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The news broke while they were visiting Ryuji and Ann. Akechi, Ren, and Ryuji sat around the chabudai, Akechi finishing his coffee, Ren entertaining the kids: three-year-old Mei and eighteen-month-old Suzume, tiny versions of their father with their mother’s pale blonde hair. Ryuji was scrolling through his phone, leaning back against the couch; Ann dozed behind him with the baby snuggled against her chest.
Suddenly Ryuji brightened. “Hey! Turn the TV on!”
“Where’s the remote?” Ren asked.
“Where’s the remote?” Mei demanded of her little sister.
“Remote,” Suzume said, spinning around, toppling onto her bottom. “Remote. Remote.”
“Mei-chan,” said Akechi, setting down his mug. “Why don’t you turn the TV on for us?”
Mei beamed. “Kay!” she said, and skipped over to oblige.
“Breaking news tonight as the Diet officially passes legislation to legalize same-sex unions in Japan,” said the newscaster.
“Hm!” Akechi said.
“As you can see—” The camera cut away to the streets of Shibuya, packed with people waving their arms in the air and cheering—“thousands of citizens flooded Tokyo tonight to celebrate this hard-fought political victory.”
“Whoaaaaa,” Suzume said.
“So many!” Mei agreed.
Ren’s phone vibrated; he switched it on. A new text from Yoshida: We finally did it. I’m sorry it took so long.
Smiling, Ren tapped back a reply: Everything in its own time, right?
“Man, that’s great,” Ryuji said. “It’s about damn time.”
Ann sat up, carefully lifting baby Uta to her shoulder. “So,” she said, “are you guys gonna get married now?”
Ren and Akechi froze.
“Oooooooh!” Mei squealed, throwing her arms around Ren. “Get married, Uncle Ren! Get married!”
“Why would we do that?” Akechi asked. Ren was probably the only one who heard the edge in his voice.
“I dunno,” Ann said, shrugging. “I mean, you don’t have to. But now that you can, I wondered if you wanted to.”
Akechi rounded on Ren, almost accusing. “Do you want to?”
“Uh,” Ren said, extracting his arm from Mei’s grasp so he could pat her head. He was often quiet, but he wasn’t often speechless. “Um.”
Ryuji threw his head back and laughed. “Aw man,” he cackled, “you should see your faces! You really put ‘em on the spot, Ann!”
Ann laughed too, bouncing Uta gently as she began to stir. “I’m sorry! I didn’t realize this was such a touchy subject! Forget I said anything.”
They did not forget.
They were ten feet out the door, hands deep in their pockets, when they both said, “Do you—”
They broke off. Ren chuckled. “You first.”
“Do you want to get married?” Akechi asked, fixing him with a hard, appraising stare.
“I don’t know,” Ren replied. “I mean, I used to think about it, in high school. But with you, it’s never felt…necessary.”
Akechi narrowed his eyes. “You don’t need a ring to make it official?”
“No. Why would I? I’m in this for the long haul. Ring or no ring.”
“Hmph,” Akechi said. “Well, that’s good. I wouldn’t want you to think that I’m not ‘in this,’ as you put it, simply because we haven’t gone through the motions to prove it to everyone else.”
There was an undercurrent there, right at the cusp of hearing. Something he wasn’t saying.
Ren peered at him. “Do you want to get married?”
Akechi stiffened. “No! Of course not. I don’t need—”
“I’m not asking if you need to. I’m asking if you want to.”
Their faces were very close. Akechi went pink.
“I…don’t know,” he said, shifting his weight. “It wouldn’t change anything.”
But.
Ren straightened up, smiling.
“I love you,” he said. “You are never, ever, ever getting rid of me, no matter what.” Akechi snorted faintly. “I don’t need a ring, or a piece of paper, or a party to know that I’m all in. But if you want to do the thing—if you want to get married, if it would make you happy—then let’s get married. All you have to do is ask me.”
“Ah,” Akechi scoffed. “Very nice. Put the decision on me.”
Ren shrugged one shoulder. “You like being in control, right? And I know you like surprising me. What better surprise than a proposal?”
He slipped his arm through Akechi’s, tugged him onward.
“I suppose I could look into it,” Akechi said. “There might be legal benefits to the arrangement that we haven’t considered.”
"That’s the spirit.”
***
There were legal benefits. Lots of them. If they were married, they could be listed on the same koseki, with all the privileges that entailed. Renting places together would be much easier. (Buying a place, even moreso.) And if something ever happened to one of them, they would have control over each other’s medical care, possessions, funerals. Right now, if Ren got sick or injured or…worse, his parents could take control of his affairs. They could cut Akechi out completely.
Akechi had never met Ren’s parents. Ren still spoke to them sometimes, clipped, curt phone conversations that rarely lasted long. They didn’t approve of their son’s life choices, especially his living situation, and they typically refused to acknowledge Akechi’s existence. More than once, Akechi had heard Ren say, “No, Ma. Not my roommate. My partner.” He usually hung up shortly afterward.
(If they got married, Ren could say, “My husband.”)
Akechi tried to picture standing in a hospital, really, truly alone for the first time in years, and being forced to yield to those people, who cared so little for their son’s wishes that they’d actively rewritten reality around themselves. It made his skin crawl.
He was kneeling at the chabudai, hunched over his laptop, when Ren plopped down beside him with a sigh. He’d taken off his jacket and undone the collar of his shirt.
“You should change your pants,” Akechi said absently, automatically. “They’ll wrinkle.”
“If you want me to get naked, just say so,” Ren replied. “Here.”
Ren nudged Akechi’s laptop aside and replaced it with a beef bowl. Across the room, Morgana was wolfing down one of his own.
“Thank you,” Akechi said. Then, “Would you want to change your name?”
“Hm?” Ren said, pulling apart his chopsticks.
“The Koseki only accepts one surname,” Akechi said, puncturing his egg so that the yolk could soak into the rice. “If we were married, one of us would have to take the other’s name. Would you want to take mine?”
Ren tilted his head. “Ren Akechi. I don’t know. It might be a little weird. I call you Akechi more often than I call you Goro.” He brightened. “I’d take your name if I could call you Goro all the time.”
“Ugh,” Akechi muttered. “I don’t understand your obsession with that name.”
“It’s yours,” Ren replied, as if that explained it, and popped a piece of beef into his mouth. “Is that what this is all about?” he added, nodding at Akechi’s laptop.
“I’ve been doing the research.”
“And?”
“There are lots of benefits to being married. We’d be considered part of the same household. If something happened to either of us, we’d be able to manage each other’s affairs. And if we had children—”
He stopped. There was a faint clink as Ren set his bowl down.
“Children?”
Akechi glanced at him. “Do you want children?”
Ren looked like he had when Ann had started this mess: completely blindsided. He closed his mouth, scratched the back of his head.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never thought about it. I mean…I like what we have now. Why change what works?”
“Everything changes,” Akechi snapped. “You should know that better than anyone. At least we could take some measure of control over it.”
Ren’s expression shifted. When he was like this, tender and luminous, he was almost painful to look at.
“Do you want kids?” he asked quietly.
Akechi looked away. “I don’t know.”
“Well,” Ren said, turning fully to face him, “let’s unpack that. Sorry. Let me get out of work mode. Fwoo. When you picture us having kids, what do you see?”
Akechi thought about it.
“Nothing,” he said at last.
“Nothing?”
He was using his therapist voice again, but Akechi let it slide. “The only reference point I have,” Akechi said, wrenching every word out of himself like weeds out of the ground, “is my own childhood. Which was miserable. I wouldn’t want to subject our children to that. But I don’t know what else there is.”
“Ah,” Ren said.
Akechi didn’t dare look at him. His heart hurt enough already.
“What do you see?” he asked instead.
Ren didn’t answer right away. In fact he was silent for so long that Akechi risked a peek. Ren was staring off to one side, soft and distant. After a moment he seemed to sense Akechi’s gaze, and turned to meet it.
“I picture…playing video games with them,” he said. “Walking them to school. Watching you read to them. Watching you…”
It was like staring at the sun. Akechi looked away again.
“Fine,” he said, picking up his bowl.
“Fine, what?”
“Let’s get married.”
“Wh—you—” Ren laughed. “That’s it? That’s all you got? Let’s get married?”
“You need more pomp and circumstance than that?”
Ren smiled so big that Akechi felt it, rippling across his skin like sunlight. “When? Where?”
“We’ll just go down and file a notification. Easy.”
“I think we’d better plan a party, too. Otherwise we’ll never hear the end of it.”
“You’re getting married?” Morgana exclaimed, springing onto the table.
“Uh-oh,” Ren said. “Cat’s out of the bag.”
“We could lock him in the bathroom for the next few days,” Akechi said.
Morgana arched his back. “Don’t do that!” he spat. “I won’t spill the beans! Ren’s right, though. We gotta invite everybody! The Phantom Thieves, the Shadow Operatives, the Investigation Team—”
Shaking his head, Akechi returned to his dinner. He didn’t get far, though, before he felt Ren’s hand on the back of his neck, his lips against his cheek.
“I love you,” Ren murmured, breath tickling his ear.
Akechi shrugged him off, gently. “I love you too.”
[CHATLOG. Chie to Kanji, Naoto, and 5 others]
Chie Okay this chat is now WEDDING PLANNING CENTRAL
Chie BECAUSE
Chie @YU @YOSUKE
Chie when are you guys getting married?!
Yukiko :o
Yosuke ????????
Naoto i was wondering that too
Naoto if ren and akechi can get their act together, well
Naoto you two have no excuse
Rise I live for this.
Yu Huh. Fair point
Yu What do you think, Yosuke?
Yu A spring wedding?
Yosuke I’m not talking about this here!!!!!
Kanji It’s spring now, no way you’d be able to get a reservation so soon
Yukiko you could have it at the inn! We’ve hosted some beautiful weddings
Yosuke We are not getting married at the inn.
Yukiko :(
Yosuke We aren’t getting married AT ALL!
Yu We’re not?
Yosuke UGH
Yosuke Can we talk about this LATER
Yosuke I’m at WORK
Chie Here’s the thing though!
Chie You guys have been together for twenty. YEARS
Chie Twenty!!!! Years!!!!!! Whole babies have been born and aged into adults during the span of your relationship!
Rise oh no we’re old
Yukiko :(
Chie If you don’t get married, you’re basically breaking a cardinal rule!
Rise A cardinal rule OF LOVE.
Chie THANK YOU.
Naoto idk kanji and i aren’t married and we’re fine
Chie That’s different
Yosuke Why???
Chie Have you met them?
Yosuke Have YOU met US?
Yukiko @Yu are you going to wear a gown?
Yu Of course
Kanji Oh are you going Western style? That’s cool
Yu Hmm
Yu I guess something more traditional could be nice too
Rise You’d look great in a kimono.
Yu I would, wouldn’t I
Yosuke Can we please talk about this in private??
Teddie I want to be best man!
Yu Sure, you can be best man
Yosuke I’m gonna die.
Chie ooh ooh! Who’s gonna take whose name?
Yu We’re taking mine of course
Yosuke WHAT?
Yu It’s a great name. Narukami. Very powerful
Rise lol “rip to your name Yosuke but I’m different”
Chie HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Naoto that meme is so old
Naoto do they even call them memes these days
Naoto you know. kids
Kanji I don’t think so. I said “meme” to Kano the other day and he looked at me like I was an idiot
Naoto yeah but he looks at everybody like that
Yukiko @Yu you have to propose!! It has to be romantic! Take lots of pictures <3 <3 <3
Chie TAKE A VIDEO
Rise We’ll film it!
Chie Okay. I’m starting a separate chat for proposal planning. Yosuke you’re not invited
Yosuke This is happening whether I like it or not, isn’t it?
Kanji I think so man
Yosuke Uuuuugh. What else is new?
[CHATLOG. Yu to Yosuke]
Yu <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Yosuke is typing………………….
Yosuke <3