Chapter Text
Ren actually fell asleep.
The fucker.
It was so like him to drag Akechi into this mess just to saddle Akechi with the responsibility of fixing it. Whatever, it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to this kinda shit, Shido loved dropping impossible missions on him last minute.
It was a good thing Akechi was well-versed in making the impossible possible.
As he walked back down the corridor, Akechi could feel his uniform begin to shift and constrict.
The first Phantom Thief Akechi stumbled upon was Sakura. She, like he and Ren, was not in her usual Phantom Thief attire, but rather her everyday clothes. She didn’t so much as look up as Akechi pulled open the door to her cell despite the earsplitting creak it emitted as it scratched across the floor.
“Oracle, it’s time to get up.”
“And do what?”
“Not positive, something other than that, at least.”
‘That’ of course being the strange fetal position she was in. The girl had her legs tucked under her chin, hoodie pulled up over her head, and she was absolutely drowning in that extra extra large jacket she insisted on wearing. Curled up in that cell it was hard to see her as the prodigy hacker he knew her to be. In their time spent together, she had never looked more fifteen.
“Oracle,” Akechi repeated. “Get up, seriously, we’ve got to find the rest of your team.”
“What’s the point, Akechi? You’re the one who’s always saying the Phantom Thieves don’t actually fix anything.”
“Since when do you care about what I have to say?”
She gave him a lazy shrug.
Ren would probably be able to get her up. He always knew what to say, probably because he’s already seen the outcomes of saying or not saying what he thinks to say. The fucker cheater.
Taking the whole time travel thing into consideration, maybe Ren wasn’t the master manipulator Akechi had made him out to be. Surely it couldn’t be that hard to make the right decision in situations you’ve already experienced.
Following that train of thought, what had Akechi experienced similar to this?
There was the confrontation with Okumura, a completely different interaction context-wise but his relation to her was similar to that of his relation to Sakura.
“I’m sorry I killed your mom,” Akechi tried.
Sakura looked up.
“I mean it, neither of you deserved what I did, I’m sorry I did it, I regret it.”
Akechi braced himself, fully expecting Sakura to stand up and clock him in the jaw.
The girl began to unfurl, lips quivering from the exertion it took not to burst into tears. Before she spoke she turned away from him, blocking her face from Akechi’s perception.
“I had a feeling it was you who did it but I didn’t think you’d confirm it,” She admitted. “I don’t blame you for it, I blame Shido.”
The detective’s muscles relaxed, but his chest remained tight.
“You should blame me, even if he ordered it, I still pulled the trigger.”
It worked against him to try and convince Sakura to despise him for what he’d done, but Akechi couldn’t help it. He could feel years worth of guilt and self-deprecation rising up, threatening to spill over between them on the cold purple concrete.
Sakura sniffled. “You were a kid.”
“I was the same age you are now.”
Little Sakura, curled up in her oversized hoodie, face still padded with baby fat.
“You should be mad.”
“I’m not,” Her voice had become watery, but she still refused to look at him so Akechi was unable to confirm if she was actually crying. He hoped she wasn’t crying. “I’m not mad at you, I feel bad, I feel so bad, for her, for me, and for you, it sucks, all of it sucks, the world is so cruel, I can’t stand it.”
She felt bad…for him?
“So do something about it,” Akechi shouted. “Get up and fight!”
“I tried! And look what happened!”
“Yes you tried and weird metaphysical shit happened, as it always happens because that’s what you signed up for when you joined the Phantom Thieves. Don’t act so pathetic, you’ve fought harder adversaries than some weird prison!”
Sakura scrubbed harshly at her face. Once finished, she adjusted her glasses and turned to look at him face to face.
“You’re right,” She replied, the fire reignited behind her large circular frames. “This place is messing with my mind. I’m done being pathetic, I just became a real member of society again, I can’t give up now.”
“Exactly, now get off the floor, it’s probably fucking filthy,” Akechi waved a hand dismissively at said floor as he spoke, emphasizing his point.
Sakura laughed at his remark, complying none the less. As Sakura stood up she became enveloped in a swirl of greens and blacks. When the clouds of color dissipated she was left standing in her trademark Oracle jumpsuit, grinning from ear to ear.
“He actually fell asleep? Right now?” Sakura poked at her leader’s head, frowning to herself. “He’s like, out like a light.”
“I told you.”
Sakura hummed and pinched Ren’s cheeks, which also failed to get any sort of reaction. He was breathing, that much was visible, and as it turns out the boy is a mouth breather. Akechi happily added that to the list of Ren’s imperfections he’d come to observe. The more things wrong with Ren the more bearable his company became.
“Did you poison him or something?”
“What do I possibly have to gain from doing that?”
“You did try to shoot him.”
“That was an accident.”
“Okay, yeah, I believe you, guy who has already shot him before.”
Akechi rolled his eyes. Were they seriously going to hold that over his head forever?
“Whatever put Ren to sleep is also what’s keeping us here,” Sakura accurately deduced. “If we can find that entity, we can get out, but we should probably wake up the others in case it’s too strong for just the two of us.”
Waking up the others was a good idea, sure, but it had been a stroke of luck that his approach to encouraging Sakura to get up worked, he doubted he’d have nearly as much success with the others. Convincing traumatized teenagers that something is worth fighting for was kinda more Ren’s thing, not Akechi’s. He voiced as much to Sakura who paled when he suggested that she should try to wake them all up.
“I don’t know them like that…I mean I know them, but I’m not really someone they share deep dark secrets with, my charisma is so low right now, maybe we should hold off on it…”
Hold off on it. Fine with him. In fact Akechi delighted in how easy it was to have a conversation with someone when there weren’t seven other voices all talking over one another.
Akechi and Sakura made their way back down the corridor and began searching the halls. Each time they passed one of their imprisoned teammates she shot him an anxious glance, clearly feeling guilty about not helping them, but the way Akechi saw it, they were perfectly safe in their little depression cages. No one’s life was in danger because they felt too sad to get up from where they were sitting.
After checking each cell the two decided to return to the center of the panopticon. Ren was gone upon their arrival, concerning, along with the desk, less concerning, and in place of both stood an eerily pale child, extremely concerning.
Akechi drew his gun.
“Who are you?”
“Crow! That’s a child!”
“I can see that.”
“It’s okay!” The child piped up. “That gun wouldn’t hurt me anyways, I’m José! It’s a pleasure to meet you! I meant to swing by earlier but gosh, I got so lost! Time travel is a tricky business.” José sighed and shook his head. He was standing in front of some weird car-thing, it was the same color as him, which Akechi found disconcerting. “It was so hard to find the right period of time, I kept missing this one by just a hair, but I’m here now! Yay! And I’m going to fix everything so Igor isn’t so mad at me.”
Igor. Ren had said that name earlier.
“Are you here to kill me?” Akechi asked the kid. José vigorously shook his head.
“No, no, no, why would I do that? I’m just going to…uh…fix…this…um…bubble.” José made a circle with his hands. “I’m not that strong, so when Ren used the gift I gave him, which yay, I’m glad he liked it, it made like uh….seperate timeline? That’s just the stuff he wanted a re-do of? The wishing star is very straightforward, it gives you exactly what you ask for, and he didn’t ask to go back in time, he asked to re-do a specific part of time and now that time is up.” José tilted his head at the circle he’d made with his hands, beginning to slowly pull them apart. “If I let you all continue the bubble is gonna stretch and stretch until!” He threw his hands up. “POP! All dead! Universe gone, maybe, I don’t know what will happen actually, but Igor made it sound bad.”
“Wait, wait, what gift?” Sakura turned her focus away from Akechi to ask José. While Akechi got the gist of what José was saying, Sakura, who clearly wasn’t even aware that Ren had time traveled in the first place, was visibly at a complete loss with all of it.
“The wishing star! You were there when I gave it to him! Or well, I guess you wouldn’t remember that since it hasn’t happened to you yet, or will happen ever…eh...”
Sakura turned back to Akechi, grabbing his wrist and shaking it. Akechi pushed down the urge to throw her off. They’d only just found some middle ground, he was going to need to be extra nice to keep her on his good side.
“Crow, do you have any clue what he’s talking about? There’s like, an entire side plot that we’ve missed!”
“Ren traveled back in time to re-do his junior year,” Akechi spelled out for her. “And now that year is coming to an end.”
Sakura’s jaw dropped. “HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?”
“Ren told me.”
“YOU?” She pointed at him, incredulous. “Why you and not me?”
Akechi allowed himself a small smirk.
“He likes me more I guess.”
“WHAT?”
“Guys! Guys!” José hopped up and down, waving his arms to get their attention. “Stop fighting!”
“You,” Akechi stepped forward, tilting his gun down menacingly. “What do you mean by fix?”
“Well, good question! If I want to smooth out the bubble, everything has to progress how it’s supposed to from this point on, despite the changes Ren made-”
“How do you plan to do that without killing me?”
“Well…” José pursed his lips in thought. “I was brainstorming that actually, you’re kinda the one doing the most bubble stretching, oopsie! See Akechi, you were shot with a cognitive gun, pow! And you’re only dead because you believe you’re dead-”
“CROW’S DEAD?”
Akechi held his hand out in front of Sakura, forcing her to take a step back. The strange child was right, weapons in the metaverse only held any real power because they believed that they did. If he was shot, and consequently ‘died’ in the metaverse, he could counter that simply by rationalizing that the gun was not real, and neither was the bullet.
They were both just products of cognition.
But how was that of any use to him now?
His confusion must have been evident on his face because Jose shook his head, waving his finger in the air with a tsk tsk tsk.
“You have to truly believe it Akechi, you gotta really truly think you’re living, once you do I can clean up this little bubble and everything will have been righted with the world.”
Living. He was breathing, his heart was beating, blood pumping. Akechi lowered his gun and placed his fingers on his throat, feeling his own heartbeat. Alive. Alive. He closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath and feeling the way the air collected in his lungs before dispersing out his nose.
“Is this some kind of riddle?” Sakura piped in, interrupting Akechi’s focus. “Oh! I know, maybe it’s like a…you gotta want it thing, like when I was holed up in my room all the time, not talking to anybody, I was alive but I wasn’t living. What makes you feel alive, Akechi?”
Akechi cracked his eyes open and wracked his brain for an answer to her inquiry. He wasn’t quite sure, he hadn’t ‘felt alive’ in a long time. He pressed his fingers down harder, hard enough to hurt.
No, that wasn’t right.
He recalled the thrill he’d felt, standing in front of Shujin’s student body, threatening to expose the Phantom Thieves-
-but that didn’t happen…did it?
Joker had won their impromptu sparring session. This was no surprise to Akechi, after all, the detective had been holding back by concealing his second stronger persona from his adversary. That was not to say that Joker’s power was not impressive. He was a worthy challenge despite the years of experience Akechi had over him. Even now, with their fight concluded, Akechi’s heart beat rapidly in his chest. He was euphorically light-headed, and could feel a manic giggle threatening to climb up his throat. Things would be so much simpler if what Akechi was feeling was no more than the average physical reaction to fighting.
No, he couldn’t quite place what he was feeling. Excitement, maybe, thrill. It was as though Akechi had spent the first eighteen years of his life alone, drifting through a deserted city with only the inane squawking of pigeons to keep him company.
Joker was a breath of fresh air, he looked at Akechi and saw him fully, spoke with substance, lived his life with a purpose and that purpose was infectious.
“If we fought to the end, do you see yourself winning?” Akechi asked, studying intently every minute shift of Joker’s expression.
He knows; Akechi’s mind supplied. He knows you plan to kill him.
It was a completely illogical deduction, there wasn’t a chance in hell that Joker had any clue regarding what Akechi had been planning.
The detective pushed that intrusive thought down, deep enough to allow himself to appreciate the moment fully.
“I definitely wouldn’t lose,” Joker replied to his question. He met Akechi’s gaze head on, speaking with complete conviction.
“You’re the one person I refuse to lose to,” Akechi countered almost playfully.
The corner of Joker’s mouth twitched, threatening to curl up despite his jaw being tightly clenched.
He knows. Akechi’s treacherous mind tried again.
Down the thought went.
“Really hate losing, don’t you?”
Akechi recalled a western movie he’d been subjected to in his middle school group home. Two men, standing face to face, right hands resting suggestively over the holsters of their guns. One man slips a finger under the fabric of his thick leather glove and tug it off, tossing it at the feet of his rival.
Ren grinned devilishly as he picked the glove up, prompting an addictive warmth to curl in Akechi’s stomach. The detective wanted to see Ren look at him like that again, and again, forever.
For once in his life Akechi wanted to continue playing more than he wanted to win.
Akechi reached into the pocket of his suit, pulling out Ren’s black glove.
Ren was wrong, he decided. Akechi smoothed out the glove, laying it over the palm of his hand. The leather had gotten incredibly wrinkled from staying shoved inside his pocket.
Akechi didn’t die in that boiler room, he died in Ren’s interrogation room, right alongside his cognitive adversary.
But that was just it, wasn’t it? The Ren he’d shot had been nothing more than a cognitive, just like the Akechi who shot him.
And Ren had gone on living.
Sound came first, crashing into him like a tidal wave, Akechi choked on a gasp, eyes flying open.
Voices, footsteps, car horns, the robotic drone of pedestrian walk signs.
He was surrounded by sound, sound that compounded into an indecipherable cacophony of city life.
Akechi covered his ears with his hands, taking a deep breath in an attempt to steady himself. Shoulders brushed against him (that was the second sense to return, touch) accompanied by quiet apologies and mumbled ‘excuse me’s. Akechi could feel his heart in his throat, the fabric of his shirt against his skin, the frigid wind blowing through his hair, he could feel all of it.
He tried to focus his vision but everything was too bright and moving too quickly. Around him bodies moved in a swarm and the glare of the neon street lights and imposing billboards made the crowd appear as though they were all blending into one another. Akechi closed his eyes, took another deep breath, then opened them again.
Central Tokyo, yes, he knew this place, he’d been here plenty of times before. He hadn’t a clue how he had ended up there in that specific moment, but it was comforting to know he hadn’t come to someplace completely foreign to him.
Akechi wracked his brain, drudging up a blurry memory of Shido’s ship. He remembered kneeling on the ground staring up at himself as his doppelganger raised a gun to his head, perfect white teeth glinting in the harsh light. Akechi recalled having the fleeting realization that his left eye was slightly larger than the right.
“ I’ll hold onto your glove!”
Ren. Akechi slowly lowered his hands, wiping the sweat that had gathered on his palms off on his dress pants. He didn’t have his suitcase, which was hardly important, it’s not like he’d need anything that was in there now that Shido had been dealt with.
If he’d been dealt with.
Amamiya Ren, he’d promised to take down Shido in his place, hadn’t he? Surely the boy was competent enough to have actually gone through with it.
Akechi looked around, his senses had dulled back to their usual level of sensitivity, thank god. Central Tokyo was oddly crowded that evening, and it appeared nobody was abiding by the traffic laws, not that that was anything new necessarily. The detective pushed his way through the sea of people, assessing their presentations and general demeanor.
It was a holiday, he deduced, Christmas, he added after noticing a theme of red and greens among the pedestrians' clothing. That would mean he’d been dead for over a week, the thought of which was hardly comforting. A lot could happen in that time span. Akechi’s wandering was halted by the familiar sonorous rumble of his rival’s voice. It was distinctly deep for a highschooler, Akechi had noticed that the first day they met, and Akechi was certain he’d recognize that voice anywhere. He spun on his heel and walked in the direction of the familiar sound, within just a few steps spotting the jumbled nest that sat atop Ren’s head.
From what he could see the boy was engrossed in conversation with Niijima Sae, his bespectacled face nodding along to whatever she said. It was strange to see the two of them together, perhaps Sae had been working behind Akechi’s back as well. For just a second Akechi allowed himself to be irritated by that thought before he pushed it out of his mind. Ren looked resigned, with a clenched jaw he dropped his head and rubbed the back of his neck. Akechi couldn’t make out what they were saying, but whatever it was was clearly not a fun topic for the Phantom Thief. Akechi had a choice, he could interrupt the conversation and inform Ren of his miraculous survival, or he could walk away.
If he approached the two now, he’d no doubt have to face some sort of consequence for the things he did, and sure that was probably the right thing to do, it’s what a good person would do, probably what Ren would do.
Ren lifted his head, nodding again when Niijima Sae placed a hand on his shoulder, reassuring him of something, Akechi assumed.
However…As far as either of them knew, Akechi Goro was dead. It wouldn’t change a thing if he walked away right now, it wouldn’t matter.
He was free.
Free from Shido, and free from Ren.
Sure, if he walked away now it was unlikely he would ever get to feel the thrill of going head to head with his rival again, but given that Akechi had already been beaten far and square it was unlikely that they were going to find themselves in a situation like that again anyways. If anything, the most likely situation is that Akechi would be forced to endure a grueling trial process that resulted in him either being strung from a noose or raped to death in a prison bathroom.
The once celebrity, undercover hitman, and ace detective, allowed himself a final glimpse of the one person who’d made him feel a little less alone in this world, even if it’d been a short-lived experience.
It was good to meet you, Amamiya Ren.
Fate, Ren had called it when they ran into each other again the first semester of their second year in university.
“Hey stranger,” He’d said as he sat down next to Akechi in their intro to criminal procedure class. “Didn’t think to call me and tell me you were alive?”
“You don’t appear all that upset,” Akechi acknowledged, eyeing the other boy warily as Ren made himself all too comfortable in the seat beside him. Somehow seeing one another again didn’t surprise Akechi in the slightest, it felt like something that was just always going to happen, no matter where he went or what he did.
Fate.
“What business does a criminal have in a criminal procedure class?”
Ren smiled mischievously, lowering his glasses to look at Akechi over the rims. “You tell me.”
“I’m not the one who was convicted.”
“They waved the charges.”
“I saw, do you think it’s because of all the good sanitarians who sang your praises or the inability to collect evidence of a crime that was committed on another plane of being?”
“I’d like to think they were won over by my good looks and charismatic personality.”
Ren was wearing the confidence he typically reserved for Joker despite having been reduced to nothing more than an above-average college student by the destruction of the metaverse, and he wore it well. “You didn’t answer my question, why didn’t you call?”
“I wanted to avoid being roped into the politics of Shido’s aftermath.”
It was Ren’s turn to roll his eyes. “You would have been fine.”
“They would have picked apart every aspect of my life and publicly broadcasted the findings.”
“Maybe,” Ren replied. “Or maybe you would have been hailed as a hero who helped put a stop to a corrupt politician, all you had to do was testify against him.”
“He’s dead, it wouldn’t have mattered.”
“That was crazy, who would have thought his own men would turn on him?”
Akechi gave the other boy a pointed look, and Ren laughed.
“You’re right, my bad, does it make you sad?”
“That Shido is dead? Not in the slightest, if you hadn’t stopped me I would have killed him myself.”
Ren made the wise choice to not fight Akechi on that, instead he asked the detective about his educational goals, and if he was living on campus. The two made idle conversation until their professor announced the beginning of class. Ren was easy to talk to, something Akechi already knew but found himself pleasantly surprised to be reminded of. It was different now that there was no pressure to pick apart his words to search for clues, or carefully construct his own in order to one-up the other persona-wielder. They were just two normal students with similar interests.
Akechi was allowed to enjoy talking to him.
After their reunification Akechi had expected Ren to be more persistent in capitalizing on as much of Akechi's time as possible. It didn’t make any sense as to why the detective felt this way, Ren had never bothered him like that in the past, but Akechi just couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that that’s how their dynamic was supposed to play out.
During high school it had always been Akechi reaching out first, so it made absolutely no sense that Akechi would expect that dynamic to have suddenly flipped now that they were university students.
The illogical expectations that Akechi was setting up for Ren were only going to lead to the detective’s disappointment, and he knew that.
The first time Ren did finally ask to hang out outside of class Akechi’s treacherous heart skipped a beat and he accepted the offer far too quickly. He could have at any point since their first class together initiated an invite himself, but it just didn’t feel like something he was supposed to do.
If Ren were a normal reasonable person he would hate Akechi and want nothing to do with him, and for all extensive purposes Ren acted like a normal reasonable person, he was more of a normal person than Akechi at least, if that meant anything.
Still, despite knowing this, Akechi couldn’t bring himself to not indulge in Ren’s companionship. After all, their feud had come to an end, Shido was dead and the metaverse was gone. No one ever came for Akechi, there was no warrant out for his arrest, he was allowed to do whatever he wanted.
And he wanted to spend time with Ren.
That first night at Ren’s apartment Akechi became privy to the information that Ren was now living with the Sakura girl, who was equally unsurprised to see Akechi alive as Ren had been.
When questioned about it, Sakura told him that she couldn’t explain why it seemed so obvious that he had survived, she just had a hunch it would have taken a lot more than his doppelganger to kill him.
“After you dropped that wall I thought, he probably has a plan, we’ll see him again, and sure for awhile when you didn’t pop up I thought, okay, maybe he is dead, but now look! Here you are! Mighty impressive stuff Crow, how’d you do it?”
Akechi looked to Ren for assistance, who shrugged at him from where he was leaning against their kitchen island. Akechi couldn’t make out his eyes past the glare shining on his glasses, but he could tell from the way his head was turned firmly in Akechi’s direction, unwavering, that he was equally as curious.
“I hate to disappoint, but I actually don’t have a clue how I survived what happened,” Akechi reluctantly told them. “One second I was looking down the barrel of my own pistol, the next I was in Central Tokyo.”
“Something had to have happened!” Sakura piped in.
“Divine intervention,” Ren replied, the delivery comedic in its bluntness.
Sakura made a face and began on a tangent about all the possible reasons for Akechi’s continued existence. The idea that God could have saved him was offered and received as an obvious non-possibility. Perhaps because they had met God in his absence, and come to learn he was far from the loving savior that Christians depicted, that was why the idea of divine intervention was so implausible. Or perhaps they all knew, simple as that the sky is blue and the sun sets in the west, that Akechi was not the type of person worthy of such a celestial event.
That was a few months ago, and since then movie night at Ren’s place had become a staple in Akechi’s routine. The detective genuinely looked forward to it, not that he’d tell Ren that. Akechi was slightly worried that if he were to voice any sort of feelings he had toward their relationship that it would jinx it, and Ren would come to realize how much he actually disliked him, and how unworthy Akechi was of his friendship.
That’s what it was, a friendship, which was great. Akechi was lucky to have a friend who understood and accepted all aspects of him the way Ren did.
Unfortunately Akechi had never been one to make things easy for himself, and not before long he began to feel strangely about his friend.
It started when Ren casually rested his arm behind Akechi on the couch, due to their proximity the detective could feel Ren’s body heat radiating off of him. Akechi found himself wanting to lean into it, to press himself against the firm muscle of Ren's body. He’d gotten to see glimpses of Ren’s physique in high school, which was impressive enough for a seventeen year old, however now that Ren was older, and by all means a grown man, he’d only further sculpted his muscles and to a point that was impossible not to notice.
Occasionally when they were in class or lingering around somewhere to chat on the campus grounds Akechi would catch their feminine peers stealing glances at the firm lines of Ren’s biceps. When the younger man would raise his hands above his head to stretch and his shirt would pull tight against his back and chest, Akechi would catch girls’ eyes widen before they quickly ducked their heads.
Akechi didn’t blame them, his staring problem was just as bad.
When he caught himself studying the details of Ren’s hands, cataloging the scars and freckles that had appeared since they parted ways as adolescents, Akechi knew exactly what was happening to him, and that it was likely he could not prevent it.
He had a crush on Amamiya Ren.
Akechi chose to let himself enjoy it, after all it was harmless. Everyone got crushes, it didn’t have to mean anything for their relationship. Akechi even entertained the idea of acting on it.
That was up until on a casual Monday, whilst the two boys were talking in Ren’s kitchen, the other boy had his hands braced on the counter behind him, head thrown back in a laugh, his hair framing the defined lines of his jaw, and the intrusive detailed image of Ren’s neck slit from ear to ear flashed in the back of Akechi’s mind.
Like an old cinématographe, appearing in quick, stiff flashes. The thought was gone as quick as it had arrived, but Akechi was unable to shake the sharp nausea it had left him with.
That and the inappropriately adjacent arousal.
It was high school all over again.
How could Akechi forget? For every yearning, every romantic fascination, Akechi’s twisted mind felt the need to supply him with a complimentary liveleak adaptation. Akechi was appalled by his own depravity. Surely he wasn’t this fucked up, surely there was some sane and simple explanation for why he felt the way he did, a complex, a suppressed trauma.
Akechi had trouble looking Ren in the eye post commencement of his snuff-film-esk imaginations. It wasn’t terribly difficult to talk to Ren while imagining what he may look like shirtless, however when that thought was paired with Ren’s torn open chest, finding intelligent responses to Ren’s questions and comments was all but a pointless endeavor.
Akechi decided to take the responsible route and brought his concerns to the University counselor, who was strangely calm about the ordeal. He asked Akechi when the violent thoughts began, and how.
“Your problem,” The man told him. “Is that you used to try to suppress the positive thoughts you had about him with violence, yes? Your mind is only doing what you programmed it to do.”
“So what then?” Akechi sat back in the gaudy polka dot lounge chair that the counselor had chosen for his office. “How do I stop it?”
“Well,” the man adjusted his glasses. “You let yourself want. Embrace it. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I kill him.”
The counselor laughed and shook his head. “That may be a little drastic.”
“In the past, when I used to think about him,” Akechi paused, it was strange to openly talk about his feelings, prior to meeting Ren he wouldn’t so much as give people his honest opinion on the weather.
“It’s hot today, isn’t it?”
“Yes, good ice cream weather.”
Akechi smiled sweetly at his classmate, all while mentally cursing every god ever conceptualized for giving human beings the ability to sweat.
“I didn’t just try to imagine him dead when I thought about him to get me to stop thinking about him, it was because I actually was going to kill him.”
“Do you still plan to kill him? You know I’ll have to report this conversation if that’s true.”
Akechi rolled his eyes. “No, I have no reason to kill him now.”
“But you did in high school?” The man prompted, he sounded amused.
“Yes.”
The counselor let there be silence, waiting for Akechi to follow up, when he did not, he let out a light laugh and folded his hands over his desk.
“You don’t want to kill him, and you aren’t going to kill him, you like him and it scares you, that’s all this is. Love is a beautiful thing, tell him how you feel and you’ll likely feel better.” The counselor was being awfully chill about Akechi’s murderous thoughts and past murderous intentions, however he wasn’t setting off any of the detective’s intuitive alarm bells so the man decided to be grateful rather than suspicious. “A snack?”
Akechi looked down at the desk between them as the other man pushed a small glass bowl full of gummy packs in front of him. Ren had always been more of a snacker than he was.
“I’m quite alright.”
“Suit yourself.”
Akechi had been on the receiving end of a fair share of love confessions. Blushing classmates, jittery fans, by twenty one Akechi was well versed in how to deliver a gentle rejection.
This skill of his was of course no use whatsoever in giving a confession of his own. If anything, the most he’d managed to scrunge together was all of Ren’s possible responses and how Akechi would respond in turn:
“I’m flattered Akechi, but I don’t think I’ve ever really thought of you that way.”
“That’s alright.”
“I’m not interested in guys, I’m sorry.”
“I understand.”
“I can’t date you, you tried to kill me.”
“Tried, and failed, but thank you for the reminder.”
“Maybe we’re better off as friends, if that’s okay with you.”
“It isn’t, but I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, do I?”
Yes, in all of Akechi’s imaginary scenarios he was being rejected. It was a lot easier of an outcome to imagine than the alternative: that Ren returned his feelings.
Akechi felt nauseous just thinking about it.
Wasn’t that what he wanted? To go skipping off hand in hand into the distance?
What he wanted.
Since when has Akechi ever gotten what he wanted?
The detective stood in front of Ren’s door waiting patiently for it to open so that they could continue making their way through every movie that had won the Japanese Film Prize’s Director of The Year Award since the award was first given in 1978.
Ren’s idea.
(Ren was very passionate about movies, and books, and any kind of media, really.)
What did Akechi want from Ren? And why did thinking about it make him feel so sick? The word ‘want’ felt heavy, loaded. To want could be so consuming, suffocating.
Once what he had wanted was Ren’s death, did he deserve now to want differently?
No, he had only thought he wanted Ren dead, Akechi corrected. Never truly had he wished for the boy’s death.
But no, that wasn’t right either, was it?
Akechi became confused, his mind and his memory were supplying him with two different realities. One in which his want to kill was a real, palpable thing, and another where his finger hesitated over the trigger, and his breath hitched as the shot rang out.
Before the man could explore his thoughts any further Ren’s door flew open and before him stood his once intended murder victim.
Panting, flushed, living.
“Ren, what have you been doing?”
Akechi couldn’t make out Ren’s eyes past the glare reflecting off his glasses, he was eerily silent, chest rising and falling heavily as he stood in his doorway staring at Akechi.
“Ren,” the detective repeated, beginning to worry. It was not like his friend to look so discombobulated. “Are you okay?”
“Akechi,” Ren breathed out his name, unintentionally causing the other man to stiffen and blood to rise to his cheeks. Akechi didn’t think he’d ever heard anyone say his name like that, like they were seeing him for the first time in a century. Ren rolled his shoulders and attempted to casually lean against the side of his doorway, clearing his throat awkwardly.
“Hey.”
The weird tension made Akechi nervous, and when he got nervous he got snippy. Knowing this about himself did nothing to prevent the behavior, and so, the detective scowled in return.
“Hey? What the fuck is going on with you?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“It took you long enough to answer the door for someone who was apparently waiting for me.”
Ren attempted a shrug but it was too jerky to be natural. “Happens. How are you?’
Akechi narrowed his eyes. “Fine.”
“Yeah,” Ren smiled. “I can see that.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Ren waved a hand at him. “I’m saying you’re fine.”
“I’m fine?”
“As in fine. Good looking.”
“Have you been drinking?”
Ren straightened up, his smile tipping down into a frown. “No, why? Am I acting weird? What do I normally act like?”
Akechi was at a loss.
Ren’s face scrunched up and he pressed a hand to his head, clearly fighting a battle that Akechi was not privy to. The likely reason for this sudden shift in behavior was alcohol, or weed, or some other intoxicant one of his idiot friends had convinced him to try.
“Akechi,” Ren said, still holding his forehead but feigning normalcy. “It’s good to see you.”
“You see me constantly.”
“Okay, well, I enjoy seeing you,” Ren was now pressing so hard into the skin of his head that beneath his fingers were rings of white. “We’re in Intro to Criminal Procedure together,” The man stated, almost sounding as if he were asking Akechi and not reminding him. The detective waited for his friend to continue, unsure of how he was supposed to respond.
“And,” Ren followed up, encouraged by Akechi’s lack of interruption. “We just finished a chapter on search warrants, and sometimes after class we grab snacks from the cafeteria and sit in the courtyard to study, and your current favorite show didn’t air an episode this week because of the upcoming sports event, correct?”
Hesitantly, Akechi nodded.
Ren’s face lit up, evidently that had been the correct response.
“I remember.” He let go of his forehead in favor of tapping it. “It’s all in here, the past two years.”
“It would be more concerning if you didn’t remember the past two years. Did you hit your head or something?”
“No.” Ren became suddenly very serious. “Wait, do you not remember?”
“What? The past two years?”
The other man’s lips parted in surprise, then pressed together into a thin line. There was another long stretch of silence between them, long enough to make Akechi thoroughly uncomfortable, and then, to Akechi’s complete and utter shock, Ren’s thinned lips split open into a grin.
“Nothing, nothing, don’t worry about it! Hey, you know what I was thinking? We should go out to eat after the movie,” Ren was back to his usual self now, if not a little more enthusiastic than usual. “My treat,” he offered. “We can go anywhere you want.”
It sounded an awful lot like a date, but that couldn’t be right, Akechi was the one about to confess and Ren was fucking up his plans. This was a completely unexpected turn of events, one Akechi had not even begun to prepare himself for the possibility of.
He had to do something, and quickly, he had to regain some sort of control over the situation.
Fuck it.
“I think I have a crush on you.” Akechi declared, lifting up his chin and looking Ren directly in the eyes. Or well, lenses. “I believe I’ve harbored these feelings for a while now, possibly as far back as high school. I wanted to make you aware, and get the information off my chest. I think we both know nothing good has come from keeping secrets from one another.”
Akechi steeled himself for whatever Ren may say in response, absolutely refusing to look away. He had successfully thrown the other man off, whose forced attempt at a relaxed stance had gone stiff. This was it, he had said it, it would not hang over him anymore or put a strain on their time together. The counselor had been right, just by saying it Akechi felt better.
Ren swallowed, adjusted his glasses, and opened his mouth as though to speak.
Then he closed it.
Then again he opened it.
Closed.
Open.
“It’s a date,” He said finally, the words coming out choked.
An unfamiliar feeling danced in Akechi’s chest, it was intense, but not negative. He felt lighter almost, a little like his feet were no longer touching the ground.
“It is a date,” Akechi agreed. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”
After that things between them didn't change all that drastically.
Ren became more flirtatious towards him which while overwhelming at times was not completely unwelcome. They kissed from time to time, which was pleasant, but anytime the occasion arose Ren put a halt to going any further than that. Akechi wasn't sure what he had expected, candlelight dinners and ferris wheel rides would have just irritated him, but it had begun to feel as though they weren't so much dating as they were close friends who made out with one another from time to time. Perhaps that's what Ren liked in a relationship, but Akechi was getting antsy.
He wanted more.
“So tell him that,” The University counselor advised him. “How is your boyfriend supposed to know what you want if you don't tell him?”
“First off, I’m not even certain that he is my boyfriend, and secondly, I've been making it fairly obvious.”
The older man lifted a hand as though to ask, and how exactly are you doing that?
“Reaching for his dick.”
The counselor was not at all shaken by the bluntness of Akechi’s response, he’d become accustomed to the detective’s vulgar way of speaking by now. “Is it just sexual intimacy you want more of or emotional intimacy as well?”
Akechi made a face. “Emotional intimacy?”
“You know, deep talks, sweet words, things like that.”
“Gross, no.” Akechi crossed his arms and looked up at the ceiling, a habit he'd picked up from watching Ren. It had begun as a curiosity, how could staring up like that possibly be helping him think? But now, after a few purposeful attempts, Akechi repeated the habit naturally. “He acts like he's going to break me.”
“Oh?”
“We’ll start getting handsy and he gets this look on his face like he's worried, and he’ll start saying shit like, is this okay? Are you okay with this? And I'll say yes, I'm very okay with it, but he never believes me.”
“Say it to me how you say it to him.”
Akechi closed his eyes, imagining that he was speaking to Ren.
“Yes, I’m okay with this,” He stated, firmly.
“You sound irritated.”
“He irritates me.”
Akechi opened his eyes and righted his head to look at the counselor. He was smiling.
“What? What the fuck is so funny?”
“Try being more reassuring next time he asks you that.”
“Reassuring? Why? He's a grown man.”
The older man shook his head fondly. “Akechi, from what you've told me, it sounds like your boyfriend-or well, close friend- cares about you a lot. He's likely worried you're irritated because you're not enjoying what you're doing.”
“If I wasn't enjoying it it'd just say that.”
“Sure,” The counselor picked up his pen, flicking it between his fingers. “In theory.”
“Not in theory, I would.”
“Right.”
“I would!”
“Not everyone is good at speaking up about what they like and dislike in the heat of the moment, it can be better at times to go off of body language and tone rather than words when trying to discern if your partner is comfortable, if you’re coming off as agitated despite giving verbal consent, your partner isn’t wrong for assuming that may be a sign you’re not enjoying it.” The man tapped his pen against his chin. “Perhaps a conversation outside of bed would help him understand.”
Akechi’s face tinted red, he got itchy under the skin anytime Ren so much as suggested they had a conversation about sexual likes and dislikes. It was such an uncomfortable thing to talk about, so personal, and he couldn’t help but feel like he was being flayed open when Ren would look at him with this strange expression of soft understanding, like he knew something.
“I can see why Ren hesitates.”
Akechi snapped back to the conversation, immediately scowling at the older man’s strange and frankly unwarranted comment.
“I’m fine.”
“I didn’t say anything about you not being fine.”
“I just feel weird about it, okay? I don’t know why, sometimes when I spend the night I’ll wake up and it feels like everywhere he touches me burns, and I want nothing more than to get away from it, and other nights the only things grounding me to this earth and keeping me from going utterly insane is being able to feel his skin.” Akechi crossed his arms over his midsection, essentially hugging himself. “There’s no logical reasoning for it, I’m not some trauma victim, sure there were a few foster homes where I was kicked around a bit but that’s not something that should affect my goddamn sex life.”
“As you grew up, outside of the ‘kicking’ how often were you touched?” Akechi’s discomfort must have shown on his face because the counselor backtracked. “By ‘touched’ I’m referring to things such as high-fives, hugs, pats on the shoulder, things of that nature.”
The detective hugged himself tighter and averted his gaze. If the clouds outside were anything to go off of there likely was going to be rain.
“I see,” the older man concluded aloud.
Without really thinking, Akechi abruptly stood from his chair and snatched his backup up from where it sat on the floor beside it. As he slammed the door behind him on his way out, the counselor called after him that he looked forward to their next appointment.
Ren was at Akechi’s apartment, a rare occurrence given that unlike Ren and Sakura’s place Akechi’s was only a studio and therefore the less ideal hang-out spot. He had a small kitchen, if one could even call it that, a bathroom, a bed, a desk, and a bookshelf. It was smaller than where he lived in high school, but during that time he had the benefit of Shido’s financial support, now he had only his own income to live off of. He worked for the university’s small police team, the members of which often asked him why he didn’t pursue a career at a larger and more prestigious precinct. He was still the Detective Prince after all, even if he hadn’t graced a TV screen since he was eighteen. He kept to himself that he was concerned too much attention would lead to a deeper investigation into his involvement with Shido’s corruption, and instead told them he enjoyed the lighter workload and convenient scheduling.
The two students were sitting across from each other on Akechi’s bed, silently ingrained in their own assignments, Ren’s outstretched leg pressed against where Akechi’s knee bent. Ren had asked him once why he so often sat with his legs criss-crossed ‘like that’. Apparently the other man was not flexible enough to consider it a comfortable position, when Akechi informed him that he felt no stretch at all when he did it, Ren’s cheeks turned red.
“In highschool I used to suppress my feelings for you by imagining you were dead,” Akechi stated, breaking the silence. Ren’s pen paused mid-letter, but did not lift. “I still imagine you dying sometimes, and I was abused in foster care, if that’s important, but I don’t believe either of these things should stand in the way of us having sex.”
Slowly, Ren put his pen down and looked up, brushing his hair from his eyes so he could see Akechi better.
“Okay,” He said, attention trained on Akechi. He was likely searching the detective’s face for any further insight into why he was saying all of this.
Akechi closed his laptop, then reached forward and closed Ren’s notebook, gathered his pens, put all of the supplies into a stack, and placed it on the floor beside his bed. Ren watched the procedure with one eyebrow raised.
“Do you mean now?”
“Yes.”
Ren ran a hand through his hair, teeth catching the plump fat of his bottom lip, he still looked conflicted, Akechi wasn’t having it.
The detective took the hem of his shirt in his hands and pulled it over his head, throwing the article of clothing onto the floor along with their stack of belongings. Ren straightened as he watched the action, eyes trailing down the newly exposed expanse of Akechi’s chest.
“Well?” The detective prompted, leaning back with his hands pressed into the mattress behind him. He tilted his head, bangs falling across his fast, exposing the long line of his neck.
Ren didn’t take much convincing after that.
The morning after, Akechi woke up with loose limbs and a deep seated feeling of content. His need had been thoroughly satiated, and it was a delight to learn that Ren hadn’t been pushing off further intimacy due to a lack of experience, no, he was very experienced, and he utilized that experience well.
Ren had already been awake awhile, as was made clear by the fact he was sat upright beside Akechi in the bed, eyes darting over the pages of a book. Akechi pushed himself up, his comforter falling from his shoulders and pooling around his waist. He shivered at the exposure to cool air, catching Ren’s attention.
“Beyond Good and Evil,” Akechi acknowledged. “Did you take that off my bookshelf?”
Ren didn’t reply, just smiled mischievously at him before flipping back to a previous page he’d read. He was no doubt about to act obnoxiously philosophical, Akechi wondered if the way he perceived Ren now was how others perceived him in his teen years. He had thought philosophy was the epitome of all knowledge back then, and while he still had an appreciation for it, he’d come to learn one gained more from actually living life than pursuing the endless search for the meaning of it.
“How could anything originate out of its opposite?” Ren read aloud, looking to Akechi as though he were asking him the question. It was a rhetorical question, knowing this, Akechi did not answer. Ren powered onward. “For example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or the generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the wise man out of covetousness? Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool,” Ren emphasized words here and there, winking at Akechi as he spoke the word ‘fool.' The detective didn’t have a clue where he was going with this, but then again it was Ren, and since when did anything he did make sense? “Things of the highest value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own-”
“Do you intend to read the whole chapter to me?” Akechi interjected. Ren huffed indignantly, closing the book.
“It’s funny.”
“What’s funny about it? That Nietzsche always assumes himself to be right?”
“No,” Ren dragged out. “It’s funny because he’s arguing against the first thing you ever said to me.”
Akechi’s eyebrows furrowed. He took the book from Ren, flipping open to the page he’d been reading aloud. As he skimmed over the words he recalled from his memory that day at the TV station. He couldn’t remember the exact words he’d said, but he could recall the intent. At the time he’d had slight suspicions about Ren, after all the boy’s phantom thief attire hadn’t hid much and his voice was quite distinct. He’d made the comment about ‘thesis’ and ‘antithesis’ to the boy with the intent of making his acknowledgment of their rivalry known. Akechi knew he’d have to stop him eventually, one way or another, and at the time the thought was invigorating. He’d caught the glint in Ren’s eyes and he knew after they’d spoken that even if Ren didn't know the full extent of who Akechi was, he was still aware the game between the two of them had begun. Ren hadn’t been as smart as Akechi back then, but his passion was strong enough to cover the bridge between them.
That was probably what had made Akechi start liking him in the first place.
“Have your thoughts changed?” Ren asked him, mistaking Akechi’s thoughtful silence as contemplation about the passage.
“I was certainly a monster of my own making,” Akechi confirmed with a scoff, referring to Nietzsche's argument that the strongest things were ‘things-in-itself.’ “However; I would not be who I am today if it weren’t for you.” He smiled to himself, almost without realizing it. “You truly were, and still are, my antithesis.”
A firm arm reached over and wrapped around him, pulling Akechi to lay back against Ren’s chest. The other man pressed his face into the detective’s hair and took a deep breath.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, I wouldn’t be me if it wasn’t for you either.”
The words fell over Akechi like a soft caress and he laughed, Ren was an idiot, only an idiot would fall so hopelessly for a man who tried to kill them, but at the end of the day, Akechi loved him for it.