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Akira didn’t know what possessed him to come to Leblanc tonight, loitering in front of the door like some kind of hooligan.
He told himself that it was a form of necessary precaution. A guaranteeing of payment, as it were. It was the day before he and the Phantom Thieves were set to take Maruki down, and he’d come to the café to make sure that the esteemed leader of the Phantom Thieves hadn’t changed his mind. That he hadn’t decided that he preferred this reality after all, where his mother was alive and loving and his father so insignificant a presence that he was practically non-existent. It was just insurance, Akira told himself, that he was coming to see Akechi tonight, on the last night of his life.
(Hah. What a lie that was. Akira, for the most part, was done with the business of lying, whether to others or himself, but it seemed like old habits die hard. Though, given that he was going to be dead this time tomorrow, Akira didn’t feel particularly inclined towards any kind of self-introspection or improvement.)
Reasons aside, however, Akira was glad he made the trip. Glad and sickened both, because now he was privy to the scene of Maruki and Akechi, sitting across from each other in one of the wall booths of Leblanc, talking. Akechi, reassuringly, had his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed; but with someone like Maruki, who had the face of a lamb and the bite of a snake, one could never be too careful.
Akira clenched his fists as he imagined all the things Maruki could be saying to Akechi right now. Enticing things, tempting things, trying to get Akechi to stay. Dangling everything Akechi could have ever wanted growing up as an orphan right in front of him like a prophet promising falsehoods to their audiences. Akira wanted to think that the tendril of feeling that was curling through his stomach at the thought right now was righteous fury at Maruki’s casual underhandedness, this close to the end; but, well. Akira had a track record of being constitutionally incapable of anything but the truth with Akechi around.
I’m being stupid, Akira thought. As if Goro would need protection from anyone, least of all from me.
Regardless, Akira remained where he was, lingering next to the Leblanc chalkboard displaying the coffee and specialty of the day, fully intending to stay for the duration of the conversation happening inside the café before leaving to avoid being seen. But then Maruki called out his name.
‘You’re here, aren’t you? …Kurusu.’
Akira tensed. He briefly considered not responding, just walking away from the shitstorm of a conversation that was inevitably going to happen inside, but then he caught a glimpse of Akechi’s face, dark garnet eyes blown wide and stricken in the low café lights, and found his own feet carrying themselves, unbidden, through the door.
The bell jingling above the door did little to mask Morgana’s shocked yowl of ‘Kurusu?’, and Akira spared a moment to throw an impish little grin at the feline. Morgana’s little kitty eyes narrowed suspiciously in response; but given that there was no hissing or hackles-raising or biting attempts like there used to be back when Akira was still pretending to be the gentlemanly Detective Prince, Akira considered it a win. Maybe someday, Morgana would progress to actually allowing Akira to pet him on the head.
But then, Maruki smiled, and Akira was reminded of how that day was never going to come.
‘Kurusu.’
Akira scowled. ‘In the flesh. What do you want, Maruki?’
Maruki gestured for Akira to take a seat; the sheer gall of the action had Akira gritting his teeth. Akechi was similarly looking at Maruki with an expression of outraged disbelief. ‘Easy now. I just thought you should be present for this part of the conversation, since it involves both you and Akechi.’
Akira squinted at Maruki, sitting placidly with his hands folded underneath the table, and wondered what on earth was the counsellor talking about. He said as much.
‘Yes,’ Akechi agreed, voice tight. His crossed arms, which had started loosening upon Akira’s entrance, tightened up again at the reminder of the discussion at hand. ‘How is Kurusu involved?’
Akechi was glaring intensely at Maruki now, his glower a biting wintry fury at odds with the ambience of Leblanc’s warm dark wood and smooth oiled leather around him. His dark sweater was rumpled, as though it had been pulled on in a hurry, and his white shirt collar was askew. His hair was tied back in a messy ponytail at the base of his neck. There was a quivering to the shadows underneath the table that suggested that Akechi was probably jiggling his leg in impatience. He looked distrustful and self-righteous and shrewd and every inch the leader of the ragtag team of thieves who’d killed a false god from corrupting society and saved the world from condemnation. He was the bane of Akira’s life. He was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He was the boy Akira shot for dead in a steel-cold interrogation room; he was the boy Akira closed the door on in the deep rotten engine bowels of Shido’s ship cruise.
Akira slammed down the roiling pit of emotions in his chest with the practiced ease of someone who had to do it many times before (you didn’t get too far showing your real feelings while working under Masayoshi Shido), and kept his face impassively smooth as he looked at Maruki, one eyebrow raised.
Maruki regarded the both of them for a moment.
‘The relationship you two share is very unusual,’ he began.
‘A detective and a phantom thief. Despite being enemies, your relationship isn’t based on hatred or ill will.’
Maruki lowered his eyes, the very picture of contrition.
‘That’s why I found it so tragic when I learned what happened in Shido’s palace.’
Akira went rigid the same instance that Akechi reared up with his hackles raised.
‘That was not yours to see,’ Akechi hissed. ‘Will your invasions of our privacy never end? How are you so deeply arrogant that you think other people’s lives and memories are for the taking, that you think you can just use them for yourself to wield against other people? What gives you the right?’
Maruki raised his hands up in the universal gesture of submission. Akira wanted to grab hold of the counsellor’s wrist and snap it like a twig.
‘I meant no ill will bringing it up, I promise,’ Maruki said.
‘The mentioning of it is not the problem here,’ Akira muttered, voice dark.
Maruki continued. ‘I merely wanted to point out how the two of you share a bond that goes beyond anything that one would expect, from two people in your positions. Such a relationship is precious and hard to come by, and should be treasured, don’t you agree?’
‘What’s your point?’ Akechi asked, irritable.
Maruki fixed Akechi with a look, deceptive in its supposed mildness. Lamb and snake. Akira tried hard to ignore the shiver of tension that was creeping over his skin, some latent instinct that was telling him that something was wrong, that there was a bad trick to whatever Maruki was leading up to, that Akira should take out his gun and shoot him dead now while he had the chance—
‘—Didn’t you regret how things ended with him?’ Maruki was saying. ‘You two came to a deep understanding of each other, yet you had no choice but to leave Kurusu to his fate—’
For a second it was like the world hung suspended, paused in its tracks. Then, like a record snag smoothing out, everything came into full focus; the furrow between Akechi’s eyes, the sneaking glances from Morgana between Akira and Akechi and Maruki, the lights gleaming off the café counter and glass jars and wood panelling, the movement of Maruki’s mouth, the words coming out of it—
‘—could have a fresh start together.’
Maruki leaned back.
‘Get what I’m saying?’
It was like falling. Akira could feel his heart pounding in his ears, even though he knew that his being, disciplined soldier that he was, would never outright reveal what he was feeling without his willing it. Of all the dirty, underhanded tricks Akira thought Maruki would use, he never thought that the counsellor would stoop this low. To dangle the price of a life in front of Akechi, as a bid to get him to capitulate to his demands—the same Akechi who had, once, in the drowsy early morning hours after a grueling Mementos run, admitted to Akira that he was ultimately glad that defeating a person’s Shadow didn’t mean killing the person in real life, and that despite his anger at the world at large he didn’t enjoy the idea of anybody actually dead by his hand. Akira, who was well-trained in the survival tactic of forgoing idealistic morals from years ago, could only ask, in response to that confession, ‘even your father?’ And Akechi—bitter, upstanding Akechi—had clenched his jaw and said, with great difficulty, ‘despite how much I might want it, sometimes…yes, even my father.’
‘I genuinely didn’t want to tell you like this. I didn’t want to make it seem like I’m holding him hostage. But no matter what you may think of me, I just want you all to accept this reality and move on with your happy lives.’
Akira unfroze just enough to let Maruki know what he thought of that vapid, rotten sentiment. ‘Saying that you come here with no ill intentions doesn’t actually mean jack shit if all you’re doing is thinly-veiled threats and blackmail,’ he snarled. ‘And saying it today of all days, too! You call yourself benevolent yet in the end you’re willing to resort to all sorts of tactics to keep you and your holier-than-thou ideology in power. How dare you use my life as some sort of final attack on Akechi’s resolve—’
‘And besides,’ Akechi interrupted, ‘I already knew.’
Both Maruki and Akira fell silent; their heads snapped towards Akechi who was sitting calmly in his booth seat with his hands clasped atop the table. The demeanour that Akechi was trying to go for was cool, blasé; but Akira, who had spent more time that he cared to admit studying Akechi (both for work and… non-work reasons), could spot the tension tightening Akechi’s eyes, pinching the corners of his mouth.
‘You… already knew?’ Maruki sounded genuinely baffled. As if something happening outside of his calculations in this reality was inconceivable to him.
Akira would have scoffed, but his head was too busy spinning. Akechi knew? How long had he known? Since when? Akira had spent all this time plotting and scheming on how to keep the truth of his false existence away from Akechi until he could finally die for real during the final fight and leave quietly with no mark left behind, and this entire time Akechi knew? Was Akechi ever going to talk to him about it? Was Akechi just planning on never saying anything?
Wrapped up in such a confusing myriad of emotions, Akira, befuddled, could only scowl heavily at Akechi, incensed with him for reasons Akira wasn’t exactly sure of himself; Akechi rolled his eyes in response.
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ Akira demanded.
Akechi shrugged. ‘Well, for one thing, I lacked conclusive evidence,’ he said, staring down into his hands and rubbing his left thumb along the ridge of his right forefinger. ‘I didn’t know for sure, and I didn’t want to say anything and end up freaking everybody out. And another thing is that, well…’
And here Akechi looked up from his hands to stare directly at Akira.
‘I was hoping that, eventually, you’d talk to me about it yourself,’ he admitted, quietly.
The emotion in Akechi’s gaze felt like it was flaying Akira alive. Akira wanted to shut his eyes from it all, so that he would no longer have to look. At the hurt and honesty both in Akechi’s expression, at the sympathetic pity Maruki was giving, at the distressed concern emanating from Morgana’s furry features. Akira can’t look at Akechi’s face without seeing an image of him, vacant-eyed with his brains shot out and rivulets of blood running into his eyes, overlaid over Akechi’s living, breathing being like a decaying negative, and god, god, Akira had killed that boy, he’d killed Akechi, and now he was the one dead and Akechi knew about it. He’d shot Akechi Goro in the head. If put in the same situation, he would do it again. (Would he? He would. Would he?)
Faced with Akira’s silence, Akechi chose to shift his attention back onto Maruki. His eyes turned flinty. ‘Regardless of what your intentions were in telling me something like this on, as Kurusu said, the day before our fight, this doesn’t change our decision. The Phantom Thieves are going to take you down.’
‘Are you sure?’ Maruki asked, part pleading, part sorrowful. ‘You were the guiding light to my research, Akechi—’ Akechi flinched, ‘and you were the one who showed me the way. I have nothing but gratitude for you, not a single ounce of ill will, and that’s why I wanted you of all people to understand. Will you really not accept the reality I create?’
Instead of answering, Akechi tossed a red-and-black card across the table. The Phantom Thieves’ calling card.
Maruki scooped it up with a sigh. ‘Ah, of course.’ He glanced at it only briefly, before putting it into his coat pocket and standing to go, but Akira knew how these things worked. When they got to Maruki’s Palace tomorrow, the entire place would be on maximum alert.
The counsellor-turned-god brushed past Akira for the door, and stopped. Akira tensed.
‘Just so you know,’ Maruki said over his shoulder, ‘I’ll be waiting in the Palace tomorrow, just as I promised. If you still haven’t changed your mind by then, we’ll meet there. But if you don’t show, I’ll take that to mean you’ve accepted my reality.’
And with that, Maruki made his exit, with no more than a see you and a final wave goodbye. Akira felt his muscles unwind immediately—the entire time Maruki had been talking, Akira had been standing there with his hands stuffed deep into his coat pockets, so as to prevent himself from doing something stupid. Like wring Maruki’s neck, or let Maruki see just how badly his hands had been shaking. He would let Akechi see his hands now, as he pivoted on his heel and leaned against the side of the booth the counsellor just vacated, but by then they’d already stopped trembling. So really, what was the point?
Akechi was staring at him, his posture stiff and brittle as glass.
‘…I’d like to speak with Akira, please,’ Akechi said to Morgana eventually, his eyes never once straying away from Akira’s face. Akira’s skin itched under all that scrutiny.
So Akechi wanted to do this without any witnesses? That was just fine by him. Akira had his own questions to demand answers to, too.
Morgana swiveled his head between the two of them. His tail lashed once, twice, anxiously before he finally relented.
‘Alright,’ he said, moving to hop off his seat and head towards the door. He turned his head back to give Akechi a worried stare. ‘Call me if you need anything.’
And with that, Morgana trotted off with a final flick of his ear, leaving Akira and Akechi in Leblanc, alone.
Akechi opened his mouth to speak, but Akira beat him to it.
‘Were you ever going to tell me you knew?’ He asked, acerbic.
Akechi’s mouth dropped even further in shock, before snapping shut with an audible click . The look on his face was a cross between disbelief and fury. ‘Are you really trying to take the moral high ground now?’ He snapped. ‘If anything, that should be my right, not yours!’
Pressure built steadily behind Akira’s eyes. It took all of Akira’s years of working for Shido to keep his voice even and his body unmoving. ‘It’s my life, I would think that it would be my right to decide how I want to live it.’
Akechi glowered. ‘That’s not what we’re talking about here. You’re being deliberately obtuse, and you know it—and will you stop it with the “I’m a serious mature adult” act?’ He added impatiently. ‘I didn’t buy it when you were the Detective Prince and I sure as hell don’t buy it now.’
God above, Akechi was the most infuriating person Akira knew.
Akira pushed away from where he had been leaning. He took two deliberate steps forward until he was towering over Akechi, still sitting down, the overhead lights casting his shadow long over Akechi’s figure. Unintimidated, Akechi met Akira head-on, his gaze defiant. His eyes were clear as shards of glass. Sometimes Akira just wanted to put his hands to Akechi’s jaw, press the pads of his thumbs tenderly over the soft thin skin of Akechi’s eyelids, and dig.
‘And what would telling you have accomplished?’ Akira asked. He looked at Akechi, for just a moment; then he was bending down, and reaching out, to rest his fingertips lightly on the underside of Akechi’s chin. Even through the touch of his gloves, the heat of Akechi’s skin was searing. Akira tipped Akechi’s head up. Just a fraction, enough that Akechi had to strain his head backwards to accommodate it, but not enough that he was forced to break eye contact.
The smile that Akira wore was not kind or sympathetic. ‘Don’t tell me that something as stupid as a threat on my life is enough to change your mind?’
Akechi didn’t waver. Akira could feel the shifting of skin as Akechi set his jaw. ‘I deserved to know.’
The rage that flashed through Akira at that response was as unsurprising as it was debilitating. His fingers bit into Akechi’s flesh. To his credit, Akechi barely flinched. ‘You deserved to know?’ Akira repeated. ‘On what grounds? That you’re the leader of the Phantom Thieves? Everybody’s saviour, the world’s protagonist, so I have to run my every decision by you for your approval, even for something like my own life?
‘You’re so fucking presumptuous, do you know that?’
Akechi glared right back, incensed. ‘I could say the same for you,’ he snapped. ‘Did it ever occur to you to ask other people their opinions before assuming their thoughts for them? Shouldn’t you of all people understand the dangers of thinking that you know best?’
That one hurt, in a dark and targeted way that made Akira instantly on the defensive. His hand jerked, pulling Akechi forward. ‘Is that so?’ Akira retorted sarcastically. ‘Tell me, then, what other reason could you possibly have had?’
Akechi’s own hand flew up, and he ripped Akira’s fingers away from his face by the wrist as he shouted, ‘because we’re friends, asshole!’
For a minute, nobody moved. Akechi was breathing harshly, the sound of it beating between the two of their faces (when had they gotten this close?), in Akira’s ears, throughout the fucking room. Akira was almost convinced that he had misheard, that whatever that had just dropped out of Akechi Goro’s mouth was actually an auditory hallucination implanted by Maruki to sway his conviction—except that, as Akira continued to watch, Akechi was slowly turning pink. Colour flushed high across his cheekbones and even up to his ears, and when before Akechi had absolutely no problem meeting his eyes even when Akira was being at his most threatening, Akechi was now sliding his gaze away.
He’s embarrassed, Akira realised, bewildered.
Once, back when Akira was still undercover as a traitor to the Phantom Thieves, the group had played truth-or-dare. Akechi, who had answered every truth and done every dare under the sun including eat a month-old cat treat previously bought for (but disdained by) Morgana, had gotten up and outright left the table when Futaba had dared him to say “you’re like the father I never had” to Sojiro, standing behind the counter with his eyebrows raised. It wasn’t that it was untrue, or that Akechi had any qualms about lying—Akira had seen him tell bald-faced lies to people bothering him on the street without so much as batting an eye—but rather the problem had been the exact opposite. The more sincere an emotion, the more Akechi struggled with saying it. So now, looking at Akechi’s blush, Akira had no choice but to believe in the honesty of Akechi’s words: because we’re friends.
Akira couldn’t help it. He started to laugh.
Akechi jerked back as if slapped. He let go of Akira’s wrist as though it burned, and Akira pulled away to hunch over, hands on his knees, still laughing. This, this was so absurd. This was straight up insanity. Friends? Who on earth considered their murderer a friend? The entire time he had been pretending to be the Detective Prince, he had smiled and played nice and acted like they were all on the same team, before turning right around to deliver Akechi straight into the waiting jaws of Shido and his political goons. He had arranged for the brutality Akechi went through in the interrogation room. He had pulled the trigger himself. How could you be friends with someone with whom you had all that bloodied history?
Maybe this was Akechi’s way of revenge. Kill Akira with kindness, guilt-trip him so much that Akira would hang onto Akechi forever, do whatever he said, say whatever he wanted. If only Akechi knew he had that power already. Akira was long-used to ignoring the complicated mess of resentment and devotion both that swirled through him whenever he was with Akechi—first out of denial, then out of self-punishment, and now, with his existence set to wink out by this time tomorrow like it was supposed to have two months ago, there had simply been no point. Even the realisation that his existence was one of the two parts of Akechi’s greatest desires, equal to his mother, had done little to persuade him towards introspection. He had simply felt a new wave of the now-familiar paradoxical cocktail of emotions before electing to lock them all up firmly again. He was dead. Corpses did not have feelings.
When Akira finally straightened, Akechi had already edged past hurt and into humiliated anger. He was standing with his fists clenched and his eyes bright like two sparks, ready to set off. Akira wanted to drown himself in all that focused attention. He wanted to kill it with his own two hands just so he’d never have to feel it again.
‘If you’re quite done,’ Akechi said, voice tight, clipped.
‘I’m sorry, that was very rude of me,’ Akira said, slipping back into formalities by habit but satisfied with the way it made Akechi grind his jaw. ‘It’s just that, well, that’s quite ridiculous, isn’t it?’
‘What?’ Akechi looked like he was deciding between whether to sock him in the face or kick him out of Leblanc.
Akira sneered. ‘Being friends? With the person who lied and cheated you for months, who killed you by putting a gun to your head? If you’re going to lie, at least try to pick a convincing one.’
Akechi’s brow furrowed. ‘You don’t believe that,’ he said, slowly, testing the words out.
Akira smiled, cold. ‘No. But it’s much better than the alternative, isn’t it?’
Akechi went pale with fury.
‘You would think—’
‘Wouldn’t I?’ Akira tipped his head. He spread his arms. ‘But I’m right here. Proof that you wished me back, right into the role of your own design.’
All his life, he had lived on another person’s whims and killed on the behest of someone else’s orders. It seemed fitting that that was what he would always be, right until the end. At least this time, he could choose to die knowing that he was wanted by someone he wanted back. He finally had some say in the matter of his choices and now Akechi would take that away from him too.
Akira stared Akechi down. Give me a reason, he thought, hoping for it, sick with it. Jinxing it. Give me a reason to hate you for real.
For a second, it seemed like Akechi would stay frozen forever—so infuriated by Akira and his accusations that he was shaking with it, spine tensed like one long vibrating string. The sight of him, incandescent with anger, sent a shiver down Akira’s own back. Then, with a wordless snarl, Akechi sprang forward.
Akira expected a punch. He expected to be knocked onto his back so hard that his head cracked and he saw stars, he expected hands closing tight around his throat as he scrambled for breath. He wouldn’t be killed, he was much too valuable as a Persona user to not be included for tomorrow, but he expected a fight. And he welcomed it with open arms—there was a roaring in his blood, a violence, that he wanted to stoke, push higher, so much so that his palms were itching with it, ready for the kill—
Akira was right in what to expect. But only mostly. What he didn’t expect was for Akechi to swoop down and kiss him.
The noise of surprise that he made was muffled against Akechi’s lips. The kiss was hard and biting and vicious, their teeth clacking against each other as Akechi swept a palm up from jaw to temple to fist his hand in Akira’s hair. It was clear that Akechi was inexperienced, the movements of his mouth fumbling despite all the urgent determination, but everywhere their skin touched felt like electricity, zinging Akira from head to toe. He kissed back with just as much enthusiasm and twice as much hunger, bloodlust given new direction, biting down on Akechi’s lip just to hear him hiss before diving back in for more. Leblanc’s linoleum floor was hard and chilly even through layers of winter clothing, but Akechi was a warm large weight atop of him, his legs bracketing either side of Akira’s hips as he leaned over to kiss him again, and again, and again. Haloed by the lights above and with his tawny hair falling out of his ponytail to hang loose around his face, Akechi looked wild and alluring and prideful as a lion.
Momentarily distracted by the sight before him, it took a while for Akira to realise that Akechi was crying.
Something in Akira clenched hard in panic at the sight. Akechi’s face was smooth, painfully so, except for the tightness of his mouth pulled down at the corners; but his eyes were red-rimmed and brimming with tears, so that every time he blinked water fell down to splash against Akira’s cheek. His hands were curled on Akira’s chest. He was staring at Akira as though committing every detail into memory, every lash, every curl, his gaze roving over Akira’s eyes, his nose, his mouth, his neck, his chin.
Pinned under Akechi’s intense scrutiny like a butterfly to a display case, Akira could do little else but stare back. From this up close, Akira could see the skin over Akechi’s throat shift as he worked to bite back heaves, forcibly regulating his breaths into something even and restrained. Akira didn’t try to struggle out from underneath Akechi; the ferocity had bled out of him the instant he saw Akechi crying, like the tide draining from the shore. Now all that was left was a deep, sunken exhaustion, one that made Akira want to shut his eyes and lie here on the floor of Leblanc with Akechi forever. This moment, moving neither forward nor backwards, so that nothing had to change, so that nobody had to hurt.
‘I hate you,’ Akechi whispered.
‘That’s okay,’ Akira replied. Sometimes he thought he hated Akechi too.
‘I wish you’d told me about it,’ Akechi continued. His hands twitched, loosened, before clenching even more tightly.
Akira had nothing kind he could say in response to that. There was nothing you could have done. I didn’t want it to matter. ‘I wish it hadn’t hurt you that I didn’t,’ was what he ended up settling on instead. A pathetic line, practically a non-apology, but from the way the lines of Akechi’s jaw softened, Akira thought maybe he understood. There was no-one else in the whole world that understood Akira as well as Akechi did, and no-one else who ever will.
Unbidden, and without even thinking about it, Akira raised an arm from where it had initially been holding onto Akechi’s waist to cup the soft jut of Akechi’s cheek in his palm. At the contact, Akechi flinched, shuddering, and Akira savoured the exhilaration and self-disgust both that surged through him at that reaction. But then, almost defiantly, Akechi leaned in and closed his eyes, and Akira swallowed hard as something entirely else crashed through his chest. He swept his thumb across the space just under Akechi’s lower lash line, catching some of the tears there, and wondered if Akechi could feel his pulse, beating rapidly from the soft hot skin on the underside of his wrist, against his face.
‘I just wanted a reality where you were alive in it.’ Akechi spoke quietly, as if afraid talking too loudly would break whatever fragile, embittered peace that had ballooned to engulf them both. In this small space with just the two of them, the world pressing just outside the glass of Leblanc felt very far away. ‘Is that so wrong of me?’
Akira smiled from the side of his mouth. It wasn’t a happy smile. ‘It’s unbelievable, is what it is.’
Silence stretched between them for a long moment. Akechi squeezed his eyes shut tighter, and turned to tuck his face into the crook of Akira’s fingers. Akira’s heart boomed like a fortress falling to siege.
‘I won’t stay,’ Akira told him, tenderly. ‘I won’t live like this, controlled by someone else. I refuse.’
Akechi’s eyes flickered open. They gleamed with triumph and heartache both. ‘I know. And I’m the same.
‘We’re going back. To our true reality.’
From this angle Akechi’s irises were the colour of rich wine. Without the force of anger holding him upright his face was drawn and tired, deep lines creasing underneath and in the corner of his eyes to leave them strained. Akira, still laid out on the ground with a mouth that was throbbing from being punched before being kissed, could only look at him. His soft, parted mouth, the pale skin of his throat disappearing under his shirt collar, the trembling, resolute set to his shoulders. Akechi looking at him like he was already no longer here. Honourable Akechi. Broken-hearted Akechi. Akira watched Akechi watching him, and thought to himself: you are the love of my life.
Akira’s fingers dug, reflexively, into Akechi’s face for a second. Then Akira loosened it, and let his hand fall away.
‘Good.’
There was a trick Akira used, when trying to wrestle with any vast, devastating emotion that threatened to overcome his entire being: rage, envy, sorrow, guilt. Fear. You shut down your senses, let your body run on muscle memory’s autopilot, and imagined yourself somewhere far away and removed from wherever you were right now. Shido’s office, being condescended to; your bleak apartment, the anniversary of your parents’ death; in the middle of a televised interview, all eyes on your every move, with nowhere else to run to. In your mind’s eye, you pictured yourself in a place where you would be most at peace, where nothing in the world could touch you unless you let it, a place that no-one could ever take you away from unless you wanted it. A place of happiness.
Akira closed his eyes and pictured it now.
For Akira, the place was this: he was standing in the middle of an endless field, up to his waist in a sea of wild thick grass that rippled like waves of water from the breeze. In the distance, the dense cluster of a forest yawned, foliage and branches shadowed by the sun—but the light throughout the field was clear and cold and blinding. From where he was, he could turn and experience the world as all around him: the immense pale sky above, the dry rustling of the leaves, all the endless ways he could travel and make his way through instead of one long, inevitable path. The darkness within the forest threatened to swallow him whole. But Akira was not afraid. It was nothing he had never seen before. In his dreams, for most of his life, he had been standing alone, eyes cast far out over the horizon where the field of grass and sky smudged into an indistinguishable line; but now, behind his closed eyelids, he felt, rather than saw, the presence of someone standing next to him, close enough to touch, dear enough to reach. The presence turned its head towards Akira’s way. A flash of tawny gold. Soundless laughter in the sun. The impression of a voice, warm and intimately valued.
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