Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

...from Dr. Watanabe’s Guide to Finding a New You, Chapter 3: “ The Transformation Continues!"

Unhappy with your relationships? Feel like you aren’t being heard? There’s a surprising possible cause for this problem: You just might talk too much!

Pay attention to the way you speak to the important people in your life. Do you ever find yourself talking on and on… but not saying what really matters? Sometimes, sharing too much can be a way to avoid sharing what needs to be shared.  

What’s the solution? Try listening first!

I like to call it the Rule of Silence: Once you’ve mastered listening to yourself and paying close attention to your own feelings, you’ll be better able to appreciate the valuable input the people in your life have to give. When you become a supportive listener, other people will appreciate your consideration and be there for you, too. Seek a harmonious balance of external and internal, and positive feelings and experiences will follow!

Shortly after Goro’s deliverance he made a truly commendable effort to throw it all recklessly away by nearly getting into a straight-up physical altercation with a drunk outside a convenience store at four in the goddamn afternoon.

The man said something appropriately cliché, Goro remembers, like “watch where you’re going”. Or perhaps he swore at him– some little slight like that. Goro can’t really remember– but the fact remained that they brushed shoulders, bumped shoulders, even, and something in Goro that was coiled and waiting to strike unwound and he bit out something like “Do you have a problem with me?” and in the next moment he had a grip around the man’s hand and in the moment after that he’d pinned him to the side wall of the store.

Combat reflexes, perhaps.

When it came to anger, Goro was sure he had it all down to a science, a miracle of compartmentalization. His rage was mechanical, a process that worked continuously under the surface, a force that gave direction. It was nothing that overwhelmed him– and that was something to be proud of, really. After all, he was going to fulfill his life’s purpose. And he was always, always in control.

By the time he realized he didn’t have a handle on that fury anymore, it was too late. Well, almost too late. He survived, after all.

He survived just to accost random strangers in public, apparently.

It wasn’t as if Goro wanted to hurt that man. Approaching the store, all he’d wanted was a cool drink from the store’s fridge. A soda, maybe. And one more thing: a fight. Someone who would lash out and resist. Just something to feel. But there was nothing in the drunk’s eyes but a bleary apathy. No fear, no anger. After that shove, he’d barely reacted to Goro’s manhandling at all.

It was a situation full of more awkwardness than pathos. Goro doesn’t know what he would’ve done if he didn’t hear someone’s voice call– first with recognition– “Akechi?”, and then, aghast incredulity– “Akechi!”

That day, he turned around to see Sae Niijima, wearing a heavy overcoat to guard against the January cold, looking professional and elegant and for all the world as if she wanted to kick his ass.

It wasn’t that big of a coincidence; they were supposed to meet for lunch nearby. Sae dragged him to a deserted deli. It was deserted, Goro soon realized, because the sandwiches were stale and the service subpar, but there was nobody else there and so it was the perfect place for a dressing-down.

Sae waited until they’d gotten their food set out in front of them, before saying, “Akechi– Goro, you have to find a way to manage your anger.”

Goro was glowering, he remembers, in one of the ways he cultivated especially to make himself seem bigger. “And how do you suggest I do that?” he asked curtly. Like a child, with the whine in his voice and the pout on his lips, despite the haughty way he crossed his arms and the straightness of his posture. Always like a child (and remembering it now his face burns– maybe that’s a good sign, evidence of character growth... no, it’s just his long-buried conscience inconveniently making its hellish resurgence again. Whatever.)

He could see it in Sae’s gaze– her wariness, her discomfort. Even now he takes pleasure, sometimes, in the way she looks at him like she can’t place him– a villain with a hero’s face, a liar somewhere between man and boy. That's a way he's still powerful: he can still leave dichotomies in the dust.

“I want to be there for you– I am there for you, but you need…” She sighed.

“Ms. Niijima, please.” Goro took a different tack and smiled, making himself look more reassuring. “If you’re afraid I’ll hurt someone–”

“That isn't it–”

“–then I’ll have to ask you not to worry. I’ve simply been a little stressed lately, and I expressed it improperly.”

“As I was trying to say–” She frowned at him; Sae detests being interrupted–  “I'm not worried about anything of the sort. You're no longer... being compelled.”

A deft use of the passive voice, Goro remembers thinking.

And she gave him the benefit of the doubt so easily. How fascinating.

“So I have no reason to believe you would cause harm to anybody,” Sae continued. “I’m concerned because this kind of behavior will hurt you, more than anyone else. Your refusal to go forward with the counseling that associate of Tae’s recommended–”  

Not this again. “Didn’t you say it yourself– that it would be easier if I took things at my own pace? I really am adjusting to it all. But sometimes I just–” He clicked his tongue. “There are occasionally lapses.”

Sae sat back. “Goro, it’s only been a month since…”

Failing to find a way to verbalize since you helped to fell a false god after the Phantom Thieves defeated a cognitive version of your father, Sae gave up and switched to her usual practical approach. “I’m taking the case against Shido extremely seriously.”

“And I’ve told you that I can–”

She cut him off this time. “I wasn’t opposed to having you give testimony, but…” She sighed. “Proving the existence of a now-extinct hidden cognitive world in court has proved to be somewhat difficult.”

“There’s more that I can–”

“Goro.” Sae’s voice carried an authoritative weight. “Leave this part of the decision-making to me. You’ve already shouldered far too much.”

“I’ve shouldered too much?” Goro couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m the reason that too much exists.”

“That isn’t true,” said Sae, with a courtroom-style bluntness rather than any pity or consolation.

“I admit that it surprises me,” Goro said lightly, “that you seem to be content with my situation at the moment. After all, I am a criminal. Justice requires that I receive my due punishment. And yet here I am– a free man. Doesn't it bother you?”

Sae regarded him silently for a moment before replying in her crisp, businesslike voice. “Recent events have caused me to reconsider my notion of how justice should be applied.”

“Are you even reconsidering the principal maxim that offenders should be dealt with? Is that not the crux of our system, the reason for the 99.9% conviction rate? I'm aware you're considering a career change, but honestly–”

“That's enough,” Sae said sharply.

Goro fell silent.

“This isn’t what I wished to discuss.”

Of course he didn’t get an answer.

“You need to keep yourself safe. You can’t allow your emotions to impede your life in this way. If you’re asking me for suggestions, I’d say… either channel your feelings into something else, something productive–”

Productive? Goro remembers thinking with incredulity.

“–or just avoid things that make your anger worse for you.”

That was barely two months after it all happened. After it all stopped happening. After it started. After he was assigned to a hospital room, before the fight where he saw Robin Hood and Loki for the very last time.

And now… well, he’s alive. Somehow, he’s still alive.

There were lots of simple processes with which to busy himself in the aftermath. First he cut his hair. Then he changed his contacts to a deep brown color. He bought a whole box of disposable masks.

And soon it became unnecessary. Soon people stopped looking in his direction. It was uncanny, the speed at which everyone forgot his name.

So he put the brown contacts away and began to show his face. He kept his hair short; it’s easier to manage that way, and Goro likes being free of the weight on the back of his neck.

In the mirror, Goro examines his face. The dark circles under his eyes are still there; he’s given up covering them with concealer, though he still fastidiously applies under-eye creams nightly. He looks– he hates that he can’t ever seem to escape Ren’s voice, but Ren says now that he looks intense, and Goro supposes that’s right. Without a facade of innocence to maintain, his sins are beginning to show on his face.

Before everything, people used to tell him he looked creepy, with his observant, focused gaze, so he had forced it away– but sometimes, now, if he’s not careful, it reappears and kills his default, vapid smile.

Goro tries a grin and forces himself to keep it. He scrutinizes his face and decides he can still pass for charming– the power of conventional handsomeness. Already it’s like he can feel that persona returning. It’s still easy. But it makes him a little sick.

The older Goro gets, the more he feels like a child. He used to be powerful– despite everything, he was strong. And now he’s such a shell that he can’t even stand the sight of his own smile.

But there’s no use moping in front of the mirror. He has someone to meet for lunch.

As usual, he is alternately pleased and bitter that no one recognizes him on the train. There’s a high-school girl who looks his way and lets her eyes stall on him, like she sees something she likes. He feels a petulant urge to give her that dead-eyed stare and lets the muscles in his face go slack. He can’t scare her, though, she just wrinkles her nose and looks away.

He gets off at the right station and almost immediately sees Ren waiting in the corner when he goes up the escalator. Ren catches sight of him at the same time, and they hold each other's gazes as Goro approaches.

There’s a sharp, tense feeling in Goro’s stomach that rises when he sees Ren. Here comes the careful conversation, the saying of too much and the revealing of too little. Here comes the unavoidable truth, the reality that renders all of Goro's pretensions ineffective.

Finally Goro comes to a stop in front of him, and Ren straightens.

Goro speaks first. “Welcome back to Tokyo.”

Ren’s holding a can of coffee from the vending machine. He’s without his glasses, and he has his backpack slung over one shoulder. He scrutinizes Goro for a second, just a quick glance up-and-down, and smiles like he's thinking of a private joke. “It's like I never left.”

“You must be enjoying yourself,” Goro says, keeping his voice pleasantly neutral.

“Yeah. Nice to come visit before all the drama with entrance exams starts. Parents weren't too hard to convince.”

“I’m sure,” Goro says.

“So,” Ren says conversationally as they begin the walk towards the exit, “I tell you I’ll treat you to anything and you pick a food cart in the park.”

“I like it,” Goro says. That, and to think of it– himself and Ren at some ostentatious dinner joint, sitting in a booth with the lights dimmed– no. God, no. "It's nice,” he adds. “And it reminds me of when I was younger."

He’s almost certain that’s going to rankle Ren, so he takes some pleasure in saying it. He's not just being vindictive, though. Every other month or so when she could muster up the will, he and his mother would go for a walk in the park. Sometimes when there was enough money she’d buy him something from a food stand, a rare treat he’d always beg for. Those were her good days, the only ones where she would even laugh openly, or smile at strangers.

Sure enough, Ren doesn’t quite frown, but his eyebrows furrow together, and he says, “Choosing the past, again?”

Goro almost retorts– but he remembers the Rule of Silence.

All right, time to go through the steps. Why is Ren saying what he’s saying? Because as Goro well knows, Ren doesn’t like it when Goro fixates on things he can’t change. Why does he feel that way? Because he is of the opinion that Goro’s eternal mental re-hashing of the past is unhealthy. How does Goro feel about all of that? Well, pissed off, first of all– pissed off that Ren feels entitled to voice his opinion on Goro’s choices, that he tends to act like a stubborn sanctimonious saint. But there’s also a part of him that thinks maybe Ren really does care, and another, deeper part that’s just bitter sorrow, and that all makes him want to…

Fuck. The final question: Has he listened carefully enough to his own batshit, muddled feelings?  

...As is often the case these days, the answer is no. Best not to say anything.

“Sorry, sorry,” Ren says quickly, perhaps sensing he dodged a bullet when Goro didn’t reply. He holds up his hands in surrender. “Just saying, you’re missing the chance to bleed my wallet dry.” And then, after a pause, he adds, “Happy birthday.”

“Thank you,” Goro says, kind of really hating the way the words taste in his mouth.

They get to Inokashira and walk leisurely along the paths until they get to an area with a few stalls. There’s a good amount of people here despite the heat, sitting or walking under the trees.

“The noodles from these stalls are always too…” murmurs Ren, trailing off before his culinary criticism can reach higher levels.

“You don’t come for the noodles, you come for the gyoza.”

“There are much better places to get gyoza, though.”

“You’re too picky with your food.”

“I just have taste buds, unlike some other people,” Ren says, grinning at him, and Goro rolls his eyes and almost smiles.

There’s a short line, and a moment after they join it, Ren suddenly says, “I almost forgot. Your gift.” Goro watches him open his jacket slightly and pull out a cream-colored envelope from the inner pocket. “Not from me,” he adds as he passes it to Goro.

An unnecessary addition, because Ren’s gift is the food, and because the envelope and the handwriting are familiar, and also because only one person writes him letters.

“Why do you have it?” Goro asks as he takes it from him.

“Ran into her a few days ago. She misses you, you know. Wouldn’t hurt to reach out more often.”

“I talk to her. Often enough.”

Ren glances at him out of the corner of his eye for a moment, considering, before he looks away. "You two could just... e-mail. Send a fax, even. We live in the digital age.”

“I don’t like using the Internet,” Goro says, which is a lie, but he only checks news sites and forums now, mostly. Whatever. Ann– yes, Ann, who tentatively suggested using first names in an unprecedented overture of friendship, a request that caught Goro so off-guard that he agreed immediately– understands. It's because he mentioned to her, once, that he likes having things he can hold and keep, he likes the weight of physical objects in his hands– whatever. Not important right now; Ren wouldn't understand, anyway, him and his stubborn minimalism.

“Hang on, hold our place,” Ren says. “I’m going to throw this out.” He crushes the now-empty can of coffee in his hand and steps out of the line.

Goro opens the envelope and pulls out his letter. It isn't very long, taking up around a page-and-a-half of Ann’s cream-colored stationery. It begins with some kind but unfortunately factually incorrect well-wishes about how his friends (ha, okay) are glad he's around and celebrating (more like tolerating) his 20th, and he should make sure to treat himself to something nice (as if he deserves it).

He looks up from the page for a moment to steady himself. He needs to stop sarcastically mentally annotating and show Ann’s sincerity some appreciation.

Goro returns to the letter. The rest gives a brief update regarding what Ann’s been up to; there's a paragraph with an anecdote about a recent shopping trip. And then she asks about him, requesting a reply and reminding him that he knows her new mailing address.

Or just text me whenever, and we can hang out! I'll take any excuse to get away from studying…

Goro feels a stab of sympathy. Like Ren, Ann’s currently cramming for entrance exams, and from what she's told him, Goro knows she's never been good at review. Perhaps he could–

He feels a hand on his shoulder.

Goro turns around sharply, his guard up.

It’s a woman he doesn’t know. She’s speaking sharply, but she’s standing to his left, and the sound of her voice doesn’t carry. Goro feels paralyzed, suddenly, unable to comprehend, his world narrowing completely, reduced to one small breadth of space in a vacuum of sound.

Then, Ren’s voice, right by his right ear. “She’s saying it’s your turn.”

Ren’s words are like a call back to reality. Goro instantly unfreezes and turns to the woman. “Of course,” he says, and bows his head. “I’m sorry,” he adds, and thinks briefly of the mirror that morning, and gestures to the hearing aid in his ear. “I can’t hear very well.”

It’s an almost unnoticeable implant, the color of his skin, fitted perfectly inside his left ear, with an equally-innocuous receiver on the other side.

He’s always been very patient; able to adjust to anything. He heard ringing for hours and hours after the gunshot before there was nothing. Single-sided sensorineural deafness, caused by traumatic injury to the left ear, Takemi said. His right ear still works. But his cognitive self aimed square at his forehead, and he barely managed to jerk right, out of the way.

The woman’s expression changes slightly. Ren squeezes his shoulder, lightly and only for a moment, before he drops his hand, and then the two of them turn towards the seller.

Ren buys two greasy cardboard trays of gyoza, four pieces in each.

It’s less muggy than usual for a June day, so they find an empty bench along the path, finding themselves leaning forward slightly, unconsciously, whenever a breeze blows past, as if to capture and keep the relief the cool wind brings. Goro quickly and mechanically finishes all the food on his tray. Slowly and halfheartedly, Ren eats two pieces of his own food before wordlessly passing Goro the rest.

Then Ren, watching people pass by ahead with lazy eyes, slowly begins to speak. Goro hasn't been in the presence of all Ren’s friends at once since the Yaldabaoth incident, has explicitly avoided it, in fact, and he has no desire to be fed the Former Phantom Thief Daily-Life Digest, but Ren is good at knowing how much to say. He talks about Morgana’s eating habits, he talks about Futaba’s classes at Kosei, he gives information simply and casually, without flair or much pathos. He mentions, not for the first time, his intention to study in Tokyo, and lapses back into silence without saying much more about himself.

“Won’t you miss home?” Goro asks.

“Not a big deal. Nothing much there, anyway.”

“I would’ve thought you’d be ready for an early retirement and an idyllic country life.” It’s a joke, obviously.

Ren chuckles lightly. “Yeah, no way.”

Of course. Ren is almost always bored. Something about his restlessness makes Goro ache.

“Hey,” Ren says, interrupting Goro’s thoughts.

“What?”

“Tell me about what you’ve been doing.”

Goro shifts and sits straighter and turns it on. “It’s kind of you to ask. I’ve been as well as can be expect–”

Ren doesn't even let him launch into his Spiel of Well-Adjustedness, choosing to interrupt instead. “Who do you talk to?”

“Ah–”

“Do you have friends? Confidants?” Ren asks, and then smiles to himself for some reason.

“...Sure.”

“Name one,” Ren says.

Goro says the first name he can think of. “Watanabe.” And then, feeling quite horrified by the self-parodying depths of being pathetic to which he's sunk, he falls silent.

Waiting for more and receiving nothing, Ren opts to raise his eyebrows and say “Okay.”

Goro swings one leg over the other and opens his mouth to say something sufficiently cheerful and accommodating, but before he can get a word out, Ren suddenly speaks up again.

“You know,” he says, “this whole time you’ve had that look on your face. Like you’re expecting something bad to happen.”  

Goro closes his mouth and opens it again. “I’m not sure what you mean. Perhaps you’re projecting.”

Ren smiles his I-Am-Trying-To-Be-Your-Friend smile, which is close-lipped and ironic and has the effect of chastising Goro into something close to friendliness. “Nice try.”

“Since when do you know what... looks I have, anyway?” Goro turns his face away.

“What, don’t you know me just as well by now?”

Goro turns back to him before he realizes he’s done it.

Ren smiles, something quick and barely-there before it disappears again, like a match failing to spark a lasting flame. “But don’t deflect. I’m serious. You know… you do know that I’m not here with you because I feel like I have to be.”

After Ren’s spoken, in the silence that follows, Goro can still feel the wake left by the words. Slowly, so as to not be noticeable, he clenches his hand into a fist and digs his nails into his palm.

Why? Why did you have to say anything? Where do you get off with this? Why are you torturing me?

This past year of knowing Ren– distantly through the occasional long-distance missive, and halfheartedly through brief encounters with the friends he’s left behind, with the city he’s changed... really trying to know him, really trying not to loathe him… what has it amounted to?

No matter what he does, how differently he tries to think, it feels like everything that happens is being carefully measured and weighed. It feels like this new life, just as his old one was, is a scoreboard, and the points that he earns and Ren earns against him are being tallied up and compared. The game is over; it ended a long time ago, and Goro knows he wasn't the winner. But it’s as if he’s still losing, over and over again, every day. And there’s no room for goodwill in a competition.

...But there’s one thing, the most important thing. There’s one thing that’s enough, that manages to quell the despair, the anger he feels at himself and the anger at Ren he can’t manage to shake.

It’s to see that Ren is alive, that he has plans for the future, that he has hope. Despite Goro’s mistakes, Ren has overcome, he remains uncorrupted. He seems so much older, now, almost nothing like the scrawny boy in that cold room with the bruises on his face.

Bizarrely, Goro wants to tell Ren that, suddenly, wants him to know– that Goro is thankful most of all that Goro failed when it mattered most, when he most needed to. No matter how much Ren infuriates him, that’s something that never changes. But it’s the kind of nonsensical impulse he’s learned to quell. So he just exhales through his nose, and says, “Of course,” trying for amiable– though it just comes out sounding sarcastic.

“C’mon, don’t be like that.” Ren elbows him gently.

Goro takes a breath, musters up all the sincerity he can manage, and says, “I do know. Thank you.”

Ren seems satisfied. It doesn't mean much, though. Really none of it means very much, Goro thinks. He feels like a vice is gripping his heart. He remembers: Ren is almost always bored.

Another short while of painful small talk, and then the heat becomes unbearable for both of them, makes them rise from where they sit as if compelled.  

“I think I’ll go home,” says Goro.

“I’m in town for another week,” Ren says. “I’ll see you again?”

Goro smiles politely. “Sure,” he says.

After he leaves by himself he ducks into a coffee shop a few minutes away from the station. There’s a line in front of the register. There are colorful signs advertising seasonal drinks, nothing at all like Leblanc.

He finds an empty table in the corner with one chair and pulls two books out of his messenger bag: one English novel he’s making his way through, and another, smaller one. It’s thick, but tiny enough to fit in his pocket, a mass-market paperback with a shoddy binding.

He runs his finger along the spine of that one and sighs.

It was in a box of old books Hirakawa’s cousin had given her. They couldn’t sell any, of course, so she was planning on donating them to the library, but she wanted to see if Goro wanted any first.

Back then Goro scanned the box for any that caught his interest, moving books out of the way to dig for more. One he pushed aside was an innocuous paperback.

“Oh, she’s had that for a while.” Hirakawa spoke up when she saw it in his hands. “My cousin, I mean. I wonder why it’s here.”

“This one?” Goro regarded it dubiously.

“Yeah. She had some problems with anger. One time at a family dinner there was an incident, and that’s what made her start getting help. There was an espresso machine involved. Among other things.” Hirakawa sounded a little plaintive. “I’ve never looked at a whisk the same way again.”

A New You! proclaimed the cover in cheery letters. Goro scoffed. Then, when Hirakawa was attending to something else, he put it in his pile.

He needed all the help he could get, Goro reasoned that night when he opened it. Even if what he needed was probably well beyond the reach of a pathetic little self-help manual, Goro had always felt a kind of devotion to words in books.

His foremost reason for taking it, though, was that there was something tempting about the idea of a new him. The thought of killing the old self and birthing another– he wondered if it could be done. He couldn’t help but find it appealing. So by the light of his bedside desk lamp, sitting still amidst the dust particles in his room whirling in the air, he opened the book and read the same words he’s re-reading now. 

Old grudges, everyday irritations, and more– things that make us angry are everywhere. But did you know you hurt yourself the most by holding on to negative feelings?

It’s normal and even healthy to feel angry sometimes. But even if you’ve been deeply hurt or you’re having trouble letting go of a long-held resentment, staying angry can begin to affect your mental and physical health.

If you’re beginning to think your feelings of anger are impeding your ability to enjoy life, it’s time to take charge! Start by practicing relaxation techniques. Visualize something that makes you feel at peace, or take some deep breaths.

Keep practicing and relaxing, and soon the way you think will change. You’ll be thankful your emotions don’t control you, and the new you will be much happier!

Goro knows angry men quite well. He’s met angry men and lived under their roofs and flinched at their abuses and even killed for one. Angry men are only alive because they’re angry, but they don’t deserve to live on.

Shido’s rage was legendary. Even Goro, officially a ghost when he was in that office, heard the whispers from the staff about the alcohol habit or the latest burst of temper. He had seen his father angry, frequently, but it was worse when Goro only heard him over the phone, with Goro left with nothing but the icy fury in Shido’s tone to indicate how he was feeling, a voice he can barely remember hearing, now, without wanting to vomit.

And Goro failed because he thought he could bury his feelings, when he was always feeling too much. Too much hate, too much pain, too much fury. He unmasked himself in front of the Thieves, and when he vowed to take their heads… well, that was his self-control gone.

Berserk. He turned his power upon himself. Killing had only been a means, a regrettable necessity, but then– when he saw Ren back from the dead, infallible, him and his self-righteous fucking comic-book cohort, he really wanted to hurt.

The problem was that he was so afraid of becoming his mother, meek and passive and dependent, that he may have begun to–

–he didn’t want to think it, but of course he thought it anyway, of course he couldn’t stop thinking it–

–become his father.  

He thought that it must be all Ren’s fault. Even when he rejoined the Thieves right before they took down Yaldabaoth, even after he pulled his own resurrection stunt and reappeared, half-hearing and half-dead.  Even as they watched Ren, each of them awestruck, call Satanael, with righteous fire burning in his gray eyes, and shoot a god in the head.

Even– or maybe especially– when Ren showed up at his door that Christmas.

After that fight, after rejecting the uncomfortable, half-genuine offers of companionship from a Thief here or a Thief there, in his small, dark, apartment, Goro was thinking about the gods. He was thinking about hurting himself. He was thinking about his rotten lineage, his cursed birth. And he was hearing a knock at the door and then he was letting Ren in and watching him nonchalantly unzip his jacket, looking completely fucking… average, like he hadn’t just saved the world. And after a minute or so of awkward greetings he remembers Ren said–

"Are you allergic to saying my name or something? You use my first name, but I think I've only heard it from you twice before."

A familiar, playful edge to his words, but his voice sounded strangely flat. And he was catless. Goro remembered, then, how strange it had felt when Morgana left them, like even the meager bits of hope Goro had managed to gather up were fading away. If even Goro felt that much, how hard was it on Ren?

"Ren," Goro snapped, then, just to prove he could do it. "Ren, Ren, Ren."

"Thanks, Goro," Ren said immediately.

Somehow it felt like there was no taking that back; Goro recalls his mouth falling open in a perfect O of outrage. "You tricked me!”

"Yes, I deceived you into familiarity.” Ren was picking up speed in a Joker-esque way. “Look. Here's the thing. I won't be around for a while."

It was a bizarre thing to hear. "Why?"

"Aw,” Ren said, looking away, “you care enough to ask questions?”

He was being evasive. Goro snapped, “Why are you here?”

“Because I wanted you to know,” Ren said calmly. “That I’m going. You and I still have things we need to work out.”

“Really? I can’t think of anything. Could you remind me of any unresolved issues that may exist between us?” Goro said through clenched teeth.

Ren actually laughed. “I knew you’d take that well.”

“And now you’re leaving.” Goro could feel himself losing control, but he couldn’t stop his mouth from moving. He was feeling too much again; he was full to the brim and spilling over. “Even though there’s nothing back in your hick town, is there? But it doesn’t matter. You’ve gotten your victory and now you’re leaving.”

The anger felt so good! Like an old friend. Something not at all like the empty numbness, that hollow acceptance that said I should die.

"I’m not leaving because I want to. And I’m not going home.” The more Goro flared up, the calmer Ren got– it was infuriating. “Believe it or not, I’m not feeling very victorious right now.”

“What do you–”

“Listen,” Ren said. “Just rest up and take it easy and try not to do any more self-destructive things.” He cocked his head. “Well, I mean, that’s a little difficult for you, I guess.”

Goro should have been able to put it together immediately– what Ren planned to do. But he was so exhausted, so angry, so absorbed in his own misfortunes. And there was something he needed to hear from Ren, a question he wanted to ask.

So Goro asked it. "Do you think I should turn myself in?"

For just a moment, Ren looked surprised. And then his expression evened. "What,” he said, in his soft voice, “did we just say about self-destructive things?”

"Please,” Goro said. There was no one else he could ask, except maybe Sae. There was nobody else with an opinion that mattered.

In that moment, whatever Ren said, Goro would have done.  

"I don't know. I don't think–” Ren hesitated. “I don't think so."

“Why?”

"It isn't anything,” Ren said, his voice suddenly turning hard and cold. “It’s just– There’s no point for you. You'll just suffer."

Later, Goro would remember the way he said for you, but back then he’d only snapped, "I'm suffering right now. You know me. You know who I am. You don't think I deserve to suffer?"

"That is how everyone seems to think it should work," Ren said. “But I don’t. There’s– there has to be something more.”

“What more?” Goro almost cried out. “What more can there be ?”

"More of the third degree, huh," Ren said, and looked away. "I really have to go.” He paused. “Hey, do me a favor, okay? It’s important. Don't tell anyone about this. About me leaving.”

“...What?” What was the point of this?

“I'm gonna be fine, but no one can know until it's done. So just… keep it to yourself.” Ren half-smiled. “I’m going now. Thanks for having me.”

He walked to Goro’s door, placed a hand on the knob, and paused before looking back over his shoulder.

“Hey, Goro,” he said. “Merry Christmas. And I am coming back.”

It was only December; Goro didn’t have the book yet. For a while he had nothing, and felt it; there was a yawning emptiness inside him that weighed upon him like a curse.

Some of the only times he felt anything were the times when he thought about Ren. He would remember Ren’s words as sanctimonious, his attitude as unbearable, and he would burn with a swell of emotion he could only define as rage. And then for some reason Goro would wish to see him again, and the embers erupted into a trash fire, of envy and confusion and bitterness and loathing, for Ren and towards himself in equal measure.

Then, later, Sae had that talk with him. Avoid things that make your anger worse, she said.  

Goro wanted, passively, to be done with it, to die already– but there was an active instinct for survival in him, something entirely human and far too stubborn, that wouldn't permit him to let go.

He would need a new reason to live, he realized. He would need a fuel that wasn’t fury. And who made him more angry– who made him feel more than Ren?

So after that conversation with Sae, Goro made a vow to himself. And when it was done, he unlocked his phone and opened his contacts app and thumbed over to Ren’s name.

And then he deleted his number.

But that was then. Now, Goro closes the book slowly and puts it down. Next to him, a high-school girl chatters incessantly to her friend, pushing her chair forward so they can better bend their heads over a video playing on her phone. A few tables away, an old woman sips her drink slowly, sweeping her mild gaze over the whole of the coffee shop.

The world is still spinning, and Goro is twenty years old. It’s been a year since he spent his nineteenth birthday facedown on his mattress, threadbare sheets over his head, running through scenarios in his head– how he could die without anybody noticing, how he could make it as painful or as painless as possible.

Maybe he’s made… progress. But does he feel closer to a new him?

He can’t think of the answer.

Goro picks up his novel and takes a sip of his coffee and hunches down in his chair. There’s a vent right behind his table; the rush of cold air makes the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end. He decides that all things considered, it’s the best birthday he’s ever had.

Goro doesn’t see Ren again.

Summer soon turns to fall; the air grows crisper and the days grow shorter. Goro never pays much attention to the changing of the seasons until he’s unable to ignore it any longer; until the smallest things remind him of time’s passage– like a single leaf lying on the sidewalk in front of him or a strong, cold wind making the door to his apartment that much harder to force open. The abrupt realization that more time has gone by, despite the slowness of his life, is always a little eerie, a little lonely.

Ren has long since disappeared, homeward to Kanagawa and an idyllic, thoroughly uneventful family life, Goro understands. He’s taking the Center Test in January, after a few more months of hitting the books.

And then, most likely, he’ll be back in the city.

Goro thinks about it whenever he sees online ads for clothing sales– new selections for spring! He thinks about it whenever Hirakawa mentions anticipated sales for the next quarter. He begins to anticipate Ren’s return in snatches of moments, in recollections and associations that startle him when he realizes he’s dwelling on them. He notices without noticing. He waits hard enough and long enough to nearly forget what he is waiting for.

It’ll be all right. Maybe nothing Ren said that February still applies, and he’ll change his mind. Maybe he’ll never want to see Goro again. The thought makes Goro feel cold inside, but it’ll be all right, as long as Ren is in the city. Tokyo is where Ren belongs– of that Goro is convinced.

He’s had nothing constant in his life besides his books and the strength of his will. Ren, too, will leave eventually, will soon be smart enough to cut off Goro’s dead weight, and when it happens Goro will be prepared. It will be what he deserves.

All mornings are the same in his tiny apartment. It isn’t where he lived before– it’s a step down, really, but it’s all his, and probably no one at the higher levels of the government has his address specifically written down anymore, so that’s nice. Whatever it is, it’s a place to be.

That morning Goro’s phone alarm goes off at a quarter before seven, but he’s already awake, hands behind his head as he looks up at the ceiling.

For Goro, idleness has always been the affliction, work the tonic. So it wasn't difficult– at least, not as difficult as it could have been– to split his life the way he did, between school, his job, his real job. There was something deeply satisfying about working himself so hard that when he fell into bed at night, sleep came at once. As a child he spent far too much time between awake and asleep, staring at the ceiling with a wobbly lip, dreaming pointless dreams and hoping impossibly and childishly for his mother to walk in through the door and hold him again. That never helped anyone. It was better when sheer exhaustion put him right out.

He doesn't sleep well anymore.

There’s been far too much time after the events of two years ago. There was a haze, in which the world seemed to spin in a sphere separate from him, in which nothing that existed outside of his bedroom seemed like it existed at all. Somewhere in the middle of all that he took his high-school graduate certificate exam, passing effortlessly even when there was so much nothing, so much that was hollow inside him that he could barely bring himself to shower, to even be. But that was a chore put aside: high school finished, at least officially. And now…

On one hand, he’s able to indulge himself in inclinations that would have only been distractions not long ago. Sometimes Goro happens upon a name in an old book or an article online that catches his interest, and now he has the time to follow the threads, to lose himself in a pleasantly numbing black hole of research and note-taking. He used to love this, long ago, this greedy pursuit of knowledge, simply for the sake of its acquisition. Maybe he’s learning to love it again. Maybe it’s just something to do.

But on the other, he’s found he needs ways to fill his time, to stay sane, to avoid another bout of catatonic depression. He’s become very good at finding remote work online, actually. And there’s his real-life job, with Hirakawa. Goro likes it, well enough, because he found it on his own, mostly because it fills time.

And the third thing is–

A reminder on his phone jolts him out of his reverie, vibrating against the countertop near where he's been standing and mechanically eating his breakfast.

Goro leans over to look at the words on the lit-up screen. Oh. He almost forgot.

A short while later, after retrieving his jacket and halfheartedly running a comb through his hair, he’s stepped out into the world.

The address he’s written in the notes app on his phone is too close for comfort to the Diet building, but whatever. Once he’s there…

Well, he won’t kid himself; it won’t be in-and-out. He’s dealing with bureaucrats, after all. That’s fine. Goro’s good at waiting. And this is nothing he hasn’t done before. There’s no point in getting emotional.

He endures a stuffy train ride to Chiyoda and consults his phone again when he exits the station to guide his way. It’s only a six-minute walk before he arrives.

The building he sees when he looks up from his phone has a slightly frumpy-looking brick facade that seems a little out-of-place amidst the high-rises that line the street. Goro walks in through the revolving doors and consults the directory posted next to the elevators.

Department of Research and Planning, sixth floor, reads the sign.

Lovely. Goro presses the up button on the elevator, stands with his hands behind his back, and waits.

...And waits.

Goro stifles a yawn and represses the childish urge to kick at the legs of the uncomfortable chair in which the secretary directed him to sit, sneaking another glance at his phone instead. It’s ten minutes after the meeting time he confirmed in advance. Whatever. It’s not as if he really expected efficiency.

A few minutes later, the door in front of him opens, and a nondescript bureaucrat exits and gives Goro a curious glance before passing him by.

Goro stands and walks over to the door. It’s been left a little ajar, and the person seated at the desk inside looks up at him.

“Hello,” Goro says, smiling. “I’m Akechi. We spoke earlier on the phone– I have an appointment for noon?”

“Yes, of course,” the man says. “Come in. Sorry about the wait.”

Goro enters. The office is small and cramped, but the light from the window softens the room, and warms it up, too– the man has his sleeves rolled up, and Goro feels inclined to remove his jacket, carefully placing it over one arm of the chair opposite the desk before he gives him a short, cordial bow and sits down.

“You’re…” the man says, looking at him closely. “Have I seen you before?”

Goro opens his mouth, but before he can reply the man suddenly starts. “That’s right! Could you be… are you that boy who used to be on television? The detective?”

Ah.

So here’s one who remembers him.

Goro doesn’t panic. He can bullshit his way out of almost anything. Actually, in this situation, he might even be able to use this as an advantage. He just has to play his cards right.

So Goro smiles widely. “Yes,” he says. “That’s me– Goro Akechi.”

“My daughter used to watch your interviews.” The man looks confused. “But she hasn’t mentioned you in a while…”  

Goro laughs, short and sheepish. “Yes, well… I’m amazed you remember me. To tell the truth…” He sits up a little straighter. “I’ve retired from my career as a junior detective.”

“Is that right? But you’re still so young…”

Goro keeps his voice even. “That’s right. So I’m being careful about choosing my vocation so early.” He smiles. “Call it youthful restlessness, but a few years ago I simply grew frustrated with the process at the police station. Of course, I continue to appreciate the efforts of everybody, but there’s a lot of bureaucratic backlog, you know…” Goro pauses and sighs. “That kind of thing wears on you, after a while.”  

The man nods. “I understand completely.”

“Regardless,” Goro says, “I’m more interested in furthering my studies at the moment. I’m currently researching individuals who’ve contributed towards societal progress.”

“I see, I see… That’s a noble endeavor. Very noble. I’m sure you’ll get some use out of it.”

“Thank you very much.”

“Well, as for the matter at hand… let me just pull up my notes,” the man murmurs, reaching into a drawer.

Goro takes the moment to scrutinize both his manner and the office space. Books on a shelf more-or-less neatly organized, two photo frames on the desk, one of those vague motivational quotes written on an aged poster on the wall. And the man himself is middle-aged, with glasses, looking slightly sweaty and not, altogether, very imposing.

Hopefully this won't be hard.

“Right– here it is,” the man says, pulling a thick notebook out of his desk. He flips to a page somewhere in the middle and squints at it. “So you’re… Ah, a grant an individual applied for 15 years ago. That’s the file you’re requesting, yes?”

“Exactly.” Goro folds his hands in his lap and smiles.

“I must say, this is an uncommon request for such an old document… The public’s entitled to this information, but I’m not sure if I can give you the entire text of the application.” The man ran a hand through his hair. “We don’t keep digital records, either– it’s not a very friendly system we have here for you young people. A little old-fashioned. Can I ask how you even knew this document existed?”

Because of a serial number in the government’s database I’m not meant to have seen. Goro smiled. “I’m familiar with this researcher’s work, so I acted on a hunch and asked some others about it.”   

“Wakaba Isshiki, is it?” The man looks down at his notes again. “I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard of her.”

“Unfortunately, the body of her work isn’t very well-known. I simply have a personal interest.”

“I see…” The man still looks dubious. “I’m really not sure if I can release this document. I may have to contact my superior…”

“Sir,” Goro says.

“Yes?”

“When I stopped my work… honestly, I had lost a lot of faith in our system.” Goro closes his eyes. “It was a very difficult time for me, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

“I… can, but…”

“It’s only recently that I’ve been awakened again, through a new passion.” Goro opens his eyes. “You see, I want to believe in the government’s commitment to the advancement of scientific ideas. I want to have faith again– in the pursuit of knowledge, and in the institutions that make it possible for us to seek that knowledge with confidence. Sir…” Goro leans forward. “Innovation happens every day. But work like yours– people like you– make it possible. Without a solid foundation, it's impossible for advancement to happen. I know this quite well. That's why I’m proud to call myself Japanese. That's why I look to the brilliant minds of our past, to light my path into the future.” He looks the man squarely in the eyes. “And that’s why I need to see this file.”

The man blinks at him.

And twenty minutes later, after some more sitting around and smiling and waiting, a newly-acquired photocopy is tucked safely away in a manila folder he’s holding in his hands. He thanks the man profusely, bowing for good measure, and takes his leave.

In the lobby of the building, Goro takes a breather. He really hasn't lost his ability to bullshit. Proud to be Japanese, Goro thinks, an ironic smile spreading across his face, and snorts.

He takes a minute to upload scans of the document with his phone. Then he puts the folder back in his messenger bag.

On the train ride home, Goro pulls up the IM app on his phone.

It’s done. Everything’s been uploaded, if you’d like to take a look, he types, and hits send.  

The reply comes quickly, as always: gg

Goro waits, but there isn’t anything else. He huffs a breath through his nose and sits back. Typical. All that trouble and she won’t even do him the honor of a proper response.

He has another shift at work, which passes with little fanfare. Then evening approaches swiftly, and before long Goro’s on his way home again, with all the dread that preludes being left alone with his thoughts.

When he returns to his apartment building the sun has already mostly set. He climbs the two flights of stairs and approaches his own door, but before he can get there–

“Akechi!”

Oh, goddamn it. He needs to remember to silence his footsteps. Mrs. Suzuki has heard him, or stood there creepily for a long time watching through the peephole– whichever– and now she’s opened the door, beaming brightly.

She’s one of those women Goro knows well– an empty-nester, just old and lonely enough that Goro’s young, handsome face is enough to inspire devoted adoration. He used to rely on keeping such acquaintances when he lived within the system, boyishly-charming his way into a meal and a few more hours away from what classified as home that month, but he doesn’t need to be noticed by people like her anymore.

The universe has different plans, however. Suzuki is already ushering him inside. “Coming back from work? Come in, come in! You’re just in time for dinner!”

Goro opens his mouth to give a firm refusal and hears himself say instead “If I’m not intruding…”  

So he’s steered into the apartment and the production begins, Suzuki’s voice rising above the sounds of dishware clanging and water boiling as a meal is prepared. Goro sits at the dining table, uncomfortable and polite.

There’s a cat here, too, a skinny calico, one that’s never seemed to like Goro very much. Goro regards it without much expression. It looks back at him just as impassively.

Goro sighs. He greatly prefers dogs. They’re so easy with their affection. The cats he’s encountered have always been so picky– withholding judgment with inscrutability until they finally decide they don’t like you. Or worse, they talk, and almost never have anything nice to say.

Eventually the cat disappears into another room and food arrives on the table. There’s a meal, there’s conversation, there’s a vehemently-related anecdote about a daughter-in-law who was nearly rear-ended by a terrible driver. God, Mrs. Suzuki is a nuisance. She tends to fuss about his disability, too, or she did before Goro’s borderline-curt responses to her questions made it clear that the matter of his hearing aid was a topic not to be breached. Goro’s no stranger to lying, but every time he tells an inquirer that his condition was simply there from birth, he feels like he’s as easy to see through as a sheet of wax paper.

At least dinner is good, admittedly much better than anything he could’ve halfheartedly assembled at home. After far too much time, Goro finally manages to extricate himself from the apartment. He gives his goodbyes and his thanks.

Then he gets into his own home, locks the door behind him, and leans back against it, burying his face in his hands.

Damn it, damn it. He can’t keep letting himself do this or it’ll become easy.

Next time. Next time he’ll say something rude about her cooking or her cat or her fucking daughter-in-law, and then he’ll walk right past without even watching the smile on her face slowly fade.

The next day Goro has another shift. Right before he arrives he checks his phone and finds a new message: debrief today at 4

I have work then, he types in reply.

A few minutes later his phone buzzes again. when is yr shift over

6.

be here by 6:35 then

About what he expected. Copy that.

don’t be a dork

That doesn’t warrant a reply. Goro puts his phone back in his pocket and pushes open the door.

“Hello, Hirakawa.” Goro’s voice rings clearly through the shop as he enters.

There’s only one other person inside. Ayame Hirakawa, owner of this bookstore, Goro’s boss, and the only other employee, is sitting at one of the tables with her eyes narrowed and her expression as stern as it usually is. It’s a look that always seems out-of-place amongst her youthful features and expensive clothes. She doesn't glance up from the book she's holding, instead beckoning with her hand in the air. “Akechi, come here.”

Goro sighs and makes his way over, standing behind her so he can read the words she's focused on. It's a new edition of a classical text on metaphysics. Nice cover. Decent font choice.

Hirakawa points a perfectly-manicured nail at the bottom of the page. “Look. Read the second footnote.”

All it seems to be is an addendum which notes that another philosopher, a contemporary of the first, had previously treated the topic of the paragraph. Goro says so.

Hirakawa finally looks at him. “You don't think it has another meaning?”

“Hm?”

“I think the author’s bringing up the second argument to draw attention to its flaws.”

Goro laughs politely. “It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary, but I’m not inclined to believe that’s true in this case. If you consider the language–”  

And then he stops talking, because Hirakawa’s countenance is overcome by a rare, triumphant smile, and that never means anything good. Goro feels an overwhelming sense of dread.

Hirakawa selects another book next to her and flips through the pages elegantly. She finally stops at the place she wants and shows Goro.

It’s an essay, written by the author of the first argument, that expresses vitriol towards the second philosopher and his theories. Very name-and-shame-y. And evidence for Hirakawa’s theory.

Goro can’t help but huff. “Why didn't you say so earlier? That changes the situation. Obviously I would’ve drawn a different conclusion without this information.”

“Well, I wanted to see what you would think. You're too quick to draw conclusions.”

She’s telling him that?! “...Anyway,” Goro says, deciding to change the course of this ridiculous conversation, “has the shipment of Night Skies from the publisher come in?”

“Ah… no, it hasn’t.”

“Then have you called the publisher?"

“Isn’t that what I pay you for?”

“With all due respect, you pay me a cashier’s wages, so, no.”

“Did I pay you to make that spreadsheet that logged all our incoming shipments? And the folder with all of our contacts’ names?"

Damn it! “No. But it was necessary–”

“Yes, it was necessary,” Hirakawa agrees. “As necessary as you are to keeping this place afloat.”

Well, it’s nice to have some acknowledgment around here. “That’s very kind–”

“So make yourself useful and check on that shipment. And, ah, send out a Tweet or something if you feel like it. Please and thanks.” And with that, Hirakawa returns to her book.

...How? How does he keep losing rhetorical battles to this woman?

But it’s not as if he minds the work, Goro thinks, resigned, as he makes the call. Broadcast Books is a place he would have rolled his eyes at until quite recently, and now he’s responsible for its day-to-day functioning, thanks to the experience he has from managing his own finances over the years– and Hirakawa’s college-educated naïveté. A literature degree does not a particularly well-run business make.

Back to his duties. He finishes making his call– the shipment should be here in two days– and then he takes a photo of the store, a nice little shot with a stack of books in focus in the foreground. He types the caption: Another peaceful evening here at Broadcast. Come spend a day with us and meet your new favorite book!

Gag. The account only has 37 followers. And he’s fairly sure most are just Hirakawa’s friends. How the mighty fall– he had to leave the Detective Prince’s Twitter inactive; deactivating would be too conspicuous. Sometimes he still goes through his old tweets… Anyway, at least it's a marked improvement from only a week ago. Back then there were 32. Perhaps his vapid words are bearing fruit.

Customers are scarce today, as always, but his boss is in an indulgent mood and bids him order pizza with her bottomless credit card. When it arrives they split it for an early dinner, and then before he knows it Goro's shift is over. He takes off his nametag, bids Hirakawa adieu– she doesn’t look in his direction when she gives him an absent-minded wave goodbye– and steps outside, back into the world.

Goro breathes in the crisp fall air and pulls his scarf tighter around his neck, allowing himself a breather for just a moment.

And then, it’s time for him to report to his sentence. His warden is a four-foot-eleven disgruntled teenage girl with dyed-orange hair.

On the train, Goro looks at his phone to make sure he’s not running late and that Futaba hasn’t messaged him yet. She always sends him extremely specific times. Once, he was late by three minutes, and she wouldn't open the door for another fifteen. She left him quietly seething by the entrance before suddenly appearing, and while he expected an icy reception and a resentful attitude, she only said, inexplicably, “Sorry. Was brushing my teeth.”

She’s completely unpredictable. Goro can’t prepare for it. How is he supposed to know how to act around somebody when Goro doesn’t know what to say or when to smile, when the person in question reacts differently to something depending on the day? Save for Ren, she is the most difficult person he has ever been around. Goro is intensely jealous of her talent for inscrutability; it reminds him of who he used to be, how neatly and precisely he used to be able to conceal his feelings.

He feels so fucking naked sometimes. So known, now that there exist people who have seen him for who he is– seen the whole, ugly truth. Sometimes it’s a small comfort to realize there’s ways he doesn't have to hide anymore. More often it’s unbearable.

Occasionally he itches for a new start in a place where he can be alone again. He wants to run away to a new city and begin a new deception– live peacefully and serenely until his neighbors assume he’s a decent, mild-mannered boy who’s never had blood on his hands.

But he’s getting annoyed even now at the thought of an imaginary townsman, asking him questions, acting entitled, as if he could even begin to comprehend just what Goro’s been through…

Jesus. Goro checks himself and grits his teeth. These are his thoughts. Twisted, not in a TV-special-sociopath way, but formed of gnarled roots and paths with no end in sight, everything labyrinthine.

These people who know him– there’s only a few, and they’re the only ones who know what he’s done. He wonders briefly if he will ever be able to know another person again– if years down the line someone like Sakamoto will know the truth of Goro Akechi better than anyone else he’ll have met since then.  

In a subway car so crowded there’s barely room to stand, Goro feels suddenly and profoundly alone.

He has to switch lines once, and then the stop for Yongen-Jaya comes before long. He would know the way to Leblanc with his eyes closed.

He reluctantly pushes open the door and steps inside. Sojiro is behind the counter as always, wiping a plate with a towel. The shop’s proprietor… well, he always treats Goro with respect. Treats him like a human being, even though Goro’s actions have transformed his life.

But Goro knows what he did, and that makes it hard for him to enter Leblanc at all nowadays.

“She’s already in the attic,” Sojiro says neutrally. “Coffee before you go?”

“No, thank you,” Goro says, smiling slightly. “I wouldn’t want to keep her waiting.”

Sojiro nods, and then Goro walks to the stairs and begins his ascent.

The attic, now uninhabited, is their base of operations. Futaba’s endeavored to keep it free of personal effects; it’s a space for work, a reminder that the work they conduct here is professional and a means to an end. It signifies that there’s nothing else that resounds in their relationship– Goro knows that’s the intention. But sometimes he sees that she’s left small things of hers here, fast-food containers or headphones or various cables for various devices, and wonders if…

No. It’s only that Futaba is messy– that’s all it is.  

In practice their arrangement is simple. There are some branches of the government that continue to keep pen-and-paper records in their offices. Futaba can’t access that information remotely, and Goro has a pretty face and the curse of a silver tongue, so he’s made himself useful in seeking it out.

But the reasons for it are a little more complicated.

Futaba’s wearing her Kosei uniform, leaning back on the futon, her laptop on her lap and a box of files on the floor at her feet. “On time today,” she says, watching Goro enter. “Bare minimum objective met!”

“I’m almost always on time.”

“Hmm. It’s the almost that counts.”

Goro sits at the chair by the desk and retrieves his own laptop, and they get to work.

“This is an application for funding for a psychological study, filed fifteen years ago,” says Goro. It’s a relatively inconsequential document, but lately everything they’ve been uncovering has been relatively inconsequential, so whatever. “It was submitted directly to the Society for Science Research, which works closely with the government.”

Futaba squints at her screen. “Looks like it was based on a series of questions. Meant to classify the kinds of emotional responses resulting from stressful life events.”

“Correct.”

Futaba pinches the bridge of her nose. “Then… it’s pre-Metaverse. And the study was never conducted.”

“Right. If it was, we’d have come across it already.”  

“Wait, I don’t understand something.” Futaba clicks her tongue. “You said it was submitted directly to this society thing, but when I run the serial number through the system, I get other matches from other departments. Why.” The last word is aimed at Goro with precise force.

“There are several departments of the government that provide funding for this kind of research,” Goro says, and then he gives an outline of the process Isshiki would have had to go through in order to submit the application.

“Can’t keep any of that straight in my head,” Futaba mutters when he’s done.

“You could if you tried,” Goro says, and only smiles blandly when Futaba makes an ugh noise. He’s telling the truth. Futaba is intelligent, to an almost frightening degree. But she has no interest in bureaucratic technicalities and the workings of the government, so she doesn’t bother learning, and Goro can be useful to her. It isn’t particularly his favorite subject, either, but he immersed himself in the system for so long that speaking its language has become second nature.

“Typical her, anyway,” Futaba says.

“How so?”

“It’s nothing,” she snaps, too quickly, and lapses into an angry-seeming silence.

Goro shifts and is just beginning to think of something neutral and banal to say when Futaba suddenly speaks again.

“It’s like–” She closes her eyes and leans back on the futon. “She had so many types and subtypes of emotions and personalities here in her hypothesis. Like she wanted to nail down every little thing. But people are… people. You can’t just predict everything they’re going to do, and you can’t go in and fix them like you’re rewriting a line of code.” She sounds a little annoyed about this.

“All this from a Phantom Thief? That philosophy seems to directly contradict the function of your heart-stealing endeavors,” Goro says pleasantly, because he can’t not, the irony is right there.

Futaba cuts her eyes at him. “For a side character, you sure have a lot to say in too many words. You still have no idea what it meant to be a Thief. Changing hearts was a last resort, what we had to do when there was no other choice left. It was how we stopped more people from getting hurt.” There’s no idealistic fire in her words, Goro notes, just a methodical dedication.

Goro wants to retort, but he’s always a little more careful when he comes to Futaba. He shifts uncomfortably in his chair again; they’ve gotten too close to something he doesn’t particularly want to discuss at the moment. He decides to pick up the previous thread of their conversation, and says, carefully,  “Regardless, I’m sure your… Isshiki didn’t think that way for very long, from what we’ve seen of her later research in cognitive psience.”

“Yeah, well, took her a while.” Futaba’s mouth twists unpleasantly.

“It makes you think,” Goro can’t help but add, “that this kind of data is useless in the hands of the government.”

Futaba shoots him a sharp look, and he really should be quiet, but he suddenly can’t bring himself to stop talking. “The politicians, the policy-makers– to them, research like this is merely a way to treat people as walking data sets. They don’t wish to truly understand the complexities and quirks of human beings.”

Futaba hunches her shoulders. “That was how I always assumed my mom thought.”

...Fuck.

“If she had time,” Futaba says softly, “I wonder if she would’ve…”

Self-loathing hits Goro like a particularly violent ocean wave crashing against a weathered rock.

Lives– once they’re gone, it isn’t just the past that’s erased. Every future possibility is obliterated, too, countless webs of cause-and-effect gone up in flames. Goro has been a pure agent of destruction, a murderer of not only people but time itself. Every existence he extinguished had potential, and now every chance for change is gone.

God, he doesn’t fucking want to be here.

“You’re not going to start crying, are you?” Futaba says unkindly, and Goro forces himself to look up. She’s staring at him, mouth a straight line, gaze unforgiving.

He can’t bring himself to say anything. What is there to say?

“Well, don’t,” Futaba mutters, turning her eyes away, her voice losing some of its glacial quality. She mostly sounds tired. “You know, I was thinking, if she were here,” she continues abruptly. “Maybe she would have been able to help you.”

“Help me?” Goro blinks. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re a mess–”

No argument there.

“–and it’s because of the Metaverse. Mostly. And now nobody can understand because nobody knows about it except us. Maybe my mom…” Futaba hesitates. “I don’t know. It’s stupid. Forget it.”

It takes a moment for her words to sink in, and even then Goro finds himself at a loss.

Futaba sounds like she feels for him. Sometimes, before, he’s wondered if she sees a connection between them; sometimes there’s an awkward sentiment of empathy in her words that even he can detect, with his admitted emotional thick-headedness. But this…

This kind of makes him feel sick.

He thinks, so often, of the way Futaba looked at him when they’d begun with this. “You’re not allowed to forget her,” she said. And so strong was the force of her conviction that she put herself to work with her mother’s murderer, in a long-spanning effort to commemorate her work, to gather the data that proves she existed.

The Metaverse is gone. The better part of Wakaba Isshiki’s work has been rendered useless. But Futaba wants to keep her mother’s memory alive, and she wants to punish Goro by forcing him to remember. She wants him to study the life he took. That’s why every so often they work together, to collect and compile the scraps of Isshiki’s research that still exist. To what end? Goro doesn't know. It's not his place to ask.

Their arrangement is retributive, one that’s meant to make him bow his head…so what is Futaba doing? What does she mean? How’s Goro supposed to handle this?

“She would’ve liked you,” Futaba says softly.

No, no, no. It’s too much.

“Futaba,” Goro says, abruptly, wanting to make it stop, “I killed your mother.”

There’s an awful silence, a few seconds that feel so much longer, and then Futaba says, with a raised voice and deadly precision, “I. Know. That.”

Goro doesn’t say anything.

Neither of them speak for another moment, and then, at a normal volume, Futaba says, “She would have. You’re more patient than me. She always said that was my biggest flaw. I was never patient. I could never wait for he– for anything. And you’re more logical.”

Goro raises his eyebrows. “Do you mean to say that you aren’t?”

She explodes, suddenly. “Yeah, whatever, sure I am, but I get carried away ! That's what she thought of me, you know. Oh, sure, I was a kid, but why’d I have to want my mom? Didn't I understand she had important work to do? Work that mattered way more than me?! So simple!”

Goro swallows. This conversation is a minefield. He doesn’t know what he should say next, what he could say that won’t set her off. He’s not prepared for this, he’s not made for this. And yet almost without his permission his mouth opens and begins moving. “I don’t mean to infringe upon your feelings–” yes, good job, another line from Watanabe’s repertoire– “but… you’re speaking to the expert in getting carried away.”

Futaba looks at him, hackles visibly raised, her grief and rage and exhaustion clearly visible on her face.

But then suddenly, her shoulders slump, and she mellows. She sits back, and the expression on her face evens into matter-of-fact neutrality. “Whatever,” she says.

...Did he say the right thing?

“I don’t want to look at this anymore,” she continues, leaning forward and shutting the lid of her laptop decisively. She stands up suddenly and picks it up before turning towards the door. “Going to watch anime. You go home.”

And then, with no fanfare whatsoever, she’s gone.

Left alone in the attic, Goro surmises that went about as well as it could have gone. Such an abrupt exit is par for the course with her. Sometimes she tells him he can watch her shows with her if he promises to sit quietly, but it doesn’t look like an invitation will come today. She probably doesn’t want to look at him anymore, either.

So Goro stands up, gathers his things, and takes his leave.

...from Dr. Watanabe’s Guide to Finding a New You, Chapter 6: “ It’s Time to Build a Better Future!”

Are you aware of the positive forces in your life?

Too often we overlook valuable sources of advice, support, and kindness that are closer than we think. Maybe it’s because we don’t realize how much of a difference having this kind of help can make. Or maybe we just don’t think we deserve it.

But always remember: if you’re stuck, you don’t have to be stuck by yourself. If you need it, don’t hesitate to ask for help!

No further instructions come from Futaba during the next few weeks. Most of Goro’s time is spent at work, with much of the rest consumed by the latest black-hole of a research topic he’s absorbed in. This time it’s Hegel, whose Science of Logic he ordinarily wouldn’t even attempt to delve into without an abundance of hours to spare. The bright side of having nothing to do is having enough free time to read things that most people don’t have a chance to get to until they retire.

Ann agonizes further over entrance exams, and Goro’s occasionally enlisted to help her study. Though less learning takes place than he’d like– Ann is easily distracted, and even coaxing her with the promise of crepes after a review session doesn’t always work. Lately Goro’s had several stress dreams about how her scores will look.

Goro wishes, sometimes, for Leblanc’s tranquility, but even though no one has told him he’s unwelcome, there’s little comfort to be found there now, only guilt. He’s better off as another anonymous face in one of the legions of crowded coffee shops that swarm the city.

One morning Sae calls to request that they meet for dinner that night, and offers to pay. She definitely has an agenda, but Goro’s not in a place where he’s able to turn down a free meal.

He accepts. They go to a nice sushi restaurant and, thank God, refrain from reminiscing about the good old conveyor-belt days. He gets there shortly after her and approaches the table, greeting her with a bow of his head.

Sae waits for the waiter to set down their drinks and depart before she says, “I’d like your help with something. If all goes well, it’ll be a good opportunity for you, too.”

“How kind of you to think of me.” Goro smiles carefully. “What is it?”  

“It’s routine legal work, on-site, at the children’s hospital. There’s a current internal effort to ensure standards are up to par with compliance requirements. They need legal expertise in order to compile a series of reports.” She hesitates, and then adds, “Tae asked me if I could be of any help to a colleague of hers.”

On-site? Sometimes Sae comes to him with this kind of request– writing or reviewing reports and the like– but it’s never required him to go anywhere in person. Goro opens his mouth to ask about it and what comes out is “I don’t like hospitals.”

“I don’t think anyone likes hospitals,” says Sae.

“Except for people dating doctors,” Goro replies.

Sae opens her mouth and shuts it again.

Goro demurely sips his drink to hide his smirk. “How is it going, if I may ask?” he remarks after setting down his glass. “With Takemi?”

“...Well.” To her credit, Sae doesn’t lose her composure. “But that’s none of your concern. And I’m not just doing this job as a personal favor. I wouldn’t have accepted if I didn’t think it was something I could really help with.”

Goro’s reminded, suddenly, of the younger Niijima’s blunt decision-making during the brief time he played at being a Thief, her matter-of-fact pragmatism when it came down to the wire. Why should Sae remind him of Makoto? He doesn’t know the latter nearly as well. But the spiral of his thoughts persists, culminating in an image that juxtaposes that ridiculous biker outfit with Sae’s disaster-goth Shadow. The automatic process of smoothing his face into a smilingly neutral expression takes over before he can even consciously smother a laugh.

“And I’m asking you because you’re intelligent, and you have some experience. And,” Sae adds, “this is good work, Goro.”

Good work. Goro’s feeling of good humor disappears as quickly as it came.

Here it comes.

“Isn’t there... something else that you wish you were doing?”

Very slowly, Goro sips his water.

Sae thinks she knows who Goro is. She thinks she can find within him some altruistic streak, some foolhardy and noble Thief-like sentiment, some inspiration that blooms and sings: I’ll do my best to make a world where people like Shido can't prosper. Or even: I won’t rest until there’s a world where what happened to me never happens to anyone else!

No chance. He’s done. It was never about people like Shido. It was never a fucking cause. It was just the performance of justice, with Goro as a vehicle. After all, there were too many people like him to count. Goro couldn't spare a thought for any of them. He couldn’t afford to think about anyone but himself and the one man he was going to ruin.

How can that change now? There will always be rot in this city. What concern is it of Goro's? Now he just wants to be left alone. He just wants to–

Shit.

He wants to know what he wants.

“I worry that–” Sae hesitates, drumming her fingers quickly on the table for a moment before her hand returns to her lap. “I want you to be aware that you have a future. Running away from that fact is counterintuitive. There’s no reason not to gain experience while you have the opportunity.”

The words barely register. Goro’s thoughts are beginning to echo in his head, drowning out everything else. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know the reason for which I keep living.

Always the same refrain. The only thing that changes is the degree to which he can ignore the voice in his head.

“Goro?”

With greater difficulty than usual, Goro forces a neutral expression on his face. “Yes. Sorry. I was zoning out.”

Fuck, his voice is shaking with the pre-tears kind of warble. Goddamnit, goddamnit. He’s so pathetic.

“Goro–”  

“I’m sorry,” Goro says, abruptly standing up, “excuse me,” and then he’s slipping away and walking decisively in a direction that he hopes leads towards the restroom.

Inside a stall a moment later Goro presses his hands to his face and tries to cry soundlessly and lets the waves of panic crash brutally into him, thought after thought combining into an overwhelming overture of anxiety. This, more than anything else, feels like his essence– the center of his universe, his weakness, laid bare. He isn’t used to this kind of hopelessness, the kind that makes him feel like there’s nothing inside him at all. Right here, this suffering– it's the gap between absolutely nothing and far too much.

He lets himself cry for two minutes, two minutes only, and then he takes a deep breath. He goes through the motions. He exits the stall. He splashes cold water on his face. He inhales and exhales– once, twice, three times.

He pushes open the door. He returns to their table.

Sae looks up in surprise. “Goro, are you–”

Goro doesn't sit down. “These kinds of things,” he interrupts.

Sae quiets, and gives him a questioning glance, concern still evident in her expression.

Goro swallows. “Do you really think– I can make up for it? Just by doing things like this? Even if I were to try for the rest of my life. Does it even matter if I…”   

He can’t make himself say more; his words won’t work. He has only the faint hope that his meaning will get across.

At first, Sae is silent, and Goro slowly begins to feel regret in the form of a familiar rhythm of angry-self loathing pulsing inside him– why’d he open his mouth?

But after considering him for another moment, Sae folds her hands on the table and looks up at him. “I’ll tell you what I think. For quite some time I saw you as nothing but a novelty, a nuisance.”

Goro’s expression doesn’t change. Understandable. It wasn’t as if he tried to seem any different. Better to seem lovably clumsy and harmless than to look competent and pose a threat. Sae didn’t take him seriously; neither did most anyone else at the police department. That was fine; it wasn’t their acknowledgment he sought.

“But… You’re capable and intelligent. You’ve proven that to me before.”

That catches him off guard, and Goro’s mouth opens a little in surprise.

“I’ve seen how you think, and you have a good mind for this kind of work. Goro, I can't tell you anything about how the rest of your life will play out. However, I'm asking you to help with this because right now, I’m sure that it’s a good way for you to use your talents.” She looks at him steadily. “And I have faith in your abilities.”

Goro’s first thought: She’s lying. Or… concealing the truth, partway. These cases of hers he assists with– all of it has been about atonement. It’s about the discomfort she feels with his situation, that any reasonable person would feel. She only wants to put him to use as a form of making amends.

...Capable, though. And intelligent.

He doesn’t deserve to think in terms of short-term consolations, after everything he’s done. But Sae– someone who, despite everything, he’s come to trust– has faith in him.

...Why can’t he feel proud of himself? Just for a little while?

Slowly, the world begins to feel less stifling, less angry. Goro takes a breath, and then a seat. Sae watches him with the same steady gaze as he lowers himself once more into the chair opposite hers.

“Thank you, ” he says, tone courteous, making sure there's no trace of tears in his voice, turning it on all the way. “I think that… I would like to help.”

Sae smiles, satisfied. “Excellent. I was hoping you’d say so. I’ll forward you the details?”

“Please do,” Goro says. “Ah. But could I ask you something?”

Sae raises a questioning brow.

“Could I bring someone with me?”

Goro really doesn’t like hospitals. That’s his justification. That’s why he’s convincing himself he’s not overly needy, that he can have this, that it’s okay for cheery, invincible-seeming Ann to be beside him as they loiter in the lobby of the hospital building.

“Wouldn’t hurt to reach out more often,” Ren told him earlier. Damn it all. Goro will never get his voice out of his head, will he?

So reach he did. And of course Ann was willing, and even texted him “looking forward to it!! :^)” the night before, and is now looking around with a calm disposition like they haven’t just entered a miserable depository for the hopeless and the about-to-lose-hope.

“Man, this brings back memories!” she says. "Reminds me of when I broke my ankle when I was 7. Well, the children’s hospitals in Finland are a little different, though.”  

“Thank you,” Goro says. “Again.”

“Really, it’s no problem! I’m glad I could help.” She gives him a smile.

This really is help, isn’t it? Ugh. He needs help. This is about him, about his weaknesses. “It won’t be interesting,” Goro says, not for the first time. “Paperwork and… legal things.”

“Goro, c’mon, I already knew about all that stuff. I don’t mind– I’m sure I’ll find something to entertain me. And we’re friends, aren’t we?”

She says it so easily. And he supposes… they are. Save for Ren, Ann's the Thief that’s exerted the most effort to keep in contact with him, and not in a mildly threatening way like Futaba has.

“You got my last letter, didn’t you?” asks Goro.

“Sure did!” She laughs.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s just that–” she grins– “you still write exactly how you talk.”  

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Goro asks, mildly affronted.

“I don’t know, I can’t explain it! Just– even the ellipses. I can, like, hear your voice in my head pausing. It never changes.” Ann is now snorting.

Goro folds his arms. “Keep this up and you can forget about receiving any further correspondence.”

“Nooo, you’re my only pen pal, you can’t abandon me!” Ann laughs, and soon Goro is laughing, too. Some of the tenseness he feels at being here is eased.

“Ah, there you are.”

He and Ann both turn, and there’s Sae, walking briskly towards them. She and Ann greet each other while Goro tries not to fidget.

“We’re meeting with an administrator in the legal department,” Sae informs Goro. She looks at Ann. “I don’t… really know what there is for you to do here.”

Ann shrugs. “Maybe I’ll pretend to be a nurse. Could practice my acting skills!”

“I would not recommend that,” Sae says.

“Right, yup, dumb idea, sorry.”

They take an elevator and reach the administrative section of the hospital on a higher floor. After arriving at the office, they’re informed by another employee that the person they’re meeting with has been called away, and will return shortly.

“Well, Tae asked me to drop off some materials with her colleague,” Sae says. “It shouldn’t take me long.”

“Mixing business with pleasure?” Goro pipes up.

Sae gives him the most unimpressed look of all time before turning away. “I’ll be back soon.”

So Ann and himself are left to sit in two uncomfortable fold-out chairs like children obediently awaiting the return of a strict mother.

The hallway they’re in is nice, carpeted, with warm lighting and picture frames on the walls. It’s not like what he remembers about the hospital, all clean and white and bleakly sterile. He thinks of the cloying voices of the nurses, and the numbness he felt, inside and out. He reaches up, almost unconsciously, to tug at his left earlobe.

“Hang on,” Ann says suddenly, and Goro turns to her. “Tae– that’s Ren’s weird doctor lady, right? Goro, did you seriously never tell me that Niijima and her are dating?”

“Ah,” Goro says. “I suppose I didn’t.”

“I can’t believe you! When? How? What?”

“You’re aware that Niijima helped me, correct? After... everything.”

“Yeah, I remember… I don’t know much else, though.”

“I found myself in a hospital,” Goro says quietly, “but people were asking questions. I didn’t know what to do, but Ms. Niijima was my emergency contact. When she saw me, she knew what had to be done. She asked Ren if he knew a… discreet professional.”

“Without telling him it was for you, huh…”

Goro shifts uncomfortably. “Yes, I… you’ll recall that I asked her not to say anything about me.”

“Yeah,” Ann says softly. “You needed time.”

“Right. Well. Anyway. Dr. Takemi took over my care. Ms. Niijima met her. The rest is history, I suppose.”  

“Wow. Just wow.” Ann sits back. Then she shoots forward again. “Wait, why didn’t Makoto mention this to me either?!”

“Even I only found out recently. I suppose they didn’t begin dating right away.”

“I can’t believe it.” Ann shakes her head in amazement. “I wonder if Makoto approves. I’ll definitely have to ask her.”

“You have something in your ear,” says a new voice.

Goro and Ann both turn in its direction and see that there’s a little girl to Goro’s left.

Goro looks back at Ann to make sure he’s not hallucinating. Ann looks at Goro and gives him the wide-eyed I have no idea expression. They both look at the girl again.

She’s… well, a child, wearing a hat with long, fuzzy flaps that cover her ears and the sides of her head. Goro notices at once that she has a hospital bracelet around her wrist. She looks to be about… Goro’s a bad judge of children’s ages. Six? Seven? Eight? She has jeans on, and a rather cute shirt with a rabbit on it, and she’s looking right at Goro with an intent expression.

When Goro doesn’t respond, she says again, “I said, you have something in your ear.”

Ann glances at Goro.

Goro sits back. “That’s supposed to be there.”

“Why?”

...For the love of God. “It’s how I can hear.”

“Oh,” says the kid, and appears to have no further questions.

Ann leans forward. “Hi! What’s your name?”

“Kagami,” she replies.

“How old are you, Kagami?” Ann asks cheerfully.

“Seven-and-a-half. How old are you?”

“Oh, uh, eighteen. I’m Ann, Ann Takamaki. And this is Goro Akechi!”   

The child looks at Ann curiously for a moment, but Goro seems to have captured her attention for the time being; she turns back to him with a pinched-up face that Goro supposes is a concentrating gaze. “Like my brother,” she says.

“Oh?” Goro says awkwardly. He has no idea how to interact with children– the high voices, the non-sequiturs, the weirdly brutal honesty… it's all beyond him. Kind of like talking to Futaba, actually, which he has also not yet mastered. God, she’d kick his ass for thinking that. All right, time to try. “Is your brother–”

“I don’t wanna talk about him!” she suddenly snaps.

“Well,” Goro says, with a puzzled smile, “you brought him u–”

“Goro,” Ann says, poking him.

What? It’s true. She did bring him up. What was he supposed to do?

Absorbed in thoughts of this injustice, he misses the beginning of Ann’s second attempt to talk to this Kagami and tunes back in just as she appears to be asking them why they’re here.

“Yeah, we’re here to work,” Ann is saying. “Or… he is, at least?” She smiles first at Goro, then at the girl. “I’m just along for the ride.”

Kagami looks at Goro. “Are you a doctor?”

“No.”

“A nurse?”

“...No.”

“Oh.” Kagami appears to lose interest. “I’m sick, you know,” she declares.

Goro glances at the girl. She’s quite small, thin and pale, and she doesn’t appear to have any hair underneath that hat. That’s almost certainly a result of chemotherapy. “How long have you been here?”

“I'm here a lot,” she says. “I have to get treatment, like, all the time.”

It must be chemo, then. This little girl has cancer.

“I like your hair,” Kagami tells Ann seriously.

“Aw, thank you!” Ann glows. “I like the bunny on your shirt!”

And then Ann and Kagami hit it off, because Ann hits it off with everybody. There’s discussion of fast food restaurants and which Pokémon is the cutest. Once or twice Ann asks where Kagami’s parents are, but the girl simply doesn’t answer. Goro sits back and watches it all, paying attention to the conversation. The girl has a straightforward manner of speaking, typical of most children Goro’s encountered, and a distinctive, mischievous-sounding giggle.

A few minutes of that, and then– “Kagami!”

Everyone in their little party turns to see a man walking towards them, a young-professional type who looks frazzled.

“Sorry,” the man apologizes to Ann and Goro. He turns to the girl and reaches out a hand. “Kagami, I was looking for you! Let’s go.”

Kagami doesn’t move immediately. “Are you getting me ice cream?”

“Yes, yes, you’ll have ice cream,” he assures her.

Looking reassured, Kagami takes the offered hand. As they walk away, she turns her head around to look back at Ann and Goro. “Bye,” she says simply.

Ann waves. “Bye!”

Goro watches them go for a moment, feeling strange, before looking away.

“Weird,” says Ann softly, tearing him away from his reverie. “She looked pretty sick... I mean, the hair and all. A kid that young…”

“She said she returns here for regular treatment, however. Since she’s not in intensive care, I assume her condition is improving.”

“You think so? That’s good to hear, I guess…” Ann looks troubled. She really is out of place here, in a place where even cheery lighting and serene paintings can’t distract from the atmosphere of gloom.

But Goro is glad she’s here anyway.

After a moment Sae returns, and some time later the person they’re meant to meet with is back, too. Sae introduces Goro smoothly as her associate, and then they enter the office and talk business. They’re given more information about the compliance standards the hospital has to uphold and how the reports should be written. Goro notices Sae seems to be sitting back, stepping in when necessary, but more often leaving it to Goro to engage with the work. That’s fine. He likes it better when he’s making himself useful, rather than sitting and observing like a mannequin in the corner.

It’s only a short visit to establish what they’ll be doing, so it doesn’t take very long. Soon Goro and Sae thank the administrator and say their goodbyes. Then they emerge from the office, wake up Ann, who has fallen asleep on the chair, and head to the exit.

Sae bids them farewell at the station. “I have to return to work,” she says. “Make sure you two take care of yourselves.” And with that, they part ways.

“Man,” Ann says when she’s gone, stretching her arms above her head and yawning. “Ms. Niijima always makes me feel kinda nervous.” She shakes her head back and forth as if to clear it. “You wanna get lunch?”

So they do, at the closest ramen joint– it’s much colder outside nowadays, and they're both eager to escape the chill. After they’re done with their food they loiter a little in the restaurant, Goro slumping back in his seat, Ann playing idly with the salt-and-pepper shakers on the table.

“So,” she asks him eventually, “how was today?”

“Much better for your being there.”

Ann grins at him. “I’m glad.”

“But the work I agreed to do…” Goro sighs.

“You wanted to, right?”

“I suppose I did. It’s just–  now I’ve made a commitment.” He’s shifty about commitments these days, another bad habit he’s picked up in what he’s decided must be a subconscious effort to distance himself from the Detective Prince, who always showed up on time for interviews and diligently phoned Masayoshi Shido every other Wednesday afternoon. He doesn’t even like calling people anymore. “To be honest, I still feel as if I don’t know what I’m doing,” Goro says, with a humorless laugh. “Honestly, I don’t know why I even try.”

He isn’t sure why he says it to Ann. Most likely it’s because of her nature– the way she communicates, so foreign to Goro, so good that it’s transfixing. Even if she doesn’t understand, Ann always tries, and that effort is the opposite of pity– pity he can too often sense others feel for him, pity that always makes his skin crawl.

Ann looks at him thoughtfully for a moment, and then ventures, “You kinda sound like Shiho.”

“Shiho?” The name sounds familiar. “That’s…”

“My friend, who used to go to Shujin with us. She just graduated, too. She was... a victim of Kamoshida’s. ”

...Right. Shiho Suzui, was it? A near-suicide. He’d learned that name when he was working on the Phantom Thieves’ case. “If she was a victim, then I'm nothing like her,” Goro says, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

“I don’t think so,” Ann says quietly. “It’s like… it’s about losing faith, isn’t it? Volleyball let her down. Um, no, that’s not right, I’m sorry. The whole… hierarchy let her down.” She makes a scrambled gesture with her hands that Goro assumes is supposed to represent hierarchy somehow but doesn’t really look like anything. “The way it was at Shujin… the order of power... It failed her over and over again.”

Order– so mechanical, so murderous. Goro thought anything would be better than seeing it maintained, than continuing to live through the daily abuses carried out so neatly, fitting so perfectly into the system. He dreamed of seeing Japan crumble. He wished fervently for a world of chaos.

But it amounted to nothing more than a bored child’s destructive impulses. After all, even as he was fantasizing, he was becoming a part of the thing he most loathed.  

“So it was really hard for her to have faith in anything again,” Ann continues quietly. “She loved volleyball. She really loved it. And she still does. She just had to… learn to love it again, a different way. Now she helps teach kids how to play, at the rec center near where she lives.” Ann smiles. “I don’t know. I guess I’m saying… even though she was heartbroken, she didn’t want to give up. She found a small way to keep going.” She coughs. “Sorry, I don’t mean to preach or anything! Just… small steps, you know?”

Small steps. At first he thinks it’s a ridiculous term to apply to himself, in terms of all that’s happened. But at the same time… isn’t going forward, slowly, the only thing that makes sense? The only thing he can do?

Goro scratches his cheek and looks down at the table, trying to think of a way to respond. “That’s… thank you. I mean…” He laughs a little. “I suppose giving up has never been in my nature.”

“There you go.” Ann beams. “I know you can do it, Goro. You’re already so strong, and clever, too!” She grins sheepishly. “Sometimes I even feel weird talking to you because you’re so much smarter than me.”

“Ridiculous,” Goro says, leaning backwards. “You know more about how people work than I ever will.”

“What?” Ann protests. “I don’t think I’m like that at all…”  

“Oh, please,” says Goro. “I’m fairly certain there’s nothing stopping you from gaining your own kingdom and amassing an army of loyal subjects.” To drive the point home, he stands up and bows. “All hail Queen Ann.”

“Aw, come on!” Ann says, blushing, but she’s laughing all the same.

Goro laughs along with her, and for a moment there’s lightness in his chest. He thinks maybe he did the right thing, for once.

Ren is a godawful texter. Although Goro would like to pretend that this is not a problem, considering that Ren is a frustratingly significant amount of miles away and messaging is the only way for Goro to receive confirmation that he hasn’t gotten himself killed trying to start an anarchist revolution in the sticks, this vice of his is a frequent annoyance. Especially when Goro is trying to– no, about to– win an argument.

After a few more minutes of waiting in vain for a read receipt to appear next to his last message, Goro gnashes his teeth and hits the call button.

A brief dial tone, and then Ren answers, sounding lazy. “Hello?”

“You claim,” says Goro, “that knowing the outcome of a story enhances your experience of it, because of an enhanced outlook.”  

“...I would have replied if you had just given me a few more minutes.”

“Try hours. You’re forgetting that manifold stories are meant to be re-experienced. People reread books and rewatch movies and play games more than once, Ren, because they find that doing so adds value to their experience of the work. If you’re looking for a wider outlook, that’s the way to do it.”

There's a silence, and then Ren breaks out into laughter, a sound that Goro would maybe smile at if he weren't so annoyed. “You're actually mad at me about this.”

“I am, because it’s a ridiculous opinion,” Goro snaps, and Ren laughs again, and then Goro suddenly realizes something and closes his mouth.

“Okay, listen,” Ren says, sounding more alert now, “it's like this– when I’m spoiled on something, I can…”

But Goro can barely focus, because a feeling of dread has overcome him, a sudden crippling sensation that makes his mouth taste dry.  

He only refocuses when he hears Ren say his name. “Goro? You there? Amazed by my genius yet?”

“...Ha,” Goro says, and puts all his genuine effort, all of his pleasant warmth into it. “You know, you do make a good argument. Next time I’ll make sure to see if your theory holds water. I suppose I shouldn’t discount your point of view until I’ve put your philosophy into practice.”

Ren doesn’t say anything, which makes Goro try to fill the silence. “I’ll have to thank you for showing me–”

“Goro.”

“Hm?”

“You okay?”

“What?” Goro laughs. “Why would you ask me that?”

“Because you suddenly sound like a different person. That’s usually not a good sign.”

Goro, caught off-guard, can’t think of a response, but he doesn’t get a chance to reply, anyway, because Ren’s talking again. “You know, lately, when we talk, it’s like… you’re always trying not to step on my toes.”

“I’m afraid I fail to understand why that displeases you.” Goro manages a laugh. “Do you mean to say you prefer hostility to polite conversation?”

“I prefer honesty. Goro, you don't seriously expect me to believe that you don't disagree with me. You always have holes to poke in my arguments. You literally were just doing it. So poke ahead.”

“That’s– I’m sorry, I’m really at a loss. You prefer it when I argue with you? When I’m saying things that could hurt you? What fault do you find in my trying to avoid that?”

“Goro, that's– what? That’s not how anything works. That's not how friends works. You and I–” Ren pauses for a second. “We can’t keep going with you acting like you owe me something.”

Goro feels irritation mount. “Then what are we supposed to do, if I may ask? Move on? Simply forget that all of it ever happened? Things aren’t that simple, Ren, even in the perfect little universe in which you live.”

“Hey,” Ren says, a warning note in his voice, and Goro falls silent.

“I know,” Ren continues. “I know all that.” Ren’s normally soft voice takes on an edge. His frustration is audible even through all the processes that work to transmit voice to signal to ear. Goro forgets, sometimes, that phone calls can never be the same again, with his hearing the way it is– all other sound disappears when he has his phone up to his hearing ear. He thinks a lot these days about radio waves and frequencies, pitches and decibels. But even when Ren’s voice is the only sound in his world, if Goro lets his thoughts run wild, it’s like he can’t understand Ren at all.

So he tries not to think. He tries to listen.  

Ren sighs, a rush of static. For another few seconds, neither of them speak.

“Goro,” says Ren finally, “I’m not so much of a pushover that I won’t let you know when you’re actually doing something that pisses me off.”

“But…”

“And right now– we’re just talking.” There’s a smile in Ren’s voice, and the knot in Goro’s chest eases a little. “I like talking to you. I know there’s a lot of things we don’t agree on, but you always listen to me. You do listen, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Goro manages. “Of course.”

“Good.” Ren pauses for a second. “Alright, enough of that. Now tell me why I'm wrong... if you dare. Use that big great impressive brain you supposedly have.”

Goro smiles, feeling relieved, feeling lighter. “Oh,” he replies, “I will.”

“But really, though,” Ren adds. “Who actually rereads books?”

Ren can't see him, but Goro’s mouth falls open in outrage. “Now, you listen–”  

January brings good news: both Ren and Ann have passed their entrance exams. Ren’s done well, well enough to be admitted into a respectable mid-tier Tokyo university. Ann’s secured admission to another one in the city, with an intent to major in English. She declares a wish to treat Goro to milkshakes to celebrate and thank him for his help, but when she’s short on change at the store he ends up paying anyway, waving aside her distress by telling her it’s her reward.

Goro’s finished his work at the hospital, too, the reports written and submitted. It would be nice to be paid, but Goro only really counts as Sae’s junior. Sae’s taken him out to eat enough times that he thinks that may function as compensation, though.

He should really improve his diet.

When he has his final meeting with the hospital administrator, she smiles at him from behind her desk. “Thank you, again, for your hard work. This is very impressive, especially for someone your age.”

Sae left the last report largely up to him, offering only occasional advice and supervision. Goro’s quite proud of what he’s done, and it feels nice to be recognized. “Thank you,” Goro says, bowing slightly. “I appreciate it.”

“If I hear there’s a need, I just might pass along your name to others in my network– if that’s all right with you, of course. People are always looking for youth with strong communication skills.”

“Oh… yes, of course,” Goro replies. A little surprising, but it’s nothing, really. People say those kinds of things all the time– she probably meant it flippantly; Goro doesn’t expect any kind of opportunity to arise from this. But at the same time, the warmth of being acknowledged carries him out of the office and towards the hospital’s exit.

He’s in the lobby, almost to the doors, when he hears “Gorooo.”

It’s an unfamiliar voice that uses his first name, a child’s voice. Goro turns and is duly surprised to see Kagami, that young girl from the first time he was here. She’s wearing another distinctive hat with flaps.

Goro notices that her father is behind her, and she’s standing closer to Goro, which means she’s probably been calling him for a while.

Goro touches his ear. “Ah,” he says. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Kagami says matter-of-factly. “I remembered.”

“Ah, excuse me,” her father says, coming closer. “Do we know…”

Goro steps forward, too, and bows slightly. “I’m Goro Akechi. We haven’t met properly, but I ran into Kagami here a few months ago.”

“Oh… right, I remember now! I’m Fuyuki Kato. It’s nice to meet you.” He looks down at his daughter. “Say hello, Kagami.”

“Hi,” she says.

Kato’s phone suddenly buzzes, and he examines it before sighing softly. “Just when we were leaving… I have to go confirm something with her doctor. Kagami, could you–” He frowns.

“I can stay with her,” Goro hears himself say.

“Would you?!” Kato doesn’t give him a chance to go back on his offer. “I really appreciate it! I’ll only be a few minutes. Be good, okay, Kagami?” And with that he’s gone.

Goro feels himself break out in a cold sweat. For all the life experience he’s amassed in his twenty years, he still feels intimidated at the thought of dealing with a child.

Kagami looks up at him and says, “Why isn’t your friend here?”

Oh, she means Ann. “She’s busy.”

“Oh. Why?”

“She’s studying.”

Kagami frowns. “I hate studying. Do you go to school?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Lucky.”

“So,” Goro says awkwardly. “What grade are you in?”

“Second.”

“That must be… fun.”

“Whatever,” Kagami says. “I don’t like school.”

“Why not?”

“It’s boring and I’m barely there because I’m absent all the time because I’m sick so I never know what’s happening.” Kagami picks at her nails. “Daddy’s worried because I’m behind and I might have to do second grade again.”

“And what about your mother?”

“Don’t have a mom.”

So Kato’s a single father, on top of having an ill child. “I don’t have a mom, either,” Goro says.

Kagami looks up at him. “Oh,” she says. “Sorry.”

Thankfully, Kato returns then before things can get too heartwarming. He thanks Goro.

“No trouble at all,” Goro says with a professional smile.

“You…” He looks at Goro, considering. “You’re here a lot, then, aren’t you?”

“Well, I’ve just completed the project I was working on for the legal department, so there isn’t much of a need for me to be here anymore.” Goro laughs politely.

“I see. Listen, you…” Kato runs a hand through his hair. “You seem like a reliable young man, and the thing is– well, I’m sorry if this is out of the blue, but Kagami…” He clasps his hands together. “I’ve been looking for a tutor for her. Just for homework, studying, that kind of thing.”

Goro is taken aback. “Well, I don’t think that finding a willing person should be too difficult of a task,” he says quickly.

“But I just haven’t had time to look for someone who’s competent,” Kato says desperately. “It’s a little complicated, because Kagami has leukemia.”

Goro figured as much.

“She’s at the stage in her treatment where she only needs to return for occasional chemo sessions,” Kato continues, “but it can be hard to find someone who’s willing to accommodate her. Because she’s weaker than most children, you know… And Kagami knows you already, and you– are you a college student?”

“No, I… I have a job. I’m sorry, I don’t know if I have the time to–”

“I’ll work with your schedule! And I can pay you, no problem.”

Goro isn’t bad at saying no to people. In all honesty, he finds it very easy. But Kato looks as if he’s at his wit’s end. Along with the sympathy Goro feels, a feeling of resentment flares– sometimes it’s almost painful to look upon someone like this, a father who cares so deeply for his child.

Goro turns his gaze to Kagami, who’s standing behind her father, still absorbed in picking at her nails.

...Damn it. What else does he have to do, anyway? Read the same article on Hegel again or set aside time for yet another binge-viewing of the latest never-ending serial?

“Well,” Goro says, “all right.”

Kato’s shoulders sag in relief. “Thank you so much. You’ve really saved me here.”

“But there’s no need to pay me,” Goro says.

“Ah… really?” Kato looks confused, and a little wary.

Goro supposes it must seem odd to not request payment. He clears his throat. “Yes, I… it really isn't any trouble to help someone at Kagami’s grade level. I wouldn't feel right asking for money.”

It’s not a lie. Goro’s a little surprised at himself– but it's not a lie.

“Well, in that case…” Kato looks cheered again. “Great! Let me get your information.”

They exchange phone numbers, promising to set a date for a tutoring session later.

Kagami looks up at him. “You…” she says. “Do you like school stuff?”

“I suppose so,” says Goro.

Kagami looks unimpressed. “Okay. See you later, Goro.”

After Kato thanks him again and they say their goodbyes, Goro thinks he might not have won her approval just yet.

He can’t get any sleep that night, as usual, but this new development is keeping him awake. He knows how to use a gun, and this well-meaning father called him a reliable young man.

But this man…

Goro rolls over on his side, reaches for his phone, and types a message.  

[00:14] Goro: Could I ask you for a favor?
[00:16] Futaba: what?
[00:17] Goro: I’ve become acquainted with a man and his daughter.
[00:17] Goro: I’d like to know a little more about the father.
[00:17] Goro: Simply to make sure he’s legitimate, of course.
[00:18] Goro: I was wondering if you could find some information for me.
[00:19] Futaba: and youve got a reason to think this guy is shady or
[00:20] Goro: This is more of a background check.
[00:20] Futaba: then no
[00:21] Goro: Can I ask why?
[00:23] Futaba: well im not yr personal information broker first of all
[00:23] Futaba: also if you wanna know more abt this dude and his kid
[00:23] Futaba: maybe just like get to know them
[00:24] Futaba: take it from a girl whos routinely stalked people to avoid interaction
[00:25] Futaba: it kinda doesnt help
[00:25] Futaba: maybe stop treating everything like yr working a case
[00:26] Goro: Would you respond more favorably to a bribe?
[00:27] Futaba: usually yes but rn i am trying to dispense wise advice so pls show appreciation
[00:28] Goro: All right, fine. Thank you.
[00:28] Futaba: yea yea
[00:28] Futaba: go to bed

Winter blusters onward, and Goro keeps busy. He has a few tutoring sessions with Kagami. He never knows where they’re meant to take place until Kato texts him, sometimes only a few hours beforehand. Mostly he goes to the public library, but a few times he’s had to show up at stranger places like the hospital food court. Goro tries to ensure that they don’t meet anywhere busier. With his deafness, trying to make out others’ words in noisy places is close to impossible.

Kagami seems generally reticent, though Goro suspects she has something of a mischievous streak– he’s begun to find his things misplaced when he returns to the table, and she still has that sly laugh. With that said, she usually grudgingly finishes most of her work if Goro’s stern enough, though she doesn’t seem ready to open up to him just yet.

He obtains another document for Futaba, another one that's largely tangential to Isshiki’s larger body of work, but a piece of her nonetheless. And as always, she asks him for other things, too. Like picking up poster-board for a group project she’s required to complete at school. Or dropping by the Sakura household after work with takeout food.

He… isn’t exactly happy about being her lackey, but if it's justice, he’ll swallow his complaints. And sometimes when he comes by with food, he’ll sit with her and watch anime, because it seems like what she wants him to do. She doesn’t exactly explicitly acknowledge his presence, but it’s… something.

The serial he’s been following ends its latest season on a cliffhanger. People online are inconsolable. Work at the bookstore continues to be uneventful. He watches Hirakawa get into the occasional argument with a customer over post-war versus pre-modern literature and regularly arranges the display in the window without being asked.  

Time passes in such a way, and then one day when he’s waiting for his train in the station an old man next to him says something Goro doesn’t quite catch.

“I beg your pardon?” Goro says, looking up from his phone with surprise. He’s grown to be sharply wary of any stranger who speaks to him, fearing they might recognize the Detective Prince– but no, this man seems to be just another face in the crowded train station.

He smiles at Goro. “I said it's finally the first day of spring. Don’t look so moody!”

“Actually,” Goro says, “for the millions of people with allergies, this is the worst season of all.” He shakes his head and smiles politely. “And don’t even get me started on the rainy weather. There’s even some in the forecast for tomorrow– have you seen?”

The man’s mouth turns down in a frown just as Goro’s train pulls into the station.

“Ah, there’s my train,” Goro says cheerfully. “Thanks for the conversation!”

His mood is improved when he finds there’s even room for himself to take a seat on the train. Goro folds his hands in his lap, looking up at the ceiling of the car as people squeeze in around him.

The advent of spring and insufferable strangers who insist on speaking to him in public places are all well and good, but what matters most to Goro is that today is the day that Ren returns.

“You’re early,” Sojiro says when he arrives at Leblanc.

“I hope that’s not a problem.”

“This is a business, and we’re open, so… it’s not. Coffee?”

“Yes, please,” Goro says, relieved, and sits down at the counter.

After a moment Sojiro sets a cup out in front of him. Then the minutes begin to tick by. Goro waits. And waits.

“Kid, if you keep fidgeting, you’re going to make me nervous,” Sojiro says.

Goro apologizes and tries to keep still. Eventually Sojiro, seeing him stare despondently at the wall for a few minutes, takes pity on Goro and passes him a book that’s been lying at the end of the counter. It’s a modern novel with a slightly cliché plot, not really to his tastes, but he’s still paging through it when he hears the door to the café open.

Goro turns.

“Hey,” Ren says.

“Hi,” Goro replies.

Ren looks just the same as usual, wearing a bulky denim jacket and a shirt Goro can just barely make out under it as having his hometown high school’s name written across the front. He hovers in the doorway for another moment, looking at Goro, before Sojiro bids him sit down and Ren slides into the next chair.

“So,” Goro says to him. “You survived the move-in process.”

Ren grins. “Just barely.”

“How’s your apartment?”

“I just came from there, actually. It kind of looks like shit right now. Unpacking and all. Lots of boxes for Mona to nap in, though. Anyway, I didn’t want anyone there, but all the… Ann and Ryuji and everyone kind of just showed up. Planned it beforehand, I guess.”

They chat idly for a little while longer. Eventually Ren starts drumming his fingers on the table, and then begins to kick at the leg of his chair, so it isn’t surprising when he suddenly stands up and says, “Hey, let’s go for a walk.”

Goro rises, too. “To where?”

“Wherever.” Ren shrugs and grins. “Promise we won’t get lost.”

They make their way through Yongen-Jaya’s backstreets and alleys. As usual Ren is on Goro’s right, the side of his good ear. Ren has a spring in his step, and twice they run into someone he knows, a shopkeeper or a resident, so Goro stands politely to the side as they exchange greetings.

After the second person, Goro says, “You love the city, don’t you.” It’s less a question than it is a statement of truth.

Ren turns to him, seeming a little surprised, but then he looks away and smiles. “Yeah,” Ren says. “Yeah, I do.”

Ren really does belong here. Goro is relieved that Ren thinks so, too, that such a belief wasn’t simply Goro’s own selfish certainty. It’s funny– Goro loathes Tokyo more than he likes it, but even this dusty alley takes on a glow when he considers it through Ren’s eyes.

Goro tells him about Kagami. Ren’s eyebrows rise in amusement. “You and a kid, huh?”

“Yes. It’s been… an interesting change of pace.”

“As long as she doesn’t find out you’re a nerd. Then she won’t respect you anymore, you know.”

“Ha ha ha.”

They walk for another moment in companionable silence. And then Goro feels the sudden need to venture, “And you… you’re happy?”

Ren raises his eyebrows. “Shouldn't I be?”

“That isn't a real answer.”

“Well, that’s barely a real question.”

Goro frowns. “Don’t be evasive.”

“What do you want me to say, Goro?” Ren tries a laugh, but it sounds a little tight. “Of course I’m happy, so no need to worry, it’s a good thing I’m still alive?”

Ren closes his mouth abruptly, like he’s suddenly realized he’s said too much.

To Goro, it’s suddenly very clear.

“You’re still angry at me,” Goro says.

Ren turns to him, surprised, but after a moment, his expression levels into evenness. “Goro–”

“Just say it.” Goro keeps his eyes fixed ahead. “I want to hear it from you.”

There’s a pause, and then Ren, sounding matter-of-fact, speaks up. “Okay. I’m still angry at you.”

Goro waits.

“Shit. I don’t know. That might not even be true.” Ren runs a hand through his hair. “I know I’m angry. I don’t know if it’s at you, or… the way things were, or the way they are now, but… yeah.” Ren closes his eyes, briefly, and opens them again. “I’m angry.”

Standing on the side of the street, they’re alone. The only sounds to be heard are the distant noises of traffic from the main road and the whoosh of the gentle wind blowing past. Goro looks at Ren, standing half in sunlight, half in shadow, his head bowed low and his bangs obscuring his eyes.

“Even afterwards,” Goro says, “when we fought together– you never said anything. You were just sarcastic. God, you made jokes.”

“Yeah, well… that’s how I process my emotions.” Ren looks up and smiles wryly.

Goro looks away. “And I didn't want to think about… how you felt. I was still–”

Still boiling with resentment and envy. Still fascinated by everything Ren was and still is. Acting just like a child, avoiding the truth out of guilt.

“I was stupid,” says Goro, and laughs, hollowly. “So stupid.”

“Yeah, well, what about me?” Ren’s voice is soft. “I can’t even talk about how I feel enough to be upset with the guy who tried to kill me.”

“And that isn’t fair,” Goro murmurs. “For you to tell me that you dislike it when I’m dishonest and then– you pretend that everything’s fine. It was… decidedly not fine.”

“Yes. Unfine, even. I know. I’m being a hypocrite. But… everything I’m trying to say, what I’m thinking– I can’t… I feel like I’ll never be able to say it right.” Ren hesitates. “Sometimes when I looked at you, you used to make me think about… ”

He stops, and Goro feels frustration bubbling within him. “Just say it.”

“Corruption,” Ren says softly. “In every sense.”

Ren may as well have stabbed him in the gut. Goro can’t look at him anymore, suddenly– he turns away without even bothering to soften the erratic movement of his shoulder.

“Hey.” Ren reaches out and grabs Goro’s wrist before he can move far enough away.   

Goro looks, first at Ren’s hand around his wrist, then at Ren.

Ren exhales, a breath of air that’s halfway to a laugh. “I don’t see you like that anymore. I get it now. That you’re more than what happened to you. But what did happen– to you, to me, everything– was so much that for a while, it was like I didn’t know what I was looking at. When I saw you, I mean.”

“If I may ask,” Goro says quietly, “what do you see now?”

“Hmm.” Ren considers him. “A 6. Maybe a 7.”

“Humor replaces emotion again, I see,” Goro says flatly. “And I know you’re joking, because we both know I’m a 10 without trying.”

Ren laughs. “All right, all right. To me, right now, you’re a real friend.”

It’s an answer that seems like it comes from a foolish sentiment, but for just a moment, Goro’s rendered speechless.

Ren lets go of his wrist– Goro almost forgot he was still holding it.

“You know… it feels like nothing I know applies to you. Nothing I’ve learned about fate, or blame, or… But that’s part of why I like you, you know. Why I’m grateful you’re around. Do you... remember what I told you?” Ren says quietly. “When I came back from detention?”

“Yes,” Goro says.

“Well, I’m reconsidering that. I mean, I think most of it’s still true, but… it’s not because of something unfinished, that you have and I don’t have either. It’s not something we lack together. It’s something that we both have.” Ren hesitates. “I just don’t know what it is yet.”

“Eloquent,” Goro can’t help but say.

Ren cuts his eyes at him. “Don’t be an ass. The point is that I can feel it, and, uh… you can’t always define feelings. Or whatever.”

Great, Ren sounds like Dr. Watanabe– everything in his life converges, Goro thinks, to distract himself from how Ren’s words are making him feel strangely flustered. He clears his throat and looks away. “Yes, I suppose I understand.”

For some reason Goro feels the need to venture, “If you want, you could hit me, or something.”

...Having an awakened conscience really is inconvenient. As if one blow could make amends for everything. Still, Goro doesn’t regret saying it, as ridiculous as it sounds.

Goro expects to have to explain, but instead Ren just considers him in response, putting a hand to his chin. He’s silent for a frighteningly long moment before saying, “Nah. I don’t want another assault charge under my belt.”

“I could tell inquiring minds that I walked into a door.”

Ren laughs. “You expect me to leave bruises or something?”

“You had bruises,” Goro says before he can stop himself.

Ren freezes.

God. Fuck. Why did he say that?

Ren heaves a sigh. “And we were being funny.”

“We were,” Goro says gloomily.

They’re silent for a moment,

“I don’t want to hit you, Goro,” Ren says eventually. “Or shove you into a door. Actually, I feel less mad now that I told you I was mad.” He gives him a half-smile. “I guess I really should… try to keep less bottled up.”

“I wish you would,” Goro says, a sudden flare of emotion overcoming him. “When you have so many people who care, you–” He digs his nails into his palms and takes a breath before he continues. “You and your hero complex. Just who do you think that helps?”

“...I know,” Ren says, sounding tired. It's almost certainly not the first time he's been admonished for this. “I know.” He clears his throat. “Thanks for caring about me. I know you do.”

Goro looks down. Of course I do, he thinks.

They’re silent for another moment, and then Goro says, “I’ve been angry, too. For a long time. And now– even now I find myself unsure of how to go on, now that being angry can’t help me anymore.”

“Did it ever really help?” Ren says softly.

Goro pauses. “Probably. But not in the right ways. It was all that kept me going. I would probably be dead by now if I hadn’t been angry for so long.”

“I think,” Ren says, considering, “you’re going to find more things that make you want to go on.”

Goro looks away. “I can only hope so.”

They keep walking, and eventually circle back closely to where they started at Leblanc.  

“Oh, right,” Ren says suddenly after they stand there awkwardly for a moment staring at the storefront. “I wanted to get your input on something.”

“What is it?”

“I have an offer to intern for Yoshida during his campaign.”

“Who?” Goro says flatly.

“Toranosuke Yoshida.” Ren’s pulling out his phone, and as Goro watches, he types something into the search field on his browser before passing it to Goro.

Goro takes the offered phone and scrolls through the search results. There’s several news articles about this man, and a clearer picture soon emerges. It seems he’s a progressive politician, with positions that Goro thinks are quite extraordinary for someone attempting to enter the mainstream.

“So he was unsuccessful in his last attempt to run,” Goro says.

“Well, yeah. But he’s just getting back on his feet. These things take time.” Ren shrugs. “Anyway, the thing is that I don’t know how I feel about working for a politician.”

“That aside, has this Yoshida met you?” Goro’s sure that Ren’s steadfast anarchism, born from a wealthy boy’s heartbroken indignation at an unjust verdict, and solidified mostly through pure stubbornness, would be sorely out of place within a government structure.

Ren laughs. “Yoshida’s a little different. I met him when he was basically disgraced, giving lectures on the street. But he’s a good guy.”

Is it even possible for Ren to sell his soul? He tries to hide his feelings, his passions, but he just isn’t good at it. He never has been. His eyes were always too bright behind those innocent-looking glasses. Confronted with a prodigy detective and a TV hostess’ pushy questions, he couldn't stop himself from speaking up for the Phantom Thieves. His soft, measured voice always seemed louder when he spoke justice.

“I don’t know,” Ren says. “I trust Yoshida, but I still…”

Goro lets him flounder for another moment before taking pity. “Ha. Shall we talk politics? For the past few years I only paid attention to the circus insofar as it concerned my… duties. I had my eyes set on one would-be despot to take down, and I couldn’t be bothered to give a damn about anybody else. They’ve all been corrupted to some degree, Ren. Such is the nature of those who wield power.”

“Is… there gonna be a more optimistic coda to that?”

“No.”

“Ah.”

“But with that said,” Goro continues, “you’re the opposite of what those men represent. You're cynical about all the right things and an idealist when it comes to… most everything else. You're too stubborn to throw your principles away with one job. You'll be fine. You may even do some good.”

He means it.

Ren smiles. “You really think so?”

“I really do.”

“Wow. Thank you.” Ren seems cheered. “That makes me feel better. It's not like I have any faith in the system, but I have a lot of faith in Yoshida. Like, as a person who I know. He, uh…” Ren rubs the back of his neck and mutters something.

“What? Don't mumble. I always tell you I can't hear you when you mumble.”

Ren sighs and says, more clearly, “He knows I, uh, was…” He mimes ripping off a mask.

“Ren.”

“Whaaat?”

“Are you–” It doesn’t take much effort for Goro to recall everything Ren’s let slip in previous conversations or for him to build his case. “Takemi, that Airsoft fanatic, your homeroom teacher– just how many– ”

“Hey, hey, it's not like I went around advertising it.” Ren rubs the back of his head. “It just happened. Don’t worry, everybody's trustworthy.”

“I can't believe you didn't get caught earlier.” Goro shakes his head in disbelief.

“Yeah, yeah. You always say that.”

“It never ceases to be true.”

“Well, anyway, no matter how this turns out, I'm not gonna become a politician.” Ren makes a face. “You can kill me before that happens.”

“What, once more?”

Ren arches an eyebrow, and Goro feels the urge to wince and beg pardon– but then Ren grins. “Well,” he says, “there’s no one I trust more to do the job.”

After bidding Ren farewell, Goro heads to the fishing pond in Ichigaya. Being there helps him clear his head.

There are a lot of people here today, owing to the nice weather, so Goro’s able to blend in with the crowd, claiming an overturned crate and a corner of the pond for himself. Staring into the water and waiting for a bite, he absently bites his own bottom lip.

It’s spring, and there are things to look forward to. Ren, back in the city. More opportunities, if he can find them. Raising Kagami’s grade in math.

Maybe something’s starting. Or maybe things are simply moving forward as usual, progressing as well as they can. Not very exciting– but gentle enough for him to appreciate.

Small steps, Goro reminds himself, tightening his grip around the fishing pole. For now, it’s enough.

There’s a reason Ren’s number is back on his phone, that Ren is back in his life.

It was the February after that fateful November. Afternoon was just turning into evening, and Goro was coming back from getting groceries at the convenience store across the street– well, if a large quantity of instant meals counted as groceries. He climbed the stairs to get to his apartment as usual and immediately stepped back when he saw Ren Amamiya standing next to his door, arms folded, watching him approach.

“Hello,” Ren said.

The first thing Goro noticed was that Ren was angry. It wasn’t immediately obvious, but Goro could tell. It wasn’t because of the presence of anything indicative, it was more evident because of the absence of something in Ren’s demeanor– no laid-back stance, no easy playfulness in his eyes.

But this observation was soon overpowered by Goro’s own righteous indignation. “Why are you here?” he demanded curtly.

“Morgana came back,” Ren said.

“What?”

“You wouldn’t know, huh? You left the group chat, after all. And I can’t text you anymore. You know anything about that?”

“I'm sure you're very happy. Send my regards to the cat.” Goro moved to enter his apartment, but Ren stepped in front of the door.

“Why weren't you there?” Ren said calmly.

“Where?”

“At Leblanc today, with everyone else. I thought I was going to see you again. Makoto said she reached out to you. Why didn't you come?”

“Ren.”

“I just got out of jail,” said Ren, “you know.”

The last time Ren had come to his apartment, Goro had thought he looked simply resigned. Now he was standing in the afternoon sun, as righteous as usual, but with a new world-weariness that made him seem older.

Goro asked the question he’d been craving the answer to for those past few months. “Why did you turn yourself in?”

“To protect the others,” Ren said simply.

“You’re a hypocrite,” Goro said.

Ren blinked.

“You told me not to do it. You said it would do no good. Who deserved it more? Me or you?!” Goro dropped his bag of groceries, packets of instant noodles crashing to the floor.

“It was just the way it happened,” Ren said, calm as usual. “There was more evidence against me. There was nothing we could have–”

“God,” Goro cut in, “you really, really, piss me off. You make me so angry. You know that? And now you’re here asking me where I was today, like that’s going to accomplish anything! Face it, Ren, I don’t want to see you. And if you were honest with yourself, you’d realize you don’t want to see me, either!”  

“Hey.” Ren raised his voice, coming closer to him. “Don’t–”  

“Thanks so much for your martyrdom,” Goro snapped, “but did you ever consider the fact that you used me ?” Goro felt his heart begin to pound, heard the way his voice wavered. “Almost the same way as he did! Where I thought that I was in control! And you– the whole time, the whole time– I was there to pull the trigger, and you knew, and you made me a part of your plan!”

Ren looked shocked. “Goro–”

“I know it was my fault! I know it was! That none of it would have happened if I’d just–” Goro clenched his fist. “I don’t know, killed myself! Or refused, or if I hadn’t gone to him in the first place! But you still– you knew everything and you still let me. Because it was convenient.”  

“I didn’t–” Ren had gone pale.  

“I wanted to make him suffer. But before he could feel anything at all, you killed him.”

“Shido’s alive,” Ren said quietly. “He’s in jail–”

“That’s not him. That’s only his shell. Face it, Ren. You and yours–” Goro laughed bitterly. “You may not have put a bullet in his head, but you killed my father.”

His words echoed bitterly in the dead air of their surroundings.

Ren said, slowly, “I know this wasn't how you wanted it.”

“Of course it isn't how I fucking wanted it.”

“You were willing to sacrifice yourself for us,” Ren said suddenly. “I won’t forget that. I can’t forget that.”

Goro closed his eyes, hoping fervently that when he opened them Ren would disappear, that he was only an apparition, a dream. But when he dared to look again, Ren was still there. The wind was blowing his bangs into his eyes.

“I’m nothing like you,” Goro told him. “It’s in your best interest to forget about me.”

“Yeah,” Ren said, “I don’t think that first part’s actually true.”

Goro, caught off guard, could only look at him in surprise.  

“Goro,” Ren said. “Can I come inside?”

Goro looked to his closest neighbor’s door, thinking of the noise they were making. “Fine,” he said eventually.

Ren watched him unlock his door, and then Goro let him in, leading him into the relatively sparse living area. Ren sat patiently in one of the chairs. Goro took the other.

They were silent for a moment, and then, Ren said, quietly, “Can I say something?”

“If you must.”

“All right.” Ren took a breath. “First of all, I’m sorry. I thought– I really thought there was no other choice but to use you the way we did. But all we knew about you, really, was that you wanted to kill me. Maybe if I’d been thinking more, I would’ve realized it all definitely had to be more fucked up than it seemed, that there was something else going on. But... I wasn’t. And I guess– I see now. That wasn’t fair.

“I know you didn’t like our method of stealing hearts,” Ren said, “and I guess you still don’t. But I’m not going to apologize for that. I already chose that path, and it’s done now. Taking their hearts– Kamoshida, Madarame, the others… I don’t regret that. But I am…” He hesitated. “It was your dad. You should have had a chance to–”

Goro was determined not to speak, but he couldn’t help but cut in. “Don’t apologize for that. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I threw my chance for revenge away. I made the decisions I made. You chose your path, and I chose mine.”

Ren looked at him and didn’t reply for a moment. He studied Goro like he was looking for something, and it made Goro shift uncomfortably in his seat.

“Can I tell you why I’m here?” Ren said finally.

Goro looked at him, a wordless go on.

“What you said before– it’s not fair of you to tell me how to feel, you know. I do want to see you. Because…"

Ren looked down at his lap. “You’re going to tell me this doesn’t make sense. But I’ve been doing some thinking. There’s a lot of time for that in juvenile detention, actually.” He laughed a little. “Man, I’m really… I’m really tired."

He shifted his gaze and stared up at the ceiling. “I feel like the way it all ended didn’t make sense. I feel like... maybe the most important part of my life is over, and I don’t even know if I made that much of a difference. I’m supposed to be trusting the world to right itself without the Thieves, but it’s as if I’m just leaving everything up to chance.”

This was the most he'd ever heard Ren speak at once, Goro realized.  

“Things are finished, but it doesn’t feel like an ending to me,” Ren said quietly. Then he looked right at Goro. “I wanted to ask you if you felt like that, too.”

“Of course I do. Obviously I do.” Goro gritted his teeth, and the yearning for a fight was back.

But Ren was just looking at him placidly, as if he really thought he and Goro were kindred spirits. It was such a ridiculous idea that Goro wanted to laugh.

Trapped by the force of that gaze, for a moment Goro felt frozen, but Ren didn’t rush him. He just sat there and waited.

After a moment, Goro managed to say, “I didn’t intend for it to go this far. Now I’m stuck.” He laughed humorlessly. “As you can see, no one knows what to do with me. But I don’t understand why you feel that way. I thought you got everything you wanted. As always, you’re free.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“You know,” Ren said, after a pause, “the rest of the Thieves… all of them were in it for personal reasons. I guess when it came to Shido, how he got me arrested, it got personal for me, too. But at the same time, it was more about… I really thought…” Ren hesitated, then smiled sheepishly. “You’re gonna laugh at me. But you know, I thought I could change the world.”

Goro looked away. “You really are foolish,” he said. “An idealist through and through.”

When Ren didn’t reply, he felt the need to continue. “What makes you think I had any similar ambitions? All I wanted was to destroy Shido. You know that.”

“But you were angry,” Ren said quietly, “because of the way things were. You wanted people to see, didn’t you? To see for themselves, when Shido was disgraced, what they were pretending wasn’t there.”

“Don’t make assumptions about me,” Goro said, but there was no bite in his words. He couldn’t bring himself to deny it, because nothing Ren had said was wrong.

“I’m scared,” Ren said bluntly. “Even though we took down Yaldabaoth, the Grail, even though we saw the people change… I’m scared it’s all going to go back to how it was.”

Before he could stop himself, Goro found himself saying, “I’m scared, too.”  

Something in Ren’s face relaxed.

“If you don’t want anything to do with me again, I won’t force you. If you really want me gone, that’s your choice. But I still think we’re… Well, it’s like I said.” Ren looked away. “I think both of our stories are unfinished.”

“You’re so presumptuous,” Goro muttered. “Coming all the way here… really.”

He should have told Ren to take his naive, stubborn fantasizing and get out. He should have ensured it so that they never saw each other again.

But every time he opened his mouth to say so, he felt as if his words lacked force. Everything he could say seemed weak and silly compared to the force of Ren’s conviction.

Ren waited for a moment, and then said, “Is that a yes?”

“You should think about what you’re saying,” Goro said.

“I have thought about it.” Ren raised his chin, looking at Goro defiantly. “I told you. I’ve had time.”

Goro closed his eyes.

He had already lost when it mattered most. What was another concession?

“All right,” he said. “All right. Fine. I can…” He shook his head. “I don’t mind seeing you again. As always,” he couldn’t help but add, “you get everything you want.”   

When he opened his eyes, Ren was smiling. Somehow the sight made something tight in Goro’s chest ease up.

“Great,” Ren said. “Then can you unblock my number?”

With some reluctance, Goro did so.

“I’m going back home,” Ren said, afterwards. “To finish my third year. But I’m gonna come back. I’ll see you then.”

“Right.”

“So,” Ren said. He put his hands on his hips. He was the most vibrant thing in Goro’s apartment. “Friends?”

“Whatever,” said Goro.

Ren grinned.