Work Text:
“Babe, please-”
“No. Absolutely not.”
Akira’s face visibly falls, a comically large pout rising in its place as he cradles the stuffed bear in his arms like a literal child.
Goro once again asks himself why he’s still with this man.
“But it’s Djungelskog, Goro,” Akira whines, shoving the mass of synthetic brown fur into his boyfriend’s face, “He’s a necessity!”
Sputtering around a mouthful of plastic fuzz, Goro shoves the toy away, gently wrestling it from Akira’s grip to throw it back in the bin.
“We’re not spending 4,000 yen on a stuffed bear,” Goro chides, ignoring how Akira wrinkles his nose and sticks out his tongue like an oversized toddler, “Where would we even put the damn thing? It’s not like Deejoongelskoog-”
“Djungelskog.”
“-okay, Djungelskog, whatever, is the pinnacle of living room decor. We’re 22, Akira- not twelve.”
Still- Goro’s heart twists in his chest when he sees the genuinely disappointed look on Akira’s face, and if he was a weaker man, he would’ve relented and bought the damn thing. A year of exposure to Akira, however, did wonders for building up an immunity to his pathetic, puppy-dog-eyes look. Goro just wished he didn’t feel like shit for being the rational one.
When Akira waltzed back into Goro’s life last year, he would’ve never thought that they’d end up moving in together. There was a lot to unpack after three years apart- so many things left unsaid after they destroyed Maruki’s reality and Goro ‘died’, so much trauma and pain buried underneath layers of mental band-aids. Still, after everything they’d been through, seeing all the changes three years had made in one another, Goro Akechi was still as hopelessly in love with Akira Kurusu as ever.
Luckily, Akira Kurusu was still hopelessly in love with Goro too.
… And that’s how Goro ended up here, standing in the middle of a Tokyo IKEA with the boy he once shot in the head, arguing over a stupidly expensive stuffed bear like a pair of old coots.
Oh, the hilarity of it all.
“Ugh, fine,” Akira relents, breaking the moment of tense silence between the two, “No Djungelskog.”
Goro lets a small, victorious smile spread on his lips- his dreams of a minimalist living room are still very much possible.
“But,” Akira continues, interrupting Goro’s brief moment of victory with a smirk, “That’s only if you let me put my beloved, as you like to call them, ‘knick-knacks’ in the living room.”
Goro’s face tightens in obvious displeasure, but he eventually sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as he refuses to look at the shit-eating smirk on Akira’s face.
Bastard.
“I suppose that’s… reasonable,” he reluctantly concedes, though it physically pains him to do so. Goro still doesn’t open his eyes, but from the muttered ‘Fuck yea!’ he hears, he assumes Akira is celebrating his victory. What a child. He holds back a groan as he continues, “To be honest, I don’t think you’d let me convince you to put them anywhere else, even if we bought the damn bear.”
Akira laughs, something bright and joyful that makes the thought of their impending interior design disaster somewhat more bearable for Goro. He’s lucky that Goro loves him.
Well… maybe he can still make it work, even with all of Akira’s junk? If he just gets the right shelving, and moves the couch to the other side, then perhaps-
When Goro feels Akira’s fingers lightly wrap around his wrist, he lets the other man drag his hand away, slowly opening his eyes. Akira is closer now, still smiling, though it’s with a certain fondness that makes Goro flush embarrassingly red. He slides the hand gripping Goro’s wrist down to weave their fingers together loosely.
“You’re the best, you know that?”
Goro rolls his eyes, but he still gives Akira’s hand a reassuring squeeze like the poor, whipped sap he is.
“Of course I know. You refuse to let me forget.”
His head spins when Akira presses a quick, chaste kiss to his lips- and if they weren’t in the middle of the goddamn IKEA children’s section, Goro would’ve loved to linger, drinking in Akira like a man dying of thirst. Kissing Akira was like kissing him for the first time, every time. Even in the briefest of moments, sparks fly, and once they part, Goro comes away feeling honestly, terribly loved.
God, he’s glad he’s still with this man.
“Now that that’s settled, let's actually start looking around, okay? We literally haven’t found anything yet.”
Goro snorts, “That’s because you insisted that we searched this section for your precious ‘Dejungasnog’ first.”
“Djungelskog.”
“Oh for the love of- okay, Djungelskog, the bear, what-fucking-ever. Let’s go.”
Refusing to let go of his hand, Goro drags Akira forward into the depths of IKEA, grabbing a bright blue shopping bag on the way. After all, they had a huge, brand-new apartment to decorate, and Goro was getting pretty damn sick of sleeping on the floor.
… Goro also pretends that he doesn’t see Akira slipping a certain rotund brown bear into the bag.
ONE DAY LATER
“I can’t take this shit anymore, Akira! This is insane, can’t you see that?!?”
“Oh, fuck off, Goro- stop acting like a goddamn CHILD!”
Goro barely dodges the book thrown in his direction, ducking his head as it slams into the wall behind him. He gapes at his boyfriend before sharply retorting, “A child? I’m not the one throwing shit, Kurusu.”
Akira’s standing on the opposite side of the kitchen panting, his hair an absolute mess. Goro can see the frustration drawing his body taught, slowly leaking into his expression, and Goro takes great pleasure in knowing that Akira’s ‘calm, cool, and collected’ facade was starting to fall apart. His boyfriend crosses his arms, silver eyes narrowed as he stares down at Goro, who had taken shelter on the floor during their… disagreement.
“Oh,” Akira sneers, his neutral expression almost broken by the sheer anger hidden underneath, “So we’re back to formal names now? Why are you letting something so trivial affect you now, Akechi? But I guess you would know better than anyone the value of trivial things, right?”
“Why, you-”
“That’s ENOUGH!”
A high-pitched voice cuts through their argument, and Goro turns to see Morgana perched on the kitchen counter, staring down at the both of them with a disapproving glare. Goro watches Akira’s mouth fall shut, looking at his cat companion with wide eyes.
“Are you two seriously fighting like this over furniture? Out all the things you could be bickering over, you go at it over furniture?!? You've got to be kidding.”
Goro swallows, eyes darting between Morgana and Akira nervously. Akira winces, then sighs defeatedly, shoulders falling as they lose all their tension. His boyfriend doesn’t look angry anymore, just tired, defeated, frustrated- a near perfect reflection of Goro’s own emotional state.
It’s been a long day, to say the least.
“You don’t get it, Morgana,” Akira groans, running a hand through his mess of curls, “We’ve been trying to put this thing together for hours now-”
Morgana’s tail just flicks dismissively as he replies, “That doesn’t change the fact that you literally just threw a book at Akechi’s head.”
Goro snickers, earning a sharp glare from his boyfriend.
"Excuse you, it was an instruction manual."
Now that Goro was thinking about it, what Akira said about their day was true: they had picked up some furniture from their IKEA trip yesterday and set aside today as an assembly day, even going so far as to call in sick at work in order to make the most out of their time. What ended up happening, however, was the complete opposite- the furniture is still in various states of assembly, especially the dining table that Goro had been slaving over for the past hour. The directions were unclear, and some of the parts didn’t feel like they fit right, and it was driving him insane. Goro’s sure he’s assembled, disassembled, and reassembled the damn thing about a million times now, but none of those attempts have produced a proper table. It’s been nothing but misery and arguments for hours on end; Goro feels like he’s stuck in purgatory.
This has to be purgatory.
“-Hey! That doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods either, Akechi. Both of you said some awful things to each other just now!”
Goro tunes back into the conversation, scowling as Morgana calls him out as well. It would be too convenient if he had definitively taken Goro’s side, after all. The cat always had a soft side for Akira, and when it came to times like this where both of them were in the wrong, he’d act as a mediator more than a fellow accuser. It was fucking obnoxious.
It’s not like this was a huge deal anyways- he and Akira bickered all the damn time, and it’s not the first time Morgana’s felt the need to jump in either. He’ll concede that this time is an outlier in that it’s taken on a very serious tone and gone on for a particularly long period of time, but Goro’s sure that he and Akira will work it out- just like they always do.
After a moment of wary silence, Morgana looks down, kneading the countertop anxiously.
“You two haven’t fought like this- well, since…”
Even as Morgana trails off, the implication of what he’s saying hits him like a freight train.
Oh.
“When we broke up.”
Oh.
Akira finishes Morgana’s sentence for him, but his eyes are trained on Goro.
They’re always on Goro, aren’t they?
“Yeah,” Goro adds, voice barely above a hoarse whisper, “When we broke up.”
There’s a moment of silence between the three of them that feels as if it stretches for an eternity. Goro searches Akira’s gaze intently, watching, waiting, for a reaction.
To be honest, he’s not sure if he wants to get into the whole breakup thing with Akira right now. It happened so long ago, but still… Morgana was right. Whatever happened with this stupid IKEA table had brought out the worst in the both of them, opened up wounds that hadn’t healed all the way.
It was reminiscent of what happened early on in their relationship, where they were still learning to love each other outside of all that had happened in the past, where Goro would bring up his death in bitter arguments or Akira would snarkily joke about the interrogation room, where they still held hidden caches of tumultuous emotion deep within their hearts.
Wounds like his, like Akira’s, may never truly heal- they may just scab or scar until they’re pulled open once more.
Knowing that he could hurt Akira even more than he already had… that terrified him.
“It seems like the two of you have some stuff to work out,” Morgana mews softly, hopping down from his perch on the counter, “And since it looks like you’re done yelling at each other, I’m going to go ahead and head over to Yu and Yosuke’s place for the night.”
Goro and Akira both watch Morgana walk towards the window, scrambling up to the ledge before hopping out the fire escape. He looks back over his shoulder and chirps, “Just don’t say anything you don’t mean, okay?”
All that’s left once Morgana leaves is terse silence. Goro can’t meet Akira’s eyes, not like this. Instead, he just pulls his legs in close, huddling against the wall as he lets his mind wander.
What if something like this happened again? Sure, it’s been months since their last big fight, but they were actually living with each other now, and their conflicting lifestyles were sure to cause their fair share of conflict. Goro doesn’t want to hurt Akira, and he knows that Akira doesn’t want to hurt him but… what if they can’t avoid it? What if the wounds they gave each other ran so deep that they had no chance of closing?
He had these thoughts, of course, when Akira first found him again. Thoughts of how Akira would be better off without him, how he would do more harm than good- Akira did well to assuage those doubts in the moment, to convince Goro that he genuinely wanted him in his life again, but now that they were together and the novelty of his continued existence has worn off, Goro can’t help but wonder if he can be convinced again. Or if Akira even wanted to convince him in the first place.
Not from a place of pity, or because of a hero complex demanding fulfillment, but because he really, truly cared about Goro past an obligation or a favor owed.
It’s hard not to doubt that after days like this.
Goro barely registers that he’s shedding silent tears until Akira’s on the floor with him, attempting to push past where he burrowed his face in his arms to wipe them away.
It was pathetic- he didn’t need the help, he didn’t need the pity or the comfort- he’s a fool, forcing Akira to offer such kindness by worming his way into his heart like a parasite.
Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.
“Goro…”
“Stop,” Goro manages to croak as he tries to shrug away Akira’s hesitant touches, “I don’t need your pity.”
“Pity?” Akira asks, and Goro feels the hand attempting to stroke his back freeze in place, “Goro, I- I’ve never pitied you. You know that as well as I do- come on baby, look at me, please.”
Letting Akira tilt his head up, out of his arms, Goro looks at his boyfriend whose brows are knitted together tightly, unshed tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. It’s funny- Akira was usually the first to cry during an emotional moment, not Goro. Akira just brought out that weakness in him, the ability to be vulnerable around another human being, even himself.
Oh, how the tables had turned.
“What’s all of this about, really? It can’t just be the IKEA table, can it?”
Goro laughs, broken and raw, and Akira smiles sadly, thumbing away the tear tracks left on Goro’s cheeks. His touch was gentle, almost reverent and it made Goro’s stomach sour.
“There wasn’t a problem until this,” Goro gestures at the wood and screws littering the floor around them, “damn table destroyed our day. At least, I didn’t think there was.”
“I didn’t think so either,” Akira replies softly, gently running his fingers through Goro’s hair. Goro leans into the touch, letting his eyes flutter shut.
“Glad we’re on the same page. I suppose that means it’s all the table’s fault, no?”
Akira snorts, and Goro shifts his sitting position so that he can draw Akira to him, pulling his lithe body close. With a small, private smile, Akira settles in Goro’s lap, nuzzling into his neck. Goro tangles his fingers in the mess of black hair, breathing in the comforting scent of coffee and strong shampoo and something distinctly Akira that Goro couldn’t put his finger on.
“But I know that isn’t all there is to it,” Akira murmurs, playing with the baby hairs at the Goro’s nape, “Morgana was getting at something, I think- we really haven’t fought like that since…”
“Since we broke up.”
“Yeah. That.”
And so, they sit there in heavy silence, fingers tangled in each other’s hair, Akira breathing softly against the skin of Goro’s neck. It was nice- so nice that Goro could almost forget about everything that just transpired in favor of melting into Akira’s touch.
Almost.
Goro doesn’t recognize his own voice when he finally speaks,
“Do you think that we’re meant to hurt one another? Even if we don’t want to?”
Akira stiffens in his arms and instinctively Goro moves his hands down, rubbing soothing circles into the planes of his back before continuing to speak. “I know we don’t want to hurt each other, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s just… inevitable. Unavoidable. That we’ll keep having fights like this, maybe even more since we’re starting to live with one another, and that one day, one of those fights will be the last, where we do irrevocable damage to one another. And that doesn’t even take into consideration our past transgressions, which would only add to the whole catastrophe.”
Silence. Akira is perfectly still in his arms, as if he was drawn taut on a wire that threatened to snap. After a few more moments, there’s still no reply from Akira- and Goro begins to internally panic.
He had crossed the line, hadn’t he? What if this was the inevitable final fight he spoke of, and now that Akira had gotten over the novelty of being with him, the reality of their situation finally hit and he decided that being with Goro was too much? Was it always too much? Was Goro just swayed into believing that Akira genuinely wanted to be with him, when Akira himself only believed such because he was surprised to find Goro alive? What if-
Two hands clap lightly on the sides of his face, interrupting Goro’s mental monologue- Akira had risen from his spot on Goro’s shoulder, looking at Goro with an expression so full of determination and unconditional adoration that it makes Goro’s heart backflip in his chest.
He must look as floundered as he feels because Akira lets out a soft chuckle, patting his cheeks one more time for good measure, “I can hear you thinking yourself into a corner, you know.”
Goro blinks.
Akira rolls his eyes and leans in close, his breath fanning across Goro’s lips, but he doesn’t close the distance. He just looks into Goro’s eyes and Goro feels open. Vulnerable, open, flayed alive, all under the loving scrutiny of Akira’s gaze, but he doesn’t buckle or look away. It was a challenge, a call to face this problem head on, and Goro has never backed down from one of their challenges.
Ever.
“It’s funny- when you asked me earlier if we’re doomed to hurt one another I didn’t think I had an answer for that. Not one that I liked, at least,” Akira explains, ghosting his fingers across Goro’s cheeks, under his jaw, over his lips, leaving Goro’s skin warm wherever he went, “But I think I’ve finally figured it out.”
“And your answer?” Goro presses back, voice soft, cautious.
He doesn’t answer.
Instead, Akira surges forward, capturing Goro’s lips in one swift motion that leaves the other man gasping. Immediately after Goro manages to catch his breath, Akira deepens the kiss, tongue sliding against Goro’s until he’s left breathless once more, keening under Akira’s ministrations. It’s desperate, messy, needy, but also so full of love that Goro feels like he’s drowning, dipping beneath the waves of Akira, Akira. He revels in each motion, each touch, each gasp for breath, letting Akira kiss him reverently, worshiping, expressing all of his adoration in a single action.
When Akira pulls back, Goro catches his bottom lip between his teeth, tasting Akira’s shitty chapstick before letting him go, though not far- he still holds the other man close, feeling as if he’s clinging for dear life. A life line in the midst of torrential blue.
Though he’s almost as breathless as Goro, Akira manages to flash him a small smile before saying, “Just by asking me that, you answered your own question.”
Goro raises a brow. He answered his own question? If he remembers correctly, Goro only asked a few hypotheticals and didn’t say much else- Akira must’ve pulled something from those nonsensical, emotional ramblings that Goro couldn’t see in the first place.
Akira notices Goro’s questioning look and huffs fondly, mindlessly fiddling with the ends of Goro’s hair.
“If you haven’t noticed, we’re far from being a ‘normal’ couple,” Goro snorts, “We’ve been through a lot together, and it’s only natural that we’d bring up that shared history, as much as we try to forget some parts of it.”
Akira looks down with a sort of melancholic expression, and Goro softly pats his back, a wordless encouragement.
“When I found out you were alive, I never would’ve pictured us like this. Together and all that- it seemed impossible, like you were out of reach,” Akira looks back up, slate eyes searching Goro’s own, “I thought if I confessed, if we got together, that I’d just end up losing you again.”
“Akira…”
As Goro reaches up, carding his fingers through Akira’s hair, the other boy leans into his touch, never once breaking eye contact. Goro couldn’t either- he was in a trance, hanging on Akira’s every word, wanting to scream how he’d felt the same, he felt the same. But Goro forced himself to stay quiet, to listen to Akira. He worked so hard to ensure his boyfriend that it was okay to share his true feelings, that he shouldn’t feel as if he had to say the ‘right thing’ around Goro in order to earn his favor, that his emotions, his problems, were just as valid as Goro’s own were- he sure as hell wasn’t going to undo all of that now.
“But you proved me wrong, like you always do,” Akira murmurs, offering Goro a small smile, “Now I know better, and I know the same goes for you when it comes to your own doubts about us. And it’s hard, not letting the doubts, the anxiety, get to me sometimes, but that’s just part of growing, I think.”
After a moment of comfortable silence, Goro huffs, cradling Akira’s face in his hands, long stripped of the leather gloves he once refused to remove. “Since when am I dating a philosopher? You’ve gotten particularly eloquent for a piece of attic trash.”
Akira blinks, once, twice, in shock before bursting out into laughter. True, unbridled laughter. And as Akira rocks back out of Goro’s lap onto the floor, clutching his sides as he begins to cry from laughter, Goro finds himself unable to hold back anymore either.
They laugh, and laugh, and laugh some more when Goro accidentally lets himself snort. They laugh until they can’t anymore, and as they lay on the ground together, catching their breath, Goro looks at Akira and sees his everything. His past, present, future- Akira is a part of it all, at its heart, and in that moment, Goro realizes how stupid he was for letting his doubts get the better of him, for letting himself doubt for one minute how much Akira loves him.
When Akira turns his head to face Goro, he’s the definition of beautiful, face bright red and streaked with tears, some happy, some sad. His mess of black hair is even more ruffled than usual, curling against the floor in tangles. He’s panting, out of breath, and a little hoarse, but Akira still manages to croak out three words that never fail to make Goro feel weak in the knees,
“I love you, you big doofus.”
Goro smiles.
“I love you too, idiot.”
Akira sits up, motioning for Goro to do the same. They bump shoulders and Akira chuckles, taking Goro’s hand into his own. It’s warm, and a little bit sweaty, but Goro holds it all the same, rubbing his thumb over the skin of Akira’s knuckles.
“When I said that you answered your own question by asking it, I meant that by saying something like that in the first place, you showed that no matter how much we fight, no matter how much we butt heads or battle over stubborn furniture, you’ll never hurt me because you genuinely want to, not anymore,” Akira says, staring distantly at the blank kitchen wall, “You’re right, though- it’s inevitable that we’ll accidentally hurt each other, or say something that we don’t mean. We’ll still fight, still bicker or insult one another, no matter how hard we try not to. But that’s a part of life, yeah?”
Raising Goro’s hand to his face, Akira brushes his lips over his knuckles while making direct eye contact, making Goro flush an embarrassingly bright red. He uses his free hand to cover his face as Akira smiles at him bashfully- even when they were having a serious moment, Akira could always manage to find some way to fluster him, and Goro hated how much he loved it.
“I know that if you accidentally hurt me, you’ll always be there to make it okay again, and I know the same is true in reverse. We love each other too much to do otherwise.”
“God, you’re such a sap. Come here.”
Goro pulls Akira in for another searing kiss- only to rocket backwards when the palm of his hand hits something sharp.
“OW, fuck- what the hell-”
Akira snickers when Goro holds up the culprit. A single screw separate from the rest. A single screw that just so happened to be the kind Goro was freaking out over because he was missing one.
All of today, that whole fight- it could’ve been avoided if he looked around for the goddamn screw instead of insisting he had all the parts.
Fuck, he feels like an idiot.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Goro glares bullets into Akira’s skull as the other man barely manages to hold himself back from bursting into another fit of laughter. Oh, he’s absolutely not going to hear the end of this any time soon- and knowing Akira's embarrassing tendency to tell their coworkers everything, he’ll be getting shit from the rest of the office come Monday.
Oh, how fate loved to make Goro Akechi suffer in all of its cruel ways.
“Maybe we should hire that assembly service Yu told us about this time,” Akira manages to say between snorts, “Instead of deciding that we were… what did you say? ‘Intelligent enough to assemble something with instructions easy enough for trained monkeys to understand’- HEY! OW- that hurt, you jackass.”
Goro snickers as Akira slaps away his fingers from where they flicked at his forehead.
“What, do you want me to kiss it better or something? Oh you poor little Phantom Thief, getting bullied by the big bad Detective-”
“I mean, if you’re offering…”
“I was mocking you, you insatiable imbecile. Might I remind you of why we needed to purchase a table in the first place?”
Akira wrinkles his nose in indignation, dropping Goro’s hand. “It’s not my fault that your old apartment came with that shitty excuse of a table! We needed to get a new one anyways because that thing probably had another month of use in it before it snapped like a toothpick.”
“It’s your fault it’s broken in the first place, Akira,” Goro replies, rolling his eyes at his boyfriend’s unnecessary dramatics.
“Hey, I didn’t hear you complaining when I bent you over the side and-”
“Enough of that, you degenerate,” Goro jabs, kicking at Akira’s legs in a pitiful attempt to wipe that horrible shit-eating grin off of his face.
“Be careful, Goro! You might break the table before it’s built.”
“I’m breaking up with you.”
And when Akira looks at him, eyes shining with joy, Goro knows that he’ll never say those words seriously again.
Especially over an IKEA table, of all things.