Work Text:
On his tenth birthday Goro wakes up curled up next to his mother. She’s scrunched close to him, his bed a little too small for her. There’s still makeup on her face, slightly smudged from sleep, and she smells like hand soap and perfume. He’s careful to not wake her up as he slides out of bed, knowing she must have been working late if she didn’t take the time to take her makeup off. He dresses himself, going into the kitchen and making himself some toast.
She’s still asleep as he gets ready for school, packing his homework and making sure there’s money for lunch in his coin bag. He kisses her forehead before leaving. At school his teacher is quick to wish him happy birthday and she sneaks him a small box of candies to him at the end of lunch. The girls he sits next to wish him happy birthday, though only one of them seems genuine about it. Goro is sure she likes him; she always waits for him after school, though they live in opposite directions from each other. It’s one of the best school days he’s had in a long time; no one picks on him, and he gets a perfect score on a reading quiz at the end of the day.
His mother is waiting for him in the kitchen when he gets home, giving him a big hug after he takes off his backpack. She’s wearing her apron, the one she wears when she has the energy to bake.
“Happy birthday baby. I’m sorry I missed telling you this morning. I should have been the first one to tell you.”
“You were tired, mama. It’s okay. I’m happy to see you now!”
She kisses his forehead, playing with his bangs a bit. “I have something special for you. And since it’s your birthday we can have dessert before dinner.”
She has him close his eyes and he can hear her strike a match. When he opens them he sees the small cake right in front of him, ten colorful candles burning above a cake decorated with strawberries and white frosting. He blows out the candles as his mother snaps a few pictures on a disposable camera.
“Your turn!”
He snatches the camera from her and aims it at her. Even in the viewfinder he can see how tired she looks. But she looks so pretty, she always does. It isn’t until he hands her the camera back that he realizes she has flour on her cheek and a handprint of cocoa powder on her apron. She’ll probably be embarrassed when she looks at the pictures later, but it will always remind him of the cake and the surprise.
“I have something else for you, Goro.”
She’s holding a box wrapped in bright red wrapping paper, gold ribbon tied into a big bow in the middle. He sits on the floor of the living room while she cuts the cake, carefully unwrapping the present so they can use the wrapping paper for something later. He’s careful to undo the ribbon too. He gasps when he realizes what it is. A full collection of Featherman poseable figures. All five of the main cast.
“Do you like it?” His mother asks, sitting next to him.
He isn’t sure how his mother could have afforded it. The box is shiny, showing the various poses the figures can make and all the accessories they come with. It’s more than he could have hoped for.
“It’s perfect, mama. Thank you!”
“I’m sorry I’ve been working so much lately, baby. But I wanted your tenth birthday to be special.”
“Very special!” He says, hugging her.
It’s longer than he normally hugs her, trying to hold back tears. She loves him so much. He wishes she wouldn’t have to work so hard, to be so tired all the time. But right now, they can pretend.
The cake is sweet and chocolatey and he savors each bite of the candied strawberries. His mother gives him her last strawberry and while she washes their dishes and begins to make dinner he opens the box, carefully taking each figure out of their plastic wrapping. He wishes he had someone at school he could tell about his present. A friend he could maybe invite over to play with these figures. But his mother will play with him, and maybe if she plays with them enough she’ll finally remember all their names. After dinner he’ll show her how much he loves her present, and how much he loves her too.
On his sixteenth birthday Goro wakes up alone in his apartment, the one that still doesn’t feel like it’s his. It feels like somewhere he’s allowed to be rather than somewhere he lives. Everything is so new and it’s decorated so impersonally. But it’s his, a place of his own.
At school no one says anything about his birthday, not even his home room teacher. Sometimes it seems like none of the adults around him even notice him. He’s like a ghost, rattling the windows in a haunted house or moving things around to try and be noticed.
Shido barely notices him either. There’s a job he needs Goro to do, summoning him to his office in the late afternoon. He speaks to Goro in a disinterested way, giving him a name and asking for him to be dealt with that night. There must be something in Goro’s expression that Shido picks up on, some hint of disappointment Goro can’t hide, because Shido frowns.
“I can tell you want to say something.”
“It’s my birthday today. I was wondering if this could be put off until tomorrow.”
He isn’t sure if he expected Shido to react somehow, to betray some emotion or actually genuinely care. He hadn’t cared for the past 15 years, so there’s no reason he would care now. And it wasn’t as if he even knew who Goro was. There hasn’t been any birthday worth remembering in a long time, nothing worth celebrating in a boy’s home where he was barely noticed.
“I thought we had a deal, that you wanted to help me. Should my plans be put on hold because of you, Akechi?” There’s an edge to Shido’s voice he’s never heard before, one that makes Goro shiver a bit.
“I apologize, Shido-san. I just thought a night off would be acceptable.”
Shido stares at him, eyes bloodless like a shark’s. His gaze makes Goro look down in defeat. And then Shido chuckles, standing up and digging into one of his pants’ pockets.
“Christ kid, lighten up. If you had plans you could have just said so. You must have some girl to go out with, right?” Shido pulls out his wallet, counting some bills. “How old are you now, anyway?”
“Sixteen, sir.”
“Sixteen. And the whole world is before you. I remember being your age and knowing I’d change the world. You’re changing things too, aren’t you?”
He counts out sixteen ¥1,000 notes, and then adds four more after a pause. Shido steps out from behind his desk and hands them to Goro, a small grin on his face.
“Get something nice for yourself, something you wouldn’t normally. You’ve already done so much for me, Akechi. I suppose you do deserve a break tonight.”
Goro takes the money, stuffing it in his school blazer’s pocket. He isn’t sure what he expected, for Shido to offer to take him out, to spend his birthday with him maybe? What would Shido even say if Goro asked? How would he turn him down?
“Thank you, Shido-san. I’ll take care of that target tomorrow, of course.”
“I expect you’ll have a good night,” Shido says, returning to his seat. “Don’t get into too much trouble.”
Don’t do anything that could get tracked back to me, is the obvious subtext.
“I won’t,” Goro says with a smile, bowing and leaves his office.
The train ride back to his apartment is quiet. He’s able to find a seat and reads through a book on his phone. The protagonist is brash and unwavering in his ideals, surrounded by friends and allies. At the konbini outside the station Goro buys a box of Häagen-Dazs bars, a handful of bags of shrimp chips, and a large gyudon bowl, making sure to ask for lots of pickled ginger and an egg on top. It’s different from his normal meals of instant noodles or cereal so it seems fitting for a birthday celebration.
In his apartment, sitting at his kotatsu, Goro eats his dinner while continuing to read about the hero and his friends.
On his twentieth birthday Goro wakes up to a warm spot Ren must have recently left. Morgana is laying beside him on his back, belly exposed. Goro rubs his belly, smiling when Morgana lets out a little happy chirp.
“Mm good morning,” he says, stretching out so Goro has more belly to rub, “Joker said you should go to the kitchen when you wake up.”
It takes a few minutes to get out of bed. It’s warm and comfortable and it’s soothing to stroke Morgana’s soft fur. He scratches the cat’s chin before getting out of bed, stretching.
“Joker said not to look at your phone either!” Morgana snaps, as Goro reaches for his phone on the bedside table.
“Are you enjoying being so bossy first thing in the morning?”
“Maaaaaybe,” he says as he stretches.
Goro rubs his face, walking out of their bedroom and into the living room. Ren is standing in the kitchen, pouring water into a pour over filter. He looks up when Goro walks in, and smiles. It’s a wide, brilliant smile. Goro never gets tired of seeing it.
“Good morning,” Ren says, kissing him softly. “You haven’t checked your phone yet, right?”
“No, I followed Morgana’s orders.”
“Good. I wanted to be the first one to wish you a happy birthday. So happy birthday! I made French toast.”
“You snuck out of bed to make me breakfast?“
“Of course. It’s our first time celebrating your birthday together. So I wanted to do something special.”
Goro feels warm, watching as Ren busies himself in the kitchen again, pouring a bit of milk into Goro’s coffee and covering their French toast in strawberries, syrup, and powdered sugar. The coffee is perfect and the bacon accompanying the toast is the exact crispness that Goro likes. Ren loves spoiling him, and he in turn tries to do little things for Ren, things that make his life easier. That’s what he deserves, after all.
Ren has plans for the day, especially since it’s so nice out. But they’re quiet things, things that will emphasize their time together. There’s a hesitance Goro has had since he and Ren got together, that he isn’t enough, that they always have to be doing something for their relationship to work. Ren seems to think the opposite, because he’s always happy to be at Goro’s apartment just to cook dinner or study. They’re finding peace in their lives together.
“You have this big day planned, but you haven’t mentioned dinner yet.”
“Well I was thinking of asking everyone to come to sushi with us but I didn’t want to put pressure on you. We can always do something with just the two of us.”
“Everyone wants to come to my birthday? I wasn’t sure if they would.”
“Birthdays are a big deal between us. We would have done something for you last year, of course, but you’d only just come back. I didn’t want to scare you.”
Goro had found Ren on his birthday, four months after parting ways in Maruki’s palace. It had been strange, seeing the relief in his face. He’d been so certain that Ren would never want to see him again.
“They all want to celebrate my birthday?” Goro asks quietly, watching as Ren’s eyebrows furrow in confusion.
“Of course they do. Would you like that? I’ve just been waiting to ask you.”
His tenth birthday had been the last he’d spent with anyone, the last one he’d truly celebrated. His fans had celebrated his birthday plenty, sending him vapid presents and letters that didn’t mean anything to him. But this was different. Ren made such an effort to include him in his life, to make him feel like he had a place no matter his past. Their friends wanted to do something for his birthday and were willing to listen to what he wanted. No one had given him that freedom in a very long time.
“Okay, I’d like that. Let’s celebrate with all of our friends.”