Chapter Text
"...You really can see so many stars here." Akechi's voice came almost in a whisper as he stared at the night sky. Akira wasn't sure he would even hear it if it wasn't for the eerie silence of that summer night. Except for their breathing -Akechi's coming out in a sort of weird, choked-up way, but with how he snapped at him before, Akira thought it would be better to ignore it- and the bugs and insects of summer, it was dead silent, even for that late.
"Did you ever look that stuff up?" he asked instead, tugging his bangs a little as Akechi turned to look at him with a puzzled look on his face. "About constellations. You know. Like you said...last time." he swallowed. Last time. He hadn't brought it up yet but -
"No, I-" he looked off to the side before he took a deep breath. "Well, not like I would find anything half-adequate in this backwards, worthless excuse for a town." Akira snickered. He was right but-
"Aren't you a little harsh?" Akechi didn't answer. Instead, he slowly got up, walking closer to the edge of the school's rooftop, looking at the scattered lights of the town flickering in the distance.
"Hey, Akira?"
"Yes?"
"Remember when we met?"
Akira Kurusu woke up ten minutes after his third alarm, realizing in a mild panic that if he didn't get up now he was probably going to be late.
"Shit-shit-sh-" he mumbled to himself, quickly putting on his uniform, running a hand through his messy hair. His body moved faster than his brain: uniform half-buttoned, hair stuck up on one side, foot caught in the pant leg as he hopped toward the front door. He shoved a hand into his bag, pulled out a crumpled tie, and stuffed it in his pocket without a second thought. There was no time for breakfast, but he swiped the coins from the counter and barely paused to check if there was a note. His parents hadn’t come home last night. Or maybe they had. He wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. He was used to this. An empty house, just some money on the counter and a note, if they were in a good mood or wanted something from him.
He didn't dwell on it too much. They were busy and expecting them to actually show affection for once only led to disappointment. The store down the road was open, as always. The woman behind the counter smiled when she saw him, like she always did.
“You’ve gotten taller,” she said, reaching over to tousle his already-messy hair. “Here. Take an extra one. For luck.”
“Thanks.” He blinked. It still hurt a little when other people noticed, but there was no time to dwell on it.
Two melon breads. He stuffed one in his mouth and took off.
Akira checked his phone, almost choking on the bread. Damn him and his inability to not stop and pet the adorable neighborhood cats! He'd probably have to run or he'd miss the first bell-
And ran straight into someone.
His shoulder slammed into the other kid’s side, knocking them him off balance. Akira stumbled, caught himself, and barely saw a flash of the school uniform before the guy grunted, “Watch it,” and kept going.
“...What the hell?” Akira muttered, rubbing his wrist. The guy ran off before Akira looked at him and didn’t even look back.
He looked vaguely familiar. Uniform matched. I mean it wasn’t like there was another school nearby. Probably a third year?
Akira glanced down - the first melon bread was now soaked through in a puddle on the sidewalk.
He sighed. At least he had a backup.
Akira sighed, looking out the window, letting the chatter of his classmates become background noise when the bell finally rang for lunch break. Other than the little encounter this morning, everything went on as usual - he arrived just in time, getting scolded for it by the teacher before slipping in an empty seat at the back. No one really came to talk to him and he didn't really initiate conversation either. He wasn't sure when he realized he didn't like any of his classmates and when he realized that they didn't exactly like him back or if those two realizations came together. It didn't matter - he knew exactly how to act to fit in when he needed to. Either way, he was used to this too. It’s a really sad realization to have that you’re only friends with people because it is convenient, that he would never fit it completely, that it only happened because his hometown was so small, each grade had only one class and what else was there to do really? Secretly, he was looking forward to high school - his hometown wasn't big enough for one, so they went to Yasogami High in the next town over. It wasn't like Akira had never been to Inaba - it was only a short bus ride away after all - but he had something to look forward to. Maybe.
“Heeeey, Earth to Kurusu~”
He blinked. One of his classmates leaned over her desk, grinning.
“You still asleep, or just brain-dead?”
“Still deciding,” Akira said with a shrug.
"You should try and be more responsible, Kurusu-kun." she reprimanded as her friend who dragged her chair to her desk started laughing.
"Responsible? It's Kurusu we're talking about." she rolled her eyes, resting her forearms on the desk as she turned to him “Ugh. You’re such a mess.” Her friend rolled her eyes and dragged her chair over. “Didn’t you jump in the river last week? Are you actually okay?”
“Mostly.”
“You caught a fever from that, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. It only lasted a few days though.”
They laughed. They always laughed. Akira knew what to say. Knew when to shrug, when to smirk, when to toss in a dumb joke so they wouldn’t ask him real questions. It was a kind of acting. He was good at it.
Not great. But good enough.
“I dare you to talk to the new kid next,” someone said.
“New kid?” Akira tilted his head.
“Oh right, you were out sick. There’s a transfer student. Moved here from Tokyo.” Akira blinked.
“Tokyo? Who transfers here from Tokyo?”
“Right? Some people said it was because he got expelled. Or his parents died. Or both. Who even knows?”
“I heard he’s actually insane.”
“Seriously. I walked past him this morning and he smiled at the teacher like everything was normal, but the second she turned away, he looked like he was gonna snap.”
“He’s pale, too. Like…weirdly pale. And the eyebags? Dude’s a corpse.”
"What the hell? You watch too many horror movies."
"Shut up!"
"She's right though!" The second girl continued. "I saw him too in the assembly and he's seriously creepy! Looked like a ghost, staring off into the distance with like, those huge eyebags, like he hadn't slept in like a week, hair falling on his face..." Akira chuckled.
"His hair can't be worse than mine." he ran a hand through his black locks, frowning as his fingers got caught in some tangles, proving his point and making them snort.
Akira didn’t say anything. Just tugged his bangs down a little further.
He saw him a couple of times. That new student. Akira was never into gossiping, but one of the advantages (probably) of being quiet was that people forgot he was there sometimes, so he always ended up finding rumors and secrets unnaturally fast, even faster than they spread. Not that it was necessary - people didn't really bother whispering when it came to the transfer student. Not even when he was within earshot - Akira wasn't sure if he really didn't hear the girls talking about him in the hallway or pretended not to, but from the way his grip tightened around his books and started walking faster when one of them said she heard his mother was a prostitute, he guessed it probably was the latter.
His name was Goro Akechi. It seems like he really did come from Tokyo and was an orphan - the rest of the rumors were various degrees of ridiculous so he chose to ignore them. Mostly. It was hard to do so completely, in a small town and the perfect little smiles and blank looks were not helping
Noriko was right - it was kinda creepy.
Akira let out a sigh. It wasn't even two weeks and he was getting tired already. He patted his pocket, feeling his lockpicking tools, smirking to himself before sneaking off to the roof. The building was short, so they chose to keep the door leading to the rooftop padlocked instead of getting a fence. Which worked in Akira's favor, sneaking off to sit by himself, without having to play the guy his classmates liked or at least tolerated, even skipping class some days to just relax for a few hours. As long as his grades were good nobody cared anyway.
He froze, seeing the padlock was broken and the door left half-open.
Without thinking he quickly made the rest of the way up and opened the door.
He didn't know what to expect.
It certainly wasn't the new student, standing near the edge, lightly humming along with some tune that played from his earphones, blowing a cloud of smoke. Akira froze - getting involved with him wasn't a good idea. Never mind all the rumors, the guy was probably a delinquent, sneaking off to the roof -nevermind he did that too- to smoke, which Akira did not do, even if it looked kinda cool when he was doing it. Staying away was the safe, sane thing to do, but -
"I caught that transfer student staring at me yesterday. What a creep!" Akira heard one of the third-year girls giggling to her friends as they walked in front of him on the way to school.
"Do you think he wants to ask you out?" one of them teased, making the others giggle.
"Ew, come on, don't even joke about this." the first girl tightened her ponytail.
"You better not reject him if he actually does or he'll jump off the roof or something."
"Huh?"
"I heard he's here 'cause he tried killing himself back in Tokyo. He's wearing a sweater over his uniform too so he's probably-" she mimicked a hand over her wrist. "-you know?"
Akira didn't pay attention to the rest of their conversation, letting himself fall behind until their chattering and giggles faded.
-Which brought him back to the present - The transfer student was standing near the edge of the roof. Akira knew that the side of the building wasn't visible from the courtyard either. No one would notice. No one except- Akira felt his heart beat loudly in his ears. Before he even knew what he was doing, his body acted on its own, grabbing the older boy and pulling him back by his arm, making him stumble back and one of his earbuds come off.
"What the hell is your problem?" he snapped at him, shaking his arm off Akira's grip.
"Don't." Was all that Akira could say, his throat suddenly dry. Akechi looked at him confused, taking the other earbud off.
"What?"
"Don't do it"
"Do what-?" he stopped, realizing what Akira meant, letting out a laugh. "Wait, you thought I was going to-" he snorted.
"Jump." Akira finished for him, fidgeting slightly. "I-I heard from some students that you're..." he didn't finish, taking a deep breath "Don't do it. Please?" Akechi rolled his eyes and yanked his arm back.
"- jump off the roof ?" Akira nodded and Akechi laughed. Actually laughed. Loudly and he quickly tried to hide his mouth with his hand, but Akira still caught a few glimpses of a gummy smile before Akechi tried to stop, taking a few shaky breaths. Akira fidgeted in place and Akechi stared at him for a moment before he took another drag from his cigarette, turning his head to blow the smoke away from Akira's face. "The building is too short to actually die from that - if I wanted to break my legs I'd find an easier way to."
"Oh." Akira hadn't thought about that. And he wasn’t expecting the transfer student to act like that. He was so different in…public? With other people? It was more surprising than anything. "I didn't think about that." he replied honestly, rubbing the back of his neck.
"That's what I thought. God, does anybody have half a brain in this place?" He took another drag and there was a pause. Not long. Just long enough to register that Akira wasn’t leaving.
"You shouldn't smoke." Akira said, without thinking, because it was the only thing his brain came up with.
“What are you, the health department?”
“I could tell.”
“You won’t.”
“…Yes I will?" No, he wouldn't because then he wouldn't be able to sneak to the roof but he didn't need to know that. "Well, maybe I won't-" That got another laugh out of him.
"Yeah, that's what I thought." Akechi cut him off, still laughing a little. "What do you want?" Akira didn't really want anything.
"Let me try it." he said the first thing that came to mind instead. "Smoking, I mean." The older boy seemed amused, if anything.
"Oh, I see... We have a wanna-be delinquent here." he chuckled but handed him the cigarette anyway. "Whatever." he shrugged. Akira stared at it for a second before putting it on his lips. It wasn't that bad, the smoke just left a weird taste in his mouth, making it dry. He blew it out, about to hand it back, feeling a bit stupid.
"Do it properly. Don't just... keep it in your mouth." Akechi shook his head. "Actually inhale it this time."
"Okay." Akira was never one to back away from a challenge - he put the cigarette back between his lips, inhaling as deeply as he could.
"Swallow." Akechi told him and he did, erupting into a coughing fit pretty much immediately after, his throat and nose burning with the smoke, his eyes tearing up. "You really did it, huh?" he laughed, putting a hand on his hip. "Akechi laughed again and somehow Akira felt chocking was kinda worth it for seeing him laugh so many times. “You really are stupid.”
Akira coughed once more and managed a rasp, “Kurusu. Not stupid. Kurusu Akira.” Akechi blinked, then smirked.
“Goro Akechi. But you probably already knew that.”
“Maybe.”
Akechi took the cigarette back, flicked it once, and blew a last puff of smoke into the air.
“Well, Kurusu-kun,” he said, voice perfectly polite, perfectly fake, “pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“I-um-it’s nice to-” The bell rang, before Akira managed to finish whatever sentence didn’t half form correctly in his head. Akechi didn’t stay to figure it out, just turned, flicked the cigarette onto the concrete, and crushed it with his heel.
He didn’t say goodbye. Just left the door swinging behind him, Akira staring at him as the door slammed behind.
Fake or true rumors aside, he seemed interesting, Akira thought, bringing his hand up to touch his lips.