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It’s a quiet night in Kichijoji. Akechi just wiped the floor with Ren in billiards, and it was using his non-dominant hand, at that.
“I don’t really mind losing,” Ren tells him. “It just means I’ve learned I have to get way better before I can beat you.”
“That’s a nice mindset to have,” Akechi replies pleasantly. “I’m glad you found the game worthwhile enough to dedicate time to improving.”
“I had fun,” Ren says simply.
“Oh?” Akechi seems taken back by the bluntness of the words. “Perhaps we have similar tastes in hobbies. What do you do for fun, Amamiya-kun?”
At this, Ren wears an oddly blank expression for a moment too long, as if he were an old computer processing the words in his mind. “I’ve been reading on the train ride to school.”
“Reading,” Akechi repeats. Why had that been so difficult to say? It was too straightforward to be a lie.
“Yeah. Maybe I’ll pick up a book that’ll teach me more about billiards.”
“Ah,” Akechi sighs, “ahaha!” He can’t help but laugh. Truly, this boy has a completely one-track mind. It’s infuriating.
~*~
“I have a friend that’s a model, you know.”
“Hm?” Akechi is still attempting desperately to smooth his hair back down to how he’d meticulously styled it that morning. “Oh, you mean Ann Takamaki, correct?”
“Yeah.” Ren is just watching the detective flatten each strand, checking his phone camera that his makeup didn’t smudge from Ren’s glasses. A bit self-conscious, Ren tries wiping the lenses with the edge of his shirt.
“Those glasses… they’re not prescription,” Akechi notes.
“Nope.”
Ren doesn’t elaborate. “I see…” Akechi offers, somewhat awkwardly.
“You’re not going to say the same thing she did, are you?”
“Who– Oh, you mean… Takamaki-san? What did she say?”
Ren fidgets with his fringe. “She said if I dropped the glasses I’d be pretty enough to be a model myself.”
Akechi probably would’ve said something like that, if his first experience seeing Ren without his glasses hadn’t been wearing them himself. “That’s quite a compliment, coming from her. Is that something you’d be interested in?”
“Not really.”
Blunt as ever. “Perhaps, I can say something a bit different in that same vein as her,” Akechi tries. “Having an aesthetically pleasing appearance is a luxury in this world. You shouldn’t waste it if you have it. It’s a tool, just like words.”
“Boss says I have a good face for customer service. I work at the 777 in Central Shibuya.”
Akechi is genuinely too shocked to respond.
~*~
“I wonder,” Ren thinks aloud, “if making cocktails is similar to cooking.”
“Thinking about alcohol before you’re even of legal age?” Akechi has to laugh. “And in front of me, of all people.”
Ren comically startles, as if he’d forgotten he was in company. “The drink you recommended… it was good. It got me thinking, if drinks could have a similar feeling to the comfort of food.”
Akechi couldn’t really grasp the concept. Food was just energy, really.
“Boss’ daughter will really only eat curry. It… reminds her of her mother.” Ren swallows, eyes downturned. Akechi doesn’t speak. “Memories can be powerful things, don’t you think? Maybe I’ll have that drink we had tonight in 10 years and think of you.”
“It’s said that taste is the sense with the second longest memory, next to smell,” Akechi recites. “Though, when it comes to this place, I’m generally more drawn in by the music. Hm… you always seem to perceive things in a different way than I.”
“Oh, yeah.” Ren looks back at the building they’d just exited, back towards the muffled sounds still emanating out into the streets. “You liked that a lot, didn’t you?”
~*~
“You’ve gotten busy in the short amount of time you’ve been living here, haven’t you?” Akechi is still catching his breath after yet another intense round of Gun About.
“Definitely,” Ren agrees.
“I wonder, is there any way you had just as much going on in your life back home? You must have, otherwise I couldn’t imagine the change to the bustle of Tokyo.”
Ren takes another sip of his soda. “It wasn’t too bad.”
A neatly avoided question with just the right amount of vagueness. “I’m impressed, then. I often find it difficult myself navigating the day to day. Say, Amamiya-kun, what do you do to wind down after a busy day?”
Ren blinks. “Fishing. Meditating. Hmm… baseball?”
“Wow, you’ve given yourself so many options…!”
“I’m just taking advantage of my surroundings, detective,” Ren pushes up his glasses, half-clever, half-shy. It makes Akechi want to roll his eyes to the back of his head.
~*~
“Because… we’re similar.”
Akechi’s chest burns, and it’s not only from the residual heat from the hot bath. It must be so obvious to Amamiya, as he holds all the cards. After all, Akechi had been the one to vomit all his secrets to this man he so loathed.
“Maybe… that’s too presumptuous to say,” Ren backtracks then. “You’ve had to do so much on your own. But I… I don’t really think I’ve done all that much with my life, with my solitude, if I’m being honest. You should be proud of yourself. I guess, if you’re not already, hah.”
His solitude, eh?
“What about now, though, Amamiya-kun? Haven’t you made much more progress in your goals with all the friends you’ve made here?” Akechi tries and likely fails to not sound bitter as he says the words.
“For sure,” Ren nods, and without his glasses his expression is much larger, perhaps even more honest than he always is otherwise. “I doubt I could do anything without them.”
Akechi squints, slightly. “How do you mean?”
Ren just shrugs. “I dunno. I guess I just have more stuff to do. It’s nice.”
“More to do?”
“I guess it’s more accurate to say ‘more I like to do,’ haha,” Ren smiles, but it almost looks forced. Akechi stares. “I like running. Cooking. Gardening.”
Sakamoto. Sakura. Okumura.
“That stuff used to be kinda boring to me, before,” Ren admits. “But now it has meaning. My life has meaning. I… I love life a little more because of them.”
Akechi is now acutely aware they’re still both not wearing clothes.
“I think I love music again because of you.”
Akechi feels even more naked than he was all night.
~*~
The day before Niijima’s deadline, a week after Akechi had dueled Amamiya and lost, Ren invites him to the Jazz Jin.
“Live music, again,” Akechi observed. “I still think I prefer that to the records, even if they’re still nice to listen to.”
He hates Amamiya. And Amamiya knows this. There’s nothing more to gain from this rendezvous. Akechi has nothing more to say than a goodbye.
“I used to play violin,” says Ren.
Akechi turns. A hellish desire overtakes him that he’d believed had been subdued in their battle. One to carve open Amamiya’s heart and see what lies there.
“By the way you speak, I assume you don’t any longer.”
“No.” The emotion in that syllable is indistinguishable. “I played for… 10 years, I think.”
That’s a sizable amount of time. Akechi wonders if any of the other Thieves know. “You must’ve been quite good.”
“Not really. Or, I dunno, maybe I was,” Ren says, like it’s an admission. “I used to place in competitions, here and there. Get solos in ensemble groups.”
Akechi dares to venture further, his selfishness crawling out of his throat. “Why did you stop?”
Ren doesn’t say anything, as if he’s distracted by the vocalizing of the singer. It’s the end of the track. He and Akechi politely clap. “I hurt my wrist.”
“Really?” That’s all it took?
“That was the end of it, though,” Ren swirls his mocktail absently. “I think I was improving, for a while. Then I couldn’t tell anymore. Everything felt the same. I can’t remember what anyone even said to me then. Maybe praise? Derision? It doesn’t matter. I was empty.
“I think… I really started hating music.”
The next song starts. It’s calm, and gentle like a swaying dance. Ren places his chin in one hand.
“I can’t listen to music like anyone else anymore. It’s ruined.”
The singer begins, a crooning tone that flows through Akechi like a breeze through his hair. Around Ren, though, it surrounds his form, radiating a buzzing heat akin to that of an electromagnet. He always had the essence of a showman. The power to enrapture a room with his presence alone. Akechi always wondered why he rarely ever used this talent for his greater ambitions outside the Metaverse.
“A major I chord to the major IV using sevenths, it’s common in jazz and blues, you know.” Then he hums the tune before it’s played, counts out the rhythm with his hands. “And those descending arpeggios that the bass is playing, that’s–”
Akechi’s gloved hand comes up to cover Ren’s mouth. “I see.” Ren blinks. “You wished to ruin this for me then, as well. How oddly cruel. We’ll take our leave.”
But as Akechi moves to stand, Ren grasps his palm with both hands. “Not at all,” he says, expression open as ever. “It’s… you love this music, you love it here. I can tell.” Akechi still hasn’t sat back down. “I just– I thought you might like to know why… why it sounds good to you. Honestly, I kinda thought my knowledge of this stuff would be useless. But I thought you might want to know. Music… it’s like, a puzzle, right?” Ren says. “There’s all the pieces, and you can sort them however but it only sounds good arranged in a specific way. A-and people, right, their actions are dictated by the past, by the… the songs of their souls!”
Akechi snorts. Then he busts into a full-blown guffaw. He swears, he hasn’t laughed like this in his whole life outside of being with Ren. It’s confounding.
So in the end, Akechi must ask, “And what does my song sound like, Joker?”
Surprise crosses his face for just a moment, followed by a smile. “It’s something I’ve never heard in my life. And I love it.”
~*~
Goro Akechi can play Ren Amamiya like a fiddle, so to speak.
Which is how he knew exactly what to say to make him cave, when all was said and done.
“We’re going to fight Maruki.”
Akechi nods. “Good. I’m glad to hear it.”
Though as he begins to walk out the door, he notices Ren quickly follow after.
“What is it?”
“Let’s go to the Jazz Jin.”
“What did we just discuss? You need to be prepared for tomorrow.”
“Just– please.” Ren looks absolutely pathetic. He has nothing to offer, no rational argument to play.
Amamiya could play Goro just as well, it seemed.
“A B-side, or a second movement,” Ren questions aloud.
There’s no live music today, just the echo of the gramophone. “To what, exactly?”
“Your life,” Ren says, soft as a secret.
“Wouldn’t such a question be more apt for yourself?”
“No,” Ren answers quickly. He takes a sip of his drink. “There’s nothing before now.”
“What does that even mean?”
Ren folds the corner of his cocktail napkin. “I’m kind of jealous of you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Spare the irony, I know,” Ren huffs, “but I’m serious.”
“Explain.”
He tears the folded corner of the napkin. “You had such a strong ambition. You had something driving you forward that was so strong you were willing to kill a part of yourself to do it.” Ren’s knuckles fall to the table mutely. “To sacrifice your future just for the chance.”
“I hardly see any of what you’re describing as worth any sort of envy,” drawls Akechi.
“At least you had a part of yourself to kill,” Ren states. “I could’ve died 11 months ago and no dreams would’ve died with me. There’s no song to hear. Just silence.”
Akechi’s lips are pressed firmly together.
“But you,” Ren continues. He hums a wordless melody. “There’s always been a song in your heart. And even,” the next word gets caught in his throat, but he keeps speaking even as breath escapes him, “even when you’re gone it’ll keep playing. If for no one else then just for me. I’ll hear you everywhere, Akechi, in every morning I see because you’d want me to live just for myself–”
Akechi kisses him.
“Don’t go,” Ren begs. “Don’t disappear.”
“I’m not gone yet, Joker.”
Ren sobs. It’s all Akechi can hear, though it doesn’t sour the song playing from the record.
“I won’t forget you. I can’t. I’ve always hated the silence more than music.”
“Then help me make this final movement brilliant, won’t you?”
~*~
A first movement, of youth and dreams.
A second movement, of rage and revenge.
A third movement, of meeting and parting.
A B-side, of reunion.