Work Text:
It’s overwhelming.
When the doors close, you’re still smiling. When the cameras turn off, you’re still kind. When you’re alone in your room, you’re still you that he sees outside of it.
And it’s overwhelming.
Now, he lays here with you dozing off on his chest. You promised you wouldn’t fall asleep once you finally pulled him from behind his desk and onto the couch. But it’s only minutes into the hour-long documentary, and your breathing is starting to slow. Only minutes into the break you insisted he takes while you both wait for the takeout to arrive, and he knows he’ll be spending all these moments memorizing the feel of your heartbeat. Your steady heartbeat.
You’re real, and it’s hard imagining a world where you’re not.
His hands find their way under your shirt, resting comfortably at your waist as he traces tiny patterns into your skin. You’re not a secret to the world. The media knows your name. His fangirls know your school. His office knows your family. But he hates how they all know you . There’s a danger that follows him around. He knows it all too well. But not just from the fame. Not like you think, anyways. He signed his soul over to the devil when he agreed to work with Shido. And now his hands are stained red with blood he used to clean off purely for the sake of appearances. Now he looks at people and assures their safety with golden, closed-eye smiles. As if they couldn’t be next.
But that’s starting to change now that he has you. And it’s overwhelming. You’re overwhelming.
You’ll ask if he had eaten yet. If he needed you to fetch him some water. If he had gotten enough sleep. And he’ll answer you, trying not to let the mask slip, but it almost always does. But that’s okay. You’ll just give him the same smile you always give him, even in his dark ess. You’ll tell him that you understand that it must be tough being a prince. Tough being a hero . As if you’re not the one who’s saving him.
A tiny sound escapes your lips, and all of sudden, you’re shifting in his grasp. His train of thought is broken, and It’s by pure instinct alone that drives Goro into grabbing you tighter. Hands curl around your waist, his bare palm feeling the warm body on top of him, reminding him that you were still here. Still with him. His action makes you stop moving in an instant, this time letting a content sigh before tucking your head into the crook of his neck.
“Did I fall asleep?” Your voice is a quiet lull into his neck. He can feel the tiny puffs of breath escape your mouth. He can feel your soft lips brush against him as you talk. What did he do to ever deserve such intimacy? What did he do to ever deserve such intimacy that he just knows will be taken away from him? Somehow, some way. Like it always does. “Mmm, ‘m sorry Goro…”
“It’s only been a couple of minutes.” He finds himself answering back in a whisper. “You can go back to sleep if you want to, my dear. I’ll wake you up soon.”
The hum you let out is the only sign you heard him as you start growing silent once more. Not even twenty minutes have gone by since you tugged him away from the paperwork, and the mood he’s in has already shifted. He still recalls his own snarls as he sits in the dark of his apartment’s office, leading himself further and further down his path to hell. Cursing the existence of humanity and his idiot coworkers. Plotting the death of another nameless, faceless nobody in Shido’s grand scheme, just wondering when it’ll be his stupid father’s turn to look down the barrel of his gun.
Then a knock on the door sounds, and he doesn’t bother to put a smile on his face. Because he’s looking for an out when you let yourself in with a phone, the menu for the Chinese takeout place down the street, and that smile of yours that won over half of Tokyo. And you give it to him. You give that out to him. Just by saying that now would be a good time for him to take a break.
And now that he thinks about it, it’s a good time to fall in love with you too. As if he hasn’t already.
He wants to say that it’s something mysterious about you. Something that’s equally broken as him. Something that’s equally gray as him. But that’s just not true. You were raised to dot your i’s and to cross your t’s. You like bunnies and kitties and puppies and all things that make you look impossibly soft in such a dark world. You’re the first to apologize. The first to compliment too. You’re friendly with everyone you meet, and he swears up and down that you’ve never not known what it feels like to be loved. You’re charming in this sickly sweet way that practically rots inside of him. And it’s overwhelming.
It’s overwhelming knowing that he, as a monster, was never immune to you too.
Deep down inside, he wonders how long it’ll take until you’re ripped away from him. Maybe Shido will use you to keep him in check. He wasn’t too fond of Goro having you, to begin with, anyways. Or maybe, you’ll be swept away by that disgusting piece of attic trash. The stares always did linger whenever the leader of the phantom thieves lurked too close to you. Or maybe, just maybe…
You’ll walk away by yourself.
The very thought of it chokes him up. His breath stutters in his chest, and his heart starts to fill with dread. It’s a possibility. A very real, a very terrifying possibility. As much as he thinks you won’t turn away after seeing him lose his temper or yell, he knows that’s not true. Because he can curse. He can frown. He can furrow his eyes, and he can growl all because he’s in a bad mood. But that’s the Goro Akechi you know. The Goro Akechi you fell in love with. The Goro Akechi you cared for when no one else would. When no one else could. The Goro that was human.
But would you still love him? Would you still care for him if you saw the real him? No, he knows you wouldn’t. He wouldn’t want you to, anyway. He never deserved your touch. He never deserved your kisses, however shy or bold they may be. He never deserved you. But could you? Could you even look him in the eye after he told you what he really does behind closed doors?
Could you even stand to be in the same room as him if he ever told you just how many times he ignored the pleas of the ones he’d damned?
He turns his head, ever so slightly, and suddenly his nose is buried in your hair. He breathes you in, but he holds it. He holds every breath he takes of you because he knows he could lose you. And he knows that one day, he just might. You’re both just in high school. As you worry about what career you should study for, you hold stuffed animals that Goro got you and hope that you’ll find your way. But as he schedules time to study for college entrance exams, he has to fit in time to kill too.
You inspire him to be a better person. You do. You truly, honestly do. But that inspiration can only go so far when he has a job to do.
Now he has to settle for moments like these. Holding you close and holding you tight . Remember the curves of your body, and trying not to think about how perfectly you mold into his. Feeling your heartbeat. Your breath. Your warmth. You have everything you have to offer him, even as you’re off in dreamland with the light of some stupid documentary making it hard to hear your tiny little snores. It’s overwhelming. And somehow, that’s okay. Somehow, that’s perfect even.
And he thinks, it’s all because it’s you.