Chapter Text
Leblanc is quiet. That elderly couple always hogging the furthest-most booth is there, whispering. The sharp tang of roasting coffee beans overwhelms his entire being, washes over his tongue and burrows into his nostrils. He's standing behind the counter, pouring a cup of black coffee. He's vaguely aware of Sojiro puttering around behind him, Morgana snoozing on the counter, his friends, despite the impression of emptiness and silence, filling up the rest of the seats.
"You never listen, do you?"
The acerbic, biting tone stabs into his chest. Ren is tempted to claw at it, dig it out with his fingernails, let blood empty onto the counter and wash away every horrible memory.
"What did I tell you?" the voice continues. It must be winter because the speaker is bundled up in a tan peacoat. "My resolve remains unchanged."
"I didn't say anything." Ren rubs his eyes. He's forgotten his glasses upstairs.
The speaker clicks his tongue and disapprovingly sniffs at the preferred cup. "Pales in comparison. What a sick joke. I demand compensation."
Ren bristles. "You liked it before."
"But it's not before."
"You're not making any sense."
"Well, I am dead. Forgive me if I am a little bit incoherent; though, really, I feel perfectly fine, and that is the greater concern." Akechi sighs and listlessly waves around the coffee cup. Luckily, not a drop escapes it. He studies Ren with his usual, sharp eyes—the ones that only Ren got to see before everything happened. "If you were awake, this could be a real conversation. As it is, I will be brief. The last thing I remember is Maruki's palace crumbling."
"Okay," Ren says. Akechi had been there, of course. Why wouldn't he have been? Akechi rambling was out of character, except when he was having a psychotic break. Was he? "Have you made yourself psychotic again?"
A look of disgust crosses Akechi's face. "You are lucky my mood is practically beatific, Amamiya."
"That's a big word." Ren blinks owlishly and tries to pour him another coffee, but Akechi stops his hand. Ren doesn't understand and tries to ask him why, but instead, Akechi changes the subject.
"We should not be meeting again."
"What?" Ren stares at him. "Why?"
"I am dead."
"No, you're not. You're here."
"Yes, yes." Akechi pats his hand a little condescendingly. Ren swats at it in irritation. "You can't let anything go, can you? Even when the situation is beyond saving. I told you over and over, and yet you remain a stubborn fool. I refuse to be a rat in anyone's cage, Ren. This has not changed."
Ren wants to really look at him, but suddenly his face won't coalesce into anything coherent. It's just splotches of familiar colors wavering in the air, as if a mirage.
"Why not?" Ren grinds his teeth. He's angry, but he doesn't know why. "Why fucking not, Akechi? Why do you even think I'll cage you—I'm not Maruki!"
"Oh, but aren't you?" Akechi is leaning closer. Ren's heart is beating out of his chest. "Do you really think you wouldn't? I know what you are, Joker. You were tempted, I saw it. I saw how you hesitated, how little you wanted to leave Maruki's little dream, how willing you were to ignore my wishes and make me a puppet."
"I wanted you to live!" Ren screams. Akechi recoils, as if he hadn't expected it.
"I gave up living a long time ago." Akechi sounds sullen. He stirs his coffee with a teaspoon in aimless circles. "Let's say I did survive—my eventual fate is a prison cell, no less than ten years, and then—what? Shido has been apprehended. My purpose in life has been fulfilled."
Ren, whose entire life, long before Shido stomped drunkenly all over it, was a pristine example of perfect control. Everything was doled out in stomachable doses. Fear, anger, joy. But right now, he wants to throw a table at this smug asshole. He wants to hurl boiling hot coffee in his pretty face.
Akechi continues, as if possessed. "What, you think if I lived, that my incarceration would give Okumura and Sakura something like closure? You know what the police are capable of—at best I will become a scapegoat and at worst just another piece of their greater cover-up. I will be disappeared the moment they have their hands on me, and then what will it have mattered? I might as well die like this: useful, and on my own terms. My death should be closure enough. Let me go like your little friends already have."
"No," Ren says.
"This is a pointless act of self-sabotage!" Akechi throws up his hands in exasperation. "I am not a stuffed toy from your childhood. Stop dragging me into your pitiful fantasies!"
"I can't!" Ren slams his fists on the counter. "I can fix this. It's not right. It's not fair. It's—I need—"
I need you. I need you to come back. We made a promise.
Ren doesn't realize he's breathing like a cornered animal until Akechi pipes up, suddenly sly and pithy, "Oh, how terrifying."
Ren is torn between being fond and enraged, but he's interrupted before he can settle on any one emotion.
"Sounds like you need a hand!" A voice pipes up from somewhere out of sight. Both Akechi and Ren start. Akechi glances down at the floor next to him just as a little boy clambers up onto the stool.
"Jose?" Ren relaxes his posture. He feels sick, woozy, the cafe vaguely fuzzing. Akechi's head whips around, searchingly, but Ren can't decide if he's noticed or if it's something else.
"Yep, that's me! You remembered!" The little (Ren, admittedly, always kinda thought of him as the 'egg boy') child he'd met in Mementos over a year ago studied Leblanc, smiling. "My studies say that humans wish each other a 'long time no see!' after a long time apart. So, long time no see! I'm just passing through. One day, I thought about you, and I decided I would visit. And then I stumbled on this."
Jose waves his arms as if scooping up the scene.
"What are you doing here?" Besides Lavenza, and technically Erina, no one from beyond their world had ever shown up in the cafe.
"You looked sad," Jose says.
"I'm fine."
Akechi snorts, but otherwise remains silent.
"Your friend—I remember him. You're sad because of him, right?" Jose stares with those bright yellow eyes, eyes that always reminded him of Lavenza, speaking of, and waits. But Ren doesn't say anything.
"I heard you arguing," Jose continues eventually, looking a little put-out. "Someone like you, you aren't easy to miss. And then I remembered, I never really thanked you for helping me."
"But you did," Ren says. He waits for Akechi to chime in, but he doesn't.
"The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my first gift wasn't very good. I've been really studying up, and well, when I heard you guys fighting, I thought—I can help!"
"And what," Akechi finally says, bitingly, "is your idea of help?"
"Hello!" Jose greets cheerily. "This!" And Jose presents a glowing star which floats above his palm.
It dawns on both Ren and Akechi exactly what Jose is implying.
"This is irresponsible," Akechi says through a vicious snarl. "Do you know what he'll do with that thing? He is unable to make rational decisions at the moment. You're dangling candy in front of a day-old infant."
"I'm not an infant," Ren grumbles. "I'm seventeen."
Akechi, in a familiar motion, shakes his head and sighs. Ren's stomach feels warm.
"I don't agree!" Jose says. "I trust Joker, and on top of it, I worked really hard on this one. I've gotten much more powerful, you know? I can't manipulate cognition like that one human did a while ago, but I can do this much. You helped me learn so much about humans for that person, so this is really the least I can do. I wouldn't do anything that would hurt anyone or cause irreparable damage. You can trust me!"
The star hovers there.
Akechi tenses, as if wanting to lunge for it, but the way he only twitches—it's as if he can't move at all. "Dammit," he curses. "Ren, be reasonable. You'll be no different from him."
Despite his blustering, Ren realizes, suddenly, that Akechi's face is strained, taut, maybe a little scared. Ren tries to imagine what could be passing through his mind. Was he afraid to go to jail? Was he afraid that it wouldn't work, and a chance at living would be swiped away from him again? Or was it something else? Akechi's handsome, desperate face had never looked so—something. Ren's brain wouldn't work. It felt like mush. He just knew he didn't like it. He wanted Akechi to live.
He and Maruki were never very different. It was something they both knew, deep down. Maruki just let it all go to his head, and it spun out beyond his control. But, unlike Maruki, Ren wasn't selfless.
He'd do anything for the people he loved. For Akechi.
By the time he'd realized that, it'd been too late.
Ren reaches over and wraps his hand around the wishing star.
"It was good seeing you again, Joker!" Jose says. The world goes dark, then white, and the last thing he remembers is seeing the gray husk of the star before he's aware of nothing at all.
When Ren wakes, he's falling out of his bed, Morgana squawking as he hits the wood floor. It hurts, and he lays there for a minute, sleep clearing out of his head.
"Whoa! You okay?" Morgana cries out from the bed. "What happened?"
Ren takes stock of his surroundings. He's in his room in his hometown. It's a Sunday in autumn, and pale light is filtering in through a peek in the curtained window. He'd had no plans, except to watch a show later that night that Ryuji'd recommended. He keeps his weekends open just in case he wants to take a train down to Tokyo, or if his friends ever have a chance to drive over. They still hadn't, of course. Everyone was too busy. Still, he left his calendar open all the same.
He was never really sure he wanted them to come.
The idea of them meeting his parents... It always left his stomach cold.
"I'm okay," Ren says, pushing himself up onto his knees. He'd have a bruise or two, maybe, but he seems fine otherwise. "Just a bad—"
His mouth goes dry.
On the floor next to him, Goro Akechi is lying there unconscious.