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“All he said was dress up,” says Ren. “That could mean anything.”
“Well, I think you should take Lady Ann as your inspiration!” says Morgana. Morgana knows nothing about dressing up because he is a cat. A guy cat. But he’s being supportive. “She always looks relaxed and comfortable, but beautiful and perfect too!”
Ren thinks about this. “I could wear pigtails, I guess?” He’s not sure he can pull off pigtails, and also he’s a bit nervous about restyling a wig. He only has one good long one, and it was expensive. “I’m not sure Ann’s the right look for an Akechi thing, though.”
“Wait,” says Morgana, “why don’t we call Lady Ann?”
“Little black dress,” says Ann decisively. “And heels. Turn your camera on, show me—no, not the corseted one,” as Ren mutely holds up two dresses for the phone camera, “the other one. Simple is better if you don’t know where you’re going. You can dress it up or down with a jacket. Ooh, have you still got that bolero jacket we picked up in Harajuku that one time? No, Ren, the bolero. Oh my god, okay. Hair long, wear it down. And not the stripper heels, the other heels, the cute ones. Do you need me to come over and do your makeup?”
“I’m okay,” says Ren.
“Remember not everywhere’s as dark as that bar you work at!” Ann says. “Just keep it subtle. I’ll send you a tutorial.”
“I know how to do makeup,” protests Ren.
“No one really knows how to do natural look properly! Trust me.”
“I do trust you.”
“So put the red lipstick away, okay?”
“Don’t worry, Lady Ann!” says Morgana. “I’ll keep an eye on him!”
Ann laughs. “Thanks, Mona! I’m at a shoot, so I’ve got to go. But send pictures! Love you!”
So Ren hangs up and gets dressed as instructed—the more boring black dress, the cute heels, the bolero jacket. He leaves the wig for last and goes downstairs to Leblanc’s toilet. Sojiro had it remodeled as a tiny shower room sometime between Ren going home for his third year of high school and Ren moving back to Tokyo for good last year. With the unspoken attention to the people he cares about that marks Sojiro out as a really good guy, it now has a big mirror with good lighting that takes up nearly all the wall next to the toilet. Ren props his makeup bag on the cistern and then watches the natural look tutorial Ann sent him.
Huh, that’s… a lot of work for not much effect?
His phone buzzes again. I’m serious! you’ll look so pretty!
Well, Ren never minds trying out a new face. He gives it a go. Morgana bats the bathroom door till it opens and then perches on the edge of the sink and provides running commentary. Ren is thinking all along that this seems like a bit of a waste. He has a makeup look he uses for shifts at Crossroads, usually worn along with the corseted dress and stripper heels, though he sometimes sticks to t-shirt and jeans. He likes how he looks with dramatic contoured cheekbones, red lips, lots of eyeliner. Lala-chan, gruffly maternal, always tells him he’s gorgeous, perfect, to die for. He certainly gets more admiration from the customers these days than he did back when he was washing dishes in high school. But what’s the point of wearing makeup that makes it look like you’re not wearing makeup?
But then he looks in the mirror at the final result—looks, taking care to see himself with an outsider’s eyes. The person looking back at him has dewy skin and wide long-lashed eyes. Her round cheeks are ever so slightly flushed. Her lips are soft and kissable and just faintly touched with rosy color, like she’s been biting them. She seems so honestly, effortlessly pretty that Ren can’t quite believe he’s done that with his own face.
“Whoa,” says Morgana. “That’s how a Phantom Thief does it, I guess! You’re a real master of disguise these days!”
Ren nods, mmhmms, amused. He finishes getting dressed up, sweeps the wig forward over his left shoulder, snaps a selfie and sends it to Ann.
Ann sends back: I’m a genius. Don’t forget your handbag.
What do I put in the handbag? asks Ren.
Keys wallet phone lipstick comb, says Ann immediately. And then a few seconds later: weapon!
Anything else?
Condoms maybe? says Ann. Good luck on your date, Ren-chan!
Doing no-makeup makeup took so long that Akechi is probably gonna be here any minute. “I’m going to walk around,” says Morgana when they both realize. “Say hi to Akechi for me!”
Ren’s friends range from understanding acceptance to grudging tolerance over Ren’s boyfriend. Ren thinks this is fair. Morgana and Ann are both at the understanding end of the scale. Akechi thinks Ren’s friends are bad friends for allowing him to be in Ren’s life at all, and also that they ought to hunt him down with machetes, or something. He also thinks Ren doesn’t know he feels this way. As usual, he’s really overestimated how good he is at hiding his feelings. Akechi likes to believe that he’s a person of enormous subtlety who can lie effortlessly to anyone without ever getting caught. Ren won’t ever tell him, but he thinks the truth is that for most of his life Akechi just didn’t know anyone who paid attention. No one cared if he was lying.
Ren pays attention. Ren cares.
He sits at the counter in Leblanc with the sign flipped to CLOSED, waiting. For fun, he practises sitting the right way for this outfit. Ren-chan’s a little cute and a little shy, he decides. She crosses her legs at the ankle, not the knee. She fidgets with her long hair and wishes she’d had time to paint her nails. What color would she pick? Not red. Coral, maybe.
The bell at the door jingles as Akechi lets himself into the coffee shop. “Sorry I’m late!” he says brightly.
Ren glances up at the clock over his head. Akechi doesn’t usually apologize for anything, and also he’s only late by ninety seconds. He’s dressed up, crisp linen suit and nice shirt, pocket square, polished shoes. His hair’s been trimmed. He’s wearing white leather gloves.
Hmm.
Ren slips off the bar stool and rescues his handbag from the counter. “Hi.”
A brief, considering pause. Considering? Admiring? Ren thinks he’s supposed to read it as admiring. “You look lovely,” says Akechi.
Ren checks his expression and confirms for himself: not even a little bit sarcastic. Which is weird, because Akechi doesn’t do sincere compliments unless he can deliver them as a devastating ninety-mile-an-hour backhand. What’s his game? Ren tucks his hair behind his ear, a little cute, a little shy. “Thank you,” he says. “You look nice too.”
Akward laugh like Akechi doesn’t know what to do with a compliment. “Well, I hope I won’t embarrass you. I have something for you!” He reaches into an inner pocket. He’s so far off his usual self—the self he is with Ren, anyway—that Ren genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled out a gun. But no, it’s a powder-blue leather box, long and thin. Jewellery, Ren thinks immediately; he’s done his share of gift buying. Women’s jewellery. He accepts the gift politely from Akechi’s gloved hands, opens the box, and discovers a pretty silver necklace with a pendant in the shape of a cat. The cat has little sparkling stones for eyes. It’s very, very cute. Ren tries to imagine Akechi talking to a jewellery store employee, picking it out. What did he even say?
“I said it’s for someone who likes cats,” says Akechi, and when Ren glances up to meet his eyes, he realizes they’re standing close. Akechi laughs very nicely at his expression. “Sorry! I sometimes try to guess what you’re thinking. It’s a bad habit. Was I right?”
“You were right,” says Ren. He is thinking: what the hell, did someone kidnap and brainwash my boyfriend? Given Ren’s whole life, it doesn’t seem impossible! Nothing like that has happened lately but that doesn’t mean it never will!
If Akechi has been brainwashed, or replaced by an evilly nice clone, or something, then asking are you okay won’t help, so Ren doesn’t. He offers up the jewellery box. “Put it on me?”
Akechi nods. He takes the necklace carefully from its bed of pale pink synthetic silk and clasps it around Ren’s neck. The white leather gloves are very soft—kid gloves? thinks Ren, that's a thing, right?—and they brush Ren’s collarbone and the nape of his neck in a way which could be accidental but isn’t. The little cat pendant sits sparkling just above the neckline of the black dress. “How do I look?” says Ren.
“Perfect,” says Akechi. And more softly, “What do I call you?”
“Just Ren-chan.”
Akechi nods. He replies, as an instruction: “Goro.”
Not cloned. Not brainwashed. Roleplay.
Ren can do that. Ren’s all about playing roles. He’s taller than Akechi in these shoes—though not as much taller as he would be in the stripper heels—so he can’t do the sweet little glance up through his eyelashes that he instinctively feels Ren-chan should. But he gives the best approximation possible as he asks, “So where are we going, Goro?”
“It’s a surprise,” says Akechi. He offers his arm. “Shall we?”
The restaurant is in Shinjuku. The part of Ren that has been working in hospitality for years instantly identifies: authentic, atmospheric, seasonal menu, low-key expensive, patrons who come back. Slightly alternative vibe, enough that Ren might not be the only boy in a skirt here tonight, but not as openly drag-friendly as Crossroads. He doesn’t need to look up the website on his phone to know it’ll be bare-bones: dark background, address, maybe the name of the head chef and one line of approval from some very famous critic. This is a restaurant you pick to impress someone. This is specifically a restaurant you pick to impress someone like Ren. Credit where it’s due: he’s impressed. Akechi did his homework this time. And when he goes to pick up the little leather booklet with the one-page menu inside, Akechi—no, Goro—reaches out and puts his white-gloved hand on Ren’s wrist. “Forgive me if this is an imposition, but—may I order for you?”
Oh, so he wants to play this game on hard mode. “Are you sure?”
“If you’ll trust me, Ren-chan. I promise, I only want you to have a good time.”
All right, Ren’s interested. He smiles at Goro. “You really are a charmer, aren’t you?”
“I try!”
Ren sets the leather booklet down, closed, and pushes it away. “Go on.”
Goro looks serious, as if deciding what Ren is going to eat is a challenge as important as any case he’s ever solved. He scans his own menu, he does his thinking face—hand to his chin and everything—he calls over the waiter and talks quietly to him about the special. Ren rests his cheek on his hand, watching. The fall of his long hair is ticklish on the back of his neck. He remembers the cat pendant and touches it with two fingers at his neckline. The metal has warmed against his skin.
“I’m so glad you like that necklace. I thought it would suit you,” says Goro, which is how Ren realizes he missed Goro actually ordering. Goro smiles at him. It’s not an unfamiliar smile. Ren has seen it on TV plenty of times, and Akechi used to trot it out fairly often back when they first got to know each other. It’s rare that Ren gets it aimed at him these days. He’d forgotten the melting appeal of it, the way it draws you in, makes you want to get close even if you know better. Ren-chan would be helpless before it, and Ren is Ren-chan right now so he smiles helplessly back. “I ordered wine for us to share as well,” Goro says. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Ren ducks his head. “Thanks. That sounds nice.”
A bottle of red wine arrives with the platter of starters. Ren watches Goro do the little ritual of letting the waiter uncork it and pour a splash into his glass; letting it breathe, giving it a little swirl, a little taste, pronouncing it acceptable. Goro is apparently not the kind of guy who sends the first bottle back to the kitchen just to throw his weight around and pretend he knows wine. Just as well, because Ren wouldn’t be impressed.
The sharing platter is a good, safe choice to begin the meal. Chef’s salad, toasted mushrooms, stuffed peppers, bread and olive oil, a clay bowl of arancini: very nice. Goro makes conversation while they eat, pleasant and neutral: how does Ren-chan like the food? She should really try some of this, it’s delicious. Does she come to Shinjuku often? Oh, that job sounds fascinating, you must meet such a wide range of people. Do you enjoy the work?
So Ren-chan and Goro are on their first date, apparently, because Akechi knows all about Crossroads. Ren plays along, lets himself be coaxed out of his shell by this handsome, charming stranger. Ren-chan’s having a lovely time. The food is wonderful. She sips the wine carefully and tells her date about her job, her kind boss, how much she likes living in Tokyo. She fidgets with the cat pendant, with her long hair. She laughs at Goro’s jokes. She even risks making her own jokes, and gets rewarded with that gorgeous heart-melting smile and a warm, sincere chuckle. The main courses arrive: fish of the day, the lamb. Ren’s about to deduct points for red wine with fish when the waiter silently swaps out Ren-chan’s empty glass for a fresh one and brings out a new bottle, this one sweating in an ice bucket. Goro’s considered everything. This is probably the most thoughtful date Ren’s ever been taken on, and definitely the most expensive.
Are they going to finish both bottles? Is Akechi trying to get him drunk, is that the game here?
“Please don’t feel like you have to finish the wine,” Goro says, just as Ren thinks of this. “I promise I’m not trying to get you drunk.”
“Trying to guess what I’m thinking again?”
“Forgive me! I really do find it interesting, as a challenge. You have such a mysterious expression sometimes.”
Ren knows very well that his normal face is bafflingly unreadable to most people. The ones who don’t know him sometimes think it’s rude, or intimidating. But it’s just his face. No one’s ever turned it into a compliment before.
“Did I say something wrong?” Goro says.
Ren-chan tucks her hair behind her ear. “Nothing wrong,” she says. “I’m not trying to be mysterious, really.”
“I know. You are anyway. It’s rather alluring, honestly.” Goro smiles warmly at him. “I like solving mysteries.”
They order dessert. Ren does insist on seeing the menu this time. He’s not spending an evening somewhere this good without choosing his own food a single time. He ends up with the passionfruit cheesecake, and then they both have coffee. Ren is snobby about coffee these days, but he can’t find any fault tonight. He’s full of good food and good wine and good coffee and happy to go along with whatever the next stage is of Akechi’s weird plan for the night, which is—
—a late evening walk in the park, apparently. There’s a faint shimmer of moonlight on the lake, and the song of the summer breeze blowing in the trees. Goro offers his arm, but Ren-chan is feeling brave, her heart all fluttery from the most romantic date of her life with the most handsome man she’s ever met, so she takes his hand instead. The white leather gloves are so soft. Goro looks surprised, but glad-surprised, and he squeezes her hand a little bit. They don’t talk. It doesn’t seem necessary. They wander slowly down the shadowy pathways among the trees, pretending not to see the other couples strolling hand in hand the same way. For a little while, they’re the only two people in the city.
They reach the shore of the lake and stop to admire it for a while, still holding hands. “What a beautiful night,” Goro murmurs.
Ren-chan dares to glance at him and sees he’s only looking at her. She says, “I…”
“May I kiss you?”
“Please,” says Ren.
It feels like a first kiss. Ren’s never kissed this person before. Goro is a sweet, attentive, gentlemanly kisser. His gloved fingers cup Ren’s face like it’s precious. His other hand rests politely on Ren’s arm. Ren’s heart really is fluttering. This is so much. He’s always liked the feeling of Akechi’s full attention, and that’s what he’s getting tonight: attention, meticulous and controlled, devastatingly targeted. Even when the kiss goes deep, it doesn’t stop. Goro’s lips on Ren’s are romantic and passionate and calculated in every way. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s doing it on purpose.
I feel like I can relax with you, that’s something Akechi used to say to Ren. But this Goro isn’t relaxed. This Goro is on. From instant to instant, he’s a perfect performance of the perfect young man. There’s nothing out of place, nothing misjudged. Every smile, every glance, every word out of his mouth all evening has been exactly what the person he’s playing should say. The kiss is flawless. It’s not quite a parody; it’s too heartfelt for that. This Goro Akechi is everyone’s dream of what a boy should be.
No wonder they called him a prince.
Ren falls into the kiss. He lets himself be seduced. Akechi doesn’t have to do this anymore. There’s no camera. He’s just doing it with Ren. Doing it for Ren, maybe. Or maybe not for Ren. Robin Hood was as real as Loki back then. Maybe everyone’s dream is a little bit Akechi’s dream too. Maybe’s he’s playing this part the way Ren wears a dress sometimes—because he wants to. Honestly, Ren-chan feels like a pretty half-hearted drag performance by comparison. Ren can do ‘cute smile’ and ‘mysterious silence’ in his sleep.
They break apart. Ren is breathless, wordless. Goro presses his gloved thumb to Ren’s lower lip. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ve ruined your lipstick.”
“I have lipstick in my handbag.”
Goro chuckles. “Ready for anything.”
I have condoms too. Ren would normally say it. But right now it would break the spell. The handsome prince leads this dance. “What now?”
Goro has unfairly long eyelashes. When his gaze drops for a moment it’s all Ren can think about. Then he says, “I apologize for my forwardness, but… would you come home with me?” Now eye contact, direct and devastating. “You’re very beautiful, Ren-chan. I’d like to make love to you.”
Ren is shocked by how funny it isn’t. If Akechi said I’d like to make love to you in that weirdly formal way to him any other night, Ren would laugh so hard he’d have to sit down. Instead he’s pretty sure he’s blushing. He opens his mouth and blurts, “I have condoms!”
Goro laughs at him, but kindly. “Perfect. Then shall we say goodbye to the park for now?”
Akechi’s apartment would be too obviously Akechi’s apartment. Despite having money—all the assets and investments that heart-changed Shido signed over to him in a gross outpouring of guilt, my blood money is what Akechi calls it—he lives in the blandest and most impersonal set of rooms imaginable, and keeps nothing of his own there except stuff Ren’s given him and a single ratty Featherman poster. The Goro of tonight wouldn’t live somewhere like that. So Ren’s not surprised when Goro steers them to a fancy hotel near the park. Booked in advance, obviously, but Ren-chan’s not going to get offended. She is a sure thing. Who wouldn’t be, for this guy?
Ren kicks off the cute heels by the doorway of the hotel room, sets his handbag down on the bedside table, turns to Goro and gives him a shy smile. Goro says, “You’re asking to be kissed, aren’t you?”
“You’re a good kisser,” says Ren.
So Goro comes and kisses him, with a smile, with that same careful attention to detail. It’s soft and passionate. He kisses Ren and guides him down on his back on the big hotel bed, and then stops and looks down at him. Akechi can do insane things with his eyes when he feels like it. That look of tender, astonished approval is one hundred percent intentional. It still makes Ren feel all liquid and wanted, all pretty. It’s funny how seeing through the act doesn’t mean the act stops working.
But…
“This is beautiful,” Goro says, brushing his gloved fingers through the fall of Ren’s long hair spread out around him on the white sheets. “I don’t know how to ask the right way. Do you prefer…”
Ren doesn’t actually want to have sex while he’s wearing his most expensive wig, thanks. Goro’s being thoughtful. “Do you mind?”
“I think you’re lovely either way.”
“Thanks,” says Ren. “Thank you. Um…”
“Take your time,” says Goro. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Ren-chan wouldn’t change in front of a boy she likes. Ren slips away to the bathroom, where he takes the wig off carefully and sets it on the long faux-marble counter. He makes a face at the mirror: now he has wig hair, all flat on one side, and Ren-chan wouldn’t like that either. Luckily there’s the comb in his handbag. Ann really does know her stuff. Ren takes his time, fixes his hair into something that looks cute and not too boyish, and then touches up his lipstick too. Just a little hint of that rosy pink. So she’s still pretty, for a boy like this.
Goro, still sitting on the bed, looks pleased when Ren comes back. He hold out his hands and Ren goes and takes them. At once he’s pulled down into Goro’s lap and kissed some more—and kissed and kissed and kissed, long lingering kisses, kissing all the fresh lipstick off Ren’s mouth. This is going so much slower than usual. Ren surprisingly doesn’t mind. He’s not going to get bored when the game is this interesting. Goro coaxes him out of the bolero jacket little by little, kissing him the whole time. He plays with the cat pendant’s chain at the nape of Ren’s newly bared neck. He very politely and very slowly puts his hands on Ren’s smooth-shaven legs, starting near the knee and only stroking up along Ren’s thighs after Ren nods permission. Ren decides that Ren-chan isn’t going to be a completely passive participant. She likes this boy too much for that. So he gets his hands under the jacket of Goro’s nice linen suit and runs them up and down his back until Goro takes the hint and shrugs the jacket off. Then he tugs Goro’s shirt out of his waistband so he can get to skin and do the same again.
Goro does his warm, pleased chuckle when he takes his shirt off, and then he gathers Ren up in his arms and—
“Oh!” says Ren, suddenly on his back on the bed again, all the air knocked out of him.
“I’m stronger than I look,” says Goro, which nearly makes Ren break character and snigger, because it’s so exactly one of the smug, sly little hints that Akechi used to drop back in the day. He’s propped on his elbows over Ren like a perfect gentleman. He hooks his gloved fingers carefully under one of the straps of Ren’s little black dress. The white gloves look kind of silly on a guy with no shirt on, but Ren’s not going to dwell on it. Goro says, “May I?”
Ren nods. And—he’s been shirtless with Akechi before, obviously, but it feels different this way. Goro is carefully sliding the strap off Ren’s shoulder, down his arm, kissing the skin that gets revealed—collarbone and pec first, and then there’s Ren’s nipple. Goro leaves the dress’s strap looped around Ren’s elbow so he can dip his head and suck on it. It feels strange. Ren’s not normally that sensitive there, but something about the position, the performance, the care Goro’s taking—how Ren’s not just shirtless but somehow topless, his arm caught at his side by the strap of his dress, his shaved legs spread so Goro can fit between them, Goro’s mouth hot and insistent—
Ren’s back arches. He makes a sound. “Don’t hold back,” Goro murmurs, “you’re beautiful,” and he keeps doing it. Ren’s nipples are both hard now. The other one is still hidden by the dress but he can feel it rubbing against the fabric, weird-good-hot. Never mind slow, never mind the game, Ren’s learning new things about himself today. Akechi’s going to be so smug about this later. Akechi’s going to tease him forever, he’s going to say stuff like would you like me to play with your tits today, Joker, and Ren’s going to start saying yes, apparently, wow—
He’s unbelievably hard, and between Goro’s mouth on his nipple and Goro’s gloved hand sliding up his thigh he’s not really wearing very much of this dress any longer. “Um…”
“Let’s make you more comfortable,” Goro says, and he helps Ren to sit up and pull the black dress off over his head. There’s a little flash of a grin when he sees Ren’s knickers—frilly black satin with lots of lace, Lala-chan says there’s no such thing as too fancy when it comes to underwear. It’s not quite a Goro look: too hungry, too mean. “It seems like a shame to take these off you,” he says, and he can’t keep it neutral and pleasant. Right from the first Ren loved hearing that vicious undertone in Akechi’s voice. Getting it out of Goro tonight feels like a real triumph. “Would you turn over for me?”
Ren-chan’s relieved to bury her flaming face in her arms. Goro investigates her back, strokes along her spine, kisses her neck, makes an amused and affectionate sound when Ren-chan can’t help but shift her hips urgently. “We have all night,” he says, gentle and chiding. “I’ll take care of you, don’t worry.”
Ren makes a complaining sound.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”
Goro doesn’t actually take the knickers off him, but he pulls them down to get at Ren’s ass and leaves the elastic hooked around the tops of Ren’s thighs, satin and lace still stretched across his erection. Ren was a little concerned the slow and gentle and romantic thing would go on forever, but Goro’s actually thankfully brisk about this part, lube produced from somewhere—pants pocket, maybe—gloves finally off and two fingers right away. Ren’s not made of tissue paper and he’d really like to get to the sex part of sex at some point tonight. He rocks back into Goro’s fingers, makes a bit of a show of it, pushing himself up and back, and he hears Goro’s breath catch. Maybe the aim of the game is to get the other person to break character. That’s what it was back when they met, and if that’s what they’re doing now, Ren’s pretty sure he can win.
There’s the sound of a condom packet tearing. Goro strokes his flank gently. Has he seriously left the glove on his other hand? What a freak. Ren’s crazy about him. “There, all ready,” he says softly.
“Come on,” says Ren.
“I’d like to see your face.”
So maybe it’s not about breaking character. Ren lets himself be rolled back over. The frilly black knickers are caught behind his balls, pushing everything forward, putting him on display. “Perfect,” says Goro. “You’re perfect.”
Ren tries to put a hand over his face.
“No, don’t,” and Goro holds his hand instead and kisses him. He keeps kissing Ren while he’s pushing into him. He goes slowly. Ren feels every inch of the stretch. His knees are up by his shoulders and his whole body feels too big and too small at the same time, like his skin is fitting him differently than usual, like Goro’s kisses and his cock are reshaping him completely. It’s so much. It’s so intense. They’re still holding hands. Goro wasn’t kidding earlier. He said make love and this is making love. Ren’s never felt anything like it. He feels shaky and sensitive and full. He feels like he might cry. And Goro’s watching his face the whole time, except for when he’s kissing Ren’s mouth: looking and kissing, looking and kissing, seeing what he’s doing to Ren like it’s the only thing that matters.
It’s wild. It’s completely insane. This tender romantic faux-heterosexual missionary-position sex somehow feels like the kinkiest thing they’ve ever done, and Akechi folded his leather belt in half and beat Ren with it until he had stripes all over his ass and thighs last week.
Ren doesn’t actually last very long. He isn’t even trying. Goro gets his ungloved hand down between them, grips Ren’s dick and starts working him over in time with his thrusts and that’s it, Ren’s gone. The intense oversensitive full feeling is more after he’s come. There are tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. Goro finally lets his weight drop onto Ren properly and holds him close while he moves in him, talking at the same time, not very clearly: he says Ren-chan and he says beautiful and Ren thinks he might have caught baby in there, which would make him laugh at any other time but right now it just seems like a normal thing to say. Ren answers yeah, yes, I’m here, as if that makes sense.
Goro doesn’t make a sound when he comes. Well, he never does. His grip on Ren goes tight, his face gets buried in Ren’s shoulder, and his breathing gets harsh. That’s all. Ren strokes his hair and his back and tries to kiss his temple.
Eventually, Goro lets him go. He pulls out carefully. He rolls onto his back.
Oh wow, Ren’s thighs ache. He lets out a big unladylike oof as he drops his legs. Also his pretty knickers are now completely gross since Ren came all over himself. Time to take them off. He does a hip-shuffle and a slightly sticky wiggle to get them down his thighs, and then shakes them off his calves and feet one leg at a time.
“Dignified,” remarks Akechi.
Yeah, that was definitely Akechi. Goodnight, sweet prince, hello Ren’s actual boyfriend, who as usual is making a faintly grossed-out face while he deals with the condom. “Hi,” says Ren.
“One moment,” says Akechi. “Linen crumples.”
So Ren lounges on the hotel bed and watches Akechi hanging up his nice linen suit and also finally taking off his second glove. He doesn’t say anything, even though the naked-with-one-white-glove look is incredibly funny. He lies there, waiting, until Akechi comes back to the bed, and then he says, “A gentleman would cuddle.”
“So date a gentleman,” says Akechi.
“I swear I saw one around here somewhere a moment ago.”
“How mysterious,” says Akechi. “Perhaps you really do need glasses.”
Ren puts his arms out and doesn’t say anything else. The easiest trick for winning an argument with Akechi is to not actually have the argument. Sure enough, Akechi tucks himself down beside Ren. His body language says I’m doing you a huge favor you sentimental idiot, but Ren’s not fooled. “That was fun,” he says.
“An pleasant evening’s diversion, I suppose.”
And then they lie there, cuddling, while Akechi pretends they’re not cuddling, and Ren considers diversions, as a concept.
It’s like no-makeup makeup, maybe. A mask so perfect no one can see it’s there.
“Let’s have it,” Akechi says eventually.
Ren’s comfortable—this fancy hotel bed is a lot better than the creaking ancient mattress he sleeps on most of the time—and half asleep. “Mmm?”
“Whatever you’re thinking. Go on. Do it. Psychoanalyze me.”
“Am I your therapist?” says Ren. “Huh. You should pay me more.”
Akechi snorts.
“Like, anything.”
“Do you want to know how much tonight’s meal cost?”
“I don’t think you’re meant to pay your therapist in dinner dates.”
“You’re not my therapist.”
“That’s good,” says Ren. “I don’t think I’m meant to fuck my clients.”
“Ren.”
“What?”
Akechi doesn’t say anything for a while. Ren lets the silence be a silence. It’s a thing he worked out as a teenager: you don’t always need to say something. You just need to make a space where saying things is possible. And then you wait. Ren doesn’t mind waiting. Akechi’s always interesting to him. Akechi’s always something new. Even now, years later, he’ll turn to Ren and hand him a challenge, a surprise. Like telling him dress up. Like the glittering cat pendant Ren’s still wearing. Like, after all this time, coming out with something like I’d like to make love to you; something like beautiful, you’re beautiful, baby, you’re perfect.
So Ren waits.
“My father liked to hurt women,” says Akechi.
Ren doesn’t speak. It wouldn’t be welcome. The spectre of Shido is often there when Akechi’s talking, but Akechi seldom acknowledges him. Seems like tonight is different.
“He didn’t have to,” Akechi says. “He was a rich and powerful man. He knew how to make himself charming. You think a man who can win a national election can’t get laid when he feels like it? He could have had as much sex as he wanted, whenever he wanted, with people who liked him and wanted to be in his bed. But that wasn’t what he liked. What he liked was hurting women.”
Ren says, “I know.”
“How would you know?”
Ren waits. It’s funny how Akechi forgets, sometimes, that he’s not the only person in the world with reasons to despise Masayoshi Shido.
It takes Akechi a second, but he gets it. “He was in the middle of assaulting a woman when you first encountered him,” he says. “Of course. Well, then you know. That’s what he liked. That’s what he always did. The only thing that was different about that incident was that you were stupid enough to get involved.”
Ren nods. Akechi doesn’t mean stupid, he means something else. Ren understands him.
“He was a cruel and violent man,” Akechi says. He always talks about Shido in the past tense, like he’s dead, instead of just rotting in prison. That version of Shido is dead, of course, and Ren is the one who killed him. Ren’s not sorry. Right now, especially, he’s not sorry at all. “He reveled in violence. Not just for its own sake. To him, violence was the purest expression of power, and power was what made him feel like a man. So he chose women he could hurt—junior employees, students, sex workers—and he hurt them. In all sorts of ways. Physically and sexually, of course. Emotionally. Professionally. Sometimes financially. Because they were weaker than he was, and they couldn’t stop him.” He turns his head sideways and looks at Ren. “Sometimes it was girls like…”
“Girls like me,” Ren fills in, though there’s not much Ren-chan about him right now—only the cute cat necklace, and whatever’s left of his makeup.
“He had various procurers for his less socially acceptable tastes—you dealt with one of them, Kaneshiro, who specialized in high schoolers. There were others, for other things. My father would call one up and order a victim for the evening. I don’t think he had the slightest interest in cock,” Akechi says. “It’s just that those ones were even easier to hurt. Who would believe them? Who would listen?” He laughs. It’s an ugly, unpleasant laugh. “So. And I knew all this, you understand. It wasn’t a surprise or a revelation in any way. I knew what kind of man he was from the very first time I met him face to face. I knew the type. I’d seen it before. Men like Shido aren’t rare.” Laughter again, even worse. “My mother attracted them the way a rotting corpse attracts flies.”
“Mmm,” says Ren, to stretch out a silence. To give Akechi a moment to breathe, because he’s obviously not done—the words are coming out of him like vomit—but Ren thinks he needs to breathe.
“Well,” Akechi says at last, sounding a little less terrible. “So I knew. I always knew. And I never stopped him. It never once occurred to me to try stopping him. It was the first thing you did. But not me.”
“Different circumstances,” says Ren, which is true, but not the whole truth.
Akechi gives him a sharp look; he caught that half-truth and he doesn’t like it. “When I was a child, I dreamed of being a hero. I thought one day I’d be the kind of man my mother always needed and never got. A good man. Well… look how that turned out.”
And there’s quiet. Word vomit done. Doesn’t seem like it helped anything. And Akechi is so smart it’s hard to lie to him. Ren can’t say, you’re not like that, you’re nothing like your father. He can’t say, you’re not a violent, angry man who gets off on hurting people, because Akechi is violent, and he is angry, and there was the extremely hot incident with the belt just last week.
He says, “You’re more than that.”
Akechi makes a scoffing sound. “Don’t deceive yourself.”
“You don’t hurt me.”
“I didn’t this time,” Akechi says. “I decided not to. That’s not the same as being a good man.”
“You’re good to me. You treat me right. Not just tonight,” Ren says. “All the time. You know you do.”
“It doesn’t come naturally.”
“You think it’s supposed to?”
Akechi just sighs. Ren wants to sigh too. He had a really good time tonight. He wasn’t expecting it to turn into yet another round of this extremely familiar argument: I’m a bad person and I shouldn’t be in your life and in fact your friends should hunt me down with machetes.
It’s weird. Being a guy, for Ren, is just normal. Neutral, easy. Less work than being Ren-chan, less fun as well. He doesn’t have to think about it.
It seems like Akechi thinks about it.
“Hey,” says Ren. “Give me my handbag.”
The bag is on the bedside table. Akechi passes it to him and Ren sits up and digs. It’s not even a big bag, it has six things in it, how is it this hard to find what he wants? Do girls really live like this? The rose-pink lipstick is somehow inside his wallet. Ren plucks it out triumphantly. Akechi’s giving him a weird look. Ren puts the plastic tube into his naked hand.
Akechi holds the lipstick like Ren’s handed him a potentially poisonous bug. “Not quite my style, I’m afraid,” he says. “Though it suits you.”
Ren says nothing. He seldom needs to, with Akechi.
“Your point is, I suppose, that wearing lipstick doesn’t come naturally either,” Akechi says. “You weren’t born knowing how to paint your face. You learned because you wanted to, in order to pull off a particular performance.”
“For fun,” says Ren. “Because I like it and it feels good. And sometimes I don’t feel like it, so I just don’t.”
“Stick to dinner dates,” says Akechi. “You’re a bad therapist.”
Ren shrugs and lies down again. He nudges Akechi’s bare shoulder with his own. “Okay. I’m right, though.”
Akechi doesn’t relax. He’s turning the tube of lipstick over and over in his hands. “This isn’t your usual color.”
“It’s for a natural look.”
“Deceptive, some would say.”
“You think I’m not naturally pretty?”
“Not that pretty,” says Akechi.
Ren grins. There it is! Nice backhand! “Ren-chan’s cute, right?”
“Stop fishing for compliments.” A pause. “Yes, obviously Ren-chan is cute. And now she has a nice boyfriend.”
“Not that nice.”
Akechi’s scoff is a little bit of a laugh as well. “Not that she noticed.”
“She noticed,” says Ren. “She was into it. Maybe she’s not that nice either.”
“Well, she does put out on the first date.”
Ren snickers. “What can I say? You swept me off my feet.”
“As I said… I’m stronger than I look.”
And with that Akechi finally sets the lipstick down on the bedside table and lets himself slump beside Ren. Miserable word vomit over, crisis… handled, Ren thinks? Back to Unacknowledged Cuddling Time, which is great. Ren’s a big fan of cuddling and of not acknowledging things. And he likes this Akechi, the one who seems a little surprised to find himself actually relaxing. He always has. He closes his eyes and rolls over, puts his face in Akechi’s armpit to enjoy the sweaty after-sex smell there.
“You really are a strange person,” Akechi says, which is probably about the face-in-armpit thing. Plausibly about that, anyway. Akechi’s good at picking ambiguous moments to start talking.
“Me too, you know,” says Ren, not quite muffled by Akechi’s arm.
“You too… what?”
“Stronger than I look. You know that. I can handle you.”
“I don’t need handling,” says Akechi. “I’m not some kind of wild beast.” But his hand comes up to rest at the back of Ren’s neck, fidgeting again with the chain of the cute cat necklace.
“I’m just saying,” says Ren. “You didn’t pick a person you could hurt. You picked someone you’ve never actually managed to hurt no matter how hard you tried.”
Akechi’s hand stills, fingertips resting at the nape of his neck. There’s another silence, long and waiting. Ren’s expecting, at the least, a vicious, punishing pinch. Akechi does not like being reminded of the rounds he’s lost.
But the pinch doesn’t come. Instead Akechi speaks, and the voice he chooses is back to being a different person. Ren genuinely envies Akechi’s vocal control sometimes.
“I had a wonderful time with you tonight, Ren,” says Goro, warm and sincere, the ideal man, as real as any face a person might put on to show the world. “Would you be willing to go out with me again sometime?”
“I’d love to,” says Ren, smiling to himself with his natural, unnatural, smeared-foundation face hidden against Akechi’s tricep. “Any time.”