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“I need… time.”
Akira delivers this ineffectual statement to the wall, with glazed, unseeing eyes. In the moment, he looks so awfully like his actual age. Just a boy.
Goddammit. Who isn’t?
“Oh, is that all?” Akechi mutters. “Time, how utterly utopian. You don’t have any. Make do.”
“Akechi, come on.” Akira tries for a little grin, but the look in his eyes ruins the effect. “Gimme a little slack here, won’t you?”
“I won’t, actually. You’re hung up on playing nice, quit acting like a moron and make your decision. It shouldn’t be hard.”
Akira’s fingers twist into his hair, a lock twined so tightly around the index that the tip goes a purplish red. “It is.”
“Only a sentimental idiot would find it so difficult to kill his own killer,” Akechi says, and it’s a mere provocation, meant to give Akira the nudge he needs to let go of whatever idiotic sympathy he’s clinging onto. But it’s far too obvious; instead of anger, Akira’s lips purse with some awful form of pity, having clocked the comment for what it was.
Akechi wants to smack him. Probably could, but he’s not sure it would get them anywhere.
“Really,” he says instead, “you’d think a bleeding heart like you would have more whimsical feelings about free will. You’d strip it away, out of what… pity?”
“I’m not.” Akira shakes his head, twining his lock of hair impossibly tighter. “I’m not…”
“Aren’t you, though?”
A horrible little sound escapes Akira’s throat. His hands tremble.
“Kurusu, you’re being a coward.” Akechi really has nothing else to say to this inane display. Surely, it’s not so painful to let go of a dead man. Akira’s crippled by his stupid sympathy, his ridiculous pity. “I’ll see you in the morning. I presume you’ll make the right choice.”
He turns to go, but Akira grabs his wrist. Mutely.
“Akira,” Akechi says, in a warning tone.
“Just a moment longer,” Akira murmurs, gripping ever tighter. “Stay for coffee. Stay the night.”
Akechi grits his teeth and wrenches his arm away. It felt like fire against his flesh—just as bright and just as painful. “No, Joker,” he all but snarls, and slams the door behind him.
It was, perhaps, a mistake, Akechi concedes privately, looking down at the sleeping boy. His eyelids don’t flutter, his chest barely moves. When Akechi shoves his head back to check his pulse, he doesn’t stir, and his pulse is almost dangerously low.
Oh, Akira. It’s not even REM sleep. There’s not a thought in that head, not a drop of blood nourishing it.
Akechi pushes him onto his side and smacks him upside the head. Nothing. Shakes his shoulder. Nothing. Speaks to him, screams, flicks and pinches his skin, nothing, nothing. He’s dead tired. Akechi looks down at him with a small bit, he admits, of pity. Exhausted, sleeping boy. He looks even younger in sleep, even this comatose sleep, all pretty smooth skin and butterfly eyelashes.
He’s killed them both. Akechi thinks his head feels cloudy, well, it could be placebo. Surely he’s imagining it. Maruki can’t work that quickly. The deadline hasn’t even technically passed. But, then again…
Well, Akechi can’t know that he isn’t already a doll. His memories between his skull cracking against the engine room wall and his rousing abruptly into the cold December air are suspiciously blurry. Of course it could be an illusion. How can he know he’s real? Cogito ergo sum doesn’t really apply when an all-new god has his fingers in the working of the world.
Akechi stares down at the sleeping Akira. Akira, who might as well be dead; Akira, locked in a brain that can’t think, a body that can’t move. Akira, tired to death.
The sin of control. Pride. Akechi grits his teeth. Nothing ever changes.
“Wake up, you moron,” he demands of the limp body before him, as if it matters at all.
The stairs leading out of the Garden of Eden are a beautiful iridescent glass. And slippery—how easy it would be to fall back down. Akechi inhales sharply and keeps running. His muscles burn far quicker than they usually should. He isn’t this weak, and he knows it. No one wants him climbing this thing.
At the top, he presses his hands to his knees, gasping for air. Hell, when did he last have to gasp like this just over a set of stairs? When he was small, maybe ? He isn’t even confident in that.
“A pretty strong will,” someone says. “I know you have a low opinion of me, but I have to respect such a powerful rebellious spirit.”
Oh, he knows that fucking voice. Akechi’s head whips up to see Maruki, dressed all in pristine clinical white, and his lip curls. His fingers close treacherously over his weapon. The sense of a long, serrated blade in his hands settles some of the awful boiling in his chest.
Maruki raises a placating hand, smiling weakly. “There’s no need for that, Akechi. We can just talk.”
“What makes you think I have any interest in talking to you?”
“Well…” He clasps his hands in front of him. “You’re here alone, no? Surely you realize a physical fight between us would be… unproductive.”
“Fuck you,” Akechi spits. “And fuck your treasure. I don’t give a shit. I’m here to kill you.”
“I’m afraid that brings us back to the same issue. An unequal fight. I could kill you far more easily than you could kill me.” A sweet little smile. “Not that I would ever do such a thing, of course.”
Akechi shifts his weight, settling his feet firmly on the ground, so he can strike most effectively.
“Can’t we talk, Akechi? I admire your strength of will, but surely you can see reason. We can talk this out, you’ll understand–”
“Shut up,” Akechi snarls. “Just shut the fuck up. I won’t let you tie up my wrists, I’m not a puppet, I’m not a wish, I’m not yours to toy with.” He slams the serrated edge of the blade against the ground for a satisfying scrape, and levels it, horizontal, with Maruki’s heart.
Maruki, infuriatingly, looks unimpressed. “Why don’t you tell me what really brought you here, Akechi? Again, I have no doubt you’re well aware of your odds going up against me alone. A clever boy like you must realize. So, I wonder; why are you here?”
Why are you here? It’s a decent question. His head’s been spinning for days, enough that it’s difficult to parse out his own thoughts.
“This wouldn’t happen to be a method of suicide, would it?”
“What are you talking about?” Akechi demands. “Don’t presume to know me like that.”
“It’s only a possibility,” Maruki says easily, and not without a smile. “Rushing into a dangerous world to go up against a powerful foe, all alone, on impulse. You can see how it’s not an unreasonable conclusion. Of course, I’d rather it not be the case. What suffering those feelings are; I don’t want to subject anyone to that.”
Suicide. It’s a reasonable enough point. Akechi barrelled in here without a second thought, knowing full well that Maruki at his full strength, with his persona and all, was formidable enough to be a serious threat even to a full team. Akechi, all alone, no matter how strong he is, no matter how much he loves his trump card that rips his mind apart… Well, if only he’d had the presence of mind, he would have realized this was impossible.
Yet, “suicide” feels inaccurate. Akechi is sharply familiar with self-destruction; countless times, he’s called upon the strength of his heart to tear itself to oozing shreds, first to save his life, and later, once he was comfortable, to reap the benefits, and later still, just for the catharsis. He is so utterly in control of himself, every painstaking aspect, that even the moments of untethered madness are all part of the plan. Whatever that plan is.
Did Akechi come here to kill himself? He doesn’t think so. He just… found himself unable to do nothing. Unable to tacitly accept the false world building itself around him, covert, industrious, brick by brick. Unable to wonder idly whether the fog in his mind was exhaustion, or sticky fingers prying at his brain, sterilizing him into something palatable.
He would rather die trying to escape than accept imprisonment. Maybe that is suicide, in a sense.
Akechi lets his wielding hand drop, the long blade clattering noisily against the ground. He has no interest in such useless semantic arguments.
“What the hell did you do to Akira?” he asks instead.
“Ah. Akira…” Maruki muses. He looks, for once, earnestly regretful. “Well, it really is a shame. I had—have—very high hopes for him. He turned out to be unequipped to consciously accept my offer, or reject it, for that matter. He’s perfectly alive, I assure you. I’ve just given him a small nudge to rest that head of his.” He smiles ruefully, shaking his head as if recalling a bittersweet memory. “This is the downside of working with teenagers, but I just can’t help myself. Bright-eyed youth, with such vast futures ahead of them, deserve the most beautiful world possible to flourish in.”
What pretty words. Akechi wants to vomit. “The god complex is adorable. Really. Fetching.”
Maruki laughs, a real, rhythmic laugh. “Oh, I do enjoy your spunk.”
“There’s nothing funny about this. He’s comatose, Doctor. Is that really what you’d call treatment, or what?”
“Well,” Maruki says, slowly, “you’d consider it a tragedy, wouldn’t you, if an individual declined a life-saving procedure out of, say, misguided religious fanaticism? Or a misunderstanding of the procedure itself?”
“I don’t see how that’s the same at all.”
“A simple nudge in the right direction would have saved a life. No harm, no foul, a whole complex human life saved. And in this case, it’s even greater than that. Several lives and peace for all. …I only want to make people happy, Akechi. I understand your apprehension. But my intentions are pure. I mean to make a utopia; I know you’re fairly laden with cynicism, but even you can’t deny it’s a noble pursuit. Would you decline a perfect world, all things being equal?”
“I don’t give a shit about your intentions,” Akechi mutters. “And your analogy sucks. Akira’s not dying. You aren’t saving shit, or ‘nudging’ anything. You’re coercing. And into a world where you can always have him on fucking puppet strings.”
“No one’s dying?” Maruki gives him a sickeningly sympathetic, pitying look, inclining his head.
Ugh. “I don’t count.”
“It’s not just you. Wakaba, Niijima…” Maruki folds his hands, visibly entering ‘therapist mode’. It’s so easy to clock that it makes dread pool cold in Akechi’s stomach. “Though, I wonder. Why do you think you don’t matter?”
“First of all, you slimy piece of shit, I said I don’t count, not that I don’t matter.” Akechi shifts his weight. God, he wants to kill this guy. Maybe he should just do it in the real world and accept the consequences. That’s not really an option, but it’s more tempting by the minute. “Don’t therapize me. I literally don’t count. I’m not dying, I’m dead.”
“And yet here you are, thinking, speaking, acting freely. Berating me for wronging your friend, as you perceive it.” Maruki’s lips curl into a playful smirk. “Fantasizing about murdering me.”
Akechi grits his teeth.
“I think it’s time you head back home, Akechi.”
“We aren’t done here.”
“There’s very little left to say. You aren’t able to kill me, and I have very little interest in killing you.”
Very little, Akechi notes silently. Not none.
“Any case, your beloved Akira is recovering from a harmless illness, isn’t he? He’s perfectly alright, but probably exhausted. In a perfect world, shouldn’t you be by his side?”
“I…” Dizzy, Akechi presses a hand to his forehead. “I’m…”
Footsteps approach him, languid, and a warm hand clasps his shoulder. It’s grounding. “Isn’t that right?”
There’s the thought; Akira laid up in bed, immobilized by illness. Prone, his face against the pillow, one eye peeking out. Lashes that don’t flutter.
Oh, Akira…
“...Will he be okay?” Akechi asks, in a voice so small it ought to embarrass him.
He thinks he’s blinking back tears. It’s hard to say exactly, but his face is burning and the whole world has gone blurry.
“I’m alright,” Akira murmurs, and clasps Akechi’s hand. He’s warm. “Don’t fret so much. It isn’t good for you, y’know?”
Akechi frowns down at him. “I’m not fretting. You slept for days. Don’t you think that’s a little concerning, or have you completely lost your mind in delirium?”
“It’s just a fever. Toss me the thermometer?”
Akechi does. Akira sticks it in his mouth to take his own temperature, holding Akechi’s gaze as if it’s a game. After a minute, he withdraws it and proudly presents a healthy temperature.
“Boom. Perfect health.” He grins, wide and toothy.
“You’re insane,” Akechi says, plucking the thermometer from his fingers without betraying the cool rush of relief filling his whole body. It isn’t proportionate to the situation. It was only a fever. “I would hate to be your doctor.”
“My doctor sells me drugs. She’s cool. And I can do whatever I want.” Akira yawns, and drops back down onto his pillow. “Five more minutes.”
“Incorrigible moron.”
“Love you, too,” Akira mumbles, and disappears off into sleep.
Akechi looks down at the thermometer in his hands. The tip glistens wet from saliva. He should clean it. Boiling water, a bit of rubbing alcohol; Nothing is too hard to sterilize.