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Takuto cups his heart in his hands. Breathes on the glass. Adjusts. The farthest spark of light is out of his reach (for now, his influence spreading point by point) but he sends Rumi well wishes, and hopes that she knows she’s loved. She must, he thinks. Her grandparents are lovely people.
It’s easier by the core.
Happiness is a warm burden, and so buoyed he waves to Ryuji running laps— he’s far too busy on the path laid out in front of him to notice an old man at the sidelines. Yoshizawa offers a stranger a sample of something better not described (curious!) and Takuto takes small bites across the Shibuya scramble.
Okumura and Niijima brush hands over the last hot-bun in the shop. Ann splashes mud onto his coat in a mad sprint to the next fashionable store, Suzui in hand and Morgana trailing behind them both. The Sakuras celebrate Iishiki Wakaba's latest accolades over expensive sushi, and find the meal discounted, the owner moved to tears. Kitagawa paints the sunrise.
Takuto isn’t sure what he is. Too human to cradle the whole of his world-- not individually, not constantly, he’s not foolish enough to think that wouldn’t drive him quite mad-- but to make these children’s lives just a little brighter… It's a small thing. It’s the least he can do.
Akechi Goro climbs the stairs to Leblanc.
(too human to not have regrets.)
“Akechi-kun,” Takuto breathes. Akechi shoots him. The force of it sends him back down the stairs he didn’t climb, but it’s all the same to him. He looks down at Akechi from across the room-- he can’t be disappointed, not when the kid is shaking, left-hand gripped tight in Jokers even as the gun remains trained on Takutos face.
Joker sleeps on. He won’t dream of this.
“Get away from him.”
Takuto offers arms open in supplicantion, and is not surprised to find Akechi unmoved by the overture. “You’re smart, Akechi-kun,” he tries, regardless. “Please; you know there’s no point to this.”
Akechi snarls in wordless rage
“I’m so sorry.” Failures and regrets. Joker never would make it easy, would he? “...Won’t you hear an old man out? I am being honest here, I truly don’t want to force this.”
“I have nothing to say to—” but he does. Akechi’s eyes flicker to Jokers sleeping, vulnerable face. The gun wavers. Bloody work has never suited him: his heart is beautiful where it isn’t broken, and Takuto aches to set it right. “God dammit. What did you do?!”
“He won’t wake up,” Takuto offers by way of explanation. “Not unless I let him.”
“Then do it, coward. I thought—” Akechi cuts himself off to laugh, harsh and broken edged. “—I thought you’d at least pretend to respect him. Taking him out before the fight… how pathetic.”
“Akechi-kun,” Takuto replies, careful to keep his voice soft and level. “I didn’t act until the deadline had already passed.”
“You’re lying.”
“He was in—“ it sets Takuto’s teeth on edge to think of it, the position he put his dear friend in. “—so much pain, Akechi-kun. It was tearing him apart. So he did what he always does.”
Akechi’s voice shakes. “You’re lying!”
“He ran.” Poor kid. “And he avoided his troubles, until it was too late for anything to be done.” Lonely kid. “I know what you must think of me… but I did what he needed me to do, for the sake of his heart.”
Akechi shoots him again. It’s an empty gesture, made emptier by the fact that the gun is now out of bullets— he knows it and Takuto knows it. Still, he doesn’t drop the weapon. Maybe if he wishes hard enough he’ll find cold metal fully loaded once again… cognition, Takuto is willing to admit, makes logic softer than it used to be.
Takuto is hardly it's only master.
“...you know why he did it, don’t you. Akechi-kun?”
“I—“
Takuto pushes onward. “You know what his wish was. What he guessed. What he avoided.”
Akechi could wipe the shine from his eyes if he cared to empty his hands— drop the gun or his friend or both. He doesn’t. Uninterrupted, the tears fall fat and angry. “I know Joker is a fool. I know he betrayed everything he ever cared about.”
Poor kid. Lonely kid. “You know,” Takuto explains, gently, “that he cares for you the most.”
“You piece of--” Akechi laughs. “You piece of shit. You don’t get to speak for him. Not when he’s— he can’t even—“
“Forgive me the presumption, but… you and Joker both waste so much energy, running from love. Aren’t you tired?”
“Get OUT of my— FUCKING— head.”
Click. Click. Click.
No bullets. He must not want it hard enough.
“I’m really am-- sorry, Akechi-kun. I can’t help being what I am.” Not that he’d be hard to read, if that was still something that needed effort. Takuto refrains from mentioning it. “I know how you are-- but please, you have to understand. It doesn’t have to be like that, not anymore! I can help you.” He gestures to Joker, a small movement engineered to not distress Akechi further. It doesn’t work. “I can help him.”
Akechi breathes heavily. Takuto accepts the implicit permission.
“He doesn’t… like my paradise. Neither do you. And I respect Joker a great deal— I know you don’t believe me, but I do.”
Without Joker, would his research have ever seen the light of day?
“The world was so cruel to you, Akechi-kun. Here, if you let me… none of it had to happen. Everyone who died is living peacefully. Your father, in prison. Your mother, free to enjoy the life she deserved. And you can live happily here, with friends who love you. With him, if you’ll allow it. If you allow me to take the burden of your memories, you’ll never have to know.”
“Aha— ahaha—“ Akechi had never stopped crying, but the tears ran slower now, pooling out from red and puffy eyes. “Maruki, I never should have been born. Will you grant me that wish? Will you— ha— turn ME into my mother? That worked out for Sumire, didn’t it— oh, sorry! Kasumi. Whatever makes Yoshizawa-san happier, right?”
“Akechi-kun…”
“What, too Freud for you? Whatever.” Click. Pulling the trigger just to pull it. “...but you need something from me, don’t you. You don’t respect me enough to ask. Or put me in a fucking coma.”
“Yoshizawa-san is happy,” Takuto— well. Snapped. He smoothed out his expression too late to stop Akechi from flinching, hackles rising in bitter reflex. Dammit. “Fine! Fine. Speaking plainly… Joker’s wish was you, reunited with him, exactly as you are. It would have been easier if I’d adjusted your memories, but…”
“That’s not what he wanted.”
“No,” Takuto replies. “It isn’t.”
Takuto aches to make him better, make him happy and safe and whole. But— but-- but--
Exactly as he is. He owes Joker this much.
“...what do you want, Maruki-san.”
“He didn’t want to hurt you.” Akechi’s hand spasms in Jokers. His dear friend sleeps on. If Takuto hadn’t crafted the situation himself, it’d be easy to think he was dead. “Or trap you. Consciously, he wouldn’t even admit that his wish was a factor. I won’t force him to be happy here, but— ah, if you agreed, then I could wake him up! If you make the decision for him, he’d—“
“Shut the hell up.” There’s no fire to it, but there’s no victory to be found… not in this sad little predicament. How horrible. “You want me to ruin him.”
“That’s dramatic.”
“Ha… I hate you. If you’re God now, you should know that— I hate you.”
“It’s not reciprocated.” Takuto likes Akechi a great deal, to be honest, misguided resolve and all. “Will you at least consider it?”
Akechi watches him silently, eyes dead and flat. “No,” he says. “I won’t.”
And then Akechi shoots Joker.
(tears through his skull and) But (back out bullet struck through the crates that hold up his little bed in a shower of splinters and) he’s fine, sleeping like he should be and fine and fine and fine.
(a drumbeat or a heartbeat or) Of course he is.
(Its great idiot maw the Master of thought)
There is no gun. (there never was) This is his paradise-- who would need something like that? He didn’t allow it.
“....You could have hurt him.” (thin whistling in his ears he knows the unseen piping of flutes the most terrible orchestra no one ever heard), “I don’t understand. Akechi-kun, I don’t… understand? You love him.”
(nyarlenthotep laughs in the cold places as it knows what it’s masters never have and the Father does Not UNDERSTAND)
Forgive the tremor. Akechi doesn’t. The boy bares his teeth in wild defiance, Takuto’s many arms holding him in place safe and secure and pressed up and away from his friends peaceful dead slumber. (he does not lay on a bed of splinters and never was bleeding never was dead). He struggles, because he has too. Because there’s nothing left to do. Akechi Goro is no one’s puppet, not anymore, not EVER again— what wouldn’t he do, to save him?
Joker is the most important person he’s ever met. Of course he cuts the strings.
“Stop,” Akechi whispers. The look on his face is indescribable. He doesn’t need it described. Takuto understands, now. The boy wears his broken heart on his sleeve. “Stop!!”
Forgetting would be a mercy. “Your wish and Joker’s… are incompatible.” Takuto aches. “I understand, even if I disagree. To you, my paradise will never be anything but a cage— but please, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t want you to dance. There are no strings, Akechi-kun. There’s nothing to cut.”
Akechi’s heart bleeds freely as it beats. Rage and fear and helpless tears. “I told you— I TOLD you, get OUT.”
This is your true form, the boy thinks. Disgusting.
Joker’s been jostled into strange and awkward angles— Takuto tucks him back under the sheets, brushes hair out of blind and peaceful eyes. He’s asleep, his friend, and Takuto knows he dreams of nothing. Akechi Goro’s posturing is not difficult to tune out.
He thinks.
“I understand you, Akechi-kun,” he says, not expecting to be heard. “I understand that you won’t change your mind. But for my sake... I’m going to give you a week. To decide, or to not.” He laughs— does he? Can’t help the sound that breaks past his lips as it happens. Akechi’s ears bleed. “Forgive my foolishness… but this is for Joker’s sake as well. He’d want it to be your choice.”
No choice at all, the boy howls. It’s unfair of him.
“If he had a CHOICE, you wouldn’t have put him in a— FUCKING coma— nobody FORCED YOU to—“
“Visiting hours are over, Akechi-kun.”
Takuto snaps his fingers.
(goodbye.)
“Ah, just us now. I’m sorry.”
Takuto exhales. He doesn’t need to breathe— but whatever he is, it’s human enough to find it comforting. Across the city, Akechi Goro (foolish boy) wakes up in his own apartment, content to scream and scream and (lonely boy) scream. “Your boyfriend is… a character.”
Joker opens his eyes.
(blindness is a virtue).
“Goro…?” he murmurs. “...wh…?” Joker looks up at Takuto— his mouth turns down in the faintest outline of a scowl— before his brow smoothes over and back into the unconcerned oblivion of sleep.
He shouldn’t have done that.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Takuto muses. “...It’s okay! You’ll be with him soon, I think.” It’s odd. Joker’s curious— irrepressible— outburst should have worried him… but if anything, Takutos's own conviction burns brighter. He’ll sort this out. He has too. “...One way or another, Joker-kun.”
Joker is alone in the room.
(he sleeps and does not dream.)