lostgemini | Memory Tape: Unwanted Advances

CW: nonconsensual kiss, grief

There are lips against his own.

They’re warm. Chapped, a little dry, a flake of skin wedged between them. The smell of coffee and curry is overwhelming. It’s homely, it’s safe, it’s-

Awful. Disgusting. His heart wants to crawl out of his chest through his mouth, nausea rising up his throat, horror and hurt and he feels sick, sick, sick-

“Mff- get off me!” he shouts, pushing Ren away from himself, off the bed, to the floor. There’s a harsh thump and an oof in his ears, but Kou doesn’t care, wiping his mouth in disgust. From below, Ren looks startled, hurt, and it makes Kou want to scream.

So he does.

“What the fuck was that?” he demands, shooting an accusatory glare Ren’s way, hissing between clenched teeth. “Why the hell would you- what the fuck were you thinking?”

“Akechi- I- I’m sorry,” Ren stutters, scrambling upright, eyes looking so lost, like a kicked dog. It makes Kou want to puke. “I just felt- I thought you-“

“What? You thought what, exactly?” Kou snaps, voice cold and heart ablaze with fury and hatred, and Ren looks down, ashamed. He doesn’t say anything, and Kou growls.

“I won’t be your fucking replacement for Goro, Ren,” he hisses, and Ren’s head snaps up, horrified. Good. “I don’t fucking care- I won’t- I won’t play at being him anymore.”

“Akechi- that’s not- I don’t want-“

Kou barks out a laugh, cutting off whatever Ren wants to say. There’s bile in his throat, there’s static in his head, his ears ring, and his chest hurts so much, so, so much.

So very, very much.

“Don’t kid yourself,” he snarls, teeth bared, “what two had- what you and Goro had- I’m not fucking blind. Did you forget we shared everything? Everything?” He laughs hysterically, throwing his head back, “and isn’t it horrible? To look at me, to see my face? His face?”

“Kou, please-“

“You’re as transparent as you are pathetic. How fucking dare you spit on his grave like this. He’s dead. He’s a clump of unrecognizable flesh in what was once the Metaverse, and trying to hook up with me won’t fucking bring my brother back!” Kou screams, voice rising with each syllable, feeling anger, fury, hatred, how fucking dare he, how dare he, he- he-

It’s hard to breathe. He ignores it.

“So no. I won’t let you use me as his replacement,” he hisses unsteadily. His throat feels tight. His stomach hurts. “I won’t let you insult him like this. I won’t be your fucking plaything, Ren. It was Goro that you loved. I’m not Goro. I’m just me, and me isn’t who you want. You want Goro, but I’m- I’m not Goro.”

“I don’t want you to be,” Ren says, his voice quiet. Hurt. Fucker. “Kou, I just…”

Ren trails off, looking away with those sad, grey eyes of him, and Kou lets out a growl.

He can’t fucking stand the sight of Ren anymore. It makes him sick to his core.

“Leave,” Kou says, voice cold and emotionless and final.

“Kou…”

“I said leave,” he yells, his fingers digging into his own arms to the point of pain. “I don’t want to fucking see you anymore.”

“Please-“

“Are you deaf?! Get the fuck out!”

Finally, his words seem to get through to Ren, who gets up from the floor in silence. He picks up his glasses, which he’d put down right before he’d- before he’d tried to kiss Kou, the bastard, and puts them back on his face. He doesn’t say anything as he walks over to the door, and Kou doesn’t, either.

Right before he leaves, though, he turns around briefly, looking at Kou with those sad, yet piercing grey eyes, that cause Kou’s hackles to raise.

It always did feel like he could see straight through him.

“You know,” Ren says, “even if I didn’t really realize it at the time… it was still you sometimes, when I was hanging out with ‘Goro’, right?”

Kou doesn’t reply. Ren continues.

“I just think… even if you were acting as him, it wasn’t all fake, was it?”

“Fucking leave, Amamiya,” Kou hisses between his teeth, looking away from Ren. He can’t stand it. He can’t fucking stand him at all.

There’s a moment of silence, and Kou thinks he’s going to have to physically throw Ren out of his room, when finally, there’s a soft sigh.

“See you later, Akechi,” Ren says quietly. Kou doesn’t hear him leave, footsteps quiet by practice, but he does hear the door fall closed, and when he looks up, Ren is gone.

He waits a moment longer to make sure, staring down the door as if it’s going to attack him at any moment.

Then, he takes his pillow and screams into it. He screams and screams and screams until his throat feels raw, until his eyes ache and his nose clogs and his face is itchy and wet, and then he screams some more. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts so fucking much, everything feels wrong, he feels wrong-

He just wants his brother back.