Work Text:
In the exact manner as he said he would, Akechi Goro walked through the door of Leblanc.
His hair held lightly melted snowflakes, while his nose was pink from the harsh bite of the late January air; and while academic fashion wasn't Akira's strong suit, even somebody like him could tell the value of Akechi's scarf from how carefully he unravelled it from his throat. It, and his trench coat, were both hung on the coat rack near the door, a small puddle collecting by Akira's own boots only a few feet away.
Akira had been ready for him, he'd told himself this. Had brewed the other his usual cup of coffee, in the mug Akira had most certainly not found a way to mark as the others for any form of sentiment (it was a deeper shade of crimson-- an imperfection in the crowd of bright red cups, only for Akechi.) He told himself he'd be ready.
And yet, Akira almost dropped the cup at the sight of those crimson brown irises again. He swallowed.
"What." Idly, Akechi had begun running dark gloved fingers through his light hair as to get rid of any of the aforementioned snowflakes. "Is something the matter?"
"Nothings the matter."
Akechi's eyes caught his own from behind fogged lenses, only to immediately roll them. "Then set up, will you?"
With not shaking hands, Akira slid Akechi his mug, then excused himself upstairs. It took no time at all to find where he'd last left their chess set, and even less to brush off any dust that had collected over the months it had sat packed away, with the expectation it would never see light again.
Frankly? After November had faded to December, he'd given up on chess at all without his usual rival. And yet here he was, alive– living, breathing, feeling and unmarred in the present tense.
It still felt real. Much, much too real. Every grain in the floorboards he stared at, stalling his descent down the stairs, was much too real. Nothing had been tangible until recently, and yet it was the most surreal time to feel real at all. Not when it could all slip so quickly out of his hands again.
Akira took a breath, contemplated if time even existed, and descended the stairs.
"Well, that certainly took you long enough." Akechi nursed his drink, the steam still rolling. "Did you misplace it?"
He only shrugged, swinging from the bottom of the stairs to a booth near the window.
Opening the mechanism was second nature, came just as easily as the location of the set itself had. The previously well oiled latch gave easily to slide up, the hinges barely complained when they opened, and the velvet didn't crumble or wrinkle (because, of course, Akechi would tell an expensive velvet from crushed.) The board held no scuffs, nor did it have any chips. Each piece was in a similar state; smooth in Akira's bare hands as he laid out the bishop next to the knight, or the pawn in front of the king.
The only noise is the sound of Akechi drinking, and the clack of lacquered wood on wood. It's deafening. Only when the pawns were fully set up did the detective speak.
"The snow is perfect outside." Akechi moved the first white pawn to e4. "It's almost insufferable how perfect it is."
"Mm." Pushing up his glasses, Akira moved black to e5.
They played in silence for a while; when Akechi would make an offensive move, Akira would neutralise it– when Akira made an advance, Akechi would swiftly dispose of the threat. It wasn't until Akira had lost four or so pawns when Akechi finally jumped into their usual pattern of debate.
"What do you consider as justice?"
Akira paused mid move, before placing his pawn with as much serenity as a man on death row possessed.
"I suppose this is a bit of a fruitless question, seeing as I've seen you and your friends in action," Akechi continued, "but I've never heard it directly from you yourself. It makes me curious as to what is right and just– and what is pure cruelty to you."
He waved his hand, moving one of the pieces to effectively put Akira's rook in a state of uselessness.
"Out of pure, unbridled curiosity, of course."
That kind of question required some deep thought, and while at first questions such as these had caused him to blunder in his moves, the well seasoned winter him had a full handle on how to multitask; which was to say, Akira waited to make his move until he could give a response.
One pawn sacrificed for the availability of his rook again.
"I think… It depends on what the action is, and the motivation behind it is caused by," Akira hummed. "If somebody did horrible things in the name of good, you can't just say that they are bad, if the outcome could have been worse than result of the actions they took."
…Akechi's eyes bore into him, deep dark brown-red that reminded you of the violence deer wreck when desperate.
"And if their actions made no difference?"
Harsher than he meant to, Akira took his next move. "Then it's purely down to the own persons' experience. Actions can be inherently judged as good or bad without context, but people are comprised of so many actions they are entirely gray."
"An interesting conclusion, Kurusu." Akechi's next pawn put him in check. "By that logic, murder is completely justifiable. Are you sure that is your stance?"
"We have death row, don't we?"
The detective snorted. "I suppose we do. But is the law the same as justice in this context?"
Ah. Akira pursed his lips in thought, considering how to both answer and avoid loss. One wrong move and he'd be dead– or at the very least, humiliated. While he thought, Akechi once again returned to sipping at the no longer steaming mug of coffee. Holding the real porcelain, maroon mug between gloved hands, left thumb running along the edge of the handle. Pale, cool skin warmed by the hot drink Akira had made.
He tore his eyes away to move his piece.
"The people shape the law, so what they all decide is a fair law is the justice of the collective. In the face of corruption, however, the will of the people is stolen from them-–even if they don't know it."
The air between them became tense, thick. The unspoken topic they both refused to touch skirting dangerously close to being mentioned. Akechi took the leap for them, moving his king into the open.
"Then is it justifiable to kill for the greater good of the people, when they want the manipulated story they've been given?"
"You." Akira was shoved against a brick wall, hood falling off his head. Familiar leather gloved hands wrapped around his windpipe.
Shit, shit, shit–
"Ake--"
"No. No! You don't get to–" his eyes were wide, irises more red than brown, and frantic– "You can't walk away alive after all the hoops I had to go through to kill you the first time! I blew a bullet through your fucking brain! You shouldn't be– you can't be–"
Air. Akira needed air, needed to dig his nails into Akechi's arms and pry him off, needed to breathe air pipe too narrow not enough air not enough a–
He hit the floor with a gasp, hand immediately rubbing at the new hand shaped bruises blossoming on his neck, while Akechi shook above him.
Fists balled. Tremors all over. Eyes still wide.
"How did you live? I know I– I saw your brain, your lifeless eyes staring at me, and–
"Akechi." Akira wants to cringe at how raspy and damaged, how quiet his voice sounded– but it got Akechi's attention.
"I don't–" His hands curl into his hair, the black of his gloves visible through golden blond clearly tugging too rough for his scalp. "Fuck. Fuck!"
" 'kechi." There was blood under his fingernails– Akechi's blood– when he finally saw his own outstretched hands reaching for the other. Every nerve in his body, ever small sense of self preservation was screaming to run from his attacker. It urged him to use his hands to push up and away, plan for how he'd survive after the knowledge he was alive and not dead got out-- how he'd keep Akechi from killing him for real this time, with his own two gloved hands.
Instead, he gently tugged on the edge of the others coat. It's enough to make him follow the motion; so clearly out of it that the subtle suggestion to sit across from Akira goes through without any argument.
At one point, Akechi had been his friend. Akira still wanted to be friends. So pull his would be murderer into his arms to hold him it was.
"All of these questions I treat on a case by case bias, Akechi." Akira took his bishop and slid it across the board, taking a white piece. "You know it's unfair to judge without all the information present."
Somewhere in the background, the radio announcer finished announcing a song name, and the old busted thing began to play something slow.
" I suppose that's about as good an answer I can expect from you, Kurusu. It was insightful, for sure– but not entirely what I expected from a saviour such as yourself."
"I'm not a saviour." The word feels like something sickeningly sweet in his mouth– nauseating.
Across from him, Akechi gave one shallow, sarcastic laugh. "Oh, really? Then what would you call all of your oh so selfless actions in the past year?"
"I– I wasn't playing saviour. I don't do that. I'm just… Helping people. That's not bad."
"Oh," Akechi crossed his legs, taking one of Akira's few pieces in a moment of weakness, "you weren't? Then why did you feel so emotional over not being able to help me of all people?"
He leaned forward. "You, Kurusu Akira, see yourself as somebody who has to fix everyone– whether they like it or not. Everybody must be happy and safe for you to be satisfied."
Akira's spine went straight. "I don't–"
"Oh, shut it. You prioritize everyone else over yourself, and it's obvious to anybody with eyes who would even care to ask how you were doing, that you aren't always fine. Always the silent, steady leader of your friends."
"Akechi–"
"Did they ever notice? Have they noticed?" The chess table was forgotten in favour of Akechi's looming figure stretched across the table.
"Did they ever care how you felt, Kurusu?"
"Akira!" Ryuji's voice shook him out of his blank stare (Akechi's glove his last remaining memory his promise) to look at the other.
"Come on dude, were gonna be late."
"Yeah, okay. I'm coming." The glove was pocketed, and the door shut behind him.
His fist laid on the window, the reflection of his own watering eyes half-hiding the small ray gun he'd spent all day looking for. It looked just like Akechi's.
Fuck. Akechi's gun was from a nerdy show, and Akira hadn't even–
Akira's chest hitched, but no tears fell down his face.
Morgana eventually pawed at his ear and asked to go home, whining about the cold.
Akira went back the next day without Morgana and bought the gun. It's still in his closet.
Food wasn't appetising. Water tasted dusty. Every cup of coffee he made was too bitter or thin. None of his curries held that perfect mix of spice, sweet, and umami anymore.
Everything just felt… Grey.
Across the counter, his friends were joking and laughing, and Akechi was dead.
Did his body turn up? Did it crumble just like shadows did, into dark soot? Was it bloody?
God. He felt sick. He swallowed back bile at the image of a dead, flayed, bloody Akechi, crumbling to dust.
Nobody noticed when he slipped away to the restroom.
"I–…" There was no good retort to that, because, well– they hadn't noticed. Morgana might have gotten the closest with reminding him to take care of himself when he forgot, but he'd never brought it up. Neither had any of his friend. Nor boss.
"You can't argue that, can you?" Akechi finally leaned back with a sigh, arms crossed.
"Even now, when your friends finally had their issues fixed, they practically abandoned you." The noise of Akechi's leather gloves rapping against the wood of the chess table finally snapped him back, urging him to move a singular pawn at random.
It was immediately captured, to his dismay.
"No. I–" each syllable is thick, and hard to swallow. "I can't deny that."
"Exactly."
Akira is left with three remaining chess pieces, rivalling Akechi's seven. Each move is cutthroat, stripping them both of pawns and queens alike. Every step he takes, Akechi takes two steps more, cornering him.
Their drinks are cold, focus locked in on the game, until it finally becomes apparent they need to turn on a light to see the end of their game. He got up to turn it on.
"Say, Kurusu." His hand paused at the light switch. Akira turned around.
Akechi's face is startlingly calm– gaze not harsh or narrowed as per usual. As if granting him a small grace when he's close to that all too familiar crumbling point. That feeling when the lights are too bright and too real, when each persons face looks like nothing he'd ever seen before-- when tensing and untensing his muscles is the only thing he can do to remind his body he is there.
"Do you truly believe you can win this match?"
"Of course. How else can we even the scores?"
He switched on the light, and returned to his seat. Akira's eyes couldn't leave the grain of the chess board; the set up of his loss played out so clearly to see. Two cold mugs, two chairs, two sides of the match.
"Well–" he croaked, voice rough, "You won. That's–…" A breath in. "That's check."
The empty chair said nothing, Akechi's presence gone in the now warmer march air.
"I guess the uh– the, uh–" why does this hurt so much? Why does it still hurt so much, months later? "I guess the scores are still in your favour, huh?"
Still no reply.
With shaking hands, Akira reached over and knocked over his own black king using the white king, then set the white king back in its original position.
The white king loomed over the black king: proud, defiant, victorious. All the black king can do is sit there at the others feet and hope mercy treats him well– but he will never forget the loss he'd suffered over–no, by the black king.
White won, and Akira had lost.
In the dark of Leblanc, nobody was there to see the way he crudely curled his knees to his cheeks and let out the first sob he had in years.