Archive of Our Own ^beta

For years, Akechi had lived in routines.

Not only that, he had actively sought structure out. He had, after all, been starved for stability for most of his childhood; he all but jumped at the first chance he got to keep a regular schedule, no matter how busy it was.

Although the docket was crowded for time (and food, and sleep), the tasks blocking it out were simple: Go to school. Skip school for an interview. Investigate whatever petty crimes he was permitted to. Drink at Jazz Jin. Shoot the Shadow version of whoever had last pissed Shido off enough and pretend to look into their mysterious, grisly death in the real world. Catch up on homework, paperwork, and whatever other kinds of work were at his disposal while he waited for the next call. Rinse and repeat.

When the life he had so carefully constructed—or thought he had, considering how much of it turned out to have been out of his control the whole time—went to shit, so did that steadiness.

He lost both of his jobs in rapid succession. He graduated high school by the grace of God and several already instituted technicalities (and didn’t attend the ceremony). The world forgot about him twice, in the wrong order: At first all at once, forced upon them by desires made manifest, and then slowly, in the more natural way any public figure faded from the short-term collective consciousness over time. He did still semi-regularly visit Jazz Jin; he could even legally partake in their alcohol menu now.

On the whole, though, the past couple of years had not seen him regain a fraction of his past routine-driven life. Some things, once lost, were simply lost forever, and that seemed to apply to most of what had slipped from Akechi’s grasp—or rather what he’d only had the illusion of to begin with.

He took on odd freelance work here and there. He was occasionally imposed upon for social interactions but didn’t pursue them of his own accord. In his sudden swaths of time alone and idle, he tended to contemplate his existence: Cold hard reality, having escaped his doom so much by the skin of his teeth every other witness believed his fate sealed, or some solipsistic heaven/hell he’d been bracketed away in as a punishment/reward for his defiance? (The jury continually hung itself.) He still didn’t eat or sleep much.

All of that in mind, he could be certain of one thing: If he had returned to an ordered day-to-day schedule, a dog bolting out in front of him on his way back to his apartment one evening would have sent it spiraling into chaos.

Even as it was, it was disruptive. Akechi jolted back, prepared to stride away, but a certain distance from him, it stopped and sat.

It was a mangy beast, tall but so thin its ribcage almost broke the skin. Its coat, solid black except for a splotch of white on its sternum, had made it indistinguishable from the shadows of the surrounding alleyways. Now, in the neon lights, scars and missing patches of fur came into clear view. The raw stripe on its neck in the shape of a too-tight collar was particularly stark.

It was just one of the many strays roaming Tokyo. Probably some mutt a family with a picket fence and two-and-a-half kids had adopted as a sweet, low-maintenance puppy, then abandoned when they realized it wouldn’t stay a cute little runt forever. A part of Akechi—the part that wandered these same streets when he too was weak and vulnerable—sympathized, but the phrase “dog eat dog” existed for a reason.

He tried to step to the side, but the dog shuffled that way too. The same when he moved in the opposite direction.

“There’s nothing for you here,” Akechi told it.

Despite its height, it held its gaunt shoulders and oversized head low in an obvious show of submission. Its wet-edged eyes darted up to his and away again. It pawed at the ground between them, dirty nails dragging out an agitating sound—but the hoarse, plaintive whine it let out grated even more.

“I mean it.” Akechi crossed his arms and straightened his spine. When the dog shrank away from his elongated shadow, he slackened, then was irritated he had. “I don’t have any food, and even if I did, I wouldn’t share it with you.”

A high schooler walking in the opposite direction giggled to her friends. The back of Akechi’s neck burned, and he stormed past the dog without caring if he trod on either its foot or anyone else’s.

That scraping noise followed him. He stopped; it stopped. He continued; it picked up again. When he turned at the end of the block, the dog was sitting behind him.

Akechi stamped his foot, as loud and hard as he could without drawing more attention. The dog flinched but stayed put.

It still wasn’t making eye contact for longer than a second or two at a time. In the glow of the sign overhead, Akechi could see that its whole body was trembling. It kept shuffling around—pleading for scraps, but also maybe struggling to hold itself upright.

Akechi’s hands formed fists and unfurled again. The crowd around him remained as indifferent as he had planned to be.

When he resumed walking, he kept his head angled to see the dog limp after. It slowed every time it got within kicking distance but kept pace adequately. A fork approached; instead of proceeding toward his apartment, Akechi turned along the path to a supermarket.

Outside of the store, he snapped, “Stay.”

The dog sat down. Its panting (excited? Scared? Exerted?) made its chest look even more hollow, but it held his stare for almost six seconds this time.

Akechi shook his head and went inside.

*

In the time Akechi had lived in this apartment, tonight was the first time any other living being had set foot inside. It was turning out about how he expected: With a lot of noise and strife.

The bathroom was a mess, and he hadn’t even been able to turn the shower on yet. One of the three towels he owned lay across the floor—but was already disturbed enough to limit its protective abilities. It could do nothing, anyway, about the trail of mud that extended from the front doorway to the tub.

The tub, which Akechi was currently doing his best to keep the damn dog inside. “Would you just stay fucking still?!” he hissed through his teeth as he tried to hold it in place without hurting it or himself.

He didn’t even know, he realized, if the building allowed animals. A problem for another time. Or no problem at all, since all laws of probability indicated this particular animal would not cross the threshold again come morning.

He certainly didn’t want to do this again any time soon. The dog was almost half his height and had to have about thirty kilos on him. Its unkempt nails and teeth had to count as deadly weapons; so could the scent it carried from however long it had spent on the streets and whatever conditions it had lived in before then, bothersome from afar and nauseating up close. If anyone in the surrounding units had been asleep, they no longer were thanks to its increasingly shrill complaints.

“Wh—stop that!” It had tried to stand and clamber over both the edge of the bathtub and Akechi’s shoulders. He shoved at its front legs. “Sit!” he said, more bark-like than its own yowling and whimpering. “Stay!”

It did. And then started squirming again.

“I don’t want to do this either, you know.” It stilled when he spoke; stirred in the ensuing beat of silence. Akechi came to a sudden awful realization. “I didn’t even want to let you in here in the first place,” he said, and stopped.

The same thing happened: The dog calmed when he was talking and writhed when he wasn’t. Akechi fought the urge to slam his head against the shower wall.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” he said, but the pattern continued. It wasn’t altogether unexpected—he had seen the occasional comment that his voice was pleasant enough to fall asleep to, requests for him to do some kind of ASMR recording. But that was the deliberately charming Detective Prince, not the hollow shell kneeling in the shitty bathroom of an even shittier, emptier apartment. “God. Fucking fine. If that’s what it takes to keep my goddamn arm.”

Mumbling about nothing in particular, he took advantage of his freed hands to weigh the two bottles of pet shampoo he’d bought. They were the same size and brand, but one was labeled “short-haired” and the other “long-haired.”

“I don’t even know what the fucking difference is between these,” said Akechi. “Or ‘wet food’ and ‘dry food.’ Besides the packaging, obviously.” He had gotten one of each of those as well. “The bottled water was easy, at least.” He clicked his tongue. “Whatever. You’re probably short-haired, right?”

The dog, of course, did not answer. That stupid fucking cat had warped Akechi’s brain.

“Well, I doubt using the wrong shampoo could make you look much worse.” He cast the long-haired bottle aside and flicked on the spray. The water ran almost black the instant it came into contact with the dog’s fur. “Ugh. Disgusting. Here, move a little more this way…”

Somehow, they escaped the bathroom without further injuries. Akechi spent probably too long scrubbing all of the dirt and mats out, talking about everything and nothing all the while, then dried the dog with one of his two remaining towels and himself (having leaned too far into the shower still fully clothed) with the other. The dog’s scars were mostly faded, but one semi-recent wound on its leg—looking like a bite from another animal—had reopened enough that Akechi tied a bandage around it.

The dog, now both better-smelling and more relaxed, didn’t maintain quite as much distance from Akechi when it followed him to the kitchen. He filled one paper bowl with a scoop of the wet food, another with the dry food, and a third with water from the bottle. The dog sniffed and sampled each. It drank most of the water in a few laps, then tore into the dry food.

The sight reminded Akechi that he hadn’t eaten since… well, actually, he didn’t know. He unearthed some instant ramen with a permissible best-by date and watched it spin in the microwave. The dog’s sloppy eating sounds rang in his ears but somehow failed to curb his appetite.

He didn’t want to let the dog, no matter how clean it was, into his bed (onto, rather, the frameless mattress lying on the bedroom floor) or really up onto the couch. As he and it both ate, he scrounged up a cardboard box large enough to squeeze some newspaper clippings and pillows into. The dog seemed skeptical of it, but when Akechi nudged it inside, it lay down and curled its tail around itself.

Akechi sat down beside it. The dog stayed awake, and so did he, stiff shoulders beginning to unwind against the couch. For most of the night they eyed each other in that cautious fashion, both perhaps trying to understand the other and coming up empty.

Logic still dictated that Akechi take the thing to the nearest no-kill shelter he could find and let it become someone else’s problem. When he had to take it outside to piss at around two-thirty, he considered just loosing it back onto the streets. It had survived this long, after all.

But as the sun rose and its eyes drifted shut, he found himself checking the apartment’s pet policy and searching up care guides.

*

Tokyo boasted perhaps hundreds of bookshops. Specialized to a certain genre or condition, more general, large, small, franchise branches, independently owned—if one of the city’s millions of inhabitants had something particular in mind, they could undoubtedly find a market for it, and if they didn’t, chance would disperse them across the many options.

So of course, fifteen minutes after Akechi made one such random selection and was browsing its offerings, the door opened and Amamiya Ren walked in.

Akechi, in the process of pulling another book from the shelf when he glanced up, threw it onto his small pile without checking the author’s credentials or positions. He tried to shift behind the nearest display, but Ren had already begun moving toward him.

“Hey,” he said when he approached. “Book shopping?”

“Evidently,” Akechi said through his teeth.

“What for? Those cheap mystery novels you used to read in Leblanc all the time?”

The only reason Ren remembered that, Akechi suspected, was because of the thirty-minute argument they’d once had about the resolution of a book Ren also happened to have read. Satisfying and sensible, in Ren’s opinion; a major cop-out with no sense of real justice, in Akechi’s. “Not exactly,” he said cagily now, sliding the books off of the counter.

He yet again wasn’t quite fast enough. “Dog training, dog care, more dog training,” Ren recited from the spines. His bag rustled, and he looked back up at Akechi with his eyebrows somewhere in his hair. “Are you… planning on adopting a dog?” He sounded like he wasn’t sure how wise a decision that was.

Akechi had long since calculated that: Very unwise. “I already have,” he said anyway. “The damn thing followed me home the other day and won’t leave.” He refrained from commenting on the sense of déjà vu it evoked.

Ren snorted. “Sounds more like it adopted you.”

Again the parallels were clear, and again Akechi kept them to himself.

He had to admit, he did feel like the one being trained. It had taken hours (and two locked doors) to get the dog to calm down enough for him to leave without it, and he imagined the bathroom door would be scratched to shreds when he returned. From these books and the online articles he’d been reading, a crate would be a worthwhile investment, along with the actual bed and leashes he planned to buy today.

“Yes, well,” he said instead of sharing any of that with Ren, “I may still decide to drop it off at a shelter.”

“Maybe it does have an owner out there. Have you taken it to a vet yet? They could probably check.”

Despite the substantial amount of time and energy he had used up in the past forty-eight hours, the idea oddly rankled Akechi. “From the state it was in, it had been out on the streets for several months. If it did simply elude a caring, deserving owner, no doubt they’ve given up by now.”

Ren eyed him a little too knowingly for his liking. “If not a vet, you could always go to the clinic in Yongen-Jaya. The one—”

“A short walk from Leblanc, yes, I know of it.” Akechi had gotten so goddamn many calls asking him (Detective Akechi, rather) to look into that clinic. “What veterinary experience does the doctor there have?”

“Probably little to none,” Ren admitted. “But she probably won’t charge that much, and she should probably be able to tell if it has a tracker.”

Using the word probably that much did not instill confidence. “Are you certain about anything about her?”

Ren thought for a moment. “She’s a very good doctor.”

“Hm,” Akechi said, and walked away to buy the books before their sharp corners ripped his sweater.

“Rude,” he thought he heard a muffled voice say from inside Ren’s bag.

Reinforcing his poor luck for the day, Ren caught up with him when he had one foot out of the door. “I’ll tell Dr. Takemi to expect you to show up sometime soon,” he said, holding his bag still enough to stifle any further commentary. “Good luck with the dog.”

Neutral as his tone and expression were, it was obvious it was a genuine well-wish. In the face of such incomprehensible sincerity, Akechi could only scoff and leave. The path to the clinic hovered at the back of his mind as he headed to his next destination.

He would not, he told himself, be visiting an actual veterinarian. And he would absolutely not be going to any back-alley butcher.

*

Less than a week later, the dog lay across the table in the cold, poorly lit examination room of the Takemi Medical Clinic.

Akechi watched with mild interest as its chest rose and fell with the steadiest breaths he’d seen out of it while awake yet. It had been fine when it thought they were only going for a walk, only to react with the panic of a few days ago to the interior of the clinic. A tablet of, apparently, Takemi’s own making had had enough of a relaxing effect for her to perform a short physical and blood draw. Having spoken aloud more in the past several days than he had in months combined, Akechi almost wanted to ask if he could take some of those pills when he left.

“I’m not a veterinarian, so I really can’t tell you much,” Takemi told him now, stroking the dog’s side. “He’s fixed, and he seems to have had most of his vaccines, so someone was taking care of him at some point. He’s not chipped, though, and I haven’t seen any missing posters matching his description. He’s been severely malnourished up until now, but he doesn’t seem to have any severe health problems. Nothing he can’t bounce back from, anyway.”

“Almost all of which I was already aware of.” Akechi shifted against the wall. He’d grown too used to closed spaces when he was young to be bothered by them as an adult, but this particular room made him forget that. “I was told you were a very good doctor. That reputation seems questionably earned.”

“Like I said, this isn’t exactly my standard patient,” said Takemi, meeting his coolness with her own. “Since you’re so observant, you’ve probably also noticed he’s showing signs of having been abused.”

Her hand grazed one of the particularly large keloids. Akechi lowered his chin.

“My guess is that he was involved in dogfighting. Tosas were originally bred for it, and even though it’s illegal in this prefecture, I heard an underground ring got broken up here a few months ago.” Her expression and tone remained calm, but a shadow passed over her eyes. “If there were ever people whose hearts needed changing…”

“Is there anything else I should know?” Akechi cut in sharply.

Takemi gave him a look that made him wonder what Ren had told her about him. “You should probably take him to a real vet so they can confirm my findings and catch him up on whatever vitamins and shots he needs. Otherwise—” She shrugged. “He should recover fine if you keep him on a regular feeding and training schedule. He seems to already trust you well enough.”

Akechi stared at the dog. Dark, warm, sopping eyes gazed back.

“I see.” The bite bled out of his voice. He cleared his throat and reached for his wallet without looking at Takemi. “What do I owe you?”

Takemi waved him off. “It was a favor for my favorite guinea pig, so no charge—this time. I can’t say the same thing for a repeat visit.” She patted between the dog’s ears one last time, then left with the clear intention for them to follow.

Akechi reattached the leash and eased the dog back onto the floor. It shook itself off, bumped its nose against his knee, and led him after Takemi.

When they returned to Akechi’s apartment, the dog went straight to the real bed Akechi had indeed ended up buying. (It was nicer and more expensive than his mattress.) Akechi, mentally playing Takemi’s words on repeat, watched as it curled up and closed its eyes.

“What a fool,” he muttered into the quiet. “All you’ve been through, and you trust the first person who gives you a scrap of attention? Food and shelter are enough to overcome your entirely reasonable misgivings about humans?” He shook his head. “I could break that ‘trust’ you feel toward me in over a dozen ways. Not because I hold any ill will toward you, either—just out of plain boredom, to see what would happen.”

It was all too easy, in fact, to imagine bringing harm to the defenseless creature lying before him. The images flashing through Akechi’s mind were nothing compared to what he had done, but they turned his stomach worse than any of it.

“Would it even break your trust?” he wondered aloud. “Or would you just come limping back thinking you were the one who had somehow done wrong, trying to repair it to get back into my good graces? Would you lick your own blood off of a hand that beat you? Would it only take an outsider forcibly severing the link for you to start flinching away from strangers again? Would you eventually get hungry and desperate enough to chase someone else down like you did me? Would you keep repeating that process until the person you entrusted your life to finally hurt you enough to end that life?”

The dog started to snore. The sound, for some reason, nauseated Akechi more than his imagination.

“Utterly idiotic,” he said, so low it was almost inaudible, and really didn’t know which of them he meant.

He stepped away. He replenished the dog’s food and water bowls, then went to his own mattress to lie down.

Unlike a dog, he wasn’t capable of emptying his mind and falling asleep in an instant. Even when he did finally doze off, it was jittery, swarmed with blurry visions and broken by the faintest creak.

(In that space between conscious and not, reality and dream, he could admit: Part of him was honestly disgusted by the mindless ease with which dogs went through life. But another, larger part envied it.)

*

The first time someone called Black Mask an attack dog, Shido had blinked—and then burst out laughing.

Until that moment, Akechi hadn’t ever heard him laugh. Not for real; he would give an occasional restrained chuckle with a camera in his face, not unlike Akechi’s own fake laughs, but he hadn’t seemed capable of laughing in private. The way the idle comment had made raucous, genuine cackles burst from him both awed and enraged Akechi.

“How fitting,” he’d said, still grinning. His eyes had cut in Akechi’s direction, slashing any (already futile) notion that Shido hadn’t known he was listening. “An unconditionally loyal beast with no mind of its own, trained well enough to carry out whatever brutality you want it to at the snap of a finger.”

It wasn’t the last time the comparison would be made. Every time Akechi heard it, it was like a yank on his leash, jangling the chains and putting pressure on his throat to remind him of his place. Every time he didn’t hear it, it was, he had to assume, like a shadow over anyone who risked having the bloodthirsty beast sicced on them.

Akechi hadn’t disliked the analogy. He’d carved his own meaning out of it: Like any dog beaten hard and often enough, he would someday claw off his collar and, with his freedom, rip Shido’s throat out with the very fangs Shido had spent so long sharpening.

Just you wait, he’d think, maintaining the outward smile of the sheepskin-clad wolf lurking among the flock. Just you fucking wait.

The thing about elite hunting dogs, though, was that when they were no longer useful—or when they got too used to the taste of blood and flashed their frothing teeth at their cold-hearted masters—they were put down.

(The other thing—the thing Akechi was even less willing to acknowledge—was that some dogs would simply never have their longing beaten out of them.)

*

Akechi had been certain when he’d spoken to Takemi that rehabilitating a dog like the one that had latched onto him was far less simple than she made it sound, and the ensuing weeks proved him right.

He read a lot, at first, getting the theory down before putting it into action. While skimming one of the books he’d bought on basic care, he was interrupted by the dog gnawing on its corner. He eyed the page, where the author advised having a variety of toys available to meet stimulation needs, and added several more items to his mental shopping list.

He did visit a real veterinarian, after another few days. They told him more or less the same things Takemi had, but more confidently and for a much steeper price. They also recommended professional training services, but Akechi, having already decided to handle that himself, willed every single name out of his mind before he left the building.

Knowing what type of food to get and how often to exercise, whether in general or for the breed, was simple. Training was a more dedicated, individualized process, and so Akechi spent longer poring over it, studying punishment and reinforcement, deprivation and reward.

He knew about Pavlov and Skinner’s models of conditioning already, of course, but they’d only ever been of use in the context of human behavior. Only for a time, too, since once you experienced the Metaverse most psychologists’ speculation became utterly inane. Skinner had thought of classical conditioning as oversimplified; Akechi didn’t find operant conditioning that much more complex or thorough, and he doubted it encompassed the totality of even dogs’ learning processes, but it was still a serviceable template.

Treat your dog as a blank slate if you don’t know what its background is, advised about every book and website on rescues. Akechi did so but couldn’t help looking for hints of that past—a sign the dog had been taught these things before, an indication of how he’d been treated for succeeding and failing alike. He only stopped when he realized Shido had probably once sized him up in much the same way.

The dog already seemed to know how to sit and stay, but Akechi went through them with him like any other trick. Pointing, lying down, spinning, and balancing on his hind legs followed. “Playing dead” after being shot by a finger gun so toed the line of funny and morbid that Akechi focused on it as soon as they had rolling over down.

The first time the dog shook his hand on command, an odd burning feeling spread through Akechi’s chest. It bled away too fast for him to worry that he was having one of the idiopathic heart attacks he had condemned so many to. When it shot through him again later, after the dog was able to stay in his crate for two hours without a fuss, he realized what it was: Pride.

He didn’t mull on it much, but somewhere at the back of his mind, he imagined his mother feeling the same thing toward him. He cut that train of thought off before it could progress to wondering if he had at some point wanted to inspire it in Shido.

Once those basics were down, they, too, were all too easy. And then there was nothing left to do but implement an actual exercise routine.

Adult Tosas were advised to get in about an hour of physical activity every day. Once, Akechi wouldn’t have batted an eye; now, he wasn’t sure he put that much in a week. He supposed that was as much a motivator as any, though, and it was clear that bouncing tennis balls across the living room and shaking stuffed mice hard enough to tear the stitches weren’t sufficient outlets for the dog’s energy.

So they started walking together every afternoon. First for twenty minutes around the block, then thirty, then sixty, creeping up in increments at a time. The season was at a fortunate junction where it was neither too cold nor too hot at that time of day, though for the first couple of weeks Akechi returned sweating harder than the dog panted.

As the routine took shape, embarrassingly, other people started to notice. The couple in the apartment a floor above his finished their weekend jogs at the same time he set out; one of the women waved when she saw him, and the other nodded politely. Others who walked their dogs along similar routes began looking familiar. The teenage cashier at a small convenience store around the halfway point left bowls of water out.

Worst of all, one day Akechi turned a corner and had to swerve to keep Ryuji from barreling straight into him.

Ryuji yelped like he’d been the one almost knocked over and skidded to a halt like a cartoon character. “Gah! Sorry, dude!” he said, then fully processed who was standing in front of him. His stunned expression went slack. “Oh, it’s just you.”

The dog was pulling at the retractable leash, trying to get at Ryuji, in a way Akechi thought he’d already trained him out of; Akechi nudged him back. “I could say the same to you.”

Ryuji made that face he did when he knew Akechi was somehow insulting him but was too stupid to understand how. He teetered his weight from one foot to the other. “Uh, so, you really got a dog, huh?” he said after a moment, strangely prolonging the conversation instead of continuing on his way. “Ren said you did, but—”

“You thought I would kick it, quite literally, to the curb within a week?” guessed Akechi.

“No, I didn’t think that!” said Ryuji, alarmed. Akechi actually couldn’t figure out how much he meant it. “Just doesn’t really seem your style.”

“What doesn’t? Taking care of another living being?”

“Well. That, a little, but—dogs. You’ve always seemed more like a cat to me.”

“I’m a human,” said Akechi dryly. “The jury is still out on you, however.”

Ryuji looked more frustrated with him than he was with Ryuji, if possible. “That’s not what I meant. You know, you’re all standoffish and bitchy, like Morgana. And, like—”

The gesture he made with his hand had to be a poorly mimed cat claw scratching through the air, but it so resembled a limp human wrist that Akechi could only snap, “What, gay?”

Ryuji’s face drained of color and then flushed almost purple. “Wh—no! No! I meant, like, all hot and cold! Not, you know—I mean, it’s cool that you—well, I mean, I don’t actually know if—I shoulda said, it’s cool if you—” He flapped his mouth wordlessly for another couple of seconds. “What’s the dog’s name?” he said with plain desperation.

Akechi kind of wanted to see how many accidental microaggressions he could pressure out of Ryuji, if just because he seemed to be saying, in an unprecedented tier of stupidity, that he wasn’t sure whether Akechi was gay. Hoping humoring the interaction’s course would get him out of it faster, though, he said, “He doesn’t have one.”

“What?” Ryuji said, so loudly several passersby jumped. Akechi pinched the bridge of his nose and looked away, pretending he was being harangued for directions by a complete stranger. “How come?”

“Because I haven’t given him one.”

“Not cool, man! He should totally be called something. Otherwise it’s like you really are going to kick him out sooner or later, ain’t it?” Ryuji reached down while Akechi was still figuring out what logic that conclusion was founded on. “You want a name, don’t you, buddy?”

Instead of shrinking away from his hand or receiving it with relative disinterest, as were his responses to most strangers approaching, the dog lunged for Ryuji’s hip. Akechi snapped the leash back only by reflex.

“Whoa!” Ryuji jumped back. Once the immediate shock cleared and he saw that Akechi was holding the dog back (tempted as he was to let go), he puffed out a laugh. “So dogs really do start looking like their owners! I swear that guy had the same effing face as you when you used that stupid Call of Chaos bullshit on yourself. Too bad for him.” He withdrew from one pocket a bag of something labeled JERKY, but that probably couldn’t be legally marketed as meat. “I bet you smelled this, huh? I guess I can—”

Akechi clenched his jaw so hard it cracked. “If you feed him any of that processed garbage, Sakamoto, I’ll make sure you end up in the hospital bed right next to his.”

“Holy shit, dude.” Ryuji all but threw the jerky back into his pocket. After a few seconds, he frowned. “Uh, so, like… how did we even get into the same hospital in this scenario? Is it one for people or one for animals?”

“That’s what you choose to consider the logistics of?” Akechi shook his head. “Whichever one allows me to hang a to be euthanized sign on your cage, god. I’m done with this,” he added, storming past Ryuji and bringing the dog with him.

“Hey, jackass!” Ryuji shouted after him. Akechi kept walking. “No, wait, really, I’ve got something else to say!”

With extreme reluctance, and only because the dog was tugging at the leash again, Akechi turned. A phone camera shutter clicked.

“Okay, I just wanted proof the dog was actually real. See ya.” Ryuji bolted in the other direction, presumably before Akechi could kill him with his bare hands. “Oh, and name your effing dog!” he yelled over his shoulder.

More people were staring now than ever. Akechi’s head throbbed so hard he just went home after another block.

*

The next day, Akechi changed their walking route but was still on edge of any potential unwanted encounters. The dog seemed bemused but not displeased with the new environments; when he lifted his head and refused to lower it near a park, pins and needles crept down Akechi’s back. The feeling intensified when he looked over to see Sumire jogging in their direction.

He slowed. She didn’t seem to have noticed him yet, so it was within his options to step away or turn around before she did.

Unfortunately, Akechi tolerated Sumire the most out of the merry band of fools—under extensive torture, he might have even gritted out the word like and then denied it. She was too polite and too idealistic (as evidenced by how she continued to address him with smiling honorifics) and had all too easily fallen into a cheap diorama of reality, and the lie she’d lived was nothing like the ones he had, but he’d seen that that wasn’t all there was to her.

So Akechi continued walking. He made no effort to call attention to himself, though, and Sumire almost passed by without a second glance at first.

Then: “Akechi-san!” she called, whirling toward him fast enough her ponytail almost whipped her in the face.

“Yoshizawa-san,” he returned.

“I’ve told you, senpai, you can just call me Sumire…” She noticed the dog as she was brushing her hair out of her mouth. “Oh, and who’s this?” she added, leaning down.

Akechi hadn’t really cared if Ryuji got bitten, but now he opened his mouth in warning—only to stare in dismay as the dog not only sniffed Sumire’s hand but began to lick it.

“Ah, hey, that tickles!” she said through giggles, but didn’t pull away. “Who’s a good boy? It’s you! You’re a good boy! Or, um, good girl?”

“Boy,” confirmed Akechi, sure his face was all but blank.

The reminder of his presence, however, sobered Sumire somewhat—she cleared her throat and backed up. “Um, so I guess this is the dog Amamiya-senpai told us you were getting, then,” she said with forced stoicism. She started to reach for her face before seeming to remember that she wasn’t wearing her glasses. “What’s his name?”

“He doesn’t have one.”

“Oh.” Sumire frowned, although it faltered when the dog bumped into her hands, clearly confused as to why he was no longer being adored. “Why not? Names are—well. They’re pretty important.”

Akechi was at a loss as to why this was so important to these idiots, and he didn’t want to hear about the value of names and identity from her in particular. “He’s old enough that even if I give him one, he might not respond,” he chose to say.

“Is—” Sumire started, but whatever else she had to say was overpowered by the dog suddenly lying down and rolling onto his back.

All of Akechi’s thoughts scattered as well. “What the fuck are you doing?” he hissed, tugging at the leash. “Get up, you absolute—”

Sumire laughed again and gladly crouched down to rub the dog’s offered belly. If she thought anything of the scars—the reason, Akechi had thought, he got growled at if his own absent pets went a little too far down the dog’s side—she didn’t say anything about it. The dog wiggled his legs like a flipped-over insect as if it was anywhere near endearing.

“Aw, you’re so cute!” Sumire told him. “What a good boy!”

An older woman chuckled as she passed. Akechi resisted the urge to cover both his eyes and his ears. Eventually Sumire seemed to again realize where she was and what she’d been doing.

“I’m sorry, but I should probably keep running—I’ve got a pretty tight schedule to keep, after all.” She paused in the middle of dusting herself off. The dog flopped himself upright too, finally, even if it was only to follow her. “Do you two… maybe want to jog with me?”

“I’ll pass,” Akechi said shortly, though not as harshly as he had meant to.

Sumire managed to cover up her perplexing disappointment surprisingly fast. “Okay! Well, I’ll see you around, I’m sure, Akechi-san. And you too, puppy! Can you give me a high five?”

Akechi had not taught him that trick, but it was close enough to shake that he seemed to know what to do. His clumsy paw knocked against Sumire’s smaller hand.

“Oh, wow, good boy! I’m sure you’re making your master really proud. I know he’s probably taking good care of you, but take care of him, too, okay?” Sumire scratched behind the dog’s ear, which he seemed to appreciate even more than a treat, and backed off again. “Bye, senpai!” she said before darting away.

For almost a full minute, Akechi stood still and silent. The automatic part of his brain tried to process everything that had just occurred, while the conscious part wanted nothing more than to forget it all.

“Let’s start walking at night,” he told the dog, who only snuffled woefully.

*

Since he had said it, Akechi decided to stick to it the following day. The dog, however, of course could not comprehend this change in plans and looked bewildered when Akechi failed to head for the door at what had become their usual time. He pawed at him, brought him toys, even tried to grab the leash himself by jumping at the wall where it hung.

“Stop that,” said Akechi mildly. The dog sat, looked at him, and made one more futile leap before resorting to pacing the entirety of the apartment.

By the time Akechi did get up, the dog was in a clear state of complete confusion. His tail didn’t wag at the word walk, and his paws dragged when they got outside, forcing Akechi to tug him along instead of the other way around.

Within minutes, Akechi was doubtful about incorporating this into their routine as well. It was cooler and darker, obviously, and by the time they returned it would be even more so. Enough people were still getting off of work and school that even side streets were flushed with activity.

And, it turned out, it didn’t even achieve the other intended effect.

“Oh!” came a familiar voice as they looped past the subway station, and Akechi squeezed the leash handle so hard the plastic audibly crackled. He turned his head, disbelieving, to watch Yusuke approach. “Out for an evening stroll as well? And with the companion I’ve heard a fair deal about in the past several days, I see.”

“Yes.” Akechi eyed the dog, unsure whether it would bother him more if he dove at Yusuke or flopped over for him. Fortunately, his reaction was more in line with that to any other stranger: He sniffed in Yusuke’s direction once, then returned to inspecting the ground.

Yusuke, meanwhile, contemplated the dog with a hand on his chin. “What a curious creature. I would hesitate to call it ‘elegant,’ strongly built as it is, and yet…” He stepped back and raised his hands in a considering frame. “I admit my experience drawing from live animals is lacking. Perhaps, however, an exploration of fauna is exactly what my oeuvre requires. Hm, yes—how can one truly understand the depths of man without taking into account ‘man’s best friend’?” He nodded to himself. “Would you consider a modeling session?”

He seemed to be asking the dog himself, not Akechi. Since the dog was a normal dog who could not speak, however, Akechi took the liberty of answering for him: “No.”

Yusuke continued to look at the dog instead of him. “A shame.” He shook his head but withdrew. “If you change your mind, you know how to contact me. In the meantime, I’ll leave you to your walk. May we both find some inspiration from this outing.”

There were over ten million people in this city alone, and more in the surrounding metropolitan area, Akechi reminded himself as Yusuke walked away. Ten million.

“Midnight,” he told the dog, who had moseyed over to a nearby tree that probably carried the scent of just as many dogs’ urine. “We’ll start walking after midnight.”

Except he had already learned he no longer enjoyed being out and about at this hour, let alone far later. And the odd thing about maintaining a routine for a pet was that you yourself tended to adapt to that routine. Akechi’s circadian rhythm was the most normal it had been in years, which would no longer be the case if he followed through with this promise. He was eating more regularly and more diversely than he had in a long time, too, he realized. Hm.

“Let’s figure out a different route,” he corrected himself. He didn’t really care, at this point, what anyone happening to be walking by thought of him. That was also fairly new. “A few different routes. And alternate between them.”

The dog sneezed, then lifted his leg. Akechi turned to watch the last vestiges of the sun sink beneath the horizon until he was done.

*

For a long time, Akechi had thought that he’d had a stellar sense of self-preservation. A small part of him had questioned that after he’d first approached an initially quiet but sharp-eyed peer whose ideas interestingly clashed against his own, and a much larger part howled at the prospect when, the day after his encounter with Yusuke, his afternoon walk took him straight to Leblanc.

It wasn’t on purpose, at least at first, though of course by the time he reached Yongen-Jaya he knew where he would end up. He did still visit on occasion—he’d stopped in before seeing Takemi, in fact. Of all of the cafés in Tokyo, just as if not more numerous than the bookstores, he had yet to find anywhere that served better coffee (or, indeed, curry). Usually, though, he only entered when he knew only Sojiro would be present; his cool silence and hard looks were more tolerable than the alternative.

Today, not only was Ren working the counter alone, but Makoto was jabbing away at her laptop in a nearby booth. Before Akechi could reconsider, they both looked up. Morgana, asleep in a chair, didn’t stir, although the dog perked up at seeing (or smelling) him.

“Oh, hey,” said Ren. He cast a smile toward the dog. “And hey! Wow, you looked big in that picture Ryuji sent, but you’re even taller in person. I bet you weigh more than your owner.” Makoto’s cough redirected his attention to Akechi, who offered no confirmation. “The usual?”

Akechi hesitated, then nodded. “To go,” he added.

Ren nodded back and started preparing it. Peripheral attention on Makoto, Akechi considered greeting her for about half a second before deciding against it. From how she resumed typing, she seemed to have made a similar internal deliberation.

He was distracted soon enough, anyway, by the dog trying to sneak farther inside. “Sit,” Akechi snapped, locking the leash. “Stay.”

The dog followed each order without pause. “Huh,” said Makoto. “I was going to say Boss wouldn’t like him being here, but he’s better behaved than some of his human regulars.”

Akechi, patting the dog’s head, tried not to smirk. “Agreed.”

“Stop insulting Ryuji when he’s not even here to defend himself,” said Ren.

“I didn’t name any names,” said Makoto, eyes lingering pointedly on Akechi.

Akechi well could defend himself, as they all knew, so neither he nor Ren said anything more. The dog’s tail beat against the carpet twice.

“Here,” Ren said after another moment, passing Akechi’s coffee over the counter. Their hands brushed in the exchange, which Akechi absolutely did not react to in any way. “And a bonus for our very special guest. If it’s okay, obviously.”

He flashed a small bone-shaped biscuit at Akechi. When given another nod, he tossed it to the dog. He snapped it up in five bites, bent to lick up the crumbs, and gave Ren his sweetest slow blinks in a blatant request for more. In a surprising show of restraint, Ren didn’t offer any. He did, however, lean all the way across the counter to hold his hand out.

Completely involuntarily, Akechi tossed Makoto a bemused look; she met it with her own. He broke eye contact before anything stranger could come of it.

“When did Sakura-san add dog food to the menu?” he asked Ren.

“He didn’t.” The dog had sniffed Ren’s hand and then thrust his head into his palm, much as he had with Sumire (although not quite as exuberantly, to Akechi’s relief). Maybe they had similar scents. “But some drive-through workers keep treats on them in case someone comes through with their pet, don’t they? People give Morgana treats all the time.”

Morgana snoozed on and offered no argument on the topic of his species—or whether he ate the treats in question. Regardless: “This is not a drive-through,” Akechi pointed out.

He thought he heard Makoto snort, but it was swiftly covered up with another cough. “True,” Ren acknowledged. “I wouldn’t get to do this if it was.” He scratched over the dog’s cheeks before returning to his more professional distance.

“I hope you wash those hands before you serve anyone else,” said Makoto.

“I will.” For the time being, Ren tucked the hands in question into his pockets. “Sumire and Ryuji said you hadn’t named him yet?”

“No,” said Akechi—then, preemptively, “And I won’t be taking any suggestions on the matter. Particularly not from you, Joker and Queen.”

“Our code names were good!” Makoto paused. “Well. Most of them were.”

“Debate among yourselves which ones without involving me, please.” Akechi remembered he hadn’t paid yet and chucked a handful of bills onto the counter. “Thank you for the coffee.” He sipped and, without meaning to, closed his eyes. Sojiro’s coffee was good, but the student had, in this case, surpassed the master; or maybe Ren just knew better (and, more importantly, cared more about) what Akechi liked. “I’ll be going now.”

He kept the corners of his eyes on Ren as he turned. Sure enough, just as the door opened: “See you later, honey.”

The reverse of an exchange from what seemed like lifetimes ago, both with the same underlying joke: That they lived together, were perhaps married or on the road to it. It was even more laughable now than it had been the first time, which was surely why Akechi had to suppress a too-real smile as he left.

*

Halfway home, the dog suddenly turned and jerked Akechi in the opposite direction. It startled him enough to just let it happen at first, until he stumbled more than two steps forward and got ahold of himself.

“What are you doing?” he said, shooting a glare at the foot traffic they were now opposing. “Come on. We don’t go that way.”

He pulled on the leash as hard as he safely could. The dog still whined and kept trying to stretch himself forward.

“Stop it.” Holding his coffee still, Akechi could only grip the leash with his right hand; he put all of the strength he could into it. “Let’s go.”

When he turned, the taut leash went suddenly slack, but a familiar laugh kept Akechi from using the momentum against the dog.

“I’m sorry, I really can’t give you any of this!” said an even more familiar voice. “It’ll make you really sick, and I don’t think your people would like that very much. No, they wouldn’t. Would—?”

Ann’s voice died mid-sentence when her eyes met Akechi’s. She jolted upright, face flushing. He sipped his coffee for lack of anything else to do.

“Oh, hi,” said Ann, smoothing out one of her pigtails. In her other hand was a bag with a logo Akechi recognized as that of a local confectioner; inside was undoubtedly something with a lot of chocolate.

The dog pursued it until Akechi yanked him back again. It seemed that proximity to these people was making him forget the etiquette Akechi had been training into him for weeks now. Like his and Ren’s exchange in the bookstore, it wasn’t too unfamiliar.

“Man, I should have recognized this guy right away,” Ann continued. “Ryuji’s been sending us that picture of you two what feels like every twelve hours.”

“It did seem to leave a considerable impression on him.”

“No kidding.” The dog wasn’t as excited to see Ann as he had been Sumire or even Ren, but he did permit her absent strokes behind his ears. “Aw, he’s so sweet, too! I don’t know what all of Ryuji’s ‘vicious attack dog’ nonsense was about.”

Akechi refused to bristle at the descriptor. “He hadn’t lunged at anyone that way before and he hasn’t since, so I imagine it was a behavioral mode reserved solely for Sakamoto and his pocket ‘meat.’” He did not hold up air quotes, but he did try to pronounce them.

“Figures.” Ann snorted. Her hand trailed downward until it reached the dog’s neck. “Ooh, nice collar! I’ve worn some diamond necklaces less sturdy—and not as pretty.”

Akechi glanced at it like he’d forgotten what it looked like—in fairness, now that the dog wore it all the time, he didn’t pay it much attention. It was the first one he’d seen in the store that would be a comfortable fit and didn’t have some gaudy design, although the sleek black leather might have been as luxurious as the leopard print on adjacent racks.

The dog took advantage of Ann leaning forward to nose at her bag. Before Akechi could reprimand either of them, she swung it well out of reach.

“Hey,” she said, scrutinizing the dog’s back, “it should start getting cooler soon.”

Akechi stared. The weather, really?

“That can be hard on dogs with short coats, right?” she went on.

“I… suppose.” Akechi looked at the dog as if he would be able to explain the shift in conversation, then away in embarrassment.

Anything Ann said next would have been a surprise, but her next sentence particularly stunned Akechi into silence: “They make really cute dog-sized jackets to help keep them warm. And raincoats, and boots to protect their paws in the summer, and other things like that. I think there’s actually this boutique in Harajuku that only sells stuff for pets—Pet Paradise, or something like that? And this other place, Joker—”

“What?” Akechi couldn’t help himself from interrupting.

Ann laughed. “I know, right? But that’s really what it’s called! I’ve been joking to Ren about it forever. Anyway, they do trims and daycare services and sell actual pets, so they probably sell pet clothes too. I think they have stores in Kichijoji and Roppongi?” She shrugged and flashed the smile she wore in every photoshoot. “It might be worth checking out. I mean, he’s plenty stylish already, but he should be comfortable too!”

“I don’t disagree,” said Akechi weakly. He’d used to have one of those camera-perfect grins too, but hers was distinct in one very unsettling way: It was real.

Ann seemed to realize what a loop she’d thrown him for—though hopefully not the exact extent to which it affected him—and coughed. “Anyway, uh—enjoy your coffee! And your walk.”

She patted the dog’s shoulder before continuing, presumably, toward Leblanc. Akechi shook his head and proceeded in the opposite direction, now without opposition.

He did not visit either of the stores she had named. He did, however, take the dog’s measurements himself and order several seasonally appropriate pieces.

*

you should call him red, Akechi received an unprompted text saying a couple of evenings later. or eagle lololol

I am not naming a dog after a Featherman character, Futaba, he sent back after typing and deleting several other messages. It would probably be easier to deal with her, he thought with a skyward glance, if she unequivocally hated and wanted nothing to do with him like she should have.

Troublingly fast, she responded: who says that’s where they’re from >:U those are totally normal dog names!!! if 1000 monkeys on typewriters had to come up w dog names theyd probably be in there somewhere!!!!!

Akechi considered turning his phone off. The price of ignoring her, however, was too steep—some months ago, when he tried, his television had started playing old interviews of him. Yet I somehow doubt that the go-tos for actual humans are 1) colors and 2) completely different animals.

they’re not even featherman if u dont put them together! protested Futaba. if someone hears “red” and immediately thinks “ah yes a reference to famed toku franchise phoenix ranger featherman” thats their problem. why were YOU at the devils sacrament btw

Are you asking me, or this other random hypothetical person?

you bcuz you also Knew right away

Unlike in the aforementioned hypothetical, you did not use the names out of context, Akechi pointed out. I fail to see how recognizing that a devout Featherman fan offering “Red” and “Eagle” as name suggestions was a reference to one of the most famous characters from that franchise implicates me in anything questionable.

you WOULD >_> was all Futaba said for several minutes. Then, just when Akechi felt safe to set his phone aside: You owe me like, so much. For so many things. The least you can do is give your dog a Featherman name, for me.

Akechi stared at the message. His fingers hovered over the keyboard but failed to move.

jk jk, she sent after what was, according to the timestamps, about four minutes but felt three times longer. well mostly. u do for sure owe me though. think about that ok? and also think about red eagle and black falcon

Later, with his phone and every other electronic turned off and far away, Akechi almost whispered into the silence of the bedroom, “Red.”

He had moved the dog’s bed here to dissuade him from climbing onto the mattress with him. Inside it now, he blinked wearily but didn’t otherwise react.

“Black,” tried Akechi. “Gray. Blue?”

No response.

“…Eagle,” he gritted out. “Falcon. Owl.”

The dog lowered his head all the way onto his palms and shut his eyes.

Akechi felt the same way. He dropped his own head onto his pillow and stared at the dark, popcorn-patched, water-stained ceiling.

“I’ll figure something out,” he said, and eventually he too fell into a fortunately dreamless sleep.

*

The light in the pet supplies aisle of the supermarket was in the process of dying. Akechi’s eye had been twitching for several minutes as he tried, again, to play “spot the differences” with two packages of dog food. The two things might have been related.

A sudden chill went down his back, followed by a wave of dread. Was the light really actually flickering, or was he finally having that stroke?

“I need in there, if you don’t mind,” came Haru’s cool voice from behind him.

…Well, he still couldn’t rule out the stroke. Akechi stepped away. He watched as she approached the shelf, curious as to just what she needed. She didn’t seem to know either, since once she was standing beside him, she froze and stared blankly forward.

Neither of them moved for what couldn’t have been much more than two minutes but felt like hours. That damn light kept flickering overhead.

“You should go with that brand,” Haru said at last, pointing to one of the bags he’d been inspecting. “It’s a little more expensive, but it’s worth it.”

Silence again. Out of the corners of his eyes, Akechi saw someone approach the end of the aisle, apparently see the dark cloud surrounding them from afar, and turn around.

“My father got me a Saint Bernard for my birthday one year,” added Haru, even though Akechi hadn’t asked. He couldn’t tell if it was meant to be an uninvited explanation, a guilt trip, or just a relevant comment to fill the quiet. “By the time she passed away, I was almost the only one taking care of her.”

Akechi did not either say I really don’t care or ask if this was before or after Okumura sold his soul and his daughter (not necessarily in that order). Instead, he said, toneless, “People who give living animals as presents tend to severely underestimate the responsibility that pets require.”

An irritated look flashed through Haru’s eyes and out again. “That’s probably true,” she allowed, chin lowering toward her collarbone. If Akechi hadn’t seen her as Noir, he would think of her as delicate but dignified; because he had, he also saw the lingering flint in her expression. “I’m under no illusions about the kind of person my father was, I hope you know. I just wish you hadn’t taken away his opportunity to face justice the right way.”

She had told him most of this before. Like he had every time, he scoffed now. “The classic Phantom Thieves philosophy. Your justice is the only ‘right’ one.”

“I didn’t say that.” Haru’s voice stayed calm. “And one could say that that was your philosophy, too, even if the justice you had in mind was different from ours.”

“I suppose.” The light strobed so hard it would have given a seizure to anyone in the aisle prone to them. Fortunately, Akechi and Haru were still alone, and neither seemed to fit that description. “So we’re both dissatisfied with our fathers’ fates. A fitting punishment for me, isn’t it?”

“If you want to think of it that way.” Haru scratched at her wrist. “Have you… visited him? In prison?” Her words rushed together like she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to say them.

“As opposed to where?” Akechi said; then, before she could either wince or snap back, “No.”

“Are you going to?”

“I don’t know,” said Akechi, honestly. He had thought about it, albeit less often since he’d gotten the dog and had another way to fill his time. “His blubbering honesty is harder to handle than him ordering me to kill anyone in his way. If I had to listen to that for more than three minutes, I’d probably end up hiring someone to shiv him and undo all of your very virtuous work.”

“I see.” Haru dropped her hand from the other wrist and entwined her fingers. Her swallow was probably audible two aisles over. “If you ever change your mind and… need someone there with you…”

“You are about the last person I would ask,” Akechi assured her. She exhaled with plain relief. “Well, no,” he amended, “the very last person would probably be Sakamoto. You, however, are a close second.”

“Right.” Her mouth twitched like she was trying to resist a smile. She continued to hover in front of the shelf without seeming to really see it.

After a moment, Akechi asked, “Did you actually need something from here?”

Haru’s cheeks went pink. “No. Well, I do need something from the store, but not this aisle.”

“You’re a fucking awful liar.” Her blush deepened. “It’s comforting somehow. I know you’ll never be able to convince me you feel any other way about me than you really do.”

Haru’s head quirked. “Is that a concern with other people?”

Akechi smiled mirthlessly, took one of the bags of dog food she had recommended from the shelf, and stepped away without another word. She didn’t call out after him, and he committed the conversation to the recesses of his mind once he’d exited the building.

*

Akechi had never had a pet as a child.

He could remember wanting one: A dog, a cat, a bird, a fish, one of the bugs young boys were perpetually obsessed with. He hadn’t always, after all, been immune to his peers’ carefree trends. And for a child as lonely as he was—excluded and friendless, shunned by those who understood his mother’s profession and their combined social status as well as those who didn’t but didn’t want to be a protruding nail—the idea of a loving companion oblivious to human social norms had an obvious appeal.

He was old enough to grasp shame, but not that they barely had the means to support even themselves. He begged his mother for a pet whenever shelter ads came up on TV or they walked past an adoption event. Every time, she would smile ruefully, pat his head, and say, “Maybe someday, Goro-kun.”

When he realized—sooner than not, perhaps at an earlier age than anyone should have lost their childhood optimism—that her somedays really meant never, he stopped asking. Instead of gawking at classmates with battling stag beetles and guard dogs, he started turning away. His envy tucked itself away in his chest; that, he decided, was as good as any real pet.

Time in foster care, bouncing from one house to the next, wasn’t conducive to something so permanent as a pet either. Few of the houses he lived in had animals, and those that did wouldn’t let him around them unsupervised. Once he’d stayed with a childless older couple who, he found out later, adopted several cats not long after they’d returned him to the orphanage, apparently having decided that type of parenting was more their style.

A pet—a nice little mascot, maybe a fluffy toy dog or chatty cockatiel—might have suited the Detective Prince well. With his schedule, though, he couldn’t actually adopt one, and that kind of facade would be a hassle to keep up. People would ask where the non-staged pictures were, why it never actually featured in his television appearances.

By then, besides, he had convinced himself he didn’t want anything except revenge. A pet, his mother’s happiness (when she was alive) or another glimpse of her smile (after she died), more recognition from his father than the snap of a leash or fear as the teeth turned on him, a real friend, an existence as something other than a pawn predestined to kill or be killed by the closest thing he’d ever had to one—all of those were childish wishes long since left behind. If they hadn’t died that day he came home and found his mother unresponsive, they certainly had when his Personas awakened.

Now, he could recognize it wasn’t really the wanting that had died. He had just stopped believing in the distant someday when he could have any of it.

Now that he somehow could claim some of it, the having hurt worse than the wanting. There was a freedom in being at rock bottom. But as long as you had something to lose, some distance to fall, it would hang like a chain around your throat, both grounding and stifling you.

Akechi had thought he’d had and lost it all once, but that “all” amounted to a mirage. This (the ever-lurking potential that it was some shitty actualized dream aside) was real. If it disappeared, if he was yet again reduced to nothing—

What would he do?

Not all questions could or should be answered. This, simple as it seemed, was one of them.

Still, it hung. Still, it haunted. Still, it harassed.

Still, he wondered.

(What would you do?)

*

It wasn’t the first time in Akechi’s life that three AM had found him wide awake and vomiting into the toilet. It hadn’t happened in long enough, however, that he had almost forgotten just what it felt like—and he could say for certain that he hadn’t missed it.

The burning feeling in his stomach was what had woken him up, and it was still burning now. His throat was scraped dry. He probably had more actual stomach contents than when this had last happened, and for some reason he thought it might have been worse than all the times he had only his own stomach acids to regurgitate.

He’d been dreaming, but he didn’t remember what about. Blood and viscera and his mother’s limp hand and a body in an interrogation room and his own twisted smile on a different face flashed across his eyelids, but he couldn’t tell if they were from the dream or just the usual images that nagged at him even when conscious.

For a few minutes, the only sounds he could hear were his own breathing and his rapid heartbeat in his ears. The hard tile pressed into his knees, and he gripped the bowl hard enough to sting.

He startled upright when the clicking of nails echoed behind him. Sniffing followed; he, with a hand clapped over his nose, couldn’t fathom why that damn animal would chase the awful scent, but it did.

“Go away,” he mumbled, blindly throwing a hand back.

The clicking stopped, then continued until he could feel the dog’s warm breath on his neck. A tongue lapped over his cheek, dangerously close to his mouth. Akechi cringed away.

“Ugh, stop.” He shouldered the dog back as lightly as he could. “I know you’re trying to help, but—”

He stopped, frozen with realization. Not only did this dog trust him, a feeling that had grown stronger and more mutual over time, but he was clearly trying to ease a kind of pain he couldn’t understand.

So much for that mindless brutality Shido considered built into the dog comparison. Akechi hunched over the toilet again.

By the time he emerged, coughing, the dog’s weight was resting against his back. Considering how substantial that weight was, it should have bordered on suffocating; instead, Akechi seemed to breathe the smoothest he had since stumbling in here.

“Stupid,” he muttered around a string of bile. He still didn’t know which of them he was talking about.

When he eventually made it back to bed, the dog followed him in. Akechi had been trying to train him out of doing that for months, but tonight he just let it happen.

*

“Akechi-kun?”

Akechi stopped. He was already almost at the end of the street; it would be all too easy to pretend he hadn’t heard, even if they were the only two people for several more meters and there was no traffic. He took a breath long enough to recite the latest census’s report of Tokyo’s population—

And turned. “Sae-san,” he said with the smile he was still conditioned to instinctively flash her.

She took a few steps closer, the stilettos he had always found so impractical clicking along. It wasn’t a dissimilar sound to the dog’s nails on the bathroom tile, but he didn’t think he should say that.

For what had to be another full minute, they faced each other without speaking. The dog had hidden himself partway behind Akechi and was peeking out at Sae like he wasn’t sure what to make of her. Akechi wasn’t either.

Just when he was about to say well, nice talking to you and drag the dog away, Sae cleared her throat. “It’s been a while,” she said, unnecessarily. “You look… better.”

“As do you.” Akechi’s tone stayed neutral, neither pleasantly polite nor openly bitter. He nudged the dog forward with his leg.

Sae took the blatant distraction: She held her hand out. The dog sniffed it, glanced at Akechi, and with a snort lifted his chin for Sae to scratch.

She obliged with a smile. “I didn’t know you were a dog person, Akechi-kun.”

“I’m not, really.” He hadn’t bothered saying that to Ryuji, but then Ryuji had said a lot of other stupid things that required more immediate rebuttals. “As Amamiya put it, he adopted me.”

Sae chuckled. “That’s how it seems to go with rescues. Not that I would personally know.” Although the dog had overcome much of his wariness over the past couple of months—and regrown a lot of his hair besides—she frowned when her hand hit the scars below his neck. “I heard that a dogfighting ring was broken up here a few months ago. Is he…?”

“Dr. Takemi and the veterinarian I’ve visited seemed to think so.”

“I see.” Sae’s hand halted just behind the dog’s ear, then smoothed back into motion when he whined. “It’s horrible that that kind of thing still happens. But I’m glad he seems to have found a good home with you.”

As Akechi watched her continue petting his dog, something crystallized inside his chest. He had of course never felt the manifestation of a palace ruler’s treasure for himself, but he thought that might have been a similar sensation.

“Sae-san,” he said.

She lifted her head. “Yes?”

“…Never mind. It’s nothing.” Akechi let out a breath almost bordering on a laugh and slid his hand into his pocket. Upon realizing how much it resembled the posture Ren seemed to naturally fall into more often than not, he took it out. “Your work as a defense attorney is going well, I hear.”

“It is.” Sae raised her free hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I’m happier than I think I ever was as a prosecutor. Winning, losing—they don’t matter anymore. Only true justice does.”

“Hm. Good for you.” Akechi tugged on the leash. His dog cast Sae an apprehensive look but accepted his judgment, plodding back over. “Well then, if you’ll excuse me,” he said with a shallow dip of his head.

He hadn’t taken more than two steps when Sae called his name again. Again, he mentally debated stopping before he did turn.

“I hope you’re happy too,” Sae told him.

Akechi had nothing to say to that, so he just gave her another clipped nod and kept moving.

*

“So have you named him yet?”

By nature, Akechi was perceptive and in tune with his surroundings—he’d had to be, in both of his former lines of work. He had to admit to himself, however, that he had not a single idea where Futaba had come from. The front door hadn’t opened, the stairs to that shitty attic hadn’t creaked, and he’d neither seen nor heard a sign of her lurking in the back or underneath the counter.

As another benefit of having once been a detective moonlighting as an assassin, though, he was able to maintain his composure. “Pardon me?” he asked lightly, reaching for his coffee.

Ren, preparing the curry he had badgered Akechi into ordering, snorted; Akechi refused to look at him. Futaba, arms slung over the back of the chair two away from Akechi’s, scoffed.

“Your dog,” she said without shedding any light on her appearance. “Does he have a name?”

In the nearest booth, the rest of the Phantom Thieves were doing their best—which was not very good—to pretend like they weren’t listening. It would have been even more difficult not to, granted, given they were the only ones in the entire café and the television was off.

“I fail to see why this is your business, let alone everyone’s.” Akechi shot a pointed look at Sumire, who—as anticipated—slunk down in her seat. “But no, I haven’t.”

“Really?” Futaba flipped the chair around and crouched into it, knees to her chest. “Can I make some more suggestions, then? Because I’ve got them.”

Akechi didn’t hesitate: “No.”

“I have some too!” yelled Ryuji, sliding to the edge of the booth. Haru and Ann, whom he had elbowed out of the way, glared at the back of his head. “He’s all big and tough, right? So he should have an equally badass name! Like—”

“Sakamoto.” Akechi gripped his coffee cup just shy of hard enough to warrant an apology and repayment to Sojiro. “You, specifically, should not suggest any dog names to me if you value your life.”

“You know, there’s something I’ve been wondering.” Ryuji tapped his spoon against his plate. “You’re a jackass to everybody now that we all know your deal, but you’re always, like, a jackass and a half just to me. Why?”

“Gee, I wonder,” muttered Ann.

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“You guys are so loud,” complained Morgana from the counter where he lay. “This is why Boss never gets any other customers.”

“More likely it’s because you turn this place into a walking health hazard,” Akechi told him. “If there’s a hairball in my curry I’ll sue.”

Ren coughed on a laugh. Futaba gasped and clapped her hands over Morgana’s ears. “Slander! Don’t listen to him, Mona-Mona.”

“The lack of business is certainly not because of the quality of the food,” said Yusuke, plate already so clear it shone. “Indeed, I have never discovered so much as a single hair inside.”

“Kind of a low bar, man,” muttered Ryuji.

“On the floor,” agreed Futaba, still covering Morgana’s ears while he tried to bat her off.

Yusuke either didn’t hear or ignored them—with him, it was hard to tell. “Why, enough of Boss’s curry and I could ascend to a state of pure nirvana.”

“Nirvana is about shedding your earthly desires and attachments,” Makoto said before Akechi could. “Curry is very much an earthly desire.”

“Also, that’s my curry,” said Ren. “You want another helping, Yusuke?”

“Boss’s curry recipe,” Yusuke corrected himself. “And yes, please.” He offered no rebuttal to Makoto’s point; she sighed and resumed eating.

“Senpai, is this the first time you’ve eaten today…?” wondered Sumire.

“He did look pretty pale when we met up,” said Haru.

“He always is, though,” said Ann. “The only people who look more ghostly are Futaba and maybe Akechi.”

“Don’t lump me in with that!” cried Futaba. Akechi’s lip curled into the rim of his cup.

“Ren, I want seconds too!” called Ryuji, hoisting up his own now empty plate.

“And anyway, I think we’ve gotten off-topic,” said Futaba, ignoring him and the thumbs-up Ren gave him. The gratitude Akechi had started feeling for the group’s combined idiocy melted away. “There’s an actual issue here to resolve. Ren, call for a vote.”

“You are not naming my dog,” said Akechi through gritted teeth. “You are especially not naming my dog through a stupid fucking Phantom Thieves poll.”

“Hey, the Phantom Thieves polls are Mishima’s,” said Ren. “The meeting votes are different.”

Futaba, meanwhile, slapped the edge of the counter. “Hey!” she said, leaning over the chair that still separated her and Akechi. “You called him your dog!”

“Oh, you did,” said Ren.

Akechi, braced to argue more, blinked a few times. “What?”

“You’ve been saying the or a dog,” said Ren. Akechi wasn’t sure which troubled him more: That he hadn’t noticed the shift or that multiple other people had. “But you just used a possessive.”

“And it only took how many months?” said Makoto.

“Maybe the next step will be giving him a name,” said Haru.

“Everyone moves at their own pace,” said Sumire. “I’m sure if Akechi-san is taking his time, it’s because he needs to.”

“Precisely.” Yusuke nodded. “We must not judge the speed of the snail by the pace the hummingbird sets. Each has its own grace.”

“Right!” Sumire bobbed her head while Akechi was still trying to figure out which of those Yusuke was calling him (or if he wanted to thank Sumire or tell her to shut up). She blinked. “Um… I think.”

“But when you do name him,” said Ryuji, waving his hands now that they were no longer occupied with utensils, “it’s gotta be something badass, I’m telling you. Like—”

“Ow, fuck!” Predictably, one of Ryuji’s arms had jabbed Ann’s shoulder. His only saving grace was that his elbow hadn’t been a little lower; as it was, she shoved him in return. “Watch it, Ryuji!”

Akechi rubbed at his forehead, behind which a migraine was forming. “I’ll take that curry to go, if you don’t mind,” he said, already rising from his chair.

“Nah,” Ren said without turning.

“What the fuck do you mean, nah?”

“Sojiro’s out of takeout boxes,” said Futaba. “And if we can put up with you, you can put up with us.”

Akechi glanced back at the booth. Ryuji and Ann’s voices overlapped so heavily it was impossible to make out what either was saying. Haru pressed herself against the wall to avoid their jabbing at each other; from her expression, she was any second from shoving herself between them. Opposite them, Makoto offered weak interruptions that were also building to a clear point, Sumire stammered, and Yusuke framed the image between his hands. Morgana leaped down from the counter and scurried over to help “defend you, Lady Ann!” (unnecessarily, since everyone could see she had it handled). Futaba and Ren maintained their wide berth, but cheered on, respectively, Ann and Ryuji.

Nothing about the scene compelled Akechi to stay. But he was sitting back down before he could stop himself.

“You’re still not naming my dog,” he said.

Ren and Futaba, the only ones close enough to hear, exchanged grins.

*

Before long, Akechi gave up completely on keeping the dog out of his bed.

Having lost another game rigged from the start, he had to admit it was probably a losing battle all along. Moving the dog bed into the bedroom had expedited rather than staved off his defeat, since it gave the dog even easier access. Akechi kept chiding him without nudging him away for a few days before also phoning that in.

The mattress was a little too small even for Akechi; when joined by a specimen of the top thirty largest dog breeds in the world, it became even more cramped. Akechi had slept in a coiled-up fetal position by default for years anyway, though, and his dog also had the tendency to compress himself into smaller and smaller shapes.

It was strange, sharing the space. Akechi couldn’t remember sleeping in the same bed as someone else since he was young enough that he couldn’t tell if his vague recollections of curling against his mother were memories at all or just dreams. The extra warmth, the grounding physical contact, the general idea of another living being (and one that cared about him, at that) within arm’s reach at all times—it all put Akechi off more than it soothed him, at first.

He still wasn’t quite used to falling asleep in a truly content state without having to worry about where his gun was or how close the window was. Without wondering in detail whether he would wake up in the morning at all.

He thought his dog had probably lived a similarly vigilant life. First as a puppy born and raised to do only one thing, monitored as to whether he had what it took. Then on the streets, surrounded by fellow strays and never knowing who to trust.

Why he had singled Akechi out as worthy of that attention would forever be a mystery. But every evening he lay against Akechi’s side, snoring creating living white noise, made it impossible to feel bitter about that pointless trust.

Maybe Akechi would buy a bedframe after all.

*

Winter came on in the usual stages: At first slowly, and then all at once. Unlike most previous years, the change in weather was not matched by one in Akechi’s mood, although he wasn’t thrilled about keeping up his dog’s walking schedule even as Tokyo got colder and colder.

Still, it was a routine, and Akechi had again been without those for so long that he clung to the semblance of structure. He lingered a little longer than usual in the park they had taken to frequenting, even, both holding his scarf against himself to ward off the crisp breezes and squinting against the harsh sunlight gleaming through the trees. The leash stretched out between him and his dog, wandering off to investigate an interesting scent, and Akechi let it without worrying. The coat the dog wore meant that Akechi could see him from about anywhere, anyway.

“Hey,” came a voice just beside him. He turned to find Ren smiling at him. “What a coincidence. Did you know Akechi was going to be here, Morgana?”

Morgana emerged from Ren’s bag and shook himself out, whiskers still half-smushed against his rumpled cheeks. “Actually, I did know. And so did you, because you had Futaba track his phone.”

The air wasn’t cold enough for ice to have formed on the streets, but it did freeze Ren’s smile in place. “I did not have Futaba do anything,” he told Akechi. His glasses were half-fogged, but clear enough that Akechi could see he was looking slightly to the right of his face. “She always tracks your phone. She told me where you were completely unprompted.”

“But you still decided to show up here, also unprompted.” Akechi watched his dog instead of Ren’s expression. “I see.”

“I told you you should have texted,” muttered Morgana.

“Well, you’re here now.” Akechi turned back in time to see Morgana hop down to the grass. “Is it safe, letting him run loose like that?” he asked, knowing it wasn’t a subtle segue but not caring. “After all…” He tapped the prominent All dogs must be leashed sign they happened to be gathered nearby.

The fur on Morgana’s back spiked up. “I’m not a dog!”

“They should add and cats to it, then,” said Akechi, over Ren’s half-relieved snort.

“I’m not that, either!”

Akechi ignored him and whistled for his dog to return. Morgana, seeing him galloping over, tucked himself halfway behind Ren’s legs. The attempt at stealth brought a spotlight onto him: Akechi’s dog bounded right toward him. He sniffed this weird animal, bumped their noses together hard enough Morgana recoiled—

And lay down on his stomach in front of him, bringing them about eye-level. His tail wagged so slowly it was as if he’d never done it before and was only now figuring out how.

“Uh.” Morgana’s ears flattened. “Huh.”

“You made a new friend,” said Ren, deadpan despite his smirk. “Good for you.”

“Yeah, great. Now get him to stop staring at me already, it’s creeping me out.”

Akechi rolled his eyes and fished a tennis ball out of his coat, attracting his dog’s excitement at once. He feigned throwing it, failed to trick the keen eyes fixed on his hand, and, with a huff he refused to call a laugh, tossed it for real.

The dog bolted after it. He couldn’t leap up the walls of Akechi’s apartment, but here, unimpeded, he jumped and caught the ball straight from the air. The leash jerked in Akechi’s hand as it reached its full several-meter length.

Ren whistled. “You think he could learn how to play darts too?”

“If Morgana managed it, anything is possible.”

They both glanced down. Morgana was edging farther away from them by the instant. “Just so you know,” he said, eyes jumping between them and the dog, “I’m not a cat. And I’m not going over there because I want to play. It’s… um…” He trailed off only to straighten after several seconds of visible hard thought. Akechi really still couldn’t believe this moron was half of what had damned him. “It’s so you guys can talk! In private! About, you know, whatever gross stuff you usually do.”

“Okay, Mona.” Ren didn’t even bother hiding his eyeroll. “Have fun.”

Morgana’s tail twitched, but he ran off without another word.

“‘Gross stuff’?” Akechi repeated dryly, more to himself than Ren.

Ren shrugged, still not quite looking at him. “Who knows. Want to sit?” He gestured to a nearby bench from which they still had a clear view of the dog and Morgana.

“What is this, some shitty playdate we’re supervising?”

“Maybe. Aren’t doggy playdates a thing?”

“I don’t think this qualifies as one for multiple reasons.” Akechi sat, though, and Ren joined him. A careful, conscious space remained between them.

Perhaps tugged by the shifted leash, Akechi’s dog raced over. Akechi wrestled the tennis ball from his mouth, shook the drool off with less disgust than he would have felt a few months ago, and threw it again, even farther. The dog almost knocked Morgana over in the process of chasing it.

“Did you pick out a name for him yet?” asked Ren.

For the past several days, in fact, Akechi had been working on getting him used to the sound of it. He nodded, hesitated, and finally said, “Jackdaw.”

“Jackdaw,” echoed Ren.

The smaller, more social, and milder-mannered—but just as intelligent—cousin of the crow. And, according to folklore, a habitual thief. In one story, it draped itself in peacock feathers only to be swiftly exposed as a fake and rejected even by its own kind, forever shunned for having the gall to pretend to be something it wasn’t; in another, it was sainted after swiping a cardinal’s shiny ring.

From Ren’s expression, he understood at least part of the symbolism—as expected. “Futaba will be mad you didn’t go with one of her suggestions,” he said instead of acknowledging it. “Especially since you did pick another animal name. A bird, even.”

“Perhaps I did it just to spite her,” said Akechi, not even entirely as a joke.

Ren laughed. “She’s for sure going to leak your search history now.”

It was mostly dog-related now, so Akechi wasn’t too worried. “At his age, giving him a new name might have been pointless,” he added; when he’d told Sumire the same, it hadn’t just been an excuse.

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think any dog really gets too old for new tricks. Or a change of heart.” Ren was ostensibly gazing forward, but the hook at the edge of his grin made clear the unspoken meaning. “Jackdaw!” he called.

Off in the distance, Jackdaw’s ears pricked up. When he lifted his head, he looked at Akechi instead of Ren as if seeking confirmation. Akechi scoffed and beckoned.

Jackdaw dropped his tennis ball and speedwalked to them. Expectantly, he set his head on Ren’s knee.

“I think you forgot something,” Ren told him through laughter, squishing his cheeks. Akechi glanced at where the tennis ball lay—Morgana was swatting at it.

A sudden gust of wind struck them head-on. Akechi sputtered as his hair and scarf fluttered out of place—and, in the former case, into his mouth and eyes. When the gale passed, he reknotted his scarf and wrangled his bangs back as best he could. Vision freed, he glanced at Ren only to find him already staring.

At being caught, a faint flush appeared, and Ren’s hands slowed on Jackdaw’s face. Instead of looking away again, though, he smiled slightly.

“You,” Akechi started to say, and stopped.

“What?” Ren prompted.

The odds were simultaneously zero and higher than ever that this really was some self-made purgatory. Even if it was reality, there was every chance that everything here would shatter sooner or later.

Abruptly, though, Akechi didn’t care. So what if you were always at risk of losing things? Wasn’t that what life was about? Playing the odds and hoping to come out richer, but adapting if you didn’t?

He was here. Jackdaw was here. Ren was here. Somewhere out there, among the millions of people in Tokyo, so were the rest of the Phantom Thieves, going about life not unburdened or unchanged by all they’d been through but coping with it, taking everything a day at a time. What else mattered?

He laughed aloud, probably the most genuinely he had in years. “It’s nothing.” He grabbed another tennis ball out of his pocket. “Throw this for Jackdaw before he decides Morgana is a chew toy and starts shaking him by the back of the neck.”

“Somehow I don’t think you’d be too upset if he did,” Ren said, but he took the tennis ball. Their hands—Akechi’s still gloved, Ren’s still bare—grazed, and this time Akechi really didn’t jump.

Ren threw the ball. Its arc through the air was short and lopsided. Jackdaw watched it with impressively obvious disappointment, ears twitching. When it landed a couple of meters away, he shot a skeptical look at Akechi but trotted off to collect it.

“That was such a shit throw even my fucking dog could tell,” said Akechi.

“Sorry we can’t all be ambidextrous dart masters.” Ren slung a too-casual arm around the back of the bench. “Maybe I just need training, like Jackdaw.”

“You are beyond help.”

“Don’t say that,” said Ren, faux-offended. “Anyone’s heart can change, any time.”

Throughout most of Akechi’s life, other people had wanted him to be different: Smarter, less smart, kinder, crueler, more present, farther away. He knew, though, that Ren didn’t mean it the same way they had. That idiotic, incomprehensible wish that had almost threatened the future of this whole world was, after all, the first time anyone had just wanted Akechi for himself, without any conditions or masks.

He, too, had often wished for something about his life to be different. That he’d met certain people earlier, later, or not at all. That he’d spoken up or stayed silent. That he’d done what he was too timid to or hadn’t done what he became bold enough for. That half of his genetic material had another source. That it was the same, but the circumstances under which it was bestowed unto him were better. That he had or hadn’t pulled a trigger. That he or someone else was a fundamentally different person locked into a different fate. That he had never even existed at all.

But sitting here, right now, he couldn’t think of one thing he wanted to change.

He smiled, pulled his scarf up a little higher to combat another breeze, and whistled for Jackdaw to return.