the guardrail and looks over the city below. Bar windows flooded with the first golden light of the evening, neon signage struggling to be noticed before the daylight was totally gone.

He turns to regard Okuyasu. ]

Ask your questions. I'll answer as many as I can.

[hundredmil]

[ Okuyasu's heart is hammering in his throat — a repetitive strangling of his breath that keeps reminding him of the arrow, and being good enough to gain a destructive power but not good enough for anything else he'd ever privately wished to suddenly have.

He tries to swallow it down when they finally get to the roof. ]

How come you don't give a shit about what just happened? [ It's a question that's maybe bigger than this specific incident, so maybe that's what pushes it to the front of Okuyasu's brain. He's accusatory and guarded but he still follows Nishiki out onto the roof, angry and not sure where to put all his confrontational energy when he's told ask questions and not to fight him. ]

[yashin]

The bodies?

[ Nishikiyama makes a disarmingly calm foil to agitated Okuyasu, leaning his elbows against the railing, canting his head and clarifying as lightly and casually as if he'd been asked about the weather.

The bodies, or Okuyasu barging in? His gaze slides back down to the streets, and he chews on it. Okuyasu is barely in a mood to stand still, let alone illuminate his meaning. The former, he could vivisect and display to Okuyasu with debatable success. The latter, though... his eyes narrow, gaze pulling tight and sharp as he scores Kamurocho. ]

You've made up your mind. I won't be able to justify to you what you saw in that room. [ He's probably not winning any favour, speaking as slowly and as carefully as he is. But this is a difficult path to navigate. He has to pick his steps carefully. ] The only thing I can do is apologize for your exposure to it. I know that, and so, I am sorry that you had to see that. I didn't want for you to find out like this.

[ Not that being told as much was likely to stop him, from the heat he could feel prickling his back. Nishikiyama takes a stabilizing breath. ]

But I will say that I have been in this game for a long time. A long time. [ Longer than a modern teenager could likely understand. ] Long enough that my name has power.

[ Let Okuyasu pursue that line of questioning at his own discretion. Let that be as close as he comes to revealing the heights he's climbed to.

He braces his hand against the railing and turns, just enough to face Okuyasu, his expression cool and stony. ]

What I told you earlier was true, but not complete. I'm certain that you can guess the sorts of individuals who fall through the cracks and land on my desk. They're not all like you - they're not all kind.

[ Putting it gently. ]

Some of them ended up in my hands with very good reason. So in my position, Okuyasu, would you let rapists and indiscriminate killers run amok through this city with your name pinned to their chest? Could you stand that?

FEEL FREE TO DISREGARD i am simply lacking in willpower not to tag u

[irongrip]

[Oh, the conversations you get to have over lunch dates at Vincent. Tachibana, thankfully, keeps any insufferable smiles hidden and keeps to swirling his glass of sparkling water instead.] They nearly always do, thankfully.

Any specific 'they' in mind, or just a general statement? I don't mind either option.

i would never do such a thing

[yashin]

[ Finally, someone who gets it. ]

Everyone.

[ It sounds very precise and deliberate for such a broad statement. His gaze flits to the clack of pool balls a few steps away from their table before it settles back on Tachibana. ]

The Tokyo police should be pinning a medal to my chest, for some of the specimens I've personally taken off of the streets.

[ Instead, people are tripping over themselves to make him feel bad?? He takes an agitated sip of his amber whisky. ]

the honor. the self-esteem boost. i am thriving

[irongrip]

[Someone who at the very least, can't and won't judge for a little street-cleaner duty. Hell, maybe if either one of them had been a more brutal man years ago, Tachibana's life would be much easier now.

He doesn't mention that, of course. Ugly business which has no place here.]

I see! A real tragedy, that your hard work goes unnoticed by the people who should be doing it for you. It's likely cold comfort, but I appreciate you making Kamurocho a safer place for us all. Where is the honor and romantic spirit to being a yakuza, these days? A pillar of the community? At least us civilians have you to rely on.

[Cin cin clink clink, baby.] Do you have any stories about the worst of the worst? Or are they all too much for polite company?

[yashin]

Why, if I didn't know any better, Tachibana-san, I may mistake your enthusiastic praise for mockery.

[ Is he smiling below the rim of his glass because he knows better, or because he doesn't care if he does?

Nishikiyama sets it down and turns the question over, lets the booze pit warmly in his stomach. It used to be an issue - talking when he drank, when he was young and stupid. Something about the warmth tended to soften him, and it always did start at his lips. He supposes that was why he liked it so much.

Little idiot that he was.

His finger scrubs against the glass. He can't tell of the worst, certainly, not yet, especially not to Tachibana, but he can get as close as he might dare. He shrugs a little passively. ]

Rapists and illiterate sons of whores, by and large. [ There, the wide swath of victims covered in one convenient, apt brush. ] Violent fools. Nobody who would be missed in polite company. It's strange, how people moralize such a thing.

[ crossing that line is fine actually, i dont care anymore ]

[irongrip]

[There's something about that smile that makes Tachibana's stomach flutter, and he's not sure if it's positive or negative. Which, in itself, makes their relationship more interesting and beneficial than most people he meets and brings under sway, really.

He can't help but mirror it somewhat, take a mouthful of sparkling water and let it fizz against his tongue in the hopes of recalling that familiar burn.]

...Mm, people who haven't killed find it hard to imagine such a thing being necessary, even in the case of those who can't be reformed and who do more harm than good by simply existing unfettered. Should candles which threaten to burn down a house not be snuffed out, though?

It might be presumptuous of me to thank you on behalf of someone who isn't here right now, but I will anyway. I know that...You've likely spared many girls the same fate as my sister, so I can't help but be thankful for your willingness to do what needs doing.

[yashin]

[ There is, naturally, no sentiment or kind word that won't make him immediately steely and cold. As close as this gets to striking him in his empty chest, and as much as he might find himself liking their little excursions, this one is no exception.

His gaze flits up as soon as she's mentioned, as soon as he figures out where it is he's going. The occasional scrap of amusement does little to soften the sharp and predatory narrowing of his eyes as he sums Tachibana and his sentiment up with his eyes, weighing his heart against a feather in chilly silence.

Cues peck at pool balls a little further into the bar. Nishiki's gaze slides away, over his shoulder. His nose curls. ]

A kind assessment.

[ His gaze is less harsh when he returns it to Tachibana, holds him there with it. ]

I'm sorry to say that I can't fully take ownership of it. As right as you may be, [ and he knows precisely what sort of regrettable bastards sometimes slip through the cracks and into the fold of his family ] my motivations were not half so noble.

[ ... usually.

He rolls his glass and takes another sip, feels it pool. It's one of the few loves he still knows how to hang onto. ]

Rabid dogs have plenty of sympathetic company in civilized society, it would seem. [ Somehow. ]

[irongrip]

[Perhaps that had been a little too much risked, a little too much vulnerability between starving lions, but Nishikiyama's also not let him down, yet. So Tachibana will smile benignly at that little nose wrinkle, meeting his eyes as calmly as ever as he swirls his glass to make the icecubes clink.]

Almost everyone fails to pull the trigger on their own rabid dog, Nishikiyama-san. And almost no one lives up to noble intentions, so I can't say that I hold them in so high a regard as I once did.

[Not that there's not an exception to this rule, but that would also be impolite to bring up.] Forgive me for putting pressure on you like this, but I fear that I'm still going to hold you in high regards for what you do. As would the girls you've indirectly spared, and their families.

[yashin]

[ Makoto is a subject which he does not relish dwelling upon - she is a person who has faded into an irrelevant shadow in his life, something he once knew which has made the neglected transition from something tangible and solid into a vaguely woman-shaped concept.

She is also a living vestige of Yuko. They embody the same fuzzy, dark space, shadow each other's steps in his mind. When he remembers Makoto's face, he sees Yuko's in it. In the rare times that she steals into his thoughts, he's forced to reckon the Nishikiyama of today with the one they both knew.

And most terrifying of all - Makoto could still, by some horrifying chance, recall his name and seek him out.

No more. He couldn't think of Tachibana's heightened regard of him, what that puts in his chest, of Makoto and Yuko and all of the younger sisters of the world whom he's inadvertently scooped away from torment and anguish. ]

It is refreshing as always, Tachibana-san, to be in the company of a man who understands these things.

[ For once, it actually doesn't sound like it because he's being sarcastic - it is refreshing. Or at least, it would be for as long as he could dance around that last bit of praise.

He smiles, a little sourly, as his gaze slides back up to Tachibana's. ]

If there were more men like us, then perhaps we wouldn't be where we are today.

[irongrip]

...Perhaps in your case. If there were less men like me, I'm certain that things would be far easier for civilians trying to live their lives. I might be your rabid dog, mm? [Nishikiyama's smile, dour as it is, gets mirrored in full.] ...A tragedy that I don't drink anymore, to justify saying things like that.

But I can't say that I regret it, or any of this conversation! To be actually honest about my nature is indeed refreshing. Like taking off a mask at the end of a very long play, and talking with a fellow actor.

[More than that. It's a personal victory, to get that sort of genuine reply from Nishikiyama; not that it'd been his aim, even with firing at their mutual healing bruises, but Tachibana can't help but relish any softness in turn. Not even as a fellow predator, but in the same way that a fool looking to be endeared might enjoy it.

It's unnerving to think about, though. That he can't control his desire to see the chips and flagging veins of the same man who'd once freed him and fought for Makoto underneath the stone. Get that emotional shit outta here.] A question, to direct the aim away from ourselves and lighten the mood just a touch; what are your thoughts on those who do fail to thin out the undesirable they know? No judgment between friends, of course.

[yashin]

[ stop saying nice things about him???? stop it?????

And of course, he couldn't even find the decency to leave Nishikiyama with his comfortable ambiguity, the special plausible deniability that comes with the knowledge that Tachibana's first language isn't actually Japanese - that maybe he didn't mean for that to come out as loaded as it did. He had to dash that little stickfort, too. No, apparently, Tachibana meant exactly what he said, and his only regret was that he couldn't have been drunk when he said it.

He levels his calm gaze on him, for a contemplative moment punctuated by clacking pool balls. His eyebrows lift. ]

Perhaps so. Though I hope that you won't mind my saying that it's quite difficult to imagine you on the end of any man's leash.

[ Look, they both know well enough about Kazama, but it isn't like he has any ground to stand on when it comes to calling out other people drinking the Kazama Kool-Aid. So he'll do the decent thing and give Kazama what he deserves; silence and a berth wider than his ego.

And he's grateful to have even more excuses to leave those thoughts where they lie. Nishikiyama finishes sipping from his glass and sets it down.

He doesn't even need to think about this one; ]

Sentimentalists and fools who don't need me to tell them what extending such tolerance to mongrels and pigs will get them.

[irongrip]

I'm glad to hear it.

[Which part, he doesn't clarify. Both are certainly accurate and pleasing to the ear, though that might just be Nishikiyama's voice.] As much as affection can dull the evaluation of a man, some truly need a leash, and some cannot even be obedient then.

We know better, thankfully. For all of the learning you and I have had to do, we know better.

[That last part comes out with conviction that...Doesn't exactly suit the jovial tone Tachibana typically takes when he plays the part of a child dangling a treat in front of a wild tiger. Reassuring himself, perhaps. It's dissipated with a little head-toss, and his eyes light up once more with playfulness in its stead.] I had a friend who had a habit of collecting many and varied movies, though most skewed in the direction you might suspect. He'd be disappointed if I didn't joke about how some men would enjoy being on a leash, so I'm obliged to.

I feel it prudent to emphasise that any undesirable would find himself very lucky to be your rabid, leashed dog, Nishikiyama-san. While collars would chafe me too much, goodness knows that Kamurocho is brimming with men who would blossom with care and guidance. And discipline. The real question is whether you're into that, of course. [How can he say shit like this without audibly laughing? Who knows.]

comes back and leaves this here like it hasnt been a whole ass month hey hi hello

[yashin]

That we do.

[ Nishikiyama's fingers drum at his sweating glass, watching the way the bar's dim, warm lights catch in the rim of his glass, jaw resting in his hand - a rare and casual posture, courtesy of the boozy warmth pitting in his stomach.

He lets a sigh roll from his nose. ]

That we do.

[ He might have taken that sentiment as a slight, had it come from anybody but Tachibana. It's an uncomfortably vulnerable thing, to have somebody peel back his skin and see what's happened to him beneath it - and even more uncomfortable to be able to do the same in return. Though, as strange and uncomfortable as it is, there is something grounding about that simple nod, that moment passed between the two of them which only they could understand. It's been - and as loathe as he is to admit it, even privately, there's no getting around it - too long since he was understood.

Give him a minute to figure out if he missed it.

His fingertip has moved to that glinting light, flashing from the rim of his glass, by the time Tachibana draws his gaze again. He watches him speak as his finger moves idly, scrubbing out the glint in the glass, back and forth.

And Tachibana actually does the impossible and manages to soften that stony, permafrost scowl on his face - his eyebrows shoot up at that word, lucky, and they stay up as he continues. What sort of films did he say his friend collected?

He's still trying to find the edge of the joke he'd mentioned when his mouth opens, and out comes; ]

With the right sort of man, perhaps.

[ Does he feel a smile beneath his fingers? ]

Are you, Tachibana-san?