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Without his gloves, Goro's hands are unremarkable—or would be, if they belonged to someone else. He keeps his nails trimmed short in small, tidy squares, and he pushes idly at his cuticles like he's considering picking at them, but never quite allows the action to come into fruition. His right thumb has an old burn scar from one particularly nasty cooking attempt, and there's a faint freckle on the base of his palm, almost invisible. There's a vein on the back of his left hand that's raised into a subtle hill; it grows prominent when his hand tenses but disappears into the flat plane of the rest of his hand when it curls into a fist. The first two fingers on that hand are crooked like they were broken a long time ago.
In other words, Akechi Goro's hands are just that—hands. The only thing notable about them is that Akira is allowed to see them now.
It's a fairly recent development, though not recent enough for Akira to still feel as taken aback by it as he sometimes is. Goro still wears gloves in public, but when he comes back to Akira's apartment (still just his only on paper, though Akira is trying to change that, too) he pulls them off just after toeing off his shoes inside the door. He places them neatly one on top of the other on the end table Akira now makes a point to keep clear, and then allows Akira to witness Goro with one more layer stripped away, truer than ever.
Goro's been coming home to Akira's apartment nearly every day for a little over a month now, and every time Akira hears that would-be spare key in the door, his heart skips a beat. The only thing more thrilling is coming home after a late shift and finding Goro already there.
(The first time it happened, Akira nearly jumped out of his skin before he registered that the voices in his living room were Goro and Morgana debating whether to order sushi takeout. After realizing what was happening, he spent the rest of the night grinning like an idiot.)
So it isn’t particularly rare anymore that Akira gets to feel just that much closer to Goro, but it still sends a little shock of excitement up his spine every time he feels bare fingers wrap around his arm in a silent demand for attention, or sneak their way under his shirt to steal heat from Akira’s stomach when his heater just isn’t quite strong enough to keep the cold from creeping into the edges of their home. How his palms manage to be both clammy and freezing, Akira will never know. He can never quite find it in himself to complain, though.
Even though their fight is over, he still keeps one of Goro’s old gloves safe in his nightstand.
Akira still dreams of the collapse of the Metaverse.
In his dreams, the sky is flooded with red, as if the whole world is swimming in a pool of blood. Ribs jut up from the ground and stand as tall as the skyscrapers they disrupt. They don't create the illusion of the world as a living thing—they say that the world is a creature that has been killed.
In his dreams, Akira watches helplessly as his friends desperately fail to cling to life. Their bodies dissolve into nothingness and leave not even the afterimages. He can do nothing but watch as the people he loves are seemingly lost into the aether.
Akira still dreams of being unwritten.
Goro can't relate to that fear, to the nights when Akira wakes up panting for breath and clings to Goro just to prove his hands are still physical, still tangible enough to grip him in his shaking fingers. Goro was never forgotten in a way so literal; rather, he disappeared from the public consciousness like a fading trend. His arrest made headlines when he turned himself in again after Akira's release from jail, but as Shido had already been prosecuted and Goro was still, in the eyes of the law, a minor, it made shockingly little fuss. He served six months, spent another two in rehab, and then was allowed release with a two-year parole on good behavior and as thanks for submitting the names of several others in Shido's circles.
Goro was never erased, but he was forgotten in the ways that matter. Somehow, though, he never complains.
(Sometimes, he tells Akira he feels he got off too easy. Akira reliably informs him that he's grateful because he isn't built to be a prison wife. On better days, Goro will chuckle or sigh, and on bad days he says nothing.)
When they collide, it is sometimes explosive, but more often than not it is like this: Akira will kiss Goro soundly and marvel at the impossibility of his being alive. Goro matches his energy and allows himself to be kissed, allows himself to return it. There's always a push and pull, and it ends with Goro tracing the solid contours of Akira's back with his unremarkable hands. They take each other apart and build each other back up with evenly matched care, rivals and equals even in love. Thesis and antithesis meet and form synthesis just as they were never meant to.
"I hated you at one point, you know," Akira says casually, just to break the silence even if it is comfortable. Goro hums curiously.
"Well, that's something of a relief. I'm glad to hear you have some semblance of a survival instinct after all."
His voice is light as he replies, and Akira's pleased to note there's hardly a hint of tension behind it. Still, he shakes his head no, or gives his best attempt at it without lifting his head from his pillow.
He ends up with a chunk of hair in his mouth. There are a lot of freedoms he's found in growing his hair out a bit—beginning with, but not limited to, an added sense of androgyny that makes something warm and pleased swell in Akira's chest every time he looks in a mirror—but there are certainly its downsides as well. Goro's eyes twinkle with unvoiced laughter as he spits the errant curl out of his mouth, though, so he supposes it's not all negative.
"Not because you tried to kill me or anything. We've been over that, I could care less. It was…"
The discomfort that still accompanies vulnerability is starting to rear its head, so Akira takes Goro's hand in his own and runs his thumb across the lines in his palm. It's a little sweaty, though whether it's Goro's own or a remnant of Akira's from when Goro used those hands to map the planes of Akira's body, he's not sure. He can't say he minds either answer.
Goro closes his hand into a loose fist for a moment, captures Akira's thumb in his grip and gives it a little squeeze of acknowledgement before opening his hand flat again and allowing him to continue his gentle ministrations. It's a gentle encouragement: take your time to arrange your thoughts, but get them out there. Don't make me wait forever.
"In Maruki's reality, on that last day. And in the engine room a bit, I guess. I just—I hated how little regard you had for your own life, and how you wouldn't let me save you. How it felt like you were turning your gun on yourself and demanding I pull the trigger."
It's not the first time they've discussed either event, and it likely won't be the last, either. The first time they had, it had nearly developed into a screaming match. Akira had feared it would end their new friendship/rivalry/something-uniquely-them that had been blossoming then and there, but miraculously, they moved past it.
Now, Goro just watches him intently, eyes bright and sharp. Akira traces slow circles around the freckle on his palm.
"Mm. Do you regret your decisions?" he asks. It sounds halfway to a challenge. Akira's first thought is an immediate denial, but he pauses first to truly think about his answer.
Does he regret it? It's much easier to deny it now, with Goro alive and safe, content and comfortable and a little sweaty as he lies in the half of Akira's bed that's quickly becoming his side. It was more difficult before he knew this was a possibility, when he spent nights lying awake wondering if he’d made the right choice and if it was worth it even if he had.
Akira thinks of a perfect reality in which everyone is happy. He thinks of friends reunited with their deceased loved ones and of a complete lack of suffering. He thinks of a world without complication.
Akira thinks of the mother and child he’d once run into while walking streets of Tokyo that felt unfamiliar and hollow. He thinks of the empty conversations he witnessed between a child who clearly wished for a mother who cared for them and a mother who wished to never have birthed a child at all and how they’d both looked just past each other, seeing something that only existed within their own cognitions. He thinks of the unfamiliar stares his friends met him with before they remembered he was their friend.
Akira thinks of being the only person aware of all the suffering the world truly holds and holds back a shudder.
"No, I don't think so. Maruki's reality was crumbling while we were still in it, it wouldn't have been sustainable. There were too many variables at play that could have made the whole thing go up in flames. But still… I was so mad at you."
"Good," Goro praises. He really does seem pleased. "You should have been. I was trying to make you angry enough to forget whatever sentimental romanticism was rolling around in your head."
"I know you were. That's why I hated you, because I knew what you were doing and that it wasn't going to work but that I would do whatever you wanted anyway," Akira grumbles. Goro chuckles.
"Oh, I'm aware. You've made as much clear on countless occasions."
He catches Akira's thumb again and holds it hostage in the confines of his hand. When Akira wiggles it, Goro frees it for just long enough to interlace their fingers properly. He gives their hands a gentle squeeze.
"And what about now?" Goro murmurs, quiet and pleased and clearly just fishing for compliments. Akira laughs softly.
"I don't know. What's the opposite of hatred?" he teases.
"Indifference," Goro answers easily. Akira scoffs.
"That's not a word I'd ever use to describe how I feel about you and you know it. Besides, you've got the quote wrong."
"Have I?" he asks, just a hint of faux innocence teasing the edges of the words. "Silly me. I suppose I must have gotten it confused."
"You're such a shithead," Akira says fondly. Goro's smug smile only grows, and Akira can't help but lean in to kiss it. He's quick to reciprocate, as lax and simple as it is. There's no end goal, no motive other than a simple expression of love. It's just this: easy, carefree affection.
After a moment, Goro pulls back just enough to look Akira in the eye. His breaths come a little harder than they had a few minutes prior.
"I do think you're wrong, though," he says. Akira pouts.
"And you'd rather argue about it than make out?" he asks, a little incredulous. Goro gives him a look that says yes, obviously. Akira snorts. "Okay, hit me. What am I wrong about?"
"I don't believe hate and love are opposites. I once hated you and loved you in equal parts, and the two were in tandem just as much as they were at odds with each other. Surely you've felt the same."
And Akira thinks about it. Goro's right, as he often is; there's no reason for Akira to have felt burning hatred and anger and fear at the prospect of losing Goro if he did not also love him. Still, he'd be remiss to let him win so easily, so he just shrugs. Goro rolls his eyes.
"All I'm hearing is that you looove me," Akira teases. It's too obvious a diversion, and Goro tsks quietly.
"What a shocker," he says drily. The sarcastic monotone of his voice makes Akira snicker. "I can't believe it. You've caught me. This is entirely new information to the both of us, and I shall never recover from the shame of being found out."
"It's not news," Akira concedes. "I just like to hear you say it. I love you too, you know."
"Yes, Akira, I'm well aware," Goro sighs, mock-annoyed. As put-out as he's acting, the pleased light in his eye and the way he squeezes Akira's hand tighter should be entirely at odds with his mood.
Apparently, that was enough to get the argument out of his system. He tugs Akira close enough to kiss again, and Akira goes without complaint. Few things are easier than melting into his embrace.
There’s something to be said about the absolute mind-numbing terror of mundanity. Most days, Akira wouldn’t dream of complaining about a life lived in peace, free from the supernatural presences that deigned him important enough to make-or-break the world on numerous occasions. It’s hardly a punishment to be able to experience a normal, run of the mill life. If anything, it’s almost a reward for surviving and righting wrongs. The peace Akira’s been able to live in feels like a thank you from the cosmos that says you worked so hard, you sacrificed so much, now you get to live. You get what many do not: you get peace. Make use of it. Most days, Akira is satisfied with that.
Some days, though, he can’t help but resent it.
Some days, Akira goes to work and comes home and thinks, is this it? Is this all there is? As happy as he is, as much as he loves his friends and Goro and the chance to try again and just enjoy the little things, it’s… crushing, knowing that there are worlds beyond this and that he was allowed a look into one for just a moment, just a tiny blip in the history of the universe. It’s too much to even attempt to wrap his head around without getting caught in an endless loop of despair at the banality of a life that once had purpose, and now does not.
When he’s just distressed enough about it to feel an overwhelming existential terror, but not quite enough to go catatonic as he has learned he is at risk of doing, Akira curses the gods he knows for forcing him to peak as a second year in high school. Sometimes, he expresses the sentiment to Goro, and if he’s also feeling bitter and unfulfilled, he might even laugh. Other times, he just looks at Akira, a bit too understanding to be truly pitying but still deep and sad enough to make him squirm. Akira does not mention it often.
Goro does not quite feel the same resentment Akira does, but he’s certainly not pleased with the hands each of them were dealt. He’s spent years working through his bitter hatred and seething, boundless rage, and the results really are palpable. There is a time when he likely would have understood and related to Akira’s anguish over never being quite as important as he was at seventeen, but now his bad days mostly consist of quiet exhaustion and a sadness nearly as old as he is.
Those are the days Akira comes home to find Goro in the corner of their couch, staring dully at nothing, somewhere deep within his memories. On those days, Akira sits close enough to him for their thighs to touch and takes Goro’s hands in his own. He massages his hands carefully, starting with his palm and working slowly onto each finger. Knuckle by knuckle, he works his love into Goro’s skin until he feels alive enough again to catch Akira’s hand and give it a hard, grateful squeeze. Sometimes, even that much isn’t quite enough. Akira understands.
Perhaps, in a perfect reality, neither of them would feel like this. They might go about their lives peacefully, feeling nothing but an empty bliss as they fall into mundane routines. It would be hollow, but it could be happy. Sometimes, ignorance truly does sound like a blessing.
But could Akira ever feel truly fulfilled in a world like that? Could Goro? Akira doesn’t think so. He’s still confident most days that he made the right choice, that a world with truth is better than one without, no matter how rose-colored perfection might seem. Most days, it’s an obvious choice.
Some days, Akira wakes up with echoes of police officers and false deities in his head, and he has to check his hands for their tangibility and his wrists for their circular scars. Some days, loneliness and loss feels so all-encompassing that Akira forgets himself, forgets where he is and what he has, until Goro snuffles softly and rolls toward him like he can sense his moment of weakness even in his sleep. Those days, it’s harder to say.
But he sees his hands, whole. He sees unblemished skin where scars once were and are no longer. He sees Goro, alive and well in the bed they share.
Those days, Goro wakes up and blinks blearily at Akira until he somehow detects the trouble brewing in Akira’s mind. He tugs Akira close just to be close, and some shattered pieces of Akira’s heart begin to mend.
It’s hardly easy, once being part of something larger than life and now being perfectly average. It makes parts of Akira cry out for loose ends to be tied, for power to course through his veins and remind him that he’s worth something, that all his suffering was for a purpose. But it’s a relief, at the same time, that it’s over. Even if the world left its bitter marks that faded from his skin but not from his mind, he can appreciate the little things. He’d do it all over again if it meant having quiet moments filled to bursting of love and tender affection. And when he feels himself crumbling, Goro helps to pick up the pieces with his unremarkable hands and the quiet camaraderie of complete understanding.