Archive of Our Own

“Been a while, kid. Come on in.”

Goro can’t detect any judgement in Sojiro’s gruff voice, or in the wry look he shoots over the bar, but that must be the result of the handful of patrons scattered throughout the small café. Surely, were they alone, Sojiro would not be welcoming him into his establishment like this.

“Thank you,” Goro says anyway, depositing his closed umbrella in the bucket beside the door. Outside, the rain is pouring down, filling the shop with an ambient patter that suits the homey atmosphere just right. For a second, Goro allows himself to breathe in the familiar, rich scent of coffee, letting a calm he hasn’t felt in weeks settle in his bones. “I...admittedly, I have missed stopping by,” he says warily, stepping into the warm room.

Sojiro shrugs, wiping at a mug with his rag. “Not like anyone told you to stay away.”

“Right.” Goro fiddles with the buttons lining the front of his winter jacket, popping the first two. “Of course.”

Sojiro watches him in a way that makes Goro want to sink into the floor. “I’d make you your usual, but—” he jerks his head toward the back hallway, “—what you came for is already upstairs.”

Goro’s eyes follow the gesture, catching on the corner of the wall that hides the stairs leading up to the attic, and he presses his lips together. The unseen staircase may as well be a lion’s den for the trepidation that rolls through him. “I thought...he’s not working?”

“He’s supposed to be,” Sojiro grumbles. “But he’s been useless lately. Today was especially bad so I sent him back upstairs.” He shakes his head, setting his mug aside and reaching for another one. “The whole damn place is gonna go under at this rate.”

“Maybe if you expanded the menu, boss—” the customer sitting at the bar suggests, but a sharp glare from Sojiro silences her.

“I see.” Goro busies his hands with the rest of his buttons, still fixated on the hall. “I’m...sorry to hear that.”

“Sure, sure.” Sojiro flaps his rag in Goro’s direction. “Now stop dawdling. I got paying customers to deal with right now.”

“Yes, sir,” Goro mumbles, taking an automatic step forward.

The journey through the café and up the stairs passes with underwater slowness, a bizarre, nostalgic dread settling heavy in his bones with each movement. He skips over the noisy step without thinking and then, inexorably, Goro finds himself in front of the door separating the upstairs loft from the rest of the shop.

When the remodeling began, a door to offer the attic some privacy was one of the first priorities, and Goro had certainly been grateful, given how much time he ended up spending there. Now, he stares at the smooth wood unblinkingly, stomach tossing like a ship at sea.

Giving himself a sharp mental shake, Goro lifts his hand and raps gloved knuckles against the door in a short series of hollow thuds.

A beat of silence drags past. Then a soft voice issues from behind the door:

“It’s open.”

Steeling himself, Goro turns the knob.

The entryway is still partially complete, weather-proof flooring only laid over half of the small area, leaving the section in front of the bathroom door covered in nothing but plastic sheeting to protect the hardwood underneath. The bathroom itself is how Goro left it as well: no door, appliances hooked up to the expanded plumbing system visible in the unfinished walls, tools and planks of wood and buckets of plaster sitting haphazardly around the tile floor, waiting to be put to use. Goro only gets a quick look, but it doesn’t seem like any more work has been done on it in the past month, and before he can investigate further, his attention is commanded by the figure shoving himself upright in bed.

The lights in the attic are off, save for the single lamp glowing on the bedside table, the only defense against the gray gloom pounding against the window, and it’s barely enough to illuminate Akira’s shocked expression. He looks wretched, unruly curls snarled wilder with bedhead, skin pale despite the yellowish light, and heavy bruises hanging under his wide eyes, obvious even from across the room, and as he struggles out of the tangled blankets, he stares like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

“Goro—?” His voice is quiet, hoarse from apparent disuse. Or maybe tears.

Goro closes the door behind himself. “You look terrible,” he says blandly.

On his feet now, Akira doesn’t move toward him, and Goro can clearly read the hesitation in his frame. “What are you doing here?” he asks, scanning the length of Goro’s body.

Pressing his lips together, Goro chances another step into the familiar apartment, ignoring the impulse to shrug his jacket off and hang it on the hook by the door like he used to. “I was...encouraged to come.”

Akira furrows his dark brows. “Ann.”

“Your friends are concerned about you.” Goro crosses his arms, darting his gaze around the dim apartment. “Heaven knows why they don’t come themselves.”

“They have.” Akira’s bitter tone draws Goro’s gaze back to his stormy expression. “And I told them I’m fine.”

“Clearly, they didn’t believe you. Nor should they have.” Outside the window, the rain briefly crashes harder against the glass, propelled by a gust of wind that sets the exposed wooden ceiling above them groaning. “You appear to be wasting away up here.”

“Yeah, well—” Akira drags a hand through his tangled hair, “—that’s not really any of your business anymore, is it?”

Something sharp pangs in Goro’s chest, suspiciously close to his heart. “I suppose not.”

Crossing his arms, Akira regards Goro across the distance still separating them, and somehow the few meters of squeaky wooden floorboards suddenly feel like miles. “So then why did you come?”

“As I said, I was asked—”

“Like you ever do things just because someone asks,” Akira scoffs.

Goro scowls at the dig. “Then why do you think I’ve come?” he asks sharply.

Akira bunches up one shoulder. “To laugh at how pathetic I am?” he suggests.

“Do you really think I’d do that?”

“I thought you didn’t like me trying to predict you.”

“And yet you’ve invented my motivation for me.”

“Well, I can’t think of any other reason you’d be here. When you left, you made it pretty clear that—” Akira breaks off with a quick inhale, pressing his lips together.

Goro grits his teeth in his mouth, heat prickling uncomfortably under his winter layers. “That what?”

Akira holds his gaze, his fringe shadowing his expression. “Why are you here?” he repeats in a controlled tone.

At his sides, Goro’s fingers twitch and he balls them into tense fists. “I was told under no uncertain terms to fix this shit,” he bites out, repeating Ann’s words exactly. “And so here I am. Honestly, I thought Ann was exaggerating, but now I see she was being charitable.”

Akira barks out a humorless laugh. “Right—yeah, it must be so dismaying for you to see me so cut up about this—that was always what you hated most about me, wasn’t it? My spineless sentimentality?”

Goro almost flinches as his own words slice into him from across the room. Of course Akira would hang onto that. At the time, Goro wanted nothing more than for him to take those words to heart. Apparently, he did, in the worst possible way. “Honestly, it is dismaying,” he admits harshly, “—that you would be so affected by something like this.”

“Am I not allowed to be upset that my boyfriend left me?” Akira snaps.

Dragging in a thin breath, Goro ignores the painful tightness in his chest. “These theatrics of yours—”

“Theatrics?” Akira repeats incredulously. “You think I’m acting?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You have all of these—expectations of me,” Akira cuts in, lurching forward a half-step, “—and then when I don’t fall into this little character you’ve created, you act like I’m lying somehow—”

“I have never accused you of lying,” Goro shoots back, anger boiling hot under his skin. “Though I know you’re certainly capable of it—as well as playing a role to get what you want—”

“And what am I going to get out of this?” Akira demands shrilly, gesturing loosely at the general disarray of the attic, his unmade bed sheets, his rumpled sweats. “Worried friends and a boss who can barely stand having me around—you marching in here and telling me I’m just making this all up—” he pins Goro with miserable eyes from across the room, and Goro’s heart throws itself into his throat, shivering weakly at the back of his tongue. “I can barely get out of bed, Goro—I looked at the calendar yesterday and nearly—” his voice cracks and he raises one hand to cup his palm over his forehead. When he speaks again, he’s almost drowned by the storm blowing outside: “Who am I pretending for?” His fingers claw into the dark strands of his bangs. “Why would I choose to feel this empty?”

The compulsion to cross to him rocks through Goro with the force of a derailed train, tensing every muscle in his body at once. He wants nothing more than to pry Akira’s hand loose from his hair before he hurts himself, bury it in his own instead, give Akira something less painful to hold onto. But he can’t. He gave that up.

When he doesn’t respond, Akira lets out a feeble chuckle. “Sorry to keep disappointing you.” He drops his gaze, nails digging into his scalp. “I know you hate it when I feel things.”

“I don’t—” Goro seals his lips together against the protest, inhaling shallowly. Unable to bear the sight of Akira’s hunched shoulders, he switches his own gaze to the floor as well, swallowing hard.

A terrible, leaden silence crushes all of the air from the room. Overhead, thunder growls, and the warped floorboards beneath Goro’s feet illuminate with a streak of lightning.

“Can—” Akira rasps finally, the sound more alarming than the storm, and Goro jolts, not looking up, “—can you—tell me what to do instead? Can you tell me where I’m supposed to...put all of this? I need—” Akira sucks in a rattling breath, “—I need to be the person you want me to be—I need to be someone who doesn’t need you—but I...I don’t know how.”

Goro screws his eyes shut, ice stabbing between his ribs. “You—” his voice comes out thin and whispery, squeezed through the cold gripping his throat, “—you don’t need me. Already.”

Another beat of oppressive wordlessness hangs between them. Then a heavy footstep, followed by the creak of bedsprings, a weight collapsing backward onto a mattress.

Holding his breath, Goro doesn’t dare look up. He compels himself to turn around, feet clumsily following his orders, until he’s staring down at the half-finished floor of the entryway.

Ann is going to be upset, but there’s nothing he can do. He can’t fix this shit. Not when he’s what needs fixing.

His temples ache from the strain of clenching his jaw, but he grinds his teeth even harder and drags himself forward a step, shoes scuffing against the plastic on the ground. Before him, the door stands, sturdy and impassible. He extends his hand robotically, eyes falling on the doorknob. He remembers when he and Akira tried to install the hardware. They put the lock in upside down at first and neither of them could figure out why the key wouldn’t turn, until Goro rattled too hard in a fit of frustration and jerked it the opposite way, revealing their mistake. When Goro went to dig the mechanism out and try again, Akira stopped him, brows pinched in genuine concern, and asked if keeping it flipped would be better for him.

“Why?”

“Isn’t it easier to open with your left hand this way?”

He only consented to changing it when Goro insisted it really didn’t matter either way.

Now, endless miles behind him, Akira is sucking in a sharp breath, crumpled in on himself, radiating a grief so thick, Goro can feel it stagnating in the air around them. And he’s about to turn the knob they installed together and walk out. And leave him. Again.

Goro lowers his hand.

The plastic under his feet shuffles again as he turns back, and he drags his head up, forcing himself to witness Akira’s unfiltered misery.

He can barely stand to face it, every nerve in his body screaming from the wrongness of seeing Akira so ruined by him, but he can’t turn away from the truth anymore, and he shoves himself forward.

Akira doesn’t lift his face from his hands as Goro crosses the attic in halting, uneven steps, and as Goro gets closer, he can clearly make out the hitched rise and fall of his shoulders, the faint trembling of his entire frame. A few feet from the bed, the ice leaching into Goro’s bones crystallizes painfully and he sinks under the weight, falling heavily to his knees. The solid thud wakes the ache in his chest, numbed all day by nerves, and it blares out a warning siren, but Goro ignores it.

Before him, Akira goes very still, face hidden, breathing stalled. Goro stares at the top of his tangled head, eyes burning.

“The person you are without me—” the words tumble from his numb lips, pooling on the floor between his knees and Akira’s bare feet, “—can be happy. But the person I am without you—can’t. How can I justify making you bear that burden?”

Akira’s fingers twitch in his hair, pale spider legs amidst dark curls.

“We shouldn’t be together,” Goro presses. “It’s not good for you. It...changes you. Look what it’s done to you already.”

Without warning, Akira picks his head up, and Goro is speared in place by glittering slate eyes. All of the breath rushes out of his lungs, but he continues despite the gravity creeping through him:

“I had to end this before it was too late. For both of us.”

Akira straightens up a bit, searching his face, and Goro angles his head up to hold his gaze, heart pounding in time with the rain pulsing against the window.

“The person I am...when I’m with you,” Akira repeats softly, “—you don’t want him.”

Horrifically, Goro’s vision abruptly blurs, tears smudging Akira’s face into an indistinct mess of black and white. “I—”

“That night—” Akira continues, and the bed squeaks as he shifts forward, “—you never said you didn’t want me, or that you didn’t like me—you know—” he takes in a trembling breath, “—you know I’ll let you go if you say...you don’t want me. Say it. Say you can’t stand the person I become with you. Say you’re disgusted that your ideal version of me is gone. Say that you’re leaving for your own selfishness.”

Thorns bloom in Goro’s chest, scraping up his throat, until he thinks he can taste metal, staring up at Akira with tears threatening to spill over his eyelids. “I...I don’t….”

Akira doesn’t let him look away, gripping his gaze with his typical, cutting intensity. “If you can say that, then I’ll accept it,” he whispers. “I’ll let you go. I’ll spend the rest of my life pretending like I’m okay and you can walk off and be just as miserable on your own. You’ll have what you want.”

What he wants. What he wants is for Akira to be the happiest, most complete version of himself, and how can he ever do that with someone like Goro by his side? Whatever purpose Goro may have served in helping Akira overcome his internal hang-ups, his guilt, his savior complex—surely he’s outlived that. Surely he’s only damaging Akira by continuing to cling to him now, drawing Akira deeper and deeper into his fucked up web of shame and resentment. Someone like Akira, who just radiates love, will only be corroded by exposure to someone like Goro, who can only drain. And even though Akira thinks he needs Goro now, eventually—he’ll realize how much Goro has mangled him.

The dull, ever-present throb in Goro’s chest flares a little brighter, brushing the quivering edge of Goro’s heart.

Goro managed to delude himself for a while, a few blissful months of letting Akira’s love make him almost real. But when the autumn chill started to creep in and the wounds on his torso started aching so badly he was forced to renew his painkiller prescription, he couldn’t ignore the guilt in Akira’s eyes every time he saw the inflamed skin, or the anxiety knotting in his own stomach. People who have done what they’ve done to each other shouldn’t be together. He knows Akira can be happy without him, so isn’t it his responsibility to make the hard choice and leave? Before they butcher each other any further?

And now, all he has to do to keep from completely destroying Akira’s life forever is tell one lie.

I don’t want the person you’ve become.

Goro opens his mouth.

Akira stares down at him, face pale and stricken, waiting.

But nothing happens. Goro blinks and hot, swollen tears spill down his cheeks, dripping off of his trembling jaw to splatter on the backs of his gloves. Throat closing up, Goro snaps his teeth together around a furious, hissing exhale and squeezes his eyes shut, unable to bear the raw emotion unfolding behind Akira’s gaze.

“Goro—”

Arms shaking, Goro raises his hands and presses them over his eyes in an attempt to stem the flow, the leather quickly growing damp against his skin.

“Goro.”

There are hands on his shoulders, safe, familiar fingers smoothing down his arms, cupping firmly under his elbows, and a gentle but unyielding pressure is drawing him upward. Helpless against the pull, Goro gives in, climbing blindly into Akira’s solid warmth. Akira instantly wraps around him, and Goro lets himself be tugged into Akira’s lap, burying his face in the crook of Akira’s neck and fisting his hands in Akira’s collar, legs slung to one side.

“Goro,” Akira murmurs, lips brushing his ear, one arm locked around his waist. “It’s okay, I’ve got you—” Soft fingertips trace through his hair, fluttery and reverent and the thorns in Goro’s chest collapse inward, constricting around his thrumming heart until he’s sure he’s going to scream from the pain.

But when he pries his mouth open, all that comes out is a tattered sob. Every muscle in his body folds into the familiar cage of Akira’s embrace, his puppet strings snipped by the sheer relief of Akira’s body against his.

He must have been stupid to think he could actually live without this. Like it’s not already far too late for both of them.

A cold nose nuzzles against his neck, hot breath ghosting over his clammy skin, frizzy curls brushing his cheek, and Akira’s hands clutch desperately at his coat, pulling him impossibly close, and Goro wishes he could just disappear into the warmth blooming between them.

“Akira—” he gasps, trembling fingers unwinding to span the side of Akira’s throat. Even through his gloves, he can feel the frantic drum of Akira’s pulse on the other side of the thin skin. “Akira, I—”

“It’s okay—”

“No, listen—” Clumsy with adrenaline crash, Goro extricates himself from Akira’s collar and fumbles for Akira’s face, pulling him up enough to press their foreheads together. Akira goes keenly, fitting their noses together and releasing a soft, almost inaudible whimper that pierces into Goro’s galloping heart. “Akira,” Goro breathes, sweeping his thumbs over Akira’s cheekbones, “—I want you—” furrowing his brow, Goro blinks his eyes open and finds himself met with dark, glittering sterling, too close to be in focus, but undeniably watching him with wounded desperation, just as clinging and frantic as the hands fisted in his coat. “Who you are—everyone you are—” Goro continues, tongue tripping with a sort of delirious urgency he could never feel for anyone but Akira, “—I will always want you.”

“Goro—”

“You’re you, Akira—I could never not want you—never—” A fresh wave of tears pours down his face and he sucks in a shattered breath, swallowing back the tightness in his throat. “You’re the only one—” he hiccups, “—the only one—Akira—”

Lips catch his and steal the rest of his words, but he gives them up eagerly in exchange for the aching, needy kiss, pressing everything he doesn’t know how to say into Akira’s mouth. Akira drinks it all in, slotting perfectly against him. Even after nearly three weeks apart, when Akira asks, Goro opens on instinct, and Akira’s hands find the exact places that Goro’s missed them the most. Past the salt of the tears on both of their lips, the comforting taste of coffee and Akira invades his senses and sinks into Goro like an analgesic, relief blurring all of the jagged edges scraping around in his head until he can barely hold himself up, clinging to Akira’s shoulders and struggling to match the kiss’s ardent rhythm.

When another choked sob punches out of Goro’s chest, Akira pulls back just enough to let him get air back into his constricted lungs, and Goro has to close his eyes again against the water filling his vision.

“Shh—” Akira breathes against his trembling lips, “—it’s okay—” One hand smooths up Goro’s spine and the other retreats, before, a second later, Goro feels something soft dabbing at his wet cheek. Blinking his eyes open, he realizes that Akira’s pulled his sleeve up over his thumb and is using the cuff to dry some of the tears streaming down Goro’s face. “I’ve got you,” Akira murmurs again, stroking tenderly along Goro’s cheekbone. “I’ve missed you so much, Goro—”

His words, combined with the gentleness of his hands and the vulnerable hope shining in his dilated eyes, flay Goro to the bone. The pain of a bullet passing millimeters from his heart, of nearly drowning in a capsized yacht, of dragging himself onto shore with blood filling his lungs, of endless scans and needles and surgeries, of arduous physical therapy and tearing his scars open and refusing his pain pills with memories of his mother haunting every agonizing breath—none of it compares to the violence of Akira’s love. Nothing will ever undo him like Akira undoes him.

Nothing will ever remake him like Akira remakes him.

“I missed you too—” Goro can barely get his voice behind it, almost mouthing the words as he slides one shaking hand into Akira’s hair. “I shouldn’t have—left you like that—but I—”

“It’s okay—”

“—I was—”

“Goro, it’s okay—” Akira sways forward again, rushing in like the tide to fill every empty dip of Goro’s body, to meet him for another breathless kiss.

Goro surrenders to Akira’s embrace, abandoning his attempts at explaining himself. He’s never had to justify himself to Akira. No matter what he does, Akira understands and accepts and forgives and, most astonishingly, makes him feel like he deserves it all.

When Akira tightens his grip on Goro’s waist and tips them sideways, Goro falls with him, barely breaking the kiss as they land on the mattress before pressing forward again, an embarrassing whimper fracturing at the back of his throat. Lower bodies tangled together, Akira moves over him, bracing his arms beside Goro’s head and forming a dark, warm barrier between Goro and the rest of the attic. Goro breathes him in and tilts his head, silently asking for more as he clutches at Akira’s hair. Understanding instantly, Akira slides his tongue past Goro’s lips, licking deep into his mouth, and Goro meets him with a muffled hum, draping his arms over Akira’s shoulders to fasten into his shirt.

Warm sunlight drips down the back of Goro’s throat, spreading brightly down into his lungs, and he can feel the thorns shrinking back, every sharp and hateful little edge that’s been growing in him since he left withering under the feverish weight of Akira bearing him into the mattress. Meeting Akira’s tongue with his own in a hot, wet slide, Goro maneuvers his legs apart, allowing Akira to settle more firmly on top of him, and Akira’s answering moan reverates all the way into Goro’s chest.

Gasping for air, Akira tips his head down, breaking the kiss even as he curls tighter over Goro’s body. “Fuck, I missed you—” he says again, fogging the enclosed space between them with his frenzied breathing. “When I thought I’d never see you again—”

Goro’s stomach flips painfully. “I’m sorry—” he swallows past the sudden dryness in his throat, “—I left you—again—” For the third time, he turned his back on Akira and walked away. “All I do is hurt you—”

“Goro—”

He doesn’t realize that more tears have snuck out of the corners of his eyes until Akira is once again blotting them away with his sleeve, hovering just over Goro with a familiar electric intensity glittering in his gaze. “You came back.”

“Through coercion—”

“Aren’t you the one who always says no one can make you do anything you don’t want to do?” A thin smile graces the side of Akira’s mouth. “You wouldn’t have come unless you wanted to. You wanted to come back.”

Goro doesn’t answer, caught in the tractor beam of Akira’s stare, fingers scratching fitfully at Akira’s collar.

“Thank you,” Akira murmurs, dipping down to bump his nose against Goro’s temple. “Thank you for choosing me.” His lips graze the side of Goro’s head as he nestles himself fully on top of Goro. “Thank you for wanting me.”

Heart fluttering frantically, Goro clutches Akira against him, blinking wetly up at the exposed ceiling. “I was so stupid.”

“First time for everything.”

Lacking recourse, Goro pinches Akira lightly under the shoulder blade and Akira squirms with a raspy chuckle.

Focusing on the rhythm of Akira’s breathing brushing the crook of his neck, Goro allows his own pulse to calm, inhaling and exhaling deliberately against the pressure of Akira on top of him. They’ve laid like this countless times, and it’s hard to judge accurately, but Goro could swear Akira feels lighter than usual. His heart gives a guilty little twinge.

Outside, the storm howls, sheets of rain crashing against the attic windows, and below the floor, someone laughs loudly.

After a few windy moments, Goro releases Akira’s shirt and clumsily tugs his gloves off. The cool air of the attic breezes over his skin in the brief instant between discarding the leather and burying his fingers in Akira’s disordered curls. He rests one hand at the base of Akira’s skull while the other combs gently through the knots, and Akira lets out a long, breathy purr.

“How do you stand it?” Goro whispers, almost lost under the drone of the storm.

Akira shifts minutely against him. “Elaborate.”

“Aren’t you angry?” Goro’s finger snags in a stubborn snarl and he freezes, afraid to pull too hard. “We said we weren’t going to hurt each other anymore, but I still—left. The only thing you asked me not to do.”

Akira is quiet for a beat, breathing evenly against Goro’s throat. “I was angry,” he answers at length, voice soft. “At first. While we were fighting. I felt like you were pushing me away on purpose and refusing to understand me and...it was like I just couldn’t get through to you. And that made me so mad. But I really don’t know if I was mad at you or me.”

A tingle of anxiety traces through Goro’s bones and he works his fingers restlessly deeper into the knot in Akira’s hair. If it hurts, Akira doesn’t give any indication, merely carding his own fingers through the locks splayed around Goro’s head on the pillow and continuing:

“I was panicking a little, I think—I was trying so hard to think of the right thing to say but it felt like I was losing control. The way you were talking—” A warm hand cups over Goro’s forehead, smoothing back compulsively, “—it sounded like if I let you walk out, I’d never see you again, and that—” he swallows and Goro bites his tongue. “That scared me. A lot. And even more than that—I just couldn’t figure out why—why it was happening.”

Goro blinks hard up at the ceiling but before he can even think of a response, the hand on his head slips down and cradles his cheek, turning his face until he’s meeting Akira’s somber slate gaze.

“I was scared that you were trying to hurt yourself—” Akira mumbles, “—and that I had lost my chance to stop it.”

“Hurt myself?” Goro echoes questioningly, pulling a little harder at the tangle.

“Why else would you give up something that made you so happy?”

Whatever rationalization Goro was still clinging to splinters inside of him, sending jagged little shards into the lining of his lungs, and his breathing falters. His fingers twitch and the knot finally unravels, leaving him with his hand hovering empty over Akira’s curls. When Akira strokes his thumb over Goro’s cheekbone, Goro gasps, undone.

And when Akira shifts forward and slants their mouths together, Goro exhales, remade.

The kiss melts quickly, an insistent tongue invading Goro’s mouth and sparking bright little embers behind his eyes. Goro moans, seizing handfuls of Akira’s shirt and urging Akira to move up, over him again. He wants to be under Akira, caged away from the rest of the world and powerless to do anything but bask in the complete consummation of Akira’s knowing, and Akira, always in tune, obliges, propping himself up between Goro’s legs before biting greedily at Goro’s lips.

Goro nips back, teeth clacking, no finesse to be found, and pushes into the hands that claw down his chest. His coat is already unbuttoned and clumsy fingers fumble for his shirt buttons. Akira barely manages to undo the first two before Goro’s patience snaps and he releases Akira to slot his own trembling fingers into the closure line and rip outward. The buttons give way in a cascade of popping thread and then his shirt is open, baring his heaving chest to Akira’s scorching touch, and Akira wastes no time marking his skin with twin spidery brands. The heat seems to sink all the way through Goro’s ribcage, into the pulsing, twisting mess contained within, igniting in the centimeters between his scar and his heart and shooting down Goro’s limbs in an inexorable flood of light.

“Fuck—” Akira curses, pulling back enough to trail a line of searing kisses over Goro’s jaw, down his flushed neck, “—I missed touching you—never felt so cold in my entire life—”

Goro jolts as indelicate fingers skim over his nipple. “You—lived seventeen years without me—how can three weeks be so different—”

But Akira is shaking his head, flyaways tickling the underside of Goro’s chin. “Before—I wasn’t without you,” he rumbles, mouth moving against Goro’s exposed collarbone. “I was waiting for you. I didn’t know any better. But this month—I thought I might never see you again—”

The idea sours unpleasantly in Goro’s stomach, but Akira’s clever tongue quickly distracts him, bringing his attention back to the warm, adoring body between his legs. He sucks in a quick breath, arching into the open kiss Akira presses to his sternum. “Me too—” he chokes, “—wanted you so much—”

Akira’s fingertips claw into the sensitive dips between Goro’s ribs, and the instant his lips meet the gnarled flesh of Goro’s scar snaps through Goro like an electrical current. A startled sound falls from his mouth and his thighs tighten around Akira’s sides.

“Sorry,” Akira pants, and Goro lifts his head enough to catch sight of him frozen in place, mouth hovering over the tender, discolored patch of skin, hot air raising goosebumps along Goro’s chest. “Sorry—does it hurt?”

It does. It hurts. Ever since the weather started turning colder, the rod of scar tissue spearing him front to back has been leeching ache into his bones like poison. He’d finally worked through the worst of the residual pain when he and Akira met again, and his physical therapist warned him that his first winter without any medication would be rough, but he was woefully ill-prepared for the way the pain leveled him, waking him every chilly morning with a breath-stealing reminder of every mistake he’s ever made. And the man still sleeping beside him started looking more and more like an opiate he wouldn’t be allowed to keep.

Goro opens his mouth with a lie on his tongue, because god forbid Akira stop touching him, but what comes out instead is: “Yes.” Akira has the miraculous ability to make the truth more attractive than the lie.

Akira’s brows pinch together. “Too much?”

“No—” Goro traces around the delicate shapes of Akira’s ears, cradling under his jaw. “Please—don’t stop. I need you.”

Something flashes behind Akira’s eyes, a sort of feral tenderness that Goro’s only ever seen directed at him, and an answering hunger bares its teeth deep in Goro’s chest.

Sliding his hands down to grab Goro by the waist, Akira ducks his head and skims his lips over the scar, soothing the nagging pain, before drifting the tiny distance to press a hard kiss against the hectic thrumming of Goro’s heart. “I’m going to fuck you,” Akira hums, kneading his thumbs into the skin above Goro’s waistband. “Tell me yes.”

“Yes, yes, yes—” Goro chants, reaching down for a handful of Akira’s shirt. “Off—take this off—”

Growling, Akira leans back and rips the shirt over his head, shaking his hair out of his eyes as he descends on Goro again, latching onto Goro’s throat while his hands grope for Goro’s fly.

Heat thrills up Goro’s spine and he splays his hands on Akira’s bare back, the contact singing through every nerve in his body. He locks his legs around Akira and awkwardly toes his shoes off, kicking them over the side of the bed and lifting his hips as soon as Akira starts yanking at his pants.

After a blur of uncoordinated maneuvering, Goro’s lower body is bare, his hardening cock exposed to Akira’s ravenous gaze, and Goro feels his cheeks color violently at the shameless way Akira licks his lips. Akira wastes no time wrapping his hand around Goro’s length, and the molten clutch draws a high whine out of Goro’s throat.

Tightening his grip, Akira flashes him a shimmering look. “Better keep it down,” he warns, voice low as he bends over Goro again to brush their noses together. “The café is still open.”

Goro’s eyes widen, darting a glance toward the entryway, but his vision is quickly obscured by Akira’s face, his attention stolen by a commanding kiss. Akira pumps his hand lightly along his erection and electricity crackles under Goro’s skin, wedging a gasp between their sealed mouths.

Akira hisses in response, laying his brow against Goro’s temple and rolling his hips into the uneven motions of his hand. Goro can feel the arousal tenting the front of Akira’s sweats against the tender crook of his thigh and he detaches from Akira’s back to reach down between them, brushing his tingling fingertips against the hardness. He’s gratified by a low moan breathed into his hair.

“Akira—” he fits his hand around the familiar, heavy shape, “—hurry—want you inside me—”

“Fuck,” Akira says eloquently, shaking with the effort not to grind against Goro’s palm. “God—okay—hang on—”

Goro almost whines as Akira’s solid warmth lifts off of him but he consoles himself with the view of Akira’s sharp jawline, edged with gold from the lamplight, and he runs his fingers over the ridges of Akira’s ribs as Akira leans sideways to rustle around in the bedside table. When he tickles over Akira’s nipples, Akira makes a strangled noise and Goro hears something clatter loudly in the drawer.

“Menace,” Akira scolds, finally straightening up with a bottle of lube in his hand. “Don’t distract me.”

“I’m the menace?” Goro asks incredulously, but any clever retort he might have made vanishes with another pointed roll of Akira’s hips. The action ripples through Goro’s body and his cock bounces against his stomach, already drooling a small thread of precum. The tension coiling in his gut shivers and he lets out a small squeak.

“You’re the biggest menace,” Akira teases, pouring a generous amount of lube into his palm and flipping the lid on the bottle closed before setting it aside. He rubs his hands together to warm it, coating his fingers with practiced efficiency. “Do you have any idea how tormented I’ve been the past few weeks?”

“Don’t—don’t tell me you haven’t jerked off once—” Goro gripes, spreading his legs wider as Akira slips one hand between them.

“Couldn’t—” Akira furrows his brows, gentle fingertips prodding at Goro’s hole and sending needles of anticipation up Goro’s spine. “Even the idea—it made me think of you.”

Goro almost says something about what a sentimental fool Akira is but the finger breaching his rim steals all of the pithy retorts from his mouth, replacing them with a breathy “Ah—”

“Shh—” Akira hushes him again, pushing forward until his widest knuckle pops inside and casting Goro a playful glance. “I don’t want anyone but me to hear you.” The lube keeps the slide easy as Akira pumps his finger back and forth, and Goro struggles to relax, even as Akira’s words send a flutter of excitement through his groin. Akira must feel it, because he lifts an eyebrow. “Does that do it for you?” he coos, squeezing in a second finger even as Goro’s muscles spasm. “Do you like knowing that someone might hear us?”

“No, that’s—” Akira crooks his fingers and Goro’s vision fuzzes out of focus, a high whine streaming out of his throat, but even before he can silence himself, a warm hand cups over the bottom half of his face, muffling the sound. Goro blinks hard, finds Akira looming over him with his fingers still twisting in his ass, blocking Goro’s voice.

“It’s okay—” Akira purrs, scissoring with intention. “I’ll keep you quiet, honey.”

A zing of heat lances through Goro and he wraps one hand around Akira’s wrist, clinging desperately.

Even as the fever mounts furiously between them, heavy breathing dampening the scant space and an increasingly hungry glint simmering in Akira’s eyes, Akira is thorough with the preparation, almost to the point of driving Goro crazy. By the time he adds a third finger, Goro is panting open-mouthed against Akira’s palm, head thrown back, toes curled in the sheets.

“Tight—” Akira mutters, thrusting his fingers in and out with single-minded intensity. He scrapes firmly over Goro’s prostate on his next withdrawal and Goro presses Akira’s hand harder against his own mouth to stifle his groan, squirming against the onslaught of heat sparkling through his veins. “Okay—okay—” Akira swears under his breath, sweat tracing down the side of his face, and pulls his fingers completely out.

Goro sinks his nails into Akira’s skin, fixing Akira with an impatient glare as Akira scrambles to free his erection one-handed. Finally, Akira’s cock bobs into view, rigid and dusky, pearls of precum shining in the lamplight. Goro’s own cock throbs at the sight, drooling against Goro’s navel, and his mouth waters. When Akira steadies his tip against Goro’s entrance, a bolt of blazing arousal courses up Goro’s spine, setting his head spinning, and his hand flails upward, groping for Akira’s shoulder. At the ungainly touch, Akira bows over Goro, letting Goro’s arm slide around his neck and resting their foreheads together, breathing harshly against his own fingers.

“I love you,” Akira murmurs, just as he cants his hips forward, breaching Goro’s rim.

It burns, from the quick preparation and from lack of practice. Even before Goro left, he hadn’t felt up to sex, the thought of Akira’s hands on him making his skin crawl with shame. But, of course, there’s nothing but eager devotion in Akira’s touch, and that’s all there ever was. Any reproach, any resentment was invented in Goro’s own head, and now, all of that imagined strife evaporates to make room for the heavy, undeniable weight of Akira’s cock pushing into his body.

“Fuck—” About halfway in, Akira stops, quivering as he curls tighter over Goro. “Oh—fuck—I—”

Goro snags a handful of the hair plastered against Akira’s nape. “Shh—” he hushes from behind Akira’s palm.

Akira flashes him a glittering look, parting his fingers to allow Goro’s voice to escape and Goro drags in a shuddering breath.

“They’ll hear you,” he rasps before clenching deliberately around Akira’s length.

A gravelly sound rips out of Akira’s throat and his hips twitch forward, seemingly out of his control, sinking a few inches deeper. Goro doesn’t let up, grinding down until the full length of Akira’s cock is nestled inside of him, muscles rippling with pleasure, and when Akira’s lips fall open around another low, wounded sound, Goro claps his own hand over Akira’s mouth.

Trembling, Akira blinks disbelievingly down at Goro and Goro shoots him a crooked smile, using his other arm to keep Akira in place as he circles his hips, adjusting to the familiar shape of Akira’s cock. Akira inhales sharply, rutting forward and jolting Goro slightly up the mattress.

“That’s it—” Goro encourages, squeezing Akira between his thighs. “Come on—fuck me, Akira—need it—”

A groan rattles out of Akira’s chest, a hot exhale collecting against Goro’s fingers, and Goro watches Akira’s eyelashes flutter just before he pulls back, dragging agonizingly over Goro’s sweet spot. Goro digs his nails into Akira’s shoulder and swallows the yelp that crawls forward when Akira rocks back inside suddenly, spreading him wide for an instant, before withdrawing again.

“Fuck—yes—” Goro gasps at the next thrust, “—Akira—Akira—”

Humming a low, hitched note, Akira braces his elbows hard against the bed, his biceps flexing in Goro’s periphery, and rolls deliberately into the next motion. The delicious friction skitters across every nerve in Goro’s body, raising the hair on his arms and kindling violently in his core.

“More,” he demands, fisting his hand in Akira’s hair. “More—more—”

Akira grunts and repeats the action, swaying into a rough pace, each thrust slapping their skin together with bright, staccato smacks, and Goro feels tears pricking at the corners of his eyes again. He slams them shut, his whole body jerking with Akira’s motions until all he can do is cling, pleasure blooming in gardens under his skin. The mouth beneath his hand parts, a wet heat pressing earnestly against his palm, throaty, wounded noises streaming from behind Goro’s loosening seal and Goro relents, allowing Akira to suck two of his fingers past his teeth.

Moaning shamelessly, Akira laves his tongue around Goro’s fingers, licking and sipping like they’re the most delectable treats in the entire world, and Goro has to open his eyes, incredulous, only to find Akira’s expression just as rapturous as the little purrs lilting out of his chest.

Cheeks burning, Goro hooks his fingers behind Akira’s teeth, hard enough to feel the edges bite into his skin, and bucks into Akira’s next thrust.

Hissing, Akira pauses, dick buried to the hilt, and shifts his weight to straighten up, but instead of releasing Goro’s hand, he just snags Goro’s wrist and brings it with him, keeping his mouth wrapped around Goro’s fingers as he resumes his tempo, driving ruthlessly into Goro’s body. The new angle hits everything differently and Goro grits his teeth against a helpless shout, mangling the sound into a choked wheeze. Akira smiles around Goro’s fingers before sealing his lips under the lowest knuckles and sucking, tongue working sinuously along the undersides.

Fire flashes up Goro’s chest into his hazy head as he recognizes the motions as Akira’s go-to method of sucking cock. “Menace,” he accuses, pushing up onto one elbow with effort.

Akira winks down at him, thrusting in to the hilt and grinding, stealing whatever else Goro was going to say with a violent rush of pleasure.

“Oh—god—” Goro manages, head tipping back. “Like that—don’t stop—” His shirt and jacket are still clinging to his shoulders, and another wash of heat threatens to fry him inside the fabric, but he can’t summon the concentration to wrestle them off, all of his focus narrowed to the scalding expansion of his walls around Akira’s pumping cock. Akira slants his hips into the next long stroke and Goro’s toes curl, every muscle in his body quivering. “Fuck—yes! Akira—!”

The blistering mouth around his fingers pops off with a wet slurp— “Shh—” and then the hand around his wrist is pulling, yanking him upright, and the world tilts dizzyingly, resettling to find Goro perched on Akira’s lap. Gravity grinds Akira’s dick impossibly deep and all of the air punches out of Goro’s lungs, but his pitchy gasp is stolen by an authoritative, biting kiss.

Pinned helplessly between Akira’s cock and Akira’s lips, Goro squirms, whimpering, and gentle hands smooth under his jacket, up his spine. Blunt nails score burning paths back down as the hips underneath him work in shallow little thrusts, and then the warm skin of Akira’s palms is once again painting broad lines up Goro’s back, stroking up and down like he wants to touch every inch at once. An identical urge twists through Goro’s muscles and he plasters his own hands on Akira’s shoulders, feeling along each sinewy trapezius, up the slope of Akira’s neck, fluttering under his sharp jawline. Akira groans, plunging his tongue into Goro’s mouth and licking deep, meeting Goro when he presses back.

It takes a beat for Goro to gather his concentration from the intoxicating furnace of Akira’s kiss, but when he summons the strength to rut down on Akira’s cock, he’s rewarded with a strangled whine pouring down his own throat. In this position, he’s essentially sitting on Akira’s length, the thick shaft buried completely inside of him and rubbing maddeningly with each minute movement, but there’s not enough leverage for a proper thrust, so all they can do is rock against each other.

Akira winds his arms around Goro’s waist and tugs him flush, trapping Goro’s aching cock between their stomachs, and Goro breaks the kiss with a ragged groan, leaning his head back. Grinding upwards, Akira latches onto the feverish skin underneath Goro’s jaw, planting a row of flickering kisses down his throat, and each one sparks on contact, blossoming electricity under Goro’s skin.

“Goro—Goro—” Akira pants against Goro’s frantic pulse, “—god, I love you so much—”

“Akira—”

“—want to stay like this forever—” Wild black curls nest into the crook of Goro’s shoulder and Akira’s arms vine tighter, fingers clutching, “—with you like this, holding you—”

Goro’s heart launches itself against the interior of his ribcage, drumming a desperate song to mirror Akira’s words.

“Nothing else makes me feel like this,” Akira continues, voice a low, uneven rumble against Goro’s collarbone. “Nothing else will ever make me feel like this—like I can’t possibly get close enough—”

That primal hunger seething away in Goro’s core crows in violent recognition, flooding down his limbs, and he presses his cheek against Akira’s temple, squeezing him back like any slack will allow the storm raging outside to tear him away.

“I don’t—” Akira swallows thickly. “I don’t even know how to say it—how to make sure that you know, but please, please know—” One hand drifts upward and comes to a rest against Goro’s exit wound scar, fingertips tracing the gnarled skin reverently. Warnings rocket through Goro’s nervous system, the tender skin crying out for fear of something getting too close—don’t touch me, I’m vulnerable— “I never want you to hurt,” Akira whispers. “Not once for the rest of your life. And if I’m too weak to spare you that—then I can at least promise that you’ll never hurt alone.”

For an instant, Goro can’t breathe, every muscle in his body tied tight.

“I’m here with you.” The words ring like bells in the cavern of Goro’s chest. “Whoever you are, whoever I am—I’m here.”

The breath that finally makes its way into Goro’s lungs is noisy and ragged. How does Akira always do this? How does he always know exactly which ribs to slip his hand between for the most direct path to Goro’s heart?

You switched hands. You’ve done nothing wrong. We’re rivals, aren’t we? I want to know why you came here tonight. Nothing you can do will make me not want you.

I’m here with you.

“I’m here with you.” Goro’s lips move automatically, tasting the words, testing how they sit in his mouth. “Whoever you are...whoever I am….”

A deafening crack of thunder resounds through the attic, momentarily drowning the rain, the moans of the old wood, the somber rhythm of Akira’s breathing—Goro’s own pulse hammering in his ears—

“Whoever we become.” With numb fingers, Goro cradles Akira’s jaw and lifts his head from the shelter of his neck, revealing Akira’s wide, luminous silver eyes. “I love you.”

In the sweltering space between them, an airless beat coils. Akira’s gaze doesn’t waver, but Goro watches as water gathers above his lower lashes, until he breaks his own paralysis to blink hard, beading two fat tears at the corners of his eyes. Goro sweeps his thumbs up, catching the droplets as they roll down Akira’s cheeks and swiping them away.

Blowing out a rough exhale, Akira tips Goro forward, sewing their mouths together and Goro surges into the kiss, parting his lips. His stomach swoops, the giddy inertia of stepping backward off a ledge—all blind fall with no way to see the ground. Clutched in Akira’s embrace, Goro starts to believe that maybe there is no ground. Maybe they’ll just fly like this forever.

Regardless, he’s never going to let go again.

When Akira shifts underneath him, the dull nudge against his sweet spot reminds Goro of their positions and he moans into Akira’s mouth, rocking to chase the sensation.

Akira responds with a shredded whine and then his hands are pasted to Goro’s waist, urging him upward. Goro follows, struggling to wrangle his legs underneath himself, all while panting against the torturous slide of Akira’s cock moving inside of him. Once Goro’s knees are on the mattress, he uses the new leverage to grind down mercilessly, stuffing himself to the brim and earning a weak “Ah—” against his lips.

Snatching a fistful of dark hair, Goro lifts up again, shivering at the rub of Akira’s length along his walls, inch by inch slipping out, and when he looks down, he catches Akira gazing up at him, eyes dazed and worshipful. The way one looks at a meteor shower or a tsunami or another act of heaven. It drips down Goro’s spine and into the sunlight warming him from the inside out. “What is it—” he starts breathlessly, tugging to angle Akira’s head back even farther, “—about having me over you that puts that stupid look on your face?”

Akira’s fingers flex around Goro’s hips. “Don’t bully me,” he gasps. “This is the face of a man who knows he’s exactly where he’s meant to be.”

Even though he thought there was no way he could get hotter or any more flushed, lava floods Goro’s cheeks and his legs shake, threatening to fail under his weight. “You—” he chokes, “—how can—you—”

Smirking like he did that on purpose, Akira tightens his grip and yanks Goro down, sheathing himself inside again, and the pleasure crackles through Goro’s muscles, stunning him as Akira grabs at the clothes still draped over his shoulders. Shaking, Goro manages to help shimmy out of his own shirt and jacket, and as soon as his arms are free, he folds them around Akira’s neck, rutting down onto Akira’s lap with a whimper. Akira drops the garments and seizes Goro by the waist again, fastening his mouth under Goro’s jaw and guiding Goro up on his knees.

Despite his overwhelmed trembling and the haze overtaking his head, Goro sets a brutal pace, bouncing in Akira’s lap, recklessly pursuing the fire spiralling through him. Akira’s hot, jagged breaths pool against his throat as he moves, sharpening into nipping teeth on each downstroke, until Goro’s whole neck is stinging, surely gnawed beyond recognition, but Goro just moans, tilting his head to ask for more. He wants Akira’s marks on him, on every inch of his skin, drawing blood and leaving scars so that he never forgets, so that he looks the way he feels: claimed.

A particularly harsh slam jolts a pitiful cry out of Goro’s mouth and he slaps his own hand over his mouth to muffle the sound, keening as a wave of pleasure swells through him.

“Shh—” Akira croons, “—shh, I’ve got you—”

Gravity shifts, and Goro’s stomach lurches as he finds himself falling backwards. His back hits the sheets and he tightens his legs around Akira, blinking his eyes open just as Akira knocks his hand away to replace it with his own, a searing, calloused palm absorbing the delirious whimper that passes Goro’s lips as Akira thrusts forward with intention. Vivid pleasure, bordering on pain, rips through Goro and he hooks his arms around Akira’s back, clinging for dear life as Akira resumes his pace.

Within seconds, Goro is teetering on an edge, every muscle in his body spasming, and his fingers curl involuntarily, nails boring into Akira’s shoulder blades. Akira slams home and Goro’s eyes go wide with a broken shriek, clawing at Akira’s skin.

“Come on—” Akira pants, “—Goro, come for me—” Using his grip on Goro’s face to keep his head pinned to the bed, Akira snakes his other arm under Goro’s back, holding him still for another ruthless thrust. “I want to watch you lose it—come on—I love you so much, I can’t—fucking—”

Goro can just barely feel his throat vibrating with a near constant stream of stifled noise, completely helpless against the strangled moans drawn out by the furious pumping of Akira’s cock. Akira bears him down into the mattress and shoves in to the hilt, staring straight into Goro’s eyes as he grinds deliberately, and the motion brushes his abdomen against Goro’s neglected cock. A gunshot of pleasure ricochets through Goro’s body and that’s the final push he needs to plummet right over the edge.

Muscles locking up, Goro breaks Akira’s gaze as his eyes roll back, spine arching, Unforgiving heat blasts through him, stripping every lingering thought in his head, every sensation that isn’t Akira surrounding him, invading him, rebuilding him. Distantly, he can feel Akira’s hips falter, and the hand over his mouth disappears, but he’s dissolving, melting formlessly into the fire rushing up to meet him.

Burrowing his nails into Akira’s back, Goro’s last spark of awareness is snatched by the open, graceless kiss pressed to his mouth, just before the heat consumes them both.

For the first time in over a month, there’s nothing in Goro’s head but Akira.

Until the muted clang of a bell spears through his brain and his brows pinch together.

The bell rings again, and some muddled corner of his mind realizes it’s the door downstairs, opening and closing. Then opening again, apparently, as a third bell jangles obnoxiously.

Dragging his eyelids open feels like scraping sandpaper, but he perseveres and finds himself blinking up at the shadowy ceiling beams with Akira’s damp, breathing weight collapsed on top of him. The rain is still crashing against the window, and a muffled laugh drifts up through the floorboards before a fourth jingle finally rouses Akira from the crook of Goro’s neck.

“Ugh,” he says intelligently, sluggishly pushing himself up onto his elbows. Blown-out, hooded eyes lock with Goro’s and a crooked smile creeps across Akira’s face. “Hey.”

Something flutters shyly in Goro’s stomach. “Hi.”

Akira taps their noses together and Goro unfastens his nails from the skin of Akira’s shoulder blades to run his hands down Akira’s biceps, taking a second to breathe in the heady scent mingling between them.

“I’m gonna pull out,” Akira murmurs.

At Goro’s nod, he lifts up, allowing the cool air of the attic to rush in and raise goosebumps on Goro’s bare chest. Goro watches as he slowly shuffles back, and the slick, filthy slide of Akira’s cock slipping out of his sensitive hole makes him suck in a breath.

Akira flashes him a look, stroking soothingly up his thigh. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Goro breathes out steadily. “I feel like I just got mauled, but yes.”

Rolling his shoulders, Akira grimaces. “It was a mutual mauling, at least.”

“At least.”

Akira tucks himself back into his sweatpants before climbing over one of Goro’s boneless legs and flopping back down on the mattress with a groan. “Give me a second,” he mumbles, groping around until he gets hold of Goro’s hand. “Then we can clean up.”

Already, Goro can feel Akira’s cum starting to leak out, and his own release is striping his stomach, but Goro ignores all of that for the moment, rolling onto his side to face Akira.

“Will you be my boyfriend again?” he asks, voice hoarse but steady.

Cracking open one eye, Akira squeezes Goro’s hand, lips quirking up. “You’re asking me?”

“I’m the one that left. It’s my responsibility to make sure you know I want to start dating again.”

“Of course I’ll be your boyfriend.” Prying his other eye open, Akira brings Goro’s hand up, pressing his lips briefly to Goro’s knuckles. “If I could, I’d put Goro Akechi’s boyfriend on my ID,” he teases. “I’d tattoo it on my forehead. I think being your boyfriend is my divine calling.”

“A simple yes would have sufficed,” Goro tosses back without any force, and Akira’s sly smile softens into something impossibly tender.

“I love you, Goro.”

Goro swallows his throbbing heart. “I love you too, Akira.”

A vaguely relieved expression crosses Akira’s face. “I’m glad to hear that.” He places Goro’s hand against his own cheek. “My dick was inside you earlier, so I couldn't be sure which one of us you were talking to.”

When Goro lifts a brow quizzically, Akira shifts forward to press their foreheads together.

“Today is the first time you said you love me,” he breathes.

For a beat, Goro wants to argue. That can’t be true. The warmth blooming and curling through his ribs has always been there. Even if he couldn’t always name it, his love for Akira is much older than today, much older than their first night together, older, perhaps, than the first time Akira said it to him—how is it possible that the truth has never spilled over his lips before now? But he quashes his protests, because aren’t hiding, lying, and ignoring the skills he’s honed the most? All he can do now is try to make it right.

“I’ve loved you...far longer than I probably realize,” Goro whispers. “I shouldn’t have waited so long to make sure you know.”

Against his forehead, the little muscles between Akira’s eyebrows crinkle. “That goes for both of us.”

“We’ve never been good at telling each other the truth.”

“I guess we’ll just have to make up for that now.” Moving his hand to Goro’s waist, Akira scoots closer, until he can speak right against Goro’s lips: “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you—”

Somehow, Goro’s exhausted body still has the energy to blush from the tips of his ears all the way to his toes, and he summons a last burst of strength to shove Akira over and silence him with a hard kiss. Akira just laughs loudly against Goro’s mouth, his endless refrain still echoing in Goro’s head.

Thunder rumbles through the old wood roof, and Goro looks up from his laptop.

Rain is still cascading in sheets down the attic window, and despite the improved insulation from the remodel, there’s a chill hanging in the air. Fortunately the heat of the kotatsu is more than enough to combat any discomfort, and Goro didn’t even realize the storm had grown so wild until now.

It’s only mid-afternoon, but the sky outside is completely darkened by clouds, leaving the loft lit only by the floor lamp and the electronic glow of Goro’s laptop. Cinching his eyes shut, Goro stretches his arms over his head with a wide yawn. When his spine pops loudly, he sighs, slumping back into his bad posture.

Beside him, his boyfriend dozes on obliviously. Stationed at the side of the table adjacent to Goro, Akira is draped over the top, head pillowed on one arm with his other lying lax in Goro’s direction. From this angle, Goro can just make out one closed eye and the maze of unruly curls peeking out of the blanket Akira’s swaddled himself in. And now that Goro is alert, he can feel the soft weight of a blanket over his own shoulders and a torch of impossible warmth ignites inside him.

Silently setting his laptop out of the way, Goro tugs his blanket closer and folds forward to rest his own head on the table, eyes fixed on Akira’s serene face. For a moment, he just watches his boyfriend sleep, weariness draining from his muscles with each passing second, carried away by the pattering rain and the even cadence of Akira’s breathing.

Preparing to apply to law school has kept him inordinately busy over the past month, essays and recommendations breathing down his neck, and he barely even noticed the changing seasons until Akira put the heavier duvet on the bed and he woke up one morning with a dull, familiar ache in his chest. It’s been long enough that the scar doesn’t incapacitate him, even at its worst, and there’s no better pain remedy than his doting boyfriend.

So despite his busy schedule and the cold weather, November has passed rather normally, and now, on the eve of their most inauspicious anniversary, Goro is hard at work while Akira forgoes the more comfortable option of the bed to nap beside him under the kotatsu. Though, Akira has confided in Goro that he doesn’t regard the fake shooting to be the worst thing that’s happened between them. That dubious honor goes to an event that followed shortly after.

At the thought, Goro raises his hand and places it over Akira’s on the table. The skin beneath his palm is icy and his isn’t much better, but he envelops Akira’s hand as best he can and squeezes with intention.

Akira’s brows twitch, and then his fingers spread, letting Goro knit down into the gaps. Slitting his eyes open, Akira curls their joined hands into an interlocked fist and smiles blearily at Goro without lifting his head. “Finished?” he asks, voice low and raspy from sleep.

“For now,” Goro murmurs, just loud enough to carry over the rain.

“You look tired.”

“So do you.”

Akira’s smile widens and he draws Goro’s hand toward him, close enough to press a slow, close-mouthed kiss to Goro’s knuckles.

Goro tracks the movement. “Do you remember the first time you said you loved me?”

Pausing, Akira blinks, before he shifts his grip to cradle Goro’s hand from underneath. “Yeah, of course. It was the day you agreed to date me. Then I tried to kiss you and headbutted you in the nose on accident.”

Goro shakes his head minutely against the table. “I mean before that.”

Akira stares at him in blank incomprehension. “What?”

“At the hospital.”

Inexorably, understanding filters into Akira’s slate gaze, rinsing away the lingering drowsiness. “Wait—” he levers upright, spine stiff, and Goro follows, propping his chin on his free hand. “You remember that?”

A smirk tugs at the corner of Goro’s mouth, the instinctive smugness of getting one over on Akira preening in his chest. “I do,” he responds. “Why wouldn’t I? Who else could you have been talking to?” To be fair to his boyfriend, Goro probably should not have been conscious at the time, between intensive surgeries and pumped so full of drugs that he would have bled sedative. But to be less fair to his boyfriend, he was a sentimental fool for speaking out loud to someone in that state anyway, so Goro doesn’t feel too guilty over the embarrassed flush making its way onto Akira’s face.

“Just because I was talking to you doesn’t mean I was talking to you,” Akira says with flustered conviction.

“So you didn’t mean it?”

“No, I meant it, I just—” Groaning, Akira puts his head back down on the table.

Goro observes his reaction fondly, tightening his grip on Akira’s hand. He supposes he can understand his boyfriend’s distress. It wasn’t exactly the most romantic setting for such a pivotal confession. The blinding, chemical sterility of the hospital still grates at the edges of Goro’s dreams sometimes, and he can only imagine that he looked little better than a corpse lying in that bed, tangled in tubes and wires like a fly caught in a web. Akira had barely slept for weeks, since the yacht went down, and in Goro’s hazy recollection, he always appeared older, somehow, as though everything that happened had aged him.

Admittedly, Goro wasn’t aware of most of what happened after he washed up on shore, too busy dying of a collapsed lung and near-drowning, but he vaguely remembers a man yelling into a phone while frantically trying to bind his wounds, then an ambulance, then doctors, then nothing, for a long time. When he resurfaced, it was to an achingly familiar voice, a voice he’d now had two occasions to think he’d never hear again, arguing with someone who sounded impossibly like Sae Niijima. The combination of Akira and Sae near him was the perfect cocktail to force Goro to focus through the pain.

Akira was saying something about how there was no other choice, that someone named Maruki was threatening to leak Goro’s location to Shido if the thieves didn’t give up the incriminating documents that they stole from the yacht. And Sae snapped that those documents were their best shot at taking Shido down, why would some psychiatrist be so desperate to stop them? Goro couldn’t quite follow what they were saying, but the brittle fury in Akira’s voice when he explained that Shido was funding Maruki’s unconventional psychological experiments was evident enough.

Obviously the situation was dire, and bigger than Goro’s own sad attempt at revenge against his father, and if Akira was smart he would have abandoned Goro immediately, taken the documents and left his attempted murderer to whatever deserved fate awaited him at Shido’s hands. But Goro knew Akira, and he knew Akira would never do that. He’d drive himself to ruin before he turned his back on someone who needed him. And Goro, as much as he tried to deny it and ignore it and avoid it, needed him.

So if Akira was determined to keep this Maruki quiet, and if all Maruki had over them was Goro’s life, then the solution was simple. Take Goro’s life out of the equation.

He tried to tell them that, but the abyssal tide was strong, and all he really remembers is the tentative warmth that enclosed his hand as he was dragged away again.

There was awareness after that, in painful, indistinct bursts, and frankly Goro preferred the heavy unconsciousness, but it was during one of those brief gasps that he heard Akira again, voice weighed down with weariness. His words were fragmented and blurry, weaving in and out of the fog in Goro’s head.

“—right, as always. Maruki...gave up...pushed into a corner, but...buy time...so we’re...a friend of...can trust...but that means...meet again. You wouldn’t...end like this, right?” Then that same warmth surrounded his hand, and Goro struggled to latch onto Akira’s meaning. “If we don’t...I have to say it, at least once—” Something soft brushed Goro’s knuckles, though he could barely feel it through the blanket of drugs keeping him numb. “I love you, Akechi.”

A deeply vulnerable and private moment that Akira certainly did not mean for him to witness. And yet it sits in Goro’s memory, carefully maintained and preserved, only taken out and looked at in Goro’s lowest moments. When his back wound reopened, when his physical therapy was going poorly, when he was driven by pain to actually accept the oxycodone prescription the house mother kept filling for him, when he saw perfunctory mentions of his own missing persons report online—at least he had one thing he could hold onto, one reminder that someone out there cared whether he lived or died.

Looking back, Goro is almost ashamed of how long it took him to accept the truth that was staring him in the face. He got there in the end, after a lot of stumbling and doubt, but when he was finally ready to look up, Akira was there, holding his hand. Like before. Like always.

Like now. Even as his boyfriend hides his face against the table, he doesn’t relinquish Goro’s hand. “I always thought—” he grumbles, “—that the only good thing about that whole debacle was that you weren’t awake to hear my teenage blubbering.”

Goro lets his smile melt into something more sincere. “If it’s any consolation, I didn’t actually hear most of it.”

“Just the most embarrassing part.”

“Was loving me so humiliating?”

“Of course not, but—” Akira rolls his head to fix Goro with one shining eye, “—we weren’t...ready yet, you know?”

“Maybe not.” Goro lowers his head to lay it on the table as well, meeting Akira’s avid, sideways gaze. “But I think I needed to hear it.”

The attic rings with a sharp crack of thunder and Akira stares wordlessly at him for the space of time it takes to fade. His mouth slants up. “Then I won’t be embarrassed anymore.”

“No, you should be terribly embarrassed. It was a very melodramatic thing to do.”

“Too late,” Akira hums, and, beneath the kotatsu, a socked foot nudges against Goro’s. “I refuse to be shamed by mister whoever you become—”

Goro jerks his foot out on instinct, knocking Akira’s, and Akira laughs brightly, pushing himself upright again.

“I guess something about us just brings out the melodrama.” Extracting himself from under the table, Akira lets the blanket fall from his shoulders and scoots around to Goro’s side, using his grip on Goro’s hand to reel him in. Goro lets it happen with no more than an obligatory scowl. “You make me all theatrical,”Akira purrs, nuzzling the side of Goro’s head. “You make me want to kiss your hand and recite poetry to you under the moonlight.”

“And you make me want to poison your goblet and smother you in our marriage bed.”

“Kinky.” Akira finally releases Goro’s hand in order to slide his arms around Goro’s waist, knocking Goro’s own blanket down as he does. His lips dance along the delicate shell of Goro’s ear and Goro suppresses a shiver. “Since you’re all finished,” Akira breathes, fingers seeking the hem of Goro’s sweater and tugging at it teasingly, “—how do you feel about trying that out right now?”

Cheeks warming, Goro tilts his head to give Akira access to his neck. “The poison or the smothering?”

Immediately nosing at Goro’s pulse point, Akira chuckles. “Whatever you want, honey.”

With a breathless groan, Goro wraps his arms around Akira’s shoulders and tips backwards, dragging Akira down on top of him. Akira wastes no time crawling over him and catching his mouth in a consuming kiss, reminding Goro exactly what he wants, what he always wants:

Akira, Akira, Akira.