Speaking of people who wear black and blue, Akechi's engaged in what used to be a retreat from reality, and now is pretty much the only thing he has to do, tedious as hell; he's sitting on a café terrace somewhere in Tokyo, nursing a coffee, counting cognitions, and idly wondering what you'd have to do to make one bleed.

And the thing is, there's no missing Naoto Shirogane. She haunted Akechi's awareness as a kid, a reminder of his status, of his poverty, of how nobody would notice him without a wealthy family behind him. She haunts him at home, a real detective trailed by a menacing playactor; even the clothes he chooses are patterned after hers, for someone else who's just a Detective Prince and not a boy at all.

And the thing is, he admires her, too. As much as he admires anyone, that is. And he's heard things, since he got here, that makes him think she might know far too much about him. All this means that, when he looks up from his coffee and sees her, he freezes like a rat beneath an arclight. Maybe, if he doesn't move, she won't see him...?

That's shit, though. Shirogane is here, and so is he. There are no secrets, least of all to her; he quickly repatterns his face into a wry little smile across the terrace, an almost-shy tilt of his head: hello, senpai. But his hand itches for the Evoker strapped to his ankle.