stealhearted | are you hurting the one you love?

[He's... making it worse, yes, in that Akechi still can't wrap his head around it, but he does, in some way, appreciate the explanation. He waves a hand dismissively.]

You're embarrassing yourself, [...and Akechi, but that's. Beside the point.] And it was more that I rendered myself exhausted from being an absolute twit this morning. [Because he can't very well agree to the fact that he does, in fact, feel safer around Akira than he probably ever has in his life? That would be silly.]

I'm embarrassing, it's fine. [ Just wait until you become the boyfriend that gets the subtle PDA. Then you'll really be embarrassed, Akechi.

But, at any rate -- ]

We can go to the bath house. You'll probably feel better after that, too.

[His expression pinches again and he shakes his head, scoffing softly.] It wouldn't be in my first choice of words to describe you, but what do I know.

[He hums, thinking that over, and shifts to stand, stretching his arms forward and nodding.] Are they open this early in the-- how long did I sleep?

Only about an hour, but if we go now we'll beat the rush. [ Akira offers a smile, because he's figured out all the busiest times to go, given how often he has to use it and how sometimes he just isn't up for seeing 6,000 elderly dongs. ]

You might even feel up to charging your phone once you're clean.

[He fidgets with the sleeves of-- he's still wearing Akira's hoodie, wow. He takes a little longer to fidget with them, frowning and nodding.]

I still don't have a charger.

[ Akira actually gets up, wandering over to the bed and pulling out ... a collection of chargers, varying from a plain braided black cable to a bright pink cable. He offers them out to Akechi, a little bemused about it. ]

When we started using this place as a hideout, everyone brought their chargers... One of these will probably work.

[He stares at this presentation, pursing his lips. Eventually he fixes Akira with a bit of an unamused frown.]

You could have said that from the start, you know.

I... thought you'd want the excuse to avoid everyone for a little longer. They're all excited you're back, but I know it's a lot to deal with.

[ There's a beat, and then Akira taps something on his phone, pulling up a small comic. ] Futaba started making memes.

[ And then he turns his phone around to show Akechi this. ]

[He somehow seems more uncomfortable with Akira's obvious accommodation. His shoulders pinch inward, but he walks up and claims one of the chargers after inspecting their cables.]

...I'll have to deal with them eventually. [But he does, honestly, appreciate it. He walks to the wall and plugs the charger in, then to his coat, fishes out his phone, and gives it an apprehensive frown before plugging it in. Then he stands up and pivots away from it.] But I suppose the phone can charge while we bathe.

Yeah. [ Internally, Akira thinks about the fact that he has quite literally just professed his undying love for Akechi and now they're going to go get platonically naked together, and like, would it be weird? If he uses that forbidden knowledge? For some lascivious private activities? Would that be morally wrong?

Technically, he's already seen Akechi naked, and he has already used that for the same activities, but it is definitely on a new level now.

Maybe it's only weird if he makes it weird. ]

Will your hair be okay with the bath house shampoo?

[It's definitely only weird if he makes it weird, but give Akechi the time to refill his HP bar and administer some teasing and maybe it'll be less weird. He's got no idea what to do with a hormonal Akira Kurusu having confessed feelings only to immediately go to a public bath house with him.]

[It's good he's very much not prepared to consider his own feelings on the matter, let alone how to act on them, because they do not need to get kicked out of the bath house for getting handsy...]

[He brings a hand up to the ends of his hair and considers the question, walking up to him with a frown and shoving his hand in Akira's hair without warning. Why he thinks Akira's hair texture is going to be any sort of indication he's not sure, but it'll do for now.] Should be. [He's going to be a frizzy disaster, but it's fine.]

[ Akira's hair, despite the fact that he uses literal body soap on his head, looks, smells, and feels fine. It's surprisingly soft, and most of the curls seem to be because his hair is just extremely thick and attempting to be abducted by aliens one strand at a time. ]

If it's not, we can get you something nicer. I think your standards might be a little higher than mine. [ Which is to say that even if Akechi isn't trying to be the detective prince, he still tends to dress sharply with a good amount of care given to his appearance. Which is great, since it means he always looks absolutely stunning even in sweater vests and polo shirts, but it also comes with a price tag that... might be a concern if Akira didn't have a lot of yen stuffed in strange places in his bedroom.

It does take all of Akira's willpower not to lean too obviously into Akechi's touch, though. ]

[He almost regrets putting his hand there. One, he feels like it might get lost or absorbed by the black hole that is the sheer volume of Akira's hair, and two, it's really nice. How the fuck is his hair so nice. He wants to be annoyed, but Akira's over here fussing over his standards and he focuses on that, instead.]

...I can make do until I've reclaimed my things from Sae-san. Not that I imagine she saved my shampoo, but with any amount of luck she did save the bank of emergency yen I kept in my bookcase. It was alongside a number of criminal justice titles, so something tells me she would have considered it important enough to consider, at least.

[ You know that awkward stage of adolescence teenagers have where they get acne and smell weird and their hair never works properly and they get inopportune boners? The only part of that Akira ever suffered from was the boner thing, honestly.

Which is good, since his parents never really bothered to teach him anything about continued hygiene past the basics. Sometimes he's really grateful that he had unrestricted access to the internet, because it definitely made figuring puberty out a lot easier. (Sometimes he thinks he should have punched Shido years previous, because having Sojiro around when he was going through puberty would have been extremely comforting.)

At any rate, his hair is just like that. ]

She's probably got it. [ Sae wouldn't have spent it, even if everyone thought Akechi was dead. She'd probably have given it to Akira too, for him to do something with, and Akira doesn't know what he'd have done with it. Probably stashed it in a slightly different place from all the other piles of money and not thought about it.

Akira peers downstairs briefly, and sees only a set of businessmen that won't bother to make much of a fuss if two teenagers appear from the upstairs. All the same, he steps over to tug the hood of the hoodie Akechi is wearing up. ]

So no one recognizes you until you're ready. [ Also because Akira does not want paparazzi at Leblanc, even if Akechi wasn't that popular of a celebrity, he was still pretty popular. ]

[It's one of the seven wonders of the world that Akechi isn't a greasy pimply gremlin, with that in mind. Moreover, he probably wound up with either a temporary older foster sister or young foster mother who was extremely fastidious about her appearance and discovered he liked being clean. Or maybe it was for a less savory reason, hard to say. That is for a much later confidant bond episode.]

[He hums, nodding. The bank is likely locked, anyway, and whether or not the key still exists within his things is another mystery to be solved whenever he is reunited with what he owns. He startles, only flinching slightly when Akira reaches over to yank the hood of his borrowed jacket up, nodding again.]

...I hope you're right about there not being many people, I don't want to explain this.

Most of the people that go to the bath house in this area are so elderly they probably wouldn't recognize you, but just in case. [ He's also pretty sure none of them will be able to see the bruise on Akechi's cheek since you don't generally wear glasses into the bath, so they should be safe on both counts.

Akira leaves most of his things in the attic before he heads downstairs with Akechi, giving a little wave to Sojiro and receiving a vague nod of the head in return as Sojiro tries to puzzle out a five letter word for "to eat sparingly". ]

Oh, if you need to do any laundry, the laundromat's right next door. Once you've got more clothes, anyway. [ Akira does not state that he sometimes calls his teacher to do his laundry for fifty bucks. ]

[He hums again, thoughtful and maybe hoping Akira isn't just optimistic. He follows on his heel, only in part due to their circumstances, but also maybe because he just doesn't want the chance to be noticed by anyone else. He does pause briefly and peer at Sojiro's crossword, tapping one finger against the counter and "writing" a letter against the wood before winking and breaking into a brief jog to catch up with Akira before he's forced.]

[Maybe he likes crossword puzzles, okay.]

[He falls in step alongside him, this time, a faint, but absolutely present grin quirking at the corner of his mouth. It doesn't fade entirely when he lifts his head to give Akira a look.] Yes, I remember the laundromat.

I might be used to my friends being really absent-minded. [ Akira says it a little ruefully, because Ryuji and Yusuke would probably still get lost in Yongen-Jaya if they were left to their own devices. But it's fine; Akira will sound dumb a thousand times over if it helps keep that smile on Akechi's face. ]

I think Ann's forgotten I don't have a bathroom about six times.

Yes, well. With all due respect, some of the company you keep isn't the brightest. [He might actually mean that fondly. It's hard to say. The smile stays, at least.]

You can either be really smart, or really good with people, but very rarely both. [ This is what Akira has learned in his time with other human beings. Sometimes they're neither, of course, but he doesn't say that.

Akira heads into the bath house with the confidence born of complete familiarity, stowing his things away. He's long past any hangups about nudity in front of others, even if it's a little different to be naked in front of Akechi now...

Don't make it weird, Akira. ]

[He hums curiously, tilting his head and wandering in after him, following suit with little to no shyness to be found.]

Oh? Then what does that make you? [Oh boy. It Has Begun.]

Oh, I'm definitely-- [ And then Akira cuts off abruptly. He's turn to look at Akechi, to give a comeback and continue the verbal sparring that's such a pillar of their relationship, but Akechi is naked.

And that's not the distracting part, given the way the half-smile falls directly off his face and he looks -- for a moment -- like he's been absolutely gutted. He looks very similar to the way the cognitive Akira had when Akechi had shot him: wounded and scared and resigned all at once.

It takes him a second to recover, and the only reason he does is because he doesn't want to burden Akechi with his own weakness -- but it's there. An ugly red mark, a raised puncture of a scar right over his heart, the unmistakable look of a bullet hole. Of a shot that someone wouldn't have been able to survive.

Of a shot that he didn't survive. ]

Sorry, I wasn't expecting -- [ And Akira just gestures, helplessly, to Akechi's chest. ]

[He can't deny that he enjoys the banter, himself. It's familiar in a way he didn't expect to have... missed, maybe, it's hard to say, and he's afraid to think that maybe, just maybe this could be normal, now, but the exchanges they fire between themselves were always something he enjoyed. As such, he's looking forward to whatever Akira returns, grin still in place until he cuts off suddenly.] No witty comeback for that, Kurusu? You're losing your touch.

[But when he turns to figure out what could have disrupted him, the expression on Akira's face turns his whole body to ice again-- familiar, in such a way that he takes a small step away from him and immediately looks at each of his hands, briefly. He looks from them back to Akira, and his face, and in confusion follows his alarmed line of sight.]

[He regrets it immediately.]

[He relives the entire thing as soon as he sees that scar, gnarled as it is neat, and he sucks in a startled breath and brings a hand up to cover it, reflexively.]

[After that wall went up, his last lifeline barricaded away from him in staunch refusal to allow them to help, he remembers distinctly the sensation of being shot, as if Akira's frightened stare had fired another bullet. He'd tried to stay standing, he thinks, either that or it had just felt like it took several minutes for him to hit the floor. And then it was quiet, and he was cold, save for the pool of warmth that grew beneath him that he knew was blood, knew was him dying.]

[It took ages. He had time to go over every little mistake he'd made, first in the Metaverse, then in the real world, his head spinning a timeline backward like some kind of sick funhouse wheel that never really stopped, just blurred together the countless times he'd messed up. Akira was in a lot of those memories, but never as the mistake.]

[Outside of his own head, he just crumpled inward and then down, dropping into a crouch beside the lockers with one hand still pressed against the scar over his heart, his thumb pressing against it as if he expected it to bleed again, and was stemming it before it could. His other hand went to his head, fingers threaded into his hair, and were he any more aware of his surroundings he may have been impressed with himself for not screaming. Instead he just heaved in shaking breaths, slowly folding forward until the back of the hand in his hair touched the tile floor.]

[ Akira is moving the second Akechi crumples. He moves forward automatically, with a dim portion of his brain registering how glad he is that he timed this right, since the only other people at the bath house is just a singular elderly man already in the water and nowhere near their line of sight. Akira drops down, one hand on either side of Akechi's face, drifting to hold him steady, to feel the heat of his skin, to transfer some of Akira's own heat to him. ]

Akechi -- Goro. Goro, stay with me. [ He can hear each ragged breath that Akechi is dragging in, hear the way the breaths are a staccato rhythm that's too fast, too shallow. It's not nearly enough when Akechi is curling in on himself, gripping himself like he's already back there.

Akira calculates his odds, rapidly, and then reaches forward, pressing two fingers just above the scar, where the skin is only pink instead of a swollen red, where he can still feel the pounding of Akechi's heart. His palm closes over Akechi's hand, the two of them pressing over a wound that isn't going to bleed again. ]

I've got you. [ Akira is comforting both of them, he thinks: it's a reminder that the last time he didn't save Akechi, but he did, he brought him back. It wasn't fast enough. It wasn't soon enough, but he's managed it in the end, which has to count for something.

Akira doesn't know what guilt he's trying to assuage.

Akira's hand leaves Akechi's cheek, goes up to press against that hand, too, lacing their fingers together as he holds onto Akechi. ]

I've got you.

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