Archive of Our Own

You have passed beyond human daring and come at last into a place of stone where Justice sits.

I cannot tell what shape of your father’s guilt appears in this. - Antigone, Sophocles 

i.

(The minor intricacies and melodrama of what it means to embody utterly stupid and seventeen. Somehow, seventeen years around the sun qualified you for the appointed position of the leader of some group. Some group you helped name: The Phantom Thieves. There are many nights spent in Kichijoji. There’s a boy with brown hair and sweater vests. There’s always a black cat in your bag. In your desk. You might fall in love with a doctor who likes to experiment on you. But you end up falling into a trap laid by the boy with cute sweater vests). 

Akechi takes Akira’s king and then his queen. 

Yes, in that order. 

This order rarely happens in their games of chess. It’s not like Akira enjoys when Akechi wins, but nonetheless, Akechi wins a lot. Morgana tells him, only in his sleep, he’s playing a losing game and he’s never met anyone who likes to lose these bets on horses like him. 

“Typically, there’s what people call sore losers.” Morgana is snarky. Morgana is tired of his bullshit. Morgana still can’t remember who he is, or if he’s human. Morgana drones on about this the night before he loses at his 100th game of chess to Akechi. 

Akechi is candied vanilla syrup. Popular, sweet, nearly perfect in any combination. Akechi cocks his head at him from across the table, head resting on hands. “It seems like we’ve come to an impasse.” 

“How so?” 

“Well, other than beating you in this particular round. I think I’ve won the last ten games in a row.” Akechi hums, musing, adjusting himself in his chair. Leblanc has cleared out. Sojiro closed the shop about an hour ago. All that remains is the two of them, a finished game of chess and dirty, coffee-stained dishes. 

“I could still beat you next time.” 

Akechi’s eyes flash darkly. Akechi is poison. Willing to kill you slowly. Willing to watch you die. Willing to enjoy it. 

“Ah, you might have to start finding other ways to intrigue me, Kurusu.” 

Morgana confidently criticizes him: there’s foolishness and then there’s Akira. Akira laughs when Morgana spews out this rhetoric—why not exist as humor incarnate? Sometimes Makoto laughs too. Morgana says he takes the title of Joker too literally. Akira thinks there’s nothing more suitable. 

Everyone takes their name too literally. 

Literally.

There are days when the rain is thick and hot, where the palaces close in on him with suffocating claustrophobia he didn’t think he had. There are days where shopping with Ann should feel like a lifetime, and instead it stretches the day, extending cat claws at the edge of the goopy sunset and retracting when he finally hits his pillow. 

There are days where he thinks if he put his mind to the puzzle of the universe, he could solve it, but he’s taken back as prisoner every time, and not enough Persona’s in the world could solve the direction in which the solar system is headed. 

There are days where Akechi looks at him for a second too long and a tiny, fissured, piece of him splits and rots further. Like he’s being re-masked as the Joker, but this time by someone feeding him lies, this time, without his autonomy or agreement. 

When he really thinks about it, these are the worst types of days. He shuffles through playing cards to make peace with lack of autonomy only to pull the Joker card. Come to terms with the facts; his autonomy is stuck at the roof of his mouth, at the entrance of each palace, each jail cell, and each agreement with each confidant. 

There are fractured days. Pieces of time Akira only remembers by the skin of teeth, and when the memory forms in his mouth like a wad of gum, he accidentally swallows it and he has to think about the digestive cycle of seven years. 

He thinks about time and space and whatever knives and guns and weapons come with that bulbous space mass, metal weaponry mass. 

Most of all though, to Morgana’s utmost dismay, Akira is thinking about Akechi Goro.

The first time Akechi touches Akira willingly, it’s Akira’s fault. Everything is Akira’s fault. His fault, they’re thrown around like ragdolls in a Metaverse; the same Metaverse he casually attempts to convince himself is a piece of that fissured, rotting part inside of him; part of that cosmos going in the opposite direction of the solar system. The first time Akechi touches Akira willingly, Akira freezes. 

“Are you okay?” Crow, disobeying shouting emitting from Queen, Morgana and even Skull, kneels down beside Joker. His hands reach up to his forearm, grip his elbow, squeeze his flesh. Akira, Joker, and anyone else inside this so-called leader masked man freezes from the inside out. The enemies have left burns, and in their wake, Akira’s put on ice. 

Akechi still moves like he’s been burned. I’m sorry. I forgot you can’t touch the burning stove. 

“I’m fine.” Joker ends up mustering the courage to speak. Exhaling snowfall from his lips while the enemies threaten to torch Morgana. 

Like he knows what he’s doing, like he’s tending the fire of the stove he’s trying to burn the house down with, Akechi grips his elbow and heaves him to his feet. 

“Then, don’t disappoint.” 

i. ( Akechi verse; Truth, not Justice). 

There’s pulpy moonlight on the attic's creaky wooden floor. It curves into Akira’s glasses, splotched at the bridge of his nose, full at the crescent of his mouth, and it spills haphazardly on the bed. 

Akechi sits at the edge of it, while Akira relaxes, laying up against the wall and letting his feet dangle off the other side. It’s late. Far later than Akechi wanted it to be. 

“Didn’t you ever try to die?” Akira asks, his lip movements pluck the liquid moon like a stringed instrument off his face. Akechi wonders how he allowed this to come to fruition. How someone could ever ask him to answer a question like this and furthermore, how it’s possible he’s disobeyed who built his whole world and identity. Whether that be a physical person or the violent fate in which he decided to embody. 

Instead of becoming violent, like he, truthfully, really should, Akechi shrugs. “No, why would I?” 

“Escape everything beyond what you can blame yourself for.” 

“Do you, yourself, dream of such freedom?” I know you do. 

“Well, yes.” Akira sighs and the moonlight is back to stillness. 

“Something about dying feels insulting to my mother.” Akechi catches the look on Akira’s face, but he continues, “Feels insulting to everyone.” 

“So, what you’re saying… is that you believe there are other ways to free yourself?” 

Akechi feels the warmth of a cup of morning coffee heat up his insides. Utter appreciation for the brilliant boy thief. “Exactly, yes.” He can’t help it, he allows a small smile to slip from under features he’s supposed to control. 

He’ll kill me anyway.  

“How do you plan on freeing yourself?” 

By killing you. 

When Akechi pauses for a second too long, Akira begs again, “Enlighten me.” 

The moon’s already done that. 

“I’m working on it.” Akechi answers. 

ii.

(The intricacies of being your detective older sister’s younger sister. Not in depth, because you’d never dare take up that much time, at least not now, but the intricacies, nonetheless).

Makoto knows Joker’s Achilles' heel. It’s not exposed in the midst of the Trojan War. Nobody captured and stole Helen, and for the sake of a trial and arguement, in this case, nobody gives a flying fuck about stealing the most beautiful woman in the world. Not in these palaces. Not at the edge of eighteen. They don’t show up and hide in a massive horse, to fight for legitimacy; the gods from above ignore them. They don’t ask them of this. Achilles never falls for Patroculus, but Makoto, from the sidelines, watches a fool without a machination horse go to war for a boy trying to be murdered like a god. 

No. That might not be quite right. 

Akira showed up to her life, all charming and awkward and hiding funny thievery. It was all very serious. Until, well, for Makoto, she metamorphosed into very serious royalty in their band of self-titled misfits. 

Then, somehow, it was all rather laughable. 

Akira showed up and Makoto knew her sister would potentially kill her for being so taken and ablaze over a boy with no plans of over-sized horses in his mind. His cunning was different. 

His stupid was different. 

She was taken for the sake of autonomy; as were the others. Taken with a boy, who hadn’t turned eighteen, who longed for his own autonomy. He helped grant those who lack. 

She got to know him well. 

When he exposed his heel, willingly, before the bloody dawn of fate, (once again, before a war that gods were not asking them to fight), she knew the fool was always a fool, will always be the fool—he’d never choose himself and thought all outcomes of the universe were a cage of his own. 

And, at the end of it all, it wasn’t Akechi that surprised Makoto, but the fool-Joker himself, the one with the exposed, delicate heel and all the stolen pretty gold, and stolen ugly hearts. 

The Joker, the boy with many masks, with many sly pretty words, the one so intent on going to war for nothing, left nothing in their wake. Let bygones be bygones. Let the end truly end in tragedy, almost without the tragedy. Akira, the boy chained by fate, the boy with answers to the universe, never asked Makoto where Akechi ended up. 

And wasn’t that the Helen of Troy? The Achilles’ Heel? Wasn’t that the failure of it all? 

Makoto, being her older sister’s younger sister, knows that the Greek Tragedies read in class distort reality. 

We want them to be real. We could only wish Aphrodite would say we’re the most beautiful of all. Only wait for Athena to say we’re worthy of her because of our intellect. Only pray for the sun-kissed beams of Apollo to strike our face, the moon of Artemis to whisper sighs between the echo of the forests on hot days. 

We want gods to dictate our life, want fate to not feel like a prison, we want to kiss honey brown-haired boys with cute sweater vests at an aquarium.

Makoto, on a cold day in December, some time after that coffee-loving boy disappeared, died,  watched the boy with masks, the one who saved her life, prepare three cups of coffee for two. 

Akira knows nobody wins in Greek tragedies. Makoto blabbers on about Helen of Sparta to Akechi who, Akira’s pretty sure, is pretending to be engrossed for the sake of… maybe Makoto’s ego? Who knows, he’s not that kind. 

This Helen of Sparta had it made and unmade. Akira thinks she always had it unmade. During the story, Makoto fixates on her sister Penelope too. Penelope waited for Odysseus all those miserable years and Akira’s not sure why he hates that story more than the one where they go to war over someone’s alleged beauty. 

When he asks Akechi over a soda about Helen of Sparta and Odysseus’s Penelope, Akechi blinks at him, confused. 

“I always thought the whole point was storytelling.” Akechi sips a clear soda. “You know, for me, it’s not whether or not they’re victims of their circumstances or a part of a larger plot or even the cause of their deaths.”

“So, Helen isn’t a victim, or at fault to you?” 

Akechi hums thoughtfully, “No, that detail isn’t too important to me. She’s a victim of… well, fate. See,” He raises a hand, “the myths are told with fact and certainty. They’re technically all victims of the higher powers and fate. I’ve never enjoyed arguments about fault when discussing Greek myths. It seems rather… useless. Taking away from people who can’t help their circumstances and if not that, then storytelling as an art.” 

“People hate Helen.” 

Akechi laughs, “People hate Odysseus.” He sets his drink down. “I think they’re all very human.” 

iii.

(Without the seven year digestive process of swallowing gum coming to completion. Year five).

The first time Akechi contacted Akira after five and a half years, Akira sat and stared at the text message for ten minutes straight. Sure, call it dissociation, but he couldn’t get himself to move. Or think for that matter. 

He only felt. 

First, there was ripe anger. Dangling dangerously from low branches. Do you know how many times I’ve wandered Kichioji alone? He typed out. Then, proceeded to delete it. In all his fury, Akechi didn’t need to know that, and that was not the message Akira wanted to convey. Do you know how many times I’ve played billiards alone? Now, that wasn't right either. He deleted the message again. 

None of these messages contained enough vitriol. 

And it wasn’t vitriol Akira had stored. It was desperation. He was not blindly obtuse enough to convince himself otherwise, but the low hanging fruit was fat enough to take a huge bite from. 

Akechi’s message was simple. 

Coffee? 

Followed by:

It’s Akechi Goro.

It’s not that Akira was particularly difficult to find. His phone number hadn’t changed since high school, he still spent copious amounts of his time at Leblanc, and even so, Ryuji could be reached. Anyone, really. Akechi could have shown up and threatened his life around the streets of Yongen-jaya and Akira may not have blinked an eye. 

Actually, it might have taken everything inside Akira not to fling himself into Akechi’s arms and hug him until he was forcibly pulled off of him, but that’s neither here nor there, and Akira doesn’t think that’d do anyone any good. 

So, Akira eventually typed out: Sure, where? 

Akechi’s always loved aquariums. 

There’s an ebb and flow to the iridescent water sloshing around inside the tanks. Ebb and flow to the starshaped lights; ebb and flow to the rounded, jagged, twisted, fins resisting the physics and chemistry of weight and molecular mass. 

Ebb and flow to the stupidity rattling around in his head.

No, not that he’d ever call himself stupid, per-se.  

No. He’s lying. He would. 

Stupid, in the way he asked a boy here five years ago; stupid, in the way that said boy is in front of him now; stupid, in the way he’s thought about drowning himself here plenty of times. Alone or otherwise. 

However, progress is progress, and he successfully convinced, ( convinced, not manipulated, there’s a difference), his psychiatrist the aquarium is a safe haven. Not that he’d ever use those ridiculous words. But, it is, it really is; he promises, he swears, he whatever. 

So, because his psychiatrist okay’d the aquarium, and said it could be good for him, Akechi took the directions and ran with them, inviting Akira, without mentioning that particular detail to his psychiatrist. 

Akechi, in his newfound medicated stupidity, inviting the boy who loves eating hearts, ogles at his thick-rimmed glasses. A white a t-shirt with a tiny yellow flower on the sleeve. A couple bracelets with beads and cute charms. One silver ring on his index finger on his right hand, a ring with many silver stars on his left pinky. His face is more angular than he remembers. 

Stupid. Absolutely, in all his glory, idiotic. 

The medication he’s on works. He won’t deny it. 

The medication works, but sometimes there’s a few laborious bubbles and blips. They slip out, pop out, click and snag beyond sharp teeth and fish food. There are thoughts refusing to conform with the ebb and flow of the water. With fins against water. They shift into a different gear, choke on nearby bubbles and particles until they float to the top; they are water evading water, evading their own chemical composition. Thoughts refusing to be thoughts. Or maybe, thoughts refusing to be subdued by the chemicals forced down his throat—

Oh my god, WHATEVER. 

The. Point. Is: Akechi Goro is an idiot. The boy he invited here five years ago stands in front of him again. Boy turned 23, that is. Boy savior, boy hero, boy who loves masks, boy who loves hiding, boy who disappears, boy he died for, boy who evaded prison, ( boy he eternally dies for), while Akechi… 

Akechi asks himself if he’s dead. Again, the medicine does help, but there are things that slip beyond the surface of a mask he doesn’t wear anymore. How is he not dead when Kurusu stands in front of him? Annoyingly large glasses perched on a mildly crooked nose. A crooked nose nobody notices, by the way.  Annoying, pretty, masked boy with a crooked nose, a minor detail, only Akechi initially picked up on. Annoying—

Akechi tries to ignore a past self of Niijima, swirling around the tank directly in front of him, complimenting the symmetry of Joker’s face, feeling something bitter and hot pick at his insides.

Akechi stares at the tank and then turns towards Akira and sputters out something in between I’m so— and a cough. Akira’s face twitches. Something like a dimple, something like a smirk, something like crookedness against globular water threatening to shatter the glass and drown them both in Akechi’s dizziest daydreams and nightmares. 

Hey, at least then he could tell his therapist he’s the real gold medalist of intuition. 

He mildly wonders if his therapist would attend his funeral and discards the thought—Akira’s face softens in his underwater dream without the suffocation. 

Akechi’s always loved aquariums. 

“I’m surprised.” He muses. Softly. Annoyingly. It’s always soft and sweet and non-assuming. Potentially, even non-threatening. “I thought our last meeting kind of sealed the deal.” It’s something like a dimple, something like a smirk, something like forgiveness Akechi’s never understood. 

“What deal?” Akechi spits out rather harshly. Akira’s face moves with the water and a large gold striped fish. Purposefully obtuse, Akechi feels petulant. 

The dimple is back and Akira shifts his gaze from Akechi to the tank to his right. It extends all across the wall and meets the ceiling. The tank is larger than the underground prison and Akechi thinks the fish are freer than the people are. 

“Well, I thought we made a deal about silly costumes and attempted murder.” 

“You love silly costumes and murder.” 

To his surprise, Akira laughs. Loudly. It bangs against the glass and falls at Akechi’s feet. “This is true.” He sounds so genuine, it curls in Akechi’s stomach and causes indigestion. “But, we haven’t needed that for months now, no?”

Akechi has asked Akira to hangout a couple of times since stability positioned itself in his life. Another fine detail of the very stupid brain he wishes would leak out of his nose.

They’re simple. Akira never denies the meeting. There’s a cup of coffee involved and occasionally something sweet. It turns out, he isn’t impartial to sweets, but Akira is. 

Akira never asks him much. He never asks Akira much. Akechi regularly wonders how much of Akira is real and how much still belongs to a mask. 

What he doesn’t tell anybody, not a single soul: Akechi thinks, maybe, it was him stuck between reality and distortions, not Akira. And just because Akira fancied himself a hobby of living between realities, doesn’t mean his mind and self shifted between them as well. Maybe Akechi was alone. Maybe Akechi liked the masks more. Maybe Akechi liked Joker more than Akira did. 

Maybe, even without telling a soul, his therapist knows, and thinks the aquarium is good for him precisely because of this. 

Akira’s waiting for an answer, raising an eyebrow. 

“I guess not.” Akechi replies. Rather pathetically. Regardless of the amount of times they’ve shared a simple cup of coffee, they remain shrouded by masks, charades, Akira’s new exorbitant pleasantries directed at Akechi, (warranted), and Akechi’s borderline rehabilitated hostility directed at Akira. 

(Akira calls him pricklier, even grouchier then before. Fondly). 

“Ask me something new.” Akira avoids eye contact. Hands up against glass while golden fish swim to each of his fingertips. 

Akechi snorts. “You’ll lie.” 

Akira hums, “I’ve never lied.” 

“Liar.” 

“I won’t lie.” Akira lets the fish eat nothing out of his fingertips. “How else do you get to know someone without asking them things?” His voice teeters on the edge of a cliff Akechi can’t name, “You used to ask me questions. Even when they were quite rude.” He pauses, “Also, let me remind you, you were the liar of the two of us.”

“Well, I needed something from you.” I wanted something from you. Akechi ignores the rest of Akira’s commentary. He could argue for days—they equally loved lying to each other. (Akechi might be lying here again). 

“Don’t you need something from me now?” Akira turns away from the golden fish, flickering in the starshaped light, shining between the rays of sunlight breaking through the glass from within simply because they can. 

Akechi is accustomed to tug of war. Knows billiards and darts and chess. Akechi is used to games, particularly mind games. Akechi is used to prying questions. The proclaimed insanity, the pleading guilty, de-facto insanity. 

What Akechi is not used to is the realization that Akira was never playing the game. Never really playing his games. Playing his own. Akira’s game was of masks and charades, not one of manipulation, traps and holes, or finding self-proclaimed royalty in terms defined by somebody else. 

Akechi’s always loved aquariums. The fish never know they’ll die without seeing the ocean.

“I think I do need something from you.” Akechi mutters. “I just haven’t figured out what it is yet.” 

Akira’s dimples pop with the sunlight piercing through the glass and the golden fish dance against the tank and in the water, searching for Akira’s fingertips to end up with nothing. 

“Then, ask me a question.”

Akechi asks Akira plenty of new questions. He often fears he’s going to bore him, but time and time again, Akira’s eyes flicker with a sort of delight Akechi thinks about in his spare time. The new things are mundane. He questions him often, regularly, even annoyingly, and nothing like a Detective Prince should. 

He asks him his favorite fruit. His favorite word. His favorite thing to do, to which Akira responds vulgarly to, and shockingly, Akechi finds himself laughing. He asks him his favorite Pokemon, song, anime, manga, character of all time. On a rather jarring trip to Don Quijote, Akechi asks him what face wash he uses. The delight on Akira’s face is different this time. Like shock? Or embarrassment? Akechi slowly realized his deducing skills for people are not as good as he thought, because he has a hard time deciphering Akira’s expression. Maybe it’s simply because it’s Akira. 

Shyly, Akira points to a large green face wash with a tiger on it and moves towards the body lotions without a word. 

Akechi’s next question should fall out of his mouth as effortlessly as the others. Instead, the questions that come, spin like a tape recorder in his mind. His own embarrassment slinks up his spine to exhale bright pink at his throat. Did I say something wrong? Was that too personal? I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. 

Akechi quickly follows behind him, mulling through six options, six strings of sentences, six possible— he runs smack into his back. Akira, ignoring the collision, whirls around to show off a lotion bottle with a weird character on the pump. He giggles at the yellow bottle. 

“Cute, no?” 

Instead of the seven dialogue options blaring inside of Akechi, hoping to god, banging on metal bars, an attempt to escape, Akechi, turns on Detective Prince, muscle memory, pleasantly smiles and agrees the stuffy is cute. Akira grins at him and puts the lotion in his hand basket. 

After some silence, he deduces, none of this happened to be reminiscent of the Detective Prince. Simply, the thought of hurting Akira made his insides seize. 

…Right?

He’d tell his therapist, but he’s missed games, secrets and frankly, privacy. And quite frankly, privacy couldn’t come at a more beautiful price than Akira. 

Akechi’s always loved aquariums. 

This time, Akechi arrived before Akira. This time, Akira initiated the meet up. It’s not that Akechi would ever deny him—there’s a part of him stuck at the edge of an opalescent oil spill—he did try to kill Akira. Regardless, of awkward teenage… rivalry? Friendship? Definitely not friendship. Is that really within the definitions of a murderer and a thief? 

Does Akira still see himself as a thief? 

That’s ridiculous, no. 

Though, Akechi will always be a murderer…He can’t call himself an ex-murderer.

(Humiliating enough, five years had passed and Akechi still felt something when the words Detective Prince came up in therapy. As a convicted felon, opprobrium coursed through his veins).

Whatever.

The. Point. Is:

Akechi did not deny him. He patiently waits in front of the tank with golden fish; his fingers posing as fake fish food as they swarm his hand. They wait to be fed with absolutely nothing. Mildly, Akechi finds it disturbing that their food is human flesh colored. Far more disturbing, if the food isn’t. 

“Surprised you wanted to meet here again.” He utters as  Akira reaches the tank. Akechi watches intently as he puts his hand up on the glass to match his own. The various golden fish swim from his hand to Akira’s. They gnaw at nothing in the water; incapable of biting their limbs or glass. “I can only stomach this place about once a year.” Honesty slips out. Bitterness, even. It presses up against the glass with his fingertips and misses the fish mouths by a centimeter and then a kilometer.

Honesty and bitterness are new to him. Well, new to the shape of his mouth. The Detective Prince was not known for love, laughter, and joy. 

Confused, Akira furrows his eyebrows, “I thought you liked the aquarium.”

“Oh,” Akechi chuckles softly, feeling something like his teenage self, “I do.” Akira’s frown deepens. “I have a hard time enjoying myself, is all.” He waves a hand, attempting to disregard his own truthfulness within the fake clownery in his own tone. 

Akira removes his hand from the glass, adjusting his glasses, “Ah, well,” Akechi’s not sure what’s so puzzling to Akira, but allows him to push through it without further commentary, “I hope you can enjoy today.” He sounds hopeful, Akechi ignores the sickly feeling moored at the edge of his stomach bile, “I figured you’d like to be asked to meet from time to time.” A large pause is filled with the sound of a child screeching at a stingray. “You know, so you’re not the only one asking—” 

“I never asked—”

“No, I know, you never said or asked such things.” Akira adjusts his glasses again. Abruptly, “Now, come on, we never look at the sharks long enough for my liking.” 

Leaving him stunned, Akira walks away from the golden fish obsessed with both of their hands. Akira never imposed his own… desires… on their meetings before this. Akechi manually attempts to restart his mind, short circuiting as he’s lost control and the upperhand. Not that these are of much importance for two regular men at an aquarium. 

Akechi finds himself questioning whether or not he’s the only one between the two of them stuck reliving the past. 

He refuses to answer his own question, scrambling up behind Akira, positioned in front of one of the more massive tanks in the aquarium. 

I didn’t know you liked sharks. 

Well, it’s not like you ever asked. 

I didn’t know you liked anything.

Well, it’s not like you found much out anyway. 

What comes out of Akechi’s mouth is much worse than anything rattling around in his stupid head, “You— you like sharks?” Akechi huffs out. Unable to apply indifference to Akira’s mild demands and assertions. 

“I do. Not a fanatic or anything, but their teeth are cool.” 

The sharks range from color and size. They looked cramped. Akechi feels cramped. He avoids looking at any of them. He rarely spends time at this exhibit. Found an unsettling fear of the dark water to be distracting from sleuthing. Well, that’s what his teenage self would say. Now, the only rhyme or reason he spends time at the aquarium as an adult is to meet with Akira. 

The large ones, he barely stands to look at without his skin crawling. Not that he’d dare admit this out-loud. 

Without fear, Akira puts his hands up against the glass. Hesitation proves he’s not completely unwary, lighter touch on the tank also proves this. Akechi follows his gaze, avoiding eye contact with the unblinking, overgrown prehistoric predatory fish. The sharks don’t do much of anything. They swim. Unlike the golden fish and their pirate genes obsessed with treasure (their fingers), the sharks do not swim towards either of them. Towards anybody. Here, the sunlight spills anywhere but the shark tank. Murky dark water hides the sharks until they’re so close, they might collide with their manmade cage. 

He catches Akira staring at him. A shark swims around Akira’s wrist, then back towards the unseen floor. When Akechi stares back, Akira swallows, “Do—um,” Akira’s index finger with the silver ring on it nervously digs into thumb, “Do you like sharks?” 

Under any other circumstance, this type of anxiousness would practically bore Akechi to death. If five years ago, someone told him the Leader of the Phantom Thieves would someday be shyly asking Akechi if he likes sharks, Akechi would have probably, quite literally, killed the person for thinking so low of his intelligence. 

Instead, the shyness, this timidness, causes Akechi to taste his own skittishness at the tip of his tongue. Causes his own hands to twitch. And when Akira’s face looks this ridiculous, how the hell could his ribs not pulverize to dust?

Sharpness, unlike apprehension, sticks and pokes at the back of his throat. He bites down on the left side of his cheek, hoping blood will mask the taste, this feeling. 

Before Akechi can gather his stupid little insides and stupid little machinations of his very detailed, stupid little fabricated inner world, to form a stupid little response, Akira beats him to it. “Sorry.” He rushes out. Uncharacteristic. 

If the aquarium tank did not contain water and sharks at least ten times their weight, Akechi believes their combined discombobulated discomfort could shatter it and drown them. This time, in the afterlife, Akechi would have to explain to his therapist, he did not win the gold in intuition. 

Akira is a repugnant shade of plum, and Akechi wishes he had a gun to shoot the side of the shark tank and have one of them devour him whole. 

“I’ve never really thought about liking sharks.” There’s a pointed edge to Akechi’s tone, a dulled kitchen knife able to cut through raw meat, but not a lime. The pointed edge slices the back of his throat, it sticks to his teeth on the way out, nicking his tongue when he speaks again, “I didn’t really… have… time…” Akechi lets himself trail off, afraid the knife stuck to the back of his teeth will slice his whole tongue in half. 

Despite the response, Akira remains as stoic and uncomfortable as Akechi feels. 

Plum shade.

Alongside discomfort, Akechi feels a nebulous black pit, pulsing in abdomen. Something impossible to shake. Deeper and monstrous. A pit ready to burst into a cosmos in the center of his gut. This cosmos swallows anything Akechi’s previously felt, leaving him with vile hollowness and guilt. 

Staring up at the sky, feeling death looming beside the stars as they leak into the night, spill as they die, Akechi’s stomached this before. This time, the existential process becomes internal. There is no water, no burst pipes with a plethora of stars beside them. There’s his gut and a void and the realization that his body harbors murder and strange affection. 

Next to all of this, irritation flares from somewhere higher—higher than the void, closer to his chest, lungs, heart and away from his stomach—Akira shouldn’t be apologizing to him. Ever. 

Akechi doesn’t have the energy to be a prince, or a star, or justice, or someone palpable and pretty and everything he was supposed to be. Everything he should have been, should be, can’t be. Whether rebellion was predestined or a part of whatever it means to grow, Akechi simplifies the math. He thinks there is more to life than stardom until explosion. 

Besides, at this point, his patrol officer, therapist, prosecutor, could say he already exploded. 

“Don’t apologize when you ask me things.” Akechi fixates his gaze on a pretty tiger shark, slithering through the water, this one hits the tank. This one, Akechi finds rather cute. “I don’t—” Akechi tries to find Akira’s face in the reflection of the tank, but only sees sharks, “I don’t think measuring our words makes sense. Like you said, we left silly costumes behind.” Akechi feels fear. Fear, because the tone of his voice contains honesty without bite; honesty with something Akechi would like to describe as corrupted, but the real terminology would be gentle.

Absent-mindedly, Akechi wonders if the aquarium keeps them safe. The water could bury them alive. The tanks protect their secrets. Sound proof from the world. It might be that his medicine can’t stop all the gushing, busted pipes. 

“I just didn’t think…” Akira scratches his forehead. “Never-mind.”

“Mmm?” 

Akechi inches closer, finally, placing his hand on the glass, sliding along it. Meeting Akira’s gaze intentionally and achieving the exact reaction he wanted to pry out of Akira: eyes slightly widening behind thick glasses. 

“I feel silly.” Akira says. Akechi leans his head on the shark tank, intently staring at Akira. “I know your… well, our meetings… are a part of your rehabilitation and recovery. So, it feels a bit silly to—"

“They’re not.” Akechi interrupts him. For the 100th time, startling himself with his own honesty. 

“I thought you said—”

“I lied.” Akechi purses his lips, “Well, no, I was lying to myself. Nobody asked me to do this. I’m doing this because I want to. You are intriguing. I do enjoy your company.”

Silence looms over them. Akira scans Akechi’s face. Not that Akechi blames him. Akechi always searches for deception. Between the two of them, all corners hide dark places around them. 

He breaks the silence, reassuring, “I wouldn’t have come today if it was for a probation officer.” The tone of his voice feels violent, but it tickles his ribs, soft and melodious, “You invited me, remember? If it was some rehab assignment, I’d tell you: some other time, Joker .” 

Stupid. 

But not, because Akira giggles. 

Akira grins sheepishly. Something like dimples. Something like burst strawberries, something like jellyfish and their gelatinous composition. “This level of honesty is kind of a jump-scare coming from you.” The sentence stings like a jellyfish would. Full of potential poison, ready to counteract whatever Akechi used to try and murder him with. Now, Akechi thinks he wouldn’t mind wading through toxic water. 

“Well, it’s either honesty or death for me.” 

This elicits a snort from Akira, “You love masks, costumes and theatrics too, you know.” Akira’s head leans up against the shark tank, mirroring Akechi. His glasses dig into his nose. The sharks don’t pay any mind. 

Akechi scoffs, “Of fucking course I do, do you think—” 

A girl with violet ribbons rams right into Akechi’s leg while blabbering excitedly.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry. Are you alright?” Akechi guesses it’s her mother, frazzled and worried, trailing a few steps behind her, “She’s so excited about the sharks.” 

He unsticks himself from the tank. “Ah, no trouble at all.” The woman frantically begins explaining away her daughter's behavior, but Akechi pays no mind. Fixated on Akira’s gaze. 

Slowly, Akira mirrors him again. Unsticks himself from the tank.Then, crosses in front of the little girl's mother and Akechi, barely an interruption. But, as he passes, he mutters into Akechi’s ear, “Onto the jellyfish, next, Detective Prince?” 

And how utterly stupid. How fragrantly silly. 

How many butterflies and moths could explode in his gut at once? 

His therapist might kill him for trailing behind a man he was so set on shooting, so set on dying for.

The jellyfish sway and smother each other in their faux limbs, their poisonous tentacles. The big ones are heavier and messier. The moon ones simply pulse and glow. Aurelia Aurita do actually glow. It protects them from predators. Akira and Akechi tell each other so. The same fact spewed from their mouths harmoniously. 

Akechi wants to choke on something unnamed at this point. Feeling so so so fucking stupid, Akechi thinks about drowning himself in the jellyfish tank. Might as well poison himself with something. 

“Your hair kind of reminds me of these.” Akira points to the larger ones, spilling over each other. Akechi wonders if this is what his guts look like intertwined. He ignores the thought and throws Akira a look. “Obviously, not fully.” Akira says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, continues tracing the glass with his finger pointed at the jellies and their tentacles, “If you put some pink in your hair, it’d help the situation, but you’ve got the tentacles and longer strands now.” 

Akechi rolls his eyes. 

Akira smirks with dimples. 

Akechi wants to explode imperfectly. 

“Sojiro still runs this place?” Akechi glances over the counter. Leblanc is more crowded than usual, dim lights reflecting off the tops of people’s heads. 

Akira nods into his coffee. “He still lets me work on the weekends.” He sips the liquid, “Frankly, it’s nice because University is a bit hectic.”

Akechi blinks, “Shouldn’t you have graduated by now?” He aims to keep the judgement out of his tone, but fails terribly, because Akira snorts into his coffee. 

“You know, you’re not the only one who… well,” Akira falters, sucks on his teeth, “Needed time.” 

“Yeah, but you weren’t incarcerated.” 

“Well, technically—”

“Semantics.” 

Akira finds this all very amusing. Clearly. The dimples, like the moon; the dim lights, like the song; the coffee, like the conversation; Akechi like… like something to be defined by someone he can’t figure out. Akira sips the coffee again. “Right, semantics.” 

“What are you studying?” 

Akira groans half-heartedly, “Chemistry.” 

The response is shockingly normal. Apparently, it shows on his face. This honesty he harbors could be dangerous. Akira laughs into his cup. “Yes, I’m being serious. Don’t look so…” Akira practically giggles. 

“So boring for an ex-thief.” Akechi can’t help himself— a sly teasing sneaks into his tone. Akira lowers his cup. 

“Oh? Should I have gone into something more interesting?” 

“Hmm, I guess chemistry is still a surprise to me.” 

“So it’s intriguing enough for you?” Akira’s eyes glint in the light, “My ego couldn’t fathom you thinking I’m boring because I’m not your number one suspect anymore." 

Akechi thinks his therapist would define this as living in the past. Akechi wants to define this as a personal obsession that Akira is toying with. Luckily, his therapist is out of the picture. Luckily, his obsession is personal—as if he’s still trying to uncover the Joker in broad daylight, as if he’s still a puppet on a string, as if he has a call to answer from somewhere violent. 

“It did take me by surprise.” 

“So it’s good enough for you?” 

Akechi wants to break his coffee cup. He’s obsessed with… with… this . He’ll keep it from his therapist forever, if it means Akira speaks to him like this. There’s something rooted in Akira’s gaze. Winding and intricate and moored to an undefined piece of time. 

It’s almost as if Akira is looking to find Akechi guilty and it drives him wild. The place above the cosmos in his stomach, hammering and asking questions without logical answers. Akechi remains neutral, nevertheless. 

Underneath the lungs, beneath the internal existential cosmos, there’s a separate urge. An urge to be messy. Like the larger jellyfish spilling their limbs over one another. He wants to mutter you’re always good enough for me, but thank god for the cosmos and the lungs finding that to be repulsive and unacceptable. If he ever, he might see his guts spilling over the table. He’d rather keep them inside for now, thank you very much. 

“Satisfactory.” Akechi takes his own coffee and focuses on the bitter taste sliding on his tongue and down his throat instead of Akira’s eyes. 

Akechi could be imagining it, but the look reminds him of a day in Mementos. 

Something like carelessness; adrenaline and dopamine fueled. 

That day, Akira allowed Akechi to lead a party. Typically, Akira never allowed a party to engage in a fight without him. With his use of multiple Persona’s, he had to be there in case anything got too dicey. But that day, for some reason, he let Akechi take his place. At the time, Akechi thought it was to watch him—Akira was never stupid, he had to have known about Akechi, even early on. Though, eyeing from afar wasn’t necessarily Akira’s style. Akira was blunter than that and not much of a liar. Joker was elusive, but nobody really could call Akira a liar. 

The current look in his eyes reminds him of the masked Joker. Staring at him as Crow took Queen, Morgana, and Panther headfirst, into a relatively complicated opponent who mastered the use of Psio. 

Truthfully, the entire scenario had pissed Akechi off. Akira didn’t relish in the type of cruelty that Akechi used to, but, the whole thing was rather humiliating. Especially after he was attacked with forgetful curses. Thus, leading him to forget how to use his Persona. Akira had observed curiously, without judgement. 

Riddled with forget and maybe one of his mass delusions, afterwards, Akechi was forcefully yanked aside by Akira. He made up some excuse pretending they were counting loot. 

Staring at him. The way he’s staring at him over coffee. 

Not wide eyed, not dimpled, not the moon, not the poison jellyfish, not like the creases in origami paper, not like withered leaves or the rush of murmuring water. The look didn’t look like anything Akechi’s seen. 

At seventeen, seventeen felt like the curiosity of a cat and the first slope of a water slide. At twenty-three, he can’t pick apart the feeling from idiocy. 

Regardless, this look Joker gave him in Mementos turned into something kind of frantic. 

“You probably won’t remember if I do this.” Joker had ushered out, a bit incoherent, a bit drunk. A corner with shadows behind it. “I can cure you. Right now. Before…’ 

Crow had shaken his head, refusing the medicine, patient, irritated. 

“You want to forget?” Joker’s voice cracked, eyes almost pained, but that look did not disappear. 

“Well, it really depends on what you’re planning to do. By the looks of it, you could murder me.” Crow shrugged. Keeping nonchalance. 

Joker’s eyes had flashed with emotions that Akechi had decided to refuse to decipher in his spare time. 

Looking back, he should have. 

Akira tugged at Crow’s mask, pulling it off and using gloved nimble fingers to push loose strands of Akechi’s hair behind his ears. Akechi stood very still. Holding his breath. Joker, with precise movements, closed the gap between the two of them. With something painful, something like a jaw-breaker candy, he pressed his mouth to the right corner of Akechi’s. Akechi’s entire chest cavity constricted, spit out bile into his lungs and felt it burn. Though, he didn’t shove him away. He remained still. Joker’s mouth moved from the right side of his lips, trailed four peppered kisses onto his jaw. He inhaled sharply, then, roughly, awkwardly, shoved his mouth against Akechi’s right in the middle. 

And again, with something painful, like the split edge of a lollipop, Joker pulled away without looking at Akechi. 

“Here.” Joker threw a mauve tinted bottle behind him. “Cure for the forgetfulness.” 

Akechi had sipped the drink, but never forgot the look in Akira’s eyes. Never forgot the boyish kiss; nothing shy, nothing ashamed, unambiguously sore. 

Refused to forget. 

Akira never did anything of the sort again, never looked at him like that again, never brought it up. Probably assuming Akechi literally forgot. 

He did not. So he learns a new move, harnessing a new weapon. Idiocy at twenty-three did not come cheap. 

“Don’t look at me like that.” Akira startles Akechi’s nostalgia-soaked thoughts by speaking. The look in his eyes has disappeared, the present clouding the past, like the cream poured into his coffee. 

Akechi isn’t used to the assertiveness in Akira’s voice. Especially not directed at him. Past Akechi would have found a way to one-up him or even try to humiliate him. Present Akechi wants to ask him why and what his face looks like. How on earth is he supposed to hide anything if his newfound honesty leads him to… honesty?

“Well then, don't look at me like that.” Petulance is back. Akechi wants to feel horrified for his lack of charm and honesty, but instead feels molten liquid fill the space between his lungs and stomach. 

“Like what?” Akira snorts without humor. 

“Like the time you kissed me in Mementos.” 

Now, horror strikes Akira’s features. Checkmate. So, sue him, Akechi will always love games and weapons. 

Akira picks at a hangnail, “I didn’t think you remembered that.” He mutters softly. He stares down at his hands, shifting the mood instantaneously. 

At least has the decency to compose himself from horror, Akechi thinks quite nastily, regardless of personal embarrassment. “Those forget curses didn’t work that well on my memory. Just abilities.” Akechi explains calmly. “Not that I ever told anyone.” He adds lightly. 

“Well,” Akira sighs, composure smacking his face, something like charm and everything of a pretty, deadly, jellyfish, “Who could have blamed me? Hormonal teenager and all that adrenaline.” 

It’s possible, all the therapy in the world couldn't fix Akechi, who loved to see Akira squirm. In the realm of this possibility, logically, it means he should leave their meet-ups in a dumpster, disappear from Tokyo, and never show his face again. What this possibility fails to acknowledge is that Akechi feels good. Sure, there’s cosmic guilt floating around in a half-glass full of bullshit, but Akechi feels good. 

And sure, he felt good with blood staining his hands, but this good is different. 

Akira continues to speak, and Akechi realizes he’s nervous— how the hell could he not feel like he won the lottery, “You did handle a gun well. Of course, I was dying for a kiss from the Detective Prince.” 

This particular comment opens up a few options in front of him. He’ll swear up and down to his therapist that he’s taking his medication, but some habits are harder to kick than psychotic delusions. Hearing voices is one thing, old neural pathways are another. (His therapist would hate this comment). 

Quickly, he chooses to deflect. “Glad to hear you got it out of your system then.” He ignores whatever concoctions his brain creates out of thin air. He can’t be the one shooting the pistol anymore. Not without the puppet strings, and since those are well cut and loose, who’s performing the show? (His therapist would love this comment). 

Akechi spins his coffee cup on the floral plate with his pinky. He focuses on the flowers instead of voices in his head telling him to force Akira to admit that he’s still into him. 

There’s no reasoning there. He doesn’t actually know this. 

It’s not that Akira has ever, ever, been dying for a kiss. From anyone, for the record, as a matter-of-fact, just to wipe the slate clean. It’s just that he’s the mirror image of Akechi. Once, Akechi told him he’s endlessly interesting and intriguing, and what everyone and their mother failed to notice is that Akira felt the same way about Akechi. 

Morgana often joked that if Joker became any more obsessed with having Crow in the party, specifically right beside him, they’d have to start taking five people and not four. Morgana used to say: Crow doesn’t count. 

So, no, Akira wasn’t dying for a fucking kiss. Akira was dying to learn something. Curiosity, willingly killing the internal cat, and Crow, the pretty bird, Akechi, was endlessly interesting and charming to him. 

Everyone and their mother failed to recognize this, but everyone and their mother had to know. Specifically, Akechi, Detective Prince himself, had to have known Akira was lit ablaze with the TV personality. How else could he have died at his hand? 

Akira wasn’t looking for a kiss. Akira got rewarded with a bullet for wanting to spend hours talking to the Prince. The Prince who was made up of mostly lies, cognitive distortions, puppet strings, and hints of psychosis. Although he heard it many times, during the five years in which Akechi Goro disappeared, died, Akira would wander the streets of Kichijoji alone looking for a ghost. 

Akira used to do just about anything to get a genuine laugh out of Akechi. He doesn’t know if it was ever genuine or real, how much of anything was real, but he tried. Back then, the crow belonged to the cage, and right now, Akira isn’t sure the crow has been set free. 

Not that any of this is of any real consequence. Akechi’s seated across from him. Potentially borderline flirting with him. The Detective Prince did not flirt. Regardless of external perception. But this Akechi Goro? This one might. 

Akira’s taken back, with stale drool pooling under his tongue, because once again, he could not beat his favorite rival in a figurative game of chess. Might as well get shot in the head. 

Akira discards everything. 

This Akechi Goro is not the same teenager he knew. Last Wednesday, against Sojiro and himself, this Akechi Goro lost at a hand of Poker and handed over his chips with a chuckle and without a death threat. 

This Akechi Goro delicately, oh so carefully, placed a soft blues record on the phonograph at Leblanc. All because the old man asked him to. 

When Sojiro asked him for the recommendation, surprise flitted across his face. Akechi had even looked at the man for praise. Softness dabbed on his face, his hands tying themselves in knots over and over, until Sojiro hummed happily. 

The Thursday before that, Akechi Goro asked Akira to accompany him for ice cream. Over the phone, he said they were finally selling flavors previously unavailable to Japan. 

Akira learned a lot about the Prince who claimed to be simply doing his job, learned a lot about a man whose full-time personality was performing. All pretentiousness and immaculate taste to impress… impress someone distant, someone neither of them knew. And though Akira could say he knew that puppet very well, he was still shocked when unfeigned, unfiltered delight broke through his eyes and expression after tasting the ice cream. The happiness lacked charm and frills. Lacked meanings to persuade. Simply elated over ice cream. 

Maybe Akechi is the boy Akira eternally dies for, the one Morgana would never let him live down.

At last, Akira would admit, to everyone and their mother, that he will always take the chance of a bullet just to learn something. 

“We should leave the past, in the past.” Akira murmurs thoughtfully after the comment from Akechi. “Not to sound… cliché.” 

Akechi frowns into his cup. Feeling stuffy as resentment boils past the point of his now room temperature coffee. Easy for him to say. Very easy for him to say when his past didn’t control the present and future. Very easy when Akira did not have a probation officer and a therapist talking about psychotic rehabilitation. Akechi wants to snap. 

“Wait, sorry.” Akira mumbles quickly, before Akechi feels the irate rope strangle him. “That might be unfair.” There’s a chance Akira smelled the gas in the air and blew out the match. 

Akechi sucks on his teeth, “Eh, I teased you about the kiss.” Anger deflates like an animal balloon deflating into something paper-y, ugly, and deformed. “Technically, I started it.” 

Akira’s eyes flicker to his but don’t land there. They go back to the walls and tables. 

“You were stiff as a board, I should have asked if you enjoyed it.” 

“We should leave the kiss in the past.” Akechi’s reassures and this elicits a loud laugh from Akira. 

“Alright. Fine. How’s the coffee?” Akira’s grin widens. 

Akechi can’t help himself and snorts, “Well, much like the past, I still shamelessly enjoy when you make me a cup of coffee.” 

“Good. You should stop by more often.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” 

There are plenty of cups of coffee. More or less, anyone could serve Akechi a decent cup of coffee and he’d be semi-pleased. 

Not that Akira’s been paying attention, but without the Detective Prince running the show, almost anything, and yes, anything, piqued Akechi’s interest. Sometimes, he’d try to hide it, other times, the novelty practically seized his facial features without warning. 

Instead of an attempt to get Akechi to laugh, Akira started trying to find out what would please Akechi the most. The scent of tiger balm? The sensation of it during a bad headache? Mocha or caramel? A cat? Vending machine mandarin soda or white? 

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise when Akira realizes that still, after five years, what pleases Akechi the most, is winning. The game can’t be easy. The circumstances cannot be boring. It must be challenging for him. Requiring strategy and outwitting. 

The look on Akechi’s face was unlike any other. 

The moonlight is pulpy again. This time its innards indiscriminately splatter on the grass at Inokashira park. They did not end up at Sometime, they ended up seated in some lawn . Without asking, Akechi creates a storyboard in his head where Akira can’t bare the sight of dim low lights, a man in a hat plucking a bass, and being seated next to someone who wanted to kill him five years ago, who also indiscriminately requests for a sip from his Espresso Martini. 

It’s funny. To him. 

Akira is unusually quiet. This would unsettle Akechi, but he’s far too used to discomfort to try and prod. 

“I never looked for you.” Akira confesses quietly. (See, he never needs much prodding). 

Admittedly, Akechi refuses to admit he’s shocked. He knows this. Of course, he knows. It clicks like a clock inside of him and only rings if he, himself, has set the alarm. 

There’s pretty water at the park. It’s all shiny and diamond-like. It tries to reflect the moon, but mostly fails and appears like scrunched grey dough. Akechi prefers mirror-water. Without the mirror-water, he can’t see anything. 

Akira continues, “I don’t know why I didn’t.” 

I know why. Do you? I might know why? But, do you? 

There’s velvet and nighttime in Akira’s voice, “It seemed like it would complicate things for me in my head. I wanted you to be alive, but I didn’t know—” Akira sounds like he’s in pain. 

That might be the one thing Akechi truly can’t stand. The desire his past self craved, splinters at the present. Split like a serrated blade taken to the bark of a tree. 

“We can leave this in Mementos too, you know.” Akechi barely recognizes his voice. Since being around Akira again, this routinely happens. Maybe, after months, he’s beginning to like it. 

“Well, unlike a kiss, this one’s more complicated.” 

“So, shoot.” Jokingly, possibly like the performing fraud he is, he makes a gun from his hand and points it at Akira’s chest and mimics a gunshot.  

“I guess you were the one I couldn’t bear to let die, and then I sort of— well, let you die.” 

“I did try to kill you.” The humor decays in his mouth. 

“Yes, but—”

“Forget the reasoning, that’s a fact.” 

“Yes, but—”

“How could I expect anything from you after what I did?” Akechi raises his voice mildly, agitated, without a watery reflection of the sky, without dewy grass staining his pants, without the haloed whisper of the trees, deserted with the stale cool air and Akira furiously fidgeting beside him. 

Akechi picks a scab until it bleeds. “Do you expect me to be— heartbroken—all because you didn’t look for me? You’re smarter than that.” Malice tastes good in his mouth again.

“No, I—”

“It took me months to convince myself to ask you to meet for coffee.” The air rustles the grey-doughy water. It looks worse as it’s spread flatter. “I had your number for months.” 

“Akechi, wait, listen to m—”

It’s too late, Akechi feels the tug of the ocean from the moon, “ You never owed me anything! You never owed anyone anything! Everyone owed you!” He feels bile rise up in his throat, deep from within the corroding clustered remains of the Detective Prince. “Everyone owed you their life because you could save them! And you could be who you had to be!” Childishness, it turns out, has roots in caverns left without maintenance. “I thought you already knew this! It’s not like I was keeping that many secrets by my imminent time of death, anyway. So, why, for th—”

“I missed you, you murderous asshole.” 

“W-what–”

“I missed you.” 

“T-that’s not–”

“I told you to listen.” 

Akechi doesn’t want to listen. “What’s there to fucking miss?” It’s out of his mouth before anyone can stop himself. Apparently, psychotherapy, medication and a few years in a couple institutions didn’t stop insecurity from rearing its ugly head. Pity. 

Akira blinks at him owlishly. Apparently, simmering in vexation, Akechi rose to his feet to throw his tantrum. Direct it at the moon’s sky without stars and the displeasing views of Inokashira Park at the hour before midnight. 

Makoto, after he was properly introduced, entertained him with the story of Helen of Troy. He knew the story, but he vaguely wonders if Helen yelled at the moon. Wondered if Artemis took time to offend or if the offense spawned from light, petty cursing. Helen offended everyone. Why would the moon care? 

Akechi swallows an incandescent thickness, possibly pride, “I’m sorry.” He presses clammy palms to his pants, “Don’t answer that. I’m sorry.” 

Akira’s still owl-esque. He should hoot for the sake of his large eyes behind thick frames. Akechi composed himself enough to sit down. The moon isn’t too offended—she’s baking the water in a buttery hue. 

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. 

Instead of morphing into a night-time bird of prey, Akira says, “I just missed you.” He pauses, waiting for a reaction, but Akechi stills with the air, “I’m mad at myself because I’ve missed you this entire time, but for some reason I convinced myself I was angry. I think I lacked the courage to find you.” 

Bitterly, Akechi can’t help himself again, “Unfortunately, my irrational, unfair question still stands.” 

Akira huffs out a humorless laugh, “Well, for one, I got my chess partner back.” 

“That’s not good enough.” 

“You’ve always been hard to please, remember?” Akechi scoffs and meets his gaze, Akira’s grinning, then he shifts, leaning towards him, “You weren’t the only one looking for someone to match your wits.” 

“Yes, but you weren’t casually looking to torture people mentally.” He responds flatly. Attentatively ignoring the curly pieces of black hair halo and crowning Akira’s head in tandem with the buttery moon.

“Stop arguing with me, Prince. You know it wasn’t casual for you either.”

“I’m not just going to let you—” That thick, blistering pride clogs in his throat again, “Let you–” He’s left the oven on and touched the flame plenty of times, he swallows the hairball, spills drain-o down the pipes, “Let you forgive me.” 

“I did it years ago.” Akira is easy like the moon. Artemis might be easy to offend, but the moon, her moon? The moon spreads, melts, and burns like butter. 

“You’ll never let me properly apologize to you, will you?” 

Akira shakes his head, “No, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t forgive you. Besides, I don’t know if I’d let you apologize if I hadn’t forgiven you.” 

Akechi’s psychotherapist told him forgiveness is about the internal process. He’s heard this idea before. Read about it. Nothing made it palpable. Nothing mashed it into logic for him to apply. 

“So, I’m sorry, because I didn’t look for you.” Akira says with finality. 

Irrelevantly, a voice inside Akechi wonders if anyone apologized to Helen of Troy. If Helen deserved the apology. If the Trojans deserved the win based on the artifact of beauty. Did Achilles have to die? 

There are a few tellings of what happened to Helen after the Trojans lost. 

Helen’s fate, in all her glorious, going-to-war-type of beauty, ended in death or living in Sparta until age killed her and Menelaus.   

Both were cages. 

Shame, Aphrodite didn’t see the urge to save her from any of these fates. Nobody saved her from becoming Helen of Troy, instead of Helen of Sparta. Nobody really did anything. Other than fight over her.

What happens when a war rages for you? For your hand? Only for you not to have a choice in the hand you grab? 

Akechi’s always wondered how many hands were offered to Helen. Not the ones in marriage. Akechi wonders if Helen didn’t get the choice to save herself. Akechi wonders if it was her nastiness that murdered her before they took that horse to storm the city. Before a ten year war that ended in a tragedy without the tragedy. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t come back to you sooner.” Akechi decides to reply with a different type of apology. One without the bloodstains. 

Owl-Akira is back. This time pink paints his ears. 

In order for justice to be fair, justice needs to be honest. “I didn’t think I deserved it.” Akechi refuses to choke on this pride. 

Like confusion about Helen, what happened to Penelope? Did Odysseus have to beg for her forgiveness? Did they tell each other they waited on shorelines, yearning for one another? Did Odysseus love Circe? Does it matter? Is the miracle that Odysseus was alive after all that time enough for Penelope? 

iv.

(The intricacies of kissing a boy who wears cute sweater vests in an aquarium. This is how you write a deathbed. This is what happens after seven years of digestion).

After two years, those golden fish continue to come up to the glass, for the prospect that they’ll eat out of Akira’s hand. After two years, Akechi might have to say the same about himself. After large lulls, each of them battling what could probably be described as forgiveness, they had settled into a better, more refined routine. 

At least once a week, Akechi and Akira grabbed a cup of coffee, went to the aquarium, and talked endlessly for hours. Akechi told Akira about therapy and the institutions, the probation officers and jail time. They talked about the past, they left the past in the past, let the past swirl with the present and the future, they let the past sit comfortably beside them. At least, Akechi did. That’s how Akechi made peace. 

Akechi made peace with Akira’s golden hands, the golden fish desiring food out of them. 

Today, they spend time with the penguins. The penguins are silly. Silly enough for the two of them to laugh. 

The thunder rattles Akira’s apartment window. Boy shuffled, traded and molded attic trash into a 東京の6畳半 ( Tokyo no roku-jo han) . There’s incense exhaling its last sigh by the bedroom window. The bed still, like seventeen, shoved up against the wall and window. The crumbs of used incense pile like ant homes. 

Akira’s sheets have black cats on them. There’s clouds and cats and stars. Some habits are hard to kick, some habits turn into who you are. Akechi lays on the corner of the bed by the opening of the window. Feeling it rattle and shake each time thunder splits the sky. It’s that hour before midnight. The hour Akechi usually wants to begin heading home. Instead, he intently watches Akira put his book down and pull another incense out of frail packaging by the tip and slide it into the holder. He lights it, blows it out and returns to his book. 

Akechi’s own book lies discarded on his lap. He’s been going back and forth from a sentence about Antigone’s pent-up rage to Akira’s soft humidity curled hair. Altogether right now, the book lays forgotten about. The rain catches his attention, more than Antigone. Anything could catch his attention. Shiny and new. Anything worth a cent that’s not the glint of Akira’s glasses. Anything that’s not the sound of his fingers gently turning a page.

Antigone isn’t doing a very good job of keeping his attention away from a twin-sized mattress and two bodies configured atop it. 

Akechi’s cramped up against the window. Akira is cramped in the corner on the other side of it. It rattles with thunder and lighting again. There’s rattling. Good thing they’re not afraid of thunder-dark, cloudy-dark. Maybe, in general, Akechi isn’t afraid of the dark anymore. 

Akechi could lay out bodies, ones of which are dead, by his hands, between the two of them. Lie their coffins in a row and perform a séance, perform a funeral. Akechi curses the window first, then himself, then puts the bodies to rest in his mind and curses his father. 

Akira is impartial to the staring. Just like he’s impartial to the sweets. 

Neither of them are impartial to the dead bodies, so closing the space, or wanting to slam a door in its face, can’t appeal to Akechi’s senses too much. 

He goes back to Antigone. 

But he can’t. Not fully. Her rage doesn’t satisfy. There’s a clicking the rain carries, triggering the internal clock that Akechi sets himself. It’ll go off. 

Shit. 

He has to focus on Antigone. 

Antigone wants to bury her brother, but her father is her punishment. Antigone wants to bury her brother, but her sister is crying in the room next over. Antigone wants to bury her brother, but she hangs in a wedding veiled noose. Antigone wants to bury her brother, her betrothed and his mother die too. Antigone wants to bury her brother, but Akechi wants to clasp the window between his hands, slide against the wall, touch the halo made by black curls and then disappear into the thunderstorm. 

The alarm clock turns into a voice. Antigone and her wishes of burying her dead brother are set aside. 

“Do you have the fruit from earlier?” 

Akira, for the first time in minutes, blinks rapidly, tearing his gaze away from Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. 

“We only have the apples left.” 

“Yes, those.” 

“You want them?”

“Yes, please.” 

Akira eyes him carefully for a second too long. At first, Akechi’s worried he’s gained the ability to read his mind. Gained the ability to see Antigone will never be as interesting as the pulsating artery in his throat. 

He moves to fetch the apples. Akechi bites down on his cheek, attempting to control thoughts and appetites not discussed in therapy. 

Like he’s afraid Akira’s gained the ability to read his mind, he’s afraid the urge for killing someone has returned. Bloodthirsty is not a good sensation after seven years sober. There’s a thrum to his pulse, incoherence to his thoughts, he feels controlled and restrained and also squashed and splintered open like a broken wooden chair. 

Blood thirst didn’t feel like this. He’d argue he’s never really been ravenous like this. 

This feeling takes him by surprise, this feeling shatters his molars like a peach pit would. This feeling is only familiar in short bursts. The feeling has only been active around Akira. 

It’s driving him nuts.

Akechi has been planning for decades. Planning under the guise of someone else’s intricate plans, planning for escape, planning out the way he’s going to design himself into what a healthy person is supposed to be and look like. Akira has been in his plans before. Not like this, though. This feeling leaves his plans scattered and doomed and crumpled and on fire. This choking, can’t-focus-on-Antigone-feeling leaves Akechi without a way to cope. 

“You like him?” 

“What?” Akechi, incredulous, stops speaking, a cosmic sized hole opening in his mouth. Gaping at his psychotherapist who’s usually talking to him about things that feel less than human. Not human emotions related to content-ness or… or…

Akechi blames his therapist for the silly, stupid, little idea. The idea that he likes. That he’s even capable of human liking. This is not in his detailed plan. This is an ideological mishap. 

But he knows, like the desire for Antigone to bury her brother, Akechi knows. The one person who got in the way of his precision, his anal, tenacious, exhaustive and meticulous planning before, is now ripping at the pages of his notebooks again. And it’s not his fault, but Akechi wants to blame him and shoot him in the head and scratch out multiple pages in his mental check-list of what it means to be human, so he could gain a sliver of hope that he could touch him. 

What. 

But he knows this. It’s not a question of what, or who, or why. 

(I should have kissed you back. Never became a Prince, just to put my hands around your neck to feel your pulse). 

Unlike Antigone’s defiance, Akechi remains silent. Akira brings him apples and all Akechi can do is grip the bowl, feel the skin of the apples before he pops them into his mouth. Feel them erupt and chew them methodically and slowly. All he can do is stare. That’s all he’s ever been capable of. Plan and stare. And make plans around not staring. Make plans to focus on Antigone. Make plans to keep his fucking mouth shut. Make plans to learn to be obedient, not defiant. 

No, that’s not the solution.

How could he not defy? When Akira smells like the mint and chamomile leaves sprouting and growing out of the school fence by his apartment. How could he forget the way Akira stares at him, like many years behind a mask? Maybe it’s the Joker and his obsession with the Prince, with Crow. Yet, there’s a voice that protests. 

Eventually, after intentionally fixating on the apples crushing in his mouth, he returns to Antigone. He ignores that Akira climbed under the cat, cloud, star comforter pressed his feet under Akechi’s thighs. 

Akechi ignores it all. 

Eventually, when Akira falls asleep reading, he pulls his glasses off, steals a throw blanket, and climbs onto the small mustard yellow couch across the room and drifts off to the small snores coming from Akira. 

He ignores it, until he fucking can’t. 

He’s had far too much to drink. The road slides to the one side of his vision, following the train dropping them off at a 70 degree angle. After a few blinks, it’s upright again. It was in neither of their plans to drink, but they both like winning the game of persuasion, so both of them are five cocktails deep with a case of beer hanging lazily from Akira’s fingers. 

Akechi doesn’t know if he can stomach anymore alcohol, but he’ll die before allowing Akira to outdrink him. There’s no way in hell he’ll let Akira take this one. His drunk thoughts slide around with his vision, slide around with missteps. Akira giggles and it sounds like the echo of an airplane. He accidentally knocks into him as they walk home from the convenience store. The road shimmers with car headlights, car headlights imprint in Akechi’s vision, the halo of curls around Akira’s imprints there too. 

Once they’re in the apartment, they meander to the bed, plop down, the beer case jumping with their weight and laughter. 

“No, no she was definitely interested in you.” Akira giggles, fiddling with the cardboard to flick the box open. 

“Whatever. It’s not like it matters. ” 

This, for some reason, is absolutely hilarious to Akira. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” He cracks open one can and hands it to Akechi. He pops one open for himself as well. “Look, in the two years since we’ve become friends… again… not once have you shared anything about a date.” 

If Akechi didn’t think the night was going to end up with him blackout drunk, he’d end the conversation here. Truthfully, he scribbled all over his plans weeks ago at the aquarium when Akira knocked his head against his and said that he still thinks he looks like a large jellyfish. I still think some pink would be… he had paused, reached his hand up to a strand and played with it gently, be sweet. 

Since then, not even Antigone and her wishes to bury her dead brother were enough for Akechi to distract himself from Akira’s haphazard warm limbs. 

“Since when have I ever told you about dates?” Akechi scoffs, uncrossing his legs to kick Akira in the shin. “Since when is that something that’s ever been important to me?” Akechi takes a swig of beer. Ignoring that honesty makes him kind of nauseous and the alcohol makes the room spin.  

Ebb and flow. Water lapping, moving. Ebb and flow. 

Akira eyes him; something like dimples, something like maraschino cherries, something like a squashed plum between sticky fingers in the summertime. Something like an irritation he wants to blame on the alcohol. 

“I thought she was pretty.” Akira says, through the aluminium can of the beer. He takes a tentative sip. 

Akira must have learned the tactics of manipulation, because that sentence evokes bitterness instantaneously. That sentence pisses Akechi off. This catches his attention. This could cause him to show Akira his scratched up planner notes, because surprise! I said I hated you, but I’m in love with you! Sorry! 

No.

That’s the alcohol. 

“Then, you ask her out.” He says evenly. Accusatory. 

“Akechi, I’m not interested in her.” Akira laughs like this is so very funny; Akechi missed the joke somewhere between the third clear drink and the walk to the convenience store from the train station. 

“You haven’t mentioned any dates that I can recall.” Akechi says with a lilt. Forcing it back at Akira.

“Fair play.” 

“Then, truce?” Akechi suggests airily. One more beer and he’ll see stars on the ceiling. 

“Eh? You’re giving up! That easily? That might be my best win by far!” Elated, Akira raises his beer, spilling lightly and nearly giggling into Akechi’s shoulder. “Call me a winner, then.”

“You’re an idiot, is what you are.” 

“Don’t be so cruel.” 

Akechi prods him off his shoulder. Ignoring the heat from his forehead, the heat from his breath, the way his weight collapsed on him while drunk. He wills himself to ignore all of it. 

“You have to claim I won, Akechi.” Akira slurring is soft, he sits up right and takes another sip of beer that tastes like water. Akechi also willingly ignores the way his name sounds like cotton in his mouth. Feels like pepper flakes in his own mouth. 

“You didn’t win. We’re not done playing.” 

“No?” 

“No.” 

“Rules and regulations? Intel?” Akira flashes a Joker grin, sets his can down on a bright red bedside table, puts his fingers up to his face like a mask and cocks his head sideways. There’s bright red in his hair from one of his CD’s glinting off the light, bright red bedside table, bright red pounding, bloody heart. Pumping vein in his neck. 

And he’s been in love with him forever. Since before he recognized red masks and cages built by other people. Since before the light touched the floor in front of the caged, hinged door. Since before he read about Helen of Troy and her lack of choices and her many choices. It’s the alcohol, it’s the red light, it’s the goofy grin. It’s the heat climbing up his neck, sliding out from under his shirt, radiating in the arteries in his neck, pulsing hard in chest. 

“No games.” Akechi says as firmly as he can manage while drunk. 

Akira’s holding on to his every word. There’s gears clicking and turning in the other’s head, as if he’s caught on to the name of the game, the one they can’t name without throwing it to oncoming traffic. The one they’d have to leave bruised and battered after it shattered a car window. Akechi can’t get any rules out. Can’t get anything out. His mouth feels like sandpaper. 

It’s a good thing that one of them learned how to lead properly. “What do you want?” The question is tentative. Like he figured out it’s not about a pretty girl in a red dress at the bar or the crimson staining every facet of the room. There’s something jagged and with drops of sadness in his voice. “Akechi, are you okay?” 

Drunken seriousness is never serious. Akechi wants to laugh and also cry and then tell a boy he wanted to kill that he wants to kiss him over and over and over until it's perfect, until the red in the room turns a blush, until he memorizes what his teeth taste like without his mouth. 

“I–” The beer can melts to water in his palm. The room stops spinning and turns 30 degree angles like a DJ’s record player. 

Don’t look at me like that. Don’t stare. You're doe-eyed, you’re sleepy eyed, you’re drunk-eyed. Your silver eyes are like the moon and I hate that. I don’t hate that at all. And fuck this alcohol. If I throw it up, do the feelings go with it? 

“Akechi?” 

“I didn’t think the girl from the bar was pretty.” Akechi states this, Akira doesn’t need to think this is the wrong type of crisis. 

Confusion spreads over Akira’s features, then concern again, “Oh, hey, I’m sorry that was a bad joke, I was just—” 

“No—it’s okay, I—” Akechi bites down hard on the inside of his cheek. Praying this blood satisfies the thirst for it. It doesn’t. He curses someone. Maybe Helen of Troy. Helen of Troy had choices. Did she? “Fuck.” He breathes out. Gently, as gently as his drunk self allows, he sets the can on the bright red table by Akira’s. “I don’t know how—” He stops himself before he gets any stupider than he is.

Ebb and flow. Water filled in his head. 

And Akira’s eyes are like personal moon’s and it makes Akechi sick. He blinks, still watching him with sweetness; something like slightly warm cherry soda. Then, in his stupor, an idea lights up in front of him. 

“You’ll answer honestly if I ask you a question, right?” Authority rings back into his voice, settling back into his bones. “Right?” He repeats, keeping desperation at an arm’s length. 

“Of course.”

“Do you trust me?” Akechi asks. Frantic. This is the answer he needs. More than any other question he still has for the boy who loved masks, the boy he was dying to kill. 

“Yes. Of course.” It comes easily. 

It seems Akechi’s desperation bursts at the seams within the fabric of his clothes and bones, he swallows the peppery taste in his mouth, feeling salvation rising from the red in the room. Akechi can’t imagine how he looks, but Akira’s staring at him with wide eyes, mouth slightly parted. The look from Mementos flickering on his face on and off like the blue flame of a candle at an altar in the dark. 

Akechi moves before he blows out the candle himself. Grabs Akira’s hands with one of his own, pushing them down into the bed between his crossed pretzel legs. Akira doesn’t jerk away. 

Softly, Akechi admits, more to the red in the room and the moon in Akira’s eyes, “I should have tried this the first time.” He moves in slowly, examining the way Akira’s eyelashes flutter, the way his breath catches in his ribcage, the way he begins to squirm. 

And because he’s Akira, because he’s never stopped being the boy who loves masks, Akira smirks, despite his chest beating so loud Akechi can hear it. Or maybe that’s his own. “I knew you were dying for a kiss.” 

“Shut the fuck—”

Akira wiggles free from his grip and roughly grabs Akechi by the ears and yanks him toward him. 

Akira’s insides pop like candy. There’s the solar system and then there’s the shattered aquarium tanks, there’s jagged shark teeth and penultimate threats over stolen hearts. 

Akira’s heart is ripped from his ribcage and stuck on Akechi’s tongue.

Akechi tastes like vanilla too.

The sound that escapes is embarrassing, but this time he saps up like molasses, going numb and also burning. He doesn’t freeze when Akira smashes their lips together and Akechi tastes petrichor and water-y beer. He re-grabs Akira’s hands between one of his and slams them down on the bed again. 

“You can tell me to fuck off, but if you don’t, your hands are mine.”

Far more embarrassing than the sound Akechi let out from a strangled kiss he’s been dying to steal for years, Akira makes a sound at the back of his throat, “You have to let me touch you.” He practically whines. “Don’t stop, but please let me touch you.” 

Humiliation also crumbles like fresh snow inside of him, because something in his gut constricts and wants to send the alcohol into the toilet and also jumps in his pants. “God damn it.” Akechi releases his hands and both of their hands tangle in each other’s hair. He’s whining easily. There’s a spot at the back of his neck that Akira cups, hair he twirls in his hands, slides his thumb down his throat. Akechi chokes on the red in the room. He gasps for air and moves to bite at Akira’s neck. Flicking the vein and artery between his tongue before biting from his earlobe to his collarbones. Collarbones tempting like pools, but he hangs off the side, off the bone, biting and running his tongue along the edge. 

Akira whines. Akechi wishes he could drink that instead of five cocktails for five nights straight. There’s red pooling in his vision, the moon pooling in collarbones, the alcohol pooling in his veins, Akechi can’t keep it all straight. 

He heads towards Akira’s lips again. And again. The room doesn’t change or shift color, doesn’t tilt with the axis of the Earth or alcohol, they stay planted until Akira’s hands are up and under Akechi’s shirt, teasing at his hipbones and searching. 

He feels bright white lights ringing in his ears and it takes everything in him not to buck his hips into Akira immediately. 

“If you keep going, I will not be able to stop.” Akechi’s growls out, now biting Akira’s ear and sucking on the lobe until he gets a noise out of him. 

“I never said anything about stopping.” Akira manages out.

Desperation claws itself into the movements where there’s clothes scattering around them. Like his notes for stage practice, for perfection, for performance, their clothes lie discarded and forgotten about. Akechi wants to scratch out the notes until they scratch out the stars. 

Instead, Akira kisses moonlight scar tissue. Frayed and wired like the pulse inside him, the moon scars with uneven edges smooth out in Akira’s mouth. On his stomach, on his upper arms, a few scattered across his throat. 

He looses track of where Akira’s mouth moves. Working to relieve the marks with his tongue. Against his stomach, he sighs, “I thought you never tried to die.” 

Akechi allows himself a gasp of a laugh, “I lied.” 

“Can’t believe you weren’t going to let me touch you.” 

“Keep fucking going before I take it back.” 

“Whatever you say, prince.” 

Akechi groans when he takes him in his mouth, feels a string in him snap when he digs his nails into his sides, speeding up his pace. 

Akechi eventually kicks the entire case of beer off the bed, and sees stars burn hot, golden and striped on Akira’s ceiling. 

When he finally makes Akira come it rings in his head like a gunshot would. 

He kisses him on train rides. On the shoulder, on the ear. Ebb and flow.

He kisses him on the mouth, pants into his mouth, allowing red to spasm in the whole room and Akechi has to do everything in his mind to convince himself this is what he was wanting  when he killed people, hands full of warm blood.

He kisses him at the aquarium, the ebb and flow of the water smacking the tank, the side of his head. 

Akira’s mouth tastes like mints, usually. Sometimes cherry soda he buys in bulk because they never have it in the vending machines. 

Akira kisses him on the throat, on the fingers, on the cheek. He kisses him when he wins games of chess and even when he loses. He kissed him on the forehead after Akechi curled himself onto his tatami mats and cried.

Akechi never tries to stop Akira’s hands from touching him ever again. 

v.

(A single, tiny, intricacy of what life could be).

Underneath a blanket with a cloud pattern and three actual black cats, Akechi accidentally kicks Akira’s foot. 

“Trying to play footsie?”

“Fuck off, Hana’s taking up half the space by the wall.”

Hana, their newest member of the three black cat gang, purrs like a motor at the end of the bed. Akira lets out a laugh like a bell. 

“We need to buy a larger bed.” Akechi yanks the comforter up by his ears, tucking himself further into the nook of Akira’s neck. 

“No, no, then you wouldn’t cuddle me like this.” 

Akechi rolls his eyes, but wraps his arms around one of Akira's while he fights the final boss in Super Mario. 

“You gotta win this time.”

A small smirk flits across Akira’s face; something like dimples, something like a fresh coat of paint, something like forever. “I always win, eventually.”