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Goro waits alone under the harsh neon glow of Ikebukuro.
After the arcade, Ren had wanted to be the one to pick a place for a change. Ironically, the only place in the city where you can see the stars is under a roof , his message reads, and Goro can so clearly picture him smiling ruefully as he says it. It's not quite the same as seeing them for real, but I think it would be fun to go together anyway . Country boy Ren, who used to be able to just walk outside and look up at a blanket of stars, choking under the city's light pollution- Goro can't imagine it, honestly. Ren fits into Tokyo like this is where he's meant to be, thriving off of its energy and organized chaos where Goro merely blends in, standing still and solitary on the street corner amidst the flow of the bustling crowd all around him.
He's early, of course- he'd scouted out the place before he even agreed to the outing. The educational programs seemed interesting, and it was dark enough inside that the chances of getting recognized would be fairly low. Unfortunately the darkness means he won't be able to see Ren very well either- but he can turn it into an advantage if they get seats in the very back row where no one can see the two of them at all. He doesn't really expect anything to happen, obviously, but sometimes just the possibility is entertaining enough- that and he can just let himself get more and more distracted by the fluid way that Ren exists in the darkness until he forgets about everything else that's been plaguing his mind. An everything else that he's been masterminding for months now and will, if everything goes well, goes according to his painstakingly constructed plan, culminate in the absolute ruination of Ren's life.
Goro's gotten very good at compartmentalizing.
A few minutes later Ren arrives, emerging from the crowd like a piece of the night abruptly given form and a dangerously disarming charm. The bastard knows it too, always using his powers for evil, greeting Goro with a knowing, self-satisfied smirk and a little wave that he refuses to acknowledge. Ren is- he glances at his phone- Ren is fifteen minutes early to their rendezvous. Which means that-
"Someone's excited," Ren says, unable to hold back his grin, as he joins Goro's little island in the sea of people.
"Good evening, Ren." Goro returns the smile easily, despite himself. "Would you really expect me not to be early where you're concerned? My victory over you isn't going to come from complacence, you know."
Ren rolls his eyes. "Oh, whatever, I know you've been looking forward to this. Come on, let's go in."
At the counter in the lobby, Ren pays for both of them before Goro can even object. "My turn to treat you," he says, handing Goro his ticket as they walk through the heavy double doors into the theatre dome. He slips it into his pocket without looking at it.
To his delight, Ren makes a beeline straight for the back, weaving through the dimly lit rows of theatre seats. "I call the middle seat," he whisper-yells to Goro, counting inwards from the end of the row.
Goro, who had given himself the home field advantage by doing in-depth reconnaissance for this date outing, simply walks over to seat 1J and sits down in it before Ren can get there with his counting. "Too slow. You'll have to do better than that if you want to beat me at- hey, wh- uuaaagh!"
He makes the most ungodly squawking noise as Ren suddenly turns and sits on him. "Get off ," he hisses, and flails and shoves like his life depends on it, but apparently Ren is made out of a brick wall or something because he doesn't budge an inch, and- oh god, people are turning and staring at them, and it didn't feel like there were that many other people here before they all started glaring and he's so thankful the theatre is too dark for anyone to see the poised, elegant detective prince from TV getting sat on by a delinquent.
Ren scrambles out of Goro's lap and sinks into the seat next to him, folding into himself like he wants to disappear. "Oh my god," he mumbles. "I did not expect you to be that loud and draw that much attention."
"Serves you right for being a sore loser," Goro teases, now that his heart rate is slowing back down and the heat in his face is slowly subsiding.
"You cheated," Ren protests, sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest and the hood of his jacket pulled up.
"Perhaps. but it still counts as a win for me." Goro lifts the hem of the hood and Ren's dark eyes peer out at him from underneath. "Come on, stop sulking. How are you going to see any stars like this?"
The grin starts in Ren's eyes before it reaches his mouth. "I'm looking at one right now," he drawls.
Goro yanks the hood back down and Ren busts out laughing.
"Why do I hang out with you," he huffs, crossing his arms, but he's smiling too. Couldn't stop if he tried, couldn't ignore the funny feeling in his chest if he wanted to, because Ren just sort of does that to him.
"Cause I make life interesting for you?" Ren leans his chin in his hand and rests his elbow on the armrest between them, blinking innocently up at Goro. "Come on, give me some credit. I bet you've never even heard of this place before."
It's true, he didn't know there was a planetarium here in this forest of skyscrapers until Ren invited him. It's not really the type of place he frequents- not that he frequents that many places at all, given his schedule, but he gets the feeling that coming here alone would've been a little too depressing anyway- he thinks of having to face the dizzying depth of the projected night sky by himself and abruptly feels very small, which is stupid, because it's just light from a projector.
"It must be lonely, being a star," he hears himself say on autopilot. "Surrounded by galaxies that are all out of reach, burning out until the end without knowing if anyone will ever see you. I don't envy them their isolation."
"Look over there. Do you see that star?" Ren leans in close and points upward, and Goro follows his gaze up to the night sky. "That's Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to our solar system and one of the brightest stars in the sky."
"I see." Goro suddenly wishes he had stayed awake through that wikipedia article about stars during the train ride here after all. He can't really tell which little white dot Ren is pointing at, but if he turns his head just slightly, he can appreciate the fact that their shoulders are almost touching and Ren's face is just a few inches away from his. If he puts his elbow on the shared armrest between their seats he would have an excuse for their arms to brush together.
"However," Ren continues, "it's actually a binary star. The two stars that comprise it are just orbiting so close together that they look like one to the naked eye. So maybe it's not quite as lonely out there as you would think." He looks back over and catches Goro staring shamelessly. They're so awfully close.
"Not as lonely for those two, maybe. But what about all the other stars?" It's getting increasingly difficult to not get flustered with Ren staring right back like that, a gleam in his eye like he's trying to say more than he's really saying , drawing Goro in with something akin to a gravitational pull. Maybe Ren could be a star, he thinks idly.
"Well, a lot of the brighter ones are connected by constellations. Like, Alpha Centauri is a part of Centaurus, which is a bit harder to point out, but if you look over there just to the side of it-" he directs Goro's gaze back up to the sky and slightly to the right- "those four stars there make up the Southern Cross. Do you see it?"
To Goro's surprise, he does see it- tiny pinpricks of light resolve themselves into the endpoints of a cross shape. "Yes, but isn't it a little absurd to apply human imagination to something so far away and then call it a connection? It's not so much discovering a meaning as just arbitrarily imposing one that you want to see."
"Sure, if you look at it that way. But I think it's human nature to try to reach out to what we don't understand." Ren smiles softly, his eyes impossibly warm and dark, and something in Goro's chest twists itself into a knot. "The stars- their light is reaching us and that has to count for something, right?"
"I suppose," Goro says quietly. "You're rather passionate about this, aren't you."
"I don't know if I would say I'm passionate, but.." Ren shrugs. "It's a lot easier to see what I mean when it's not just a projection on a ceiling. Hey, maybe we can take a trip out of Tokyo and go stargazing for real someday."
Someday. Goro knows that they'll never get there, that their time is slowly running out like sand between his fingers. Knows that one or both of them will probably die before he gets to see the stars, and the realization hurts more than it probably should. He'd never even given any thought about stars until today and now it feels like a little piece of him is missing.
He closes his eyes. "I'd like that," he says.
--
As his luck would have it, he was right.
These days, Goro starts dreaming before he falls asleep- wakes up into a dream, even, one where he's as trapped as he's ever been in his life because some madman thought it would be funny to reanimate a corpse and plop him back into the world of the living as if he wouldn't just be an empty shell, another puppet on a different set of strings, better off dead and gone and forgotten than getting his hopes up by giving him someone whose eyes light up like stars on the horizon whenever they meet-
So he daydreams away the nightmare, staring up at his ceiling alone in the dark. He's not real. His thoughts aren't real. He has too much time to do nothing and he can't sleep and he's alone and he always will be- he can't talk to the Phantom Thieves because they hate him and he can't talk to Ren because he can't get attached- so it's just him and his own fucked up head keeping him company, counting down the days and trying not to think about. About how Ren's going to react if he realizes Goro is dead. When he realizes.
In his head it never happens. In his head they meet a few years earlier and he does everything right and they don't live in a fucked up reality concocted to satisfy someone's god complex and there's no constant shimmer at the edge of his vision giving him a perpetual headache. Behind his eyelids they walk together to the train station like they always do, hold hands at the platform with their toes just over the line, and the train pulls up with flashing lights and a gust of hot summer air that ruffles their hair from their faces (in every version they meet in the summer).
They find seats on the train and lean back against the windows, sit close to one another and take up a little less space when they're together like this. He doesn't know where the train is going, or which line this is, or even where they got on, but it doesn't seem to matter. The shriek of the train speeding through the pitch black tunnels fills up the rest of the space, tiny lights flashing by in the windows, the car rocking comfortably side to side just a little. The next stop is announced, the name lights up on a screen showing where they are on the line, but for some reason he can't quite make out what it says. Ren is fast asleep on his shoulder, a warm, comforting weight pressed into his side, soft in a familiar blue hoodie. The train's been rocketing along for several minutes longer than usual and they still haven't arrived at a station.
He leans his head gently on Ren's, considers taking a nap too before they get to their destination. He's a light enough sleeper, he won't miss the announcement, probably. He reaches up to take Ren's glasses off for him before realizing that he's not wearing them. Strange- didn't he have them at the station? He doesn't remember. It's not important.
He glances over at the map of the train lines. It's all fuzzy like he's the one who lost his glasses, and the lighting is a bit dimmer than he remembers. The noise of the train has faded out to quiet, just the comforting, rhythmic sound of the rails beneath the wheels, but it's still pitch black outside. The sign for the next station flashes. If they haven't reached a station yet since they got on then where did all the other people go? There are only indistinct forms flitting in the corner of his eye, vanishing when he tries to look directly at them.
It's fine if there isn't a next stop, actually. It wasn't about the destination anyway.
Ren stirs, stretches, yawns like a cat and blinks sleepily, and Goro just watches him quietly. He loves him so much.
"Hey," Ren says, so warm and heady with affection that Goro forgets how to breathe for a second. Holy shit, he feels so pathetic.
"Hey." His voice cracks and it's this awful mixture of hope and relief and bone-deep exhaustion. He hates it.
Ren smiles his soft smile, the one that Goro likes to think is a secret just between the two of them in the brief periods where he slips and allows himself a little delusion. Or a lot of it. "How come you didn't wake me?" Ren says, voice still rough from sleep, teasing in a quiet sort of way that's almost unbearably intimate.
"Why would I have? We haven't reached our stop. You can sleep for a while longer." Goro swallows, reaching up after a moment's hesitation to brush a strand of hair out of Ren's eyes, tucking it behind his ear, earning himself a surprised look and a feeling of emptiness growing inside his chest.
Ren just blinks and points out the window. "D'you see where we are?"
Reluctantly, Goro tears his eyes away and looks outside- and rubs his eyes, and stares, and glances at Ren and turns back and stares. Outside the window is the field of the cosmos, nebulae and galaxies and incomprehensible swathes of stars that he could get lost in forever, stretching infinitely in all directions, beautiful and absolutely terrifying. The vague shadows of other passengers don't seem to have noticed, continuing to exist passively at the edge of Goro's vision like ghosts.
He hears Ren standing up, turns around to see him leaning out the window behind them- the windows on the metro don't even open and they're in space , but somehow it just works like it's a dream and the logic doesn't matter.
Ren is catching stars in his hands like water, like droplets of crystal burning with a fervent, earnest sense of life. A few of them catch in his dark hair as it flutters in an incorporeal breeze, glittering like a proud microcosm of the universe surrounding them. He ducks back into the train car and sits down, popping a tiny, colorful piece of star into his mouth. "They're made of sugar," he says, grinning, his eyes as radiant as the sun. "Here, try some."
And because he can, because the real one will never know- Goro cups Ren's face in his hands and kisses him. Or what he imagines a kiss feels like anyway, he's never had one before. Ren makes a surprised noise before he melts into him, scattering handfuls of the night sky all over the floor to tangle his hands in Goro's hair and kiss him back, warm and soft and sweet and everything he ever wanted. He tastes like stars.
When they pull away, Ren's cheeks are tinged a lovely shade of pink and his eyes are wide and full of... something. wonder, despair, realization sinking in.
"Why didn't you ever kiss me when we're awake?" Ren says after a long, charged silence.
Goro's brain grinds to a halt. "When we... what?"
"You know, in real life, when we're awake," Ren says. "I think right now we somehow ended up in the same dream."
"So you're..." not just a figment of my imagination . Oh god. Oh, no.
"Yeah. It's me. By the way, if you wanted to kiss me again, I would totally be down," Ren says hopefully.
Goro ignores him, trying to suppress his own ballooning... panic? elation? "I- I don't remember falling asleep. Is this Maruki's fault? I honestly wouldn't put it past him."
"No, it feels different from his palace. It might not be the Metaverse, either. But I don't think we're in any danger here." Ren unsubtly scoots a little closer.
"You're awfully calm about all this. It might be yet another trap," Goro points out. He doesn't think it is- the oppressive sense of hostility that pervaded every palace he's been in isn't present here, but having lost control of his own dream sets him on edge.
Ren shrugs. "Wouldn't be the first time we've been stuck in a weird situation together. We'll be alright. Either way, it's not every day you get to take the metro through space with someone." At Goro's unimpressed look, he adds, "Hey, you can't pretend you hate me anymore. I know the truth now."
Before Goro can even open his mouth to deny it, he's interrupted by a bizarre figure walking into view and stopping in front of them, its face obscured by the brim of a train conductor's hat. Two yellow eyes peer out at them from the shadows. "Your tickets, please," the conductor says in a strange voice.
Ren and Goro exchange a glance. "I, uh, don't think I bought a ticket. Please don't kick me off into space?" Ren says uncertainly.
"If you're going to force him off, you'll have to contend with me as well," Goro adds. He doesn't even know if he can get to his personas here- he can't sense their presence, but whatever, he still packs a solid left hook.
The conductor just blinks. "No need. Please check your pockets. You may have placed your tickets in there."
Goro frowns and reaches into his coat pocket, not expecting to find anything. All of his important things go in his briefcase, not a pocket where it could get lost or forgotten, but somehow his fingers brush against a slip of paper- he pulls it out and stares at it.
It's... the planetarium ticket from last summer. A Night on the Galactic Railroad , it reads over the stars printed on the background, General Admission, 7:30pm . There's no reason it should still be here four months later, intact, in the pocket of a coat that's been through the wash many times since then. He doesn't even remember the feature presentation at all, just that listening to Ren talk about constellations beforehand had somehow been infinitely more interesting.
The conductor takes the ticket from him and examines it closely. "Ah, yes. This ticket grants you passage all the way to the Southern Cross." He gives Goro a meaningful look that he doesn't quite know how to interpret.
"Uh, does this count?" Ren takes out a small card and hands it to the conductor. A familiar piece of black leather pokes out of his pocket, and he quickly jams it back in.
"Oh? It seems that's not the only ticket you have," the conductor says, peering closely at Ren.
"Sorry, I can't give this one to you." Ren stares him firmly in the eye.
The conductor sniffs. "Very well. In any case, this gives you full access to anywhere this train can take you. Enjoy your ride." With that, he slowly slides out of view, moving onto the next car.
Once he's gone, Goro turns around to stare at Ren. "You still have that thing?"
"I don't see why I shouldn't," Ren says, a little too defensively.
"It's just a glove. It's not even the real one, you could've given it to the conductor."
Ren's eyes gleam fiercely. "I didn't want to. It wouldn't feel right, giving away something so important. Even if it's not real."
Important. The word lodges itself in Goro's chest. "Well, what did you give him, then?"
"It was just a blank skill card I had lying around, nothing special." Ren shrugs. "What about you?"
"My ticket from when we went to the planetarium."
"And you're gonna give me shit for keeping your glove? Come on." Ren gives him an incredulous look.
"I didn't keep it! It just appeared in my pocket when he asked for my ticket," Goro insists. "None of this makes any sense." He's starting to think it would be for the best if they got out of here as soon as possible- there's no point in sticking around to see what might happen if they don't meet whatever arbitrary trials this place throws at them.
"Let's go look around, then. We might as well." Ren gets up and stretches, holding out his hand to Goro as he follows suit.
Goro glares at him. "I am not holding your hand."
Ren sighs dramatically and lets his arm drop back to his side. "Fine. Whatever. Suit yourself."
They start making their way towards the front of the train, past the other passengers absorbed in their phones or newspapers or asleep in their seats. It isn't nearly as crowded as the metro in real life, just a few people here and there that seem barely corporeal. Their faces shift like shadows beneath water whenever Goro tries to get a better look at them, suddenly and eerily familiar like a flash of yellow and the smell of gunpowder, and then gone before he can grasp what the memory was. He bites the inside of his lip and moves on, letting his eyes drift away before he can start to see bloodstains or something, and just doesn't think about it.
He and Ren keep walking, the quiet broken only by their footsteps and the unceasing rhythm of the rails beneath them, through the chain of identical train cars that never seems to end. The universe outside the windows floods in relentlessly, a brilliant display of light that still feels ludicrously impossible, and yet Goro's eyes are drawn to the figure strolling down the aisle in front of him, hands fiddling idly with nothing. He thinks back- at the planetarium, Ren had said- he'd said something about reaching out, hadn't he? And... well, all things considered, Goro has done a pretty shit job of reaching back.
It's not that he doesn't want to. It's just that he's already most of the way to being gone, and he knows that he shouldn't reach out past the boundaries of the liminal space between life and death that he exists in against his will. Memento mori, and all that. Plus it's just the merciful thing to do, to let Ren down easy. But somehow he has this distinct memory that Ren's hands are soft and warm, always warmer than his own, even though he knows they've never held hands or anything of the sort. He could find out now if he's right, if he were so inclined. It wouldn't be detrimental to their investigation. There's no guarantee they'll even remember this dream when they wake up. What's the point of denying himself this small comfort, anyway?
He grits his teeth and clenches his hands in fists, keeping them firmly at his sides.
Eventually, they reach the front of the train. As expected, there's a locked door with a sign that says not to disturb the operator, and a rather large map of the rail system. Goro scans it for anything helpful he might recognize.
"Would be helpful to know where we are," Ren mutters. He glances at the display announcing the next stop and back at the map. "Next is... huh. Strange. I guess it's as I thought."
Goro squints at the map as the lines swim and blur together before finally resolving into something he can barely even read. There's a dark blob, and some words he can't make out. "What is this bullshit? Why have a map at all if it's completely useless?"
"We're still a long ways away. Let's not worry about that yet." Ren's looking at him kind of strangely, his expression intense like he's trying to solve a puzzle written on the backs of Goro's eyes. He hasn't seen this expression in months, not since around the first time he joined the Phantom Thieves, and it's particularly strange now because he isn't hiding anything from Ren this time around. Besides... well.
Goro crosses his arms and turns away. It's entirely possible that Ren's figured it out- given that Okumura and Isshiki went back to being dead again once the Thieves came to their senses, it wouldn't be difficult to draw the same conclusion about what will happen to Goro once they return to the true reality. Should he even care anymore, if Ren finds out on his own? No amount of pity is going to change the way things play out, so maybe-
"Goro," Ren calls from somewhere, snapping him back to attention. Ren is halfway out the window, one foot braced on the bottom ledge and a hand gripping the top as he pulls himself up and out of view.
Goro scrambles after him, climbing onto the seats under the window and sticking his upper body out just far enough to see Ren leaning down from the edge of the roof, holding out his hand to help Goro up.
He hesitates for just a moment. They don't know anything about this place, like what the consequences are of dying here, whether it's bound to cognition somehow, or how they're going to wake up. Does he want to wake up quite yet? It's just a dream. The night will run its course.
He reaches out and takes Ren's hand.
It's surprisingly easy to pull himself up onto the roof- almost Metaverse easy, especially on the sleek metal exterior of the train. As soon as he stands up, he sways and for a second he feels like he's falling into the cold void surrounding him, waiting to swallow him whole. It's so much more dizzyingly vast outside the protective shell of the train car, a terrifying endless depth pressing in on him like a thousand eyes, and it reminds him a lot of death without the haze of blood loss. He squeezes Ren's hand so tightly it hurts.
"You alright?" Ren murmurs in his low, calming voice, thumb gently stroking the back of Goro's hand.
He takes a deep breath, loosens his death grip. "I'm fine," he says, a little too clipped for it to be convincing. "Why are we up here?"
Ren shrugs. "Thought it might be fun. Want to... I dunno, take a walk?"
How does he exist so nonchalantly like this? Goro will never understand him. Maybe there's a bit of Joker's thrill-seeking bravado slipping through, but the soft look in his eyes, the warmth of his hand is all Ren.
So they walk slowly side by side, hand in hand, back down the silver line of train cars winding through space like the spine of some colossal monster. It's... nice, holding hands like this, knowing that even in this awe-inspiring wasteland there's someone to hold on to. Goro almost feels like he's real, suddenly longing to press himself into Ren's side, to feel more of this warmth that's slowly seeping into his palm.
"I don't know how any of the great philosophers looked up at the stars and saw proof of an inherent order within the universe," Goro says quietly.
"What do you mean?"
"Looking at the universe from here..." he pauses. "I can only see chaos and indifference. Perhaps it's just perspective, but how could you not feel so terribly alone, among all this?" He gestures vaguely above them. "There's so much, but it's all so distant that there might as well be nothing. We'd never reach any of these galaxies within our lifetime."
Ren doesn't answer for a while. "I've never really thought about it that way, I guess. It's lonely, yeah, but... sort of in a companionate way?"
Goro looks at him. "What? That's completely contradictory."
Ren just gives him a lopsided grin. "Maybe. But for some reason it all makes sense when I'm with you. You contain multitudes, and all that."
Goro stares for just a moment too long, struck by the sudden overwhelming urge to kiss Ren again. He's right there, and it would be so easy to, just. Lean over. Cut down the last thing separating them. Melt like he's diving into the sun. Just once wouldn't hurt, it would do the opposite of hurt, it'd be the best stupidest thing he's ever done.
He lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. Looks away.
In a few minutes they reach the end of the last train car, silver tracks stretching to some unknowable infinity in their wake. They decide to sit down, shoulder to shoulder with their legs dangling off the edge of the car over the abyss.
"You know," Ren starts, then cuts himself off, raking a hand through his hair. "Well... you're not getting tired of me, are you?"
"Is that the impression that I give off?"
"It's a yes or no question."
"Then..." Goro pauses. "No."
"Okay." Ren does a little half-laugh. "It's hard to tell with you sometimes. You're, uh, really good at giving mixed signals."
"Well then, what would you rather I do?"
Slowly, Ren turns to look at him. "That's... not really how this works. I can't make you do anything. But-" he exhales forcefully, takes a deep breath in. "Would you at least tell me if you want me? You keep looking at me like you do and then backing away and it's driving me crazy."
Goro's words dry up in his throat. Saying yes is completely off the table. Saying nothing would be worse than saying no, which would be cruel, but more bearable than being met with silence. And he knows he's a very good liar, so it's strange that can't make this one word come out of his mouth. He has to say something. He's going to die.
Ren gives him a small smile. Does Ren know the truth? He must.
He's going to die. He's going to die. He's never really cared before now.
"Kiss me," Goro whispers.
Without hesitation, Ren's hands move to cup Goro's face like water, and in one breath, two, he presses their lips together and Goro stops thinking.
It's the gentlest, warmest thing he's ever known and it's not even real. Ren nips gently at his bottom lip and Goro presses back, hands tangled in soft, dark hair, and then somehow he's flat on his back with Ren on top of him, kissing him into the rooftop like his life depends on it. And even when Ren pulls away he doesn't really pull away, he leans back down and kisses Goro again, again, again.
They lose track of time, for a while.
"Holy shit," Ren mumbles, actually pulling back now, his voice delightfully rough. "Why haven't we been doing this all this time?"
Goro feels like a puddle. He opens his eyes, and takes a couple of tries to get words to come out properly. "I, um. I've wanted to. Believe me."
"You idiot. You owe me a real kiss when we wake up." Ren grins, backlit against billions of stars, more beautiful than all of them combined. It's so unfair.
He rolls over to lay next to Goro, gazing up into oblivion. Goro rests his head against Ren's shoulder, lacing their hands together, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "Doesn't this feel familiar?" he murmurs, warm for the first time in, god. In what feels like forever.
Ren chuckles. "What was I even thinking? I should've just kissed you, that night. Maybe I could've convinced you not to shoot me."
Something tugs painfully at Goro's insides. What happened was so much more complicated than that, and it's still complicated, and he's still going to die. It doesn't make him want Ren any less. "Maybe," he says, and leaves it at that. They stay like that for a bit, quietly feeling the rumble of the train beneath them.
"For old times' sake, here's one of my favorites," Ren says after a while, pointing up with his free hand. "See that red star? That's Antares, the heart of a scorpion that burned to death."
"And this is your favorite... why? Are you just drawn to morbid, tragic circumstances?"
"Hold on, let me tell the story. It's from a book I read when I was younger. There was a scorpion killed and ate other bugs, but one day he was chased by... some predator. A weasel, I think? So the scorpion ran away, and fell down into this well where no one could reach him, and he knew he was going to die there. He regretted fleeing, thinking that if he had let the weasel catch and eat him, his death wouldn't have been useless. So he prayed that he wouldn't waste himself in his next life, and that instead he could help bring true happiness to the world." Ren squeezes Goro's hand lightly, barely enough to register. "And then he burst into flame, and the glow of his burning body lit up the night forever."
Suddenly Goro feels the cold of the metal roof acutely against his back. He sits up, but still it creeps back into his bones like it knows him, knows how he died and who he died for, like this entire place is written with his demise. "Why tell me all this?" he asks. He thinks he already knows.
Ren doesn't quite look at him. "Just thought it would be interesting," he says. "We should've just passed Centaurus, so we'll be coming up to the Southern Cross soon."
What the hell does he have up his sleeve, what does he know that Goro doesn't? His ticket, the map of the train line, and now this. He opens his mouth, about to demand answers when something in the distance catches his eye- a tall beacon of light blotting out the stars, a station in front of it coming into view, all resplendent with holy radiance. The train puts on its brakes, slowing to a halt as it pulls up to the platform. The doors slide open and passengers slowly file out one by one between fountains and roses, vanishing through the gilded gates and into the ethereal beyond. Then the train sits there, still and empty. Waiting.
He slowly rises to his feet. Everything around them is bathed in light- a plane of golden clouds, the inexplicable sensation of a blue sky after a storm, the feeling that they're floating above the world. Towering above the station gates is a colossal heap of dull metal with a massive hole shot through the top it, hunkering like the remnants of an old god, its intricate machinery crumbling and worn away. A long road of pale stone winds past it, filled with shadowy forms marching onwards without looking back. A solemn hymn flows in from the distance, voices singing of an absolution that he's never once wanted, that in his waking hours he rejects with every fiber of his being. He briefly wonders if his mother would be here. Even if she is, he doesn't deserve to see her again, anyway.
He realizes that the train is waiting for its last passenger to disembark.
"Goro," Ren says from where he's laying on the roof.
"I suppose this is where I have to get off?" It all makes a horrible sort of sense, now.
"Don't go." Ren reaches up for him, his voice cracking.
"Ren. I'm already gone," Goro says with quiet, heart-stopping finality.
"Then I'm coming with you." Ren scrambles to his feet, looking a little like he's about to break, and Goro doesn't have the heart to tell him no. It's just a dream. It's fine.
He climbs back in through the window with Ren close behind, walks down the deserted aisle of the train car, footsteps echoing loud and heavy. Takes a deep breath, steps through the door onto the platform.
A hiss, a loud thunk behind him- the train doors shutting, Ren banging on them, trying to pry them open, throwing his entire weight against them, eyes wide with shock. Goro's name muffled behind sheets of metal and glass. Drowned out by the announcer over the station PA system. He just stares, feet rooted to the stone platform.
The train starts to move.
Frantically, Ren tries one of the windows above the seats- presses his face to it, tries to reach through it. Draws back, slams it with his fist as hard as he can, but it's as impenetrable as three feet of solid steel. Like a watertight bulkhead door.
The train picks up speed, starts to pull out of the station with its one lonely passenger.
And then he's out of sight.
Goro jolts awake in his room, in the dark, drenched in sweat. His phone lights up by his pillow, and he picks it up halfway through the first ring.
"I'm here," he says immediately. His head is pounding and his throat feels like sandpaper.
"Goro. Thank god." He hears Ren letting out a shaky breath.
"I..." He puts his face in his hands, rubs the grit out of his eyes. "Do you need me to come over."
A pause. "Yeah. Yeah, that would be... yes. I do. please."
"I'm on my way." He hangs up and silence descends around him. Sits and stares into the dark for a second as he slowly comes back into his own body, alone in a starless city.
--
3/20/20XX, 17:23
[Ren] gGORO
[Ren] GORO WHTEH HWAT THE FFUCK I SAW YOU IN THE TRAIN WINDOW
[Ren] if youve been ALIVE all this TIME and you didnt TELL ME im gonna jump out hte window and run all the way back to tokyo to kick ur ASS
[Ren] respond fucker i know youre reading this
[Ren] are you back for real or not
[Goro] Depends. is that a promise?
--
In the summer, they take Sojiro's car and drive west out of Tokyo into the countryside. Ren, who still doesn't have his license, keeps one hand on the wheel and the other linked with Goro's as they cruise down the freeway, towards the sun as it sinks below the horizon.
By nightfall they turn onto a long, empty road and park on the side in the grass. Ren smirks and climbs onto the roof, pulls Goro up too, and they watch the Milky Way spill across the sky as the last of the daylight ebbs out into darkness.
"Crazy to think we were up there once, huh?" Ren leans his head on Goro's shoulder, wraps an arm around his waist.
"I think I like them better from down here," Goro agrees, but he's not looking at the stars. He's seen enough of them for a lifetime.
"Yeah." and then, "You know, this is pretty different with someone else."
"Hmm. Is it?" Goro closes his eyes and buries his face in Ren's hair, presses a soft kiss to his temple. He takes in Ren's warm voice and the lingering heat of the day, files them away for safekeeping so that he can relive the memory when he's alone after Ren inevitably has to return home at the end of break.
"I think so. Because it's you, I feel like I- hey, you're not paying attention."
"I'm sorry, what were you saying?" Another kiss, on Ren's pouting lips this time.
"It's nothing really important. I'm just happy you're here." He's not looking up at the sky anymore, either.
"What would you have done if you woke up and I really was gone?"
"I dunno." Ren blinks up at him. "I'd probably go back up there and tear through that place until I found you."
"That's sweet of you," Goro murmurs. That's so sweet.
Ren bites back a smile. "Although, I bet you could bust out just fine on your own. You don't really need me for that."
"Perhaps, but it would be more fun with a partner, don't you think?"
Ren just smiles knowingly, and in that night alive with the glow of a heaven all but forgotten, Goro finally feels like he's home.