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For all of his faults, Akechi is nothing if not punctual, especially when it comes to flinging himself at Shadows.
So when Sumire and Akira find themselves waiting in front of Maruki’s palace, Sumire bouncing back and forth on her toes to try to keep warm in the January cold, it doesn’t take long for it to sink in that perhaps something is wrong.
“I’ll text him,” Akira offers, after Sumire sneezes for the third time in a row.
Akira fires off a message, eyes fixed on his phone while he waits for the undoubtedly snappy (and snappish) response. It doesn’t come, though. A minute passes, and then a few more drag by, and Akira grimaces.
“Something’s wrong, isn’t it, Senpai?” Sumire asks, fiddling with her scarf. “So we should go check on him!”
Akira, though concerned, doesn’t look convinced, and Sumire can’t say she’s surprised; she doesn’t even know if her senpai knows where Akechi lives, much less how to check in on him when he’s disappeared. Still, she has to try, right? This, too, is part of the person she wants to be now, and remaining that person requires effort.
“He’d do the same for us!” she continues, and immediately thinks that that probably isn’t true the moment the words leave her mouth.
Still, it seems to do the trick. Akira relaxes, and then smiles ruefully, shaking his head.
“If he did, it’d just be to drag us back into the Palace.” Akira’s smiling when he says it, though, so Sumire figures it’s just one of those things that he somehow finds endearing, or something like that. Either way, it’s enough; he rubs the back of his head and nods.
“Alright, alright. It’s this way.” And as Sumire follows Akira, a spring in her step, she’s pretty sure she hears him mutter, “He’s going to kill me for showing you where he lives.”
She chooses not to take offense. After all, Akechi feels murderous a lot, it seems, so there’s nothing special about that. Or, at the very least, she’s getting used to it.
–
Akechi’s apartment–or, at least, his door–is pretty nondescript, for all that Sumire peers around her senpai’s shoulder to take a closer look.
She doesn’t have a lot of time to ponder that, of course. Akira knocks without hesitation, as casual as can be, and even though it’s childish, Sumire finds herself holding her breath in anticipation.
… … … …
Nothing happens, and she’s initially disappointed in the anti-climax, and then concerned for Akechi.
“Do you think something happened to him?” she whispers.
Akira frowns, crossing his arms. He checks his phone again, frowns more tightly still, and shoves it into his pocket. Sumire has seen more frowns on Akira’s face in the past week or so than she saw the entirety of their school year together, and immediately wishes she could do something to wipe the expression off of his face.
It’s that thought which spurs her on to reach out, ignoring Akira’s startled look, to grab the doorknob and turn.
… The door is locked, of course, so the gesture amounts to nothing, and Sumire dips her head into the scarf around her neck to try to hide her burning cheeks.
“I think he’s in there, but something might be wrong,” Akira confirms, flashing her a small smile. “Thanks for checking to see if we can go in the easy way.”
That is certainly the nicest way to put what she just tried to do, but Sumire will honestly take it. “So… what do we do now?”
Akira lifts his chin at that, smile shifting slowly but surely into a self-satisfied grin.
“If we can’t go in through the front,” he says, adjusting one of his winter gloves, “then we’ll make a heist of it, and find a back way in.”
–
The heist plan, it turns out, is to try to shimmy one of the back windows open.
It’s not terribly impressive, and it’s definitely not lawful, but Sumire supposes that that’s kind of part of being a Phantom Thief in general. Akira probably isn’t too concerned with lawfulness. Besides, if Akechi needs their help, then as his friend, it’s their duty to get in there…!
Or something like that.
Ultimately, she’s the one watching while Akira puzzles over the window. She had the time to pop over to the nearest conbini to pick up some hot tea and instant soup mixes, and with those carefully set on the balcony beside her, she watches as Akira digs through his pockets for some tools.
On the one hand, she thinks she shouldn’t be surprised that he has lock picks and a utility knife in his pocket. On the other, she thinks the crowbar is a bit much and has no idea where he pulled it from. Still, it’s effective; after only a few more moments in the cold and only a few chips in the paint on the windowsill, Akira has the window open and is shimmying it up to allow them access to Akechi’s apartment.
Like a shadow, he slips from the patio through the window, and Sumire makes a quietly startled noise, scrambles to pick up the things she bought for Akechi, and hurries to follow.
In her haste, with her arms full, she doesn’t account for the window ledge–and a moment later, she’s tumbling forward with another startled noise.
Years of gymnastics training takes over then; her tumble becomes a graceful tuck and roll, the styrofoam cup of tea tucked carefully in her hand and the bag from the conbini in her other. Akira, who turned back at her noise, ends up standing there with his arms extended as if to catch her, blinking owlishly. She blinks back at him, leg still extended as if she just finished a proper routine.
And then someone clears his throat.
Akechi is there, staring at them both, a blanket around his shoulders and face flushed from what has to be a fever. Sumire stammers, searching for the words, unexpectedly flustered from seeing him in a way that feels so strangely personal, with his guard down and none of his masks or anger slapped onto his face.
Akira, as he tends to do, rolls with it, grinning. “We’ve come to take your heart,” he somehow manages to say without flinching.
Sumire groans and buries her face in the hand holding the conbini bag.
Akechi, for his part, slowly arches an eyebrow. “I should kill both of you.”
The effect of the threat is distinctly less so with how nasally his voice is, and how he has to sniffle halfway through, but Sumire still feels like he would give it his best shot.
“Aw, come on,” Akira says, having learned nothing, “We were just worried about you.”
“Nobody will find your bodies,” Akechi continues.
Sumire considers the look on Akechi’s face, the shit-eating grin on Akira’s, and straightens. “I’ll go make the soup!”
She hastily leaves the awkward atmosphere behind her, bustling into the kitchen, only to find it so pristine as to be eerie. The countertops are plain and bare, the cabinets look like they’ve never been touched, and the fridge, when she opens it, is practically empty. It’s such a stark contrast from her home that for a long moment, she can simply stare. Akechi lives like this?
Or maybe what he’s doing isn’t really living at all. Akechi hasn’t told her anything still, but she’s seen the looks Akira gives him, and has felt his desperation when he’s ripping his way through Shadows. She’s not oblivious to the fact that something, for him, is very, very wrong.
The soft murmur of Akechi and Akira’s voices from the living area shake her out of it, and Sumire just sighs a little, rummaging for a pan she can make the soup in. At least Akechi has running water.
She can’t hear exactly what the other two are saying at this distance, but she can hear the rise and fall of their voices, the intonation that she’s gotten so used to over the past few days. She stirs the soup mix into the water, lips curving into a small smile. Akechi’s voice, fussed–he’s not happy they showed up for sure. Akira’s voice is unrepentant; he’s probably pointing out how sick Akechi is, and how he should have asked for their help. Akira-senpai is right, Sumire thinks to herself, but so is Akechi–they should not have come in through the window. And since they both have a leg to stand on, this argument will go in circles until they’re interrupted.
With a faintly amused huff, Sumire turns off the stove, carefully transfers the soup to a bowl she finds in the cupboard, and makes her way back into the living room to avert the stand-off.
“Akechi-san!” she says, with her best cheerful smile. Akechi narrows his eyes at her and she tones it down a notch in response. “I brought soup. You should try to eat something if you think you can.”
Akechi huffs, a haughty sound that is interrupted by a coughing fit. When he catches his breath, he manages a very unconvincing, “I don’t need any nannying from either of you two.”
Sumire glances over at Akira, who meets her eyes and shrugs a bit, rolling his eyes.
“How do you have the energy to keep protesting?” he asks, and Sumire reads the scowl on Akechi’s face quickly enough to intervene with a hasty, “Please just try the soup, Akechi-san…! The sooner you recover your strength, the faster we can go back into the Palace!”
That, at least, seems to mollify him. Akechi stares at her for a moment too long, a calculating gaze despite the flush of fever to his cheeks and the blanket still haphazardly thrown over his shoulders, and then he grumbles a graveled, “Fine. Bring it here, then.”
It takes all she has to not beam triumphantly at that, knowing that Akechi like this is much like a skittish cat; the last thing she wants him to do is change his mind just to be contrary. But he accepts the bowl silently, seating himself on his bed to begin to eat, and Akira flashes Sumire a subtle thumbs up.
So far so good, she reads in his gaze, and Sumire smiles in relief. Between the two of them, she’s positive they can wrangle Akechi into taking at least some care of himself, and then–
“Are you two going to just stand there all day?” Akechi says tartly, and Sumire jumps in place.
When neither of them responds, Akechi continues matter-of-factly, “You may as well find a place to sit, since you are clearly not going to get out of my hair even if I try to kick you out.”
That… is practically Akechi inviting them to stay, isn’t it? At least, coming from him, she thinks it is.
Akechi’s apartment is bare, practically unlived in, and ultimately, the lack of proper places to sit leads to the three of them crammed onto his bed, Akechi surrounded on either side. He scowls down at his soup and mutters, “If either of you idiots gets ill from this and delays our infiltration even longer, I will be very angry with you.”
Sumire considers that and decides that as far as Akechi threats go, it’s pretty mellow–and thus, he must not mind them being there so much after all.