Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time Sae Niijima heard the rumors, they were just that: rumors. Whispers of a boy with amnesia in the local hospital. A boy with no identity. The rumors were disguised as concern for his condition and prognosis, but Sae knew better than to spend time worrying about useless gossip by now. She had enough on her plate after the last year. It wasn’t until she picked up on a few choice words while grabbing her morning coffee that she was immediately and undeniably invested. Unconscious. Steps of the Diet building. December. She nearly forgot to breathe.

It took all of her concentration just to get through the rest of her work day. She kept telling herself it was impossible. Goro Akechi had died. She had what might as well have been eyewitness reports. She had seen the pained look on her sister’s face when she had broken the news, seen her break down in tears over it. She had seen the toll it had taken on Ren Amamiya as well, and she knew that out of all of them, he had been the closest thing to a friend Akechi had. If Akechi had any chance of being alive, it was worth her looking into. Even if the rumors ended up being baseless, it would be better to take that chance than to ignore it.

Calling around to all the major hospitals in the area, masquerading as an aunt whose nephew had gone missing after an accident and might have suffered memory loss, yielded no results. She couldn’t just outright ask for a patient named Goro Akechi. Somehow, it seemed no one could quite remember him. The Phantom Thieves had explained it to her as an effect of their work in the Metaverse. Only those greatly affected by him were unable to forget.

It was by chance that she overheard the name of the hospital uttered by some gossiping interns. They knew someone who knew someone whose mother-in-law’s sister was a nurse at so-and-so, and oh, that poor boy, nobody even knows who he is, and-- That was enough for her to go off of.

Just one visit to the hospital had yielded her results more easily than she thought it would. Within twenty minutes of stepping foot into the building, she had spotted a man she recognized from Masayoshi Shido’s campaign for Prime Minister. She tailed him as quietly as she could, hoping he wouldn’t have any reason to recognize her. Eventually he led her to a room up on the third floor and, by peeking through the door as it opened, she caught a glimpse of the Detective Prince himself.

She could swear she felt her heart stop.

There he was, alive, looking much the same besides his hair that had grown out past his shoulders. She paused to make sure of what she was seeing and then remembered that she was supposed to be acting inconspicuous and continued walking down the hallway, moving a bit faster now.

She took a lap around the floor to gather her thoughts and then stopped in at the nurse’s station, trying to flag someone down. A nurse looked up from her paperwork and came over to her.

“How may I help you? Is everything alright?”

“I-- yes. Everything’s fine. That boy in room 317-- He’s the one with amnesia, correct? I may have some information on him. I’d like to speak to his doctor if possible.”

The nurse paused, seemingly unsure of how she should respond to this. If Sae’s hunch about what was going on here was anywhere near correct, it was likely the medical staff were being kept mostly in the dark about Akechi’s identity and circumstances. The real culprits would be the men higher up.

“What is your relationship to the patient, ma’am?” The nurse seemed a bit nervous.

“I’m a former coworker.” She hesitated, wondering how much of the truth she should reveal. “And a friend.”

The nurse nodded and wrote something down on a form she’d pulled out from behind the counter.

“I can have you fill out this visitation request form, but--”

“I just want to speak with his doctor. Please.” Sae’s tone was firm. If working in law had taught her anything, it was that having enough conviction in your tone could get you further than you might think. Believe you deserved something and it would fall into your lap with enough time and perseverance. The nurse looked like she wanted to argue back, but instead she barely stifled a sigh and set her clipboard down.

“Yes ma’am. Just a moment.” She ducked around Sae and walked off down the hall into another room. Sae let her posture relax, rolling her shoulders and trying to gather herself. She had no way of knowing if this would really work, but in this moment she knew that no matter what it took, she wasn’t leaving Akechi here to be a pawn to someone else. If he had been dealt a clean hand to work with, she intended to make sure it was a better hand than he’d been dealt last time.

After what felt like an eternity, the nurse returned with a doctor in tow. She was a middle-aged woman, older than Sae, who looked like she may have been pulled away from something much more important than attending to an irritated visitor. It would be best to make this quick.

“Hello. Sae Niijima. I’m a friend of the boy who’s staying in room 317. I have some information about him I thought might be useful to you.”

The doctor looked her up and down once, then replied simply with, “Come with me,” and led Sae off to another part of the building, silently. They took an elevator up another two floors and arrived to a meeting room with several men seated at a table and looking over some documents. The doctor knocked on the open door and the men pulled the papers into their respective folders.

“She’s here about Akechi.”

The doctor turned and left, leaving Sae alone in the doorway. She recognized a few of the men, but others were strangers. She cleared her throat and entered the room, walking over to the table.

“My name is Sae Niijima--”

“I know who you are. Sit down.” One of the men she recognized cut her off and pointed to a chair with his pen. “What do you want?”

“I know what you’re doing.” She settled into the chair and got right to the point. “You’re trying to keep him locked down so you can keep using him just like Shido did. It’s not going to work.”

“And what makes you so sure about that?”

“What you want to use him for won’t be possible without his memories intact. He’s just a boy who can’t remember who he is. He won’t be any use to you like that. All you’re doing is keeping him here instead of letting him go out and try to have a normal life. There are people out there who care for him. They think he’s dead.”

The man scoffed at that, clearly unmoved.

“He has no legal guardian and no idea who he is or what he’s doing. Keeping him in our custody is better than releasing him onto the street to beg for shelter. I know for a fact that you’re an attorney these days, Niijima. Don’t try and convince me that you’re capable of pressing charges. And no one is going to take your word on this. No one even remembers who Goro Akechi is. Speak one word of this to anyone, and he really will disappear. If he’s no use to us, like you say, there shouldn’t be any problem with him being… disposed of properly.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled. “If he’s not showing any signs of improvement by the end of next month, we’re moving on from this little project anyway. Isn’t that right, Doctor?” He nodded his head to a man about Sae’s age who had been sitting quietly until now, bordering on looking uncomfortable.

“Y-yes. All of our attempts to trigger his memories have--”

“She doesn’t need to know all that.” He snapped at his subordinate. “All you need to know, Niijima, is that you don’t need to worry your pretty little head over Goro Akechi. Either he makes some headway by the end of next month, or it’s lights out. For good this time.”

Sae’s brain was working overtime, trying to find a loophole, something she could stick her fingers into and rip open. She could practically feel the light bulb pop on over her head as inspiration finally struck.

“What if I can help you trigger those memories?” She had to stick the tone, convince them she knew what she was talking about. Akechi’s life depended on it.

The man studied her, clearly interested. “And why exactly would you want to do that?”

She leaned farther over the table, making direct eye contact and speaking firmly. “Because I know neither of us wants him to die.”

It had taken some negotiation, but Sae had managed to grapple her way to allowing for one, and only one visitor to Akechi’s room, based on the promise that this one visitor would be able to trigger something within Akechi that would bring him back to the person he used to be. She wasn’t certain that she really needed this to work; she only needed to stall for enough time to find a better, more calculated plan to get him out herself. But she figured having someone to talk to probably wouldn’t hurt Akechi’s prognosis.

She knew he had been lonely before. She never heard him speak about any friends or even acquaintances in all the time they had worked together, and Makoto’s recounting of his final moments with the Phantom Thieves had driven home what Akechi had really been: an extremely lonely, sad teenage boy who needed more help than he had been given. The moment she had heard he might still be alive, she had committed herself to ensuring that he wouldn’t go it alone anymore. Not if she could help it.

She made a phone call to Ren Amamiya. Even with all of her experience breaking bad news, her hands were still trembling as she held the phone up to her ear. Ren answered on the fourth ring, and sounded confused to have seen her name come up. He was probably concerned that something had happened to Makoto. She tried to be reassuring, telling him everything was okay but that she needed him to go somewhere quiet by himself because she had something very important to tell him, and he was going to need space to process it. He sounded even more confused by that, but she heard him say something to Sojiro about going up to his room, and then the creaking of stairs and a door shutting.

“Ren,” She tried to keep her voice from shaking. “This is very important. I know it’s going to be very difficult for you to understand, and it may not make sense right away, but I need you to believe me. Okay?”

“Okay? You’re worrying me.” He laughed nervously. She couldn’t blame him. She was full of nerves herself, and had been for days.

“It’s about Akechi.” She gave him a few seconds but he didn’t respond, so she took a deep breath and continued. “He’s… Alive.” More silence. She thought the call had dropped but a look at her screen showed they were still connected. “Ren?”

“Y-yeah?” A shaky breath. “This isn’t funny.”

“No, it’s not. There’s more, and it’s not good. Are you okay, Ren?”

“Yeah. Fine.” His voice was quiet now.

“Shido’s men have him. He seems to have suffered some sort of memory loss, but I’m not sure how severe it is or whether he remembers anything at all. I was able to bargain with them. I need you to do something for me.” Ren didn’t feel like he could do anything at the moment, but he hummed and curled up closer to the wall on his bed. “I need you to go visit him. You’re the only one I believe can help him right now.” She decided to leave out the bit about the two month deadline and Akechi’s inevitable death should they fail to bring his memories back, not wanting to freak him out any more than she already was. “Things will be okay, Ren. But we need to help him.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll text you the address. Take care of yourself. Please call me if you want to talk more about it, but I won’t pressure you right now.”

“Okay.”

“Things will be okay,” she repeated. She had never been much good at comfort, but she could at least understand the emotions Ren must be feeling. “I’ll talk to Makoto when she gets home this evening, but feel free to talk to the others. Just make sure it stays between you.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll talk to you later. Goodbye, Ren.” He didn’t respond, just disconnected the call.

Ren didn't know how to take in what he'd just been told. How were you supposed to take the news that someone you'd accepted as having been killed right in front of you was actually alive and had been this whole time? He just laid there, staring at his phone and letting the information spin around in his brain. He hadn't realized how long he'd been laying in silence before he heard the door open and the sound of paws thumping lightly across the floor. He felt Morgana jump up onto the bed next to him and walk over to his head, standing behind him.

“Are you okay?” he sat down, tail flicking back and forth in Ren's peripheral vision. Ren just hummed and buried his face in the pillow. If this was some huge prank orchestrated by Futaba in some elaborate fuck-up-your-big-brother's-entire-day-for-fun scheme, he'd really, really kill her. He didn't think she was that cruel, but he didn't know what to believe right now. Morgana nudged at his shoulder with a paw. “Ren?”

“Fine.”

“What did Niijima-san want?”

Ren lifted his head then rolled over to face Morgana with some effort. “To tell me Akechi is alive.”

Morgana waited for Ren's expression to crack into a smile and when it didn't, he furrowed his brow.

“Not funny, Ren. Why would you joke about that?!” Ren just looked tired. Exhausted. “... You're not.”

“She said he has amnesia. I have to go see him.” He didn't sound happy about that at all, only increasingly upset. After all the time spent fretting over his missteps with Akechi, Morgana had expected him to be elated at the idea that he could see him again. But he wasn't seeing anything even close to that on his face right now. He was quiet for a few moments, and Morgana could tell he was fighting tears. Morgana stood up and then stepped in closer to Ren, settling himself in right up against his chest, trying to give him some warmth and something to hold onto. Ren wrapped his arms around him and buried his face in his soft fur and sniffled.

Morgana could feel the wetness of his tears against his ears and on his head, but he didn't raise any complaints. After all he'd seen Ren go through, he couldn't ever blame him for needing to cry sometimes.

Ren went to the hospital the next morning. He'd been unable to sleep well from anxiety and was up earlier than he needed to be, arriving at an hour when he normally would have still been asleep. Sae had told him he'd need to check in at reception. The woman at the front desk sent for someone else, and a man who didn't look like he belonged on hospital staff came down and nodded at Ren.

“Amamiya?” He motioned towards the elevator. Ren nodded and hurried over with him. Once they were in the elevator and the doors had shut, he spoke again. “You're being allowed visitation rights on the condition that you help the patient recover his lost memories. You cannot outright tell him information because the psychologist looking after him says it would cause undue psychological distress and damage his recovery process. He has to come upon these memories on his own, naturally and with minimal assistance. Apparently.” He seemed to find this ridiculous. “Your visits will be fully supervised. If we feel you are a danger to the patient, you will be removed.” The elevator came to a stop on the third floor and the doors opened. “Understand?”

Ren nodded. He was too overwhelmed right then to ask too many questions. The man nodded towards the open door and Ren stepped out on his own, the man staying behind and riding the elevator up farther. He was left standing there unaccompanied and tried to steady his thoughts before taking off for the room Sae had told him Akechi would be in.

Room 317’s door was shut and he paused in front of it, wondering if this was really happening. Another definitely-not-staff man appeared behind him and eyed him curiously, clearly waiting for him to stop stalling and go in. He couldn't stand here forever.

Ren slowly eased the door open, barely breathing from how hard his heartbeat was choking him out. He still wasn’t letting himself fully believe it, not until he saw it with his own two eyes. He knew he wouldn’t be able to handle the letdown if this turned out to be some sort of trick, a final ‘fuck you’ to the Phantom Thieves. He kept his eyes to the floor as the door pushed open, afraid to look up, scared of what he might see, or not see, in front of him. Whether the information he’d been given was true or not, he knew he was about to be overwhelmed one way or the other. He blinked a few times, steadying himself. He tried to force himself to take a few shallow breaths, then let himself look up across the room.

No amount of acceptance or preparation could have readied him for this, and he knew it.

Sitting up on the small hospital bed was the boy who had been forcibly projected into his nightmares for what felt like every single night since last December. Only he wasn’t screaming out in anguish, or begging desperately for Ren’s help. He was just smiling. He had been reading a book, but when Ren entered the room, he looked up from the pages.

“Hello,” he spoke softly, like he used to when they would meet up at the train station on school days. Before everything… happened, and his tone towards Ren had soured for good. “You’ll have to forgive me for my rudeness. I’m sure they’ve explained my situation to you since you expressed interest in visiting me, but I’ll need you to introduce yourself again for my sake.”

At least Akechi was as wordy as ever, because every word that Ren’s brain was capable of producing right now bubbled up into a boiling hot mess in his chest and got tangled and melded together. How are you here? We heard you die! You stupid, selfish asshole. We could have saved you. I missed you so, so, so goddamn much.

He settled for “R-ren,” barely audible and stammered out after what felt like an eternity. “Ren. I’m Ren.” That was better.

Akechi appeared to be thinking over something, biting his lip and fidgeting with the page under his fingers, eyes down and then back up on Ren’s face, studying it. Ren glanced over at the man standing against the wall, entrusted with making sure he didn’t ruin their little pet project.

“Ren… Such a simple, yet welcoming name. It feels… Safe. Warm almost.”

All at once, Ren’s mind was overcome. Akechi leaning over the bar at Leblanc. Ren meeting him in the middle. Their faces almost touching. Akechi’s thumb rubbing little circles on Ren’s hand, eyes down and lips by his ear. I feel safe with you.

“I apologize. That must sound very strange.” Akechi chuckled nervously and tried to smile. Ren snapped back to reality just as suddenly as he had left. “Since I don’t have much to go on at the moment in the way of prior experience, I’m relying solely on these little sensations. Though they may not even mean anything… Oh! I promise I haven’t also lost my manners. Please sit.” He gestured to a chair near the bed and set his book down on the table between them.

Ren glanced at their third wheel again to make sure he wasn’t going to be sniped for any movement, then sat himself down in the chair. This close up, he was scared to look at Akechi. It was too much. Instead, he looked at a spot on the sheets in silence, willing himself to say something, anything. But Akechi spoke for him.

“You’re the first visitor I’ve had. Were we friends?”

Teammates?! Friends?! To hell with that! He could still hear Akechi’s seething voice in his head, like he had for six months now on a never-ending loop. He forced himself to look up at the Akechi here in front of him, all patient smiles and kind eyes. He opened his mouth to speak then pursed his lips again, thinking.

“No,” he barely shook his head, partially to try and clear away some of the memories intrusively creeping in and threatening to take over like they did so often now. “We weren’t friends.”

Akechi seemed reasonably disappointed. He had nothing in the world and Ren couldn’t have even told a small lie, not even really a lie actually, to make him think maybe he had one single friend out there. Good going, asshole. Great second first impression.

“And yet you’re the only person who’s come to visit me. Maybe we were more like friends than you think.”

He knew it wasn’t his intention, but those words shot directly into Ren’s heart like they were aimed to kill. He took in a deep, shaky breath. He had to force himself to keep it together. Just until he got out of here. Then he could fall apart in whoever’s arms he ended up in first.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Chapter Text

As predicted, Ren made it about five steps out of the hospital room before he was overtaken by the panic attack he had known was building in his chest since the minute he approached the building. He had to duck into the nearest bathroom and lean over the sink on his palms, breathing hard and shaky. He had no reason to keep from crying now and he wasn’t about to deny himself these tears. He earned this breakdown, goddammit, and he was going to have it.

His thoughts were racing too hard to be comprehensible and if he had the capacity right now he would have been thankful for that. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing out more tears that plopped into the sink below him and tried to take deep breaths that came out shaky and wet.

For the briefest moment, he worried about someone walking in on him, before he remembered this was a hospital and that staff and visitors probably wouldn’t be too perturbed by a boy crying in the bathroom like this. He wasn’t the first and he wouldn’t be the last, despite his strange circumstances. This wasn’t exactly unusual for him these days. Ever stoic, calm, collected Joker had given way to anxious, scared Ren who was constantly being dragged down by the sheer weight of his guilt. Sometimes it boiled over.

He gave himself a few minutes to collect himself then rubbed his eyes as dry as he could manage with his sleeves and forced himself to stop crying. It sort of worked.

He pulled out his phone. He had felt it buzz in his pocket a few times since he got here.

Reading through the texts stabilized his thoughts enough to ground him for now. Not for the first time, he was grateful for Futaba’s eccentricities, which managed to make him smile even now. He had left Morgana with her in part because he didn’t want him left alone in his own worries about the situation up in the attic at Leblanc, and in part because what kind of older brother would he be if he didn’t do things to ensure his little sister’s annoyance?

He didn’t have the energy to message everyone back individually, so he opened their group chat, still in daily use even after their official disbanding.

As soon as he put his phone away, he felt it buzz multiple times. They could wait. It wasn’t like he really had any new information to share. He didn’t know why Akechi had survived, or how, or really what was even going on at all. This was all going to take some sinking in.

He was so lost in thought on the train ride home that he nearly missed his stop. He managed to squeeze out the door at the last second, almost getting his jacket caught. A voice in the back of his head told him that wouldn’t exactly be an unwelcome turn of events with the way his life had been going. Shaking his head cleared it enough for him to make it home without having to think much. Unsurprisingly, Futaba was sitting at the booth closest to the door with her laptop in front of her and Morgana curled up on the seat next to her. They both looked up when he entered.

“Hey,” he raised a hand and waved idly. He didn’t want to ignore them, but he also wasn’t in any mood to be bombarded, which he knew was going to be difficult to avoid.

“How was he? He didn’t know who you were, right? Sae-san said he has amnesia? That’s gotta be weird, and--” Morgana shushed Futaba and swatted at her leg with a paw, making her cry out in annoyance. It wasn’t like there were any customers, but Ren appreciated at least someone trying to keep hush about the situation.

“Futaba, inside voice please.” Sojiro chided her from his spot behind the bar, glass and towel in hand. “Let Ren get settled and I’m sure he’ll tell you what you need to know.” He nodded towards the stairs, giving Ren passage. “Go on.”

Ren didn’t need to be told twice and quickly made his way over to the stairs and up into his room. He felt Morgana brush against his legs as he pulled the door shut. He should have known he wouldn’t be able to make it up here by himself. But Morgana was usually a good sport about quiet time. He let himself collapse onto the bed and pulled his glasses off, covering his eyes with an arm and breathing in deep. Morgana jumped up onto the bed and gently laid down against Ren’s side. He was warm and soft and genuinely comforting, just like always.

“You alright…?” Morgana spoke quietly, wanting to give Ren some emotional space if he needed it.

“Yeah. I… yeah. I guess.” he sighed and turned his head to look at his fluffy companion. “I don’t know what I expected. He’s… it’s him, but…” he swallowed hard and trailed off.

“But it’s not. Yeah.” Morgana laid his cheek on Ren’s arm. “I’m sorry, Ren.”

“Thanks.” He covered his eyes with his arm again and stayed still for a few minutes. He had a lot to take in, and suddenly the silence was overwhelming and terrible. His own thoughts were threatening to break his brain apart and thrash it against the walls of his skull.

Goro Akechi-- the boy he’d quickly found himself falling in love with against his own better judgement, the boy who had pointed a gun at his cognitive self’s head point blank and fired and then come back for the real thing, the boy who had screamed at him until he was hoarse about how much he hated him and then turned around and sacrificed himself-- was alive, breathing. But not really there. He didn’t know if it was worse to lose him entirely or to see him kept in a state of blind ignorance by his father’s former puppets all for the sake of preserving what they thought was their gateway to psychotic breakdowns. It wasn’t like you could explain to people like them that the Metaverse had been collapsed. That their new project was useless. That the shell of Goro Akechi had no use to them. That he could be discarded again just like he would have been by Shido. That--

He jerked his eyes open and threw his arm to the side, suddenly shocked back out of his thoughts by the pressure of Morgana sitting up on his chest, looking as concerned as he could with those feline eyes. His paws kneaded into Ren’s chest gently, careful to avoid claws.

“Deep breaths. In and out.”

Ren nodded and tried as well as he could. His breaths were shaky and uneven but they leveled out over time, keeping rhythm with Morgana’s paws against his shirt, left then right. Once he was sure he’d accomplished his goal, Morgana laid himself down on Ren’s chest and stilled his paws.

“Better?”

He just nodded again instead of speaking. But he was grateful, like he was every time. His phone buzzed against his leg and he fished it out of his pocket, blinking at the light of the screen and squinting to see it clearly without his glasses.

The newest message wasn’t from the group. He felt the same warmth in his chest he felt every time he saw Yuuki Mishima’s name come up in his messages.

The next one was less heart-warming.

Great. Of course Sae deserved to know what was going on just as much as any of them did, if not more. Akechi had been her colleague after all. She had expressed just as much grief and remorse as the rest of them had after what they had all assumed was his death. She had to have questions. And she had been the one to tell Ren about Akechi’s situation in the first place. But she could wait for now. She’d understand that he needed time.

They all agreed on a time after some bickering and switching plans around. It felt a little like old times: meeting up to share new information and form a plan. Only this time Ren wasn’t sure what the plan was supposed to be for. Ideally, he wanted to rip Akechi away from those men, but what could he even do about it without the ability to jump into the Metaverse and force a change of heart? He felt powerless. He’d felt that way occasionally since losing access to the one thing that had made him special, since returning to a life of normalcy, to a life as the kid who was so useless that his parents hadn’t batted an eye when he’d chosen not to return home after his record had been cleared, but he felt it now especially. His inability to save Akechi had just come back compounded to kick him in the ribs, like a reminder of his failure.

For now, he just wanted a break from his thoughts and rolled over onto his side to take a much needed nap.

The group formerly known as the Phantom Thieves (and Mishima, who had been invited to many of their get-togethers by Ren since everything had wrapped up) met up a few hours later in the attic of Leblanc. They were scattered around the room, some sitting on the couch, others sitting in a loose semi-circle around it, and Futaba on her stomach across Ren's bed with her laptop in front of her, typing away.

Ren sat on the floor in front of one end of the couch, leaning back against Mishima's legs with Yusuke leaning against his side comfortably. Ryuji took the middle seat on the couch, arms across the back and one ankle resting on his opposite knee. On his other side was Ann, who had Morgana settled into the space between her hip and the arm of the couch. Haru and Makoto made up the rest of the floor crew, sitting close to each other, but not so open to semi-public affection as Yusuke's shameless display.

Ren took a deep breath and glanced back at Mishima briefly, who smiled down at him reassuringly.

“So,” he began, looking around now at his friends. “Goro Akechi... is alive.” He spoke slowly, the truth still setting in for him. Everyone was quiet, presumably because it needed to start sinking in for them too. After a few moments of heavy silence, Makoto cleared her throat and spoke up. Ren could usually count on her to guide them when he got too overwhelmed.

“Sis says she heard he just showed up unconscious on the steps of the Diet building around the same time we saw him ‘die’ in the Metaverse. We've all been suddenly rejected from the Metaverse before as well. It could be the same for him.”

“Yeah, but we never lost our memories. We just showed up out on the street in Shibuya out of nowhere.” Ryuji tilted his head, thinking.

“We also didn't 'die’. We were simply ejected by other means. Which means he probably did experience some sort of ‘death’ before his body reappeared in the real world…” Makoto looked over to Futaba. “Futaba, when you heard those gunshots you couldn't detect Akechi anymore, right?”

“Yep, pretty soon after the shots I could only pick up on the smaller shadows.”

“And you could definitely tell them apart?”

“Well…” Futaba paused and hummed to herself. “Yeah, shadows feel different than real people do. It's too hard to explain, but they just feel less… solid? The presence I felt in that room after the gunshots was definitely not a person.”

Ren slightly shifted and grit his teeth, uncomfortable with having to recall all of this in such vivid detail. The movement was enough for Mishima to notice and he reached a hand down to gently stroke Ren's hair, trying to comfort him as well as he could. Yusuke, simultaneously perceptive and inept as always, also noticed Ren's body language and spoke up.

“I believe this conversation is making Ren very uncomfortable.” He perked his head up a bit from Ren’s shoulder to speak.

“I'm alright.” Ren patted Yusuke's head, easing it back down again. “Thanks.” Yusuke only hummed in response.

“I know this is an uncomfortable conversation-- for all of us-- but we have to talk about this. If we want to help him, we need to figure out what's going on.” Makoto was always so level-headed, like a guiding light in all of their lives. There was a reason she had been dubbed the ‘mom friend’ of the group, and though she pretended to be bothered by the title, she cherished all of her friends and her ability to keep them in line.

Ann sat up straighter from her position on the couch and pounded a fist into her open palm, making Ryuji flinch next to her out of surprise.

“Okay, so we know what happens when someone’s shadow ‘dies’ in a palace. The real them suffers a mental shutdown and they might die in the real world.” She glanced over at Haru, to make sure she wasn’t bothered by her wording, and continued when she didn’t note any visible damage. “And we know that it was Akechi who was causing the psychotic breakdown incidents by using his Persona on their shadows. People don’t die when that happens, though.” She slumped over, resting her elbows on her thighs and propping her cheeks on her hands. “We also know that if someone else’s cognition of you dies, nothing happens to the real you. Like we did with Ren.”

“This is so confusing!” Ryuji stretched his arms up from where they had been resting on the back of the couch and then brought them back down to rub his own eyes, trying to clear his head and focus.

“Basically,” Makoto took over again. “We know what happens in a variety of scenarios, but we don’t have any information to go off of for what happens when someone’s true self goes into the Metaverse and then dies there, specifically inside someone else’s Palace.”

“Um,” Mishima quietly interjected, unsure even now of whether he was allowed to participate in such official Phantom Thief discussions. But everyone else looked over at him expectantly. Even Ren tilted his head up to give him some attention. “S-sorry, I know I wasn’t there for all of the… stuff, but… Didn’t the psychotic breakdown victims not remember what happened to them afterwards? Maybe Akechi… I mean, I’m just guessing here, but-- There could be some sort of connection. Maybe. Um, that’s all.” He gave a half smile and Ren returned it back up to him as a small form of reassurance that his input was appreciated.

“Hey!” Haru was practically shouting from excitement. “That’s really smart! We don’t know that much about Akechi’s Persona, so maybe he saved himself somehow? Maybe it’s not a function of the Metaverse at all, but something he did on his own.” She looked to Makoto for input, but Makoto just shrugged.

“It’s the best guess we have to go on for now. Thank you, Mishima-kun. I have to admit I probably wouldn’t have thought of that myself.”

Mishima’s cheeks flushed pink and he smiled, averting his eyes down to the couch cushions. He was still adjusting to having his ideas acknowledged by others instead of immediately dismissed or worse yet completely ignored, but he was getting better about speaking up for himself, fear or no fear. Sometimes it paid off. He mumbled his thanks to Makoto and went back to idly playing with Ren’s hair.

Ren was only half listening, feeling himself slipping into a sort of daze the longer he was expected to focus on such a difficult subject. Even though he now knew Akechi was alive, focusing on the memory of him dying was overwhelmingly unpleasant for him after half a year of obsessive dwelling. Six months of replaying those moments in his head wouldn’t be rinsed away just by learning it hadn’t been exactly what he thought. It was harder than that.

Mishima’s touch was keeping him somewhat tethered to reality, but he must have looked some fraction as bad as he felt because Yusuke tilted his head against his shoulder to look up at him. Faintly he could hear others discussing something, but he couldn’t focus on the words themselves and everything felt sort of hazy. Shit. Keep it together, this is important.

“Are you alright…?” Yusuke’s voice was soft and gentle. He had been through enough in his life to know roughly what Ren must be experiencing right now. He knew what this sort of blank stare and zombie-eyed look meant at least. He’d seen it on his own hazy reflection plenty of times. Ren didn’t answer, so he picked his head up and tried to get into his line of vision to get his attention without fully alerting the others. It half worked and Ren blinked quickly several times before his eyes tracked Yusuke’s movement.

“Uh… uh-huh.” was all he managed, blinking a few more times.

“Is Ren okay? He looks kinda dead.” was Futaba’s astute observation from across the room. Suddenly, everyone had their eyes on Ren, who arguably did look a bit dead.

“Ren is not dead.” Yusuke answered for him. “But we may need to take a break from this discussion.” Ren shook his head to try and clear out some fog, now aware that everyone’s attention was on him.

“Sorry. I’m okay.” His speech felt too heavy in his mouth but it seemed to come out okay, if far away sounding. “I just kind of spaced out. I’m fine.”

“Hey, man,” Ryuji leaned forward and slapped Ren on the back, clasping his shoulder. “It’s gonna be alright. Maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. I mean, the guy was kinda crazy, maybe getting to hit a reset button on his life could do him some goo-- OW!” he was cut off by Ann elbowing him hard in the ribs, glaring daggers at him.

“Ryuji! What is wrong with you?” She smacked the back of his head for good measure, earning her another yelp from him as he tried to take shelter against Mishima, who was suddenly looking very uncomfortable. “Don’t say things like that! Akechi was Ren’s friend!”

“Okay, okay! Geez, I’m sorry! I just meant he obviously had a lot of shit goin’ on, maybe he’d be happy to be able to get out from underneath all of it and just forget it. Especially with Shido locked up somewhere.”

“Well,” Makoto abruptly cut Ryuji off before he could make an even bigger ass of himself. “I think Yusuke is right. We should take a break. Would anyone like to get dinner?”

Just like that, at the mention of food, Makoto had commanded everyone’s attention back to herself and away from Ren, who was now leaning his head against Yusuke’s shoulder, clinging loosely to his arm. Mishima leaned down from behind to check in with him silently now that Ryuji wasn’t clinging to him in fear of Ann’s wrath.

After some discussion on where they all wanted to eat, the bulk of the group headed downstairs to write down their orders and send Makoto and Haru off to pick everything up. Yusuke and Mishima lingered upstairs with Ren, wanting to make sure he was going to pull through. Mishima scooted himself down onto the floor on Ren’s other side and rubbed his back through his shirt.

Ren took a few stabilizing deep breaths then sat up straighter, still holding on to Yusuke but looking more cognizant.

“I'm alright. Really.” He forced a smile, but Yusuke's concerned expression didn't change and Mishima was still watching him intently. Sometimes having so many doting friends and partners backfired and he found himself too well looked after. “Guys. I'm okay. It's not a big deal, I just spaced out.” He untangled himself from Yusuke and stood up slowly, making sure he didn't stumble and ruin his conviction that he was indeed a functioning human being right now. Getting up off the floor seemed to be enough to convince the other two that he was alright and they finally relented in their helicopter boyfriending and seemed to relax.

The trio made their way downstairs to where the others were still gathered all into one crowded booth, squabbling over dinner plans.

“Renren!” Ryuji sounded distressed. “Burgers or sushi?”

“Sushi burger. End of discussion.” He smirked and leaned back against the bar. This was the most normal thing to happen to him today.

“That's not one of the options! Come on! We're never gonna get food like this and I'm starving.”

“If none of you will settle on something, Haru and I will choose ourselves and come back with whatever we like without consulting everyone and you'll all have to accept whatever we choose to bestow upon you.” Makoto was standing next to the booth with her phone in her hand, presumably to take note of everyone's order. Haru nodded sagely from her seat.

This started up a whole new round of arguing that was mostly Futaba and Ryuji going back and forth. Ren knew Futaba well enough to know she didn't really care this much about getting her way, but she did care about getting under Ryuji's skin.

Yusuke reappeared at Ren's side with a glass of water and offered it to him insistently. So maybe the helicopter boyfriending hadn't quite ended, but he still accepted it, mouthing a, “Thank you.”

In the end, Ryuji relented, hunger getting the best of him, and the group settled on getting sushi, much to Morgana's delight. This left everyone else to hang out downstairs in the closed cafe while Makoto and Haru were off playing fetch for them. Ren was worried he was going to be bombarded with Akechi-related questions the second Makoto wasn't there to turn it into a regulated meeting, but the discussion dissolved into small talk. Normal friend stuff. Ren was grateful for some normalcy. He sat himself at the bar, facing out to the booths, and joined in the conversation with his friends while he let the fog lift from his brain.

When Makoto and Haru returned with dinner in tow, everyone settled down into their seats and a hush fell over them as they started eating, everyone preoccupied for the time being with shoving food into their faces instead of talking.

Ren realized as soon as he smelled food that he'd forgotten to eat since that morning. Normally he could come downstairs and pilfer curry from the cafe's kitchen whenever he needed a meal, but today he had been either way too strung out or unconscious to remember he needed to eat. Hunger hit him like a brick to the stomach and he didn't hesitate to grab his portion and quickly eat it.

Once everyone had had a chance to eat at least some of their food, Makoto cleared her throat and spoke up.

“Now that everyone has eaten, I do think we need to resume our meeting. Like I said, I know this is uncomfortable for everyone, but Akechi needs our help and we can't help him if we don't have a grasp on the situation.”

Ryuji leaned across the table to grab another piece of sushi off the communal plate and popped it in his mouth, not bothering to finish chewing before speaking.

“So why are they keepin’ him in there anyway? Wouldn't it be easier to just let him do whatever he wants if he doesn't know who he is anyway?” He went to grab another piece and held it out to Morgana, who graciously accepted it. “They can't keep usin’ him like Shido did if they can't get him into the Metaverse.”

Morgana finished chewing his food before speaking, proving that he had better manners than Ryuji.

“They don't know the Metaverse isn't accessible anymore. They're probably keeping him there hoping they can reawaken his Persona and use him like a weapon again.”

“Sis said the same thing. It's likely they're trying to find a way to get him back into the Metaverse while also avoiding letting him in on his true identity so that he won't rebel against them.” Makoto took a sip of her drink and then continued. “If that's true, we should be worried about what could happen if they do find out about the Metaverse. Or if he recovers his memories and they decide they don't want to deal with him. Are you sure he's forgotten everything, Ren? We do know him to be quite good at putting on an act.”

“No, I'm sure. We talked for a while and he just seemed really confused and happy to have someone talking to him at all. We had a guy in there with us so I couldn't really ask him anything specific.”

“We can’t totally rule out that he’s not at least partially acting, but for now we can assume that he truly didn’t retain any of his memories.”

Ren was partially relieved that it hadn’t just been his overactive imagination running away with him and that Makoto had come to the same conclusions he had about it meaning trouble if Shido’s men realized they couldn’t use Akechi the way they wanted to, if they realized he really was just an amnesiatic teenage boy. Where this had made Ren panic, it had only made Makoto more determined to keep things from coming to that point. She looked around the room at her friends, brain visibly working.

“We need to come up with a plan. I’ll have my sister try to find out who’s involved and get the information to Futaba so she can try and pull up whatever she can on them. Sis said she recognized a man at the hospital as one of Shido’s dogs already, but she didn’t give me the name. I assume we’ll need that.” Her eyes landed on Futaba, who nodded. “Mishima, can you try to drum up some interest on the Phansite about Akechi’s whereabouts? See if you can get any rumors to come out. Even if we can’t access the Metaverse, that doesn’t mean putting him back into the public’s subconscious won’t do us some good.”

Mishima nodded eagerly, happy to be of some help. “Yeah, on it! I’ll work on it tonight!”

Even with the Phantom Thieves disbanded, the Phansite had become a sort of social hour for people who had been Phans, some of which held hope for them to make a return. Mishima mostly kept it up for the sake of others, but there were times when it was still very useful. Makoto then turned her gaze to Ren.

“Ren, I know you were probably already planning on this, but you need to keep visiting him. You need to start giving him a sense of identity again, even if it’s just little by little. Make him question what’s happening to him.” She spoke slowly, determined. Ren swallowed and nodded silently.

Chapter Text

Ren showed up at the hospital again two days later. He had taken a day to get his chaotic thoughts in order and he couldn’t say it had done him much good. But his desire to see Akechi and to make sure he was still okay had won out over the fear and panic, and so he had showed up. The nurse who showed him to the room this time was a different one than last time. She was shorter than him, with hair pulled back into a short ponytail, bangs laying over one side of her forehead, and a small beauty mark below her mouth. She initially seemed to be in a foul mood, but as they got closer to Akechi’s room, she smiled up at Ren.

“He’s pretty cute, huh? You his boyfriend?” He couldn’t tell if she was teasing him or genuinely asking but it still caught him off-guard either way and he could only stammer out nonsense in response. “Hey, I’m just kidding. He just hasn’t had any visitors the whole time he’s been here. We were starting to feel bad for him. Do you actually know him or did you just hear there was some kid here with amnesia and felt bad?” She paused briefly for an answer, giving Ren just enough time to open his mouth, before cutting him off. “I mean, it’s not my business either way.” They’d arrived at the door.

“Have fun in there.” She touched him on the shoulder and then gently shoved him into the room. He stumbled across the threshold and caught himself on the doorframe. “You have a visitor!”

The nurse giggled to herself and then walked off, leaving a disheveled Ren, a very amused Akechi, and the same guard as before sitting in a chair this time in the corner, reading through a magazine. He glanced up at Ren to let him know he was watching, then went back to his reading.

“Hello, nice to see you again.” Akechi was barely stifling laughter and openly grinning at Ren’s fumble. What he wouldn’t have done for this sort of openness back then. It would have been refreshing if it hadn’t been jarring to see him so unguarded. Ren stood up straighter and tried to compose himself, running a hand through his hair and purposefully leaning against the doorframe instead of slumping over. Play it cool.

“Hey.” Very cool. “Come here often?” Less cool. Dammit. Akechi tilted his head, still smiling so, so cutely.

“Implying that I’m ever anywhere else. Although I did go for a walk this morning around the premises, so if you count me coming back… I’d say I do come here pretty often. Daily, even.” He tucked his now considerably longer hair behind his ear and motioned to the chair by his bed. “Come in, sit.”

Ren did as he was told, face only burning a little from the fool he was already making of himself. Akechi’s smile dissolved into a calmer expression and he steadied his gaze on Ren’s face.

“I’ve been thinking… Since the last time you were here. You said you were my… Barista…?” He sounded understandably confused. It had been the easiest explanation Ren could think of, but that didn’t mean it made sense. “I’m sorry, I’m just having trouble wrapping my head around this one. This is silly, but I feel this… connection between us. I know I’ve only just met you and the time I’ve known you pales in comparison to the time you must have known me, but… There’s something else, isn’t there?” His eyes were searching Ren’s face for some sort of clue and Ren couldn’t stand it, so he dropped his own gaze down to the floor. “I’m sorry. Am I making you uncomfortable? Am I being too forward?”

“No, it’s… I’m fine. You’re not.” He looked over at the man in the corner and then back to Akechi. “If we didn’t have some sort of connection I wouldn’t be here.” He was testing the limits of what he could get away with. The man didn’t seem to react. Akechi pursed his lips and lowered his eyes. Probably not the explanation he wanted.

“No one here will tell me anything. Initially I believed it was because they just didn’t know anything about me, but now you’re refusing as well.” He looked back up at Ren, stare much more intense now. “You’re intentionally keeping quiet.” Ren frowned and flicked his eyes over to the guard again, trying to nonverbally signal to Akechi that it wasn’t his fault. He was grateful that Akechi’s perceptiveness hadn’t been lost with his memories. He followed Ren’s gaze just as subtly. “I see. Very well. I apologize for losing my cool. It’s been quite lonely in here, and I made the mistake of assuming you would have answers for me.” He made sure the guard was looking down at his magazine and then mouthed Thank you to Ren silently. Ren smiled nervously then picked his act back up.

“I’m sorry. I really don’t know what you want me to tell you. I made you coffee a few times and I was worried when I heard you might be here. I don’t know that much about you really. I probably can’t help you very much.”

Akechi put on his best act of pouty resignation. “I suppose that can’t be helped. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful that you’ve decided to visit me at all, it’s more than anyone else has done. Thank you, Ren.” He made direct eye contact as he spoke the last words. “I’m grateful to have someone my age to speak with. The doctors and scientists don't provide much in the way of conversation. I can already tell you're much more interesting.”

The next few days mostly went by in a blur of helping out at Leblanc and playing phone tag with Sae and Makoto over whatever scraps of information they could dig up. The men Sae had initially recognized at the hospital did in fact have names and she was easily able to dig them up by going back through some articles from Shido's ill-fated campaign last year. She had pulled every name that came up and passed them on to Futaba in hopes that she would be able to find some sort of encrypted data about Akechi's records. So far they hadn't come up with much.

Mishima's efforts on the Phansite had been even less fruitful. He had opened up a new poll: Is the Detective Prince, Goro Akechi, still alive? The results were pretty mixed, nearly straight down the middle. The poll comments were mostly unhelpful, a majority of them questioning who Akechi even was, but there were a few that stood out, if only for their outlandish claims. I saw Akechi in Shibuya last week. Akechi was actually a Phantom Thief and he's in hiding with the rest of them. All most definitely certifiably false, but at least it got people talking.

Mishima was reading the most outrageous poll comments out loud laying in bed in Leblanc's attic with Ren's head resting on his stomach. His free hand was tangled in his curls, twirling them around a finger and releasing again. Ryuji was laying on his other side, propped up on an elbow, reading along with him on his phone's screen.

“Oh, here's a good one. Akechi was never really a detective, he was just a fake personality constructed by the media as a publicity stunt to get teens interested in the news and raise ratings for talk shows.” Mishima thought Ren might have fallen asleep but he snorted against his shirt in response and breathily laughed. He continued. “The man we knew as Akechi is probably living filthy rich now that his stint in the spotlight has ended and all these teenage girls losing their minds over the pretty-boy detective are never going to see him again and move on to the new flavor of the week.”

“Wish that were me.” Ren mumbled without thinking and immediately regretted it.

“What, the being filthy rich?” Ryuji shifted his position a bit so he was cuddled up to Mishima's side closer, resting his chin on top of his head.

“Mm. Sure.” Ren pressed his face into Mishima's body more and heard him hum sadly. The hand in his hair switched from curling around fingers to lovingly petting his hair back.

Ryuji made a confused noise and then an oh and a sigh. He had never really understood what was going on between Ren and Akechi and he certainly hadn't approved of it and Ren knew that. He knew they would have always been at odds with each other. Ryuji had made enough off-handed comments about how stuck up or rude or condescending or fake Akechi was for Ren to get the message and he knew that the Akechi he knew personally wouldn't dream of letting his guard down enough around Ryuji for him to see anything else in him. The public facade had been all Ryuji had seen of him until it had all cracked and broken away at once. The scared, kindness-starved, eager to please, ditzy, flighty Akechi Ren had gotten stolen glimpses of over coffee would never be the Akechi Ryuji knew. In that way, his distaste made sense.

They had more arguments than Ren could count over Ryuji's comments and Ren had eventually just dropped the topic altogether and let his best-friend-slash-boyfriend stay mad about his then-almost-sort-of-maybe-lover. Even now, seeing the heartbreak and guilt Ren had been saddled with, seeing him wake up shaking and gasping from a dead sleep more than once, Ryuji couldn't wrap his brain around what Ren felt about Akechi. He still did his best to be supportive, but he just couldn't understand how Ren could have gotten so caught up in feelings for someone like that when he had people like himself, and Mishima, and Yusuke who truly loved and cared for him.

“I just--” Ryuji started but Mishima reached up and tapped him on the head with his phone to silence him.

“Hush.”

“I was just-- yeah. Sorry, Renren.”

Ren opened one eye and tilted his head up to squint up at both of his boys. He looked tired. “It's fine. I was just joking. Mostly.” He settled his cheek back down again and shut his eyes. “Though being filthy rich would be nice.”

Mishima chuckled and leaned his head up to nuzzle against Ryuji's neck, thanking him silently for keeping his mouth shut. “I think I could've been rich if I'd taken donations when the Phansite was big.”

“I had to stop you from blowing a donation on a very fancy dinner date, as flattering as that idea was. You would've blown it all and still been broke.” Ren didn't lift his head to speak, making half his words come out muffled. “We weren't even dating back then, you were just real ready to blow through that cash.”

“Hey! I didn't even spend it! I ended up returning it all because it didn't feel right. Give me some credit.” He ruffled Ren's hair.

“Why wasn't I invited to this expensive steak dinner?” Ryuji sounded scandalized.

“Cuz Yuuki had a big gay crush on me and an even bigger head.” Ren looked up and smiled, relishing in getting to be the one doing the teasing here. “And you were skillfully dodging every single attempt I made to hit on you.” Ryuji just grumbled in response. “It wasn’t steak anyway, it was that buffet we went to that one time.”

“You think I have a big head…?” Mishima lifted a hand to touch his own forehead, expression genuinely concerned, making Ryuji laugh.

“You had a big head full of a much needed ego boost that has since deflated into a perfectly normally sized, loveable head.” Ren sat up and scooted up to lay next to the others properly and kissed Mishima's head before pressing his face into his hair.

The three of them stayed like that for a while longer, comfortably quiet, all looking at their own phones or resting their eyes and just enjoying the warmth. Ryuji broke the silence by groaning while stretching his arms and back.

“I gotta get goin’ soon or I'm gonna miss the last train back.” He sat up with another groan and looked down at his two boyfriends. Ren looked half asleep, face partially obscured by Mishima's hair, and Mishima had set his phone down to smile up at Ryuji sweetly. Ryuji covered his face and dramatically doubled over. “I can't take this shit. You guys are way too cute, you're killin’ me! It's not fair!”

“Woe is the man who has not one, but two boyfriends who love him. What a dreadful existence you must lead, Ryuji Sakamoto.” Ren sleepily untangled himself from Mishima's grasp and sat up, rubbing an eye. “C'mon, I'll see you off, you poor thing.” He climbed over Mishima and led Ryuji downstairs, hand on his shoulder. Ryuji called back up, saying goodbye to Mishima, and after a few minutes the door had shut downstairs.

Ren came back up a few minutes later to Mishima sitting up on the bed, still engrossed in his phone.

“You going home too, or staying here?” He sat on the bed next to him and leaned his head on his shoulder.

“I'll stay here. I-if that's okay, I mean. I know you haven't been feeling well, and you're dealing with a lot, so if you need time alone, I can--”

“You can stay. You know I don't mind.” He took Mishima's free hand in his own and held it between them. He was grateful for company any time he could get it these days. Being with someone else usually kept his mind occupied enough that it wouldn't wander and leave him spiraling. Mishima was quiet and easy to be with, his presence calming.

The two stayed up in comfortable silence for a while longer until Ren was lulled into sleep, head resting on Mishima's chest, soothed by the sound of his steady heartbeat.

He was jolted out of nothingness by his name being shouted. He tried to open his eyes and look around for the source but everything felt blurry, hazy, air too thick. He felt something cold press against his forehead and he was finally able to focus his eyes, looking up to see the barrel of a police-issued handgun, held by a gloved hand, and at the other end of that arm, Goro Akechi, grinning, stained with dark patches of dried blood. He tried to say something but nothing would come out. He wasn’t even sure he could move.

“Save it.” Akechi hissed and prodded the gun against his head harder. “There’s nothing you can say to me that will matter now. You let me DIE, REN! I TRUSTED YOU!” He was shouting now, voice raspy and dripping with hatred. “You were supposed to save me. You were supposed to help me. You’re a murderer.” His tone pitched down into something desperate and panicked.

He tried to open his mouth to say anything, but he couldn’t feel the muscles to make it happen. Had he been drugged? Everything around Akechi was darkness.

“You deserve this.” Akechi’s finger pulled back on the trigger ever so slightly. His voice was steady now, calm. “You deserve this and more for what you did to me. I died alone, scared. Do you know what that’s like, Ren?” He breathed out a wheezing laugh and grinned harder down at him, composure cracking again. “You will soon. Sweet dreams, Joker.” Ren saw the movement of Akechi’s finger in front of his eyes before everything went blindingly white.

He woke up gasping for breath, cheeks wet, hair slick with sweat, with Mishima hovering worriedly over him in the dark. This had happened enough times that once the shock wore off, he was left feeling numb. He’d had roughly the same nightmares for half a year now, the same variations on shuffle replaying on a loop in his brain most nights. The shock value had quickly dropped off. He groaned and rolled over to face the wall, rubbing his eyes with his sleeves.

“You okay?” Mishima’s voice was soft and still thick with sleep. He’d been through this with Ren enough times to understand it was worse if he made a big deal out of it. If he’d had anyone there during his own nightmares about Kamoshida, he was sure he would have felt the same. He saw Ren barely nod so he lowered himself back down to hold him from behind, face pressed against the back of his neck. “Here if you wanna talk…” He pressed a quick kiss to his exposed skin.

Ren took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly, grabbing Mishima’s hand to hold it against his chest. He’d be lucky if he could fall back asleep quickly, but he didn’t really want to talk over the same guilt-induced nightmare for the tenth time. He just pressed himself back against Mishima, settling into his arms, grateful for the warmth. He could feel Mishima’s breathing on his neck and the rhythm helped him slow his own until his heart had calmed itself down.

Chapter Text

Ren hadn’t ended up sleeping much more. He was in and out of fits of light sleep all night, probably moving enough to keep Mishima up with him. If he had, Mishima hadn’t said anything about it and had seemed his normal cheerful self when he’d parted ways with Ren in the morning. They said their goodbyes with a quick kiss outside the coffee shop’s front door and Ren went back inside to see if Sojiro would need his help. Due to the lack of customers, he was put on dish duty for half an hour and then released from his servitude to spend the rest of the day doing whatever he wanted.

Under normal circumstances, he would have loved a day to lay around lazily flipping through some manga or scrolling endlessly through social media on his phone, but as it was his head was too full of everything to comfortably slack off. After last night’s recurring nightmare, he felt more insistent than before on needing to make some sort of progress on getting him out of there. He just wasn’t sure what he could do right now, with Futaba still doing research and Sae still working out her own plan. He felt like all he could do right now was bide time, and the longer he was inactive the longer Akechi was in danger. He was about to just give up and try to fall back asleep when it hit him. He needed to get to the hospital.

It had been Mishima who had brought it up, though it was partially by accident. He had mentioned something a few days ago about communicating through a nonverbal code to his teammates back when they’d all been at Kamoshida’s mercy. Something about a touch on the upper back meaning Kamoshida was in a particularly foul mood, while a touch on the mid back meant they might be in the clear today.

It would be a little more difficult to implement a code like that without being able to discuss the meanings beforehand or even tell Akechi what he was trying to establish. But he trusted in Akechi’s naturally perceptive nature to catch on to things quickly, even now. It was worth trying at least.

He decided on something simple. One tap of his finger for yes, two for no. With the way the room was set up, if he kept his hand on the arm of the chair farthest from the door, the guard couldn’t see it. Akechi would easily be able to keep his hand hidden from view as well, and if they were smart about it they shouldn’t have any problems. It was just getting to that point that would be difficult.

He decided on just starting to tap when he was agreeing to something Akechi said. The first few times he did it, Akechi didn’t seem to notice, but after a while he was looking at Ren’s hand, puzzled.

“You seem… fidgety today. Working in a coffeeshop finally doing you in with all that caffeine?”

“Nah,” Ren tapped his fingers twice this time, setting a new rule. He saw Akechi’s eyes linger there. “I don’t actually drink a lot of it. Just every now and then. They let you have coffee in here?” He let his eyes dart to Akechi’s hand, trying to give him a hint, but Akechi just looked subtly perplexed by that.

“They do, but it’s not very good. I’d just as well go without. I don’t suppose you could bring me something better?”

“I don’t think they’d let me,” He tapped his fingers twice again. “I might poison you or something.”

“How unfortunate.” Two taps against the bed. Ren’s eyes widened in pleasant surprise. He caught on faster than expected. If he truly did understand what Ren was trying to communicate, that is.

“Get out of here and I’ll make you all the coffee you could ever want. I’d say it’s on the house, but my dad might not be so into that.” He sighed.

“Oh, so your father owns the coffee shop? Here I was thinking you had gotten a job out of skill, but it seems it’s all nepotism.”

“Hey, no, it’s not like that, it’s--” He paused, searching for words to defend himself, then remembered to tap his fingers twice. “It’s complicated. He’s like my guardian right now, and he’s letting me live in a spare room, so I help him out. And I am good at making coffee, thank you. Get out of here, I’ll prove it to you.”

That made Akechi’s smile fade into something more genuine. “I suppose I’ll just have to take you up on that offer.” One tap. He seemed to be getting the general message.

“So, uh, do you stay in here all the time? They don’t let you out? I guess they bring the bad coffee to you.” Ren leaned his cheek on his hand, leaning back in the chair. He didn’t mean to sound condescending, he was just trying to get an understanding of the situation. And to push this conversation somewhere useful. If Akechi was bothered, he didn’t show it.

“No,” Two taps. “I can leave my room as long as I don’t wander off the property or stay gone for too long. I’ve had nurses come hunt me down because my morning walk went over the allotted time slot for my… Recreational activities.”

“What time do you usually come back? No fun for you if I show up in the middle of your one moment of freedom and force them to drag you back here for my sake.”

“They try to keep my time out limited to half an hour, so I’m usually back by about 9:15 or so... As long as you don’t show up to surprise me first thing in the morning, I should be right here waiting for you.” Akechi smiled and shifted his position, sitting up straighter. Out of the corner of his eye, Ren saw his fingers tap once on the sheets. Yes? “But I think you have better manners than to show up like that.” Another tap for good measure.

“So you don’t want me to show up at 9 in the morning and make your doctors go on a mad hunt for you so I can make you sit here and talk to me instead of getting some air?” He tilted his head against his hand, grinning, and tapped the fingers of his other hand against the arm of the chair once.

“You wouldn’t do that. You don’t seem like the type who’s ever awake before noon anyway if you can help it.” Oh, so the teasing was mutual now. Well, Ren had to admit when he was defeated.

“You got me there.”

“Our afternoon chats suit me just fine anyway. Gives me something to look forward to.”

Ren stood up to leave and stretched his arms up above his head with a groan. “I need to get going soon, sorry I can’t stay later. I know you probably just miss me so much you can’t stand it when I’m not here bugging you.” He was teasing, but he saw Akechi’s fingers move once.

Oh.

There was still one piece of information he needed to make this work though. “Hey, uh is there a bathroom on this floor?” He knew the answer, he’d had a panic attack in that very bathroom the first time he’d visited Akechi here. But that wasn’t the point.

“I’m not sure, my apologies… I usually use the one on the first floor when I go for a walk. It’s towards the end of the hall past the front desk, on the left.” He was making sure to look Ren in the eye as he spoke. He was definitely thinking the same thing Ren was. He silently thanked whatever god was listening. This might actually work.

As soon as the bathroom door shut behind Akechi, Ren was on him, wrapping his arms around his neck and pulling their bodies close together, burying his face in his hair. Akechi made a tiny startled noise in his throat and put his hands up, a response leftover as a remnant from a time when any unwanted touch sent him into a frenzy, but then settled into the embrace.

“Goro…” he breathed the name out against Akechi's neck, nuzzling in closer, taking this in as much as he could. It was all he'd wanted for so long and he never thought he would ever touch him again, let alone this intimately.

“Goro…? That's… my name?” He sounded a bit dazed. Any prodding against the walls put up in his brain seemed to have that effect. Ren just nodded and finally lifted his head up so they could look at each other, glasses crooked. Every functioning brain cell he had was screaming at him to kiss him, but he knew it wouldn't be appropriate right now. He prayed there would be a better time.

“Goro Akechi... You like detective novels, but you hate the predictability and always solve the mystery before you're supposed to. You hate spicy food and you have a huge sweet tooth. You always ordered a small white caffe mocha with whipped cream and extra sugar and I'd tease you about whether you ever slept with all the sugar and caffeine. You take a bike ride every morning before school. You are so smart, and so hard working, and I… I'm sorry. For everything. Goro…” Ren was choking up despite his best efforts. He’d held it together so well during their supervised visits, but now he felt like he was falling apart.

“So you weren't lying about being a barista. Interesting…” Akechi looked even less coherent than Ren did, blinking rapidly a few times and staring at a spot past Ren's shoulder. “Ah… I… My apologies. This is… a lot.” He removed his hands from where they'd been resting on Ren's sides during their embrace and realized they were trembling badly. Ren untangled himself and took his hands in his own.

“We're going to get you out of here and into somewhere safe. But you can't let them know you know anything. If you remember anything, even if you decide you hate me, you can't tell them.” He squeezed Akechi's hands.

“If I… hate you?”

“Promise me. This is serious.”

“Yes. Of course. But I should probably get back. They'll be suspicious if my bathroom breaks start getting much longer.” He dropped Ren's hands and let his gaze linger on his face. “We really weren't friends?”

Ren hesitated, knowing he didn't have time for the whole truth and that it wouldn't do them any good for the time being. “No. You made sure I knew that.”

Akechi just hummed, still unsure what to make of Ren's insistence on the issue. Even now, Ren felt so dear to him that he had a hard time believing there was even a slim chance he could grow to resent him if his memories were opened back up to him. Thinking about it made his head ache deeply.

“I should get back.” He repeated, easing back from Ren a bit towards the door. “Thank you. You've given me much to think about.” The words felt strange as he spoke them, and he could have been imagining it, but he thought he saw Ren's expression falter into something even sadder. But they didn't have time to dwell on that. They only had a few moments unsupervised and Ren needed to make it count.

“Goro,” he stopped him from leaving. “Don’t trust these people. I can’t explain what they’re trying to do right now, but I’m not going to let it happen. Can we meet like this once a week? Same time? I can try to get more information to you like this, I just… Need to sort some things out.”

Akechi forced a nervous smile and fidgeted with his hands. Ren noticed him go to tug at the spot where a glove’s hem would have been and then pause, confused. “I’m worried about one of them tailing me, but… Once a week should be alright. If you can make a promise to me as well.” He looked at Ren expectantly. “Tell me what’s going on next time.”

Ren took a deep breath but nodded.

“Yeah. I will. As much as I can.”

Ren regretted that promise as soon as the buzzing in his head had subsided enough to allow him to. There was no way that he was going to be able to spill the entire complicated situation to Akechi in three minutes locked in a hospital bathroom. There was even less of a chance of Akechi believing him without the memories to back it up. If someone had told Ren that he would be going into the physical manifestations of other people’s delusions to change their corrupted thoughts and make them into better people, he wouldn’t have believed it. Why would Akechi believe he had been doing the same, only with the added bonus of taking out targets assigned to him by his super-villain father?

He wasn’t sure if disbelief would be a better or worse option than Akechi suddenly regaining his memories. The more time he spent with him like this, the more he felt like he was being pulled in two different directions. This Akechi seemed so at ease. He had no self-imposed expectations of perfection or lifetime of isolation weighing him down. He was just an easygoing, kind, confused boy. Maybe Ryuji had had a point about a reset being good for him.

But that felt… wrong, maybe even slightly evil. There had to be some ethical ramifications to not helping someone you know get their life and identity back, even if it meant they’d have to re-learn all the horrible things that had happened to them. With everything that had happened to Ren over the past year, he had wondered more times than he could count whether he would undo all of it if he had the chance. When he thought about the bonds he had made, the lives they had all touched, everything he had learned, he always arrived at a definite no. He wondered if Akechi would feel the same or if his experiences had darkened his world enough to make him wish for a chance to throw it all away. He didn't guess he'd ever know. And now Ren had to be the one to recount those very experiences to him, or at least the circumstances surrounding them.

He decided to call a meeting. He owed it to everyone to catch them up to speed anyway. So much had been happening so fast and his visits with Akechi had only been poorly summarized through texts or shared in fragmented pieces over quick lunches with one or two over Thieves. A catch-up session with everyone wouldn't hurt.

Ren would deal with Ryuji when he got home. For now, he had the whole train ride back to think about what exactly he should say to the others. He almost fell asleep on the train instead, not used to being up and around this early anymore. Just a few weeks of summer break had obliterated his sleep-wake schedule, which wasn’t terrific to begin with. Normally, he’d have Morgana with him to keep him sort of awake, but he hadn’t been bold enough to take a cat with him to the hospital. Not with all the supervision he’d been under.

He tried to gather his thoughts. He’d need to be able to summarize everything very quickly, not leaving much time for clarification or discussion. That meant explaining the Metaverse was probably out. But how do you explain that someone’s memories were wiped after being shot and killed inside someone else’s brain without explaining that it happened inside someone else’s brain? And what if explaining all of this was enough to bring Akechi back to his senses and the sudden influx of memories made him lash out? What if this all backfired and Ren only succeeded in making Akechi back into the murderous tool he’d been before, playing right into his captors’ hands?

He couldn't back out now after making that promise, and he didn't feel good about lying either. Careful honesty felt like his only option if he wanted Akechi to trust him and not these so-called doctors. One of them would think of something. Combined, they had to have some ideas that would work. Especially with Sae there to help.

When he got back to Leblanc, Ryuji was there like he promised, but he'd fallen asleep on Ren's bed, Morgana trapped in his arms and looking up at Ren pleadingly for help.

“Hey,” Ren nudged Ryuji's shoulder and got a whine out of him. He moved just enough for Morgana to wiggle out and shake himself off, bounding off the bed to the safety of downstairs. “Hey, wake up.” Another whine, more insistent this time. “Rooji. My best friend in the world. Love of my life.” He cooed and knelt down next to the bed to get close to his face.

“Yeah, yeah…” he opened one eye and tried to hide his smile, swatting at Ren's face playfully. Ren caught his hand and held it, bringing it to his cheek to hold it there against his skin. He shut his eyes, leaning into it. “You're a sap.”

“Just let me have this. I've had a rough morning.”

Ryuji thumbed over Ren's cheek gently, wanting to give him the affection he was apparently craving.

“Wanna make me some coffee?” Ryuji broke their moment, grinning and propping himself up on an elbow to lean over and kiss Ren's cheek.

“Sure. Why not. You're being sweet enough, you might deserve it.” That got him a light punch on the arm. “Hey! I said I'd do it! Don't make me take it back!” He grabbed Ryuji's arm and kept him from hitting him again, pulling him over to kiss him properly, soft but quick. They were both grinning like idiots when they pulled back.

“Hey.” Ryuji pressed his forehead up against Ren’s. “I love you, man. I know I don’t tell you enough.”

“Thanks, I… needed to hear that.” Ren felt his cheeks flush and he pulled back, tucking some hair behind his ear and straightening his glasses. “Love you too. By the way. Let’s go get coffee.” He stood up from his kneeling position and made his way downstairs, followed by a now much more awake Ryuji.

Morgana had fled downstairs when he got the chance and was sitting on a barstool watching Sojiro cook. Sojiro had originally protested Morgana being downstairs during business hours, but he had quickly realized that having a cat around had boosted the shop’s popularity. Customers just loved knowing there was a cat in the room, and Morgana loved attention and getting fed scraps of food that he probably shouldn’t have. He looked up when the two boys came downstairs and greeted them before his eyes quickly turned back to the food being prepared in front of him. Ren slipped behind the counter and got to work making coffee, making small talk with Sojiro and getting lovingly interrogated over where he’d gone so early in the morning. He got nagged into doing the dishes after they’d finished their coffee, and then was released to make the most of his summer vacation, as Sojiro put it.

He spent the rest of the day with Ryuji, mostly hanging around in the attic or walking around the neighborhood seeing what they could get into. It was a nice distraction from what he knew was coming that evening. He should have probably been using the time to prepare what he needed to say, but it wasn’t like his friends expected him to always have it together these days. Maybe a year ago, but not anymore. He could afford to fumble a little. And some time spent with Ryuji acting like normal teens was worth it.

After some texts back and forth, the meeting time was arranged and one by one, they all arrived at Leblanc just around closing time and settled into their usual spots at the booths and bar. Ren sat at a booth, in a middle seat, wanting to actually lead the meeting this time instead of letting his brain melt and slowly leak out for Yusuke and Mishima to have to clean up for him. Now that he had actual information to share, he couldn’t rely on Makoto to take up the reigns for him anyway. He was flanked on either side by Mishima and Ryuji, with Haru, Makoto, and Ann across from him, Yusuke and Futaba both perched in the booth behind him, leaning over the back to get closer to everyone else, and Sae was seated at the bar, facing the booths with Morgana on the stool next to her.

Once everyone was settled, some with snacks or coffee, Ren cleared his throat and sat up straighter, signifying that the meeting was officially starting.

“Alright. I want to catch everyone up on the situation. Akechi is alive, but he has pretty severe amnesia. He doesn’t remember me, or the rest of us, or the Metaverse, or anything about himself or his life before he woke up at the Diet Building. He’s… confused… but he seems okay otherwise. We’ve just been talking, like small talk stuff, but I found out a way to communicate in secret using signals and--”

“What, like some sort of super secret spy code?” Futaba leaned farther over the back of the booth, wedging herself between Ren and Mishima. “Were you blinking in morse code? Or did you master the art of telepathy to beam your thoughts directly into his head?” Ren knew she was intentionally ragging on him so he shoved her back into her own booth with his arm and chose to ignore her completely.

“Anyway,” he got a hey! out of Futaba and smirked. “We met up for a couple minutes this morning unsupervised in a bathroom at the hospital--”

“Ooooh, how steamy…” Ryuji nudged him with his shoulder, grinning. Ren shoved him back with his own, jostling Mishima on his other side in the process. Futaba cackled behind them and high fived Ryuji.

“I told him his name and a few things about himself but it didn’t seem like anything clicked for him and he just seemed kind of… out of it. But he made me promise that I’d meet him again like that and tell him what’s going on. And I agreed. And that’s the very foolish mistake I made this morning. Thank you all for coming to my presentation on my own weakness to cute boys and how it continues to do me in.” He leaned forward and put his head down on his crossed arms on the table and felt someone pat his head. Probably Yusuke.

“Well, you’re a fool, but you’re our fool.” Makoto sounded only mildly irritated by his folly, which was a good start. “I suppose lying is out of the question. He does deserve to understand his situation, even if you can only skim the surface. It’s just a matter of figuring out what’s important and what’s only going to make things more complicated.”

“Probably leave out the Metaverse stuff. He’s not going to understand without seeing it first-hand again and that’s not going to happen.” Ann stabbed at the ice in her drink with her straw. “I mean, hopefully.”

“Definitely.” Makoto tried to sound reassuring.

“If what we believe is true, and they are keeping him there in hopes of being able to continue to use the Metaverse as a means of carefully-disguised assassinations, Akechi deserves to be aware of the danger, even if he can’t fully understand the reason.” Sae spoke up from her spot at the bar. “When I spoke with the men in charge, they didn’t deny that they were trying to continue Shido’s work, or at least use Akechi in some way, so I think it’s a safe bet to assume that’s what they’re planning.”

“I did tell him this morning that he can’t trust them and that if he remembers anything at all, he needs to keep it a secret.” Ren fiddled nervously with the straw wrapper Ann had left in front of them and Mishima reached over and took his hand to try and soothe him.

“That… may not be the best course of action long-term, but we’ll have to wait and see. He may not need to conceal any memories entirely, but he should probably tell you before he tells any of them so you can make a judgment call.” Sae was only slightly regretting not mentioning the two month deadline, but she really didn’t want Ren stressing himself out any more than he had to over this. She knew she’d figure this out before then anyway. Hopefully.

“If he plays dumb long enough, maybe they’ll just give up on their plan and let him go since they can’t use him.” Haru seemed to light up at the revelation, only for Sae to immediately shoot her down.

“I don’t think that’s likely. Letting him out of their custody runs the risk of him recovering his memories later and realizing what they were trying to do. If they believe he can still go into the Metaverse, they have reason to believe that he’d come for them as revenge.” She was avoiding what she knew was the real answer and hoping none of them would catch on, or just choose not to bring it up in front of Ren.

“I think he trusts me. I think he’ll tell me if he remembers anything. I uh… I warned him that he might start to hate me. I just… hope he doesn’t.” Ren felt Mishima squeeze his hand. “I know he might, if he remembers all the…” He trailed off, staring at a spot on the table.

“Ren,” Ann spoke softly but sternly. “Akechi never hated you. He was lonely and jealous, but he did not hate you. I know you forget that, but it’s true.”

Ren just blinked, still staring down at the table. She was right, he did forget it, or he let the Akechi from his nightmares seep into his memories and taint them. It was hard to differentiate after them melding together for so long.

“Sure had a funny way of showing it.” Ryuji mumbled under his breath. Ann just stared at him, mouth agape and brows furrowed.

“Do you have to be an asshole about him all the time?” She was immediately set to Ren Defense Mode. “I don’t care if you didn’t like him, he meant something to Ren! Even when we all thought he was dead, every time he came up you opened your big mouth to remind everyone what an asshole you thought he was. Do you have any idea how that must feel for Ren to have to hear?”

“Ann--” Haru touched Ann’s shoulder gently in a futile attempt to calm her.

“Can you have any sympathy for what Akechi went through? Did you totally tune out everything he said before he literally died for us?”

“Stop. Seriously. It’s fine. I’m fine, Ann.” Ren raised his voice to quiet her down. “It’s not a big deal.” An awkward silence fell over the group until Ryuji sighed and ran a hand through his hair, visibly embarrassed.

“I deserved that. I was being an asshole, you’re right. I’m sorry.” The Ryuji from a year ago would have probably stormed out of the shop, righteously offended at his behavior being criticized and unwilling to speak to or even look at Ann for a week, but he liked to think he’d grown up. He could handle some embarrassment when he really deserved it, and he knew he did. “Sorry, Renren. Ann’s right. I don’t think he ever hated you, he just… showed it differently.” He fumbled with his words, trying to rephrase his thoughts into something less abrasive.

“It’s fine. Really.” Ren tried to sound more cheerful, but he just ended up sounding kind of flat. The room got painfully quiet again.

“Perhaps you could simply tell him that he had been a detective on your trail and that the man he had been working for was using him to do unscrupulous things that these men now want to continue using him for. You’d like to prevent that from happening.” Yusuke had been turning this over in his head the whole time, practically immune to Ann’s outburst. He’d simply been too focused to be bothered.

“That’s the most basic explanation, yes.” Makoto warily eyed Ann and then Ryuji, making sure they weren’t going to start yelling again. “The less detail you go into, the more questions he might have, though. And if he asks about the, er, unscrupulous acts, you may be stuck explaining to him that, technically speaking, he does have several acts of homicide under his belt.”

Ren groaned and lowered his head to the table again, prompting more head pats from who he still assumed was Yusuke. He hadn’t thought this through well enough to realize that the most likely outcome, no matter what the scenario, was him having to explain to Akechi all of his crimes. Being told you’d killed several people wasn’t going to sit well for anyone.

“I think the best thing we can do is just give him a basic summary, as Yusuke said. If he asks questions, you’ll have to use your best judgment to assess what’s safe to tell him at the moment.” Sae switched her attention to the other booth. “Futaba, did you ever find anything on those names I gave you?”

“Oh yeah, easy-peasy.” Futaba bounced on her heels excitedly from her crouched position a few times. “They were mostly just run of the mill politicians, nothing really special about them. I couldn’t find anything specifically about Akechi, so either they don’t have digital copies of whatever files they’re keeping, or I was looking into the wrong people. But I did pull up his hospital records and he’s just being kept there under supervision because of what they have labeled as retrograde amnesia. Nothing of note there, just his vitals and noting his lack of progress on recovery. Oh! But I did find out there was a guy working for Shido who’s studied Cognitive Psience. I don’t know if he’s working with these guys now, but his name was uh…” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and spent a few moments scrolling, mumbling to herself. “Here. Hiroshi Toyama. He’s a psychologist who… worked with my mom. And then Shido.”

“That’s… extremely helpful. Thank you, Futaba.” Sae seemed to be thinking, already plotting out ideas in her head for how to utilize this information. “That name doesn’t sound familiar, but I can do some research of my own.”

“Maybe you can find him and talk to him.” Mishima piped up from where he’d sat quietly against the wall. “If he knows a lot about this Cognitive Psience stuff and he’s working with these people and they haven’t made any progress on recovering Akechi’s memories… doesn’t that mean he either doesn’t know how, or he doesn’t want to?” His nervousness creeped back in and he looked down at the table. “Or he’s not working with them at all, and he might be sympathetic or… something. I don’t know.” Ren squeezed his hand, a returned message of reassurance from earlier.

“Hey, yeah… If they have an expert on their team and they still don’t know what they’re doing, it means they’re just blindly fumbling for answers. If we can convince them that we know more than they do…” Ann trailed off, looking over at Mishima, suddenly filled with determined energy.

“So we just have to pretend to outsmart them.” Yusuke put a hand to his chin and nodded. “I believe we may be able to do that.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourselves. Give Ren and I both some time to look into these new assumptions before you try anything.” Sae couldn’t help but smile even as she spoke. She was proud of how smart and determined these kids were and she truly did believe they would be able to help Akechi. It would just take a lot of hard work and quick thinking.

The group chatted for a while longer, the conversation dissolving into more casual topics and the atmosphere smoothing out into something comfortable. Eventually they began dispersing, with Sae and Makoto leaving first, the others following soon after. Ryuji lingered behind, first to arrive and last to leave. Ren began gathering dishes to put into the sink and felt arms close around his waist from behind and Ryuji’s forehead rest on his shoulder.

“Hey,” he spoke softly. “I really am sorry about earlier. I’ve been an asshole and you don’t deserve it. Maybe I didn’t see what you saw in Akechi, but obviously whatever you did see in him was important to you. Is. Is important. And… I should be a better boyfriend and respect that.” He sighed and hugged Ren tighter. “I’m gonna work on it. Cuz I love you and stuff…”

“Thanks.” Ren leaned his head back on Ryuji’s shoulder and settled into the embrace. He suddenly realized how tired he was and shut his eyes. “I love you too… and stuff.” He heard Ryuji exhale a small laugh and got squeezed tighter and then released. “You should get going or you’ll miss your train back.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ryuji reached his arms up and stretched while Ren dumped the dishes in the sink then returned to him to wrap his arms around his neck in a proper hug. “Lemme go if you want me to leave so bad.” Ren leaned up and kissed him softly, lingering there for a few seconds and then slowly pulling away.

“Now you can go.” He lowered his arms and motioned towards the door. “If you don’t, I’m probably going to fall asleep just standing here. Get out.” Ryuji acted offended, but let Ren follow him to the door and said his goodbyes.

Ren almost gave up and slumped against the door in exhaustion, but managed to drag himself upstairs and get himself ready for bed before he collapsed, almost falling on top of Morgana, who had come up as soon as everyone else left. He protested being almost crushed but then got over himself and curled up again in his normal spot against Ren’s side. Ren was out the second his head hit the pillow.

Chapter Text

Nearly a week passed by, and Ren kept himself as busy as he could, helping Sojiro out at Leblanc, going shopping with Ann, helping Haru with her plants (and scoring some free produce in the process), lazing around Yusuke’s studio while he painted, doing his best to keep up with Ryuji and Mishima on a few morning jogs. For a few days, he felt almost normal again. He got reminders of Akechi in his dreams like he always did, and he seemed to linger around the back of his mind, but he was at least trying not to worry constantly and the distractions helped.

He found himself at Book Town with Makoto during one outing and wandered over to the philosophy section out of curiosity. He remembered Akechi’s fondness for some of the authors and picked some of the heavy books up, hoping to take them to the hospital as a gift. Makoto eyed his purchase but didn’t say anything about it. No snarky remarks about how he was finally pursuing something intellectual for once instead of spending his time reading manga and playing old video games.

He tried to flip through some of the books once he was back home, but the words went right over his head for the most part. Akechi had seemed to understand them and even enjoy them, and he hoped he still would now. Maybe it wouldn’t be weird to show up with an armful of academic texts and present them as a gift. Akechi would appreciate the gesture, right?

Nearly a week had passed since he’d made his promise to divulge information, and he felt like he should probably make another normal visit before then so it didn’t seem like he had just disappeared entirely. He didn’t have anything planned this time, no pressing topics to get across, not if they were going to be meeting up the next day anyway. He wasn’t sure what they would have to talk about and he didn’t want things to be noticeably awkward, so he grabbed a pack of cards off the bar downstairs and shoved it into his pocket on his way out the door. Playing a game could make up for awkward silences, and Akechi might enjoy having something to spend his time doing. He could leave the cards there for him if he wanted to be able to play solitaire, or something else by himself when Ren wasn’t there to keep him company. It seemed like a good idea.

Akechi was sitting up on the bed as always when he knocked and entered, followed by their ever-silent guard, who took his normal spot in the corner. Akechi’s expression lit up when he saw Ren, like a child being let loose in a candy store. He was always so happy to see him these days. It was cute, but it also felt so different from Akechi’s old reluctance to be open about any of his emotions.

Ren sat down in his chair and the pair greeted each other properly, exchanging how have you beens, and it became apparent just how much Akechi must have missed him when he wasn’t there. He felt a pang of guilt for being away so long. He had neglected to think about that while he’d been busying himself with his own friends. Akechi couldn’t do that.

“So, I thought we could play a game or something.” He fished the cards out of his jacket pocket and held them for Akechi to see. “I brought some cards.”

“Oh,” Akechi seemed interested immediately. “I’m surprised they let you bring anything in. We seem to be under such tight security.”

Ren shuffled the cards in his hands clumsily. He had never been very good at it, and his need to show off in front of Akechi was backfiring on him here.

“I tried to bring you some books to read, but they wouldn’t let me bring them in in case I had written some sort of complex secret coded message in them or something.” His carefully selected philosophy books had been confiscated before he was allowed to enter the room. “But they didn’t have anything to say about us playing a two man game of poker.”

“How unfortunate.” Akechi had his eyes on Ren’s shuffling, probably silently judging him for how often he was dropping cards. “They do allow me to request books sometimes, but I read through them fairly quickly. Uh, would you like some help there?”

Ren shook his head and stubbornly forced the cards back into a semi-neat stack in his hand. It would have to do. “There. Perfect.” He got a small chuckle out of Akechi and he cherished it. Had the situation been different, reactions like that would have been all he ever wanted. The Akechi he’d known before had been so guarded that every genuine smile Ren dragged out of him had stayed with him on his mind for days, lingering, making him feel warm. Now he got them for almost nothing.

He dealt the cards and they played their game punctuated by small talk and smiles for a few rounds, until Akechi pulled a card from the pile between them and Ren could immediately tell something was wrong. At first he just looked confused, brow furrowed, staring at the card in his hand. Then his eyes went wide and his gaze flickered from the card up to Ren and then back down again. He looked… Scared?

“Hey, what’s--”

“Joker?!” He had his eyes glued to Ren’s face now, stare intense and trying and failing to land on one emotion. Anger, fear, shock. Ren felt his breath catch in his throat. “You-- What is this?!” His voice was raspier than normal, almost hissing, not his usual tone or the fake-nice one he put on for the public. It was the voice Ren had only heard in the final hour of their time together. And just like that, Akechi’s expression broke again into one of dazed pain and he was doubled over, holding his head and wincing. “Ren-- I think I-- Ren--” He held out one hand blindly, wanting something to hold onto. Ren reached out to grab it but was pulled back.

Suddenly, the man who had sat so silently in the corner during their visits that Ren sometimes almost forgot he was there was pulling him up from his chair and dragging him to the door by his arm, telling him he needed to go. Now. And not come back. Ren was ejected from the room unceremoniously and turned back just before the door shut in his face to see Akechi curled over on himself, hiding his face in both hands and breathing heavy, cards scattered in front of him and on the floor.

In his dazed state, all he could think was a pitiful Well, that’s not great. He stood in front of the door for a moment before collecting himself and nearly sprinting off down the hallway, phone already out, hurriedly typing.

Ren made it all the way back to the station, pushing back panicked thoughts and trying to remind himself that Sae was reliable and would do anything for Akechi, just like he would. But he had a feeling that she wasn’t processing one thing about this “one possible memory resurfacing” -- that it was one memory that might make Akechi remember all the contempt he held for Ren.

Ann’s reminder from their last meeting tried to drag itself to the surface of his mind but was quickly beaten back by all the months and months of replaying Akechi’s screaming at him in the engine room on a broken loop.

Akechi felt dazed. And his head felt like it was going to split right open from between his eyes. He was sure some time had passed for him to calm down and come back to his senses, and in that time he had felt stuffed to bursting with blinding anger, like it would come spilling out of him any second. Under that, he just felt scared. There was no rationale to the emotions, they were simply overpoweringly there. And he had the word Joker repeating in his head.

Several men he didn’t recognize and one he did recognize as the psychologist who had been looking after him had come into the room, and he knew he’d been spoken to, but he couldn’t recall exactly what had been said. And where was Ren? Hadn’t he just been here? He raised his head up slowly from his hands and looked around the room, blinking at the light. The first thing he noticed was that there was no sunlight streaming in from the window. The other men had left and only the scientist remained seated near his bed.

“How are you feeling?” Doctor Toyama sat up straighter when he saw Akechi move. He looked him over, studying him. He always made Akechi feel like he was under a microscope.

“I… I’m not quite sure. Where’s Ren…?” He could hear his own voice crack, like he’d been crying. He didn’t think he had been. What had he been doing?

“Your visitor left a while ago. He seemed to be upsetting you, so the doctors had him leave, and I don’t think they’ll be letting him come back any time soon after what just happened.”

“What? No! Why? He wasn’t upsetting me, I just-- I just--” He wanted to argue, but he really couldn’t remember what had happened. Ren had been here, they’d been talking and playing cards, and then suddenly he wasn’t there anymore and Akechi felt like he was coming out of some sort of fog. Maybe Ren really had done something to him. He looked at the doctor helplessly, wanting some kind of answer.

“Take a deep breath and try to relax. You just experienced an episode of severe dissociation and your mind is going to feel very foggy for a while.” The doctor spoke calmly. “Do you remember talking to the men who came into your room?” Akechi just shook his head. “Okay. Do you remember what happened before Ren left? Anything he said to you that might have triggered this episode?” He shook his head again, looking increasingly distressed. “Do you have any odd thoughts in your head right now? Memories that don’t seem to make sense or feel out of place?”

Akechi still couldn’t get that single word out of his head. A dull throb of Joker, Joker, Joker. He thought about bringing it up, desperate as he was for an answer to his current state, but he was stopped by remembering what Ren had told him during their one and only unsupervised conversation. You can’t let them know you know anything, he had said, holding Akechi’s hands in his own and looking into his eyes. Even if you decide you hate me. He shook his head again.

“If you start to feel strangely or notice any thoughts like that, you need to tell the doctors right away. It could be a sign of your memories coming back.” The doctor reached over and touched Akechi’s arm and for some reason, he flinched and jerked his arm away. Why did he do that? The doctor pulled his hand back, accepting the rejection. “We want you to get better, whatever better looks like for you. I know you must feel very confused and frightened right now, but this is a good thing. Until now, we’d had no progress on getting any of your memories back. This is a step forward, even if it’s a scary one.”

Akechi nodded, but wouldn’t look up at him. Those words should have been comforting, but he only felt more worried now. Had Ren known this would happen? Had Ren been plotting all along to do something that would send Akechi into this terrifying state? Was that what he’d meant by even if you decide you hate me? What had he even done?

Toyama stood up from his chair and moved to the door to leave. “Try to get some rest. In the morning, they’ll want to run some tests, so take it easy until then. Goodnight.” He shut the door gently behind him and Akechi was left alone, as he had been for what felt to him like the majority of his life. It had only been a few weeks since Ren had started visiting him, but ever since then being alone in this room had become increasingly stifling. He laid back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying to do what had been asked of him, but his brain was moving too fast. And he still had that word floating around his brain. It made him feel uneasy, like he should be guarding himself against something, like he was being threatened. He felt more helpless than ever now that he was actively keeping secrets from his doctors.

He tried to get some rest like he was told, but he only tossed and turned all night, uneasiness creeping into his dreams when he did manage to fall asleep for brief periods. He spent most of the night staring at the ceiling with his thoughts dulled, and when he noticed the sun coming up outside, he gave up on sleeping entirely and decided to get up and try to do what he could to keep his normal routine.

In the morning, Dr. Toyama and a few others showed up as promised. He was already awake and dressed, sitting up on his bed with a book in hand, though he hadn’t been able to focus on a single word he’d read for the past hour.

He’d met the man who seemed to be in charge several times before, and had an understanding that he was heading the research being done on Akechi’s condition. Some sort of doctor, he had assumed. He seemed friendly enough, if stern. He sat down in the chair closest to the bed and looked Akechi over.

“Good morning. You seem to be in a better place than you were last night, so we’d like to talk to you about a few things. Are you feeling up to that?” He waited for a response and Akechi nodded, though he felt it didn’t really matter whether he wanted to talk or not. “Good. Yesterday afternoon, it seems your visitor said some things that deeply upset you. Ren Amamiya will not be visiting you anymore. We thought it would be safe for you to have a visitor under close supervision, but he’s more dangerous than we thought. I know you two seemed to be getting along well, but Ren is not your friend.”

“If you knew he was dangerous, why let him in here in the first place?” Akechi was too sleep-deprived and agitated for his usual complacency. Ren was the only connection he’d been allowed to make after six months in social isolation, and he wasn’t exactly thrilled with the prospect of going back to spending every day alone.

“He was allowed to visit you with the promise that he would work with you to try and safely recover your memories, but he seems to have had other ideas. He’s made his intentions to do you harm very clear now, even if he was trying to be crafty about it. If he puts you in danger, we can’t allow him to be around you. Do you understand?”

He didn’t, not really. He couldn’t even remember what Ren had supposedly done that had been so dangerous that he now wasn’t allowed to see him anymore. He looked over to Dr. Toyama, who was standing near the door. He had told him he didn’t remember. Hadn’t he reported that to the other doctors?

“Yes. I understand.” He had to fight himself to put on a pleasant tone, but it worked convincingly enough.

“Good!” The man clapped his hands in front of him once. “Now, what we really need to talk about is your current mental condition. I know Toyama asked you last night, but do you have any thoughts in your head that feel out of place? Anything that doesn’t seem to make sense?” Nothing makes sense right now, actually, Akechi thought, but he kept that to himself and just shook his head with a smile.

“I just want you to know that we want what’s best for you. Your recovery is our top priority, and we need you to be honest with us about your thoughts and feelings so we can do our best to help you along.” He paused to see if Akechi would divulge any more information, and continued when he didn’t. “This week, we’re going to start some new procedures with you. They may be very mentally stressful for you, but so far we haven’t had any luck with any other methods, so this is something we have no choice in now. Try to put Ren out of your mind. Worrying about him is only going to cause more undue stress, and right now we need you to really focus on your recovery.”

The man had a few more inconsequential things to say, and then he was leaving along with the others, who had simply stood silently, observing. Toyama was the last one out of the room, and his eyes lingered on Akechi for a few moments before he shut the door behind himself. Akechi wasn’t sure if he was trying to communicate something, or he was simply giving the poor, lonely, helpless patient a look full of pity. He was so tired of pity.

He couldn’t tear himself away from turning the same thoughts over in his head again and again. It was time for his morning walk, so he left his room at his usual time, but by the time he’d made his path around the building and back, he was in no better shape. He was increasingly angry and confused. Ren had told him not to trust the men looking after him, not to tell them anything, but the doctors had told him the same about Ren. The doctors had never done anything to harm him, but Ren could actually conceivably be dangerous. He was just a stranger. Was he being manipulated? Had he been so desperate for companionship and answers that he’d fallen right into Ren’s trap?

He still couldn’t remember what had happened the night before, but he could remember feelings. He remembered being with Ren, and then a surge of fear and anger, a wave of confusion. And then there had been physical pain-- a splitting headache right through his skull and into his eyes. The anger had lingered the longest, feeling like he was being eaten up from the inside out. It had only faded when he’d felt himself waking up to Dr. Toyama’s presence. The only thing that made sense was that Ren had done something to him to make him feel that way. He felt like such a fool.

Without thinking about it clearly, he found himself opening the door to the seldom-used first floor bathroom. And Ren was waiting there, as promised. The anger in his chest flared up even worse and before he could stop himself, he was practically charging him.

“Who are you? What is Joker?” Akechi hissed, hands balled into fists at his side barely concealing how hard they were shaking. He kept stepping closer to Ren and forcing him to back himself up against the tiled wall. Ren tried to fumble some stammered words out, but Akechi cut him off. “Tell me. Now.”

Ren swallowed hard, carefully planned explanation going right out the window. He hadn’t counted on Akechi being this level of pissed off at him before he even said anything. He hadn’t even been sure he would show up today. Obviously, his little slip-up last night had had a lasting impact. He took a deep breath.

“I-I’m. Ren Amamiya and--” Akechi didn’t seem to like that and Ren was certain if he had a weapon he’d be waving it around. Maybe pointing a gun at his head again or pressing his laser-sword against his neck. Just like old times.

“I know that. Who are you? What are you trying to do to me? Answer me.”

“Let me finish then.” He stood up straighter, raising his back up off the wall behind him, trying to gain some equal footing here so he wasn’t being bullied into submission. “I was part of a group called the Phantom Thieves. I am Joker. Was-- Was Joker. You were a detective and you were trying to track us down. You and I got…” He searched for the right word, not sure even after all this time how to describe how their relationship had been. He settled on something safe. “Close. But you infiltrated our group and... tried to kill me.” He saw Akechi’s eyes barely widen at that before returning to a steady glare. “When it didn’t work, you came back to try again, and told me repeatedly how much you hated me, how you were better than me because you didn’t need friends, because you could do everything on your own and you were going to make me pay.” His voice wavered, brain not liking the recall even in this semi-rehearsed way. “But then you sacrificed yourself to protect all of us. And I-- we all thought you were dead. And now you’re... not.”

Akechi understandably seemed to be having some issues taking all of this in. All of his seething fury from before had been replaced by intense focus. At least he was quiet enough to let Ren take a breather before starting again.

“What I’m trying to do to you is get you out of here. Even if you don’t get your memories back. Before we lost you, there was a man who was using you to do a lot of… bad things… to people, and they want to keep doing that. I don’t want to let them. And if they can’t do what they want to do, they might kill you. Again. Except this time I don’t think you’ll come back. And I can’t lose you again. I could barely live with myself the first time.” His voice grew quiet at the end and he raised his eyes up to look at Akechi’s face. He looked upset, but not angry now. He was silent, processing, not looking at Ren but a spot on the floor. “Goro?”

That seemed to snap him back and he shook his head, frowning. “I tried to kill you. Not once, but twice. Why are you here? This has to be some sort of vengeance plot. I’m not stupid.”

“I know.” He tried to smile but he wasn’t sure it came across right. “You needed friends before. You were hurting. I couldn’t help you, so I want to help you now. If it’s vengeance, it’s vengeance on myself for not being able to do enough for you when I should have.”

Akechi stepped back and pursed his lips, looking at the floor. “Am I in danger here?” His tone was flat now, devoid of the fire just a few moments before. Ren took a step forward and tried to touch his arm. “Don’t. Please.”

“You could be.” He decided to be honest. “But I don’t want it to come to that. We’re working on getting you out. We just have to convince them that it’s what they want too. Just be careful, okay? They won’t let me come see you anymore right now, but I can still meet you like this.” He started to go for Akechi’s hand but stopped himself this time, not wanting to upset him even more by forcing physical touch. “Get back to your room. We’re pushing it.”

Akechi nodded, looking uncomfortable now. “Thank you for telling me all of this. I do appreciate it. I’m sorry for being so forceful before, I see now it wasn’t necessary.” He fidgeted with his hands and glanced to the door. “I’ll go. Ren?” He sounded scared, anxious. Ren hummed, urging him to go on. “Did you do something to me last night?”

“Oh,” It occurred to Ren for the first time that Akechi was even more confused than he thought. “No, I wouldn’t-- We were playing cards, it all happened really fast but I think you must have seen a Joker card and the word did… something. They pulled me out of there as soon as it happened.” He tried to catch Akechi’s gaze again. “Go back, okay?” He spoke gently. “I’ll come see you here again on Tuesday. Promise.”

Akechi glanced to the door and back to Ren, then stepped back and turned to leave. He felt different yet somehow worse than when he’d entered.

Sae Niijima also made a visit to the hospital that day, making good on her promise to Ren and to herself that she’d do whatever she needed to to protect Akechi. Ren had told her he’d be visiting this morning in secret, but she had never heard back on the details.

She thought she’d be able to just go in and ask for Akechi’s doctor again, but the nurse she asked on the third floor just kept repeating to her that the patient in that room was not being allowed visitors at the time. She tried arguing that she didn’t need to visit him, only to speak with his doctor, but the nurse refused to budge on her position. The nurse was clearly becoming just as unnerved as she was and began threatening to call security to escort her out when a man she recognized from her first visit came out of Akechi’s room and was drawn over by the noise. He took a look at Sae and then the nurse. The nurse also seemed to recognize him.

“You! You’re with that boy with amnesia, right? Can you please escort this guest out?” She looked between the two of them, nervously shifting.

“Oh,” The man sounded wary, but fixed his eyes on Sae. “Yes, come with me please.” He started to walk away but looked over his shoulder when Sae didn’t move.

“I’m not going anywhere until I get to speak to someone.” She crossed her arms and stood firmly in place.

“Yeah, sorry. No one’s here today but me, and they’re not letting him have any visitors. He’s not feeling well. The whole staff’s been told that. Just come with me.” He looked her in the eyes steadily. “Please.”

She narrowed her eyes and sighed but took a few steps toward him, following behind him towards the elevator. “Fine. But I’ll be back.”

He was silent until the doors of the elevator closed and then he turned to look at her. He looked much more intense now but still had a nervous air about him.

“My name is Hiroshi Toyama.” He spoke quickly like he was worried about not having enough time. “I’m the psychologist in charge of monitoring Goro Akechi's mental state. I studied cognitive psience under Wakaba Isshiki before she passed and I’m the only person here who knows what the hell I’m talking about. The others don’t understand anything about what Akechi is experiencing and things are about to get worse. I need you to meet with me somewhere and I can tell you what I know if you can promise you’ll help me help him.” The elevator dinged as they reached the first floor. “If he doesn't get help soon, he won't have much longer.”

Sae reached over and held the door close button. She eyed the man warily and tried to read his expression. He still seemed anxious, but it seemed like it was mostly out of concern for his own safety as well as Akechi's. She decided if he was going out on a limb for Akechi's sake, he was worth at least listening to.

“We can meet at my office. It will be mostly empty in the evening. I’m only agreeing to this on the condition that we meet tonight. I’m not wasting any time right now. You seem to understand that this is time sensitive.”

“Of course. I can meet you around 7. They're having a meeting this afternoon so I can't get out of here much earlier.” Toyama fidgeted, shifting from one foot to the other and pushing his glasses up. But he looked her in the eyes. He wanted to communicate trust, but knew he had a reputation for coming off as flighty and nervous.

Sae took a business card out of her pocket and handed it over to him, then released the button, letting the door slide open. “7 it is. I’ll be there.” She stepped out and left him behind, not turning to see if he followed her out like he was supposed to. She hoped she wasn’t making a mistake. For everyone's sake.

Akechi had returned to his room after his walk like always, wanting to keep up the appearance of a routine, but part of him had wanted to just make a break for it right out the hospital doors and see how far he could make it before he was stopped. He discarded the fantasy and settled back into his place in his room instead. Up until he had started talking with Ren, he never would have had such thoughts. He had felt safe and taken care of here. Sure it was boring to be cooped up in this room all day, but he had had faith that it was all for his own good and that in time the doctors would find out who he was and help him get his life back. Now he felt that he had nothing but doubt. Ren believed he was in danger. He had said the doctors might even kill him. He wasn't really afraid to die, he realized, but it still made him feel uneasy.

Ever since the night before, his emotions had felt sort of off-balance. He caught himself reacting strongly to things that shouldn't have bothered him, or to nothing at all. He would have sudden surges of extreme agitation or he would begin to feel an urgent sense that there was something he should be doing but wasn't. He couldn't tack the emotions down to a stimulus and that made him even more upset. He just didn't feel right.

He was left mostly alone for the rest of the day. The usual nurses would come in to check on him and make small talk, but he didn’t feel much like smiling or having a conversation, so they quickly left once they saw he wasn’t responding much. He was brought lunch and dinner as usual, but he had lost his appetite. He felt sick trapped inside his own head unable to turn his thoughts off. Even reading didn’t seem like an option. The words on the page would fade into background noise and his own thoughts would take over and continue nauseating him. He wished Ren would show up, even though he knew that he wouldn’t. He kept glancing over to the door, hoping he could will him into existence there but he had no luck.

Thoughts of Ren had always soothed him, made him feel like he had something to look forward to. But now he just felt anxious. There was still that doubt in the back of his mind that maybe Ren really was tricking him. Maybe the doctors did know what was best for him and were keeping Ren away from him for his own good. These kinds of thoughts stirred up that fiery anger in him again and he found himself clenching his jaw subconsciously, giving himself a headache. Who was more likely to want to hurt him? The doctors who had kept him safe for half a year and talked him through his initial panic at being a shell of a human being, or a boy who had suddenly showed up only to act cryptically and inflict him with emotional and physical pain? The answer seemed obvious the longer he thought about it.

By the time the sun went down, he was exhausted from overthinking and decided to call it an early night. His mind finally quieted down and sleep took him quickly.

His dreams were strange. They seemed to drip with hostility and panic. There wasn’t much in the way of visuals-- some sort of engine room, a group of people taking turns hurting him. It was mostly emotions and sensations-- an abundance of power followed by an overwhelming feeling of helplessness, fear, contempt, physical pain all over. He found himself on the floor, doubled over in submission, scowling up at the face that loomed over him. The face was obscured by a mask, but it still looked familiar and it filled him with disgust. He was offered a gloved hand to help him stand but he slapped it away with what little strength he had left, noticing the other hand still held a knife that had been used to slash at him only moments prior.

Things went blurry for a while, all visuals fading away to be replaced by what felt like an unending sense of despair, dragging him down lower and lower until he was sure he was at rock bottom. He knew somehow he wouldn’t be recovering from this. He felt something sharp slam into his chest, then everything abruptly stopped.

Ren had a lot to think about. His mind was consumed first and foremost by worry, which was compounding into stress. Sae didn’t seem to think it was a big deal that Akechi had broken down over a card game, but she also hadn’t seen the look on his face or how unstable he seemed to be now. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he had known that the calm collected Akechi he’d been visiting wouldn’t last. Eventually, the old Akechi they’d all seen in the engine room in Shido’s palace would come back full force, angry and broken as he had been then. He’d just kind of hoped for his own sake that things would be okay. Now he wasn’t so sure of that. He had a full day until he had promised he’d meet up with Akechi again.

He really did try to sit down and brainstorm and strategize, but his mind wouldn’t focus. It would just double back over on itself in worry again and again and he’d be left even more strung out than before. Morgana had been watching him pace between sitting at his desk, lying on his bed, and at one point just laying flat on the floor staring at the ceiling and seemed increasingly worried for his sanity.

“Why don’t we go out and do something?” He came and sat down next to Ren’s head on the floor. “You’re not getting anything done, you’re just walking around in circles. And now you look like a crazy person.”

“All great geniuses were once labeled crazy.” He ruffled Morgana’s head roughly and got an annoyed half-meow-half-yell out of him. “What do you want to go do so badly?”

Morgana paced a few feet away and sat down again just out of Ren’s grasp and started cleaning his face, fixing the fur Ren had just ruined. It made Ren laugh and he reached out an arm to try and swat at him, but couldn’t reach and gave up.

“I mean I didn’t have anything specific in mind, but you laying on the floor in agony isn’t helping you, so you might as well go actually do something. Wanna go see a movie? Might take your mind off things.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Ren sat up and looked around the room. “I think Ann wanted to see some superhero movie that’s out. She might have already gone with Shiho though.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and swiped a few useless notifications away.

The movie provided a nice distraction. Ren had to admit Morgana was probably right about it being a better option than what he had been doing. And hanging out with Ann eating crepes after the movie was more fun than being stuck in his own head alone.

There was a lull in their conversation, sitting at a small table near the crepe stand, and Ann suddenly made eye contact with Ren and fumbled a smile.

“Hey, I’m really proud of you, okay? I don’t think any of us say that enough, but I know right now you probably need to hear it. I know you feel like you have to act like our leader all the time, but it’s okay to just take care of yourself. And sometimes let us take care of you.” She looked back down at the remnants of her crepe. “Sorry if that’s weird, you’ve just been really quiet lately and I know you’re dealing with a lot with Akechi and none of us ever really thought we’d have to deal with stuff like this again. But… you don’t have to do everything alone. You can talk to any of us. We love you, Ren.” She reached over and put her hand over Ren’s on the table and squeezed it gently.

Ren silently took in her words and processed them. Had he been dealing with everything on his own? He felt like holding meetings and spreading around his social time so everyone got a few hours with him had proven he hadn’t. But maybe he wasn’t really relying on everyone so much as trying to keep up his appearance as a leader. He hadn’t really talked about his feelings with anyone, and he suddenly realized just how much he was feeling. Talking about Akechi’s predicament wasn’t the same as letting his friends support him while he struggled through this nightmare of stress. He knew Ann was right.

“Thanks.” He didn’t really know what else to say right now. If she wanted him to open up right this second, she’d be disappointed. “It’s… hard to talk about, but I’ll try to be better about it.”

That seemed to satisfy her enough and she let go of Ren’s hand to finish eating happily. Ren spent the rest of their meal trying to parse just how he would even go about sifting through his emotions to talk about them openly, even to someone like Ann who he loved and trusted deeply. Even Mishima, who had been arguably the most removed from direct Phantom Thief business during the thick of it, hadn’t felt right to just dump all of his complicated emotions onto.

It felt like burdening someone else with the stress he was already struggling to carry himself. Why put that on someone else? It was just as well that he had his crying spells and mental breakdowns alone in the comfort of his own bedroom, or in quiet hospital bathrooms. It wasn’t right. He knew that. He did need to do better. But for now, all he could do was acknowledge it and promise Ann that he’d let someone take care of him every now and then.

Chapter Text

Toyama showed up about ten minutes late to Sae’s office, apologizing repeatedly for the meeting running over and looking more frazzled than usual. It was a little off-putting, but Sae did have to admit she had begun wondering if he was going to show up at all. She sat him down across from her seat at her desk, got him a cup of water for his nerves, and then took her own seat and folded her hands on top of the desk.

“Well?” She fixed her eyes on him while he took a few sips of water then clasped his own hands similarly to hers.

“Well,” he stammered a bit to get his bearings. “I'm not sure where to start. Thank you for meeting with me.” He paused, waiting for her to respond, but continued when she simply nodded. “Akechi's ah, 'medical’ team, if you want to call them that, are largely ignorant of what is actually taking place. I can't claim to completely understand the situation myself, since I only have limited access to what's left of Isshiki's research, and we never experienced anything exactly like this when we were working together, but there's enough data there for me to make some educated guesses. Mostly that what these idiots are about to try to do is likely to cause a mental shutdown, and if they're really going to brute force their way through this, potentially even death.” He paused again to let Sae absorb that as needed. “Whatever happened to Akechi before they found him, it's resulted in severe memory loss, and I'm willing to bet that it has something to do with the Metaverse. That's uh, wait, how much of this do I need to explain to you?” He realized suddenly that his use of jargon that was commonplace in meetings might not be so well-received here.

“I'm fairly familiar with the concept. Go on.” Sae shook her head. For now, she was withholding her own information, just until she could figure out if Toyama could actually be trusted. He nodded and continued speaking.

“Basically, if they try to force him to recover his lost memories about his work for Shido-- wait, you know about all that right? Okay, good-- or the Metaverse, or anything, it's extremely likely it will have very adverse psychological side effects. What Akechi needs is a safe route to recover at his own pace, if he recovers at all. I've tried telling them this but my years of experience in this field mean nothing if I stand between them and their project. At this point it seems like it's either he has a mental shutdown from them psychologically damaging him or they get tired of taking it slow and decide he's not worth the time or effort anymore. Either way, not good for him.” He took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair. “So?”

“So?” Sae repeated back to him, raising an eyebrow. “What are you asking me?”

“I'm not asking you anything. That's all I can tell you, that's all I know.”

“Why did you decide to tell me all of this? You're just telling some stranger all this top secret information? What if I hadn't known about Akechi's connection to Shido, or about the Metaverse? Then what?”

Toyama looked taken aback, like he hadn't even thought of that. He visibly swallowed and started fidgeting with his hands on his lap.

“Well. I suppose I'd be in trouble. But I'm desperate here. I can't just sit by and watch them do this to him, he's-- he's just a kid. I was advising Shido on Cognitive Psience for years, making sure he didn't order Akechi to do something that would make himself look bad, laying out all these rules for him, sometimes through trial and error, and it was… messy. It never felt good, I never liked watching him use him that way, and now he gets an out and they just drag him right back in. He has no idea. It's sick.” He looked up from his hands. “Obviously you care about him. I just thought we'd be on the same team. If we're not, then… I guess I'm back to square one. If you go report on me to them, then there's really nothing I can do about that.”

Sae just sat silently for a few moments, thinking. Toyama had really risked his own safety to come here and speak to her like this, she knew that much. Her doubts about his intentions had mostly been resolved by his tone of desperation and his potential self-sabotage. He seemed to think fondly of Akechi and feel remorse and even disgust for his own actions in the past. Maybe this was some sort of repentance for him.

“What do you need from me?” Her tone softened slightly and she let her posture relax to match.

“That… I'm not so sure of yet. Starting tomorrow, they're planning to start trying to force his memory retrieval. If they don't get the results they want by their deadline next month, I don't know exactly what they plan to do with him, but I know they want to get rid of him. They're listening to me less and less, I've put this off as long as they'll let me. I've been trying to think of a way to get him out of there but it's not as easy as just going to the cops. I don't know what I could say to them to make them release him, even if he had somewhere to go. Along with his memories, it seems like almost everyone else's memories of him have gone as well, so I don't even think a distant relative would come step in and claim him.”

“What if they were to find out that the Metaverse itself is inaccessible? Would that make his situation better or worse?” She was still carefully selecting what information she shared, but she wanted to do what she could. Toyama just looked confused. She tried to clarify. “If Akechi, as well as anyone else, can no longer enter the Metaverse to do their dirty work, what happens to him?”

“What do you mean? With Akechi's memories restored, he would be able to resume the work he previously did for Shido--”

“He won't be able to. I can't explain why, but I have it in good faith that no one will be doing that sort of thing anymore, memories or not.” She had never fully grasped the intricacies of all of the information surrounding the Metaverse even with it being explained to her in full by the Phantom Thieves. She certainly never thought she'd have to explain it to someone else, especially someone who had spent his adult life studying just this. This was definitely not her jurisdiction so she preferred to keep things as vague as she could, even if it was frustrating to Toyama to be kept in the dark.

Her guest appeared to be deep in thought, eyes down on the desk and lips moving silently with his thoughts as he worked through the information in his head. She waited patiently for him to reach a conclusion until he lifted his head up and focused on her again. She expected intensity but what she got was a strange, weak look of defeat.

“Maybe… that's for the best. Akechi's abilities never should have been weaponized like that, and if what you're saying is true, that means no one else will face the same fate… but I never expected this sort of turn. All my life's work… all of Isshiki's…” he sighed deeply. “But I don't know if them hearing that would make them toss him aside since he can't be used or if it would just make them, er, dispose of him faster. If they'd even believe it.”

They sat in silence while they both tried to work through the hypotheticals. This wasn't looking good to either of them, and especially not for Akechi. Thinking on the same subject with no new information wasn't proving fruitful for the time being, so Sae tried another line of conversation.

“What can we do about Ren Amamiya? I'm sure you know he's been visiting Akechi frequently, but he was kicked out and had his visitation privileges revoked. That's actually why I was at the hospital today.”

“Ah… yes… I'm not sure there's anything to be done there. They got what they wanted out of Amamiya, they're done with him. Akechi is… distraught. He may be trying to hide it and be cooperative, but he wasn't very happy with the news.” Toyama hadn't had a chance to have a real conversation with Akechi about his current emotions, but the frantic asking after Ren right after coming out of a sort of trance had told him enough. Clearly they had formed a bond.

“And what exactly is it that they got out of him? When they agreed to allow him a visitor, it was due to the promise of Ren being able to help Akechi recover his memories. Unless you're not telling me something, that hasn't happened.” Of course Ren had briefly filled Sae in on the events of his last visit, but she wanted to hear the story from the other side. Ren had seemed so shaken up and she wanted to know exactly why.

“Amamiya was able to trigger a brief episode of memory recall in Akechi. It only lasted a few seconds, but it sent him into a fit that lasted several hours until he tired himself out, and that was enough for them to claim that Amamiya was a danger and would no longer be able to visit him. They got shown that somewhere deep in his psyche, Akechi does still retain some of his lost memories. They don't need Amamiya anymore. They won't be letting him back in. Nothing I say will change that, I'm sorry.”

He did sound genuinely apologetic, even if he hadn't been at fault for the situation. Akechi's fragile mental health was his top priority at work and seeing him enjoy himself and reap the benefits of socialization with someone his own age had been the only time he'd seen him seem normal. Rather than complacently content, he'd seemed happy after his visits. He could only imagine that having this one privilege stripped away would have the opposite effect on his health, which was the last thing any of them needed right now.

“That's too bad.” she pursed her lips and tried not to look too disappointed. Ren's visits had been her way to get information on Akechi, to make sure he was at least somewhat okay. If things continued this way, she would have Toyama for that now, but… Ren wouldn't take this well. And if she knew him, she knew he would probably scheme some way around it.

“I'll do what I can for him.” Toyama spoke up again. “I'll try to discuss the possibility of not being able to access the Metaverse with them, but I don't think they'll even consider it as an option. The best case scenario is that they do believe me and it makes them decide Akechi isn't worth the effort and they release him entirely. That's not likely, but I have to believe there's a chance.” He sat up straighter in his chair and fumbled for his phone in his pocket. “I'll be in touch about it.”

The two exchanged contact information and Toyama left the office, just as frazzled as he had been when he arrived. Despite her cool exterior, Sae felt much the same. She finally let herself put her head down on her desk for a few minutes, just trying to process everything.

This wasn't good. The prior deadline of two months meant almost nothing now if what Toyama had said about a mental shutdown was true, and they didn't seem to have many options. Sometimes people recovered from mental shutdowns, at least that's what the Phantom Thieves had said. Part of their heart-stealing procedure had included inducing a type of temporary mental shutdown. Maybe if they could get Akechi out of hospital custody during a shutdown, they could keep him safe until he recovered and then go from there. But that still relied on his captors being willing to release him at all. Useless to them or not, he was more likely to be permanently disposed of than released safely. There had to be a way. Things were never hopeless, as dark as they might seem.

Akechi was sat down in an unoccupied exam room first thing Monday morning. This wasn’t out of the ordinary. Since he’d woken up here, he’d been examined regularly to make sure there hadn’t been any severe brain damage or other injuries to his body during whatever events had led up to his arrival. But today it felt different. It was the first time he’d been taken into a room since he’d met Ren and everything had started slowly unraveling. His trust in his doctors had begun fluctuating by the hour and he still hadn’t decided who to believe.

The man who had been caring for him sat down across from him and was joined by Toyama at his side. Toyama always looked like a nervous wreck, but today he looked especially bad, and it put Akechi on edge as well.

“Well, we do have some very good news this morning.” The man began, smiling his usual broad smile and clasping his hands in front of him. “Would you like to hear it?”

“I suppose so.” Akechi tried to smile as well, but it had become increasingly difficult lately.

“You’ll want to, trust me.” He took a clipboard from Toyama and looked over the papers on it briefly. “Very recently, we were able to find some information on your identity.” Akechi’s eyes lit up. “Someone who wishes to remain anonymous stepped forward and was able to tell us a few things and then our research team was able to investigate from there. Isn’t that exciting?” He looked at Akechi expectantly, but just got a sort of dazed look in response.

Ren had already told him a few things in secret. If the things the doctor told him matched up, it meant Ren could be trusted to be telling him the truth. But what would it mean about the doctors? He felt even more uneasy. He hadn’t expected to be hearing this today, and though he knew that he really, really did want to learn more about himself, it also scared him.

“First of all,” He tried to catch Akechi’s gaze. “Your name is Goro Akechi.” Akechi tried to look surprised, like he hadn’t known this for a week now and hadn’t been holding onto it as his one tether to his old life. “You are seventeen years old, birthday June second. Prior to your accident, you were a second year high school student at the top of your class.” He set down the clipboard and leaned closer to Akechi, expression turning more serious. “If any of this starts to click with you, you need to let us know immediately, alright?” Akechi nodded silently. “Because what I’m about to tell you is extremely important and also might be hard for you to accept without truly remembering it.”

He had already been told he had attempted murder. He wasn’t sure how much harder to stomach anything else could be. He didn’t think anything the doctor told him could top being told by Ren that he’d tried to kill him not just once but twice.

“You are not like other people, Akechi. You have a gift. Before your accident, you were using this gift to hunt down a group of criminals called the Phantom Thieves and their leader, Joker.”

Joker. That was Ren, wasn’t it? He was a criminal? He had mentioned the Phantom Thieves too, but they had been so pressed for time that Akechi hadn’t been able to ask him more. But, so far, everything was lining up. Was that good or bad?

“With your gift, you can enter into the psyches of dangerous people and pacify them. Before your accident, you were quite successful. You had a small, but dedicated fanbase.”

Akechi’s brain was beginning to feel a little cloudy, but he managed to speak up with some effort.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean. How can someone enter into another person’s psyche? What do you mean by pacify?” He saw Toyama start to speak up, but the other man spoke over him.

“There exists a space called the Metaverse. Inside this space, you can access the deepest parts of other people’s minds. All their insecurities and corruptions. If someone were to, for example, be a business owner whose mistreatment of his employees was suddenly taking up all attention in the media, you would be able to put a stop to it by entering into the Metaverse and… having a little chat with him.”

Something seemed to dislodge in Akechi’s brain. Only slightly, but something felt like it had shifted just the smallest amount. He didn’t like the way the man had phrased that, but something about it sounded like something he should understand. Ren’s voice echoed in the back of his mind telling him he couldn’t show any signs of remembering anything, so he tried to calm himself down.

“These chats can be very effective at getting dangerous people out of your way. The group known as the Phantom Thieves also possessed this power, but their only goal was to get in your way and keep you from doing what you had been chosen to do. You were given a purpose and a gift to achieve that purpose. We want to help you continue doing what you’re meant to do.”

He had been chosen? Someone had given him a gift, a power, but why? He got a sudden flash of something, but it was gone before he could fully absorb it. Dizzying black and white. Horns. A flash of red. He sharply inhaled through his teeth realized he’d been clenching his jaw. Toyama made a small noise but the man silence him with a stern look.

“If you remember something, you need to tell us. Is any of this sounding familiar?”

“No, I-- I just have a bit of a headache.” He wasn’t exactly lying. His head felt very strange, and pain was the closest sensation he could pin it down to. “How do you know all of this? You just happened to be familiar with all of this and it happened to be connected to me, who you knew nothing about until now?”

The man almost looked taken aback but he quickly recovered.

“From the time we found you, we had a feeling that the Metaverse was involved because of how specific the situation was. But we didn’t want to bring it up unless we were absolutely certain and could find your true identity. This information isn’t exactly public knowledge. You must understand how things could go poorly if it got into the wrong hands.” He picked up his clipboard again and scanned another page. “The Phantom Thieves are an example of that happening. We have reason to believe that they are responsible for your current condition. If someone were to harm another person inside the Metaverse, well…” He gestured to Akechi. “The Phantom Thieves had a reputation for ruining people’s lives, and they had a special vendetta against you. It’s not unlikely that they would have cornered you and tried to take you out of the picture to use the Metaverse for themselves.”

The dream he’d had a few days prior came back to him vividly at the mention of being cornered. He’d almost forgotten. The group of people attacking him, being helplessly weakened and pushed to the ground. The feeling of overwhelming despair.

“The man you were working with had his life stripped away from him by these Thieves. They would have no reason not to come for you.”

A hand reaching down to him. Joker, holding a knife. Joker, thinking he was better than him. Joker, surrounded by his teammates. Akechi, all alone, always alone.

“With you gone, they’d be free to do whatever they felt was just, regardless of how it affected others. You were the chosen one and they wanted that for themselves. We want to protect you because you are special.”

He wasn’t listening anymore. He could see Joker’s face clearly in his mind. He could see the pitying look the others gave him while he unceremoniously spilled his guts for them to see. He knew he was going to die there, he had nothing left to hide. So what if they thought he was just a kid throwing a tantrum? They’d taken everything from him, taken years of hard unending work right out from under him and now they wanted to look down on him with pity. There was nothing he could do, he had lost. He’d been backed into a corner and everything he’d ever worked for had fallen down around him and he’d be left alone just like always.

He was doubled over, hands clutching his hair, breathing uneven and shaky. He was consumed by the feeling that he was about to die. He felt as if he were in mortal danger and there was no way out. Somewhere far away he could hear voices that sounded angry, but he couldn’t make out any words or who the voices were coming from. All he knew was that this was it for him. All he could do was brace himself for the death he knew was coming.

When Tuesday came, Ren was up bright and early, making his way to the train station, and then to the hospital. He walked past reception like he had somewhere to be, and ducked into the first floor bathroom at the back of the building. He half expected to see Akechi already there, smiling, waiting for him, but it was empty. He leaned against the counter and checked the time. Four minutes after nine. He was a few minutes early, so he settled in to wait it out, idly scrolling through social media and glancing up at the door every few seconds expectantly.

But five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen, and Akechi hadn’t shown up. It was way past their meeting time now. Had something happened? His thoughts immediately turned to the worst: had they finally decided they had no use for Akechi and gotten rid of him? Had they cracked the wall on his memories and let his hatred of Ren flood back in? No, he must just have forgotten. He must be busy. They must just be monitoring him this morning. Maybe he didn’t feel well. It’s not like he could send Ren a text telling him he couldn’t make it.

He waited another ten minutes, becoming increasingly panicked, and then gave up and decided to go home. If he hadn’t shown up yet, he wasn’t going to. Whatever that meant. He couldn’t ask hospital staff. He’d been banned for Card Crimes and now he’d be in trouble if anyone involved recognized him. He took a quick look around the lobby, hoping to catch sight of Akechi returning to the elevator, but he had no such luck and walked out the door.

He felt like if he didn’t find something distracting to latch his brain onto soon, he was going to combust. All he could think about was Akechi’s face contorted in seething rage, screaming about how badly he wanted to kill him, how he wanted to rip him apart with his own hands. He had failed Akechi once before already, let him die alone faced with accepting his own defeat. Now he might be dead again, and it was all his fault, just like before. He had let him down. He hadn’t acted quickly enough, hadn’t given him the help he needed in time. He was stupid, useless.

He blinked back tears and swallowed. He’d been standing in place at the station for who knows how long, and once he snapped back to reality, he realized he’d missed his train back while lost in his thoughts. Just what he needed today. But there was a train about to leave that would take him out near Kosei…

Without much more thought, he got through the doors onto the train just before they closed and shuffled in to find a place to stand. He was being crowded on all sides, but he managed to at least get his phone out.

He ended up at Yusuke’s studio as promised and let himself in. He was a frequent enough visitor that no one ever really said anything about him hanging out even if he wasn’t doing anything particularly artistic. Yusuke passed off having him there by saying he was his muse and that he needed him there for the creative energies.

Today, the studio was empty except for Yusuke sitting at a stool with a canvas in front of him and various supplies scattered around. Ren assumed most students who used the space had gone away on summer break. Yusuke stood when he saw Ren enter and Ren made his way over to him, paused, and then threw his arms around him. Yusuke reacted with brief surprise but then pulled Ren in closer to him and held him.

“Is everything alright? You came over so suddenly.” He spoke softly and rested his chin on Ren’s head, swaying them both a bit.

Ren started to answer, to say everything was fine, to joke that he had just been in the neighborhood, but he remembered what Ann had said about letting others take care of him. He buried his face in Yusuke’s shoulder and shook his head. Maybe he could afford to be vulnerable right now.

Yusuke hummed and squeezed Ren tighter, and that broke the tape keeping Ren held haphazardly together. He clutched at the back of Yusuke’s shirt and let himself cry against his shoulder, letting out little choked sobs. Yusuke carefully lowered them both onto the floor and pulled Ren into his arms properly, cradling him against him and rubbing his back in slow motions. He didn’t shush him or try to tell him that things were alright, he just held him close, keeping him safe.

Ren eventually cried himself out and went quiet, just occasionally sniffling. He was sure he’d totally soaked Yusuke’s shirt and he felt suddenly embarrassed about letting himself come so unglued, but not embarrassed enough to pull away. He held onto Yusuke tighter and pressed his face into his neck.

“I love you so terribly much, Ren…” Yusuke leaned his head against his and shut his eyes, hands still rubbing slow circles on his back. “You are incredibly dear to me…”

“You’re gonna make me cry again.” He sniffled but forced out a weak laugh.

“If you need to cry more, then you should. Crying is a fundamental part of emotional expression, after all. It can be quite relieving just to let yourself cry sometimes.” He brought a hand up and stroked Ren’s hair back. “It doesn’t make you a stronger person to deny yourself the right to cry, and it doesn’t make you weaker to indulge.”

Ren felt more tears pooling in his eyes and trying to blink them away only made them fall, trapped between his skin and Yusuke’s. He took a deep breath and tried his best to calm himself before speaking. He didn’t think he was fully ready for the whole talking about your feelings thing, but he did probably owe Yusuke an explanation.

“Akechi… didn’t show up this morning. I told him I’d meet him in secret and he just didn’t come and I…” He trailed off and tightened his grip on Yusuke again.

“It’s easy to assume the worst, but you should remember that he is still technically a patient. It’s quite possible that he could have been bound to his room or being seen by a doctor at the time.” Yusuke pulled back a little and Ren reluctantly let go enough to raise his head so they could look at each other. “It's more difficult to reason with your negative thoughts in these situations, but it is often necessary work.”

He was sure he looked like a mess. He could hardly see from the tear streaks on his glasses and he knew they were sitting crooked on his nose. He had always been an ugly crier, his eyes puffing up and his nose and cheeks going red. He didn't really want his boyfriend, the renowned artist, purveyor of beauty, to see such an ugly sight and he tried to hide his face again.

Yusuke took his glasses off for him and rubbed them with his shirt, doing his best to get them clean with his limited resources. Once he was sure they were mostly dry and smudge-free, he set them back on straight and tucked Ren's hair behind his ear, fixing his bangs. He paused and then reached behind him to grab a clean rag from his supplies and dabbed at his cheeks. The whole gesture was so warm that Ren almost started crying all over again.

“You're good to me.” Was all he managed to choke out. He looked down at the floor and sniffled, willing himself to stay composed.

“Believe it or not, you deserve for someone to be good to you.” Yusuke smiled and handed him the rag, allowing himself some agency in cleaning himself up better. He used it to dry his eyes and then just sat there, feeling drained now. He didn't know if it was a step up or down from the despair he'd just been feeling.

“Thanks.” He sighed. “Can I just… hang out here for a while? I'll be quiet.”

“Of course. You're always welcome here with me. I do have some work to do, but feel free to relax.” Yusuke kneeled back and then stood and moved over to his station to search for something. He came back and handed Ren a bottle of water. “Hydrate.”

Ren stood up and took the bottle. He pulled Yusuke's jacket out of his bag, wrapped it around himself, and settled down against the wall behind Yusuke to watch him paint. The jacket was too small for him to wear properly, but having something warm and soft that smelled like Yusuke draped over his shoulders was comforting enough.

Yusuke set up his phone to play some soft music and set it aside. He settled back down at his seat and resumed the painting he'd been working on before Ren's arrival. It was soothing to watch him work and Ren found himself slowly calming down, lulled by Yusuke quietly singing to himself and the movement of brush on canvas.

Chapter Text

Akechi had been largely disagreeable since the incident with his doctors. He had managed to calm down from the worst of the episode after some time left alone, but he was still jumping at every attempted touch, sneering at his doctors, and was prone to brief fits of panic. He felt like he was quickly careening out of control with nothing to hold onto. His dreams had been discordant and he’d woken up several times gasping for breath, heart pounding against his ribs.

He knew he was supposed to meet Ren. He’d been given a day off between what he had been told would be regular sessions, but he couldn’t put out the burning anger he felt every time his brain conjured up thoughts of Ren. What had once been a subject of comfort and happiness was now the source of seething, painful rage. He was angry at himself as well, for being foolish enough to let Ren pull him into a delusion of friendship. He had even warned him this would happen, and he still fell for it.

Ren had tried to kill him. He was certain of that.

He remembered it clear as day now. Ren and his cronies beating him mercilessly and then looking down on him with disgustingly pitying looks. Ren reaching a hand down to help him stand. Refusing it. Admitting his own defeat. The deafening sound of a gunshot. Silence.

He had been right all along. The doctors were only keeping him safe. They knew he was a target and that soon the Phantom Thieves would return to exact their revenge on a target who had lucked out and escaped death. They had promised he’d be safe with them. Keeping Ren away was the best thing he could do for himself. If he was alone with him, he wasn’t sure what he might do, or what Ren might do to him if he realized what Akechi knew now.

He spent all day consumed by his emotions. He would lose hours at a time, unsure what he had done in the gap. Mostly, he assumed, he had just sat alone.

After it had been dark for some time, there was a soft knock at his door and he looked over to see Toyama carefully stepping into the room, door shutting quietly behind him. He looked nervous as ever.

“It’s a bit late for an exam today. I’d appreciate it if you came back in the morning.” Akechi spoke flatly, his usual pleasant demeanor gone.

“This isn’t-- It’s not an exam. I just want to talk with you. They don’t know I’m here and I really need you to cooperate and not tell them I was.” He spoke quietly, edging closer into the room away from the door.

“Should I call a nurse?” His finger hovered over the call button by his bed. “Come back in the morning.”

“Akechi.” His tone darkened and he took a deep breath. “Listen to me. Please. I can’t be here very long. Your doctors are using you. They’re going to kill you if this keeps up and I don’t want that to happen so please listen to me.” He had his hands up in surrender, like he thought Akechi might actually hurt him.

Akechi lowered his hand slowly to his side. Using him? Kill him? That was exactly what Ren had said. Was he working for Ren? His eyes narrowed but he kept his attention on Toyama, who slowly sat down by his bed. Ren’s spot, his brain insisted on reminding him.

“They’re lying to you. They’re trying to cherry pick what you remember so you’ll help them do… some really bad stuff. They don’t care if it kills you. I want to get you out of here, but you have to trust me.”

“I don’t.” Akechi snapped at him. “You sound just like him. Why should I trust you at all? I remember what he did to me. I don’t want either of you near me.”

“Like who? What are you talking about?” He seemed genuinely confused. If it was an act, it was a good one.

“Don’t play stupid with me. I know you’re with Ren.”

“I’m-- I’m not-- I’ve never even met him.”

“And yet you’re telling me the same lies he did. What a fun coincidence.” Akechi’s voice lowered and he glared at Toyama harder. “I know you’re planning to get me out of here so you can kill me for good. I’m not in the dark anymore. I can see I’ve been a fool, but that ends here. Get out.”

“No. You’re going to listen to me.” Toyama’s tone was suddenly stern. “I’ve been trying to save you for as long as you’ve been here and they won’t listen to me anymore, so you will. I’ve worked in this field for a long time. What they’re doing right now, that session they held with you yesterday, is a one way trip to you shutting down completely and potentially dying. I don’t care if you don’t recover your memories. That’s better than letting them crack you open and then toss you aside when it doesn’t get the results they want. They want to use your powers like a tool. If Ren told you the same things I’m telling you, it’s because we both know the truth and aren’t a part of this scheme.”

Akechi was quiet. Toyama always looked so uncomfortable during his exams. Was it because he wasn’t on the side of the other doctors after all? He had been so caught up in vilifying Ren recently that he’d ignored that it was possible that things had been the opposite after all. Now he was back to square one of not knowing who to trust. Either way, it seemed someone wanted him dead.

“Fine. I've listened to you. What exactly do you want me to do? I can't just walk out of the building, even if I wanted to.”

“No, you can't. I'm working with someone on the outside who can help you. Until she and I can make a solid plan, I just need you to question your doctors. Don't take everything they say at face value. Even if it seems like you're remembering something, you need to understand that they're trying to manipulate you into remembering what they want.”

“So tell me the truth then. If what they're telling me isn't correct and you're so certain that you know better, then tell me.”

“I… I can't. That's exactly the problem. Outright forcing you to remember too much too fast will overload you and shut you down. That's what they're trying to do to you, only they don't believe me about the shutting down part.” Toyama fiddled with his hands in his lap. “I understand you're not going to completely trust me. I haven't given you any reason to, you're right. But I at least need you to not trust them.”

“Fine.”

“Fine. I have to go now. If they find out I was here, I'll be in trouble. If they ask you, I only stepped in to make sure you were feeling okay before I went home for the night. Technically, that's true.” He stood and straightened his coat. “Even if you think I'm the enemy, I'll still be working hard on getting you out. Eventually you'll understand. Goodnight, Akechi.”

Then he was gone. Akechi was alone again.

His head felt even worse than before. After days of deliberating, he had finally decided to trust his doctors, only to once again find himself completely lost. The doctors had given him more information than anyone else. They had been upfront with him in that session, telling him all about his powers, telling him he was special. Their claims that the Phantom Thieves had wanted to kill him lined up with the things he had seen in his dreams.

Maybe he shouldn't have skipped out on his meeting with Ren. But Ren would have just found a way to lie to him and make himself look like a savior. The more he thought about it, the more foolish he felt for thinking he needed saving. He was safe here. In the morning, he would ask to speak with his doctors and he'd tell them all about Toyama's little plan.

The Phantom Thieves met up again at Leblanc Tuesday evening. It was a little too early for them to be taking over the shop, so they had set up in the attic. Ann, Haru, and Makoto had taken claim of the couch this time, leaving Ryuji laying on the floor, Mishima sitting next to him, Futaba sitting on the bed with her laptop open on her legs, Yusuke sitting next to her to look on at her screen, and Morgana tucked between them. Sae hadn’t been able to make it tonight, but she had given Makoto instructions to call her if they needed her input.

Ren stood in the center of the room. He was too anxious to sit down.

“Do you wanna stop pacing like that? You’re making me nervous.” Futaba was side-eyeing him from her spot on his bed. “What’s going on?”

Ren stopped his pacing and stood still instead. He looked around the room and then crossed his arms over his chest to keep from fidgeting.

“Well, for one, apparently Akechi is going to have a mental shutdown.” He forced himself to give an awkward half-smile. “And, as we all know, that’s bad!” He could hear the edge in his own voice. He knew he sounded like he was a few seconds away from just losing it entirely, and that’s how he felt too.

“I mean yeah, that’s not good, but it’s not like it’ll kill him. As long as he’s not in any danger when it happens.” Ann spoke calmly, not wanting to rile Ren up anymore than he already was.

“You think they won’t? Their pet project shuts down and stops functioning and they definitely can’t use him like that, and you think he won’t be in danger?” Ren didn’t mean to sound aggressive, but it definitely came out that way. Ann just frowned and shrugged sadly. Haru rubbed her shoulder.

“How do you know he’s gonna have one anyway?” Ryuji spoke up from his position flat on the floor. “I thought we didn’t know what they’re doing with him.”

Makoto cut in before Ren could start.

“Sis has been in contact with the man Futaba found during her research. She said he came to visit her in her office and that he’s against what the others are doing to Akechi. We were right about their plans to keep using him the same way Shido did. She didn’t have a lot of details, but she said they were trying to force him to regain his memories about the Metaverse and his Persona and that doing that is likely to cause a mental shutdown. Today she told me that they’ve begun this procedure and it has affected Akechi adversely. I assume she told Ren the same.”

The group stayed quiet, silence punctuated only by Futaba’s typing.

Yusuke was the first to speak.

“Well,” he cleared his throat. “I suppose we should work quickly. What is the quickest, safest way we can remove Akechi from their custody? If we know he will be in danger with them, getting him to safety should be the top priority, even if we don’t know exactly what we will do afterwards.”

“It’s too bad we can’t just have him checked out at reception.” Mishima looked down at Ryuji, thinking. “Or if we could convince the real staff that he’s ready to leave without the fake staff noticing.”

“I mean, if it’s a matter of just marking his records, I can do that no problem.” Futaba grinned and cracked her knuckles. “Simple editing job and bam! Goro Akechi is ready to go home.”

“Can we just… do that? Was it that easy?” Ryuji looked back and forth between Mishima and Futaba, incredulous. “We could’ve just hacked into his records and got him out all this time?”

“Even if we can do that, we still need to make sure our timing is right. This is going to require some cooperation from both Akechi and Toyama to pull off. If any of Shido’s men realize that he’s being released, we will not be able to intervene and keep him safe.” Makoto sighed. “There’s also the matter of somewhere safe to keep him if he is released. Any of our homes are out of the question. It’s likely that they know our identities, at least vaguely.”

“What about Nishima?” Futaba was furiously typing and didn’t lift her eyes from her screen. “He’s not technically involved. He just ran a website.”

“It’s-- That’s not--” Mishima sighed and looked annoyed at Futaba’s comment, but he quickly gave up defending himself and just pouted.

“That may be true.” Makoto let her eyes settle on Mishima. “I doubt they would think to investigate the admin of the Phansite as a co-conspirator. Your position allowed you to work a bit more anonymously than ours in the end.”

That comment seemed to lessen the blow on his ego a little and he relaxed his expression.

“Even if they don’t know who I am, I can’t just keep Akechi in my house. My parents would kill me if they found out, and uh… I don’t mean this in a bad way, I’m not trying to be mean or anything, I just,” He cautiously looked over at Ren, who was still refusing to sit down. “We don’t know if he’s going to be dangerous. I don’t really… want to be alone with him until we know we can trust him. Sorry.” He pulled his knees up to his chest and leaned his chin on them. It was clear he felt bad about saying that, even if they’d all been thinking it.

“I agree.” Haru gave Mishima an encouraging smile. “I don’t think any of us should be alone with Akechi right now. We don’t know how he really feels. Even if he doesn’t have his memories, we don’t know that he’s stable. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to trust him so easily just because we want him to be safe.”

“Right.” Makoto nodded. “We need to keep him somewhere where he’ll be secure, but we’ll need to keep an eye on him together. I’ll talk to sis about it. Maybe Toyama will have more information on who we can trust. For now, I think this is good. We’ll just have to brainstorm while we work on finding a way to make this happen.”

Ren groaned and finally sat down on the floor next to Mishima, rubbing his hands over his face.

“I don’t think he’s going to meet with me anymore. Whatever they told him, it must have been bad news for me. He skipped out on our meeting this morning. So I can’t get any information to him.” His anxiety had given way to frustration now. Mishima leaned over and rubbed his back.

“I can ask sis to pass on a meeting time to Toyama. He might be able to arrange something. I know he can’t make Akechi go if he doesn’t want to, but it’s worth a try.” Makoto pulled her phone out, typing up a message to Sae. “I’ll ask her to pass along a message for you. We’ll make this work.”

Ren nodded and leaned his head on Mishima’s shoulder. He did his best to believe her. They could make it work. It was just what came after that was worrying him.

Futaba turned her laptop around to show the screen to everyone else.

“I got his records pulled up no problem. I can go in and change things any time, so just tell me when it's go time.” She grinned, proud of herself. Her skill level still managed to impress everyone after all their time together. It was easy to forget their collective little sister was actually a hacking mastermind.

“It's probably our best bet to see if there will be any days when there won't be many of the inside guys around. The less people there to see him leaving the better. We also need to make sure he understands what's happening and is willing to go along with things. If he isn't cooperative about leaving, it will look suspicious.” Makoto seemed to be mostly thinking aloud. “Getting him on our side may be the hardest part…”

“Right back where we started. It was the same before.” Ren sounded distant. Mishima shifted closer to him and put an arm around his waist. “We couldn't get him on our side fast enough.”

Ryuji rolled onto his side to look at Ren better.

“We'll get him this time!” He grinned, willing his optimism to be contagious.

“Yeah! I think we can definitely do this. We just have to be persuasive and time it right.” Ann sat up straighter, seemingly filled with determination now. Her and Ryuji's combined insistence did make Ren feel the smallest bit better. It got a little smile from him at least.

The whole group seemed to be more alert now. Having a plan solidifying for them was making them even more determined to see things through. They felt like there was hope.

The only other thing they could do for now was try to find a place where Akechi would be safe. They spent some time talking it over, mostly going in circles.

Like Makoto had said, all of their homes, as well as Leblanc, were out of the question. So what did that leave? They could get a hotel room under an alias and have him stay there, but then they would all have to take turns staying there to keep an eye on him, which would take a lot of sneaking around that not all of them could afford. They didn't want to ask friends or family members to get involved because they'd have to explain the very complicated details.

None of them ended up coming up with any more useful information over the next hour and the meeting eventually broke down into unrelated topics, like their meetings usually did. As it got later, they dispersed, going their separate ways until it was just Ren, Futaba, and Morgana upstairs.

Futaba kept her place on Ren's bed, sitting sideways across it. She protested when Ren flopped over against her and slowly pushed her over, as if she was the one having her space invaded and not him.

“Do you have any manners? Were you raised in a barn?” She grabbed her laptop and moved it out of the way of Ren's ragdolling. She was partially trapped under him now. “Ren!” she whined and shoved at him to no avail.

“I have no manners, you know that.” He rolled off of her, laying on his back behind her, close to the wall. Morgana jumped up onto the bed as well and sat next to the two of them. “Hey, you've been quiet tonight.”

“Oh? Yeah, I guess so. I was just thinking. I want to help too, but there's not a lot I can do.” Morgana looked a bit sad, even with his expressions limited by his feline face.

“You can be Akechi's therapy animal.” Futaba pulled Morgana into her lap and hugged him. He meowed in brief protest of being moved. “You just have to remember to keep your mouth shut cuz I don't think a talking cat is going to make him feel better about all this right now.”

Ren snorted from behind her. “God, he's freaked out enough. I can only imagine. Hi, Goro, this is my cat Morgana. He knows some really fun tricks.” He laughed to himself, realizing he probably sounded crazy finding this so funny.

“You call him by his first name? That's so weird. Goro.” Futaba gagged. “Gross. Nobody else does that.”

“I think when you start kissing someone you earn first name privilege.”

“Even grosser! I don't want to hear about your makeout sessions with Akechi.” She buried her face in Morgana's fur.

“I didn't say anything about making out. That one's on you.”

“No! Ew! Stop saying things!” She let go of Morgana and leaned back on Ren instead, laying sideways across his chest.

Ren did as he was told and stopped talking and a silence fell over the room. Morgana moved around to the head of the bed to settle against a pillow and laid down, yawning.

“Hey,” Ren spoke softly, his tone entirely different now. “Do you still have nightmares…? About your mom…?”

“Yeah. Not as often, but I still have them. They haven't really changed, even after the Palace stuff. Why? Are you…?” She turned her head to look at his face, but he was just staring up at the ceiling.

“I just wanted to know if they stop.”

“Oh. I… dunno.” She turned her head back to look the other way. “Probably. Eventually.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

They fell silent again. Ren thought Futaba might have fallen asleep, but she sat up and then stood, grabbing her laptop.

“I think I'm gonna head home. I have some stuff I gotta do before bed. You coming, Morgana?” Morgana shook his head and yawned again. He split his time between the two of them pretty evenly these days. “Suit yourself.” She moved over to the door and went out into the hall before backtracking and peeking back into the room. “Hey, Ren? Um, I know I give you a hard time, but uh, I uh, love you a lot, and I couldn't ask for a better brother, even if you're annoying and you don't have any manners. Okay, goodnight!”

He heard her quickly descend the stairs and then heard the front door shut and lock. He realized he was smiling.

Chapter Text

Ren ducked his head into the doorway of the small clinic. It would be hard to find if you didn't know what to look for. He entered and looked around the reception area. Still no receptionist, he noted. Was she still running this whole operation herself? Sure enough, after he'd stood around for a minute, he heard some clattering in a back room and Doctor Tae Takemi appeared behind the front desk, looking confused at his appearance.

“Haven't seen you in a while.” She shuffled some papers in her arms and set them down in a pile. “I don't suppose you have an appointment.”

“Your favorite test subject needs an appointment now?” Ren leaned onto his elbow on the desk and grinned at her. She faked an exasperated expression and crossed her arms.

“Fine. I suppose not, if it's an emergency. C'mon, before an actual patient shows up.” She motioned him into the back room and he followed after her, shutting the door behind them.

He took a seat on the stool next to her desk and waited for her to sit.

“I need… a favor.” He smiled nervously.

“I'm sure you do. You look awful.”

“Thanks.”

“You're pale, have bags under your eyes. Are you sleeping? Eating balanced meals?” she pulled a file, presumably his, out of the cabinet next to her desk and opened it.

“This isn't really about me and my questionable habits. I just need… help with something. It's kind of a weird request and I'm only asking you this because I know you won't tell anybody.” He had her attention now, and her eyes were on him rather than her papers. “I need you to help me hide a… person?”

“Like… a body? Are you asking me to help you hide a body?” She squinted at him, frowning.

“No! A live person!” Her expression didn't change. “It's just... a really weird situation! He's an amnesiac and he needs to go somewhere safe. And he probably needs medical attention. The people who have him right now are dangerous. I know you don't do inpatient here, but I thought maybe you knew someone who could. And I'm only asking because I'm desperate.” He was aware of how frantic he sounded and he took a few deep breaths to calm himself.

“Yeah. Alright. I'll make some calls. But only if you tell me why exactly you need to be hiding him in the first place. I'm not about to get arrested for kidnapping.” Takemi leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, eyes fixed on Ren.

“I'm telling you this in doctor-patient confidentiality.” He raised his eyebrows at her for emphasis. “He's being held at the hospital right now, but I have reason to believe his doctors are planning to… get rid of him. I have a plan to get him out of there but I don't have anywhere he can go and I know if he disappears, they're going to come looking for him. And me.”

“You’re not making a very good argument for why this isn’t extremely shady and likely to get me in trouble,” she sighed. “But… I do know a thing or two about bad doctors and you know I can’t say no to a patient who needs help. I’ll see what I can do. But you owe me.” There was an edge to her voice, but Ren knew by now that she was all bark and no bite. Underneath her tough-looking exterior, Tae Takemi was the kind of person who could never look the other way while someone was suffering.

Ren gave her as much information as he could on Akechi’s current situation and what he might need upon release, and she promised to do what she could to find a place he would be able to stay safely. It wasn’t a concrete plan yet, but it was more than he’d had when he woke up that morning, and it would have to do for now.

He thanked her repeatedly before walking out the door of the clinic and making his way back to Leblanc, phone in hand.

Despite his newly found gloominess and sour attitude, Akechi had no choice but to continue doing what his doctors expected. This included sitting down in an exam room two days after the initial session for another briefing on things he had apparently forgotten. He was grateful to be given opportunities to recover his lost memories, but after letting Toyama’s words sink in overnight, he had realized it probably was best to be critical and wary of anything he was told. Not just by his doctor, but by everyone.

There was very little beating around the bush this time. The doctor and Toyama sat down across from Akechi, and after a brief bout of greetings and asking after Akechi’s general health, it was time for business.

“Do you believe killing is ever justified, Akechi?” The doctor had his eyes fixed on Akechi’s face, analyzing it. “Ever? For any reason?”

Akechi had to think about it. It wasn’t exactly something he had devoted time to thinking about, at least that he could remember. There were horrible people out there, doing horrible things to other people. There were people who had killed others, and the atonement for their crimes was often their own death. That seemed like a sort of poetic end to him. An eye for an eye.

“I… suppose so. Yes, in certain situations.” Akechi spoke slowly, unsure if he was answering correctly. Was there a wrong answer here? Surely they weren’t here just to debate ethics.

“I feel the same way. Sometimes, there are problems that can only be solved by taking someone out of the picture entirely.” He pulled a picture out from the file he was holding and showed it to Akechi. It was a photo of an older man, probably in his 50s, with wavy black hair, a large, somewhat downturned nose, and rectangular glasses. “Do you recognize this man?”

He didn’t. He thought he looked like someone who might be important, but that was only from his posture and the way he was dressed. He shook his head.

“My apologies.”

“This man was the CEO of a wildly successful fast food conglomerate. He was also found guilty of severe abuse of his employees on a massive scale. He ruined many, many people’s lives and his abuse of innocent people was broadcast on the news non-stop just before his death.” The doctor paused and made sure Akechi was looking at him. “You killed him.”

Akechi’s eyes widened, then lowered back to the photograph and narrowed. His mind was frantically searching for any memories connected to this man, to killing anyone, and he was coming up blank. He kept bracing himself for the impact he’d felt last time, the overwhelming resurgence of memories taking over, but it never came. He just sat there, silent and confused.

The doctor pulled out another photograph, this time of another man. This man had curly, messy hair, thick eyebrows, and a strong, prominent chin. He looked to be some sort of athlete.

“What about this man? Do you recognize him?” Akechi shook his head again and swallowed hard. Had he killed this man too? How many people had he taken out and not even remembered? “This man was a very successful volleyball player, as well as a coach for a high school level volleyball and track team. He also confessed to multiple counts of blackmail and physical and sexual abuse of his team members as well as other students. One student was even pushed to attempt suicide. The Phantom Thieves allowed him to live.”

Akechi realized he'd been holding his breath and finally exhaled.

“And?” He tried to keep his voice steady.

“And do you think that's fair? That people should commit such terrible acts and get to continue living?” He waited for Akechi to answer, but pulled out another photo when he didn't. “This man was a critically acclaimed artist. He confessed to stealing artwork from his pupils, neglecting and abusing them, treating them like tools rather than students. The Phantom Thieves also allowed him to live.”

Several more photos were produced and the doctor detailed their transgressions. All dead by Akechi's hands. They had all been criminals, abusers, by all accounts evil people. Still, he was horrified and it showed on his face.

“You are not a murderer, Akechi. What you did was cleanse the world of people who hurt others. Is it better to be aware of someone's crimes and willingly allow them to continue with their lives despite their actions, or to take them out entirely so that they cannot do more harm to more people?”

Akechi didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. Even without the emotions he’d felt last time, he was having too much trouble gathering his thoughts. Ren had told him before that he had tried to kill him. Twice. He hadn’t counted on also being told there had been times when he had succeeded. He didn’t think he even had it in him to kill someone. The thought made him feel sick. He suddenly felt cold and nauseous. He leaned his forehead on his palm, elbow resting on the table between them, and shut his eyes so he didn’t have to look down at all the faces in the photos spread out in front of him.

“If any of this sounds familiar--”

“I know.” Akechi cut him off abruptly, though his voice was weak. “It doesn’t.”

“Then let’s keep going.” The doctor collected the photos and put them back into the file in his hand. “As I said, you are not a murderer. And there is no way for anyone to pin these deaths on you. Your reputation is safe. The gift you were given has allowed you to commit these acts from the shadows. To anyone on the outside, it just looks like a simple heart attack or a traffic accident. And then, just like that, the world has one less villain.”

Akechi looked up at him, squinting. His head was pounding, like it was trying desperately to keep him from prodding any more at its walls.

“And the Phantom Thieves have this same gift, you said? How would that make anyone else’s villainy going unpunished their responsibility?”

“The Phantom Thieves operated in a different way than you, and they found your methods to be unsatisfactory. Their preferred way of doing things was to simply convince the person in question to turn themselves in. Whether the person ended up punished or not was up to someone else. I suppose they just didn’t have the guts to do it themselves. But you did. You are a hero, Akechi.” He reached out a hand and clasped Akechi’s shoulder. Akechi only flinched a little. “We want to let you continue being one.”

Akechi was grateful for the session coming to a quick end. His head was throbbing so badly that he didn’t think he would have been able to last much longer anyway. He was escorted back to his room and left by himself to deal with the aftermath of having his mind ripped open and stuffed full once again. Last time, he had felt so scared and angry. This time, he just felt sad and confused. When he had said that sometimes killing was justifiable, he had been thinking about capital punishment at the hands of the government, not a lone vigilante taking out hand-picked targets. And he especially hadn’t been thinking about himself doing the killing.

He tried to distract himself. He tried to read a new book he had been given by a nurse with similar tastes, but the words didn’t make sense. He went for a walk around the building like he always did, but it only gave him more room for his thoughts to wander. He wished he had someone to talk to. His thoughts strayed to Ren. For the first time in what felt like a very long time, he felt a pang of affection instead of the fury that he’d come to associate with him recently. Maybe he missed him. Maybe he was just lonely and would have settled for anyone, regardless of whether they were a criminal who wanted him dead. The idea disgusted him.

He decided as a last resort to just go to bed early. Being unconscious would surely be better than being awake and tortured, even if it meant waking up earlier the next day and jeopardizing his sleep schedule. He’d risk it if it meant some peace.

He slept restlessly, frequently awoken by uncomfortable dreams and eventually by a knock at the door. He didn’t answer, only sighed and rolled over. He shielded his eyes with his arm as the door opened anyway, letting in bright light from the hallway. Toyama’s silhouette was recognizable even against the brightness.

“Oh, I’m sorry, are you asleep?” He sounded nervous as always, but he didn’t make any move to actually leave.

“I was. Can I help you?” Akechi tried to sound angry, but his voice was still slurred from sleep. It probably wasn’t very threatening.

“I-I’m sorry. Normally I would just come back later, but--” he slipped into the room completely and shut the door behind him. Akechi quickly reached out and turned on the lamp by his bed to prevent Toyama from switching on the overhead light and blinding him. “This is important. And secret.” He sat down next to the bed.

“Fine. Say what you need to, so I can go back to sleep.” He stifled a yawn and rubbed his eyes.

Not for the first time, Toyama was reminded that despite the circumstances, Akechi really was just a teenage boy. Maybe a little less harmless than most boys his age, but he was still a grumpy teen who got woken up from a nap too soon for his liking and wanted this adult out of his room. If the situation were different, it would have made him smile.

“It’s about Ren.” He got a scowl from Akechi. “I know you’re not happy with him. I know your doctor has painted him in a very bad light. But he wants to see you. He’s worried about you.”

“I thought you’d never met him before. Now suddenly you’re passing on messages?”

“I really haven’t met him! The person I’m working with knows him and asked me to pass some things on to you. She said she knows I won’t be able to make you do anything if you don’t want to, and that’s fine, but I had to try. She wanted you to know someone cares about you.”

“Or just wants me dead.”

“He doesn’t... “ Toyama’s tone shifted into something softer. Sadder. “He wants you to get out and get some semblance of a normal life back. We both do. No boy your age should be cooped up in a room alone all day being fed information that makes you feel sick.” This was the most confident Akechi had ever heard Toyama in the months he’d been around him. It didn’t sound put together in a rehearsed way, it just sounded genuine. He couldn’t look at him.

“Okay. So I get out, and then what? I don’t have anything.” He could feel himself getting angrier. “They tell me I have this gift, but I don’t know what that means. I don’t know how to do any of these things they’re telling me I did! I killed people. I don’t just get out of here and get to have a normal life. I already know that.”

Toyama hesitated in responding, opening his mouth a few times and failing to find the words. He didn’t want to say anything that would make Akechi’s already precariously balanced mental state teeter over the edge any more than it already was, but he wanted to comfort him. To make him feel like things would be okay.

“No. You’re right. It may not ever be a normal life. But the doctor isn’t telling you the whole truth. There’s much more to this situation than he’s letting on and he’s doing that on purpose to control you. It might not be normal, but it can be better.” He tried to catch Akechi’s eyes, but he kept looking away. “You just need to trust me.”

Akechi took a deep breath and rubbed at his eyes. Toyama thought he saw tears, but he also had just woken up. He could just be tired still.

“Okay.” His voice was shaking. He swallowed. “Yeah. Okay. For now.”

“Okay.” Toyama smiled in what he hoped was an encouraging way. “Can you meet with Ren? He’d really like to see you again and talk to you, even if it’s brief.”

“I… Yes. Tomorrow morning, our usual place and time. If you could pass that on to him.”

“I will. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.” He took out his phone and began typing the message to Sae right away. “And as for what comes after getting you out, we’re working on it, but we’ll keep you safe. You can recover at your own pace like you need to. No more of… whatever you’d call this.”

Akechi nodded and rubbed his eyes again. He wasn’t sure why he was feeling so emotional about this. Maybe just because in all this time, he hadn’t really had anyone be honest with him about his prognosis. He had held onto hope for so long that eventually things would just be normal for him again, that he would recover all of his memories of a happy life and he’d be able to be himself. Recently, he had all of that knocked out from under him and he had to face that the memories he got back might be worse than having none at all. Being told that even if things weren’t normal, they could be better than this state he was in now was more than reassuring. It was the only thing he had to grab onto. He just hoped he didn’t lose this too.

Ren responded to the news calmly enough, but his heart had instantly started pounding in his chest as soon as he read Sae’s message. He had just assumed Akechi would never want to meet with him again. He hadn’t prepared what he was going to say to him this soon.

Morgana stretched next to him and snuggled closer against his side, silently urging him to put his phone down and get some sleep. Ren reached his free hand down and scratched his head, making him purr. Initially, Morgana had been insecure about any reflexes that made him seem any more cat-like than he already did, but in time he had come to accept them as a part of himself. The purring usually made Ren smile and that was enough of a reason to not fight with himself over it.

“Hey,” Ren smoothed Morgana’s ears back and watched them perk back up on their own. He didn’t open his eyes, but made a little noise to show he was listening. “I’m going to go meet Akechi in the morning.”

“Oh?” He opened one blue eye. “That was a quick turnaround. I thought it would take that psychologist guy longer to find time to talk to him.”

“I just didn’t think he’d say yes.” He felt his blood go cold at a sudden terrifying realization. “I hope it’s not a trap.”

“Sae-san seemed to think he was trustworthy. I think she’s a good judge of character. She’s smart.” Morgana yawned and stretched his paws out in front of him, pushing into Ren’s side.

“Yeah. I just hope she’s right.”

“You should get some rest. Dwelling on it right now isn’t going to give you any answers.” He waited for Ren to put his phone down and take off his glasses, then curled himself back into a comfortable ball. “Goodnight, Ren.”

When Akechi pushed open the door to the first floor bathroom, he hadn’t expected Ren to already be there. He was ten minutes early and seeing a figure already in the room made his heart momentarily stop. He audibly gasped and put a hand to his chest, glaring at Ren, who only laughed.

“Sorry. Scare you?” Akechi wanted to reach out and wipe that grin off his face for him. “I was nervous, so I came early. I guess you were too?”

“Something like that, yes.” He scowled and straightened his posture so he’d look less vulnerable. His heart was still pounding from both the scare and the situation itself. At the sight of Ren, his emotions had done several things in quick succession. His gut reaction was relief. Ren was and had been a comfort to him, something to hold onto, someone who was kind to him and treated him like a friend. It should have been good to see him. But the relief was quickly overtaken by a rapid succession of anger, fear, grief, and lastly frustration at himself for feeling all of these things.

“I, um... “ Ren sighed, expression shifting into something softer. “I was worried about you. When you didn’t show last time. I’m glad you’re okay.” He wasn’t about to explain that he’d had a crying breakdown on his boyfriend’s shoulder about how dead Akechi was after impulsively jumping on the wrong train, but he could at least show that he cared a little. He could play it cool.

Akechi just crossed his arms and leaned back against the door, watching him closely.

“Are you okay?” Ren took a few steps toward him and reached out a hand to touch his shoulder. The sight made Akechi’s breath catch and he instinctively found himself crouched down on the floor, covering his head with his arms, squeezing his eyes shut in fear. “Hey, whoa. Goro? I’m not going to hurt you…” He gave him a few seconds to see if he’d respond, then crouched down next to him to get on his level when he didn’t. “Hey…”

“Don’t touch me.” Akechi hissed out the words and tensed up his posture even more. It was getting harder to breathe.

“Okay. I’m not. Hands up, see?” He raised his hands in surrender and waited for Akechi to lift his head and look. He was struck by how deeply terrified he looked. “You’re safe, it’s okay.”

Akechi let out a sharp laugh and lowered his head again, hiding his face against his knees.

“I am not safe with you. You think I don’t know what you did to me, Joker?”

“What are you talking about? What did I do to you?” The level of patience in Ren’s voice was enough to make Akechi feel sick.

“I know you tried to kill me. You and your friends. I remember now. All of it.”

“What? No.” He took a few moments to gather his thoughts and work through what Akechi could possibly mean. He hadn’t ever done anything aggressive or violent towards Akechi, unless he meant-- “Goro… Are you talking about what happened in the engine room?” No answer. “Hey, look at me, okay? Do you really remember that?” A nod. “That wasn’t-- I told you before that you tried to kill me. That was the second time. It was only self-defense. We didn’t want to hurt you. We were only trying to calm you down, so we could talk to you, but… you didn’t want to talk. So… can we talk now?”

Akechi slowly lifted his head and lowered his arms to hug his knees close to his chest.

“Fine. Talk.”

“I don’t know how much you remember, but… That was the worst day of my life. Until I found out you were here, I thought I’d lost you. I thought I failed to save you. Maybe I still did.” He lowered his gaze to the floor. “The last thing I ever wanted was to hurt you. I just wanted to be your friend because you needed one. And I couldn’t even do that. I’m sorry.”

Akechi could feel his anger dissolving by the second and warping into deep sadness. He hated how changeable his moods had been lately. His heart was already latching onto every word Ren said, wanting to take it as absolute truth, and he had to remind himself that he still hadn’t decided who to trust. But he had decided one thing.

“Get me out of here. You said you could.” His voice was steadier now and he had calmed his expression enough to look sane. “If you still want to help me, then do that. Then I’ll decide if I trust you or not.”

“I can. I will-- I’m… working on it. I came here to tell you that. I need your cooperation though for this to work.” He pulled out his phone and checked the time. “We need to make this quick, I’m sorry. We’re going to work with uh-- I can’t remember his name, but-- the guy who studied Cognitive Psience-- and get you out. If the nurses try to discharge you, let them. Act like you knew you were being released and nothing is wrong. Act like you’re happy to be getting out and you knew this was coming and your doctor cleared you. Don’t let on that you’re confused or it shouldn’t be happening, or they’re going to start double-checking things. Okay?”

“So you’re falsifying my discharge papers?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“How… simple.” He barely smiled.

“Yeah, that’s what Ryuji said too. Except he was way louder about it.” He was glad to see that glimpse of a smile and returned it with one of his own. “You need to go.”

“I know.” He made no move to stand up, so Ren stood and offered him a hand to pull him up. Akechi quickly looked away and squeezed his eyes shut again, so he pulled it back.

“Sorry. Sorry. C’mon.” Ren stepped back to give him some space. Akechi stood on his own and avoided looking at him. “For what it’s worth, I don’t care how you end up feeling about me. I mean-- I do. I do care, actually, because I do want you to like me, because I like you, but-- I mean, even if you decide you want nothing to do with me, and I never see you again, I still want to get you out of here. How you feel in the end won’t affect that.”

“That’s… considerate of you, I suppose. We’ll see.” Akechi finally looked at Ren’s face. He was smiling, probably trying to be reassuring. He dropped his gaze again. “About how long do you expect this to take?”

“I’m not sure yet. We just discussed it a few days ago. Your guy will talk to you about it, probably.”

“‘My guy’. Sure. Take care, Ren.” He turned and left the room.

The door shutting echoed behind him, leaving Ren alone. He moved to slump over a sink, like he had the first time he’d come here. He just needed to stabilize himself for a few minutes. Get his head clear. Akechi didn’t trust him. That was fine. As long as he cooperated enough for Ren to get him away from here, it didn’t matter what he did after. Ren had really, desperately hoped that he could get through to him the way he couldn’t before, that they could be real friends, that he could give Akechi someone to trust in and truly let himself be safe with, but it was looking like less and less of a possibility. It was okay. It just wasn’t what Ren wanted and he’d have to get over it. This wasn’t about him, it was about Akechi.

It was just going to be a hard pill to swallow.

Chapter Text

The next few days were agonizing. There was nothing Ren could do but wait. He didn’t want to bother Takemi by asking after her repeatedly. She was a busy woman with a business and patients to attend to, and just because this was life-threateningly important to him didn’t necessarily mean it was at the top of her priority list. He hadn’t heard back from Sae about Toyama yet either. He was stuck once again trying desperately to find distractions to keep himself from wallowing or panicking. So much for enjoying his summer break in peace.

He was jumping at his phone every time it went off, hoping it would be either Sae or Takemi, only to find that it was his friends joking as if they didn't have a care in the world. He ended up muting their group chat until he could make himself relax. If they really needed him they could message him directly. Not that they needed him much these days anyway.

Akechi was always antsy nowadays, but it was made worse by knowing that something would be happening soon, without any actual reference for when “soon” was. Toyama hadn’t been back to see him in private again and Ren hadn’t specified another meeting with him either. All he could do was play the part of a normal patient. And that meant another session with his doctors.

The mood was immediately different this time. The air felt way too heavy in the room and Akechi found himself smiling nervously and looking from the head doctor to Toyama and back, awaiting some sort of explanation. They had two other men guarding the door this time, looking like bodyguards or bouncers at a nightclub. This wasn’t normal.

The doctor finished assembling his papers and cleared his throat, finally looking across the table at Akechi with his usual stern expression.

“Good morning. Let’s cut right to the chase today.” He opened the file in his hand and scanned it. “We’ve discussed your gift, how it makes you a special asset, how it is your duty to help rid the world of undesirable people. You understand, correct?” He looked to Akechi for a response, and got a nod. “Good. We need to get you back on track. We’ve spent enough time waiting for you to recover on your own, and we’re not getting the results we’d like. We need you to be able to return to work as soon as possible--”

“I don’t want to do this.” Akechi cut the man off. He knew he was taking a risk here, but he had been turning the thought of killing people over and over in his head for days now and it still made him sick no matter what angle he looked at it from.

The doctor’s eyes narrowed.

“And what makes you say that?”

“I don’t want to kill people for you.” His voice was unwavering, but he had to look away.

“Akechi,” he sounded tired, like he was speaking to a disobedient child. “These are bad people. The lowest scum of the Earth. Abusers, rapists, con artists, thieves. Do people like this deserve to go on living?”

“That’s not my decision.”

“It is your decision. You were chosen for this exact purpose. You were given these powers for a reason.”

“I’m afraid I must politely decline your offer to play hitman.”

The doctor took a deep breath and sat back in his chair, eyes still locked on Akechi. Toyama was looking flightier than ever at the tension.

“Do you believe you have any other choice?” His tone was painfully faux-polite, but Akechi could feel the anger boiling underneath. Clearly, he hadn’t expected resistance. Akechi stayed silent, staring at a spot on the table. “What exactly do you think your options are? I’d like a peek inside that mind of yours.” He crossed his arms and waited for a response.

Akechi wasn’t sure himself. He hadn’t really thought this out. All he knew was that he wasn’t comfortable in the least bit with killing anyone, regardless of transgressions. Just having the knowledge that he had done this sort of thing in the past sickened him deeply and he had no intention of continuing it now.

“I’m not certain. But committing murders isn’t one of them, gifted or not.” He finally looked up and made eye contact. He hoped he looked more put-together than he felt.

“Let me make some things clear to you.” The doctor lowered his voice and leaned closer across the table between them. “You are an orphan, Akechi. You were a bastard child, born out of wedlock to a wealthy politician and his mistress, who killed herself from the shame shortly after your birth. There is no one out there who wants you. There is no one else out there who will protect you. We took you in because you are a valuable asset to us, but that doesn’t mean you will be to anyone else. If anyone else finds out who you are, you will most certainly be killed. Do you understand?” He leaned back in his chair again.

Akechi needed some time to process all of that. They knew he was an orphan? They knew his mother was dead? Just how much did they know about him that they were intentionally withholding? He had guessed by now that they were manipulating how much information got to him, but he had given them the benefit of the doubt about initially not having known his identity and needing a tip-off to dig things up. Apparently, he had been played like a fiddle.

They said his mother was dead, but what about his father?

His… father?

His thoughts went blank for a few moments, then all at once felt like they’d been broken open violently. He gasped and doubled over, head in his hands. He could see a face perfectly in his mind and knew instinctively who it belonged to. And he felt a deep, burning rage running through every inch of his body in reaction. How could he have ever forgotten this?

“Shido.” He hissed the name out between his teeth and an agonizing pain shot through his head.

He heard a deep, pleased laugh, presumably from the doctor, and then heard Toyama moving around and scolding him loudly. He couldn’t make out the words other than a few frantic stops and don’ts. It didn’t matter. Someone put their hand on his shoulder and he lashed out, knocking his elbow into a ribcage blindly and then nearly slugging them in the face. That got him restrained and forced back down into the chair. He cried out and tried to kick at his assailants but only got held down harder. He thrashed until he tired himself out and then just slumped against the chair, defeated, realizing his cheeks were soaked with angry tears.

“Are you finished?” The doctor stood over him now, arms crossed and looking down on him like a parent scolding a child having a tantrum. He didn’t respond, only sneered up at him and tried once again to shove off the man holding him down to no avail. “Well, this speeds things up a bit. I was hoping we’d get to this point soon. I was just also hoping we wouldn’t have to restrain you for it.”

“Where is he?” His voice came out shaky and broken. It didn’t feel like it belonged to him.

“Behave yourself and you’ll find out in time. Wouldn’t want to embarrass yourself in front of your father by acting like this, would you?”

He thrashed again and felt the hands on him tighten. He could still feel tears in his eyes, but nothing felt real right now. Apart from the anger, he felt detached and far away from his body. The detached part of him tried to rationalize with the rage controlling him. He needed to calm down. He had such a drastic knee-jerk reaction to Shido that he had forgotten the most important part of his long-abandoned plan: he needed Shido to believe they were on the same team. And that most likely meant making sure the doctor thought the same way. He could be angry later. He’d be out of here soon and then he could deal with things however he wanted.

He fell still and quiet. He could behave for now. He was exhausted anyway.

“Good.” The doctor moved away from his chair to Toyama. “See? He’s fine. Just throwing a tantrum. Your incessant worrying about mental shutdowns is getting old, Toyama. Speak to me like that again and see what happens.” There was an edge to his voice that showed he was serious, and Toyama quickly nodded and apologized, holding a hand to his jaw. When the doctor turned back to look at Akechi, Toyama gave him a look that he hoped was reassuring.

“Now,” He resumed directing his speech to Akechi. “You need to understand this situation clearly. The very moment that you stop cooperating, you become disposable. Undetected prior traumatic brain damage slowly hemorrhaging and bleeding you out in your sleep. An unexpected heart failure. Suicide brought on by the despair of losing your memories. There are a million little excuses we can manufacture if we need to, but it’s so much easier for all of us if you just behave.”

Akechi nodded numbly.

The doctor talked at him for several more minutes about how he had a responsibility to continue his work, how Shido expected it of him, how he was an asset but could easily be discarded if he tried to pull a stunt like that again. This whole session had felt like he was just a child. Maybe that’s all he was to them in the first place. It was humiliating, but he was too tired now to argue. He found himself hoping that Ren would speed his plan along before he had to sit through too much more of this. More than ever, he wanted out. He’d get out and then he’d find Shido and deal with him. He never should have lost sight of that and he never would again.

He was escorted back to his room with a man’s hand still tight on his shoulder. His outburst had cost him his freedom this time, it seemed. Hopefully, not for long if he pretended to be good. He got dumped off in his room and heard the door lock from the outside. Great. As if he had anywhere to go anyway. He flopped down on his bed and tried to calm his racing thoughts, but all he could think about was Shido, and he felt more and more things he’d forgotten opening up, branching off.

They were just small things. A moment in Shido’s office. A pat on the shoulder for a job well done. A feeling of immense disgust at his touch. And then something different.

He’d had a very bad day. He couldn’t remember the details, only that he had been overwhelmingly frustrated and sad and had left work early because he was unable to focus. He had wandered to a small, quiet cafe out of habit. The barista there was always nice to him, always laughed at his jokes and made worse ones in return. He was cute and kind and he didn’t look at Akechi like everyone else did. He let him stay after close and talked to him like he always thought a friend would. He held his hand. He kissed him nervously over the bar and tried to laugh off his own anxiety.

Ren…

He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, willing himself to remember more, but the well had run dry.

Ren cursed himself for waking up so late. Maybe it was irrational, but he felt like every second counted with this whole thing. Every second he stayed in bed doing nothing, Akechi was sitting in that hospital having who knows what done to him.

He jumped out of bed and got dressed hurriedly, running a hand through his hair as a substitute for proper grooming, and rubbing sleep from his eyes. Morgana was nowhere to be found, and Ren realized he had probably gone downstairs to be fed and bother customers hours ago. Still, he grabbed his bag in case he wanted to come along on a field trip.

He took the stairs two at a time, nearly tripping on the way down and smacking into the wall with a thud that made the few customers look up at him.

“Uh, hi. G'morning. Sorry.” He mumbled and slipped past them and behind the bar to pour himself a coffee to go.

Sojiro raised an eyebrow at him.

“You look frazzled. You oversleep for something?” He passed Ren a pitcher of cream and Ren poured what was, in retrospect, way too much into his drink and passed it back.

“Sort of. I'll help out this evening, I'm sorry. I promise.” He looked around the floor under the bar and in the back towards the kitchen. “Where's Morgana?”

He saw a fuzzy head perk up from behind a customer's leg.

“I'm here.” Morgana slinked out from under the table and shook himself off. He padded over to Ren and rubbed against his leg before being picked up and held against his chest.

“Come with me. You need some fresh air.” Ren ruffled the fur on his head and slipped him into his bag. Morgana made a small noise of protest at being dragged away from his free food scraps and attention, but settled down into the bag.

Ren grabbed his coffee from the counter and left for Takemi's office.

“Where are we going? You're not taking me into the hospital with you, are you?” Morgana poked his head out of the bag and looked around. Ren didn't take him everywhere these days, now that it was unlikely they'd be ending up in the Metaverse unexpectedly. Morgana mostly got to be a normal, lazy cat.

“Of course not. You'd open your big mouth and we'd get kicked out immediately. I already have to sneak around in there.”

“Then where are we going in such a hurry?”

“To see Dr. Takemi about Akechi. I just wanted some moral support, okay? Do your job as my emotional support animal.” He tried to sound detached and cold.

“Aww, Ren.” Morgana laughed, the sound mixing with a purr. “You know I will always emotionally support you. As long as you keep giving me sacrifices of fatty tuna.”

“Yeah, yeah. Blood sacrifices for the collective subconscious's kitty cat.” Ren patted his head and gently nudged his him back down into the bag as he entered the door to the clinic.

Takemi looked up from her seat behind the reception desk when he entered.

“Do you have an appointment, sir?” She twirled the pen in her hand and grinned at him with one eyebrow raised.

“You really need to hire a receptionist.” Ren shifted his bag from one shoulder to the other and moved over to the door to the back, not waiting for an invitation.

“If you're so worried about it, why don't you come do it yourself?” She stood and followed him, opening the door and meeting him on the other side.

“Cuz you wouldn't pay me for it.”

Takemi just shrugged and sat down at her desk.

“Guess I just won't have a receptionist then! Now, about your friend… An old colleague of mine runs a small inpatient facility out on the edge of town. Normally, she only takes in short-term patients for physical therapy and recovery from those sorts of physical injuries, but she's a total bleeding heart and I know she'll keep her mouth shut if I ask her to.”

“What's the catch?” Ren set his bag down next to him and leaned forward with his chin in his hand.

“Other than it being a temporary solution? There isn't really one. She'd be doing it as a favor for me, technically. And I'm doing this as a favor for you.”

“Thanks. Really, I appreciate it…”

“If he's in as much danger as you make it sound like, you'll need to check him in under an alias and try to keep your trail covered. But I think you can handle that.” She crossed her legs and smiled at him, looking him over. “You're a smart boy.”

“I try.” He returned her smile and sighed. This was all coming together. “I'll let you know when we need to move him. I have to arrange some things first.”

“Just let me know at least a day in advance so she can get some space ready. It’s not that crowded, but I’m sure she’d appreciate the heads up.”

“Yeah, of course. Thanks, again. Seriously.”

“And in return,” she gently bopped him on the top of the head with her clipboard. “You need to try and get more sleep. Eat better. You look horrible. A kid your age should be full of energy.”

“I’ll do my best, Doc.” He took a sip of his coffee and waved it gently, trying not to spill it. “Look, I’m even having breakfast.”

“First of all, it’s noon. Second of all, get out of here and go eat some real food before I prescribe you a handful of dietary supplements and make you pay out of pocket for them.”

“Okay, okay.” He stood up and hoisted his bag onto his shoulder. “I’ll be in touch.”

Takemi waved her hand at him, shooing him out of her clinic wordlessly. Despite her teasing, Ren knew if he stuck around he might really get a lecture about his health and a long list of things she was certain he was deficient in. He could get by without that.

Morgana poked his head out as soon as Ren stepped out onto the street.

“That sounded promising.”

“Yeah, I just hope it’s not too good to be true. And that we can even get him out in the first place.”

“I have full faith in Futaba. She can definitely pull this off.”

“It’s not Futaba I’m worried about.”

“Oh, yeah… I guess we can’t know for sure how much we can trust that guy, but I have a feeling that things will work out. Try not to worry too much, okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

It took a couple of days, but when things started moving, they moved incredibly fast.

Toyama was able to figure out a narrow window when the rest of the team would be out for a few hours. They were going to a meeting elsewhere, and Toyama had been unceremoniously shunned from most gatherings since his lashing out at the head doctor, so he wouldn’t be in attendance. That left him with no direct supervision and only one goal: move Akechi out of the hospital.

Sae was informed of the date and time beforehand and had passed that information along to Ren, who had passed it along to Futaba and Takemi, and Futaba was armed and ready to work her magic within a ten minute time-frame. When Toyama passed on the signal that everyone else had left, she got to work. Hacking into the hospital’s records had been just as easy as it had been the first time and, in a matter of minutes, Goro Akechi’s records had been altered to show him ready for discharge that same day.

Ren didn’t think he breathed the entire time Futaba was working. He was sitting next to her on his couch while it happened. He kept trying to convince himself that this was really happening, that things would be okay. If one little thing went wrong, it would be over and he would never, ever see Akechi again. He would have lost him a second time. Not even a miraculous second chance would have kept Ren from massively screwing over someone who desperately needed him. Akechi would die all alone again and he--

“Ren.” Futaba sounded annoyed and a gentle shove at his arm snapped him back into reality. “You good? You still existing on this plane or did you move to another one?”

“Yeah, I exist.” he replied weakly.

“It’s done. He’s good to go.” She looked proud of herself, just like she always did when she did some cool sci-fi stuff that Ren was too dense to comprehend.

“I hope so.”

“You doubt me?” She lightly punched his arm and he tried to smile.

“No, never. Just everyone else.”

There was a knock on Akechi’s door and he didn’t bother responding. He never did anymore. People would come in whether he welcomed them or not, so it didn’t really matter and he might as well save his breath. He glanced up when he heard the door open and saw Toyama step into the room. He looked worse than usual.

“Good morning,” his voice was shaky. “Uh, ready to go? Today’s the big day!” Akechi almost felt bad for how hard this man was trying to hold it together, but any sympathy he felt was immediately eaten up by what he had just heard.

“Oh, right, yes. Of course.” He thought about taking some of the books he’d been given with him, but decided against it in favor of getting out of there as soon as humanly possible.

He followed Toyama to the front desk downstairs and tried to look as normal as he possibly could. His heart was pounding and he had a nagging feeling that this was all going to go straight to Hell any second. He nearly had a heart attack when one of his nurses flagged him down, but she only told him goodbye and that she’d miss seeing him around. She gave him her well wishes before rushing off to get back to work.

He made small talk with the receptionist while he filled out his discharge paperwork with Toyama’s advisory. And then it was done.

For the first time in half a year, he stepped through the hospital doors and into the outside world.

A cab had been called for him. He didn’t ask where it was taking him and he didn’t know what to say to Toyama, so he simply told him goodbye before stepping into the car and letting it take him to his destination. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a trap. That this car was taking him to some remote location so the doctors could kill him quietly and bury him in the woods. They had practically threatened to do as much. His hands were trembling so he clasped them in his lap.

The driver was friendly, but quiet. They made some small talk between the two of them, but the latter half of the drive was filled with silence, and Akechi’s mind was left to wander.

He found himself thinking of Ren.

If this really was to be the end of his life, he wondered what Ren would think. Would he be glad to see him finally gone even if he hadn’t been able to be the one to take him out? Or would he be heartbroken? Just one memory of a kiss had been keeping Akechi barely afloat amidst fear and anger ever since he had recalled it. It was calming. It felt more like home than anything else he had managed to pull out of the wreckage of his brain.

And then there was the matter of Shido. Things were still fuzzy around him, but Akechi was absolutely certain of one thing, and that was that Shido needed to pay for the lifetime of agony he had brought upon him. He knew he had been close to killing him when he had nearly lost his own life. He just needed to get back on track, find him, and finish the job. As long as he held onto that goal, maybe he could make it. If he wasn’t about to be murdered himself, that is.

The drive dragged on for what felt like a slow eternity, but over time the buildings thinned out and Akechi realized they were leaving the city limits. Oh, God. They really were going to kill him. He considered unlocking the door and leaping out of the car. If he was going to die anyway, what did it matter if he died from hitting the pavement? At least he would have a choice in the matter that way.

He was still going back and forth on that decision in his mind when they pulled up to what looked like a hospital. It was much, much smaller than the one he had just come from, but it was definitely a medical building of some sort.

The driver made a comment about wishing him well on his recovery, and Akechi managed a distant-sounding thank you as he got out of the car. The driver didn’t ask for any sort of payment before driving away, so he assumed the fare had been paid upfront by whoever called for the ride.

He blinked in the sunlight and looked around as the car sped off. There was no one outside. He could run. Maybe if he ran, they wouldn’t find him and if they couldn’t find him, they couldn’t kill him. He’d have to spend the rest of his life in hiding, but he could leave the city, take on a new identity--

He practically jumped out of his skin and whirled around so fast he almost sprained his ankle when he felt arms go around him. He cried out and thrashed, sending a pair of glasses flying.

“Oh my God, Goro-- Shit, hey!” Ren instantly released Akechi at the first sign of struggle and stepped back, almost stepping on his glasses. “Okay! That was admittedly a very bad idea!” He picked up his glasses and inspected them. They didn’t seem scratched so he put them back on.

Akechi had taken a few huge steps back and was now looking very angry and confused. Ren couldn’t blame him.

“You--” he was breathing hard and it took him a few moments to get his words out. He settled for just one. “Ren.”

Ren grinned and rubbed some tears out of his eyes with one hand. Even if Akechi was pissed, he was just happy to see him out of that building.

“Goro…” he sniffled and rubbed at his eyes more. “I’m sorry, I told myself I wouldn’t cry. I’m just happy to see you. C’mon, let’s go inside and we can talk.” He motioned to the door to the building and Akechi hesitantly stepped forward and went inside with him.

He was checked in at the counter under a fake name. Ren had picked the most common sounding name he could think of for added security. There had to be a million other people in the country with variations of that name. It was much safer than Goro Akechi, anyhow.

The owner of the practice came to see them in personally and reassured both of them that she knew the situation and that Akechi would be safe here for some time. Her lips were sealed and from that point on, he'd be treated just like any other patient. Akechi was free to do what he wanted within reason. He could go for walks nearby as long as he checked in and out with a nurse. He could have visitors within visiting hours, unsupervised.

After briefing him on some regulations, the doctor left and Ren and Akechi stood alone in the small room they had been shown to.

Ren cleared his throat and broke their silence.

“Well. I kept my promise.”

Akechi sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands. He suddenly felt so tired.

“Thank you.” he mumbled.

Ren sat down next to him and started to touch his back but thought better of it and kept his hands to himself.

“We can talk here. Or I can let you settle in and come back tomorrow. I mean, if you… even want to see me again… I gave you what you wanted, so I mean… I can just leave you alone. If you want.” Ren swallowed and looked down at the floor. He was really hoping it wouldn't come down to that.

Akechi sat up and took a deep breath.

“No, let's talk. You still owe me answers, after all.”

“Right. Okay.” Ren sat up straighter as well and smiled. “I… I can’t outright tell you a lot of things, because it might make you sick. But I can answer questions, I think.”

Akechi felt an immediate pang of anger at being told he wouldn’t be getting everything laid out for him, but then he thought about it. He had definitely felt ill in the aftermath of learning new, horrible information each time. He had no reason to believe Ren or Toyama were lying to him about that. Fine. Answers to questions were a good start.

“Does anyone else know I’m here?” He’d start with feeling out the current situation. As it was, he was very confused about his surroundings.

“The only people who know the location are me, a friend of mine who knows the owner of this clinic, and another friend of mine who was helping me communicate with you through Toyama. My closest friends just know that you’re safe. And if anyone here asks, by the way, you’re recovering from a head injury.”

“Right. Well.” he barely laughed. “Something like that.” He fell quiet for a moment, thinking. “I keep expecting to wake up.”

“Me too.”

The room was silent for several minutes. Akechi tried to clear his head, but it was persistently foggy, presumably from exhaustion and so much quick change around him. He caught himself spacing out and pulled himself back.

“I remembered something about you the other day.” he glanced over at Ren and saw his eyes widen slightly. He looked worried.

“Oh. Oh yeah?” There were so many bad ways this conversation could go and Ren was bracing himself for the worst of it. Akechi had already remembered something that he’d been able to twist into Ren being a murderer out to get him. What else could he possibly remember with no context that would put him in an even worse position?

“Well, not about you. But, a memory involving you.” Akechi sounded way too calm for how Ren felt. It must have been bad. “You kissed me.”

Ren exhaled hard and started laughing. He hadn’t been expecting that one.

“I mean, yeah. I, uh, I did do that. A few times, actually. Pretty often.” He couldn’t stop smiling now. “Any other context clues, or just a kiss?”

“We were in a coffee shop. You leaned over the bar and kissed me, and then you couldn’t stop laughing.” He eyed Ren with an eyebrow raised. “Like now.”

“Sorry, nervous habit. Oh, God, I was so nervous. I thought you might throw your drink at me or something. That was the first time I did it, so I… Now I’m embarrassed. You couldn’t remember me sweeping you off your feet or something instead? You had to remember the awkward first kiss?”

“You don’t seem like the type to sweep someone off their feet. You would probably trip and drop me.” Akechi was trying to sound serious, but Ren’s smile and laughter were contagious, nervous habit or not, and he found himself smiling as well.

“Well!” Ren was flustered, searching for a defense of his dignity. “I did. Actually. I dropped you. And you got mad at me for laughing.”

Akechi couldn’t help but laugh at that. It was all so silly. He’d just escaped captivity and near death and now he was sitting on a bed talking about something so trivial with a boy he had apparently been romantically involved with. And now he didn’t have trouble believing that. The connection between himself and Ren felt so natural even now. Even without all of his memories intact, he just felt right with him. He had to remind himself that he was supposed to be doubting him.

He relaxed his expression and waited for Ren to do the same, but he kept a small smile on his face. He seemed so happy.

“Ren,” Ren hummed in response. “Why go to all this trouble? I… I was… I am a murderer. I tried to kill you. I can’t even remember all of the terrible things I must have done. And yet you’ve done so much, even with the threat that I may cut you off entirely. Why?”

Ren’s smile faded entirely and was replaced by a much sadder expression. He started to speak a few times, but kept stopping himself. His feelings were simple. There was no grand explanation for anything he had done. Every major decision he had made in the past year could be summed up in the same way.

“Because I wanted to help.” He gave Akechi a sad half-smile. “I let you down once before in the biggest way. Life handed me another chance to try again and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake as before. Last time, I didn’t know what you needed until it was too late.”

Akechi didn’t know what to say. Everything Ren had done for him thus far had been so selfless. He had convinced himself there had to be a catch, but what if there just wasn’t? What if Ren really was just a selfless, kind person who wanted to make up for whatever mistakes he had made in the past? Could it be that simple? He would have to think about it.

“My apologies, but I think I would like to rest for a while.” Akechi spoke slowly. His head had only felt more cloudy the longer they had talked. Some time alone to decompress would do him some good. “If I could see you again tomorrow, I think my head will be a bit clearer. I’ll try to organize my thoughts until then.”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. You’re probably tired.” Ren stood from the bed and straightened his shirt, fidgeting with the hem. “I’ll come back tomorrow, in the afternoon probably… Try to rest, okay? Things are gonna be okay from now on.”

Ren walked towards the door and opened it.

“Ren,” Akechi’s voice was quiet. “Thank you, again.”

“For you, I’d do it all over.” He smiled over his shoulder, then stepped out and shut the door behind him.

It wasn’t until Ren had gone that Akechi realized something very important: he had forgotten to ask about Shido.

The Phantom Thieves spent the evening together, getting dinner and taking it back to Haru’s place to get comfortable in front of her very large TV for a movie marathon. For the first time in weeks, Ren felt relaxed. He was snuggled in close between Ryuji and Mishima, half-conscious of what was going on on the screen and instead focused on how warm and soft his boyfriends felt around him. He ended up drifting off to sleep half-way through the second movie, and when he woke up, someone had put a blanket over all three of them.

It occurred to him that he was lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful people.

Ren returned to the clinic the next afternoon as promised, a thermos of sickly-sweet mocha in one hand and a bag full of philosophy and mystery books on his shoulder. He had found the most insulated container they owned and prayed it would remain warm on the long journey across town. It still felt pleasantly warm against his skin, so maybe it would be okay. It was making him weirdly nervous.

He knocked on Akechi’s door, and it was opened for him. Akechi still looked tired, but he was smiling.

“Good morning. Er, afternoon now, I suppose. I overslept embarrassingly late.” Akechi stepped aside and let Ren into the room.

“Well,” Ren offered up the drink in his hand. “Let me help you wake up.”

Akechi gingerly took it from his hand and looked it over. It took a moment, but a bigger smile spread across his face when he realized what was happening.

“Coffee. Thank you…”

“Your usual order. I promised you I’d get you some when you got out of there, so… There you go.” Ren nervously ran a hand through his hair, making it even messier than usual. Suddenly, he felt foolish for bringing a cup of coffee an hour across town.

Akechi took a sip and shut his eyes, savoring the taste. It made Ren smile to see it. It was the same face he had made nearly every time he had come into Leblanc, like he had never tasted anything better in his life. It always seemed like such an overreaction to a simple mocha, but Ren had just been happy that he liked it so much. Now, it was just endearing.

Akechi opened his eyes and looked up at Ren.

“Thank you.” he repeated.

“Good?” Ren took a seat on the edge of the bed and set his bag down next to him, leaving room for Akechi on the other side of it.

“Yes, wonderful. Perfect. It’s still warm, too, even with how far you must have traveled to get out here.” Akechi sat down with him and set the coffee down on the bedside table after taking another sip.

“Oh, good. I was kinda worried about that… I’m glad it held up okay.” He opened his bag and dug around in it. “I, uh, I brought you some books too. Since I tried to before and they wouldn’t let me. I just had all these books sitting around in my room and my sister kept making fun of me and telling me they were too smart for me, so, uh, here you go.” He pulled out a few books and set them aside.

Akechi picked a book up and examined it. He looked interested. The subject matter definitely looked promising and it was one he hadn’t read. The trickle of books in as pity gifts from nurses had been so slow, he hadn’t been able to get his hands on much. It would be nice to have something new.

“You have a sister.” He turned another book over in his hands.

“Oh, yeah. Futaba. She’s actually the one who got your paperwork changed.” Ren handed him another book. He wondered if he should be telling Akechi anything about the others or about their plan in general, but at the same time, it wasn’t like a first name was going to put them in danger. And he already knew the records had been altered.

“Well, she has my thanks then.” Akechi set the book down and folded his hands in his lap neatly, looking at Ren expectantly. “I’d like to talk to you about a few things, if that’s alright.”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m here, treats aside.”

“It’s about Shido.”

Ren hoped he didn’t look as surprised as he felt. He hadn’t had any idea that Akechi even remembered Shido. He knew the so-called doctors had been probing him and trying to recover memories about the Metaverse, but it hadn’t occurred to him that it would include this. Knowing about Shido was perhaps the most dangerous thing they could have done to him, but it was also an integral part of Akechi’s identity. It was only right that he knew.

“What about him?”

“I need to finish what I started.” Akechi’s expression was serious. He looked more sure about this than about anything Ren had seen in their recent time together. “I know that you just went to all of this trouble for me and I may be throwing away my freedom and possibly even my life by doing this, but it’s not something that I can just set aside. I know it’s not something you’re likely to give me information on outright, but even if you refuse, I just need you to know that I will find a way.”

Ren hadn’t planned on having to break the news to Akechi that his father, the subject of his revenge plan years in the making, was locked away, reformed. Akechi wouldn’t be able to reach him, and Ren had a feeling that it wasn’t going to sit well with him in this state or in any other. He stayed quiet, fidgeting with a book for something to focus on. The silence grew heavier and Akechi just continued staring at him with those harsh eyes, waiting. Finally, Ren sighed.

“You aren’t going to like this.” he spoke quietly, mostly to himself. He couldn’t look up and meet his eyes. “A lot happened between the incident and now, and... things aren’t really the same as they were.” He took a deep breath. “The last thing you said to me was to stop him so, I… did.”

Akechi was completely silent, still staring at Ren, but now in disbelief. Ren noticed he was clutching a fist in the sheets, hard. He wanted to reach over and hold his hand, to make him relax, but he just held onto the book in his own hands tighter.

“You killed him.” It was a statement, not a question.

“No. But it was what you wanted, at least a little. He fell from grace. He’s rotting in a jail cell now, out of public view. Feeling a lot of remorse. He knows what he did to you, and to everyone else.”

Akechi seemed to relax, only a little.

“Better to live with the weight of what he’s done than receive a merciful death.” His voice was barely audible. His eyes were down on his own lap now.

They both fell quiet again and Ren took the chance to reach over and very gently take his hand. Akechi tensed at first, but didn’t jerk away, and relaxed his grip on the sheets enough for Ren to hold his hand properly.

“Are you okay?” Ren spoke just as quietly.

“I… will be. I suppose I don’t have any other choice. What else can I do now, but accept it?” Ren thought he heard his voice break, but he didn’t mention it. He squeezed his hand instead. “If it was what I asked you to do, then it must be what I wanted at the time.”

“We both thought you were dying.”

Akechi sighed and laughed bitterly. He pulled his hand away from Ren’s and clasped his own hands in his lap. He sniffled and then made a noise of disgust.

“Taking him down was all I had for so long. I can remember that now, even if everything else is foggy. I just had this sense of as long as I have this, I don’t need anything else about my life. Everything I did was done for one purpose. If my life was a waste, if I had no friends or family, if my very existence was cursed, I could at least use what I had to take out the man who made me this way.” His voice was harsh with anger. He looked over at Ren with tears in his eyes, brows furrowed. “Now what? How do you move on from that?”

“I… don’t know.” Ren met his eyes and held his gaze there. “But I’ll help you.”

Chapter Text

The next few months were tumultuous, to put it lightly. Goro Akechi found himself in strange position after strange position. There were ups and downs, and they were both equally frightening. Over time, things would come back to him. Slowly but surely, his world was becoming less and less dark. Learning to trust other people was a process. Even before his apparent death, it had never been a skill he had mastered. But the payoff now felt so worth it.

Every now and then, he would come across something difficult. A memory that hurt rather than healed. He would go through a cycle of emotions: anger, disgust, despair. The urge to shut everyone out was always there. Ren had told him it was okay to need time alone to process things. It was also okay to talk to him, or to any of the many people Ren had brought into his life. They had all been through things. They would understand. They were a family, and Akechi could be a part of that too, if he wanted to. That offer hadn’t expired and it never would.

Even as he slowly learned the truth about the Metaverse and his and their experiences surrounding it, he was never treated like a criminal or a monster. He wasn’t held up like a hero like his doctor had done, either. He was just treated like a person who had made mistakes and lived a hard life. There was a lot to come to terms with. It would take a very long time to process all of it.

His time at the clinic came to a close. There had been a bit of a panic about what to do now that he couldn’t keep living as a patient, but Futaba had been her usual crafty self.

Akechi was given a new identity and, with Haru’s help, he was able to secure a small apartment outside the city. He was able to go back to school if he chose to, and to get a job. Ren and the others made frequent trips out to see him. They spent a lot of time together.

It took some time for all of them to come around to him, but before he knew it, they were spending evenings together, watching movies, eating meals, all falling asleep scattered around Haru’s living room.

He was always the last to fall asleep. Sleep didn’t come easy to him, even after months in a safe environment. He sat awake, comfortable, listening to the small sounds the others made. It was hard to be upset at his insomnia when it gave him such a perfect opportunity to really take in just how surrounded he was by other people. And not just strangers, but people who, at least in the most basic sense, cared for him. The first time that realization hit him, he had to get up and excuse himself to the bathroom to cry quietly.

It came down on him hard that he wasn’t lonely anymore. Throughout his entire life, that had been his one consistent experience, and now it was gone, just like that. Now he was sitting on the bathroom floor in his friend’s apartment, quietly sobbing, overcome by emotions he couldn’t put a name to.

There was a knock on the door and Ren’s voice cautiously calling his name. He jumped at the sudden noise and tried to compose himself before answering.

“Yes, just… just a moment.” His voice came out shaky and he hurriedly rubbed his eyes and tried to make himself look more put together. It was a bit of a lost cause. Ren would definitely know he had been crying.

He took one long look at himself in the mirror. He wore his hair pulled back most of the time now, but he had let it down to sleep, and it hung around his face and down his shoulders, messy from tossing and turning. His eyes were red and puffy and so were his cheeks. He wasn’t proud of it. His fans would have been disgusted to see him like this. If he still had fans, that is.

He gave up on making himself look okay and unlocked and opened the door to a very awake looking Ren.

“Hey...Oh.” He took in Akechi’s appearance and frowned. “You okay?”

“Yes. I think so.” Akechi tucked some hair behind his ear and looked away. “Did I wake you?”

“Oh, no. I couldn’t sleep. I heard you get up and you never came back, so I was just worried. I thought maybe you left the house or something.” Ren shifted his weight from one foot to the other anxiously. “I know it’s unfounded, but I just, uh… Sometimes I worry you’re just going to disappear and… It’s stupid.”

Hearing that surprised him, and after it sunk in, he felt tears welling up in his eyes again. He sniffled and quickly rubbed them dry. To be told that he was cared for and looked after was still difficult for him to take in. His mind didn’t put up the exact same kind of fight it had put up before, but there was still a barrier there. Instead of outright rejecting it aggressively, his instinct now was to simply become overwhelmed by the idea itself. He wasn’t normally so quick to cry about it, but Ren had caught him at a bad time.

“I’m here. Just. You know.” He sniffled again and tried to force his voice to steady, but it refused. “My apologies.”

“No apologies. Let’s go sit outside so we don’t wake everyone else up.” Ren gently touched his arm and led him to the door to the balcony.

They settled down together on a bench outside and Ren touched Akechi’s hand, waiting for a signal that he was okay with prolonged touch. The hand pulled away and Ren pulled his own back as well. That was okay.

They sat quietly, listening to the wind and the quiet sounds of the city below. Akechi stopped sniffling and rubbed his eyes with his sleeves one more time. He decided he was done crying now.

“I’m okay. I… really am. I’m not sad, it’s just…” He trailed off, unable to find the right words. He shrugged instead.

“Yusuke told me one time that crying is a basic form of human expression. He said it doesn’t make you weaker to cry and it doesn’t make you stronger to not cry. I really needed to hear that, so… Maybe you do too.” Ren looked over at him and smiled. “You don’t need to apologize to me or to anyone for how you’re dealing with,” He gestured vaguely in front of himself. “Like, everything.”

“You should remember to take that advice yourself, then.”

Ren frowned and crossed his arms, pouting. He looked incredibly cute, Akechi decided.

“Excuse me, but I am the one giving life coaching right now, not you. You can wait your turn and get in line with everyone else in there who gives me good advice I don’t follow.”

“Noted.” Akechi managed a weak smile and nervously nudged his hand over Ren’s.

Ren gladly accepted and moved to hold their hands between them. He rubbed little circles with his thumb, a habit he had picked up from Yusuke. It always calmed him down to have it done to himself.

A hush fell over them again.

“I’m glad you’re here.” Ren’s voice was hushed and he looked away as he spoke. “I know things are always going to be kind of weird, for both of us, but I just… I’m glad. For this.” He squeezed Akechi’s hand. “And just, to be able to see you, and… Really talk to you. Not under some false pretenses or, locked in a bathroom, just…” He trailed off and laughed nervously. “I like seeing you happy.”

He was happy, he realized. Happier than he had been in a very long time. That was what had felt so overwhelmingly foreign to him: something as simple as happiness.

Toyama had been right. Maybe his life would never be normal, but it could be better.