#but then y3 comes and kiryu tries to convince majima to go back to the tojo on the grounds of

[saberdramon]

i feel like when it comes to kazumaji "working" as a more conventional type of relationship they entirely ruined any chance of it happening in y3. in y1/2, especially the kiwami renditions of them, there is a more open possibility of kiryu finding a way to cope with the trauma of losing his family in ways that don't involve isolation in every way, and majima finding meaning on the axis of the construction company as a new angle for taking care of the majima family as well as tending to the purgatory, which you could argue serves as an outlet for any violent tendencies he may want to have with the coliseum. the stability isn't ideal and it's never going to be normal, especially for majima who is so averted to having roots of any kind, but i can find some kind of chance in there. there could be mending here. they could exist to one another outside of organized crime and temporary moments here. they could reach out and get to know each other outside of their limited, glorifying perceptions of one another

but in comes y3 with a steel chair and it is. beautiful in its own way. kiryu leaves and has majima go back to tojo for him. they don't see each other until two years later. they get to keep those glorified perceptions alive and think they know what the other thinks and feels, and they feed more into those ideas as they go. kiryu begins that process of isolation that will eat away at him for the next decade and majima tries to be of use within a clan that's dying a slow and painful death in front of his eyes. kiryu avoids kamurocho like a plague and majima remains in its confines so kiryu can live out a dream he's not allowing himself to chase. we acquire more trauma and live through more loss, one convincing himself he should disappear so others no longer suffer because of him and the other leashing himself again and again to people in absence of a greater purpose to serve. the way their actions and inactions at the very goddamn beginning of y3 play out as a starting point to the downward spiral of a hypothetical relationship that never happened but had a ground it could've flourished on under different circumstances. and how over the course of the game we get to see kiryu and majima have these moments with one another, ones that we don't see again in 4 and 5, as a kind of encore for that what if scenario they killed together

honestly this makes me adore y3 even more im kind of obsessed here