Chapter Text
Jazz Jin is muted, as it always is. It is one of the many boons of the place. After a day of fluorescent lights, the drowning wail of police sirens, the grating voice of enthusiastic coworkers and classmates alike, it is nice to be in a place that knows the value of restraint.
The uneventful calm he feels in Jazz Jin is wholly different from the calm he projects every aching moment of the day in front of strangers. He is not working against the force that is other people’s inability to subdue themselves, but rather simply matching the energy given to him. It is nice to have a mirage of privacy, to feel like his subdued demeanor is welcomed, and yet is unnoticeable in the crowd.
Bringing Akira was a gamble that thankfully did not disrupt his oasis. Akira takes to the environment just as easily as Akechi did, conversation low in volume and in stakes. He lounges across his chair, but it’s not the perfect laziness he usually sees, nor the pin-point gaze that appears when there’s a challenge in front of him. There is something suspended within him, like a marionette spinning under the hands of a master, fluid but uncanny.
Akechi’s perception has advanced far more quickly than his ability to analyze and categorize. So, he knows that Akira acts a little different in Jazz Jin, but he can’t quite name it yet. He doesn’t want to particularly want to name it either. He can leave it, a blank feeling within his mind. The feeling is enough.
To spend more time on it, would be to distract himself from his goal.
So, he keeps a distance on their outings, or at least he was until Akira insisted with his stupid, exaggerated chivalry to pay for their meal. It’s patronizing, and he only lets it slide the first time because Akira ordered the second plate for him. He recognizes that he’d look weird for insisting on paying for something he didn’t actually order.
Then, he keeps doing it. Akechi decides to change tactics instead. If Akira is foolish enough to think it worth it to pamper him, he won’t try to refute it, he’ll just make him regret it, and hopefully, get him to stop without having to waste another breath.
He easily welcomes an excuse to be more adventurous in eating. It is not the greatest idea to explore this new culinary world next to someone he has to be incredibly guarded against given that one bad meal can easily tip his mood beyond repair, but he’s had years of controlling his reactions. If he’s nearly thrown up over biting into eggshells in poorly made egg salad, that was only in the privacy of his own home.
Over the years he’s learned quite clearly that no one likes a brat who cries over food. At the same time, everyone grows quite enamored with a boy so polite he forgets to finish his own food while entertaining others. Akira is much less pretentious than his previous homes and his current acquaintances, so Akechi doesn’t bother distracting him from his untouched plate.
All it really took to calm his temperament was redirecting his impulse. Now, instead of twisting his face into unpleasant expressions, a hidden hand in his lap curls into a tight fist until he manages to swallow a bite down.
There’s less pressure to control a smile from something particularly appetizing, but he’s been called a glutton one too many times, so he doesn’t like to risk it. His toes curl unnoticeably in his shoes when he takes his first bite of some kiwi sorbet that Jazz Jin offers.
An interesting thing he’s learned about himself in the years of surviving: his joy is always far easier to suffocate than his anger.
He thinks about one of their earlier visits, when he was still testing the limits of Akira’s desire to pay for him. Akira had sidled up to him and asked for his drink, a solid and warm pressure against him. Akechi had briefly thought about restless summer nights. He’d been caught in a deadlock, unable to fall asleep without the press of heavy blankets on him but waking up fretfully and painfully sweaty whenever he had given in to the urge to cocoon himself. He had chosen to stay cool over rested.
Akira at his side gave him a similar heat as those nights. As Akechi looked into the other boy’s eyes, there was a hint of mirth in them, like he was toying with Akechi. He stilled. Flashes of how he’s been mocked by others since childhood rushed to the surface of his mind. He chose once more to stay cool and gave a polite smile as he rejected the offer. He didn’t dampen the scrutiny in his eyes, letting Akira know he didn’t appreciate being played with.
Akechi blinks himself back into the present. He always gets needlessly nostalgic in Jazz Jin. Focusing back on the music, he can tell it’ll be over soon. They’ll be done for the night and heading back home not too long after this set.
He takes a quick glance at Akira, wanting to gauge if the other is getting bored enough to start a conversation. Akira’s gaze is not towards the live act, which is expected, but neither is it toward Akechi’s face. It is lower, toward his nearly finished drink, and Akechi becomes acutely aware of his fingertips tapping out a rhythm at the base of his glass. His hands freeze for a second before he quickly recovers to clasp his hands and crack his knuckles casually. His head has already turned back to the music, but out of the corner of his eye, he can spot Akira’s head shifting back up to his face. He makes no reaction.
He can name the difference now. Subtle observation. In the past, Akira had always made a show of watching, Akechi had always made a spectacle about himself. But now, now he didn’t want to be ogled at, separated into pieces to see how it all fit back together again. He just wanted to be.
He feels ripped open, vulnerable. A part of him wants to scream out and make a scene, an incorrigible flame steadily building within his ribs. That is not an appropriate reaction to such a simple action, a haughty part of his mind chides. He sighs, smoke threatening to escape him, and when his lips close again, he tries to smother what’s inside of him.
Six of his knuckles successfully cracked, he straightens his posture and rests his hands on top of each other. When the song ends, he politely claps along with the crowd, an action he hasn’t done in Jazz Jin for several months.
He turns back to Akira, a gentle smile on his face. “That was a nice song, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was,” Akira says quietly, concern not quite hidden enough in his eyes.
Concern is good, it can be used to guilt Akira into distancing himself once again. He can see the plan beginning to form in thin strands in his mind. Yes, there’s not much else he has to do, so he hums in acknowledgment. He knows Akira likes to be acknowledged.
Akechi had liked sharing this little alcove with someone, but it’s no matter. He had enjoyed himself here enough alone, he can adjust back to solitude. He had given too much of himself for little in return, the entire situation was a mistake on his half.
It was settled. He’ll have to prune this olive branch that’s grown far too much, encroaching beyond what was necessary. He’ll learn how to live with the sudden ache in his heart that accompanies the raging fire in his breath. He has to keep them separate, in their own little containers. There’s no telling what will happen when they combine.
He offers to split the check like they used to and does not acknowledge Akira’s evident frown. It’s all fine.
He was never made to be loved, after all.