Work Text:
In retrospect, this whole thing is Sumire’s fault.
Reason number one: she was the person who invited Akira to the party—and, to be fair, it was a banger!—where he met the smokin’ hot guy named Akechi Goro.
Reason number two: she then went and introduced Akira to the smokin’ hot guy named Akechi Goro. (Technically he asked her to, which maybe means that this is actually his fault...but let’s not get hung up on the details here.)
Last but not least, reason number three: she neglected to tell him that Akechi Goro—while admittedly hot—is also a hundred percent cuckoo bananas, and wants nothing more than to be throttled to death at the hands of an invisible demon.
The worst part is that the guy doesn’t even seem to know he’s bananas. When Akira points out that it’s not remotely normal to want an unseen supernatural force to choke the life out of you and then desecrate your remains, he has the gall to protest.
“Obviously, I don’t actually want to die,” Goro says, rolling his eyes like Akira’s the unreasonable one. “I just think that having a supernatural encounter of that sort would be quite exciting. Don’t you?”
Honestly? Not in the least—but, clinging to the rapidly shrinking hope that all of this might still get him laid, Akira doesn’t say this out loud. Oh, no; he’s a textbook case of sunk-cost fallacy, and he’s not afraid to show it.
Like, sure, if this is how Goro had introduced himself when they’d first met, Akira would never have gotten so invested. Something like: Oh, hello there! My name is Akechi Goro and it’s my greatest dream to get choked out by a ghost—wait, where are you going?
But no, of course he didn’t do that. Of course Goro had to be smart, and sassy, and hot...and a really good kisser. (Even though they only kissed the once—which was still more than enough to get Akira hooked.)
Looking back, he probably should have realized that something was up when Goro pulled out the crowbar. Nothing good ever came from someone pulling a crowbar out of a duffel bag, like—“Hey, let me just get my crowbar out and then we’ll be ready to party!” said no one ever.
That’s the thing, you see. Up till that moment, there were zero signs that this was going to become one of those early scenes from a horror movie, right before everyone gets butchered by a maniac with a chainsaw. All Goro said to him was: might Akira be interested in checking out this cool old abandoned building he’s been scoping out? He’d heard that it might be haunted, you see, and was interested in confirming the rumors for himself.
To which the answer—based on the faulty assumption that this was all just an excuse to make out in an unusual, exciting place—was yes, of course! Hell, Akira had all kinds of ideas about how this was gonna go. Maybe it’d be really dark and creepy, and Goro would get spooked by some weird sound and leap right into his arms. Then he could shake his head, chuckle in a manly way, and carry Goro back outside, at which point Goro would gasp and swoon and cry, “My hero!” in a very out-of-character falsetto, and then maybe, just maybe, they could bone in the back seat of his car...
But then Goro pulls that crowbar out and starts jimmying a window open like a pro, and bam—dreams shattered into a million pieces. The look on Akira’s face must say it all, because even though he’s just standing there silently, Goro turns to him and arches a perfectly manicured eyebrow.
“What? Getting cold feet, are we?”
He pats the crowbar in his hand with a smirk, a move that’s simultaneously threatening and also very, very sexy. At this point all of Akira’s brain cells immediately sign off for the night...while his dick, on the other hand, is only too happy to rise to the occasion.
“As if,” he retorts, reaching out to help Goro finish popping the window open.
Goro climbs through first, and Akira, completely ignoring the wailing of his self-preservation instinct, follows suit with the duffel bag. Once he’s inside, though—immersed in the dark and dust and cobwebbed gloom, with moldy furniture looming nightmarishly over them—he starts to have second thoughts.
It’s not even that he believes in ghosts or paranormal stuff, you know? He just doesn’t fuck with that shit, and he’d strongly prefer for that shit not to fuck with him in return. He would’ve been perfectly content to go the rest of his life never knowing the truth one way or the other.
But sometimes, life throws you lemons...where “lemons” is a weird nickname for a guy that you’re irresistibly attracted to, to the point where you can’t say no to him. And then you end up stuck in a house that is possibly haunted but most definitely condemned, while said guy potters around the room like Inspector Gadget, duct-taping electronics to the walls.
(It probably goes without saying, but in this situation, no one is making any lemonade.)
Goro looks up from the wall, to which he has just attached a strange black device.
“Pass me the EMF reader, would you?” he asks.
Akira stares hopelessly down into the duffel bag in front of him. It is filled with a tangle of electronics, all of which look like they were jury-rigged together with nothing but a single roll of duct tape and a dream. He has never heard of an EMF reader, or even an EMF for that matter; Goro might as well be speaking to him in French.
Hm... Goro speaking in French...
For the next fifteen seconds, Akira loses himself in a fantasy of being anywhere except inside the murder house, with Goro dipping him like a salsa dancer and seductively whispering random French phrases into his ear. He wouldn’t say no to something like that...
Apparently growing impatient, Goro shoots him a look. “Is there a reason you’re just standing there gawking, or do you actually intend to help?”
He comes over in a huff, swipes something that looks like a child’s toy version of a television remote out of the bag, and switches it on. It’s black and has five color-coded lights on the top, ranging from green to yellow to red.
He sets this on the counter, then goes back to rifling through the duffel bag while muttering something incomprehensible about salt. That makes not a single lick of sense to Akira, but he decides not to ask. The last thing he wants to hear is that it will add a little seasoning to their tender flesh for the demon that eventually devours them.
Eventually, Goro straightens up, with what looks like an entire canister of salt in his hands. He begins to scatter it across the room, leaving little piles of salt at random intervals, then just chucks the empty can into a corner.
“There.” He dusts off his hands, sounding satisfied. “I think we should be good now.”
Good for what? Akira wants to ask, but he never gets the chance. Right at that moment, the guttural creak of a door swinging open nearly makes him drop the flashlight he’s holding.
He spins around wildly and the beam of his flashlight spins with him, reflecting his panic. The circle of illumination lands, trembling, on the door on the far side of the room. The door is gently coming to a stop—all of its own accord, apparently.
Cold sweat prickles the back of Akira’s neck.
As though it had been touched by an invisible hand, that door moved. He saw it with his own two eyes. Something opened that goddamn door, which means this place is for sure haunted and they have to leave now before whatever is haunting this place decides to make them leave—
Then he breathes out, forcibly engaging the rationalization circuits of his brain. This house has been abandoned for years; it’s drafty as hell, and the insulation probably rotted out years ago. It’s not that unusual for a door to swing open on its own, or even for the whole house to settle.
Right. Nothing to worry about. Just old abandoned house things. Definitely not old abandoned haunted demon murder house things, no sirree.
Meanwhile, Goro is already over by the door, examining it under the beam of a weird purple flashlight.
“Oh, look,” he says, sounding utterly delighted. “It left fingerprints!”
“It left what?”
“Fingerprints, Akira; try to keep up.” Goro looks up with a smile, and against Akira’s will his heart leaps in his chest. “Here, see?”
Akira really ought to know better, but that smile makes an offer he can’t refuse. He approaches the door to take a very grudging look. Beneath the violet beam, which he has realized is probably a blacklight, are round, glowing green marks that look an awful lot like...
Akira drops his flashlight with a clunk and stumbles back a step, nearly tripping over his own feet. Goro stares at him curiously.
“Okay—look.” Akira’s heart is hammering in his throat, as though it would like nothing better than to flee through his mouth. “Did Sumi put you up to this? Because if she did, it’s been funny and all—just friggin’ hilarious—but you guys really need to stop now.”
Goro switches off the blacklight. “Put me up to what?” he asks, tilting his head to one side and blinking. The gesture is more adorable than it has any right to be, and it distracts Akira just long enough for three things to happen in quick succession.
First: Akira’s flashlight, which is resting on the floor, goes out, plunging them into darkness.
Next: the toy TV remote that Goro had previously called an “EMF reader” lights up and begins shrilling obnoxiously.
Lastly: Akira lets out a shriek like a little girl dipping a toe into an ice bath, and tries to dive behind Goro to use him as a human shield.
Unfortunately, Goro is not available to be hidden behind. Instead he has turned on his own flashlight and dashed over to the counter, where he is inspecting the reader with great interest. Then, disappointment written all over his face, he turns back to Akira.
“Only level two,” he announces, as though this should mean anything to Akira. (It doesn’t.) “Pity.”
Akira stares at Goro for a moment, then reaches down and swipes his dropped flashlight off the floor. The switch is flipped off, even though he could have sworn nothing was touching it. He shudders.
“How are you doing this?” he hisses, approaching Goro. (He is trying very hard not to sound as though he’s unraveling, but doing a frankly shit job of it.) “How did you—is this some kind of prank?” He looks around frantically, squinting into the darkness as though expecting to see cameras. “Am I on TV right now? Is that it?”
Goro, now fiddling with a device that looks like a walkie-talkie, pauses just long enough to give Akira a distinctly unimpressed look.
“Oh, are we on television, then? I suppose I must have just missed the camera crew,” he says dryly. “Also, if this was being broadcast, you’d think they’d have given me some better equipment.”
To illustrate he shows Akira the walkie-talkie, which looks as though it is only held together by the fervent wishes of one very attractive and also very delusional amateur ghost hunter. This is decently convincing, but...Akira frowns back at him. Arguing about this sort of feels like missing the point—but when the point is being trapped in a house of horrors with a homicidal ghost, Akira finds that he welcomes the distraction.
“That’s circumstantial evidence at best. The show could just be low budget. Or maybe it’s part of your aesthetic.”
“My...aesthetic,” Goro echoes. He sounds amused, and Akira isn’t sure whether that’s cute or just patronizing. Akira doubles down.
“Yeah. Isn’t that a thing now? Like, ten budget dinners for fifty cents a serving, or whatever. Maybe this is a series on how to hunt ghosts using nothing but stuff from the dollar store.”
Goro’s hand flies over his mouth, stifling an unexpected little giggle...which Akira decides is actually pretty darn cute. He’s about to go on when something clatters to the ground behind him, and instead of words, the only sound he produces is an undignified yelp.
He spins around with wide eyes, and spots a lighter and a bottle of pills lying on the floor. He’s pretty sure they weren’t there a moment ago. Meanwhile, Goro becomes alert, like a hound that has scented prey.
“Did you see that, Akira?” he asks, a serious look on his face. “It swiped some things off the counter—quite violently, too, if I’m not mistaken.” He pinches his chin in thought. “We might be dealing with a Poltergeist...oh, write that down, would you?”
Akira simply stares. Every part of what Goro’s just said is so bizarre that he isn’t sure what to address first. He decides to prioritize the most pressing concern.
“With what?”
“With the notebook and pen in the bag, of course,” Goro replies patiently, as though talking to someone who is not very bright, before mumbling to himself, “We’ll need that anyway if we’ve got a Poltergeist on our hands...”
His curiosity nearly getting the better of him, Akira opens his mouth to ask why—then shuts it again. The sooner he stops asking dumb questions, the sooner he’ll be freed from this stupid prank, no doubt.
He goes over to the counter and rummages through the duffel bag until he finds a tattered leather-bound notebook and a ballpoint pen. As he’s flipping through the pages trying to find an empty one upon which to dutifully record Goro’s observations, though, he can’t help but notice what’s scrawled in the rest of the book. One page is almost entirely blacked out with violent scribbles, the paper worn thin from the force of the pen being pressed into it. Another bears the following message:
I’m stuck here Please help me I’ve been here so long now it HURTS please help me Someone please come save me, NOW
Fear trickles down Akira’s spine like an ice cube. He shudders.
He has to admit—if this is a prank, it’s a really elaborate one. And it is a prank, of course; it has to be... Or at least, he’s going to keep telling himself that so he doesn’t pee his pants in sheer, gibbering terror.
Having finally located an empty page, he jots down the following:
Things flew through the air with violence. Poltergeist??? I can’t believe I am doing this.
...and then looks back up. To Akira’s surprise, Goro is smiling—if not at Akira specifically, then at least in his general direction.
“Very good.” Goro looks sort of pleased—maybe even proud. “It seems you’re finally getting into the swing of things.” He fiddles with the walkie-talkie again for a moment, then looks back up. “It’s all quite interesting, isn’t it?”
Akira hopes his poker face is working better than his bladder control. “Ohh...sure. Interesting...”
Goro either does not hear, or simply chooses to ignore, the sarcasm. He draws out the antenna of the walkie-talkie, then nods. “Contrary to first impressions, it’s actually a very scientific process—akin to how a detective solves a crime. You comb the scene for clues, probing the nature of the entity haunting the environs...and then based on that evidence, you narrow it down between suspects until at last, you have your culprit.” He smiles again, his gorgeous eyes sparkling with joy, and Akira’s stomach does its usual Pavlovian flip in response. “It’s like living out your favorite mystery novel, isn’t it?”
“Murder mystery, maybe,” Akira mutters, but he can’t help the way his lips curl up into a traitorous little smile. He doesn’t want to smile; he’s busy having a mental breakdown, thank you very much. But Goro’s passion is contagious, and honestly, when you put it that way it doesn’t sound so bad anymore—almost like a fun little game, or a puzzle that needs solving.
“Ah, right...about that.” Goro bites his lip, then starts speaking rapidly, like he’s reciting legalese for a pharmaceutical ad. “Some rare entities have been known to grow violent, or even hunt to kill, but I’m quite certain we don’t have to worry about that.” He pauses, then adds in an undertone, “...Probably.”
Akira stiffens up. “What? What was that?”
“Oh—nothing.” Goro fends off any further questions with a cheerful flap of the hand, then switches on the walkie-talkie. The low, haunting buzz of static fills the room, leaving Akira with the faint sensation of needles prickling his bare skin. In a loud, clear voice, enunciating every syllable, Goro asks,
“Why are you here?”
There is silence. Akira, still holding the ballpoint pen and the notebook, can do nothing but stare. It is just now occurring to him that none of this makes a single goddamn bit of sense. Why is Goro holding a walkie-talkie? Who is he talking to? And what—if anything—does he expect to hear?
Undeterred by the lack of response, Goro continues.
“Are you angry?”
There is another beat of silence. Akira is about to breathe a sigh of relief when a deep, text-to-speech voice announces flatly, “HATE.”
Every single hair on Akira’s body stands on end. The hand holding the pen begins to tremble violently.
Meanwhile, Goro looks utterly thrilled—like a child on Christmas morning. He beams at Akira, then tries again.
“What do you want?”
“KILL,” comes the electronic reply.
Goro looks up, switching off the walkie-talkie with a wide smile.
“Well, someone’s in a bad mood,” he remarks, far too cheerful about the prospect of being KILLed by a demon that HATEs their freaking guts.
It was a good life, Akira reflects. Maybe a little short, though—he wouldn’t have minded getting laid one last time...
“I think,” he says, through gritted teeth, “that we should leave. Now.”
Goro cocks an eyebrow at him.
“Why on earth would we, when it’s just getting interesting?” He claps his hands together, businesslike. “Anyway—could you note down that we got a response on the Spirit Box? I think we’re two for two on the Poltergeist theory so far, so we’re well on track to solving this mystery.”
He sounds so excited, and there’s a slight flush to his cheeks that draws attention to the freckles scattered across them. Akira catches himself staring, and has to give himself a little shake to snap out of it. This is his big problem, he realizes; this is precisely why he ends up in these kinds of situations. He has a certain type...and it just so happens that that type is always certifiably batshit insane.
“It’s always the hot ones, isn’t it?” he mutters, flipping the notebook back open and starting to scribble in it.
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind.” Akira continues to jot things down, even throwing in a few notes about the fingerprints they’d spotted on the door before, like a good little assistant. As he writes, however, he suddenly becomes aware that his hand has started shaking again, as though under the influence of some unseen force.
The last thing he wants is to be holding the pen when a demon decides to start using it to compose a sonnet. He is this close to just yeeting the whole thing across the room when he notices that his teeth are chattering a little. It’s freezing in here, which wasn’t the case mere minutes ago.
He lowers the book, looking askance at Goro. Goro also appears to have noticed the drop in temperature; his brow is furrowed—adorable, Akira thinks against his will—and he’s muttering to himself like a mad scientist in the middle of a monologue.
“But wait—if I’m not mistaken, you’d expect ghost writing for a Poltergeist. Was my hypothesis incorrect? If so, we could be dealing with something else entirely. Drat, I think I forgot to pack the laser projector. Perhaps we could do this by process of elimination...”
It’s clear he’s a lost cause, and Akira feels his soul start to congeal with despair...which he only hopes will make it less tasty to the demon that eventually sucks it out through his mouth like a straw. Robotically, he lifts the notebook again and writes:
It is freezing in here. We are probably going to die.
His duty as Goro’s assistant done for the moment, Akira looks back up. The falling temperatures have turned his breath visible, and Goro’s face, too, is wreathed by little clouds of condensation.
Then, without even meaning to, Akira notices movement out of the corner of his eye. It’s barely visible, but he’s so on edge that even the slightest motion is enough to catch his attention. He turns to look, shining his flashlight over that way. There—a puff of breath, appearing out of thin air in an empty space on the other side of the room.
As he watches, the unseen third entity producing this phenomenon travels from the vicinity of the refrigerator to the doorway leading out of the kitchen, then leaves the room.
It hasn’t been that long in the murder house—maybe an hour, tops—but Akira still feels as though he has passed right through the five stages of grief at warp speed and landed comfortably upon acceptance. As he points at the clouds of condensation hanging in the air across the room, the steadiness of his voice surprises even himself.
“Check it out, Goro. Tell me you’re seeing this too?”
Goro looks. All at once, his face brightens like the sunrise.
“Good eye, Akira—you’ve got quite a knack for this, haven’t you?” He gestures at Akira eagerly, miming the act of writing into an invisible notebook. “Go on, make sure you write that down—we’ll want to have thorough notes for when we...”
He trails off. The toy TV remote on the counter has started shrilling again, all of its lights flashing in sequence, and their flashlights are flickering on and off. The walkie-talkie has switched itself back on, filling the room with static.
The sheer excitement on Goro’s face, intermittently illuminated from below, makes him look positively deranged.
“What?” Akira asks, trying to tamp down on the panic rising in his voice. He’d thought he’d reached acceptance, but it seems he’s gone right back to bargaining again. “What’s happening?”
Goro shushes him sharply before seizing his arm in an iron grip. With a finger pressed to his own lips in warning, he starts to drag Akira to the door opposite the one that the unseen entity had passed through.
In their wake, the notebook and pen fall from Akira’s nerveless fingers to the floor, landing with a clunk. Goro pays this no heed. Once they’re in the hallway outside, he casts a cool glance around before his gaze lands on a narrow built-in closet to their left. He pulls the door open, shoves Akira unceremoniously inside, climbs in himself, then shuts it again—very, very quietly.
It is terrifyingly dark in the closet, as Goro has switched off both of their flashlights. But they’re squashed against each other with how narrow it is, so Akira can sort of make out Goro’s face if he squints. Somehow he is sure, without even needing to check, that his own face is frozen in a rictus of terror. He has at least figured out from context clues that he shouldn’t make a sound, but the precise reason escapes him.
In the darkness, Goro makes eye contact with him. He nods slightly, and then his lips move slow and soundless, forming the words:
It’s looking for us.
Akira should’ve known ignorance was bliss. As if on cue, he hears footsteps roaming around the room they had just vacated, unnaturally loud. His heart is pounding in his throat, and he’d be shocked if the demon currently rummaging around in the kitchen for a late-night snack of two complete fucking morons couldn’t hear it.
Also...
Also, Goro’s entire body is pressed up against him, which is more physical contact than they’ve ever had—including the night at the party when Goro had kissed him for the first time and drawn him like a fly into this entire web of lunatic supernatural bullshit—and he is experiencing the most terrified, confused boner of his life.
Under any other circumstance, he’d be really, really into this. In fact this is pretty close to what he’d imagined when Goro had first asked him to go spelunking for ghosts. His imagination had left out certain crucial details, sure—like how ghosts are totally real and DTF, or at least murder you in cold blood. But this part? The part where Goro’s body heat seeps enticingly through their clothing, as though thawing his limbs out from the cold? The part where he can see each minute little tremble of Goro’s lips and his eyelashes; where he’s close enough to count every one of Goro’s fucking adorable little freckles?
Yeah—honestly, this part’s pretty great. If this is how he’s going to spend his last moments before a demon turns him into a souffle, he could do a lot worse than this.
And then...it happens. Nestled together against each other in that dark and silent closet, their eyes lock.
A frisson of what feels like electricity lances between them before arcing down his spine. Goro’s eyes are filled with an intensity that makes him shiver, but there isn’t a single ounce of fear in them.
Akira’s mind is blank, but his body moves on its own. He leans in and seals his lips over Goro’s, muffling Goro’s little gasp. The opportunity to slip his tongue into Goro’s mouth is there so he seizes it, eagerly deepening the kiss. The wandering footsteps outside, the pounding of his heart, the anxiety splintering his brain—it all fades away into blessed silence. Nothing but the thrilling intimacy of their tongues sliding against each other, warm and wet...and Goro’s eyes, still open, boring back into Akira’s own, completely filling Goro’s field of vision.
Time probably keeps on passing, but with how focused he is on Goro’s mouth, he doesn’t really notice. Goro’s hands are bunched in the back of his shirt as though clinging on for dear life; he arches his back and slips a knee up between Akira’s legs, grinding against him.
It’s fucking incredible—even better than it had been at the party. (Akira refuses to consider that the possibility of being used as a malevolent spirit’s charcuterie board might be adding to his excitement. That’s just the adrenaline talking—it’s definitely not because Goro’s psychosis is starting to rub off on him too.)
Eventually, after ten minutes or possibly ten years—all bets are off—Goro thumps him on the back lightly, before breaking the kiss with a soft, warm huff. Now that he’s deprived of Goro’s mouth, the world begins filtering back into Akira’s consciousness.
He blinks. The distant shrilling of the toy remote has ended, and the footsteps have also faded away. In the darkness, Goro smirks at him.
“You’re enjoying this far more than I thought you would.”
He punctuates this taunt with a little grind of his knee back up against Akira; Akira buckles slightly, a groan stuttering past his lips. Scowling, he gives Goro a petulant smack on the arm.
“If you’re talking again, I take it we can get out of this closet? Don’t get me wrong—love making out with you, but maybe we could find a house that isn’t haunted for next time...?”
Goro scoffs. “Could’ve fooled me. The way you were kissing me...” His eyes flash with silent laughter; he pushes the closet door back open, letting them out. “I think you were more into it than you want to admit.”
“You’re imagining things,” Akira mutters. That’s pretty much a confession in its own right, though, and as they return to the kitchen Goro is wearing this annoying little smirk that Akira thinks he’d really like to kiss right off his face.
Akira picks up the discarded notebook and pen along the way, then helps Goro pack all of his crazy gadgets back into the duffel bag. There’s way more stuff in that bag than Akira ever expected. A crucifix, incense sticks, and all other sorts of other paranormal paraphernalia... And now that he’s really looking, he has to admit that some of it is rather intriguing.
All the same, his heart sings when Goro says, “Anyway, I think we can leave now—there’s one more clue we can look for, but we can do that from outside the house.”
“Maybe next time we could get all the clues from outside?” Akira suggests hopefully, passing the bag through the window to Goro.
Goro perks up. “Oh, well—if you’re interested in a ‘next time,’ there’s this old office building I’ve been looking into. Apparently someone was murdered there quite horrifically in the seventies, and to this day they’re still haunting the place...”
“Uh, actually, never mind—”
“...and, since these jobs have a tendency to keep one out late, perhaps you could stay the night at my place afterwards?” He flashes a flirtatious little smirk as Akira climbs back out the window after him. “We could sort through our notes and do a mission debrief... Maybe even work off a little steam together?”
Oh. It is at this point that Akira realizes: Goro has his number. He’s got Akira all figured out—he knows what makes him tick.
(Worst of all is the realization that he, Akira, doesn’t really mind.)
“How much steam are we talking?” he bargains. “Like...just-making-out kinda steam? Or like, steamy enough that clothes might start coming off?”
“I’ll be the judge of that, based on your performance as my assistant,” says Goro, as he pulls what looks like a handheld video camera out of the bag.
“Oh, c’mon...” Akira pouts. “If I’m gonna let a demon turn me into silly putty, I wanna see you naked at least once.”
“Do a good job, then, and you’ll get more than that.” Goro rolls his eyes as he sets the video camera on the sill facing into the house, and switches it on. “Anyway, stop thinking with your dick for a second. There’s something I want to show you.”
Slightly less than enthused, Akira steps closer, peering at the fold-out screen of the camera. The grainy image depicts...well, the kitchen that they were just in, obviously, but little else.
“What am I supposed to be looking for?”
Wordlessly, Goro points at the screen. Akira’s gaze follows his fingertip, staring for several long moments.
And then—there. A speck of light dances across the screen like a firefly, tracing a path from one edge of the room to the other. Then another, tumbling down the screen like a snowflake before sputtering out.
It’s...actually kind of cool. Startled, Akira looks up to find Goro wearing a satisfied—and totally adorable—smile.
“Ghost orbs,” he explains. “Certain spirits manifest them. This one, I believe, was a Mimic...which is, of course, why I originally confused it for another type of spirit. Mimics, as the name suggests, often imitate other spirits, though they’re not able to manifest the specific paranormal signs associated with those spirits. Instead—”
“Yeah, okay.” Akira’s eyes are starting to glaze over. “Right. A Mimic. Got it. Anyway...” He clears his throat. “We’re safe out here, right? It won’t, like, chase us all the way out here, will it?”
“Oh—yes. Spirits generally don’t leave their domiciles; their ‘haunts,’ if you will. So we should be quite safe, yes.” He pauses for a long moment. “...Probably.”
“Last one to the car’s a rotten egg!” Akira blurts, already breaking into a sprint.
He reaches the car first, of course; by the time Goro’s sliding into the passenger’s seat he’s already got his seatbelt on.
“Not very fair of you,” Goro observes, panting slightly as he pulls on his own seatbelt. “You had a head start. And I’m carrying the bag.”
“That’s why I’m gonna survive, and you’re gonna be demon chow.” Akira gives him a slightly manic grin, starting the car.
Goro snorts quietly. “You think you’ll survive for long without me, do you? When you don’t know the first thing about spirits?”
It’s a fair point. Akira peels away from the curb, getting them on the road without hesitation. “I know that I don’t want a demon to yank my spine out through my mouth like a bungee cord. What else is there?”
Goro sighs a little, shaking his head. “Quite a lot, actually. Now, if you happened to be interested in being my assistant, I could of course teach you what I know...”
He trails off, leaving those words hanging in the air. And despite everything, Akira feels a smile coming to his lips.
“Not the worst idea I’ve ever heard, I guess,” he says. “You do seem to know what you’re doing...”
He’s already starting to feel better watching the house shrink out of sight in the rearview mirror, but it’s only when they’re speeding down the freeway, back towards civilization, that he really breathes a sigh of relief. It’s pretty quiet in the car—the radio is on, but turned down so low he can barely hear it over the engine—and it feels like he finally has a moment to decompress.
Meanwhile, over in the passenger’s seat, Goro seems lost in thought, flipping idly through the leather-bound notebook. He lands on one of the pages covered in Akira’s handwriting, touches a fingertip to the words It is freezing in here. We are probably going to die. and lets out a quiet little huff of laughter. It’s hoarse, like he doesn’t get the chance to laugh very much and has nearly forgotten how.
Akira hates how that laugh makes his chest feel—like he can’t quite get enough air into his lungs. Ah...fuck. If he still feels this way after their recent brush with death, he really is down bad. He grips the steering wheel a little tighter.
Goro shuts the book again with a snap. “Say, Akira...”
“Hm?” Akira glances at him.
“Do you...really mean it?” Goro asks. His voice is subdued, almost nervous; it’s rather unlike him.
“Mean what?”
“That you’ll...be my assistant.”
Akira pauses. He might not be tuned in to the cosmic fluctuations of the spirit world, but when it comes to relationships between humans, he’s a pretty sensitive guy. He thinks he knows what Goro is really asking, and...let’s just say it’s not about the ghost hunting.
His lips curl into an easy smile. He reaches over from the steering wheel, slipping a hand over Goro’s, which is resting on Goro’s thigh.
“Yeah... I meant it. I’ll be your assistant.” He gives Goro’s hand a squeeze; Goro jumps minutely, then relaxes again. “For better or worse, yeah?”
“...Fantastic.” Goro’s tone is serious, businesslike, but when Akira glances over again he doesn’t miss the faint blush staining his cheeks. “Good partners are hard to come by these days, you know—particularly in this line of work.”
Akira smirks a little, gaze flitting between the road and Goro’s adorable face. “Will I at least get hazard pay?”
Beneath Akira’s hand, Goro surreptitiously flips his own over to face it palm up, lacing their fingers together. “Sure,” he says airily, squeezing Akira’s hand back. “I’ll be able to negotiate better benefits for you when we get that TV show you mentioned.”
“Yeah? Guess I’ll just have to stay with you until that happens.”
“Indeed,” Goro replies. “Which means you’d better not die on me any time soon.”
It feels sort of like a confession—which Akira supposes it must be, coming from someone like Goro. Face warm, heart fluttering against his ribcage, Akira laughs.
“Till death do us part, then.”