Chapter Text
There’s a good chance that in 24 hours, Kurusu Akira will be dead.
He doesn’t know how he should feel about it. Bad, probably. Everyone else seems to, fanned out in a loose circle around the center booth in Leblanc, going over the last details of their heist within a heist two weeks in the making in hushed, strained voices despite the fact that they’re the only ones here. Sojiro has made himself scarce all afternoon, and Akechi…well. An hour later, and Akira can still feel the phantom touch of his shoulder against his, tingling and warm, as he’d brushed past him out the door without so much as a goodbye.
“...Akira?” Makoto says to Akira’s right. He blinks, tearing his gaze away from the wall just behind Haru, seated primly at the booth, where he’s been tracing the whorls in the wood with his eyes, over and over and over. He can feel everyone’s eyes on him and resists the urge to fidget.
He has no idea what Makoto said, but he doesn’t need to, not really. They’ve gone over this one hundred times, and he’s gone over it, in bed, alone, a hundred times more. There’s no more planning to be done, nothing else to do. This is a meeting for morale more than anything else, for all the good that’s doing.
He nods in lieu of admitting he wasn’t listening, and straightens up, trying to pull Joker out of his own shadow. He sees Ryuji do the same thing to the left of him, pushing himself off the bar counter, and Yusuke across from Haru, leaning forward and folding his hands on the table. Ann and Futaba draw closer from where they’re standing in the walkway, blocking the door, tightening their little circle in response, shifting uneasily on their feet as they wait for him to speak. A dry nose bumps against Akira’s fingers as he pulls them out of his pocket and rests them on the back of one of the bar chairs, a gesture of silent support from Morgana.
He should say something. They’re waiting for him to. Something affirming, or something to tell them that everything’s going to be alright and give them a glimpse of Joker dancing just below the surface of him, all confidence and roguish excitement, untouchable. But as much as he tries, he’s never felt more like himself than he does in that moment, the words sticky in his throat.
He really should say something.
But the seconds just tick by. The silence turns oppressive and then settles over them like a shroud. The moment for assurances passes. Akira lets it.
Makoto, as usual, is the one who has to pick up his slack. He should feel worse about it than he does. “I should go. Before Onee-chan gets home,” she says. She doesn’t move. None of them do.
It occurs to him that she’s giving him time, a gift he’s never appreciated the way he should, he’s realizing now that he’s at the end of it. He doesn’t see the point in starting now, though. Makoto seems to understand and, through what seems like great effort, she accepts it and forces herself to move, fetching her bag from the empty booth behind her. She settles it onto her shoulder, her finger picking at the loose stitching on one of the shoulder straps the only indication of her uncertainty.
“Akira…” she says again, trailing off as she searches for words he’s sure she won’t be able to find. He doesn’t blame her. What could she possibly say? Akira’s life has narrowed down to two possibilities: he’s either going to get shot in the head tomorrow or he isn’t. In some ways, it’s refreshingly simple. He doesn’t dare say that outloud.
Makoto seems to think better about whatever she was going to say as well and shakes her head instead, turning towards him. She places a hand on his forearm and squeezes, hard enough to hurt, but can’t quite meet his eyes. Guilt rushes through him. They’re all worried about him, but if there’s anyone who deserves sympathy, it’s Makoto. The conversation they had a little over a week ago (had it only been a week? Akira feels as if he’s aged years in a span of days) has been echoing in his skull, rattling around like it’s trying to escape. You always should have been in charge, Akira had said, his voice calm and toneless. If this doesn’t go well, you’re it. I don’t want revenge; I just want you to protect them. I know it’s a lot to ask, but help him, too, if you can.
He hadn’t meant to make her cry, but then again, he hadn’t meant for any of this.
Makoto leaves. Haru, with far less elegance than Akira’s ever seen from her, scrambles out of the booth She takes a step forward and grabs both of his hands, and it’s startling enough that Akira stops trying to disappear into the floorboards and glances at her. Her eyes are wide, glassy, but also full of a helpless, determined fury that says more than anything she could say to him. It’s always been easy between them, a camaraderie born between people who like to hide in the quiet spaces everyone else seems to miss, and he squeezes her hands back. She nods, understanding in a way that sends relief sparking through him, and then rushes out to catch Makoto. Good. She shouldn’t be alone.
A hush settles back over Leblanc once the door chime quiets, the cool calm Makoto had cultivated disappearing with her and leaving ember-warm tension behind. The golden beams of the late afternoon are casting long shadows onto the floor, revealing the swirl of dust particles floating hazily back towards rest.
Ryuji fidgets, scuffing his sneaker on the floor in a way that would have him kicked ass-first onto the pavement outside if Sojiro was here. He melts back against the bar, good posture be damned, and shoves his hands as far into his pockets as they can go, a habit he picked up from Akira. “We, uh, can hang out tonight, if you want company,” Ryuji says after a few moments, leaning over Morgana and nudging Akira weakly with his elbow.
“Yeah, there’s a new restaurant I wanted to check out,” Ann says on Ryuji’s other side, abandoning the split ends she’s been picking at in one of her ponytails in favor of flicking it over her shoulder to resist the temptation. She’s trying to infuse her usual energy into her voice, but it doesn’t hide the hesitancy in it. “It might be nice, you know, as a…” Her words die in her throat.
“As a last meal?” Akira jokes to dispel the tension, but it falls flat and he flinches at Ann’s sharp intake of breath. “Sorry, I didn’t…sorry.”
“I was going to say ‘as a distraction’,” she says, too quiet.
Akira hates this.
“I would be amenable to an outing,” Yusuke says, “for the distraction, as Ann said.”
“Yeah, Futaba excluded, this group isn’t exactly the brains of this operation,” Ryuji says, gesturing over at where Futaba hovers close to Yusuke, shoulders hitching in aborted little movements that make Akira think she’s twisting her fingers into knots behind her back, not paying any attention. “Thinking has only ever gotten us into trouble, which is all we’ll be doing all night if we don’t do something.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ann says, smacking Ryuji on the arm hard enough that it cracks through the still air. Akira flinches, tries to hide it; luckily, they don’t notice.
“Hey! Watch it!” Ryuji complains, rubbing his arm. “You’re stronger than you think! Plus, I’m right and you know it.”
“Even if you are, you shouldn’t say it!”
“What do you say, Akira?” Yusuke asks. Ann and Ryuji pause their argument to turn to him, and the momentary relief from the weight of everything around them dissipates.
He should say yes. It would make them feel better, certainly, would probably even take the wild, eddying fear they think they’re hiding out of the edges of their eyes. He should say yes. Joker would.
“Thanks, but I think I’m going to stay in,” Akira says.
“Oh,” Ann says. She opens her mouth as if to argue or convince him, but seems to think better of it and deflates. “Ok, if you’re sure.”
Akira smiles at her as convincingly as he can and dips his head, takes the guilt he feels and crushes it as small as it will go and hides it away where no one will think to look. “I am.”
“Text us if you change your mind,” Ryuji says. “My mom’s got the night shift tonight, so I can sneak out real easy, just say the word.”
“Thanks,” Akira says and means it.
Ryuji stands up and knocks his shoulder into Akira’s, the same one Akechi had earlier, and musters a grin that’s all infectious bravado. “Take it easy tonight, man.”
“I will.”
“Seriously, call me if you need anything or just want to talk,” Ann says. She hesitates, just for a moment, and then Akira has an armful of Ann as she hugs him, quick and perfunctory, before stepping back, eyes blazing. “We’re going to win,” she says, smile beautific and bold, but Ann has always been a bad liar and Akira can see the shake in her fist as she pumps it in the air and how the smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes the way her worry does. But Akira admires the effort.
Yusuke uncrosses his legs and stands up from the booth as Ann and Ryuji retreat towards the door. He reaches out and places a warm, calloused hand on Akira’s shoulder, his dark eyes boring into Akira’s own. “There are many things I wish to say to you,” Yusuke says. “But we can discuss them over sushi once our mission is complete.”
Akira nods. “Sure,” he says. “I’m paying?”
“If you insist,” Yusuke says with perfect somberness, and Akira lets out a light huff of a laugh. Yusuke nods at him seriously before removing his hand, taking a deep breath, and joining Ann and Ryuji as they walk out the door.
Futaba lingers, pressed up against the separation between the two booths she’d flattened herself against when the others had left. She pads over to Akira, untangling her hands behind her back and letting one drop onto the nape of Morgana’s neck where he sits, still oddly quiet but close enough that Akira can feel the warm heat of his fur brushing his knuckles.
“This is going to work,” Futaba says, not looking at him. She’s determined, but Akira knows her well enough to see the desperate fear there, too, the kind that paralyzes her. She’s struggling against it now, fighting with everything she has.
Akira swallows, once, twice, then gives up, knowing a futile effort when he sees one. “I know,” Akira says. “I trust you.”
This isn’t goodbye, he wants to say to her. Everyone’s overreacting. I’m not afraid. This is the same as it always is.
Is any of that true?
Futaba won’t look at him, just like Makoto, her eyes fixed on the ground. Akira searches for something else to say, desperately, something true, something more than Akira but less than Joker, something a little more like brother, but comes up empty. He’s so afraid of saying the wrong thing that it’s suffocating.
“I’ll walk Futaba home,” Morgana says when the silence stretches on too long, the first thing he’s said in nearly an hour, dislodging her hand and hopping up onto the table next to her elbow. “Then I’ll be back. You better not fall asleep before I get back and lock me out again.”
Futaba scratches behind his ear. “Thanks, Mona,” she says quietly and shuffles out of Leblanc, Morgana at her heels.
With the last chime of the bell on the door, Akira is finally, blissfully, agonizingly alone.
He sits down heavily on Morgana’s abandoned stool, pulls his knees up to his chest and buries his head in them. He tangles his hands in his hair and pulls just hard enough to hurt, letting the pain of it ground him, keep his thoughts from spiraling too quickly and the acid in his stomach from boiling up his throat. He breathes through the sting in his eyes and around the scream trapped just behind his teeth. His heart hurts with every beat.
He’s not afraid of dying, not in the way that everyone thinks. He’s always had a hard time with self-preservation, and a very deep understanding that someday, given the chance, he’ll die for someone else. It’s something he’s long accepted as true, a simple fact about himself. It doesn’t make it any less terrifying, or make his regrets loom any less large, but, well. He’s kind of used to that. Which is undeniably fucked up, but that’s not the problem.
The problem is everything else. The problem is that it isn’t just about him; if it was, maybe he would be spending the night finding ways to distract himself from both the existential and very real dread that is rolling sluggishly through his veins. Maybe he’d be more in denial of the very non-zero possibility that their plan fails tomorrow and Akira could let himself melt into Joker until there was no way to distinguish them.
However.
However, Akira may be Joker, but Joker is not Akira. Joker would have found the right words to reassure his friends. Joker would have spent the last two weeks preparing for battle instead of lying about gathering supplies only to sneak out to jazz clubs instead. Joker would be out right now with Ann, Ryuji, and Yusuke, living like it’s his last night without caring whether it is. Instead, Akira is here, alone, drowning in guilt that it’s come to this and having a minor breakdown about the fact that he can’t remember what Akechi said his favorite book was, or if he’d even asked.
Joker wouldn’t be thinking about Akechi at all. Akira can’t seem to stop, despite the fact that Akechi has betrayed him so fundamentally that thinking about it for too long is enough to give him a panic attack. One way or another, Metaverse or no, Akechi’s going to shoot him in the head, for fuck’s sake. Akira should be furious. Akira should be terrified.
Akira is just desperately sad.
(When he’d gotten arrested, his mother had said that his childish idealism would be the death of him. He hopes she finds it satisfying, if it turns out she’s right.)
He doesn’t realize how long he’s been sitting here, curled up in a ball on the bar stool, until he hears Morgana scratching at the door. He untangles himself, sniffs and wipes his still-dry eyes just in case and puzzles himself together, piece by jagged piece, as he moves to let him back in.
“I know we just talked about it with everyone, but I have a few things I want to go over with you to prepare for tomorrow,” Morgana says.
It’s the last thing Akira wants to do, but he nods and follows Morgana upstairs anyway. This is his penance, for the position he’s put them all in and for not feeling worse about it, and he’ll happily shoulder it.
They sit on his bed and Akira half-listens to what Morgana’s saying. It’s nothing new; Morgana’s nervous, trying to mask it with a habit he’s picked up from Makoto about repeating everything aloud as if it’s about organizing their thoughts and not about the less-than-logical principle of speaking something to manifest it.
“...Were you listening to any of that?” Morgana asks in a huff when Akira doesn’t notice he’s been asked a question. “How are you so calm? You might die tomorrow!”
“I know,” Akira snaps and immediately feels like shit when Morgana flinches and flattens his ears. Akira sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose as he breathes. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok,” Morgana says, trying to sound disaffected but unable to hide the hurt in his voice, which makes Akira feel worse. “I just…you know it’s going to work, right? Akechi might be smart, but Makoto and Futaba are smarter. And we have justice on our side. We’re going to win.”
I have to ask – why do you get so competitive against me? Akechi’s voice had been pleasant and affected that night, but Akira had heard the curiosity beneath it, the challenge. Akira’s answer had been dry, half-sincere – We’re rivals, aren’t we? – and he’d enjoyed the moment of honest, flustered silence before Akechi had smoothed it over with his usual grace, but the truth is, he doesn’t know. Maybe because it’s easier to stomach all of the lies between them and pretend it isn’t serious when it’s all part of an elaborate game to get as close to each other as they dare. It’s barely been two weeks since they had that conversation, but everything has changed and it’s sickening that Akira’s convinced himself and the rest of them to think of it like a game.
Akira is so tired of keeping score.
“Right,” Akira says, because Morgana expects him to. Morgana nods, determined, his tail swishing behind him.
“So…what are you gonna do tonight?” Morgana asks. He says it casually, like he always does when it’s not immediately obvious that Akira has plans. It has unintended significance tonight.
Smoke some of Sojiro’s cigarettes he hides under the coffee filters. Go to the deepest part of Mementos I can manage and get into a fight. Go somewhere and scream until my voice gives out.
The last time they were in Sae’s Palace, they had run out of food. They’d all tried to hide it, but Akira could see the toll the magic use was taking on them, Ann, Akechi, and Makoto in particular who had stayed with him on the front lines for most of it, past the point where their endurance should have failed them as Akira pushed them harder and harder to the end. Ann had thrown herself on the nearest sofa when they’d finally reached a safe room, arm over her eyes and not reacting to anyone, and Makoto, more restrained, had let Haru fuss over her in a way she never would have otherwise. Akechi hadn’t shown any sign that anything was wrong, but he’d swayed as they reentered the real world, grasping Akira’s elbow gently with a soft, “My apologies,” before righting himself and disappearing from the group with minimal fanfare a few moments later.
“I’m gonna make some curry,” Akira decides.
Luckily, there’s still some ingredients in the fridge. Or perhaps, it’s not luck at all – he can’t remember the last time there wasn’t enough food for him in the fridge, or extra bottles of cold tea to grab on the way out the door, or coffee brewed and waiting for him when he got up in the morning, even if Leblanc wasn’t supposed to open until later. (Five days ago, when Makoto called and told him grimly that their foray into Sae’s palace to set up Futaba’s interrogation room plan had completed without issue, he’d had a sudden, overwhelming urge to call his parents. But when he thumbed into his contact list, he kept scrolling past their names and ending up on Sojiro’s, instead.)
Akira lays all the ingredients out and begins by chopping the onions. He’s always liked this part of the process, meditative as it is, but it’s not settling him tonight. Morgana tries to fill the silence with little observations, asks what Akira’s planning to put in the curry this time, if he’s making it Sojiro’s way or his own, but it’s been a terminally long day and it doesn’t take long for Morgana to start yawning.
“I’m still here, I’m just getting a little more comfy,” Morgana says through another yawn and within the next few moments, everything goes quiet.
Akira doesn’t mind; Morgana sleeps more than the rest of them, his most cat-like trait, and he needs the rest if they are going to survive tomorrow. Akira isn’t much up for conversation, anyway. He’s restless and anxious and so drained he’s afraid he might just collapse in the tiny kitchen and accidentally crack his skull open on the edge of the counter. It would save everyone a lot of time tomorrow, he jokes to himself and has put a hand over his mouth when he suddenly gags, viciously nauseous.
He fills the curry pot with shaking hands and turns on the burner. He’s having a hard time thinking with everything trying to come into focus in his brain and he wishes that there was someone he could talk to, anyone who he could be himself with, just for a few minutes, without the pressure of having to be careful with their feelings or reassure them.
He wants, desperately, fiercely, to talk to Akechi.
It’s dangerous. Stupidly so. He’s already been taking too many risks spending time with Akechi since they found out what exactly he is planning, but if he lets anything slip tonight and Akechi figures them out, it will kill him. But Akira is a lot more fucked up than anyone gives him credit for, and at least he feels something other than the numbness that is settling over his bones. He reaches for his phone before he can think better of it.
Kurusu Akira
hey
did you make it home ok?
It’s inane, and feels too casual, something he’s sure Akechi will call him out on, but it loosens something in Akira’s chest. He doesn’t have to wait long for a reply.
Akechi Goro
I did, thank you.
Polite. Too polite. Akechi wields civility the same way he wields a sword: elegant and ruthless, severing tendons instead of limbs. It’s captivating to watch, especially when his target doesn’t notice the blade in his hand at all. Not Akira; he just waits.
Akechi Goro
I assume you’re not texting me to ask after something I do regularly every day without issue. Is there something on your mind?
Akira can’t help but grin. For as many lies and secrets Akechi keeps, he’s not nearly as much the enigma as he hopes he is. Not to Akira, at least. It shouldn’t feel as satisfying as it does.
Kurusu Akira
wow, how’d you know? are you some sort of detective??
The lack of immediate response communicates what Akechi thinks of that with stunning clarity and Akira huffs out a laugh that threatens to continue and never stop. He bites his sleeve hard enough to trap it, ignoring how hard it is, suddenly, to breathe.
Kurusu Akira
it was a compliment
Still nothing. And then:
Akechi Goro
Why are you texting me, Kurusu?
The question of the hour. The smile slides off of his face and he picks at his lips with his teeth. Why are you texting me back? Akira wants to ask. Are you really that cruel? Or are you being kind?
He actually types that out and deletes it just as quickly, throat dry. Replaces it with What’s your favorite book? and then deletes that, too.
God, this was a bad idea.
Everything else he thinks to respond with is even worse, though, so he decides if this entire conversation is destined for catastrophe, he might as well go for bad in a different direction.
Kurusu Akira
call me Akira
Akechi Goro
Why?
He imagines Akechi curled up on a couch or under a kotatsu in a lonely apartment, still in his slacks and button-up, the missing tie around his neck the only indication that he’s winding down his evening. He’s probably doing homework or something equally mundane, as if he isn’t planning on killing Akira in cold blood tomorrow. Akira hopes he’s listening to music he likes, or has something stupid and inane on TV in the background to keep him company. Anything but silence.
Kurusu Akira
because we’re friends
Akechi Goro
We’ve been hanging out for months.
Not long enough. Not long enough to make him want to protect Akira the way he protects all his secrets.
Kurusu Akira
yeah i know i was there?
Akechi Goro
Let me rephrase the question: why now?
Because I want to know that all of this wasn’t a lie. I want to remind you who you are to me. I want to hear you say my name, in case I never get to again.
Kurusu Akira
why not?
There’s no response for long enough that panic starts to stir in his gut, his palms sweaty on the spoon he is using to stir the curry. Someone’s laughing, languid and easy, on what sounds like the doorstep, even though Akira can’t see anything but his own reflection as he glances toward the door. He wishes, for a moment, that he could stay trapped in his reflection, listening to phantom laughter pass him by forever, until the glass becomes so warped by time it would be a mercy to shatter him.
The ingredients in the curry are slow to boil tonight. He hopes it doesn’t ruin the recipe.
Akechi responds.
Akechi Goro
If you insist.
Why are you texting me, Akira?
His heart staggers in his chest. He brushes his fingers over the characters of his name on the screen and accidentally closes the entire app, then scrambles to open it again.
Kurusu Akira
i was just thinking
Akechi Goro
A dangerous thing.
Akira snorts loudly enough that he hears Morgana snuffle in his sleep and then leans his hands on the counter beside the curry, dipping his head to disguise the smile on his face, so wide it hurts. What a stupid time to feel like this.
Kurusu Akira
ha ha very funny. maybe we should have called you joker instead
Akechi Goro
I will block you.
Kurusu Akira
sorry, sorry
Akechi Goro
You’re not.
(I am, I am, I–)
Kurusu Akira
nope, not at all
It would be so easy to continue like this, to pretend like everything is the same, always one step away from something real, anticipating who will be the first to draw blood from the other’s stone. But Akira isn’t interested tonight; Akechi will get to see him bleed enough tomorrow, regardless.
Kurusu Akira
anyway. i’m trying to be serious
Akechi Goro
Apologies. Please continue.
The artifice drains out of him leaving only himself, in ruins, beneath. He glances over to the counter but Morgana is still tucked away, asleep. Of the two of them, Morgana has always had more common sense and with him out of sight and out of reach, so, too, goes whatever self-control Akira has.
Kurusu Akira
do you regret getting to know me?
be honest
Akira sets down his phone and tries to focus on the curry, preparing to add another regret to his long list of them. He tips in the instant coffee and pours a little bit too much in and grimaces when he has a taste. He’ll have to add a bit more chocolate to counteract it.
It’s a few more minutes before he gets a response. He jumps when his phone buzzes.
Akechi Goro
What’s brought this on?
Careful. Cautious. Akechi is so full of shit Akira doesn’t even know where to start.
Kurusu Akira
just thinking about tomorrow
since we’re not going to be working together anymore after that
If it was dangerous to text Akechi at all, this is downright insane. But Akira already sent it and he can’t take it back. His heart hammers in his chest, makes him a little lightheaded, and his hand shakes as he stirs in little pieces of chocolate to the curry.
Akechi Goro
So you haven’t forgotten about our deal.
Kurusu Akira
of course not
Akechi Goro
That’s good to hear. I wasn’t looking forward to reminding you.
Akira hopes that’s true, considering the reminder he’s planning is a bullet to the head. There’s a slight crack of plastic that he realizes is coming from his phone case where he’s holding it with blanched knuckles. He forces himself to relax.
Akechi Goro
I don’t have an easy answer to your question.
Kurusu Akira
seems like a pretty simple yes or no to me
Akechi Goro
There’s nothing about you that’s simple.
A shiver races up Akira’s spine, pleasurable and wholly irrational, all things considered. Another night, he might suppress it, but there’s no reason not to feel every bit of it now, while he can. He imagines what it would be like if Akechi meant it as a compliment, instead of a condemnation. But maybe Akira’s not giving him enough credit; knowing Akechi, it’s both. Because Akira is a hopeless idiot, he finds he likes that even more.
Akechi Goro
Things would be less complicated if I never met you, certainly. I wouldn’t have had to jeopardize my reputation and integrity by joining your ill-begotten little group, for one.
And there it is, the tactical retreat. Akira’s been expecting it – he’s watched Akechi make this move a thousand times before during their chess matches when he gets a little too close to Akechi’s king, but it’s still disappointing.
Kurusu Akira
ouch.
Akechi Goro
That can’t come as a surprise. I’ve said as much before.
Kurusu Akira
you have
He leaves it at that, both as a way to prevent anything more damning for spilling out and to antagonize Akechi, just a little, because Akira actually is irrationally hurt that he’s fallen back into his Detective Prince persona and thinks Akira wouldn’t notice. Akira thinks he deserves a little more credit – and a little more Akechi Goro – than that, all things considered.
There’s another long span of minutes without a response that Akira tries not to read into. He puts the lid on the curry and sets a timer. He thinks about going upstairs, but he can’t sit still, so he decides to really commit to the insomnia he was already guaranteed tonight and starts on some coffee. He’s focused so intently on brewing it that he startles when his phone buzzes midway through.
Akechi Goro
I don’t know what you want me to say.
Kurusu Akira
this isn’t a test, there’s no right answer
Akechi Goro
Isn’t there? There’s a reason you asked.
Akira knows where this is going, refuses to be dragged around by Akechi when he gets evasive. Akira doesn’t even know himself. What does he want him to say? That he regrets it? That Akira is the single worst thing that ever happened to him and now he’s about to make it Akira’s problem? Is Akira really so desperate, really so stupidly, recklessly helpless for Akechi Goro that he wants to hear that Akechi’s reasons for killing him are his own and not just because someone is using him? Will that make Akira feel better when Akechi puts a gun to his head?
All of this is pointless. Akira really is a masochist.
Kurusu Akira
not really, i was just curious
forget i asked
Akira slams his phone down on the counter with enough force that Morgana startles awake and blinks blearily up at him.
“What’s goin’ on?”
“Nothing, just dropped my phone.”
“M’kay,” Morgana says sleepily, stretching and then kneading the stool cushion before settling back down. “Wake me up when the curry’s done.”
Akira finishes his coffee but stays behind the counter. His phone buzzes again, muffled against the wood, and Akira lasts barely a minute before he checks it again, an exhaustion in him so deep he isn’t sure there’s any space left for himself.
Akechi Goro
You’re not as skilled of a liar as you think you are.
And there it is, what Akira’s been desperate for. An acknowledgment of who they really are once the lies are swept away, what this really is: Akira won’t call it fate, wouldn’t dare, but this gallows he’s walking towards has two ropes. They both know it. The only difference is that Akechi thinks the fall won’t kill him.
Akira knows it will.
Kurusu Akira
that makes two of us
It’s too much. He knows the second he hits send that it’s a mistake, a provocation that helps nothing and no one, and he lays his head on the counter, wondering how he could possibly be this selfish. His eyes are burning and his nose hurts from trying to keep the press of tears from leaking out of him. He wishes he was a normal teenager with normal problems. He wishes he’d never been born. He wishes he could just stay here behind his counter forever until the floorboards turn back into trees and consume him whole.
If the universe needs Akira dead, then he wishes he could just die like he always imagined: stoically, selflessly, simply without all of this…mourning that he’s doing for something he never had.
Akechi won’t be texting back. He’s either figured Akira out, or taken the hint that there’s nothing left to say. The minutes drag on, the only soundtrack to Akira’s slow collapse the bubbling curry and Morgan’s soft snores. He scrapes himself off the counter and checks the rice cooker, and then goes through the motions of filling eight tupperwares with rice and curry for everyone except himself. He stacks them in the fridge and stares at the inside of it for a long moment. Memorizes it, for some reason.
He jumps when his phone goes off.
Akechi Goro
There are many things in my life that I regret. Getting to know you has not been one of them.
Go to sleep, Akira.
Akira presses the heels of his hands into his eyes so hard it hurts and doesn’t respond. His phone buzzes again and he nearly ignores it, but it’s so insistent, buzzing well past its usual vibration that he looks.
O R A C L E (✧ω✧)
That was really stupid.
…shit. Akechi’s bugged phone.
Jokerrrrrrrr
i know
O R A C L E (✧ω✧)
You know i’m not just talking about tonight, right?
You don’t even know half of it, Akira thinks. You have no idea just how bad it’s gotten.
Jokerrrrrrrr
yeah
O R A C L E (✧ω✧)
look, I really don’t get it
I seriously don’t
Anger curdles in Akira’s stomach at how judgmental she sounds and he has to wait for it to pass before responding. No one has ever understood him the way he desperately wants them to, never managed to see beyond the labyrinth of funhouse mirrors that is Akira, but his friends, at least, have tried. Futaba has tried. He has no right to expect her to follow him where Akechi leads.
Jokerrrrrrrr
you don’t have to
O R A C L E (✧ω✧)
i know, it just sucks
all of this sucks
I won’t tell anyone
Jokerrrrrrrr
thanks
He hopes that’s the end of it. He wants to sleep through tomorrow. He wants to sleep forever.
O R A C L E (✧ω✧)
you really scare me sometimes.
It hits like a sucker punch to the chest. He doesn’t have a good response to that. He knows Futaba isn’t expecting one. He turns off his phone and considers dropping it in the dirty dishwater in the sink and then drowning himself in it afterwards. He does neither of those things, just gently wakes Morgana up with a small plate of cat food with a drop of curry and goes upstairs.
There’s a good chance that in less than 24 hours, Kurusu Akira will be dead. He hopes he’ll feel differently about it in the morning.