Chapter Text
Sleep.
Akira enjoyed it as much as the next teenager. And thanks to Morgana, he managed to get the most out of his rest due to the cat's unwavering sleep schedule. This used to bother him back in his Phantom Thief days because of how he needed to utilize his time to the max, but later ended up being grateful for. He doubted he would've been able to pull off half of the duties of being the leader of the Phantom Thieves if he had been sleep deprived. However, tonight was different. Because the next morning was graduation, Morgana let him stay up late. He would've spent the night playing an online game with his girlfriend, Futaba, but she said that she was helping her adoptive father, Sojiro, with something. He was a tad disappointed, but he understood that Sojiro needed help from time to time. The old coffee house owner wasn't as young as he used to be, despite his claims that his body was as good as the day he was born.
So instead of playing video games, Akira started working on a present for Futaba. He found an old model of Red's robot from the Neo Fetherman series at a secondhand store. It was pretty old and needed a new coat of paint, but Akira knew that Futaba would be thrilled to have it. So a few days ago, Akira ordered a set of paints that were exclusively for models and figurines. Looking up some pictures of the figure in mint condition, he went to work, humming softly as he painted. The hours slipped away as he delicately painted until Akira fell asleep on his desk.
"Hey," a voice cried.
"Hey, Akira," the voice shouted.
"REN!!!" the voice finally shouted.
Akira got up with a start, saying, "I keep telling you guys, that Ren Amamiya only looks like me!!"
He blinked a few times and fully woke up. "Morgana?" he asked.
"Well it's nice to see that trick still works," the cat replied smugly.
Akira groaned. When he came back from Tokyo, a boy that looked remarkably similar to him named Ren Amamiya moved to his school, so it was an often occurrence for the two to be mixed up. He hated being confused with him and Morgana knew it.
"You do know that graduation starts in thirty minutes, right?" the cat asked.
"Shoot!" Akira yelled as he started throwing on his uniform in a hurry. "I'm gonna be late! Why didn't you wake me up?"
"I tried, every half hour since six. I didn't want to use the Ren trick because last time you cut off my sushi supply for a week."
Akira grumbled something about cutting him off for life if he was late. Surely he wasn't serious, was he? "I'd better help him just in case he is," the cat thought to himself.
"Your jacket is hanging in the bathroom, and your pants are under your bed. And wash that paint off your face while you're at it!" Morgana yelled at the panicked teenager. . . .
"We made it just barely. Does this mean my sushi supply is safe?" the cat asked.
Akira was too busy panting to make a snarky remark back. After recovering, he took a look at his school. He went here for his first and third years of high school, yet he didn't have any emotional attachment to it. Unlike Shujin Academy, it did nothing that left an impression worth mentioning. Well, no good impression that is. All he could associate with this place was his expulsion after the incident with Shido, and them taking him back after his charges were dropped. Of course, his mother probably had something to do with that. She was an influential member of the PTA, and even after she left because of his arrest, she still held a lot of influence over the organization.
"Man, it's been one heck of a year, even if we weren't stealing hearts," Morgana commented. He had witnessed Akira deal with rumors, threats, and even an identity mix up for the first few weeks (the poor Ren guy didn't even know what he did). But once it got around how Shido framed him, his locker for the next two week had letters proclaiming that they believed him all along, apologies, and invites to go hang out. Akira hardly bothered with them, as he dumped most of them in the conveniently placed trash can next to his shoe locker. But there were instances where he did follow up on some of the letters.
* * * [Flashback sound effects] * * *
Arguably, the most entertaining thing to witness, aside from the Ren Amamiya incident, was when Akira dealt with his former girlfriend. She was among the first to leave apologies in his shoe locker, and wanted to meet up during lunch one day to have a discussion. Her name was Ayumi Tomiyaka, a pretty girl that played for the soccer team. From what Morgana could get out of Akira, she was an intelligent yet sweet girl, albeit a bit bratty, and they had been dating for the past two years. Though the minute she found out about the charges against him, she dumped him and joined the other students in spreading rumors about him, saying he was always too forward and abusive.
Morgana was curious to see where this would go, so he decided to eavesdrop as the teen made his way into the center of the courtyard where Ayumi was waiting. He knew Akira would never cheat on Futaba, and more likely than not he was acting on a morbid curiosity of what his former girlfriend could possibly want from him.
When he arrived, she gave him the widest smile that it almost looked like her face was split in half. She merrily tried to feed him a lunch that would've made Sumire proud, which Akira kept politely declining. This caused her to pout and throw a mini tantrum, which wore at the teen's nerves, which did nothing to improve her mood. This, in turn, made Akira more anxious. Finally, he had enough and decided to get straight to the point.
"Why did you call me out here?" he inquired. This seemed to make Ayumi loose her composure for a second as she didn't expect him to be so blunt. He could thank Futaba and Sojiro for rubbing those traits off on him.
She got a hold of herself and told him, "So Akira, I was thinking that I would like to get back together! We were such a good couple and I would like to try again. And if you are still angry about me leaving you, it was to save me from being bullied!"
Akira sat there dumbfounded. When he didn't start talking she took it as a cue to continue her speech. "You have to understand that I didn't have a choice, they would've labeled me as 'the delinquent's girlfriend.' I didn't mean any of the words I said about you. You have to believe me!"
Akira, still dumbfounded, was still trying to process all of the words that came out of her mouth, and whether she was serious or not.
"This chick is lucky Futaba doesn't go to their school, or she would've leapt on top of her and started ripping out her hair like a demonic gremlin," Morgana muttered from the tree overlooking the two. Akira gave a quick glance of horror at the branches above until he realized what the cat said.
He suddenly burst out laughing at the cat's comment, which startled Ayumi. She wasn't used to Akira freely expressing himself, as he mostly kept his emotions to himself, so she immediately became defensive.
"Why are you laughing? I'm being serious and pouring my soul out to the man I love-"
"Ayumi, that's a load of bullshit and we both know it," Akira said, trying desperately to keep a straight face.
"The part of you not wanting to be labeled might be true, but the part where you 'didn't mean what you said' is a total lie."
Ayumi became very red in the face. "I am NOT lying. I made the very generous offer of going out with you again, but I can see you really did become a delinquent when you went to Tokyo!" She screamed at him.
Akira regained his composure and calmly spoke.
"'Generous?' I realized a long time ago that you only dated me back them because you wanted a model boyfriend you could show off to your friends and family and appear to be all put together. Sorry, but I upgraded to a much better girlfriend who cares for me as much as I do for her. So you can forget me dating you."
Ayumi screamed then slapped Akira hard across the cheek hard. "I HOPE YOU ENJOY BEING ALONE WITH YOUR UGLY GIRLFRIEND KURUSU!!!"
She stormed off and Morgana hopped off the tree and landing next to him. "Hey you okay? That slap mark is turning as red as Lady Ann's bodysuit," the cat said fondly, thinking of his beloved Ann.
"Yeah, I'm fine. It hurt way worse when I got hit that one time fighting the reaper. Even her insults didn't seem that bad. It was was much better than being called 'the pompous man in the black coat,'" Akira chuckled. Then his face darkened.
"Though I can't forgive her for insulting Futaba,"
"You shouldn't act just yet. I imagine there will be hell to pay for this. I would expect more rumors and threats for a while," speculated Morgana.
He was half right. The next day, the whole school was under the impression that Akira had assaulted Ayumi and were treating him like the scum of the earth. At least until the day after, when everyone attending the school got a recording of the entire conversation, proving his innocence. Just as quickly as the school sided with Ayumi, they turned against her. . . .
"You had something to do with that, didn't you?" Akira asked Futaba one night when they were catching up with each other.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, love." Futaba replied coyly. "All I know is that you texted me that your ex requested to meet up for lunch and you wanted me to be aware."
"Come on, no one else is enough of a genius to record something off of a phone over 200 miles away and then release it to my classmates one day later that oh-so conveniently proves my innocence." Akira told her.
"Well, I couldn't sit back and let you suffer. I had to do something if I couldn't be there"
"Futaba . . ." Akira was a loss for words.
"But in return, I request extra snuggles this summer when we meet up!" Futaba demanded.
Akira chucked, wondering what he did to get such an awesome girlfriend. "You got yourself a deal."
* * * [flash-forward sound effects] * * *
"Yeah, this year sure has been interesting. Though I think I preferred the shenanigans of the year before," said Akira, thinking of his time with the Phantom Thieves, going on dates with Futaba, helping Sojiro, and helping all of the friends he made in the city.
He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't notice the small frame that approached him from behind. Morgana did, but chose not to say anything, as he knew Akira was in for a pleasant surprise. The small-framed person decided that it would be only proper if she wrapped her arms around his waist in a bear hug. He was her Key Item and she was his Pharoh, so it only made sense.
*Tackle* "Ha, I got you!" a high pitched voice declared.
Startled, he leaned his head to see a familiar head of orange locks.
"Hey handsome, how are you doing?" asked an excited Futaba.