Work Text:
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore
By: Aviantei
[Twelve Shots of Summer: Another D8 12-I/12]
[Parameters: “Answers”]
Kurusu Akira isn’t sure what to expect whenever his mother calls him downstairs, saying a friend is at the door, but it sure as hell isn’t this.
In the aftermath of his first arrest and sentencing over a year ago, anyone he considered his friends decided to abandon him, not wanting to deal with a “dangerous criminal” or what the fuck ever. And after the year of living in Tokyo and becoming part of the Phantom Thieves, he hasn’t bothered to rekindle any of those friendships, though his sentence is now null and void. In fact, Akira’s been spending his last year in high school preparing to leave Inaba and go back to Tokyo as soon as possible, college admissions allowing.
So, no, anyone showing up at his door, claiming to be his friend, is unusual, but this—oh, fucking this takes the cake.
Because it’s Akechi Goro standing on his doorstep, very much uninjured and very much alive.
There are several long minutes where they stare at each other, registering each other’s presence. The last time they saw each other, it was in the Metaverse, Maruki’s Palace and reality collapsing, but so much was happening they couldn’t even say a proper goodbye. It took Akira days for the truth to hit him, and he sat in his cell, tucked into a ball and crying alone for everything they’d lost, even if it was the right decision to make.
Akira has grieved in the past months, and it’s become easier to carry, though the weight will never be fully gone from his heart—except for now, because Goro is—
“What the hell?!” Akira shouts, not caring in the slightest if his mother can hear him or that his voice is loud enough to disturb Morgana’s afternoon nap in his room. He digs into his pocket, snatching the glove from it and tossing it right back at the asshole who threw it at him in the first place. “You can’t just—show up and—” He sucks in a breath, but that’s not enough to stop the hot tears spilling over from his eyes. “I thought you were dead!”
There’s not an easy and quaint descriptor for his feelings right now. Akira is angry and relieved and sad and happy so many other things all at once, and he can’t even keep them straight as his mind tries to process them. Goro—no, he’s upset at him right now, so Akechi is standing there, having caught the thrown glove against his chest, looking just as stunned as Akira feels, and the fact that Akechi is so goddamn pretty that Akira still wants to kiss him just pisses him off even more.
“I’m going out!” Akira shouts back into the house, stuffing his feet into his shoes without even bothering to tie them, not caring that his phone is upstairs. No, he has more important matters to take care of, like grabbing Akechi by the front of his stupid adorable sweater vest and hauling him down the street. The good thing about Inaba is that it’s so small that there isn’t a big crowd to witness the scene, and there’s plenty of places to get some privacy. The riverbank seems like as good of a place to kick Akechi’s ass as any.
Except by the time that they make it to the riverbank, Akira’s head has cooled enough that punching Akechi, while still feeling tempting, doesn’t seem like it would be as cathartic as he thought it would. So he looks at Akechi, trying to catch his breath, and says, “If I let you go, you’re not going to disappear on me again, are you?”
Something like hurt flickers across Akechi’s expression, and he stares down at the grass below them. “No.”
“Good.” Akira releases Akechi’s sweater vest, but the heat of contact still lingers in his palm. He’d thought of twenty different things to say on the way over, half of them anger-fueled rants, another fraction breaking down in tears, and a few more that weren’t so much as things to say and more of holy-shit-you’re-alive make-out sessions that weren’t the best thought out, now that he’s considering it. But now that he’s here, every bit of charm and eloquence he used to wield so well seems to evaporate, and all Akira can come up with is, “Do you want…to sit down?”
Akechi nods, and then there’s a minute spent on finding a comfortable enough spot in the grass and then several more in silence. Akira’s feelings haven’t settled into anything concrete, so it’s hard to find the best option to start with. Akechi clears his throat, the same way he always did before taking charge of the conversation, and says, “I suppose I owe you answers, don’t I?”
Akira snorts, a mocking sound. “Oh, you fucking think?” Some part of him thinks he shouldn’t be so harsh, that he doesn’t know what Akechi’s been dealing with all this time—but that’s part of the problem, now isn’t it, because Akira has had no clue what’s been happening, while Akechi, it turns out, was alive. “I thought you were dead,” he says again, though with much less venom than before, with much more of the hurt.
What he doesn’t say: that it felt like his fault, because he couldn’t come up with another solution that allowed them to reset the world back to the way it should have been while still letting Goro live; that it still feels like his fault sometimes; that he’s been digging his way through so much grief over the past several months, that it never seems like it’s going to end.
You should have told me sooner, he thinks for not the first time. Why didn’t you tell me?
Akechi fiddles with the glove that Akira threw at him; his hands are bare right now, the fingers pale but still delicate. “I don’t suppose it would help if I told you that I thought I would be dead, too?” Akechi asks, and Akira doesn’t know if it helps or not. “The last thing I remembered was getting shot by my cognitive double and blacking out. Of course, whenever I woke up in my own apartment, uninjured, I was a little skeptical.”
Akira bites his lip, trying to use the pain to clear his head. It doesn’t help. It’s not like it changes the fact that they were all acting on the same flawed information. “But you were alive,” he says, trying not to sound petulant.
“In a coma, but yes.” Akechi says it so plainly, like he does everything else, giving the fact that he was in a coma the same weight as discussing the weather or talking about media coverage during his time as the Detective Prince or complimenting the coffee at Leblanc. The polite face is such a drastic shift from how he was acting in Maruki’s Palace that Akira wonders if that version of him had just been a dream the whole time. “It took me some months to wake up, and then I had to complete my recovery enough to be able to move around on my own. I believe it was around the time that you were returning home that I decided to turn myself into the police.”
After wasting a few minutes on gaping, Akira says, “And you didn’t tell me?” before feeling super fucking stupid afterwards. Akechi had to deal with almost dying, then thinking he was dying again, then there was recovering, plus whatever he had to go through turning himself in for his rather extensive list of crimes, including several murders of the supernatural variety. All things considered, it’s a miracle that Akechi’s even here in person to talk about it if that’s what he did.
“Kurusu,” Akechi says, and, oh, he’s back to family names, too; why does that hurt so much whenever Akira’s been doing the same thing in his head the whole time? “I was about to turn myself in for murder. Even with the leniency of my being a minor, there’s a chance I wouldn’t ever get out of prison—not to mention that there are plenty of people in Shido’s inner circle who would benefit from silencing me. They’d be able to do it fucking quietly, too. Would you really want to find out I was alive just to watch me die all over again?”
Yes, is the answer Akira thinks first, because he was so goddamn grateful for the chance to spend more time with Akechi in Maruki’s reality. Akira is still desperate for even a few extra months in Akechi’s—Goro’s presence that he would weather getting hurt over and over again just for the chance of seeing him again. “…I could have helped you,” he settles on saying, and they’ve had this argument before. “I told you, Goro. You’re loved. That means I’ll always want to help you.”
“And risk getting yourself hurt in the process,” Goro says, his tone starting to lose its controlled cadence. Is it messed up that Akira somewhat prefers Goro when he’s like this, whenever there’s nothing holding back his frustration? “They wouldn’t have hesitated to kill you, too, Akira. I sure as hell wasn’t dragging you into that after you’d gotten yourself free.”
The use of his given name fills Akira’s chest with a pleasant sort of warmth that he hasn’t felt in so long, even if Goro is berating him. Changing the topic doesn’t seem like a smart move right now, though; Goro is cagey enough as it is, and Akira doesn’t want the chance to understand slip away. “You’re here now, though.”
“Yes.” Goro’s stopped playing with the glove in his hands, and his voice is quieter. “When I woke up, I learned that Shido had been convicted for some of his crimes, but not enough. Your testimony as a Phantom Thief helped, but I could provide more after working for him so many years. And while I suppose I could have snuck off and started over somewhere new, I couldn’t stand letting that bastard get away with his crimes. So I turned myself in to testify against him, for what good it did. He deserves worse, but there’s so many people all fucking protecting him to save their own asses that—!”
Akira knows what Goro means; if Shido goes down as hard as he deserves, so many other people will fall with him, and it’s impressive what adults will do to protect themselves. It makes him miss the Metaverse, where kicking a Shadow into the ground could bring change to the world, could undo that kind of corruption.
Goro growls before continuing, “In any event, Sae-san argued for me, saying that many of my crimes were under duress, which is generous at best.” Akira opens his mouth to protest, but Goro steamrolls over him. “Well, if they punished me for the full extent of my crimes and not Shido, it would create a complicated situation, so they settled in the end.” Goro chuckles, like it’s all been the leadup to a giant joke. “I’m on probation, Akira. Of all things.”
“That probation wouldn’t happen to be to a country town out in the boonies, would it?”
“I’m afraid fate wasn’t so kind to us this time,” Goro says, and those words sound just as much like a pickup line as ever. If he still wasn’t processing such a ridiculous emotional cocktail, Akira might blush. “I’m going to be completing independent study before taking entrance exams. I’ll have to behave before they let me attend in person. Surprisingly, no one seems to want to let a potential murderer hang around with high school students.” Goro laughs; Akira doesn’t. “Come now. You always had much more of a sense of humor than I did.”
“I don’t think it’s funny.” Akira knows it’s Goro’s choice for how he decides to process everything, but that also means it’s Akira’s choice for how he decides to process things, and he isn’t quite ready to joke about it yet. “Still, I…I’m pissed that you didn’t tell me sooner, but I’m glad you’re alive.” Akira inhales, looking Goro head on for the first time since they’d seen each other. “Welcome home, Goro.”
Goro’s eyes widen. Akira expects him to bluster and change the subject, to run away from Akira’s affection like he so often did. But Goro doesn’t, returning Akira’s gaze as he whispers, “I’m home.”
Bonus:
“So, did I just show up on the day that you happened to have my glove on you, or do you always carry this in your pocket?”
“Could you not ruin the moment for like…five seconds?”