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Investigating the leader of the Phantom Thieves was a tedious, drawn-out mission but Goro was determined to get things right. Figure out Kurusu’s weaknesses and use them against him when the time came.
For now, he was sitting at the Leblanc counter, on the spot he always sat on, sipping on his coffee. Kurusu made it almost perfectly now and he did enjoy his company, the flirtatious banter going back and forth and the quiet and peace of the little café.
Yes. Tedious.
Akira had laid his chin onto both hands, propping his head up on the counter as he gave him his undivided attention - and a rather cocky grin.
“So how are things, detective?” he asked.
Goro let out a long-suffering sigh.
“Busy, mostly. Everyone wishes to hear my newest take on the whole Medjed situation - I barely get any work done between all the interviews. It's exhausting.”
Kurusu snorted.
“You know you can decline an interview from time to time, yeah? I see you so much on my TV screen, it’s a bit ridiculous.”
Goro grinned a hungry, crooked smirk that was rather out of character - at least for the character he was playing.
“Oh, you’re watching my performances?”
Kurusu merely shrugged.
“Hard to escape them. Want a refill?”
He nodded towards Goro’s empty cup.
“Please.”
It was nice watching Kurusu work, familiar. He had deft hands, one couldn’t look as quickly as he went through all the steps necessary.
Hands of a thief, so to speak.
“You know,” Goro said, giving his voice a thoughtful, innocent sound, one of his favourites to play with his food. “There’s something about the thought of you being unable to escape me that exhilarates me.”
He looked up to see Kurusu’s reaction, just in time to watch him drop the cup with a shocked expression, the loud sound of shattering porcelain filling the empty cafè.
“Oh dear!” Goro called out, biting back a laugh as he instead slipped off his seat and rushed behind the counter to help - Ever the helpful citizen, the Detective Prince, after all.
“Is everything alright?” he asked. “You didn’t get hit by a shard, did you?”
Kurusu was staring at him with wide eyes.
“No I- I’m fine.”
He started attempting to collect the shards with his bare hands and Goro quickly stopped the moron with a grip on his wrist, making Kurusu flinch.
What, did he think he’d get the orphan pest or what? Goro felt bitter bile rise in his throat - Maybe he should let him cut his hands open on the damn shards.
He forced himself to give his voice its pleasantness back.
“Don’t be ridiculous, you’ll hurt yourself. You must have a broom somewhere, surely?”
Kurusu pointed at the little door next to the stairs and Goro rushed in to get the broom before he’d have to wipe off blood from the floor next. Inside, he found a very cramped bathroom with some cleaning supplies at the side.
Attached to the mirror, he saw three little post-its.
Oh?
Curiosity getting the best of him, he took a second to step closer, reading the filigrane words with interest.
“Find out who killed Futaba’s mum.”
“Who’s the Black Mask?!”
“Darts with Goro on Friday? <3”
Well, Goro thought as he grabbed the broom and rushed out of the bathroom, happily pretending to not have seen anything. This was rather awkward.
Three post-its, just for him.
Three post-its conveniently confirming what Goro had already known - The Phantom Thieves were onto him and he was going to have to be one step ahead of them at all times.
Well. He’d just have to make sure to be free on Friday, wouldn’t he?
Kurusu was, well… average at playing darts. He certainly could hit some high scores once in a while and they did end up winning more often than losing, but his consistency still needed some work.
Whenever Goro hit Bull’s Eye, which was, well… always , he felt the other’s gaze on him, incredulous and quiet.
“What is it?” he asked after a while of silently enduring it, finding himself growing more and more uncomfortable under these constantly assessing grey eyes.
Kurusu had the decency to look caught.
“Sorry. I just- I’m wondering why someone who never misses doesn’t aim for Triple 20 more often, I suppose.”
Goro felt a smirk tug at the corners of his lips that he was unable and unwilling to fight.
“I could,” he assured him smoothly. “Easily. I just prefer the Bull’s Eye. There’s something so satisfying about hitting the mark like that, isn’t there?” He smiled sweetly at Kurusu. “Oh, my bad. You wouldn’t know, of course.”
Kurusu glared at him, stoking the familiar, burning fire of competition inside Goro, as he stepped aside and waited for his throw.
“Something the matter, Kurusu-kun?” he asked innoently, having learned a while ago that the common rival was easily brought out of concept by being provoked.
Kurusu was no common rival.
With some simple-looking yet highly skilled flicks of his wrist, he hit the bull’s eye with all three arrows.
“Hm, I don’t know,” he finally said quietly, not looking at Goro, even as he let a little smirk appear on his face. “I think I do prefer Triple 20. I tried it your way but the lower score doesn’t feel quite as satisfying.”
Goro was going to kill him.
Though he had to admit he couldn’t help the little impressed swelling of pride nesting inside his body like a parasite, living near his ribcage and beaming at the sight of Kurusu’s self-important grin.
He’d chosen his rival well.
Somehow, they ended up in Jazz Jin later that evening, instead of going separate ways. It was curious how often this happened when they played darts. When he showed Kurusu this place, he hadn’t really expected him to like it, but now he was suggesting to come here almost every time, offering to pay for Goro’s drinks, even.
Curious behavior, yes, but not entirely unpleasant.
It only served Goro’s purposes, after all - Somehow, they had wasted the entire day with darts and he hadn’t thought to gather intel about the Phantom Thieves’ latest coup even once.
“So,” he asked after a sip full of artificial strawberry tasting goop (he loved it). “Seems like the Phantom Thieves managed to handle Medjed. What do you think of that development, I wonder.”
Kurusu took his time, not letting himself get rushed while taking a sip from his own drink, lips closing around the straw as he sucked deeply, his eyes fluttering shut for the fracture of a second.
Goro thought it was oddly hot in here today.
“I knew they could do it,” he finally replied with a crooked smirk.
Cheeky bastard.
It was a challenge designed for them to be able to do it - Had they not succeeded, Shido had still let the public believe that they had, catapulting them to the height of their popularity, as they were now.
Goro’s, in turn, was plummeting dangerously.
He should’ve expected that really but he’d grown naive, had grown comfortable with his own popularity, had thought it’d lead to nothing but some teasing questions about it in interviews, instead now here he was, being torn apart by people who had once claimed their undying support to him, his name thrown into polls for new changes of hearts.
Yes, he should’ve expected it but he hadn’t. But he wasn’t entirely surprised, either. That was just how the world had always treated him - With borrowed kindness, for as long as he was of use for them.
“I have to admit, I’m curious as to how they managed it,” Goro said, careful not to let any of his thoughts show.
He knew how they had done it, of course. Shido’s hacker had been in awe, babbling on and on about the perfect cyberattack. So, they had found themselves a hacker of their own. Not much magic to it, really.
(The name “Futaba” from the post-it still burned brightly in the back of his mind and he let it, let it set his insides ablaze, because stopping it would mean acknowledgement.)
Kurusu shrugged, his go-to gesture when he knew all the answers but wasn’t able to give them, Goro had learned. A charming little non-lie.
“They always manage somehow. Their methods are a mystery, though, right?”
Ah, Goro thought with a hint of amusement. Trying to gather your own intel, are you?
“Certainly,” Goro replied, taking his straw between two fingers and stirring his drink, seemingly lost in thought. “Although…”
The speed with which grey eyes jerked to him, the way Kurusu sat a bit straighter, the open worry on his face before he hid it away again carefully - it felt as if he could hear Loki purr at the sight of it, for a brief moment.
“Although?” Kurusu asked, attempting to sound calm and failing miserably.
“I really can’t share too much,” Goro replied with a smile, like the little shit that he was. “All I can tell you is that we do have some leads.”
“Oh,” Kurusu said, his eyes still unusually wide. “That’s… that’s good.”
“You don’t sound convinced,” Goro replied with the same, sweet smile. “I assume you’d rather the Phantom Thieves continue to elude the law in favour of their vigilante justice?”
“It’s funny how easily you frame these things in a way that saying ‘yes’ suddenly sounds downright criminal.”
But Kurusu was smiling, skillingfully evading his question with another sip from his drink.
Fair enough. Goro had gotten what he wanted - Which was absolutely nothing but at least some tiny possibility to intimidate Kurusu. Which did nothing in the long run, except maybe make them more careful, for once. Which was actually working against their plans.
What was he doing, again?
He had made it a habit to go to Leblanc even before he knew of Kurusu’s habit to keep little reminders for himself in the bathroom, but now he felt downright giddy at the thought. Something about finally being able to make out what his rival was thinking, even in this limited form, exhilarated him.
He was so difficult to read, but whenever he sneaked into the bathroom, he’d have his thoughts black on white, easy to look at and analyse how he wished.
Today, he found the older post-its exchanged with some new ones and Goro stepped to the mirror, reading eagerly.
“ 3 Mementos requests”
“Cheer Akechi up?”
“End of the month - Check up on Yusuke!”
“Ask Akechi out? (Maybe this time)”
That… that was…
Goro clenched his hands into fists, waiting for the anger to come, the rage at the thought of being patronised so thoroughly. ‘Cheer’ him up? He didn’t need to be cheered up - He was - undoubtedly, Kurusu considered him some kind of.. of damsel in distress, someone who’d fold under the tiniest of pressure presented to him from the media.
He stood there for a minute, still waiting, staring at his face in the mirror, the pale, sunken in mess that even make-up could barely cover up anymore, then quietly unclenched his hands with nothing but a tired sigh.
Actually, being cheered up didn’t sound half bad.
(Neither did being asked out.)
He dawdled around Leblanc longer than usually, giving Kurusu all the openings, really, while he waited for him to make a move. Pleasant conversation turned into flirty bantering, turned into open, rather deep talks, as it usually did in that company, but still, Kurusu didn’t seem to have it in him to actually ask him out.
How disappointing for a rival of his own choosing. Such an unusual display of weakness, his hesitancy. Not that he particularly wanted to be asked out - but it was a rather unbecoming sight, a new outlook on Kurusu that he didn’t particularly like.
Fine. He’d throw him a bone. Give him a chance to find his balance again, so to speak.
“You know,” he said as he collected his things and shut his case with a little smile placed securely on his face, just the right amount of pleasant yet familiar, “I was wondering if you’d care about accompanying me to the aquarium this weekend. I happen to have been given two tickets by a colleague and it’d be a waste not to put them to use.”
In fact, Sae had given them to him with the words “so you can finally ask that kid out” and he’d furiously buried them in the deepest closet he could find, determined to forget all about them.
And, naturally, he’d have kept it that way if it wasn’t for, well, enemy-observation. No one could blame him for wanting to make the best out of this, really. It wasn’t as if the thought of spending an entire day alone with Kurusu in a peaceful, secluded environment was in any way enticing to him.
Not at all.
When he gripped his case and got ready to leave, only hanging around to await his answer as he looked into Kurusu’s stunned face, Akechi realised he must’ve had a few coffees too many - his hands were already trembling from all the caffeine.
“Oh? Uhm, that sounds… sure, I’d love that.”
Damn Kurusu, there he was again, playing up the role of a shy, quiet barista when Akechi already knew there was so much more to him, such a cocky, reckless, gorgeous side to him he hid away rather well.
Then again, Akechi had his own secrets behind various masks he put on to get through his days, so who was he to judge? It just annoyed him, somehow. Not knowing everything there was to know about Akira Kurusu. It was beginning to feel oddly frustrating in a burning, painful way, especially when he saw him joke around from afar with his friends, open and simple and easy enough to read.
They saw everything there was to him, did they not? He wasn’t cautious to show them .
“Wonderful,” Akechi said, instead of vocalising any of his scorching thoughts aloud. “I’ll send you the info via text. See you then.”
He gave a quick, elegant wave and was out of the door, enjoying the cool evening air on his face as he took a deep breath to collect himself and whisk away the sudden rage clutching around his heart and making his blood boil.
It weirdly reminded him of that feeling when he was a little boy and had watched the neighbour kids from his window in his current foster home, happily playing with their parents in the garden.
He’d thought it had been envy, then. But that didn’t make any sense now, surely?
They met at Leblanc before the Aquarium, mostly because Akechi was an idiot and had insisted on an early start of the day and was in desperate need of a fix of coffee. And he had to admit, a part of him was curious.
So when Akira asked him to give him a minute and vanished upstairs to put on his coat, Akechi snuck into the bathroom, catching another glance at a row of freshly put up, new post-its.
“Hawaii trip :(”
“Aquarium with Akechi. <3”
“Is this a date?”
“Ask Akechi if it’s a date”
“Ask Akechi out? (bc u won’t ask if it’s a date and u know it)”
Hawaii? Akechi thought, because thinking about any of the other content proved difficult. Dangerous even. Which teenager was actually sad about taking a trip to Hawaii?
He stepped out of the bathroom just in time - Kurusu came storming down with a beaming smile on his face, announcing he was ready.
Well.
Time to go. He’d just have to try and somehow subtly let him know that this was, by no means, a date.
This was absolutely a date.
He hadn’t thought that being in an aquarium could be so much fun, truthfully. Did he like fish? Well enough, he supposed. Fish in tanks couldn’t abandon him, which he generally considered a plus. They couldn’t betray him either, unless he was pushed headfirst into a tank with sharks - but, in all honesty, if Goro Akechi had learned a single thing about sharks, then it was how to swim with them.
However, he’d somehow imagined staring at them to be rather boring. Not with Kurusu, though.
He dragged him from tank to tank, knocking against the glass, staring at the fish inside with childlike bewilderment. It was, for a lack of a better word, adorable. Akechi caught himself looking at Kurusu’s reflection in the glass far more often than he looked at the actual fish, feeling an odd kind of warmth spreading whenever he saw that gleam in his silver eyes, the wide smile or even listened to his voice soften when he mumbled quiet praise towards the fish.
“They can’t hear you, you know?” he suggested after a while, because truly, it was a shame to let such sweet words, uttered in such an affectionate tone, be wasted.
Not that he cared, of course.
“You don’t know that,” Kurusu replied warmly, turning to smile at him. “Most fish actually have inner ears, allowing them to hear.” He seemed almost sheepish at his questioning look and added, “I read a lot”.
“There’s still glass and water between them and you,” Goro replied, finding both his tone and smile surprisingly soft without having to put much acting into it.
Odd. He supposed the peaceful environment must’ve somehow rubbed off on him.
Just to chase the weird tightness in his chest away, he added teasingly, “Or did your reading not inform you of the basics of how hearing vibrations actually work?”
“I just think they’re cute,” Kurusu replied with a playful pout.
“I bet they think you’re cute, too,” Goro replied without thinking and wished he could chew off his own tongue immediately after. Better yet, he wanted to rip the words personally out of Kurusu’s ear drums and back into his mouth. What the hell had he been thinking?
Nothing. He’d been thinking absolutely nothing. Just reacted before his brain could catch up with his tongue and stop him.
Kurusu was blushing violently, all ease suddenly forgotten as he rolled the fringe of his hair around a finger and tugged gently.
“I don’t know,” he muttered, his eyes darting to the floor and back at him shyly. “They’ll probably not even notice me next to you.”
God he was so… that was so… what even was this? He was supposed to be his rival, no shy flirt blushing like a virgin after being accidentally complimented. How fucking dare he? How was he supposed to take him out if he was… if he was being so… so stupid. So…
Cute , the voice in his head provided helpfully.
“You underestimate yourself,” he finally sighed out loud, resigning himself to his fate. So he found Akira Kurusu cute. So what. He could still do what he had to. Would still do it. Had to still do it.
Kurusu’s eyes never lost their gleam for the rest of the day, not even when he told him about his Hawaii trip with a disappointed frown, letting him know that they wouldn’t be able to see each other for a while.
Which was… fine. It suited Goro well, actually. He was not inconvenienced by it in the slightest, he reminded the sinking feeling in his stomach. He needed a break to recover from…. from… whatever that was, anyway.
Things turned quiet between them, for a little bit, afterwards. Goro had made the mistake of becoming somewhat attached to Kurusu, finding himself thinking about the way his entire face lit up when he saw him a little too often and was determined to wait it out until it disappeared.
So naturally, it became worse.
He ended up watching him at the train stations from afar, the way he fiddled with the bag on his shoulders and suddenly found himself imagining stepping up to him from behind, hands around his waist as he pulled him close, pressing his lips against the tender skin on the back of his neck.
It was as if every day he missed Kurusu more instead of less. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. It just wasn’t. Not that he had ever had any other lov- acquaintance to compare this to.
And it wasn’t too difficult, all things considered, to imagine those fingers around his cock, skilled and long as they took lazy strokes and… Oh God .
His head red, Akechi ran onto the next-best train, trying his best to shake these thoughts off before they’d take root.
It was a losing battle.
So when Shido came up with the brilliant plan to shoot the leader of the Phantom Thieves in a secluded Interrogation room and have it be framed as a suicide. Well. Goro should’ve been thrilled about it. The solution to all his problems - in plain sight.
He was not thrilled.
There was a sinking feeling in his stomach similar to how he imagined a Black Hole had to feel as it sucked everything joyous out of his body and left him with nothing but the urge to flee - a pull that was too strong to escape from.
No , a voice in his head almost screamed. No, no, no, no, no!
Yes , another voice in his head screamed back, feral and hungry and yearning and twisted. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
So yes.
Akira Kurusu had to come into his life and make him feel something softer, something so much more vulnerable, yet annoyingly persistent than the hate and rage he felt for Shido.
Things had gotten rather more complicated.
“Hey, you don’t have to leave yet, if you don’t want to.”
Goro froze.
It had been weeks of barely any contact. He’d kept away so well, had tried his best to not grow even more attached (and failed). Had known what was coming and tried his best to face it with as much confidence and as little regrets as possible.
He may be dysfunctional, he may be bad at reading social cues, but even he knew that it was cruel to keep on leading someone on immediately before blackmailing them. He had known, the second the plan was decided for him, that there wouldn’t be any cute post-its about him on Akira Kurusu’s mirror anymore.
(And the day of their first official venture into Sae-san’s palace, he’d confirmed so with a swift look, finding not a single post-it pinned in the bathroom. A shame. He’d rather enjoyed them more than he cared to admit, had treated them like little windows into Kurusu’s mind.)
“You… don’t want me to leave?” he asked for confirmation, barely believing his own words and able to hear his own surprise in his voice. “I assumed after everything that happened…”
“Oh, nah, don’t worry about it,” Kurusu had the audacity to beam at him. “Honestly, members blackmailing their way onto the team is somewhat of a Phantom Thief tradition. Yusuke did it, Makoto did, Futaba did, it’s apparently how we roll.”
Goro stared at him.
Kurusu sheepishly smiled back.
“I know you must be tired, it’s just… We haven’t hung out together in ages and I thought we could… err…” he broke off mid-sentence, taking a deep breath, collecting himself, looking as if he was trying to prepare himself for something and Goro thought, “this is it. he really is asking me out now of all times” and then saw the moment Kurusu back-pedalled in these steel-grey eyes. “...maybe play a game of chess again, you know?”
“Right,” Goro said tonelessly. “Chess. Of course.”
Somehow, his numb acknowledgement must’ve sounded like an agreement because Kurusu gave him a small, hesitant smile and told him to wait while he ran downstairs to grab the chessboard.
Goro looked around the room helplessly, trying to make sense of his jumbled thoughts. He was quite something, this boy with a grip on him he couldn’t quite seem to shake.
That’s when he found the little pile of post-it notes badly hidden away under a bag of lockpicks on the furthest corner of his crafting table.
Underneath several notes that contained nothing but little scribbles of crows surrounded by hearts (really?, he thought, even as his heart fluttered shamelessly), he found a pile consisting of several dozen post-its, all with more or less the same message.
“Ask Akechi out (maybe today)”
Again and again and again, whenever he lifted one, there was the next, like a particularly ridiculous version of his very own Matryoshka doll.
And underneath the entire pile he found a single, different note that made his breath hitch and his hands tremble.
“Don’t get shot by Akechi.”
He heard Kurusu’s voice from downstairs, calling something about coffee up to him, but he could barely make out the words, barely registered their meaning as his mind was nothing but white noise and static, his hands shaking violently as he quickly sorted out the post-its and put them back down how he found them and sat down on the bed, willing himself to calm down.
So he knew.
So what.
There was nothing he could do. There was no way he knew the entire plan. He was underestimating him. Clearly trying to gain more information.
And that’s what this was. That’s all this was. He didn’t actually care - It almost filled Akechi with relief. Gathering intel, that he could understand. That was something his brain could comprehend, work with.
But that relief didn’t completely reach him through the wave of furious, aching anger that flooded him at the sudden realisation of being used like that, played and having almost fallen for it, almost believed he was cared about for a moment.
Fine, Kurusu. You want to play chess, let’s play. But remember that I have never lost a single round against you.
Suddenly, his fingers itched eagerly at the thought of pulling the trigger on him.
Kurusu showed up at the top of the stairs with a cup of coffee and a chess board pinned underneath his right arm.
“Hey, uhm, are you alright? You look a bit pale?”
“Just a bit tired,” Goro assured him, glad to find his old detective prince smile to be back in place securely. “Shall we begin?”
Kurusu had the audacity to beam at him, looking so joyful, so genuine that it threatened to take his breath away.
It seemed Goro wasn’t the only good actor in the room.
“I’m warning you, though, I won’t fold this easily anymore. I practised,” Kurusu winked at him.
Screw him.
Goro would wipe the floor with him.
Checkmate.
Checkmate and Joker won.
Because Joker was staring at him as if he was the most precious flower alive, grown out of pure asphalt, impossible, valuable, vulnerable, something to be cherished and protected and Goro didn’t deserve that look, but he- he gave up.
Joker cared . That much was clear, now, after everything that had once stood between them had been broken down and there was nothing but the raw truth with its jagged edges and Joker’s hopeful, adoring eyes.
“So I got you some fresh equipment. For the palace. I think if we’re going in just the three of us, we should be at our best.”
“Obviously,” Goro sighed, watching intently as Joker got out a new set of model weapons, some for Yoshizawa, who took them with light confusion on her pretty puppy face (he hated the way she looked at Joker, hated, hated, hated that he couldn’t hate her), and some for Goro, who hesitated from taking them with a frown, as he saw something white caught between them.
He stretched a hand out and caught the little post-it between two fingers, turning it to read with a curious look on his face.
In front of him, he could see Joker blush underneath the edges of his mask.
“Never forget Goro. (like I could)”
Oh just…
Fucking hell.
He grabbed Joker by his coat lapels and dragged him into a hard kiss, all lips and teeth smashing against his as he attempted to take his anger out on him and instead found that it had melted into something softer, something purring in his chest at every touch Joker gave him, every nervous lick of his tongue against his lips, every insistent press, every one of his fingers threading through his hair or curling around his waist.
Time seemed to still around them for a moment, pulling them into a bubble that consisted of nothing but Joker and the needy little sounds he made.
Then, next to them, Yoshizawa coughed and Joker jumped off him guiltily, giving her a sheepish grin.
Fine, Goro thought. Maybe he could hate Yoshizawa a little.
They stayed in Leblanc together that evening. Perks of this new reality was, apparently, that no one minded and no one seemed surprised either. Sakura-san made him coffee, Futaba treated him like a brother and Wakaba… well, he wasn’t sure, actually, how she’d treat him, because he’d fled from her into Akira’s dusty old attic the second she’d entered.
This wasn’t happening. Not in this reality, not in any.
He slipped into the sleep clothes Akira had offered him and sat down on his bed, knees pulled to his chin, trying his hardest not to think.
Thankfully, Akira seemed to agree. He followed him upstairs only moments later, carrying his still steaming coffee for him (God, he had missed Leblanc), and sat down on the bed next to him, sighing heavily.
“It’s all so… weird. Did you know I woke up this morning with Morgana on top of me? Human. Morgana.”
Goro wasn’t new to murdery urges, by no means. He used to be pretty good at controlling them - mostly by murdering.
But something told him that skinning Akira’s cat, even if he was currently human, wouldn’t exactly bring him any bonus points, so he tucked what he by now had identified as jealousy somewhere deep, deep inside of him and gave Akira a grim smirk instead, as he watched him change.
“It could be worse. At least we’re not alone in this.”
Akira’s face lit up. It did that a lot around Goro. It was a weird feeling - knowing he was the reason for someone's joy. He didn’t hate it, he supposed.
Goro took a sip from his coffee, feeling the heat of it on his face, let it warm him up from the inside.
That’s all it was.
Coffee.
“Yeah, true. Who knows what I would’ve done if you hadn’t showed up. I was already beginning to think I was going crazy.”
Akira let himself fall backwards onto his bed, crawling to the side and making space for Goro to lie down next to him.
“I’m really glad you’re here. I hadn’t had a chance to tell you that yet. When you showed up on Christmas Eve, I couldn’t believe you were alive and now… You’re here. It’s like a miracle.”
He grinned up at him openly from his pillow and Goro, with a heavy sigh, put down his cup and positioned himself next to him on the bed, turning his face towards Akira and they laid there, for a bit, silent, but so close their noses touched.
How Akira didn’t realise what the phrase “like a miracle” implied in a reality that had made everyone’s greatest wish come true, he didn’t know. He didn’t care, either, not particularly. For now, all that mattered was that he had been someone’s wish.
And he’d fight with all his power to one day be able to fulfill it on his own.
No superpowers, no force, no miracles, no lies and secrets between them, just him and Akira, lying nose to nose, having chosen their own happiness and realised it led to each other.
“Go to sleep, Joker,” he said softly. “I’ll still be there in the morning.”
And Akira, the absolute pest, closed his eyes with the most adorable smile on his lips that Goro had ever seen.
“I know.”
They’d woken up tangled up together so many times in this reality, when it finally came to a stop, Goro almost fell apart from having to separate again.
He’s there when Akira gets released from Juvie, peeking out from his hiding spot behind a tree, a purple cap declaring his love for fish that Akira had bought at the aquarium - and Goro had stolen from him - pulled deep into his face, his hair tied to a ponytail and looking, quite frankly, absolutely ridiculous.
He wasn’t, technically, found guilty for any of the crimes he had committed, but he also wasn’t declared free of any charges - The world seemed to have just collectively forgotten he existed and if he was being honest, he was more than comfortable keeping it that way, for now.
With one exception.
One exception that had stopped walking shortly before reaching him, silver eyes wide as he stared at him, shock and surprise and joy clearly written all over his features.
“Hello, Joker.”
“Goro, you-”
“Yes. Alive and kicking. Didn’t think you’d get rid of me this easily, did you?”
He hadn’t told him, in all fairness. Hadn’t dared telling him that he’d do everything in his power to get back to him, in case it really wouldn’t work, didn’t want to give him false hope.
He wasn’t the kind to give out empty platitudes, would never be that, but Akira didn’t seem to care. All he seemed to care about was standing in front of him and with a skipped beat of his heart, Goro allowed himself to briefly believe that they had really made it. They’d overcome whatever they needed to and here they stood, free of all the shackles their fate had put them into, ready to finally start.
Akira smiled.
And Goro? Well, no one else was there to see him smile back, openly, tenderly, lovingly, real, for the first time in a very, very long time.
“I bought you new post-its. You’d forget your own head if it wasn’t firmly attached to you.”
“I so would not,” Akira replied, looking around the kitchen hectically while their dinner was simmering away on the hot plate. “Where’s the sugar?”
“You didn’t write anything about sugar.”
“I must’ve. Sugar is like, the most important thing and we’ve been out for…-”
He caught Goro’s gaze and sighed.
“I forgot to write down sugar.”
Goro, in reply, unpacked a pile of post-its and gently laid it down next to the empty sugar pot, pressing a kiss to Akira’s cheek, before turning around and pulling a bag of sugar out of his shopping bag.
“You did. But I got some anyway.”
Akira’s face broke out into a wide grin.
“You are the perfect man!”
That cool winter morning, when he woke up on their four years anniversary, Goro felt extra cold, so he cuddled up against Akira with a little whine and got warm, gentle hands in return, carding through his hair and pulling him close, legs and blanket wrapped around him tightly.
He felt his hair stick to his forehead and ignored it for the sake of not moving his hands out of the warm security that was Akira’s blanket-embrace.
From somewhere, he smelled pancakes and he knew his idiot of a partner had already been up all morning, making them instead of snuggling with him in bed - no wonder he felt cold.
(Akira loved teasing him by making pancakes. Goro didn’t mind them as terribly much as he pretended to, these days, if only to amuse Akira and indulge in his goofy smiles a bit more.)
“Come on, if you only let me get up for half a minute, I’ll bring you breakfast to bed.”
“I don’t want breakfast in bed, I want you,” Goro replied in a tone that everyone would describe as pouting, but only very few would survive doing so.
“I get up to get breakfast and you’ll have me for the rest of noon, how’s that?”
Goro let one rust-red eye snap open, regarding Akira critically.
“You mean it?”
“Absolutely.”
“No stupid hang-outs with your stupid friends?”
“They’re also your stupid friends and no. Today’s our day, remember?”
He did remember.
“Fine.” Reluctantly, Goro rolled off Akira enough to allow him to get up and immediately felt cold. Wrapping himself in the blanket that still smelled like his partner, he finally managed to raise a hand to his forehead and… found a post-it sticking to it.
With a confused frown, he pulled it off and turned it over to read, the familiar handwriting making him smile before the words even registered.
“Ask Goro to marry me.
(also we’re out of milk)”
Oh, alright.
He loved his sneaky little bastard of a fiancé.