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“Lotus. That’s what your name means, right?”
It’s a Tuesday in November. Akechi is going to kill him in two weeks. He smiles plastic like nothing has changed and Ren wants to scream.
“Yeah,” Ren replies, looking down at the board between them. He lifts one of his remaining pawns and moves to capture one of the traitor’s, adding it to the pile of white pieces at his side. “Why do you ask?”
The detective hums, takes a sip of his coffee. Ren forces himself to look away from the movement of his throat because he’s not sure if he wants to wrap his hands around it or kiss the exposed skin until it bruised. “I’m just curious, I suppose.”
“Curious?”
“I don’t think it suits you, that’s all.”
Akechi slides his remaining rook across the board and takes Ren’s victorious pawn. It gets dropped into his collection of captured black pieces with an unceremonious clatter.
“Okay, fifth son.”
His smooth laughter is like claws raking across a chalkboard to Ren’s ears, now that he knows what it sounds like when it’s from the thought of Ren’s brains getting blown out against a metal wall. “Mine doesn’t fit either, I’ll admit. Though it’s much more obvious in my case than yours.”
He has him now. With the white rook all the way out here, nothing is protecting the king. Ren pushes his queen to the end of the board, a single space away from winning the game. “Check.”
Akechi hums. He doesn’t look at the board, watching Ren with those ruby eyes, so dull with deceit. There’s a glimmer of mischievousness there too, as he continues to make small talk like Ren hadn’t declared the near-end of the game, “Do you not want to know why that is? Why I don’t think it fits you?”
Ren raises an eyebrow. “If it’s an interesting reason, then maybe. But I would recommend trying not to lose first.”
With his eyes still on Ren, the detective, the traitor, picks up his knight, hidden in the midst of a battle, and moves it backward, knocking Ren’s queen off the board.
“There. Not losing now, am I?”
“Sure.”
As Ren thinks about his next move, glaring at the board as if it would make pieces magically appear again, Akechi starts to prattle on once more on a seemingly pointless topic. A normal person would just tune out, but Ren knows that there’s more to everything that comes out of Akechi’s mouth, hidden too under that layer of plastic sheen.
“Lotus flowers are elegant and yet very resilient, resting steadily on the water’s surface. One could say that of you, Amamiya-kun. A strong leader, graceful in the way you carry yourself, though much less noticeable out here than it is in the depths of the Metaverse.”
“Is that a compliment? High praise for a thief coming from a detective.” Ren barely has any pieces left. There’s a pawn that’s close enough to the board's edge to become a queen, but he’s running out of options, out of time.
“Perhaps,” Akechi shrugs, a corner of his mouth twitching upwards as he watches Ren struggle to make his move, “But there’s much more to you than that, isn’t there?”
Wrinkling his brow, Ren decides to go with a last ditch effort to get a queen piece back in play. He moves that pawn to the edge of the board and swaps it out for the discarded queen, looking up to see Akechi still intently watching him with that stupid fake smile spread across his face.
“You’re rash. Your desire to help others overrides all common sense or self-preservation. And most of all,” Akechi takes his own queen and slowly drags it across the board, right next to Ren’s king. He had planned this- there was no way out, not with the black queen on the complete other side of the board. Ren had fallen right into his trap. “You let your emotions blind you to the ways of the world, all in pursuit of that righteous anger you hide so well. You wouldn’t know if someone was laying a trap for you until you fell into it face first. All that emotion, trapped in there, waiting for the right moment to burst out and get you killed- not very flower-like, no?”
Akechi toys with the king piece, tilting it to and fro with his finger as he watches Ren through coy eyes. “Checkmate, Amamiya.” He topples the king with one touch.
Ren is angry. Ren is furious. And Ren is going to live to prove Akechi wrong.
“What would you call me then?” Ren asks, careful to keep his face as stoic as always. Undisturbed, unfazed. Akechi’s gaze doesn’t leave Ren’s, even as he reaches for his coffee and brings it to his lips. “If not Ren, then what?”
From behind the rim of his mug, Akechi’s smile turns as sharp as metal, and Ren’s traitorous heart leaps into his throat.
“I think Joker suits you just fine.”
—
“Your name?”
“Kurusu Akira.”
Ren offers the Resident Assistant manning the freshmen check-in desk the best trustworthy smile he can muster up at seven in the morning, but she doesn’t even pay attention, immediately turning around to go through the stack of alphabetical files behind her. He lets out the breath that he’s been holding and runs a hand through his hair. Thank fuck for that- if she’d asked for an ID, things would’ve gotten pretty weird. That’s the one thing Futaba couldn’t forge, after all.
The RA comes back with a stack of paperwork in hand and drops it on the desk with a dull thud. “Here’s your orientation packet, wavers, and student life catalog.” She tugs out a small envelope and grabs one of the papers from the top of the pile. “And here are your keys and a map of campus. Your room is in Kirijo hall. Any questions?”
“Um, yeah, actually-” Ren replies as he gathers up the mountain of information he probably won’t read, “Who’s my roommate? I couldn’t find it on the student portal site.”
She flips over the key packet, skims over the back, and hands it to him alongside the map. “Looks like it’s someone named Himura G. Couldn’t find a second pair of keys for your room back there, so it looks like he already checked in.”
He’s already here? Shit- so much for getting info on the guy from Futaba beforehand. She’s definitely still asleep and won’t be up for another couple of hours, which means Ren won’t be able to know if this guy is insane or not until he gets there and meets him himself. Great.
Ren thanks the RA and leaves, peeking at the map to find Kirijo Hall. It’s not too far, considering how big the University of Tokyo is, but it doesn’t exactly look like it's the ideal place to live with the metro track running right above it. Then again, Ren didn’t exactly end up with much say in where he got to live, or what university he even went to in the first place.
With Shido’s goons and powerful allies still out there, there was no chance for “Amamiya Ren” to get into a good school, even with his record scrubbed. Forging a new identity purely for school purposes was hard enough, and even with Sae pulling some strings, “Kurusu Akira” didn’t manage to get accepted until the very last minute, leaving him with scraps when it came to housing and class choices. He’s lucky that there was even a place for him on campus, or else he’d be stuck with Sojiro (not bad) and a hour-long commute (pretty bad).
Not only is Ren’s past as Joker following him around as a metaphorical poltergeist, knocking over vases and tearing at curtains in his life, there’s another regret haunting him as well, one that he’s never put too much work into shaking because he isn’t sure what’ll happen if he does.
A glove burns a hole into Ren’s pants pocket, but he’s learned to ignore it, learned to let it burn and simmer in the background of his daily life. The ghost of a dead boy clings to him, but Joker is just a college student now, a normal guy, and he needs to move on, to focus on his life as Kurusu Akira, and to save the mourning for the longer nights that won’t let him rest.
It’s what Akechi would’ve wanted, isn’t it? If he really is as dead as Ren thinks he is?
Ren’s old Shujin duffel starts to writhe and a small voice floats out from the partially-zipped main pocket. “Can I come out now? It smells in here!”
He blinks back into the real work, then snaps into motion, balancing all of his stuff on one knee with a huff. He reaches over to unzip his bag the rest of the way, allowing his friend to pop his head out and take a deep breath. “You okay, Mona?”
“I’m fine now,” Morgana whines, “but you really need to clean this bag out, Joker! I could barely breathe in there!” He takes a second to shake his fur out, side eyeing Ren with an annoyed glare.
“Sorry about that,” Ren winces, starting to walk in the direction of the dormitory again. He looks down at Morgana apologetically, “But, uh… you’ll need to get back in there pretty soon- my new roommate is already here, apparently.”
Morgana deflates, his ears flattening against his head. “Urgh. I hope they’re okay with me being around. I don’t want to be stuck in there any longer than I have to!”
Ren prays to whatever god that’s out there that this Himura guy isn’t allergic to cats.
“Who is this roommate of yours, anyways? I could barely hear anything earlier.”
As they reach the building and begin ascending the stairs, Ren tells Morgana about his mysterious new roommate, though there isn’t much to tell in the first place. That’s what bothers him- just how much he doesn’t know about this guy. Ren’s never been one to get nervous around strangers, but there’s something itching at the back of his mind, whispering that there’s something more to this. Maybe it’s paranoia, or maybe Ren’s just remembering a character with the same name from one of Sojiro’s shitty daytime shows. It doesn’t matter, because by the time Ren catches up with his own thoughts, he’s already in front of the door.
“Just so you know,” he whispers to Morgana, “It’s against the rules for you to be here.”
“I’m not a cat, so we’re not technically breaking the rules!”
“You know I didn’t say that it was because you were a cat, right? That’s just something you’re coming up with?” Before Morgana can start screeching at him about the technicalities of his existence, Ren shushes him with a finger to his lips, tugging his keys out from their envelope home. “Now get back to hiding before this guy hears you- I’ll try my best to get you out of there as soon as I can.”
With a dramatic eye roll and a sigh that could move mountains, Morgana sinks back into the bag and out of sight. When Ren goes to use his key, there’s no need- the door’s already unlocked. Looks like his roommate is still here doing… whatever he’s doing. Unpacking, probably? Yeah, that.
Ren should not be this nervous. He was the kid who stood up to a politician twice his size, the infamous Joker of the Phantom Thieves. He’s the guy who's shot god in the head three times now, for fuck’s sakes, and now, all he has to be is the terribly normal Kurusu Akira. No big deal. None at all. Just some normal dude meeting another very normal guy that will probably ignore him for the rest of the year because he didn’t ask to be stuck with Ren either. He turns the handle and pushes the door open- what’s the worst that can happen?
And of course– since fate seems to have some sort of grudge against Ren and, for some fucking reason, was out to ruin his entire life– what awaits him on the other side is the very definition of the worst that can happen, or the best that could happen? Ren isn’t sure, not now, but what he is sure of is that the person inside isn’t Himura G.
It’s Goro Akechi.
Oh, Ren thinks, I’m fucked.
He’s facing away from Ren, balancing on one of the bed frames as he struggles to hang up some kind of poster, but Ren knows that back like he knows his own palm, has the image of that back slowly disappearing into the dark February night for one final time burned into his skull like a brand of guilt. The string of colorful curses that float over from the other side of the room are so mundane and yet so Akechi that Ren nearly runs back out of the room because he’s fairly certain that he’s hallucinating and Futaba must’ve put something in his coffee as a joke and-
“Fucking— whatever. Ugh.”
Akechi gives up on whatever he’s doing, dropping the stuff in his hands onto the mattress as he continues, “Kurusu Akira, right? Just give me a second.” He hops down from the bed and brushes himself off, and Ren can’t move or breathe or think as Akechi starts to turn around.
“Himura Goro. It’s nice to meet-“
He freezes, hand still partially outstretched in greeting as their gazes meet. The gears in Akechi’s mind visibly begin to turn, and slowly, the plastic smile on his face drops and takes Ren’s heart with it.
“- you.”
Ren should have something to say right about now. He’s imagined this hundreds of times,dreamed of it. He should say something poetic, something meaningful. He should crack a joke, should use his body instead of his words, should whisper something meant only for the two of them, something no one else would understand.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” he blurts out instead. Nice.
The dead boy’s shocked expression quickly morphs into an ugly sneer. “And you’re not supposed to be here, but I suppose today is just full of surprises.”
Ren’s bag rustles and he watches as Morgana’s head comes flying out, his blue eyes comically wide as he screeches, “Akechi?!?”
“Great,” Akechi deadpans, his body drawn so stiff that it looks like he might bolt at any second. Ren doesn’t doubt that he would. “The cat’s here too. Did the rest of your merry band of idiots come with you as well, Amamiya?” His eyes narrow. “Or should I be calling you Kurusu now?”
Shit- why isn’t Ren’s brain working? Why can’t he do anything but sit and stare at the guy he mourned for two years straight?
“Hello? Amamiya? Has that single brain cell of yours finally given out on you?”
It’s too much. Why is it too much? Akechi is real, Akechi is here, and it’s everything Ren’s ever wanted with his stupid gravely voice and stupid ponytail and stupid blood red eyes that are looking at Ren like he wants nothing more than to see him disappear.
He needs a second.
“I, uh- I need to pee?” Ren manages to stutter out. “Yeah, that’s it. Keep an eye on him for me, Mona?” He drops the Mona bag and the rest of his stuff on the floor, ignoring Akechi’s incredulous stare and Morgana’s yowl of protest. “Awesome, thanks, I really appreciate it. I’ll be back? I think?”
With a speed he didn’t think he still had in him, Ren makes a beeline for their shared bathroom and slams the door shut, locking it behind him for good measure. He death grips the sink as if it’ll drag him back to reality, locking eyes with his frazzled reflection.
Akechi? Here? Now ? What god hates him this much to give him the one thing he wants more than anything at the worst possible time? Ren always imagined being so prepared, so ready to finally have that conversation with his rival, but here he is, locked in a dormitory bathroom because he was shocked stupid.
Get it the fuck together, Amamiya.
He goes to turn on the sink, to splash some water on his face before going out and facing Akechi– who looked as surprised as Ren was, might he add– but he ends up knocking over some of the dozens of products that layer the counter already and as he’s scrambles to put them back, a sharp meow comes from the other side of the door.
“Joker! Quick! Akechi is-”
Morgana doesn’t even have to finish his sentence before Ren is back, leaving stray hair products in his wake as he slams open the bathroom door.
And what a scene he walks in on.
The bedroom window is shoved as far open as it can go. Akechi has one leg outside, desperately trying to cram the rest of his body through the small opening as Morgana claws his pants apart.
“Get off of me, you stupid cat!”
“Joker!!!”
At the mention of Ren, Akechi looks up- and freezes up like a deer in headlights, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. He blinks, blinks again— then smiles, but its foundation is so shaky that it looks more like a grimace. “Ah, Amamiya-kun!” Akechi starts, “I thought you needed to use the restroom…?”
“What… what are you doing ?”
“Oh, this?” Akechi gestures to his awkward position, “I just needed some fresh air, of course. You understand, don’t you?”
He’s lying through his teeth, obviously. He wanted out. And- oh, Ren is angry now. He’s pissed. And he’s about to rip Akechi from that window and finish what they started.
Ren stalks over to the otherside of the room, and with each step, Akechi seems to fall apart a bit more, his nervous veneer turning into a raw fury that looks like it might rival Ren’s own.
“What the hell are you doing,” Akechi hisses, curling as far in on himself as he can manage with parts of his body hanging out of a window, “Back off, Amamiya, or I’ll-”
It’s funny, really, how easy it is to grab Akechi and tackle him to the ground. The former detective yelps, landing on the carpet with a thud as Ren follows close behind. All of the emotion Ren’s tried so hard to keep in, to get over and leave behind, bubbles up his throat and spills out into the space between them as he shouts, “What the hell is your problem?!?”
“My problem?” Akechi spits, thrashing in Ren’s grip like a wild bird caught in a cage, “You’re the one that decided to fucking tackle me!”
He wrenches his hands free and grabs Ren by the shoulders, flipping them over and quickly pinning Ren’s hands above his head. Part of Ren’s brain whites out at that, but it’s quickly washed away by the sheer, overwhelming rage he’s feeling, compounded by two years of waiting for the man above him to come back, and when that had failed, he mourned. “You were trying to escape through the window- what the hell was I supposed to do?” Akechi’s grip around Ren’s wrists is iron, but he pushes back anyways, daring Akechi to be at anything less than his best, “Was I supposed to let you leave again? Without so much as telling me why ?”
Akechi stiffens at that, eyes narrowing as his voice grows cold, “I don’t owe you anything, Amamiya.”
Ren isn’t deterred. “You never owed me anything, you asshole,” he responds with the same fire that’s kept him going so far, feeling frustrated and relieved and betrayed all at once, “You never owed me, but some sort of heads up that, you know, you were alive, would’ve been nice!”
When Akechi opens his mouth to respond, Ren knees him in the stomach, watching as he sputters around whatever bullshit words were about to come out of his mouth. Ren sees an opportunity and takes it, surging upwards and forcing Akechi on his back, reversing their positions as he straddles his legs and grabs him by the collar.
Akechi is seething, his hair long tugged free from its ponytail, his button up wrinkled under Ren’s grip. His eyes burn a brilliant red, sparkling with challenge, and as Ren glares at him, a small voice in the back of his head corrects itself- this is the most honest Akechi’s ever been. No plastic, no artificial thorns. Just Akechi, pissed and alive for real this time.
“I don’t know if you noticed,” a very much not actualized Akechi snaps, “but I’m not a nice fucking person! Now get the hell off of me!”
Knock, knock—
Both of them freeze, Ren holding Akechi’s torso up by the collar, Akechi clawing Ren’s arm with one hand and the other reared back as if he was about to give Ren a black eye. This… this doesn’t look good. Ren stares at the entrance to their room, catching a glimpse of Morgana darting underneath one of the beds out of the corner of his eye, and feels like the world moves in slow motion as their door slowly starts to open, a cheery voice floating through.
“Student Life! Just checking to see if you all needed… anything…” The RA’s voice trails off as she takes in the scene in front of her with wide eyes and a slack jaw. And Ren? Ren lies.
“This… isn’t what you think it is?”
—
When rage leaves, all that’s left is what it was trying to burn.
Two hours and a trip to the Office of Student Life later, Ren sits on his bed, feeling like his mind has turned to ash. Nursing an ice pack to the back of the head, he sighs, watching the midday light filter through the window that still hadn’t been shut. He’s tired, he’s frustrated— and the man sitting across from him looks just as done. As much as Ren wants to apologize, to pull Akechi into his arms and finally say what he’s been holding on to for all these years, there’s still a bitterness in his throat, one that he needs to get out.
“I can’t believe you. I can’t believe this.”
Akechi doesn’t reply. He’s idly rubbing at his stomach, looking anywhere but at Ren.
“After all this time, you’re really alive,” Ren can’t help but laugh, “And the first thing you do when you see me again is try to leave.”
It’s strange, seeing Akechi so quiet. Ren remembers him as he was before November, before February- smart and witty, always pushing back with a snappy retort or a fresh perspective that sends your position spinning. But here, sitting on an empty dormitory bed with a pensive expression and nothing to say, was a part of Goro Akechi that Ren had only seen a few times before. Strange, yes, but nice in a way, a reminder that Akechi is so much more than Crow or the Black Mask, or a man waiting to die after the disappearance of paradise.
Ren watches as something in Akechi’s empty expression hardens, his gloved hands balling into fists in his lap. He looks up at Ren, eyes more vibrant than Ren’s ever seen them, unbarred by falsities and walls of steel.
“Why did you change your name?”
Ren blinks. “What?”
“That name, Kurusu Akira,” Akechi presses, resting his head on one of his hands, “Why did you register with that?”
Ren shrugs. He supposes that he would’ve needed to talk about this eventually– though the timing is certainly unique, especially considering that they literally just got reprimanded by Student Life for brawling on their dorm room floor. “Couldn’t get into school as myself no matter how hard I tried- someone was keeping me out. So we changed my name to get me in.” He huffs out a ghost of a laugh, watching as Akechi studies him with narrowed eyes. “I guess I should ask you the same thing.”
He’s quiet for a second, thinking, and when he speaks, Ren feels like an idiot.
“Akechi… it wasn’t my real family name. Himura is from my mother’s side.”
Oh god, wait, Ren thinks, he told me this. He's told me this before.
The weird feeling he got earlier– it was right on target. Ren thinks back to the time they went to the bathhouse, when the steam was nearly as thick as the tension between them as thief and detective, as two boys with feelings that they didn’t fully understand. When Akechi was talking about his mother, he said a name, slipped into his story without a second thought, but Ren was so preoccupied with the rawness in Akechi’s tone, the furrow of his brow, the sweat sliding across his collar bone, to catch his slip up. Himura Akeno. Yeah– that’s it.
Himura G.– Himura Goro. It’s got a nice ring to it.
“I figured that Shido was paranoid enough to have remembered despite kicking her to the curb, so I changed it,” Akechi continues, “And now… I learned quick enough that not everyone forgot who I was. I suppose we had the same reasoning, then.”
Ren offers a small smile. “He’s still haunting us both, huh?”
Akechi responds with a mirthful laugh. “More than you would know.”
After a small pause, Akechi’s eyes dart to the other side of the room and he starts to speak in a more solemn tone, a small flush high on his cheeks. “Ren, look- I—”
“It’s okay,” Ren interrupts, “We can talk about it later.”
They really, really need to talk about it later, but there’s something else he’d like to do first, something that's a little stupid in all honesty, but it's like what Ren had initially imagined when dreaming of their reunion: something meaningful, a little cheesy, and completely them. Ren reaches into his pocket and pulls out a single glove, holding it up with a little flourish. Akechi’s breath visibly hitches at the sight and he straightens, blinking a couple times as if he doesn’t believe it’s really there.
“You–”
“We had a little bit of a fight earlier, but I don’t consider it to be our rematch- do you?”
Akechi blinks, then smiles, razor sharp and real. “Far from it. I always pictured it as more of a grand spectacle than a pathetic tussle on a filthy carpet, if I’m honest.”
“Well then, Himura Goro,” Ren asks, standing up from his bed and walking over to Akechi’s spot with a smirk. He extends his free hand. “I think it’s time that we formally reinstated our rivalry, don’t you?”
It had always felt like they were running out of time, out of pieces– but for once, there’s no clock hanging over their heads, there’s no board in play. They’ll have the time to talk about everything, to whisper late into the night about the past two years and what it’s meant for each of them, and what they hope to achieve in the next two years, and the two years after that. Right now, though, there’s nothing more Ren wants than to have Akechi in his arms.
For the first time, Akechi takes Ren’s hand, letting the boy who was named after a flower pull him up and into a hug. It takes a second, but Akechi’s arms eventually wrap around Ren’s back, holding him just as tight.
“I never stopped being your rival in the first place, Ren.”