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It takes them a while to get there.
A while, as in nearly six months after the defeat of Maruki and their subsequent return into the cold, biting confines of actual reality, until Akira sees Akechi by chance during his return to Tokyo for summer break. A month of that, of summer break and time together wherein Akira watches this version of Akechi—more himself in some ways, less so in others—piece together what his life is going to be now that he has it despite never having expected to. Seven more months—passing by the date of that miserable, frigid day in February with red eyes and long hours clutching the back of Akechi’s shirt, being grateful that his generosity meant he didn’t rip Akira’s vocal chords out for putting creases in the fabric—of texting, and calling, and visiting when they’re able, until high school is over for good. Until they’re considered adults, part of that group that had let them down so many times previously, and they’re suddenly supposed to know what they want to do with all of that.
Somewhere in the midst of it all, that year and some change, Akira had pressed his lips to Akechi’s and Akechi had reciprocated with force, toppling the both of them over the arm of the couch and onto the ground, where they stayed.
The conversation had come later, for as much as it could be called conversation. Mostly it was Akechi verbally sparring with him, side-stepping his own vulnerabilities wherever he thought he could get away with it, and Akira calling him out on it every time. Not that he was much better, and naturally Akechi never let him forget it. It’s not a very productive talk, but it had ended with them on the floor once again, and Akechi letting Akira hold him afterwards, so it’s enough.
It’s more than enough. It’s all Akira wants, actually.
The two months following the end of high school are mostly made up of them bickering and bartering, making decisions and concessions and arrangements. It comes down to something simple: they both want to return to Tokyo to stay. Akira can no longer stand the country, finds the dull droll of a quiet hometown tedious at best and isolating on his worst days. It’s hard to return to such a simple life after everything the Phantom Thieves went through; living in such a quiet place just makes it worse. Akechi, for his part, had never intended to stay away. He had had loose ends to clean up when he had first disappeared—loose ends and some respite, which he hardly ever talks about, but Akira’s gotten the gist of it. Akechi had taken care of business while in hiding, then left for just a month to wherever it was that he’d sought shelter, and he hadn’t expected to run into Akira when he returned to Tokyo. Where he stayed the entire time that Akira had been finishing school, he isn’t sure, but he knows where Akechi will be staying now, and that matters more.
So yeah, it takes a while, but they make it.
Here they are, a new set of keys in each of their pockets, opening the door to their new apartment. Theirs. A warmth flashes through Akira’s chest at the word, knowing this is something that they share now.
Akechi sweeps into the room immediately after Akira opens the door, impatient as ever under the guise of efficiency. His eyes are flitting between corners, mental maps being drawn up as he crosses one arm under the other and taps a finger against his cheek. “It’ll do,” he says, as if they haven’t already signed a lease. They’d taken a tour, too. Akira smiles, knowing Akechi won’t turn around to see him and hit him for it. Nothing can be easy with him–exactly how Akira likes it.
“I’ll be taking care of the furniture tomorrow. I’d rather have that sorted and settled sooner rather than later. There isn’t much we can unpack before that, but don’t let that stop you from trying.”
Akira looks around, trying to envision what Akechi has in mind. The rooms themselves aren’t large, but the floorplan is bigger than Leblanc’s attic; they’ll have plenty of space. The walls are bare, painted in that basic warm-toned cream that they’d seen in nearly every other apartment they’d looked at, and the wooden floors are stained an equally warm shade of brown. There’s a couple of windows, courtesy of the corner unit—Akira doesn’t ask how Akechi had managed to negotiate that when he’s near certain this unit was unavailable while they were looking; he’s sure Akechi had fun with it, and it doesn’t seem to have caused any lasting trouble–and a sliding door that leads onto a tiny balcony. A lot of their neighbors fill their stoop with potted plants or window boxes; they’ll be squeezing just themselves onto there, Akira thinks, shoulders pressed together in the summer weather. That’ll be nice.
While he’s busy daydreaming, Akechi strides from the living room and into the bedroom, presumably to get a better look at how much space they have for a bed and a twin set of drawers. Akira definitely doesn’t own enough clothes to fill the entirety of a dresser on his own; Akechi had looked at him like he was stupid when he had said as much. “It’s not going to stay that way, Akira. You won’t have uniforms to rely on forever,” he had said, and it was true. Ann will probably take him shopping again in the future once she finds out he has empty space to fill, honestly.
He can hear Akechi from the room over. Akira just leans against the counter that separates their sitting space from their kitchen, hands shoved into his pockets and not an ounce of urgency in his posture. He waits until Akechi returns back through their bedroom door to glare at him—as if silently asking and? What are you waiting for?—before Akira finally opens his mouth. “I don’t get a say?”
“In what?” Akechi snips, like it’s the dumbest thing he’s heard all day. Akira has to stop himself from laughing; it's almost a losing battle. Akechi is too easy to rile up, and all the chaos of moving in—together, especially—has left him extra agitated. Or maybe Akira’s just particularly good at getting under his skin. They’ve barely started this move—Akira’s gonna say something a lot dumber, guaranteed. Akechi’s gonna hate it. That’s not going to stop him from getting an early start, of course.
“The furniture.”
Akechi grimaces, and Akira delights in the fact that he actually gets to watch the expression play out on his face. “Need I remind you that you slept on top of crates for the better part of a year?” Akechi folds both his arms over his chest this time, leaning against the door frame now like he’s planting himself down in a show of stubbornness.
Akira grins. “It was fine. Besides, I didn’t pick them out.”
“You may not have picked them, but you certainly had the funds to buy a real bed after all of your thieving. No, I rather think that I will be picking out anything meant to provide function to our home.” And Akira definitely feels something at that, the way Akechi says the word home. He wonders if Akechi practiced it, repeating the words a few times over to his own reflection in order to seem flippant when he first dropped it in front of Akira—when he dropped it before Akira, because anything could be a competition where the two of them were concerned. There’s a good chance he’s right about the practice; Akira will let him have it this time.
Akechi goes on. “We can roll out futons for tonight, but I’ll be prioritizing a bed frame. No need to come with me; you can spend tomorrow taking care of the kitchen.”
Akira raises a brow at his partner.
Akechi huffs. “We both know that I’ve lived this long off of frozen dinners and eating out. The only person who will be cooking in that tiny space is you. Considering I don’t expect you to cook for me, either, I see no reason why I should bother with anything going on in there. Have at it.”
Akira turns his whole body towards him, head tilted and a questioning look clear on his face—especially given that he’s ditched the glasses by now, especially when it comes to his personal life. He usually at least carries them somewhere on his person, especially when he’s out in public, but they seem less necessary as the days pass by—a crutch he’s near done outgrowing. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“What?”
“Why wouldn’t I cook for you?”
Akechi looks struck at that, just for a moment, but Akira has always been excellent at catching those flashes. He’d become obsessed with chasing those quick hints of Akechi’s genuine feelings all the way back at Miel et Crepes, after all—he’s well practiced at this by now. Then Akechi sutures his expression back together, quicker than a stranger would have ever been able to use to peek inside. “Because I don’t care what I eat, and I am more than capable of managing on my own.”
“You told me once that you were frequently buying a singular apple for lunch.”
“And I lived through it, thus proving my point,” Akechi snaps, looking irritated and beautiful, standing there with his brows pinched and his frame drowning in one of Akira’s stretched-out and soft, threadbare t-shirts. It’s still so early morning that the air outside had been crisp on the walk over, but in their apartment—and it’s theirs now, he can’t help but think over and over again. Theirs for real, even if it’s empty and unfurnished, and Akira has worked with worse anyway—the coolness is comfortable. Akechi’s arms are bare save for a watch and that silver bangle he’d pretended he would never wear when Akira had gifted it to him, his hair is pulled back into that tiny ponytail he hardly wears except for when it’s just the two of them, and Akira thinks not for the first time—I love him.
It’s unremarkable, just an everyday truth that he lives with now. That, too, is thrilling in its own right.
As for Akechi’s actual point: Akira shrugs. He didn’t actually ever cook before coming to Tokyo; it’s just that he’d picked it up a little, working at Leblanc. Sojiro had taught him some basics, mostly the simple skills necessary for the curry they sold and how to work the espresso machine, but he’d liked the process enough. It always seemed like a lot of effort, when it was just for him—but it was different if he was feeding his friends. Yusuke was always appreciative, given that he was often practically starving after spending all his money on supplies. Ryuji couldn’t say no to free food or a drink if it was offered; Morgana would complain if he wasn’t included, even though he’d still then complain anyways that curry wasn’t nearly as good as that fancy sushi he loved.
And Akechi always looked most at ease with a cup of coffee in his hands, even when he was playing pretend in every other way that mattered.
Akira really didn’t associate himself with the kitchen, but Akechi wouldn’t be wrong to place him there, truthfully. He liked fulfilling his friends' needs, and without the metaverse around to create the need for a leader, feeding them was one of the easiest ways to do so.
He lets that thought drag itself to the back of his mind as Akechi verbally pivots, eyes returning to glance around the room as if something has just occurred to him—though Akira is certain he’s been biding his time until it felt appropriate to ask. “Where’s the cat? It’s not like we can give him a key.” It’s sort of sweet that he asks. He certainly has no fondness for Morgana, but he knows that Akira does, so he bears with it. It’s nice to see him try, even if he’s still prickly as he does it. Moreso, maybe, because it means his attempts at trying aren’t being distilled through some sort of facade.
Akira shakes his head. “He knows he’s always welcome, but when I told him that I was moving in with you he went, and I quote, ‘bleugh.’ So.”
Akechi laughs at that, quick and sharp and delighted, and Akira smiles back. That’s the kind of laugh he wants to hear—in early mornings, when the sun hasn’t quite filtered through their curtains yet but the cold has seeped through their walls and windows. When they fight each other for the covers despite there being plenty of blanket, and when one of them wins, crowned in comfort and draped in victory, laughter piercing through the crisp air in a way that almost hurts to breathe in. He wants that kind of laughter when they’re curled up together on the couch, verbally sparring—which is still mostly monologues and philosophizing on Akechi’s part, his soliloquy cut though with short interspersed commentary from Akira that always becomes a turning point for their dialogue. Akechi is still so easy to bait, and Akira could listen to him talk forever. Especially because Akechi really is so sharp; Akira had never doubted that facet to be true. Akechi likes to gesture with his hands while he talks, but sometimes Akira reaches out for one, and Akechi always lets him take it. His fingers are thin and long, and Akira locks them between his own, warm where their palms are pressed together. It’s a simple delight, but those are the sorts of things Akira likes best, outside of leaping across rooftops and killing shadows. Considering he doesn’t get much of the latter these days, the simple pleasures are enough–are everything. But Akira still only reaches for a hand sometimes, because he loves to watch Akechi gesture with expression and—somehow—force, almost as much as he loves to listen to the light, airy, and somehow still aggressive sound of his voice. He wants to listen to Akechi laugh in victory, or in bitter yet begrudgingly impressed defeat. They play chess still, and Akira makes them both coffee, or they binge something on TV and Akechi talks over the entire thing, or Akechi reads and Akira plays games on his phone until Akechi gets curious enough to crawl all over him and backseat game no matter what Akira is playing, and Akira’s heart is so full from affection and endearment there that he can’t help but laugh.
Akira just wants. He wants laughter, he wants late nights, he wants a life. He wants Akechi.
The fact that he has him doesn’t quench that hunger at all. He doesn’t think it ever will.
And he’s definitely going to be told he owes Morgana for giving them “honeymoon privacy” regardless of whether Mona decides to stay with them or move in with Futaba, but as he watches Akechi stomp all over their floor like he no longer needs to keep himself as small as possible, wearing the smallest smile because he’s still laughing about Mona’s dramatics, Akira knows it’s worth it to have this little private moment, something just for himself.
Akira is finishing up in the kitchen and plating food, placing it on the table (the table that Akechi picked out and purchased, of course) when Akechi comes home.
And the apartment really is starting to shape up and into a home already. They have curtains hung over their windows, and an extra blanket over the foot of their bed for those inevitable fights over covers like Akira had thought about that first day they moved in. There’s not a lot of actual decor, aside from the few things Akira had been gifted when he still lived above Leblanc, but those few key things do a lot for the space. Those Featherman dolls that he’d won at the arcade with Ryuji are lined up on their own shelf above the TV, mostly because Akechi actually likes them. The hero figure from Futaba is on their shared bookshelf, amongst his rows of manga and numerous philosophy books that Akira would doubt Akechi actually reads if not for how often he quotes the damn things. His other trinkets are around; Akechi doesn’t bring much with him aside from clothes. The rest of their apartment is sparse, but comfortable and clean, and their bed is a real one—no milk crates to be found. Akira has maybe never been happier in his life.
He can hear the soft slip of Akechi’s shoes being tucked into their spot on the stand near the door, followed by the door to the tiny little coat closet being opened and shut. He never says that he’s home, despite him welcoming Akira home these first couple of days. It always reminds him of that one time in Leblanc, and though Akechi may be saying it like a joke or a callback, Akira thinks that he might actually just like the way the words fit in his mouth.
Then Akechi turns the corner, spots the plates in Akira’s hand, and narrows his eyes at them like he’s on alert. “What’s this?”
“Dinner.” Akira sets them down all the way with a light clatter, two plates of curry still so hot that steam rises from them in sputtering whorls. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s a comfortable recipe for him, and Akira figures they’re settled in and unpacked enough by now that their excuse to order out is stretching a little thin.
Akechi doesn’t seem to follow that train of thought quite as closely. That, or he’s just put out by being caught off guard. “I thought I told you I wasn’t expecting you to do this for me.”
“I wanted to.” Akira shrugs.
“Hmm.” Akechi turns from him, goes about putting away the rest of his things. He still carries a stupid little bag with him, but at least this time it’s not emblazenned with his own initial. It’s just a messenger bag made up of worn brown leather and lined with fabric decorated in that plaid he always seems to gravitate towards. Akira watches him hang it over a hook by their desk—undecorated, save for some folders in a filing stand over in the corner, and Akira wonders what Akechi even has in there given that their classes haven’t started yet. Then again, Akechi’s always working on something. He’s driven, obsessed with becoming better even now, and it drives Akira crazy in all kinds of ways. He should ask, later, what Akechi’s been up to. Or snoop, if he doesn’t feel like asking.
It doesn’t take long, really, for Akechi to settle in. Akira takes his seat and waits in silence, watching as Akechi disappears into their bedroom and returns in yet another of Akira’s shirts before finally taking his seat.
“Alright. Well, you made it; let’s not waste it.”
They eat. Akechi doesn’t ask him about his day; Akira would tell him anyway, if it were something important at least. Akechi knows this already. Not much has been going on for either of them aside from the move. They’ve barely had time for anything outside of unpacking and bickering over where to put things—not that Akira really cares about most of it, but he’s a little shit by nature, and he loves riling Akechi up. Sue him.
And the silence is comfortable; the food is good.
Akira lets his eyes settle on Akechi while they eat, a place they rest pretty often these days. He watches while he eats—absorbed in a show just for him—eyeing Akechi’s plate to make sure he is actually eating what Akira made for him.
Of course Akechi notices. “Why the fuck are you staring at me eating.” He never phrases his questions as anything other than statements, not unless they’re traps, and it makes the corner of Akira’s lips curl—a slanted little smile that Akechi pulls out of him all the time.
“Do you like it?”
Akechi rolls his eyes. “So you’re just fishing for compliments then? I don’t have to tell you if it’s good. I’m sure your other little friends have heaped you with praise plenty, given your propensity for free labor.”
“So you do like it then.” Akira’s smile grows, just ever so slightly more smug than it was before.
Akechi glares at him. “Don’t put words in my mouth. It’s… not bad. I can’t help but notice it’s rather mild in flavor, though. Don’t you prefer spicier foods?”
It’s a little pathetic that his heart skips a beat just because Akechi noticed that, as if it’s something new for them to catch all the little details about each other. As if they haven’t dined together enough, as if he hasn’t paid just as much attention to the boy sitting across from him. Akira doesn’t care, though, if he’s pathetic—he’s right where he wants to be. At this table, eating one of his favorite foods with one of his favorite people. And Akira does like spice, but Akechi can’t handle anything too hot; making it anything other than mild would have defeated the point.
“I’ll eat anything.” Besides, it’s not as if he doesn’t enjoy his curry mild, too.
“If your visitations to Big Bang Burger during high school were to be evidence, then yes, I suppose that’s true. I can’t understand how you managed to eat that abomination they call a burger.”
Akira laughs at him. “You remember a lot of details about me from high school.”
“You do the same of me.”
Akira doesn’t argue, nor does his smile go anywhere. Their conversation picks up as they near the end of their dinner, and Akira gets one good kick at Akechi’s shin that he knows is going to bruise. He’s sure he’ll pay for that later—he hopes he does.
Akira clears his plate and wonders if Akechi only does the same out of some sense of competition. It doesn’t really matter why, though, so long as he does it. He’s sure Akechi would hate it if he pointed that out, if he put a voice to his concern about Akechi’s eating habits or acknowledged that cooking was apparently a love language for himself, so he doesn’t say it—but he thinks it really, really hard, and then phrases it in a way he thinks Akechi will be more amenable to.
“I like the table you picked, by the way. Wanna break it in?”
Akechi raises one brow at him, then gets that ruthless, cocky smirk that never fails to give Akira chills. “I assure you, it’s quite sturdy.”
“Let’s find out.”
Dinner becomes a regular recurrence after that. Sometimes Akira makes Kyoto Curry, which he doesn’t favor over Sojiro’s recipe, but it’s still good. They seem to both like his seafood bowl well enough. He makes the goat soup recipe he purchased from the Ferry Dock exactly once and notes to strike it from his mental recipe list for both their sakes. Later that week he brings home ingredients for the crab hot pot recipe that he’d picked up somewhere in Dotonbori to make up for it, and they both seem to have fun with that, though Akechi is still hard to read; he insists that what they eat doesn’t matter, and Akira is certain that left to his own devices, Akechi would go back to frozen dinners and a trashcan full of takeout boxes. Honestly, left alone, Akira might do the same. Cooking for one just doesn’t appeal to him—the fun is in serving it up to Akechi, gathered around their little table and kicking each other under it.
And it’s good—most of it is good. The company certainly is, at least. Akechi eats anything put in front of him, though for someone who supposedly doesn’t care what’s on the menu, the commentary never stops. Not that Akira’s complaining; he wouldn’t be Akechi if he wasn’t being grossly verbose in every uncalled for situation that he could.
Akira loves it.
He keeps mental notes of the running commentary. He makes them the jingisukan Ann had wanted to try, once, and it's fine. Akechi had chalked that up to Ann having the best taste of the group, and had been pointed about making sure Akira knew he was included in that. When Akira recreates the chanpuru that Futaba had asked for over the summer, neither of them seem to love it, but they don’t hate it either. Akechi seems neutral on the kushikatsu recipe that he’d perfected for Yusuke, but he seems on the positive side of impartial when Akira puts down tsukemen in front of him. That had been an impulse decision; Akira doesn’t really care for it, but he’d seen it online—something about the way it was served that had made it new and trendy, which he thought Akechi might still care about in some familiar, roundabout way.
It’s fun in the same way their dumb, stubborn challenges always have been. Something to improve at, something to discover through trial and error alone–and it keeps bringing Akechi back to him after a long day, settled into the evening right across from him, which matters most. Akira will eat all the tsukemen in Japan, so long as this is where it gets him.
The following week is a little grueling. They’ve settled into their space comfortably by now; a few framed prints have made their way to their walls courtesy of Yusuke and Ann, the latter having only excused their lack of decorative taste for the first few weeks before the still-austere space became an affront, and the former being more than happy to help fill that gap for them. Their kitchen cabinets have more than two plates and a few glasses now, and a couple of them aren’t even plain; Akira likes his ugly cat-patterned mug the best, even if Morgana threatens to break it like an actual cat every time Akira tries to tell him that they match. He still stays with Futaba more often than not, but he visits, stretching himself across their red rug—“It’s an iconic color for both of us, don’t you think?” Akechi had asked, and Akira had nodded while picturing the gleaming gold of epaulets atop a bright cherry cape and the sharp red of a saw’s edge—and basking in the sunlight for as long as he could.
It’s comfortable. It’s really nice. Everything is perfect, except for the part where life is kind of boring. Their university classes have started, and their syllabi are both dense.
Akira ends up on the couch when he gets home, bag dropped somewhere on the ground to his side, head lolled back with a tired sigh.
He and Akechi go to different universities, which means that Akira’s commute is shorter, so he’s usually home first. It works for him, in a way; he’s grown up used to coming home to empty space and quiet rooms. It gives him time to stare at the ceiling, contemplating if he hates his business classes enough to drop out already—to switch to another major, to any other major. Haru had been being too polite when she’d told him that her own business classes were dry but very informative; it’s actually hell. He knows Akechi would call him a quitter, but if it comes down to it, he’d get it. This track is so painfully normal, so boring, and while the end goal of taking over Leblanc could be more than worth it—even if that wouldn’t be happening for a while—he knows too that there’s truth to the way he misses having some form of everyday adrenaline in his life. The stakes just aren’t high enough here, and the classes drag. He misses the days of having twelve part time jobs, of getting a taste for all different parts of the city and all different sorts of people. The fluidity had been exciting, and it’s just not the same on the other side of things; he doesn’t know how he’s going to commit to one track for life, let alone this one. Probably not this one. It’s fine.
Truth be told, one week in and Akira isn’t sure that Akechi is going to be sticking with his criminology degree either. It seems they’re both trying to slide back into the people they once were. Akechi does seem rather invested in continuing to work with Sae, especially in making certain that Shido’s life sucks for the rest of ever, but he also lingers over sociology books for his extracurriculars and continues to collect philosophy books like his life depends on it. He’s still not exceptional at opening up—not that Akira has any right to talk—and the way he closes off whenever Akira asks him if he likes what he’s doing, dodging with an artful “It’s the first week, what’s there to like about syllabi and unnecessarily personal introductions?” sort of speaks to his feelings. Maybe he just needs time to settle into it; maybe he just needs to hear his other options. Maybe he needs Akira to change his own major first to know that it’s okay (or maybe Akira just wants that to be the answer to justify his own feelings). Akira will be there regardless of what it is he needs. He wants to give Akechi whatever that is.
But what Akechi is going to need most tonight…is dinner. Akira’s not going to find the answer to either of their problems on the ceiling no matter how long he looks, and sitting here feeling useless will be good for neither of them.
He gets up slowly, still ignoring the unpacked bag on the floor and making his way to the kitchen. He hasn’t gone grocery shopping this week, so they’re probably running low on all kinds of things, but that was to be expected with the change in their still somewhat fresh routine. With any luck, he can take note of what they do have and come up with something to make that won’t take more than a trip to the corner store down the block for whatever is missing to complete. He really doesn’t want to turn tonight into a full grocery run, and with the recent adjustments to their routine, he’s not sure how long he’ll have before Akechi gets home either. Probably enough time for the cooking itself, but not enough to make a whole big show of it.
Admittedly, he’s fearful that all that might be left are ingredients from their tsukemen dinner. He hasn’t been avoiding making it a second time—that would be a little stupid of him considering his driving motivator has been to find something well-suited to Akechi, and tsukemen has been a top contender amongst a couple other recipes so far—but he can recognize has hasn’t been jumping at the chance either. Selfishness feels a little bit new on his skin, a prickle of guilt and pleasure both; Akechi would probably be delighted to hear it.
If that’s what they have, though, then he’s resourceful enough to do something new with those ingredients, isn’t he?
Except when he opens the fridge, it’s not empty. Akechi hadn’t said anything about getting groceries, and who even knows when he’d found the time, given how busy he always is—not to mention that he’s often with Akira when he’s not busy. Yet the evidence is there: a bag of carrots, several apples in the clear pull-out draw, and a bundle of fresh bay leaves (ridiculously) in their own glass container on the shelf. None of it makes for a sustaining meal alone, but their presence is clue enough—Akira certainly didn’t buy those. And, more pointedly, he’s seen these specific ingredients enough; he lets his instincts draw him over to their tiny pantry next, and sure enough he finds onions and a sack of potatoes, parcels filled with garlic and ginger root.
He checks the freezer, and there’s enough beef for more than one night’s worth of Sojiro’s curry. Probably more than two dinners’ worth, even—if Akira didn’t go crazy on the portions and second servings. Though he would, which he’s sure Akechi knew when he made the purchase.
Though, in terms of certainties, he also would have said he was sure that Akechi would be bored of curry by now; He knows objectively that it’s good, and Akechi never seemed displeased by it. He’d eaten it often enough at Leblanc, but Akira also knows that he himself personally likes to fall back on the recipe when he’s tired, or cranky, or just isn’t sure what else to make. It’s familiar to him, comforting even, but it’s not special to Akechi in the same way. The last time Akira had made them curry, Akechi had seemed indifferent, mostly, like he usually is, and Akira had again grown more determined to find something Akechi would actually voice liking. Something that would make him happy in the same way that the curry did Akira.
Yet he can’t argue with what’s before him; the ingredients are there, purposeful in their acquisition. He has a feeling that if he opens the cabinet to his left, new spices they hadn’t yet picked up will be present. Akechi doesn’t do things by halves.
He can’t deny, either, that he’s in a great mood by the time he hears the front door open and knows Akechi is home. The smell of curry permeates the air, the kitchen is comfortably warm, and now his favorite person is about to round the corner.
“For fuck’s sake, Akira, people are on my last nerves today. I swear to god they’re doing it on purpose.”
Akira laughs, free and unrestrained, and it seems loud in their tiny kitchen—it feels like his happiness is almost all-consuming. Leave it to Akechi to start voicing complaints before Akira has even laid eyes on him; he loves that bitchiness. It adrenalizes him.
They’d had a conversation, once—tucked into the darkness of night and shielded by the privacy of closed walls—about Akechi’s temper. He’d admitted, in a very small, uncharacteristically quiet voice, that allowing himself to be angry in public had felt cathartic after everything. He’d spent so long stewing in his anger, his revenge, and it had been familiar to him, but he’d never been allowed to share it. It had been almost luxurious to allow himself the small indulgence of outward expression; it had astounded him afterwards to find that this version of himself was somehow the version Akira wanted to be closer to. Plenty of people liked the person he played on television, people who were by Akechi’s own standard unimportant and foolish, but this was someone who wanted him around without distilling himself into something palettable—someone who favored this mean, bitter version of Akechi so much more simply for the fact that it was genuine. Pieces of the prince had been real; Robin Hood had been a part of his soul—but this wasn’t just a piece, this was Akechi as a whole.
Akira had held him tight, thankful to be granted that knowledge, and he thinks of it every time Akechi expresses himself with vitriol. That he speaks his mind freely, safe in the knowledge that it’s okay—Akira relishes in being that for him. He doesn’t need other people to get it; he knows it’s an honor.
“I thought we were done with gods. Twice over, even.”
“Ugh.” Akechi finally comes round the corner, his expression pinched and his feet bare, jacket and bag already dispensed. He doesn’t say hello, or ask how Akira’s day was. He just walks right over and into Akira’s personal space, like he’d known Akira has been waiting for him. He smushes his face into Akira’s neck, wraps his arms around Akira’s waist as tightly as he can—which is pretty tight; Akechi hasn’t lost any of that strength from fighting alone in the metaverse for years—and pushes himself against Akira as close as he can get, as if he’s trying to merge them together. The death of the individual, the birth of something new… it lights up something familiar in the back of Akira’s mind.
He wraps an arm around Akechi in turn, smile still on his face. His other hand cradles the back of Akechi’s head, fingers gently combing through the soft, mousy hair. He can feel the slow drip of tension from Akechi’s body, the slow shift as he becomes pliant in Akira’s arms. Eventually Akechi’s hold becomes a little less tight, and he turns his head to breathe better, cheek squished on Akira’s shoulder as he takes a deep breath. Akira wishes he could see his face; Akechi’s eyes are probably closed, his eyelashes fanned against his cheek, and his lips are probably parted instead of drawn tight as they were when Akechi had first walked in.
They stay like that for a while—Akira really isn’t that good at tracking time, least of all when he’s absorbed in Akechi like this—before Akira offers up a simple “Dinner?” After Akechi's nod, Akira maneuvers him over to their table, deposits him in his seat, and starts making them both plates. For as much as Akechi hates being pitied or coddled or asking for help, he does seem to find a private little pleasure in Akira taking care of him so long as it’s not overstated, patronizing, or—god forbid, worst of all—adressed.
God, it’s fucking cute.
Akechi nods in silent thanks when Akira places a plate before him, and though they eat in silence, they’re still having a conversation of sorts through looks and glances—something they do often enough that their friends have vocalized how much they hate it, which has of course done nothing to deter them from continuing. As for dinner, Akira always watches Akechi eat; he likes to note Akechi’s responses, to make sure he’s having enough—and Akechi frequently stares right back at him, head-on and forward in that blunt way he handles everything. This time, though, Akechi’s glances at him are stolen, less like the daytime’s detective prince and more like a phantom thief.
Akira’s been a bad influence, then. Good.
He smiles into his spoon, the thought warming him from the inside out, and then the familiarity slams into him full force. It’s not just sneaking glances—Akechi is trying to assess if he’s enjoying dinner. If he’s happy about the curry.
Oh my god.
That’s the thing about Akechi: he always surprises Akira. And sure, maybe this type of behavior is the kind typically expected in a relationship, but they aren’t typical—Akira doesn’t want typical. Not anymore, at least. So yeah, this little moment means a lot.
“Thanks for picking up groceries. I wasn’t looking forward to making a trip.”
Instantly Akechi looks pleased, the corners of his mouth curling up without a fight, his eyes lingering on Akira for a beat longer than usual. It’s like he’s happy he’s done this right—like he’s slowly figuring out the way to shape himself around the idea of domesticity, the smoothness of a life like this unfamiliar to him—someone acclimated to sharp edges and harsh lines. “Yes, well. I figured,” he replies, glib and deceitfully casual. He tries so hard. Akira wants to share everything with him, help him figure out each step forward until that shambling into domesticity becomes easy.
He lets his smile grow a little more wild, feeling a little less like Akira and a little more like Joker. They’re both him, sure, the way even Akechi’s Robin Hood has always been just as much him as Loki was—but he doesn’t pull that version of himself out often in the real world. He’ll have to fix that; breathing is easier when he knows he has Joker to rely on. For now, at least, he has Akechi to remind him of who he is.
And that’s it, isn’t it? Akechi compliments him in ways he’d never have previously thought to seek out. Akira had had a plethora of ideas placed in his head young of what he should want—something easy, something sweet. He’d do it all: cheesy romance, marriage, starting a family. He’d have a traditional job and he’d put bread on the table. He’d thought that’d be enough—more than enough, plenty—once upon a time. Then Akechi had irreversibly damaged his psyche, had changed him so irrevocably. He can’t imagine, now, a life absent of praise tucked into the pockets of overly-worn insults, of unspoken acts of service that still catch Akira off guard, of being lectured into the ground as a show of worry and fear when he inevitably puts himself last, anything and everything else coming before him.
Akechi challenges him, never letting Akira settle as anything other than his best, and it’s exciting. Maybe their relationship isn’t easy in the way simplicity so often is, but it’s easy in that Akira knows both he and Akechi fall into it naturally. Together they can strip themselves of expectations and pretenses; together they’re just themselves, Kurusu Akira and Akechi Goro, flaws and strengths facing forward in equal measure. That’s easy in a way nothing simple could ever hope to be; it’s blazing, and brilliant, and Akira would let those flames consume him whole if it means getting to keep this as is. He doesn’t ask for much, otherwise—but this is different. This, he’d fight for.
He delights in those stolen glances and in the sideways means in which Akechi shows his affection. This is his Akechi. Prickly, and moody, and still challenging him to stupid competitions because being together doesn’t stop them from constantly trying to out-do the other, and his. Unequivocally his. Akechi, whose bitchiness is a cold, bitter sting, gnawing at the edges of anything it can sink its teeth into, but who steals Akira’s shirts and hoodies and sweatpants, because to Akechi the idea of comfort is inherently and inseparably tied into Akira’s existence. Akechi, who snaps at Akira without thinking and who rises to Akira’s taunts without fail, but who considers him an equal—who encourages him to share his own thoughts, because he genuinely doesn’t want to hear his own desires parroted back at him, but instead wants to pick apart Akira’s true thoughts for consideration. Akechi, who is confusing and difficult on purpose, who lies like breathing and who’s built on obfuscation more than blood and bones, but who pulls Akira to pieces and finds the truth of him. Who Akira talks to more easily, more frequently, than anyone else, and who pushes him in a way that feels good, even when it’s followed up by a bad day—or an okay day, which sometimes still includes threats and broken plates and curling up trembling on the cool laminate tile of their kitchen floor. Akechi who, at the end of every day, ties his own happiness to Akira’s presence in his life.
Akira has no doubts that Akechi loves him with every atom in his body. Akechi spends each day learning how to live, despite having always intended to end in tandem with his revenge, to execute his plan and be executed alongside it—and he ties every instant of that second, third chance to Akira simply because he wants to. What a precious, gentle thing, to be loved so wholly—even by someone so brutal.
“Thanks, Goro.”
Perhaps especially so, when he is the only one for whom the brutality washes away and quiet, hesitant tenderness remains. He delights in that singularity as much as he delights in Akechi’s rage and sorrow and undeservedly self-flaggerating justice.
A beat of silence, a flash of red eyes going shocked then soft in the light of their shared living room. “Don’t mention it, Akira.”
God, it feels so good to hear his name on Akechi’s lips. It makes him feel the same way he’d grown to feel when he’d come home to Leblanc—it makes him feel right. Like he’d found his place, a spot he belonged. Akira suddenly realizes what their apartment is missing: pictures. He needs so, so many pictures. Akechi will throw a fit about it, probably. Akira wants to look at them side by side every day, on every surface. He wants to capture every emotion that flashes across Akechi’s face, from rare tenderness to common rage. “Should I mention your day?”
Akechi groans. “As if. I don’t want to talk about those idiots. How do they manage to keep their jobs? Do you know—” Akechi tells him everything, of course, informing Akira all about ‘those idiots’ in scorching, pinpointingly accurate disgust. It’s heaven—better than any reality Maruki could have tried to make for them.
Akira’s not sure why he even bothered trying.
He’s aware, somewhere in the recess of his mind, that it’s sort of momentous that he can even think about Maruki so flippantly. There’s deep seated issues within him that Maruki may not have planted, but had certainly nurtured, and those won’t simply disappear—but he’s no longer plunged into the dark, murky waters of grief and despair, lost beneath ink-black waves and cloudy purple light. Instead of drowning, Akira is reclining in a chair he’s claimed as his own, sharing a table and a dinner and a day with the boy he loves, and it’s precious. He really, truly cherishes this—loves looking around their apartment as the proof that they made it despite everything. He loves cooking for the people most important to him, remembering their favorites in a quiet, unvoiced display of devotion. I see you as you are; I know you. He loves hosting his friends over here in this new home in pairs or trios or the whole entire squad, watching the ways in which they fill out all the hairfractures of his life.
And he loves that after they all leave, it’s Akechi that stays.
Akechi, who’s picking up Akira’s empty plate without asking and heading for the kitchen as he speaks. “I’ll wash the dishes. You don’t do it right.”
Akira tilts his head, watching the way Akechi moves. These days he slightly favors his left side—ambidexterity aside—but it’s imperceptible by this point to anyone who isn’t as obsessed with him as Akira is—and nobody else should be, or there’d be different problems at hand. Akira has lost count of how many times he’s pressed his lips to the raised, pink skin of Akechi’s scars, repeated like a prayer of gratefulness. “How could you possibly know that? You’re never in there.”
“I use the dishes, do I not? I know.”
Akira ambles in behind him, head slightly tilted in a way that way Ann has described before as his confused puppy look. “Do you want me to dry?”
Akechi doesn’t even glance at him. Akira has a feeling that’s because Akechi knows exactly what he’d find, but not exactly what his own eyes would reveal. “You already cooked. Hasn’t that tired you out enough, or do you really need to be taken for a walk as well?” Ah, so he did know it was the puppy eyes. Akira never worries with Akechi that his gaze is too intense. If anything, he loves using that against Akechi at any given opportunity; he loves driving Akechi up the god damn wall—but he also knows that at times Akechi struggles to face just how soft Akira looks at him. Sometimes he just has to look away, and Akira will let him. For now.
Still, Akira smiles, shoving his way into their tiny kitchen next to Akechi and picking up the towel he usually uses to dry. It isn’t as if Akechi couldn’t say thank you—Akira has heard his polite dismissals and appreciations plenty. This is just a more honest way of showing his thanks, of telling Akira that he’s grateful for the meal and the care—and that’s lovely. Akira doesn’t need the words—nor does he need to sit on the couch while Akechi washes dishes, so very far from each other. He’s much more content to be repaid by standing here at Akechi’s side and being granted allowance into Akechi’s person space, whether that means shoulders pressed together while Akechi focuses on filling the sink—eyes narrowed in concentration, oblivious to the way Akira can’t look anywhere else—or whether that means elbowing each other in the sides, scooping up suds to shove in each other’s faces and ignoring the way the floor will absolutely need to be mopped now. It’s the only type of repayment Akira wants.
“Bet I can dry dishes faster than you can wash them.”
“Of course you’d suggest that. Your task is inherently simpler and contributes less to the outcome.”
“So you won’t accept?”
It’s not conventional, but Akira feels…fulfilled. They may have had to jump through hoops and peel back fifty layers of both themselves and each other—and survive the horrors—but they're here. Every night they get to come together and eat a meal, and every night they fall asleep next to each other in their bed (the bed that Akechi picked out, of course, and Akira can’t deny that the back support is really nice—maybe there is something to not sleeping on a pile of crates with a mattress thrown on top). And Akira knows without a doubt that all of those hoops were worth jumping through.
“Tsk. I didn’t say that. You’re on.”
Akechi will always be here to push him, to challenge him—and Akira is always, without fail, going to accept.