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“Here you are, sir.”
Goro sees the blue ceramic of the mug before the waiter holding it. He looks up at tousled dark hair and–oh brown eyes. He blinks and realizes even the hair isn’t the same, it’s too long. Neater than what he keeps searching for.
“Thank you,” His smile is small, the words genuine.
He’s left to his own reverie by the waiter as he wraps his palms around the mug, steam drifting lazily off it. It’s warm, enough to strip the chill from his fingers.
The little cafe looks so much like one etched into Goro’s memories. It’s why he’d stopped here, transfixed at first, before his feet took him automatically inside that first time he’d visited. He’s not in Tokyo. Nowhere near in fact. But just the sight transported him in a moment. It still does, even after he's become a regular.
Perhaps that is why the ghosts that chase his vision are more vibrant here.
Ghosts. Goro buries a snort in a sip of the coffee. He’s the ghost. No one sets out to look for one. Only fools waste their time with such pursuits.
The truth doesn’t stop the hollow ache that rests in his chest. The one that thought, for a moment, that he was wanted enough to be chased. Isn’t that what those eyes, firm as steel, had promised half a year ago? Isn't that why he's here, waiting still?
The coffee is smooth, the beans roasted and brewed just right. It does nothing to slate his thirst.
He sets the mug down, finger tapping at its edge as a breeze catches his hair, trying to tease it out of the ponytail he’d only just managed to tame it with that morning. It gives up the attempt and slips down his shirt through the gap in his jacket, icy fingers reaching. He shivers as sharp pain echoes through his shoulder. The now familiar ache ignited again. He rolls it, the movement easing the pain somewhat, pushing it back out of mind.
Goro tugs his jacket a little closer, sealing off the wind’s avenue too late to be of any real use. Autumn has arrived with all its glory and here he finds it even more stunning than in the city. He doesn’t mind an ache if it means he gets to enjoy such a view.
Just over the little metal fence that separates the cafe’s patio from the rest of the world he can see the walking path he takes sometimes in the mornings. It is all that holds back the crush of trees from fully encroaching on the cafe and other buildings in the sleepy town. They are aflame with color, reds and oranges and yellows of every hue seeping like spilled ink into the once vibrant green of the leaves.
This view is something he never thought he’d get to enjoy. It is one of a hundred moments he had once thought lost to himself. Traded away for revenge.
He’s still not sure he deserves to see any of them. Or how he managed to trick fate into letting him continue on.
Goro taps a finger against the mug again, perhaps he hadn’t tricked fate. Perhaps it had tricked him. Forced him to live in the world he’d discarded, and find a life when he’d planned for none.
He swallows, and lifts the mug again, the coffee might not be the same, but it is good. It warms him from the inside, doing its best to chase away the ache in his shoulder, and deepening the one in his heart.
With a sigh, Goro sets his coffee aside and opens his laptop. He hadn’t come here to brood. Between how stifling his little apartment has felt lately and his internet being spotty, this is the only good place to get any writing done. And he wants, no needs, to get some writing done.
For a few hours, and with the help of copious amounts of coffee, he does his best to exercise the ghosts clogging his mind. He takes them, and everything else he can’t look closely at, and makes it all into someone else's problem. If he can give them a better resolution then maybe he can find his own.
By the time he leans back, Red Hawk and Black Condor still haven’t managed to work out their (and by extension Goro’s) issues but his fingers are stiff from the chilly autumn air. His laptop’s battery is reading dangerously low. Still, if he's lucky he can probably squeeze another half hour out of it in order to edit and post the chapter.
He reaches out for his coffee to find the mug empty again. Right, he’d ordered another cup. It should be coming pretty soon. He looks up and stretches, reaching his arms high over his head as he leans back in the chair.
Black flashes across his vision again as something moving stills.
Goro blinks, eyes focusing on the figure that had caught his eye and freezes, arms still pulled above his head.
Gray eyes stare, pinning him in place like he’s a butterfly on a board ready to be picked apart and examined.
A breeze picks up, catching the boy’s hair and black jacket, tugging as if to say ‘lets go, keep moving’. Leaves dance around his feet, the rustling the only real sound between them. Goro isn’t even sure he’s breathing.
A throat clears somewhere behind him, jarring Goro from his state of shock. He drops his arms, tearing his eyes away from the ghost before him. A snarl of not now is barely suppressed by a “Thank you,” given as artificial as anytime he’d ever said it on tv. He waves away the waiter, plucking the new mug from his hand in his rush.
Coffee splashes out and over the lip of the mug as he all but tosses it onto the table, the ceramic clattering far too close to his still open laptop. None of that matters, not when there is something far better waiting for him.
Chest tight, he spins, and–a wail of frustration threatens to tear its way out of his throat. The sound trapped, like a bubble that needs to pop.
Disappointment, cold and heady as packed ice, fills him because of course he hadn’t actually seen Akira standing there. He’s only ever been a project. A pitiful little case for Joker and his thieves to fix. He knows that. He’s told himself that a hundred times between waking up in a hospital, to his attempts at piecing his life back together, and then as he’d planted himself on the first train that would take him as far away from Tokyo as possible.
If he is actually going to use his unwanted second chance he shouldn't waste it chasing after hopeless desires.
Still. That traitorous hope he’d tried and failed to excise from himself, the tiny voice that had said he wished for you had planted a seed within him he still hasn’t been able to squash. And so, like a fool, he waits and wants.
Goro turns back to his laptop and coffee. It had indeed spilled, the hot liquid splashed across Goro’s keyboard in a cruel imitation of a blood splatter. As he wipes at it with his napkin he uses each motion, a little too firm, to shove down the tangle of emotions within himself.
Coming here today was a mistake.
At last he's mopped it all up. Goro shuts the lid of his laptop, hands trembling even as he attempts to even out his breathing. His coffee goes ignored as he leans down to settle the laptop in its bag. Reaching into an inner pocket he pulls out a handful of bills, more than he needs to pay his bill so he doesn’t have to wait around any longer. He zips it, the sound skittering through him like the rattle of icy wind.
He scoops the handles of the bag into his palm and straightens. Then weighs the bills down with the small vase decorating the table, conscious of the fact that the wind might actually carry them away before the waiter can pick them up, and stands.
Bag pressed close to his side, he moves stiffly towards the door, the only real exit located through the cafe’s interior.
A moment before he can reach out for it, the door swings open, revealing the rumpled and wide eyed figure of Akira Kurusu.
Akira crashes into him. The sudden weight of a whole entire body pushes Goro back as easily as the shock does. This isn’t real–this can’t be.
He really must be losing it now if he’s imagining Kurusu hugging him.
“Wha—” Is all he gets out as arms snake around him, pulling him into a hug so tight he’s not sure he could breathe if he wanted to. And it’s that motion, that painful squeeze that forces reality to land home. Akira is here. He came.
A face presses into his chest as hands ball into his jacket, claiming so much of it Goro can feel the breeze take its chance to slip back beneath the fabric. He doesn’t know what to do. And so, he does nothing. Standing there like a fool as the person he’s been waiting for holds him close enough to finally close up the gaping wound in his chest.
He’s just decided to make an attempt at returning the hug when Akira pulls back, nose red, eyes watery, a smile like the sun lighting up his face. He takes a step back and Goro misses his warmth instantly.
Akira’s voice is triumphant as he says, “Found you, at last.”
The words pierce him, sure as the bullet that almost ended his life and just as effective. Goro staggers back, each moment more than he’s prepared to handle. He’d never actually thought–even considering the fledgling hope that had flickered in him. This moment hadn’t ever actually occurred to him as something that would materialize.
Hazy, he reaches a hand out, cupping Akira’s cheek, palm feeling the warmth there, the little dimple from the smile still playing across his lips, an anchor to reality, “You’re here?”
“You certainly made it hard enough,” Akira’s eyes never leave him, even as Goro let’s his hand drop fingers curling tightly into his palm, “Thankfully I’m pretty stubborn.”
“But, why?”
It’s like shooting himself in the foot asking the question. The words hang between them all the same.
Akira’s voice is soft, gentle enough to wrap the fear Goro had shared in its warmth and sooth it away, “You asked me to.”
He had. In a way only Akira could understand.
Goro’s not sure if he wants to flee or never let Akira out of his sight again. His mind whirs, every reason this meeting is wrong and every excuse he’d used to keep himself planted in this little out of the way town rising up in a torrent, trying to tell him he shouldn’t let this happen.
Gray eyes glitter as Akira tugs something from his pocket and holds it up for Goro to inspect, “Or did I misunderstand why you left this behind?”
It’s a king, though it’s missing the crown that normally rests atop it, leaving the center hollow and empty of the little slip of paper Goro had left there, heart racing, mind screaming about how bad an idea it was to do so.
“No, you got it.” Goro swallows, voice miraculously even considering the situation, he steps back, waving a hand at his recently abandoned table, “Join me? I’m sure you have questions.”
“I do,” Akira nods, but steps towards Goro instead of the appointed seat, “I’m going to demand them all, you know. Your reasons, and a full account of what happened on that ship.”
He takes another step forward, closing the distance between them again, to reach out and cup Goro’s face, “But for now, let me just relish the fact that you’re here. Alive and not a ghost.”
Goro barks a startled laugh, “No, I am certainly not a ghost,” He takes Akira’s wrists, to tug at his arms, slipping their hands together, “And neither are you.”