Chapter Text
Akira is organising his schedule.
He’s going to attend the court hearing alongside Chihaya since he offered out of sympathy (he had no one on his side during his own experience with the system), but that’s not for a few weeks yet, safely after Hawaii and Goro’s mission. He’d helped Yusuke meet his mentor at that student Art Foundation the other week, and it had brought Yusuke up to ten with a bright light of determination in his eyes. He’s still working with Haru with her trust and position in her company, but even if he can’t attend her Board meeting with her he can and could invite her to dinner at Le Blanc afterwards so she could unwind. Makoto as well as a few others…
There were a few more Confidants that he refused to level up, or seemed to be tied to fixed events…
Akira thinks of Mona and his tie to Mementos, Igor and how he was definitely not what he seemed. Caroline and Justine, Kasumi, Maruki and, of course, Goro.
(Awkward hands, stiff as a board as he carefully patted Akira’s back. Akira had allowed it for a minute, as he stared down at their shoes and breathed slowly. Goro always smelt like some sort of fancy cologne after his media shoots, and absolutely nothing on other days except, perhaps, the faint whiff of flowery soap, and like this he is so, extremely, real. Goro is someone who prefers to be smoke and mirrors and a blade in the dark and rarely makes the exception to be real with people he cares for, and Akira breathes in and thinks of half-blurred photos of children and women and brands. Of cramped inhumane ‘rooms’, numbers in the millions, careful freight, deals with names he would get shot for if he was ever caught and thinks this is what I will always fight and I have no regrets and I’m finally walking beside you)
One of his very first Confidants, and yet…
No. The time will come. If it doesn’t, Akira will make it so.
Akira continues scrolling the planner on his phone without a pause. He thinks Ann wants to talk more, and he thinks maybe they can walk together to a crepe shop on the way to Kichijoji.
For the Confidants that he has already ranked up to the maximum, he had made active efforts to make some time, if only in texts or phone calls, or an after-school walk to whatever place he’s going. It only makes sense to head to Shibuya with Ann and Ryuji if he’s going to visit Yusuke. Shinya, when he tried to reach out again, was extremely excited to play against him again, and it wasn’t a large sacrifice to listen to Mishima ramble about various electronics for a few minutes before he moved on again.
That, and others. Hifumi, Takemi. Even Sojiro had raised eyebrows when Akira had actively dragged him to a park with Futaba, who had worked through a pack of tissues in half an hour because of pollen season and made Sojiro tut in concern. But with Futaba’s equally bright smile at catching an outdoor performance from the seiyuu of a niche anime idol show, Sojiro had ultimately said nothing except squawk a little when he paid the bill at where they’d settled for lunch (it wasn’t his fault Akira had a black hole of a stomach).
Akira thinks he’s happier than he’s ever been. It’s a strange thought to think when just, what? Half a year ago he had stepped into Tokyo with his cards close to his chest, his best poker face up so no emotions would slip through the cracks.
Endure, his parents had told him with stressed persistence, willing to have him out of mind and out of sight. Endure, said the court when they assigned him his probation. Do not act out. Do not break the rules. Your chains are of your own making, every single person in his life said as they looked at his record.
Behave, and we will set you free.
Well, that went well.
Akira smothers the deep, roiling amusem*nt that he thinks is possibly Arsene’s voracious laughter somewhere in his soul as he continues planning his schedule. Mona is pressed close to the top of his head, already conked out after his large blue eyes had quietly asked if he was okay as if he knew they had both learnt a lot more of the darkness that lurked in humanity in one night.
Akira stayed silent, before stroking his head.
(“I’m sorry,” Akira had said, and Mona had frowned.
“Don’t you dare, Joker. We’re partners, and we’ll stick together thick and thin. We’re taking down all those bastards soon, aren’t we?”
“Yes.”
Akira had put all of his conviction and faith in his one word, in Goro and his partners, in himself to fulfil his promise to Ohya. Mona had looked at him then, large blue eyes suddenly piercing before he nuzzled into Akira’s hand.
“…I just suddenly thought that… maybe there’s a lot of bad people but. There’s also people like you, Joker. You, and Lady Ann, and Akechi, and Haru, and Boss, and Futaba and all the Thieves. It isn’t so scary when I think like that.”
“Me too.”)
Mona snores, rolling onto his back. The tip of his tail falls onto Akira’s forehead, and Akira brushes it off gently with a finger.
Akira Kurusu had never been the most open of children even at a young age.
He’s just a bit introverted, that’s all, his mother would say to subtly edge into conversations where she then praised his grades and studious nature to his extended relatives during large family gatherings as Akira sat twirling his fingers in the hem of his loose t-shirt, swinging his feet.
Goro Akechi thought he was the type of person to open up easily, didn’t he? Akira remembered having that thought with narrowed eyes and a quirk to his mouth, bag hanging loosely over his shoulder as Mona turned over in his bag again, napping in the dark warmth when Goro had said it was ‘unexpected’ that he put people at a distance.
Akira… plays nice. He always has. He greets the aunties, plays games with other kids, helped out in the local bakery because someone needed to. He had a few friends here and there, a few crushes on girls and the occasional guy. Got good grades, liked wandering around forests and plants alone.
Akira thinks Goro doesn’t understand that he was the very first person he’d ever invited to his secret spot on the mountain, even before the whole farce of his trial and his social status as a pariah.
What can he say. Goro Akechi is nationally recognised as a very cute boy, and Akira was both weak and had very good taste.
(Even if he didn’t expect his biggest crush became not only a high-school detective, he was also the son of a corrupt politician who planned on taking over Tokyo and moonlighted as a secret agent with magic cognitive powers that he planned on taking down his evil dad with, but hey, everyone’s got a bit of spice to them and a few skeletons in the closet. Who was Akira to judge?)
It’s kind of incredible that someone who was usually so sharp with people could both read Akira completely right, and completely miss the shot the next.
Akira sighs as he finishes planning his schedule for the next month, eyes looking upwards and tracking the moonlight that shone from the dim windows above him in Le Blanc.
Haru was right. At this point in time, Goro would even receive a point-blank expression of Akira saying ‘Can you go out with me’ and take it as a regular café trip, with any insistence on ‘I really like you’ as an expression of their close friendship.
By this point, Akira thinks he’s dodged a few near confessions and ambiguous airs and he’s so charming he turns heads as he walks.
(“I think you should wait until we take down Shido,” Haru says delicately as she dabbed a handkerchief to her mouth after eating cake. “Akechi-kun is surrounded by models and idols every day, and judging by his character, I don’t think good looks is the tipping point for his favour.”
Akira sighs deeply, eating a large chunk of cake himself and chewing a little petulantly.
Just a little. Everyone was always raving about how teenagers couldn’t control their hormones and were raging hot messes of emotions with a lack of inhibition, weren’t they? Shouldn’t this be easier than it was? He’s not complaining that he has to take down an evil tyrant of a sperm-donor-in-law, nor how he still has to break down that weird pedestal Goro places him on, or find out who Goro keeps thinking of when he looks at him, but he is, just a little.
Haru giggles.
“If it makes you feel better, Akechi-kun always sees you first in a crowd. Haven’t you noticed? He only ever lets down his guard around you and Futaba. Be patient, Akira.”)
Goro is probably too busy to catch what he’s sending today as well (Akira did like flowers, but he doesn’t send everyone photos of flowers nearly every day because he was a botany enthusiast), but Akira searches for a pretty bloom anyway before sharing it.
Blue Salvia.
[Akira: Talk tomorrow, Goro. Sweet dreams.]
