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November 25th, that’s the day Akechi died. It took everything Akira had to keep himself together in front of his Thieves. He wanted so desperately to fall to his knees, bang his fists against that wall of metal, scream Akechi’s name until his throat was raw and his voice was lost—but he couldn’t, he had to stand there, process Akechi’s death all in that instant, and move on.
He stared at his ceiling that night, holding Akechi’s glove to his chest with a white-knuckle grip. He can’t be dead. Ryuji and Sojiro are alive, and he thought they were dead. Akechi has to be messing with them again. He has to. He’ll fulfill their promise… right? He has too. Akechi’s too stubborn to leave something like this unfinished.
Akira’s almost able to convince—or maybe delude—himself into thinking it’s true.
And so he spent the next twenty-two excruciatingly long yet short days keeping his head down, pretending he’s dead, aching inside whenever he saw anything that reminded him of Akechi, all while bearing the burdens of his confidants—Shinya and Hifumi’s mother issues, Yusuke’s struggle with art and poverty, Ann’s devotion to her modeling and mixed hope and concern for Shiho, Iwai and Kaoru’s heart warming story that still left him ice cold, helping Futaba help Kana-chan, calling over Kawakami to do his chores and finding out her story about her “sick little sister” was a lie, which he knew anyways, visiting the gym when no one of interest wanted to talk, training until his limbs ached so deeply they felt numb.
Infiltrating Shido’s Palace, fighting him with his Thieves and then on his own, getting that “I’m sorry” he’d been waiting so long for, knowing it didn’t change anything, stealing his Treasure, barely making it out alive, thinking Ryuji fucking died… he wouldn’t have been able to compose himself if he had.
Too many hours running in Mementos to count, too many Shadows to remember the faces of, driving until his hands cramped up and his gloves felt molded to the steering wheel—but, hey, he finished all the floors, got all the stamps, gave Jose more flowers, strengthened himself and his oh-so beloved Thieves.
Visiting the jazz club made him want to scream and run home to sob into the leather of Akechi’s glove, but he powered through it—he visited twice, with Yusuke and then Makoto. He spent all of his mornings studying what he could for the exams he’d have to take as soon as they won against Shido. He really could never catch a fucking break… but it kept his mind busy, kept his mind off of Akechi, so it wasn’t a total loss.
One day, he didn’t study at all, turning Leblanc upside down looking for Akechi’s glove, almost audibly sobbing when he found it under his bed, despite him and Morgana having checked there too many times to count. He kept it in his pocket that entire day, a balled fist never letting go of it. Morgana tried to talk to him about it, but he assured him he was just… stressed. Sure. That’s the word for it. Stressed.
He knows Morgana doesn’t believe him, but he dropped the subject, and that’s all that matters.
Eventually, with a heavy heart sluggish in his chest, the 18th rolls around. Shido wins by a landslide. He’s never been so terrified that a mission will fail in his entire life…
And then Shido confesses to his crimes, and he wants to burst into tears of joy and relief. The crowd talks, worried and in disbelief, but they’ve won. He and his Thieves—he and Akechi—won.
They celebrate in Leblanc that night, Akira gripping the cold glass in his hand so tight he’s surprised it didn’t shatter. He chuckles as Sojiro’s toast is repeatedly interrupted.
Morgana goes home with Futaba and Sojiro. Akira closes up alone, locking the door like he has so many times. He lugs himself up to his room, collapsing onto his knees at the top of the steps, everything hitting him at once.
The day he and Akechi met, Penguin Sniper, the jazz club, the aquarium, the cafe he visited with him and Kasumi, learning about his deadbeat dad and dead mother, getting a glimpse into his heart, into the eyes of the boy who he saw himself reflected in his eyes… Akechi’s foreseen but no less gut-wrenching betrayal, faking his own death, witnessing his second Persona, his ability to turn people psychotic, fighting him, defeating him…
Hearing Akechi die by, technically, his own hands, after he sacrificed himself for the group. Wanting to rip through that metal wall with the combined strength of every Persona he’d ever encountered, wanting to hold Akechi in his last moments, bring him even a shred of comfort… at least then he’d know, for sure, that Akechi is dead.
That scream he wanted to let loose rips from his throat, it’s the loudest he’s ever been in these last almost eight months combined—the most emotional, too. His chest constricts and aches, but his lungs don’t stop. Tears drip straight from his waterline down to the perpetually dusty wooden floors of the attic he’s made his bedroom. He shakes and trembles with pent- and bottled-up emotions that could easy trump that of losing your lover, family, friends, and loved ones combined.
Akechi’s glove never leaves the tight ball of his hand. He sobs, and screams, and aches, and finally lets all his agony and pain wash over him, finally opens the flood gates and lets all the stress of these last few months gush out in one large, explosive meltdown.
Being Joker has taken so much from him in these last two months—being the strong, quiet, confident, cocksure leader of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts has taken so much. Being calm when he wants to scream has exhausted him… but his Thieves need him, so he’ll keep fighting for them. Maybe one day it’ll feel safe to confide in them more often, beyond just his surface-level problems, to keep himself from hitting this explosive breaking point again. The posters and shelves and figurines and memorabilia and event the plant he’s collected over all these months stare at him, as shocked as if the people who gave them to him were witnessing this, rather than inanimate objects.
His scream dies down into a coughing sob, then to suffocated panting, then to sniffles and grunts, and after that he finally, shaking and trembling, sits up on his knees.
Akechi’s glove hasn’t left his fist. It’s the last thing he has of him. He can’t lose it. He can’t lose what little he has left of Akechi.
He grabs the old, dust-covered shelf next to him, using it as leverage to pull himself up. Akira leans against it for a few minutes, feeling returning to his legs, before dragging himself along to the box he keeps spare clothes in. He changes into his athletic wear, grabs the stool next to his bed, steps onto it, and grabs onto the beam above him.
He spends a few hours just doing pull-ups. It’s almost 3 am by the time he’s done. His arms ache, and his head feels light and dizzy from imbalanced distribution of blood.
Despite the ache in his arms, he grabs Akechi’s glove, holds it close to his chest, and falls back first onto his bed, bouncing twice before pulling the blanket over himself and carelessly tossing his fake glasses aside.
Glossy, reddened gray eyes stare at the ceiling, the same one he stared a hole into twenty-two days ago, when Akechi died.
His heart still aches and a pit still sinks into his gut when he thinks about it, and it almost makes him want to cry again, but he doesn’t—barely. He holds his fractured self together.
Akira’s sore eyes close, and he sleeps—it’s short, but more sound and peaceful than he’s had since that night, November 25th.
Morgana and Futaba will wake up in the morning, Sojiro will make him curry and coffee, and he’ll go about his days… maybe he’ll talk to the others about things like this more often.
Or maybe he’ll go back to bottling everything up. He doesn’t know yet.
For now, Kurusu Akira sleeps. For now, the ache of losing the boy he still can’t believe he let himself love is a little lighter than it was that morning.
Kurusu Akira lives. He’ll take his exams in two days. He’ll continue bonding with his friends. Life will go on, and so will Kurusu Akira…
He’ll go on, even without the boy he saw himself in, the boy whose eyes reflected Akira’s image like a mirror. The boy he couldn’t help but love.
The boy he will never see again.
Kurusu Akira will live. For him. For his friends.
For their promise.