Work Text:
11/2
Akira was not obsessed with Goro Akechi. He was insulted by the idea of it (the idea coming from Ann, seconded by Ryuji and thirded with a contemplative nod from Yusuke). It was factually incorrect. He wrote “I am not obsessed with Goro Akechi” in his diary, and then scribbled it out furiously when he remembered the diary was for his probation officer.
It was just that Akira liked puzzles. If he didn’t like puzzles, he wouldn’t be a Phantom Thief, or he’d be rotting away until the end of time stuck in one of Okumura’s air-locks. And Akechi was a puzzle wrapped up in a bright-eyed, well-groomed bow. Half of the things he said he’d freely admit as lies, like his marketable love for sweets that he’d revealed to be fake almost as soon as he and Akira had met. Akira had mentally crossed off “likes sweets” on his list of facts about Akechi, and from there the list only got more complicated. “Left-handed, good at pool, was tragically orphaned, likes jazz music, not a very good cook, is a serial killer,” etc. When Akechi had stated plainly after their duel that he hated Akira’s guts, Akira had spent a lot of nights trying to figure out where that statement sat between the truth and the lie categories. The categories which had become more like a spectrum, which had become more like a four-dimensional tangle.
Akira liked staying one step ahead of Akechi. It meant he was still alive, for one thing, but it also meant he could occasionally see a flash of shock and admiration on Akechi’s face, something only Akira could get out of him. He’d seen it first when he’d reached out and made Akechi put on his glasses at the cafe, and since then he hadn’t been able to resist.
Okay. Maybe Ann had a point. Damn it.
——
12/16
Goro Akechi was dead.
——
12/26
Goro Akechi wasn’t dead. Also, Akira had saved the world. Also that.
——
1/6
Akira might be obsessed with Goro Akechi. Before Sae’s palace, before the engine room, before all that bullshit with Yaldabaoth had come to light, Akira and Akechi’s game had been one of holding back just enough truth to get the upper hand. Now that the truth was out, all of it, Akira was fascinated by seeing Akechi’s real self. Or, maybe it was his real self. The manic rage in the Metaverse, ripping shadows to shreds until his fingers bled and his voice was hoarse from screaming, the constant, quiet frustration behind his eyes in the real world, hunched over and tense in his seat at the jazz club. The singer was here today, and when Akechi realized this, that Akira had timed their meeting just right for the same live performer they’d seen all those months ago, Akira caught that flash of surprise again, followed quickly this time by even more pronounced frustration. Well, since the rest of Akira’s friends seemed bent on ignoring him in favor of their shiny new lives, it wasn’t like Akira had anything better to do than annoy his favorite(?) Detective Prince.
The drinks Akira had ordered arrived, two daily specials, which today came alongside a small plate of pale green macarons dusted with pink sugar.
“Sorry,” Akira said, breaking the long silence. “I forgot you don’t like sweet things.”
Akechi sat back and sighed. “Actually,” he said, “I don’t really mind them. That was another lie.”
Akira blinked. “Really? A double bluff, about sweets?” He laughed before he could stop himself.
Akechi rolled his eyes, but the corners of his mouth twitched up. “It makes people feel closer to me, when they think they know something that everyone else doesn’t. I told you that to gain your trust.”
“And now?” Akira asked, taking a small bite of macaron. It was surprisingly tart.
“And now none of that really matters, does it.” Akechi twirled a straw between his fingers.”I’m here. You’re here. Another tyrant needs putting down. I don’t care about lying to you anymore.”
“Hmm,” Akira replied. Somehow, that answer still felt incomplete. He’d have to think on it more. In the meantime, though, “what’s your favorite kind of sweet, then?”
Akechi did smile then, the ironic smirk, of course, but it still lit up his face. He picked up a macaron, holding it up gently between two fingers. “Green apple, actually. Not the real kind, though, just the flavoring.”
The music started, and they both fell silent. Akechi ate both of his macarons. He wasn’t lying, then. Another fact to add to Akira’s totally objective list.
——
1/16
Akira got shot by his own bullet. Literally, this time. Using his gun against one of Maruki’s shadow guards was a careless mistake, and Akechi made sure to remind him of that while dragging him back to a safe room after the battle.
“You really should know better than to try and shoot any of these shadows. When does that ever work against a powerful enemy?”
You seemed pretty sure it would work against me last November, Akira wanted to say, but didn’t. Akechi was already pissed enough.
In the safe room, Akechi motioned for Akira to sit on the floor, which he did while admirably suppressing a groan of pain. He could feel the bits of metal biting into his shoulder. “There should be some tweezers in my bag,” Akira said hoarsely, tugging down his coat and shirt to get a better look at the damage. It didn’t look great. “Can you hand them to me?”
Akechi pulled up a chair next to him. “Don’t be stupid. It would take you forever to fix yourself up, and you’ll probably just end up making it worse. I’ll do it.”
“Oh,” Akira said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. It’s for the sake of convenience.” Akechi pulled out the tweezers as well as some gauze, and started to dab away the blood. “This is going to hurt a lot. Don’t scream or struggle.”
Akira bit the inside of his cheek. “I’ll be fine. Just…Can you do something to distract me?”
Akechi snorted. “Like what?”
“Just keep talking. Tell me a story, like.. why you like green apple candy.”
There was a long pause. “That’s stupid.” Akira was just about to resign himself to suffering in silence when Akechi grumbled “Fine, fine. I’ll tell you. I used to get them as a treat when I was little, from my mom.”
There was a cold prick of metal on Akira’s skin, then a white-hot sting. He focused on Akechi’s voice. “If I had a hard day, or if she had the night off, she would come home with a plastic bag full of all kinds of candies and we’d stay up late eating them and watching Featherman.” The stinging ebbed for a second, and there was a small clink of metal hitting the floor. Then the pain returned, sharp and insistent. Akira tried not to flinch.
Akechi continued. “The green apple was her favorite, so I told her they were my favorite too. After that she started giving all of them to me. She said she didn’t like them as much anymore, but I think that-” another pull, another clink, “-that she might have lied about it. She just wanted me to not feel guilty about eating them all.”
The pressure lifted, and Akira felt a cool bandage being pressed against his skin. “Okay, done.”
He sat up slowly, ignoring the bloody pile of shrapnel on the floor, and looked over at Akechi. He had already moved away, and was putting away the rest of the first aid materials while pointedly not looking at Akira.
“Thanks,” Akira said.
Akechi turned around sharply and glared at him. “Stop thanking me. I didn’t do it for you. A wounded teammate’s just too much of a bother.”
“I’m still grateful.”
Akechi’s eyes tightened, searching Akira’s face for something he couldn’t seem to find. He opened his mouth, but then closed it. “Fine, then. Be a sentimental idiot for all I care.” The words were harsh as usual, but Akira could hear a slight waver in them. Something about it caught in Akira’s chest like a fishing hook, and all the little details he’d been collecting about this lying, angry, desperate boy came rushing into his mind with an overwhelming wave of emotion that made him stumble against the chair beside him. But Akechi had already gone back out into the palace, and Akira could only swallow down his tangled mess of thoughts and follow him.
——
2/2
Akira, it turns out, was more obsessed with Goro Akechi than he thought. God damn it. God fucking damn it.
——
2/3
Goro Akechi was dead, again.
——
11/1
Goro Akechi was alive.
Akira had gotten a call from Sojiro at 12am on a school night back in his excruciatingly boring home town. He picked up immediately, and Sojiro told him in the same tired voice that he used to discuss incorrect coffee deliveries that Akechi had shown up outside Leblanc half an hour ago, haggard and frantic but miraculously alive, and was now passed out in Akira’s old bed upstairs and could Akira maybe pop by and sort things out and get the poor kid some food because he looked like some sort of malnourished ghost.
Akira started packing a bag before Sojiro finished explaining.
After his unthinking mad dash to leave the house, Akira had a very long train ride to think, think, and overthink. Sojiro had given him one last warning before hanging up. “He doesn’t remember anything about last January or February.” Which meant he didn’t remember the other world, or anything that had happened there, if it had even happened to the real Akechi at all.
It had happened to Akira, though. All of the parts of Akira’s “things about Akechi '' list were scribbled over and marked up by that time they'd spent together then, that time when he’d seen Akechi take off his perfect mask, and realized that he loved him all the more for it.
But that world had put Akechi through hell, had taken away the last bit of control he had over his life, and Akira knew Akechi had despised every second of it. Not every second, Akira quietly hoped, but then shook the thought away. Maruki’s world had brought Akechi nothing but pain. If the Akechi who was alive right now didn’t experience all of that, or didn’t remember experiencing it, whatever the difference was, Akira wouldn’t tell him. Not when his life was already full of terrible things he didn’t have the luxury of forgetting.
——
11/2
Last minute train tickets were expensive, and Akira had been practically broke since moving back home, having entrusted the Phantom Thieves’ funds to Makoto. His bank account was approaching overdraft territory, which didn’t matter right now, but he had forgotten to get food before he left and he needed something, something soft and easier on the stomach than coffee and curry, to present to the now twice undead murderer asleep in his bed.
So he fished out just enough coins from his pocket to get two plastic wrapped pastries from the kiosk at the train station, and sprinted to make the connection to Yongen. For a moment he remembered standing at the same kiosk a lifetime ago, talking to a polite boy with a pleasant smile on his way home from school. The fishing line in his chest pulled tighter.
It was five in the morning and pink light was just starting to spill into Leblanc when Akira arrived. He let himself in with his own key, as Sojiro had long since gone back home to sleep, and quietly walked through the cafe and up the back stairs. The attic was unchanged from how he’d left it, clean and bare, except for the blanket-wrapped figure glaring at him from the corner, gaunt, exhausted, with terrible bedhead.
“Honey, I’m home?” Akira croaked.
Akechi gave a long, annoyed sigh and leaned back against the window sill. “Welcome home.”
Akira stood for a long moment, heart beating so loud he could feel his chest tremble. “I…. brought some food.” He tossed the plastic bag in Akechi’s lap. Akechi winced backward and Akira cringed at himself, shit shit why did I do that, but then Akechi reached forward and carefully pulled out a melonpan and an apple tart
Akira continued. “They, um, didn’t have green apple, so I got regular apple instead, and melonpan, because everyone likes melonpan. I'm not sure if…” and then he trailed off as Akechi gave him the most fragile, shocked look he’d ever seen. This wasn’t the momentary shock of being outsmarted or the sardonic resolve of seeing your own death, this was unguarded horror.
“How….?” Akechi’s voice broke. He swallowed and tried again. “How do you know that I liked this? I never told you that. I never told anyone that.” He looked down at the food in his lap, then back up at Akira. “How do you always know?”