Archive of Our Own ^beta

Akechi

Even with Akechi’s work obligations cut down as far as he could get away with while still having a job, university was hard. Of course, that was his own fault for deciding to do two majors—criminology, for work, and philosophy, for his own sake—instead of just the one. But the fact was that between those and the coursework for his still-demanding history minor and compulsory subjects and work and the goddamn blog he was still trying to maintain in addition to his other social media obligations…

He was stressed. He could admit it. He was stressed. He hadn’t been sleeping, and though he tried to eat on time he mostly just managed breakfast.

It was no comfort at all that Akira was doing no better. He had work too, and college, and unlike Akechi who enjoyed college even when it was difficult and draining, Akira seemed to hate it. He said the professors despised him (he said a lot of things, actually) and struggled despite how hard he tried, no matter how much Akechi attempted to help.

The frustrating thing about that was that Akechi knew Akira was smart. He was patient and clever and a damnably good strategist. Not the best, perhaps, but good enough.

Somehow all of that failed him in college, though, and Akechi couldn’t stop worrying at that problem, trying to figure out what would help. He refused to countenance the thought that nothing would—Akira would not be a drop-out if Akechi had anything to say about it.

But it was wearing on Akira, and nothing Akechi said seemed to make it better. He’d almost come to dread returning to their shared flat.

That flat had been Akechi’s first, before Akira moved in. Akechi wasn’t going to give in to the rancour between them and he was certainly not going to be the first to find someone else’s couch to sleep on. Besides, where would he even go? This was the only place at a walking distance from both the precinct and the university, and Akechi certainly didn’t have any friends who’d put up with him sleeping over.

Worrying gnawed at him all the way home, not helped by the fact that he’d only eaten one meal today.

The lights were off when Akechi came in, and for a second he feared Akira had chosen to sleep at someone else’s house tonight. But there was a startled sound from the sofa when Akechi flipped on the lights, and Akira sat up. Tousled and annoyed, but clearly present.

“You’re going to give yourself back pain,” Akechi told him, turning down the brightness of the lights.

“I didn’t want to walk all the way to the bed,” Akira mumbled, yawning on the last word. 

Akechi put his briefcase and backpack down on the coffee table and hesitated for a second before carefully patting Akira’s hair down. “It’s a dozen steps, honestly,” he said. His own head hurt, though, and he did understand. He’d napped on his couch enough times when the bed had felt like a commitment and a luxury he couldn’t afford.

“Oh, by the way,” Akira said a few minutes later. There was a forced casualness to his words, and Akechi tensed up at once. “You might want to order dinner. I fell asleep before I could.”

Akechi thought about this for a second. “It’s nine pm,” he said, voice barely restraining panic. “You’re telling me there’s no dinner yet?”

“I fell asleep,” Akira repeated, tone unchanging. “I could put something together now if you want, but takeout would probably be faster.”

Akechi opened his mouth and then shut it sharply. There was a hard hunger clawing at him. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast,” he gritted out, because there really wasn’t that much else to say, and then stormed off to order pizza—a plain farmhouse for himself, and something with more meat on it for Akira. 

Akira slipped into the bedroom behind him just after he hung up the phone, draping himself over Akechi’s shoulders and wrapping both arms around his waist, grounding Akechi with his weight. Akechi twitched, caught between shrugging him off and relaxing. “I’m sorry I didn’t make anything,” Akira said. “Should I start making you a bento in the mornings so we can make sure we get three meals into you?”

“I don’t get a lunch break,” Akechi said tiredly. “Well, I do. But I use it to catch up on casework.”

“You work too hard,” Akira said, letting his head drop into the crook of Akechi’s neck. He was warm, but Akechi felt colder by the second. “Something you can eat while you’re doing casework, then. Wouldn’t be too hard to figure out.”

Akechi bristled, unreasonably angered by Akira’s suggestions. He’d thought of most of these things himself, and dismissed them for one reason or another. He shrugged out of Akira’s grip and sat down on the bed. “I don’t need your advice,” he said shortly. 

Akira stood there lamely, hands half-raised in a peace-making gesture where Akechi had left them. Still, his eyes were narrowed, hard around the edges in betrayal of his unaffected posture. “What do you mean?”

“Do you really think I haven’t thought about all of those things? Eating lunch at my desk or during class or—or juice boxes,” Akechi snarled, gesturing tightly. “I don’t need you condescending to me about how hard I work or when I can eat when you can’t even manage dinner.” For a second he felt like he’d won, because at this moment with anyone else Akechi would have gotten the last word in and walked away. But he was trapped here, and Akira’s eyes were colder than ever.

“I’m sorry,” Akira said sharply. “I’m sorry that I’m no longer qualified to want to help you because I’m not killing myself to get a second degree I don’t even really want. Making up a bunch of excuses for all the reasons you can’t eat lunch is absolutely the pragmatic way to go about it, you’re right, and it’s got nothing to do with the fact that you can’t be happy unless you’re winning the damn Suffering Olympics.”

Akechi’s body felt like ice, which probably had something to do with the coldness in Akira’s voice—he hated how Akira’s words landed like neat little darts, sneaking past everything Akechi tried to tell himself to keep himself going. He didn’t know how much of it was true, but it hurt to hear his worst suspicions confirmed in Akira’s voice. That hurt wound him tight, made him nasty, which in turn had something to do with the next words out of Akechi’s mouth. “Do not presume to tell me what I want and don’t want,” he sneered, watching Akira to make sure the words cut as deep into him as Akira’s had. “Especially since you think I enjoy starving myself. But I’ll give you a hint, since you’re so obtuse. I don’t want you here.” It felt viciously good to say it, to know it was true as long as he’d said it.

Akira stared at him for a long moment, expression shuttered. Then he said, “Okay,” turned around, and walked out of the apartment, letting the door fall shut behind him.

Wait, Akechi thought, confused and bereft in the brutal aftermath. Wait, what?

What had he done?

The panic set in soon after that, tightening Akechi’s chest and making him double up over himself in an attempt to hold it down. He couldn’t stop playing the last few minutes over and over in his head, trying to see what he could have said differently. Had he even meant any of that? Sometimes he said things he didn’t believe when he was angry, a skill honed by years of being surrounded by people who wanted to hurt him worse than and before he could hurt them—but that was an excuse. He should’ve known better than to turn that instinct against Akira by now.

At some point he forced himself to get up and pace despite the hollowness in his body. He thought better that way. Trying to come up with something, anything, he could say to make it up to Akira. He’d come up with and discarded six variations of it when the doorbell rang.

For a second he stood there, confused. Akira? But he wouldn’t have been back so soon—would he?

Akechi hurried to the door, yanking it open, already preparing an apology in his mind. Stopped short when a delivery guy looked back at him, a middle-aged man with a rangy beard. “Uh,” Akechi said faintly, taking the boxes in hand on autopilot. Two of them. Akechi’s stomach did a funny, ugly backflip. “How much for that?”

The guy told him. Akechi paid. He probably handed him extra, in lieu of a properly calculated tip, and then slammed the door rudely shut and sank down against it still holding the boxes.

He felt too sick to eat. And he was hungry. He was hungry and he hated himself and he couldn’t justify eating when Akira wasn’t there to eat with him. Sometimes when Akira didn’t feel like eating either they traded bites of whatever food they had on hand until they’d both gotten enough in, but right now even the memory of that made Akechi’s hands shake as he pried the box on top open.

It was Akira’s stupid goddamn meat pizza. Akechi ignored the raw ache everywhere inside his body and got to his feet, blinked firmly a few times before walking to the kitchen to stuff both boxes in the fridge. He could eat tomorrow.

For now, he had homework to get through. 

God, what had Akira said? That he didn’t even want one of his degrees?

Just for that, he was going to do the criminology homework first. Even though it wasn’t due until the next week.

A couple years had rather taken the edge off of the satisfaction of working when lonely and hungry and near-tears, but Akechi wasn’t good at anything but adding to his own suffering. He clung grimly to that thought until he passed out over his keyboard.

He woke up with his alarm blaring next to his ear, jarring him. Six am, which was actually Akira’s alarm so he could go out for a run. Akechi poked miserably at his phone until it shut up, and then realized he couldn’t fall back asleep now. He wandered through the apartment in the blue morning light, hating how lonely it felt without Akira’s presence.

Thus Akechi discovered a few things; that Akira had forgotten his jacket, wallet, and phone. Akechi thumbed it on, keying in the password, and scrolled through half a dozen missed messages. Most of it was the Phantom Thieves groupchat (the one without Akechi in it) blowing up, asking if Akira was okay, who had him right now. Ryuji and Makoto, apparently. A routine round of death threats and calls for Akechi’s liver. Akechi nearly smiled, and then didn’t.

He plugged Akira’s phone in to charge, though. Ripped all the covers off the bed and tossed them into the washing machine, went through their wardrobe for clothes that needed to be laundered, tossed those in too.

The morning sun caught his eye around the time he was changing the curtains, and he froze in place. What the fuck was he doing? He had homework.

Well. That was what he got for being an idiot. At least waking up early meant he had time for that damned essay on the Panopticon. The irony of it cracked Akechi up every time, a detective writing about prison surveillance. 

The entirely unexpected bout of good cheer carried him through most of the essay, but he ended up barely on time to Natural History and definitely missing breakfast. He hadn’t intended to miss breakfast. He grabbed gummy worms from the vending machine and hoped Professor Miyawaki was too sleepy to notice Akechi eating them.

He proofread his essay between the first class and the second, added citations, and changed the formatting idly back and forth. He only had orange gummy worms left now, and considered taking the bag home to Akira before remembering why he couldn’t.

“Akechi,” a familiar and unwelcome voice said.

“Hi, Makoto,” Akechi answered, not looking up. He reverted to the previous formatting and saved the essay before holding up the packet of gummy worms. “Want some?”

Makoto sat down. “What happened between you and Akira?”

Akechi waved the bag insistently. He had no desire to talk about this with anyone, let alone Makoto. “Take one.”

“No, thank you. Don’t think you can keep avoiding this.” Her voice was cold and stern. The Phantom Thieves had been good for her. She hadn’t had friends before them. Akechi didn’t know why he was thinking about this.

“What did Akira tell you?” Akechi asked.

“None of your business,” Makoto replied. Akechi finally deigned to look up. Makoto was not smiling, and her lips were pursed into a thin line.

“Nothing, then,” Akechi noted, inordinately pleased even though Akira had been protecting himself and himself only. He forgot to do that, sometimes. “So I don’t see why I should tell you anything.”

“You kicked him out,” Makoto snapped, outrage finally peeking through.

Akechi raised an eyebrow at her. “And?” He felt meanly satisfied when she sputtered.

“You know,” she said at last, when she’d gotten herself back under control. “I used to think there was something under all that,” she gestured at him, “But it’s like you really don’t give a damn—about him or anything. I don’t know why he stays with you.”

Me neither, Akechi thought, and then balled that thought up and tossed it out of the window. “Class starts in five,” he told her. “You should get back to your seat.”

She left, and Akechi stared after her. Either winning was losing its flavor, or Akechi was losing his edge.

He finally caved to his need to eat around lunch, picking at a croissant from the university cafeteria with trembling fingers and no appetite. Another class to go and then submitting two reports at work, which Akechi could have done anytime during the past week if he’d had any time at all. He recorded the lecture after lunch, entirely unable to focus, and narrowly avoided taking on another case as he submitted the ones he’d solved.

It was drudge work, but Akechi couldn’t expect to be solving active cases when he didn’t have the time to travel to crime scenes or confer with the rest of the department. They already thought less of him for a variety of reasons; Akechi wasn’t about to add to the pile.

But he felt worn down enough to cry by the time he finally found himself walking home—six today, instead of nine, markedly better but not enough to stave off the desire to collapse into a heap on the road and melt into the drain. He always felt like this near the end of the week, and when he admitted to it Akira kissed him, or endured a documentary about art movements, or stroked his hair and coaxed him into bed. But he hadn’t had the time for any of that in so long that it was carving into him now, the invisibility that came with not being touched for days or weeks on end. How Akechi couldn’t remember how his own hands looked.

Pathetic, really, and no better time to be grateful that no one would see him like this. At least at home he’d be alone, and safe, and he could cry into cold pizza and no one would tell him off for not eating or forgetting he was in a relationship or fucking everything up.

Akira

Akira was standing in the train station when he realized that he’d left both his phone and his wallet at homeAkechi’s the apartment. This happened to him sometimes, space and time swirling away with distress until he was somewhere he could think without being attacked. Not that he’d been attacked in a while.

He came back to himself staring at the line map, trying to figure out where he was going to go for the night. Leblanc was the obvious choice: technically it was still his legal address, and he had a bed and spare clothes and so on there. But Sojiro would know if he came back in the middle of the night to sleep there, and then he’d try to give romantic advice, and Akira honestly wasn’t sure his fragile mental state could handle that.

His chest burst with pain, remembering everything that had transpired before he left, but he shoved it ruthlessly down and forced himself back to thinking about his options.

Without his commuter pass, getting all the way to Yongenjaya would take a long time anyway, and Akira still hadn’t eaten (another pang). So he instead trailed down his list to the next most likely person to take him in for a night without prior warning, and landed on Ryuji.

His apartment was a fairly reasonable half-hour walk away, which was because he lived with Makoto in an apartment closer to her (and Akechi’s) university. Akira drifted out of himself, and forgot that part until he was there, but it was a bit too late to rethink things when he’d already knocked on the door. He could hear the distant crashing of Ryuji taking the straightest path to the door no matter what furniture laid in his path, so he just shoved his hands in his pockets and waited.

Ryuji’s face lit up when he swung open the door to find Akira. “Hey, man! What’s up?”

“Hi,” Akira said, smiling back in greeting. The expression felt wrong. “Akechi kicked me out and I left my phone and my wallet, so I can’t get to Leblanc. Can I stay here tonight?”

A one-two beat, while Ryuji processed that. Probably didn’t help that Akira was still smiling. “Uh, yeah,” he finally said, starting to nod quickly, “Sure, man, come on in.” Akira ducked his head in thanks, following Ryuji into the apartment. There was a pair of black-cat slippers sitting in the door, exactly like the old ones Ryuji had gotten just for Akira a couple years back, before graduation. A bro thing, apparently. They lightened Akira’s mood a bit now.

“...happened?” Oh, Ryuji was talking. Akira glanced over at him. 

“We got in a fight,” he said simply. He had no desire to hash things out with Ryuji. Didn’t think he could without panicking worse than anyone really knew how to deal with. Except maybe Akechi. Don’t think about that now. “Don’t you and Makoto ever do that?”

“Oh, yeah, all the time,” Ryuji responded, nodding contemplatively. “I mean, I’m not complainin’, but…” 

Akira cut the awkward attempt at interrogation off by jumping directly into the fire: walking past Ryuji into the living room, in plain view of Makoto where she was studying at the dinner table. She glanced up at Akira only briefly before returning her gaze to her textbook. Then she frowned, looked up again, and actually took her headphones off. “Akira?” 

“Hi,” he repeated. He got the feeling he’d be doing that a lot tonight. “Ryuji said I could stay the night.”

Makoto looked between him and Ryuji, and her brows furrowed just a bit more. “What happened?”

Akira hadn’t actually thought it’d be that easy, but it would have been nice if it was. “Got in a fight with Akechi,” he said vaguely, then turned on his heels to look back at Ryuji. “I haven’t eaten dinner yet, can I…?” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the kitchen, steadfastly ignoring the sound of Makoto getting out of her chair.

“‘Course you can,” Ryuji answered. “My casa is your casa, or whatever.” He led Akira over to the pantry, either not noticing or simply ignoring the ominous way Makoto stood nearby and watched.

She was, at the very least, kind enough to let him sit down at the dinner table with his instant yakisoba before she started in on him. “Akira,” she began, in the same tone Sojiro used when a sentence was going to begin with young man instead of kid. “What happened.”

Akira took a too-big bite of noodles out of spite, watching her squirm even as she gave him her best detective glare. “I got in a fight with Akechi,” he said again. “You and Ryuji do that sometimes, don’t you?”

“Never so bad that I’ve kicked him out,” Makoto argued, arms folded under her chest. “Or been kicked out, for that matter. What kind of fight did you get in?”

Akira tilted his head at her contemplatively. “Does it matter?”

“Akira.” She sounded concerned, almost desperate. Not satisfied until she’d stuck her nose into every possible problem, just like Akechi. That was an uncharitable thought, though. She was his friend, so she wanted to help. Even in her own pushy way.

Akira briefly considered how she’d respond to him saying that he wanted to punch Akechi in the face. Even though he didn’t, really. He just wanted...something. For Akechi to stop working himself so hard. For Akechi to have time for them again, just the two of them, the way they’d had over that first blissful summer after Akechi graduated. 

For him to see Akira as worthy again.

The disappointment Akira was sure he would see in her expression, the “oh, Akira,” overlaid with a completely different voice saying I don’t need your advice, twisted the knife a little farther upwards until he could feel it in his ribs. He wasn’t hungry anymore. 

“I think I’m tired,” he heard himself say. “It’s been kind of a long day. Can I borrow the couch?”

At some point, Akira had become adept at sleeping his problems away. He’d hardly even taken naps in high school, but at some point between then and now he’d gotten used to ignoring things he didn’t want to think about by playing dead for a few hours. Occasionally he imagined himself falling asleep, probably in the Leblanc attic, and never bothering to get up again. Covered in cobwebs and dust like everything else Sojiro had ditched in the storage space when it outlived its purpose.

He’d never told anyone about that, not even Akechi. He knew Akechi struggled with his own brand of wanting to give up, and Akira had no desire to give him another reason. 

Makoto wouldn’t let him be a layabout on her couch for that long, but she was oddly willing to allow that poor attempt at dodging the conversation and let him nest on their couch with the spare blanket. In return for that kindness, Akira laid down and closed his eyes and pretended he couldn’t hear her and Ryuji talking about him in the bedroom.

The distant murmur of their voices reminded him, again, of Akechi, and now without anything else to distract him he pulled the blanket Ryuji had tossed to him over his face and lapsed into thinking about him again.

His cheeks flamed when he remembered some of what he’d said, accusing Akechi of making up a bunch of excuses for why you can’t eat lunch when Akira damn well knew why Akechi forgot. Why he himself forgot. The raw, frantic look in Akechi’s eyes when he’d snarled at Akira to get out, and Akira was no longer certain he hadn’t deserved that.

But he hated thinking about it, and it wasn’t doing him any good. He couldn’t cry and he certainly couldn’t cry where people might see him, so he forced himself to imagine a room, melting the walls slowly into an ocean, and fell asleep by the time the ceiling met the waves.

They were both gone when Akira woke up the next morning, sprawled awkwardly on the couch in yesterday’s shirt and Ryuji’s second-favorite pair of pajama bottoms (the fire-print ones that had “HOT” printed across the ass), and, damnably, back pain. Akechi had warned him about this, though he’d never have the satisfaction of knowing he was right. A glance at the stove clock informed Akira that he’d slept in until 11:45am, and that he had 15 minutes until the only class he had today and no possible way of getting there in time without his commuter pass.

Fuck it, he thought, I’m a born failure anyway. The thought felt like nothing good, just another nail in the coffin of Akechi’s expectations for him. The ones he meant well by. The way he sounded when he thought Akira was clever, that Akira knew he’d hear less and less as time passed and Akechi flew far past him.

God, when had Akira gotten so maudlin? Overthinking things was Akechi’s thing. As was the word maudlin now that Akira thought about it. He made a decision, hauled himself to his feet, changed back into his jeans, and started the long walk back to Leblanc.

He made it there before time for his shift, probably. He couldn’t really tell, because the instant he walked in through the door, Sojiro’s latent Dad Senses activated and locked onto...Akira’s clothes, or his worse-than-usual bedhead, or maybe just the general slump of his shoulders. “Kid,” he began.

“Please don’t,” Akira cut him off, and fled upstairs to the attic before anything else could be said.

Putting on fresh clothes, even his little-used spares he left behind in case of a coffee-related accident, made him feel slightly less like the walking dead and more like a person. Still, when he sat back down on the mattress and glanced up through the window high above, things didn’t feel quite real. Maybe it was shock. He wondered if Akechi had tried to reach out to him since he left.

Probably not. He was stubborn like that. He wouldn’t do a thing until Akira came back on his own, and then he’d spend the next however long trying to make up for it while pretending he was doing nothing of the sort.

Not like he could reach out to Akira anyway, with his phone still at home. Akechi’s apartment. Akira wondered how final this was, and the lack of certainty felt like barbs in his stomach. Maybe Akechi really was sick of him, or utterly disappointed in the failure his great rival had become. Maybe both. They didn’t seem mutually exclusive.

Akira groaned and flopped back onto the mattress, but it just wasn’t the same without Morgana to slowly suffocate him to death. Mona had started accompanying Futaba to her own college classes, though, to help relieve her anxiety. So he was living over there full time, and Akira couldn’t go whine at him unless he also went to whine at Futaba, and then she’d order a shipment of porn magazines to Akechi’s detective office or something equally unsavory as punishment for upsetting Akira.

Maybe it would’ve served Akechi right, for all the nasty things he’d said. But no one was going to be subscribing to megane fetish websites with Akira’s email on Akechi’s behalf, and that felt unfair in that unquantifiable way Akira still held onto like a child.

“You planning on working today?” Sojiro called from the bottom of the stairs. Akira jolted into a sitting position instantly. Was it time for his shift? Still didn’t have his phone. He’d have to go get that at some point, little as he wanted to face Akechi like this.

Later. For now, he got to his feet and moved to grab his apron, pulling it over his head as he took the steps downstairs two at a time.

“There you are,” Sojiro said, raising an eyebrow. “You okay?”

Akira gave him a thumbs-up, which Sojiro accepted with a somehow higher raise of the same eyebrow. Dad magic. Akira stared evenly back until Sojiro shook his head and turned away. “Go refill a Blue Mountain jar,” he ordered. It was the closest thing to pity Sojiro ever offered when Akira wasn’t actively dying, and he accepted it gratefully.

He refilled that jar, and then another one, and then he reorganized the shelves in the back room for a while, and then he felt personable enough to come out and work the bar like he was supposed to.

Sojiro let him focus on pouring a cup for a while, then took the finished product to try it. “By the way,” he said casually as he closed his hands around the mug, “Futaba went tearing out of the house like a bat outta hell this morning—don’t s’ppose that’s got something to do with why you walked in here looking dead?”

“No?” Akira responded, confused. Then he glanced up at the ceiling, at the blinking red light of one of Futaba’s bugs, and flashed back to his earlier thought about porn magazines. “Yes,” he corrected himself, “Probably, but I didn’t want her to...I’ll be back.” 

He started to untie his apron, but Sojiro caught him by the arm. “Are you two in...trouble, again?” he asked.

“Not unless you count petty drama as trouble,” Akira muttered to the floor. “I have to stop her from killing my boyfriend, ’s all.”

Sojiro snorted and let him go. “Well, good luck with that,” he said. “She’s a stubborn girl. You’ll have a hard time talking her down. What did Akechi do, anyway?” 

“Relationship counseling later,” Akira said, feeling light-headed and purposeful the way having a tangible goal made him. He backed away to leave his apron in the kitchen, and then poked his head out to add, “With a less biased therapist. And hopefully a not-dead boyfriend. Can I take the car?”

Sojiro rolled his eyes, but tossed him the keys.

He didn’t have his wallet, which meant it was a good thing he didn’t get pulled over. But when he glanced up at the windows of Akechi’s ninth floor apartment, the lights were on.

Shit, he thought grimly, and balled his hands into fists in the elevator. At least he was still wearing his watch—six-fifteen, cutting it real close. Akechi would be home earlier today. They’d planned to watch a movie, and Akira had forgotten about that until just now.

Maybe they could still watch a movie, if things went alright. Akira missed Akechi like a sore muscle, a constant pulsing ache.

If things went alright. When did they ever?

The door was open when he tried it, the first bad sign. His heart stuttered painfully at the sight of his things on the shelf beside the door, jacket folded neatly with his wallet, phone, and charger placed on top. His phone was at nearly full battery when he clicked it on, messages from the previous twelve hours flashing at him. He pocketed it, swallowed down the nameless guilt, and stepped further into the apartment.

Lots of shoes in the genkan, even more than Akira expected. Aside from his own and Akechi’s loafers, and the lime green sneakers he figured he’d see from Futaba, he counted enough pairs to know that more or less a full raid had been organized on the apartment. 

He should have just gone to Leblanc last night after all, he thought. Sojiro had figured him out anyway—at least that way he could have kept his teammates out of it.

He toed off his own shoes and listened for voices, following the muffled sound until—yep, his whole team crowding Akechi’s fancy living room. Futaba was spread across two seats of the couch with Morgana in her lap and Yusuke sitting primly next to her, with Ann and Ryuji near the windows—and had Akechi changed the curtains? When had he even had time?

Ann was the first one to spot him, mouthing a sorry that Akira barely validated with a quirk of an eyebrow. Ryuji avoided his gaze entirely, mouth set in a stubborn line.

Makoto and Haru seemed to be the ringleaders here, looming over Akechi despite being a head (Makoto) and a half (Haru) shorter than him, standing towards the back of the room and crowding him up against the bar where it met the kitchen. Akechi kept his back straight as he spoke with them, feigning a lack of care, but Akira had known him for too long to believe it. Knew the way he gripped his arm in one gloved hand, the way his mouth drew too tight in the corners. He was just trying to get them out before he snapped.

“You treat him terribly,” Haru was saying, her high soft voice poisonous with cruelty. “But kicking him out because he didn’t make dinner is low even for you. You realize he’s not your housewife, right?”

“I don’t expect he does—” Makoto started.

“Oh, shut up,” Akechi sneered. “You’ve shacked up with a man who can’t find a matching pair of socks. You’ve no high ground to speak from, here.”

Akira checked. Ryuji’s socks indeed did not match.

“Low blow, dude,” Ryuji muttered.

Akechi turned to stare at him, a feral ugly light in his eyes. “Get away from those curtains,” he snapped. “They’re fresh, and you probably haven’t washed your hair since last Tuesday.”

“Personal insults aren’t helping your case, you know,” Futaba said idly. She was messing with an object Akira recognized as the puzzle cube (not a Rubik’s cube, Akechi had been thrilled about that, a different kind of puzzle cube) Akechi had bought for himself over the summer. He hadn’t had time to solve it, but Futaba was nearly done.

And because Akira knew that, he knew the second Akechi faltered, the awful silent sound of his defenselessness. He’d always been peculiarly vulnerable to reminders of his inadequacy, and his inability to solve that damned cube was one of them.

He still hadn’t seen Akira, and somewhere Akira knew he should move right now, but something between the awful look on Akechi’s face that no one else could see and the lack of a clear road forward froze Akira in place.

Or maybe he simply liked seeing Akechi broken and faltering for words.

It was that last thought, his own grim refusal to let Akechi be weakened for the sake of humiliation, that made him take a step into the light. 

Akechi

“Enough,” a voice said, effortlessly commanding. Akechi knew that voice—he turned to look at once, found Akira standing there like he’d been for a while.

He didn’t give himself a moment to think past the sheer relief of having Akira there. “Hi,” he said, schooling his features back to emptiness even though he knew what Akira thought of him doing that.

“Thanks for charging my phone,” Akira told him, eyes steady and clear behind the glasses. And then he smiled. “And changing the curtains, too.”

“I had a little extra time this morning,” Akechi replied softly.

“Uh, hi,” Haru squeaked, and Akechi turned sharply back. He’d almost forgotten there was anyone there besides himself and Akira, though of course the Phantom Thieves wouldn’t let him live in that peaceful universe for long. “We didn’t expect you here—”

“I hope you’re speaking for yourself,” Akechi said tartly. “Because I certainly did.” And of course he did, Friday nights were always just them even if it wasn’t the same as it had been.

He glanced back at Akira, wondering how much he’d seen and how he was taking the rudeness Akechi knew he was displaying and could no sooner get rid of than take off his gloves. His eyes snagged on Futaba instead, the cube he couldn’t figure out almost done by her hands in the half hour she’d been here. Akechi refused to think about that, and he couldn’t stop hating himself for it on top of everything else he hated himself for.

Akira leaned back, hands in his pockets, a posture Akechi recognized from seeing Akira hide his irritation. “And I didn’t expect to come back to find Akechi dating all of you, either,” he said casually.

He was no longer looking at Akechi, so Akechi didn’t respond, keeping his quiet snort to himself. Also because it was satisfying to see the rest of the Phantom Thieves off-guard and ashamed.

“We just wanted to make sure you were alright,” Makoto said finally, and Akechi believed her.

“Well, here I am,” Akira said. “Feel free to ask me, instead of someone who hasn’t seen me since yesterday.”

“Yes,” Akechi muttered, flushing with guilt. “About that—” 

Akira ignored him. “Makoto? What did you want to ask?”

The words I’m sorry died in Akechi’s throat, which he retroactively decided was a good thing because he’d rather have torn out his nails than let them hear the way he got around Akira.

Makoto gathered herself impressively quickly. “I want to know if you’re alright here,” she said, holding up a finger to indicate that she wasn’t done. “And if he’s treating you badly...” she trailed off, because Akira looked colder and brighter than ever.

Akechi, for his part, felt hysterical. Is that what you think of me? If they considered him to be shouting at Akira on the regular or—or beating him up, no wonder they were so worried. He didn’t even know whether to be insulted that they thought so little of him or pleased Akira had concerned friends on his side. He settled on the latter, because he spent too much time thinking he was bad for Akira anyway. He didn’t need help going down that road.

“And if you’d asked,” Akira responded, speaking slowly. “And listened when I told you it was just an argument, we wouldn’t be here.”

“If it was just an argument, why’d he kick you out?” Ryuji demanded.

“We were both mad and saying shit we didn’t mean,” Akira said. “And I called him on it because I can be just as much of a petty asshole as him. But none of that is your business, and I wasn’t going to bother saying anything either way because you don’t care what I did, because all you’re ever looking for is some kind of proof that Akechi’s still the same person you thought he was back then.” His mouth snapped shut, and his face did an odd little spasm, anger and exhaustion and something else Akechi couldn't identify past the lump in his throat. “Just. Go home. Let me deal with my own relationship.”

Surprisingly, they all melted away after that, in ones and twos. None of them looked at him—except Ann, in passing and over at once—and none of them apologized, but Akechi didn’t expect apologies. He’d barely expected Akira to come to his defense, and he still hardly knew what to do with that.

Akechi didn’t watch them go, but he watched Akira watch them go, watched him touch Ann lightly on the arm as she passed and say something too quiet for Akechi to catch.

And then they were all gone, and the flat belonged simply to the two of them again. Akechi couldn’t stop looking at Akira—he was wearing clothes he must’ve pulled from Leblanc, the only place other than Akechi’s where he still kept clothes—and though he looked more tired than anything now he still seemed, for the most part, alright. That was an immeasurable relief, considering Akira hadn’t even had his phone with him when he left.

Inexplicably, Akechi felt the urge to cry bubble up inside him. He swallowed it down and looked away, turning around to go inside the kitchen. He felt aimless and adrift, wasted adrenaline still burning as worry inside him.

He retrieved the pizza from the fridge, plating it up and sticking it in the microwave. When he turned again, Akira had followed him in.

He looked no better than Akechi felt, half-exhausted and half-angry.

Akechi didn’t know what to say to break the awkward silence setting in. Akira seemed disinclined to make an attempt to lighten the mood. Akechi switched off the microwave before it could beep and pushed Akira’s plate to him across the table, wincing at the scrape.

“Is this from yesterday,” Akira frowned.

“Yes,” Akechi admitted, and waited for the sickening guilt in his stomach to subside before he tried to take a bite. At least Akira didn’t call attention to it again. Small mercies.

He barely tasted the entire thing, turning over ways to fix this in head and coming up short every time. His thoughts drifted, somehow, to Akira’s classes. How little he enjoyed college, and how it wore him visibly down when he couldn’t understand something, which happened increasingly frequently.

Akechi had always thought Akira was clever, had always had faith that he could do anything he put his mind to. But he realized, as he ate, that he’d think that even if Akira flunked out of college.

The thought rankled. He didn’t want Akira to drop out. But he’d rather have an Akira that wasn’t worn out and tired all the time than an Akira with a degree.

He finished about half his pizza before deciding he couldn’t keep eating it and trashing it. Akira frowned loudly at him, and Akechi glared back. And then he looked away, because he didn’t want to pick another fight when the first one wasn’t even over yet.

They both opened their mouths at the same time. Akira ruefully gestured for Akechi to go first.

“I’m sorry,” Akechi blurted. He’d meant to start with something more intelligent, but it would do. “For implying that you had to—work as hard as me to mean anything to me. You don’t, and it’s not fair to you—”

“It’s not fair to you,” Akira cut in. “That you work so hard. That you think you’d be nothing if you don’t.”

Akechi stared him down. He couldn’t explain the discomfort the words elicited in him, a jangling sense of wrongness. Even if Akira would’ve been right if he’d been talking to absolutely anyone other than Akechi. “I was talking,” he said crisply. “Are you going to let me finish?”

“God,” Akira muttered, rolling his eyes. “Go on.”

“Thank you.” Akechi took a deep breath, collecting his thoughts again. “I want you to be happy. I thought I was helping you do better but—if I’m not, if you want to drop out and work at Leblanc forever—that’s okay. I mean, I’m fine with that. If you think it would be better for you than what you have right now.”

Akira groaned and put his head in his hands. “I don’t know,” he said, voice muffled. “I don’t know what would be good for me.”

“You don’t have to,” Akechi said earnestly, leaning forward. He knew this part, at least. “If you drop out of college, you can always join again later. The building isn’t going anywhere, and you have as much time to decide as you like.”

“Right,” Akira exhaled, peeking up through his fingers. “God, I really do, don’t I? I forget that sometimes, living with you.”

Akechi flinched a little, hoping Akira missed it. Your friends think I’m bad for you. Maybe I am.

“I’m sorry too,” Akira continued. “For that—what I said about you, and lunch. I really am.”

“Alright,” Akechi said, uncomfortable again. It wasn’t like Akira had been wrong. “Thanks.” He pinched the tips of his fingers, heart beating too fast. “I haven’t showered yet, but you can go first if you want—”

“We can go together,” Akira smirked, getting up. Akechi’s heart was now too-fast for an entirely different reason.

Akira undressed as he went, throwing his clothes into the laundry basket. Akechi was still fiddling with his cuffs when Akira shoved him into the bathroom, taking over easily. He’d done this a dozen times before, and Akechi found himself relaxing a little despite himself.

But he couldn’t stand his own skin quite yet, let alone Akira’s hands on it. Even if they didn’t have sex, which Akechi really wasn’t in the mood for.

“Get in the tub,” he snapped at Akira. “I’m going to wash your hair.”

Akira 

Akira bumped deliberately into Akechi, a silent request to relax. He could feel the tenseness wound into Akechi even here, and he didn’t know how to make Akechi understand he was alright now.

Perhaps getting a little control back would help. He sat in the tub obediently, letting Akechi figure out water temperatures to his own satisfaction.

“Lean forward,” Akechi ordered. Turned the hand shower on, spraying Akira’s shoulder with hot water. “Too hot?”

Akira thought about this for a second, settling on “No.”

“Right,” Akechi sighed. “Okay.”

He tangled his fingers gently in Akira’s hair, tugging. Akira made an involuntary sound—not because it hurt, but because it had been a while since they’d done this. Since they’d had the time. He’d almost forgotten how good it was when Akechi touched him.

Because Akechi was generous with it in his own way, unused to giving and receiving both and determined to win. He scratched his fingers lightly into Akira’s scalp, turning the hand shower on again and wetting Akira’s hair, magically not getting any water into his eyes. Akira tilted his head back and opened his eyes (when had he closed them?) to look at Akechi upside down.

“Close your eyes,” Akechi snapped. “I don’t want to get water in them.”

“You won’t,” Akira grinned, and shivered when Akechi leaned forward to kiss his forehead, there and gone. But he shut his eyes.

Like this, it was harder to keep himself from sinking into the odd space between being set adrift in darkness and the anchoring of contact. His parents, as best as he could recall, had never done this for him. No one had until Akechi set upon a warpath to make Akira take better care of his hair, culminating in a practical demonstration of hair-washing for Akira’s hair type.

It felt obscenely good. Akechi was dedicated and gentle like it was an exam he intended to pass, and Akira loved him every time he did this. Loved what they had, for introducing Akira to a tenderness he’d never imagined for himself.

And this was what he couldn’t explain to his teammates. How good Akechi was for him, even when all reason said he shouldn’t have been—because they tried—Akira cut that line of thought before it could spiral out of control.

When Akechi judged Akira’s hair sufficiently wet, he poured shampoo into it. Akira zoned out, letting Akechi’s hands do their work. He felt so warm and safe he might have fallen asleep if not for the water cooling around his ankles. But he could no longer keep track of exactly what Akechi was doing—too much effort when he knew he’d be okay even if he didn’t pay any attention.

He blinked slowly back to himself when Akechi curled a hand around his upper arm, resisting the urge to simply lean back into him.

“Did you fall asleep?” Akechi asked, the frown audible.

Akira ached for him, wished he knew what was still bothering him, but he was too tired to figure it out. “No,” he mumbled. “Just felt good, ‘s all.”

“Oh,” Akechi said, as though surprised.

“Want me to do your hair?” Akira offered, a few seconds later. He wasn’t as good at it as Akechi was, but he could do his best.

“I think I’m just going to shower,” Akechi replied. “I’m sorry.”

Akira mentally went through the last few hours to count how many times Akechi had apologized already. Too many times. “It’s alright,” Akira said firmly.

“You should finish up in the tub,” Akechi said. “You’ve been sleeping on couches.”

He got up as he said it, climbing out of the tub and reaching for a towel. Akira manfully resisted the childish urge to poke the mole on his shin and acquiesced to this, because it made sense.

Akechi was done before he was, and Akira relaxed despite himself. The water really was helping his back, and time on his own to think was welcome. He hadn’t not been around people while conscious in a couple days, and he could stand that less than he’d once been able to—one of the best things about Akechi was his ability to not take Akira avoiding him in their flat personally.

Akira took his time getting out of the tub, dressing in a soft shirt that had almost certainly belonged to Akechi first and his own pyjamas (which, regrettably, did not have ‘HOT’ on the ass). He half-heartedly attempted to dry his hair, and then gave up, stepping into their room with water still dripping down his neck.

Akechi was sitting on their bed with his face in his hands. He looked up at Akira, gave him a media-winning smile that wouldn’t have fooled him two years ago and didn’t work now. Akira came to sit next to him, dropping onto the bed with an exhale and flopping onto his back to look up at Akechi. At his back, anyway, and the way the heat of the shower had fluffed his hair into a soft brown cloud. “Don’t take them too seriously,” he said. It wasn’t exactly what he’d meant to say—what Akechi needed to hear—but it was already out there. “They…” He sighed. “They aren’t good at listening to things they don’t want to hear. It’s got nothing to do with...you.” 

Not with Akechi as he was now, anyway. The one they had living in their heads was years out of date, and he couldn’t seem to shake them free of it.

“Sure,” Akechi said, high and raw. “But I still think they’re right about me.”

“I don’t,” Akira said plainly, shifting to tuck one of his arms behind his head. With his other arm, he tugged at the back of Akechi’s shirt, gesturing for him to lay down. Akechi resisted for a couple of seconds before giving in, flopping down with a dull fwap onto the mattress. “You’re good for me. I’ve never regretted living with you.” He offered an attempt at a smile, feeling the way it dampened on his face. “You think I could let any of them sit and wash my hair like that?”

Akechi twitched at the words. “That’s different,” he mumbled, and then trailed off. Akira waited pointedly for him to go on. “I am bad. And a worse boyfriend.” He tried to laugh, but it came out terrible and cracked. “And you deserve better than me. They’re right to insist on that.”

“Well,” Akira said, hauling himself up just enough to sprawl across Akechi, who wrapped his arms around Akira like he didn’t even have to think about it. “You’re the boyfriend I like. I’m sure that,” he leaned down to press a kiss to Akechi’s temple, “very clever head of yours could come up with a nicer boyfriend for me, but I still wouldn’t want it. Because it wouldn’t be you.”

“Not even if that boyfriend hadn’t tried to kill you?” Akechi argued at once.

“That happens to be a feature for me, not a bug,” Akira said gravely.

“You’re crazy.”

“You like crazy.”

“I happen to be crazy,” Akechi started, but he was smiling a little. “I know what you did there.”

“It worked, though,” Akira said smugly. “I know you. And I love you.” He paused for a second after he said it, wondering if this really was the right time. Maybe there should have been more ceremony to saying it for the first time. A convenient sunset.

But neither of them were very ceremonious people, and it needed to be said, and it had shut Akechi up for an entire blessed two minutes.

And then he said, “I love you too. For whatever that’s worth.” He sounded like it didn’t mean much. But it felt so good to hear, and Akira hadn’t been lying; he’d rather have had these words from Akechi than anyone else.

His ability to speak failed him then, as it often did at the worst times—Akechi knew this from experience, and hopefully he’d understand, wouldn’t take it as tacit endorsement of his self-deprecation. Akira hummed, the extent of what he could manage right now, and turned to nuzzle his face further into Akechi’s shoulder.

One of Akechi’s hands moved off Akira’s back, tangling lightly in his hair. “You haven’t dried this,” he said reprovingly. “You can’t go to sleep with wet hair, you’ll wake up with a sore throat.”

“Mm.” Akira was not particularly motivated to leave Akechi’s arms for something as mundane as drying his hair.

“Wait here,” Akechi said, sounding fond even as he tried to shove Akira off him.

Akira clung reflexively harder.

“Alright, alright. Just this one time.”

Akira relaxed, secure in his victory. “Love you,” he murmured again into Akechi’s shoulder, and fell asleep between one breath and the next.

He woke up before Akechi the next morning, as usual, and stayed in bed just a little longer. Akechi must’ve woken up at some point during the night to pull the covers over both of them. Sometimes Akira wondered how Akechi missed the visible work of his own love. But then, Akechi had never thought of himself as capable of care.

Akira tucked the sheets around Akechi as he slipped out of bed, heading down to the kitchen and then looping back to retrieve the milk that had been delivered to their doorstep already.

He made coffee for two and then pancake batter. Akechi’s timetable was taped to the fridge; it indicated that today’s first class wasn’t until eleven, but the blank slot before that had catch up on reading! scrawled on it in Akechi’s neat hand. 

Akira left the coffee on the counter, the pancake batter in the fridge, and laced up his shoes to go down for a run.

He returned half an hour later, head clear and panting, to find Akechi awake and making pancakes already. Akira walked silently up behind him until he could plaster his sweaty self to Akechi’s back, making him yell in affront.

“Go take a bath,” Akechi said stiffly. “You stink.”

“You love me,” Akira argued. “You said that. No take-backs.”

Akechi looked up. “I’m in love with a child,” he grumbled.

Akira licked the back of his neck, and then skittered hastily away before Akechi could retaliate.

Showering didn’t take nearly as long as last night’s bath, reasonably, and Akira was back out (with hair still wet, again) in time to make sure Akechi didn’t burn the pancakes. Not that he would—pancakes were, ironically, one of the few things Akechi could cook without ruining a pot or setting himself on fire.

Even more entertaining was his tendency to drown them in more sugar than Akira had even seen Ann put away. Someday (if his teammates ever got over their notions about Akechi) Akira would convince them both to go on a crepe outing together—save himself from a sugar-induced sore throat by sacrificing whatever might stand in the path of their combined sweet tooth. He watched Akechi mindlessly pour icing sugar over his pancakes and thought he might come out ahead of Ann.

“Do you think you could make a crepe with a pancake?” he asked Akechi, swirling a piece of his own pancake in a puddle of syrup.

Akechi thought about this. “It wouldn’t be very satisfying,” he said finally. “The crepe succeeds due to its high filling to vessel ratio—the pancake doesn’t have the same advantage. I wouldn’t presume to improve on perfection.”

“Perfection being the pancake or the crepe?” Akira asked, vaguely teasing. “Seriously, Leblanc needs a menu expansion, I’m collecting opinions here.”

“The pancake is superior in every way,” Akechi replied, stabbing the one on his plate. “But the crepe has its moments.” He frowned. “Speaking of Leblanc, have you thought about whether you want to drop out of college?”

Akira blinked, then turned his gaze down to his food. “Not really. I mean, I don’t know how many times I can change my major before I admit defeat—” And he’s already on lucky number five. “—but I don’t know that Sojiro necessarily wants me working at the cafe forever, either. If I could just…” He sighs, sets his fork down. “I dunno, figure out what I want to be doing. I can’t just be a part-timer forever.”

Akechi hummed, pushing his plate away and leaning forward to pin Akira with bright red eyes. “You know it doesn’t matter to me if you do want to be a part-timer forever, right?”

“Sure, not now,” Akira said, something buried and bitter rising to the surface. “Give it some time, you’ll be off solving cases and being famous again and people will ask who you’re seeing and you won’t want to say anything, ‘cause your other option will be ‘oh, my boyfriend who works part time at a coffee shop that has more cobwebs than customers’.” He stabbed the pancake with his fork, took a bite without tasting it. “Might as well be a housewife, at least then I could get dinner done on time.” He realized what he’d said only once it was out of his mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“Oh, you did,” Akechi said, but he didn’t sound offended. He sounded TV-bright and brittle. “Look, I might not be the best at—showing affection, or relationships, but I have never been anything less than honored that you’d want me, and,” now he just looked sad, and Akira hated that “I’ll be proud of you no matter what you choose.” He paused for a second, like he was gathering his thoughts. “Remember what you said to me last night? That I’m the boyfriend you like, and even if I could come up with something better, you wouldn’t want it? That goes as much for you.” He looked smug and triumphant as he finished, and it took Akira a long moment to decide if he wanted to kiss him or toss him out the window based solely on the expression alone.

He settled on the former, standing and leaning over the table to press a kiss to the top of Akechi’s head while sliding what was left of his pancake onto Akechi’s plate—a conciliatory gesture; Akira had no desire to fight so soon after the last one. Even through the rough ache in his throat warning him he might not have a choice.

“It’s not the same thing,” he said, voice a little rough with concealed emotion. “But I appreciate it anyway.” He wasn’t stupid enough to think Akechi would let that lie, but he stepped away from the table anyway to clean up the kitchen.

“Do explain why it’s different,” Akechi said predictably, fork clinking the sound of him setting in on the pancakes again like he hadn’t noticed Akira adding to his plate. “No, really, I’m interested. Because right now it looks like plain hypocrisy, Kurusu.”

“Because you’re trying to reach some subjective judgment of whether you’re a good or bad person,” Akira responded, keeping his eyes down at the sink. “And you’re never going to be good enough to be satisfied, because you can keep lifting the bar for good forever. College degrees are much more tangible, and also much more easily achievable if I wasn’t being lazy and indecisive.”

“Foucault said schools are prisons,” Akechi said crisply. “I think he might be right. There’s a host of reasons you dislike college—I can list a dozen without having to use the words lazy or indecisive, which you most certainly aren’t. And a degree, I may remind you, is also socially constructed—I’m debate teaming you, aren’t I?”

“Maybe a little,” Akira said, a smile tugging at the edges of his lips without his input. There was a time when Akechi wouldn’t have noticed. “Lots of things are socially constructed. Difference is that a degree can go on whatever blog page I inevitably get stuck to just for dating you, and being a good person can’t.”

“Because we care so much what they think about you,” Akechi snapped. “Do you really care what they’ll think of you, or do you just think I’ll care and dump you for it?”

“I’m worried about what they’ll think of you,” Akira bit out, frigid and harsh. “All of you. I’m lucky my felony assault record got sealed, there’s no reason to go right back to being a degenerate. Everyone else is moving forward and going after their dreams and I’m acting like I’m still a teenager and don’t you think it might be even a little disappointing to watch?” Okay, maybe he cared a bit what people would think of him, if it was his team. The people that were rooting for him. High expectations and whatnot.

“And every magazine that prints a piece on Ann takes great care to remind us that she’s a slut,” Akechi said, voice equally cold. “You think your friends can’t weather a little heat for you? You think I can’t? Have a little faith in us—in me, at least—or let Haru skin me for wallpaper like she so dearly craves.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” Akira argued, frustrated. “You all have your own shit to deal with—and it’s on me, anyway, to make sure you’re all doing okay, I shouldn’t be making it worse—”

“I’m on your side here,” Akechi cut in wearily. “You, apparently, are not.”

“You—” But Akira knew better than to keep dragging up the argument from before, even if Akechi was being a hypocritical ass and they both knew it. He made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat instead of any coherent response, dropping the pan he’d been washing into the sink and fighting down a wince at the resulting crash. “I’m going to work,” he snapped. “You can think about that one and get back to me.” He didn’t actually have anything scheduled for the day, but surely one of the many places he had lined up could find something for him to do.

“I’m ordering Thai for dinner,” Akechi called after him. Akira didn’t know where Akechi had learnt to be so annoyingly calm about Akira’s bad habits, but when he found the person responsible he was going to strangle them.

He was halfway to Shibuya Station (he’d decided to poke his head in at Rafflesia first, out of some vaguely masochistic concept of trying to shed his frustration through flower arrangement) when his phone started buzzing again. It surprised him more than it should: there were usually at least two or three people chatting in the group chat that didn’t have Akechi at any given time, even if it had been silent since he’d kicked them all out of the apartment last night. He pulled it out to check the group chat, backread just far enough to catch sight of Yusuke’s latest crime against food, and winced. Bless Yusuke, at least, for breaking the silence with something that’d get people talking, even if it did make Akira want to cry a bit.

He scrolled back down again. They were talking about doing lunch together now—Haru brought it up on an offer to buy Yusuke a meal, and invited everyone else along. Trying to make peace, probably. That was usually Akira’s role, and Haru’s clumsy attempt at making it up was...well. She was doing her best.

Haru: Everyone can come along! It’s been a while since we all got together for a meal.
Haru: Akira could come too, if he’s up for it?
Ann: i think akira’s included in everyone? lol
Makoto: You understand what she’s trying to say, Ann…
Akira: i’m free
Yusuke: I don’t? Ann is correct.
Yusuke: Oh! Lovely.
Haru: Great! See you there! :)

Akira must’ve been more pissed than he thought, because he had an uncharitable thought about how everyone never included Akechi. Which made little sense—he didn’t want to be thinking about how his team treated Akechi right now. He was fighting with Akechi. That was definitely what it was, a fight.

He turned around as if to physically abandon the thought, heading back in the direction of the cafe Haru had recommended.

He was one of the first to arrive, making eye contact with Futaba as she dawdled outside. She gave him a halfhearted wave, which he returned, and then asked, “It’s here, right?”

“I think so,” Akira said. “Come on, I’ll help you order.”

Futaba grinned at that, relieved. “What would I do without my key item,” she sang, letting him lead her inside. Akira placed both their orders while Futaba hid behind him and then led them both to a table big enough to seat seven, whereupon Morgana finally poked his head out of Futaba’s bag. 

“You ordered for me too, right?” he demanded. 

“Tuna sandwich, no sandwich,” Futaba recited, patting him on the head. “We got you.”

Ryuji was the next to come in, sliding in beside Akira and slinging an arm around his shoulder. He smelled freshly showered, like he’d been at the gym before this. Not one of his personal trainer days, then. “Your boyfriend—” Ryuji said the word with mild distaste “—didn’t kick you out again, did he?”

“Nope,” Akira said, with unnoticed coldness. 

“That’s great,” Ryuji said, cheerfully unconvinced but knowing better than to press. “Makoto should be here soon—there she is.”

“Hello,” Makoto said breathlessly. “I had to see a professor about something, and you know how office hours on weekends are.” Akira did not know. “Anyway, it turns out the thing I needed to know has already been asked on the class group, and I didn’t check it, and I…” she trailed off, going pink. “Ann! I’m so glad you could make it.”

“I said I was coming, didn’t I?” Ann said briskly. She was wearing a searingly pink blouse over high-waisted jeans. “Shove over, Ryuji.”

Ryuji obligingly shoved over, boxing Akira into the wall. “I want to wash my hands,” he said quickly, uncomfortable with being cornered, and by the time he’d returned the only empty seat was at the head of the table. He sighed and took it, greeting Yusuke and Haru in turn.

Futaba had sprawled out across the table as if her food wasn’t going to be there any second. “Oh, Makoto!” She pointed a finger at Makoto, who offered a confused smile in response. “I learned a legal thing in class today! And I wanted to see if my professor was right, ‘cause it seemed dumb!”

“Well,” Makoto said, with a long-suffering smile, “I wouldn’t necessarily question a professor over a law just because it sounds dumb, but what was—”

“Oh, before that,” Yusuke cut in. “May I ask you to explain to me why Akira is no longer included in everyone?” 

Dead silence at the table. The waitress came with Futaba and Akira’s food. He thanked her before taking both plates and handing Futaba’s over to her. She accepted it without a word.

“I’m interested too,” Akira said, because apparently he was feeling just that nasty today. He took a bite of his sandwich before anyone could expect anything more of him. But the silence was still thick by the time he swallowed. “I was kidding. Relax.”

They relaxed. “We’ll talk about it later,” Ann and Makoto promised simultaneously, and then glanced at each other.

“Anyway,” Futaba said loudly, with her mouth full of food. “So, like, do you have to report someone if you’re their therapist and they tell you they killed someone?”

“You went over this in class?” Makoto asked incredulously.

“Nope, just wanted to know, so I asked on the class group,” Futaba answered, grinning, and the mood smoothed over again.

Mostly. Yusuke reached over to pat Akira on the arm and say, very seriously, “I still think of you as everyone, even if your boyfriend is under debate.”

“Thanks, Yusuke,” Akira said, awkwardly patting him back. “Means a lot.”

Yusuke smiled back at him, and then proceeded to inhale his food. Akira picked at his own, listening to the increasingly lively debate over the merits of mandated reporting without comment.

He vaguely recalled Akechi having this argument with him, or at him. Akechi had played both sides, getting increasingly worked up until Akira managed to distract him with kisses. Akira mostly remembered the kissing and what came after—he wasn’t interested in the details of the argument, having no intention of ever returning to therapy.

“—It all comes back to the fact that people make the law,” Makoto said, and Akira tuned back in. “You’ll never have a perfectly ethical system as long as people are in charge of enforcing it. Things always slip through the cracks.”

Futaba opened her mouth to argue, but Haru cut in over her. “Do we have to talk about this at lunch?” she sniped. 

“I guess not,” Makoto replied, looking guilty.

Futaba mumbled something, probably uncharitable.

Akira wondered what Akechi would have had to say about all of this, and then wondered why he kept thinking of Akechi here and now. When he’d been the one to walk out this time. 

“What’s wrong with it?” he spoke up. “It’s not the first time we’ve had this kind of discussion.”

Haru’s lips pressed thin. “I simply don’t see the point in starting an argument for no reason when this is our first time sitting together for a nice meal in a long while.”

“But you had no problem bringing one into my home,” Akira snapped, and then felt immediately bad. Why did he keep ruining innocuous conversations today? He wanted to run away from this one like he’d run away from the last, but some destructive instinct pinned him in place.

Haru put her fork down with a sharp clatter. “That’s different,” she said stiffly. “We were trying to do what was best for you—”

Akira couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d tried, and he didn’t. “By ganging up on my boyfriend.”

“He’s not wrong,” Ann murmured, just loud enough to be heard if still soft enough to be ignored. Her support only made it harder to keep the words inside, though. 

“You still haven’t apologized for that, by the way,” Akira added, sweeping his eyes around the table to incriminate all of them. Yusuke was actually taking this seriously, and Ann looked imperiously unaffected, whereas Ryuji looked plain ashamed and angry. Futaba was curling further into herself with every word, and Makoto looked helpless. Haru was glaring right back at him.

“I’m sorry,” Makoto said first. A round of quiet apologies mumbled their way around.

“It’s not me you have to apologize to,” Akira said, sharp and clear. God, if this was how it felt to win an argument no wonder Akechi could never stop himself.

Ann finally came down to earth. “He’s right,” she said casually. “We did fuck that one up pretty badly. We’re not perfect, but it’s hardly an excuse.”

“It is if he’s a dick,” Haru muttered, though she somehow still had a contrite face on.

“So was your dad,” he snarled at her. “But we’re hardly holding it against you. I don’t care how you figure it out, but next time your fucking everyone better include Akechi. Or it can exclude both of us. However you like it.”

His hands were shaking when he came back to himself, standing on the pavement in a part of the city he vaguely recognized. He stared at them for a long moment. He never fought with his teammates, never so seriously that he had to walk out on them. Whereas running out on Akechi was nearly a habit by now. 

He felt the distant urge to cry, or to crawl back home and find out if Akechi had forgiven him yet (probably; he held grudges more for his own safety than out of any real spite). But he couldn’t face anything he’d done, and he knew Akechi needed the time to work.

Which was how he ended up at Leblanc, having lost another span of time. He made his way over to the sink almost robotically, barely remembering to grab his apron. Sojiro glanced over his way, said something about couldn’t find a better therapist, huh? that Akira must have failed to respond adequately to as he found himself gently shoved into a seat at the bar a second later, the apron removed from his arms and set aside. 

Sojiro set a cup of coffee in front of him, said, “Let me know when you’re ready to talk,” and then politely walked away to let Akira regather himself. 

Akira just sat there for a long moment, holding the coffee cup between his hands as if he could absorb all of the warmth that way. He finally moved to drink it out of some instinct that hissed at the thought of cold coffee, but barely got a few sips in before he really could feel hot tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

It was no good trying to fight it, so he lowered his head to press it against the bartop and knit his fingers behind his neck as though the pressure could keep the urge to break down inside him. He didn’t want to cry in the middle of the cafe. He didn’t want to cry at all.

Someone put a hand on his back, briefly warm, and Akira flinched. But it was just Sojiro, saying something Akira couldn’t quite hear and rubbing slow circles into his back like he knew better than to pull away just because Akira was tense. In that moment he was more grateful for it than he was annoyed by the presumption—it crumbled the last of his self-control, and he just about managed to pull in a shuddering breath before bursting into tears. 

It occurred to him an embarrassing amount of time later that having a nervous breakdown at the bar probably wasn’t a good look for Sojiro, and he shot to a sitting position with an urgency that made him dizzy. But there wasn’t anyone else in the cafe when he looked around, just him and Sojiro, who was watching him with raised hands.

“I closed the cafe when you walked in looking like someone had died,” Sojiro explained, quirking an eyebrow—evidently unimpressed with the display.

“Oh,” Akira said, voice still thick. He pulled his glasses off to rub at his eyes. “Thank you. Sorry about...that.”

Sojiro rolled his eyes and stepped forward to pull Akira into a hug. Akira went dead still, raising his own arms in return a few seconds too late with another shaky breath that Sojiro interrupted with, “If you’re gonna cry again, do it while I still have my apron on.”

It choked a laugh out of Akira, relaxing him enough to lean his head against Sojiro’s shoulder. “I think I’m done now,” he said.

“You don’t need to be done, you just need to not get snot on my shirt,” Sojiro said gruffly, but he still let Akira hold onto him until he was ready to let go.

When he did, shuffling clumsily back into the barstool, Sojiro stepped around to the other side of the counter again. “So. Are you gonna tell me what happened, or am I gonna drag it out of you?”

“I think I’m gonna move back to Inaba,” Akira said, reaching for his now-cold coffee and taking a sip.

“No, you’re not, you’re on opening shift tomorrow,” Sojiro responded, and took the cup away for good measure. “Try again.”

“Well, where do you want me to start?” Akira asked, unreasonably annoyed by the out-of-hand rejection of the only good solution he’d found so far to all of this.

“How about you start with whatever the hell you and that Akechi kid fought about in the first place,” Sojiro drawled, back turned as he refilled the kettle with hot water. “Because I’m not stupid enough to think it was actually about dinner.” 

Akira looked away, caught flat-footed by the bluntness of it. At least it wasn’t an immediate attack on Akechi, though Akira wasn’t foolish enough to think Sojiro would be any more forgiving of him than the others were. “It really wasn’t…” He sighed. “We were both stressed about school and work and trying to get under each other’s skin. He tried to say he didn’t want me living with him and I called him on it and left.”

Sojiro nodded along slowly. “That makes much more sense than what Futaba was trying to tell me,” he said, and then before Akira could respond to that, added, “Ran out of majors to switch to?”

“Irrelevant.”

“How many have you tried now?”

“Five. Four. What’s your point.”

Sojiro rolled his eyes. “We’ll come back to it.” Akira glared at him, but was wholly ignored for his efforts. “So you went crying to your little friends—”

“I didn’t—”

“—and they all got together to go shovel-talk your poor boyfriend about it, huh?” Sojiro finished. 

Akira huffed in response. Futaba tells him everything, doesn’t she? He supposed he should count himself lucky that Sojiro was trying to stay neutral. “You’re not going to tell me to break up with him?” he asked anyway. 

“Over one fight?” Sojiro asked back.

“That and everything else,” Akira said dryly. “Sure convinced the others.”

Sojiro blinked at him for a moment, as if trying to figure out what everything else was, before heaving a long sigh and setting Akira’s new cup in front of him. “Listen, that boy...I don’t get everything that happened there, but I get enough to know that a lot of people failed him very very badly before he got to that point.” He leaned back against the shelves, glancing vaguely upwards. “I’ve seen his type before. Kids without someone at their back will latch onto anything that’ll give them control. All I would have wanted from him would be to straighten his ass up and do better, which as far as I know, he is…?” He gave Akira a questioning look. Akira jumped, nodding quickly until Sojiro chuckled. “And he makes you happy, right?”

Akira nodded again. “He does, he’s...I…” There weren’t words for it, not enough and not the right kind. He tried anyway, because he needed someone to believe him about this. “He’s good, he tries so hard and he makes me want to be better too and he’s...I can’t imagine being with anyone else.” It still felt lame, not quite enough to capture the depth of it.

“Then I’m fine with it,” Sojiro said simply. “Seems like you two are keeping each other straight. I’m sure Futaba’ll come around eventually too.”

Akira sank a bit lower in his seat. “I yelled at them today,” he said. “All of them. In a restaurant.”

Sojiro snorted. “You know you’re not their leader anymore, right?” he pointed out. “You’re their friend, which means they’re going to butt into your life just as much as you like to butt into theirs, and don’t even try to deny it, I read through that journal of yours when you left it with me.”

Akira groaned and sank even lower. There wasn’t anything particularly personal about the others in that journal, mostly bullet notes about what he needed to do next, but he still didn’t like it being used against him. “Doesn’t mean they need to gang up on Akechi like that.”

“It doesn’t, but you’re not going to get anywhere by telling them to jump and expecting them to ask how high,” Sojiro responded patiently. “You can and should set boundaries like not crowding your damn apartment to rip Akechi-kun apart, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk to ‘em a little about him when you haven’t just fought with him.” He gave Akira a teasing smile. “You get awful sappy about him. Doesn’t leave much room for doubt.”

Akira turned red, looking away. “Doesn’t make them forget what he did before, either.”

Sojiro hummed in acknowledgement. “Hate to say it, but that’s not something you can fix by saying the right things. You just gotta wait for them to come around. All you can do is show that they’ve got nothing to worry about with him now. ...Which I think involves going and having a proper conversation with him about what happened.”

Akira nods, taking a deep breath. “He needs to work—”

“Kid,” Sojiro said flatly.

Akira hung his head. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Good,” Sojiro said, and then ruffled Akira’s hair just to be an ass. “Now, about the other thing…”

Akira hopped to his feet, nearly spilling his half-full cup of coffee. “I should really be—”

“If you drop out,” Sojiro cuts him off loudly, “I’m making you learn how to keep the books here. You can do my damn taxes if you’re gonna keep using my attic as a spare room.”

“Oh,” Akira said, searching Sojiro’s face for some hint of teasing and finding none. “Um.” He swallowed. “Thank you. ...I promise I’m not gonna cry again.”

“Apron’s still on,” Sojiro shrugged, then rounded the bar to hug Akira again. Akira did not cry, even overwhelmed as he was, but he did hold onto Sojiro for an inordinate amount of time to keep himself steady. 

Sojiro let him do it, patting his back. “I’ll be proud of you no matter what you do,” he said. “Long as you’re happy doing it.”

And wasn’t that a relief to hear? He’d spent so long convincing himself he’d be disappointing Sojiro and everyone else he knew if he dropped out, and even Akechi hadn’t been able to convince him otherwise. But Sojiro had never said a kind word he didn’t mean. Akira took one more deep breath before stepping back. “Thanks,” he said again. “I...really.” 

“Of course,” Sojiro said, waving him off. “Now get home before your little boyfriend burns your apartment down trying to make dinner.”

“...Right,” Akira said, because that was a very real possibility. It wouldn’t even be the first time. And probably not the last—Akechi was stubborn like that. Akira took a step back towards the door. “See you tomorrow.”

“Good luck,” Sojiro replied. “Tell Akechi-kun to come back soon. At least he finishes his coffee when I make him two cups on the house.”

Akira winced, but Sojiro was still smiling. “I’ll let him know,” he said, waving goodbye again before walking out into the afternoon light.

Somehow he still ended up taking the long route (walking) back to the apartment, mostly because he felt vaguely like he was about to come apart at the seams. There was a lot to process: the unexpected confirmation of his place in Leblanc, the things he’d said and the advice he’d been given—the hugs, both of them, for no other reason than because Akira looked pitiful enough to need them. He felt simultaneously like he needed to run a mile to get all of the nervous energy out and like he needed a ten-year-long nap.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t accustomed to Sojiro’s rough-but-sweet parenting style, but he kept expecting that well of patience and kindness to run dry eventually. Two years was around the time his parents had lost interest in him for good.

But Sojiro hadn’t yet, and neither had Akechi, and neither had his friends...and that was just another thought to loop around and among the rest as he traced familiar streets, losing even more time while wandering Tokyo and ending up on the doorstep of the apartment just as the sun was setting. 

Akira wasn’t sure he’d decided anything yet, but it was a warm relief to be back. He fumbled for his keys to open the door and walked in, and even knowing that he was going to have to face what happened this morning couldn’t keep him from grinning when he saw Akechi at the table, typing away on his laptop.

Akechi

There was a distinct deja vu to watching Akira tear out of their flat for the second time in two days, but Akechi was too tired to panic about it. He hated fighting, hated how things had seemed to be going well last night and this morning until he’d gone and cocked it up again. Or they both had. Akechi knew whose fault it was, who should’ve seen it coming, and it wasn’t Akira with his metric ton of issues he refused to acknowledge.

Still, he had class and work and no one to bitch to about Akira running away from conversations except Akira himself. His timetable informed him he had reading to catch up on, so he ruthlessly pressed down the bruising pain that came with fighting and retrieved his headphones from his bag.

If he was lucky, he’d get through a couple chapters before class

He ended up working through most of the day, stopping only for class and refills on his coffee. A part of him knew it was only a distraction from worrying about what Akira was up to, but another part of him was too exhausted to do anything but trust that Akira would return when he was ready. He’d said he loved Akechi, and that had to count for something. It had to. Akechi could muster up a little faith, two years in.

It was rewarded by sunset, when he was wrapping up an essay on Marx’s moral inheritance from Hegel. Out of some vague notion that Akira would get spooked and skitter away if Akechi noticed him too soon, Akechi deliberately finished the paragraph he was working on before looking up. 

Akira looked terrible. He must’ve been crying, because his eyes were puffy and red behind his glasses, and his hair was atrociously windswept. He was swaying slightly on his feet, and Akechi got up with mild horror coursing through him to shove Akira onto the couch before he actually fell over.

“Are you alright?” Akechi asked.

Akira grinned blankly at him. Which was disconcerting, but okay. Akechi went into the kitchen to retrieve a glass of water.

“Did you get mugged on the way home?” he tried asking, when he returned with it. “Are you concussed?”

“Have some faith,” Akira said, rolling his eyes. “I can handle a mugger. But I did not get mugged. I’m okay, really.”

Really, Akechi thought. The thing—one of the things—was that Akechi was good at not having emotions, or delaying having them, or suppressing them until he could pretend they weren’t there. It was a handy skill in many ways, including when Akira ran out on him in the middle of a conversation-turned-argument and returned eleven hours later grinning and, apparently, alright. Akechi wasn’t thinking about what was happening at all.

The other thing was that Akechi had spent an ungodly amount of time biting his nails today. He usually tried harder not to do that, but it was hard not to be worried. Akechi always worried. It was practically a full time job.

Whatever sixth sense Akira had that made him so good at people kicked in at that point, though, and suddenly his arms were around Akechi. “Sorry about earlier,” he said, warm and breathless.

“It’s alright,” Akechi said gruffly, and wrapped his arms around Akira in turn. “Care to explain?”

“Oh,” Akira muttered, pulling away. He rubbed the back of his neck, like he was ashamed. “You might want to...also sit down for this part.”

Akechi did not have anything to say to this. He sat down, and then tugged off a glove to stick his already-nibbled index finger in his mouth. He had a feeling he’d need it. Akira pulled his hand away by the wrist, though, leaning bodily into Akechi so Akechi had no choice but to put a hand in his hair. Sneaky.

“I went out for lunch,” Akira started. “With, you know. My t-friends.”

“Yeah,” Akechi said hollowly. “I know your friends.”

“And I yelled at them,” Akira added. 

“What?”

“And then I went to Leblanc—”

“Hold on,” Akechi said sharply. “You yelled at your friends? Why?” He’d never known Akira’s relationship with them to be anything less than stellar, one snappy conversation in their living room notwithstanding. “Did they do something?” Akira hadn’t let go of his hand, he noticed suddenly. He was rubbing his thumb gently over the backs of Akechi’s fingers, and somehow that helped him breathe past the barbed anxiety occupying his stomach.

“Remember that time they ambushed you in our flat?” Akira sounded far too dry and patient, though Akechi could hardly forget.

“I do,” Akechi answered. “I don’t see what that has to do with you yelling at them.”

“Don’t you?” 

Akira was being very gentle, but it didn’t help the cold horror washing through Akechi. “Not because of me?” he asked hoarsely. And he’d spent so long trying to ensure his animosity with them didn’t interfere in their friendship with Akira.

“Not just because of you,” Akira said quickly. “It was...long overdue.”

Akechi looked up at the ceiling, struggling not to cry. He’d tried so hard.

“You know it’s not fair,” Akira continued. “The way they treat you. They have no right to keep punishing you for something you’re not anymore.”

“They don’t owe me forgiveness,” Akechi said reflexively.

“They owe me,” Akira snapped. “I know you think they’re right to hate you but I don’t care whether they’re right or wrong. I shouldn’t have to deal with them threatening my boyfriend and fucking—interfering in my relationships. Not like that. And you shouldn’t have to deal with it either, but I don’t think you’re going to believe me about that.”

Akechi shook his head mutely. The worst part was that Akira was right—he didn’t believe him. That gap yawned inside him, a failure of comprehension more profound because he’d once almost papered over it.

The best part was that Akira did believe it—which was a selfish thought. 

“I’m tired,” Akira went on, voice soft and patient. “I hate seeing it wear you down. I hate that I can’t talk about you with them.”

“I’m sure they’d be thrilled to hear about how much you secretly loathe me.” Akechi’s mind felt blank-white empty, but his voice came out hysterical. That was unfair to Akira, though, who’d been reaching for an actual point before Akechi’s irrational fears kicked in.

“Very thrilled, if that's what I was talking about,” Akira said conversationally, as though Akechi wasn’t an inch from losing it completely. “Rather less thrilled to hear how much I like you.”

“Oh,” Akechi mumbled, subdued. “Sorry. Continue.”

“Well,” Akira said hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure where to pick up again. “I ran out on them. And then I went to Leblanc.”

Akechi flipped their hands to squeeze Akira’s fingers gently, encouraging him to continue.

It wasn’t surprising that Sojiro had gotten through to Akira when Akechi hadn’t managed, though Akira admitted that neither conversation would have worked without the other. “Maybe I will drop out,” he finished. “I don’t know yet.”

“There’s just one semester left in the year,” Akechi said idly. He felt significantly calmer now. It was nice to have solutions, or even simply to feel like solutions were around the corner.

“Yeah,” Akira said. He was starting to get heavy against Akechi. “I could just finish the year.”

“You don’t have to,” Akechi murmured, regretting the comment about semesters.

“I think I really won’t, then,” Akira said guiltily. “I hate it.”

“I know.”

“And it’s just one term, but I can’t—”

“That’s okay.”

“Even think about keeping at it for another six fucking weeks—” he peered up at Akechi through his glasses. “You’re really okay with it?”

“Yes,” Akechi said. It was oddly easy to be patient with Akira. “I want you to be happy.”

“I want you to be happy too,” Akira sighed, tender, and snuggled in against Akechi. “Wait, dinner—”

“I ordered in,” Akechi replied. “It should be here in another fifteen minutes.”

Akira relaxed.

Epilogue — Sojiro

Akira took to the bookkeeping easily and well, once Sojiro started showing him. It’d always been Sojiro’s least favorite part of running the cafe, but the kid (and even now he couldn’t break the habit of thinking of Akira as the kid, like there wasn’t any other kid) didn’t seem to have a problem keeping them straight with that same surprising attention to detail he’d always shown when it was something he wanted to do. 

Not that Sojiro has any illusions that Akira liked doing it. It was just the relief of finally being free of his classes, the same relief riding his shoulders whenever he filled out another set of forms.

Sojiro had been planning for a while on letting Akira take over the cafe. Wasn’t like Futaba was going to have any interest in it, not like Akira did. He’d been hoping he would get his degree first, but oh well. It wasn’t for everyone.

And he seemed happier this way. In general, really. Sojiro didn’t know exactly how he worked everything out, but he wasn’t walking into his shifts looking dead on his feet, and he wasn’t flinching oddly when Futaba got brought up, so they must’ve reached some kind of truce. Sojiro knew better than to poke the bear by asking Futaba about it.

Akechi was coming back by the cafe more often again too, on breaks from work or just to do his homework. It was a startlingly nostalgic sight, watching the two of them make doe eyes at each other over the bar or playing with that old chess board when things were slow.

Sometimes Akechi came by alone. He was a good, quiet customer, occupying a table in the corner and working for hours at a stretch, until Sojiro worried about his hands and back.

He usually swung by the bar on the way out to have a chat and compliment the coffee—always had something thoughtful and intelligent to say about it, which was suspicious for a couple weeks and then mostly funny when he caught sight of Akechi’s laptop screen open on a search about coffee grinds.

It was odd that that was what made Sojiro think Akechi was right for Akira. Same eye for detail, same intense dedication to being liked by everyone they came across. He could absolutely imagine Akira pulling some shit like that—remembered, vaguely, watching him marathon Featherman episodes when Futaba was still barely leaving her room. But Akechi combined that with ambition and an intensely honed intellect, complementing Akira’s social grace and effortless compassion.

The first time he came by after Akira finally made the decision to drop out for good, Sojiro had watched him carefully. But all he did was lean over the bar and offer an awkward smile before saying, “What would you recommend I order today?”

Sojiro gave him a look. “I remember your order,” he said, stepping away to make the coffee Akechi used to get when he was a regular. He made a plate of curry, too, because there wasn’t a chance in hell Akechi had eaten yet that day. He set them both in front of Akechi at the bar, asked, “What are you working on today?”

Akechi looked surprised to be asked. “Criminology homework,” he said. “A summary of Cloward and Ohlin’s views on delinquency. Of course, they got many things wrong—” he cut himself off and laughed. “I’d go on forever if you let me, but I should get to work. Thank you for the curry!”

Sojiro waved him off. “Sounds like better conversation than the lady who likes to come in and talk at me about the weather for three hours. Feel free to talk at me if y’need a sounding board, though I can’t say I remember much about criminology.” He’d taken a few classes before he landed on the work he’d ended up doing for the government, but that had been years back.

“Most people think it’s terribly boring,” Akechi said, brightening drastically. “So do I, to be frank. But it’s not really about how right they are—it’s about how much more we know now.” 

Sojiro hummed. “More than we knew back in my day, I’m guessing,” he said, trying to lead him into explaining.

Thankfully, Akechi was talkative when he was allowed to be. Sojiro had seen him ramble at Akira for hours. He launched into an elaborate explanation comparing the state of the field in the nineteen-hundreds to the state of the field now, spending a while longer on what had transpired in the field in the past decade.

His grasp of the theory was amazing, but halfway through Sojiro realized that it was also entirely personal. Akechi was describing Akira’s life from the point of view of the system that had failed him and his friends.

He didn’t say that, though. Instead he listened, humming and nodding in all the right places to show he was paying attention, and—when Akechi finished—asked, “Sounds like you know what you’re talking about. Gonna be able to fit all that in the word count?”

Akechi laughed ruefully. “I’ll write it for extra credit. This isn’t even what my essay’s supposed to be about.” 

Sojiro snorted without quite being able to help himself. “Kid wasn’t kidding,” he muttered to himself, then reached over to pat Akechi on the shoulder. “Don’t work yourself too hard, yeah?”

“Who wasn’t kidding?” Akechi asked blankly. He ignored the last part, Sojiro noted.

“Your little boyfriend,” Sojiro answered. “Said you’re a hard worker. Any idea when he’s coming in for his shift, by the way?”

Akechi blushed. “He should be here in a while—oh, there he is.” He turned to wave at Akira, smiling small and open and tooth-rottingly sweet. “Took you long enough,” he murmured, as Akira rounded the counter.

Sojiro rolled his eyes. “He’s right. Was starting to wonder if you were planning to show up today.”

Akira rolled his eyes right back. “You’ve never once given me a time I needed to show up and you know it.” Sojiro tweaked his nose for the sass, then headed off to the kitchen to leave the lovebirds to it.