Chapter Text
Sumire was captured, Amamiya tells Goro, looming over him like the sword of Damocles.
Goro remembers the stadium, the palace, Maruki gazing at them with an expression of pure pity. He grits his teeth, forces himself to stop shaking where he’s cornered in the subway alley. He asks the giant what happened after, how badly they lost.
An ultimatum, Maruki gave them. Spend winter break watching Amamiya’s friends in pure, artificial bliss. Tell him, in a week, how they’d like to see that happiness shatter.
And, of course, Goro's situation. Amamiya recounts Goro going unconscious next to him, some muttered comment from Maruki about “forgetting a wish.” He recounts Maruki disappearing, just as Goro's newfound curse was bestowed upon him. He recounts walking out of Maruki's palace, the tiny form of a serial killer in his hands.
A wish. That was lead to this, hm? Goro having to clutch his ears every time a train enters the station; having to crane his neck back just to see a glimpse of Amamiya's eyes; having to steady himself every time Amamiya moves, because even the slightest shift jostles Goro like an earthquake. Being powerless, completely at the world’s—at Amamiya's mercy. All because of a single, fucking wish.
Amamiya’s voices faces into a dull roar. Goro’s hands ball into fists. If he thinks Goro will sit there and be a good little instrument to their savior complexes, he's dead fucking wrong.
Goro will make sure of that.
~
Akechi Goro stumbles off Ren’s palm, knees slamming against the wood of his desk.
Ren winces, hand twitching forward him—but, no, he's the reason Akechi flung himself off so quickly, isn’t it? Akechi doesn’t seem to mind the bruises. His tiny arms brace under him, and he blows a microscopic—to Ren, anyways—strand of hair out of his eyes. In one fluid motion, he stands, shuffling back so Ren’s completely in his vision.
Akechi cranes his head back, and Ren schools his face into something resembling indifference. It’s still—a lot, to see Akechi look up at him with visible fear.
Ren hunches down, trying to put himself near Akechi's eye-level. All it succeeds in making the boy jerk back like he’s been burned.
Ren opens his mouth. Nothing slips out. Akechi only looks at him, impossibly tiny eyes narrowed in distrust. Not even a comment about catching flies escapes him. It’s too quiet, without his stream of comments.
Ren sighs. He stands, ignoring the violent flinch Akechi gives at the motion, and walks over to his shelf of nick-nacks. He calls over his shoulder, “What do you want to sleep on?”
A beat passes. Two. Ren looks back towards the desk. When their eyes meet, Akechi calls out, “I don’t care.”
Ren bites his lip. He doesn’t know the right thing to say, or what would stop Akechi from looking at him like Ren’s some kind of predator. And yet, it’s still easier to fil the silence. “In the event this doesn’t wear off, we should probably set something up.”
Akechi's eyes harden. “In the event this doesn’t wear off, sleeping arrangements are the last fucking thing I care about, Joker.”
Ren’s fingers drum against his shelf. “Alright,” he says. “Hang tight for a minute, I'll be right back.”
Ren hears a huff behind him, almost lost to the wind. Akechi's still there when he returns from the bathroom, carrying the fluffiest washcloth LeBlanc owns. It’s just—odd, for Akechi to be stagnant, to do nothing but stare. Ren expected him to be halfway off his desk, sliding down a makeshift rope, by the time he came back.
Akechi only watches him, watches as Ren dumps some bracelet from a shallow box. Watches as he rummages around for a blanket and pads it inside. Watches as he sets it down on the desk, inches away —but what must feel like the length of a room—and folds a makeshift pillow, laying the washcloth flat. For lack of a finisher, Ren gives a pair of jazz hands.
Akechi flinches away from the movement, and jolts like he’s been electrocuted when Ren’s phone—resting on the edge of the desk—vibrates.
“Shit—sorry.” It’s Ryuji, tone weirdly—artificially—fake as he offers Ren an invite to hang out with his track team. Guess Ren’s found a target to try to break through to, but...
“I need to get my friends back,” Ren says. Akechi's gaze snaps up from where he’d been considering the box. “I don’t know if...No, what do you want to do?”
He expects Akechi to put his foot down and take the reins that Ren’s giving him, as he’s always, always done. Akechi only gives a brittle smile, and his voice turns sour. “It’s up to you, is it not? Whatever’s in your best judgement, Joker.”
Ren sits down, not particularly feeling like crouching. His floor’s too hard for him to kneel comfortably on. Maybe it would’ve been easier for Maruki to have shrunk them both. “I want to hear your opinion, too. I'm not the deciding factor in this scenario. We’re still a team.”
“Are we? Are we really?” Akechi backs up further, his steps barely putting a few inches between them. He bares his teeth in a grin. “Excuse me for not seeing the level playing field here, Joker. Or did you forget which one of us is the size of the other’s finger?”
“Just because you’re—“ He gestures at Akechi's reduced scale. The boy’s sneer sharpens into a snarl. Ren can’t find the energy to do more than sigh. “It doesn’t mean your autonomy’s been thrown out the window.”
Ren thinks he can see Akechi's hands fist at his sides—it’s, admittedly, a little hard to tell. Akechi licks his lips. “So, if I wanted to walk out of LeBlanc right now, find my way through the streets of Tokyo on my own, you would let me?”
He winces. “I...don’t know if that would be the best idea—“
Akechi raises a hand, cutting him off with a laugh. “And there you have it. Don’t fucking lie to me next time, Joker. You’re better than that.”
Of all the things to respond to, that’s the easiest. “Why do you keep calling me that?”
Akechi doesn’t answer him, hands moving to untie his scarf. His movements are jerky, at least one eye still trained on Ren. Ren leans back, exhaustion washing over him like a cold shower, and mutters a warning before standing up and leaving for the bathroom to change.
He’s messed up—he knows that. This situation is messed up, but he needs some sleep before he can begin to unravel his thoughts. He’s tired. They both are.
When he comes back, Akechi's already sitting in the makeshift bed, curled into the corner with his back facing the wall. His tiny hands clutch his knees. He flinches, just like he always does, when Ren approaches.
This time, Ren kneels.
“I'm sorry,” he murmurs, “We’ll talk about this more in the morning. I just...” Don’t want to lose you again. “I don’t want to see you hurt.”
Akechi shakes his head. He seems to subconsciously huddle into the fabric, as if shielding himself from the world. Ren’s heart tightens. “What did I tell you about lying to me, Joker?”
His eyes drop to his knees, and that’s the end of that. Ren’s brow crinkles, but he stands, turning off the light and draping the covers over himself. Even with exhaustion clouding his thoughts, he finds it difficult to fall asleep.
For once, the blare of Tokyo is silent, absent of even the sounds of another body. Akechi’s breathing is too tiny for him to hear. Unlike with sleepovers with his friends, he can’t tell if the other party is unconscious. There’s nothing to fill Ren’s ears.
It’s awhile before Ren drifts off, but when as does, he wonders if Akechi’s still capable of dreaming.
~
Ren pulls himself out of bed to meet a pair of tiny, narrowed eyes, scrutinizing him from his desk.
He blinks. The memories of yesterday flood back to him—trying to get through to Makoto, Akechi finally waking up, watching the boy flinch every time Ren so much as breathed. Akechi didn’t run, which is great, because the thought of him trying to brave Tokyo's foot traffic makes Ren’s stomach churn. Hell, Ren doubts the boy would even end up a smear—
“Are you going to keep staring at me all fucking morning?” Akechi snaps, voice barely reaching Ren’s ears.
Ren reaches for his glasses, if only to prevent Akechi from noticing the next time he spaces out. Although, it’d be...fairer, in a sense, to take his mask off. Akechi never thought of his gaze as intense, right?
He stands up, stretches his back, and caches the perfect glimpse of Akechi flinching away from him, as far back as his make-shift bed would allow. His expression oozes with fear. Ren schools a grimace, and slides his glasses on in one fluid motion.
He crouches next to the desk. Akechi's neck probably hurts from staring up at—god, Ren’s probably the equivalent of a skyscraper to him, isn’t he? He’s so small. Ren hesitates, and Akechi growls, “What?”
Is this real? Ren doesn’t say. Is your reaction? Do you hate me? Ren doesn’t say. I'm sorry. Ren doesn’t say.
Instead, he murmurs, “We need to talk.”
Akechi bears his teeth, like a Pomeranian attempting to be territorial. “About what?”
“A battle plan,” he says, in lieu of something Akechi'd scoff at. “Maruki gave us a week.”
Akechi mutters something under his breath, voice too quiet for Ren to make out anything but a mocking tone. “In case you haven’t noticed, this is a public restaurant. There are people here.”
“I'll deal with them.”
Akechi stares at him. His body is still, but tense, like a bird poised to flight. Ren’s not stupid enough to think he wouldn’t run the second he could.
Akechi was the best at acting, out of all of them. He wonders where his masks have gone, now.
Ren counts the seconds in his head. After 20, Akechi says, “Fine.”
It takes him longer to climb onto his hand, and even longer to slide into the breast pocket of Ren’s shirt.
Ren keeps his steps steady as he descends the stairs, one hand clinging to the rail like a lifeline. He can’t help but watch his feet, wish for the lithe grace of Joker to carry through. He almost runs straight into Morgana, his too-blue, human eyes sparkling. He blinks when their eyes meet.
“Futaba missed you last night,” Morgana purrs. Ren schools a wince. It’s like looking at the mid-way point between a shadow’s human form and transformation. Ren keeps having to slide his eyes off him, wanting to look but struck by a visceral wrongness every time he does.
And yet—this was still his wish. Tall; broad; handsome; with opposable thumbs, and a rich baritone instead of a meow. To stand on eye-level with the rest of the Thieves, to be every bit the human they didn’t care he wasn’t.
He’ll buy Morgana so much fatty tuna once this is over.
But, first— “I think Haru's been missing your presence,” Ren says.
The-thing-that’s-kind-of-Morgana perks up. “Oh?”
“Yeah. You were the first one she knew. I know she’s been spending a lot of time with her dad—“ Ren steps forward to hide the violent flinch from his pocket. “—But she probably misses you, too.”
“Yeah, you’re right! I should hang out with her. Ren, you should—“
“What about a sleepover?” Ren searches for a mask. Joker? No. Wingman? Uh. Helpful, logical friend, who only wants what’s best for his other friends? It’s something. “Winter break’s almost over. Why don’t you take the week to stay at her place?”
“I mean,” Morgana responds, uncharacteristically hesitant, ”I wouldn’t want to impose...”
“I think she liked your help with gardening more than she liked mine.” He yawns, stretches, switches masks as he assesses the former cat before him. “‘Sides, it’s winter break, there's so much time. A guy needs his privacy, y’know?”
“Gross.” Morgana wrinkles his nose, but it seems to do the job. “Alright. I'll talk to her about it. No funny business while I’m gone, lil’ bro, alright?”
Ren stifles another grimace. “Aye, aye.”
Morgana pads out, the door jingling behind him. Soiro, thankfully, is an easier job. All it takes is putting on an apron, a wistful mention of Futaba and her mother, before he’s out the door, his keys in Ren’s hand.
There’s no customers. Ren flicks off the stove, the TV, and the kettle. Subconsciously, his free hand drifts to his pocket, over the tiny, curled form against his chest, moving—
Moving?
Moving. Vibrating, really, against his fingers. It’s a small action, repetitive, existing even as Akechi stays still. It gains in intensity as Ren’s hand stays.
Akechi’s trembling.
Ren snaps his hand away like it’s been burned.
After flipping the sign to ‘closed’, shuttering the blinds, and locking the door, Ren bites his lip. His hand hovers over the pocket. He’d let Akechi climb out on his own—but, with what? It’s faster to bite the bullet. Ren approaches the counter.
“Brace yourself,” he mutters, before plunging in and sliding his fingers around Akechi's form. Akechi goes rigid in his grasp.
Slowly, he sets him down on the counter. He tries to put Akechi’s feet under him, but he stumbles to his knees the second Ren’s hand leaves. Ren winces, hand twitching forward to help him up, but stops when Akechi shoots him a withering glare.
He takes his own seat, adjacent to Akechi, leaving him the long, wooden expanse of nowhere to run.
“I'm not going to hurt you.” Ren exhales through his nose. He’s starting this, if Akechi's unwavering glower is any indicator. “I just want to fix this, please.”
A beat. Two. Akechi's glare burns more intense. Eventually, he grounds out, “Why should I believe you?”
”We’re trapped in this together. You’re the only ally I have right now. I—“ Ren’s brow furrows. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Akechi scoffs a laugh. “Try again. Why the fuck should I believe you?”
Ren’s fingers clench around his seat. He stuffs his building frustration in the same place he shoves his doubts on the front line, leading a group of high schoolers to the one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. “I want to help you.”
“Of course you do.”
Ren waits for more. Akechi picks at the skin around his nails, his glare never leaving Ren. When his gaze slides towards the near-microscopic digits, they still. Ren feels like he’s having this conversation halfway underwater, “What does that mean?”
Akechi stares at him in disbelief. “Are you really too much of a coward to even admit it?”
Going a million miles at once, and absolutely nowhere. “Goro, please.”
“Don’t fucking—! Maruki granted everyone’s pipe-dreams.” He grounds the words out, as if speaking to a toddler. “He could defy reality, the very laws of nature to do so. Everyone’s dreams, Joker.”
Ren finally picks up the damn cue. His stomach drops.
He rasps, “Are you saying my wish was to shrink you?”
“Don’t deny you wouldn’t like it.” Akechi prowls forward, eyes absolutely livid. His four-inch tall form seems to shake with either anger or fear—no, both. “Me, tiny and helpless in the palm of your hand. You could do anything you wanted. No one’s watching us, correct? No one cares, if you keep me as a pet, or take out the trash, or use me as some kind of—“
“Akechi.” Ren interrupts him, stomach churning. “Do you really think so little of me?”
Akechi looks away, silent. His body trembles as it did in Ren’s pocket.
He takes in the terrified, livid form in front of him, starting to curl in on himself. Before Ren can think twice, he stands up—ignoring Akechi's flinch—and runs up the stairs.
He returns with a tiny, thin piece of metal. One end wicked-sharp, the other dull and smooth. It's about half the length of Ren’s thumb. He was lucky to find it, almost tempted to use a shard of glass before he looked in his forgotten pile of infiltration-tool failures. He holds it out to Akechi, who stares at it with unrestrained suspicion.
“If you ride on my shoulder, under my collar,” Ren blurts out, “You’ll have the perfect access to my vital veins. You’ll be hidden, too.”
Akechi continues to stare.
“If you feel like I'm about to do something to you, take this and kill me before I can get the chance.”
It takes 10 seconds, this time, before Akechi wraps his hands around the makeshift weapon. He scurries back the second he’s done, away from Ren’s hand. He strains to hear Akechi's mutter. “I'd hardly be able to kill you without getting killed, myself.”
Ren forces a grin. “Well, I don’t think Iwai sells tiny guns. You can’t shoot me in the head, again. You’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”
Akechi looks away, running his hands over the piece of metal. Ren begins, “Akechi, I don’t know how to convince you that this isn’t my wish. I just want to figure out what’s going on and fix it—But, to do that, I'll need your help. You’re my only ally. You’re smarter than me, your deduction skills are unparalleled, and you know the Metaverse far better than I do. You were a star detective. I need you.”
“My work was largely fabricated,” Akechi points out. He shines a little at the praise, either way.
“The second this is over, we never have to see each other again. I don’t want you to live like this.” Ren hunches down, keeping his distance from Akechi, but contorting his body so he's eye level. “Can you help me?”
Akechi runs his fingers over the point of the weapon. He stares at it, at his hands, at Ren.
His gaze hardens. He holds the weapon at his side, and nods. “Fine. deal.”
Ren bites back a grin, and the inane, instinctual urge to hold out his hand to shake.
~
Ren had just finished talking with Makoto when Akechi awoke, he tells him. Akechi hesitantly perches on his shoulder as he leaves, Ryuji decided as their next target. Ren removes his scarf so he has room to hide under his collar. He prays Akechi doesn’t decide to stab him on a whim, and sets off.
They do Ann next, then Morgana, then Yusuke.
Morgana takes a little more convincing, both for his memories to shine through, and to convince him to stay at Haru’s for as long as possible. After Yusuke, he treats Goro and him to oden. He bought Goro his own, separate bowl, and offered to help him, so he didn’t have to struggle with picking up his chopsticks. Goro looked sick at the idea. It wasn’t until Ren turned away from him, keeping his eyes trained on his phone, that he heard the boy begin to eat.
Reluctantly, Akechi teaches him how to comb government databases. Ren’s learned a few tricks from Futaba, which means he doesn’t need to go breaking into Akechi’s apartment just to access his computer. The police database is theirs, too. He manages to find Maruki’s past, his research, and his failings. Most of which he already knew, but Akechi’s questions leave Ren with a half-dozen floating around in his own head.
They also discover that, by all accounts, Okumura and Wakaba are completely alive. This and then some is why they save the conversation with their children until the end.
Wakaba is every bit the person Ren imagined her as, and Goro shudders against Ren’s neck every time she speaks. Akechi clams up when their group walks away, remaining silent and stiff for the rest of the night. It hurts, to see Futaba fighting against giving up her own happiness, to have to move on once again. Ren can’t help but feel sympathy for Wakaba’s murderer, having to process the blood re-appearing on his hands.
Today’s target was their last: Haru.
Ren thinks it went well.
Ren’s greatest skill is lying to himself, and it certainly hasn’t failed him yet.
~
Ren winces as Goro, again, slides off his hand like he’s been burned.
But it’s—progress, in a way, how Goro doesn’t immediately back himself into a corner. It might be their negotiation, or the aftermath of the week they’ve spent together, or a sign that Goro's becoming less terrified.
Goro flinches when Ren sits at his desk, his hands spasming from where they were untying his scarf, and that hope is thrown out the window and right in front the oncoming train that is this situation.
Ren turns away. It feels weird to talk about Haru, but even stranger to deflect and pretend that he didn’t just show a murderer the still-breathing corpse of their victim—Hey, Ryuji isn’t here, someone’s gotta be blunt. For lack of anything to distract himself, Ren drums his fingers against the wood of his desk.
He realizes his mistake when he looks back to see Goro frozen, watching Ren’s fingers—inches away from him—like they’re made of the same dynamite in a Showtime attack.
Ren pauses. “Sorry. I—forgot you’re still getting used to things.”
Goro’s face settles into a sneer. “Oh, forgive me for not using the adjustment period that you’ve so graciously blessed me with.”
Ren blinks. Okay—he deserves that. He leans in, only to freeze when Goro backs up a few steps. Ren sighs, and asks, voice low, “What can I do to make things easier?”
Goro’s hands tighten from where they’re wrapped around his sides. “Stay at least 50 yards away from me—you’re awfully good at distance, aren’t you, Joker?”
Ren takes a breath. Don’t rise to his bullshit—it’d be a distraction, at least, to ask him what the hell he meant by that, but no shut up—and keep calm. Ren wills his voice to stay level. “I'm sorry, you’re stuck with me until we fix this. Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable, at least?”
Goro snarls up at him, “For as self-centered as you are, I would’ve thought you’d take the goddamn bait.”
Ren’s fists clench in his lap. “What bait?”
Goro throws his arms up. If he were normal-sized, the action might’ve been wild enough to clock Ren in the face. Ren can see the slightest tremble in his hands. “No, you know what? Use your fucking brain, Joker. Stop lying to me.”
Ren sighs, taking the silence Goro offers him as the smaller boy picks at his nails. He’s tired—something about the artificial sunlight, about seeing his friends so happy, of facing a terrified face every time he checks his shoulder is getting to him—
And that’s it, isn’t it? This isn’t about their day, or Okumura, or even Maruki. Goro spat out the word bait like it was—
Personal.
Ren looks at Goro, at a frame barely the size of his finger, and shoves away his frustration to murmur, “I'm not going to take advantage of this, Akechi.”
Goro cranes his head higher, fists clenching at his sides. He seems to grasp at whatever regal composure remains. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that?”
“Akechi—“
“No, tell me exactly what’s stopping you.” His eyes are burning, body tensed, taut like a drawn bow. It’s painfully easy to imagine how he would snap the second Ren tries to approach. “I don’t want to play this game anymore, Joker. Stop lying to me.”
Ren stays still, makes his voice level, keeps his hands secured in his lap. “I'm not lying to you. I'm benefitting from this as much as you are.”
“Bullshit!” Goro snarls, stumbling back a few steps. There’s the black mask, the traces of Loki hovering behind him. “You know what this is, don’t you? Don’t say things like that with a straight fucking face! You know how this world works as much as I. Tell me—“
Goro unsheathes his weapon, pointing the tiny piece of metal at Ren. The fire in his eyes is on full display, the heat of a distant supernova. He growls more than speaks, “Tell me what you fucking want from me!”
He doesn’t even fill a fraction of Ren’s desk.
“I want you to co-operate with me.” Ren steels his voice. Maybe that’ll make things easier, for one of them. He’s so tired. “I've said this already. I want to fix things, with you. I don’t want to see you—I don’t know, dead in a ditch somewhere.”
“Why me?” His teeth are still bared, as if they were even capable of breaking flesh. With how violently his makeshift weapon shakes in his grip, he doesn’t think that would fare any better. “After all the things I've done to you, why the hell would you waste a single tear over my well-being?”
“Because I don’t want you to go through that,” Ren pleads.
“Aren’t you a harbinger of justice?” He’s grasping at straws, even if he doesn’t realize it. The best actor out of all of them, but hardly the most composed. “Believer in a grand world where everyone gets their just desserts? You’re a noble Phantom thief, a hero. I—I don’t see how you could possibly ignore the monster before y—“
Ren closes his eyes, bites the bullet, and cuts Goro off with a soft, “I wanted to kill Kamoshida.”
Goro makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, the disposal of whatever he was going to say. Ren creaks an eye open to see him staring back with tiny, wide eyes. He doesn’t open his mouth, so Ren continues, “He was a piece of shit. He hurt Ryuji, Ann, Shiho. We found Morgana trapped in the dungeon of his palace. He made people’s lives a living hell.”
Ren smiles, an echo of the mask he wore when he awoken Arsène. He mutters, staring at nothing, “I wanted to kill him.
“But it wasn’t my choice to make, so we changed his heart. Now, thanks to us, he’ll suffer for the rest of his life under the weight of his guilt. Every day he’ll wake up in agony and every night his deeds will haunt him until he falls asleep. Heroic, isn’t it?”
Goro doesn’t interject, so Ren continues. “You never asked me if I cared. You asked if I thought we were just, and I said yes. You never defined your terms.”
Ren takes a breath. Something wiggles past the depths of his heart, slips past his lips. “I never said I didn’t want our targets to suffer.”
A beat passes. Two. Goro asks, voice barely drifting to Ren’s ears, “How does that make you any better than me, in your eyes?”
Ren shakes his head. “It doesn’t.” A brittle smiles splits his lips. “There was just—nothing stopping you, from pulling the trigger. I got lucky.”
“...And why didn’t you? Pull it, I mean.” Goro shifts, interest replacing the heat in his eyes. If he wasn’t so obviously apprehensive, he might’ve taken a step closer. “When it came down to it, why didn’t you finish the job? Kamoshida was yours.”
“It wasn’t my choice to make.”
Ren slides off his chair and shifts into a crouch, back against his desk and head resting on the surface. He looks straight up at his ceiling, deciding to ignore Goro's presence beside him. He can’t see Goro's tiny, fearful eyes like this. It's an adequate bonus.
Ren continues, “Ann was the deciding factor, but everyone was on board with just changing his heart. I’m their leader, not their dictator. You’re the first person I've met who wanted—planned for the person who wronged you to die.”
Ren can hear the mirth in Akechi's voice, even with how quiet it is. “You’ve met him. I don’t think I was entirely in the wrong.”
“No,” Ren whispers. “You weren’t.”
It’s painfully calm, in Maruki's reality. Any other time, the streets would be filled with the blaring of horns, with shouting, with the rush and chaos of Tokyo nighttime. There’s nothing to fill the air between them but the hum of Ren’s heater. It’s far from enough to drown out Ren’s thoughts.
When Goro speaks, his voice is closer, as if he decided to take a few steps forward to the boy twenty times his size. “So, underneath that honest, pure-hearted exterior, you’re just as rotten as me. Is that right?”
“Did you expect me to be better?” Ren asks.
Goro huffs a mirthless laugh. He shuffles, and a flash of tan appears at the corner of Ren’s vision. “I guess not. So, then, do you think I deserve to suffer as much as the people I've wronged?”
Ren closes his eyes. Honesty’s worked so far, so he snaps the bullet between his teeth. “In my opinion, you deserve to suffer far more. More than I could give you, whether you were willing or not.”
There’s the faint, small sound of shoes against wood. Ren allows Goro a second to catch his balance, before he asks, “Were you willing, Akechi?”
Goro's voice is steel. He’s lived with his crimes longer than Ren’s even been aware of them. He knows his answer. “I was.”
“And there you have it.” Ren opens his eyes, but keeps them trained on the ceiling. “Whatever your circumstance, it doesn’t change what you’ve done.”
Even after everything, the air is, somehow, more bearable. Ren resists the urge to jolt when Goro walks completely into his line of vision. He asks, a tiny eyebrow raised, “So, why aren’t we having a conversation with me in a jar? Why aren’t I a smear on the pavement, if my just desserts are long overdue?”
“Because, that’s...that’s not for me to decide. That’s Haru's decision, and Futaba's, and yours’.” Ren gives a strained smile. “We only ever responded to explicit requests, y’know.”
Hesitantly, Goro steps forward. “Even so, there’s...no one here but us. No one’s been present to stop you since I shrunk.”
“You’re right.”
When Ren doesn’t continue, Goro huffs a laugh. “So?”
Ren takes a breath. Slowly, he swings his gaze over to Akechi. The boys stands—more than close enough to touch. It’s...
It’s the face of when Goro was recognized on their first meeting. It’s the face of Futaba as she stares into a crowd, of Ryuji after their confrontation with the track team, of Haru every time she recalled how her company’s treated her. It’s the face of a kid—of a boy that didn’t deserve anything that happened to him—staring into the darkness of their closet and trying to be brave.
“You killed dozens. You hurt countless individuals. You hurt my friends, but...” Ren’s eyes crinkle. “You were my friend, too. If things had been different, you could’ve been one of us. The game was rigged from the start.”
Goro's hands flex at his sides, minuscule skin twitching. Eventually, he rasps, “I tried to kill you, too.”
Ren can feel the bags under his eyes deepen. He tilts his head up towards the ceiling. “Yeah. You did. So listen to me when I say I don’t want to see you hurt, alright?”
Ren knows he is fucked up. He can’t put a name to all the complexes he’s seen this year, but he knows one of them is dampening his feelings towards Goro. Ren’s tired, he’s a dead man walking, but the idea of doing anything to the tiny, fragile form of the boy who killed him sends nausea shooting up his throat.
Goro gives something that could be a nod—it’s hard to tell, with him still barely in the corner of his vision. Ren doesn’t hear him move until a head of chestnut-brown hair appears next to him, and a tiny, warm weight rests against his temple.
Is he—sitting against Ren? He doesn’t dare shift to check, not when Goro's slowly relaxing against him, not when it’s the closest he’s willingly, freely been since he woke up in Ren’s palms.
They sit there, while Ren tries to get his heart rate back under control. Goro murmurs, the sound almost at normal-sized volume with how close he is. “Nothing about this is fair.”
“‘Course not,” Ren breathes, “What better pawns to play the game than us, huh?”
Goro snorts. He’s fully relaxed against the side of Ren’s head. After a beat, he asks, “You said you wanted to know what you could do to, ah, accommodate me, Amamiya?”
Ren whispers, “Yeah?”
“I—“ He struggles to imagine Goro's face crumpling, of him losing his composure. After a moment, that tiny voice gains its steel. Ren lets the ghost of a smile split his face. “If you truly don’t want to hurt me, there are a few things you could keep in mind...”
~