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Samatoki’s used to feeling unsettled and unnerved and unhinged— it’s nothing he hasn’t learned to live with. There’s always something, but at the end of a long day at least, it’s not anything he has to find cause or reason for; the world is hell and this era is full of shit, and life is not fair. But as long as he doesn’t sell his peace of mind with pieces of his soul, he’ll last—and he’s lasted thus far, a night at a time— chasing his anxieties off or washing them away.
In fact, a good, long, scalding shower is all it takes most times. When Samatoki started to feel on-edge after he came home and a few cigarettes wouldn’t curb it, he retreated into the shower to drown it and drown it out, determined not to let it bother him too much when he’s already tired; it’s just another one of those days. So down the drain went all of today’s grime and the feeling that Samatoki was forgetting something crucial. Glowing pink and pretty refreshed, he steps out in his bathrobe supposing that if it’s important enough it’ll come bite him in the ass another day, and just walks back to where he’d left his cigarettes.
But what he finds in the living room has Samatoki’s peace of mind flying straight away, reminds him that he actually has sold a piece of his soul to some devil, because sitting comfortably on the couch with a cigarette he’d definitely stolen from the pack on the coffee table is none other than Iruma Jyuto. Samatoki starts back at the sight of him. “How the fuck did you get in here.”
Jyuto sets his cigarette down on the ashtray, puts it out only half-finished, and gets on his feet and greet the man of the house with a smile, “Why, I broke in, sir.”
“I’d expect that from you, yeah,” Samatoki agrees, eyeing the man of the hour suspiciously and clicking his tongue. “Ever heard of, I dunno, ringing the friggin’ doorbell? After I went through the trouble of getting a damn intercom you can use, too.”
Only slightly disappointed by Samatoki’s flat reaction, Jyuto chuckles. “I’m kidding. No need to break in or ring the doorbell when you gave me and Riou spare keys, remember?”
Hardly… Samatoki wants to say; it was over drinks and in a fit of vulnerability when he had. But he’s never not glad to see Jyuto’s annoying mug, and a skip of his heartbeat at the mention of him makes Samatoki wonder where Riou is, the guy’s surprisingly easy to miss.
Jyuto catches Samatoki glance away and smirks. “Looking for Riou—?”
“—No,” Samatoki shoots back defensively, turning away, racking his brain for an excuse. “Was just wondering why you’re here. It’s—” He shifts his weight and looks for a clock, then makes assumptions when he sees the city lights outside a window instead, “almost midnight. And what’s it, a Monday? I know you hate your job and all but ain’t drinking on a Monday night pretty pathetic? Or are you pent up? You here for a fuc—?”
“—Aah, what are you barking at me for?” Jyuto tuts, shaking his head. “I have a perfectly good reason to be here and no, unfortunately for you, it’s not because I had a shitty day at work. Don’t you have any idea what date it is today?”
“What’s that got to do with anything? I’d like to hear your ‘perfectly good reason,’ Officer Iruma,” Samatoki mutters, fake polite and all impatient. He quits stalling and looks him over noncommittally with a snarl, “Wasting my time like some dipshit, I was about to go to bed—”
“—Oh, I can tell.” Jyuto reaches down to take something now, hooking a sizable box on his gloved fingers by artfully tied ribbons. But instead of drawing attention to it and to distract Samatoki for just a little longer, he teases, “In fact, that’s a lovely bathrobe.”
A vein in Samatoki’s temple pops as he crosses his arms, tightening his robe around himself. “You come here to die, Jyuto?”
“I came here to give you something,” Jyuto corrects. Making the most out of the timing he takes long, composed strides towards Samatoki, bringing the box forward and untying the ribbon. “This is for you.”
Samatoki raises an eyebrow. Some unclean money or the name of a trafficker they both have beef with and can beat the crap out of with their mics before having officially arrested didn’t warrant a fancy purple box and deep teal ribbons, and those are the only two things Samatoki can imagine Jyuto is intruding on his privacy on a weeknight for. He hesitates, but he isn’t about to lose sleep over this, so not caring about whatever Jyuto’s reason is for gift-wrapping his shit he resigns to reaching out without questioning just yet, and takes the lid off.
In the center of the box sits a cake, plain and round with what looks like vanilla frosting spread all over it, topped with a dusting of powdered coco, or coffee, Samatoki isn’t sure.
Jyuto urges Samatoki to take the box, so he does, fitting the lid under it to hold it to himself. He’d scratch his head if his hands were free. “What’s this.”
“It’s a cake, Samatoki."
Samatoki spins on a heel to start bringing it to the dining area, more automatically than anything. “Where’s it from?”
“It’s homemade.”
Samatoki stops mid-step and looks over his shoulder at Jyuto who’d expectedly started following him. “You can bake?”
“Riou made it.”
Samatoki nods, that made more sense. But he can’t bring himself to continue walking without voicing the next thing that comes to mind: “Doesn’t it look pretty tame compared to his other stuff?”
“I lent Riou my kitchen.”
At that, Samatoki begins walking again, turning the lights on in the dining area with his elbow awkwardly and setting the cake down on the table. “Well where is that bastard?”
“So you were looking for him—”
“—So what if I were?!” Samatoki spits.
“So many questions…" Jyuto comments, biting back another chuckle. “Wanna switch occupations? You’d do great with interrogations—”
“The hell you saying now?” Samatoki cracks his knuckles, holding a fist out and scowling. “I’m this close to fuckin’ punchin’ your lights out, Jyuto—”
“—Happy birthday, Samatoki.”
Samatoki freezes. His fist loosens. The scowl falls. “…What.”
“What do you mean what?” Jyuto puts a hand on his hip and tilts his head at Samatoki in disbelief. "Don’t tell me you actually forgot…? It’s pretty late but it's still the eleventh of November, your birthday.”
Ah… Samatoki lowers his eyes at the cake. His own birthday, huh… So that’s the crucial thing he was forgetting…
“So?” Jyuto prompts, curious, “Don’t tell me no one greeted you today? Finding it hard to believe that anyone would forget something so important about Samatoki-sama.”
“You think the yakuza got that much time to spare or shit?” Samatoki tchs. “For the police’s information, we’re all a ton busy. Besides, if anyone shot streamers in my face I would’ve shot ‘em dead myself.”
Jyuto hums at that, tone doubtful and knowing in equal parts. Samatoki could’ve gotten anything he wanted today by making use of the ruse of a special occasion, but then again special occasion or not he can bring anyone to their knees— he’s that type of boss and then some.
Samatoki is grateful that Jyuto doesn’t press. He doesn’t want to have to explain that he’d made it an explicit rule, an executive order at the den that no one attempt to throw him any party or give him any present, or even breathe a word about his birthday. He’d made his lackeys swear that they wouldn’t do more for him than they had to— feel more for him than they had to. That they acted on and hung onto his every word, and came at his every beck and every call was enough.
Samatoki understands it well. He’s his division’s godfather and it’s meant taking care of not only his underlings but his underlings’ kin as well; this entire fucked up organization’s begun feeling like some fucked up family, and his being at the top of it had people swearing their loyalty and lives to him.
But Samatoki doesn’t feel entirely comfortable with that. He didn’t choose this life; this life chose him, this life chose all of them. On top of all of that, Samatoki is cursed, and choosing him is choosing twice the damnation. There are two reasons Samatoki wishes everyone would disregard his birthday: One, he believes from the bottom of his hollow heart that being born into this world and era and life is barely worth celebrating at all; two, the only ones close enough to Samatoki to know when it is and wish to celebrate it with him as family always, without fail, wind up far, far away.
His mother who’d sacrificed everything to give him a day where he doesn’t have to worry for his life, Nemu who’d painstakingly handmade matching bracelets for them after finishing her homework when she was in middle school, even Ichiro and Sasara with their stupid Pocky and cigarette kisses, and the last underling who confessed his feelings to him with expensive liquor and a one night stand.
His mother is dead and Nemu isn’t here, The Dirty Dawg and Mad Comic Dialogue broke up years ago, and that underling didn’t even think twice before taking a bullet for him.
He’s the curse, Samatoki comes to realize. He looks at the cake that Riou made, at Jyuto who brought it, and he lowly, gravely, blankly tells him, “You really shouldn’t have.”
It’s a typical response to a gift, but Jyuto feels a chill run up his spine— Samatoki’s tone just now was freezing. This entire time he’s been pissed, sure, because Jyuto had come without a warning and provoked him, but this is different; it’s real anger this time, the true form of it, sans all of Samatoki’s loud profanities: a calm, clean, quiet rage. Jyuto cautiously raises, “What’s wrong—?”
“—How’d you know it’s my birthday in the first place.”
“I’m well-acquainted with your police record.” Jyuto can’t help the sarcasm in his voice, even though what he said was simply the truth. He has no clue what Samatoki’s so upset about and if he doesn’t shake it off he’ll never get to the bottom of this. “That’s all, Samatoki.”
“You would’ve been ‘acquainted’ with my police record for at least a couple of years now,” Samatoki points out, voice level.
“And?” Jyuto pushes his glasses up and pinches the bridge of his nose; he’s at a loss now. “I don’t get where you’re coming from. You mad I didn’t bring you a cake last year or something?”
“Huh?!” The scowl is back in place and Samatoki’s raising his voice, “That ain’t it—”
“You were just another guy I was fucking with to climb up the ranks, you knew that,” Jyuto explains regardless, “back then, we weren’t—”
Their argument is interrupted by the sound of the doorbell ringing, and Samatoki tenses. But he’d take any excuse to ditch Jyuto and what was becoming a fight he doesn’t have enough of himself to get into. He leaves the dining area and brisk-walks to the door, seeing Riou’s image in static in the intercom.
“It’s me,” Riou speaks.
The door is open in no time, and Samatoki steps aside to let Riou in. “You got keys, don’t you?”
“Well.”
That being all Riou utters when he crouches down to undo his laces, Samatoki shrugs. “Better than Jyuto, I guess.” He watches Riou wordlessly take his boots off and set them next to Jyuto’s shoes, before spotting a plastic bag he’d put down beside him. Maybe the reason he delayed? “What’s that?”
“Beer.”
Straight to the point, Samatoki likes that about Riou. Definitely better than Jyuto. By now he should relax, because when Riou straightens himself up again his presence is steady and soothing, but Samatoki can’t seem to.
Unsettled, Samatoki silently watches Riou pace past him, trails after him to the dining area where he puts the beer down less than gently next to the cake and brings out a few candles from the same plastic bag to hand to Jyuto, produces a pack of matches from one of his pockets.
Unnerved, Samatoki stands unmoving while Jyuto simpers about having a lighter, but lets Riou strike a single match to light all the candles up after he sticks them into the cake anyway.
Unhinged, Samatoki holds his breath when Riou reaches into the box and takes the cake by the board and deliberately turns towards him and comes forward. For the second time tonight, Samatoki looks down at the cake, hears the greeting,
“Happy birthday, Samatoki.”
Then it all dawns on Samatoki, comes crashing down on him like a torrent, dowsing him in everything he’s ever feared instead of purging him of it the way his choice boiling hot showers do: He’s ruined it. He’s fucked it all up.
There’s a clear smile on Riou’s face, the same one which held the pride with which he offers anything he’s cooked up for him and Jyuto; he’d explained once and never again that this was something he loved to do for those close to him. At the sentiment, Samatoki feels bile rising in the back of his throat even if he hasn’t drunk anything, because it’s what Jyuto was about to say too just now before Riou came, wasn’t it? ‘Back then, we weren’t teammates.’ But now all three of them are Mad Trigger Crew, all three of them are here, at the top floor in a high-end apartment complex in the heart of Yokohama on a fucking Monday night for no other reason except that it’s Samatoki’s birthday. Samatoki feels the vulnerability without the alcohol this time, and all at once he realizes that he’d given Jyuto and Riou keys not only to his apartment but to all of him, too, and out of guilt and even in the back of his mind he’d wished and hoped and prayed that Jyuto and Riou wouldn’t know it’s his birthday, even if he was happy to see Jyuto despite his wisecracks, even if he was so honestly expecting Riou, too.
Spent all of today unsettled and unnerved and unhinged waiting for the day to pass without Jyuto and Riou showing up to drive it in, make Samatoki regret that he’d ended up cursing them after all, by letting them get this close and letting them in at all, and when Samatoki finally finds it in himself to breathe it’s not to blow out his candles— it’s to sigh and say he’s sorry.
Riou lowers the cake. “What’s wrong?”
That’s the second time he’s heard that tonight, too. Samatoki takes the cake from Riou and drops it back onto the table, trembling when he reaches out to put out the flames with his fingers. He doesn’t register that he’s burnt his fingerpads now on wicks and melted wax, caring only about plucking the extinguished candles out and tossing them into the sink. If we don’t celebrate, they won’t have to—
“Samatoki?”
They won’t have to wind up far away.
Samatoki is staring into the sink, heartbeat frantic, breaths short, head spinning. Not that he hasn’t known it, but he hasn’t exactly confronted just how much Jyuto and Riou have started to mean to him either. He’d formed a team with them out of necessity and a bit of confidence, and they’ve undoubtedly grown ready to defend him as their leader with their rap. And when in this era rap means life or death, that scares Samatoki. If they end up like his mother or Nemu or fucking Ichiro or Sasara or that godforsaken underling who’d loved him so much he upped and died for him, Samatoki doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle it. Just for tonight, Samatoki begs the god who had the great idea to put him in this world, let them forget that he’s anything worth celebrating or swearing their lives to.
Samatoki has no idea how much time passes or what goes through and on in Riou's and Jyuto's minds when their eyes meet behind him, before he feels hands on his shoulders, strong and steadying, soft lips to his hair and an even softer voice along with the gesture,
“Me and Jyuto got it wrong.” Riou gently pulls to turn Samatoki around to face him. “It’s not your birthday.”
“It isn’t,” Jyuto affirms, walking over to grab plates and knives from the rack next to the sink. He passes for the bottle opener, too. “Just had a shitty day at work, need to get wasted over it.”
“That’s…” not what you said earlier.
“And Riou just wanted to try a normal, tame recipe.” Jyuto adds, settling at the table. “Isn't that so, Riou?”
“Mm.”
“That…” doesn’t sound right either.
Riou lets go of Samatoki to move to sit with Jyuto, but not without pulling out a chair for him, too.
Samatoki blinks. Riou is slicing up the cake and Jyuto is opening the bottles of beer, the two starting to make small talk while they’re at it, like they usually do when they drink together. Like suddenly it’s just another night. Samatoki looks out the window again, it’s gotten even darker. It must be past midnight now. He sits down at the table, next to Riou and across Jyuto, and feels relief start to well up in his chest. Feels like the curse has passed for now— that’s all Samatoki needs. He takes a bottle and taps it first with Jyuto’s, then with Riou’s, accepts a thick, generous slice. His anxieties are being chased off, leaving something warm in its place. Other times, alcohol and cake and the company of his friends is all it takes.