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Yusuke steps forward out of turn when the shadow in front of them morphs back into human form and pitifully crumples to the ground. The initiative is unexpected, but if Yusuke’s day calls for the stress relief of a finishing blow, it’s not like Akechi would deny him that – maybe once they’re done here he should check if there’s some trouble with a painting or schoolwork, if it’s anything Akechi can help with.
Except instead of making that final attack, Yusuke hovers over the shadow, strangely uncertain for a task that should be routine by now.
“Do you want to stop living like this?” he tries experimentally, sounding like he’s not sure if he’s doing it right. “The fraud, the exploitation – if we let you keep your life, would you leave them behind?”
...Is this what Akechi thinks it is?
Yusuke sheathes his sword to instead reach a hand out towards the shadow, who looks up at him, wide-eyed, before starting to nod hysterically, promising he’ll be better, claiming he’s remembered what’s important, and sure enough – the shadow’s shape begins to turn hazy and blurred, fading into a shimmer of light coiled around a glowing center.
Whatever item was about to materialize within the glow, no one will ever find out, because Akechi’s bullet tears right through the half-formed treasure and the shadow abruptly flickers back to solid form before disintegrating in a much less dramatic fashion.
Yusuke whirls around, scowling at the interference, but his annoyance has nothing on the brittle rage that’s freezing the blood in Akechi’s veins right now.
“I wasn’t aware,” he bites out, “we were cosplaying the Phantom Thieves today.”
“If they can do it, why shouldn’t we?” Yusuke counters, frustrated. “Now that we know a non-lethal use of our powers is–”
“Since when do you decide how we use our powers?” Akechi interrupts in a desperate lunge to put a stop to this derailment of their dynamic as soon as possible, reel Yusuke back into Akechi’s orbit instead of whatever this is. “I’ve been doing this for longer than you’ve had any idea the Metaverse even exists, and now you think you know better?” Yusuke looks taken aback at the hostility, and Akechi distantly realizes he’s lashing out too swiftly and too hard, but it’s either that or process Yusuke’s apparent dissatisfaction with the life Akechi has dragged him into, so there aren’t any paths open other than the slide further down.
“Don’t ever pull this kind of shit again,” he says, as coldly as he feels. He’d be shivering if he were present enough for that. “Whatever other bright ideas you have, shove. them. You don’t get to make these calls. Just do as I say and be a good little plus one, alright?”
The syrupy quality his voice takes on at the end makes him vaguely nauseous. He hasn’t used that tone on Yusuke since before they were anything to each other.
There’s a beat of shocked silence while Yusuke’s reaction catches up, initial surprise eventually giving way to something sharp-edged. His face does a complicated flicker and settles in a hard, narrow-eyed expression that comes with a phantom smell of ozone in the air.
“Yes, sir, my captain,” Yusuke salutes in a clipped tone, pointed enough Akechi couldn’t miss the implication if he tried.
His vision goes red. The frozen feeling he couldn’t think around earlier is scalded into a stinging burn, hot water on frostbitten skin. He’s moving before he’s even aware of it, fisting his hand in Yusuke’s shirt to shove him several steps backwards until he’s forcefully pressed against a wall.
“I didn’t show you that place so you could use it against me,” it starts as a hiss and rises to a furious crescendo, “are you seriously going to bring it up like this!?”
“I don’t know, are you seriously going to treat me like a tool to be used as you please?” Yusuke yelling at him right back would be a relief from the previous savage precision if anything could get past the rush of acceleration in Akechi’s ears as this fight careens towards something like a point of no return, “A means to an end, an obedient follower you can mold into whatever is convenient for you?”
Akechi feels like he’s on the verge of breaking something precious into pieces, and it makes him want to swing the bat harder to make sure the damage is irreparable. There’s a quiet, scared voice at the back of his mind trying to pull him back, but he’s too used to treating it with derision to pay it any mind. Wanting to keep things, how naïve – that’s never been a real option, and he’d rather lose this on his own terms.
“Maybe I’m doing you a favor!” he shouts, even as that quiet part of him cowers to shield itself from the shards, “You fall into the role so readily – maybe you don’t know how to be anything else.” His voice is losing its raw edge, simmering down into blank cruelty that helpfully takes over whenever he requires an autopilot mode. “Cute little rebellion, but we both know you need a master to follow around, so stop,” he pushes Yusuke harder into the wall to punctuate his words, “pulling on the leash.”
Yusuke shoves him back, and Akechi hopes he’ll punch him, itches for a physical altercation to burn out the rank poisonous fumes in the air between them, but Yusuke just gives him an unreadable look, swivels on his heels and walks out of the room.
Akechi stays in place, barely aware he even has a body he could move. He wants to scream. He wants to break something. He wants to Call of Chaos himself.
He doesn’t have the capacity for any of that, only standing there until his legs give out – which he thinks he would have, if he didn’t get saved by distant noises of combat. Even if he’s still fuming with murky rage that feels a bit like despair, moving to catch up to Yusuke so he doesn't have to fight his way back to the surface alone is an automatic decision he doesn’t need to think about. In all likelihood, after the way this went Akechi’s going to have to get used to traversing Mementos by himself again, but right now they’re in a barely explored section, and they don’t have many items on them, and it’s just second nature to fall into rhythm against waves of shadows they come across.
Thankfully, Yusuke allows that. He doesn’t say anything or even look in Akechi’s direction, but he makes space for him to slide back into their teamwork.
They were pretty deep down, and the return trek is a long one, made longer by the complete silence as Yusuke doesn’t acknowledge Akechi’s presence outside of battle. The quiet monotony of identical hallways and practiced dispatching of shadows is meditative in its own way, giving Akechi time to let out some of the pressurized steam and boot his critical thinking back up.
Unfortunately, all his rational mind has to say once it’s working is “What is wrong with me. What is wrong with me. WHAT is WRONG with me."
With this little bit of distance, Yusuke’s off-script behavior looks more like a curious exploration of available moves than the betrayal it felt like at the time. This objective sense of loss, this wall between them – that wasn’t there before Akechi spoke it into existence.
As the red-tinged fog over his mind gradually dissolves, Akechi is left feeling untethered. Are they just... over now? Has Yusuke gone from partner to liability in the span of several barbed phrases? Will he ever look at him again?
Whatever swirl of emotions Akechi feels about that, there’s little genuine regret among them. It was always going to end up like this – might as well get it over with and spare them both the pretense that this wasn’t too good to last.
This kind of burrowing resignation he knows how to live with, but there is another, more insistent ache that gets past it – the unbearable wrongness of the knowledge that Yusuke’s anger comes from a place of hurt, that Akechi’s the reason for it. At first he missed the horror of that behind the dopamine reward of each successful verbal attack, but now his own anxious heartbreak is dwarfed in the face of a burning need to remedy that hurt somehow, take back the damage he’s done.
Yusuke is the one time he’s ever made something better, the one person his actions ever helped. A savior role is not anything he’d ever aspire to, but being in this position comes with a strange sense of responsibility, a small light in his heart that he’s equally compelled to protect and to extinguish so it stops clashing with the surroundings.
He doesn’t need a friend, teammate, whatever else it was Yusuke was becoming to him, he doesn’t. He doesn’t. He can go it alone like he always has. But if it’s time for this safety line to snap, he hates that the recoil has to hurt them both. Yusuke deserves better.
He’s not sure what he can do about it though. Groveling for forgiveness seems– trite, and dishonest somehow, like trying to cover up the fact that he’s exactly the kind of person who would turn unfair and vicious at the first disagreement. But the thought of leaving it like this, without letting Yusuke know it was unfair and uncharitable and not at all what Akechi actually thinks of him – that just hurts in a way Akechi doesn’t think would ever heal.
There’s still no plan by the time they get to the upper level, which means Akechi’s chance to say something is slipping through his fingers. He has to grab it now, before they reach the exit, but Yusuke does not slow down to give him more time to think, so he has to resort to blurting out his name to try and get him to pause.
At least Yusuke actually stops, actually turns to look at him, although his expression is still just as shuttered. It puts the spotlight on Akechi, cutting off his escape routes, making it an imperative that he says something, so in the end he just goes with–
“I didn’t mean any of that.”
He cringes at the crudeness of this approach, but it was the essence of what he needed to say, so he builds on whatever foundation he managed to lay down before he loses the momentum.
“I didn’t mean it. I know you can make your own choices – I want you to make your own choices, I want– I wanted you at my side, not just someone to order around, I just… wasn’t ready for you to make a choice I don’t like, and I was– frustrated, and angry, and I’m–” Akechi squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his fists to force himself through the next part, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said all that. I hate that I hurt you.”
He doesn’t open his eyes right away, and then is afraid that when he does Yusuke will just be gone, out of this conversation and out of Akechi’s life.
Yusuke’s still there. He looks less tense than he did the entire walk up, his posture less rigid, and the stony ire is replaced with a softer unhappy confusion.
“’ Wanted' me at your side?” is all he asks in response.
Akechi looks away. “Still do,” he admits reluctantly, even though it’s embarrassing to say when Yusuke probably doesn’t anymore. Maybe this is some kind of honesty test, Yusuke taking away the one pitiful paper shield Akechi managed to throw up.
Whatever it was, Yusuke seems satisfied with his answer, lighting up with something that would in a different context be a quick happy smile. Akechi’s out of things to say, so he just lets Yusuke consider him for a long moment.
“I’m sorry I compared you to Shido,” Yusuke finally offers.
“I kind of deserved that,” Akechi responds miserably, startled by the reversal of apologies.
Yusuke takes a half-step towards him, his whole body language back to the more open kind Akechi’s grown used to. He doesn’t seem that angry anymore. The traitorously hopeful voice from the back of Akechi’s mind pipes up to suggest it’s like he doesn’t want to stay mad at Akechi. Like he already misses the camaraderie too.
Akechi goes back to staying silent, leaving it to Yusuke to decide how to proceed. He’s honestly ready for Yusuke to turn back around towards the exit, but instead he takes another step closer.
“...You’ve been doing too many physicals,” Yusuke says. “We should heal up, or the pain will carry over.”
Some carry-over doesn’t sound half bad after the time Akechi’s having, but he would be a fool to not take the olive branch for what it is. They take a detour to one of their item stashes – hidden more carefully now that the metaverse is frustratingly not just theirs – and Akechi lets Yusuke patch him up with convenience store band-aids as they huddle on the floor, leaning against a wall.
Just when Akechi’s starting to hope they can pretend this never happened, Yusuke speaks up again.
“Why didn’t you like that choice?” he asks, otherwise focused on smoothing out a wrinkle in the corner of a bandage on Akechi’s cheekbone.
Akechi tenses up at the question, but relaxes when he reads Yusuke’s tone as questioning rather than argumentative – this is a post mortem of the fight, not a continuation.
Safe to respond, then. “I mean,” he starts, “a change of heart, Yusuke, really?”
Yusuke tilts his head questioningly. “Why not?”
“Okay,” Akechi scoffs, “for one, how would I explain it to Shido? When a guy on my hit list doesn’t die and instead has a meltdown that puts the whole conspiracy at risk if he confesses to the wrong crime?”
It’s a good point. Yusuke clearly agrees, judging by the sheepish expression on his face as he contemplates risk levels. Duh.
“I thought we could have made it look like it was them,” Yusuke tries sullenly. “The Phantom Thieves. That they got to him before us– before ‘you’.”
That’s– that isn’t a completely terrible idea, actually, Akechi’s startled to realize. Reckless and unnecessary, but it would be elegant to mirror Shido’s plan of pinning mental shutdowns on the Phantom Thieves by pinning convenient changes of heart on them too. Akechi is almost tempted. Still–
“Even if we could pull that off,” expressing doubt makes it more tempting again, of course they could pull it off if they wanted, “we– well, I don’t want to. We have our own way of solving problems, and I have no interest in– in childish grandstanding these idiots consider reforming society. Society will not change a lick for all their efforts – it is what it is, and our targets are what they are, and they shouldn’t get to– they don’t get to become ‘good’,” he lets his repulsion be heard, “instead of living as the people their choices have shaped them into.”
He saw Kaneshiro in person, got permission to interview him 'to help with the investigation'. It was unsettling. Seeing the man like that made Akechi want to kill him just in case death would turn him back into the slimy unrepentant piece of shit he should be. Murder is more honest. For a liar, Akechi’s concern for the truth of things is surprisingly urgent in this matter. He thought Yusuke would get it.
Yusuke’s considering him again. “What about you?” he says finally. “Are you holding onto the way we do things so tightly because that’s what your choices have shaped you into? Is that what you are?”
Akechi frowns helplessly, unprepared for that turn of conversation. He feels wrong-footed, tethering at the edge of a fall where he expected solid ground. What kind of question is that? Doesn’t Yusuke know the answer? Doesn’t Yusuke know him?
“It is though,” he states the obvious. “It is what I am. This is the life I made for myself, the life I control, the life I enjoy, did you think– did you want me to secretly regret it and just yearn for a chance to, to redeem myself or–” his emotions are starting to bubble up again, eager to overflow into another ugly outburst, and he clamps the lid shut as forcefully as he can. He’s not going to fuck up again so soon.
Yusuke senses his disarray anyway and reaches out, puts a hand on his shoulder in a grounding point of contact. “I misspoke,” he corrects himself, sounding less apologetic than grateful for help with adjusting his wording, “I know it is what you are – what we both are, really. But Goro,” the full force of Yusuke’s focus is a heavy weight, more than a little overwhelming, “is that all you are? Am I right in worrying that you think that is all you can be?”
Akechi doesn’t know how to answer that. For the longest time his only answer would have been an emphatic yes – he’s nothing but a lit fuse that’s going to leave a charred trail in its wake until it finally gets to its destination and blows up in its disgusting bald face. He’s gotten comfortable being that. It was nice. But these past months–
Yusuke’s hand lifts from his shoulder to instead cup his face. “Is that all you want to be?”
Akechi doesn't know how to be anything else. There isn’t anything else to be. And if there were a shape of something different at the edges of his mind (something for you), Akechi wouldn’t be able to look at it directly.
“What does it matter,” he says instead of answering, suddenly more exhausted than he can stand.
Yusuke takes a moment before he replies. When he does, it’s a strained confession, honesty tinged with agonized self-loathing. “You weren’t wrong when you said I don’t know how to be anything other than a tool for someone else’s use,” – Akechi winces at the reminder, but Yusuke doesn’t look like he wants to be interrupted by more apologies, “I still feel like that’s all I can be. But it’s not,” he finds Akechi’s gaze and holds it, an anchor against the unsettling pitch of this conversation, “it’s not all I am. I’m learning to be something else. You and I, together – that’s something else too. Something better.”
Akechi’s breath stutters. The wonder in Yusuke’s voice makes him feel intensely guilty about trying to sabotage his something better earlier. A resolve to never again be an obstacle to Yusuke’s moving forward is sinking its claws into him.
Yusuke rests his forehead against Akechi’s with a sigh.
“I don’t care about this target. I don’t care about the Phantom Thieves’ methods. I was simply tired of watching you do that man’s bidding without ever straying from his wants. I thought if we changed something up, it would remind you that’s not all there is.”
He withdraws a little, expression shifting to troubled. “Perhaps I overstepped,” he admits. “It is not up to me to–”
Akechi kisses him before he can finish the sentence because he suddenly fiercely hates the idea of Yusuke apologizing for this. He doesn’t break it off for as long as he can get away with, trying to at least delay whatever embarrassing melodramatic thing he’s going to say as soon as his mouth is free, too scrambled to control it. What gets out in the end, when a pause he takes to catch his breath stabs a response out of him, is “I’m learning too”, quick and scared like revealing a secret.
Yusuke pulls him closer, holding him or holding onto him or both, Akechi can’t tell. They sit quietly for a long time, both overextended. Akechi feels like they just cut something open and now it has to scab before either of them can manage another word.
“We are not doing changes of hearts,” is what he says eventually, when he feels ready to talk again.
“If you say so,” Yusuke replies with an easy acceptance that makes Akechi sure this is going to come up again, likely in the form of some different argument, some other something else.
Akechi promises himself he will try to listen next time. He’s– apprehensively fascinated with what Yusuke thinks he can be. He doesn’t truly believe it’s anything but more of the same, but– he wants to know what Yusuke sees. If it’s Yusuke, who’s teaching himself how to really look, catching up on years of depriving himself of the skill and already getting better at it than anyone Akechi knows – if it’s Yusuke, maybe he can see more of him than Akechi himself does.