Work Text:
After Yusuke had first entered Madarame’s Palace, disoriented and lethargic and in so much pain, he had realized the severity of his troubles. He could see the corruption of his teacher’s heart before him, tangible in the way your mind can upset your stomach if you just happened to focus on it hard enough. It was real, it was there, and it was also not. The piercing gold that surrounded him wasn't true. The four faces staring down at him were illusory. The weight of his anxieties had to be conjured up.
He knew Madarame wasn't a saint. Yusuke knew that his teacher was crooked and manipulative and unforgiving. All of the badmouthing he heard at school, all of the rumors he read online, left lasting imprints in his mind. He knew he was staying in a bad place.
So why didn't he want to leave?
“Do you have anywhere to go?” Akira had asked, fingers gripping the fabric of his Kosei uniform.
“I can stay in the student dorms due to my scholarship,” Yusuke had answered. I don't want to leave, he had thought. Why must I go? “Don't worry about me.”
There are things that Akira simply cannot understand, despite his fervent wishes to do so.
After all those months of being together, just him and Yusuke baring the heat and chill of the outside world in his small attic room, he still can’t wrap his head around the stockholm syndrome-esque situation clouding the boy.
“Things weren’t really as bad as you say,” Yusuke says in an attempt to justify his fixation. “I felt comfort in his home. I was… wanted. Madarame was like a blessing to me.”
Akira never graces him with a response. He simply rests his head on the other’s shoulder, eyes lowering as their fingers intertwine and their breaths sync. While they sit atop the covers, both too cold, yet too enamored with one another to care, Akira wonders if Yusuke is telling some semblance of the truth.
There are other days where Yusuke can’t make up his mind.
“He took me in out of the kindness of his heart,” he whispers to himself, arms wrapped around himself as Akira sits next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “But that can’t be, can it? After all, he was the one who… He brought that outcome on himself. He must’ve felt guilty, too overcome with remorse to leave me with some stranger.” Yusuke crumbles. “Then that would mean he did care for me, wouldn’t it?”
Akira turns and gently pries Yusuke’s hands away from his arms, eyes lowered as he tries to avoid looking at the crescent shaped indents left in his skin.
“He said he didn’t know I would be talented,” Yusuke continues, voice struck with grief and eyes heavy as he recalls past moments spent together. “Yet, when he saw my potential, he used me.” His hands loosen, arms dropping solemnly. “I don’t understand him—I don’t understand any of this.”
“You don’t have to,” Akira tells him. With hands so soft and a grip so tender, he guides Yusuke into his chest, fingers kneading at his back. Yusuke melts against him.
“I wish that were the case,” he retorts, voice breaking as he buries his face in Akira’s shoulder.
Yusuke often wonders about Madarame’s daily activities.
“It would be a shame if they barred him from creating any sort of art,” Yusuke tells Akira. “For him to be stripped away from his craft… It feels almost inhumane.”
Akira listens intently, though a ball of disgust forms in his stomach and makes his head hurt. He ignores it and nods along to his boyfriend’s words, throat tightening with every sentence.
“I wonder if he thinks about me.” Yusuke stares at the night sky with an eager gaze, eyes alight and lips parted as the moon shines down on him.
Akira remains silent. They both know the answer to that.
“It’s getting late,” Akira speaks up. “The trains will stop running soon.”
“Would it be alright if I stayed with you tonight?”
Ignoring the sickness that fills his chest, Akira leads Yusuke into Cafe Leblanc.
When Akira turns himself in on Christmas Day, Yusuke feels as though he’s suffocating.
“He didn’t tell you?” Sae asks incredulously.
“Of course he didn’t,” Ryuji barks out, though his head hangs low.
“He cares too much for us,” Makoto adds.
As all eyes turn to Yusuke, he excuses himself to the bathroom.
He wonders if anyone else is going to abandon him.
Before Akira can greet him, Yusuke has him wrapped in his arms, grip tight and stifling as he holds onto the former leader. Their reunion is clumsy, a mash of joints and bone as they breathe the same air. Yusuke is so warm, much warmer than that of his cell, and Akira can’t stop the broken laughter that leaves his stomach, sending warm puffs of air against Yusuke’s ear. He feels as though he might collapse, both from the exhaustion that weighs him down and the way Yusuke holds on so tight, causing him to stumble against his chest.
When they pull apart, Yusuke has his hands on Akira’s arms, ensuring he doesn’t fall down. His fingers, so thin and sharp, keep him grounded. Yusuke’s eyes rake across his face, lips turning upward and tears forming at the edge of his eyes.
“We should sit,” Akira suggests despite his desires.
Yusuke nods in agreement, holding him steady as the rest of the Phantom Thieves greet him with warm smiles and grand hugs. Through every reunion, Yusuke holds onto one of Akira’s hands tightly. Akira doesn’t complain, and neither do any of their friends.
They hold hands atop the table they’re seated at, Yusuke staring at him intently while he recalls his time spent in custody. Akira welcomes both the calming of his heart and the comforting presence at his side. He leans into Yusuke and smiles whenever he feels a kiss pressed against the back of his hand.
Akira knows that he wouldn’t change anything for the world.
“You never told me you were turning yourself in,” Yusuke says as they lay together on Akira’s too small futon. They make it work, somehow.
“Sae suggested I should... the day before I did it,” Akira tells him. “She said we would be better off.” He turns his head away from Yusuke’s gaze.
“We were together that night, were we not? On Christmas Eve?” Yusuke’s voice grows quiet, arms pulling Akira closer to him. The covers do wonders to maximize their heat, and Yusuke wonders if it’s normal to feel like he’s being baked.
“Didn’t want to ruin our last day together,” Akira shrugs. “Sorry.” He still doesn’t meet Yusuke’s eyes. It’s… melancholic.
“I was worried,” Yusuke confesses. “I thought I had done something wrong when you didn’t answer my messages. I thought—I figured—.” He doesn’t say anything more. Yusuke buries his face in Akira’s hair and keeps his ideas to himself. He doesn’t dare breathe Madarame’s name, doesn’t dare desecrate the cocoon they have together. Not now. Hopefully not ever, but he knows that’s too much to ask of himself. Madarame will always be in his heart, and whether or not he’s a positive or negative nostalgia is up to Yusuke. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to pick one over the other.
“I didn’t mean to leave you alone,” Akira regrets. He presses a kiss to Yusuke’s cheek, one so soft and sweet that it quells the festering in the artist’s mind.
“I’m just grateful you came back.”
When it’s time for Akira to go back home, he makes sure to say his goodbyes to Yusuke last. He goes through the motions, thanking Haru for her generosity, assuring Makoto that he won’t drop his grades, kissing Ann’s cheek as a foreign farewell, granting Ryuji a rare bear hug at the end of it all. They wave him off and speak with Morgana as Yusuke gravitates toward Akira, hands held out as they press their palms together.
“I’ll come visit you,” Akira smiles. He wouldn’t want to bore Yusuke with his hometown, and what with all the money he earned as a Phantom Thief, he knows that he has more than enough funds to travel to Shibuya 500 times in a single day.
“I do hope you’ll stop by for my school festival,” Yusuke admits. He looks sheepish, and Akira knows that if his hands were free he’d run his fingers through his hair. “There’s plenty I want to show you.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
They stand together, both too fearful to say goodbye and too hesitant to bring up the inevitable.
“Is it too much to ask you to visit me… sometime sooner?” Yusuke bites his lip, eyes ready for the rejection he’s so obviously expecting.
“You don’t even have to ask, Yusuke.” Akira releases their hands, but only so he can lead Yusuke to press his fingers against his back, hands gripping his waist. His arms travel upward, fingers locking behind Yusuke’s neck as he tugs him down with ease. It’s a practiced motion, one that comes with too many awkward kisses and unfortunate height differences. “Because I’m already missing you.”
Yusuke laughs. His shoulders bob and his apprehension transforms into a smile as Akira kisses him. They’re both laughing and beaming and none of their kisses are connecting like they should but Akira doesn’t care, and he has a feeling Yusuke doesn’t, either.
Cicadas cry as the sun lowers, and Akira briefly hears Makoto yell something.
“It’s late,” he says.
“Yes, it is,” Yusuke agrees.
“You should go.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
And as Yusuke asks him that, Akira can feel his eyes sting and his lungs grow weary.
“No,” he confesses. “But if you stay any longer, I don’t think I’ll be able to leave, either.”
Nodding silently, Yusuke pulls away slightly. There’s a few centimeters between their chests, and before Akira can give one last parting message, Yusuke is yanking him back into his chest, lips next to his ear as he speaks.
“I know that we’ll see each other soon, but I want to thank you for… everything, I suppose.” Akira shivers. “You… You’ve been such a positive influence on me, and you’ve done so without expecting any sort of reward. It hurts to say that you may be the first person I can say that about, but I’m grateful for it at the same time.”
“Well, now you’ve got four more people who fit that description,” Akira grins.
It’s bittersweet as they depart. Yusuke plants a kiss on his lips once more, and they separate with haste, lest they drag out Makoto’s impatience any longer. Morgana settles in his arm as he waves them off, watching their van slowly cruise down the street. It grows smaller and smaller as the sky blackens and the vibrant blue becomes so faint that it disappears entirely.
Though, it doesn’t take very long for Ryuji’s face to show up on his screen. Akira accepts the call.
“Yusuke won’t stop cryin’ about you, man! Make him chill out, or something!”
“I’m not crying!”
Morgana snickers as he jumps on the bandwagon, teasing Yusuke alongside the rest of the group. Akira just listens in, content with counting down the days until he can go back home.