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"You're awfully quiet."
Akira glanced up from his mocktail, half full.
Akechi was smiling from behind his half empty one with that teasing glint in his eye that made Akira reflexively bite the inside of his cheek. He was facing away from the stage. There was supposed to be a singer on soon, as indicated by the fact that all the lights were on, illuminating Akechi from behind and casting his front in slight shadow. But it wasn't top of the hour just yet.
"I'm always quiet."
"You're right. I suppose that's an unfair observation to make." Akechi tilted his head down and to the right slightly. Akira remembered their conversation from a couple weeks ago: It's about angles, Kurusu-kun. Tilt your head down... yes, like that. Now smile. It tricks the camera into thinking you're smiling more than you actually are.
Akira took another sip, grenadine coating his tongue, and raised his brows to encourage Akechi to continue.
He did. "I suppose it's also unfair for me to be the one to invite you and expect you to make all the conversation. Not that I expect that of you usually."
From any other mouth that might've been an insult. Maybe from Akechi it still was, but he didn't get that sense. That was how it tended to be between them, with Akechi floating from topic to topic with the ease of someone who had spoken to people from all different walks of life as part of their career. That was also Akira's career, if Phantom Thieving could be considered one, but he'd found he was a better sponge than therapist (despite Maruki's insistence). He'd gotten used to sitting and absorbing what people fed him and spitting back out what he thought was the appropriate response every five minutes. Most of the time he got it right, but sometimes he missed.
Akechi never seemed to miss anything.
"You do seem to be lost in thought more than usual, however. Less responsive than I'm used to," Akechi continued, "Ah, not that that's a problem! It's just out of the ordinary for you."
Akira tilted his head back in a silent, oh yeah?
Akechi understood, of course. "You're a more active listener than you think." His eye twinkled, "It's a good quality in a conversation partner."
Huffing a laugh, Akira set his drink down. "If only I had your media training."
"You don't need it."
Akira let a hum of surprise, pride sparking in his chest despite himself. That was high praise from Akechi.
With a slight chuckle, Akechi set his own drink down and tilted his own head back to mirror him. That was another conversation, from maybe a couple months back: You have to be subtle about it, of course, but doing something as simple as copying how someone is sitting goes a long way. It signals you're in alignment with them, subconsciously. Though, you seem to fit in wherever you go anyways, don't you Akira?
"Why did you invite me here?" Akira asked quickly, not thinking the words through as much as he normally would. Especially around Akechi.
Akechi's lips twitched down. "Pardon?"
Akira swallowed and willed himself to continue. "When we were at the platform, you said after our deal ended, you wouldn't see me anymore."
"Correct."
"Why invite me out then?"
Akechi's mouth did a slight twitch, maybe from biting his inner cheek or swiping his tongue across his teeth. "... I'm afraid I don't understand how that question relates."
Akira resisted the urge to break gaze. The calling card that they were set to send out in a couple days loomed behind him like a guillotine blade at his neck, an impending finality. "If we aren't going to hang out anymore, why bother going out of your way to see me like this? Doesn't it... not serve a purpose, I guess?"
"A purpose?" Akechi echoed.
Akira moved his hands under the table so he could fidget with them out of sight. "The whole reason you've been talking to me was because you suspected I was a Phantom Thief. And now you have your answer."
Akechi didn't answer for a long moment. His smile remained, but his eyes glazed slightly, like the true expression he wanted to make was trapped behind a two-way mirror. "You think that little of me?"
It was definitely said with the cadence of a joke, but the words themselves were so jarring that Akira felt something twinge in his fingers. "What do you mean?"
"You forget how our relationship began." Akechi reached forward and grabbed his glass. He turned it slightly, rolling the stem between his fingers, but never picking it up. "Your words intrigued me and your insight was valuable. My suspicions didn't form until later. You should know better than anyone that I'm dissatisfied with simple answers. Our relationship has changed, sure, but I haven't exhausted you from every angle yet."
Akira laughed and let it cover up the bit of hurt he couldn't beat down at being reduced to... well, what had he really expected? Especially with what was coming? "So after tonight will you have 'exhausted' me? Or are you going to ask me out again tomorrow?"
Akechi's eyes narrowed to a playful squint- a rare expression on him. "See, now I've gotten you talking. If such a question was bothering you, you could've just asked."
"You haven't answered it yet."
"Hm." Akechi glanced off to the side, towards the bar with its clinking glasses and din of soft chatter. "I suppose, simply put, because I see value in you." And the reprieve was short, because then those red eyes were back on him, intent and always seeking like the detective he was. "Wasn't it you that pointed out we are rivals? It wouldn't be fair to treat you as anything less than an equal."
Akira couldn't speak. He bit down hard on his tongue.
"My answer has frustrated you," Akechi observed in that aggravatingly polite way he did.
Because he was lying. Akira's decided to phrase this as, "You're still not answering me."
"No?" He released his glass and folded his gloved hands in front of him. He must've had more than one pair of black faux-leather, which was it's own level of freakish, but no less freakish than the fact that Akira had yet to move the one he'd been "gifted" from his coat pocket. "I give up. What answer do you want?"
"Why drinks? Why not anything else? Why not... a 'rematch?' We aren't even competing at anything."
"Does that bore you?" Akechi asked instantly, on the heel of Akira's last word.
Akira paused in surprise and honestly replied, "No. I'm just surprised you don't have something to prove right now."
"Oh, I do."
Behind Akechi, the lights shifted as the band came out onto the stage to tune their instruments. They weren't dimmed yet, but the change in angle cast Akechi in even more shadow, making it harder yet to distinguish his expression. But he was still smiling.
"Surely you know that I always do," Akechi said, just a hint softer.
Akira nodded.
"But we haven't always competed. We've gone to cafés. We've talked on the platform. We've even been here before."
"So what is it you're proving?"
A long silence. A technician went to center stage to ready the microphone.
"Nothing to you," Akechi said at last, "this time."
Akira swallowed the lump in his throat, a billion things he wanted to say but couldn't lest he throw a wrench into everything yet to come.
Instead he finally managed, "... So you invited me because you like talking to me? Is that it?"
Akechi turned his face down towards his drink. Akira had observed that he did in fact know to occasionally look away from his conversation partner as to not stare them down (though he did that less and less with Akira these days), probably another practiced creed he'd learned for the cameras. That wasn't strange.
What was strange was that for once, his gaze didn't return when he began to talk again.
He didn't look back up as he said, "I suppose I do."
For a moment, Akira just stared at him, on a precipice he didn't want to think about. "Why didn't you just say that? Why did it take us ten minutes to get there?"
Still Akechi did not look up at him. It was clear he was choosing his very words carefully when he said, "I didn't know it would upset you. I figured we both enjoyed sparring with words."
"I'm not upset," Akira said, upset.
Akechi's eyes snapped up to him at that. With a hint of sourness that Akira had only ever heard from him in their Mementos duel, he said, "What are you expecting from me right now? You're the one who's being unclear."
Accountability. "You said you hate me."
"I do."
"But you like talking to me."
"Also true."
"How?"
"I told you. You are intriguing."
"Stop-" Akira forcefully shut himself up before he said something he wasn't supposed to. It wasn't often he got impulsive like this, but the times that he did had either ended up with him arrested or at risk of expulsion.
"Hm?"
Akira took a deep breath in and let it out, and then shook his head. It wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth it.
Akechi studied him a long moment before saying, slow but with immense, sudden intensity, "I would never let an opportunity pass me by. So hear this, Joker: no matter how I feel about you, about this, about us, there is one thing I can rely on you for, and it is insight. Refusing to learn is the most poisonous thing a person can do to themself. There has never been a time I have been with you and failed to broaden my views, and that is valuable, and any person with a modicum of intelligence should know that value outweighs personal feeling or opinion. And if you have yet to figure that out..." His eyes narrowed, no longer playful, but now prodding, analyzing, judging, "... then you're much further behind than I thought."
Now it was Akira who couldn't meet his eyes.
"Is my answer to your satisfaction?"
Akira swallowed and nodded.
Akechi let out a slow sigh, barely audible and disguised amongst his normal breathing. Because even that level of emoting was off limits for him, apparently. It made Akira all the more aggravated.
The singer, in her evening gown, debuted onto the stage to polite applause. Akechi stood up and brought his chair around to settle next to Akira, as to not have his back to her and be rude. When he sat, his expression, now fully visible again in the low light, had smoothed out into its usual pleasantness all over again in record time. As the song began it relaxed ever so slightly, and Akira saw his hands untense in his lap. He only ever got that way when they came and listened to music here.
'People come and they go...'
"Believe it or not," Akechi said softly, "I didn't actually intend to duel with you in any meaningful way tonight."
'Some people may stay with you, though...'
"I know." Akira couldn't look away from the fall of his lashes. He looked gentle, like this, close enough to his side to touch but far enough to be unassuming, a valley of air trapped between them that neither could breach. "I'm sorry."
'I am all alone tonight and I kept on asking myself questions...'
Akechi did not remove his eyes from the stage, did not react to the undeserved apology, and did not gloat over Akira's obvious sign of weakness. Instead he reached across the table and plucked up his mocktail. As he lifted the glass to his lips, he exhaled into it, fogging it up ever so slightly against the cool drink. And it might have been Akira's wishful thinking, but he swore that in that breath he said something.
He wasn't sure, but he thought it might have been, "Me too."