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“Don’t give me that look. Did you really expect things to be different this time?”
Ryuji shivered at the harshness of his memory, feeling the familiar longing that accompanied thinking about Akechi.
Goro.
He wished things had ended differently, or just didn’t end between them. Back in the engine room, he remembered shouting when the divider fell.
-
Fear caused adrenaline to shoot though Ryuji’s body as the bullet whizzed past him, breaking the glass on the emergency divider button. The metal sheet fell, and Ryuji cried out.
“Crow! Stop messing around, what’s wrong with you?” Akira said, but Ryuji’s blood was already pumping loud in his head, pushing everything to the sidelines.
“Don’t you dare fucking die on me, Goro!” He kicked the divider, and heard a hoarse laugh come from the other side.
“Why do you care?”
“Because I’m in love with you! Damn it Goro, I can’t lose you.”
A gunshot rang loud, and then the abrupt silence forced Ryuji to think about what he said. The Thieves were all looking at him now, pity clear on their faces.
-
Why did he expect so much? Why did he expect happiness? Why did he expect a good ending, when they were destined to oppose one another?
Maruki’s palace, Ryuji almost cried upon getting his proper memories back. He had hope, hope that Akechi might stay this time.
On the second of February, that was… disproven.
-
“Hey. Why’d you ask to meet me?” They were going to steal Maruki’s heart tomorrow, if everything went right. Maybe it was a new attack strategy, maybe Akechi was going to show him how to throw darts perfectly so they could have competitions.
“I needed to talk with you. I would feel guilty if I didn’t tie up all the loose threads Maruki has created.” What?
“Loose threads? Hah, whaddya mean by that, Goro?” Ryuji had worries now, a lot of them. He threw the first dart of the game, and hit a large space, only subtracting 3 points from the total on the screen. His other two landed similarly weak totals, seven and five points.
“I should be matter-of-fact, shouldn’t I?” Akechi threw three darts, landing one in the dark red of the inner bullseye, a perfect throw. The other two followed closely behind, not far from the first. “I remember what you said, back then.”
Ryuji gulped, weakly tossing the dart into the double twenty area, two more into single one and triple twenty respectively. “Yeah?”
“Do you still feel that way? I want to hear it from you, instead of trying to figure it out.” He went to retrieve the darts before throwing. Another set of perfect bulls.
“Uh, yeah. I guess.” Ryuji concentrated on throwing neatly, a single twenty. Just as he was setting up his single 5 shot, Akechi spoke once again.
“I’m not going to be alive after tomorrow.”
Ryuji messed up his shot, and the word BUST flashed on the display. He turned around to Akechi.
“What!? You better be fucking kidding me-”
“Follow me. Don’t cause a scene, Sakamoto.” He did. Being called ‘Sakamoto’ felt uncomfortable, but the darts lounge was getting too warm.
They ended up in an alleyway, next to the jazz club Akira had taken him to once.
“As I said, I-”
“I know what you fucking said, Goro! Why didn’t you tell me, why did you-” Ryuji gulped down the lump in his throat, eyes burning.
“Don’t give me that look. Did you really expect things to be different this time?”
That hurt far too much.