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Two words. That was his undoing. Not the rejection of his existence or the world that denied him purpose. Not the violent dismantling of his morals or having his pride beaten into the ground by a gaggle of utter fools. Even the surrender of his revenge, the driving force of nearly every action in his life, stubbornly kept until it was all but ripped from his blood-drenched hands, was not enough to break him down to the core pieces of what made Goro Akechi.
But two words seem to be enough to wrench him to his knees, to force an unraveling that has become instinct to fight back. He never thought he would miss the distance of a gun, until he feels his hands circle the length of a willing neck.
“You understand?” He seethes, because anger is familiar, violence is a comfort, and he has learned to wear it as if it were a second skin. His voice is edged with venom, quiet and lethal as his thumbs push into the throat that would dare to say such a thing to him. “What could you possibly understand?” This boy with the gentle blue eyes, with careful hands that follow the path of his arms, down from where his own hands are threatening to crush the life out of him. “You don’t know one damn thing about me or the things I’ve done – that I did…!”
If he knew, he would not touch him like this, with a softness he has not felt since his mother held his cheeks to wipe his tears. Kind fingers pull him closer, unafraid of his rage as they curve his shoulder and stroke his hair. Every touch is a small cleansing, the fire of forgiveness that he had never asked for and it burns like a bullet wound. He can feel the sting beneath his clothes, across his skin, inside his eyes –
When did he begin to cry?
“Shit,” Akechi barely gets the word out. “I don’t need this…!” He tries to yell, but in a cruel bit of irony, he chokes. He chokes on sobs, on his own words that scrape up his throat, knives that have always kept everyone distant. “I don’t need your goddamn pity!”
At this point, he has to wonder who is left to convince. Who has the advantage? It can’t be him; shaking within a wordless caress, bitter and tear-tracked as he is held like something precious. Like something wanted. Slowly, his hands slip from that throat, sliding down to the lapels of a blue blazer. He does not know the precise moment that his grip changes from crushing to clinging. “I don’t…” his voice is made of dry leaves, weak and crumbling and unfamiliar to his ears, “don’t…”
A demand softened to a plea.
The final blow does not come in the shape of a fist. It does not roar with the ferocity of a gunshot. His undoing comes down to something this light, this effortless: a kiss upon the crown of his head.
He feels the immediate swell in his chest that bursts in a dying scream, the release of a demon that had been suffocating him from the inside as far back as his memory could reach. For what feels like the first time in years, he can breathe again. He can cry. There is a sudden expansion of galaxies inside him that are only contained by the arms wrapped around his shoulders, the whispers of acceptance that cling like stars in his hair.
This is not surrender, he realizes. It is recognition of himself. His flaws. His worth. His heart. It is the relief he had been aching for, and what finally allows him to fall forward and shake apart in the safety of someone else’s arms.