Chapter Text
Now what?
Akechi, twenty years old, sits behind an office desk in his apartment, staring at the blank wall in front of him, unseeing.
It was bare and white, nothing of note to catch his attention, yet he stares through it, lost in the bottomless well that is his mind. His desk is of similar quality, white and tidy and empty of any personal touch. A laptop sits open in front of him, but he looks through it, unseeing.
Next to the laptop is a mug of instant coffee. The mug itself matches everything else, white and nondescript, but it’s the first thing in his vicinity that holds any sentimental value. He has a matching set of these coffee mugs with their little saucers – they were from Leblanc, stolen, to be precise, but not by him. Stolen for him in a bout of insanity.
Akechi glances at the mug, touches the handle with a fingertip, then abruptly looks away. To his left is a big glass sliding door that leads out to an empty balcony. He’s on the third floor of this complex, but when he looks outside, all he can see is the high wooden paneling of the balcony fence and blue sky.
This apartment doesn’t hold a candle to his last condo, though the previous location was paid for by blood money.
Shido left him nothing, unsurprising, even after Shido took the fall for everything with his change of heart. It hadn't stuck, but he couldn't recount his public words. Deep down, Akechi's glad for it, because he never got the chance to decide between living in luxury with Shido’s cursed money, or building himself up again after Shido’s passing.
Instead, he was forced to fend for himself, as he’s done his entire life. It’s why he sleeps in a loft above his desk in a 27.87 sq m (300 sq ft) apartment that he can easily afford with his new wages. He doesn’t mind how small it is, because it’s paid for by himself, for himself.
His eyes drift back to the mug, his current morning nemesis. He has no others – something he’d done on purpose – but he torments himself with memories like this.
Akechi deserves it, really.
“I like this version of you,” comes the memory of a deep, smooth voice, ringing in Akechi’s mind. He scoffs, both in the memory and as he sits at his desk in the present.
“No one likes this version of me. The opposite of the Detective Prince.”
“No one else gets to see it,” a laugh from his partner, eyes squinting shut with the force of it. Akechi misses those grey eyes. He knew too much about Akechi by then; he’d seen Akechi for exactly who he is – a rage-filled monster. “But it’s you, so I like it.”
Akechi leans forward, elbow resting on the top of his desk, the palm of his hand resting against his forehead as he languishes.
It feels like tar covered hands grabbing at him from the floor, trying to pull him down, down, down into the depths of his despair. Often, he lets it happen – too exhausted to keep up the fight – but only ever at night. During the day he must fight them off, or else he’d never get anything done. The memories are paralyzing in ways Akechi never considered that he'd be affected by.
He's supposed to be used to loss and disappointment. His mother was the catalyst to it all, and that invaded his thoughts less than this. Perhaps not less, but in an entirely different way. His mother is the memory that lingers on each of his thoughts throughout the day, his father is the glorious retribution that should have laid her to rest but fell just short of that goal, and Ren… Ren is the wraith of his waking moments.
Akechi was supposed to be used to this, but he hadn't prepared for the gargantuan weight of Amamiya Ren to weigh on him. He hadn't known that six months with a single person would affect the rest of his life.
His head feels stuffy — too full. He’s hollowed out, devoid of himself, a vessel for the past. He harbors memories inside himself, ensuring that Ren's still alive even if he, himself, isn't. Akechi’s empty heart barely beats anymore.
He’s gotten everything he wanted, and yet, two years later, he’s nothing more than a living corpse. His laptop dings, a notification pulling his attention back to the screen and far away from his downward spiral of thoughts.
From: Nijima Sae
To: Akechi Goro
Subject: New Lead – PI Services Requested
Body:e
Akechi-san,
I find myself in need of a Private Investigator. A case of mine has stalled, and I need discretion and someone I’m familiar with to assist. I know — you work for money now. Consider this an official request from me and my team.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Nijima Sae
Being a P.I. wasn't his first choice of careers, if he had any say in the matter (he hadn't, not after how everything went down), but it was the safest. His connections as a P.I. make it so it's easier for him to stay out of the public eye. Maruki's reality convinced the public that Akechi Goro is dead, but if anyone's gaze lingered on him for too long, the veil would be lifted. Only the Phantom Thieves and their ilk remember who he is… Sae-san being included as 'their ilk' due to her sister's involvement with the Thieves.
Akechi's fake identification is good enough for housing and the things needed for basic survival, but they wouldn't hold up in front of a University board. Schooling is out of the question for his future and it was something he came to terms with the first year into his hiding.
Akechi toyed (and still toys with, if he's honest with himself) with the idea of writing a book under a pseudonym, but what would he write if not the most depressing, completely unreadable shit? Who wants to read about an ex-supernatural-hitman who tricked himself into getting his heart broken?
He rolls his eyes at himself, types out a quick confirmation email back, and goes back to pondering his stolen Leblanc mug.
This time around, his second (or third?) chance at life, he’s in no one’s shadow, though he does carry the shadows of others with him.
Sae-san sits primly in a café seat when Akechi enters the quaint shop with a ding! heralding his arrival. She looks the same as she always did: hair pristine, makeup flawless, and manners sharp. It makes Akechi almost feel comfortable to be around her, until he remembers his own disguise. His hair is down, almost in his face, and he wears a hat to further hide his features. A baseball cap. He's got nondescript clothes on besides that, anything to make him look boring and normal.
She looks up from where she's been typing aggressively on her phone, and when she sees him, she doesn't mention anything about his shady appearance. He takes a seat across from her. Neither order anything when a waitress comes by.
“Taito Ward is a change in pace for you,” Sae-san comments. Akechi doesn’t miss the completely unsubtle clue that she’s been keeping tabs on him. Or, more likely, that she’d looked him up before she requested his help.
“Sure,” Akechi intones. He doesn’t need to pretend around her anymore, she’d seen it all with Maruki. When it was just him and Yoshizawa and a couple members of the Phantom Thieves that hadn’t written him off yet.
What he likes best about Sae-san, is that she doesn’t care if he’s short with her. She likes to work, he likes to work, and that’s that. They’re two peas in a pod, or however the saying goes.
And she knows his work is good, which is his second favorite thing about her.
"What's the case?" He prompts, which pulls a smile to the surface of her normally stoic expression.
Straight and to the point, just like she likes it.
Sae-san leans over the side of her chair to rummage around a bag by her feet and pulls a manila envelope out. It's not packed full, but it looks like it has enough information to get Akechi started on the case. His hands itch to grab it from her; his mind already whirling to life at the prospect of something new and interesting.
She sets the folder down between them and leans back in her chair. Sae-san stares at the top of the folder, where it's labeled, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department; Special Investigation Unit. Akechi waits until she speaks again before he reaches for it.
"A missing persons case, two missing people, to be exact," she begins. Akechi flips open the top of the folder. Clipped on the inside are several pictures: one of a young boy and an older man, and one of them together, smiling for the camera. "A father and son, Iwai Munehisa and Iwai Kaoru respectively. They went missing about a week ago and the trails gone cold."
"Who reported them missing?" Akechi asks, flipping through the pages as if something hadn't immediately rang all the alarm bells in his head. He knows one of these names and he already knows he's the correct man for the job. He'll read the specifics back at home when he's alone.
"The father's work place, you actually know the person who made the official report. Sakamoto Ryuji," Sae-san answers, and Akechi has to fight the cringe that wants to make itself known. Sae-san already knows Akechi's next question without him having to ask it and continues, "Kaoru's mother is out of the picture, we already checked that lead. No other family members."
Akechi makes a humming sound, accepting that answer and doesn't bother lingering on a lead that won't bear fruit.
"So after a week of light investigating, you decide to hire a P.I.," Akechi sneers, slapping the folder closed and focusing his full attention on Sae-san. She doesn't seem fazed by his shift in mood. "The precinct got bored of looking for them already? Seems in line with how they were two years ago — I thought you were out to change the world, Sae-san? What happened to that? Your own change of heart didn't stick? Funny how that works. I wonder, how many times can a heart change, outside influence or no."
"You're correct in thinking that we don't have enough man power," Sae-san agrees with a half shrug. She doesn't rise to Akechi's bait, which he finds both aggravating and respectable. "But we have the budget to outsource, so here we are."
"Why me?" Akechi asks, though he's not sure why he asks. It doesn't matter, he's taking the case no matter what she says.
"Simply put, I like to work with people I know. People I trust."
Akechi's stare is blank while he processes her words. Out of everyone, he's the least trustworthy person, especially after everything he'd just spouted at her. Though, what P.I. was truly trustworthy? He certainly wouldn't trust any P.I. as far as he could throw them, much less himself. Still, he needs the money.
"I'll see what I can do."
Because Akechi can walk all the way home from the cafe, he does. He needs some fresh air and some room to think, and if he gets on the train back to Taito Ward, he may actually kill someone if they got too close. Talking with Sae-san again left him feeling raw and overstimulated, even if they'd only spoken about work.
He pulls the bill of his hat down lower, shoves his hands in his pockets, and begins the walk home.
It's strange to hear someone admit they trust him after everything. Sae-san might have been excluded from a lot of what he'd done, but her sister has no doubt told her of her suspicions. Nijima Makoto was correct on all the allegations she lobbied at Akechi two years ago, but unfortunately for her, they stayed allegations. Nothing was proven, because his plan went off without a hitch. At least, the parts involving his father had gone accordingly.
She'd accused him of pulling the trigger against their righteous Leader, and she'd been right. She'd accused him of sabotaging their plans in the palaces, and she'd been right. She'd accused him of using them all, but especially Ren… she'd been correct on that account too.
Akechi may have gotten lost in Ren, but he'd gone into it with the goal of using him to further his own ambitions, and when it was all over… he'd continued those ambitions, no matter how little those ambitions mattered in the wake of Ren's absence.
Absence is a strange place to exist in, for Akechi exists within the space Ren left, but he is no longer aware the space exists since he himself does not exist. It's the philosophy of 'what is not', and Akechi lives in both the 'what is' and 'what is not', because his own happiness — what little there was — ended with the bang of a gun.
Can this absence be perceived? He perceives it with a deep sense of grief, but Ren cannot perceive it, so then does it really exist? The Bhuddist sunyata believes in emptiness, independent of existence, while Sartre's Being and Nothingness believe that absence is nothing more than a human concept.
If only humans experience it, then, does it fucking matter?
The lights of sparklers go off in his peripherals, a laugh so deep and warm, colorful strips of paper hanging from bamboo trees full of wishes. The taste of street food and the smell of coffee beans; sentimentality is a hell of a motivator.
He stands before the miniature shrine, and a severe displeasure shakes him to his very core. Akechi doesn't know why he's here. It's not like any shrine has magically brought to life any of his memories. They serve no purpose for Akechi other than something that looks aesthetically pleasing.
But here he stands, before a squat veranda with small stone lanterns, tucked between two buildings in the only space available in this suburb. Still, decades of etiquette jammed into his brain has him bowing stiffly at the shrine.
Flowers decorate either side of the shrine, colorful in nature and meaning almost nothing to Akechi.
Ren would know what they mean.
Two years since Ren and time has not healed any wounds or made them any softer. Instead, they turn necrotic and spread sickness through him. Rot fills his veins. It had always been there, even before Ren, but now it festers.
"Everything should have gone right," Akechi hissed to himself. "My father, gone. My mother, avenged. But yet the memories of Ren haunts me." His hands clench into fists at his sides. "He refuses to let me go."
His voice cracks on the last word and he's grateful this shrine is empty.
"I want to move on," he whispers, but it's a lie. He can hear the way the words don't fit quite right in his mouth. He'd rather rot in the memories than give them up. Akechi doesn't want to move on from Ren. He wants him back. He tries again. "I wish to move on."
Maruki's reality was a thing based on wishes too. Of course it was, a man trying to be a god would take after the spirits themselves, and half of them grant wishes. Yoshizawa's wish to be her sister, all of the Phantom Thieves's wishes… he wonders what Ren would have wanted, but that's a dangerous path to walk down.
Ren wasn't there, and Akechi had been too wrapped up in the final pieces of his revenge to put stock into any sort of wish that would be potent enough to make a difference in Maruki's world.
I wish to move on, the lie felt strong enough to be convincing, at least.
A soft breeze rustles through the leaves overhead. Nothing happens. Why did he expect something to?
"Disgraceful," Akechi snaps at himself. Sometimes he hates how weak Ren made him, after everything. He adjusts the bag over his shoulder, huffs out a curse word instead of clapping like he's supposed to, then turns on his heels without his last bow. He's halfway to stomping out of the shrine's grounds when his phone vibrates in his back pocket. When he pulls it out, he sees Yoshizawa's name. He curses in his head again.
He's already exhausted by the thought of her peppiness, but he can't deny her call, lest she calls again.
"What," is how he greets her when he answers. His begins his descent down the stairs when she speaks.
"Akechi-senpai!" She greets back and he can hear the smile in her voice while he cringes. Still, he hasn't convinced her to drop that honorific. "Did you forget about our weekly call?"
She's teasing him, because obviously he'd forgotten.
"I've been busy."
"Did you get a new case?" Yoshizawa asks. She knows him too well by now. She insisted on these weekly calls two years ago, and she's been the one to continue them, but he's never not answered even if he's never been the instigator. How she hasn't gotten tired of him yet, he doesn't know.
"Just today, actually. I met with Sae-san about it."
"Oh! What a blast from the past! How do you feel?" The care in her tone makes him dig his nails into the palm of the hand not currently clutched onto the phone.
"Fine," he answers immediately. She hums knowingly. Yoshizawa has gotten him to open up before, but it's been at moments when he's particularly beaten down by memories. Today is not that day. And because he knows she'll pry endlessly, "tell me about your week."
She's always let these deflections work on her without calling him out on it. It's perhaps the main reason he lets this facade of friendship between them continue.
Yoshizawa talks to him on the rest of the walk home, telling him about all her gymnastic practice, her coach, and a movie she'd seen recently. Something he's always appreciated about her is her dedication to her goals. She never lets anything, or anyone, distract her.
She can hear when he closes his front door behind him, toeing off his shoes at the entrance.
"Do you want to watch a movie together?" she asks, making him pause. They'd done it a couple times before, streamed a movie at the same time and stayed on the phone talking. Akechi drops his bag on his couch and decides tonight is not a night he wants to spend with someone else.
"No," he says, padding to the small kitchen to make himself some instant ramen. "I have to be up early to start my investigation so I should be in bed soon."
"Okay, I'll talk to you next week, Akechi-senpai," she concedes. "Be safe on your job and good luck!"
He just barely resists the urge to throw his phone across his apartment when the line goes silent. Silence permeates every corner of his space after that, and he almost calls her back just for the company. But no, Akechi makes his noodles, sits on his couch with the case file, and reads through it while he eats, hardly tasting the food.
It's how he spends the rest of his evening, eating in silence and formulating plans of attack for the case. Sakamoto's transcribed interview states that the pair went camping the previous weekend, and when they were supposed to be back, they never showed.
It seems fairly straight forward, and Akechi is already factoring in Yakuza involvement, as well as his personal knowledge about Sakamoto's… personality.
Akechi knows he's the right man for the job, but he also knows that it'll be difficult for him to stay unbiased. The involvement of one Phantom Thief member is already almost too much for him.
Yoshizawa sometimes mentions the comings and goings of the Phantom Thieves on their calls. Last he'd heard, Sakamoto was living with another one of them — Kitagawa, perhaps? — and Akechi dreads the possibility that he might stumble across two Phantom Thieves in person.
Two years ago, when their leader was out of the picture, the Thieves were a mess. As it turned out, they'd already put too many wheels in motion to stop the next turn of events from happening, and Akechi was reluctant to reveal his proficiency in the Metaverse, but his hand was forced. He gave them some half truth, half lie of an excuse about why he had a persona, and then he was stepping into Ren's vacant role to change Shido's heart.
The change of heart didn't stick though, as Akechi had predicted, because the Shido in the real world was too aware of cognitive pscience. That was fine for Akechi though, because Shido rose in ranks, the Thieve's hopes were crushed. and then Akechi swept it all out from under Shido's feet as he planned.
He'd hoped he could cut ties with the Phantom Thieves, except then there were gods involved and small children telling him he was the new wild card (thus forcing him to reveal he had two personas, similar to Ren, while also being so completely different) and then a deranged therapist…
Akechi can't seem to shake the Thieves, and he blames Ren for that.
Ren, who'd been out of the picture for a month by then, had still been shaping Akechi's world and trying to make him a better person through the hands of his friends.
Akechi has to force Ren from his thoughts as he reads the case file. Ren swirled in his thoughts normally, but not to this degree. It must be the resurgence of Sae-san and Sakamoto that has Ren at the forefront of his mind.
Sleep tugs at him as he yawns over the final papers of the case. Akechi glances at his closed laptop, considering sending the official paperwork to Sae-san for P.I. services rendered, but decides against it. He can do it later, and instead fumbles for his phone, abandoned on the far couch cushion.
According to his cell, the weather should be pleasant overnight, so before he goes to get ready for bed, Akechi opens his patio door just enough to let in a nice breeze.
He changes into a deep green baggy top, a pair of briefs, and calls it good enough. He climbs the ladder to his bed, lays down, and is almost instantly transported to a different loft in another place; another time. Akechi yearns, painfully, achingly.
“Can I touch you?” comes Amamiya’s voice, filling his mind with warm, caressing reverberations. Blood-red eyes look at Amamiya. His hands refuse to touch Akechi without his consent. The consideration for him hurts, so, so much.
The first time Amamiya tried to touch him with a gentleness Akechi was unaccustomed to, Akechi — touch-starved and near feral — almost broke his fingers. Now, they play this game of consent that Akechi abhors and adores. It forces him to confront the things he wants, and it makes him say it out loud. All things he hates, but all things that help him heal.
It was an annoying game Amamiya was content to continue.
"Yes," Akechi answers, bracing himself. He's not sure what kind of touch Amamiya is asking for, but he's ready for whatever it is.
Fingertips to his jaw has his eyes darting toward Amamiya's face. He's smiling, wide and unashamed, and it makes Akechi's blood boil; it makes his hands tremble. He hates the kindness Amamiya wants to shower him with.
The touch is fleeting, just to make him look at the other boy, then it's gone.
"Do you like what I've done?" Amamiya asks, gesturing vaguely at the rafters. Akechi had noticed the decor change right away, of course, but he pretends to furrow his brow in confusion. He glances up to the beams in the ceiling to the glow-in-the-dark star stickers.
It's so… endearing.
Amamiya hung up some stupid toy stars and hoped it would impress Akechi—
"It reminds me of that night we spent together, during the festival," Amamiya continues, sounding dreamy in his memories. Then he clarifies, as if they'd been to many festivals in the short time they've known each other, "the Tanabata Festival."
"Surely you didn't do this for me," Akechi frowns, feigning distaste.
"Well, no," Amamiya laughs softly, something barely more than a huff of breath. "Yusuke and I went to the planetarium in Ikebukuro"— a pang of jealousy zaps through Akechi that he immediately squashes—"and I had a vision of what we did that night, under the stars… I wanted to bring it home with me."
Heat spreads through Akechi at those words and he has to look away. At anything else: at the desk littered with lock picks and arcade-won toys, at the shelves with gifts given from friends, at the plant thriving under Amamiya's care. Akechi despises analogies and metaphors, no matter how much he uses them, yet he feels a bit like the plant; under Amamiya's gentle touch, he can bloom into something… better.
Akechi inhales deeply, slowly, counts to five, then on the exhale he shifts his gaze back to Amamiya. He can feel the way his eyelids are heavy, at the apathy that eats away at his edges. Heaviness drapes over him like a cloak, but with Amamiya, it's a burden shared. Intense grey eyes stare through him, directly into his core and beyond the indifference.
"And what is it that we did that night that you want to remember so badly?" Akechi demands. He knows what it is that Amamiya wants to remember but he takes perverse satisfaction in forcing Amamiya to say it out loud.
It's not lost on Akechi that they're sat side by side on the edge of Amamiya's bed, and from Amamiya's shit eating grin, it's not lost on him either. Akechi feels the bed dip with his partner's shift before he registers the man moving. A hand presses into the mattress near Akechi's thigh, as Amamiya leans close.
Akechi leans away, though his heart hammers in his chest with his own sort of desire. Amamiya is frustratingly good at wooing Akechi, because Amamiya doesn't care that Akechi's true self is a prickly bitch. In fact, he seems to thrive on it, the sick bastard.
Amamiya's hand comes back up to Akechi's jawline, just barely ghosting over it. He doesn't touch, but it's a close enough thing that Akechi thinks he can still feel it.
It's not hesitation that holds Amamiya at bay, it's a teasing sort of restraint. It's a pleasure he gets from forcing Akechi to face himself even though he hates what he sees when he does. Amamiya doesn't know what Akechi is capable of, not really; he doesn't know what Akechi has in store for him. It's November now and the Phantom Thieves are working their way through the casino Palace and—
"The answer is still yes," Akechi grits through clenched teeth. Fuck him for making him say it again, fuck him—
A strong hand wraps around the back of Akechi's head, the grip steady. Fingers thread through his hair and a fire ignites in his core. It shouldn't be this easy, but Amamiya always had a way about him.
Their eyes meet and Akechi gets lost in a sea of mercury; heavy and silvery white. A poison injected into his veins— into his soul, tarnishing it with its toxicity. It's only Amamiya's smile that rescues him from the quicksilver trap that are his eyes. A small curve up at the corners of his mouth, smugness and nervousness radiating from him.
It's then that Akechi finally gets a good view of the star stickers on the beams above Amamiya's head. It's not the same as it was on the night of the Tanabata Festival, but the sentimentality is strong enough to tug at Akechi's heart. It's close enough
The window near the bed is open. A small paper windsock hangs in the window as a soft breeze filters in, ruffling the paper tassels and Akechi's longer hair. The November air is cool; almost too cold for the window to be open.
A tilt of the head, and then soft lips are pressed to Akechi's and his eyelids fall shut. He hadn't noticed his body tensed to the point of his muscles beginning to hurt, until all at once he relaxes under Amamiya's careful touch. Amamiya is a siren call, something he physically cannot stay away from; lured to this thing he should not have.
Amamiya is soft and strong, something for Akechi to lean against, while Akechi is a jagged, tough thing. His instincts are to grab and take, and it's a miracle that it hasn't scared Amamiya away yet because as they kiss, Akechi bites at Amamiya's lip, grabs at the front of his clothes to anchor him close, and is nothing but a vicious fanged creature.
The reward for his bad behavior is a low noise from Amamiya, like he enjoys Akechi's desperation.
Maybe he does— maybe he's just as much of a glutton for pain as Akechi is.
It feels as if Amamiya has stolen his heart, every bit of the Phantom Thief that he's supposed to be. Except this is literal, versus the Metaverse version of himself. In that television studio station, where they first officially met, Amamiya had unknowingly handed him a calling card, and Akechi had unwittingly accepted it in the form of a handshake.
Akechi will take everything from Amamiya, his kisses, his touches, his love, and his life.
Did he really understand who Akechi is? Amamiya is as fucked in the head as always, this time with a smile on his face and a gun pressed to his forehead. In an interrogation room; their last moment together.
Akechi only relief is that he'd never let himself close enough to be comfortable enough to call Amamiya by his given name. A lie. The pull of a trigger won't hurt as much this way— another lie.
"Call me Ren."
Had Akechi spoken out loud?
Amamiya is so bruised and battered; needles on the ground from injections given to this boy. His. Those men were next, the ones that touched him.
How could he smile at Akechi if he really knew who he was— if he really understood he was going to die in this room.
Akechi has plans and Amamiya had only been a brief distraction; a brief respite.
It's a clawing feeling at his insides. There's nothing left for the grief to tear to shreds, but it still tries to find something. Akechi simply has nothing left, except the memories that chase him to sleep every night.
He falls asleep before the gun goes off, and jerks awake sometime in the night when he dreams of the conclusion of that afternoon — bang! — only to doze back off with a heart full of lead.
