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Goro opened his eyes and, for a moment, did not immediately anticipate the impending threat of a new day. Instead he listened—to the rasp of Ren’s breathing, the hesitant in, the slow and nearly silent out. Goro rolled onto his back and allowed himself to be still. There was a faint dusting of dark hair at the edge of his periphery, a forearm curled possessively across Goro’s own ribcage, and a knee bent at an impossible angle that was graceful in the way only Ren could be.
Goro’s first thought was how out of place this all should have felt—how wrong, how deeply not-his-life the view in front of him was. And yet, for a moment, he only felt a precarious sort of contentment.
He watched Ren for a minute, then two, tracing with his eyes the slant of his jaw and the dark lashes at rest. He noticed a subtle indentation on Ren’s left cheek from the pillow seam, the faint shadow of a bruise at his collarbone (his own doing, he realized, with a private, predatory pleasure). He let his gaze wander to the way Ren’s lips parted just enough for the softest whistle of breath, a sound intended for no one but that he alone had the privilege of hearing.
He could have lived there, in that moment, indefinitely—frozen at the edge of dawn and desire, the world contained to a single bed and its occupants.
But then the second thought, the doubt, came as it always did. His mind, screaming at him, but how long will this last? Goro’s body responded the only way it knew how—with a tightening across his chest and the telltale shallowness to his breaths. He could see it now, how close he was to the precipice of loss, how the smallest miscalculation would be enough to send everything shattering to the floor.
His fingers curled into the sheets, searching for an anchor. He would not allow himself to tremble; not when Ren was here, not when it could disturb the fragile arrangement of their morning.
The apartment bore silent testimony to his new everyday life. His old apartment had always been meticulously maintained: dusted, organized, the sort of place that could have doubled as a rental showpiece, the only evidence of Goro’s existence in his own home had been his own clothes, folded with military precision, a few choice books and a single ray gun on display in the privacy of his own room. The walls were bare—no photographs, no traces of history, just the pale anonymity of a thousand identical apartments stacked atop each other.
But now, now, things were different: a second toothbrush pressed up against his own and an unfamiliar scent layered over his usual cologne. On the nightstand, there were two matching mugs with old coffee stains, an alien paperback resting open and face-down, the spine broken at an inelegant angle, its owner apparently unconcerned with the destruction of property or narrative flow. At the foot of the bed, a neatly folded set of clothes in a palette that Goro would never have selected for himself. All of these things were, technically, within his jurisdiction, yet they belonged to Ren: pieces of him that had infiltrated a space that he knew would have become as sterile as his previous if left alone, but had, impossibly, improved it.
Goro let his gaze drift up, over the muted ceiling, and tallied the days since this started. Forty-two, if he was counting the mornings, which he was, because Goro would be a fool not to when Ren was peacefully resting next to him.
He wondered, in the cool quiet, how long it would last before this peace ended. Good things were, if nothing else, consistent in that matter.
The weight beside him shifted. Ren’s eyelashes fluttered, and he made a small, involuntary sound—not quite a word, not quite a sigh. His arm tightened, fingers brushing against Goro’s skin.
Goro closed his eyes and pretended, for another minute, that he could stay like this. That there was nothing on the other side of the morning except for more mornings, and that Ren would always be here, warm and entangled and wholly his.
But already, his mind worked at the edges of the comfort, unraveling it thread by thread, preparing himself for the inevitable correction of the universe’s mistake.
He exhaled, long and quiet, then braced himself for the day’s first unspoken battle.
Goro moved through the morning in increments. By the time he finished his morning routine and made it to the kitchen, Ren was already there, orchestrating domesticity with unstudied efficiency. He wore an old t-shirt that didn’t belong to him and shorts that absolutely did, and he was humming something under his breath—tuneless, aimless, but oddly soothing.
Goro had always disliked the kitchen. It’s lack of use reminding him of his shortcomings. Now, he disliked it less. He stationed himself at the table, back to the wall, laptop open and eyes fixed on a window he hadn’t bothered to log in to. The hum of Ren’s song and the low sound of coffee brewing filled the corners of the space; it was, in some respect, the safest place he could imagine being, and that thought alone made him wary.
He watched, unblinking, as Ren worked. There was a carefulness to his movements—a precision that, Goro suspected, was intentional. Knife through bread, flame at exactly the right setting, eggs broken in a flamboyant yet precise manner. Goro wanted to say something sardonic about overkill, but the words caught in his throat and instead he studied the flex and release of Ren’s wrists as he whisked the eggs into submission.
Ren turned, caught Goro’s eye, and smiled. It was the sort of smile that most people would describe as “gentle” or “open,” but Goro recognized the glint behind it—a challenge, a dare. Ren poured coffee into both mugs and set one in front of Goro without ceremony.
“You’re up early,” Ren said.
“Am I?” Goro countered, glancing at the clock. It was barely eight. “I have a lot of work.”
Ren looked at the untouched laptop, then back to Goro, unimpressed. “You haven’t typed anything.”
Goro stared at the blank terminal, a beat too long. “I’m strategizing.”
Ren made a noncommittal sound and went back to the stove. He slid eggs onto two plates, the yolks unbroken, perfect just like one who made it, then added toast and a few slices of apple. He did not ask if Goro was hungry; he had long since stopped asking. Instead, he placed the plate in front of Goro and took the seat opposite, folding his hands in anticipation.
They ate in silence. Not the brittle, weaponized sort Goro used in interrogations. This was something looser, liminal, neither comfortable nor uncomfortable. Just there, like the weather.
Goro watched Ren eat, and he tried to ignore the heat in his chest. He wondered if this was what other people felt: the ache of wanting to be close and the equal, opposite force of fearing it. He wondered if it would kill him, if he would even mind.
Ren spoke without warning, as if continuing a conversation Goro didn’t remember having. “Would you be alright coming out this weekend?”
Goro considered all possible definitions of coming out. “I am already out,” he said, after a moment. “I fail to see how I could be any more—”
Ren made a face, almost a smile, almost a wince. “I meant out with the others. We’re meeting for dinner. You don’t have to, but—” He trailed off, waiting.
The words detonated in Goro’s mind. He could picture it perfectly: the rest of them, assembled at LeBlanc, pretending not to look at him too directly. He would be the odd piece, the jagged edge they’d forced into the puzzle, and they would all have to work to keep the peace. The thought was suffocating.
He set his fork down and glanced at Ren. “I’ll go,” he said, making it sound like a dare, a threat, anything but acquiescence. “If it matters to you.”
Ren’s lips pressed into a small smile. “It does.”
And that was it—no debate, no persuasion. Ren picked up his mug and drank, eyes fixed on Goro’s with the casual air of someone who’d long ago decided Goro would accept.
Goro’s skin prickled. He sipped his coffee, scalding hot, and tried not to flinch.
The rest of breakfast happened in real time: bites chewed and swallowed, the scrape of cutlery, the near-silence between each sentence. Goro’s laptop remained untouched, his hands resting on the keyboard, fingers arched and unmoving. He watched Ren move with the same seamless domesticity he spared for their breakfast—clearing plates, stacking them in the sink, rinsing and wiping in a rhythm that bordered on ceremonial.
Goro wondered what it would feel like to destroy this. To say no, to break the delicate thing Ren had built for them out of habit and hope. The urge was there, as always: the itch at the base of his neck, the restless anticipation of collapse. It was a miracle that Ren hadn’t yet run.
But when Ren turned to look at him again, and he felt the itch fade. He wanted, more than anything, to stay just like this forever.
After breakfast, Goro lingered at the table, feigning productivity. He listened to Ren moving in the other room: the brush of clothing as he got dressed, the low rumble of his voice as he took a call, the muffled thud of his bag dropped near the door. He tried to concentrate on his tasks for the day but his mind refused to quiet. How long would it last? How much could he take before the urge to tear it all down became overwhelming?
He didn’t know. He only knew that he would say yes to dinner, and to every other impossible thing Ren asked of him, for as long as he was able.
He closed the laptop and let his head fall forward, forehead against the wood, eyes squeezed shut. The apartment was silent now except for his own breathing, the small, traitorous proof that he was still here.
LeBlanc was the same as ever and the assembled mass of ex-Phantom Thieves dominated the far side of the café. Makoto and Haru sat straight-backed at one table, their posture impeccable, while Ryuji and Yusuke had apparently staged a full-scale occupation of the adjoining booth, legs sprawl-warring beneath the table as they argued with the kind of volume that would have gotten them ejected from any other establishment. Ann, predictably, floated between the groups, orbiting them with well-meaning energy. Futaba sat beside her, hunched around her phone, animatedly pointing at her screen to show Morgana something.
Ren was the first to notice his entrance, with confident steps he led Goro to the only unoccupied space at the end of the table. The chair was unforgiving, its backrest at the exact angle to enforce perfect posture. Perfect, Goro mused, for anyone trying to appear at ease. Ren, perhaps out of habit or perhaps out of subtle design, took the chair nearest the group and left Goro on the perimeter.
“Morning, Akechi,” Ryuji called out, with the cheer of someone who had never quite forgiven but was trying, valiantly, to tolerate.
Goro nodded. “Sakamoto.”
A beat passed. Ryuji waited for him to say anything else, then huffed and focused on cramming a full toast triangle into his mouth, which, in a way, was its own small victory.
“Goro, would you like anything?” Ren asked, already rising halfway from his seat.
“Just coffee.” Goro folded his hands in his lap. “Black.”
He watched Ren’s back as he walked to the counter, watched the subtle shift in Ren’s shoulders as Sojiro offered a curt nod. Goro had always envied that: Ren’s capacity for effortless rapport, the way he seemed to belong to any space he occupied, as if he’d been there all along and everyone else was merely catching up.
At the table, Ann was already launching into her second retelling of last night’s group chat fiasco, which apparently involved Futaba, a persistent meme bot, and what sounded like three hours of escalating image spam.
Meanwhile, Haru turned to Goro with a polite smile. “Did you have a good morning, Akechi-kun?”
“I’m not sure if mornings qualify as ‘good,’” Goro replied, keeping his voice light. “But it was uneventful, if that counts.”
Makoto’s eyes lingered on him for a moment too long, and Goro knew—of course he knew—that she had cataloged his every micro-expression since the moment he entered. A fellow analyst, if a more benevolent one. He stared back, just enough to communicate recognition before he looked away.
Ren returned, balancing two mugs and a plate of what looked like curry, and set them in front of Goro. The cup was exactly two fingers from the edge, the handle facing him, the way he preferred. Ren slid into his seat with a quiet “Here,” and nudged the cup so it barely tapped the plate.
Goro did not thank him. Ren did not expect it.
As the others fell into the kind of banter that was supposed to be effortless but, to Goro’s ear, was always just a bit off, he found himself retreating into observation. None of them, he was certain, had forgiven Goro but they played at it for Ren’s sake, or perhaps for the sake of their own morals. Goro had yet to decide which he found more insulting.
He forced himself to relax. Counted the days: forty-three. Forty-three days since he’d agreed to this relationship, this simulation of a normal life. He wondered what number it would take before he started to believe in its permanence.
Ren’s presence had grown with each day, like a benign tumor. Goro had let him into the apartment, then into the routines, and finally into the structure of his thoughts. And now, sitting here, Goro couldn’t help but picture the slow, inexorable expansion: first the bathroom shelf, then the side of the bed, now entire weekends spent in domestic cohabitation. It was as if, by refusing to make any dramatic declarations, Ren had simply replaced Goro’s solitude piece by piece.
He wondered if anyone else saw it. He wondered if Ren did.
The hour stretched on, the conversation meandering from news to school to movies to the relative merits of LeBlanc’s curry. Goro contributed only when called upon, and only then with answers so inoffensive and precise that he left no opening for follow-up. He noticed that Ren’s hand had migrated to his forearm, thumb tracing the bone idly, as if staking a claim no one else could see.
It was almost a relief when Sojiro announced, “Closing in five. Last orders.” His voice was pointed; Goro wondered if it was directed at him.
They stood to leave. Goro offered a nod to Makoto and Haru, and was surprised to see something like genuine warmth on Makoto’s face. Haru merely regarded him with a soft, neutral smile, but she did not look away. Futaba gave him a little wave and took Morgana with her. Ann, Yusuke and Ryuji were already halfway out the door, arguing about which train to take.
Outside, the air was thick with the promise of rain. Goro looked up, felt the heaviness of the sky pressing down, and thought, for a moment, that it matched the exact shape of his heart.
Ren turned to him, hands shoved in his pockets, posture unassuming and open. “I’ll walk you to the station.”
Goro hesitated, then nodded. He didn’t trust himself to say more.
Ren and Goro remained silent in the aftermath. Goro stared at the empty cup, at the faint mark left by Ren’s thumb on his skin, and willed himself to speak. Instead, he simply waited until Ren rose from his seat, and followed him out, trailing just half a pace behind.
The night air was cold and bracing, but it was nothing compared to the chill hollowing him out from the inside.
They walked like that for several blocks, the silence growing more dangerous with every footfall. Goro rehearsed the inevitable confrontation in his mind, built defenses and escape routes, but he knew that Ren would never let it be so easy. He would not let himself be avoided.
Eventually, at the mouth of a side street, Ren broke the silence.
“Goro.” Soft, not quite a question. Just a name, heavy with all the things left unspoken.
Goro stopped, exhaled through his nose, and pivoted to face him. “Yes?”
Ren’s gaze was clear, steady. “You seemed… off tonight.”
He was always precise, Ren, even when it was about feelings. Never accusatory, never clumsy. Goro could appreciate the craft.
He shaped his lips into a small smile, the kind meant to reassure. “Did I? I hadn’t noticed.”
Ren didn’t look away. “I did.”
For a long moment, they just stood there, traffic pulsing past in a distant, meaningless rhythm. Goro felt the urge to step back, to put more distance between them, but that would be surrender. Instead he held his ground.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Just tired. Social situations have always been… exhausting.” He pitched the word like a lifeline, daring Ren to let it go.
Ren considered him, head tilted just a bit, as if trying to see Goro from another angle. “It’s not the others, is it?”
“It’s never them.” Goro’s voice was sharper than intended. It would be easier to deal with outward disdain than whatever the current charade was. He dropped his gaze to the sidewalk, where a line of water followed the slope toward a drain. “I suppose I’m just out of practice.”
Ren’s hand hovered between them, uncertain, then slowly dropped back to his side. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
Goro’s laugh was a low, bitter thing. “Of course I do.” Because, of course he wanted to fit in with Ren’s friends, when it was obvious to anyone with eyes how important they were to Ren. Just as obvious as the fact that Goro was the odd one in the picture. He finally looked up, met Ren’s eyes, and let the mask slip for half a second. “Sorry that my performance was not good enough.”
Ren’s expression didn’t change. He’d always been impossible to rattle. “It is enough,” he said, simple and stubborn. “You are.”
Goro felt something in his chest twist, a spasm of old hurt dressed up as new. He shook his head. “You shouldn’t have to convince me.”
“I’m not.” Ren moved closer, not touching, but close enough that Goro could feel the heat radiating from him. “I just want you to stop forcing yourself to be someone else.”
There it was: the punch line to the whole night. Goro tried to laugh again, but it came out as a breathless sigh.
“I’ll try,” he said, because it was the only thing he could say and have it sound even remotely like the truth. Because the only truth was that if today's Goro was a stain in the otherwise flawless painting that was that day's hangout, then honest Goro, with his relentless craving to consume everything good around him, would be the oil that burns the whole painting to fire. He wondered how Ren was so blind to all of it.
They resumed walking, but this time Goro let Ren fall into step at his side. The city seemed quieter now, less hostile, but Goro knew it was an illusion. He replayed the night in his head, picking through the evidence, looking for the fatal flaw. Maybe it was in the way he’d cut his responses short, or the way his hand trembled on the cup. Maybe it was in the simple, animal fact of wanting—of wanting too much, and knowing it would never be safe to want at all.
At the station, Goro stopped. He could feel Ren’s eyes on him, could almost map the pattern of Ren’s heartbeat through his shirt. There was a moment when Goro might have said something—might have confessed, or at least apologized for the disaster he was—but the words coagulated and died before reaching his mouth.
Instead, Ren touched his arm, not with possession but with certainty, and said, “Good night, Goro.”
Goro nodded, then turned and walked into the station without looking back. The way back was slow, the lights above humming with the promise of burnout. As he entered into the apartment, Goro pressed his palm to his sternum, as if he could physically hold the pieces of himself in place.
He counted the hours until morning, then the days, and waited for the moment he might believe, even for a second, that any of this was real and lasting. That he was not just prolonging the inevitable.
He waited, and he hoped, and hoped, and hoped, and didn’t believe any of it, and in the dark, he missed Ren with a precision that hurt worse than any old wounds. He can’t continue like this. He can’t.
By day forty-nine, the rhythm of the apartment had come to a standstill: the tick of keys on Goro’s keyboard, the tock of a closing door, the pause after a text notification blinked and died without answer.
He submerged himself in work. Not that it was required—his backlog of cases was, in fact, less than ever—but Goro found that if he didn’t invent new work, he would start to remember the shape of Ren’s shoulder as it rose and fell in sleep, or the way Ren’s voice slid under his skin in the half-dark. So, he kept working.
Every twenty minutes, his phone flashed on the desk, a neat white rectangle shivering with words Ren thought would tempt him:
Hey.
Don’t forget to eat.
If you’re up late, text me?
Goro read each message and catalogued it, then set the phone down again, letting the battery drain with the slow, delicious certainty of dying things. He waited until the hour was obscene before returning a response. “Busy. Don’t come by today.” “Eating now.” “Fine.”
There was a perverse pleasure in it, this starving of connection. It gave him control. It made the next inevitable loss seem less like disaster, more like execution of a well-planned schedule.
The signs of Ren’s presence were everywhere, which made it easier for Goro to remind him to keep him at a distance. A glass of water left on his nightstand—condensation bleeding into a pale ring on the wood. A blanket, draped across the back of the couch, just so, as though Ren had calculated the optimal position to ward off a chill.
He ignored these, as best he could, but at night, the blanket’s warmth lingered after he kicked it away, and sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he heard the ghost of Ren’s humming from the kitchen.
Day fifty arrived with rain—the kind that hammered the city into submission and made the traffic stop for blocks. Ren has texted that morning, stating he would be over that night. Not a question. A challenge. And Goro never said no to a challenge. Goro decided to be out until the streets were empty. He walked in the rain, counting his own breaths, and rehearsed tonight’s performance: enter the apartment, set the bags down, go to the bedroom, do not pause for conversation or confrontation. No eye contact. Minimal friction. If he made himself into a ghost, Ren would eventually stop trying to touch him.
But the door swung open on a different stage. The apartment was warm, the air thick with the smell of curry, and Ren was at the stove, back turned. On the table, two bowls were set, rice portioned with surgical precision. The mismatched mugs—they had started with one, then accumulated a second somewhere—sat side by side, handles facing out.
Ren glanced over his shoulder. “You’re home,” he said, as though it were just another Thursday, and not the threshold of some catastrophe.
Goro set his bag down, kicked off his shoes, and went straight to the window, plan forgotten. “You didn’t have to cook,” he said.
Ren shrugged, unbothered. “Didn’t want takeout again. I found a recipe that looked good.” He gestured at the bowls, then returned his attention to the stove.
Goro watched the rain track lines down the glass. He counted the seconds it took for Ren to finish, to move with that particular blend of unhurried and inevitable. When Ren finally sat, folding himself into the chair opposite, Goro could not help but see the exhaustion hiding in the set of his mouth, the way his fingers fidgeted on the rim of the mug before he caught himself.
They ate in silence, the kind that muffled the room in layers. Goro forced himself to take each bite, but the food barely registered—just heat and texture, nothing more. When Ren reached for the soy sauce, his hand brushed Goro’s. Goro drew back, the contact burning even after he wiped his palm on a napkin.
Ren didn’t speak until the bowls were empty, and even then, his voice was soft, careful. “I know you’re busy,” he said. “But I miss talking to you.”
Goro kept his eyes fixed on the stain of curry at the bottom of his bowl. “I’m right here.”
“Not really.” Ren let the words hang, as if giving Goro a chance to argue.
He didn’t. He waited for Ren to continue, for the real question to surface, but Ren only breathed, slow and steady, as if afraid that anything louder might shatter the truce.
Eventually, it came. “Did I… is something wrong?”
“No,” Goro said. “There’s nothing wrong.”
Ren watched him for a moment. “You’re lying.”
Goro’s knuckles went white on the handle of his spoon. “You’re imagining things. I’m tired, that’s all.”
“That’s not all,” Ren said, and the steadiness in his voice was almost unbearable. “You’re pulling away. I can feel it.”
The fork trembled in Goro’s hand. “Perhaps I am,” he said, slow and clear. “Perhaps I’m tired of being… suffocated.”
Ren sat back, as if absorbing a blow. His eyes, so often unreadable, betrayed a flicker of hurt.
“I’m not trying to suffocate you,” he said. “I just—” He stopped, seemed to search for the words, then started again. “I just want you to let me in.”
“There’s nothing in to let,” Goro said. He felt the heat rising in his cheeks, the old, acidic rush of panic that made his heart rattle against his ribs. “You have this idea that you can fix things, don’t you? That if you just try hard enough, you’ll make it work, no matter how little you’re given in return.”
Ren’s voice stayed level. “I’m not trying to fix you.”
“But you are.” Goro pushed back from the table, chair scraping harshly against the floor. “Is that what this is? Another lost soul for you to save? You and your insufferable savior complex.” He let the words hit, watched the impact. “It’s almost funny, the way you pretend you’ve forgiven me. That any of them have. You think you can just erase what happened, and all it takes is a little compassion and a few shared breakfasts.”
Ren’s shoulders slumped. For the first time, he looked away, his gaze falling to his hands, now clasped tight on the edge of the table.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel—”
Goro cut him off. “You didn’t make me feel anything. You’re so conceited, acting like you can make me do anything at all. Like you own me. You keep waiting for me to become something I’m not.”
“That’s not true.” Ren’s eyes flicked up, one last time, and this time the hurt was clear. And Goro- Goro was relishing on it.
“It is and I’m tired of it,” Goro said, feeling triumph, feeling for the first time in a long time in control. “I'm tired of you.”
He stood, feeling his pulse throb in his neck, and turned away before Ren could see the tremor in his hands.
For a long minute, neither of them moved. Then Ren’s chair scraped softly, and he crossed to the door. His hand hovered on the handle for a moment, as though waiting for permission—or for Goro to stop him.
Goro stayed silent.
The door opened, then closed, the latch clicking into place with finality.
Goro listened to the echo of Ren’s footsteps in the hall until there was nothing left but the rain and the sound of his own uneven breathing.
He stood in the living room long after Ren’s footsteps faded, time suspended between the thump of his own heart and the hammering of the rain against the glass. The apartment was a crime scene: every object left precisely as it had been in the moment of rupture. The bowls, one with a bite abandoned mid-arc, the other scraped clean. The mugs, side by side but not touching. The second chair, pushed back at a jagged angle, as if the person who occupied it had been torn away by force.
Goro catalogued each detail. He was, if nothing else, thorough.
He moved first to the table. The curry had gone cold, a slick layer of oil beginning to separate on the surface. The sight was obscene. He scraped Ren’s bowl into the trash, ran the faucet until the water was scalding, and scrubbed both bowls until they could have been anyone’s. He washed the mugs, too, though they did not need it, and set them back in the cabinet, handles turned the wrong way—left instead of right, a subtle vandalism.
He wiped the table. Cleaned the counter. Stacked the chairs. Still, the apartment felt wrong, overlarge and echoing. He turned in a slow circle, searching for something to anchor him, but everything had become evidence of Ren’s absence. The half-folded blanket. The book on the arm of the couch.
He wandered into the bathroom. The toothbrushes stood side by side in the cup, blue and red, bristles frayed from months of shared mornings. He stared at them until his eyes watered, then turned off the light and closed the door.
It was past midnight, but sleep was impossible. He sat at the desk, opened his laptop, and pretended to work, but the words swam on the screen, multiplying into unreadable clouds. He typed a sentence, deleted it, started again, then closed the lid and pressed his hands over his eyes, hard enough to see stars.
His phone chimed once, the pale glow a pulse in the dark. He lunged for it, even as his mind screamed at him for the weakness. It was only an alert from the building: rain delays on the trains. Nothing from Ren.
Of course there was nothing from Ren.
He checked anyway, every five minutes, as though hope could be resuscitated by brute force. He tried to imagine what Ren was doing: walking through the city in the rain, or at LeBlanc, slumped on a barstool while Sojiro brewed something bitter and silent. Maybe Ren would never come back at all, and Goro would finally have the blank canvas he’d always wanted.
He forced himself to stand, to move, to do anything but sit and drown. He circled the apartment, touching the objects Ren had infected with meaning. The plant on the windowsill—succulent, impossible to kill—which Ren insisted would “brighten the place up.” The throw pillow, orange and hideous, that Ren rescued from LeBlanc’s attic and plopped onto Goro’s surgically neutral couch. The mug with the hairline crack, the one Ren always chose even though Goro offered the perfect ones first.
In the silence, each of these things grew in significance, radioactive with memory.
Dawn leaked in through the blinds. Goro hadn’t slept, hadn’t even changed his clothes. He stood at the window, arms crossed against his chest, and watched the city turn from gray to blue to indifferent daylight. The reflection in the glass looked nothing like him: pale, drawn, haunted.
He waited for the flood of regret, but instead found only a brittle calm. He told himself, again, that this had been inevitable. That he had merely accelerated the decay, performed the necessary amputation before rot could set in.
It almost worked.
But when he closed his eyes, all he could see were Ren’s hands, limp on the table, and the exact moment his voice had broken with the words, “I just want you to let me in.”
He had, and that was the problem. Goro pressed his forehead to the cold pane and exhaled, counting the seconds until he could feel nothing at all.
He stayed there, inventorying his losses, until the sun cleared the buildings and the day began in earnest. Only then did he admit, if only to himself, that he had finally succeeded in destroying the best thing he’d ever been given.
Goro moved on autopilot through the rituals of the morning. He measured out coffee with obsessive neatness, filling the carafe to the precise line, setting the mug directly beneath the spout, the handle perfectly perpendicular to the edge of the counter. He straightened the dish rack, then re-straightened it. He pressed his palm to the surface of the kitchen table, feeling for invisible crumbs. He poured the coffee, then left it cooling on the counter, untouched. He had no appetite for anything but self-immolation.
In the bathroom mirror, he found a face he did not recognize. The skin beneath his eyes was swollen, the sclera threaded with red, his lips drained of their usual color. He bared his teeth, then ran his tongue over them, as if expecting the taste of blood. He forced himself to stand there for a full sixty seconds, taking in the evidence. The point, he thought, was to learn the shape of this new absence, to memorize the contours of regret so completely that it could never surprise him again.
This is what you wanted, he told himself, though even in the privacy of his own head the voice was brittle, too high, the register of someone half-lying. He tried again: Ren was going to leave the moment he realized what a mess Goro was. It was never going to last, he saved the two of them from the trouble. The more he repeated it, the more it calcified into a mantra, a ward against the possibility of wanting anything else.
He returned to the living room. The clock above the TV ticked audibly, a sound he’d never noticed when Ren was here, when there was always some counterpoint—music, conversation, the slow shuffle of slippers on tile. Now the clock was louder than his own breathing. He sat on the couch, counted the seconds between ticks, and let his mind split into two: the part that reeled with grief, and the part that observed the process with scientific detachment, scribbling notes in a ledger only he could see.
At some point, he noticed the scarf. It was Ren’s, a ridiculous red-and-black thing, too soft and too long for Tokyo’s anemic winters, but Ren had worn it every day since November when he had gifted it to him. It hung by the door, folded with the lazy carelessness only Ren could get away with. Goro approached, as if the scarf might bite, and reached out. His fingers hovered, just above the fabric, tracing its frayed edge. He tried to remember if Ren had worn it yesterday. He could not. His hand drew back, leaving the scarf swaying on its hook, an accusation dressed as an afterthought.
The day passed in increments. He spent two hours pretending to work, though he answered only one email, and even then his reply was terse to the point of rudeness. He cleaned the entire apartment—bathroom, bedroom, even the inside of the microwave—until everything smelled faintly of bleach and nothing of Ren. He rearranged the books on the shelf by size, then by color, then by author, then reverted them to their original order. He scrolled through the news, reading the same story three times and retaining none of it.
He did not eat. He did not call anyone. He did not, not even once, check again to see if Ren had texted.
Around four, the apartment’s shadows deepened again. Goro found himself standing at the window, just as he had twelve hours prior, watching the city smudge itself into dusk. He felt no different—still lightheaded with fatigue, still aching with a hunger he could not name, still empty in the way that only comes after a thing has been violently excised. For a moment, he allowed himself to imagine what Ren was doing, whether he would ever bother to return for the scarf or if it would become an afterthought the way Goro would.
He shut down the thought as soon as it appeared, flaying it with a cold, clean blade. It helped, a little.
When night came, Goro switched off every light in the apartment, moving through the dark by memory alone. He sat on the floor, back against the couch, and let the room contract around him. He told himself, again, that he had done the only possible thing, that the illusion of happiness that he had with Ren was just a lie that was going to run its course at any moment, that he saved himself from being caught off guard when it happened, that someday he might even believe it.
He did not cry. He did not break down. He merely endured, and in the endurance found the smallest, sharpest sliver of solace: that in the absence of happiness, at least he could still be right.
And if the night seemed colder, longer, more intolerable than the one before, that too was inevitable. He had known this outcome from the start.
He was, after all, nothing if not a man who understood cause and effect.
The apartment had grown so dark that Goro’s eyes ached from it, the outline of his own knees barely visible where he sat, folded on the living room floor. He had not noticed the sun going down. He’d been waiting, not for anything in particular, just marking the passage of minutes, collecting each one like a bead on a string, proof that time would keep moving whether or not he joined it.
So the knock at the door landed with the force of a bomb. His entire body snapped to attention—muscles pulled taut, nerves alive with the first jolt of adrenaline since yesterday. He waited for a second knock, or perhaps the scrape of footsteps retreating down the hall, but it came again, a single, patient tap, as if whoever stood outside had infinite time to waste on him.
He moved through the dark by touch, feeling the walls with his fingertips. At the threshold, he hesitated, listening for some hint of identity—a breath, a shuffle, any tell. Nothing. He debated ignoring it; whoever it was would eventually leave, and the inertia of the universe would restore its blessed stasis. But inertia was never enough.
He unlocked the door and opened it just wide enough to peer out. The corridor’s light cut into his eyes, and for a moment the figure before him was an afterimage: black hair, hunched posture, the unmistakable slope of Ren’s shoulders.
Ren was a disaster. His hair stuck out in wild spikes, as though he’d run his hands through it a dozen times in an hour. The skin beneath his eyes was painted in dark circles, and his clothes, while clean, looked like they’d been picked up from the floor of a stranger’s apartment. He held a plastic bag in one hand, knuckles white where they gripped the handles. He did not try to look inside; his gaze never wavered from Goro’s face.
Goro was not ready. He had spent the entire day rehearsing for a hundred possible outcomes, none of which included Ren simply showing up, unannounced, holding takeout.
He did not know what his own face looked like in that moment. He felt every muscle fight for dominance—surprise, then rage, then something too mortifying to name. It must have shown, because Ren’s eyes flickered, taking in Goro’s silence, the half-open door, the utter darkness behind him.
“Hi,” Ren said.
The word hung in the air, absurdly insufficient. Goro wanted to slam the door, or laugh, or step back and let Ren inside, but every possible action had already been played out and discarded.
“What do you want?” Goro managed, aiming for cold, hitting only hoarse.
Ren shrugged, just enough to make the bag rustle. “I brought food. You haven’t eaten.”
The audacity of it—a man arriving after being told, in no uncertain terms, that he was not needed in Goro’s life, then bringing dinner like he was entitled to Goro’s appetite—set something off inside him.
“Did you expect me to thank you?” Goro snapped. “Or perhaps burst into tears at the sight of such gallantry?”
Ren said nothing, only looked at him with that infuriating steadiness, as if Goro’s words had all the force of a child’s tantrum.
Goro’s vision tunneled. He stepped back from the door, only slightly, but enough to let the light from the corridor stretch into the apartment. He noticed, for the first time, the state he’d left it in: blankets and pillows askew, a trail of cleaning supplies abandoned mid-task, the half-finished mug of coffee now grown a skin on the surface.
Ren made no move to cross the threshold. He just stood there, bag in hand, waiting.
Goro broke first. “I told you I didn’t want this. Or did you forget?”
Ren’s reply was immediate. “You said you didn’t want to be suffocated. You never said you wanted me gone.”
He hated the accuracy. Hated that Ren always listened so well, cataloguing every loophole and exception, refusing to be dislodged by mere rhetoric. It felt like being pinned and dissected, every motive exposed under the bright, uncompromising light of Ren’s attention.
“Maybe I wasn’t clear enough,” Goro said. “I want you out. I want you to stop thinking about me. You’re free. Is that not something you want?”
Ren blinked, slow and deliberate, like he was parsing a particularly difficult line of code. “No,” he said. “That’s never been what I wanted.”
“You’re a liar.” It came out too quickly, too raw. “You say you want me, but what you really want is for some perfect version of myself that you have envisioned in your mind.”
“I never expected you to be perfect,” Ren replied, voice level. “I just want to stay by your side.”
Stay. The word split Goro down the middle. All his arguments, all his justifications, suddenly felt hollow, as if they were excuses made by someone who had already lost.
He could have left it there, could have shut the door and gone back to his ritual of self-abasement. Instead, he stepped into the hallway, letting the door fall open behind him.
He got close enough to see the flecks of fatigue in Ren’s eyes, the way his shoulders trembled under the weight of the bag. “What is this?” Goro hissed, voice pitched low enough that it wouldn’t carry to the other apartments. “Some kind of penance? You can’t fix me with curry and company.”
Ren shook his head, and the ghost of a smile threatened at the edge of his mouth. “No,” he said. “But it’s your favorite. I thought you’d like something warm.” He offered the bag, as if that settled the matter, the audacity.
Goro stared at the handles, at the slight indent Ren’s grip had left in the plastic. He didn’t reach for it.
“I don’t need your charity,” Goro said, though the word felt like poison in his mouth. “I don’t need anything from you.”
“I know,” Ren said. “But I do.”
For a second, neither of them moved. Goro felt the tectonic shift beneath his feet—the urge to reach out, to pull Ren inside, to admit that he had been starving for something other than food. Instead, he balled his hands into fists and let the anger take root, let it fill up every hollowed-out part of him.
“You’re insufferable,” Goro spat. “You think you know everything. That you can just… force your way into my life until I give up resisting.”
Ren’s gaze didn’t falter. “Is it working?”
It would have been easier if Ren had shouted back, or pleaded, or simply left. But he just stood there, holding out the bag, waiting for Goro to take it.
Goro did, finally, his fingers brushing against Ren’s. The contact was electric, every nerve ending sparking at once. He wanted to hurl the bag down the corridor, or maybe pull Ren in and never let go. The indecision was agony.
Ren did not move to enter the apartment. He looked at Goro, searching his face for any sign of surrender.
Goro looked away first. “You should leave,” he said. “Go home.”
“Is that what you really want?” Ren asked, quiet but unyielding.
Goro should slam the door, reinforce the boundary. Instead, some treacherous muscle in his arm pulled the door wide, and before he could edit himself, he said, “Just get in.” The words tasted of old copper and new defeat.
Ren nodded once—no gloating, no triumph—and stepped past the threshold. As soon as he entered, the apartment’s air changed, thickening with every milliliter displaced by his presence. It was as if the walls themselves remembered the last forty-nine days and now crowded in, eager to bear witness.
Goro watched as Ren surveyed the room. His gaze caught on the takeout bag, the half-finished mug of coffee, the cleaning products abandoned in the living room. The scarf by the door, still unmoved from its hook. He took it all in and said nothing.
The silence metastasized.
Goro could not stand it. He seized the opening, determined to wrest control of the narrative before Ren could deliver whatever prepared speech he’d brought. “You always do this,” he said, voice rising and fracturing. “You pretend there’s no cost. That being with me is some grand gesture of selfless devotion, when really it’s just—” He gestured, hands carving the air, “—an endurance test. Seeing how much you can bear before you crack.”
He felt the words leaving his mouth, saw them condense in the air between them, yet he could not stop. “Do you need me to spell it out for you?” he said, the edge of a laugh—too bright, too high—dancing on the question. “I hate you. I hate your patience. I hate the way you watch me, as if every act of cruelty is something to be catalogued and forgiven. I hate that you never raise your voice. I hate that you don’t even flinch.” He took a breath, lungs tight as fists. “And most of all, I hate that you’re still here. That you won’t do the sane thing and leave.”
Ren’s eyes did not leave Goro’s. His posture was perfect, shoulders squared but relaxed, as if he’d been carved from the idea of steadfastness. He did not react, not even when Goro’s voice shook on the last word.
The anger was supposed to burn away the need, but it did the opposite. Goro could feel it—his hands trembling, his chest hollowing out, his feet sliding back with every word. He paced to the edge of the room, then spun, as if the extra distance could dilute the effect of Ren’s gaze.
“You think I’m afraid of you?” Goro said, and now his voice was unsteady, searching for its center. “I’m not. I just know that this—” He gestured between them, a sweep of the arm so violent it almost tipped the lamp. “Of what will happen when you finally get bored. Or realize what a waste of time this is. Or maybe when you find someone who isn’t a constant fucking disaster.”
He wanted Ren to speak, to contradict him, to offer even a single word of comfort so Goro could tear it apart. But Ren was a monument, still and implacable, refusing to rise to his bait.
Goro tried again, softer now, as if some essential part of him had finally snapped. “You can’t fix this,” he said. “You can’t fix me. You should have learned that by now.”
He stopped moving. The room was silent except for his own breathing, ragged and uneven. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears, loud as thunder. He looked at Ren, and for the first time, saw how tired he truly was—the weariness etched into the lines at the corners of his mouth, the way he seemed to be holding himself together by sheer force of will.
The mask slipped, just for a moment. “You deserve someone who won’t ruin you,” Goro whispered. “Anyone else would have given up by now. Why haven’t you?”
Ren did not answer. He waited, as if he knew the words Goro most feared were the ones he would have to say himself.
Goro laughed—a small, broken thing—and sank to the edge of the couch, his hands dangling between his knees. “You know what I really hate?” he said, looking down at the carpet, refusing to meet Ren’s eyes. “I hate how you make me want things I know I can’t have. Things that I know won’t last.”
He wiped at his face, found his fingertips wet, and pressed his palms hard against his thighs to steady them. “I thought if I cut you out, I could stop needing you. But it’s worse now.” His voice cracked. “It’s so much worse.”
He waited for Ren to speak, to offer some platitude or gentle correction. But Ren only watched, as if he understood that the only thing Goro needed was the chance to finally say all the things he’d spent his life choking down.
The words hung in the air, suspended and trembling.
Goro felt hollowed out, scraped clean. For the first time in memory, he could not summon a retort, a defense, a lie to save himself from exposure. The silence pressed in, thicker than blood, and he waited—heart pounding, skin prickling, hands shaking—for Ren to say anything at all.
Ren let the silence continue, until Goro’s ears rang with it and his skin itched with the effort of not running out the door. Then, quietly—so quietly that Goro almost missed it—Ren said, “Stop telling yourself how I feel or what I deserve.” A pause, as if waiting to ensure Goro was actually listening. “And start listening to how I actually feel. What I actually want.”
The effect was immediate. Goro’s entire posture collapsed inward, aggression caving to something worse: uncertainty. His rage left him unsupported, shoulders slumping as if under some invisible weight.
Ren walked over—unhurried, not threatening—until he stood at the far edge of the coffee table. He considered Goro with calm, eyes dark and fathomless, but with a thread of something raw running through them.
“You act as if you’re the only person here,” Ren continued. “Like you've already decided the ending for us. But that’s not how this works.”
He rounded the coffee table and sat beside Goro on the couch, careful not to invade, but close enough that Goro felt the heat radiating from him.
Ren’s next words were steady, measured. “You're saying you’re afraid of needing me. That I’ll get tired of you. That I’ll disappear the moment you become a problem.”
Goro stared at the floor, jaw clenched so tight he feared his teeth might break. He tried to think of a retort, but the best he could manage was a strangled sound, halfway between a laugh and a sob.
“But that’s not how I feel,” Ren said. He leaned in, just a fraction, so that Goro could see the exhaustion carved into his face, the depth of the circles beneath his eyes. “I love you. All of you. Not just the version that tries to pretend that everything is fine.”
The words struck like a chemical reaction, setting off a chain of involuntary responses: Goro’s hands began to shake, subtle at first, then more pronounced; his eyes widened, then darted to the side, searching for an exit; his breath, so recently steady, caught in his throat. He hated this. Hated being seen, being known. Hated that Ren’s words lit up all his defenses, and then bypassed them entirely.
Ren was methodical. “I love your mind, even when it works against you. Even when it turns you into your own worst enemy.” He said it without irony, without hedging.
Goro’s cheeks burned. He dug his nails into his knees, willing himself to endure whatever came next.
“I love your determination. Even when it’s misdirected. Even when you sabotage yourself, or me, or both of us.” Ren’s hand hovered, not touching, but close enough that Goro could feel the intention behind it.
Goro’s voice, when it finally emerged, was a wreck. “You shouldn’t.”
“Maybe not,” Ren agreed. “But I do.”
There was a long silence, but this one was different—less a void, more a crucible. Ren let the words settle, gave them space to take root.
He continued, softer now. “I love that you never settle. Even when it hurts you. Even when it hurts me.”
Each statement landed like a blow, but not the kind Goro was built to absorb. These were the slow, inexorable truths that wore down walls, truths that didn’t demand a fight but simply persisted, minute after minute, until all resistance became unsustainable.
“I’m not perfect,” Ren said, voice low and almost shy. “And neither are you. But that’s not what this is about. Perfection isn’t the goal, Goro. Being together is worth the challenges. It’s worth trying.”
The simplicity of it stopped him. He turned, just enough to meet Ren’s eyes. The steadiness there was both a comfort and a terror.
“Why?” he asked, and the word came out as a whisper. “Why did you come back?”
Ren smiled, tired but brilliant in a way only Ren is. “Because it’s you.”
For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then, with a delicacy that bordered on reverence, Ren closed the gap between them, until their shoulders nearly touched. He didn’t reach for Goro’s hand. He didn’t force closeness. He just let his presence be an anchor, something unyielding in the chaos.
Goro closed his eyes, and for the first time in days, allowed himself to believe—just for a second—that maybe, just maybe, he was allowed to be held together by something other than his own willpower.
He breathed, and the air felt less like drowning.
When he finally spoke, the sound startled him. “I don’t know how to have this,” he said, voice frayed and low. He gestured between them with a limp flick of the wrist, as if the magnitude of their shared misery could be contained in a single, helpless motion. “I don’t know how to want something without being sure I’ll lose it.”
Ren didn’t reply. He waited, as if he knew there was more.
Goro’s gaze jumped from the table to his own knees, to the floor, anywhere but Ren’s face. “Every time I let myself think it’s safe, I imagine all the ways it could fall apart. Not just the obvious ones. The stupid, everyday ways. You get bored. You meet someone better. You realize that all I am is a problem for you to solve.” He swallowed, mouth dry as chalk. “I replay it a thousand times, every time you walk out the door.”
His shoulders curled inward, compressing the space he occupied to the absolute minimum. “I can’t stop,” he admitted. “Even when you’re here, even when you say it’s real. I keep waiting for the next disaster.”
He could feel Ren’s eyes on him—steady, not accusing, but so patient it made Goro want to scream. He fisted his hands in the fabric of his pants and tried, desperately, to collect himself.
“I don’t know how to accept happiness without waiting for it to be taken away,” he said, quieter now.
He squeezed his eyes shut, so tight the darkness behind them flared red and white. When he opened them, Ren was still there, unchanged, unmoved by the confession. If anything, he looked softer around the edges.
The silence didn’t hurt anymore. It felt like a warm bath, something to submerge in, not drown.
Ren said, “I’m not leaving.”
The words were so simple, so completely at odds with the magnitude of Goro’s fear, that for a moment he couldn’t process them. He looked up, finally meeting Ren’s eyes. There was no challenge in them, no condescension—just the pure, ridiculous fact of Ren’s existence, his presence in this room, on this couch, at Goro’s side.
Ren’s hand reached out, slow and careful, and took Goro’s. Not forceful. Just an anchor, a point of contact.
“Goro, I want you so much that I can’t even imagine leaving you. So please, don’t leave me by pulling away without even giving us a chance.” Ren said, a tinge of desperation entering his otherwise calm voice.
The shock of it rippled through him. For a second, Goro just stared at their joined hands, as if they belonged to strangers. His body gave itself away: the hitch in his breath, the way his shoulders unclenched by degrees, the heat of Ren’s palm against his skin. No one but Ren would touch him with such deliberate gentleness.
He waited for the urge to pull away. It didn’t come.
They didn’t speak. There was no need. The silence had changed; Goro let himself feel it: the possibility. The maybe.
Tentatively, almost shyly, his fingers curled around Ren’s. It was a small movement, so insignificant it might have been accidental, but it carried the force of an oath.
He exhaled, a sound that could have been relief or surrender.
For the first time in his memory, he allowed himself to wonder what it would be like to believe in something that lasted.
He looked at Ren again, and this time, managed a real smile.
It must have looked like a grimace but Ren’s answering expression was so gentle, so utterly devoid of judgment, that Goro felt a heat rush into his cheeks. He looked away, blinking hard at the floor. His mouth was dry; his hands, clasped tightly in his lap, prickled with pins and needles. He wanted to stand, to move, to regain some measure of control, but the idea of leaving Ren’s orbit was suddenly intolerable.
“Sorry,” Goro muttered, because it was the only thing that fit. “That was… unnecessary.” The word hovered between them, ridiculous in its insufficiency.
Ren’s head tilted, an invitation to clarify.
“The things I said,” Goro continued, forcing his voice to hold steady. “The… cruelty. I’m aware I weaponize it.” He flexed his fingers, then pressed the knuckles hard into his thigh. “It’s not fair. You don’t deserve that.”
Ren’s eyes flicked to the window, then back. “I’m not fragile.”
“That’s not the point,” Goro said, and was surprised by the sharpness of his own voice. He pressed his lips together, then tried again, softer. “The point is, I meant some of it, and some of it I didn’t. And I can’t always tell the difference until after it’s already out.” He exhaled, a shallow, rattling thing. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and hated the pleading note in it.
He risked a glance at Ren. The other man sat, hands folded, his posture as composed as ever. But something in his eyes—the faintest tremor—said that he heard every word.
“It’s okay,” Ren said. His voice was quiet, even, but Goro saw the small twitch at the corner of his mouth, the tell that he was lying.
“No, it isn’t,” Goro shot back, louder than he intended. “It’s not okay. You don’t have to—” He stopped, not sure what word fit. Forgive. Absolve. All of the above.
A silence. Ren studied him, gaze unblinking, and for a moment the air between them was too thick to breathe. “You do that,” Goro said, after a beat. “You always do that. You minimize your own pain so that no one else has to see it.”
Ren’s composure cracked—just for a second. His eyes dropped to his lap, and his hands, previously so steady, twisted in the fabric of his pants.
“I didn’t want to make things worse,” Ren said, almost inaudibly. “I thought… if I just gave you space, you’d come back.”
“I was never really gone,” Goro said. His voice was raw now, scraped down to the nerves. “I’m not capable of leaving you. Not really. Even when I try, it’s just—” He gestured at the living room, at the unmade chaos of their lives. “I just break the things we build until there’s nothing left to lose.”
For the first time, Ren looked uncertain. Not unreadable, but uncertain—like he’d stepped onto unfamiliar terrain and wasn’t sure if it would hold his weight.
“It did hurt,” Ren admitted. “When you said I was suffocating you. That I am trying to control you. Change you.” He rolled the words in his mouth, as if tasting them for the first time. “I believed you, a little.”
Goro looked away. “Good,” he said. “Maybe then you’ll protect yourself.”
But the moment the words left his mouth, he realized he didn’t mean them. Not at all. The truth of it landed with the force of a punch: he didn’t want Ren to protect himself, not if it meant retreating, not if it meant leaving Goro behind in the ruins of his own design.
He let the feeling sit. Let it fester and burn until it was too large to contain.
“I can’t promise I’ll stop,” Goro said, his voice tight. “I want to. But I don’t know how.” He flexed his hands, willing the tremor to stop. “Every time it gets good, I convince myself I have to end it before it gets taken away.” He looked up at Ren, forced himself to hold the gaze. “I’m telling you now because—” He faltered, tried again. “I want to stop making you pay for my nightmares. I know you don’t want to fix me but I do. I do want to change, get better, stop hurting you. I want to believe that I can.”
Ren reached out, just a small movement, and placed his hand over Goro’s on the coffee table. His fingers were warm, a counterweight to the chill in Goro’s bones.
“You don’t have to be perfect,” Ren said.
“I know.” Goro tried to laugh, but it came out strangled. “But it would be easier if I was.”
“You’re not alone in this,” Ren said. “If you start to spiral, just—” He paused, searching for a phrase. “Just tell me. Even if it doesn’t make sense.”
Goro considered it. The very idea of narrating his own catastrophes felt obscene, but the alternative—endless cycles of hurt and apology—was worse.
He nodded, a short, jerky motion. “Fine. But if I do, you have to promise to stop pretending you’re invisible. You’re allowed to be angry. Or sad. Or… whatever it is you actually feel. Even if you think it will hurt me.”
Ren’s mouth quirked, almost a smile. “Deal.”
They sat in silence for a moment, hands still entwined on the table. Goro forced himself to remain still, to let the moment persist rather than break it with some cutting remark. He traced the back of Ren’s hand with his thumb, once, then again, as if the movement could inscribe this fragile treaty onto his own skin.
“I’ll try to believe it,” he said. “I will.” He looked at Ren again, eyes clearer now. “Just… don’t give up on me if I mess up. Or at least, warn me before you leave.”
Ren squeezed his hand, firm and deliberate. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Goro believed him. Not because it made sense, but because—at least for tonight—it felt true.
They stayed like that, side by side on the couch, the city’s glow painting the walls in faint lines. Goro let his body relax, just a little, into the space Ren’s presence created. He closed his eyes, and for the first time in memory, the silence between them was easy.
He wondered if this was what it meant to be loved. Not the grand declarations or the doomed heroics, but the quiet act of staying. The willingness to keep sitting on the couch together, day after day, even when the script went off the rails.
He opened his eyes. Ren was watching him, patient as always, but with something more—something like pride, or perhaps relief. It was a look Goro had never known he needed.
He reached for Ren’s other hand, twined their fingers together, and let himself believe—for a minute, for an hour, for however long it would last—that this was enough. Maybe, in the end, it always had been.
Later that night, with Ren tangled in bed with him, sleeping soundly, Goro allowed himself to imagine a future measured not in days or weeks, but in the slow accretion of moments like this one—imperfect, uncertain, but real. He closed his eyes, and this time, he allowed himself to believe such a future exits.