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Two years had gone by.
Despite confessing to his crimes on live television, Shido's popularity only experienced a minor setback. People who were already his fans supported him, and people who had only heard about him after the scandal decided to support him, too. "Honesty is important in politics," they'd say. He lost the business partners who dealt with dirty money, but gained many more who were drawn by his honesty and self-confidence. Doing things the correct, clean way was always better, it seemed.
There was something missing in his own personal paradise, though. He hadn't dared to put up his picture draped in black ribbons. If he did, it would be like finally admitting his precious son was really dead.
Cold.
Lifeless.
Dead.
The denial had driven him to mistake every thin young man with shoulder-length brown hair for the one he missed the most. After two years, it had stopped being unsettling and had turned straight up depressing. He had started to remember the times he didn't treasure him and his lithe body, his bright eyes, and his silky hair. The effort he would put in getting his attention, the devotion he showed four years ago by becoming his personal hitman. None of those had been treasured enough, or even given some importance.
This was not making him depressed again. No. Not at all.
It wasn't like it had made him go all the way to Yongen-jaya for a walk. Nah.
He let his eyes wander to the storefronts along the narrow street as he passed by a coin laundry. Shido chuckled to himself as he spotted yet another skinny young man in a hoodie... with shoulder-length... brown hair...
His stomach turned. He remembered that hoodie.
Before he knew what he was doing, Shido slammed open the door of the small coin laundry. Inside, dirty undies in hand, pale and actually looking like he just woke up from his deathbed stood...
Akechi.
"Wh-wh... S-Sh..." was all he could manage in wide-eyed, absolute panic. The cogs in his head turning at full speed, having already realised the pointlessness of a fight-or-flight response.
Then he passed out.
Akechi woke up abruptly on the bench outside the coin laundry only to find himself sitting next to Shido. His familiar smell suffocating him, pushing him towards the same panic that made him faint a while ago. While he tried to calm himself, time passed awkwardly. Shido would stare at him for a bit, then he'd look at his own hands... then at the sky... clearly as speechless and probably as panicked as Akechi felt. Finally, Shido found his tongue.
"What the fuck."
"H-Huh?!"
Akechi recoiled, bracing himself for whatever may come - a beating or a hug. Both were bad. After Shido's change of heart and consequent flood of guilty feelings, Akechi had thought it better to just pretend he had actually died there. Being on the run from the paparazzi for two years had been hard, but thankfully they had begun to forget about him. There were, of course, some nutcases theorizing about his disappearance, making clubs with weird diagrams to further analyze him, and trying to come up with places where he could be hiding. Once, they almost caught him. That had been scary. Some fans were scary. Anyway.
"Um... l-long time n-no s-see... Shido-san!" Akechi showed him his best smile, which he hoped was beaming and not telling away how much he wanted to run away.
Seconds rolled by, and Shido once again gathered his thoughts. The nearby trees offered a pleasant shade that shielded them from the unrelenting afternoon sun.
"Just where the fuck were you?"
"M-me?! I... a-at... I was... at a coin laundry? Doing... my laundry?"
Shido had gone completely serious. This was bad. Akechi could barely pace his breathing, heartbeat in his throat.
"AKECHI GORO. IT'S BEEN TWO FUCKING YEARS. WHAT THE FUCK. WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I AM, YOU SKINNY LITTLE SHIT."
His father snapping, it turned out, also made him snap, and nothing made sense anymore to Akechi's panicked brain.
"WHY ARE YOU EVEN FREAKING OUT LIKE THIS?! I THOUGHT YOU DIDN'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT ME, WHY DO YOU CARE NOW?!"
People from nearby stores started to pop out, an old man on a nearby bench dropped his bread crumbs. The few people around were trying really hard not to stare but failing completely. There was yet another awkward silence between them. To each other, both looked like they simultaneously wanted to stay right there and run away as fast as possible.
The soft beeping sound from the washing machine signaled its washing cycle had completed. It filled the air like an air horn.
"I-is that..." ventured Akechi. He had been alone inside the coin laundry, the only laundry there had to be...
"That's yours. I took care of your laundry."
"Huh...?? Wh-why did you do my laundry?!" sputtered Akechi. This was too much. He really needed to either a. wake up or b. wake up. This had to be some kind of starvation/exhaustion induced dream. Maybe he should sneak into some convenience store and hope not to be recognized so he could get some rice.
His father didn't even answer. Instead, he went inside the coin laundry, took the wet clothes and put them in a dryer, and waited all ten minutes until the dry cycle ended. Then came back.
"You passed out. It was inconvenient." Shido said, casually holding a basket with his son's now clean and dry laundry. This further convinced Akechi that this had to be a dream. Maybe someone had drugged him. He had, of course, no way to know that Shido had taken care of his laundry purely as a panic response. It had been the best course of action to help him repress a scream when this ghost passed the hell out in front of him. "Come on, put this in your backpack."
As Akechi took his clothes and carelessly put them in his backpack with the most confused look on his face, Shido felt lost in thought again. Akechi was alive. Though his exhausted look was so severe he thought it made him look like a starved raccoon. Just where had he been all this time?! How had he avoided the press and his own creepy fans for so long?!
If there were an awkwardness meter, it would have broken the moment Shido came back from returning the laundry basket.
"Okay, let's go."
"Go... where?"
"Just come with me. You look like a starved raccoon."
Taking slight offense at the comparison, Akechi found himself quickly accepting the offer. He knew he had so much to explain, but at least he finally saw Shido's face show an expression that was not undescribable pain. It was closer to relief. Maybe things were going to be all right after all. Maybe the guilt would recede enough to let him take a nap. Or eat. Timidly, Akechi moved closer to his father.
"The paps are totally gonna get a picture of us," he said with a weak smile. "Are you really fine with that, mister Prime Minister?"
"I'm going to take their questions as a chance to talk about real issues. That will annoy them enough to give up. Come, my car is near."
As they walked slowly, side to side along the narrow street, Shido decided this scrawny twenty-year-old needed a break from the press, his fans, and life. He also needed food, and lots of sleep. He was definitely giving him a wing from his mansion so he could move freely...
A warm, bony hand on his own interrupted his thoughts. It was Akechi's.
"So... where are we actually going?"
After giving it some thought, Shido decided he was going to continue being honest. He gave this now frail looking hand a soft squeeze.
"Home."