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Goro finds out that Akira made a hobby of eating gigantic twenty-pound burgers during high school when, during college, Akira downs five martinis and a shot of tequila on his twentieth birthday, walks plastered as all fuck into a Big Bang Burger at two in the morning, and finishes the burger challenge in front of Goro's and Ryuji's increasingly horrified and equally drunk eyes in less than four minutes.
"DUDE," says Ryuji.
"Congratulations," says Goro. "That's one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen."
"Hey, don't say that to him on his birthday! That was—okay that was a little disgusting, but what a effin' shot chaser, huh?"
"Can you even move?" Goro asks. Akira's looking increasingly queasy, and the poor cashier for the Big Bang Burger is looking increasingly nervous.
"I'm a veteran," Akira says.
"Wow. You really say that with unironic pride," says Goro.
Akira flashes him the peace sign without expression.
Unsurprisingly, they make it down two blocks, during which Goro and Ryuji argue about whether or not the cashier could tell they were drunk (she could, she was just too polite) when Akira suddenly stops. "Wait," says Akira, and then a very long pause, in the way that drunk people do when their thoughts are moving at five kilometers an hour but nonetheless are struggling towards the finish line. Then Akira announces like a personal life revelation: "I'm gonna hurl."
Goro freezes. "You are not serious."
"Here?!" Ryuji yelps. He looks around frantically; they're not quite in Shinjuku but close enough that there's hardly a public bathroom just conveniently around. "Oh, geez, uh—"
Akira starts walking towards the nearest alleyway, swaying on his feet with his hand over his mouth. "Holy shit," says Ryuji, "go go go go—"
And this is how Goro comes to be standing over Akira Kurusu, ill-fated high school crush of his that Goro may or may not have never gotten over, while said crush throws up behind a dumpster.
Akira's still bent double, chest heaving, hair slowly growing sweaty and plastered to his face. Goro's hands flutter over him without touching. Smoothing someone's back when they throw up is just what you're supposed to do, a sort of meaningless platitude from movies, but it never made a lot of sense to Goro. It doesn't make the retching stop. On the occasions Goro has ever been sick enough to throw his guts up, he's never had anyone to stroke his back, so he wouldn't know if it helps at all. And for all Goro knows, maybe the last thing Akira wants is Goro touching him.
Ryuji has no such qualms, and is quite aggressively rubbing Akira's back, even stroking his neck in a way that makes Goro's eyes narrow. Makes him wonder what precisely goes on when Ryuji touches his male friends constantly, and why Akira seems to let him like it's nothing.
"Geez," says Ryuji, coming over to peer at Akira from the other side. "Ugh. Shit. This is kinda my fault, huh?"
"No," says Akira, in a high, strained voice. "Uh. I'm fine."
"You're effin' not. It is my fault. Fuck." For a second Ryuji looks so pissed off with himself that Goro's convinced they're going to have a drunken sob session in a dirty alleyway covered in vomit. When Ryuji drapes his whole arm across Akira's back, Akira just—leans into it with his whole body, like he's relieved. Goro is holding his breath. "Shoulda told you not to do it. This sucks as a birthday party, huh?"
Akira retches in answer, the soundless kind of your whole body revolting from the bottom up but not quite able to get anything out.
Goro stares at Ryuji's hand again. "I'll.. go get water from a convenience store," says Goro eventually. "Maybe something with electrolytes. I'm sure he'll need to replace those."
"Oh! Wait, that's a good idea—I'll do it!" says Ryuji. "Yeah, that's what he needs! Hey, uh, just stay here with him, I'll go—"
This backfired spectacularly, Goro thinks. "Don't worry about it, Sakamoto."
"No, no, I got it! Gotta make it up to him after I screwed up and all that," says Ryuji, and with one more enthusiastic backrub, he's bouncing out of the alleyway. "I'll be back in just a second!"
"Sakamoto—!"
No use. He's gone.
Akira retches again. The vegetable bits are coming up impressively whole, Goro notes with mild disgust.
"I didn't join a frat specifically to avoid holding someone's hair while they hurl, Kurusu," says Goro.
"Sorry," says Akira into the pavement, still a little drunkenly. "The burger challenge was supposed to be funny."
"Well," says Goro, and thinks. "It's not not funny."
Akira thinks about that double negative for a whole five seconds. He's beginning to look nauseous again, possibly from the force of thought. Goro regrets making the joke. Akira looks incredibly ill, and increasingly miserable, in the way that people do when they're realizing that there's nothing they can do to stop their body from making them feel like shit, and they'll just have to sit there and bear it.
"Face away from me if you're going to throw up again, please," says Goro.
Akira does faces away, but just pants. "Am I still sexy like this," says Akira like a joke that Goro has a feeling he is missing a lot of context for. Goro frowns.
"Considering you inhaled a burger larger than your torso, I don't know what convinced you that you were ever, at any point, sexy."
Then Akira does throw up again, which Goro is quite sure managed to get on Goro's shoes, and something in the back of Goro's head just says Okay, fuck it, because Akira is literally shivering with nausea and Goro figures that he maybe won't notice if Goro dares to put his hand right in that empty space between his shoulderblades.
Akira shudders harder.
Slowly, Goro rubs his back, the way he saw Ryuji do it. Akira's skin is insanely hot under Goro's hand, even though Goro's glove. Akira's wearing a stupidly thin shirt, too, considering that they're well on their way into autumn; Goro can feel a surprising number of lean, curved muscles. He can feel every one of Akira's breaths, messy and deep.
"Sorry," says Akira.
Goro very nearly freezes, but Akira looks so put out by it that he makes himself keep going. The back of Akira's neck is cool and wet with sweat. "You don't have anything to be sorry for. You're the one who's sick."
"I wanted the party to be fun for you too." Akira closes his eyes. Wipes his face. "I dunno. I wasn't thinking. I thought it'd be silly." Another deep breath. "I wanted to make you laugh. Sorry. Wait. I didn't say that. Well. It was something I did in high school so... I wanted you to know more things about me... since we didn't really. Have enough time. Back then. Um. Sorry. Wait."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
Akira looks up. He doesn't wear his glasses anymore, and although Goro's seen him without his glasses for longer than he's seen him with them on, there's some part of Goro that still expects him to be wearing them, still expects that thin film of glass between Akira's eyes and Goro's. Akira looks especially naked today, expression not so much hazy so much as it is blown wide open, almost looking a little... afraid. "Sorry. I know you didn't want to spend your night this way."
Goro should probably tell him that it's a Wednesday and he felt so bad for Akira with all his friends abroad and barely anyone free to go drinking on a Wednesday for his birthday, but Akira's breathing is deep under Goro's hands, his hair is wrecked, and there's the smell of vomit in the air because Akira's face is maybe too close. "I don't mind," says Goro instead without thinking.
"Yeah, you do."
"Okay, I do," says Goro. "But it's fine because—"
—because it's you, Goro almost says, and successfully bites off before he can say it. He lost the right to say those kinds of things; and if he hadn't, he wouldn't be saying it now, here, in a alleyway covered in vomit. Akira frowns. Goro takes a breath. His hand is still on Akira's back. Akira swaying where he's standing, their legs almost touching. Goro scrambles around for something else to say: "I would never say no if you showed your weaknesses to me."
There's half a moment of surprise on Akira's face, and then another half a moment in which Goro reflects that maybe he himself is drunker than he really expected, when—"Hey, Akira!" Ryuji calls, barreling back into the alleyway, jangling a plastic bag full of more plastic.
Goro nearly jumps out of his skin and snatches his hand away.
Ryuji stops, staring at the two of them standing four feet apart, Goro's hands very pointedly at his own sides. "Hey, uh... you guys good?"
"Yep," says Akira.
Goro clears his throat. "Get on with it, Sakamoto. I'm calling a cab to get us all home," he announces, and strides out of the alleyway, already pulling out his phone.
"No, seriously, you alright?" says Ryuji's voice behind him. When Goro turns around, Akira's eyes are illuminated in the dark like a cat's, tracking Goro's escape.
"I'm fine, Ryuji," says Akira again, like he always does.
Goro turns away quickly. The hand he'd rested on Akira's back, even through his glove, is still warm.
There’s definitely thrown-up burger bits on Goro’s shoes, though. Goro sighs, and calls the cab.