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When it suits Goro he can avoid it, his police work a more than reasonable excuse, but school presents an easy rhythm. Comforting, even. There is the problem, here is the solution. Things are laid out plainly, expectations are clear. A teacher asks a question, doesn't call on him but he volunteers anyway, raises his hand and answers correctly with a smile, and when she responds with praise and his fellow students murmur with grudging respect– just what you'd expect from Akechi – it is earned, it’s something real. A concrete accomplishment, and the rush of good feeling is no small reward, however trivial.
But of course this is not actually his work, of course his aims lie elsewhere. When the day ends and the rest of them talk amongst themselves or stand to leave, he can feel it more than ever as he slides his things slowly into his briefcase, settling into the comfortable pace of a machine. These days he thinks in terms of destinations. From here he’ll go pick up something to eat from the convenience store, make some time to return to his apartment and retrieve his materials, and then he will find somewhere quiet whence to call Shido.
He doesn’t think of his classmates, even as he watches them from the corner of his eye. They may as well be people from another plane. Not like him, because they simply– exist. Not like him, because they’ve been blessed with no destiny.
Mind, body. Spirit in harmony. The balancing act is the same as it always is– but even with his feet on the ground and his thoughts firmly set on the day’s itinerary he feels, as he does so often these days, that he’s losing grip on himself. That he’s watching his own body from afar, his own lips smiling vaguely at no one.
He takes a breath, remembers Loki, remembers what he’s here for.
“Hey, Akechi!”
It’s her talking, the one who likes to bother him the most, sits caddy-corner from his desk, something Keiko he thinks is her name, and upon hearing her voice he comes back to his mind, slowly. His eyes blink once, twice, in an attempt to force his consciousness back into his body, as his head turns to her and his lips turn up in an attentive smile. “Ah, hello.”
“I just wanted to say– I watched you on that TV program yesterday! Great stuff.”
Goro chuckles. “Thank you.”
“Like, the way you responded to that guy?”
“That– ah.” She’s talking about the Phantom Thief supporter, the boy with the strangely focused gaze. There had been something a little different about him.
"You kinda even seemed like you were having fun!”
Fun? “It was quite a surprise to be challenged,” Goro allows.
“Good surprise, though, huh?” She grins. “But seriously, if I knew that disagreeing with you was the way to your heart–”
“Keiko!” someone nearby admonishes with a gasp, and she turns back to her friends, giggling.
Goro feels his smile freeze in place– but now they are not watching him; he is free to walk away.
A few months later, the weather is still putting him in a bad mood.
Even in September, it is far too hot for coffee– yet he decides to go to Leblanc. Recently he’s taken to haunting the café; it’s a surprisingly pleasant place to work. To exist. The coffee is good, better than what he’s used to, and the proprietor is probably the only one in the city who doesn’t try to impress him. There is the problem of Kurusu, however.
The boy from that taping. The Shujin student, purported delinquent and Makoto Niijima’s friend. He’s one to keep an eye on. Goro’s suspicions have been compounded as of late, about him and his strange ragtag group of friends– are they a merry band of thieves, perhaps?
(He can barely imagine it, though. Niijima, stealing hearts?)
Regardless, there are times when Kurusu’s presence in Leblanc is– far too present. Even when he’s silent behind the counter or sitting in a booth alone, something about him puts Goro on alert. It’s not a feeling conducive to relaxing, in the short stretches of times he’s even able to. Usually, however, Goro can avoid running into him at the café.
Sometimes he can’t.
“Do you work regular hours?” Goro asks, hands folded in a bridge on the counter as he watches Kurusu rummage on a shelf.
“What?” he says, not turning around.
“It’s just that you never… seem to be here on a set schedule,” Goro says, polite.
“Mm. No, it’s when I’m free and Sojiro needs me, usually.” He turns back to Goro and gives him a smirk. “Sorry I can’t make you a timetable.”
Goro opens his mouth to try and match his tone in response, but Kurusu’s already turned his back again.
Perhaps it’s for the best, that he keeps encountering Kurusu, Goro thinks. He needs to keep an eye on him, after all, and wait for a tell. He’d love to catch Kurusu off guard, just once. He’s ordinary in all respects, but something about him draws the eye. There’s that thing he does with his hands when he’s idle– drumming his fingers against every available surface, to some invented rhythm only he can hear– that seems indicative of some kind of a pent-up energy.
Goro remembers the TV station, thinks of that mysterious intensity in Kurusu’s eyes.
Minutes stretch on into silence between the two of them. Goro turns back to his work.
“Detective stuff?” Kurusu asks randomly, gesturing to Goro’s files, after a few long moments during which no one new enters the café.
“Yes.” It’s paperwork, another easy fix, another welcome problem.
“Hm,” says Kurusu.
“Are you interested?” Goro says, to say something. “In police work?”
Kurusu actually snorts before turning it into some kind of throat-clearing production. “Oh, no, I– no.”
“All right,” Goro says, a little more sharply than he intends. It’s not as if he cares about what Kurusu wants to do with his life, it’s the way he seems so quietly derisive about what Goro is. About what Kurusu thinks Goro is.
Silence again. Kurusu’s fingers keep drumming their unsteady beat on the counter. Goro finds, with no small degree of irritation, that he isn’t able to process the words on the page of the file until he’s read them twice.
“The police department,” Kurusu says, deceptively casual. “They set up those TV appearances for you?”
“No,” Goro says, arching an eyebrow. “I work with the police, yes, but I conduct business for myself.”
“But you sure make them look good,” Kurusu says, and there’s definitely derision in his voice. “Just thought they might have a propaganda wing.”
“Ah,” Goro says. So that’s the way it is.
Maybe he sounds too much like he’s humoring Kurusu, just from that small sound, because Kurusu’s eyes suddenly intensify and his chin juts upward haughtily before he speaks.
“You’re the face of the police department. Golden boy.” A beat. “Is what they call you. I’m just saying, it looks good for them. To have an honor student type with a pretty face–”
“Oh,” Goro says, forcing his tone to lighten in joviality, “I didn’t realize you thought of–”
“Yeah, whatever,” Kurusu interrupts, “I called you pretty. Don’t make it a thing, I just have eyes.”
You’re ever the purveyor of objective truth, Goro wants to say, just to see if Kurusu will bite back, but instead he takes a sip of coffee and remarks “You’re quite distrustful, aren’t you?”
“Maybe. I think I have good reason to be. What about you, haven’t you thought about it?”
This is the first time he’s seen Kurusu as he was back at the TV station, with that same challenge in his eyes. He should be annoyed, and there is a clear and present irritation that he feels, at this boy who clearly thinks he knows everything, but at the same time–
When was the last time he’d heard someone be so openly defiant? The last time someone who wasn’t some adult lording their power spoke to him this frankly?
Goro sets the cup down on the counter, carefully.
“Don’t you ever wonder if you’re just being used?” Kurusu says, almost demands, but his voice is quiet as usual, and it dulls the effect.
For a moment Goro doesn’t reply, letting the words sink in, before he remembers–
–that this is all he has. That there can be no room for doubt, never anything less than certainty, as he walks the path he’s walking. A straight path, in that it will lead him right to his aim, as efficiently as possible– no matter how curvy it may look to someone who could never hope to know the whole miserable story.
“No,” Goro says. “Not at all.”
Maybe it’s just a born characteristic of Kurusu’s, Goro thinks idly. To be so cynical.
He should not be thinking about Kurusu at this meeting, one of the regular ones at the police department he’s obligated to attend, since he spends so much time working with them, these days. The last time he’d gotten distracted at one of these wretched things he’d ended up doodling, the pattern stretched across Loki’s figure scrawled into his notebook with harsh pen lines, and then his superior had cut his eyes at him and asked are we boring you, Akechi? and they’d all looked at Goro with thinly-veiled hatred because they are all adults and Goro is a young, talented usurper and obviously better than all of them. Whatever.
He should not be thinking of Kurusu, but he is anyway. Perhaps it’s a learned behavior, instead, the way he seems to question things so frequently. Goro supposes it would make sense, for a person who’s had trouble with law enforcement to turn jaded. Almost boringly predictable, in fact.
Goro’s mind wanders. The Cynics, in the time of ancient Greece, lived bare-bones lives. Money sacrificed, possessions refused, an existence stripped down, all to attain– what? The best life, free from things material, lived in accordance with the best kind of virtue, or so they thought. A determination to be dependent on nothing. Goro can’t imagine it– never wanting more.
He can’t see Kurusu giving up the luxury of modern conveniences, either. With that mile-wide stubborn streak, though– perhaps he’d have a chance. He’d make a splendid street preacher, emphatically spreading his doctrine of nonconformity to the masses.
Goro allows himself a smirk.
There’s nothing interesting about Kurusu, not really. Or there shouldn’t be. He can tell Kurusu is a skeptic on principle, whether he was born one or not, determined to pick everything apart and criticize the leftover carrion. There are plenty of people like that.
It’s not that attitude of his, but the way he tries to hide it– poorly, behind those glasses and that pretense of a docile nature.
Of course, Goro loathes it all, too– the government, keen only on protecting the interests of its members, the incompetence of the adults set to rule. But they are not the same, because Goro knows about evil, and all the ways man can carry it out. He has felt ruination for himself. Not like Kurusu– who is only a child, opining about things he could never hope to understand.
The meeting ends, eventually, drones filing out of the room, and Goro joins them, left to think about the hour of his life that has just been wasted. Now there is only the matter of where to go next.
Outside the building, he looks up at the sky and frowns. It seems as if rain is soon to come.
His mind drifts again. There are two parts of the soul, in Aristotelian theory. Rational and irrational. Always parts to a whole with Aristotle. And in the irrational aspect lies a certain virtue– an appetitive element. One which governs desire, reason’s eternal adversary.
Goro knows himself, of course he knows himself, every gear of the machine. There is one thing he wants, and oh, he wants it so badly it almost makes him sick– but he knows that desire is something to be contained, he holds it in place with calculated logic, he is in control, body, mind, soul– yes, he knows himself.
And he has seen his whole, true persona manifest in that other world. Even now he can feel Loki’s energy thrumming under his skin, reminding him of who he is.
Sometimes petty desire can overcome logic, and Goro knows that’s an all-too-human flaw in his structure. He has enough change for an energy drink from the machine in his pocket, and Inokashira would be a perfectly good place to study without interruption.
Goro goes to Leblanc.
Fifteen minutes before the time he’s decided he’ll leave, the door opens and in he steps.
“Where’ve you been?” Goro says mildly.
Kurusu smiles, all teeth. “Out tearing up the town.”
“It’s nice to see you’re in such a good mood.”
“Hmm. Am I?” He expects Kurusu to pass him and scurry up the attic stairs, but instead he throws himself into the chair that’s one away from Goro’s, and sets his bag down on the floor with a thunk.
Goro rests his chin in one hand, face turned toward Kurusu, and raises an eyebrow. “Something you’d like to say?”
“Not particularly,” Kurusu replies. Goro can sense his interest, as obvious as it is deceptively casual, the way Kurusu’s eyes stall on Goro’s frame or his face. All the more interesting, because it’s impossibly impractical. But the attention feels–
“What’re you reading?” Kurusu asks abruptly.
“It’s a book involving the history of Eastern attitudes towards metaphysics." He finished his actual work a while ago.
“What?” Kurusu says, as expected.
“A school of philosophy dealing with the nature of being.”
“Gross,” Kurusu says.
There’s a refreshing aspect to his blitheness, in the pure simplicity of it, in the way he seeks not to impress. “It seems timely,” Goro replies. “With those mental shutdowns happening so frequently as of late, what better way to pick apart the truths of human existence, the mysteries of our cognition?”
“So that’s how you plan to understand it,” Kurusu deadpans. “Reading.”
Goro clicks his tongue and turns the page. “I hope you’re not decrying the importance of knowledge.”
“Obviously not, but what’s knowledge without action?”
Goro looks up.
Kurusu’s drawing himself up almost imperceptibly, just enough to let that haughty edge show– his mask is slipping, too. “You can find types like that in every social movement, every period of history. People who just spend their time poring over theory, reading and talking without really doing anything at all. If they would pay attention, they’d see that chances to act happen every day– ways to really make a difference.”
“What kind of difference,” Goro says, taking care to maintain a neutral voice, “do you think you can make?” Even as his thoughts latch onto the conviction in Kurusu’s voice and repeat: action, action, action. “I don’t mean to condescend, of course, but you’re simply one high-schooler in a city of nine million.”
Kurusu looks stubborn. “What about you? You really think you can change anything? Working with the police?”
As if Goro gives a shit about making a difference. As if society isn’t inherently broken, corrupted beyond repair. He wishes, suddenly, nonsensically, that he could say something to make Kurusu see that this is all a means to an end. That when he’s crushed Shido under his heel, that will be a difference made. That he understands. That Goro is taking action.
Instead, he says “There are more chances to change things than you’d expect when working within the system. I’m doing all that I can for someone in my position.”
Kurusu’s eyes narrow. “What has the system helped with so far?” True. “The Phantom Thieves are actually doing something.” Also, regrettably, true.
“Bending hearts and minds to their own wills,” Goro says, irony seeping into his voice. “Exercising their power without judgement like despots.”
“They’re doing something ,” Kurusu repeats, “about the evil people in this city, who are doing evil things. And have been, for a while now, with no consequences.”
“You know,” Goro says, before he can stop himself, “I was foolish to have expected differently, considering you support the Thieves, but you’re more of an idealist than I thought.”
“What did you think of me?” Kurusu says, meeting his gaze squarely.
“I suppose I took you for a skeptic. Someone who always puts doubt before belief.”
“That sounds more like you,” Kurusu says, blunt as usual. “No offense. You’re the one denying the Phantom Thieves could help, after all. On television.”
Mind, body. Plato thought there were three parts to the soul. Reason, appetite, spirit. Goro thinks of Kurusu’s defiant eyes. He’s overfull on spirit, that much is easy to ascertain– some fire coming from somewhere, some childish determination to see things through.
Well, it’s a resolve Goro can match. Resolve is all he has, after all.
“Have you read much Plato?” Goro asks him.
Kurusu wrinkles his nose. “What? No.”
Another afternoon at Leblanc, another day that sees Kurusu behind the counter.
“This is your third refill,” Kurusu says, pouring him another cup.
“It is, isn’t it,” says Goro.
“There’s a such thing as a lethal overdose of caffeine.”
“Would you cut me off, then, before I reached the brink of death?”
“Maybe. I mean, Sojiro needs the money.” Kurusu sets the pot back on the counter. “And you’re a steady source of revenue, so…”
“I suppose I can’t blame you, with the economy the way it is.”
“The economy,” Kurusu agrees, with the faintest hint of a smile.
“There’s a reason I come here, you know,” Goro says. He knows just what the response will be.
“Because of the attractive barista, I bet.” Kurusu smirks his rare smirk.
And there it is. This, too, is a kind of rhythm. Both knowing just how far to go, knowing the little they can have, and everything they can’t. Easy.
Goro only smiles before he says “It’s because it’s quiet here.”
Kurusu seems to wait for more; when Goro doesn’t continue, he replies “Well, that’s concise.”
“Sometimes I have little to offer, by way of words.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Kurusu says.
Anyway, this time Goro’s come prepared. “Have you heard? The police department recently launched a new initiative.”
“I have, actually,” Kurusu says, “if you’re talking about that whole ‘get to know a cop’ thing.”
“Yes. There’ll be a series of increased opportunities for people in the community to meet with police officers and voice whatever concerns they may have. Simply delightful, isn’t it?” Goro says, laying it on a little thick because it’s entertaining to see Kurusu’s eyes narrow. “I’m sure it’ll be a boon.”
“If they actually follow through on the suggestions people give them, yeah,” Kurusu counters. “A lot of the time these things are about pacifying people. Making them feel like things are gonna get done when it’s just gridlock and business as usual.”
“A lot of the time?” Goro doesn’t know why he’s entertaining this, from someone who’s operating more on youthful energy than any kind of practical reasoning, but listening to Kurusu is so– simple.
He thinks of his own exhaustion with the way things are, his own rage. So easy to almost let himself see it in Kurusu’s eyes– but no. He almost physically shakes his head, to ward off the thought. They’re not the same.
“That’s how it worked back home,” Kurusu says, and Goro’s brought out of his brief reverie. “We only had a few police officers in town, and they were always more concerned about their salaries than actually helping anyone else out.”
“Those people have to provide for themselves as well, you know,” Goro says, only half-putting effort into his rebuttals, now.
Kurusu laughs shortly. “Doesn’t mean they should be able to put their own self-interest above the people they’re supposed to protect.”
“I still don’t understand your inclination to see corruption everywhere,” Goro says, even as his mind screams it is everywhere, in every corner, nothing it can’t touch.
Kurusu watches him closely for a moment– too closely. That strange probing look.
Just as Goro looks away, raising his coffee cup, Kurusu asks “Do you really– believe all the things you say?”
Goro stops with the cup halfway to his mouth.
“You told me yourself… that you got knocked around by the system. You must have experienced it for yourself. How much people lie, how much they hide.”
“I–” Goro begins, and then nothing follows. Is he– blanking?
Kurusu is still talking– why is he still talking? “Could you really have gone through all that and come out without any resentment?”
Goro looks back at Kurusu, hoping to find his voice, but there’s something on Kurusu’s face that dispels that hope entirely. Something like– camaraderie, in the way his head tilts and his eyes watch Goro. Something far too close to sympathy in his the furrow of his brow.
If Kurusu is a Phantom Thief, if he’s the one changing hearts– how does he do it? How does he pick at the intricacies of human behavior, extracting the flaws with scalpel-sharp precision? What about that corresponds with the way he’s looking at Goro, right now?
Goro remembers to breathe. Mind, body.
We’re not the same, he thinks with vehemence, and it’s that thought that finally gives him voice.
“I find it interesting– how you disdain authority while clearly seeking my approval.”
The words cut, fast and deep. Kurusu’s expression morphs into something harder, and Goro only feels relief.
He picks up steam, it’s easy, now that he knows what hurts. “You have your ideals– is that not enough? Is it self-consciousness, that causes you to look to me for something more? Or are you really presumptuous enough to think you can affect me with just a few words– and somehow erase the foundation of the way I’ve built my life?”
Kurusu’s face shutters. “I wasn’t trying to–”
“It doesn’t matter,” Goro says, and instinct is screaming at him to smile, to make a television joke, to do anything other than methodically begin to put his things into his briefcase and his coat back on, but he’s doing it anyway, he wants to be gone, he wants to leave. “I know what you were trying to say. I’m afraid I must be going, Kurusu.”
He half-expects Kurusu to say something as he gets up and turns his back, but there’s only silence before he pulls open the door and walks through, free at last of the weight of that gaze.
Kurusu on the platform at the station the next day. Of course. Goro sees him, exhales, tries to clear his head.
Kurusu’s bag is lumpy with that cat inside, hair a tousled mess as usual and hands tap-tapping against his thigh. There’s no use avoiding him, he sees Goro almost immediately, watches him as he comes closer.
"Fancy seeing you here," he says, when Goro stops in front of him.
Goro notes his posture, straightened and a little wary. Has he always stood like that?
"I apologize," Goro says, "for yesterday."
"Yeah," Kurusu says. "Thought you'd say that."
“I simply–” Goro closes his eyes and opens them again, forcing his voice steady. “I don’t like thinking about the past.”
“I get it,” Kurusu says. “I’m sorry, too. I… went too far.”
Goro looks away. “It’s quite all right.”
The distant sound of trains, from elsewhere in the station. Goro thinks of the way things move, and have moved, and always will, forever.
"I don't need your approval, you know," Kurusu intones.
"Of course," Goro says.
"I don't," Kurusu says, stubborn as usual.
Goro really has to smile, then, biting back a grin that threatens to spread. “I’m aware.”
Kurusu looks down at his shoes. “Good.”
There’s a moment of silence, and then– “Just– tell me something,” Kurusu says. “One thing.”
“What is it?”
“You can’t completely disagree with me, can you? Not all the time. I can tell you don’t. So just– just tell me.” Kurusu looks at him, right in the eyes, strange gaze amplified by that inner fire. “You see it, too, don’t you?”
Goro almost says: What do you see? Tell me.
“You see… how trapped we are?” Almost pleading, like he’d take anything. “The way we’re living?”
“Truth…” Goro clenches his fist, then lets his fingers slowly unfurl. “... doesn’t always set you free, Kurusu. Ignorance can be bliss.”
“But you understand, right?” Kurusu presses. “Do you feel how I do? At least a little bit of the time?”
What would it be like, Goro thinks, if he only agreed? If he let Kurusu have his win? Where would it lead the two of them, if they dared to forge some kind of common ground?
For a moment, the gears grind to a halt, and Goro almost does it. He almost admits a part of what might eventually lead to something resembling the truth of his discontent. Of his dully permanent rage.
And then his train enters the station.
They both look up at the noise. “That’s– my train,” Goro says, unnecessarily.
“Oh,” Kurusu says.
“I–” For a moment it’s as if he is going to spill over with things unsaid–
–but suddenly it kicks in again, the machine that automates his movements, and he manages, somehow, to smile. “I’m sorry. It seems we’ll have to cut this conversation short. It was nice seeing you.”
“Yeah,” Kurusu says, a little bewildered. It’s like he can see the shift in Goro’s sentiments– and that’s enough to make Goro want to leave, so he can itch at all the secrets under his skin, so he can get away, once again, from Kurusu’s probing eyes.
“Goodbye, then,” Goro says, and turns to leave without waiting for a response. He steps onto the train just before the doors slide shut. When he glances out to the platform Goro can just barely make out Kurusu’s form before the automated voice announces their departure.
He reaches out and takes hold of an overhead strap before the train begins to move with a jolt, relentless in the pursuit of its destination– away, away, away.