personavelvetroomdr | my montage of lost things, my shining trinkets of grief

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my montage of lost things, my shining trinkets of grief

((cw: hallucinations, panic, the general poor mental state of someone with a Palace))

Ren is not exactly at his most presentable. Like, yeah, he's clean and dressed, but that's about all you can say for him. His hair is a snarl of tangles, his skin is unhealthily pale, he holds himself rigidly, and the shadows under his eyes are so dark that it looks like they might never leave. And he knows he looks bad, but by now he's beyond caring. With everything that's happening to him, someone judging his hair is the least of his fucking concerns.

He doesn't usually like to go out, these days. A lot can happen when he's out of his apartment. Too many things he can't control, and too many places that remind him of home, which lately is to be avoided at all costs. But his apartment isn't much better. There's nowhere he can look where he hasn't seen Shido, or Akechi, or Shido and Akechi, or his parents or his orphanage directors or fuck knows who else. There's nowhere he can sit where he hasn't heard their voices. And when he's not hallucinating, he's alone with his thoughts, which is worse.

All that is to say, there was a whole thing earlier where he felt like he couldn't breathe, and it sucked, but it's over now! He's fine. Still, it made him want to get out of his apartment. So here he is, out in Shibuya. And outside has turned out to be as vertiginous and full of danger as he was afraid of, but, well. At least it's different.

1. all the things that i ran from i now bring as close to me as i can

He stands with his back to the wall of a storefront and searches the constant stream of passing cognitions. His expression is fraught. He knows he hasn't really been seeing people from his past, he's not stupid, but the idea of being blindsided by a hallucinatory Shido or orphanage director amidst the crowd is terrifying enough to keep him rooted in place, watching endlessly.

2. gripping hotel sheets with gritted teeth

He's finally escaped the crowds. Curled up on the grimy concrete in a Shibuya alleyway, his knees to his chest and his back once again pressed to the wall, he tries to calm down. Akechi made him breathe, that time when he freaked out in his Palace. He tries to match the rhythm he remembers, but it just makes him think about the Palace, so he abandons that plan almost at once and goes back to waiting out the terror. He'll be fine if he just grits his teeth and endures it. That... usually works, anyway.

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Goro follows, setting down bowls, spoons and chopsticks on the counter with his usual flair. "But we're not at home. And rather than kicking you in the head, I've chosen the way of soup."

He watches, though, in a depthless sort of way; he knows how it works, though he'll never know as much about staying safe as Ren.

"Leader of the Phantom Thieves," he says, for reasons even he only half-understands. "Thanks for the food."

The soup is good. He knew it would be, because Akechi made it. Ace, Phantom Thieves ringleader and soupmaker.

It's the same soup his mother used to make, when he was tiny and they lived in that one room in Shinjuku; when she had all day for him, and they made do with next to nothing, besides what they could steal. When he was happy because he knew no better, except when he was scared the way an animal is scared.

He's developed the recipe over the years, of course, added spice to the dashi base and blended the flavours, so that he's able to put it before Ren now. He sets to himself, though both of them need a lot more than soup. Maybe after the baths.

Picking out some vegetables from the bowl, he thinks about what Ren said. "Leader of the Phantom Thieves. I wish I could make the claims for virtue for myself that you think."

He's just a vigilante, after all, at the end of the day. Nobody forced him to do any of what he's done, technically; he chose. More or less.

With his mouth full of soup, Ren pauses, frowning sidelong at Akechi. He chooses his words as he swallows.

"You don't think you're virtuous?"

What the fuck?

He glances up from his own bowl, which he's cradled in one hand. "I'm not going to say there's not a continuum. We're on different places on it. But virtuous is such an awful word, don't you think?"

Crap, it's enough to make him laugh. He sets down his bowl. "It makes me sound like I sit on the PTA. Or the student council. Makoto is virtuous."

"You're a better person than Niijima."

And he drinks some broth. He doesn't even hate Niijima. Niijima is fine. But that doesn't mean he doesn't have thoughts.

"Makoto hasn't been without her struggles. You know enough about Niijima-san, I'm sure. But I know what you're saying."

He picks up his chopsticks, fishing out another nest of carrot and daikon, warm with ginger. "I don't do what I do because I'm a good person, Ren."

"Why, then?"

It's easy to be present in this moment. The voices are quiet, and the shadows remain at the edges of his vision, swirling and unformed. He likes thinking about Akechi.

Rather than look up, he stirs his soup. Suzui, falling from the roof. The dead look on Ann's face, as she sat in Kamoshida's car. He'd seen that same look on his mother's face. And the rumours about his mother and himself, spread by Kamoshida from his koseki page... oh, there had been nothing virtuous about taking on Kamoshida.

And next there had been Kaneshiro, laughing and leering while his men held Makoto down on the floor. His loathsome face, his loathsome threats to enslave Makoto and her sister....

He sets down his chopsticks. "Because I'm really angry. All of the time. I don't care if it's good or bad, changing hearts, just that we can do it. It's not from some great moral ethic that I don't kill, you know. I've just chosen not to."

He almost wants to laugh. "Akechi. That's what makes you a good person, dude. Choosing what to do or not do. I'm mad all the time too, but you don't see me risking my neck to deal with all the assholes."

Edited 2024-06-15 00:28 (UTC)

"But maybe you would have." Now he looks up, trying to see into Ren's soul. "If your circumstances had been different, you could have been like any of the other versions of you here. And it's the same for me.

"Come on, you know people need to be kicked until they can't stand up. Far too many of them. You know it better than I do."

He doesn't like thinking about the first part, so he doesn't. His face twists with discomfort for a moment before he puts it out of his mind.

"Sure. And a lot of the time, it takes someone brave and, like. Principled. To actually do it. Because it's not in your personal interests to go up against... whoever." He squints at Akechi. "Is that what you're saying? The violence is what makes you not a good person? That's a weird take."

Sometimes, as Akechi says, violence really is the answer.

"No, it's not that exactly." He takes another sip of his soup before he goes on. "It's because I don't care about anyone else. Who am I, after all? I'm nobody. I'm a boy from Yonchome. What makes my right and wrong better than anyone else's, or my ability to judge it more reliable? What makes me arrogant enough to choose not just for myself, but for everyone else?"

He looks back down. "Obviously I'm not Shido. But that's essentially what he does, from all I hear—he has a vision of the world, his own vision, and he thinks he's justified in acting to effect it. He doesn't care about right and wrong, or about anyone else. All our targets are that way, selfish. Lacking humility. A better person, a truly good person, would never do what I've done."

...And Ren sets down his soup spoon and stares at Akechi in incredulous silence.

That's essentially what Shido does. For a moment, he's so utterly flabbergasted that he can't even think about a response.

But Goro doesn't back down, just looks into Ren's eyes, believing he sees himself clearly. His voice drops briefly to a growl. "Obviously Shido does things I'd never dream of doing. I look forward to taking him down more than I can say. But it is, in the end, a matter of scale."

Surely Ren understands that?....

"Wow," Ren says at last. "You really think that."

He pushes his near-empty soup bowl away and props his elbows on the counter, trying to marshal his thoughts through the fog that's existed in his head for weeks.

"Did someone, like. Tell you this? Or did you decide on your own that helping people makes you a mini-Shido?"

"It's not about what I do." Quickly, he finishes the last of his soup.

"It is, dude. That's the only thing it's about."

His tone isn't harsh, but he's not backing down any more than Akechi is.

"Everyone has opinions about how the world should be. Everyone would make them real if they could. Sorry, but you're not, like, special for wanting stuff to be different. What matters is what you want to change, and what you do if you somehow get that power.

"Shido wants to rule the fucking world. He wants to burn it down, just because he gets off on being able to. You want to save people from monsters and see the monsters face justice. Are you really telling me there's no moral distinction there?"

"Of course there's a moral distinction!" Elbows on the counter, he starts to gesture, a bit wide-eyed in the way he gets when he's got his teeth into something. "Actions matter. What we choose to do, in and of itself, matters. I've chosen to change the world because I believe it needs changing, that it's better off with our targets dealt with. The others agree."

He trails off a bit. "Though then again, maybe I've just led them down a blind alley. Let them follow me to destruction. Shit, I hope it doesn't end up like that."

"It won't." Ren itches to take Akechi's hand. His fingers curl into loose fists. "You'd never have let that happen anyway, but it definitely won't now that you've come here and learned all this."

And now that Ren has broken under the pressure and defected from Shido, as well. But they both know that was only one of several problems.

But, watching Ren's eye drop to his hands and his fingers curl, Goro moves his own bowl aside and reaches across the counter.

Ren hesitates for a second, as a series of emotions flit past—humiliation, wistfulness, anticipation. Then, ignoring them all, he takes Akechi's hand and squeezes it.

"I'm not saying it won't suck. But you'll all be fine."

"You're right," he says, feeling Ren's hand take his own. They hold hands a lot these days, but usually it's the the other way around. "Coming here has given us an advantage I could never have dreamed of."

And he's including Ren in that, though he doesn't say it. "I suppose what I'm saying is simply... good people don't change the world. They know themselves too well for that. But, of course, most people don't change the world for other reasons. There really aren't many good people out there."

"Those aren't good people," he says, dismissive. "Those are cowards who want to believe they're not taking action because they're too good." Unlike Ren, who can at least see his cowardice perfectly well.

"You're right about the other part, though," he adds. His expression clouds as he thinks of True Calling, which he might never be able to use again. When he was younger, he kind of figured he'd eventually find one or two people who it wouldn't work on. Like, real fuckups, cult members or fanatics who threw everything on the pyre to do what they believed was right, whatever that meant for them. But he's never once found someone who wasn't held back from something. Some True Callings have bigger effects than others, for sure, but still.

"Oh?" Ren's hand is warm on his. Goro could argue, but he wants to know where that was going.

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