Chapter Text
A year in, it has gotten easier. Easier to lift his arm and rotate his shoulder—though he will never throw a dart with his right hand at any meticulous accuracy again. It's been easier to look in the mirror despite letting his hair grow out long enough to tickle the nape of his neck when he wears it up. Despite being the correct verbiage because he sees his mother's smile reflected back at him in the slowly passing winter months. He looks so much like her, after allowing his face to grow softly into his favored genetics rather than spending time and money fighting against it. It's mostly good to have a piece of her so close.
Mostly.
The chill of February on a Saturday morning has also been easier than he was once expecting. The unique Saturday that marks three hundred and sixty-five full days of life from the time he woke up to a white room underneath thin white sheets wondering if he came back a ghost instead of…
Well.
What was the other option?
Instead of not waking up at all.
Things shouldn't be easier than that. What is easier than nothing at all, considering things logically? There are plenty of things that he would have avoided. Months of painful, frustrating physical therapy that only gave him eighty percent of his movement back and a new baseline of abdominal pain. Two raised scars from the bullets. A fucked up pancreas— perhaps being a gunshot wound-induced diabetic is more substance to complain about than the shoulder. Losing the ability to be fully ambidextrous has been more of a blow to his ego than getting used to regularly stabbing himself with a device on the back of his arm. None of it is easy.
'Easier' means something much more specific than 'easy'.
It's seven in the morning on Saturday, the third of February. It's cold—uncomfortably below freezing in spite of some efforts made to wear a few layers—and snow is somewhere in the forecast. He can tell by the way the clouds reflect the sun around the sky without a single warm ray being felt on top of his skin. Goro Akechi is outside his apartment, taking his prescribed morning walk with his kind-of prescribed high energy dog after eating a well-rounded and filling breakfast that he managed to cook himself—also by a doctor's recommendation.
Easier means he put in the blood, sweat, and tears to make life worth living. After all the blood, sweat, and tears he put into making sure that he wouldn't live to see his nineteenth birthday, Goro isn't sure if he's found what that looks like yet.
But, he thinks it's out there.
It reaches for him at the edges of his memory. It's something he has forgotten, and he knows that. He knows that he's had something worth living for. It comes to him in waves, in vague and passing feelings through his mind, through his chest.
One time, he stared up at his ceiling until one in the morning trying to piece together the puzzle. He tried to replicate those feelings, placed them back in his chest and in his mind where they belong. He's heard of false memory syndrome and it is possible that's the kind of delusion he's begging for when his brain graciously supplies him with what he now calls the memory of a man. Black hair, curly. He thinks that's what the shape was, at least. He is hardly visible through the fog in his mind. Didn't even need a dose of diphenhydramine for this sleep inhibited hallucination. Progress!
Either he remembered something integral to his being, or his cognition spat up the perception of someone possibly attractive that he saw online one time to placate his need for a reason to feel a sad, lonely hole in his heart. Figuratively. The two real holes in his torso didn't damage anything that vital.
Goro's neurological testing came back fine, if that even matters in the case of proving his theoretically delusional rhetoric. He has proof that he wasn't even concussed after being chewed up and spat out of the cognitive world, simply shot and left to bleed out. Go figure. He assures himself of his remaining sanity with this information often enough. A gap in his memory should be expected, it's the least of the sacrifices he made for the price of living. The lead up to those bullets piercing through skin and tendon and muscle is a blur. Everything since the June before it is a blur.
He was almost there. Nearly to his goal.
And then he got shot in his deadbeat father's palace. He can't remember who shot real bullets at him—the Phantom Thieves didn't work like that, not before this—but, it had to be one of them. Anything to stop him from winning.
He doesn't even have the energy to hate them for it. It was a favor. Someone from Shido's side would have found him. They wouldn't have terrible aim.
Shido must have felt miserable knowing what he put Goro through over the years they conspired together as he rotted inside his cell— the silent wire transfer from late December that Goro woke up to weeks later was more in worker's compensation than he would have received in the average legal battle for his… injuries.
So, he lost the game he was playing. He spent the last year getting back on his feet. He was able to ride his bike again in October. In December he tried lifting lighter weights again, and it wasn't as bad as he expected. In January he got a new job, the train ride to Odaiba isn't so bad when he needs to report to the office. Maybe he'll have the approval to try climbing by May when it's warmer and that also won't be as bad as he thinks it will be. He turns twenty this year.
That's what 'easier' means.
Mugi lays down on the sidewalk and refuses to move. "Mugi." She turns her head away from him, avoiding the stern eye contact. "It's warm back home, but we have to walk back, you know." She huffs in response. Goro's sigh rests deep in his soul as he resigns to picking her up—all twenty pounds of her—in his arms. She could keep walking. She only hates the cold.
A year in, Ren thinks it will only get harder as time passes. His parents aren't aware he is in Tokyo for the weekend, nor would they find out. Morgana is holding up the fort for him back home. He skipped class today— Ann's acting continues to lack refinement, but the school never hears from Ren's mother so she made a convincing enough phone call as he watched over video call. 'My sweet Renren is so, so sick today and he can't come to class. Must be the flu!' He, Futaba and Ryuji held back the tears that burst out with their explosion of laughter from one of the booths inside Leblanc. It's the only medicine that works, anymore.
They are better students than he is.
Ann needed to go to bed, it was 10 at night for her and 6 in the morning in Tokyo.
Ryuji and Futaba took the train to Shujin after this. The firmness of Ryuji's grip on his shoulder and the wrinkle between Futaba's eyebrows didn't provide reassurance. Just guilt.
So, now he waits in the cafe alone on Saturday, the third of February. Three hundred and sixty five days from the last day he saw Goro Akechi. Technically he's working, but working behind the bar at Leblanc often looks like drinking a third cup of coffee, sneaking a cigarette or two out of sight from Futaba's cameras and watching re-runs on television.
He sends another text to a number that cannot receive messages.
He stares down at the cup that has run cold.
A year. A year since he convinced Maruki to walk away from his dream.
Ren's fingertips twitch, the urge to throw the mug at the wall tugging at the nerves in his hands.
Maruki hasn't shown his face to the world since last year, either. The thought of it all sends his mind into a blaze, like he's still furious over his actions. He's not. The feeling won't separate from the name, the moment. It's grief. Someone to blame that isn't me.
The world only spent a few weeks in that singular vision of utopia. Despite being back in reality, Ren still notices how everyone seems to have something he doesn't have— consistent feelings of happiness. It's fleeting, dancing in front of his eyes before vanishing into the distance. He pays so much attention to the smiles on the faces of people around him, notices how long it lasts before fading. Sometimes hours. Sometimes days.
Rationalizing the feeling results in varying success. Their hopeful voices echo around the private chambers in his mind.
It's not your fault, Ren.
But it is. I had multiple chances to keep him alive.
He was already gone.
He shouldn't be.
You did the right thing, letting him go.
And I wish I didn't.
He'd want you to be happy and to move on.
Would he?
You have so much to look forward to.
I know. That doesn't get rid of this feeling that everything that happened is all my fault.
The bell on the front door rings, Ren straightens his back to compose himself as he turns his head to greet the customer. He relaxes. Eyes softening. A smile appears on his face as he sees who has graced his morning with their presence.
"Good morning, Ren." A soft voice, the shuffle of her coat as she takes it off in the warmth of the cafe.
"Morning, Haru."
"Boss' coffee is wonderful, but I missed yours the most. I hope you don't mind." She settles down next to the seat with the untouched cup. Her eyes try to avoid its prominent existence. "I wasn't interrupting anything, was I?" The ghost in the room that no one ever spoke of by name. The family superstition: Maybe they'd all end up like Ren if they remembered him fully.
"No." He swallows down the spiteful bile in his throat trying to expel itself: And if you were, it'd just be something else to pity. So why talk about it? It's just a thought. It can stay there. "Just working an empty cafe to earn my keep for a few days."
The half-smile on her lips and the avoidance of eye contact say what she can't. "How are you holding up?"
"Fine." Ren starts up the coffee siphon. "How have your classes been?"
The images are only a little clearer, after two years. The smell of coffee, the cacophonous harmony of laughter. He believes he might have lost a game of shogi to this guy, once— which secures enough credence to the theory that he is not projecting the image of someone he saw on his Instagram feed. This, however, only serves to amplify how piteous the follow-up of sadness is. Friendships have never come naturally, the idea that he simply forgot what it was like to be friends with someone…
The closest he gets to anyone else is through work. At work, his rigid standards and general disposition are off putting to the average person. And in this moment, it's all in spite of Mitsuru's best efforts. She does try her best. She's on a first name basis, after all.
He's back in Tokyo after a few weeks in Osaka. Instead of sitting on his couch in his sweats with Mugi and the awful book he started last week, he's debriefing the report from his investigation.
"You seem out of it."
"I'm pretty tired today. It seems I prefer sleeping in my own bed."
The tilt of her head challenges this. "Skip to what the problem truly is. We have limited time before my next meeting."
He sets his papers down on the table between them. The flatness of his expression boils up under the pointed heat of his gaze. "Mitsuru. You know what today is. I asked to do this tomorrow. You are getting exactly what you asked for."
"A happy occasion, I'd say." Her hands placed so prim and proper in front of her. This only fuels the buzz of rage.
"No." He curls his lip into a snide sneer, "an occasion that reminds me of how miserable my life has been and all of the…" His hands wave at the thought, there isn't a word for this. Not in any language he knows. "…Shit that I've been forced to change."
"You never told me what happened, before then."
"It's never been relevant."
"You don't think it's relevant to know more about the singular time anyone has survived a palace collapse on record?"
"Again, no." A voice inside tells him he's not getting any benefit from acting out. He rolls his eyes, resigning to lean back in the chair underneath him. Conceding to the rationale. "Honest answer: I don't remember what happened. Not enough for it to be evidence."
"How suspicious."
"I have a talent for that." His fingers shuffles through a few of the pages of his report. Work has felt… Close to home. Not in ways that could be processed through logic. Detective's intuition. "Though, I do wonder more and more if it has something to do with the oddities we are seeing pop up. Then again, I also believe connecting my issues to work tends to be my mind avoiding another egodystonic spiral." The voice of reason speaks up again: Shut up. Shut up! Goro rubs his eyes. Why would you say that?
"So, it is relevant. Just not in the way you wish it to be."
"Twisting my arm, aren't you?"
"Just bounce the thought off of me, already."
Goro shakes his head. "I don't remember enough. I remember being shot, and I remember waking up. I remember the flood of anger, the tear of pain through my whole being, then the fear of dying. After that, I woke up."
"Before that, then."
"You know my story. What happened to the limited time before your next meeting?" His eyes lock on hers. She's going to ignore that.
"I know of your distorted hopes and dreams. I don't know anything else you were up to, perhaps in your free time?" Blunt as ever. Perhaps today is the day he walks out. Does he need this job? Shido's blood money could last him through… A college degree or two. Or five.
"You think I had time to play around?" The laugh that chokes out of him changes his tune to a saccharine pitch, "Oh, sorry. Sorry. I also forgot that was the goal: to not look like I was getting three hours of sleep between having an adult career, being the top of my class and committing murder on the regular. Clearly, I had a flourishing social life."
Her eyes close, nodding along to his words as if they were vital to her response. "I know you enjoy competition. Your hobbies aren't exclusively independent, and you've been doing plenty of them a long time. Some lone wolf you are, detective."
"Save the psychoanalysis for Shirogane. I get enough of it." A small pause. He's not winning this conversation—he also has nothing to lose from a petty dig. "She's also better at it."
"I'm on to something. Can't you humor me? You briefly worked with the Phantom Thieves, but you don't call them friends."
"They weren't."
"Who was your contact point?"
This catches Goro off guard. His contact point…? He only remembers text conversations with one person before being in a very brief—and obnoxiously active—group chat. "Niijima. She was the only… Well, we obviously had a mutual connection."
"Makoto Niijima was the one facilitating your connection?"
"Why is this shocking?"
"I've been going through case documents. Trying to find holes we overlooked. I think you should do the same."
"I wrote the majority of those documents, Mitsuru. I know what they say."
"Maybe you forgot. Happens to the best of us." There she goes, exit stage left. As she crosses the room, she settles a hand on the back of Goro's chair. "Sorry that we ran out of time. I'll send you a meeting invite for next week. That should give you plenty of time to review those older documents."
The click of the door is an appropriately curt end to the conversation. In his mind, Goro imagines this whole building exploding with everyone still inside.