Chapter Text
Bald and penitent, Shido looks like a monk in his prison clothes, his gaze tempered by an unfathomable calm. He’s moved past guilt and shame and grief into a kind of spiritual acceptance of his past and a future marked by atonement.
Goro thinks he preferred it when Shido was a psychopath.
He has no idea why he makes the trip out here every month, so he can sit in the noisy visiting room with all the other inmates’ family members, mothers and wives and children all desperate to pretend nothing is wrong, nothing is broken.
At least Shido doesn’t pretend.
“I saw you on TV,” Shido says, sitting across from him at one of the depressingly spartan metal tables. “You were very clever.”
Goro scowls, pretending there isn’t still some pathetic part of him that sits up eagerly at the praise. His popularity has only grown in the years since he was a teenager, speaking out against the Phantom Thieves by day and plotting to destroy them by night.
So much has changed since then—Shido’s heart, the disappeared Metaverse, the diverging paths of the Thieves themselves. But some things have remained very much the same.
“It worries me, however,” Shido continues, speaking carefully. “To see you spend so much time pretending to be someone you’re not.”
“Fuck off,” Goro mutters, but without any real heat behind it. Shido’s not wrong—he is pretending.
“Very well.” Shido folds his hands before him in that maddeningly serene way he has. “Then tell me about your lover.”
Goro blinks. “What?”
The corner of Shido’s mouth quirks just slightly. “A few of the lads in here read the gossip blogs. They let me know what’s going on with you, since you’re so closed off about it yourself.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Goro mutters. It’s a stupid little thing, really. Someone caught a glimpse of a goodbye kiss and after a year of careful, secretive dating, the word is out that Goro Akechi has a boyfriend.
At least no one knows who it is.
“What’s his name?” Shido asks, infinitely patient.
“Fuck you.” Goro runs a hand through his hair. He hates these visits, hates this room and the sound of crying children and Shido’s stupid face. “Akira. His name is Akira.”
“Akira? As in the leader of the Phantom Thieves, Akira Kurusu?” Shido looks surprised.
“Yes,” Goro admits miserably.
“Is that why you didn’t kill him?”
“It’s not like that. He tricked me.”
“I don’t believe anyone has ever outsmarted you unless you let them,” Shido says. “Maybe you had feelings for him even then.”
Goro closes his eyes and takes a deep, soothing breath. “One of these days I’m going to fucking burn this prison down with you in it,” he hisses.
Shido just smiles fondly. “I’m glad that you feel you can be yourself with me, Goro.”
“Don’t call me Goro.” It’s a habit he’s never gotten Shido to quit. “And I did kill Akira. Or I thought I did. I don’t know if he forgave me, or if this is his way of getting revenge.”
“I’d like to meet him.”
Goro snorts. “Keep dreaming.”
But something about the suggestion tugs at him all the same. The thought that he could have anything resembling a family is patently ridiculous.
Even so...
“I’ll think about it,” he says, grudgingly.
Shido smiles, his characteristic serenity brightened by genuine joy. Goro hates how much he likes to see it.