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“You don’t have to deny yourself,” Maruki’s voice is dripping with sincerity. “I can give you what you want, what you’ve always wanted.”
“And what is it that I want?” Akechi spits.
“Him, of course!” the doctor infuriatingly gestures to Goro’s right, where his rival stands. “You’ve always wanted him. I can tell.”
Kusuru tenses his shoulders and glances at his teammate but gives no other indication of stress. He’s stoic, but Akechi can sense the underlying curiosity. Goro wishes that Kusuru would be interested in literally anything else.
“Me?” Kusuru’s voice carries as well as it always does. He’s usually so silent.
“Yes, you! You always were very special,” Maruki smiles brightly, like the clean fluorescent lighting around them. “Akechi-kun, I think he deserves to know how special he is.”
Akechi can feel both of their gazes on him. It is suffocating and embarrassing in a way he has not felt since childhood.
“He is the leader of the Phantom Thieves. I hardly understand why he needs his ego stroked more,” he growls out the words impatiently.
He wants to get this over with quickly, so he can finally die in peace, without Kurusu knowing his shameful feelings. Maruki’s relaxed expression and pleased eyes tell him that his wish won’t be granted easily.
“Oh, Akechi-kun,” and Goro hates that fucking tone, the stupid false kindness that comes out of Maruki’s mouth. “You really don’t realize it, do you?”
“Realize what?” Kurusu asks, and it’s painful because Akechi can hear the confusion in his words.
“He loves you too, you know,” Maruki keeps his eyes on Goro as his smile grows brighter, as if this whole conversation is just some beautiful thing. Akechi wants to rip it off of his face. “You were his wish.”
Goro knows, logically, that he knew this fact before, that he is here because Akira wanted him to be. But to hear the word love? It is altogether terrifying and awful and beautiful.
“You know nothing. You only see what you want to see. Do you think that you can fix me, that Kurusu’s love can heal me?” Akechi grinds out the words with a single minded purpose. “His feelings cannot clean me of the crimes I’ve committed. You took away the one good thing I did, Maruki. I died, and I did it saving him.”
“But surely you must see that he cannot imagine a world without you in it,” Maruki insists in that foul, sincere way of speaking. “Your sins do not change the fact that he loves you. That his world is not complete without you in it.”
His words are disgustingly romantic in nature, dripping in an idealism that Akechi gave up long ago. He feels sick listening to this man’s ramblings, hearing his myopic idealism. It is disgusting that Maruki feels he can take away all the pain in the world with something so pedestrian as his dreams.
Goro does not belong in the true reality, and he certainly does not belong in this one. He is nothing but hurt and pain and scar tissue, and this man is desperately trying to subdue him with the promise of softness and comfort. Akechi does not think that he could survive in a world without jaded edges, without rivalries and death. Their story had a fitting conclusion, and here Maruki is, trying to rip his closure away, just like Shido, who took away everything else.
“Let it be incomplete,” Akechi says, and he cannot even begin to feel guilty about the hurt he is inflicting on Akira. There is too much raw anger in his blood, too much indignation for his agency. “Let the people feel pain. It will be their own.”
For a moment, there is silence as the other man processes his words. Akechi hates himself for hoping that Maruki would finally drop it.
“Akechi-kun, you’ve never truly been happy, have you?” Maruki’s voice is dripping in pity. “You would condemn everyone to a life of pain because you know nothing else. I can take it away, if you’d just let me.”
Goro thinks about Joker’s smug smile. He thinks about the blood and viscera of defeated shadows. He thinks about games of pool and twisted metaphors. He thinks about uncomplicated happiness and all the things that he can never have. He decides, again, that he does not want to live in a world without darkness. He doesn’t know who he’d be without it. He knows that Akira Kurusu loves Goro Akechi, and Goro Akechi is nothing but shadow.
“Akechi,” Kurusu’s voice cuts the tension, and they both turn to face Joker’s commanding presence. “Are you really going to die?”
His voice is strong, and his eyes are so cutting and intense that Goro almost looks away. The only reason that he doesn’t is because they’re rivals, and rivals don’t back down from each other’s challenges.
“Yes,” he says, and he somehow manages to keep his voice steady. “I will die, and you aren’t going to let that affect your judgment, Joker. You are going to let me go out on my own terms.”
He doesn’t know if he wants protests or not. He doesn’t know if he selfishly wants Akira to cry, to mourn him. He admires the strength of his foil, the unrelenting taciturn observation, but he also admires the other’s ability to feel things he has not had the luxury to experience in years. He wonders if Kurusu respects him enough to adhere to his wishes, or if he is so blinded by their unfortunate attachment to each other that he would take Maruki’s foul deal. The ambivalence is all consuming. He hates this, wishes that he wasn’t afflicted by all this sentiment.
“Okay,” Joker nods. “Fine. Let’s do this.”
Akechi thinks that Akira Kurusu is the only one who could stump him like this. Akira looks angry. He looks bitter and mean and absolutely striking. Akechi is torn between the desire to kiss him fiercely and to hold him at gunpoint for scrambling his brain like this.
They both turn towards Maruki. They raise their weapons, pointed and sharp, and Akechi can’t help but think that this is what he was meant to do. Despite being a dead man, he has never felt more alive.