[ A birthday as a celebrity was a strange, incredible thing.
Presents, letters, emails, tagged images and posts, well wishes spread online and his manager dropped off more gifts than he had ever seen in his life.
The sensation was new - so foreign he mistook it for happiness because it had been too long since he last felt it coil in his chest.
Realized after the tenth letter for the perfect Detective Prince, the fourth package full of cloying sweets, a teddy bear from a collaboration he doesn't remember through the haze of too busy days -
How much he despised every last piece of it. This wasn't love. Akechi Goro wasn't wanted. A prince was needed if he covered every imperfect crack.
And in a sterile apartment, he didn't need to play pretend. And in that dimly lit living room, he shoved it all into a trash bag. And in the night that followed, he wondered how he could grasp that brief second in his palm again. More shows - a variety one, maybe. A new cafe down the street was a place his fans frequented and tagged him to visit.
And in this new world where he can just be - he chooses to be Akechi with Akira. A shadow's presence still means he can be alone with another and Akira has always fallen in step with him, allowed him to linger by his side in turn.
They're alone. They're together. It's not the best of both worlds, but it's that imperfection Akechi Goro clings to because it's the most familiar sensation of all.
The bathhouse is a refuge they both settle in without a word. It's a few minutes, ten minutes, nearly a half hour later before Akechi speaks up from his position a few feet away. That he opens his eyes, peels the back of his head off the cool tile behind them and sinks to his shoulders into the water. ]
It's odd to think about aging in a place that may end up being no different than a palace, don't you think?
[It's a hazy daydream that Akechi's words pull him out of, not even fully remembered. He blinks tv studio lights out of his eyes and rolls his head towards Akechi.
Beside him. Breathing. Old enough to drink, against every odd that's ever been stacked against him.
Akira's chest aches with it.]
It begs the question of how much of a cognitive world this is, or how little we may know of the laws of the Metaverse. I wonder which one it is.
[Without even a speck of hesitation around someone that could easily kill him, he reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind Akechi's ear, hand dropping away nonchalantly. When Akira speaks, his voice is just as even as it was before.]
Your face isn't quite the same as it was when you were eighteen. [It's not that Akechi is unrecognizable. It's simply that even now, a year out, his face is burned into his brain. Every one of his moments before death makes its rounds through his dreams.] Not a big change, but enough of one that I can see. You've aged while you were here. Did you experience growth because there's more of reality here than we'd like to think, or is it your cognition making it so?
[It's a question to answer a question, the same as is often their way. Akira doesn't like his own question very much, nor its implications, but it's one that he asks all the same.]
A long time since Akechi had a good day. Not for lack of effort from himself. Not even due to others. It's an improbable, impossible sensation that was thrown out with a noose. He's chased it ever since and always -
Always -
It's his own mind, his own thoughts, his own desires that fuel an anger in his gut when something feels good for too long. Akechi Goro poisons. He doesn't particularly care.
It's inevitable. He welcomes the way it creeps into his mind in the dead of night, but right now-
It feels like a good day when his body is forced to relax in a bath full of liquid lava. Stays good, somehow, even when a hand brushes hair against his damp face.
He's in a good mood is all. Akechi should say something - would, probably, with anyone else. Make a remark about personal space, but -
His mouth stays shut, eyes on Akira as always. It's been far too long since they were last together like this. Well before a planned murder fully formed, though Akechi can't help to see red when sweat drip, drip, drips from Akira's chin, right into the water.
I see you're feeling bold dies on his lips. Good will go away on its own anyway. ]
It's fascinating to consider. If I suddenly believe I'm eighteen again, will I gradually go back to how I looked then? Fourteen? Ten? We should be grateful it doesn't seem to be that simple.
[ And it's quiet. Calm. Drops from a leaky faucet plop into the water. There's no grand gesture to make or confessions about a past Akechi never wanted to spill.
It's only them, laid out and bare. ]
It's not as if you haven't changed either.
[ In this world, in his last one. Kurusu Akira from the future is the same and yet - ]
That's what it means to be alive, I suppose. It's inevitable. Even this place can't stop such a thing.
I have. [So much time has passed since I saw you alive.] I've been here for several months already. [A lifetime and a blink of an eye.] And back home, it's been even more. [It's felt just as impossibly short and impossibly long since the day you thought you put a bullet in my brain.] Even in a place like this, time passes. No matter if it's faster or slower than we want it to move.
[Akira cannot stop time.
And yet he intends to do exactly that.]
Normally, time will continue to move forward. Even here, I don't think the hypothetical you presented would work very easily even if you tried to wish it into being. It may not be impossible to unlearn, but your mind is trained to think that becoming younger is an impossibility. But if you could...
[His eyes are sharp and bright, hanging on the words like Akechi is the one that's speaking them.]
Would you go back in time, or even forward? Or maybe...
[To be held in arms, over and over-
To fire a gun, over and over-
Akira's almost certain he knows the answer. But he wants to hear Akechi say it.]
If you could, would you choose to stay in one moment forever? Or would you want time to carry you forward as always?
[ The what ifs endure in every reality - these little conversations and thoughts turning to hypotheticals that Akechi will turn over in his mind all night long. It happens with every simple discussion, keeps him occupied until morning when the topic deviates into something morally gray and complicated.
There's a glint in Akira's eyes that he doesn't miss. It's as captivating as ever. In these quiet moments, Akechi can understand why people bind Akira to a pedestal he never asked to be on.
The answer is an obvious one, but he mulls it over anyway.
Thinks about the what if of meeting Kurusu on a playground years before his life was uprooted. The what if of crossing paths before a gun was held to Wakaba's head.
But his course was set when some god or entity granted him such an ability. It wouldn't matter and -
It doesn't matter and that resolution comes out as a quiet huff of a laugh. Brief, fleeting and accompanied by him wiping the sweat from his own brow. ]
What a question - one you must know by now. No, I would never go back. I would never want to stay static in a single moment. What a pathetic life that would be.
[ And to go forward -
is pointless.
His death is inevitable. Shido's death is inevitable. He wants to savor every single second the culmination of all his hard work. ]
Anything less than continuing where I left off is unacceptable to me.
[ But it's an interesting question. He can think of others who would respond-
Differently, perhaps. ]
But when I think how others may answer and how they would do with the temptation of changing a disastrous choice in their past or propel themselves to a future more certain-
[ A woman who's memory was wiped, a boy who saved someone from being assaulted in some no-name town- ]
Let me ask you this, Akira - say the choice is given to you to decide the fate of others. You can send Maruki, Okumura, [ Akechi Goro ] and any other wayward soul you've collected here to the past, present, or future.
[ It's fuzzy. It's fuzzy. He remembers standing in LeBlanc in some shitty alternate world- ]
Will you try to defy a fate set for them or choose to accept their resolve over their own life?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
birthday bathhouse
Presents, letters, emails, tagged images and posts, well wishes spread online and his manager dropped off more gifts than he had ever seen in his life.
The sensation was new - so foreign he mistook it for happiness because it had been too long since he last felt it coil in his chest.
Realized after the tenth letter for the perfect Detective Prince, the fourth package full of cloying sweets, a teddy bear from a collaboration he doesn't remember through the haze of too busy days -
How much he despised every last piece of it. This wasn't love. Akechi Goro wasn't wanted. A prince was needed if he covered every imperfect crack.
And in a sterile apartment, he didn't need to play pretend. And in that dimly lit living room, he shoved it all into a trash bag. And in the night that followed, he wondered how he could grasp that brief second in his palm again. More shows - a variety one, maybe. A new cafe down the street was a place his fans frequented and tagged him to visit.
And in this new world where he can just be - he chooses to be Akechi with Akira. A shadow's presence still means he can be alone with another and Akira has always fallen in step with him, allowed him to linger by his side in turn.
They're alone. They're together. It's not the best of both worlds, but it's that imperfection Akechi Goro clings to because it's the most familiar sensation of all.
The bathhouse is a refuge they both settle in without a word. It's a few minutes, ten minutes, nearly a half hour later before Akechi speaks up from his position a few feet away. That he opens his eyes, peels the back of his head off the cool tile behind them and sinks to his shoulders into the water. ]
It's odd to think about aging in a place that may end up being no different than a palace, don't you think?
gnaws u in half
Beside him. Breathing. Old enough to drink, against every odd that's ever been stacked against him.
Akira's chest aches with it.]
It begs the question of how much of a cognitive world this is, or how little we may know of the laws of the Metaverse. I wonder which one it is.
[Without even a speck of hesitation around someone that could easily kill him, he reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind Akechi's ear, hand dropping away nonchalantly. When Akira speaks, his voice is just as even as it was before.]
Your face isn't quite the same as it was when you were eighteen. [It's not that Akechi is unrecognizable. It's simply that even now, a year out, his face is burned into his brain. Every one of his moments before death makes its rounds through his dreams.] Not a big change, but enough of one that I can see. You've aged while you were here. Did you experience growth because there's more of reality here than we'd like to think, or is it your cognition making it so?
[It's a question to answer a question, the same as is often their way. Akira doesn't like his own question very much, nor its implications, but it's one that he asks all the same.]
no subject
A long time since Akechi had a good day. Not for lack of effort from himself. Not even due to others. It's an improbable, impossible sensation that was thrown out with a noose. He's chased it ever since and always -
Always -
It's his own mind, his own thoughts, his own desires that fuel an anger in his gut when something feels good for too long. Akechi Goro poisons. He doesn't particularly care.
It's inevitable. He welcomes the way it creeps into his mind in the dead of night, but right now-
It feels like a good day when his body is forced to relax in a bath full of liquid lava. Stays good, somehow, even when a hand brushes hair against his damp face.
He's in a good mood is all. Akechi should say something - would, probably, with anyone else. Make a remark about personal space, but -
His mouth stays shut, eyes on Akira as always. It's been far too long since they were last together like this. Well before a planned murder fully formed, though Akechi can't help to see red when sweat drip, drip, drips from Akira's chin, right into the water.
I see you're feeling bold dies on his lips. Good will go away on its own anyway. ]
It's fascinating to consider. If I suddenly believe I'm eighteen again, will I gradually go back to how I looked then? Fourteen? Ten? We should be grateful it doesn't seem to be that simple.
[ And it's quiet. Calm. Drops from a leaky faucet plop into the water. There's no grand gesture to make or confessions about a past Akechi never wanted to spill.
It's only them, laid out and bare. ]
It's not as if you haven't changed either.
[ In this world, in his last one. Kurusu Akira from the future is the same and yet - ]
That's what it means to be alive, I suppose. It's inevitable. Even this place can't stop such a thing.
no subject
[Akira cannot stop time.
And yet he intends to do exactly that.]
Normally, time will continue to move forward. Even here, I don't think the hypothetical you presented would work very easily even if you tried to wish it into being. It may not be impossible to unlearn, but your mind is trained to think that becoming younger is an impossibility. But if you could...
[His eyes are sharp and bright, hanging on the words like Akechi is the one that's speaking them.]
Would you go back in time, or even forward? Or maybe...
[To be held in arms, over and over-
To fire a gun, over and over-
Akira's almost certain he knows the answer. But he wants to hear Akechi say it.]
If you could, would you choose to stay in one moment forever? Or would you want time to carry you forward as always?
no subject
There's a glint in Akira's eyes that he doesn't miss. It's as captivating as ever. In these quiet moments, Akechi can understand why people bind Akira to a pedestal he never asked to be on.
The answer is an obvious one, but he mulls it over anyway.
Thinks about the what if of meeting Kurusu on a playground years before his life was uprooted. The what if of crossing paths before a gun was held to Wakaba's head.
But his course was set when some god or entity granted him such an ability. It wouldn't matter and -
It doesn't matter and that resolution comes out as a quiet huff of a laugh. Brief, fleeting and accompanied by him wiping the sweat from his own brow. ]
What a question - one you must know by now. No, I would never go back. I would never want to stay static in a single moment. What a pathetic life that would be.
[ And to go forward -
is pointless.
His death is inevitable. Shido's death is inevitable. He wants to savor every single second the culmination of all his hard work. ]Anything less than continuing where I left off is unacceptable to me.
[ But it's an interesting question. He can think of others who would respond-
Differently, perhaps. ]
But when I think how others may answer and how they would do with the temptation of changing a disastrous choice in their past or propel themselves to a future more certain-
[ A woman who's memory was wiped, a boy who saved someone from being assaulted in some no-name town- ]
Let me ask you this, Akira - say the choice is given to you to decide the fate of others. You can send Maruki, Okumura, [ Akechi Goro ] and any other wayward soul you've collected here to the past, present, or future.
[ It's fuzzy. It's fuzzy. He remembers standing in LeBlanc in some shitty alternate world- ]
Will you try to defy a fate set for them or choose to accept their resolve over their own life?