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Akechi had become acquainted with you even before he made the deal with the Phantom Thieves, before everything turned upside down for him. He still remembered the sound of your voice as you apologized for spilling coffee on him, which at the time had been such a disaster in his eyes but thinking back on it now, he didn't understand why he had been upset. After all, the coffee was lukewarm and had only stained his black pants, of which he had countless pairs.
For some reason, you weren't disgusted by him. In fact, you didn't even seem to recognize who he was. There was a part of him that wished he had never befriended you, that wished he had just waited until the Culture Festival at Shujin. If you hadn't been there through everything, it would have made it far easier to betray the Phantom Thieves. Even then, he still had a sour taste in his mouth with every day that passed as you and Akechi grew closer and closer. Days turned into weeks turned into months that Akechi wished he had never met you.
Maybe then, he wouldn't have been so disgusted with himself when it came time to put everything into action.
He had invited you to his apartment one day after classes had let out, needing some time away from his job due to the rampant hatred he was receiving from his stubborn stance against the Phantom Thieves. By then, he knew you were one of them, had seen you in action and heard about you from Akira. He had made the deal with the Phantom Thieves and made resolute his plan to stop the Phantom Thieves and earn Shido's recognition once and for all. He didn't understand what made him invite you over; he could have put it to anything from intrigue to boredom, refusing to put a name to the emotion he knew the least and hated the most.
You had made yourself comfortable on his modest couch while he made tea in the small kitchen behind you, dropping your bag on the ground and sitting there quietly. He could see you looking around, your eyes wide and inquisitive as you investigated everything from your makeshift throne. You had turned your head and caught him staring at you, but instead of scoffing at him or dismissing him, you smiled. You turned that damned smile on him, and he almost dropped the tea kettle.
Why? he wanted to demand, wanted to grab you by the shoulders and shake you, as though you were a Magic 8-Ball that would reveal your answers if he did such. "Why?" was such a simple yes-or-no question, and yet it was such a loaded one. It was the quintessential question asked to suspects and convicts when trying to find out why they committed their crimes; in your case, your crime was showing Akechi the potential of a future where he could be happy without consequence. I represent everything you stand against--the police, the law and order of society, the rotten adults that the Phantom Thieves wish to take down! Why do you still look at me like I'm a friend worthy of your affections?!
He didn't say any of that. Instead, he returned your smile and carried over the tray, a ceramic tea pot and two matching cups set neatly upon it. You had giggled at the animals printed on the cup, taken the one that he assumed had your favorite ones on it, and served the tea with a steadiness he could only assume came from years of practice. You raised your cup to him, clicking them together while murmuring the traditional cheers under your breath. He found himself focused on your lips for some reason, watching as you gently blew at the top of the cup before taking a sip.
"Akechi..."
Even after this long, you still hadn't called him by his first name. He wondered why that bothered him so much. "Yes?"
You set your cup down on the tray and crossed one leg over the other. He surveyed your profile, tracing everything from your forehead to your chin without the shame he knew he should feel. His gaze wandered down to your torso, to your hands clasped on your knee. You hadn't had time to change out of your school uniform, seeing as how he wished to see you the moment school let out, and he was astounded that someone could make the standard school attire look so...elegant. (He knew he was jumping around the right word he wanted to use, but he didn't really care.)
"What do you think you mean to me?"
The question was so sudden and so unexpected that Akechi flinched, almost spilling tea on himself. He set his cup down before he did and turned fully to you, resting his arm across the back of the couch. "Why do you ask?"
You shrugged, finally turning to face him. Your eyes were narrowed, gaze calculating, far removed from the happy-go-lucky and determined personality you usually showed to him and the world. It was an odd shift from the side you had shown him up until now, even mere seconds before. "It's just an honest question. After all, we're getting close to our infiltration date for Nijima's Palace. I thought I should ask while we're both Phantom Thieves before...well, you know."
He did. That didn't stop his mouth from going dry, nor from him questioning whatever ulterior motives you might have. After all, he'd never gotten this close to someone before, never allowed himself to. He was always obsessed with being perfect, with being outstanding, with impressing everyone and being able to take pride in himself that he never considered the idea of being important to someone just because. He began tapping his fingers on the back of the couch, and you followed his movements with your eyes. He flinched as you took his bouncing hand in yours, your grip warm even through the insulating material of his gloves.
Akechi couldn't find the right things to say. Instead of taking offense to that, the longer he went without answering, you almost seemed to grow amused at his lack of response, your eyes lighting back up with that familiar fire. He wished you had never stared him in the eyes, wished he never found the courage to look you in them either; maybe then, he wouldn't grow so dangerously hypnotized by you.
So dangerously hypnotized that if you were to ask him to give you the stars, he would most certainly find a way to give them to you.
He desperately needed some way to remove the cotton from his mouth, but he couldn't bring himself to take his hand away from yours, nor to look away to grab his tea. He couldn't entertain the idea of looking away from you for a second, and the reasoning was lost to him. He cleared his throat and spoke, his voice hoarse: "I don't know."
"That's a good answer." You squeezed his hand and slowly interlaced your fingers through his. "It's impossible to put it into words how much I care for you, how much I want the best for you. Instead...I promise that I'll always be here for you. No matter what."
His heart jumped to his throat and threatened to choke him. How ironic that his own emotions would be the thing to take him out. He was paralyzed by your gaze, hypnotized but full of terror. "What? But...how can you say that? I'm blackmailing you and your friends, I-I stand for everything you're against...how can you look me in the eyes and promise something as huge as that?"
A little smile lit up your face, pressing small creases into the corners of your lips. "Well, you trusted me enough to tell me about your father and his expectations for you. I just thought you should know I trust you the same."
Akechi couldn't help but search your eyes, trying desperately to find any hint of hesitation or deception in that bittersweet gaze he found himself so entranced with. Instead, you looked just as honest and straightforward as you always had been, and for once, he found himself relaxing in the presence of another person. He scooted a little closer, letting his knee touch yours, and although neither of you tried to move closer, he was content. With this amount of physical distance between you, maybe he could convince himself that the lack of emotional distance didn't approach the emotions that he feared despised the most.
Neither of you attempted to close that distance for the next month. Words couldn't describe the shock he felt when you continued to see him even after he killed Akira and made it appear to the rest of the world that the leader of the Phantom Thieves had committed suicide. He found himself trying to dissect everything you did, throwing himself deeper and deeper into a self-imposed madness as he insisted to himself that you were just keeping an eye on him for your friends while you tried to recuperate from the distress caused by Akira's "suicide."
There couldn't have been anything else.
It was impossible.
You had to hate him. You had to want him dead. There was no other explanation besides distrust and suspicion as to why you were still keeping up with that promise from what felt like so long ago.
And then came that fateful day in Shido's Palace, when he finally tracked you all down after realizing that Akira and the rest of the Phantom Thieves had managed to pull the wool over his eyes, as well as the eyes of everyone else in Japan. He knew he had no right to feel betrayed; after all, he had turned against the Phantom Thieves first...but there was still a part of him that couldn't believe you had stayed by his side out of the goodness of your heart. When he learned of Akira's survival and pieced together portions of the Phantom Thieves' plan, to him, that was just confirmation he was right.
When he saw you in Shido's Palace, his frail sanity had snapped. Seeing you sided with the Phantom Thieves against him, despite everything you had told him, despite all of your reassurances and that sweet moment when you had promised to stay by his side...maybe it was wrong of him, but he felt betrayed. He screamed at you the Phantom Thieves that he would kill you them, especially Joker, but he didn't want this. He wanted to be accepted, but he knew that if you couldn't stay by his side, then no one else would.
Despite his best efforts, he was defeated, even after unleashing Loki and forcing a psychotic breakdown on himself. He had collapsed in front of the people he had ridiculed and betrayed, on his hands and knees, trying his best to block out everything they were saying and all their reassurances, and yet he couldn't fully do so. Their words, especially yours, slipped through the cracks in his walls, allowing them to begin their fall to ruin. He let himself to entertain the notion that they would allow him to come with them to defeat Shido, that you would give him a second chance (if you had ever truly given him a chance in the first place.)
He never thought it would come to this. He never thought his own Shadow would be the one to take him down. He had prepared himself to die, too; he turned his gun on the Shadow when it told him to kill Akira and shot it in the stomach. When Akechi aimed his gun at the red button to separate himself from the Phantom Thieves to give them time to escape, he thought they would take their chances and leave him to die. It was what he deserved after all; you, at least, had that right to leave him.
He had heard the expression "blood ran cold" countless times, but when he saw you react on a dime and run to his side milliseconds before the partition wall came up, that was the first time he'd ever experienced that sensation. The sheer shock of the moment almost made him fall, but when he felt your hand grab his elbow and bring him back up, he knew he wasn't dreaming, knew that this nightmare was real.
"You idiot!" he snapped, shaking your hand off his arm and grabbing your own as you attempted to step in between him and his Cognitive self. "What are you doing?! I was trying to give you time to run!"
On the other side, your friends yelled your name, slamming their fists against the wall and begging you to come back. You shook your head, giving him that damned confident smile he had always loved and hated at the same time as you summoned your Persona and pulled your gun out from the belt of your outfit. Seeing you like this made him think back to the times he had fought by your side in Sae's Palace. He never thought you would give him that honor of fighting by your side again.
"I promised you I would always be here for you, yeah?" you asked, turning your gun on Cognitive Akechi. "I would think that after this long investigating us, you'd have realized I never go back on my promises."
Cognitive Akechi let out a guttural groan as he straightened himself, a hand pressed against the gun wound in his stomach. His face was contorted with pure, unadulterated rage and pain; Akechi hadn't said it out loud, but seeing this expression on his Cognitive self was more jarring than he realized. Was this really the face that the rest of the world saw? "You bastard!"
Akechi leveled his gun at his Cognition, standing by your side. He slowly put his hand on your waist, and found himself smiling despite the situation as you put yours on top. "So my final enemy is a puppet version of myself...Not bad."
"You ready?" you asked. He nodded, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "Then let's go. Persona!"
Gunshots rang out from behind the partition. Morgana took a few hesitant steps toward the wall, looking up at it. "Come on...you've got this!"
A few minutes passed, filled only with your hoarse cries and the sounds of gunfire as you and Akechi leveled attack after attack on both the Cognitive Akechi and the Shadows around you. As your SP dwindled out, you took the backseat, taking charge of healing yourself and Akechi as he fended off the rest of the Shadows.
Finally, silence fell in the area. You collapsed onto your knees with a slow sigh of relief, and Akechi did the same next to you. You reached over and worked his mask off his face, brushing your hand against his jaw as he stared at you in disbelief. He was exhausted, but not the mental drain that he had grown accustomed to; he was physically exhausted and emotionally as well as he tried to figure out the strange abstract of a person in front of him.
An amused, albeit tired, smile lit up your face. "Do you still not believe me?" you asked.
"No," he admitted bluntly. Still, he didn't push your hand away; in fact, he put his hand on yours, looking you straight in the eyes with an intangible and indescribable emotion. "Why? I was the reason why you as the Phantom Thieves were all ostracized and villainized by Japanese society..."
You shook your head firmly. "You weren't the only one to blame for that. You were played by Shido...your father. You were so desperate for him to finally love and accept you, for anyone to take pride in you as more than Shido's puppet, that you were willing to do anything. I can't blame you for that, even though you did put all of us through a lot of trouble."
"I didn't stop him," he protested. "I hurt all of you."
You managed a little laugh and pressed your forehead against his. You put a gentle hand on his neck, feeling his thrumming pulse under your fingertips. Even from that mild movement, his heartbeat began to ease just a tiny bit, going from a sprint to a jog. "That might be the case. But don't you think living up to your crimes and finding the right penance is a much better way to solve all of this than taking the easy way out?"
He flinched and drew back a little so he could look you in the eyes. "W-What?"
"I can't let you take the easy way out," you said with a shrug. "You don't deserve to die. Besides, it'd be kind of hard to live up to my promises if you were dead, yeah?"
He let out a hoarse laugh of his own and shook his head. "You really are something else. I don't get it."
You grinned and ran your thumb along his cheek. His eyes grew misty and a few sparse tears began rolling down his face. You hushed him and brought him into a gentle embrace, closing your eyes and running your hand through his hair. "Come on. Let's go home. We can decide what to do when all of this is finished, okay? It'll be you and me...Goro."
His heart skipped a beat when he heard his first name roll off your tongue. Finally, he put a word to that damned emotion, and he found he wasn't afraid of or disgusted by it anymore. He nodded against your shoulder, your clothing growing damp with his tears. "Yeah. Okay."