[ Akechi always thought he would hold the world in the palm of his hand. That the last vicious beats of Shido's heart between his fingers would give him something back.
He let that dream die with his body against a cold, steel door.
It's incredible how it returns with the touch of another's hand. A world always just out of reach handed back to him without a second thought.
For once, it's easy to feel a future. For once, it's simple to see beyond a revenge that's rotted his body for years.
The World puts him at peace for only a single second.
But it's that single second that gets him out bed, into a bath, put food in his stomach and water down his throat. It's what holds him up to hover over Maruki's shoulder as he looks through rural shithole after rural shithole for a rental in a rundown home that costs as much as a pair of sneakers.
A passing world in the corner of his vision, separated only by the glass his face is pressed against, ignites it again. Three days later, in a worn down car, a radio that's static more than music, but he doesn't care enough to turn it off. A cityscape long behind them, a car packed to brim with boxes 'they don't need', 'yes they do!' Akechi's loose threads would've funded a new kitchen at a minimum. Shido had everyone on a leash, but there were those who owed Akechi Goro alone - those debts fill his pocket. He didn't tell Maruki how much.
It's hard to restart.
Difficult in ways beyond a hanko that stamps down on every new piece of paperwork. A shocking amount of it exists in a town whose name Akechi has to remind himself of.
Neither of them know what to do with lives stuck in limbo. Not on the run enough to hide in full, not free enough to do whatever they wish. Akechi's paranoia takes a full year to wane - for danger to fade from every little noise outside of their home. Maruki once stumbled on him waiting in the dark, curtain parted with the slightest motion of his hand, a gun he said he got rid of in the other. Maruki flipped on the porch light and a fox darted out of their trash. Neither said a word, but Akechi never forgot the exasperated look tossed his way. They stayed up awhile longer to watch late night reruns of a show they've seen five times over until his finger fell from the trigger.
Maruki is better at settling down. Better at acting like this life is one he always wanted, even though Akechi knows it must be a far cry of a world meant for a woman still in Tokyo's depths. He doesn't care about it. Maruki made his foolish choice, but he watches -
Often. Listens more. Reacts less. Finds new routines and settles into a schedule that doesn't wear him thin at the end of every day. He isn't sure how Maruki feels. Doesn't bother asking. It's his choice. It was his choice.
Akechi can't stand he made this choice and-
Wonders about the disparity of The World in their eyes. It's large - so large, for Akechi without Tokyo's boundary and Shido's hold and-
Sometimes he wonders if it feels smaller than ever for a man who could have made reality his and-
He doesn't ask. Never asks. It doesn't matter if he asks.
It won't ever matter if he asks because someone who will ask-
Eventually finds his way to this grotesquely small town, in the middle of nowhere, on some meaningless day in a week that felt colder than normal. Ironic, really, that Akechi was stocking a deck of cards from just delivered box, a Joker plastered on a bright red cover. ]
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? then wow i would never (heheh kitten)
He let that dream die with his body against a cold, steel door.
It's incredible how it returns with the touch of another's hand. A world always just out of reach handed back to him without a second thought.
For once, it's easy to feel a future. For once, it's simple to see beyond a revenge that's rotted his body for years.
The World puts him at peace for only a single second.
But it's that single second that gets him out bed, into a bath, put food in his stomach and water down his throat. It's what holds him up to hover over Maruki's shoulder as he looks through rural shithole after rural shithole for a rental in a rundown home that costs as much as a pair of sneakers.
A passing world in the corner of his vision, separated only by the glass his face is pressed against, ignites it again. Three days later, in a worn down car, a radio that's static more than music, but he doesn't care enough to turn it off. A cityscape long behind them, a car packed to brim with boxes 'they don't need', 'yes they do!' Akechi's loose threads would've funded a new kitchen at a minimum. Shido had everyone on a leash, but there were those who owed Akechi Goro alone - those debts fill his pocket. He didn't tell Maruki how much.
It's hard to restart.
Difficult in ways beyond a hanko that stamps down on every new piece of paperwork. A shocking amount of it exists in a town whose name Akechi has to remind himself of.
Neither of them know what to do with lives stuck in limbo. Not on the run enough to hide in full, not free enough to do whatever they wish. Akechi's paranoia takes a full year to wane - for danger to fade from every little noise outside of their home. Maruki once stumbled on him waiting in the dark, curtain parted with the slightest motion of his hand, a gun he said he got rid of in the other. Maruki flipped on the porch light and a fox darted out of their trash. Neither said a word, but Akechi never forgot the exasperated look tossed his way. They stayed up awhile longer to watch late night reruns of a show they've seen five times over until his finger fell from the trigger.
Maruki is better at settling down. Better at acting like this life is one he always wanted, even though Akechi knows it must be a far cry of a world meant for a woman still in Tokyo's depths. He doesn't care about it. Maruki made his foolish choice, but he watches -
Often. Listens more. Reacts less. Finds new routines and settles into a schedule that doesn't wear him thin at the end of every day. He isn't sure how Maruki feels. Doesn't bother asking. It's his choice. It was his choice.
Akechi can't stand he made this choice and-
Wonders about the disparity of The World in their eyes. It's large - so large, for Akechi without Tokyo's boundary and Shido's hold and-
Sometimes he wonders if it feels smaller than ever for a man who could have made reality his and-
He doesn't ask. Never asks. It doesn't matter if he asks.
It won't ever matter if he asks because someone who will ask-
Eventually finds his way to this grotesquely small town, in the middle of nowhere, on some meaningless day in a week that felt colder than normal. Ironic, really, that Akechi was stocking a deck of cards from just delivered box, a Joker plastered on a bright red cover. ]