"He turned and walked across the floor and out. I watched the door close. I listened to his steps going away down the imitation marble corridor. After a while they got faint, then they got silent. I kept on listening anyway."
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
-ooo-
The first year he'd been shuffled from one home to the next every few months.
Five different families in five different houses in five different towns, but always the same ending every time.
"It just wasn't a good fit."
And always the nebulous implication that next time... next time.
Only next time had only ever been another variation of last time and the story always ended the same way.
It hadn't taken him long to realize that he was the problem.
That he was the damp puzzle piece, swollen and bloated and no longer able to fit in any slot made available for him.
He was still Akechi Goro, but the name didn't mean anything anymore.
Once he'd been her son and now he was no one and he belonged nowhere.
He was small and quiet and odd.
He didn't want to be held.
He didn't even want to be touched.
And every time a hand clapped down against his shoulder or pressed against his back, he wanted to smack it away, but he didn't.
After the first move, he'd begged to be given uniform shirts a size too big, long enough that he could pull his fingers into a fist and they would disappear into his sleeves as he walked down the halls.
Other kids whispered about him behind their hands as he sat in sullen silence in whatever empty seat had been available for him to take the day he arrived.
He spent most of his days with his nose buried in a book and no one ever spoke to him, just about him, and he told himself that he didn't care.
And he didn't.
He sat by himself and he went home by himself and everything was just how he wanted it to be.
-ooo-
He could have let the silence between them linger.
If he could have just let it go at that, it was perfectly possible that they might not have spoken again at all.
The silence between them wasn't uncomfortable and it would have been pleasant enough to just let it linger until it was time for one of them to disembark. He could have made his apologies, quiet and a little awkward, but polite all the same, just shy of memorable, and parted ways never to see or hear from one another again.
And yet... and yet.
He didn't want it to end.
Not yet.
Not while it still felt half-finished and incomplete.
It had been so long since he had felt anything real. Anything beyond hate and guilt and fear and rage. So long since he'd felt… normal that the concept seemed like a distant dream made of moonbeams and stardust.
It was a distraction, yes, but it was one he could afford.
If only for this one moment, brief and transitory and meaningless as it was, he wanted to just be.
"Was that really the best you could do?"
The boy in the tattered jacket startled, shaking himself from his thoughts, obviously flustered as he glanced back at him, owlish eyes wide with surprise, "Huh?"
It felt good to be able to surprise him.
"You were guessing what I do for work," he reminded him, gently, trying and no doubt failing in the attempt to offer a commiserating smile that might coax him back into the game.
Game.
Fuck.
What was he even doing?
He should have just kept his mouth shut.
Should have just let it go.
He was always like this, taking things just a step too far, trying for more rather than settling for less.
He should really have known better by now.
-ooo-
When he was eight, he'd stopped at a park on his way home. He knew he wasn't supposed to, but that hadn't seemed to matter so much. He'd sat by himself, tucked behind some overgrown bushes at the base of a tree. There were squirrels in the tree and he watched them go about their business for a long time, throwing themselves from branch to branch with reckless abandon. Eventually it had gotten dark and he couldn't see them anymore, though he could still hear their claws skittering over the tree bark.
They'd been frantic when he'd finally arrived home. They'd called the police, they said, they hadn't known what else to do.
They'd been so worried.
They'd been so frightened.
"Where have you been, Goro-chan? Did someone hurt you? Did you get lost?"
It had made him feel good; better than he'd felt in a really long time though it made his face feel too warm and his eyes burn.
They'd held him as he sobbed.
It was nice.
He told them he'd just taken a wrong turn, gotten lost. He'd promised to do better.
They'd been so relieved.
That night he'd gone to sleep and he hadn't dreamed about water or red hands and he'd woken the next morning and they'd been nice.
They'd fixed him breakfast and taken him to school in the car, come and picked him up after.
It was nice.
It hadn't lasted.
The next time he'd walked home and stopped at the park, they weren't as frantic when he finally arrived home and he could tell they didn't really believe him when he said he'd gotten lost again.
The time after that, they'd just been angry for the inconvenience.
They asked him where he'd been and he told them about the park, but they didn't believe him.
It hadn't really come as a surprise when the social worker had been the one to pick him up from school a few weeks later.
He'd stared out the window as they drove to a new town, a new life.
The sky had seemed very blue.
-ooo-
And he did, of course, know better, but he spent so much energy denying himself that it felt good to indulge once in a while even if it were in something as silly as a simple, somewhat childish, guessing game.
It was a harmless enough diversion.
After the briefest hesitation, his opponent's lips quirked as if he were fighting a smile and he replied: "Law enforcement."
And just like that he was on his heels once more, frozen like a hare spying a predator through the brush.
Every instinct screaming danger, caution, turn back.
What had given him away?
Had he said something?
It felt like a violation. As if he'd simply reached out and stolen the truth from his head.
Or perhaps he had known from the start and he had been a fool for not realizing he'd been recognized, lied to.
No, that wasn't it.
He knew a liar when he saw one.
He saw one every day looking back at him from every mirror and windowpane, after all.
"Do you think so?" He asked, forcing his muscles to unclench as he relaxed painfully slowly back into his seat. He was the one who had asked for this, after all, it would feel hopelessly pathetic if he were to back down now just because his opponent had managed to score a lucky point. "I assure you, I'm a perfectly normal high school student."
Play the game.
He just had to play the game.
He removed his gloves slowly, placing them neatly in his lap. He shrugged out of his jacket and unbuttoned his sleeves, rolling them carefully up his forearms before spreading his hands out between them in an echo of the gesture the he'd used earlier.
The gesture was greeted with a smile that made his stomach swoop and dive.
Dangerous.
Every breath felt dangerous.
His opponent slouched back in his chair, as if that gesture alone had been enough to cut the tension that had held him taunt, "So, all that about case blogs and crime fighting techniques was just a bluff?"
Ah, of course, he'd almost forgotten about that. The exchange with that dark-suited salaryman seemed so distant now, so far removed and unimportant that he could barely remember the man's face at all much less the entirety of their brief conversation.
"Oh, that… well, what do you think? Truth or Lie?"
"Truth," he replied easily. "You keep a crime fighting blog?"
"Do I seem the sort?"
"Yeah, you kind of do."
"Well, I can assure you that I'm not an undercover police officer, if that's what you're thinking."
"It wasn't."
"What then?"
"I don't know," he answered, seemingly unbothered by the admission of ignorance. "But that guy didn't seem to doubt you at all which meant he probably knew who you were."
He conceded the point with a smile, "But you don't so I can't possibly be as well-known as I thought."
"Maybe," he shrugged and there was something so practiced about the motion that it made his words feel false somehow. "I don't get out much."
What did that mean? Nothing about his demeanor seemed to speak to him being an introvert much less a shut-in and it didn't feel quite like a lie, more as if he were obscuring the truth in some way.
It was... interesting.
He was interesting.
"Don't you? Interesting," he commented, though he doubted his opponent would fall for such an obvious feint.
"It really isn't."
There was something about the way he said it. Bitter. Practically dripping with the residuals of an anger that was banked and dull, a path well-trodden. As if the truth were something he had long ago resigned himself to, but been unable to fully dismiss from his mind.
A prisoner.
He had been a prisoner of some sort.
That much was suddenly, glaringly, obvious.
"Justice," he blurted the word out, startling him again.
"What?"
"You asked for a name," he replied, gesturing fruitlessly to the air between them. It was strange to feel the flow of air against his fingertips. He so rarely took the gloves off these days, wasn't even quite certain why he'd decided to do so now.
The prisoner snorted, leaning back in his chair, "Funny, you don't look like a Justice."
"Don't I?"
Perhaps he didn't. Sometimes his justice was ink black, screaming madness in the dark. Sometimes it was the brilliant white of the righteous man. Sometimes it felt like his justice might tear the world apart and burn it to ash and him along with it.
"Justice isn't nearly as pretty as you," he answered finally and it felt honest in a way few things truly were.
The urge to bury his fingers in that soft hair once more, to tug him close, to breath the echo of those words into his chest to feel the shape of them against his skin, was almost overwhelming.
He laughed and it felt vaguely hysterical, "That's a particularly jaded take on it."
"It's been a challenging year," he replied, smiling. "What's your excuse?"
It was a kind smile.
Tired, but kind.
He kind of wanted to slap that face so he would stop looking at him that way.
"It's the only thing I believe in," he replied instead, tit for tat, honest answer for honest answer.
"And you call me jaded."
"I suppose it takes one to know one, doesn't it?"
"I suppose it does."
"You can call me Joker," he offered, staring at him expectantly as he pressed his glasses to perch higher across the bridge of his nose though they didn't truly need the nudge.
He felt like there's some humor in there that he wasn't quite able to parse, a joke he couldn't hope to understand.
"Why Joker?"
"Makes about as much sense as Justice," he countered, shrugging.
It felt like he was making fun of him or perhaps of them both.
Not that it mattered.
"I suppose that's true," he replied, the admission tasted bitter on his tongue. He dug his nails into his palms and hoped the smile he offered along with those words read as something approaching genuine.
He hated feeling like this.
Anxious.
It felt as if he had missed some obvious clue or inadvertently stumbled into a trap of his own making, as if he were overlooking something that should have been painfully obvious.
"Tell me three things about yourself," the boy who called himself Joker demanded suddenly, jarring him from his thoughts as he leaned forward into the space between them once more, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
"Just three?" He replied, chuckling a little.
It wasn't as difficult as it might have been.
The choice of three seemed so absurdly arbitrary.
"That's the game," he answered, smiling easily. "Three things. Two lies, one truth."
He should say no. He had work he could be doing, homework to catch up on, case files to go through, a dozen more important issues that required his attention and yet, just like before, he couldn't quite bring himself to put an end to this unexpected game.
To be the one to concede.
"Ah, I see, and then you would do the same, I assume?"
"Sure."
"Anything at all?"
"Yup, it can be as lame and impersonal as you like."
Or as horrifically intimate and personal as he could bear.
For a moment he allowed himself to imagine how it might feel to straddle his lap, press him back against the seat, and wrap his hands around his throat as he confessed every terrible thing he'd ever done.
To whisper all his secrets against his ear and then seal them away in the silence of death.
Would he be shocked?
Would he struggle?
Would he regret baiting him so casually as the light faded from his eyes?
He chuckled a little at the thought, smiling as he relaxed back in to his own seat, the tension draining out of him for some inexplicable reason, "You don't think I have any deep dark secrets to confess?"
"I wouldn't say that," he answered, still smiling. "But you don't strike me as the sort to confess them to a random stranger."
It felt dangerous, this exchange, but all those warning anxieties had faded away, drowned beneath the overwhelming desire to test his limits.
It was the same heady rush battle brought in the fraught red and black whispering, screaming darkness of the world below.
What would it feel like to battle his shadow?
To cut it down?
To see it bleed?
He could feel the desire to know howling beneath his skin, in his blood, madness at work like a virus oozing through his veins and he wished he were there now, in that world where lies were peeled away to uncover the horror of truth. Free from the eyes of a world that never saw him for what he was. To pant and curse and keen and scream, to destroy anything that dared cross his past, to rip away the mask he wore and cast it aside; to seek quick, filthy pleasure as he knelt beneath the cover of darkness, still aching from battle, his heart racing, listening to the symphony of the damned as they moaned in lamentation beneath the ever-present rush of trains screaming down the rails until release finally wiped his mind clean of all that was unnecessary.
Until exhaustion freed him at last from the fever in his blood.
Only then would he be fit to don the mask once more, to step into the smiling, congenial persona he'd created to fool the world and leave the truth of himself behind to rot in the darkness until it was needed once more.
"Is anyone likely to do that?" He murmured, barely resisting the urge to reach down and adjust himself.
His control was better than that.
He was better than that.
"Beats me."
He shouldn't.
But it was dark and a quick glance down the row revealed that the other passengers in their row were sleeping, snoring, completely oblivious to the conversation.
No one was looking.
No one could see.
No one but him.
A joker.
A prisoner.
An enemy to be bested.
It was as before, as always, that feeling of reckless madness rising from the depths to tempt and taunt and force his hand, only this time his opponent was staring back at him, already balancing, dancing, upon the razor's edge, heedless of the danger, daring him to do the same.
"Fine," he murmured, smoothing his bare, sweaty palms down over his thighs as if he could banish so easily the feeling that they were engaging in something illicit. "I like dark coffee, late night television and the only thing I actually know how to cook are pancakes."
"Just pancakes?" He replied doubtfully, lips quirking into a wry smile.
That comment eased something within him, made him feel more confident in his decision to play along though he couldn't have said why.
"No, I can follow directions just fine so I'm certain I can cook many things."
Not that he'd ever tried.
He lacked both the time and the desire. He had vague memories of eating warm meals and his mother's smile, but those memories were faded and worn, washed red by the blood and violence that had followed, whatever softness there had been to them blotted and out and made unreal by all that had followed. If his thoughts lingered there he might wonder if those halcyon days had ever existed at all, if every smile had only been a thin veneer, a poor disguise to mask despair, but he never allowed his thoughts to dwell upon the past.
There was no need.
Not when he was so close to achieving his goal.
"Ah, so you like dark coffee then?" The boy who called himself Joker offered, calling him back from his quickly darkening thoughts.
"You don't think I enjoy late night television?"
He actually did, after a fashion, or at the very least he didn't hate it.
Long after some of his foster parents had passed out in chairs, snoring and reeking of beer, he'd sat curled in the shadow of the couch, squeezed in along the wall to watch the early morning monsters and robots and advertisements for things he did not want and would never need.
He never fell asleep there, that would have been dangerous, would have raised questions, would have attracted attention, but sitting there until his eyes were so heavy he'd barely made it to bed before passing out had been far better than lying in the dark waiting for nightmares.
It had been far easier to face those brief slumbering hours when he was too exhausted to care.
Still, in the years since, he had never owned a television of his own, even now when he could perhaps afford it. It hardly fit with the studious image he'd so carefully cultivated, after all, and the extra expense was unnecessary.
"And waste what precious little free time you have?" Joker commented drolly, wry little smirk still firmly in place as if he found the idea that he truly had no time for such things absurd.
He forced a smile he didn't feel.
"Point taken. I do enjoy coffee. Perhaps more than I should," he allowed.
"Is that possible?"
"It's a bit of an expensive vice," he sighed, shrugging, his expression schooled to convey humble, apologetic golden boy. It was the sort of expression he usually held in reserve for when he found himself on the receiving end of unwanted love confessions and old people who were always quick to express concern when the discovered he lived alone.
If Joker was the least bit affected by it, it certainly didn't show.
"Your job doesn't pay well?" He asked instead of blushing or stammering or any of the reactions he was used to receiving.
It was mildly annoying.
He'd worked hard to perfect that look.
"It pays well enough," he replied, smile so wide it made his face ache.
"I once caught six fish in a single day," Joker offered suddenly, sliding down so far in his seat that it seemed like might ooze right off onto the floor between them at any moment. "I took ballet lessons until I was twelve and my glasses are entirely for show."
He couldn't quite picture him taking dance classes and he'd seen the way he'd squinted reflexively when his glasses fell down his nose which left only the one option, strange and incredibly unlikely though it seemed.
"You like to fish?" He asked slowly, startled as his opponent burst out laughing the moment the question passed his lips.
"It's relaxing."
"Is it?"
Was he mocking him?
"It can be. You should try it sometime."
"Do you think so?" He found himself asking even though he couldn't imagine a world in which he would do any such thing. The whole idea of fishing was so completely at odds with the persona he'd worked so hard at crafting.
Not cool at all, really.
"Sure, why not?"
What was it about that damnable smile that made him want to do things he'd never normally even consider?
"I think I might look quite foolish. I haven't the least idea what to do."
"Just bait the line and drop it in the water, remember to keep a good grip on your rod and reel it in if you get a bite. Not much to it beyond that."
"So you say," he replied, doubtfully. "I enjoy history and English, but I'm terrible at math."
"No one likes history."
"I suppose that was an easy one," he admitted, though he hadn't really meant it to be.
"It was. Though it's difficult to believe you're terrible at math."
"It's true. I don't have the patience for it at all."
"Really?"
"Truly."
"Next station: Shinagawa."
The announcement came like a slap to the face and all around him the other passengers roused themselves to begin inspecting baggage or working the kinks from aching backs and sleepy limbs.
"Next station: Shinagawa."
Strange… somehow the trip had been much shorter than he'd been anticipating.
Or perhaps it just seemed that way.
Not that it mattered.
It was over now.
He rolled his sleeves back down and rebuttoned them quickly, before shrugging back into his jacket and pulling his gloves back on. A quick check of the latches on his briefcase revealed to still be firmly closed. Which he had, of course, expected, but it never hurt to be certain. He stood up slowly and busied himself with smoothing gloved hands across the wrinkles travel had worn into his clothing and very deliberately ignoring the fact that the boy across from him seemed to be making preparations to disembark as well.
"Are you switching at Shinagawa Station as well?" Joker asked finally, though the answer should have been obvious enough.
"I am," he replied, offering a wan, apologetic smile. "It seems we'll have to cut our game short."
It was for the best.
With every question it had felt as if he were dancing ever closer to the edge, to a confession of truths that would ruin him.
A fact that now, the tension of the moment shattered by their imminent arrival, seemed utterly ridiculous.
He was better than that.
"It's fine," his former opponent replied, snagging his backpack and shrugging it over his shoulder. "I need to switch over to the Yamanote Line. I'm heading to Shibuya."
His stomach dipped, a torrent of questions in his head, sudden inescapable anxiety rising to choke him once more.
Does he know who I am?
Is he doing this on purpose?
Why am I so….
"That's an interesting coincidence," he said instead of giving voice to any of them. "So am I."
"Then I guess we'll be together a little while longer yet."
"I suppose so," he replied as he shuffled between the seats, half hoping to lose him in the crowd and half dreading that he wouldn't attempt to follow him at all.
He could feel him just behind him as they sidled out into the aisle, murmuring apologies with careless civility though he didn't actually pay any foot he might have trod upon a second thought.
His phone buzzed unpleasantly in his pocket, a sharp reminder of where his priorities lie, of what he should be doing now. He slipped from his pocket as he stumbled into the crowd of people gathering new the doors.
is it done
The number was unfamiliar, but he knew whose fingers had typed it by the impatience that seemed embedded within each character.
The lack of proper punctuation was irritating.
As was that implied admonishment that he should have contacted him immediately.
It made the frantic itch of madness stir beneath his skin once more, claws digging in, scraping down his back as something within him whispered, "Just kill him, be rid of him, be done with it."
He shuddered.
His mouth was dry and tasted of ash as he tapped out a reply, quick and terse and professional:
Yes.
There was a touch at his shoulder, a murmur of words he couldn't make out and he found himself humming a distracted response. He had just begun to type a follow up message that was more inline with the sycophantic nonsense that man desired from him when the world suddenly shifted around him and he was thrown off-balance, grasping at air with his free hand as he was tossed forward by stilted motion to collide with the person beside him.
They're pressed so close together, hip to hip and chest to chest and it felt so good that it stole his breath away, sent warmth flooding in every direction at once and stealing the choked beginnings of a gasp from his lips.
There was a hand at his waist, warm and steady, holding him close as if it wished to keep him and it was so improbable, so absurd, and still- for a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity- he wants it to be true so badly it's almost impossible to breathe.
Except he is breathing, too fast and too hard, and he can smell him, smell the sour reek of sweat and boy and rain and he can't think, his hands are numb and stupid and all he wants is to sink into it, phone dangling forgotten from his hand as he turned his face in against his throat and inhaled that scent again and again.
When was the last time he'd allowed someone so close when there was nothing to be gained from it?
"Okay?"
The word was just a puff of air, warm and damp as it gusted out against his cheek, his ear, and for a single mad moment he considered pressing closer or, worse, getting a hand between them and doing something truly regrettable.
There's a sound in his head like an echo of mourning as he forces himself to stop, to breathe, to answer.
"I'm fine," he doesn't quite snap, but it's a close thing. His heart is still in his throat and his head is still teeming with ideas.
Vile, life and image ruining thoughts of falling to his knees, of forcing him to his, of pulling him into the darkness with him where they could rut together like an animals against those pulsing walls.
Of driving him mad, mad enough that he might bring himself off in the middle of this crowded train while he stood back and watched, an innocent bystander, shocked and appalled.
He could do anything, anything, anything.
He could.
But he wouldn't.
He had one goal, one intention, nothing else mattered.
Nothing.
He forced his body to remain still and loose beneath the press of Joker's hand even as sanity returned and with it the urge to shove him away before he could weaken once more.
He took his time slipping his phone back into his pocket; it gave him something else to focus on, an excuse to avoid addressing that lingering hand he couldn't quite bring himself to step away from entirely, "I'm sorry. What were you saying? About me reminding you of something?"
He was certain that was what he had said.
Almost certain.
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It was the way you were acting," he whispered the words like they were a secret mean for him alone, lips catching against his hair, his cheek, his ear. "The pretense. You said all the right words and made the right gestures in the right tone of voice, but the feeling just wasn't there. It makes me think you're not what you're pretending to be."
He was quite certain that if he turned his head right now- if their eyes met in this moment- he'd be able to see him, all of him, every terrible, ugly, vile thing he'd ever done.
There was a question on his lips, balanced on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be spat out into the world.
It felt dangerous to ask.
Like they were on the tightrope again, balanced precariously above the gaping maw of some hideous, carnivorous beast.
Flirting with danger was madness, but he found himself embracing it again in spite of himself, shifting closer. The innocuous words that slithered from his lips felt as soft and deadly as poison dribbling from the tip of a serpent's fang, "Then who am I?"
"I don't know," he answered slowly, each syllable a finger coiling around him, a firm and steady grip meant to pull him to completion. "But I'd like to."
There was a moan shuddering behind his teeth.
He felt like he was being swallowed whole by the promise of those words.
He wanted.
Oh, how he wanted.
To kiss him, to hurt him, to destroy them both, but most of all he wanted to show him. Show him the madness and corruption that blackened his soul, the true expression of everything that he was, of everything he'd willingly become.
And he wanted to be seen.
Wanted him to look into the ink-black heart of him and discover whether he'd be met with horror or acceptance.
He turned to look into his face at last, to see his expression as he replied, "If you tell me your name, you might find out more than you ever wanted to know."
His eyes were wide and dark and looking into them felt like falling.
The train slowed and then he was falling, or near enough that it made no difference, and for a long moment they were pressed together once more, close enough that he could smell him again, the scent of some harsh, sharp soap and the damp reek of rainfall that somehow lingered in his messy hair even after so long spent within the confines of the train. Lips brushed across his cheek but he could barely feel them for the heat of the flush that warmed his face, his body, left him feverish and reckless and not quite himself once more, his control shattered in pieces across the crowded, dirty floor of a passenger train.
A voice was reminding them to mind their step, shrieking warning of their pending arrival once more and then the press of that body against his own was gone and he was left chilled in the aftermath.
Humiliation and shame rushed in to fill the void as he watched him step away, gaze averted as if he felt nothing, as if he was nothing, as if nothing had happened at all.
"Kurusuakira," his opponent said suddenly, loudly, as it determined to be sure he was heard even over the crowd and the announcements. But the words were said in rush, and for a long moment they were nothing more than meaningless syllables run together like chalk in the rain, mumbled into the collar of his ratty t-shirt as if just the act of uttering them cost him dearly.
And, for a long moment, those syllables meant nothing, less than nothing, and then… and then they snapped into place, became a name that felt like a blow.
Her sweater had been black.
She had lost a shoe when the car had struck her. He'd seen it land, seen the heel break as it struck the concrete yards away from where she'd come to rest, head lolling, bleeding, as helpful Samaritans rushed to her aid.
He'd looked her up in the police database before he'd left Shibuya that morning.
She was 37, a clerk in some trading company though he hadn't recognized the name of it so it couldn't have been one of any particular importance.
Recently testified in the trial of a minor, Kurusu Akira, 17, charged with assault against unnamed man, 42, convicted and sentenced to 60 days, to be released to parental custody, 1-year probation.
There was, of course, no proof that that man had played some role in the arrest or that the trial had actually had anything to do with why he'd been sent to seek her out, but he'd never been the sort to believe in coincidence.
He wasn't sure why his name had stuck with him when hers had not.
But it had.
"I guess this is goodbye then, huh?"
He hadn't even realized he was looking back at him until he spoke.
His smile was as twisted and bitter as the rest of his expression. Whatever he'd seen in his face had clearly disappointed him, but he didn't seem surprised in the least. "See you around, Justice."
Before he had a moment to consider a response, Joker… Kurusu, was already walking away, sliding through the crowd, disappearing into the push and crush of strangers moving out onto the busy platform beyond the train door as the warning bells chimed.
After a moment's hesitation, he followed, slipping between the closing doors, fingers gripped painfully tight around the handle of his briefcase.
He doesn't need to, of course, the name would be enough, a name was all he would ever need to find him again, to summon his true self from the darkness and destroy him, but still he followed. He stepped quickly through the press of people moving about the platform and took the stairs up two at a time, his eyes tracking the slump of Kurusu's shoulders through the crowd as if he couldn't bear to loose sight of him even for a moment.
His face was still warm and his hands were still trembling.
His name was still echoing in his head like the beat of a distant drum, a thousand questions swirling through his mind.
He couldn't wait.
He needed it to be done.
And Shibuya suddenly seemed impossibly far away.
He just wanted it done.
That was all.
Done.
Over.
Those brief fantasies extinguished along with the life that had inspired them, rendered impossible, the anxiety such thoughts stirred within him still so fresh in his mind they made his skin itch and his teeth ache.
If he were gone, it would be like none of it had ever happened.
Everything would be fine.
He could still fix this.
He was in control.
Up ahead, Kurusu paused at a map to trace bare fingers across the surface before settling briefly against a destination and pushing himself away from the sign, setting off once more down the corridor.
Shibuya.
Of course, he was going to fucking Shibuya.
Had there ever been a chance it was going to be anything else?
It was a simple matter to slip through the crowd on the platform with the ready offer of an apologetic smile and murmured apologies.
He kept his head bowed and his face carefully turned away from each person he nudged his way past until he was finally able to break through the crush to step up beside him on the platform.
The moment he emerged from the crowd he could feel the weight of his attention even though he made no move to turn and greet him, choosing instead to merely watch him from the corner of his eye.
He clutched his briefcase in front of him as if it might obscure the way his body was reacting to that attention, to the discomfort still simmering heat through his veins.
He was in control.
He was.
Later, he wouldn't be able to recall why he'd said it when there were so many strangers about that might overhear him, might recognize his name, might remember he was there standing beside this boy in his last minutes of his short, sad life.
But in the immediacy of the moment, there had been no thought, not even a moment's hesitation, the admission had been as simple and reflexive as drawing breath as he stood beside him staring out across the empty tracks to the wall beyond, pitted and stained by the passage of water and years.
"Akechi," he murmured and saying it felt like relief, like digging a troublesome thorn from tender flesh. "Akechi Goro."
If he paid more attention he was certain he would haven been able to hear the squeal of brakes, feel the rumble of the oncoming train, but in the moment all he could truly hear was the thunder of his heart in his head.
He'd expected the words to drop like a bomb, to have the same impact that Kurusu's words had had on him, but they didn't. Instead Kurusu merely glanced at him, openly curious, obviously surprised, but it was plain to see that he did not recognize the name anymore than he'd recognized him.
Perhaps he really wasn't as well-known as he thought he was.
Perhaps he'd been worrying needlessly about being recognized at all.
He laughed, wincing at the somewhat hysterical edge of relief he heard running like an undercurrent beneath the sound, "You really don't know who I am, do you?"
"Did you think I did?"
Did he?
No.
But he'd hoped.
Somehow it felt as if what he had to do would have been easier if he'd known.
If Kurusu had simply been playing him.
If he were a liar too.
"Most people do," he sighed, the words tasted sour on his tongue. "Even the ones who lie and say they don't. But you're not a liar, are you, Kurusu-kun? Just a joker."
His smile was slim and tight and as sour as the taste on his tongue, "Everyone is to one extent or another, aren't they?"
"A joker or a liar?"
"A bit of both, probably," Kurusu replied, a huff of laughter giving his words a wry and bitter twist.
"Jaded."
"Realistic."
The air stirred around them, the scream of the oncoming train growing louder by the moment.
It was time.
He reached out carefully to press a hand against the small of his back, thumb brushing against his backpack as his palm settled against him.
Just one little push.
That's all it would take.
No one was paying them the least bit of attention.
There was no one to see, no one to know.
Just one push was all it would take to banish this complication from his life forever.
He wasn't sure why he was hesitating, wasn't even certain that he truly was or if what felt like hesitation was merely the last bracing inhale before the final decision was made.
She had tripped, stumbled into the road before he'd done anything more than tap at her elbow.
She had done all the work for him.
All he'd had to do was watch.
"It was nice talking to you, Akechi Goro," Kurusu sighed, glancing down the tunnel towards the shine of headlights playing across the lens of his glasses' making clear the train's imminent arrival.
There was such finality to the words.
It felt like a dismissal.
Did he not realize that he was about to be murdered in a train station in Shinjuku?
Did he not sense the danger at his side?
Or did he simply not care?
Kurusu Akira's life was in shambles. He'd been able to read between the lines of that report well enough to know that, to guess at truths that don't matter and never would.
People would just assume that he'd jumped.
No one would think to question it.
It should have been a simple decision.
Just one little push.
"Was it?" He found himself asking instead.
What was he playing at?
What did he hope to gain?
"Yeah, it really was."
Such ridiculous sincerity.
So painfully honest.
He'd probably been trying to save that woman.
Not that it had mattered in the end.
No good deed went unpunished.
Someone like Kurusu Akira… he'd probably been doomed from the start.
The train blew his hair back as it passed them by, but even before it did he was already stepping back, away, his hand shaking as he tucked it away in his pant pocket to hide the tremor of foiled adrenaline.
It didn't matter.
It was better if he waited anyway.
Cleaner.
The other way wasn't quite as messy.
Wasn't so… intimate.
And dead was dead, after all.
It hardly ever mattered when it happened or how, just that it did.
Besides even on that crowded platform there was always a chance that he might be seen and recognized and he had no illusions about what fate awaited him if he became more liability than asset.
It could wait.
He could wait.
He knew something of patience after all.
They stood together silently on the crowded train. Not quite close enough to touch or close enough that anyone would think they even knew each other at all, but close enough that it was easy to fall into step with him when they both spilled out onto the platform at Shibuya Station, to move up the stairs side-by-side, arms bumping and brushing casually until they reached the busy corridor above.
A few steps more and Kurusu drew to a stop beside him, hitching a thumb over his shoulder to point toward another platform, clearly marked, "I'm heading to Yongen-Jaya, so I'm this way."
"Then I believe this is where we part ways, Kurusu-kun," he replied, relieved to have an excuse to leave him behind.
His fingers ached around the handle of his briefcase and the hand in his pocket might still have been trembling ever so slightly.
"I guess so," Kurusu replied, that wry smile still twisting his lips. "Don't suppose you'd be interested in getting coffee sometime?"
He hates him for asking.
Hates himself for caring.
He did not think about what it might have been like to invite him back to the stale air and worn furniture of his studio apartment.
About what it would be like to walk with him through damp city streets, sharing an umbrella as they traded sharp words, laughing, hands brushing again and again, fingers lingering and catching like a prelude of what was to come.
Or lead him up the creaking back stairs, off that narrow street in downtown Shibuya to his dented door that the landlord had never came to fix to matter how often he complained.
Doesn't think about how he would have looked slipping his shoes off in his entryway and padding across his threadbare carpet in just those mismatched socks because he'd never bothered to purchase guest slippers.
How he would look standing in the middle of what little floor was available between his bed and his table and his bike.
How he might fill the space that always seemed cold with heat and life.
How he wouldn't look surprised, how he wouldn't care at all that his apartment was cramped and messy and completely unlike the image we worked so hard to project to the world.
He doesn't consider for a moment what it would have felt like to peel that damp t-shirt from his skin and pressed him against the cool glass of the window.
The way the neon lights of the city might have looked painted across his bare skin.
What it might have felt like to press him down against his unmade futon and lick the taste of rainwater from his skin.
To let him peel away the congenial mask he wore to see the sneering, bitter horror within.
What it might be like to be known for who he truly was and desired because of it.
Or if he does think of those things it's only for a moment that's like catching a glimpse of another life; a strange mad moment over as quickly as it began.
He has no space in his life for such thoughts, for such unnecessary desires.
It's too late to turn back now.
He remembers still, too well, the warmth of the bathroom, the feel of the clammy skin of her wrist beneath his fingertips.
It was a simple matter to turn his attention away from that brief mad infatuation as disgust with them both flooded his veins with ice, made his stomach churn and roil.
"I…" he began, forcing the appearance of reluctant indecision rather than snapping the negative as he wished to.
It felt as if he might shatter like glass dashed across the pavement if he spoke to soon or moved too quickly.
"I don't think that will be possible."
"Right," Kurusu laughed and the sound echoed inside all the empty, hollow spaces within him. "You're very busy."
He found himself staring into his face, unable to avert his gaze from the bitter curl of his lip.
He doesn't think about biting it.
He doesn't think about screaming.
He doesn't think about anything.
"I am," he agreed and that at least he doesn't have to fake, that at least doesn't have to be a lie, "though I won't insult you by pretending that's the reason."
"Well, I can't fault you for being honest, can I?" He replied, shaking his head and adjusting his backpack as he turned to go.
His smile was slim and tight and it feels like absolution.
It set his teeth on edge.
He wanted to lash out at him, to shut him up, to press a knife to his throat or a gun to his temple, and wipe that horrible understanding from his face.
"It's not pleasant, but you should still try to do it more often, it really is a good look on you."
The words are soft, kind in a way that chafes at his skin like sandpaper.
He has never hated anyone the way he hates Kurusu Akira in that moment.
"Take care of yourself, Akechi Goro."
"Yes, I will. I…" he swallowed back a thousand terrible responses that would never fit with the image he's worked so hard to perfect. "I did enjoy meeting you, Kurusu Akira."
And the worst thing about it is that it's true.
Or maybe the worst thing about it is that it doesn't matter.
That it never would.
Whatever it took.
He has gone too far down this path to have second thoughts now.
There was no room within him for what ifs or maybes or could-have-beens.
No room for distractions.
For boys who made some terrible, childish, aching part of him want so badly to be something other than what he is.
But there was no salvation.
No magic wand that could be waved to revise his life.
And even if there were, he would reject it out of hand.
He was and always would be precisely what he was meant to be.
So instead he just watched him go.
Found himself still staring down the corridor blankly long after Kurusu had disappeared across the station and down the stairs towards Yogen-Jaya.
He could go home.
Turn and leave the station and go back to his apartment, maybe pick up something to eat at new sushi restaurant that had opened up downtown on his way. He wasn't hungry, but he would need to eat now since he had an early meeting in the morning and likely wouldn't have time for breakfast until after if he wanted to get a ride in before he was meant to be there.
He could call that man and give his report, pretend to be grateful for the praise that would be lavished upon him even though all he ever felt was empty.
There were a hundred ways he could postpone the inevitable if he were so minded.
But that way lay only madness and temptation.
It was best to just get it over with.
It was the easiest thing in the world to step back, to let that shadow world reach out and drag him down into the depths, into the moaning red and black horror the station would become.
This was the truth.
This was what lay beneath all those pretty lies and bright lights and clean streets, behind all those smiling faces and well-polished doors. This was the true writhing, skulking, treacherous, filthy soul of Tokyo and everyone in it.
The escalator ground to a halt before him as it always did when he began his descent down, down, down to where all those shadows lurked in the red and black darkness, wandering aimlessly as they waited patiently for his judgement to strike them down.
He can finally breathe here.
His clothes faded, replaced with the skintight vinyl that reflected the stained and cracked nature of his true self. It was always Loki here, always his trickster god waiting to clothe him when he prowled through those dark, noisy tunnels listening to the moans of lost souls and the rattle and rush of unseen trains.
He preferred Robin Hood in the palaces of the cognitive world these days.
Those glitzy, decadent horrors made him feel… righteous, as if every choice he made was right and pure and just.
But in the world beneath, Loki was the persona that called to him most strongly and with Loki's power wrapped around him he could admit the truth.
Here he could see himself as he was: selfish and horrible and single-minded and vicious in his pursuit of vengeance.
He had no need of illusions here.
He always felt better here, more at ease, more himself, as if some tremendous weight had been lifted from his shoulders. So much more comfortable was he here than in the world beyond.
Here, wandering the tunnels of this cognitive world, there was never anyone to question him.
His judgement, his justice, his madness, his world.
That was all that mattered in the world beneath.
There are no maybes here, only him.
Only darkness and judgement and power and madness and death.
If he wanted he could kill time destroying the lurching horrors that would flee from his scythe, from the madness he could inflict with a wave of his hand, a single touch, but there was no point in postponing the inevitable.
"Kurusu Akira," he called out.
His voice always seemed too loud, too real, against the distant rattle and rush of trains and the moans of the shadows that ruled the darkness and today was no exception.
But for once the darkness did not stir to answer his call, did not hurry to offer a soul for judgment.
He waits.
And waits.
But still, no shadow takes form before him.
No whispering, sinister, yellow-eyed fiend sprints from the darkness to heed his call.
Even those weak, formless generic monsters that usually haunt the tunnels have chosen to steer clear of him, choosing to haunt the distant tunnels and give him space enough to work for once as if they can sense his growing unease, the beginnings of doubt and rage, and fear what will come of it.
He waits.
Nothing.
"Kurusu Akira," he snarled once more, tossing his briefcase to the floor. It snapped open at the impact,the gun spinning loose across the floor.
He waits impatiently, but though he is certain more than enough time has passed for even the slowest, most slothful of shadows to answer his call, nothing ermerges from the darkness.
He is alone.
Nothing.
Nothing and no one and nothing.
"Kurusu Akira!"
Still nothing.
"Answer me!"
Rage is rearing up within him, coursing through his veins like rocket fuel, sudden and inevitable, searing through brain as his hands clenched and uncleanched at his sides.
He was such a fool.
To believe such a lie….
That wasn't his name.
It couldn't be his name.
He...
No.
No, it hadn't been a lie.
No, his name was Kurusu Akira, he was certain of that much.
The moment he'd said that name, all the pieces had fallen into place and he'd known him.
He'd remembered him.
It couldn't be a lie.
Because he knew it was true.
It had been in the database, yes, but also... he could feel it.
He knew.
"Kurusu Akira!" He screamed into the moaning, howling, uncaring void and, again, there was no answer.
There was nothing.
Nothing.
Had his power deserted him?
No.
No, that wasn't right either.
He could still feel it in the dark vinyl that clothed him, in the rush of urgency and adrenaline that trembled through his muscles, in the mask that had adhered itself to his flesh.
No, he hadn't changed.
Everything was as it had always been.
The screams and the darkness and the pulsing red between and the great hulking shadows that lurched down long lonely tunnels, stupid and dull, but with just enough sense now to stay well away from him.
It hadn't been like that in the beginning.
In the beginning he'd been...
He still remembered perfectly his first palace, that magnificent cruise ship floating across an endless choppy sea.
He'd been standing outside the Diet Building- waiting, wanting, hoping- to catch a glimpse of that man.
That man who had made his mother so miserable, that man who was nothing to him, who hadn't cared, who wasn't worth the flesh that covered him.
He'd had a gun in his pocket.
Purchased with some of the small reserve of cash he'd found in that box along with that man's name and what few belongings she'd saw fit to leave him.
It was small, loaded with six bullets by the laughing man who'd sold it to him, who'd refused to load a bullet in the chamber and showed him to turn off the safety.
It seemed heavy... for something so small.
He wasn't sure what he was going to do with it just yet. Wasn't sure he was going to do anything with it yet, but there was something comforting about having it.
He'd been standing there for hours, loitering about, and the security men were starting to give him strange looks and he knew he couldn't stay much longer and that he'd probably have to cut his hair or something if he came back so they wouldn't recognize him.
And that's when he'd seen them.
Seen him.
He'd looked him up on the computer at an internet cafe the day before, so he'd known what he was looking for, but somehow the reality was... different than he thought it would be.
He was walking with a woman, leaning in close to her, laughing as she frowned and adjusted her glasses.
She had dark hair and a serious expression.
She was pretty.
"You certainly appears to have a type," he'd murmured, fingers clenched so hard around the bars of the black fence that surrounded the Diet Building that they ached constantly.
His mother had been slim and tall and beautiful too.
She'd had hair as black as the night sky, though hers had been long, long enough that it had draped over the back of the tub, coiled on the ground like a snake.
He could hear that man talking as they approached the gate, his voice jovial, his smile wide.
"… your research could be the very thing I need to steer this country into a better, brighter future."
"I care about my funding, Masayoshi," the woman replied, her voice cool and unimpressed. "I don't care about this country or your sloppy ship analogies."
He was laughing, a hand settling against the woman's waist, and he was still speaking, but he couldn't hear what he was saying anymore, couldn't hear anything over the pain pounding like thunder in his head as the world wavered and blurred before him.
He might have screamed.
He wasn't sure.
All he knew was that the pain was unlike anything he'd ever experienced before and his head had been throbbing with it, his eyes aching, watering, and he'd felt the impact of stone against his knees as he'd fallen to the ground, hands at his head as if they could keep him together when it felt like he was going to shake apart.
And then it was gone.
It was gone and he found himself alone in an empty world.
Before him had been the Diet Building- same as it ever was- as it had been every day he stopped there to stare up at it and wait with increasing impatience for that man to appear. Except there were no guards, no people, even the birds that normally flocked and pecked seeking crumbs that might have fallen from the street food eaten by the tourists that frequented the area and didn't know or care enough not to feed them.
He was alone.
"Hello!" He had called, his voice had echoed in the silence that surrounded him, a weak, thready thing filled with fear.
There'd been no one and nothing to answer him, just the Diet Building looming over him, huge and imposing.
In the end, he'd gone inside simply because he hadn't been able to think of anything else to do, anywhere else to go for help.
He'd started laughing when he'd stumbled through the door and found himself on the deck of that enormous ship. He'd remembered their conversation and thought maybe he'd gotten heat stroke or something and passed out, fallen and hit his head and everything that had happened since was really just some weird dream he couldn't escape.
No, not a dream, a nightmare.
The casino had been lousy with sycophants speaking of that man as if he were the second coming and it had also been teeming with faceless lurking shadows and great hulking beasts that made his heart race.
Monsters.
Floor after floor of opulence filled with the faceless, anonymous masses that sung his praises, worshiped at his shrine, oblivious to his sins, to the idea that he was anything less than extraordinary.
It made him sick.
He made him sick.
He'd wandered for hours through the labyrinthine halls of that place, dodging the monsters once he'd exhausted all his bullets, and started using them as distractions so he could more easily escape. Finally, he'd stumbled out into the street once more had promptly vomited in the gutter as the world swayed around him as if he were still there, still standing on the ship feeling the waves shift the world by inches again and again.
Around him the world went on as it always had, people stepping around him, ignoring him as he knelt in the street trying to catch his breath and regain his bearings..
He was an eyesore, an annoyance, nothing more.
Eventually he got up, wiped his mouth against the back of his hand and stumbled away.
He hadn't seen him again that night or that week or the week after.
He'd found the app on his phone when he got home.
Though he hadn't understood what it was until much later.
He'd stumbled into the menacing world beneath Shibuya the following week.
He found himself face to face with the woman again when he'd fled the horrors beneath the ground and spilled into the passageway in Shibuya station, panting, terrified.
She'd smiled at him as if he were a marvel.
He'd stood in her half-formed palace, weeks later, marveling up at the Library of Alexandria towering above him.
Endless desert sands outside and endless rows of books within, filled to the brim with more of those monsters. Dark blobs that slouched through the stacks, oozing past shelves of dusty books and piles of scrolls, around dark busts, artifacts laid out for display.
He'd hid and run and hid again, collar damp with sweat, tie pulled loose around his neck.
He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, it was a nightmare from which he could not wake.
He'd seen himself there, some strange wild-eyed version of himself, seen some cold, clinical version of her studying him, them.
He'd found himself in that bathroom again and again, scrapped his nails away trying to claw and fight his way free of it.
She said she wanted to help him.
But the library was rife with tricks and traps.
Your fault.
Your fault.
Your fault.
If you'd never been born.
He was gasping, sobbing, but he was angry too.
So angry.
He'd wanted to destroy him, destroy him utterly, and that was the way to do it.
He'd ripped away the congenial mask he wore and become something more… less… something other.
His hate was a war drum that echoed the beat of his heart.
He would take what he loved.
Build him up and let him fall.
Hurt him.
Humiliate him.
Kill him.
He hadn't meant to harm her.
Hadn't meant to harm anyone in the beginning.
But he had.
He had.
And, in the end, he'd watched as that man swooped in and stole it all away.
He destroyed everything he touched eventually.
Why should this one stupid, worthless boy be any different?
"Kurusu Akira," he whispered once more, but the corridor remained empty and silent around him.
Or as silent as it ever was, anyway.
"Akechi Goro."
The darkness around him still did not stir, but that was nothing new.
It never stirred when he called upon his own shadow self though he'd never been certain whether that meant his intentions were pure and just or if it were simply because of the power he possessed.
Why wasn't he there?
He murmured a dozen other names: the grandmother from the station, the fan girls, classmates, strangers, prospective targets, the train driver he was meant to see to but hadn't yet.
Dozens of names, dozens of shadows, and he could feel them all there, rising from the darkness, some weak, some strong, but all there.
All there.
Somewhere.
Waiting to be found and driven mad by his power if he chose or killed by his hand or let be.
Always there, just waiting for him to choose what fate awaited them.
It should have made him feel calmer, should have eased his worry.
It didn't.
Because even when he said his name again the shadows still did not stir.
There was no Kurusu Akira to be found in the world beneath.
He trudged up the stairs to the empty shadowy platform and collapsed against one wall, his breath coming in panicked huffs as reality sunk in.
He couldn't find him.
He couldn't kill him.
He couldn't….
Was it because he was new to Shibuya?
Or was it something else?
Something more?
His presence on the train, his sitting across from him, his connection to that man and to his business in that place, those things couldn't be simple happenstance.
Coincidence after coincidence had piled up one on top of the next, each new addition making the pile more precarious than the last.
What was it he was meant to do?
What could he do?
What did it mean?
What was he?
Where was he?
Was he like him?
If he stepped from this subterranean hell now, boarded a train to Yongen-Jaya would be able to find him?
What would he do if he did?
Could he kill him?
Would he?
Of course he could.
He had done far worse things, after all.
Far worse things than killing some juvenile delinquent who no one cared about and no one would miss.
Why hadn't he simply pushed him in front of the train when he'd had the chance?
Why?
He felt queasy as he stepped back into reality, licking his lips nervously. His mind and heart were still racing as he straightened his jacket and picked up his briefcase, stepping out into the sparsely crowded station and making his way with careful, measured steps towards the platform that would take him to Yongen-Jaya.
The problem, as it turned out, was he had no idea where to even begin looking for him once he arrived.
Kurusu had told him nothing of his destination and he knew nothing about him other than what little information he'd gleaned from their conversation and what few tidbits he dimly recalled from the information he'd skimmed in the police database.
For all he knew Kurusu had already reached his destination- whatever it might have been- or gone to a different station altogether after he'd left him in Shibuya.
He knew this to be true.
Knew the chances of stumbling upon him by chance were minuscule.
Yet he still found himself wandering the damp, deserted streets of Yongen-Jaya, umbrella open to ward off the worst of the downpour as he peered into the bathhouse and laundromat and a darkened café and a grocery store that was just closing up for the night for some sign, some trace of him.
Nothing.
He trudged past darkened apartment buildings and a junk shop and a whole series of neat little houses tucked behind gates and high walls.
More nothing.
His shoes were ruined, his socks soaked through, and try as he might he could never seem to avoid the deeper puddles and his feet and legs were freezing.
He was halfway down the residential block with the houses for the third time when he finally admitted to himself that he was getting absolutely nowhere.
It was frustrating.
So frustrating he wanted to scream.
He closed his eyes and counted backwards from ten, not the least bit surprised that it did not help at all.
A quick glance at his phone revealed that he'd wasted nearly two hours on this pointless, utterly futile endeavor.
He turned back and headed towards the station, cursing himself for the hundredth time for being a complete and total...
The squealing protest of a rusty gate was the only warning he had before a hand caught at his shoulder, pulling him to an abrupt stop.
He jerked instinctively from beneath its grip, but the muddy road was slippery and he moved far too quickly to stay upright. He cursed as he fell back, arms pinwheeling frantically as if he could will his balance to return. Hands caught at his jacket and he heard fabric give and tear even over the drill of rain that seemed to muffle every other sound so completely and the next thing he was aware of was the ground seemingly rising up to meet him, hard, mud and water splashing up all around him, soaking instantly through his pants, his underwear.
His ass ached from the impact and stung viciously where he'd somehow managed to land on a sharp rock or a bottle cap or… something.
He'd lost his umbrella in the tumble and the falling rain was quick to take advantage of the absence, pouring down relentlessly, ruining his carefully-styled hair and soaking through his ruined jacket as well as the shirt beneath. He felt- and likely looked- like a drowned rat.
His image would be utterly ruined if anyone caught a photo of him like this.
His face felt hot and his stomach sour with embarrassment and the certainty that he would gladly murder the entire neighborhood if he had to in order to keep this particular humiliation a private one.
He wiped water from his face, grimacing as he only succeeded in smearing mud across his cheeks.
He glared at the person who had caused him to fall, glad to see they hadn't escaped their foolish actions unscathed, as they knelt in the mud, groping about blindly for….
Oh.
Kurusu's glasses- when he fished them out from where they'd landed beneath him- were hopelessly twisted, one lens obviously cracked even through the thick layer of mud that covered them.
Shit.
In a moment of inspired panic, he tossed the mangled things away, pitching them carelessly towards the alley wall when he realized Kurusu was still looking for them in the muck and hadn't yet seen him with them.
He wasn't sure he could stomach having to apologize to him.
Besides, it wasn't as if they could get more broken.
The glasses landed near the broken handle of his umbrella and cursed himself anew for never bothering to get a new one when he knew this one was on the way out. He'd thought he'd been being frugal, but clearly it had actually been a stupid and short-sighted decision.
Kurusu sighed, finally turning his gaze up to him, wiping dripping wet hair from his eyes and nudging it to the side. His clothes are soaked through and splattered with mud and with his hair plastered to his face and neck and his glasses missing, he looked like a different person altogether.
"Are you lost?" He asked, lips quirked in a queer little twist of a smile.
He had had a very elaborate excuse planned.
Lies and truth married together into a story he knew he could sell, that he was certain would be compelling enough to lure Kurusu back to Shibuya where he could drag him into that shadowy world and force the truth from his lips, whatever it might be.
He'd spent most of the last hour putting it together, refining it, never allowing himself to believe until that last moment that all his searching would come to nothing.
It had been a very good story.
He had spent a lot of time on it.
But now that he'd been given the opportunity to use it what came tripping off his tongue instead was: "Yeah, I think I am."
Kurusu offered him a damp hand and the ghost of a smile, "Guess that makes us two of a kind."
Even through his glove and and a layer of mud, Kurusu's hand still felt warm when he took it.
- Fin-