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Right from the beginning, it’s there.
He’s there.
It just takes Ryuji some time to figure it out.
That’s okay. Akira knows he’s not that smart. He’ll forgive Ryuji for taking so long.
--
The whole team is upstairs at Leblanc, talking about whether or not they’ll hit up Mementos today, barring that, making plans for their next Palace infiltration.
The weather is sticky, water hanging in the air because it just won’t ‘effin rain already. Ryuji slumps against the couch, letting his legs slide out under the folding table. His ass is getting precariously close to the edge of the couch, so he plants his feet down, halting his slow descent.
Akira sits next to him, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. He listens intently to Makoto. They don’t have the Palace maps when they’re not in the Metaverse, so she’s trying to sketch out the corridors they’ve already passed through. They won’t go today. But she always has a plan, ‘for the next time.’
Ryuji doesn’t bother paying attention. It’s his job to show up and smack shit. As long as Akira points him in the right direction. He’ll do his job. He’ll do it well.
Makoto finishes up. Or, at least, finishes up with Akira and turns her attention to Futaba, asking a string of questions about data she may have gathered on their last infiltration.
Leaning back, Akira takes his arms off the card table, letting them drop down to the couch cushions. His fingers brush over the back of Ryuji’s hand, sweeping over the knuckles. Shifting a little, Akira presses his leg against Ryuji’s. It’s warm down the whole length of where they’re fused together. Despite the heat, Ryuji doesn’t mind.
“You good?” Ryuji tilts his head to look at the side of Akira’s face. His mouth opens a little bit, but he keeps his eyes straight ahead. Instead of saying nothing, he nods. Ryuji huffs, turning back. But he picks up his hand and taps his fingers against Akira’s before pulling away.
As the meeting drags, Ryuji puts his whole hand on top of Akira’s, slotting his thinner fingers in between Akira’s thicker ones. Ryuji thought their hands might, he doesn’t know, get more calloused? From the fighting? But they’re just as smooth as ever. One of those Metaverse things he doesn’t understand, probably?
He picks up Akira’s hand, playing with it with both of his. He puts his palms flat on either side, pinning Akira’s in between. Akira’s palm is bigger, but not by much. His fingers are a little shorter. Ryuji pulls at each finger, bending it down and back up. When he grows bored with that, he pushes Akira’s hand towards his opposite one. Back and forth, back and forth. Tossing his hand around and catching it. Akira lets him, his wrist loose so Ryuji can manipulate him.
“Are you bored?” Makoto asks, her sharp gaze fixed on Ryuji, “that’s...very distracting.” Her cheeks are pinked and she looks away.
Ryuji drops Akira’s hand, letting it fall softly on his thigh. “Sorry,” Ryuji mumbles.
Against his leg, Akira squeezes tight, and releases.
--
Ann wants crepes. Ann always wants crepes. And Ryuji doesn’t not want crepes, despite his protests that they’re girly. Akira generally wants whatever his friends want. So they get on the subway after class and head to Shibuya.
They push their way inside the car, sandwiching Ann between them. She holds on to the front of Akira’s shirt to keep her balance, with the sway of the train. The rattle of the train on the tracks is too loud to make conversation, so Ryuji just lets his vision go out of focus.
Nothing is going on between Ann and Akira. Ryuji has already asked. And because nothing is going on, she’s okay being this close to them. The both of them. Just Akira is in front of her and Ryuji is behind her so she’s holding on to Akira’s shirt. And that shouldn’t bother Ryuji. Even if they were together, Ann and Akira, he should be happy for them.
Akira mouths, “Are you okay?” over top of Ann’s shoulder.
Ryuji shakes his head, trying to bring himself back down to earth. He smiles, “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Ann looks up over her shoulder at Ryuji, but says nothing.
When she lets go, Ryuji can make out the force of her grip in the stretch of Akira’s shirt.
--
They go to Akihabara, just him and Akira. No plans in mind, just to go. Ryuji thinks they should hang out in the arcade. Akira just shrugs his shoulders and smiles, hands still stuck in his pockets, flaring out at his hips.
Passing the arcade, they don’t go in. They just keep on walking, their footfall in sync. The electronics store calls out to them instead.
Ryuji has never had this much money. But the yen they get from the shadows somehow ends up in their accounts. Usually, he buys little things for the apartment. Replacing worn out household items like ratty dish sponges, and cooking pans with the nonstick worn off, and the little tattered rug by the door, with identical, but new, counterparts. His mom hasn’t brought it up. Ryuji hopes she never does. He doesn’t want to try and explain. He just wants to make her life easier.
“Let’s look at the games, bro.” He could buy one, if he wanted.
The store is crowded, the games section even more so. And as they stand in the narrow alsie, Ryuji reading the back cover of a game for a system he doesn’t even have, Akira stands next to him. Close enough that their shoulder touch.
When a group of kids press in behind them, creating a barricade between them and the other shoppers, Akira reaches over, threading his fingers through Ryuji’s. Ryuji doesn’t breathe until they’ve parted. A trench a few seconds deep. But vast.
--
“You should read this one next,” Ryuji passes the comic he’s finished over to Akira. They sit on the floor of Akira’s attic room, their backs against his bed frame and legs splayed in front of them. Akira’s stick out a little further. He taps his socked foot against Ryuji’s. The rhythm is uneven. Ryuji starts tapping back. Faster.
“Sure,” Akira plucks the comic from Ryuji’s hands, setting it to the side. “Once I’m done with this one.”
The weather is turning cold. Ryuji didn’t bring his jacket. Next to him, Akira burns. Dark hair falling over his glasses as he reads.
Ryuji reaches over, pulling Akira’s glasses off. Making a surprised sound, Akira goes to grab them back.
“I know you don’t need them,” Ryuji argues. “They’re just fashion, right?”
“They help…”
“You don’t wear them in the Metaverse,” Ryuji puts them on his own face. And yeah, his vision gets a little blurry, but not much. They’re prescription, but pretty weak.
Akira stares at him, dropping his hand against Ryuji’s thigh, “I said they help. I don’t need them. They make the edges of things sharper.”
Picking up another comic off the floor, Ryuji tries to read. But Akira’s prescription makes everything soft, a little indistinct. They make Akira’s expression look faded too.
Ryuji takes them off, turning them around so he can put them back on Akira’s face. Once the frames are over Akira’s ears, Ryuji pulls at his hair, trying to fix it back how it was before. But it’s always messy. So he just messes with Akira’s hair until it’s the right sort of messy.
Reaching out, Akira wraps his hand around Ryuji’s wrist, holding it in the loose circle of his fingers.
“Sorry, guess I was being weird, again,” Ryuji huffs.
Akira shakes his head, “No. I like it...just…”
“I’ll stop,” Ryuji curls his hand into a fist, trying to pull it away. But Akira holds firm.
“I like it.”
They go back to reading.
--
Ryuji overhears Makoto calling Akira her boyfriend. He’s not eavesdropping, just walking through the hall on his way out. She says it to some girl that Ryuji doesn’t know.
When he sees Akira the next morning, hanging out in the courtyard with Ann before class starts, he asks about it. Ann rolls her eyes.
“I’m just pretending. To help her with something,” Akira explains.
“You’re just too nice,” Ann chides him, shoving at his shoulder.
Ryuji can’t figure why he feels so dizzy.
--
The others have headed home. Ann still shaking. She’s so mad at Ryuji, for scaring them like that. It wasn’t intentional. He didn’t know the whole boat was about to blow. But they’ve done it. Haven’t they? Changed Shido’s heart? Futaba bundles Morgana to her chest, reminding them that all they can do now is wait.
Ryuji texts his mom. He’s with his friend.
The boy you told me about? she asks.
yeah
I love you, she responds. I’ll always love you.
Ryuji slides his phone away.
They ride the subway in silence, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee. The car is almost empty this late.
Walking from the station to Leblanc feels like a dream. Still cloudy and indistinct. “Sojiro might still be in,” Akira says. “But he won’t say anything.”
Ryuji’s chest feels tight.
The cafe is dark. Akira uses his key to open up, letting Ryuji through the door first, so he can lock up after. Without hesitation, Ryuji heads up the stairs, two at a time, though the stretch makes his leg hurt.
He’s alone in the attic for an age. Downstairs he can hear Akira fussing around. He should find the light switch.
‘Effen, if Akira changed his mind. Or thought this was something else. Ryuji’s hands shake.
Ryuji throws his bag against the couch, stripping out of his coat and pulling off his shoes. He tosses them in the direction of the stairs. He throws himself next, onto the couch, hearing it groan in agony.
Yeah, he’s lost a little nerve.
Covering his eyes with his hands, he breathes deep. What a fool.
“Sorry,” Akira comes up the stairs. Ryuji expects rejection. That Akira made a mistake. They should just forget this. Or, even more cruelly, there’s nothing to reject. There was no offer, when Akira touched Ryuji’s hip, saying, You should come with me.
“What for?” Ryuji asks, looking up at the yellowed ceiling. He spreads his arms wide across the back of the couch. Cognitive-world or not, his body aches. Getting blown up was a bitch. Sleeping on the couch is gonna suck.
Akira hisses through his teeth, “I thought,” he looks towards the bed. “I want to…”
“Want to what?” there’s that dizzy feeling again. The one that leaves him disoriented and warm.
He likes Akira. He told his mom. That makes it real. Right? Telling someone else makes it real.
“Touch you,” Akira says. “I want to touch you.”
“Yeah, okay,” yeah okay? What the ‘eff. Ryuji feels like he’s run six miles. Can keep going, but he’s breathless all the same. Waiting for the adrenaline high to kick in, take him across the finish line.
Pushing himself up from the couch, Ryuji steps over to where Akira stands, hands still in his pockets. His eyes are cool and focused under those frames that help, but that he doesn’t need.
Ryuji doesn’t really know where to start. So he starts with Akira’s hands, helping them out of Akira’s pockets and holding onto both. Akira pulls them up, so their linked grips are at shoulder level, fingers curling tight down against Ryuji’s knuckles. He smiles, tilting his head to one side.
“You done this before?” Ryuji asks. His palms are getting sweaty. But he doesn’t let go. They’re standing so close that he can smell Akira’s shampoo, musky and a little citrus, clinging to shaggy hair.
Akira admits, “A little, with a girl back home. We didn’t get very far. You?”
Ryuji shakes his head, “Nah, never anyone I really wanted to.”
“Me too,” Akira responds, dropping their hands.
“Bet you got a lot of offers though,” Ryuji winches, he doesn’t actually have to know.
Akira just shrugs.
Ryuji wants to kiss him. He wants to know what Akira’s lips feel like against his. He did kiss a girl once. When they were like, seven years old. Her lips were salty from whatever was in her lunch. Ryuji can’t even remember her name.
But Akira said touch. So Ryuji moves his hands, brushing his fingers over Akira’s cheeks, his nose, down his neck to where his collar stops him. Akira hisses, eyes closing. Ryuji apologizes.
“No, no. It’s just,” Akira opens his eyes again, “You’re the only one...really, who touches me. I like it.”
Ryuji knows that’s not true. All of the Thieves touch Akira, in one way or another. But maybe Akira means something different. Something Ryuji can’t understand.
“You could touch me too,” Ryuji offers. “It would be less weird.” Though, this isn’t nearly as weird as Ryuji thought it would be.
Akira nods, dropping his hands back to Ryuji’s hips, like he did in front of parliament, when he found out Ryuji hadn’t died. Akira draws circles with his thumbs, inching up Ryuji’s shirt. Ryuji keeps touching Akira’s neck, trying to pull away the collar.
Once Akira gets enough of Ryuji’s shirt bunched up, he slides his hands against the flat of Ryuji’s stomach, sliding around to his back, then forward again, “This okay?”
“Yeah, just,” Ryuji tugs at Akira’s collar again. His mouth feels dry, “We could just take them off?”
They end up doing that. Pulling off their shirts, but leaving everything else on. That would be too much, too fast. Like this is a lot of skin. A lot of touching. Light and then hard and light again.
He traces under Akira’s pectoral, down the center of his chest. He skirts his hand to the side of Akira’s abdomen, where the light v of muscle cuts down, disappearing below Akira’s waistband. There’s a line of dark hair, starting just above Akira’s navel, going down. And around his nipples there are individual black hairs, sparse and unruly.
“I keep thinking about pulling them out?” Akira says, looking down at his chest. “But then I forget. I don’t know.”
Ryuji doesn’t know either. Though he has dark hair on his legs and arms, it’s sparser than Akira’s, “I kind of like it,” he brushes the pad of his fingers over Akira’s nipple, watching as it hardens to the touch. “Too much?”
‘No,’ Akira mouths, his head lolling to one side.
Akira touches him back, over his chest, around to his back, dragging lines across Ryuji’s shoulders, then dropping his hands low against the small of his back, curling around to his hips again. “You keep doing that,” Ryuji points out.
“Dunno,” Akira comments, “You’re narrower than me.”
Ryuji smiles, shaking his head, “That’s not really a good thing, bro.”
Akira smiles back.
“Man,” Ryuji laughs, putting his hands on Akira’s bare shoulders. He presses his thumbs gently against Akira’s neck. “Everyone thinks you’re so suave. But you’re nervous too, right? About this?” his volume drops off at the end.
Akira laughs in return, bouncing Ryuji’s hips between his hands, side to side, “I think I did pretty well? I got you shirtless and alone in my bedroom right?”
Ryuji rolls his eyes, “Maybe I seduced you, okay?”
“Maybe you did.”
“Maybe I want to kiss you?”
“Maybe I want that too,” Akira challenges.
So Ryuji figures it out. He hopes the firm press of his lips against Akira’s is enough of an apology for taking so long.
When they tumble into bed, it’s with their pants and socks still on. Ryuji toes off his socks, letting them fall to the floor.
They kiss again, slower this time, with open mouths, Akira’s tongue sliding against his. Ryuji breathes into the kiss, biting his nails down on Akira’s arm until he leaves half-crescents behind. When Ryuji opens his eyes again, Akira’s hair fans out against the pillowcase.
Wind rattles the glass window panes. Makes it feel like the whole attic shakes.