Work Text:
“Time is 22:40. Begin audio notes for case SK-2217—Japanese male, between the ages of 18 and 22, found via anonymous tip. Time of death approximately 24 hours before exam. Mangled ID badge in pants pocket provided the name Akechi Goro, but no matching records have been found yet. Investigation currently underway.”
Akira clicks the button again to pause the recording and sets the manila folder containing the paltry amount of information they have on their newest guest aside. Talking to himself like this still feels a bit strange, especially tonight, when the oppressive silence and emptiness of the coroner's office makes every sound echo like thunder, but Sojiro will be checking his work when he arrives tomorrow morning, and he's determined not to mess up his first solo post-mortem.
In front of him, a shrouded figure lies on the table. Someone has already removed the corpse's clothes; Akira can see them packed neatly into evidence bags and lined up on the counter, and the outfit seems to have been some sort of uniform, but the initial report didn't mention any identifying details on the clothing. Sticking the recorder into the front pocket of his scrubs, Akira carefully takes the edge of the sheet and lifts.
Under the fluorescents and the added overhead surgical light, the corpse’s white skin is nearly blinding as it comes into view. The face staring blankly up at the ceiling as Akira folds the sheet down to the corpse's waist is balanced and regal, with a sharp jaw and full lips. The hair is still smooth and shiny, pooled around the head in a dark auburn halo, as though it was just combed. Even in death, it's clear that Akechi Goro was a very handsome young man, and Akira finds himself leaning over for a closer look.
After working in the coroner's office beneath the police station for over a month now, Akira has grown accustomed to the sight of cadavers. Seeing and handling them every day would desensitize even the most squeamish, and Akira has never been particularly delicate anyway. It’s always been easy enough to turn off his thoughts and get things done.
But for some reason, locking eyes with this corpse's fixed, empty gaze makes his stomach turn. The harsh light catches in the deep mahogany of the corpse's irises, and they gleam almost crimson as Akira watches. One gloved hand settles hesitantly on the corpse’s arm and Akira starts, looking down at it. He doesn’t remember deciding to move it. Through the thin blue latex of his gloves, the corpse’s skin is cool and stiff, none of the reactive elasticity of living flesh, but it glides like satin beneath his touch as he runs his hand up to the corpse’s shoulder.
It’s really a shame, Akira thinks absently, scanning the corpse’s elegant, youthful features. That someone like this should die so young.
Such thoughts don’t normally occur to him. Everyone dies, after all. But this time, something almost like regret strums through him. Everyone dies—but why him? Why now? Akira furrows his brow, fingertips pressing into the corpse’s unresponsive skin. It hardly seems fair.
Giving himself a mental shake, Akira removes his hand and forcefully channels his thoughts back to his job.
After measuring the body and noting down hair and eye color on the exam form, Akira retrieves the recorder again.
“The body is in remarkably good condition,” he murmurs into the mic, circling the table. “Athletic build with very little body fat. No sign of Rigor Mortis, which is…a bit odd.” Curious, Akira takes one slim wrist and lifts the corpse's arm off the gleaming metal table. The motion is smooth, unhindered by any muscle rigidity, and all five fingers move freely when Akira tests them. “It's possible time of death was farther back than estimated.”
Continuing his path around the table, Akira draws the sheet down the corpse's long legs and sets it aside, exposing more toned, pallid skin to the sterile light of the room. “No visible wounds on the front of the body,” he continues, checking the bottoms of the corpse's feet. “Calluses consistent with regular exercise on the soles.”
Returning to the top of the table, he reaches out and grasps gently beneath the corpse's jaw, tipping the head back enough to get a complete view of the neck. “No ligature marks on the neck,” he observes, rolling the corpse's head side to side. “And no discoloration or protrusions to indicate a break.”
Tap.
Jolting, Akira throws a look at the closed door. The hallway beyond the window is as static and dim as it was the last time he checked, stretching into the unseen recesses of the basement.
Probably the pipes, he tells himself, pausing the recording again and turning back to the body.
Crimson eyes meet his.
Akira's heart hitches in his chest and he jerks back a step, grip tightening around the audio recorder.
But the corpse isn't looking at him. It's staring straight up, as it should be. He must have just met its gaze without expecting it.
“Work here long enough, it'll start to mess with your head,” Sojiro had warned. “There are a lot of shadows in this basement.” Akira hadn't thought his head had room for any more shadows, but clearly that had been naive.
Taking a deep breath to calm his racing pulse, Akira reaches out and firmly slides the corpse's eyelids closed.
The back of his neck prickles. He ignores it.
The rest of the exam passes in rote familiarity. He carefully rolls the corpse over to examine the back and finds nothing but more sloping planes of pale, pristine flesh. When he settles the body facing up again, the head lolls to the side, honey brown hair falling over its brow, and Akira instinctively moves to adjust it, straightening the head and brushing soft bangs away from the corpse's closed eyes.
A thread of deja-vu stitches through him, as though he’s seen his fingers carding through the same hair, felt the same silky glide of burnt ginger locks against his skin. For a moment, it’s all he can do not to comb his fingers over the corpse’s scalp, deliberately touseling the orderly style. Then he pulls his hand away and the impulse vanishes.
Frowning, he surveys the body and retrieves the audio recorder again.
“No outward indications of anaphylaxis or spinal injury,” he mumbles, placing one hand mindlessly on the corpse’s chest, tracing up to its prominent clavicle. “External exam shows no further indication of cause of death. The answer most likely lies in internal exam or toxicology. I will now begin collecting fingerprints and samples.”
Clicking the recorder off, he starts going through the standard steps, grateful for the simple routine to settle his uneasy stomach.
Akechi Goro's fingers are long and slim, with neat seashell pink nails that yield nothing when Akira scrapes gently along the beds. Blue veins spiderweb beneath the translucent skin, and Akira notes the chiffon fairness that usually results from habitual glove-wearing. The deceased’s clothing included a pair of fitted leather gloves, so he must have worn them often to have such immaculate skin.
After gathering all ten fingerprints, he sets the cards and ink aside and selects the comb from his tray. As with the corpse's nails, the hair provides no debris or particles of any kind. The chestnut locks flow through Akira's fingers like water, parting smoothly for each pass of the comb, and Akira checks the entire scalp but doesn't find so much as a single speck of dirt.
The report didn't say where the body was found, but no matter where it was left, a complete absence of debris is unusual.
“No evidence collected from nails or hair,” Akira tells the recorder, returning the comb and empty collection envelope to his tray. “No blood or abrasions found on scalp.” He turns away, reaching for the clipboard he left on the counter, but stops short as something snags the hem of his shirt. Irritated, he glances down to free it.
White fingers pinch harder into the fabric.
The recorder clatters to the floor as Akira wrenches away, heart throwing itself against his ribs, eyes wide and fixed on the—
Limp hand lying on the table.
Akira's pulse roars in his ears. He swallows his heart back down into his chest and takes a step forward.
The corpse's hand is exactly where he left it after taking the prints, palm down, fingers arched slightly. Grabbing the bottom of his shirt, he checks but doesn't find any ink smears.
Despite himself, his eyes track to the corpse's face. Slack, pale, eyes closed, lips gently parted.
Stupid, he scolds himself, bending to collect the recorder. Stop it.
Leery of Sojiro's wrath should he damage any of their equipment, he rewinds the audio and plays it back to make sure the recorder didn't break.
“Time is 22:40. Begin audio notes for case SK-2217—Japanese male, between the ages of 18 and 22, found via anonymous tip. Time of death—”
Letting it play, he sets the recorder on his tray and starts preparing for the next step: dissection.
“—in remarkably good condition. Athletic build with very little body fat—”
Oddly enough, this has never been the part that Akira finds most distasteful. Once he slices into a body and sees its inner workings, any lingering impression of it as human vanishes, and it becomes nothing more than an intricate, organic machine. A big doll for Akira to deconstruct, examine, sort through what’s useful and eliminate what isn’t. An object to be manipulated.
Akira concentrates on that now, as he switches out his gloves and readies all the organ trays.
“No visible wounds on the front of the body. I will never forgive you. Calluses consistent with—”
Akira pauses. Turns to look at the recorder.
“—ligature marks on the neck. And no discoloration or—”
Sweat pricks at Akira's hairline. He reaches over and stops the playback. The ensuing silence slams down on top of him like a ton of bricks.
No. It's not real. It's not true.
When Akira breathes in, the tang of chemicals invades his lungs. The sooner he finishes taking this corpse apart, the sooner he can get out of here and—
And what?
Akira shakes his head. Reaches for the scalpel on his tray. But his fingers fall on nothing. His instrument tray isn’t on the cart where he left it. Perplexed, he scans the room, and spots it sitting on the opposite counter, metal gleaming in the harsh light, all of his tools still lined up in a neat row.
“Get it together,” he mutters, stalking around the slab and snatching his tray up with a sharp rattle. “It’s over.”
“It will never be over.”
The instruments cascade to the floor in a deafening cacophony, followed by the almighty crash of the tray as Akira stares around wildly in search of the tinny, unwelcome voice.
“You aren’t allowed to forget.”
Akira’s wide eyes land on the recorder, sitting innocently on his cart. The playback icon is blinking. Heart sprinting against his ribs, he lurches around the slab and snatches the device. “Shut up, shut up,” he hisses, trembling gloved fingers missing the stop button multiple times.
“Look at what you did to me, Akira.”
“No, no, no—I didn’t—”
“Face it, coward! Look what you’ve done!”
He finally manages to jab the button, holding the recorder so tightly he can see the white of his knuckles through the blue latex. The sound of his labored breathing underscores the sudden, blessed silence. Like a robot, Akira turns his head to look at the corpse.
Porcelain and serene. Exactly as he left it.
Inhaling roughly, he sets the recorder down again.
His instruments are scattered all over the floor, forcing Akira to hunt them down one at a time as he tries to drum up the irritation at having to sterilize them all again. Soon, the only one still missing is his scalpel, and after a moment of searching, he spies it under the exam table, sitting dull in the shadows. Blowing out a sigh, he crawls between the metal legs to retrieve it.
The table creaks.
Akira freezes, one hand gripping the scalpel, and listens as a weight shifts above him. The sound of a body moving on its own. Motion in his periphery whips his head to the side in time to see two white feet swing down over the edge.
Terror surges up Akira’s throat, propelling him backward and upright between one blink and the next. Black spots crowd the rim of his vision as he grabs blindly for the corpse, once again lying still and silent on the slab, and clutches at its shoulder as though to keep it pinned down. The scalpel sinks easily into cool ivory skin and slits a smooth line from throat to navel.
That’s wrong, Akira realizes distantly as the flesh parts like butter and dark rivulets drip down the corpse’s sides. He was supposed to make a Y-incision. The shape is important. He needs to be able to fold the skin back in order to get to the ribs with his bonesaw, because this is just a body—
He blinks. The cut is gone. His scalpel hovers unsteadily over snowy, unmarred skin. He flings it away from him and it strikes the floor with a clang.
An electronic click interrupts the sound of Akira’s ragged breathing.
“There’s no need to hide like this, Akira. He will understand.”
The recorder. Whirling around, Akira seizes the device and throws it too, watching it shatter into plastic bits against the tile wall. He squeezes his eyes shut, fleeing from the bleak, unforgiving light into the heavy darkness of his own head.
“You betrayed me.”
“I saved you.” The words tear from his throat and he yanks at his own hair as though he can pull the memories out. “I’m saving you!”
Metal creaks. “I’m still dead!”
Akira’s eyes fly open.
The corpse is sitting upright on the edge of the table, legs dangling, amber eyes staring and sightless, hair still perfect around its ashen face. Horror wraps around Akira’s lungs, choking a pained gasp from his mouth, but he can’t look away, rooted in place as a thin ruby stream runs from the corner of the corpse’s lips. More tracks trace down the corpse’s cheeks, blood welling in its eyes like tears. “You did this to me,” it says, its voice clear and effortless despite the blood filling its mouth.
“No,” Akira begs.
The alabaster plane of the corpse’s chest splits, a textbook Y-incision zipping open before Akira’s eyes. Viscera glistens in the overhead light, parting to reveal the white strokes of a ribcage. Long nimble fingers wrap around two rungs of bone and pull.
A sickening snap rocks through Akira’s nerves. He can’t look away, eyes glued to the newly-made gap, to the dark, motionless organ inside.
Akechi reaches for him, one bloody hand outstretched between them. “You took me apart.”
Akira’s knees hit the floor. “No, no, please—” he pleads, to Akechi or himself or someone else, anyone, “I’m sorry—I’m so—so—”
Hands, too many, clutch at him from behind, fisting in his scrubs, wrapping around his arms, and he’s helpless as they drag him backward, pinning him flat on the floor. The overheads drill directly into his retinas, burning and scraping until a silhouette cuts into the merciless light.
Akechi Goro’s face comes into view above him, streaked with blood, irises clouded over, hair falling in a soft curtain around them. His bare skin presses against Akira’s through his scrubs, drawing lines of cool friction as he crawls languidly over Akira’s prone figure.
Akira sucks in a breath and tastes iron. Chilled lips skim his mouth.
Then he’s standing. Vertigo swims through him but he doesn’t even sway, frozen in place beside the slab, scalpel poised over an unmoving, unblemished sternum. The corpse’s face is clean, pale, eyes open and staring at nothing.
Firm gloved fingers wrap around his wrist as a body steps up behind him. “What are you afraid of?” Maruki whispers into his ear, sweet and tempting. The snake in the garden. “You can save him. You can keep him forever.” Pressure forces Akira’s hand lower, the blade just kissing the corpse’s chest. Akira’s gaze doesn’t shift from its face. “All you have to do is take him apart.”
Crimson eyes meet his.
The scalpel clinks to the floor, metal singing on tile. Maruki is gone. The morgue is gone. The light is gone. It’s just Akira and the boy he loves, still whole.
When Akechi’s bare arms slide around Akira’s neck, his skin is warm.