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A humid summer evening. Ren’s ugly polo shirt is stuck to his back with sweat. His hair is lank. Akechi observes him shifting subtly in his chair at their usual café, trying to escape the discomfort, and decides the spectacle pleases him. It’s perhaps an unfair advantage that Akechi himself never feels the heat too badly. And a Ren who is already uncomfortable is a Ren who’s vulnerable, which is why Akechi picks that moment to say, “Do you mind if I ask a personal question?”
Hmm. Not that vulnerable. Just the act of asking the question has made Ren go still in his chair, sticky weather forgotten. He does take Akechi seriously as an opponent, doesn’t he? He’s aware, guarded, all the time. Perhaps he has some animal sense that Akechi’s more dangerous than he seems. If he’s honest, Akechi likes that idea. He likes the thought of something inside Ren that does know what’s sitting at the table with him, some cowering rodent instinct yelling hide! Objectively, the last thing he should want is for Ren to suspect him of anything other than a boy detective’s enthusiasm for law and order.
Still. It’s nice to be acknowledged.
Ren says, “What kind of personal question?”
Honestly, there are dozens to choose from. Akechi could bring out how is your relationship with your parents, or do you ever hear from your former friends in your hometown—both calculated to nicely ruin Ren’s evening. He could pick at Ren’s personal relationships here in Tokyo, or his criminal record. He could even go for the jugular and ask a direct question about Ren’s relationship to the Phantom Thieves—they are both still pretending that Akechi isn’t aware of any connection, but it’s a hollow and ridiculous pretence. Even if Akechi didn’t already know everything, the person he pretends to be could easily deduce the obvious just by connecting the dots between the Kamoshida incident, the date of Ren’s arrival in Tokyo, and his friendships with Sakamoto and Takamaki.
Akechi just smiles and says, “A very personal one, I’m afraid. You can say no.”
Which makes it a challenge, of course. Ren just tilts his head. Bring it on.
Akechi says, “Are you a boy or a girl?”
The question sits between them in the shimmer of early evening heat. Ren picks up his glass of water from their table and takes a drink. A transparent delaying tactic. All the ice in his glass has melted already.
“Forgive me,” Akechi says, smiling, “perhaps that was a strange thing to ask!”
“Was it?” says Ren. He sets the water down with a little clink of glass against the tabletop. He shrugs. “Can’t you tell?”
Akechi just looks at him.
Ren gestures at himself. No, at his clothes: polo shirt, unflattering jeans. “Boy.”
“Ah, very interesting,” Akechi says. “That’s not the answer most people would give to a question like that.”
“Isn’t it?”
“After all,” says Akechi, “what you wear can easily change. If your answer is that I should be able to guess boy just by looking at your clothes… doesn’t that imply that if your clothes were different, the answer would be different too?” He smiles innocently at Ren. “But perhaps I’m overthinking this!”
“Perhaps you are,” says Ren, and drinks some more water.
Akechi lets the subject drop. He enjoys Ren’s appreciation of subtlety. There’s no need to press: he’s told Ren I know something secret about you, and Ren has answered I know you know. It’s the same conversation they have every time. The minute variations never grow dull. Perhaps it would be interesting to have it the other way round once in a while. Perhaps that’s why Akechi idly fantasizes from time to time that Ren does know what kind of threat he’s facing. No doubt Ren imagines that he’s already probing Akechi’s depths, finding his true self: but that’s why Akechi has multiple true selves to find. There’s no way for Ren to get to the bottom of it all.
Imagine if he did, though.
I know.
I know you know.
November. The muggy heat of summer is a distant memory. So are those long and pleasant evening conversations at their usual café. Akechi hasn’t the time to spare. Every day he gets out of school, the studio, the Palace, gets home, eats whatever instant crap he has in the half-empty cupboard, checks the Phantom Aficionado website for the current rankings, and sets out again to work on the evening agenda. Two or three dead by morning.
It’s all part of the plan. He can sleep again when everything is over.
Besides, he and Ren have had their final encounter. Akechi took Ren down into the city’s Palace, his kingdom, where he runs riot, where Loki rules the night. He gave Ren a gift there, the gift of honesty—as much honesty as Akechi can possibly afford. Ren accepted it. Ren now knows that Akechi hates him, and that Akechi will be the one to defeat him. There’s nothing else to say. They’ll be sending the calling card in two days’ time.
Akechi takes a night off work and sends Ren a message: There’s something I’d like to investigate. Would you be willing to assist me this evening?
Ren’s instant reply: OK. Where do you want to meet?
By leaving it up to Akechi to decide, Ren is signalling quite openly that he doesn’t care if it’s Kichijoji or Mementos, a quick game of billiards or another duel. A show of trust, or of bravado. Akechi’s smiling at his phone as he sends over his instructions. The answer is neither of those, of course. They’ll be meeting in Shinjuku, if Ren doesn’t mind. And if Ren doesn’t mind—
OK, comes the answer.
He’ll be there. The churn of Akechi’s stomach is anticipation, probably—that, or the fact that he hasn’t eaten anything more substantial than instant noodles in weeks.
Akechi puts on, with great care, his school uniform. He does his four-in-hand in front of the mirror, even though he has it by heart now. He examines his hair critically. He doesn’t wear makeup unless he’s in the studio. But apart from that, he looks like the most polished and public version of himself, the most recognisable version of himself. Trendy Kichijoji is far too cool to pay attention to the immensely popular Detective Prince these days, but that’s not so true in other parts of the city. He’s going to be seen tonight.
It’s a weekday and the night is young, but outside Shinjuku station the throngs are already growing. It takes Akechi a moment, because he’s looking for the wrong color. He expected black. But the crowds part by chance and he spots her leaning against a wall, tapping at something on her phone. A girl in a red dress, with a red ribbon in her short dark hair.
Akechi straightens his tie before he approaches her. “Ren, thank you for coming,” he says. “Shall we?”
Up close, the outfit is surprisingly casual: a red plaid shirtdress with buttons down the front, collar folded down, belted tight at Ren’s narrow waist. Ren’s wearing thick black tights against the November cold, and plain black pumps with no heel, and there’s a dark jacket over his—over her arm. Akechi expected black, but he also expected more of a performance altogether, something showy and spectacular. Something that was trying too hard. Ren waits, silent, confident, and lets herself be looked at. She’s wearing makeup. Her lipstick is slightly smudged.
“Hm?” she says eventually. Like a challenge: well?
Her voice is very deep and she’s not trying to pretend otherwise. Akechi expects he’ll be doing most of the talking tonight. But doesn’t he always? He doesn’t point out the smudged lipstick. “Perfect,” he tells her. “Thank you for indulging me.”
“What are we investigating?”
“It’s actually more of an experiment,” says Akechi. “You’ll see. This way.”
They go for a walk, among the bars and hawkers and seedy bookshops of Shinjuku. Side by side, chatting casually. It’s still so easy to talk to Ren. Like talking to himself. Akechi thinks I’ve missed this, and cuts the thought off before it can develop fully into I’m going to miss this. Ren has less than a week to live. Ren doesn’t know that. It has no bearing on what’s happening this evening, so for the time being Akechi can pretend not to know it either.
He’s recognised several times. No one approaches him, but Akechi knows the feeling of being looked at. Of course, the people who look will also see Ren standing beside him. But she’s not interesting to them; she’s not a popular young celebrity. It’s all part of the plan.
Ren nudges him. She hasn’t once asked why they’re going for an evening wander through the red-light district, or if there’s any actual destination at the end of this amble through the crowds. “Let’s go this way instead,” she says.
“Why?”
“Fans of yours over there,” says Ren. “It’s their usual cruising spot. They’ll see you.”
“I don’t mind meeting fans,” says Akechi sweetly.
Ren looks amused. “If you’re sure.”
Moments later, a wail of, “Oh my god, Akechi-kun!” rises through the night. “It can’t be him! Help, it is him! I’m gonna faint!”
“Told you so,” murmurs Ren.
Akechi would be entirely within his rights to pretend he heard nothing, but he lets himself hesitate, look up, glance around. His eyes catch on two men at the street corner. Both forty-something, flamboyantly dressed. One whispers very loudly, “Oh my god he’s looking this way!”
“Good evening,” says Akechi politely as he crosses over to them. He holds out his hand to shake. “I’m Goro Akechi. It’s very nice to meet you.”
He’s had over-the-top fan reactions before but this one is so melodramatic that he’s almost being genuine when he lets himself look charmed. One of the men shakes his hand—an intentionally limp handshake, Akechi perceives immediately; these men know how they appear and they’re doing it on purpose—and then says with the affect of an overblown stage actor, “I shall never wash this hand again!” The other is fanning himself frantically. “It’s so kind of you to come over and talk to us, Akechi-kun! We just want you to know something—we always believed in you, the whole time, no matter what anyone said! Oh, I’m Angel, this is Julian.”
We always believed in you is a line Akechi’s heard a lot since the Phantom Thieves’ precipitous topple from grace began, but this time it might actually be sincere. He smiles. “I have to thank you for your faith in me, then! We were just out for a walk, but I’m always very happy to meet my fans.”
“We? Oh, goodness,” says either Angel or Julian, Akechi has already forgotten which is which, “we’re interrupting your evening, aren’t we? Is this your date?”
“My friend,” says Akechi. And there’s a little pause, while Angel and Julian look at Ren, and Ren says nothing. This, too, is part of the plan. But Akechi says, “Are you all right?” as if the silence is surprising. As if he’s concerned.
“Oh my god he’s so sweet,” says either Angel or Julian in the background. “But isn’t that Lala-chan’s little dishwasher?”
“Baby, don’t say it like that,” says either Julian or Angel, who then sashays forward and says to Ren, “Darling! Look at you, you’re gorgeous! We’ve never seen you around before. Believe me, we’d remember a girl like you. Don’t tell us—is this your Shinjuku debut?”
“Something like that,” says Ren softly.
This gets a squeal of approval from both Angel and Julian. One of them says, “Oh, now just,” and taps his face just at the corner of his mouth. Ren takes a moment to understand, and then she wipes away the smudge of lipstick. “Now you’re perfect,” Angel-or-Julian tells her. “I know this nice boy will take good care of you tonight. But if you find yourself in any trouble, anything at all, come and find us. Everyone knows Angel and Julian around here, isn’t that right?”
Ren nods. Akechi thinks she might be genuinely touched. Time to wrap this up, anyway, since the purpose of the encounter is long since achieved. “We’d better get on with our evening,” he says. “We have plans, I’m afraid! But would you two gentlemen like me to sign something before we go?”
He signs an old playbill for one of them and a restaurant receipt for the other. Then he smiles and bids farewell and scoops Ren’s hand up and puts it on his arm as they turn to go. “Oh my god he’s so butch,” sighs Angel-or-Julian behind him. “Oh, Akechi-kun, won’t you show a girl a good time?”
“An old hag like you? When he’s got that on his arm? Please.”
Ren puts her hand over her mouth when she chuckles. “They never know how loud they’re talking.”
“They seem nice,” says Akechi. “Friends of yours, I take it?”
Ren shrugs. “Sort of. So, are you going to tell me the actual plan at any point?”
“We’re already in the middle of it.”
That gets Ren’s interest: a little huff of breath, a glint in her eyes. “And it involves parading around Shinjuku for forty minutes and giving Angel and Julian the impression they just stumbled on the best blind item of their lives?”
“We needed people to see you,” says Akechi.
“Why?”
“Can I ask a personal question?”
Ren tilts her head. “Go on.”
“Are you a boy or a girl?”
“Can’t you tell?”
“Indulge me.”
Ren smooths her hand down the side of her dark jacket, pausing at her hip. The skirt of her red dress peeps out below. “Girl.”
“That’s what I thought,” Akechi says. “Now let’s just step down here for a moment.” The alleyway behind the cinema is dim and has an unpleasant smell. More importantly, it’s deserted. Akechi walks Ren through it as if he’s taking her to a party. Just as they emerge back into the main square ahead of the station, he takes his phone out of his pocket and says casually, “Mementos.”
And the city transforms. In all but the most extreme weather, Mementos maintains an exactly average temperature, neither too hot or too cold. Suddenly it’s no longer a chilly November night, nor yet a muggy evening in July, but something halfway between. More startling is the silence, after the bustle and noise of Shinjuku. And the absence, of course: the city emptied out, no crowds, no hurrying strangers, no stray conversations overheard. The Shadows keep to the subway. Up here, Ren and Akechi are the only two people in the world.
Or perhaps Akechi is the only person in the world, because he’s alone as he carries on out into the square. Ren stopped walking at the moment they entered the Metaverse. It doesn’t surprise Akechi. He doesn’t turn around. He lifts his voice a little. “Are you coming?”
“Huh,” says Ren.
Akechi’s smiling even though she can’t see it. “Well?”
Then she walks past him. She’s slinging off her dark jacket as she goes; she hands it to Akechi without looking at him. He watches her. It’s subtle. A slight difference in gait, a new looseness in the way she carries herself. The transformation from Ren to Joker is much more dramatic. She stops in the middle of the empty square, with her weight dropped onto one side, and stretches her arms above her head. The motion pulls her dress tight across her body for a moment. It’s a little more obvious then.
“How does it feel?” Akechi asks.
“Good,” says Ren. She’s laughing as she turns back to him, a brief bright laugh of real delight. “Yeah, good.”
She’s cute, Akechi thinks, cold and dispassionate.
“How’d you figure this out?” says Ren. “Is this something you do?”
“Not at all. As I said, this was an experiment. The Metaverse is a cognitive world. Although it seems to us that we enter it physically, it’s logically impossible for that to be the case. I believe we exist here as our own cognitions of selfhood. Our appearances are determined by a mixture of what others believe about us and what we know to be true about ourselves. So, when we enter a Palace, the ruler believes us to be pesky upstarts, threats to their power, rebels—and we are. But we are the ones who determine what a rebel looks like.”
“Right,” says Ren. “So this…”
“I paraded you around Shinjuku,” says Akechi, “so that the public’s cognition would recognise that the Detective Prince was out and about in company with pretty girl tonight. Most people were looking at me more closely than you, of course.”
“And Angel and Julian?”
“They seemed like a sympathetic audience.”
“If I’d known,” says Ren, “I would’ve taken you to say hi to Lala-chan.”
“Perhaps I wanted to surprise you. Of course, none of it would have mattered if your understanding of yourself hadn’t matched what others were seeing. I suppose that was a gamble. Really, I just wanted to see what would happen.”
“Well,” says Ren. She smiles at him. Her lipstick’s smudged again, how has she managed that so fast? “Thanks. Good trick.”
She’s dead. In four days’ time she’ll be a dead man. While Akechi watches, she undoes the top button of the shirtdress, and then the next one. He clears his throat. “If you’d like some privacy,” he begins, though actually he didn’t plan for Ren stripping and he hasn’t the faintest idea what he’ll do if what she wants is privacy.
“Nah,” says Ren. “This is just how it’s meant to look.” She tugs the collar of the dress wider and Akechi sees what she means; there’s meant to be a little peek of flesh, of black lace, just visible where it gaps open. Ren knows how she wants to appear.
She’s hot, says that same cold and dispassionate voice in his thoughts.
“Shall we head down into the subway?” he says.
“What for?” says Ren. Then she grins at him. “You want to see Joker in a skirt?”
“I—”
Ren lets the silence stretch, awkward. She’s going to be punished for grinning at Akechi like that. She’s going to be punished for everything she’s ever done: for getting in his way, for winning again and again, for her pride and her style and her unbearable, unspeakable good luck; for existing, for turning up now, for being too late. Four days. Akechi has to bear a world where Ren exists for four more days. His hatred is caught in his throat and he can’t speak past it. If he tries, he’ll howl at her, he’ll roar.
“Too bad,” says Ren at last. “Joker’s Joker. That won’t change.” She seems very sure about it.
“Well then,” Akechi says, forcing the roar of rage back down to the depths of him where it belongs. “In that case… that concludes this investigation. Thank you for joining me.”
“Wait a second,” says Ren. Then she frowns a bit. “Mm. No. Can I have my jacket? No, actually, can I have your jacket?”
Akechi looks at her for a moment and then silently shrugs off his school blazer and hands it over. It won’t fit Ren properly. It’s been very expensively tailored, and they’re not the same shape; even less so, just now. But Ren puts it on, hunches her shoulders a little—that blazer has never had to sit over hunched shoulders before, and Akechi feels quite absurdly protective about it—mmms thoughtfully again, and changes the way she’s standing so her weight isn’t all on one cocked hip any longer.
There’s a dark shimmer in the air. Then Ren’s just standing there in the silent expanse of Mementos’ above-ground Shinjuku, wearing his ill-fitting jeans and a black polo shirt and Akechi’s school blazer. He puts his hands in the pockets like an asshole determined to ruin the lines of a garment in every single possible way. “Cool,” he says. “Got it.”
“Give that back,” snaps Akechi.
It took him months to master the quick change from Loki to Robin Hood and back again. He used to have to exit the Metaverse and re-enter to make the transformation happen. Of course Ren’s mastered the necessary control of his own self-perception in moments. The smug, talented bastard. Akechi’s so glad he’s going to die.
“Okay,” says Ren, and gives Akechi back his blazer. Then he does a little concentrating face which Akechi does not find cute and—here’s the girl in the red dress again, smiling and self-satisfied. She’s still Ren. She’s still a smug, talented bastard. She’s still going to die. Nothing has changed tonight.
“Wish I’d known about that sooner,” she says.
“My apologies,” says Akechi. “I did think of this a while ago. The opportunity didn’t arise. We’ve been rather busy, after all.”
“A while, huh,” says Ren, and she gives him a sidelong look, and says nothing else as they go back into the alleyway behind the cinema to seek their return to the real world. The top two buttons of her dress are still undone back in the true Shinjuku. She doesn’t do them up again. It would be gauche for Akechi to leer at her, to try to see if there’s still a flash of black lace to glimpse under there, so he doesn’t.
“So this was fun,” says Ren, when they part at the station. Akechi’s bike is chained up at the stand round the back. He’s looking forward to cycling home, to the dark and chill of a November night and the bite of the wind moving past his face. Ren says, “And it’s useful to know, too. Just change the way you think about yourself, and that can change what everyone else sees. Maybe we could use that. After all, there’s lots of ways to be a rebel, right?”
When Akechi meets her steady grey gaze, it’s impossible to read any accusation there. It doesn’t matter. Akechi understood anyway.
I know something secret about you, Ren has told him.
It doesn’t feel the way he thought. It feels worse. Sickening. He didn’t eat anything at all before he came out and that probably isn’t helping the lurch in his stomach. Ren’s watching him unsmiling. Akechi needs to answer.
“As you say,” he manages, in an even tone of voice that owes everything to media training and nothing to Akechi himself. “It opens up some interesting possibilities.”
I know you know.
It’s too late. The plan is almost at its climax. Whatever Ren knows now won’t save him. This evening wasn’t a gift—Akechi already gave Ren his final gift, his true feelings. This was something else. An investigation. An experiment. A self-indulgent nothing. What kind of self, exactly, was Akechi indulging? It doesn’t matter. No one will ever know. Ren will be dead in four days. With an undiminished feeling of nausea, it occurs to Akechi that he could perhaps rape Ren in his prison cell before he kills him. No one would stop him. Ren would take the secret to the grave that’s already gaping. It’s not at all clear to Akechi whether this idea is something he desires or something he fears or just the natural and logical conclusion of what he’s already doing, what he’s been doing all along: the rage and the treachery and the unpleasant, unfamiliar urge to try to deduce what exactly Ren has on as underwear. All he’ll ever know is that one hint of black lace.
“Hey,” Ren says. Akechi’s been standing there silently too long. Ren has the very faintest look of concern. “It’s gonna be okay, you know?”
“Of course it is,” says Akechi, recovering himself immediately, mostly because the idea of being reassured by Ren annoys him so much. “But thank you. I suppose it is quite an undertaking we’re facing! And I’m so new to this, it’s natural to be nervous.”
Ren’s lips curl. “Yeah, exactly. Don’t worry, though. You’re not alone.”
Akechi’s always alone. “Thank you, Ren,” he says. “That’s nice to hear. Good night. Travel safe.”
The music, the flashing lights, the clatter of dice and the sound effects of the slot machines, the irregular jangle of victory fanfares. The Phantom Thieves all exchanging looks of fear and doubt. This is the moment. Destiny is calling and the card she has drawn is Death. Joker takes the Treasure and says I’ll do it like the cocky piece of shit he is, like he knows no fear, like he can’t lose. Akechi watches him. He’s fixing it in his memory. This moment, right now: this is the last time anyone here will see Joker alive. Akechi, of course, has one more appointment—but that appointment is with a defeated teenager in a prison cell. With Ren.
Joker feels him watching. He pauses at Akechi’s side, just as they’re all about to leave. He tilts his head. That look is so familiar, even behind the mask. Bring it on.
Right now, at this very moment, Akechi could open his mouth and say, there’s something you need to know. This is, in fact, his last chance to say anything of the kind. Minutes from now it will be too late. This time tomorrow Ren will be dead.
He could say it. The thought makes him sick. Joker expects him to say something. Akechi swallows down the roaring, howling thing inside him. He says, very softly, “Are you a boy or a girl?”
Joker only grins at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”