Chapter Text
“Oh, am I mistaken?” The pleasant boy smiles. “I thought I heard something about delicious pancakes…”
Akira freezes and stares at him in confusion. He can practically feel the ?! pop up over his head. They lock eyes and an electric current of tension passes between them.
I’ve never seen eyes that color. He forgets the guy's name. Uh, Akira? Nope. That’s my name. Gorp Akira. Wait no. Gork Akechi. No, Goron. Oh god. Goro. Goro Aketchup. NO. Oh my god. Goro Akechi. There it is.
He forgets his own name. Fuck.
Akira takes a deep, shuddering breath and hesitantly smiles at the boy, noticing a strangely familiar feeling creeping into his bones. This is weird, I’m being weird. He breaks eye contact and locks eyes with the floor instead.
The more nicely dressed teenager winces for a brief moment, an undetectable emotion passing over his face. Akechi snaps his attention back to the two blondes, plastering on another smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“No matter,” Akechi chuckles in a way no high schooler has ever chuckled. “Welp, see you tomorrow!” He looks at Akira one more time with an inquisitive look in his eyes and rushes away.
Wait, was he blushing?
“That guy’s gotta be some kinda start-up entertainer or somethin’.” Ryuji jabs, bringing Akira back to reality. “He’s never gonna get popular with that kinda hair though!”
I liked his hair... Akira thinks to himself.
“You don’t get it…” Ann groans.
It looked crazy soft. The softest I’ve ever seen. And what color was that? Auburn? Couldn’t just be brown. I bet it looks like a thousand different colors in the sunlight...
“Eh, it’s fine. ” Ryuji’s brashness snaps his attention back once again. “We’ll see him again tomorrow anyways! C’mon! Let’s go to Dome Town! I’m tryna yak today!” Ryuji throws his arms around his friends, dragging them towards the exit.
“You go on ahead, I’ll meet you there,” Akria digs his heels into the ground, wrangles himself from Ryuji’s grip, and grapples for an excuse. “Uh, we just gotta run home so I can grab a tiny barf bag for Morgana.”
What the fuck kind of excuse is that?
“HA!” Ryuji barks. “Don’t wanna spend the rest of the night cleanin’ cat puke out of your school bag, huh?”
“Hey! I have nerves of steel!” Morgana argues, “and it’s not cat puke, it’s just puke, you turnip!”
“Ah, fine, whatever, cat. Grab one for me too!”
“If you take too long, we’re gonna go on all the good rides without you,” Ann disguises her threat with an innocent laugh. The two head out, already bickering about which rides to go on first.
Akira’s thoughts start reeling and he shoves Morgana back into his bag with a muffled “Hey!!!” as some guy with a headset and clipboard passes by.
Akira suddenly remembers the real problem at hand. Delicious pancakes?...He thinks as he speedwalks to the exit. We were talking about Dome Town...roller coasters...I definitely didn’t say anything, considering he said all of two words for that whole conversation. But Ann and Ryuji never said anything about “delicious pancakes.” Except —
“Morgana. ” Akira whispers to his school bag as he finally exits the TV studio, unzipping it just enough for the not-a-cat to pop his head out.
“What’s up?” Morgana asks, sensing the urgency in Akira’s hushed tone.
Akira hears the door to the TV studio shut behind him, quickly scans the area, meets Morgana’s big blue eyes, and says, “You know that guy back there, the annoyingly handsome one?”
“You mean the one with the hair?”
“Well, yeah, he did have nice hair...” Akira drifts off again. “Ah! But that’s not the point. Morgana, I’m 99% sure he understood you.”
Morgana’s eyes widen. “Wait, what did I say?? How do you know?”
“Morgana. Think. Delicious pancakes?...” Akira attempts to jog his friend’s memory.
Akira makes his way through the crowded station as Morgana rewinds the last 5 minutes in his little cat-sized head, trying to remember exactly what was said. Akira steps onto the train just before Morgana gasps and shouts, “OH! PANCAKES!” at a very conspicuous volume, drawing the attention of some nearby passengers.
“Mona!” he snaps as he turns to hide Morgana between himself and the window. “Keep it down, we’re in a very crowded subway station surrounded by people and I’m definitely not supposed to have a cat in my bag. You have to stop doing this, or I swear to god I’m leaving you out on the street.”
“Ugh, nobody’s paying that much attention to you, Mr. Frizzy Hair Glasses Boy. And I could easily break into your room, don’t underestimate my thieving abilities just because I don’t have opposable thumbs in the real world. And for the LAST TIME, I am NOT A CAT!” he protests.
“I know, I know,” Akira sighs, self-consciously attempting (and failing) to flatten his hair with his free hand. “But in your current state, you’re not allowed on the subway, so I need you to lower your volume level from a 10 to a 1.”
“UGH, we’re getting off track!” Morgana hisses, lowering his volume to a 5. “You’re right, I’m the only one that said anything about pancakes, so he MUST have heard me...” he loses himself in thought for another moment before he brings his volume back to a 10, “Wait, do you think he could be a persona-user too?”
“Shhhh. I don’t know. Maybe.” Akira was wondering the same thing. He can’t tell whether his interest in the boy spiked out of curiosity, caution, or something less innocent than he’s willing to admit, but regardless…
“We definitely need to keep a close eye on him,” Akira concludes.
“You’re right. We should let the others know as soon as possible.”
“No!” Akira yelps out a little too quickly before clearing his throat, “Not yet. Uh, I think I should do some...investigating. On my own. Before we get the others involved.” He thinks about the boy’s soft, shiny hair again, imagining what it’d feel like to run his fingers through it...and then remembers he’s in the middle of a conversation. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts and hastily tacks on, “You know, because Ann's a horrible actress, Ryuji can’t keep his mouth shut to save his life, and Yusuke…” he trails off, letting Morgana fill in the blanks.
“I'll have you know Lady Ann is a woman of many talents!” Akira stares at Morgana pointedly and says nothing.
“Okay, fine, maybe not acting, but she has other ones!” Morgana relents. “Better safe than sorry, though...okay. Ryuji is a loudmouth idiot, after all. We shouldn’t risk giving ourselves away before we have more information about this guy. We can wait.”
They hop off the train and head towards Leblanc. While those reasons are true, and very valid, (Akira shudders as he recalls Ann’s 800 layers of clothing scattered across Yusuke’s floor), he also knows...he needs to test the waters on his own first.
There’s something familiar about Goro Akechi that piqued Akira’s interest before he even mentioned pancakes. A feeling that he didn’t quite understand in the moment, a rush of emotion that came and went as quickly as a bolt of lightning.
And it isn’t just because Akechi is a straight up hottie. Akira feels as if he knows the detective better than Akira knows himself, although he has no memory of meeting Akechi before today. Akira’s not sure what it all means, all he knows is that he desperately needs to find out.
Akira stops at the cafe door, turns to his tiny furry human friend, and declares, “I’m getting that guy’s number tomorrow.”