Relationship Status: Complicated (Akechi and Akira)
Pairing: Goro Akechi & Akira Kurusu (ambiguous relationship), very slight background Futaba/Akira
Summary: Goro Akechi was a lot of things. He was a high schooler, playing at being the detective prince of Tokyo. He was a boy estranged from his father, without his mother, lonely in a world that didn't really care about him. He was smart, sociable, cruel, ruthless. He was a survivor, for better or for worse. He was interesting to Akira Kurusu in a way that almost no one else was.
A retelling of Akira's thoughts on Goro Akechi throughout Persona 5: the good, the bad, and the insurmountable in-between.
It started with the way his thoughts seemed to have a razored edge to them.
It should have alarmed Akira. After all, this gentlemanly detective prince, beloved by the masses and envied by so many of his male classmates, did work with the police. Goro Akechi, with his level of fan fair, had the potential to shed enough light on the Phantom Thieves to make them famous, as well as make them a target for the cops. A double edged sword. Even more than that, this boy was smart. Maybe even slyer than Makoto, who was always at least one step ahead of the game. Not in the same way Futaba was smart, either. No, not Akechi, with his frighteningly disarming smile and cutting tongue. His type of smart was well polished. Implemented often and without hesitation. Maybe even ruthless. This boy was dangerous.
Akira had not had so much fun in ages.
It was something poetic to be certain. The detective and the thief. He was sure he'd read it in a book somewhere. It was a bit too interesting to turn away from. No matter how much Ryuji hissed and moaned about how much of a douche the boy was. No matter how obviously disapproving and potentially even aggressive his words about Akira's friends were. No matter how bad of an idea it was, if he came home to Akechi sipping coffee and happily flipping through the pages of some well loved novel, Akira would drop Morgana off at the stairs and join him at the bar. If only for a little while.
There was just something about him that struck all the right cords with Akira. Maybe that was part of the disguise he wore, just like his smiles, which Akira was starting to be able to distinguish between, bit by bit. (The sharper it looked, the faker it was.) But there was at least part of their relationship that couldn't have been planned out. Their intellectual debates tended to get heated enough that Sojiro would bring them each a second cup of coffee before Akechi blushed, remembering himself, and thinking up an excuse to trudge home. That was real. The detective's sullen laments about how no where felt quite like home the way LeBlanc did, a feeling Akira sympathized with so deeply it almost hurt sometimes. The way those chocolate brown eyes shined a bit with pride when Akira played along with his over enthusiastic explanations of his non-confidential cases.
The way he always looked content to be there and never looked happy to leave.
Even the way they battled against Shadows, one horridly stressful reveal later, seemed to scream that they had something between them that was irrevocably in sync. Akechi's raw power was startlingly effective, overcoming trivial inconveniences like type disadvantages easily. Robin Hood was balanced, if nothing else, with very few obvious weaknesses to cover. He fit so well into the vanguard of their team while in Sae's palace. It should have been so damn unsettling. But instead, Akira let himself imagine that somewhere in the mess that was unfolding around them, that he and Akechi were almost friends.
...almost wasn't good enough, as it turned out.
It was most apparent in the way Akechi led them through group conversations. It was like he was playing chess the whole way through. He was just waiting for a predictable piece, Ryuji or Ann often enough, to settle into an argument he expected, then flipping it around on them to continue down the path he wanted it to. Akechi was plotting something. And perhaps it was just his regular dramatic flair or maybe he really couldn't stand to betray them all to their faces, but he was trying so damn hard to play the part of earnest detective it was almost sickening. He wanted them to have no idea it was coming. He wanted it to hurt, to burn, when it happened.
Makoto and Futaba had already long since shared their concerns. Morgana was already helping them devise a plan, revising it with every new bit of information they got while trekking through Sae's casino. Akira knew the ins and outs already. He was getting used to putting on a mask of his own, especially while they were in the Metaverse. It was easiest when he already had a mask physically on his face. It was harder at LeBlanc. Akechi almost never showed up outside of group meetings anymore, but every now and then, Sojiro could trick the poor boy into staying for coffee. He never argued when Akira joined him, making pleasant conversation, which felt so honest compared to his doctored cheer from just thirty minutes prior.
Akira wondered if Akechi ever realized that the smile on his face back then, deeply engrossed in what the elder was saying and just a little bit sad, was just his way of asking "Do you really plan to kill me?"
The betrayal itself was nothing fanciful. Akechi was unsurprisingly silent during the confusion of the police showing up. He mysteriously vanished once the danger arrived. Akira was chased, beaten, caught. All according to plan. His memories of the interrogation were hazy, at best. He somehow managed to convince Sae to work with him. What he could remember, clear as anything, was what it felt like just after she left the room. His pulse had been so loud in his ears, he expected to be almost deaf. Yet, every small sound sparked a bottomless fear through him. His nightmares for months after then would not include Shido, or the Holy Grail. No, just the door to his cell opening slowly, and Akechi waltzing in. It didn't matter what came after that. That would have been Game Over. If Akira was spared anything in that whole situation, aside from his life, it was that he never had to know what Akechi had meant to say to him before killing him. Never had to see the look on his face...never had to struggle to reconcile what he was looking at with the smiling face of the boy he played tic-tac-toe with over coffee at LeBlanc, before that boy put a bullet in his double's head.
That would have just been a little too much to bear.
As if feeling that cold stare on the back of his head in Shido's palace wasn't bad enough. As if watching Akechi's perfectly pressed and polished armor come chipping off piece by piece until nothing was left but a murderous monster wasn't punishment enough.
...and that wasn't even the worst of it.
The Insurmountable In-Between
It ended with a thought that never quite left Akira's head after that. "If only we had met a few years earlier," Akechi had said. If only, Akira had agreed to himself repeatedly, whenever the detective prince ever crossed his mind after that.
There was a moment, when he was wandering through the prison cells of the velvet room to find his beloved comrades, where Akira desperately wished he would find Akechi amongst the lines of bars and chains. Even if the older boy couldn't be convinced to stand with them against the Holy Grail, Akira just had so many things he needed to say, that felt so intensely private that he wouldn't even share them with Futaba. He knew what the others would say, should he ever voice any of those thoughts aloud. He could hear it in their voices.
Goro Akechi was a murderer, a scumbag.
He had spent weeks trying to gain their trust, fully intending to double cross them for his own benefit.
He had been personally responsible for the misery befalling both Futaba and Haru.
He had walked into Akira's interrogation room, killed what he believed to be a real guard and the real Akira without so much as a smidge of hesitation, and then gloated about his success to his psychopath father.
He would have waited a few weeks, just until the election was over, then come to murder every last one of the remaining Phantom Thieves, if he had succeeded.
Akira knew that. The saddest part was that he agreed with it. He had had the most distinguished pleasure of holding Futaba in his bruised, battered arms when Sae dragged him to LeBlanc from the police station. She had sobbed endlessly, while he was unable to feel a single thing due to the mix of drugs still heavy in his veins and lingering weight of his imminent doom. It was his dreams that replayed every single conversation they had had, searching fruitlessly for the dialogue choice that could have changed Akechi's mind. That could have saved him, could have saved them both. No, Akira had not necessarily forgiven, and certainly not forgotten, what hell Goro Akechi had put him through. But he also knew what his friends didn't.
Goro Akechi was emotionally abused his whole life by adults, most of all his extremely manipulative son-of-a-bitch father.
He found peace in the quiet stillness of the coffee scented air in LeBlanc. It was a home he had never really had.
He had learned of his ability to change cognition with his persona without the guidance of someone like Morgana to tell him that killing a person's shadow meant killing them in real life.
He had been a pawn in a game aimed at turning him into a monster from the very beginning.
He had wished he and Akira could have become friends, instead of the toxic mess they had ended up becoming.
...he had sacrificed himself so that Akira could live, could end things the right way.
And Akira knew it was stupid, but his heart just couldn't let that part go, either. Goro Akechi was a goddamn tragedy. The strongest ally, the deadliest enemy, and the most tantalizing "what if" Akira would ever know. They were star-crossed... somethings. And not knowing what word to put there hurt just as much as not being able to ever change what word was put there. For all he bled, sweat and cried to change his fate and the fates of not only his friends, but the entire world, his biggest failure was that he couldn't save Akechi too.
But his life moved on after that. No matter what he wanted or felt about the subject. These thoughts he would always keep close to his chest. But every now and again, a customer would walk through LeBlanc's doors and mention something about "that old detective high schooler that just disappeared without a trace". Once or twice, they even asked Akira if he had known him, always so surprised and impressed when he said that he did. The next questions were usually either what that kid was like or whether or not he and Akira had been buddies. Regardless of the question, his answer was always the same.
