Work Text:
An alto singer was accompanied by the languid and sweet keys of the piano. The notes wafted through the space like fireflies, bringing little glows of sultry happiness to the clientele of the Jazz Jin. The warm and gentle lights of the bar cast long swathes of light along the tables where the customers sat, and ended just at the singer’s stage.
The bedazzled sapphire dress sparkled as the singer shifted her weight, stretching a long, dark leg out from the slit. Her voice came again, low and heavy like molasses. Her arms rose like blooming flowers as the long note filled the room with warmth.
There was a single table where the light didn’t quite reach, but the singer’s voice could. The figure sitting at that table leaned his head on his hand, and his black hair swayed as he did so. Gloved fingers traced the rim of a glass half-filled with whisky. Droplets from condensation rolled down the side as the ice clinked and shifted.
This man at the table parted his lips in shock. His mouth soon rose to a smile, however, and took his pointer finger from tapping on the glass to sway in the air with the music. He hummed with the singer gently, so gently that when the door opened for footsteps to come in his humming couldn’t be heard.
Those footsteps revealed themselves to be an irate detective with hazelnut hair. His footsteps were quiet as he took a seat at the bar, but the man in the corner heard them as clear as metal pans striking each other. This detective ordered a sparkling water, and soon crossed his legs.
The detective’s eyes weaved through the audience, snagging on a few figures here and there. But every time he deigned to look closer, they weren’t right, and he sighed and looked back. His eyes did not catch on the singer. Nor did they catch on the man in the corner.
The glass of sparkling water was set in front of this detective, but he didn’t pay it any mind. For he had caught a motion at the back of the room. Cast in black, a lithe figure had knocked back the rest of their glass and set it down with a dull thud.
The detective’s breath hitched a moment, and he stood from the bar. There was a button under his sleeves, and this he tapped three times.
‘ I’ve found him.’
This detective passed through the tables, and his other hand reached under his waistcoat for his pistol. The piano sang with loud unabashed chords as the melody swung lower and harder, in rhythm with the detective’s fast-beating heart.
Finally approaching, gun in his grip, he stood right behind this figure.
There was a beat, and the red curtain rose to reveal drum sets and trumpets.
Goro Akechi grabbed this figure’s shoulder and slammed him against the table.
“You’re under arrest…” He dropped his gaze to find that the figure’s nose was too short, and their eyes too lawful to be that man’s.
His head bolted from the table to search the room.
‘ Shit!’
The singer smiled, snapping in time with the spunky swings of the trumpet. Goro raced to the middle of the room, searching every corner for that man.
The world was spinning, the tophat of the drums clicked constantly, tauntingly even. People sipped from their drinks, smiling wide with their teeth. The singer came in, a fire in her voice as she swung her hips this and that way. Goro clenched his teeth, and then he registered a lyric.
“ Before you can find me, I’m gone…” she sang.
Goro whipped his head around.
Standing by the door, fixing his long black coat and mask in place, was Joker.
The moment they made eye contact, Joker winked.
Goro raced toward him, and it was only when he was halfway that Joker slammed the door wide open and waved goodbye.
“Joker! Stop!” Goro yelled.
He caught the door right before it closed behind Joker, and flung it open to follow him. Police cars and red and blue lights lined the area, all waiting for Goro to draw Joker out.
He heard one more lyric before he joined the mad dash for Joker.
“ So come on and catch me, you've still got a chance.”
It was back when Goro was still a rookie detective. Back when all of the city wasn’t haunted by the stage name ‘Joker’. The first time he saw that wink.
“Goro Akechi! Just what do you mean there’s no one to be found at the station?!” It was up-and-coming politician Masayoshi Shido yelling into the phone. It was Goro Akechi on the other end, wincing from the loud volume.
“We’ve searched everywhere, Mr. Shdio. We can’t catch them today, but I swear, whoever did this will pay dearly.”
Police sirens were blaring in the background. “They better! I don’t pay you for nothing, Goro.”
Goro sighed, he wished Shido wouldn’t yell out that he was bribing him so loudly. “Yes, but in the meantime, I assume you want me to perform damage control?”
“Of course I want you to fucking perform damage control!”
Goro ended the phone call with a headache. In front of him, in the lobby of the TV station, was the president of the same TV station, sniffling and wrapped in a blanket to preserve his modesty, since the kidnapper had left him in nothing but his briefs.
The lobby, spacious with waiting seats all around it and a statue of a camera in the middle, was violated. It was painted over with red and black, where the blobs and swirls of paint got progressively bigger as they led to the center of the room; the chair the TV president had been duct taped to, right in front of that statue.
The confetti to celebrate this grave crime were the ‘calling cards’ pasted all around, like someone really had fired a confetti cannon.
It read;
To Mr. Hono, the conveyor of lies
I leave this message here for all of the city to discover. I leave you here in hopes you may admit to the following crimes;
Lying
Knowingly misleading the people
Propping true evil
Stealing from your own company
Below are photos of your transaction, of which are far too large for you to have gained without performing the aforementioned.
Finally, I’ve taken the liberty of taking some of your assets, which I will leave unknown to save you the surprise of discovering their absence.
Kindly,
Joker
Goro crumpled the note in his hands. The logo was an idiotic top hat smirking, and the entire note was written in pasted letters from various newspapers. The security feed had been tampered with, and Mr. Hono had no recollection of the person who’d kidnapped him.
Worst of all, a single one of those photos was Hono and Shido shaking hands. And these calling cards weren’t just here, they had also suddenly appeared in Shibuya.
Goro left his fellow investigators to question Mr. Hono as he perused the scene. Right outside the station, where the flashing red and blue lights were bouncing off the walls of the building, was sitting a teenager.
With dark curly hair, he leaned against the bottom of the wall. He watched with interest as Mr. Hono was escorted out with a cup of hot chocolate in his hands to an ambulance.
Goro and the boy made eye contact. The boy smiled at him, and Goro furrowed his brow in return. With that, he dusted his dark jeans off, stood, winked, and waved goodbye to Goro as he stalked through the night.
It was only later, after they’d managed to get a video of the person who’d kidnapped Mr. Hono, that Goro recognized that dark curly hair.
“Chief,” Goro had said to his boss. “Let me lead this investigation.”
The police sirens went off again. News cars were driving to meet them. All sense of stealth for this operation had disappeared, but Goro was just fine with that.
He saw the bullets being fired by some of the cops and followed the noise. He ran past the people he was meant to give orders to and through the blockade of cars as he followed the few cops that had caught on to Joker’s trail.
Joker dodged and skipped over the piles of trash and used the hanging ladders like a monkey, swinging himself forward. Goro’s feet carried him faster. And he copied Joker’s movements.
There was a sudden turn in the alley, and Goro crashed into the wall but recovered quickly enough to see Joker climbing to the top of the building complex. Seeing this, Goro used his walkie-talkie to direct everyone to surround the building.
Joker looked down on them as he was climbing the ladder, and Goro quickly got on to it with two other cops following his lead. Joker smiled and kicked his foot on the rusty ladder a few times.
Goro grit his teeth and climbed faster. Finally, Joker had kicked hard enough so that a segment had lopped off, leaving the two other investigators falling. But Goro was already past the section, and just as he was about to grab Joker’s obnoxious coattails, Joker managed to jump on the stairway that zigzagged up the side of the building
“You’ll have to be a little faster than that, Detective!” Joker shouted out above the roaring winds.
Goro glared and pulled himself to the rickety stairs and started following Joker’s path.
They climbed what felt like hundreds of stairs, and as they neared the top of the building the wind only grew more vicious. Right as he reached the top of the building It whipped Goro’s hair all around, and he tucked it back with one of his hands.
When Goro could see in front of him again, he didn’t see Joker.
He pulled himself up in a panic but soon saw it. On the moonless night, Joker’s figure was not to be seen. All that could be seen were two pairs of vivid red gloves waving at the detective.
“Joker!” Goro yelled as he took a few steps closer to him.
It was dark, and though his eyes couldn’t confirm it, he swore Joker winked at him.
“Seems like you’ve got the place surrounded!” Joker yelled from across the building. Goros tumbled through the wind closer to him.
Now that Joker was standing on the ledge, the blue and red lights below finally lit up his face. And when Goro saw that face, he knew he still hadn’t won yet.
“Goodbye, Detective!” Joker yelled with a toothy grin before trust falling to the ground. Back first. Goro wouldn’t be fooled by this trick like he was during the IT president’s case.
He heard a thud, and saw where the hook of Joker’s grappling hook had latched onto. He ran to it and looked below to see Joker swinging like Spider-Man just a few feet above where the police would be able to grab him. From the trajectory, it seemed Joker would swing over onto the adjacent building and run from there.
‘ Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…’
Goro timed it perfectly. He waited until Joker was swinging right over a particularly large huddle of officers, before cutting the hook from the line.
From so far away, and especially with that stupid mask he wore, Goro shouldn’t have been able to see the shock in Joker’s eyes as he fell into the hundreds of hands grappling for his arrest.
But he did. And it felt good.
Joker, that infamous thief of success. The thief that millions of people rooted for. This was his first and last failed heist, at least to the public’s knowledge.
Little did anyone know that there was one more heist Joker had conducted, just the night before.
Goro Akechi was suspicious. Call it a gut feeling, but that letter he’d received a month ago about Joker showing up at Masayoshi Shido’s office building to complete his strand of heists today…he thought there was a likely chance it was false. But, he still gave up his Sunday night, if not to quell that gut feeling.
His gun was with him as he waited on the bench outside the three-story elaborate building. It was night (wasn’t it always night with Joker?) and Goro felt the wind nip at his nose and exposed ears.
He rubbed his shoulders and brought his scarf higher but to no avail. Perhaps it was because of his chattering teeth that he didn’t hear those cat-like footsteps along the pavement.
“Don’t speak and don’t run,” came a smooth voice behind him.
Goro went still.
“Oh. And don’t turn around.”
Goro swallowed, but he nodded. Joker’s hands traveled up his neck, then to his ears. He held his fingers in such a way that Goro could still hear, but not feel the cold as much anymore.
“You’re just a rotten perv, aren’t you?” Goro hissed.
“Maybe. But I know that,” Joker leaned in, in such a way that Goro could feel the hot breath on his neck when Joker whispered, “It’s a lot better than what you’ve been doing, Goro Akechi.”
Goro was adept at playing dumb and was prepared to do so until Joker took one hand away to put in Goro’s vision a picture of him and Shido. Particularly, a picture of them looking incredibly guilty, shaking hands at night.
“How…?”
“You’d be surprised how much dirt these bigwig guys keep on each other for the taking in their offices,” Joker practically sang.
“What do you want? The Police will be coming soon, so act fast.” Goro had told one of his co-workers he was coming here, but whether this co-worker would be sharp enough to pick up on his absence was another matter.
“Aww! Looking out for little ol’ me, how sweet!” Joker, much to Goro’s dismay, then rested his chin on Goro’s head. “Oh, wow!” Joker said, breaking his snarky character for a moment in surprise. “What kind of shampoo do you use? Your hair smells really nice.”
“I was joking about the perv thing, but now I’m not so sure,” Goro responded with a wrinkle in his nose.
“Sorry, I got off track. Anyhow, I’ve disturbed our wonderful Sunday nights to give you something.”
Goro heard Joker rummage around in his pocket for something. He thought about fighting back but thought better of it when he remembered how fast Joker’s reflexes were.
Goro heard him flick a piece of paper a few times before shoving it into Goro’s eyesight.
“Some of my best scrapbooking, if I do say so myself.”
Goro’s eyes widened in shock.
To Mr. Akechi, (or Goro, if it’s okay for me to call you that, honeybun)
I write this note to you for your eyes only. I write this as a warning. I warn that if you do not change very soon then all of the people and their will will be against you.
I suspect you of the crimes listed;
Bribery
Corruption
Being too hot for your own good, baby girl
Lovingly,
Joker
Goro stared at it.
“Did you…Did you really risk your identity just to give me this?” He asked. He couldn’t bother confronting the fact that Joker knew about the bribes, this was far more concerning.
“Huh? Yeah, of course. Mr. Detective, I take my justice very seriously.”
“And my hand in marriage, apparently…” Goro murmured.
“What are you…” Joker began, befuddled. Then, he leaned in a bit closer so that if Goro strained his eyes he could see the tip of Joker’s nose. Goro was kind and leaned it his way under the lamplight so he could read his own handiwork.
“Oh shit! That wasn’t the final draft!” Joker panicked and snatched it away from Goro. “Okay, I made that one when I was drunk, I’d never actually put that stuff down.”
“Right…” Goro drawled sarcastically.
“Unless…Y’know, unless it, uh , did the trick for-”
“Get on with it, Joker.”
With that, Joker leaned back. Goro heard him compose himself, take a few deep breaths, and then he leaned his chin on Goro’s head again.
“You’ve been taking bribes. You’ve been carrying out corrupt deeds for that bastard, Shido.”
“You’ve literally been kidnapping people.”
“I’ll get straight to it, Goro Akechi.”
“Please do.”
Joker swallowed. “Did you know I sent these cards to all my victims before making their crimes public?”
Goro stilled, and from his reaction, Joker sighed.
“So not a single one of them told you. It makes sense, as soon as you receive my calling card, it is essentially a confession of guilt.”
Goro felt a fury bubble in his chest, and he resisted the urge to turn around and punch Joker. “So what? You want me to admit to these crimes I’ve committed?”
“...Yeah, actually. If you could, that would be really nice.”
“In your dreams, you damn criminal. I’d never do a single thing for an animal like you, much less something to this magnitude.”
Joker sighed. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” Goro spat. “The next time we meet, it’ll be behind bars.”
There was a little bit of hurt in Joker’s voice. “I’m not the villain I appear to be.”
Goro held back any sort of response he wanted to say. “Go on. Let’s pretend like this never happened. I won’t peek at your identity.”
Goro sat at the bench for a few minutes longer than he needed to. Crossing his arms, he stood and motioned to the people waiting in the bushes for him.
“Did you get what you needed?” Goro asked, undoing his wire.
“Yes, it’ll take some time, but the facial recognition software should be complete by tomorrow. We’ll have his identity and everything,” one of Shido’s lackeys said.
Goro smiled wildly. “Great.”
Yet, there was a pit in his chest. No, he was doing this all so he could be above Shido, Joker just had to accept his fate as a casualty.
Goro Akechi leaned against the walls of the elevator. He was a little scared of heights, so getting down from that ridiculous building had taken its time. So long, that by the time he’d reached the ground, Joker was already at the police station, in custody.
Goro had made sure that everyone would wait for the head investigator of the case before beginning any interrogations, so when the elevator opened and he stepped toward the metal door with two guards in front of it, he was nervous.
What if Joker had escaped? What if he’d done some grand magic trick like he always did?
Or, what if he’d finally fallen to justice?
Goro beamed when he stepped in that room. He didn’t look up before shutting the door behind himself. He heard Joker in his chair, cuffed to the table, gasp.
“How sweet, you came to visit, Detective.”
There was that snarky tone as always, but his speech was a bit slurred and he talked with a tiny lisp. Goro looked up to see that, despite his orders, some people had already punched him across the cheek, and there were needle marks in his arms.
“Did you remember their badge numbers?” Goro asked suddenly.
“Their?” Joker chased knowingly. “As in the people who did this to me? The people who are called justice?”
Sighing, Goro took the seat across from Joker. At first, he was scared that the drugs and beatings would make him lose that signature Joker punchability. But it looked like it was alive and well. Good, Goro would need it.
“You targeted Masayoshi Shido,” Goro acknowledged grimly.
“Wait, Detective. Before we get to him, let’s talk about us, ” Joker purred as he rested his face on his interlocked fingers.
His bangs covered his eyes, and so even without the mask, not much more of his face could be seen than normal. Goro scavenged across his features, however, searching for the Akira Kurusu he’d seen in the report this morning. Searching for the boy who was convicted of assault and had his future stolen.
Goro drummed his fingers. “Fine.”
Joker smiled and reached into his jacket to pull out another card, extraordinarily similar to the one from the other night.
“That, Detective, is your final calling card.”
Goro heard movement beyond their interrogation room. Barely audible, but a familiar clack in the dress shoes nonetheless.
Goro’s eyes barely glazed over the note. It was lengthy, and he was tired. So he tore it up in front of Joker.
Each rip of the thick cardstock seemed to make Joker’s eyes grow wider.
“I don’t know how you’ve got it into your head that we’ve some sort of bond or relationship.” Goro laughed and covered his mouth in an attempt to stop himself. “Sorry, sorry, this is highly inappropriate, but I just-” Goro kept laughing, sputtering. “I just don’t see how you think I care?”
Joker was silent for a moment. Then, he leaned back in his chair and tapped his finger on the table. “Talk about a terrible winner, you just gotta rub it in, huh?”
Goro leaned forward in his chair. With his hands handcuffed to the bar in the table, Joker couldn’t block when Goro slapped him across the face.
The sound was loud and sharp, More percussive than the drums were at the Jazz Jin. Joker reached to his cheek in shock.
Goro leaned in closer and grabbed Joker’s collar.
“You, Akira Kurusu, are just a pathetic boy running around, impeeding true progress because he was dissatisfied with his life! Know your place, and show some damn respect!”
Joker stared at him, then his eyes traveled down to where Goro’s other hand, the one not holding his collar, was pointing at the mirror in the interrogation room. It was obvious it’d be a one-side mirror, and people would be waiting on the other side.
So Joker’s face was confused as to why Goro would bother pointing it out so obviously with his hands.
They shared a look, an exchange of focus, and Goro tilted his head so that the mirror couldn’t see what he was mouthing to Joker.
“ I’m not the villain I appear to be.”
Goro closed the door behind himself. Shido was waiting in the hallway after stepping out of the room that saw into the interrogation one, a kind of look on his face that Goro didn’t like.
“Good job, Akechi. I would’ve preferred that you and your department allow me to be the one to rough him up, but…” A dangerous smirk crawled across his features. “I’ll arrange that he receives every punishment necessary for trying to sink my ship.”
“Yes, as he should,” Goro murmured half-heartedly. Shido stepped into the interrogation room, and as soon as the door shut Goro pushed the ‘send’ button on a pre-written text on his phone.
It was to a few trustworthy co-workers, and notably, a few prosecutors. It read along the lines of ‘This is your one chance to catch Shido, get your ass over here now.’
Goro gave a nod to the guards as he stepped into the room on the other side of the one-way mirror, the one used for spying. He crossed his arms and watched the scene, hoping that his witnesses would arrive soon.
The first thing Masayoshi Shido did when stepping into that room wasn’t talk or gloat. It was brutal kicks and punches to Joker’s stomach and face.
Goro’s jaw tensed, and clutched harshly in his hand was a piece of the calling card Joker left him.
It was embarrassing, but every morning that Goro Akechi would wake up with the plaques and awards on his wall he’d go straight to the bathroom. The first thing he’d murmur to himself was that he was a Crow, hiding in the enemy ranks. That those plaques and awards, all gained from close ties to Shido, would mean nothing when Goro put him behind bars.
As he cooked himself breakfast every day, he reminded himself of how every cent Shido ever gave him was donated to charity. And as he ate his stack of pancakes every morning, he reminded himself that this was the best way to make true change. To climb the ladder of corruption, and then kick it out from under himself so no more could follow.
Then, the name Joker just had to appear. The calling card that he so unashamedly signed his name on, pointed at and sliced out the corruption of true villains. Goro couldn’t decide between cheering him on, or catching him just so he wouldn’t ruin Goro’s own plans.
But just a night ago, when he’d received a calling card, he realized he didn’t disagree with it. He believed himself to be corrupt, and for lack of any impartial judge of the world, he was inclined to stay with that belief.
So Goro Akechi took action.
It was difficult to watch, to see Joker’s body twitch and resist the urge to shout or whimper after every kick. But he had to.
The door opened and Sae Niijima, flanked by her fellow goody-two-shoes co-workers, piled into the room. Their looks were suspicious, after all, rumors of Goro accepting bribes were a popular topic. But they didn’t stay on him for long before they all saw the scene of Masayoshi Shido beating a man who couldn’t fight back.
“Goro Akechi! Just what the hell are you showing us?!” Sae demanded.
“I need witnesses,” Goro explained coldly.
“For what?” Sae asked. “If you want a confession from him, he’s not going to give it. And even if he did, we don’t have the evidence to convict him-”
“Wrong.” Goro smiled bittersweetly and rested his fingers on the glass. “Joker is a better thief than I give him credit for. We have the evidence, all we need is the confession.”
Sae sighed, never stopping her glaring, and slumped down in one of the chairs.
“Shido is much too cautious to fall for such a simple trick.”
Goro laughed. “Joker has a way of pissing you off. I believe in him.”
Right as Goro said that, Masayoshi Shido swept his hand over where his hair would’ve been. He caught his breath from his barrage of attacks, and bent down a little to grab Joker’s collar.
Joker’s head was limp, but as Shido did this, Joker strained his neck to glance up at the man. Goro grinned when Joker spat in his face a mix of spit and blood.
“You punch like my grandma,” Joker taunted.
Shido looked mad again, then thought better of it and sighed. “The words of a commoner who knows he’s already lost.” Shido tossed Joker back to the ground.
Joker had to hold his arms at the table in a strange position, so he took to staying on the floor. Shido knew this, and kicked his feet up in one of the chairs, looking down on him.
“Is this your villain monologue? I have to say, Akechi’s started better.”
Goro swallowed nervously as Sae gave him a look.
“But don’t worry, you still have the middle and end to score more points! I’m cheering for you, buddy,” Joker added on.
Goro smiled when he saw that Shido’s fist was clenched.
“Joker…Akira Kurusu, I just had to see you in person. See, it took me a while, but I finally remember where I saw your name from. You were the one who assaulted me, weren’t you? When I was just trying to go home.”
Goro didn’t know that Shido was the one assaulted in that case. He also didn’t know that Joker could make a face so angry.
“You were forcing yourself on a woman. My only regret that night is that I didn’t punch you myself if you were gonna file false charges of assault on me.”
“Please, she was asking for it.” Shido brought one of his legs down on Akira’s head.
It was then that Joker looked in the mirror. Perhaps he could feel that Shido was almost done with his gloating session. His eyes pierced a hole in it, and Goro wanted to yell at him to stop being so gloomy and indecisive and just taunt Shido.
Sae looked between the two of them, and she seemed to understand what they were hoping for.
Joker’s eyes turned to the ground, and for a second Goro thought he’d given up. Then, Joker’s eyes swung back to Shido.
“Y’know, we’re the exact same.”
Shido’s laughs died down. “...What?” he asked dangerously.
“Yeah. We both just wanted to change the world. That’s why I did what I did, and that’s why all those people decided to help you.”
“The same? You think that you, underneath my heel, are the same as me, captain of the ship?”
“Yep, the only difference is you got a little lucky.”
Shido stood and slammed his fist on the table. “They did not help me! I did that all on my own, simply borrowing their resources they were too stupid to use!”
Joker smiled and tilted his head a little. “Surprising, after scavenging through their offices, I found that if anything you groveled quite a bit to-”
“I built my support from the ground up! I was the one who amassed enough power to look the other way from the IT president’s unsavory hobbies, I was the one who was finally smart enough to use the news network in a smart way, to lead the people to a better future, even if the path they walked on wasn’t always the truth! I was the one who had to make a deal with a Yakuza just to clean my dealings! I was the one who got that damn detective, Goro Akechi, in his pocket!”
Shido was somehow breathing harder than he had when he was physically assaulting Joker.
After a tense silence in both rooms.
Joker hummed playfully. “Good, but there was just something about Akechi’s monologue that really hit home, y’know?”
“You damn brat!” Shido yelled, pulling his shoulder back to punch Joker again. “I’ll kill you!”
Goro was the first one into the interrogation room again.
Joker smiled when Goro held the fist back, and Shido turned to glare at him.
“Goro! Just what are you doing?!” Shido demanded when he saw a flood of prosecutors and police, not under his command, file in.
Goro didn’t respond to Shido. He simply let the police officers and Sae read Shido his rights. He went over to Joker and helped him back in his chair.
They both looked on with glee as Shido was escorted in handcuffs out of the room.
“Thank you for trusting me, Joker,” Goro finally managed to say after debating whether Joker would be weird about it.
“What do you mean?”
“Uh, y’know, when I was holding your collar and I slapped you. I did that as a show for Shido so he’d lower his guard. And I pointed at the one-way mirror…”
Confusion was painted plain across Joker’s face.
“Oh…I just thought you were kinky.”
The prosecutors all turned to look their way, and the room suddenly quiet again right at the moment Joker said that.
“But I do mean it when I say that your villain monologue was way more polished!”
About a week later, Sae sat in front of Goro. This time, Goro was on the other end of the interrogation room, the criminal side, and his hands were handcuffed to the table.
“Joker is doing well?” He asked as soon as she was in the room.
Sae nodded. “Why not just call him by his normal name? You two will be cellmates shortly.”
“Oh, you managed to arrange that for us, did you…?” Goro demanded with a wry smile.
Try as he might, bribery was still frowned upon. And with Shido’s petty confession against Goro, it was basically confirmed without a trial that Goro Akechi was guilty of bribery and other crimes that went by long titles, but could just be summarized as corruption.
“Of course, I did, Akechi!” Sae confirmed all too sweetly. She knew exactly how much Joker would annoy Goro.
“I’m working right now on a plea deal, too. I think that I can get you out in maybe a couple years, but Joker in four or so. The higher-ups connected to Shido are making this quite difficult, but the public support counteracts that a bit. It’s hard to really say…”
Goro sighed and leaned his face on his palm. “It’s fine. I’ll stay with him the entire time.”
“What? Why?”
“It’ll be nice to stop being a detective for a bit. He can teach me about proper criminal life.”
Six months later, Goro wishes he would’ve begged Sae to place him in a different prison than Joker.
“Joker! Stop making that horrible racket, I’m trying to sleep!”
Goro heard Joker chuckle mischievously. “I swear,Goro, as soon as I make a dent with this spoon we’ll be home free!”
Goro hated their prison arc.