[ A birthday as a celebrity was a strange, incredible thing.
Presents, letters, emails, tagged images and posts, well wishes spread online and his manager dropped off more gifts than he had ever seen in his life.
The sensation was new - so foreign he mistook it for happiness because it had been too long since he last felt it coil in his chest.
Realized after the tenth letter for the perfect Detective Prince, the fourth package full of cloying sweets, a teddy bear from a collaboration he doesn't remember through the haze of too busy days -
How much he despised every last piece of it. This wasn't love. Akechi Goro wasn't wanted. A prince was needed if he covered every imperfect crack.
And in a sterile apartment, he didn't need to play pretend. And in that dimly lit living room, he shoved it all into a trash bag. And in the night that followed, he wondered how he could grasp that brief second in his palm again. More shows - a variety one, maybe. A new cafe down the street was a place his fans frequented and tagged him to visit.
And in this new world where he can just be - he chooses to be Akechi with Akira. A shadow's presence still means he can be alone with another and Akira has always fallen in step with him, allowed him to linger by his side in turn.
They're alone. They're together. It's not the best of both worlds, but it's that imperfection Akechi Goro clings to because it's the most familiar sensation of all.
The bathhouse is a refuge they both settle in without a word. It's a few minutes, ten minutes, nearly a half hour later before Akechi speaks up from his position a few feet away. That he opens his eyes, peels the back of his head off the cool tile behind them and sinks to his shoulders into the water. ]
It's odd to think about aging in a place that may end up being no different than a palace, don't you think?
birthday bathhouse
Presents, letters, emails, tagged images and posts, well wishes spread online and his manager dropped off more gifts than he had ever seen in his life.
The sensation was new - so foreign he mistook it for happiness because it had been too long since he last felt it coil in his chest.
Realized after the tenth letter for the perfect Detective Prince, the fourth package full of cloying sweets, a teddy bear from a collaboration he doesn't remember through the haze of too busy days -
How much he despised every last piece of it. This wasn't love. Akechi Goro wasn't wanted. A prince was needed if he covered every imperfect crack.
And in a sterile apartment, he didn't need to play pretend. And in that dimly lit living room, he shoved it all into a trash bag. And in the night that followed, he wondered how he could grasp that brief second in his palm again. More shows - a variety one, maybe. A new cafe down the street was a place his fans frequented and tagged him to visit.
And in this new world where he can just be - he chooses to be Akechi with Akira. A shadow's presence still means he can be alone with another and Akira has always fallen in step with him, allowed him to linger by his side in turn.
They're alone. They're together. It's not the best of both worlds, but it's that imperfection Akechi Goro clings to because it's the most familiar sensation of all.
The bathhouse is a refuge they both settle in without a word. It's a few minutes, ten minutes, nearly a half hour later before Akechi speaks up from his position a few feet away. That he opens his eyes, peels the back of his head off the cool tile behind them and sinks to his shoulders into the water. ]
It's odd to think about aging in a place that may end up being no different than a palace, don't you think?