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Goro Akechi does not want to fall in love.
“Love is merely a waste of time.”
He says with a smile when a journalist manages to snag a piece of his free time and interview him. He knows fairly well that declaring that statement would lose him some fans, but he didn’t care. Fangirls come right back at him anyway.
“Despite your bold statement, have you ever gotten any tally marks, Akechi?”
He spots a certain (H/C) girl waving energetically at him from behind the cameras.
You mouth, ‘Are you done?’ and he discreetly, as discreetly as he could, replies to you with a nod.
He shakes his head at the almost forgotten question, “I haven’t. Now excuse me, I must be going now.” and off he goes indeed.
“Did I make you wait long?”
(Y/N) shrugs and looks at him. Akechi looked sort of guilty, so you respond with a more enthusiastic attitude.
“I got myself ice cream while I waited, so I’m fine, really.”
He’s immediately cheered up and jokingly pouts at you.
“None for me?”
You snort and continue to gorge yourself on the frozen treat in your hand.
“You can buy some yourself, Mr. Detective Prince.”
You’re both walking for a few minutes before you pipe up, remembering that you had something important to tell him.
“Look at this,” You show him the nice little tally mark on your wrist, it’s black, and the smile on his face falters.
“..Good for you.”
His voice is quiet and unexpectedly low and you recognize it immediately, your face filling with worry.
“I forgot you weren’t so keen on love, sorry.”
His chest tightens when he sees you look down and he swears it almost looked like you were rejected.
“No, it’s fine, it’s just.. nothing. I just felt a bit tired.”
An uncomfortable silence overcomes their walk until Akechi decides to take a bite of the ice cream that (Y/N) was taking such a long time to finish.
“A-Akechi!”
Your cheeks have a slight tint of pink but he reasons it as some form of anger and or embarrassment.
“This is really good, I should buy one next time.”
He’s smiling at your face and he still doesn’t get why you being a mess gets a smile out of him every time.
“We can go buy now? It’s literally just a few minutes away.”
“You’re right. Let’s go then.”
Before they could go, an officer approaches you both, face apologetic and he tells Akechi to report back to the office, Nijima’s orders.
He frowns but obeys, fearing if he ran and disobeyed the older woman’s orders he could get into a lot of trouble.
But..
Taking a quick glance at (Y/N), you think for a moment before snapping your fingers.
“I’ll go buy that ice cream and stop by!”
The officer was about to stop you, saying that it wasn’t exactly allowed to just dally inside the premises but Akechi’s cuts him off with a ‘I’ll be waiting for you then.’
They head to the station after (Y/N) heads off and the officer gives him a lecture about doing that every single time when it came to you (which he laughs off).
“You could say she’s a special exception.”
He tugs on his sleeves, revealing a single tally mark on his wrist and to his surprise, it’s black and not red like it was before.
The feeling of seeing it makes his life a little less duller.