Archive of Our Own ^beta

Ren tests out something dangerous: it’s in his nature. There’s a lot to be said about this and nurturing, how he got to this point, masochistic, blood pounding with heavy emotions that feel like catharsis, that feel familiar. These days he feels like an open wound put under warm water, a sting and a sting and a sting. So is life, Morgana often says, unprompted, licking his paws, craning his neck to look at Ren, big eyes with slits in the middle. But not for us, Ren wants to say. He doesn’t. He’d hoped it’d all be different. He somehow knew it’d be like this anyway.

Ren tests out something dangerous and asks, “Do you believe in love,” and looks at Akechi for a long moment, adding, when he doesn’t reply, “philosophically?”

Akechi, to his credit, looks neutral, eyes sliding off to the side like they always do when he lies. “Well, tragedy does follow ones who love, doesn’t it.”

“It follows you, too,” says Ren, unrelenting, and in this light Akechi really does look kind of sad. Sojiro had long left Leblanc, telling Ren he can clean up, giving Akechi a sideways glance like he couldn’t figure out if he should tell him to leave. Ren’s friends are always gone to catch the train by now. Akechi likes to walk home.

“I like to think I’ve outsmarted tragedy for now,” says Akechi, tired and quiet, still hiding behind his hair, like he’s shy or something. Liar, liar.

Ren stirs his coffee and waits. The thing about Akechi is that he answers in riddles and he always takes Ren’s silence as something positive, for whatever reason. Takes everything Ren does as positive, actually. Violently positive. Ren can’t figure it out. Ren is just- without the Phantom Thieves, he’s not sure what he is, why someone like Akechi would be impressed with him, how he’d known even when he hadn’t. Why he’d go this far, if he was just going to kill him. He hopes it’s a lie. He hopes he doesn’t know Akechi at all.

Akechi still doesn’t answer, though, doesn’t gleefully fill the silence with winding, grand statements, instead fiddling with his napkin slowly, carefully, folding it into something. Like he’s nervous. Like he’s keeping a part of himself in close quarters, behind locked doors. You’re off your game, Ren thinks, watching him do it, though he’s been like that for days, now- deteriorating more and more into someone who seems bitter and utterly exhausted. Ren thinks of the gold, slender gun Akechi has in the palace. Ren thinks of Akechi’s glove, sitting in his desk drawer. He’d since replaced it, hadn’t asked for it back. Ren thinks of-

“You still haven’t answered my question,” he says, looking up from his mug - half full of hot chocolate, mind you - and realizing Akechi’s been looking at him.

Akechi’s lips purse, though it’s somehow not unkindly. “I suppose not.” He folds another triangle with his napkin, precise and clean, practiced. “Have you ever dated anyone, Joker?”

Ren jolts an eyebrow up at the name. They’re very, very alone. “No,” he says slowly.

Akechi lets out a breath of a laugh, a pretty one. “Me neither.” Another more elaborate fold. “Why didn’t you date anyone, then?”

“Didn’t want to.”

Akechi laughs again, this time more fully. His eyes dart up to meet Ren’s, sly, playful. “So simple an answer. Well,” he clicks his tongue, “you and I are the same there, too, I’m guessing. No need to conform to society’s values of romantic relationships.”

“Sure,” says Ren. “I don’t like to waste time.”

“You wouldn’t,” says Akechi, almost smug, fingernail pressed against that last napkin crease. “No,” he says again, more to himself than anything, Ren thinks, “you wouldn’t.”

Ren, in the back of his mind, idly muses that they are both crazy people. Fucking insane people. He wishes he knew- “But love does exist.”

“Love,” says Akechi warily, “is a chemical reaction. Something we’ve warped over time to be more than it is, but it’s just a hunger. A need to reproduce. We’re animals. What is marriage,” he says, like he’s tasting the words thoroughly, “if not a lie we tell ourselves to help pay the bills, to help us sleep at night.”

“If you say that’s a lie, then all of human society is a lie,” Ren replies placidly. If he were someone else, he’d laugh at Akechi’s response; unfortunately, it’s endearing. “Everything we do, it stems from that same human nature, so how is it any less valid than, I don’t know- art, or politics?”

“You’re right,” says Akechi, quieter still, a low, calm murmur in the stillness of the cafe, Ren catching a few dust motes in his line of vision in the lamp light. “All of that’s a lie, and none of it is defendable, really. The only things we have are birth and death.”

“Not the afterlife?”

“No. We- no.”

“Not justice?” presses Ren.

“Like birth and death, justice is something incomprehensible to us. Who gave us birth? Who gave us death?” Akechi chuckles, but not in that mean way he sometimes does now, and Ren thinks he sees what he’s folding, at long last. “Who gave us justice, revenge?” A turn of the head, a strange angle.

“Justice is an abstract concept.” Ren watches Akechi’s eyelashes flutter. “Love is, too. Who gave us love?”

“Love comes from our need to procreate-“

“Justice comes from our need to defend ourselves from predators.”

Akechi’s hand twitches. His expression looks like it’s trying to keep itself composed. What’s beneath it, Ren doesn’t exactly know. He wants- “I suppose you’re right, aren’t you,” says Akechi, looking away from him again, that fake-humble downturn of his lips, his teeth probably forming a snarl inside.

“Maybe not,” says Ren. “If everything is so scientific in that way, how does the Metaverse exist?”

“Yes,” says Akechi warily, cradling the napkin in his palms, blinking at it. “Yeah.” A swan.

“That’s impressive,” says Ren softly.

Akechi places it on the table in front of him. “Not really,” he says. “Anyone can do it, with enough practice.”

“Though you had the time to practice,” says Ren, and he gets sad, sometimes, late at night when Morgana’s asleep and he wakes up, rain too loud on the roof and his window, and he thinks, I wonder if Akechi hears this, too, thinks, I wonder what it must’ve been like, in those bathhouses alone, fluorescent light, no other kids to laugh with, just water and silence and missing things. Akechi missed things to miss even more things and then he got to here, to this cafe with the TV turned on low. Ren knows about missing. Ren knows about holes and empty spaces and water leading to more water. Ren knows.

Akechi gives him a wry smile. Ren likes when Akechi gives him anything, so he smiles back, and then he watches Akechi slowly unfold the swan back into its original square. “It’s interesting,” he says, as he does it, “that once you do this, it’ll never be like it was before you did.” When he looks up, his eyes are wide and terrible. “Philosophically, that is.”

—

Ren knows a few things, now, like the smell of the hair products Akechi uses (cucumber and lime, brand unknown but presumed expensive). He knows that Akechi has a habit of tucking his hair behind his ear when he’s pleased. He knows that Akechi’s hands are entirely soft except for on the pad of his left index finger, where a small callous is forming. Or has already formed. He can’t tell.

Ren studies it - physically, he’s not looking - for a moment too long, probably, because Akechi - who is very close, because they are, well - Akechi meets his gaze and it’s solemn and accepting, namesake blazing before Ren in full glory, the gaze reminding him of a bird on a telephone wire, a bad omen.

“From practicing with you,” says Akechi lowly, smirking, nodding at his finger. He means the arcade, of course. Ren narrows his eyes, sees a lie and can’t help himself from being honest. Retaliation, justice, forgiveness. Fear. Pity. Akechi would hate to know it, though.

“Oh?” is all Ren says, and Akechi shudders a little, for some reason, hand gripping his hair tight. They’re in some room in Sae’s palace, alone, swirling carpet designs and files about nothing at all in haphazardly placed cabinets. Ren had pulled Akechi away- everyone else had given him looks of confusion, frustration.

Akechi is giving him this look now, studying him. “I want to know what’s going on in there.” He taps at his own skull. A small smile.

“Not much,” says Ren. Small frown. Akechi leans in for the kiss and Ren moves away, just a little.

Akechi pulls back quickly and blinks at Ren with genuine curiosity. Nervousness, even. “Why, Joker,” he says, “I thought this is what you wanted when you whisked me in here.” He’s already brushing himself off, aiming to turn away and leave. Akechi hates embarrassment more than any other emotion. “Apologies. I might’ve gotten- carried away.”

Ren grabs him by the arm, cliche but pointed. He hesitates as Akechi blinks at him again. “No, I.” He swallows. “I was just thinking about what will happen when this is all over.” Akechi twitches. “The same as usual. Sorry.”

Akechi tilts his head at him and slowly nears closer once more. “Don’t apologize,” he almost whispers, smile crooked, closed lips. He’s running his hands up Ren’s arms. “We all are stressed, aren’t we.” His gaze meets Ren’s, eyelashes fluttering. “Though I think you should think about something else, now, hm?”

“Something else,” Ren repeats, brain short-circuiting as Akechi pulls him in - controlled but not gentle - by the collar to bring their mouths together. Akechi’s a slow kisser, draws it out.

“Yes,” says Akechi, in between. Ren knows, too, that after they’ve made out for long enough, Akechi’s eyes turn less kind and more deranged. He likes it. He likes seeing Akechi show him things no one else has seen.

“Goro,” says Ren after a bit, breathless, just to try it out.

Akechi swiftly unlatches his mouth from Ren’s jawline and stares at him. “Hm,” he says finally, eyes darting to all parts of Ren’s expression. “Yes, I suppose we’re close enough, aren’t we?”

Ren feels himself flushing redder than before, but doesn’t avoid his gaze. “If this isn’t close enough I’m not sure what is, Crow.”

A sharp cackle from Akechi, immediately cut short, one of those that Ren has only heard a couple of times. Three, if he’s counting (he is), and always when no one is there. Akechi always looks like he wants to cover his mouth when it happens but he never follows through.

“True,” Akechi says, collecting himself. “Can I still call you Joker, though?” Teeth, this time, voice like honey. “It kind of does it for me.”

“Fuck off,” says Ren, light laughter. “Not sure what you even mean.”

Goro hums happily. “No, no. I think you do.”

Ren thinks about sharp objects and how he’s never seen anyone load a real gun.

—

would you ever want to leave tokyo, texts Ren one night, as an opener. He’s staring at his wall and Morgana’s long, heaving breaths are small and wonderful; he feels as if he can take one in the palm of his hand, give it a peck on the forehead.

No, replies Goro.

A sliver of a pause and then an addition: Well, not really.

so you do think about it, then.

We all fantasize about leaving for the countryside.

but you wouldn’t... idk. start a new life somewhere else? get a new job with new people?

I was born here, writes Goro. And Yeats says life is round. I might just die here. If circles are truly what we live by.

Ren stares at his phone for a while. have u really read yeats or do you just look up philosophical quotes on goodreads

I don’t know what that is. Of course I’ve read Yeats. You’re being a bit rude.

just checking.

I’ll take it all as a compliment.

i don’t think you should die here, writes Ren, because it’s three a.m. and it’s all he can think to say.

We all die, says Goro, and Ren can hear his voice.

A minute of silence. Don’t worry, when it happens, I’ll drag you down with me, Goro adds. Haha, kidding. Ren smiles at the ceiling.

—

That’s the thing, isn’t it. The thrill that runs through him. He doesn’t need to analyze it at all, actually. He’s going to live and Akechi will- do something. Ren doesn’t know. He’s in mourning in a few ways, at least, because to gain some truer parts of Akechi he’d had to hear the worst of him. Something was wrong with all of it, he thought, in the way Akechi’s voice wavered on that phone call recording. Ren thought of his mother, dead. Thought, how long has he had access to the Metaverse, how long has he had to kill people, how long has he been alone, and stopped thinking at all because it was tearing him to shreds.

And he liked it. Liked when Goro had led him into Mementos after asking him to come, making it seem like he was the one following anyway, meandering and calculatingly casual, swinging his arms around a little.

He’d said: You look sharp in this lighting, Joker. He’d said: No wonder you’re the leader of the Phantom Theives. He’d said: I hate you. Ren had felt something clawing through his heart, red and antsy and wanting. His brain had quickly put all the different Goros he knew together, a sweet, pining puzzle, the rain on the way home increasing for a few minutes so he’d had to stop under an awning and really look at the street. Low light. People brushing past him. He’d forgotten his umbrella. Tokyo, Goro had said to him once, is like a rainforest. We’re living in the understory. Well, a blink, another, most people do.

“You like him too much,” Morgana says, that night, snuggling into the crook of Ren’s arm.

“Maybe,” says Ren, trying to hide his smile. Morgana gives him an unimpressed look.

“Ugh,” he says, “you’re really weird.”

—

Goro is looking wistfully out the window like it’s something he practices in the mirror. Ren empties out a mug in the sink, watching the coffee drops slide down towards the drain. “You know what I like about you?” says Goro, and it’s warm in here, and Morgana’s eyeing Ren from beneath the counter, frown readable even in normal cat form.

“My incredible fashion sense,” says Ren, deadpan, tapping a spoon on the sink edge.

Goro giggles a tiny bit. “No,” he says, Ren giving him a dramatic little gasp, “no, I like how unafraid you are.”

Ren hums. “I’m not unafraid.”

“Oh, but you are.” Goro’s serious, now, finger tapping on the wood of his booth’s table.

“I just express it differently.” Ren starts taking off his apron. Watches Goro watch him do it. “You don’t seem very fearful to me, anyway.”

“Hm,” says Goro. “Is that right.” He’s tracing Ren’s movements toward him.

“Yeah,” says Ren, smiling, twirling Goro’s hair around with his finger.

Goro presses his lips together. “I can’t ever read your expression under your glasses, you know. It’s awful.”

“Awful?” says Ren, shaking his head. “That’s mean.” He’s leaning down to press a kiss to Goro’s forehead.

It’s almost too intimate; Goro inhales slowly, like he’s holding his breaths in. “Sorry,” he says, really softly. He’s distracted by Ren’s hand in his hair.

“That’s okay,” says Ren, amused, bending farther to kiss his jaw. “I like it when you’re mean.”

Goro then says, “I know your glasses are fake,” and stays so late he has to call a car.

Ren watches the taxi leave with Morgana winding around his ankles. “If I told Ryuji about this, he’d die,” he says, and Ren playfully nudges at him with his shoes.

—

“I’M GOING TO DIE,” says Ryuji. “I AM LITERALLY GOING TO DIE.”

“Perhaps not literally,” says Haru placidly. Makoto has her head in her hands.

“I suppose it makes sense,” says Yusuke seriously, like he’s thought about it.

“NO, IT DOESN’T,” says Ryuji. “WE,” he points at his side of the room, “HATE HIM,” he points at Goro, who is very subtly trying to extract himself from Ren’s grip. Ren isn’t going to let him. “-DUDE.” Ryuji’s waving a hand in front of Ren’s face. “PAY ATTENTION.” Ann is shaking her head. Futaba is- on her laptop. Morgana simply has his arms crossed, looking at Ren with this bemused, disappointed look.

Ren just shrugs as Akechi finally pushes his hands away, making a show of brushing himself off. “I trust you all can be professional about this,” he says over Ryuji’s yelling, customer service voice on. He’s only looking at Ren, though, something simmering.

“YOU’RE THE ONE BEING UNPROFESSIONAL,” says Ryuji. “FUCK. WHAT IS HAPPENING ANYMORE.” Ann pulls him away to have a heated discussion, murmuring as Makoto shoots a glance at Haru.

Yusuke just looks at Ren. “It doesn’t seem like you were trying to hide it, anyway.”

“No,” says Ren, ruffling Goro’s hair. “I wasn’t.”

Goro narrows his eyes. Ren sees his fist clench in the corner of his eye. “C’mon, Leader,” he says. “We’ve wasted enough time already.”

—

“I think I’m in love with you,” Ren says, flat voice, the night before he’s murdered. He knows desperation, too. He’s let desperation take him on dates, the aquarium and the batting cages and the inside of people’s desires. He’s answered its texts.

“No, you don’t,” says Goro at once, uncrossing his legs from where he’s sitting on the couch. “No,” he says, when Ren’s expression doesn’t change.

“Apologies,” says Ren quietly, staring at the ceiling.

“If you say that, I won’t be able to refuse.”

“Refuse what?” Ren turns to look at him and he’s already there, nudging at him to sit up.

“Tell me there’s no one else,” Goro says, and it’s desperation rearing its head, Ren thinks, as they get closer to the deadline to steal Sae’s heart. Desperation, he reminds himself, over and over, and perhaps not love. But maybe-

“Why,” says Ren, letting him press a hand against his chest.

“Why?” Goro pulls back to laugh bitterly, deranged. Ren watches him do it, heart pounding, pounding. “I don’t know where you’ve been. Who you’ve kissed like this. I’m not special, to you, am I?” His gaze, a brand on Ren’s cheeks. “Tell me I’m not special.”

Ren lets him crowd him against the couch, lets him tower over him. “You’re special,” he says, and Goro just stares at him for a while. Ren lets his lips slide into a smile, lets it come from somewhere deep down inside him.

“You have experience, don’t you,” says Goro, a low hiss. “With- all this.”

“No,” says Ren patiently, “I don’t.”

“No girls back home?” says Goro, venomous.

“This is my home.”

Another bark of a laugh, Ren’s favorite. “So quick on your feet, aren’t you.” Pulls Ren up by his hair, Ren feeling his heart rate go up, bass in his eardrums. “Saying exactly what you mean every time.” Eyes wide, yellow glint. “You’re too good to be true.”

Ren stares up at him. “Could say the same about you.” It’s almost a whisper. He doesn’t want to break whatever stained glass Goro’s formed around them, bells ringing.

Goro hangs his head a little, eyebrows softening, defeated. “Is there really no one else?”

“Who else would there be.”

Goro looks away, nearly sheepish. “Takamaki,” he says, too quickly.

Ren huffs out a laugh. “What.”

“Not- Sakamoto?” This one he says more seriously, more anticipatory. “Kitagawa?”

Ren laughs at him some more. “They’re not you, are they?”

Goro whips his gaze up to meet his. “No,” he says slowly. “They’re not.” Hand on the back of Ren’s neck, pulling him in. Ren feels like he’s won, somehow. “I have to get going,” says Goro, prying himself away and staring at the floor, and it’s strange, now knowing what he looks like when he’s about to cry. He doesn’t text that night. He doesn’t call. He walks home.  Ren watches him walk home. Winning is violent. Winning tears his heart right out of his chest. Wrenches it out of his hands as he sobs and begs to be allowed to lose. Check, Goro had said one of those first nights, Ren moving his knight just so, victory secured. Goro had smiled, and Ren had thought, I’ve never seen someone smile like that before. Like they’re angry.

He’s ruining me for anyone else, Ren realizes, and he’s just as scared. Imagines the body of his cognition, a day later, blood coming down his head in rivers, like rain, and feels like he’s won.