“There’s a connection between us,” he says.

Goro is just about able to stop her face from crumbling. Her father… finally acknowledging her. If she had to die to make it happen, maybe it was all worth it.

“Yes,” she agrees.

His thumb drunkenly swipes against her whisky-wet lips.

“I’m your—” she starts, cut off by Shido’s thumb pressing its way into her mouth. He pushes past her teeth, pushes down her tongue, feeling his way around her.

“Good evening, sir,” she says, letting her eyes rise and focus on the man in front of her. It’s hard not to let the surprise show on her face.

Shido is not the composed man she’s come to expect. There’s a stack of legal papers scattered across his desk, alongside a half-melted bag of ice and a blister pack of codeine. Not to mention the black eye blooming across his face.

He’s just indulging himself in life’s small pleasures.

It certainly feels like indulgence when Joker hits him with a Eigaon that sends him flying back onto the train tracks.

“You wouldn’t know hard work if it slapped you across the face," Niijima says. "You wouldn’t last a day on this side of it."

She must know which of his buttons she’s pressing. By now Sae could probably hit his weaknesses with pinpoint accuracy. Even if there are some things he’s kept hidden away from her, from everyone, certain things — certain traits — refuse to be concealed.

Goro feels that familiar itch bubble up to his throat.

“Is that so?” Goro asks, “I wouldn’t last a day?”

They’re at a club that Shido owns (under a different name, mind you), to meet potential clients or business partners or whatever the fuck term Shido decides on using this time. It’s all meaningless to Goro; he’s long accepted that his role, at least here, is to be a gun. Shido doesn’t take him here because he values his opinion. He brings him here to show him off.

Goro is Shido’s most prized possession. His greatest achievement.

God, he hates him.

sometimes goro wants akira in a completely normal way. the regular, teenage-romcom, kissing-in-the-rain kind of want.

mostly it's a terrible kind of want. a want he can only assume he inherited from his father; violent and possessive and greedy.

"Why does he deserve to die like this?" Goro doesn’t know.

But he doesn’t fucking care.

Ignis hasn’t quite been the same since… Well, since Noctis didn’t die.

Noct wants to know why.

There’s something sad about knowing these are his last few hours he’ll spend in his own room.

Akechi Goro has never been a particularly nostalgic person, but it just feels inevitable tonight. Remembering.

You’ve been planning this night for a while. Weeks of researching online and sex shops and practice have been leading up to tonight.

But first, you start with the familiar.

Sometimes, Goro will wake up in the middle of the night, cold sweat dripping off his skin, and Akira won’t be there. And every time that happens, Goro knows where he’ll be. He pretends, even just to himself, that he doesn’t, but he does.

Goro gulps, and feels the leather collar bob around his Adam’s apple. “Now you really do look like my kitten.”