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This was so unfair. This wasn’t how he wanted them to live.
The boy that was here, in front of him, breathing, would fade away into the cold air by tomorrow and he had only one way to stop it.
Goro was not being fair.
His gaze wouldn’t let up, his eyes fixated on Akira’s face; he was searching for a trace of a joke. When he didn’t, he narrowed his eyes in disbelief. “You wish to drop the morals that you swore to keep until your death?”
“Plea-”
His stern voice was unrelenting. “Selfishness brings you nothing! Being chained to a lie is like death itself! I thought you of all people would know!” Goro’s voice reached its highest point as he looked away from Akira, “And to believe that I called you our leader!”
Akira’s eyes blurred, warm tears already flowing down his cheeks without warning. He was shaking, he didn’t know how to respond. The ugly, swirling feeling in his chest that grew and grew and reached his throat. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe.
“Get a hold of yourself! You have to be there of all your friends-”
“Shut the fuck up with your sanctimonious bullshit Goro!” Akira screamed, grabbing a hold of Goro’s shoulders as he shook him angrily, trying to shake some sense into him. Akira was fucking exhausted of hearing Goro reprimand him; he just wanted the brunette to understand how he was feeling.
Goro sucked in a breath through his teeth, the crease between his eyebrows now more evident than the searing look he was giving Akira. Goro tried to say something, but his words were shut down immediately by a sobbing Akira.
It was just like the boiler room, but now it was the black-haired boy breaking down, spitting, screaming.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!” Akira spat out, his grip tightening on the boy, sure to leave bruises. “Shut the fuck up!"
Goro’s eyes widened as Akira stared him down with a look such that he had never seen on the calm and collected boy. It was downright horrifying, his pent up rage on full display for the first time in front of anyone since he had arrived in Shibuya. Goro’s heart clenched.
Akira was soon screaming his voice hoarse, teeth clattering to get his words out, and he grasped Goro as a way to keep him there, to keep him planted to the spot.
“Do you understand Goro?! This isn’t what I want; you going away forever! I want you to be alive! I want you to be here with me, my friends! I don’t want you to suffer anymore! I want you to feel alive and free and happy! Why can’t we just stay here? Why can’t we be together here, in this reality, where everything is what you’ve ever wanted? Goro please understand!”
Akira shut his mouth as he hung his head, letting go of Goro’s now sore shoulders. His mind was frying over, any rational thought he previously had evaporated and spun, spun so very hard, and when the fuck did the room get so hot, he was sweating bullets—he was going to be sick.
For what felt like an eternity, no one said anything. Akira’s battle with not puking right then and there was all he could focus on. All feeling in his body was replaced will a growing feeling of dread. He couldn’t imagine what Goro was feeling after seeing him during such an outburst. Disgusted? Empathetic? Worried? God, wouldn’t that be ironic.
Goro’s voice appeared somewhere in the background, quiet.
“... Don’t be so blinded.”
Akira laughed pathetically, glossy eyes staring up into completely dry ones.
“Don’t do this please, don’t make this harder.”
“You’re doing this to yourself,” Goro said weakly, his face unchanging but his eyes frowning.
Desperation laced each of Akira’s words, every syllable spoken shredding another one of Goro’s heartstrings.
“Please, please, don’t go, not again, not because of me. Understand me, for the love of god. This... is what I want.”
Goro’s will was being judged harder than ever before. His head and heart knew what was right from the get go, but now his heart was on the brink of betraying everything that he and the Phantom Thieves had done.
He just wanted him to stop crying about him, for him.
The brunette shivered as the dark-haired boy hugged and latched onto him, tear-stained cheeks buried in his scarf. Closing his eyes, Goro hugged him closer, letting his heart jump from the edge it was so cautiously trying to stay on and let it fall straight down.
“I’ll... stay here... I promise.”