[Akira's voice sounds so strange around his family name. Goro can see the way his lips move in his mind's eye, can see the soft 'ah' of his mouth around the first syllable, see his teeth with the last - as if he's seen it all the time before, an echo of a different kind of polite relationship, one they hadn't shared for months. He'd told Akira a long time ago to not address him so formally, to not be so dazzled by his television persona, and teased him about it until it stuck. Goro prefers the way his given name sounds on Akira's tongue anyway - so few people call him that that it makes it special somehow, and he privately likes the way that Akira has a tendency to drag out the last syllable when he's feeling particularly affectionate, to sing-song him from across the bar at Leblanc.
He stares up at the ceiling of his room, listening to the dull thud of his heart rattle around in his chest and the silence at the other end of the line after Akira rectifies his slip of the tongue. The phone had woken him from an odd dream, one that he barely remembers, but one that he knows he's had before. It starts with Akira sitting alone in an interrogation room...]
- I'm here.
[His voice is sleepy and muzzled, but awake enough for his - his boyfriend. Goro blinks away the remnants of the dream and tries to let himself sink into the present, where he's talking to the person he adores more than anything. His eyes slip shut and he remembers Akira smiling at him, Akira bringing him lunch at the studio, Akira bleeding out on the floor.
<3 slow but here!
He stares up at the ceiling of his room, listening to the dull thud of his heart rattle around in his chest and the silence at the other end of the line after Akira rectifies his slip of the tongue. The phone had woken him from an odd dream, one that he barely remembers, but one that he knows he's had before. It starts with Akira sitting alone in an interrogation room...]
- I'm here.
[His voice is sleepy and muzzled, but awake enough for his - his boyfriend. Goro blinks away the remnants of the dream and tries to let himself sink into the present, where he's talking to the person he adores more than anything. His eyes slip shut and he remembers Akira smiling at him, Akira bringing him lunch at the studio, Akira bleeding out on the floor.
Akechi, he'd said.
He never says that.]
Are you okay? It's the middle of the night.