Work Text:
Goro Akechi was a busy man. His daily schedule was perpetually overflowing, crammed to the brim with his thoughts, desires, and aspirations.
Why he lingered in this particular cafe nearly every evening, far longer than necessary, he himself did not know.
These nights at Leblanc had become a habit, albeit an unhealthy one. The rain and cold outside wore Akechi down morally, suffocating him under the grey hues and dreary vistas of Shibuya, while also leaving vivid scarlet marks on his hands, a cold urticaria. After all, he was a child of summer at heart, even if that fact was far from evident. To escape this desolate palette, he would return to this cafe, unsure if there was any point to it. A bitter feeling deep within simply urged him to come to this building, where a handful of elderly regulars shuffled in and stray cats prowled past, searching for scraps of food and a sliver of warmth. Even existing as the highest form of evolution, they saw a purpose in mere survival. Goro was not so different from them.
Yet metaphors aside, someone worked here, and Akechi would not lie, who brewed the finest coffee of his life, Akira Kurusu.
And perhaps, in the depths of his solitude, late at night, he could admit that Kurusu, surprisingly, suited him remarkably well. He was intelligent, captivating; it was easy to be drawn to him and pleasant to simply be near him. If Akechi were to be even more honest, he would confess that he wished to be Kurusu’s friend. For Kurusu to see beyond the façade of his personality and glimpse the true self that Akechi stubbornly concealed from everyone else and paradoxically yearning to be understood.
That evening, their mood was not conducive to their usual chess matches, so Akechi sat at the counter, tapping his finger against a lukewarm cup, watching the other boy prepare to close up the cafe. It was late; Sakura san had already left, and even Morgana had vanished upstairs. Perhaps Akechi was overstepping his hospitality, but just as the thought crossed his mind that he really ought to leave, Akira, as if reading his thoughts, turned to him.
“Want to stay a little longer?” he asked, placing a freshly washed cup back in its place.
Akechi was foolish. And totally hopeless. So he agreed.
He moved to a table, and Kurusu, removing his apron, joined him, noticing an open crossword puzzle along the way. Many of the words had already been solved; only the final clue remained: “A person who reflects your soul so clearly that you finally see your true self.”
“If we lived in a universe where soulmates existed,” Kurusu asked, lifting his gaze, “do you think things would be easier?”
Akechi, unsure what impulse he was obeying, whether it was the comforting aroma of coffee that always accompanied Akira, the tranquil atmosphere that felt almost like home (though he knew that expression only in theory), or the simple fact that Kurusu was the only person before whom he wanted to shed all his self constructed masks, he decided to be honest.
“I would hate that,” such a predictable answer from you, “I wouldn't want another person to be… forced to choose me. I wouldn't want them to love me simply because it was dictated. I would want to be chosen of their own free will.”
“Don't you think someone who loves you would always choose you?”
Akechi gave a wry smile, lowering his head. He stared at his bare hands, devoid of gloves, reddened once more from the cold, despite the warmth and comfort inside the building.
If only love worked that way in real life.
“This isn't just about that, is it? Kurusu… what do you think?” He clenched his icy fingers into a fist with his other hand.
“Hmm. I've never really thought about it.”
Akechi lifted his gaze. Catching the faint, barely perceptible smile on the other's face, he momentarily forgot what the feeling of cold even meant.
“I believe soulmates already exist,” the other said, so simply. “I just think people are mistaken when they assume a soulmate is forever. My guess is that they aren't meant to be with you for your entire life. Sometimes souls cross paths for a season, to fulfill a purpose, and then they part ways. Though I suspect even I would find that difficult to accept, which is why people invent such romantic narratives.”
“You always manage to impress me,” Akechi replied, barely above a whisper.
If not for the circumstances, Akechi would have liked to be at least a friend to Kurusu.
If not for the circumstances, Akechi wished everything could have remained as normal as it had been before November.
This autumn had been colder than all the months preceding it, yet this was the path he had chosen for himself.
That did not stop him, however, from falling asleep and dreaming of a warmth he could never attain.
Akira Kurusu had flooded all his dreams, and Akechi asked himself: was his brain trying to show him his most terrifying desire, or his most alluring fear?
Every night, Akechi returned to the seashore. Perhaps this place was exactly the kind of annual leave he would have dreamed of if he had lived a normal life, a nine to five job, a family waiting for him at home. But even if Goro could imagine such an unreal scenario, seeing the boy beside him always caused him pain, the very person who would certainly never have stayed with him after everything that had happened.
Sunset. Deceptively warm sunlight. Vivid orange hues bleeding across the sky. The two of them, together with Akira.
Yet, for some reason, the sea was always terribly cold. When Akechi dared to step forward toward the waves and feel them against his body, they were icy, so chilling that his toes would cramp, even though the water had only touched his feet.
But Akira's presence beside him was warm. It should not have been, yet every time after Akechi foolishly and stubbornly tried to endure that cold, he felt an ethereal proximity. Of course, Kurusu emanated such an alluring warmth that everyone instinctively yearned to draw closer. Akechi was no exception to that rule, not even for Kurusu.
He often didn't even need to turn around; he could sense the other boy approaching him. In his usual manner, Akira reached for his bare, ungloved hands, which somehow always disappeared in the dreams, likely to make Goro even colder. He clasped them and turned Akechi toward himself. Akira was devastatingly beautiful in the hues of the setting sun, ethereal, warm, and magnetic.
His lips, too, were warm when he pressed them to Akechi's clenched fists. Akechi had almost grown accustomed to it, yet he still flinched treacherously at such close, heated breath. Kurusu seemed unbothered by how violently the other's hands trembled, as if it mattered not at all.
Akira did not stop there. He continued kissing Akechi's hand, attending to each finger, gently and carefully, in a way no one had ever treated Akechi. He did everything slowly, simply, and comfortably, the way Akira did everything.
On some nights, if Akechi was patient, Kurusu would draw closer and touch his cheek. The contrast between Akechi's cold skin and Kurusu's warm yet ghostly lips made Goro's head spin. He could only squeeze his eyes shut, trying to hold back ugly tears. But Akira never stopped there. After the kiss on the cheek, he would remain close, breathing hotly against Akechi's neck, interlacing their fingers. When Goro opened his eyes the next time, a thin red line would catch his attention, winding around their entwined fingers. It would have been romantic, almost like a fairy tale, if Akira had not then lifted his head and looked at Akechi, who would notice that the red lines were no longer so delicate; they were streaming down from Akira's forehead.
Red did not suit Akira. Blue suited him. Cyan. Silver. Akechi wondered how such a warm boy could be suited by such cold shades.
No matter how much Akechi crumbled under that gaze, Kurusu only smiled in response. Everything he did was tender. Even the way he brought his lips to Akechi's for a fleeting kiss remained gentle and careful. The kiss never lasted longer than a second, but that second was always enough to shatter Goro completely.
And no matter how much Akechi wanted to weep like a child on the spot, no matter how desperately he wished to wipe that ugly, hot liquid from Akira's face with trembling fingers, whether from cold or anxiety, all he could feel next was the thunder of his own heartbeat pounding, it seemed, in his ears, and the water rising from its shores, the sea level climbing higher.
The dreams always ended the same way. Akira stood, gripping his fingers, sharing his warmth like a radiator on a winter night. Akechi stood frozen, unmoving, feeling the water soak through his clothes; watching the water first erase the crimson line from their fingers, then blur all the blood from Akira's face; instinctively holding his breath as he sank beneath the surface. No matter how much willpower Akechi mustered, he would always accidentally close his eyes upon contact with the water, and when he opened them again, there was no one. The warmth vanished in that very instant.
But the one constant thing that accompanied him at the end of the dream, besides the inhuman cold, was a colossal ship. There was no place for him aboard it. It always sailed away from him so furiously, and the captain never even tried to glimpse the man in the water.
It’s not that Akechi was surprised by this. He had grown accustomed to that sharp, piercing sensation of loneliness. It was so revolting to feel that everyone else was moving forward while he remained behind. And yet, merely by losing Akira from his side, Akechi would turn into an empty shell of a person who had never truly existed in the first place. It didn’t matter if he wanted to scream and call out to the people above, when he opened his mouth and defied his instinct for self preservation, water would fill his lungs, and the cold would consume his insides.
The world forever forgot the corpse left overboard.
"We have to win this—no matter what."
If not for the circumstances, Akira would have wanted Goro to stay. But that would have been far too selfish a desire; selfish was how Akira craved his presence, simply because he himself delighted in having Akechi nearby. And Akechi… was already dead. Akira could not change that.
And he could not stop him when Akechi turned away and headed for the door. He didn't even have the strength for a farewell. Even though there would be tomorrow; they would meet again, they had a treasure to steal, yet Akira understood that come morning, Akechi would act as though this conversation between them had never occurred.
'I would want to be chosen of their own free will.' What an idiot Goro was, to go against his own words.
Yet Akechi would not want to live in this reality. Akira could not force him; it was painful for Akira to accept, and perhaps he wished their story could have at least a glimmer of a happy ending, the kind Maruki tried so desperately to force upon them.
Only when a frigid gust of winter air hit him did Akira snap back to reality, realizing he had been holding his breath. Without the boy who had become so much more to him than simply his murderer and his teammate, it was once again unbearably cold. The door had closed too quickly; the person beyond it had abandoned him without so much as a backward glance. Akira was uncertain whether that was due to resolve or indecision.
Later, alone, clutching the cold leather of the glove, Akira thought to himself, 'would he have left, if he had dared to look back just one last time?'