Chapter Text
“You know something, Sakamoto?” Honesty is not a privilege often granted. Goro lets the mirror crack, jagged-edged smile crawling across a façade too broken to maintain.
It’s a beautiful day, he thinks.
The snow that falls softly onto his hair shimmers in the mid-afternoon light, the breeze that chases lone flakes over the edge not cold so much as pleasantly brisk. “...I really don’t like you. Never have.”
“H- hey, man,” Sakamoto exhales. “S’not really the time for— uh, this, right? Right. You got beef with me, you can— tell me— after--?” the boy cuts himself off. Takes a hesitant step towards Goro.
The perfect sort of day. “Ha, ha! No, I’m serious. Fuck you.” The kind of day you ought to spend with warm coffee and warmer company. “I truly cannot comprehend how Joker tolerated it. I mean, honestly. How goddamned long does it TAKE to comprehend basic. Fucking. Logic?”
Joker?, Sakamoto mouths. Inaudible-- but Goro would have to be half blind and deader than he is to miss that name in any medium, lips of blithering idiots included. “Wha…? Akechi, w- who the fu— eff is Jo--”
Sakamoto takes another step forward.
Goro takes another step back.
One more, and…
“—kER? Alright! Alright! Uh!”
Past the safety-rails of a public bridge is not, Goro supposes, conductive to a productive conversation. But that’s not the point. “Despite everything, though… heh. I can’t say I never respected you. You never let your— limitations, let’s say-- stop you from charging boldly forward. And you were… I suppose adequate in a fight, if nothing else.”
“You. Arrrrrhhhh— ya aren’t— aren’t makin’ any sense.” Sakamoto is crying. What a useless thing to do. “C’mon, man, w- we’re friends, ain’t we? Jus’…” He spreads his arms wide. Sincerity bleeds out into the air like blood in the water. “…Step away from the edge, yeah?”
It’s funny. There’s plenty of foot traffic on this public fucking bridge, but Sakamoto and him might as well be alone-- they won’t look. Which, ha, aha, anything that threatens the public’s blind devotion to this perfect, so happy, WONDERFUL WORLD—
“Do shut up.” Ha. “Us? FRIENDS? Don’t make me laugh. You only think we are because some self-righteous old man is extending a fucking apple, like playing ski-ball with you is supposed to be a goddamn temptation. Ha!”
Beneath his heels there’s nothing but wind and the void. How long IS the drop? Thirty meters to the water below? Forty?
“Goro,” Sakamoto pleads.
The Detective Prince smiles, pleasantly. “Maruki-sensei,” he says, and
takes
one
step
back.
Wind roaring in his ears and Sakamoto screaming and the last words he can force out before the breath’s ripped from his lungs, “Suck my d—”
***
This again, Akechi-kun?
***
“—so that’s why I gotta cancel. Sorry, Dude.” Sakamoto laughs into the phone line, voice tinny and distant. Goro had invited him out to the bridge— but of course, something came up. Perhaps another time. “Ma comes first, y’know?”
“Of course,” Goro laughs. The line goes dead. Social niceties thusly handled, Goro flings the phone at the wall so hard it shatters, plastic and glass scattering across the floor like cockroaches. “TRASH!” he shrieks, “PIECE OF SHIT!” Goddammit goddammit GODDAMIT GODDAMMIT GOD
What was I supposed to do? cries the wind in the trees. Strange that he can hear it still, through wood and plaster and insulation. You ARE in my care, Akechi-kun. I won’t let you be--
Goro begins to scream.
--hurt. But… I see I’ve overstayed my welcome. You have six more days! And-- an earnest apology, from me. If you’ll take it.
His throat should be bloody-ragged a thousand times over. But that isn’t how this place works, is it? So, he screams. And he screams and he screams, and he screams until that gets boring and he’s left lying face-up on the plush carpet of his bedroom floor. It’s cleaner than it should be. The knickknacks and piecemeal garbage that prove he’s alive (ha) all thrown away or-- organized? Straightened out. Polished, even.
He didn’t do that.
(does he live alone, in this world?)
(shut up. don’t think about it.)
“…Fuck,” Goro laughs. “Fucking coward. Fucking Joker.”
Thinking about him makes him want to— argh. Fuck. Gouge his eyes out, or something. But Maruki won’t let that happen! Not in his goddamn baby-proofed reality, so he’s left…
seething.
Mostly.
Goro could attempt to inconvenience another one of Joker’s idiot brainwashed friends, but he suspects that opportunity has passed. Maruki was willing to extend enough good-will to slacken the rope the first three times he traumatized one of them, but a fourth?
He couldn’t be that stupid.
…It’s not possible.
“I,” he tells absolutely no-one at all, because manipulative pieces of shit are not watching him and there absolutely goddamned nobody else in this goddamned apartment, “am going to eat dinner.”
***
The frozen dinners he keeps stocked in the freezer are gone, but…
…there’s curry in the fridge.
Fresh, he thinks.
If there’s a little love in it, it’s not because J-- because he was experimenting. Goro can tell just by looking at it: that’s Sakura-san’s recipe, meticulously followed. He thinks about throwing it out the window, but in the end… his grumbling stomach wins out over a brief sort of victory. It has been a long day, he supposes.
Mollified, he dusts off a bowl from the top cupboards. Shido had, if nothing else— no, nothing else-- set him up in a very nice apartment. Western style. The dishes he never uses are the good shit, too, the kind of stuff he could only imagine eating out of when it was him and Mom and the last chipped bowl before they had to run the wash-- or… the place he’d lived, after.
(there’s someone in the apartment.)
He spoons the curry into the bowl. Sets the microwave’s timer to 1:00— changes his mind. Sets it to 1:30. Changes his mind again. How long are you supposed to microwave curry? Should he… put a paper towel over it, or something…? Why doesn’t he know how to do this.
What the fuck.
(front door creaking behind him, the tell-tale sound of somebody— taller, older— nudging their shoes off for house-slippers.)
He puts the curry inside the microwave and slams the door shut. Whatever. Presses start. Whatever! Wait, no, never mind— there’s supposed to be an option to add thirty seconds, right…? Microwaving frozen dinners isn’t so…. goddamned! Complicated!!
Goro finds the fucking button. Why does a microwave have forty settings? Why does a microwave need forty settings? Why did he buy this. Goro presses the button.
(she’s behind him.)
BEEP.
(don’t think about it.)
The fan kicks in. Wrong button. He presses it again—the fan doesn’t even shut off, what the fuck.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEEEEP.
(don’t.)
BEEPBEEPBEEP.
“…think. About it,” Goro spits, microwave finally BEEEPING to a stop. It should be undercooked— he thinks, he’s pretty sure— but the curry is fine. More than fine. Perfect! Perfectly cooked, perfectly fresh, like it’s just out of that pot Sakura keeps simmering in the back. “Urgh,” he says to the ceiling, “I’m not even hungry now.”
There’s no one behind him. He finishes off the curry, and, dumping the bowl into the sink, stomps back to his bedroom.
***
There’s nothing in the sink when he wakes up.
***
Three days of absolutely fucking nothing teaches Goro this: all the spite in the world will not change the fact that he can only passive aggressively stare at a wall for so long.
Christ.
It’s not like he has a job, now— and with no truancy officers beating down his door and his so-called friends easily distracted, there’s nothing stopping him from just… wandering around. He picks up some sushi, and it’s good, even if he has to swallow it faster than then he wants to—God save him if some stranger wants a friendly chat.
Ha ha, of course, never mind that the real article shouldn’t be so cheap, never mind that Goro’s credit card should have been canceled by now. Never MIND whatever saccharine bullshit the manager attempts to regale him with anyway, despite all goddamn indication that he is. Not! INTERESTED! Urgh.
Wandering down to Yongen-Jaya is more instinct than conscious action.
…Leblanc is right there. He could—
“Excuse me,” Goro asks a passing gentleman. The old man stops in his tracks, greets Goro with a smile so shiny he’s almost blinded. Pervert, probably. “But I’ve heard tales of a… batting cage, nearby? If you could be so kind as to direct me…?”
Directions acquired, Goro turns away from Leblanc and doesn’t look back.
(lying again?)
***
Wait for it.
Wait for it…
CRACK!
HOME RUN!
Goro likes batting cages. The rules are simple enough, and there’s something soothing about swinging at something with a blunt object as hard as he possibly can. And he’s good at it, too, of course. That helps.
CRACK!
HOME RUN!
Imagine the ball is Shido, lounging in jail and enjoying himself.
CRACK!
HOME RUN!
Imagine the ball is Maruki Goddamned Takuto.
CRACK!
HOME RUN!
Imagine the ball is Joker, that traitorous bastard, ATTIC TRASH—
…miss.
miss.
MISS! MISS! M—
“GOD DAMMIT—” throwing the bat is childish. He does it, anyway, lets it hit the fence so hard metal dents. He can’t seem to help himself these days, anger boiling to a fever pitch, dead man FUCKING walking, Joker already—
close enough.
Close enough—worse, a puppet with limp strings-- and Goro can’t even do anything about it.
“Stupid fucking bastard,” Goro hisses. Sinks to his knees, knuckles bruised against the dirt. “We. Had! A deal. We HAD a deal. And you just--” Of course, Joker would be the one to stab him in the back.
Of course, Goro would be the one to ruin him. Joker was supposed to be…
…better, then Goro was.
What a fucking joke.
“I—” and look at him now. Pouting like a child. “God dammit,” he swears. Three more days, and here he was, wasting what little time he had left.
He grabs the bat on his way out.
***
…I told you, didn’t I?
Visiting hours are over.
***
“Kid,” Sakura sighs, “Look. I’m not trying to… rain on your parade. Or whatever this is supposed to be.”
Goro tightens his grip on the bat. Tries his best to mold his expression into something palatable, like effort could revive the Detective Prince now. He doesn’t think it’s working. Whatever! It’s just him and Sakura in Leblanc. An old couple had been settled in at the booth in the back when he’d arrived, but they were long gone now.
“Seriously. I can’t have you up there— hey!” Goro takes a step forward, weapon loose in his grip. Sakura isn’t afraid of a punk kid like him, Goro can tell that much, but that face… the man has little desire to make the altercation physical. Good. “The hell is wrong with you!”
“Out of my way,” Goro growls. Pushes past the old man. Sakura doesn’t try to stop him, like Goro guessed he wouldn’t— it’s a good thing. If he had, Maruki might try to get involved earlier than he wanted him too.
Except—
No.
No, no, no
“Fuck, kid,” Wakaba snorts, from behind him. “You really stepped in it now.”
Goro—
Goro’s back. Burns, where he can feel her eyes. Watching him. Like dead women shouldn’t.
“’S just an attic, Goro,” she elaborates. “Unless you scared the SHIT out of Sojiro for… some of my old books… I don’t think you’re finding what you think you’re finding.”
She sounds just like she used too. Amused. Crass, though she tried to tone it down near Futaba… apparently. Once-- while they were waiting for Goro’s bloodwork to turn out, a sample from in the metaverse and not outside it-- she’d told him Futaba’s first word had been ‘fuck’, to her own bemused horror. He’d believed her.
And. She’s right. It’s just an old, empty room. If Joker had been here before, the evidence was long gone— had, as a matter of fact, never existed. Visiting hours were…
“Drop that, won’t you? Jesus.”
Instinct kicks his ass. He drops the bat.
“Hm… what would Futaba say…? El Oh El. Oh, where’d you even get that, the batting cages?” She’s. RIGHT behind him. He can feel her breathing. “That’s not very gentleman-ly of you… Goro.”
Yeah.
“Oh, shit… I really have to wonder why we stopped talking,” she laughs, “if this is what happens when somebody leaves you alone. But Sojiro left. You hear me? We’ll table a discussion with him until later—and in the MEANTIME, we’re in a fucking café. Let’s eat.” Her hand is warm on his shoulder.
“…I’m,” he whispers. “—not hungry. Sensei. Had sushi. Earlier.”
“Coffee, then,” she replies. “And-- don’t act so polite now. It’s giving me the creeps.” Goro is pulled down the stairs before he can comprehend it, shoved none-too-gently onto one of the barstools at the counter. Wakaba whistles, fiddling with coffee-jars. She did that— Goro remembers. Could never stand the silence without some sort of outlet. She’d kept a small collection of fidget toys at her workspace, let him mess with them while she—
Urgh. Not now.
“Light, or dark?” Wakaba asks, hefting two of the coffee-jars. “The roast,” she elaborates, “this isn’t philosophy, Goro.” And. That sure is a question. It takes him a moment to unlock his jaw, unstick the correct answer— she raises an eyebrow, but waits for him.
“…Light,” he says.
She laughs. Mocking him— but in a nice sort of way, like she cares. That’s familiar too. “Still haven’t grown up, Goro-chan?”
His coffee preferences haven’t changed much since he was sixteen, no.
Goro must have pulled a face at, anyway— Goro-chan, Christ. “It’s fine,” Wakaba snickers, “It’s scientifically possible you’ll get better… someday. Anyway. One light-roast coffee, coming up.”
He sits there, while she works-- the only sounds in the café the humming, the gentle clinks and clanks of jars being moved. Pour-over equipment being fiddled with. His heartbeat. It’s surreal. A bad goddamned joke. Wakaba doesn’t belong here, not here, in Joker’s place. But. Ha, haha-- it’s him, that doesn’t belong, isn’t it? Akechi Goro is nothing to Isshiki Wakaba, not her boyfriend, not her daughter, and Joker is--
--nowhere to be found.
Hn.
“Order-up!” Wakaba says, sliding a mug his way. He catches it on instinct. Lifts it to his lips— light-roast coffee, some blend he can’t identify but immediately knows he likes, and the (scientifically) perfect amount of cream and sugar. Naturally.
“Thank you, Sensei.” He takes another sip. “It’s good.”
Wakaba looks appropriately flattered, until she doesn’t. Hn. “Alright,” she sighs. “You gonna tell me what the hell is going on? We can do this,” she narrows her eyes. Points a finger at him. “The easy way, or the hard way, but I’m digging up the answer no matter what.”
“Sensei—”
“Ah, nuh uh,” Wakaba says, waving the finger like she’s admonishing him, what is he, EIGHT. “I told you. Quit it with the polite schtick.”
“Sensei,” Goro snaps.
“…hm. Better.”
Imagine. All this, and he gets Maruki’s attention by throwing hot coffee at a ghost. Not that he would do that. Probably. Maybe. “Look. I… can I ask you a question first?”
“Maybe,” she retorts. “Depends on what it is. And don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s a way out of this mess, because it isn’t— not when we have to smooth this whole thing out with Sojiro.”
Alright. ...this really is Wakaba. For the most part, anyway. Brainwashed, maybe, but as much the genuine article as Akechi Goro is. So to speak. And he has--
Well.
A question.
“…What... did you know, Sensei? About Shido. And me. About…” he swirls the mug loosely. “What I was hired to do.”
Silence.
He looks up.
Wakaba looks surprised by the question, ha ha. Maybe even disturbed. Just a little. He’d say he wasn’t pleased, but that’d be a lie. “What the shit,” she laughs. “Goro? Is that what this is about?” Shakes her head— “no, no, that doesn’t make sense. You went for the attic, not me… hm. Hey, haven’t we had this conversation before?”
No.
“Well…” she raps her knuckles on the table. Goro resists the urge to snap at her, because—that’s what Joker does, and this isn’t— “Don’t blow a gasket. Of course I knew. Not all the details, but Shido’s aspirations were… something of an open secret, we’ll say. The lines of thought he encouraged my team to follow, the--” she blinks, like it takes some effort to think of it. “—rampages?”
Had they happened, in this world?
Could they?
“Yeah-- the rampages, all over the news. Identical to what you were doing in laboratory settings. You weren’t slick yourself, bud.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Motion denied. You asked a question, I’m answering it.” Rap, rap, rap. Knuckles on the table. “…that was a close one, wasn’t it? If we’d been just a little less lucky… I almost—"
Almost.
Goro wonders what reality this woman lives in. What reality was constructed… for her, for Futaba, for Sakura-san, for— well. One where she never died. One where his crimes were never committed to begin with, for the most part. But this woman knows him, still, and…?
“You know, I hear jail’s been good for him?” Wakaba snorts. “Shido, I mean. Which is… fucking absurd. I knew that man--” Goro ducks his head the moment she winks, CHRIST, “--biblically, and he couldn’t shut up then. But! They say he’s had a real… change of heart. So maybe it’s true.” Says, in a sly tone of voice, “but you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
He really wouldn’t.
“…Anyway, I meant what I meant. No more dodging the question. You. Sojiro’s attic. Bat. Chop chop.”
“Uh,” Goro says.
“Uh,” Wakaba repeats.
“Shut up. No,” he says again, “but it’s…” Ha ha. Jesus. What is he even supposed to tell her. He drinks the coffee, buys some time. “Sensei, I don’t think you’d… believe me. If I told you.”
“Let me be the judge of that, thanks,” she scoffs.
Well.
All right, then.
“I was going to brain my friend,” Goro tells her, “the delinquent that usually lives in that attic. He’s in a— I don’t know, supernatural coma, because God is a self-serving piece of shit. Also. You’re dead.” Another sip of coffee. “I killed you. In case you were wondering.”
Silence. Pensive. And then…
“Akechi Goro,” Wakaba says. “Explain. Now.”
So, he does.
Mostly.
The story’s too long to summarize without skipping some of the details. He gets to the important bits, though, the juicy ones, boils how much of a bastard he is down to the dregs. Tells her about God— twice over. An hour passes. Two. Wakaba refills his mug without asking.
And—
“…I can’t say I believe you,” she tells him when he’s through. “I don’t.”
Understandable.
“But,” she adds, “...I can’t say I... don’t believe you, either. Goro, if you’re right…” her eyes are far away. It’s a familiar look. Horror and wonder and fascination. “The implications of our mutual existence-- astonishing.” She leans an elbow on the counter, cradles her head in her hands— says, “Should I get in character…?” Pitches her voice low. “Me eat your brains…”
“...this isn’t a joke.”
“I’m not saying it is. I’m just… well. Maruki Takuto, hm?”
“That is his name.” As much as the man has, to some apparent degree of success, scrubbed himself from the public record. “Tcht… try not to say it too loudly, will you? He’s already watching, of course.” Goro tilts the coffee-mug from side to side. “And he hasn’t rained on our parade yet, but…”
“…ah,” Wakaba replies. “Yeah, I suppose. Hey.” She looks up-- forces him to meet her eyes. It’s hard. It’s always hard with her. “Shouldn’t we be thanking him? We’re very sophisticated corpses-- supposedly.” She laughs. “Me no eat brains.”
No. No, no, no. “Fucking. Didn’t I tell you? You’re just-- you can’t even-- he. BRAINWASHED. You.”
She grabs his hand. It’s a shock to his system after hours of talking, of admittance, of-- he doesn’t move.
“Hey,” she says. “Look. Not to, uh, overstep some kind of…” she waves her free hand “…boundary, I guess, but—”
“Boundary?”
The expression Wakaba wears is. Withering. Until it isn’t. “Yeah, that’s… the point, hm? I mean—” eyes widening, she drops his hand, runs hers through her hair instead. “Christ, okay, starting over. You,” she points at him. Whatever she has to say, he isn’t sure he wants to hear it. “Have never heard me apologize. Have you? Goro. If I’m dead, like you said.”
…What.
“Or, if you have, you… can’t remember it. That’s apparent enough. I know you. I know when you’re serious.”
She does know him. Which is why the concept of… her, apologizing to him patently ridiculous. Him! When she had been— kind, to him. When she didn’t have to be. When she—
He’d killed her.
Goro thought her Shadow would just— respawn. Like the little ones did. They always came back. And it wasn’t. Supposed to be real. Worked for her for months on Shido’s orders and he’d just thought…
…Shido wanted to fuck her up, yeah, but not—
but.
he’d killed her.
“Goro.” fuck. “Goro-chan.” Fuck. “Oh, for ff-- Gogo. Are you listening to me? This is… a legitimate apology, you know.”
“For what, Sensei. I shot you. You died. You’re dead, none of this is real.”
Wakaba has… the stupidest expression on her face. Like HE needs to be condescended too. “Yeah, I do,” she says. “Have to. I did, I remember saying this already-- I was a shit scientist, Akechi Goro. Left my ethics at the door when it was convenient, because a human subject was dropped in my lap and you were— what, pretending to be a volunteer.”
“I wasn’t,” Goro says, slowly. “Pretending…?” Where’d she get that idea from? He’d done exactly what he needed to do. Knowingly. Willingly.
“You couldn’t say no.”
“That’s not,” Goro tries to say.
“You were under his thumb from the moment you met Masayoshi Shido. You couldn’t say no, and I knew it. But, hell. You were… perfect. Exactly what I needed to prove my thesis right! So I--”
“Shut up,” Goro tries to say.
“—ignored it. You were a teenager, and I was an adult, and I ignored what was going on the same way I ignored what Masayoshi Shido was doing with my research--” and he can’t
“Shut UP.”
deal with this
now.
Wakaba shuts up.
“Can you just…” oh, for fuck’s sake. He spilled the goddamned coffee all over the goddamned counter. Like a child. Christ. “Not. Right now.”
“…Goro,” she starts to say. Closes her mouth, examines the pool of coffee now dripping on her shoes with a critical eye. Gross. “…Alright,” she allows. “Tabled. For now. Though I’d say it’s relevant.”
Fucking… whatever. It’s a concession. “It isn't,” he says, “relevant. You’re dead, and I won’t thank him for shit. This place is… not... right. I won’t be his fucking pet. YOU shouldn’t be his fucking pet. I told you what he did to Joker.”
“...Goro, you aren’t…? Alright. Joker, then. That’s the delinquent you were trying to kill… again, yeah? The one Sojiro takes in. The leader of the Phantom Thieves,” she finishes, waving her hands in vague emphasis.
“That’s right,” Goro replies.
“Hm. That guy means a lot to you, doesn’t he?”
“...he does.”
“Then!” Wakaba claps her hands suddenly, and without warning, rocks back on her heels like a rubber band being snapped back into place. That’s like her. “We’ll talk about philosophy later, I think. I have-- ideas. Tests. Bloodwork to be drawn, so don’t be a baby about it. And--”
An almost imperceivable shift in her expression. Goro could almost imagine he hears a click.
“--oh, FUCK. Goro, what time is it?”
What time WAS it? Goro glances at the clock, the one Sakura keeps next to what should be the Sayuri and is now a blank patch of wall.
“…half past five?”
“Oh,” Wakaba whispers. Louder, “oh, SHIT.”
A hand on his shoulder. Hers, of course, why does she always
“Okay, I know, this is serious business. And usually I’d be all over that. But I promised Futaba—” her eyes, pleading, “—that I’d meet her at— for dinner, and I know you said you weren’t hungry, but it’s been a few hours since and—”
“And I’m still not hungry.” Mostly not a lie. “Go meet your daughter,” Goro adds, wearily. “Just. Message me, if you remember what we talked about.” The hand flexes, and…
…releases its grip.
“It’s a deal!” Wakaba tosses over her shoulder.
Ah. She’s out the door.
***
In all honesty: Goro mopes at the counter far longer than he’d usually let himself.
Which. Whatever. What else is he supposed to do tonight? Maruki had thoroughly put the kibosh on his actual plans, that bastard. And Wakaba was…
busy.
So he mopes. Makes himself another (sub-par) cup of coffee to replace the one he’d spilled like an idiot child. Pops the cups into the sink-- takes the time to mop up while he’s at it before Sakura comes back to a mess.
Would he, though…?
Oh, he’s not not thinking about futility now, jesus.
So-- he mops up the mess, flips the sign to Closed on his way out the door-- not that anyone had been paying fucking Leblanc any business regardless. Goro… almost imagines he hears Joker, as he crosses the threshold. Laughing at him, from wherever he is.
Christ!
“Hey, Kid!”
Oh, great.
“Um,” says an older man-- salt and pepper hair, kind eyes, the usual businessman get-up. Stepping boisterously into Goro’s space, too, like that doesn’t finger him as a bastard or a creep or both. “Would you mind answering a question..? Uh-- it’s my husband. He loves curry, and we just moved into the area--”
Oh, fucking. Of course Maruki made gay marriage legal. “I’m homophobic,” Goro says, blandly. “Please get out of my way.”
That does it. Ha. The look on his face is almost enough for Goro to crack a smile--
Ha ha. Goro feels, somehow, that somebody is disappointed in him.
Good.
***
“This is ridiculous,” Goro tells the wall.
He’d gotten home-- waited. No calls from Isshiki Wakaba, not that he really expected one. She probably… ha, forgot. Weren’t there more important things to worry about? Her daughter, for example. Futaba wanted her mother to love her very much. Not that she hadn’t already, but if Goro was proof of anything it was that the woman had always had priorities--
Urgh. “Patently fucking stupid,” Goro tells the wall once again. “I’m talking to a wall.”
The wall does not respond. How predictable.
“I won’t cave. This place is disgusting.”
Wakaba was…
“She deserves better than-- than me, obviously, but better then--”
Urgh, he’s crying.
“Fucking. Better than this stagnant fucking pit of a reality. Sensei is-- she’s ambitious. Maruki took that from her. Even if she’s alive. Even if she’s--”
And. Of course he’s fucking tempted. All he has to do is push Joker, god knows that wouldn’t be hard, and everything will fall into place: a world where he never has to have a care in the world. That’s not the point. The point is...
The point is--
“What,” Goro asks, “the fuck is that supposed to be?”
The velvet blue door-- a door that most certainly had not existed a few seconds before-- doesn’t respond, either.
Huh.