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It wasn’t the first time Akira had visited the graveyard, and he was sure it wouldn’t be the last time. The first time he’d visited had been for an entirely different purpose, accompanying a college girlfriend to visit the grave of her grandmother. He’d done his best to be supportive and focused at the time, but he barely remembered the visit. His whole mind was occupied since the moment they’d passed a gravestone that he swore said “Akechi”. He had no reason to double back and look again to confirm what he saw, so he was distracted the whole time, plagued by images of the boy he couldn’t save. It was really no wonder that girl had broken up with him only a week later. Even though he’d been dead for five years, Goro Akechi still outshone everyone else in Akira’s life.
Akira had taken a few weeks to muster up the courage to go back. He hadn’t been sure, at the time, whether he was more scared of finding nothing or of inexplicably finding Akechi’s final resting place. He had tried to talk himself out of it. What was he even expecting to find? There was no body to bury. Akechi had never even been confirmed dead, marked by the media as a missing person forever. There had been whispers amongst the public after Akechi’s death that Masayoshi Shido had killed their detective prince since Shido had confessed to being the mastermind behind the mental shutdowns. Shido had left Akechi’s name out of his confession entirely, it seemed. Goro Akechi died a hero to some but was then promptly forgotten.
But Akira couldn’t forget. He didn’t want to. So, he’d gone to the graveyard.
What he’d found was a grave that bore the name “Misato Akechi”. That should have been it. It wasn’t him –– of course, it wasn’t. But Akira had never really been good at leaving things alone. So he’d gone to Futaba and quietly mumbled out a request for her to look into Akechi’s family history. She hadn’t seemed surprised at all. Maybe all Akira’s friends knew that he couldn’t let go of a dead man, and just let him stew in his grief, looking down at him in pity. But, betraying none of her feelings on the matter one way or the other, Futaba had sent him an email the following week containing the records Akechi had worked hard to bury.
In the year 1998, Misato Akechi had given birth to a baby boy named “Goro” at Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital. She had been alone, the doctor’s note indicated. Futaba had also attached a picture of a woman with long, golden-brown hair and deep crimson eyes, smiling down at a laughing baby she held in a blanket. Akira must have stared at it for an hour, tears occasionally peeking out of his eyes. She looked so young. He had looked so much like her.
So, Akira visited the grave. There was no schedule for it, just as there was no schedule for his grief. Whenever thoughts of his lost rival, his lost friend, became too much to bear, Akira would visit Misato Akechi and thus, scratch the itch. Sometimes he’d bring flowers, sit for a bit, and leave without a word. Sometimes, he’d just clean the headstone and pull the surrounding weeds, since it was clear there was no one else to visit and keep it nice.
When no one else was visiting the graveyard, he’d talk to her. He talked about trivial things like his day or most recent failed relationship, or about things that probably would have mattered to her, like Shido’s death in prison. But most of the time, he’d talk about Goro. He hadn’t the first couple of times, almost feeling like he wasn’t allowed to. But once he started, he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t talk to his friends about Goro. He didn’t think they hated him, not anymore, but they had all moved on while Akira’s heart was stuck in 2016.
He told Misato one dark evening that he was in love with her son. Thanked her quietly for bringing Goro into the world and doing the best she could before it became too much.
Now, Akira was back again, armed with a small bouquet of flowers and a few stories on his mind that he’d relay to her. Ann and Shiho’s wedding. Morgana’s misadventures with a neighborhood stray who was clearly very interested in him. How he’d finally been able to play three consecutive games of 701 at Penguin Sniper with Ryuji, hitting only bullseyes the entire time, just like Goro used to be able to do. But, as he approached, he realized with a bit of disappointment that he probably wouldn’t be able to stay and talk to Akechi’s mother for a while, because there was someone else there.
Akira sighed a little in disappointment but kept approaching the familiar section of the graveyard, resolving to at least leave the flowers and say hello. It was only when he was quite close to Misato’s grave that he paused. The other person was standing in front of Misato Akechi’s grave. Akira felt his mouth set in shock. He’d been visiting the grave for the better part of a year, and he’d never seen any indication of another visitor. There were no flowers except for the ones he left. If he didn’t come by for a while, he’d have to brush off spiderwebs, leaves, and stray blades of grass. But now, there was someone.
For a moment, Akira considered turning around and leaving. After all, who was he to intrude? He didn’t even know Akechi’s mother. Hell, if the way he’d acted in Maruki’s reality was any indication, Akira had barely known Akechi. Did he even have a right to be here? Did he have a right to keep coming here to talk about his life as if he were family?
And yet, Akira was frozen, and couldn’t quite bring himself to leave. He stared at the stranger’s back, wondering. It was hard to make out anything distinctive about the visitor, as they were wrapped in what looked like a posh grey peacoat to guard against the October chill. They were tall and thin, and they carried no flowers. The only distinctive feature Akira could make out was the back of a head of shoulder-length honey-brown hair. Akira thought of Misato’s hospital picture and swallowed. He could never mistake that hair color. It could only be one of Akechi’s relatives.
But who would be visiting? Akira recalled Goro telling him that no one had cared when his mother died. How he’d been alone when she’d left him behind, thrust into a carousel of cruel foster homes that jostled almost all the light out of him. Perhaps this relative was one who had cared just enough to bury her, but not to give Goro the love and care he had needed desperately at that young age. The love he needed up until the day he died.
Despite his better judgment, Akira began to approach the grave once again, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he got closer and closer to the stranger.
“Pardon me,” Akira said, keeping his voice hushed. Whatever trance the visitor had fallen into was broken, and they immediately turned around to face him. The first thing he noticed was the set of piercing eyes, so familiar in color and intensity that Akira’s heart stopped from the sight of them alone. Then his eyes flickered up and down the visitor in a panic, as his mind tried to grapple with the fact that he was standing across from an impossibility.
“... Goro?” Akira asked.
He looked different than Akira remembered. His face looked a bit fuller and healthier, his nose dotted with a little trail of freckles Akira had only seen once before, the time they’d gone to a bathhouse together. His features had matured a bit, the harder line of his jaw removing some of his teenage androgyny. Other things about him were just as Akira remembered them, the disapproving scowl he was wearing king among them.
“Akira,” Goro regarded him neutrally. Then he turned back around, facing toward his mother’s grave again. Akira stepped around to stand beside him, watching as Goro’s harsh expression faded away, replaced by quiet contemplation and palpable sadness.
“Are you real?” Akira blurted.
“I’m a ghost,” Goro said, words dripping with sarcasm. “I’ve come back from the dead to ask you what the fuck you’re doing here.”
Akira’s breath caught. Goro was right next to him. He was real , he was alive . Akira could feel the warmth of his body, even though they were about a foot apart. Goro’s answer had been harsh, but it sounded like he expected a real explanation from Akira.
“I… visit her, occasionally,” Akira confessed. I visit you. Because you’re supposed to be dead. He lifted the flowers for emphasis, even though Goro wasn’t looking at him. “I didn’t think there was anyone else around to.”
Goro grunted next to him, not sounding entirely displeased as Akira expected, but decidedly not saying anything more on the matter. Akira dared to shuffle over a little closer. He knelt down and positioned the flowers carefully in front of the stone.
“She’s not buried here,” Akechi said after a minute. His eyes never left the little slab of stone. “None of my relatives cared. They all disowned her as soon as she’d gotten pregnant. Her death wasn’t going to change that.”
“You bought the gravestone?” Akira asked softly.
Goro nodded. “Today’s the anniversary,” he added. “I… haven’t been by since buying it. But this year, I thought…”
Goro trailed off, possibly thinking better of talking to Akira about such sensitive things. He pulled his scarf a little tighter before finally turning to Akira.
“Why have you been coming here?” he asked. “Are you so stupidly sentimental that you’ve been coming here for me? Coming here to pay your goddamn respects so it satiates that hero complex of yours?”
“Why did you hide from me?” Akira asked, voice breaking against his will. Goro sneered back at him.
“Hide?” he asked incredulously.
“I… I mourned for you!” Akira said, feeling anger begin to bubble in his stomach. “You were dead , and everyone was forgetting you. But you promised me you were going to come back! We… we made a deal…” Akira laughed bitterly against his will. He held his face in one hand, letting the last of his harsh laughs fizzle out. “We made a deal,” he said again.
“My life is my own,” Goro said. “We’d already said goodbye, and we both needed to move on. It’s not like you had a shortage of people to talk to.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit!” Akira yelled. His words echoed across the hills. He quickly remembered where they were and dropped his voice again. “You have to know how much I cared about you,” Akira said quietly, with no less intensity. “You’re the smartest person I know, and I wasn’t exactly subtle about it. I wished you back to life, for fuck’s sake…” Akira took a deep breath and felt his throat tightening in a familiar way. He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t going to cry, damnit.
“I did know,” Goro said, his eyes dropped to the ground for a second before meeting Akira’s again. “That’s why I thought it would be best if, to you, I died five years ago. I suppose I foolishly expected you to move on.” Goro scoffed and adjusted his red gloves. “I was about to leave, in any case. Goodbye, Akira. Have a nice life. Or don’t. See if I care.”
Akira’s anger spiked as Goro turned to leave. That was it? That was it? Akira shoved his hand in his back pocket and took out the black leather glove he’d carried for half a decade. It was a little worn in spots from where Akira would grasp it and stroke the material carefully with his fingers, wishing he was holding hands with a ghost. Akira took the treasured accessory in hand and threw it as hard as he could. It hit the back of Goro’s head, then fell limply to the ground. It did its job, though. Goro turned around, looking more confused than upset about being hit by something in the back of the head. He knelt down, picked up the glove, then froze in a squat, staring at it.
“If you’re leaving, you might as well have that back,” Akira said stiffly. “You forfeited.”
Akira was expecting Goro to stand up and assert that he was not forfeiting and that he wouldn’t lose, and then they could duel. The Metaverse wasn’t an option anymore but they could always play a round of billiards like they used to. Or fistfight behind the nearest Big Bang Burger. But Goro didn’t move, his eyes still fixed on the glove, his expression unreadable.
“You bring this with you?” he asked. His voice was barely a whisper. “When you visit?”
Akira shifted on his feet.
“I bring it everywhere.”
“... Sentimental fool.”
They stood there for a bit, in absolute silence, broken only by the sound of rustling leaves as they blew back and forth in the wind. Akira shivered a little, wishing he’d brought a warmer coat. He knew he’d be warmer if he did the sensible thing and walked away, but Goro was frozen, and he was frozen, and they both just seemed stuck there, at a crossroads.
Eventually, Akira got tired of waiting for Goro to move first, and he reached down his hand to him. Goro finally stopped staring at the glove, having likely seen Akira’s movement in his peripheral vision. He marveled for a second at the hand being extended to him, then hesitantly took it, letting Akira help him to his feet. The glove was caught between their two hands.
“Can I ask you something?” Goro said. Then, not waiting for a response, he continued. “The night before we beat Maruki… you tried to tell me something. But, I left in a hurry before you could. I didn’t want you to change your mind.”
Akira cracked a sad little smile. As if he could forget.
“I think you already know what I was going to say,” Akira said. Goro hummed in response, confirming Akira’s suspicions. Akira looked down at their intertwined hands. Neither of them had let go yet. Akira gave Goro’s hand a little squeeze before speaking again. “In… the engine room. You said some things to me before you… before you were shot.”
Goro stiffened a little and gave a curt nod.
“What were you going to say? Before you couldn’t.”
A particularly strong breeze swept in over the graveyard, ruffling Goro’s hair and tinging his cheeks pink from the chill. Goro squeezed Akira’s hand back, just a little bit.
“The same thing,” he said quietly.
It should have been a shock to Akira, but it also, somehow, wasn’t a surprise at all. Even after all their time apart, Akira could still feel the threads of an otherworldly connection binding him to Goro. There was an understanding there. There was love there, and it had been there for a while.
“I’m, uh, helping Sojiro at Leblanc tonight,” Akira said. “You could come along. Have some coffee. I… haven’t forgotten how you like it.”
Goro’s eyes narrowed a bit at Akira, not unkindly, but with an amount of skepticism. It was a familiar look, plucked all the way back from his detective days. Then, clearly having to come to some sort of conclusion, Goro carefully withdrew his hand, taking his glove along with him.
“... alright,” he said.
Akira smiled warmly at Goro, feeling his heart doing somersaults. Goro wasn’t leaving. Not yet. Goro smiled tentatively back, then turned to the grave in front of them and bowed.
“I’ll visit again soon, Mom,” Goro murmured, looking a little embarrassed. Akira bowed as well, silently apologetic that the visit had consisted almost entirely of him fighting with her son.
“Until next time, Akechi-san,” Akira said, fixing the flowers a little in the places the wind had disturbed the petals. When he stood up again, he wondered if Goro would allow him to hold his hand, but as he was debating whether or not to try, Goro grabbed his hand quickly and a little painfully, knitting their fingers together and looking pointedly in the other direction.
“Well?” Goro snapped, as more color began to rise to his cheeks. “Are we going? It’s cold out here.” Akira moved a little closer until their shoulders bumped. He smiled down at Goro’s crimson gloves and wondered if he was truly the only sentimental fool between them.
“Yeah,” Akira said. “Let’s go.”