Work Text:
Goro shows up again the way he always does: like he’s never been gone in the first place. Akira can’t say he wasn’t expecting it, though maybe hoping or dreading would be a better turn of phrase. It happens every time. No matter how long it’s been, no matter what happened the last time they saw each other—Goro always eventually barges his way back into Akira’s life without a single apology, and Akira always lets him do it.
But at least he doesn’t have to be nice about it anymore. “You’re drunk,” he says over the chain of his apartment door.
“I’ve had a drink,” Goro says. He’s dripping from the still-falling rain, leaving a filthy puddle on the concrete walkway in front of Akira’s place despite the overhang above them, and looks better than ever, the bastard. He also smells like it was actually vodka plummeting from the sky just now. “You’re so judgmental. Like I don’t know what you’ve gotten up to.”
A low blow. Akira’s fault for being grouchy. He shouldn’t have said anything at all. “Wish I could say the same,” he says. Goro doesn’t even have the good grace to flinch, just smirks lopsidedly at him about it. In truth Akira thinks he has a pretty good guess as to Goro’s recent activities, but it’s still a guess, and that kind of guessing was a major factor in their most recent breakup, so probably not great to bring up right now. Probably best to continue to avoid thinking of any of that, actually. “Are you dying or something? It’s really late.”
“It’s Saturday,” Goro says, like he’s still twenty years old, full of energy and untouchable by things like hangovers and back pain. He wears his hair off his face most of the time now, but his bangs are between his eyes like they used to be, sodden and limp. “And don’t act like you were asleep, it’s barely past midnight.”
“So it’s Sunday.”
“You’re so fucking annoying,” Goro says serenely, like he’s not the worst pedant Akira’s ever met when he wants to be, like he’s the one being inconvenienced. “May I come in?”
Akira shuts the door. Only to take the chain off, open the door wide right after, but with anyone else he would have told them that first. It’s ridiculous to think something like that could possibly hurt Goro’s feelings, or maybe make him think Akira’s less whipped and pathetic than Akira actually is, but—but when Akira opens the door again, Goro just gives him a long, slow blink, his face carefully void of emotion, so maybe it did do something after all. Akira feels annoyingly bad about that. “Stay in the genkan. I’ll get you a towel.”
Goro’s face leaves peach-coloured stains on the white terrycloth. He’s dressed in work clothes, button-down and slacks, no coat. He buttoned his shirt up wrong at the bottom, and it’s more open at the chest than usual. Akira wants to fix it for him very badly. “You got bored of avoiding me, I guess?”
“I guess,” Goro drawls back, and nearly falls over taking his second shoe off. Rebalances. “Don’t act so put out. It’s not my fault you’re pathologically incapable of telling anyone no. Maybe I stopped by as a chance for you to do some self-improvement. So you can work on growing a spine. Jesus, I think I need to drain these things in the sink.”
“You know where it is.”
Akira should have moved after the breakup. It’s not like he doesn’t know that. Not because Goro wouldn’t inevitably find his way back—if Akira’s learned anything since high school, it’s that Goro can and will sniff him out the second he feels like it—but for the obvious, pathetic, boring reasons, the empty spaces on shelves and dumbass memories and all that crap. But the rent’s not too bad and the location’s convenient and it allows cats, and it was a two bedroom to begin with, so Akira just got a roommate and stopped letting himself cry and got as far over it as he could drag himself.
Except apparently he only made it about three inches. When he was seventeen he just had a lot of sex to deal with these feelings, when he was twenty-six he drank, but now he’s almost twenty-eight and made some stupid promises so all he’s been able to do is work about it. And Akira hates his work. Hates the hours, the mind-numbing screens, the fact that he can’t hunt anyone down for being a raging dickhead and change their heart. Hates himself for having read too many books that told him exactly how he’s being exploited. But it pays okay. It wasn’t so bad when he and Goro could bitch about their jobs all the time, get into their stupid little debates where Goro pretends he doesn’t agree with every word Akira says. Akira can complain to the rest of his friends, but it’s not remotely the same.
There are voices in the kitchen. Ah, crap.
“—familiar. Like I swear I’ve seen you before?”
“I hear that a lot, actually.” Goro sounds chill, breezy, sober. Akira’s heard him say these exact words so many times he could mouth along. “I must just have one of those faces. It’s a bit of a pain, to tell you the truth.”
“Oh shit,” Akira’s roommate is saying now. “Sorry, man.”
“No, no, don’t worry about it. The name’s Nakajima, by the way.” That’s a new one.
“Kuramoto. So you know Kurusu ’cause…?”
That’s the thing that finally makes Akira realize he has to intervene, but he skids into the kitchen just in time to hear Goro say smilingly, “I’m his psycho ex-boyfriend. I’m sure he’s told you plenty about me.” And he turns that smile on Akira as punctuation, wide and even and false. He’s drinking one of Akira’s beers.
Great. “You really shouldn’t believe anything this guy says,” he tells Kuramoto, and grabs a beer of his own from the fridge, why the fuck not at this point, takes a long and bitter swig from the can. “Hey, Nakajima? Wanna go talk in my room?”
Goro just looks at him. Looks at the beer in Akira’s hands, when Goro has no right to judge at all, about anything, no matter what Akira told him back when Akira could still tell him things—and his smile fades into something emptier, and he says, “All right, then.”
Morgana’s curled up at the top of his cat tree by the balcony’s glass door, like he usually is on nights when it’s too hot or muggy for cuddles. Akira thinks he sees his eyes open a slit as they walk past; thinks he sees Mona cover his face with his paws, and maybe even hears a soft, feline groan. Mona was never good at delivering post-breakup pep talks, which is understandable, all things considered, but he did give it a try after their first one; since they broke up the second time, though, he’s just seemed sick of the whole subject. Akira’s sick of it too, and he never asked for anyone to comment on his love life or try to make him feel better to begin with, not even his best, furriest friend, so whatever.
Akira shouldn’t be mad at Mona. Akira shouldn’t be mad at anyone. Not even Goro, who shuts the door behind him and takes a delicate seat on the end of Akira’s bed. He looks around the room while he drinks, like Akira’s failure to fill Goro’s former half of it is a particularly intriguing art installation. They used to go to art shows all the time together, at first because they were Yusuke’s but later just because Goro got such a kick out of it; of looking serious and thoughtful and whispering his (usually completely insane) hot takes into Akira’s ear. Akira hasn’t unsubscribed from the gallery mailing list yet, even though the emails make him feel sick sometimes.
Stop it, Akira. “I’m not even out to Kuramoto, y’know,” he says, and leans back against the bedroom door.
“Really? I moved out, what, four months ago?” Four months and two weeks as of tomorrow. Actually. “And he couldn’t even guess? Don’t tell me you’ve been so bereft you won’t suck cock anymore.”
Akira breathes in with his diaphragm like goddamn Maruki taught him. Breathes out. “Why the fuck are you here?”
“If you mind my presence so much, you didn’t have to let me in.”
“Please just answer the question.”
Goro takes a delicate sip from his can, holds up the can afterwards and studies it. Goro doesn’t even like beer. “You know,” he says, “I’m getting some indications that you’re not exactly in the mood for talking tonight, so perhaps I’d better leave.”
But he doesn’t stand up. Just turns his gaze back on Akira, flat and unreadable. Akira used to think he could read every emotion Goro had, see through all his fake smiles, but sometimes he just turns everything off and—and when Akira pointed that out in a fight once, Goro said, You have so little self-awareness it’s a wonder you can recognize yourself in a mirror. “If you want to discuss something serious,” Akira says, “maybe act like it.”
Goro’s stare is cold now. “Mmhm. The hostility is entirely me. Every problem we’ve ever had is always me.”
“I’ve never said that.”
“Right,” Goro says, in that way of his. You didn’t have to, it means. “Anyway. I should go if I want to catch the last train. Sorry for the inconvenience. I’ll pay you back for the beer when I get paid next.”
The thought of watching him leave—just like that, a few harsh words between them and then he’s gone again, swallowed up by the city, doing who-knows-what with his life—well. Akira feels the sadness right in his chest, a seizing. The last therapist Akira saw told him he’s supposed to try to feel that. So he can really grasp how totally hopeless he is, or something. Akira’s considered going back and ask for clarification, but that introductory meeting made him realize he’s had more than enough of therapists for a lifetime and he’s not eager to relive the experience. “It’s supposed to thunder tonight. You can stay here. Dry off. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“I didn’t come here to guilt you into anything.”
“I know.” Akira does. It’s just that he’s all guilt all the time, these days. “I’m sorry. For starting shit. I just… I wish you’d call or something, first.”
“Right,” Goro says again.
The space between them feels a kilometre wide, but when Akira stands, walks past him to put his beer down on his bedside table, it feels like he’s infringing on Goro’s personal space.
He wants Goro to stay forever, is the thing. He’s always wanted that. He wants Goro’s life to be his life again, to hear every minor detail every day, to be the person Goro goes to for everything, and trying to have that didn’t work, so it’s never going to happen ever again. It’s such a mundane kind of grief. And it’s funny, isn’t it, that Akira can still grieve for Goro? Two fake deaths, two real breakups. Akira sometimes feels like he’s spent more time mourning him than anything else. Even when they were together, when they were trying to be happy, he was just bracing for another ending.
Horrible. This is why Akira doesn’t think about this crap. He steps away. “You can take a shower if you want. So you don’t get sick. Might help you sober up, too.”
“Is the pressure still fucked?”
“Yeah. Is your new place any better?”
“Slightly. And it has a tub.”
That’s nothing to hear, really. It shouldn’t hurt. Goro doesn’t move, anyway, just looks at Akira sideways like he does sometimes and says, “I didn’t mean to be an asshole. I just had a weird night, and you were the only person I… But I shouldn’t have.”
That’s the only verbal tell you get from Goro when he’s drinking, unless he’s really, really wasted—the unfinished sentences, the half thoughts. Akira says, “What kind of weird night?”
“You really don’t want to know.”
“So you fucked someone.” Akira’s own words make something flip in his stomach, but they come out calm and flat.
“We’re broken up,” Goro says, just as calmly. “You don’t get to lord that over me anymore. If you really want to hear about this, then sit down.”
Lord it over him. Fuck. Akira takes a seat on the bed. Two people could fit in the gap between him and Goro.
This is the same bed they’ve always had. Akira bought a new comforter after their last breakup, but that was in March, when it was still cool enough to use it. It’s rolled up at the bottom of the bed now, right next to where Goro’s currently leaving a damp spot, and the sheets Goro’s dripping on are the same sheets Akira bought with him years ago, two identical sets of them, a delicate check pattern over ivory. The morning after the cheating fight, the one that caused their first breakup, when Akira woke up and realized it wasn’t a bad dream and they’d have to keep talking about it, and they did, and the fight lasted like four days straight and made Akira cry in front of Goro for the first time since high school—that morning, he saw Goro asleep on these sheets, the early sun catching gold highlights in his hair. He might see that again, if Goro stays.
It’s funny that that’s the memory that sticks with him now. Not that thinking about the good parts hurts any less than the bad. The bad memories might be easier, actually, the weeds of you saids and I should haves and so on forever being something he can feel heat about, be focused on. The years of joint grocery shopping and casual welcome-home kisses and all that shit just serve to make Akira wish for a blade in his gut.
“So,” Akira says. “Who was he?”
“Some asshole. You know. The usual. You’d have had a field day with it.” (Goro said, “I don’t know why I did it, okay? It just happened—” and Akira said, “You did it because you’re so fucked in the head you’d choose some old fucking man over the person who wants to marry you,” and Goro’s face went so pale you’d think Akira had just threatened to murder him instead of finally, finally admitted it.) “That’s not fair. He seemed nice.”
Goro hates nice. “Seemed, huh?”
“His place was… you really want me to tell you this shit?”
“Why did you come here, if you didn’t want to tell me?”
Goro just looks at Akira for a moment after that. Then he says, “He had a two bedroom, all on his own. Clearly had the money for it too, but the whole place smelled like he never opens the windows. I didn’t care, except—halfway through he started talking about the other bedroom. Said he needed to show me. He practically dragged me in there. It turned out to be his daughter’s.”
“Weird,” Akira says, since it’s what he’s probably supposed to say.
“Right. And even ‘weirder’” (he says it in his I would never phrase it like that, but I’ll humour you voice) “was the fact that it was packed with Phantom Thieves merch. Posters, toys, all that shit. I didn’t even know they made half those things during you morons’ heyday. There was a little statue of you, you know, your stupid curly shoes and everything. I wanted to laugh, but… They were all his, you see. From after she died. Something to do with the train accident. Long-term complications. He didn’t get into specifics.”
“Oh,” Akira says.
“And he knew me. He hunted me down. He didn’t know—he was mad about the media, of all things. That I was against you, back then. He didn’t know a fraction of it, and he still found me and wanted me to see his shitty collection and her creepy little unmade bed, to listen to his ranting about how you stopped Shido, how I stood in the way of justice—I went back to the kitchen, found his booze, but he kept talking. He was so obsessed with it all and he didn’t even know.”
Goro’s eyes are very far away. Akira says, “You didn’t kill that girl. Shido did.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Goro says, like he always does when Akira says that sort of thing. It never used to bother Akira.
“Did he try to…?”
“Hurt me? You think I’d lose a fight to a fifty-year-old?” Goro looks fitter than ever, actually, in his usual trim way; there’s none of the hollowness about him that Akira remembers from his second return, the one after Maruki. A part of Akira hates that, wants Goro to be as miserably and uselessly heartbroken as Akira is; but if he was, would you even be able to tell? Goro adds, “He got a bit intense. It wasn’t anything significant.”
Goro does that: half-truths. My mother was in a relationship with some low-life of a man. I hate to admit it, but you’re beginning to grow on me. It only happened once, I swear. Though he said… he said that last one was real, said it so many times, but what he actually meant was he only had sex with someone else once, and Goro also said—years ago, absently, but it was impossible to forget—that he doesn’t consider anything but penetration to be sex, so how could Akira not add that together and get four?
But he shouldn’t be thinking of that now. Akira says, “Well, if anything starts bothering you, the first aid kit’s in the usual place.”
“Jesus.” Goro’s tone says: I knew you wouldn’t believe me. Akira’s not sure if it’s a confession or exasperation or disgust. Once upon a time he would have felt nauseous with shame for thinking so poorly of Goro, but now he knows he’s right, so it just makes him feel tired. Goro says, “I kept expecting him to pull a knife on me, once we were in the kitchen, actually. I would have, if… but that’s probably why he liked you so much. Nice people stick together. Your benevolent influence saves me yet again.”
That used to be a joke between them. Now it sounds like Goro never got over the resentment. Maybe it never was a joke after all. “This guy does not sound nice,” Akira says, which isn’t very progressive of him, he knows, judging some poor man who’s just going a little bit weird with grief. It’s hard not to hate the people Goro sleeps with, though. Even now. And Akira hates the idea of letting pain last that long, hates the image in his head of his masked, faceless statue-self presiding over a sad, dark, stale room for a decade and change. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“He wasn’t dangerous. It was just… I didn’t have anyone else to tell about it. I should have waited, though. Wrote you an email or something. Or not. I don’t know.”
“Goro,” Akira says, and doesn’t know what to say after that. He lands on, “I’m sorry.”
“Are you? I’d be thrilled, if I were you. My cheating ex gets his just desserts. Finally facing the consequences of my actions.”
There’s nothing in that story to feel victorious about. Even beyond the fact that Akira’s stupid brain keeps going back to halfway through what, exactly?, it sounds miserable. Akira loathes his own presence in the story, too, being used as a bludgeon against Goro once again, though the old guy obviously had no idea what he was doing. “You’ve been facing that for ages.”
“Not really. I’m fine.”
“You died. Twice.”
“I quite clearly did not,” Goro says, like he always does. It’s not a real argument anymore, not even the joke it eventually became; just the thing you say. “Anyway, I suppose I shouldn’t talk about it as consequences, really. Nothing truly happened to me, again, as usual. I might as well be stuck in Maruki’s fucking nightmare world.”
The worst thought Akira’s ever had comes back to him: If we were in that world, you wouldn’t have cheated on me. He hates that he thought it, hates that he never fully discarded it. And who knows if it’s true, anyway? All sorts of things could happen. And if they were there, there would be some part of Goro, even if that part only lived in Akira’s memory, that would hate him forever. Akira knows that.
But. “Is that really what you want?” Akira asks. “To be punished? Still?”
“If you try to psychoanalyze me tonight I will decapitate us both,” Goro says without venom. “All I’m saying is that nothing ever seems to stick. Even with you. Especially with you. It all just…”
When it becomes obvious Goro’s not finishing his sentence, Akira says, “I think there have been consequences for a lot of things. With me. At least.”
“But I was the one who had to call it,” Goro said. “You would have gone on forever like that.”
Akira thinks: Would that really have been so bad? But if he said that, Goro would answer. So instead: “I don’t want to talk about that. You can’t just show up here and make me talk about whatever you want, Goro.”
A long silence from Goro. Then he just says, “Okay. You’re right.” And Akira thinks for a moment that he might have preferred a fight, a big blow-out one. Goro capitulating never feels right. Never feels real. But Akira doesn’t get to know what Goro really thinks anymore, does he? He probably hasn’t ever really known that. He was stupid for thinking he did.
And Goro’s just looking at him now, thin lashes (You nearly made me start wearing mascara to Sae-san’s Palace back then, your eyelashes pissed me off so much, Goro told him once) casting shadows over his eyes, which are as incongruently sweet as they were the first time they met, even now. Akira digs in his mind for something normal to say, something that won’t hurt either of them. It doesn’t go well. “I think,” he begins finally, and then reconsiders it. Goro makes his Spit it out face, though, so fuck it. “I think you just have to accept it, Goro. You’re stuck here, with the rest of us. And no one’s going to come around and make you pay for it in a way that satisfies you. That guy couldn’t do it. And I can’t either. So.”
Goro leans over. Takes his hand with the palm facing down and slashes it in front of Akira’s neck and makes this noise that sounds kind of like chkk. He does it so seriously that Akira doesn’t even laugh—or maybe he doesn’t because Goro is so close that Akira can smell him under the alcohol, under even the rain and his same old cologne, the soft sweet human essence of him. “You killed me again,” Akira says, soft.
“You’re dead,” Goro agrees, his voice even lower. His breath is hot on Akira’s face.
They could try again, one last time. It always happened like this before—a purely platonic catch-up hangout, maybe one or both having a drink or two; they’d get closer and closer and by the next morning they’d be together again, like no one had killed or died or skipped town or cheated, like Akira forgave every rupture. Goro said once, You have a list in your head of everything I’ve ever done, and you pull it out every single time you’re mad at me, and the worst part is you refuse to admit you do because you think that would make you a bad person, and he was right, but all admitting that did was break them up. He can put the list away for good, maybe, if he tries hard enough. There are worse things than being a fool.
Akira thought the same things last time. They lasted a year.
Goro lets out a light cough. Sits back, folds his arms over his chest. “By the way, since we’re really getting into our various deficiencies, how’s it going? With the booze? Since you clearly haven’t quit quit.”
He knew it was coming, but Akira kind of feels like he’s just been strangled anyway. He breathes in for three, then says, “I told you. I have it under control.” It’s true, and there’s no evidence to the contrary, anyway. Akira noticed a pattern, and cut it off, and now he’s fine. Everyone knows he’s fine except Goro, who pathologically projects vice onto everyone he knows and desperately needs therapy for it. Well. Among other things. “This shit’s like three percent. Helps me relax after work. You know.”
“But you said you were going to stop.”
“We’ve both said a lot of things,” Akira says. “Now who’s judgemental? I’m not the one who can’t stop fucking weird old guys.”
It’s a horrible thing to say. Cruel, petty, spiteful, and the exact kind of thing that used to slip out of Akira’s mouth in the middle of a completely unrelated argument because he’d been stewing over it for a week. What is he doing if not proving to Goro why he was worth cheating on, why Akira’s impossible to talk to, why he’s never been the person everyone else thinks he is— But Goro just says, “Touché. Couldn’t you at least relax with something that doesn’t taste like piss?”
So maybe it’s fine. Maybe they’re just pretending Akira never said anything evil at all. “That was sort of on purpose,” Akira says. “I kind of like IPAs now, though.”
The side of Goro’s mouth quirks. “Uh-oh.”
“You know it really wasn’t that bad. And it’s weird to not drink with your coworkers. They ask questions. So, like. You know.” He’s saying that too much. “I’m fine, Goro. Really.”
“Oh, well, in that case,” Goro says. Then he says, “I’m getting your bed wet.”
“Yeah,” Akira says. “Well.”
Goro doesn’t say sorry. He hates saying sorry, though he’s said it to Akira over and over through the years, sometimes not even in a passive-aggressive way. But he looks sorry. If nothing else, Akira can still read that from him, feel certain of its veracity. “You could have said something.”
“It’s just the end. It’s okay. You really can go shower if you want. Or even just change. My blue PJs are clean.”
“You shouldn’t be so nice to me.”
“I really haven’t been,” Akira says, and Goro doesn’t say anything back. He just stands up, starts going through Akira’s chest of drawers as if he still lives here. Doesn’t say anything about how Akira doesn’t fold his clothes properly anymore, about how the once carefully regimented sections have become a hodgepodge—jeans here, underwear there. Then he finds what he needs, gives Akira a quick nod, and plods off, Akira’s old towel draped over his shoulder.
The most treacherous part of Akira’s mind thinks of Goro showering—the way he always looked, the water glistening on his chest; the times Akira darted into the shower with him. The times Akira thought about doing it and didn’t have the guts. That happened more and more in their last year together, when once Akira had no fear whatsoever of hitting on Goro, of making the dirtiest jokes at all opportunities and propositioning him at the drop of the hat. (It usually worked.) When Goro came back after high school that first time, when Akira got over wanting to fucking throttle him for pretending to be dead for so long, for years… When all that was done, they were so happy. They had endless, amazing sex, and they talked and talked and talked and everything was easy in a way it hadn’t ever been before. No lies, Akira thought, no secret truths being danced around by either of them. Finally. And then they fell into a pattern, into domesticity, and Akira maybe drank too much occasionally and maybe some other things went wrong sometimes too but he still thought he was the happiest he’d ever been, and then Goro cheated.
And then they tried again. But it was all wrong. They never had a big fight again, but they had little ones, over everything, ones that left Akira gnawing on the inside of his cheek and Goro detached and cold. Akira read a cringy book about relationships and tried to apply its advice, used I statements and imagined he was in Goro’s shoes, but maybe he did it wrong, because it only ever made things worse. And worse than that, the conversation got shallow and narrow, when once they could talk about absolutely anything that crossed either of their minds, from solitary confinement to murder to roasting the shit out of home remodelling shows on TV.
And Goro still went out a lot, and he was allowed to go out, obviously, he liked the jazz club and the library and the climbing gym and Akira never asked if those places were really where he went, never started shit about it, didn’t even ask Goro to call if he was staying out too late, just stayed at home and drank his stupid little craft beers until Goro came back and answered Akira’s questions about his night (that were never that question, except of course they really were) and they both smiled at each other and pretended everything was fine.
It wasn’t the worst thing ever. But it wasn’t great either. Goro was the one who finally brought it up, in the end; he said I know what you think I’m doing and Akira hated him right then for breaking the silence they’d carefully crafted with each other, the biggest thing they still shared. And then they’d talked. The single worst conversation they’d ever had.
And then Goro left. And Akira thought he would get over it. That’s what everyone said: It’ll just take time. But it didn’t; the feelings got worse, the loneliness and the fear that he’ll never have anything like that again and the sense—the sense that increases as time passes, becomes more and more certain in his mind—that the problem wasn’t the fighting or the silence or even the cheating but Akira, intrinsically. That there’s something horrible inside of him that only Goro has ever truly recognized, something that pushed Goro away from him in the first place. And Goro loved him, he said he loved him, even as they broke up he said he loved him, but still—
It’s too much to think about. Akira climbs into his bed, pulls the cover up over his head like a child and thinks of getting another beer, the crisp chill of one just out of the fridge, the bubbles on his tongue. It wasn’t even that big a deal, Akira’s drinking, really; he never blacked out or got into fistfights or peed on things he shouldn’t, only occasionally spent too much time in seedy bars and came back late, and that was years ago now. He just fell into bad habits when they were broken up, the last time, and maybe for a bit before that too, and it took some time to get back out of them. And…sure, yeah, he used to drink in the mornings sometimes, but he didn’t have to. He’s proven to himself that he’s perfectly capable of waking up from his stupid fucking locked-cell dreams and not doing anything about it. It just sucks more when he doesn’t.
There was a point, long ago, when Akira would wake from a nightmare and find Goro’s arms already around him. He wouldn’t ask about the dream, voice the gentle probing questions Akira struggled to keep to himself whenever it was the other way around; just held him tightly, even though Akira used to kick when he got startled, when it was really bad. Goro never seemed to mind being kicked, said he’d done worse on purpose so who cares what Akira did by accident. Or he’d smile like he did when he brought out Loki and say, Try and take me in a fair fight, then.
Akira can’t remember why those mornings stopped. He can’t even remember when. Maybe some things aren’t worth the risk of wondering about.
Akira told Goro he’d quit drinking, sure. He quit the parts that mattered. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a drink or two at a work function or after a long day or when your ex shows up drunk out of the blue to tell you about his depressing fucking sex life and goes rooting through your fridge to find things to hurt you with. Akira’s fine. And Akira shouldn’t have said what he did but he was right, wasn’t he, about the hypocrisy?
“I knew I left my body wash here,” comes Goro’s voice from the vicinity of the doorway, followed by the sound of the door being very lightly closed. “You need to start throwing my shit out, Akira, it’s unhealthy. Are you asleep?”
When Akira peeks his head up from his covers, Goro’s dressed and dry in Akira’s PJs, though he used to sleep in only his underwear in the summer, his hair tucked neatly into a towel-turban, looking slightly quizzical. “So I’m taking the couch, then?”
“No. I…” What is Akira doing? What is he ever doing? Seething in his bed over nothing like a bratty little kid. “I’ll be out in a sec. Come lie down.”
He watches Goro think about it for a second: eyes flat, brows furrowed. Then he sighs, takes a delicate seat on Akira’s bed, nearly on top of Akira’s legs, his own legs curled under him. He smells like coconut. Akira never sat around sniffing Goro’s left-behind body wash bottle or anything, he’s not quite that pathetic, but he missed that smell. “Akira, we…” Goro begins, and then stops.
Akira doesn’t want to hear the end of that sentence. Maybe Goro wouldn’t get to it anyway, but just in case, he says, “I never talk shit about you, you know. You didn’t have to worry about that.”
Goro says, “Well, maybe you should do that, too.” Akira doesn’t really know what to say in response, and Goro doesn’t seem like he’s going to elaborate; just looks down at him. Akira missed his face so badly: his big aspartame eyes, his soft cruel lips. Akira thought he’d never stop admiring Goro, once; but whenever Goro comes back, he finds himself looking at Goro as if he’s never seen him before, as if Goro’d been invisible for much longer than he was gone.
Goro lifts a hand. Brushes Akira’s hair out of his eyes, so lightly Akira barely feels it, and says, “I didn’t ask you about the drinking to be an asshole, Akira. I worry about you. You weren’t meant to be a salaryman.”
A lot of things weren’t meant to happen. Akira’s too worn out to talk about it, too worn out to parse what exactly about that is making him feel like complete garbage. Goro’s palm is settling in Akira’s hair now. It’s warm. “I’m okay,” Akira says, and smiles a little. “We’re both okay. Right?”
“Right,” Goro says. His long fingers tangle in Akira’s hair, comb it back; then he pauses. Takes his hand back. “I really can leave if you want.”
And wouldn’t it be easier if he did? Akira would be able to bury himself in whatever the hell he wants, he could drink whatever he wants unobserved and bogart Kuramoto’s PlayStation and think absolutely fucking nothing about Goro Akechi. But—“I just missed you,” he says. “It’s nice to have you here for a bit. I’m sorry I said that stuff earlier.”
Goro sighs; shifts until he’s lying on his side on what used to be Akira’s side of the bed. Akira thinks of being seventeen, of being twenty-one, lying with Goro like this in bedrooms he’ll never see again. Looking into his eyes so long they started to seem an unearthly crimson instead of brown. “We said we’d be friends,” Goro says after a moment, his voice low and soft. “But I just don’t know how to do that.” And Akira feels something curl in his gut, that same worse-than-anxiety sickness he used to feel every time Goro was out too long, every time they got in a fight, every time they broke up. That sense of This is it, this is the worst thing, we’ll never be okay again and it’s probably entirely my fucking fault— But Goro continues, “I don’t know how to be friends with anyone. I only ever had you.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Akira says. In his good-listener voice. His I-have-no-personal-feelings-about-this-actually voice. “You know tons of people.”
“Don’t do that,” Goro says. “Have a real conversation with me, Akira.”
“Sorry.” Always, automatic. And less so, more carefully, though his stomach coils again, though it squeezes his chest tight: “Do you want to be my friend?”
Goro looks at him for a long moment. Then he—who ended it, who cheated, who came back to Akira time after time—says, “I wanted to be your boyfriend. So. I don’t know.”
“Oh,” Akira says. “Okay.”
“No, I mean— I don’t know what I mean. I don’t want to not know you. I’ve never wanted that. It’s just. It’s hard, Akira.”
And Akira could fix it. It would be so, so simple. Sit up, cup Goro’s perfect cheek in his palm. Lean in. And afterwards, make promises, confessions, plans; all the useless shit that’s been whirling around in Akira’s brain making him feel like scum will finally have a purpose. It can be okay. He can do everything right this time. He just needs to find the words.
“It’s really hard,” he says, and stares up at the ceiling, and doesn’t move an inch.