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“Let’s go back, to our true reality.”
Akechi’s words pierced him through, right on his chest, where it bled and bloomed at the same time into a swirl of warm sensation. The night of February 2nd blended into colorful speckles of light at the corners, blurring the heavy sweet flavor that stuck on the back of his throat and made his taste buds feel sour despite it.
Akechi Goro looked at him, with those burn whiskey-colored eyes, and for the first time since they met, they looked so soft, that Akira felt himself burn in his skin and his world crumble down on his very two feet.
Leblanc was a pocket dimension, hidden from the reality outside of it- a haven where time stopped, even for a fraction of a second for them. And maybe, beyond the threshold of the door, everything could become real, could become an axe that cut forever what was between them, until there wasn’t any point in holding it in his hand, that would hurt by how hard Akira refused to let go the red string from his finger.
They were close to waking from this reality- like peeling away the exhaustion from their faces and being able to breathe, to exist. Yet, Akira was scared- scared of such a thing, to bring his heart down and accept surrendering the most selfish desire he held in there. He swallowed dryly, tasting if anything, the smell of hints of coffee beans, lemon, and jasmine until they latched into his memory and could never get away.
“Is this a goodbye?” his voice felt raw from the inside and lowered into a small whisper.
And Goro didn’t answer, because he knew. They both knew. So Akira let his shoulder sag down, let the silence fill between them, just once more, for a little longer, for as long as they could let themselves have. Because maybe, there wouldn’t be a tomorrow for them, for the both of them where they would be, where they could be.
Perhaps, if they had met sooner, perhaps if only they could be better together.
He hummed slowly from his mouth, a flicker of light into the dark just as the corner of his lips distorted in a grimace, a scowl birthing through. His breath quickened, and before long lashes filled with drops of water, his hands reached to grab a soft cloth.
“Akira!-”
“Please.” he breathed raggedly, tasting the flowery scent that brushed his nose. “I- Akechi-” he reeled at it, the sensation of something slipping from his fingers was too much to bear, to endure. He closed his eyes until the pain lulled his rabbiting heart. Laughter wanted to be free from his chest, bubbles of air popping into it reached the very top of his throat. “Just this once.” A small hiccup as he inhaled air, “If is not for you, then for me.”
His hold was a barely attempt to stay in there, fragile, ready to fall if it was meant to be. Akira’s eyes were transfixed in front of him, looking at anything, anywhere, because it could be easier in that way, to hold the pieces together and accept it.
And then Akechi turned around, gloved hands shy, tempted to reach, even if they fought with themselves to do as such. They were different, Akira noted, from the same solitary glove he kept in his pocket ever since.
When Akechi’s hand finally landed on his shoulders, then moved to his arms into a careful, barely there grasp, Akira gasped brokenly, letting his hold go, before his arms encased the other into a tender hug.
A trembling, soft, and scared hug, frightened to part away, to forget him. As if they were back in time, floating into space in a moment inside an engine room, with a closed metal door in between that broke the both of them apart, the soaring sounds of pain and suffering surfing into his ears until they deafened everything.
Despite holding Goro between his arms, it felt as if they were just as far as back then.
Despite having Goro with him, the pain of two cups of coffee on the table and a game of chess that would never be finished in his life hurt him like his own heart was breaking apart.
“I’m sorry,” Akira said, cried, lamented, all of that in two words. His face crumbled in the space between his shoulder and head. Strands of honey-brown hair tickled his cheeks and his obsidian curls. Gasping, his hands dug into the clothes, feeling the material as if wanting to fuse with them.
“It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Akira. . .” Goro started, his voice muffled by Akira suffocating him with his body. A hand brushed his back, so gently that Akira couldn’t hold the sob back.
The words tasted putrid on his tongue, and he wanted to drown them even if bills rose against himself. But even so, they still follow him up, like a black parade ready for him, or maybe, ready to mourn what couldn’t be.
“I love you.”
And Goro flinched on him, stuttering into that voice that had Akira spirling down and down, in which he silently hoped, wished for them to embrace him just as hard, as tenderly.
“I love you, I can’t- I can’t Goro.” He couldn’t walk away, couldn’t accept a world where only a cold cup of coffee remained, alongside a black glove and a piece of chess at its side. Akira gasped again, tears drowning him, mixing and tasting salty on the tip of his tongue.
“I love you, I love you so much, it h-hurts. Why can’t I- Why can’t we?” another whimper rocked him through, “After everything why can’t I be happy? Why we can’t be happy?”
He remembered that day back in the sky, between clouds and birds flying around, so high that he couldn’t see even ashes from the ground. Mighty gold and white blinded his metal gun eyes. Hoping, for a different mesh of white and red and gold at his side, to point a gun into the horizon and break apart the destiny that encased them into shackles..
He kept talking, afraid that after this, after a tomorrow he would have to turn around and walk away, the words would whisk like this moment, any trace, even thoughts of what ifs about them. “I’m afraid to go back and not see you anymore, of walking into a reality where you don’t exist anymore. Do you know how much it hurt after you-” his body made a full shiver, remembering the haze days after the Shido’s Palace. Gunpowder and the motion of the sea stuck on his skin and muscles acting like a cursed stamp.
He hugs him tighter.
“B-but, even the pain- even despite everything, because of you. I love it because it’s you, it’s the only thing I will have from you. So j-just.” his voice broke down, and some part inside of his brain remembered that night in the cold streets of December in front of an apparel window where he almost, almost let himself feel all of this.
The loneliness, the hatred, the realization that gnawed deep in his bones and still roamed in there.
His face felt warm on his cheek and every patch of skin uncovered collided with the coldness of the night from it reached. Fingers still covered squirmed their way into his face, cupping them with a care that made his chest constrict. Unearthing the ugly, wet face of his.
It felt so unreal, so flimsy, but like it was running out of time.
When Akira dared to open his eyes, the whole world was swimming in colors. And Goro’s own face was tinted with flushed red as well. Whisky red drowned in water. Pursued lips into a thin line that looked painful to maintain.
“You- are such a sentimental fool,” he whispered, a mix of complicated things behind it. He opened his mouth, then closed it, a snarl crossed his face, but the dangerous expression vanished away before he dipped forward and hugged him again, hands tangling the mess of dark hair.
“I love you.”
Goro tightened his hands.
“I will always love you- even if-” the long strip of laughter broke away, melting into a new wave of sobs, not letting him breathe properly. “If we will never meet again. I- F-fuck.”
The hands on him, his hands of him, started to switch softly from side to side, in the middle of the cozy coffee shop where they belonged together, where outside, life was different, where the light would always reach the sky.
"You make me so angry, you know that don't you? It makes me want to scream." he felt something trembling, on his back, on his hair. Twisting but holding for dear life. "I can't believe you- after all of this, you-" Goro barked a wet laugh, one that rang in his ears. "The worst thing is that I can't change my feelings for you, believe me, I fucking tried before."
Akira turned around, and skin met skin, soft, like a delicious treat. His eyes behind the slightly skewed glasses landed on pale lips. Goro's burgundy one was on his too. "I love you, and I don't want to. And I hate you because you make me want to." then he smiled, all edge and sharpness on it, but full of that something that made Akira's heart skip a beat.
And Kurusu Akira loved, love, and will always love Akechi Goro. Before when time stopped, now when time flows, and forever, when the time will hopefully, await them.