Chapter Text
[CHATLOG. Ren to Akechi, 12:12PM, 2/6/XX]
Ren Okay, we’re on our way.
Akechi Finally.
Akechi I’ll meet you on the platform.
It was a three-hour train ride from Tokyo to Inaba: plenty of time for a nice long nap, which Morgana took full advantage of. Ren intended to do the same, but discovered that he couldn’t relax. He fidgeted in his seat, went to the bathroom even though he didn’t have to, farted around on his phone, took out a book and stared blankly at the pages.
He was done. Finished. He’d completed his last exam the night before, and although he wouldn’t get his diploma for another six weeks, he was, as far as he was concerned, a college graduate. A degreed professional, with a job already lined up at a counseling office in Minato-ku. It was…wild. He wasn’t sure he believed it yet. He kept half-expecting to wake up and realize he’d never gone to school at all.
What really had him on edge, though—the thing keeping him from sitting still—was the fact that he was going to see Akechi for the first time in weeks. Akechi had been in Inaba helping Naoto Shirogane with a case. They’d been working together for a while, Akechi based in Tokyo and Naoto in Inaba and environs; this was the first time she’d asked him to assist her in the countryside, and of course he’d immediately gotten stuck there, wrapped up in something big and complex (but not dangerous, thankfully). It was fine. It was his job, and it was important, and Ren had been able to distract himself with his last stretch of classes, studying for finals, and job interviews.
Now, though, he had two months off before he officially entered the working world, and he intended to spend as much of them with his boyfriend as he could.
Akechi wasn’t the only person on the platform, but he was the only person that mattered. The sight of him lit a fuse in Ren’s chest, and its hissing ticked down the seconds as he picked up his suitcase, swung Morgana’s bag over his shoulder, and made his way with deliberate calm off the train. Akechi watched him approach, arms crossed, smiling faintly.
“Hello,” Akechi said, and the firecracker inside Ren’s ribs went off. He grasped the back of Akechi’s neck and kissed him. Akechi gripped his waist, dragged him forward, impossibly strong, impossibly warm even in the chill February air. Ren had expected to be excited, and he was; he’d expected to be happy, and he was; he had not expected the lump in his throat or the burn in his eyes. He buried his face in Akechi’s collar, taking comfort from the beat of his pulse against his lips.
“Hi, Akechi,” Morgana chirped.
“Hello, cat.” Akechi threaded his fingers into Ren’s hair, sighed against his ear. “I missed you.”
“You have no idea,” Ren managed.
Akechi pressed his nails briefly against Ren’s scalp, making his breath catch. Then he stepped back, picked up Ren’s suitcase, jerked his head. “Come on. I have a car.”
He did have a car, a sleek slate-grey sedan on loan from the police department. Ren let Morgana out of his bag so he could curl up in the backseat, and took the passenger side. “I don’t think I knew you could drive.”
“Of course I can,” Akechi replied, piloting them smoothly away from the curb. “How was the train?”
It was like he’d never left, and thank god for that. Ren hadn’t been lonely, exactly. He had Morgana; he had dozens of friends and confidants a phone call or text away; he had at least ten people in Tokyo he could seek out if he needed someone to talk to. (Or, more typically, if they did.) But there was lonely, and then there was…whatever he’d been without Akechi in their apartment. Incomplete. They’d lived together for a year and a half; Ren was used to seeing his toothbrush in the medicine cabinet, sitting across from him at the table, feeling his arm around his waist when he woke up in the middle of the night. They’d talked all the time, and texted even more, but it wasn’t the same as the physical reality of him, the way the light caught his skin and danced in his hair, the way his mouth moved when he talked.
His mouth…
When the conversation tapered off, smothered by the energy crackling between them, it wasn’t because they’d run out of things to say. They just didn’t have enough blood left in their brains to say it.
Akechi parked outside of Yu and Yosuke’s house and opened the back door for Morgana, who leapt delicately to the ground. Pointedly not looking at Ren, who was pointedly looking at him, Akechi retrieved Ren’s suitcase from the trunk and led the way to the front door. This he unlocked, and opened, and Ren and Morgana followed him inside.
“Are Yu and Yosuke home?” Ren asked.
“No,” Akechi said, hanging his keys beside the door. “Yu’s visiting Nanako. Yosuke usually works until about six.”
“So we’re alone for the moment.”
“I’m here,” Morgana yowled, and shook his head. “You guys are impossible. Are you gonna be gross down here, or somewhere decent?”
Akechi smirked at the cat. “It would be rude for us to make a mess of the house, I think.”
“Fine,” Morgana said. He trotted across the room, hopped onto the sofa, and settled down for a bath. “You two go do whatever you’ve gotta do to stop looking at each other like that.”
Smirk widening into a smile, Akechi turned on his heel. “Come on,” he said over his shoulder. “My room’s upstairs.”
***
“Hello!” Yu called, flicking on the entryway light. “We’re home.”
“Maybe they’re not here yet,” Yosuke said.
“Hi guys,” said a boyish voice, off to their left.
Yosuke yelped and jumped a foot in the air, nearly knocking over the coatrack. Morgana was sitting on the kitchen counter, eyes luminous in the semidarkness.
“Hi, Morgana,” Yu said, cool as you please.
“Christ,” Yosuke grumbled, carefully righting the coatrack. “Don’t scare us like that!”
“Us?” said Yu.
“Fine, me, don’t scare me.”
Morgana snickered. “I’ve still got it.”
“Where’re Ren and Akechi?”
“Where do you think?” Morgana sighed, flicking his tail. “Upstairs, doing unspeakable things to each other. They’ve been gone for hours. And I’m starving.”
Yosuke made a face, but Yu smiled. “Aw. The first time apart can be hard.”
“It’s not their first time apart! There was—” Morgana paused. “Well…I guess this is the longest they’ve gone. Still!” He sprang from the counter and coiled around Yosuke’s ankles. “Didja bring me anything? Are you gonna cook? What’s for dinner?”
“We figured we’d go out,” Yosuke replied. “Ren’s done with classes, right? We gotta celebrate.”
“Sounds good to me.” Morgana flopped onto his side. “But you’ll have to carry me. I’m too weak to walk.”
“Ren carries you everywhere anyway.”
“I’m just skin and bones,” Morgana mewled, feebly waggling his paws. “Wasting away to dust.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” said Akechi.
He was coming downstairs, buttoning the cuffs on his shirt, Ren on his heels. They were both freshly showered and dressed; if not for Morgana, you’d never have guessed what they’d been doing. Unless you were Yu, who saw everything, and thought it was sweet, the baby gays in love. He didn’t kiss Yosuke’s cheek just then, because Yosuke would have been embarrassed, but he put the idea in his pocket for later.
“Hi Ren,” Yu said.
“Hey man!” Yosuke exclaimed, punching Ren lightly on the shoulder. “Congrats! You’re finished!”
“I know,” Ren said, twiddling a lock of his hair. “It’s weird.”
“Gotta be a relief, though, right? You’re a new man! A real adult! And you’ve got a job waiting for you and everything, yeah?”
“Only part-time, but yes. It’s a great organization.”
“I’m dyyyying,” Morgana announced.
“What a shame,” Akechi drawled, nudging Morgana’s belly with his toe. The cat sprang to his feet, bristling.
“Don’t do that!”
“We want to take you out to celebrate,” Yosuke said. “There’s this Chinese place, Aiya—it’s really good. You up for it?”
Ren brightened. “Sure. Sounds great.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Morgana demanded. “Let’s go!”
***
They were passing through the South Shopping District when it happened.
“—serious, you should see these things,” Yosuke was saying. “They’re like, this big. And this guy—” He jerked his thumb at Yu—“eats ‘em all the time! I don’t know where he puts it all!”
“It’s just like the Big Bang Burger Challenge!” Morgana said, popping out of Ren’s bag to rest his paws on his shoulder. “The biggest one is almost as tall as he is! But he still—”
As the group reached the Shiroku Shop, its door swung open and an older couple, a man and a woman, stepped out onto the sidewalk. He was tall and lean and weathered by age, with silver strands running through his mop of fluffy black hair and wrinkles at the edges of his bold brown eyes. She was a bit shorter, but still generally tall, her head level with the man’s shoulder; her face was fine and angular, and she wore her gray hair in a long braid.
They only narrowly avoided a collision. Yu threw out his arm to stop Yosuke, and the woman recoiled in alarm, blinking at them through enormous gray eyes. The man caught her shoulder, tensing as if to pull her behind him.
Ren straightened up. “Oh.”
“Whoa, sorry,” Yosuke said, smiling. “Traffic jam!”
“Please excuse us,” said Yu.
The woman’s face went carefully blank. The man frowned, offered the woman his arm, and they glided away. Ren turned to watch them go, and so did Akechi, looking thunderous.
“Huh,” Yosuke said. “Chilly reception.”
“Everything okay?” Yu asked, glancing from Akechi to Ren and back.
Akechi rounded on Ren, folded his arms expectantly. Ren didn’t react. He was still staring after the couple, completely still, fists clenched at his sides.
“Oh, yeah,” Yosuke said. “I always forget—you grew up here, right? D’you know them, or something?”
Morgana butted his head gently against Ren’s. This seemed to wake him up: his shoulders rose as he inhaled. He turned around.
“They’re my parents,” Ren said.
Akechi looked away.
Yu understood at once, but Yosuke didn’t.
“What? Wait, what? Did they not see you or something? Hey!” Yosuke called, raising his voice at their distant backs. “Hey, y—”
“Yosuke,” Yu said, grabbing his arm. “Uh-uh.”
“Wh—” Yosuke’s expression clouded, and then cleared, and his jaw dropped. “Oh. Oh, shit. Did they ignore you on purpose?”
“Seems that way,” Ren muttered, putting his hands in his pockets, curling slightly in on himself.
“Why would they do that?”
“Because they don’t like me,” Akechi sneered. It was an ugly look, full of hurt. “Or rather, they don’t like what I represent. For the record, they don’t like you two, either.”
“What?” Yosuke exclaimed. “Why not?”
“Yosuke,” said Yu. “We’re gay.”
Yosuke sputtered. “So? That’s none of their business!” After a second, he deflated. “Oh. Aw, man…”
Ren reached up as if to adjust a pair of glasses that weren’t there, and settled for pushing his bangs out of his eyes instead. He was never very expressive at the best of times, and now was no exception, but if you knew the tells—and Yu, who saw everything, did—he was obviously stunned, and stung. Whatever his relationship with his parents had been, he had not expected this.
“Parents are tough,” Yu said.
“Oh man, totally,” Yosuke said eagerly. “Like, my parents—well, they’re actually pretty okay. I mean, I hated them in high school because they moved us here, but it turned out here was better than where we were, so we’re good now. It’s chill. But uh, you know, I know some parents are—not good, and not chill. And that’s tough.”
“My parents are dead,” said Akechi.
Yosuke goggled at him, recovered admirably. “That’s—yep, that’s, uh, that’s pretty much the spectrum! You’ve got good, bad, and then…dead. I don’t know what I’m saying anymore. Somebody get me out of here.”
“Beef bowls!” Morgana cried, leaping to the ground.
“Beef bowls!” Yosuke agreed, pumping his fist. “Let’s go!”
They marched off. Akechi, falling into step behind them, caught Yu’s eye, passed him the baton. Yu dropped back to walk alongside Ren, who was hunched and quiet.
“You don’t have to do this,” Ren murmured.
“Do what?”
Ren shot him a smirk. “The Wild Card thing.”
“I’ve been doing ‘the Wild Card thing’ longer than you, kohai,” Yu said. “Watch and learn.”
Ren’s smirk flickered briefly into a smile, and then faded.
“I’m sorry about them,” he said. “I’m their son, they can treat me however they want, but the rest of you…that was wrong.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Yu made a soft sound of assent. “Are you guys not talking at all, then?”
“We talk,” Ren said, stooping to pick up a discarded wrapper. “They call Akechi my roommate, and ignore me when I correct them. If I try to tell them about him, they ignore that too. It’s like they can’t hear me.”
“Or they don’t want to.”
“Yeah.” They passed a trash bin; Ren tossed the wrapper inside. “I haven’t visited in a while. I didn’t know they were going to pretend I didn’t exist. And if I confront them about it, they’ll pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Still. If it upsets you, you should let them know.”
“I wish I thought that would help.”
They continued on in silence for a moment. Then, Ren said, “How did your parents take it, when you told them?”
Yu lifted one shoulder. “They took it fine. I think they always suspected it was coming. But it’s not a fair comparison. They grew up in Tokyo, they’ve lived all over the world…they’ve seen a lot more than your parents probably have, here in Inaba. They’re open to being surprised.”
“I thought my parents were too, is the thing,” Ren said, the shadow of an edge creeping into his voice. “They stuck by me through so much shit. Shido, and having to move to Tokyo, and faking my death and...they don’t even know Akechi, or our history. It’s not about him as a person, it’s about him as a man. I never thought they were like that. I never thought this would be the thing that set them off.”
“They’re probably scared. Doesn’t make it okay. But fear messes people up.”
Ren shook his head. “All my life, they’ve told me that I should try to do the right thing. ‘Whatever else you do, always do the right thing.’ The most basic ‘right thing’ they could do now is be happy for me, and they can’t. They won’t.”
“What’re you gonna do, then?”
Ren lifted his head, studied Akechi’s back.
“Go and see them, I guess,” he said. “Try to make them understand.”
Yu ruffled his hair. “If anyone can get through to them, you can.”
“Thanks,” Ren replied, reaching up to smooth his hair where Yu had touched it. It looked exactly the same, but he seemed satisfied.
“Here it is!” Yosuke announced, spreading his arms to encompass the warm glow emanating from Aiya’s windows. “The best food in Japan! C’mon, let’s get a table.”
Yu followed Yosuke inside. Ren knelt to let Morgana climb back into his bag.
“You okay?” Morgana asked, peering at him.
“I’m okay.”
He swung the bag over his shoulder, straightened up, found himself face to face with Akechi.
“Are you really?” Akechi asked.
Ren took a deep breath. “I will be. I’ll go see them tomorrow. If I talk to them in person, I’m sure I can make them understand.”
Akechi wrinkled his nose, dubious. “I could come with you, if you think it’d help.”
“No, not yet. I think it needs to be the three of us. But thanks.”
“All right.” Akechi nudged the door open. “After you.”