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It is very nearly midnight—around 11:30 PM, give or take—and it is not just the trains that are about to stop running for the night.
The TV in Leblanc plays an obnoxious and irrelevant game show a little too loudly, the volume just high enough to situate itself as annoying and headache-inducing, and yet, it is the only thing strong enough to ground Goro to his incomprehensible falsity of a reality.
Goro watches as Akira Kurusu pretends to dust the counters, pretends to pay attention to the television, pretend that tonight is not the night that will end all nights, pretends that everything is fine and dandy because all they can do now is pretend.
Goro has pretended the entire day, the entire night, his entire life, and has indulged in Akira’s stupid whims by saying yes whenever the other boy had asked if he wanted more coffee, another game of chess, another episode of Featherman, another plate of curry, another, another, another.
There can only be so many anothers.
February first, February second, and February third are dates that will mean something to Goro whether he lives or dies, dates in which he will exist, has existed, even if it was in some sort of sick and manipulated time and space. Goro will not know of an existence after February fourth. Who will he become after all this ends? Questions not even God might know the answer to.
“I have to go,” Goro stands up abruptly, nearly knocking his empty coffee cup onto the floor. It’s not like the cup will remember him also once he’s gone.
“Why?” Akira blurts out. Goro sees the same pain in his eyes when he had told him that he refuses to live a life under Maruki’s false reality. It hurts to think he’s the cause of such pain again.
“The trains are going to stop running soon.”
He gives a valid excuse, and usually Akira would let him leave without hassle, sending him off with a joke of a goodbye, a little jest to ensure that Goro thinks of him the entire night and the day and week after that. Usually, Akira would send him off with a packed dinner and a to-go coffee cup so he wouldn’t get hungry on the road even though he had just eaten not even less than an hour ago. And usually, Goro will be back in less than a few days at most, always searching for Akira’s presence in the most contradictory of ways possible.
But tonight is not a usual night.
The both of them know that once Goro leaves, he will not return, not to Leblanc, not to Akira, not ever. Akira will go to sleep alone, and Goro will die alone, just like how he has already done so once before, and will forever continue to do so as long as he stays alive.
Akira does not say anything, only watching as Goro puts on his gloves, his coat, his scarf. He does not say anything even though Goro knows Akira, knows how much he wants him to stay. Would sacrifice the world to ensure Goro stays.
But, he thinks as he makes his way to the door of Leblanc to exit from this miserable existence once and for all, perhaps Akira doesn’t know how to be selfish at the very slightest. Akira Kurusu—Saint Akira, Angel Akira—holds a sort of impossibility for asking things of other people; he only gives, gives, gives—even to Goro—until there is nothing left of him.
And yet, right before he goes to open that door that will lead to his demise, something tugs at his sleeve, and Goro turns around to see Akira’s conflicted grey eyes, always so pretty no matter what emotions flitter through them; it could be anger, apathy, contempt, sadness, resignation, and Goro would still find his eyes to be the prettiest in the whole world. He knows this; he’s been a recipient of them all.
“Please stay tonight,” Akira pleads in a slight of a whisper for the first time in the many too-short summer months that Goro’s known him, standing so close he can smell the lingering cinnamon and coffee and vanilla that he’s come to associate with the other boy, and Goro’s already limited resolve just… crumbles as it always does when it involves stupid Akira Kurusu.
Goro intakes a breath. Of course Akira would always find a way to surprise him.
Akira Kurusu doesn’t beg.
Akira Kurusu doesn’t surrender.
Always the leader, always the one with the most finesse and skill and charm and everything God-given in the world. And yet, Goro couldn’t help but wonder, why does he give that all away when he’s with Goro? Why does he allow himself to be vulnerable with someone who’ll take advantage of all his weaknesses? Why does he even care?
The TV continues to blare a quiet commercial about home goods as the silence between them stretches into what feels like hours, Akira’s eyes furrowing in the way Goro knows is slight trepidation and maybe even fear that Goro would say no. He doesn’t owe Akira anything, never did and never will, and yet, saying no to him proves the hardest task in the world.
It would be easier in the long run for him to say no, for Akira to not get attached because Akira has so much to live for while Goro only has death to look forward to, for him to not doom Akira to this narrative of missing the most unattainable of all unattainables, this sin of loving a killer, of loving someone like Goro Akechi.
But Goro’s always been a selfish boy, always ready to take and indulge and hoard, and Akira Kurusu is no different.
He thinks back to darts where Akira had grown more and more frustrated each time he couldn’t land a bullseye while Goro did so effortlessly, back to that billiards game where Akira had correctly deduced he was left-handed, back to the aquarium where in hindsight, Akira might’ve asked him out but he hadn’t realized in a moment of stupidity, back to the bathhouse where Goro had spilled too many secrets to a boy who was supposed to die.
He had thought it was okay then, because Akira Kurusu, much like him, would not live past the age of 18.
And tonight, as fate deems it upon the world, it would be just Goro who wouldn’t live past the age of 18.
“Just for tonight,” he murmurs back before he could change his mind because deep down, he knows he wants this too. “Just for tonight,” he repeats and he feels Akira’s hand shaking against his sleeve. He realizes he is shaking too.
“I’m sorry,” Akira whispers. “I know—“
“Don’t apologize,” Goro interrupts not unkindly, “You’re insufferable when you apologize.”
Neither of them mention that there will be no tomorrow, at least, not for the entity that is known as them, because when tomorrow comes, Goro will be gone, drowning in a sea of abyss that even he cannot comprehend, much less Akira.
When tomorrow comes, Goro will cease to be, and Akira will always continue to be.
When tomorrow comes, Akira will go to sleep alone and wake up alone.
When tomorrow comes, Goro will be rotting in Hell where he belongs.
When tomorrow comes…
But right now, there is no tomorrow. There is no tomorrow, only tonight, and only Akira.
Tonight, as Goro pulls Akira up the stairs back into Akira’s attic of a bedroom, lit up only by the rays of the moon, they are normal teenage boys who have too much unspoken history between them.
Tonight, as Akira gently takes off Goro’s scarf and coat and gloves with his still-shaky hands and places them neatly onto his chair before staring at him with a strange look in his eyes that Goro cannot decipher, they are not friends, not rivals, not enemies, but just a little of bit of something in between.
Tonight, as Goro gently pushes Akira into the mattress before tilting his head up to capture his lips into a soft kiss he knows that the both of them have been wanting for ages and years and centuries and millennia, they are but two lovers hiding away from the world in the dead of night.
Tonight, as Akira throws his arms around him to pull Goro deeper into their kiss, desperate and yearning as if he is a starved man—and this Goro cannot complain about, for he has been starved, has been craving for even a taste of Akira Kurusu—they are but two stars in the sky, only close together within the limited and rather outdated scope of human perception, but spread too far apart in the reality of the Universe.
They’re both awkward kissers, each other’s first time as they fumble around on Akira’s bed, Akira’s thin hands grabbing onto the back of Goro’s shirt, Goro’s own gripping onto Akira’s waist as they steal each other’s breath away in intervals, tiny muffled gasps escaping from the confines of their throats as an indication of how much they had needed this, need each other for the time being.
In hindsight, perhaps maybe twenty years in the future when the both of them will have enough kissing experience, they will admit that it was not a good kiss. But tonight, they are the only ones against the world, they are the only ones against this backdrop of stars, and perhaps Goro will have to thank Maruki, albeit reluctantly, for the beautiful cloudless night that’s been gifted to them.
Akira tastes like coffee and hazelnut and impending doom because baring yourself open like this offers easy regrets, and yet Goro cannot help but pull Akira even further into his own body, trying to memorize the specifics of how the coffee of Akira’s mouth is made so even when he’s dead in Hell he can remember exactly how the love of his life tastes.
Two sugars and a splash of cream, Goro deducts, and this he tells Akira as he breaks their kiss apart, breathless.
“Actually,” Akira answers, amused, eyes brighter than the moon as he stares into Goro’s as if Goro could even compare to the stars, the planets, the galaxy. “It is only one sugar.”
“No,” he kisses Akira again, a quick peck that leaves him blushing. “I’m sure it is two.”
Akira laughs, but says nothing more, shifting around his tiny bed that could barely fit the two of them so he can pat Goro’s head with a fondness he usually only reserves for Morgana.
“Where’s Morgana tonight?” Goro whispers into Akira’s neck, and he feels Akira suppress a shiver.
“Out and about. I usually don’t question it. I think him being here would ruin the mood, don’t you think? Especially with how he looks now!"
Goro gazes up to Akira’s fond, fond smile, aimed only at him tonight even if he feels like he doesn’t quite deserve it just yet. If only they had met a few years earlier. Where would they be now?
“Why?” Akira continues with a slight laugh. “Do you want him here? Because if he is, you two would need to compete for the extra space on my bed.”
“No, I’d win,” Goro scoffs.
“Would you though? Morgana is smaller and cuter.”
“You take that back, you loser. Morgana isn't even a cat right now."
“It’s true though, even if he'd scratch your face off for saying that,” Akira hums before going back to patting Goro’s hair. It feels nice. “I’m glad you decided to indulge me tonight.”
It is a strange and sudden change of subject, one that is rather unwelcome because Goro would rather not think about the implications that tomorrow will bring, but if Akira wants to talk about it, Goro will not mind.
“There is only tonight.” He grips onto Akira tighter. “Only you and I.”
“I’ll miss you,” Akira says this with longing. “I’ll miss you tomorrow, and the day after, and all the days after that.”
“You’ll forget about me.”
“No, I wouldn’t. Who would forget the man who quoted Hegel at me the first time we met?”
“I thought you liked it,” Goro accuses by jabbing Akira in the cheek. It’s soft, and Goro doesn’t know what else to think except about touching it forever.
“I did. But I also thought it was pretty funny. Those two things can exist simultaneously you know.”
“I’ll show you funny, you smartass,” Goro eventually grumbles, and Akira laughs.
“Just don’t quote Kant at me next. I don’t know what I’d do.”
And finally, finally, after nine months of lying to himself that Akira Kurusu isn’t anybody special, finally, finally, he realizes exactly just how important Akira Kurusu really is to him, bathed in moonlight like some goddess of the Universe and cradling him in his arms, smelling of everything good and beautiful in the world.
It truly is a revelation. A revelation he should’ve came to much, much earlier, too busy stewing in denial and hatred and every other vice in the world to do so.
Goro finds that he wants to live like this forever, wants to be the one that Akira comes to when things go wrong, wants to be the only one that Akira can comfortably rely on, wants to be the only one that can kiss Akira, wants to be the only one Akira shares his bed with other than that stupid Morgana, wants to be the only one that Akira can snark at and roll his eyes at and make ugly faces at.
He realizes that he wants to just be there for Akira, just like how Akira wants to just be there for him.
It’s a strange concept, wanting to live for someone when he’s accepted the fact he was going to die once he turned 18 since forever ago. It’s a strange concept, wanting to live. But again, Goro Akechi has always been a selfish, selfish being. Even if it meant burdening Akira with this ideal of waiting for someone who might never come back, he wants the other to know exactly how much he means to him.
“I want to live for you,” Goro blurts out after a bout of silence, and Akira almost slaps him with how fast he jerks his hand away from his hair.
“What?”
“Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to be trapped in Maruki’s shitty false reality—”
“I know,” Akira cuts him off. “I know. You don’t have to. You’ve made that very clear and I will not trample on your wishes—“
“Let me finish, you dork,” Goro rolls his eyes and Akira suppresses a laugh. “But I stand by what I said. I want to live for you. In our true reality, when we return.”
Akira says nothing except stare at him with those inquisitive eyes, and Goro couldn’t help but continue with a wavering voice he pretends is not wavering.
“I’ll find you again, no matter how long it’ll take, okay? So wait for me, you stupid idiot. I’ll come back to you even if I have to defeat Satan him-goddamn-self.”
“And I don’t doubt that,” Akira hums with conviction, as if he believes that Goro really could defeat Satan himself. “Alright. if that is what you want. I’ll wait for you, in our true reality. We’ll fight Maruki tomorrow, and then I’ll wait for you each day after that, here at Leblanc, until you finally decide to come home, whether that be in two weeks or ten years, I’ll wait for you.”
“Ten years is a long time. Are you sure you want to stay in Yongen-Jaya all ten years?”
“You told me to wait for you, so I will,” Akira says as if this is all simple arithmetic. “Ten years is but only ten years.”
“And what if I never come back?” Goro challenges, always challenging Akira because he still cannot believe someone like him would ever want Goro Akechi for Goro Akechi.
“Then,” Akira laughs, “You’ll have to wait for me before I finally end up in Hell with you.”
“You wouldn’t go to Hell,” Goro rolls his eyes. “You’re too goody-two-shoes for that.”
“Then I’ll choose to go to Hell. For you,” Akira says, again like this is all simple arithmetic to him. As if Hell and Heaven was as easy as a choice to him, and Goro wants to kiss him stupider.
“You’re so stupid, you know that?”
“I know; you tell me almost every waking moment,” Akira delivers with a cheeky smile.
“Can I kiss you again?”
“Do you even need to ask?” Akira rolls his eyes, but lets himself be grabbed and kissed stupid by Goro once more.
Goro doesn’t need to say “I love you,” to Akira because he has already declared his love the only way he knows how, and yet he finds that he wants to say it, wants to will it into some sort of tangible existence so Akira would remember it once he’s gone. Remember that it had came from his mouth once upon a time, in this very hour, on this very night.
Because being is love is something so stupid, so emotional, something that he’s never found himself capable of doing until Akira Kurusu had came along and made him realize that it was even possible for a fucked up individual like himself.
“I love you,” he whispers against Akira’s lips when he breaks apart their kiss, and Akira could only grumble with faux annoyance.
“How dare you say it first,” he accuses by shoving Goro’s face away from his own. “I was supposed to say it first. You can’t keep doing everything first.”
“Then I suppose you need to catch up.”
“Go rot in Hell,” Akira rolls his eyes.
“I'm already rotting in Hell,” Goro deadpans.
“Why do I even like you?”
“That’s a good question.”
Akira doesn’t say anything after that, only dropping his head to rest upon Goro’s shoulders. Goro finds that he likes this position the best. He wouldn’t even mind it if they end up falling asleep like this, even if the two of them waking up in the morning will face excruciating neck pain and bad backs.
“I like that you’re an asshole,” Akira murmurs suddenly into his shoulder, all shy as if they had not just been making out for the past two hours. “I like that you pretend that you don’t care but you do. I like that you make me laugh. I like how you always listen to me talk. I like listening to you talk.”
“I wasn’t expecting an actual answer,” Goro replies, voice quiet.
“Well, we’re… something now, aren’t we?” Akira shrugs to the best of his ability. “You’d need to take me somewhere nice before we’re officially boyfriend-boyfriend though. I have standards okay.”
“I think it’s a little too late to be taking you anywhere nice.”
“Hey, you said you’d come back!”
“I meant the time, you dolt. The trains aren’t running because it’s 2 AM.”
“Oh right.”
“But I would take you somewhere nice.”
“Of course you would. Although, I’d take you somewhere nicer!”
“You can’t keep taking people to Inokashira Park and calling it a nice date spot.”
“I know other places than the park.” Goro feels Akira rolling his eyes. “I took you to that aquarium over the summer, didn’t I?”
“I took you to that aquarium.”
“Semantics, semantics.”
“Once I come back,” Goro declares in a show of competitiveness, “I’ll take you to Paris!”
“Sure,” Akira accepts with ease. “I’ll hold you to it.”
“It’ll be the best vacation you’ve ever been on.”
“Well, I’ve only ever been to one, so I don’t have much to compare to.”
“It won’t matter, because I’ll blow it out of the water.”
“Of course you will, honey,” Akira teases, throwing him back to that day in October he will never ever forget.
“If I’m honey, what does that make you?” Goro muses.
“I want something cute!”
“Pumpkin?”
“Eugh.” Akira makes a face. “If you call me that unironically, I will throw up all over your lap.”
“Pumpkin it is.”
“You’re the Devil, Goro Akechi,” Akira laments, hand over his head like a fainting maiden. “The absolute Devil!”
“Don’t say that pumpkin,” Goro laughs, and he feels Akira’s eyes on him like the stars.
“I also like it when you laugh,” Akira confesses suddenly as he pokes Goro’s cheek. “It makes you look younger. More silly.”
“I am not silly—“
“I know. I just like hearing you laugh, that’s all,” Akira stifles a yawn.
“It’s late,” Goro’s smile finally falls as reality settles in. “We should go to bed. Today’s an important day.”
When did tomorrow finally turn into today? Today, today, today, February second, February third, the end of the world.
Again, there will be no February fourth. Not for Goro, not for them.
“I know.”
“Come on; I won’t leave.”
“Let me…” Akira’s voice cracks. “Let me look at you just a little longer.”
“Okay.”
Because he could afford Akira just this final kindness.
Akira’s eyes rove over him as if trying to commit his portrait to memory, and Goro would be lying if he had said he wasn’t doing the same.
“You have freckles,” Akira giggles. Goro can tell Akira is trying not to cry. He has a specific tremble to his voice when he tries to suppress it.
“And you have a mole right here,” Goro pokes right underneath Akira’s left eye.
“You better remember that!”
“I will,” he says this in earnest. “I’ll remember everything.”
“And I will as well,” Akira echos. “Of course I will.”
“Time for bed?”
“Time for bed.”
And as Goro hugs Akira to sleep, nose right underneath Akira’s coconutty vanilla-y hair, he finds himself begging for the first time ever in his short miserable life to whatever god that is alive out there, whatever deity that might end up taking pity on him, to please, please, please, let him go back into Akira’s arms after all this ends for good.
“Good night,” he hears Akira murmur before he knocks out, gentle breaths against his shirt reminding him that Akira is his and he is Akira's if only for tonight.
“Good night,” he murmurs back into the dark void of Akira’s bedroom, the last night of sleep he’ll ever have until whatever befalls him next.
He’s glad it’s at least with Akira.