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If Futaba had to use one word to describe Goro, it would probably be dumbass, for a multitude of increasingly valid reasons. His terrible Featherman opinions, his self-flagellating need to internalize everything, and—most recently—his decision to start getting buddy-buddy with the stupid jock living in Leblanc’s attic who was also secretly the leader of the Phantom Thieves.
It wasn’t like Goro was unintelligent or anything, he was just also stupid, mostly when it came to people. He acted tough and untouchable, but that’s what it was. An act. Some days, his social intelligence stat was even worse than hers and that was saying something. If nothing else, his recent decisions were further proof of the fact that he had absolutely no taste.
Futaba knew it was petty, caring so much about who her brother was talking to. Hell, she’d even admit that it was more than a little hypocritical, but she was allowed to be hypocritical when her brother was making blatantly, obviously stupid mistakes.
She didn’t want to be the one to pick up the miserable pieces of his heart when Joker inevitably broke it. Frankly, she didn’t have the time to, between assignments from Shido and collecting evidence.
It felt harsh, even in her mind, but no matter how her gut snagged on the thought like a fish hook it didn’t change that the sentiment was true.
(She probably wouldn’t have thought something like that before she started working for Shido. But maybe that was for the better, because the girl she was before was pathetic, scared of meeting the quiet, dead-eyed ten-year-old her mom had decided to take in for whatever reason (she knew why now, but she certainly didn’t at the time). The same person that couldn’t stop crying herself to sleep after her mother died, after she was separated from Goro once again because her terrible uncle decided that keeping them together would ‘ruin the family name.’
She was different now.)
Even so, as she stared at her monitor, watching the running list of texts between them grow, she couldn’t help the how disgusted she felt, how much she hated Ren Amamiya for doing this to her brother.
Futaba was going to fix this.
They were both dressed in black, going through the motions of Wakaba’s Tsuya. She didn’t let herself speak because if she did she would either cry or curse. He looked just as empty-eyed and dead as he did when they first met.
They were outside. Neither of them had checked the weather beforehand so they waited out the sputtering, dying rain under an alcove.
They both knew what would come next, so they didn’t need to say anything. Even with that, he still spoke, words unmistakable in the droning noise of the sky.
“If you die I’ll never forgive you.”
She didn’t realize she needed to hear it until he pulled her into a tight, bone-breaking hug.
A soft, surprisingly gentle knock on her door startled Futaba out of her reverie. “Yeah?” she asked.
“Want dinner?” a familiar voice called back, muffled but obvious through the heavy door. Futaba looked back at the clock. Was it really seven pm already? She glanced back through her tabs, the countless emails and texts and files she was sorting through one by one from Shido’s associates and computers. Nothing particularly pressing, even if they were crucial to her plans.
A quick command and her screens were empty again.
“Sure,” she agreed, clicking on a random file on her desktop to scroll through for the sake of looking busy, only to immediately regret it when she was met face to face with the Featherman erotica she’d downloaded…purely for research purposes.
She clicked out of the tab just as quickly but not before a startled chuckle escaped Goro from behind her, pausing his footsteps for a moment before continuing towards her.
“Bad time?” He asked smugly, setting down a ceramic bowl with a light clack on the desk.
“No!” She insisted, cheeks burning despite herself as she scrolled back to one of her older tabs—a thorough analysis of Feather Green’s character over the course of the series. “That was a fluke, shut up.”
He made an affirmative hum, looking unconvinced and still smiling like a little shit, but he didn’t comment further. Actually, he stopped moving entirely, which was odd, because even though he was usually the one to bring her food he was also usually quick to leave, busy with one thing or the next.
“Need something?” Futaba regarded the bowl with open suspicion, peering into it and frowning. It...looked like Sojiro’s curry, for the most part—maybe a little lumpier than usual, but something smelled…off about it, and the sinking feeling in her gut only grew stronger as she poked at it with the spoon.
“No,” Goro shook his head, but still didn’t move, eyes watching her intently like a hawk.
With her suspicions rising, she only put the barest amount of food on the spoon that she could reasonably get away with under Goro’s scrutiny. Wrinkling her nose and preparing for the worst, she counted to 1…2…3 and ate it…
She set down the spoon again with incredible poise considering her natural response was to immediately throw up at the taste.
Really, Goro needed to stop trying to cook and just let Sojiro do the work.
“Are you trying to poison me?” she demanded, her tone coming out less teasing and more biting than she (probably) intended, but she didn’t do anything to correct it, pushing away the bowl and spoon definitively.
Goro sighed at that, body slumping a bit miserably as he stared back at her, one hand askew and his other forcefully still at his side, fingers twitching restlessly.
“What was wrong with it?” he asked, and even though he smiled, it was more polite than good-humored, brittle and plastered at its edges.
“Everything,” Futaba answered, turning her attention back to her monitor. “Can you get me some of Sojiro’s stuff instead?”
“That’s not helpful.” Goro stuck with, a little petulantly.
“But it’s true.”
“Right,” he sighed, and she could physically feel the weight of his gaze leave her, “I’ll just tell Sakura to make your food next time then.”
There was nothing inherently wrong with the comment, even if his tone had turned a bit snippy. But something about the way he said Sakura dragged against her skin like sandpaper. He was still seriously going with that that bullshit? Sakura. Like Sojiro hadn’t saved them both. Like he hadn’t worked endlessly to drag Goro back out of an orphanage and reunite them. Goro pulled the same shit when it was just them and Mom. Always referring to her as Isshiki or Isshiki-san. Never Mom, never even Wakaba. Like he wasn’t a member of their family—like he didn’t want to be.
“Your cooking stat’s always been negative five,” she pointed out bitterly after he started walking towards the door, abruptly halting his movements, “and I’ve always asked to eat Sojiro’s food instead.”
“Forgive me for trying,” he muttered darkly, low enough that he probably didn’t want her to hear it, but she latched onto it like a predator to their prey’s weakness. She was picking a fight, she knew she was, but she couldn’t help it. The burning vitriol in her chest pulsed hotly beneath her skin, immense and powerful as it snapped through her last restraints, pouring out of her lips before she could stop it.
“Well you should stop. You’re the one who doesn’t wanna be a part of our family, not me.”
That made his expression drop, painfully shocked for a brief second before it shuttered completely, hidden behind a cold, metal wall of neutrality. “Futaba, I’m not doing this with you.”
“Right. You just do whatever you want without asking anyone else because you’re not a part of the family,” she sneered, and, distantly, she knew she was crossing a line, but as she glowered up at his slowly retreating form, she couldn’t help but continue, pulse beating in time with the thrill of the hunt, “you won’t take our last name because you don’t want to be associated with us. You keep visiting me every day because you pity me—and don’t you dare deny it because it’s obvious.”
Futaba aimed for the throat. “Just admit it. You never cared about Mom, and you don’t really care about me either.”
The air burned out like a wick, all of the tension in Goro’s body gone and replaced with hurt, wordless and raw as Goro opened his mouth, then hesitated, closing it and turning on one heel.
“I’ll tell Sakura you want him to organize meals,” he said before leaving, cold and detached, the door shutting a bit too hard in his wake. Futaba flinched at the noise despite herself, and almost wished she could justifiably be upset with him for the motion, considering he knew her history, but she wasn’t the one wronged here. How dare he take the high road and exit the argument before snapping at her? How dare he look so shocked at the idea that she was upset, that she could snap back at him too? When she was struggling every day to meet the increasing demands of their awful father who just gave her name after name after name and they all blurred together now and it wasn’t fair it wasn’t fair she just wanted to get some sort of justice for the both of them—
Her lungs burned and her vision blurred and it took a moment before Futaba realized she was crying, the tension in her chest crashing through all at once in a flood of emotion that she didn’t know how to handle. Her hitched breaths and hot, aching tears didn’t stop for what felt like forever, and it hurt—it hurt like a shadow tearing through her guts all over again and she didn’t know what to do with any of it.
In her mind, Charybdis spoke, loud and clear.
Stray soul, the Strait of Messina will swallow you yet.
She wished her mom was still alive.
One of the things she dearly hated about Goro was how stubborn he was. He stuck to his word, from that day on, Sojiro was the one to bring her dinner. He didn’t comment on the situation, not in front of her, at least, only asking if she was alright before nodding his head somberly at the predictable lie she told him.
Through her bugs, however, she heard him interrogate Goro about the argument, his stern voice asking what he did because of course Sojiro would assume it was Goro's fault. Goro was the one who blew up, not Futaba. Not sweet, shy old Futaba who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
The pit of guilt that made a permanent home in her gut sank a bit deeper.
It was even worse when Goro didn’t even try to correct him, just answered it was a stupid argument and that they both needed some space.
And it was stupid, but it was Futaba’s fault—another mark on her long list of crimes. Maybe she should care about the people she killed more than the way she intentionally hurt Goro, but she never claimed to be a good person.
(Maybe she’d care more if she knew any of the victims, but she didn’t give herself the opportunity or credit because looking them up would kill her, one way or another.)
Her guilt didn’t close the gaping canyon between them, though. If anything it made the width all the more daunting. Maybe if she was a courageous person she would make the first move, a text or a call or anything, but she didn’t. Because she was a coward. Goro obviously wasn’t going to make the first move, because he was like that even if they both knew the argument was stupid, so what was she waiting for?
Why was it so hard to type a single, simple ‘I’m sorry’?
Futaba dwelled on it, avoiding the issue for months. Long enough for Goro to start school again. Long enough for a probationer who was obviously falsely accused and convicted to start living under Leblanc’s roof. Long enough for Sojiro to tell her that if she didn’t want to go to school, he wouldn’t force her but he was always there for her if she needed it. Long enough for the Phantom Thieves to make their appearance.
Their first case, Kamoshida, she only learned about because she kept track of what was happening in Shujin, even if Goro wasn’t talking to her. The extent of his vile behavior was so disgusting it made her wish she’d worked up the courage to talk to Goro about it—maybe she could have used her abilities for good for once.
Futaba didn’t put too much thought into the circumstances, at first. They were strange, yes, but one look at Kamoshida and it was obvious he was nothing more than a pathetic coward. If the supposed Phantom Thieves successfully managed to blackmail him, his behavior during his confession wasn’t totally unbelievable, even if his earnesty was.
Not that she wasn’t immediately aware that Amamiya and his friends were the Phantom Thieves. Frankly, it was embarrassingly easy to access their phones and see proof of their escapades as the Phantom Thieves. They didn’t even try to hide it.
Even so, she didn’t immediately assume it was the metaverse, primarily because she’d never heard of individuals in the metaverse being able to affect people outside of the metaverse that way.
That was, until she received a call from Shido ranting and raving about a calling card that Madarame received from the very same vigilantes as Kamoshida.
“Investigate his palace,” Shido ordered, and because it wasn’t yet time to destroy him, she did.
Imagine her surprise when, miles above the battlefield, she recognized the pompous man in the black coat doling out orders as the very same Amamiya Ren who was currently living above Leblanc. That alone, not even including the insane little monster cat that fought next to him, was concerning enough, but it wasn’t until June that the gravity of the situation hit her.
It was late but she was still sifting through the messages between the Phantom Thieves. Everything she’d seen between them confirmed what their low-levels suggested. They were a bunch of stupid, naive kids who just so happened to stumble upon the metaverse by accident and thought they could change the world because of it.
(But so was she, before everything. It was only through Mom’s insistence to protect her that Shido hadn’t gotten his hands on the metaverse sooner.)
Shut up, Futaba internally chastised herself without any heat. She had better things to do than reminisce about the past.
The faint sound of Leblanc’s bell caught her attention. She didn’t have anything better to do so so she turned her attention to the live recording of her bugs. She’d installed them just a little after she realized that, despite having open access to pretty much anything Amamiya ever touched on the internet, nothing seemed to provide her with much information about him. Texts were concise, impersonal, and few and far between, his web history was pretty much nonexistent (he didn’t even watch porn from what she’s seen—though he had made some searches about the hygiene of doing anal), and he didn’t write much in his notes other than weird quotes he apparently heard from his friends.
Which meant if she wanted to learn anything about the dude, she had to go analog. AKA, spy on him whenever he was at Leblanc.
Which was also, really, really boring most of the time. Until today, apparently.
“Amamiya-kun?”
Futaba nearly fell out of her chair, and she scrambled to right herself when the shock wore off.
“Hey Akechi,” Amamiya returned, “need something?”
“No, my apologies, I thought Sakura-san would still be here.” Goro responded, but it wasn’t followed by Goro leaving Leblanc like he should have. Instead, barely a second later, he added, “though, I suppose I don’t mind his early leave if it means I get you all to myself.”
“Careful Akechi,” Amamiya teased, and Futaba bit the inside of her cheek at how familiar they sounded with one another, “keep talking like that and I might think you actually like me.”
“How do you know I don’t?” Goro laughed, voice airy even through the digitized recording, so bright it almost made her want to gag with how cloying it was, “it’s not every day I find someone who rivals me the way you do.”
Amamiya didn’t audibly respond but the whole conversation was quickly dipping into territory Futaba did not want to listen to because ew hearing how desperate Goro’s acting made her skin crawl. Despite that fact, she couldn’t turn off the feed, paralyzed into inaction like watching a car crash in motion.
“The usual?” Amamiya asked.
“Surprise me.”
Thankfully, if there was a god out there they took mercy on her ears, because the pair’s conversation quickly fell back into slightly boring, banter about Hegel or whatever philosopher Goro had most recently read up on to seem smart. Amamiya was quiet, like he always was, but he wasn’t silent, and she would have been impressed with how thoughtful his occasional comments and rebuttals were if not for the fact that she knew he’d furiously googled Hegel for the past week.
Gross. At least she didn’t have to listen to them ‘flirt’ anymore.
From there Futaba mostly tuned out the conversation, making a note that Amamiya and Goro knew one another—said that they were rivals or something else equally weird and nerdy—until Goro finally left, a whole hour later.
The urge to text Goro was stronger than ever, but she filed that feeling away when she suddenly heard a voice pipe up through the feed.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing with him?” It asked, high-pitched and a little strained, and Futaba suddenly got second-hand mortification at the idea that Goro had just performed whatever weird-ass mating ritual he has going on with Amamiya in front of someone else.
Amamiya didn’t say anything, but must have made a gesture of some sort because the other person sighed. “I’m just saying you should be careful.”
“We need information from him either way,” was Amamiya’s response, and the stoic, empty tone he said it with made Futaba’s heart drop.
“Are you sure that’s all this is?”
Silence.
“Right,” came the unknown voice again.
The conversation dragged on from there, barely anything more was spoken between them before Amamiya went upstairs for the night and Futaba again found herself torn between her desire to know more and the fact that she absolutely did not want to put bugs in a teenage boy’s room.
But her mind was racing, trying to figure out where she could have known, how she could have missed something this big. She’d taken her bugs off Goro’s phone a year ago because she felt terrible invading his privacy that way, but she still knew his phone number, and it hadn’t appeared in any of Amamiya’s texts…
It hit her like a jackhammer to her skull.
Goro must have bought another burner phone and used that to talk to Amamiya (it seemed ridiculous but she’d fucking seen him do it before). Goro was Rival, the only person in Amamiya’s phone who hadn’t been given a proper name and who she once joked to herself typed like a grandpa, just like Goro did.
Fuck she was so stupid.
It took a month—well into July—before she finally worked up the courage to text Goro—and she only found herself doing so because the more she analyzed Akira’s texts, the more she was convinced that her dear brother’s stupidity was going to result in him becoming part of a harem.
Futaba: hey
A few minutes passed, then.
Goro: Do you need something?
Ugh. She deserved that.
Futaba: no
Futaba: i just wanted to apologize
Futaba: but i’m not sure i have the guts to do it irl
Goro: Apology accepted.
Futaba: hhh stop being difficult
Goro: I’m not.
Futaba: yes you are you asshole
Futaba: ik ur upset and u’re right to be upset because i was being terrible and i was just taking out my stress over mom on u and u didn’t deserve it and now ur just gonna say ur ok w/ it when ur obvs not and it’s just gonna get worse and worse and i really do wanna make things better
Goro didn’t respond for what felt like forever, the ellipses appearing and disappearing a dozen times before disappearing all together.
For a moment, she was terrified that maybe she really had fucked up beyond repair. Maybe this was the final straw. Maybe Goro had decided he had enough with her. This was how it was doomed to end, wasn’t it? Cursed children don’t get families or happy endings. Goro just finally realized that—
Her phone lit up, buzzing loudly with a call from Goro and, startled by the sudden noise, Futaba hit accept by accident, barely having a second to process the situation before Goro was speaking.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to completely convey my thoughts over text at the moment,” he started without preamble, and she gulped nodded before remembering he couldn’t see her.
“Okay.”
“I’m not upset—”
Futaba audibly scoffed, “yeah you can’t lie to me.”
A pause. “Are you going to let me continue?”
“Yeah,” she murmured, somewhat guilty, “I’ll zip, won’t say a word.”
“...right. Fine,” Goro sighed, long and quiet. “You’re right,” he said slowly, like it pained him to admit, “I’m not over it. But I want to forgive you. I know you didn’t mean it. I—” he cut himself off, “—I’m sorry, if I haven’t been doing enough to give Wakaba justice—”
“I didn’t really mean that, I was just upset with myself—”
“Shut up, just, be quiet,” he snapped without any heat. “I just wanted to say that I haven’t forgotten. She...she wasn’t my mother, but I still care…about both of you. And I promise you, I haven’t forgotten,” a huff that could have been a laugh escaped the tinny speaker, “I don’t think I could if I tried.”
“Me either.”
The silence between them hurt, it felt like bleeding and healing all at once but the wound was still there, still pulsing and oozing everything vile and wicked in her soul. Infected and disgusting and everything she tried to hide.
“We still need to catch up on Neo Featherman R,” she found herself saying, “they reveal Feather Navy’s identity in the latest episode.”
He hummed his agreement, “I’m scheduled for an early shift Sunday, but I shouldn’t be home that late.”
Futaba smiled a little at the word ‘home,’ “then you better be ready to have your world rocked.”
Their interaction started awkward, their usual greetings stilted and strange on both of their tongues, but it wasn’t long before that initial awkwardness dissolved into something more comfortable, something familiar.
Watching Featherman had always been a simple, casual way for them to bond. A shared interest they could mutually divulge in to escape the rest of their lives. When they first started, not long after Goro was adopted by Mom, it was because Goro was still depressed over his mother’s suicide and she was trying to handle bullying at her own school. It was the first time she’d ever really heard more than five words out of Goro’s mouth at any one time.
His newfound talkativeness was a gift and a curse, because she quickly learned that once he started talking it was hard to actually get him to shut up again. Even if she secretly loved having someone to nerd out with over a show most of her class already seemed to have abandoned as “childish,” there were days she actually wanted to watch the show.
Regardless, it became a staple in her otherwise chaotic life, a tether to cling to even when she found herself starving and cold when her uncle took her in after Mom's death. Just as much of an anchor as the rage that swelled her veins and demanded that she take vengeance.
In a way, watching Featherman like this felt like having Mom back.
“I can’t believe I let you convince me to watch this,” he said flatly, staring as the credits rolled past.
Futaba cackled, the sound ripping from her throat as she doubled over. “What? Are you not a fan of Feather Phoenix Rangers save Halloween?”
“I would rather claw my eyes out than watch that again,” he said, picking up his phone and rapidly typing something out.
“Emailing the government to ban the movie?” She guessed.
“I’m writing a strongly worded critique to warn fans against watching this,” he corrected, “fucking 43 percent—it doesn’t even deserve a single percent. Did any of the producers know what Featherman is or did they just see toy ads and decide to make a movie?”
“What? Do you not like the Redgreen kiss?”
“Did you?”
“Still better than Redblack,” she said, just to be contrary, leaning back against the old sofa in their living room. Even if Sojiro didn’t get why they watched Featherman, he had been nothing but supportive when she asked if they could use the living room to binge the show.
“Your intellectual abilities to judge character continue to be as tawdry as ever,” he sighed, resigned and disgusted all at once and she felt herself smile despite everything.
Little did he know she’s been shipping Blackred for years now.
“Hey, um,” she shifted a little, trying to find the words to explain herself, but her throat closed up the moment Amamiya’s name reached her tongue. Thankfully, Goro’s attention still seemed absorbed in the thousand word essay he’d committed to writing.
“Hm?” He hummed after too long passed.
Damn it, the words were right there. She had to bite the bullet. “I just wanted to know if you’ve talked to the side character Sojiro took in.”
Goro looked at her like she’d gone mad. “The what?”
“The black market ivory dealer slash knife wielding murderer.”
“Oh, you mean Ren?”
Fuck. They’re on a first name basis already, she didn’t smile but she didn’t frown either, so that was something at least.
“Yeah, that guy.”
Goro shrugged casually. “A little,” as if he wasn’t texting Amamiya on a daily basis. “Why?”
“Just curious,” she lied.
Of course, Goro saw through it right away.
“He’s as dangerous as an anemic fly,” Goro insisted with a scoff, wrongly assuming his record was what she was concerned about, “his record is entirely fabricated. He didn’t even get a chance to punch the asshole who sued him.”
I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. What matters is he’s the leader of the Phantom Thieves I’ve been ordered to set up to get Shido elected. He’s using you, and I don’t know why. “Yeah, I figured that much out looking at his record,” and at the look Goro shot her she rolled her eyes, “what? You expect me, someone who can hack into most government databases, to not look into the case of some attic-trash Sojiro got roped into housing?”
“There’s such a thing as privacy hellspawn.”
“Pft. That’s a lie and you know it.”
Goro glared at her all the same. “Just, keep it to what you already dug out. He doesn’t deserve to be harassed.”
She rolled her eyes. It’s not harassment if they didn’t know they were being monitored. “Careful, keep talking like that and I’ll start to think you actually like him.”
He sputtered at the accusation, cheeks flushing red.
“Wait—” she grinned even as her dread spiked, “don’t tell me you actually do like him.”
“Of course not!” He snapped, burning even brighter, “I’m not that pathetic.”
“God I so did not see you falling for the silent protagonist type,” she laughed, even though that was a lie. For all Goro’s defensiveness, he was rather easy to manipulate once you broke down his barriers. A kind word here, a conversation there, enough to make a cursed child believe they’re loved. It would take nothing for someone to manipulate him in an especially vulnerable state. Like Futaba had left him when she threw all of her own insecurities at him. Amamiya could have Goro wrapped around his finger so easily.
She had to make this right.
“I don’t like him,” Goro insisted wearily, sighing as he picked up the remote to exit the movie and eject the disk, “he’s simply adequate company.”
“Mhm surreee.” Despite her teasing tone, she felt herself hesitate again as the full weight of the situation needled the back of her mind. She bit the inside of her cheek, then added, “just, you know, be careful.”
Goro gave her a side-eye, expression exasperated and resigned all at once as he threw the remote half-heartedly back towards her. “Be careful,” he repeated almost scathingly.
“Yeah,” he’s the leader of the Phantom Thieves—he’s dragging you into the world I’ve purposefully kept you from for years—I’m sorry this is my fault like it always is— “you never know who might be using you.”
“I’m still older than you,” he pointed out, a wry smile crossing his lips as he folded his arms over his chest, “you don’t need to infantilize me.”
“I’m not,” she murmured, shrinking back into her place on the couch. She really wasn’t trying to, but how was she supposed to explain to him that she knew Amamiya couldn’t be trusted because she accidentally spotted him in a supernatural world where they summon demons to fight for them? “I just don’t wanna see you get burned again.”
“I don’t subscribe to your paranoia,” bullshit you don’t, “and I’m not so idiotic that I’d blindly trust someone. But…” he conceded, voice wavering for a second before it tightened, resolute and clear, “I’ll keep your thoughts in mind.”
“Right.” They were both natural born liars.
Scylla always takes her toll, Charybdis echoed as Futaba stared at the remnants of her creation: Medjed, lost and utterly unsalvageable under the heel of Shido’s boot.
This was just the price she had to pay.
They’d planned on making their Featherman watch parties a weekly tradition again, but just as soon as plans were put in place they were derailed.
One Sunday Goro would text saying his shift had been changed last minute, asking if Monday would work instead? And then that Monday Futaba would get another list of names from Shido that he expected to die by the end of the week so she’d have to go to the metaverse. Monday would become Wednesday and Wednesday would become Friday.
She told herself it didn’t mean anything, that Goro was busy and stubborn as hell which was why he still insisted on working a ton part time jobs even if they were kinda terrible towards him. It was increasingly hard to convince herself that it wasn’t personal when, on that same Sunday night, she watched Goro text Amamiya to invite him to his favorite Jazz Bar for the remainder of the night.
It wasn’t as if they never met up anymore, it just wasn’t as often, never for as long as she hoped.
Why it hurt was another question entirely, but it did. It felt like something was slipping through her fingers, raw and grating as it passed. No matter how hard she tried it was still dripping away, slow and steady and inevitable. It was illogical, unquantifiable, and it was real.
Fine, she told herself, be that way. If he wanted to play with fire so badly she wasn’t going to try to stop him from getting burned.
(That was a lie, of course, but it turned the pain into something more tangible so she held onto the thought like without it she would die.)
She tried to give Amamiya a chance. She really, really tried, because it was obvious that he made Goro happy, happier than she’d ever really seen him. But every time she thought she had finally convinced herself that maybe their relationship could work out, she found herself staring at the recording she had of June 9th. That damned, awful recording.
He’s just using Goro.
It was all she could think about as the credits rolled by for the newest Neo Featherman R episode.
“I thought you’d have more of a reaction than that,” she tried.
Goro just hummed his acknowledgement, eyes distant and lost in a world of his own.
“I mean, how can you still argue Blackred after that,” she started, trying and failing to hide the growing desperation in her voice to hear Goro actually talk to her again, rather than just stare listlessly at the computer monitor. “It’s no wonder you have such bad taste in men.”
That, for the first time in hours, seemed to get his attention. “Because you have quite a refined taste yourself.”
Bitter jealousy welled up like oil in her lungs, “at least I’m not trying to get in bed with a guy who looks like he never brushes his hair and talks to his cat.”
Goro’s expression shifted with his posture, where it was polite once suddenly turned confused—then embarrassed—and finally defensive. “You’ve been spying on me,” he concluded flatly.
Shit. “I haven’t been spying on you specifically,” she corrected, “I just haven’t removed the bugs I planted in Leblanc and happened to overhear you talking to the guy—gross by the way, I really deserve an achievement for listening all the way through whatever weird-ass mating ritual you have going on.”
His face burned, expression twisting between pure shame at being called out and mild disdain for even having this conversation in the first place. “I’m not interested in him,” he muttered like a stubborn kid.
“Yeah, right, and Sojiro doesn’t make coffee.”
“I’m not,” he insisted, voice a little harder and more agitated as he picked at the frayed ends of his t-shirt, “he’s just a friend.”
“Mhm, sure,” she rolled her eyes, “doesn’t change my point that your taste is garbage.”
He didn’t respond to that, obviously done with the conversation, but she couldn’t just let this go, couldn’t leave it here because he was still blushing like a schoolgirl, still convinced that Amamiya probably liked him too in some capacity.
“He’s bad news.”
“Hm?”
“Amamiya.”
Goro shot her a hard glare. “What, are you policing who I talk to now?”
“No,” god why couldn’t he just listen, “I’m just saying you shouldn’t trust him.”
“You don’t know him. Spying on someone doesn’t mean you know them.” He bristled, voice flat and condescending as he explained it to her like she was a child.
Fuck off. “I’m not stupid, I know that, but it also doesn’t invalidate any of the shit I’ve seen.”
“Really,” he said, voice dry and dripping with condescension, before he caught himself and faltered, expression wavering for just a moment before it was snuffed out entirely. He looked away, refusing to meet her eyes as his voice came out, clean and empty, “look, I don’t want to have this conversation with you.”
“Because you know I’m right!” Futaba felt hysterical, she felt like she was talking to a wall. Why was this so hard? Why wouldn’t he just listen?!
“I don’t care about whatever you think he is.”
And that was the issue, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter what she thought, because Goro was as stubborn as a bull and pricklier than a cactus and if he wanted something, he was going to pursue it. It didn’t really matter if she thought he wasn’t good for Goro, because Goro wouldn’t listen. He didn’t care.
But she had one last ace up her sleeve.
“You don’t know what he’s said about you.”
That finally seemed to get through to him, confusion and hurt cracking through his plastic expression, only to be swallowed whole by defensiveness as it came back tenfold, his eyes on her again before she could blink. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” she battled on, past the growing guilt in her chest. She wasn’t the one ripping away Goro’s happiness, Amamiya was. “He said that he’s only talking to you to get information.”
“Really?” It didn’t sound like a question but the way the anger in his eyes collapsed in on itself made her answer anyway.
“I wouldn’t lie to you about this.” And she wasn’t, even if those weren’t his words exactly. “I still have the recording if you need to hear it.”
Goro paused for one breathless moment, like standing on the middle of a tight-rope, and then he fell, looking away again and back at the screen, nodding.
So she played the clip, the entire clip. Goro and Amamiya’s conversation, Goro leaving, then Amamiya’s voice, ringing loud and clear.
“We need information from him either way.”
Goro’s expression didn’t shatter, because he was Goro Akechi and Goro Akechi just didn’t do that, but it was the closest she’d ever seen him to breaking. The ensuing silence just reaffirmed the resounding thought in her mind: you’re an awful person for this, and she certainly felt awful, even if this was something she had to tell Goro. She hated this, hated that his first real connection with someone outside of their makeshift mess of a family just had to be the leader of the Phantom Thieves—had to be someone who would take one look at Goro and decide that he was the perfect kind of person to take advantage of.
But she needed to tell him. It hurt now, but it would get better with time, she knew that it would. Futaba was protecting him this way, protecting him from getting burned later down the line like he always seemed to.
It was better this way.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said, voice coming out hollow.
I’m sorry.
Futaba understood grief. Even moreso, she’d seen the way it trapped and tormented Goro before, so she knew what to expect in the coming days: reclusiveness and silence. That wasn’t to say Goro purposefully brushed her off or disregarded her entirely. When she texted he still answered, but his answers were broken and stilted, like he was trying too hard to seem like himself. She gave him time and space, because he would hate the idea of her coddling or pitying him.
Unsurprisingly, Goro’s texts to Amamiya slowed, becoming terse and concise. If it bothered Amamiya, he didn’t say so in any of his texts or conversations, which pretty much confirmed everything Futaba had gathered. What an asshole.
She didn’t regret telling Goro at first.
Until, a week into August, she heard a commotion outside and looked through her window to see Goro laying limp and unconscious on the ground, his body surrounded by the entire team of the Phantom Thieves.
Futaba didn’t have time to think about the consequences of going outside, that she was outnumbered, about how many people were there, that they could hold Goro hostage if they really needed to. Futaba just reacted, grabbing the metal bat Sojiro secretly bought for self-defense (her first weapon in the metaverse) and before she knew it she was standing in her doorway, knuckles white around the handle.
“What did you do to him?” She demanded, doing quite a good job at keeping the hysteria out of her voice when she noticed that there was blood.
Each and every one of the Phantom Thieves turned to her in sync. Their expressions were a mixed bag, ranging from shock to guilt to panic, but her attention was locked on the gray eyes of the man kneeling next to Goro, his normally neutral expression stricken and confused.
“I asked what you did to him!” The beating sun and concrete beneath her bare feet tightening her chest and quickening her breath like her lungs had shrunken and if she didn’t gasp for each breath she wouldn’t be able to breathe at all.
“H-he just collapsed!” Sakamoto stammered, “we didn’t do nothin!”
Amamiya was the first to move, leaning down to hoist Goro up and she felt her stomach drop when she saw the way his head lolled.
She was standing on the edge of the street when her eyes rolled back into her skull and her body collapsed all at once right into the path of a moving car—
“Don’t touch him,” she whispered, then, a yell, “don’t touch him!”
Amamiya fixed her with a determined look, brow still pinched and eyes still pained as he wrapped Goro’s arm around his own shoulder, Niijima quickly joined him in supporting her brother who already looked dead— “We need to get him inside so we can perform first aid.”
Futaba didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to do, utterly useless as Amamiya took charge, brushing past her frozen form as he pushed forward.
—the car didn’t stop it wasn’t ready it kept going and there was blood everywhere and someone was screaming but it couldn’t be her because that thing on the floor was broken and bloody and wrong and not her mom—
“Futaba! What’s wrong?!” a familiar voice thundered from the entrance to the alleyway, and she turned to see Sojiro there, face etched into a scowl as he prepared to fight whatever enemy they came across. She watched sightlessly as he took in the bat in her hands and the other Phantom Thieves around her.
“I—I—” she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t breathe.
—there were people so many people all staring like the world suddenly stopped and it was like no one was there at all because it was just her and the corpse and she couldn’t see she couldn’t speak it wasn’t her body it was someone else’s small and useless—
“We’re sorry!” Takamaki was the first to talk, voice firm and even as she wiped her reddened eyes, “we found Goro collapsed out here and we panicked. Futaba must have spotted us and assumed we hurt him or something.”
Sojiro spared a concerned glance towards her before schooling his expression into something authoritative as he addressed Takamaki again. “Where is he?”
“Ren and Makoto took him inside.”
—and she moved first because no one else was and she rolled over the body and tears fell down her face because it wasn’t her mom’s it couldn’t be no matter how familiar it looked because her mom’s face wouldn’t shatter like glass—
Sojiro wasn’t there anymore, she vaguely registered him running past her but the world was ringing like a cicada in her ears. She didn’t feel present. She knew everything was there and all at once they were a thousand miles away. Nothing felt real.
Someone was talking and it looked like Takamaki was trying to say something and Kitagawa was looking at her like he knew what was happening even though Futaba didn’t and Sakamoto was staring at them like he didn’t know what to do.
—and someone grabbed her shoulder and when she looked back Goro was there.
She ran back through the doorway, bat long discarded as she tore through the hallway, barely glancing in each room she passed until she found the trio in the living room, Sojiro kneeling beside where they’d left his slumped form on the couch.
“Go get Takemi,” Amamiya was saying.
“Got it,” Niijima responded in turn, moving without hesitation back out the door past her as Futaba found herself standing next to Goro’s body. If she looked hard enough maybe she would see him breathing, but she was shaking too hard to see properly. When she pressed her fingers to his neck and felt his pulse beat against her skin it was like a string snapped and everything collapsed all at once, tears welling hot and heavy against her eyes as a sob broke through her throat.
She couldn’t stop, she couldn’t breath but she couldn’t stop because it felt like breaking and healing all at once because Goro wasn’t dead.
He wasn’t dead.
He wasn’t Mom.
Death in the metaverse was different from death in the real world. It was clean, simple, and easy. Shadows don’t bleed or contort or break the way real corpses do. Shadows dissolved, even less realistically than most video games she’d played.
It wasn’t hard to sit back and watch as Charybdis swallowed a shadow whole, no different than watching a cutscene with quick-time events.
She thought it’d be harder when Shido started telling her to shoot shadows in the head, but it really wasn’t, because it didn’t feel different either. Even when a shadow pleaded and begged, staring up at her with features that could almost be human, pulling the trigger wasn’t hard after the first time.
It was easy to forget that these were people when everything they said sounded like bad lines from an RPG.
Takemi turned out to be the shady goth gp she vaguely knew lived in Yongen-Jaya. She insisted everyone (with a pointed look towards Futaba and Amamiya) leave while she checked on Goro, which was how she ended up sitting next to the closed living room door, knees curled into her chest. Out of habit she moved her thumb to her teeth, only to feel that her nail was already bitten down to the quick.
The Phantom Thieves looked just as shaken up as she felt when they received the news. They didn’t linger in the hallway like she did, Sojiro had been strict on limiting who was inside the house, if only for her sake, but they didn’t leave either. She could still hear them whispering just outside, barely visible through their cracked front door.
When she heard someone sit down next to her, she didn’t have to look to know it was Amamiya.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice low and raspy.
Futaba didn’t say anything, because she didn’t know what to say. Any accusations she had to level against him had evaporated the moment she saw Goro on the ground. She should be angry at Amamiya, this was undoubtedly his fault—even if it wasn’t entirely what she was expecting when she said he’d hurt Goro.
She just felt empty.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he continued, unfettered by her lack of response, “we were just trying to help him.”
“Sure.”
“I promise,” Amamiya insisted with that same empty neutrality she’d heard time and time again, and the familiar, low drone of rage sparked in chest again—
—only to die when she met his eyes, clear and cracked with the same emptiness that ate away her chest.
Futaba looked away, burying her head in her knees so she didn’t have to meet the intensity of his gaze.
“What happened?” she mumbled.
Amamiya didn’t answer. He couldn’t, probably. You brought him into the metaverse, she accused, but even in her head it didn’t have the bite she wished it did.
“The Phantom Thieves changed his heart.”
Then her head snapped up again faster than he could blink, horror zipping down her spine like a lightning bolt.
“What?” She whispered, unable to hide the pure, unadulterated terror growing in her eyes.
Amamiya didn’t flinch but his expression wavered regardless.
“But he’s not a bad person,” she insisted, almost desperately, “wasn’t your whole thing that you only targeted evil-doers? That the Phantom Thieves were good because they only changed the hearts of horrible people?!”
“So it was you…” Amamiya trailed off, but the audible grimace in his voice said enough.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Akechi asked us to change his heart.” Futaba was certain that was what Amamiya said, but it didn’t quite sit right in her mind. Why himself of all people? “And he told us not to discuss the matter by phone because someone was monitoring our texts and calls,” he nodded towards her, as if to say you were.
“That doesn’t make sense,” she said, because it didn’t, it just didn’t, “why would he ask you to change his heart.”
Amamiya glanced away, eyes somber and regretful before he schooled himself back to something pacifying. “That’s something you should ask him, not us.”
Fine. If he didn’t want to tell her she wasn’t going to waste time on a useless line of questioning.
“What went wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Akira answered honestly, looking pained like it took something out of him to admit that much. “But most of our targets fall into a catatonic state after their heart’s changed so there’s a chance nothing did.”
Catatonic state. She wrung her hands painfully tight to make up for the fact that she couldn’t bite anything anymore.
“He’ll be fine,” a voice suddenly announced to her right, the door sliding open as Takemi stepped out. “It’s nothing serious. Exhaustion, mild malnutrition. All in all it looks like a pretty simple case of being overworked.”
Futaba felt her whole body sag in relief, eying the doorway anxiously. If her body wasn’t entirely emptied of tears she might have cried again, but she felt wrung out like a wet towel.
“I’m going to put him on an IV and leave him here but what he needs is sleep,” she sent a pointed look towards them both, “so I don’t want either of you in there. At least, not for the first day.”
“But—” Amamiya started, only to be cut off immediately.
“No buts,” Takemi insisted, her stern gaze softening for a moment as she watched them, “go home and stop worrying. You two need it.”
It was probably for the better, she told herself as Sojiro quickly moved to enforce the doctor’s orders, if I don’t see him, I can’t compare him to a corpse.
Amamiya looked about as unsatisfied as she felt, but nodded anyway, offering quiet apologies to Sojiro before moving to take his leave. Futaba wasn’t sure what possessed her, but she followed him, waiting just inside the doorway as he discussed the results amongst the other Phantom Thieves.
The mixture of shame and relief across their faces said more than words ever could.
“Amamiya,” she called out before she got the chance to regret it as the group had turned to leave.
Everyone turned at once, all surprised to see her except for Amamiya. Typical..
“Go ahead without me,” he ordered.
“Are you sure?” Takamaki asked for the group, though she wasn’t looking at her with nearly as much trepidation as Niijima was.
“Yeah.”
They all went, even the cat. Futaba didn’t speak until she was certain they were gone, going so far as to look around the corner as to make certain of it.
She spun around on one heel, linking her hands together behind her back to hide how hard she was squeezing them.
“What do you want from Goro?”
He didn’t look surprised at the question, didn’t even blink twice, but he didn’t respond right away either. Instead, his eyes narrowed, thoughtful and considering as they watched her with an unnerving intensity.
“I don’t want anything from him,” he finally answered.
“Don’t bullshit me,” she sighed, emotionally exhausted beyond measure. She shouldn’t have to do this, she didn’t have the energy to, but this was something she needed to know—needed to hear for herself, “I’ve heard you talking about him to your friends. You wanted information, given everything else I can only assume it was how much he knew about you being the Phantom Thieves. Now you know, so what do you want?”
He didn’t answer for a long heartbeat, looking confused for half a second before it sank back into his empty facade. Futaba’s veins burned as she stalked forward—the same way she would a shadow knocked to the ground, only Amamiya wasn’t cowering, he met her gaze head on and clear like it was nothing.
“He likes you,” she announced flatly, watching the way Amamiya’s expression didn’t even falter at the declaration, “it’s obvious.”
“...I figured,” Amamiya agreed after a moment.
“So, what is he to you? A source of information? A threat? A pretty face to add to your harem?”
Amamiya didn’t pause, didn’t give his answer a second’s hesitation.
“He’s my rival.”
Futaba felt something crack in herself, her facade and anger all seeping out into the empty pit of her chest. He sounded like an asshole, smirking with just a slight quirk of his slips and his head titled just so and god of course Goro would fall for such an insufferable prick.
And at the same time, it was the most earnest she’d ever heard him, leaving her wordless and confused and upset all at once with no outlet.
It felt a lot like uselessness.
While Goro was still unconscious Amamiya visited every so often, which was stupid and gross since it wasn’t like they were married. Hell they weren’t even dating. What gave Amamiya the right to care so much and what gave him the right to seem so honest when he said he did?
When he asked her to help the Phantom Thieves by taking down Medjed, she wanted to laugh.
She did it anyway. It felt nice to stick something in Shido’s face for once.
When Goro woke up properly she cried harder than she wanted to admit. Normally he wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of person, but he didn’t object to the way she clung to him like she would sooner strangle him than let him go again.
“I don’t wanna fight with you.”
“I don’t either,” Goro answered.
It wasn’t an apology, but it was enough.
“Ren and I are dating.”
She wasn’t surprised, she’d figured as much by the way Goro’s contact on Amamiya’s phone had changed from ‘Rival’ to ‘Gowo <3,’ which she was absolutely going to use to blackmail Amamiya when she got the chance because there was absolutely no way in hell Goro agreed to that.
“Mmm.”
“He also told me to mention that he doesn’t have a harem,” he said, raising one brow to heighten the sharp judgement of his gaze.
“You can’t blame me for shovel-talking the guy when he shows up on our doorstep with your unconscious body,” she mumbles around her lollipop, spamming her way through the Featherman Seeker final boss for the fifth time that week.
“Right,” he scoffs, and she can practically see his eyes rolling, even as a hint of fondness betrays his otherwise stern demeanor.
A beat of silence, only broken by the shouts of dialogue and blasts from the video game.
“I don’t want to start another argument, but I just want to be clear about this,” Goro said, tone softer than she’d heard in years, and when she glanced to the side he looked nervous, vulnerable, even. “My life is my own. Maybe this is a mistake, maybe in a year I’ll regret my decision, but it’s my mistake to make, not yours. You aren’t responsible for my life.”
It hurt, his bloody red eyes cutting right to her core because that was the issue, wasn’t it? She felt responsible, she was scared. It was why she never told him about the metaverse, about Mom’s research.
About Shido.
“Yeah, I know,” she admitted quietly. “I…” she trailed off, just for a second, but she hadn’t been Shido’s assassin for a year because she was easily frightened, “I won’t say I like him, but you do, so I’m going to try.”
He looked like he had something more to say, but smartly bit his tongue so all that came out was a half-hearted, “thanks.” Unfortunately, even half-hearted the gentle appreciation behind his otherwise awkward comment made her own sentiment ring hollow.
Try to get to know Amamiya. Only psychopaths tried to get close to their future victims.
Goro took to the metaverse like a bird to flight. Like he was always meant to fight shadows alongside the white-masked fiend who had become the center of her year-long crisis. It felt inevitable, in a tiring way that gouged at her chest even though nothing was left.
Dork, only Goro’s metaverse outfit would be a prince outfit (or was a ranger more fitting?). Even the black gloves fit.
She’d worked on her revenge for two years, two years of hell, of panic attacks and death and more blood on her hands than she’d ever be able to wash away. It was so close, so, so fucking close she could almost taste it. Just a few months and everything would be in place. Shido’s downfall would be fucking glorious and everything her mother deserved—everything they deserved.
And then Amamiya had to happen. Amamiya, who was doing so much good for so many people. Who had dragged her brother into a hell neither of them yet understood and who her brother would never forgive her for killing. Who would be dead before December if Shido had his way.
She was trapped, Charybdis on one side and Scylla on the other.
She watched as they spoke in harried whispers under the low light of the dying sun.
“If you die I’ll never forgive you.”
There was really only one answer left.