Work Text:
There was a note on the fridge in the luxury four-bedroom Tokyo apartment. No one was entirely sure who put it there, though if you asked any of the people that lived there except for one, they would all point at Akira.
The note said, quite simply, "Remember to hug Goro @ these times: 6, 12, 6, 9-10."
Despite no one actually knowing where the note had come from, they had apparently all decided to obey it unquestioningly, much to Goro's chagrin when he was ambushed shortly after getting home from work that Friday by Akira, who threw his arms around him in a huge hug.
"What are you doing?" he demanded, and Akira towed him into the kitchen to show him the note. It was written on pastel-blue notepad paper and held up with a plastic magnet in the shape of the Phantom Thieves logo.
Goro stared at it. "What is this?"
"Don't know. No one's fessed up yet," Minato said from the stove. "So we're just going with it."
"You can't be serious."
Minato just shrugged. "What do you want with your noodles?"
"...pork and green onions." Goro stomped off to his room, and Akira exchanged a look with Minato, both of them smiling.
***
When 9PM rolled around, Goro found himself unceremoniously bundled onto the couch by his housemates. He tried to shrug them off, and when that didn't work he tried staying perfectly still, focusing on the small details to keep himself from freaking out.
"Mochizuki-san, where did you even find a fifteen-by-fifteen foot blanket?" he asked, tension running through him despite being securely held between Akira and Minato.
"The internet is a magical thing, Goro-kun," Ryoji said cheerfully. "I've told you to call me by my first name."
"No," Goro said pleasantly. "Is this really going to last a whole hour?"
"Yes," said Yu, unconcerned, from Akira's other side.
Goro twitched. Not only were they all wrapped in a giant blanket, they'd wrapped him in a smaller one, trapping his arms. "Let me out, I'm not doing this."
"No."
"Let me out!" he screeched, trying to throw them off, but Akira just snuggled him closer, and after a few more fruitless minutes of trying to escape he finally slumped in surrender. It wasn't too terrible, being sandwiched in the middle like this. It was warm, and surprisingly comfortable. But he'd never admit that to any of them. He could already tell they were going to be insufferable.
***
A key thing he'd neglected to notice was that the note on the fridge indicated 6AM as well as 6PM. He was rudely reminded of that when his door opened at 5:59 the next morning and Yu, Ryoji, and Akira all hugged him.
(There was no way they were getting Minato up that early.)
"Just let me sleep," Goro demanded, trying to beat them away with his spare pillow. It worked, but only after they'd gotten at least three minutes worth of hug in.
That night, he locked his door, forgetting that one of the people he lived with was the notorious ex-Leader of the Phantom Thieves. And so Sunday morning, he woke up at 8AM and found Akira curled around him with an arm thrown over his waist.
He promptly shoved Akira out of bed. "What the hell? "
"I was here at 6, but I didn't wake you up," Akira said innocently, rubbing his shoulder where he'd landed on the floor. "You said to let you sleep."
Goro wanted to be mad. He really did. But on the scale of Akira's usual obnoxiousness, that was actually surprisingly sweet of him, to listen to his request to not be woken up. And though he would never admit it, waking up with someone curled beside him...wasn't unpleasant. So he sighed heavily, pushing his sleep-tousled hair from his face. "This is going to keep happening whether I agree or not, correct?"
"Yep," Akira said.
Goro stared down at his lap so that he didn't have to look at Akira. "...so long as you don't wake me up, I will agree to not cause a fuss."
Akira lit up like it was Christmas, and Goro felt the tiniest stab of contentment for being able to put that expression on his face. And when he woke up the next morning with Akira breathing peacefully beside him, he allowed himself to think that maybe it wasn't so bad, even if the hour-long blocks of hugging were still annoying even with the television on as a distraction.
***
Three hours and fifty-five minutes later, Goro regretted ever thinking this arrangement was okay. He'd forgotten that he would have to go to work, and what that would mean.
He was walking through the precinct lobby with Sae at 11:55AM when Yu Narukami walked through the front doors, envelope in hand.
"No," Goro said immediately.
Yu looked at him rather seriously. "I have to hug you."
"I have a meeting with Sae-san; you can't just walk into my workplace and--"
Yu hugged him before he could finish talking, and then turned to a confused Sae and offered her the envelope. When she opened it up, there were four pictures inside, and Yu indicated them as he said, "One of these four people will be in at noon every day to give Goro a hug. Or you can also volunteer to do it, if that would be easier."
Sae blinked. She'd seen and heard a lot of strange things during the Phantom Thieves case, but this was pretty weird. "Er...No. Just...don't do it in the lobby next time."
Goro shot her a look of utter betrayal, but Yu nodded, as if this were a perfectly normal thing to be discussing. "Does Goro have an office?"
"Yes, he does," Sae said. "We can even move a couch in there if it means you won't cause a scene."
Yu smiled. "Thank you for your cooperation. It's a very delicate technique. We don't want him to regress if he misses a hug."
"I'm standing right here!"
"I...see..." She didn't see, actually, but she wasn't willing to ask questions at this point. "If you've gotten your hug for the day, we really do need to have this meeting. Thank you for the pictures."
"Of course." Yu headed out, and Sae beckoned Goro to follow, mercifully not saying anything else about the weird encounter. Goro trailed her up the stairs, wondering how he hadn't just passed out from embarrassment.
***
Goro put up with the insane schedule of hugs for about a week, and then finally, he'd had enough. All four of them showed up that Friday to hug him, and he held up his hands defensively once they were all in his office.
"Okay, this has gone on long enough. I get it. I feel loved. Please stop. Please."
Ryoji tilted his head curiously. He was the one responsible for the note in the first place, and he asked, mostly seriously, "But do you feel loved and appreciated and valid?"
Goro snapped. "Get the fuck out of my office!" He grabbed the nearest book, throwing it at them, and then turned to the shelf on the side wall for more ammo. The others dove for cover, dodging Goro's attempts to hit them in the face with books, staplers, and several non-breakable knickknacks.
A book slammed into Yu's face and sent him to the floor. "...I don't think I've read this one."
Minato, who'd somehow maneuvered himself under the desk, reached out and grabbed one of the books that had landed on the floor. Both he and Yu started flipping through their respective books, content to wait out the storm. Akira was hiding behind the artificial ficus on the other side of the room, waiting for Goro to let his guard down enough to sneak in for the hug. And Ryoji...
...was catching the books and throwing them back.
"Stop that!" Goro shouted, hurling another book directly at his head.
"But you keep throwing them to me?" Ryoji countered, and Goro screeched with frustration as it ended up looking more like they were juggling than that he was trying to kill Death with a well-placed book to the head.
Unbeknownst to any of them, the rest of the Phantom Thieves had arrived, and were watching through the office window in confusion. Sae had let slip to Makoto that Akira and three other boys kept showing up to hug Goro, but none of them had believed it until right this moment.
"Man, this is even wilder than your sister said it would be," Ryuji commented.
Makoto shook her head. "I can't tell what's going on, and I'm not sure I want to."
None of them noticed the office door open and close, and Futaba crept across the floor until she was close enough to poke Yu and get his attention. "Hey."
Yu looked up from his book. "...the fox is a girl in Tokyo."
"Wh-- I'm not Inari. Pay attention," Futaba insisted. "What's going on?"
"Goro-kun is juggling books with Death because he doesn't want us to hug him."
"UM?" Futaba gaped at him. "Did I forget to sleep again? Because I could have sworn you said..."
Yu pointed to each person in the room. "Goro. Death. Your brother's behind the fake plant. The Universe is under the desk."
"Oooookay." Futaba crawled back out of the room and into the hallway. "I think a book hit me. I might have a concussion."
Ann shook her head. "We were watching. Nothing hit you."
"Then Akira has a lot of explaining to do."
Makoto looked back into the office, where the juggling routine/fight was still going on. "Did you at least ask why they're having a book fight?"
Futaba shrugged. "Apparently Akechi doesn't want them to hug him."
"All of this is over a hug?"
"But...hugs aren't that bad," Haru said. Abruptly, she shot to her feet and yelled, "Akechi, hugs aren't that bad!!"
Goro was distracted by the sudden scream from the hallway and promptly missed a book, which smacked him in the face.
"Whoops," Haru said sheepishly.
Akira lunged from behind the ficus to catch him before he could fall over, accomplishing the dual purpose of also giving him a hug at the same time. Mission accomplished, Minato, Yu, and Ryoji headed out into the hallway, where the very confused Phantom Thieves demanded a proper explanation.
"We're trying to show him that he is loved and appreciated...by showing up to his work to hug him," Ryoji said cheerfully.
"That's completely illogical," Makoto objected.
"I don't know, I think it's kind of sweet," Haru said, looking through the window, where Goro had completely given up and was hugging Akira back.
Yusuke held up his sketchbook. "I drew a sketch of your juggling routine. It was an extraordinary example of motion and contour."
From inside the office, they heard Akira yell, "I want that to put on the fridge!"
Sae was less than pleased about the mess in the office, and the others agreed that there would be no more hugs at work, just simple affectionate texts at noon on the dot. They still insisted on the hour-long cuddling sessions, though, and Goro agreed if only because it meant he got to watch Criminal Minds with all of them. And with Akira not waking him up at 6am anymore, the hug ritual was finally reaching a tolerable balance.
...he was still going to smack whichever of them had written that note when he finally had proof of who it was, though.