seekerofjustice | Inbox (Velvet Room DR)

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Inbox (Velvet Room DR)

Akechi doesn't seem to be present at the moment, but you can hear his voicemail soon enough.

"Hello, this is Goro Akechi. It seems like I have my hands full at the moment, so please leave a message. I'll respond as soon as possible."

It's only then that you hear the beep for your message to go through...

--

Perhaps text would work better instead? It seems like he's entirely open to messages...

(Please specify which!)

Contacts:

Akira Kurusu:

thedevilinyourdetails
Makoto Yuki:

burnmydreadbabe
Falcon:

gorobo
Crow:

fogbornphantom

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"...Uh. Hi."

Not what Ren expected to hear. But it might not be bad? He was beginning to think no one would pick up at all, and he'd have to ask Futaba to locate Akira from his phone.

"Yeah, I was texting Akira a little while ago. It was kinda concerning, actually? And then he stopped responding. I just wanted to make sure he was—" alive, safe, not a casualty of Ren's callousness— "...in one piece, I guess. And see if he needed anything."

"I'm am safe," Akira says, loudly. "Doors...hard. But! Found Dove."

Dove looks over to Akira as he continues speaking.

"He appeared on my balcony a short while ago. He's resting here as he regains his bearings."

It's still a concerning situation, given that Akira is still seeming out of it and must still be in a good deal of pain. Dove can't help but frown a little as he thinks on it...

"It was a shock to see him appear as suddenly as he did. He's recovering, but he's seeming rather disoriented for the moment..."

Is that what Akira meant by someone else's door not working...? At least he found the person whose door it was, Ren supposes. The relief of knowing Akira is okay is stronger than he would have expected; maybe, like Akira, he needs to take a fucking nap.

"That checks out," is all he says. If Akira wants Dove to know what he was up to, he'll tell Dove himself. "Thanks for taking care of him. Make sure he gets some rest. Tell him he needs to be in good shape for training, or something. Whatever works." For a moment, as he says it, he sounds exhausted too.

Something inside Akira almost crumples when he hears Drake's words. Almost.

"I'll be in good shape..." he murmurs.

Dove quietly nods when he hears Drake's response. It seems like it's just a matter of making sure Akira recovers and gets plenty of rest then... That's a relief.

"Very well. I'll make certain he gets plenty of rest while he's here... If you need anything else, we'll be here. Please take care of yourself, Drake."

The exhaustion in Drake's voice isn't hard to miss, and Dove can't help but show a bit of concern about it.

"Huh? Oh." There's a tiny pause; when he speaks again, he sounds pretty much his normal self. "I'm good, don't worry about me. Thanks, Dove. Talk to you later."

And he hangs up before Dove can continue to call him out. Damn. Okay. Try harder to sound normal next time he talks to someone. Noted.

Akira shrinks into Dove's side. He's tired and Dove is safe...

Ah. He's leaking... "Do you have tissue?" He murmurs, wiping at his mouth, black goo seeping out.

Drake hangs up in a hurry. Dove would like to press more, but... well, now he can't. Especially not when Akira is...

"...?! Yes, of course, give me just a..."

He has some tissues on the end table here, he just needs to reach for them without disturbing Akira, and...

"Here they are. I also have your phone for..."

It's then that Dove gets a proper look at the stuff on Akira's face. That stuff... Black bile... Just like the people that--

He snaps himself back to reality, focusing on Akira. Look alive, Dove, you need to stay grounded.

"I'm not dying," Akira says, after a moment. "I'm not...my mind is fine."

Dove finds himself growing a bit more grounded when hearing that, nodding along with it slowly. The static filling his head begins to die down as he tries to focus on it, the fact that Akira is still alive.

"...Yes, of course. Apologies, I... I'm not certain what I was..."

He cuts himself off, shaking his head. He continues holding out the tissues for Akira.

"...Ah, that's right. You needed these, correct? I can gather more for you, but that would require standing up."

Akira digs his hands deep into the mire of his mind and pulls. "You. Should be scared. The black...is not good. But I'm...fine."

So his instincts are correct, then. That black goo is something to be on edge about. And yet... Akira says he's fine.

There's a very real look of worry on his face for a few seconds before he manages to rein it in. Akira just needs rest. That's all. If it was more serious, he would have been alerted, and they would already be taking the required steps.

"Understood. I apologize for being so worried, it's simply that..."

There's a quiet pause, an awkwardness in the air as he tries to sort through it all... He finds himself speaking what comes to mind.

"I cherish my time with you. It feels... real. You speak with me as an equal, on a wavelength no one else shares. I can't say I can recall ever knowing something like that before I met you."

As much as he cherishes his Ren, Dove's memories of him are far too hazy to be able to fully lean into it. Dove will always care for him, but... in a world of lies and no true memory, and his first taste of freedom... Akira is the first friendship he can truly recall.

"You are..."

...But he stops, realizing that perhaps he's said too much. Not to mention that Akira isn't feeling well.

"...Apologies, I spoke without thinking."

For several long moments, Akira's face does its best impression of that of a cow smacked right between the eyes with the flat of a shovel -- wide-eyed and stunned and a little struck dumb, a deer in the headlights of Dove's words and intentions.

Edited 2025-01-31 18:19 (UTC)

He can't. Mgh. He wraps his arms around Dove carefully, like if he moved too quickly Dove would startle away from him. "You are," he echoes, affirming his sentiment. He pets the side of Dove's head.

Dove finds his chest tightening, some part of him screaming to retreat, and yet he stays. Akira's hand on his head makes him go so still as though so much as a breath would cause Akira to pull away.

"...!"

Now he's the one that's gobsmacked, unable to form a single word. He quietly accepts the gesture, but dares not lean into his hand too much.

"...Thank you."

Breathe all you want, moron. It takes more to scare me now.

It's a good thing Spades knows how to read Akechis, even ones like Dove. He closes the distance Dove can't close by himself.

"No. Thank you."

And breathe he finally does, as he feels that tension in his chest ease up. He doesn't pull away as Akira closes the distance.

Maybe it's all right to just stay like this for a while. Akira seems to be relaxing, which is certainly good. With how much pain he seems to be in, whatever can bring him some relief is certainly welcome.

Dove raises his hand to meet with Akira's, and just smiles.

"...It's so strange. Right now, all of my worries-- my pain... It really does seem so much easier to bear."

It's still present and real. It's not locked away in some place he can't reach or meant to be thrown away for some false state of mind. No, this is... he still knows. He still remembers, but it feels like it weighs so much less than when he acts alone.

This really is how people are meant to handle their pain, aren't they? Instead of having it all erased, they're meant to lean on each other and to lift one another up. It feels so obvious now, he can't help but wonder just how much of a fool he had to be to think otherwise.

Akira's brain is still fuzzy, but all his muscles relax into his friend. "It's hard to, sometimes. A lot of things can get in the way." His voice pitches again with a murmur, becoming an impression of an Akechi who held a gun to his head and gave him one hell of a reality check. An Akechi who isn't here. "You've never been the monster your actions have convinced you that you are. Moron."

Edited 2025-02-01 19:51 (UTC)

Dove freezes in place at that voice so similar to his. The one that seems to be speaking to them both. Once again, he's been seen through, and there's no hiding from the fact that those words have far too much bearing on him... just as they do for Akira.

"..."

For just a moment, he can see it in his mind's eye. He's there, staring at the shadowy silhouette of everything he's been dreading up to this point. There it is, everything he has always feared will consume him.

He stares into the distorted guise of the Black Mask, and for a just a second he almost swears he sees his own face beneath the shade.

But just as quickly as the images comes to him does the figure fade. He's left to draw his conclusion for himself.

He focuses on Akira again as he grounds himself once more, looking him in the eyes. It's so hard to accept those words as truth, but...

"...Even with all of it, the never-ending deluge of crimes I've committed. You mean to say that... that despite it all I was--"

He finds himself struggling to get the words out of his throat.

"--That I am--"

He feels his heart racing, a fearful rush of adrenaline coursing through him at the idea that he was... That he could have ever dared to be...

"...Human...?"

He sounds disbelieving of the idea. He's been haunted by that image of himself this whole time, so the idea of imagining it as anything else is so baffling. To imagine the Black Mask as something more than just a monster.

Akira makes a gun with the fingers on his left hand and swings it up to Goro's forehead. Very, very deliberately, he looks into Goro's eyes. "If you weren't human, you wouldn't have been born. Life's funny like that."

He cocks the finger gun, as if he can pierce right through Dove and send a mental bullet into the part of him that believes in irreversibility of the self, in monsters made of humans.

"Kchw. Clickclick."

His noises imitate a gun misfiring, empty. Not a mockery of the real thing, not really. Just a childish sound-effect that's all his own.

"I'll get it someday, too." He takes the fingergun and waves it around his own head, threatening the belief in monsters in his own head, too. "No more monsters of me in my head, either. Someday. Just humans, both of us. And we'll believe it, too."

Edited 2025-02-01 22:11 (UTC)

And Dove stares and stares back, his eyes unable to pull away from Akira's own. The finger gun pointing at his forehead, for a moment, feeling far more heavy than imagination.

He can't even let out a quiet gasp when he hears Akira's words, finding himself quiet as Akira imitates the gun misfiring.

Dove simply blinks, letting Akira finish as he processes it...

After it's all said and done, he smiles.

Again, Akira understands. Akira knows these thoughts, this pain...

So Dove takes his hand again, squeezing it.

"...Yes. You're absolutely right. Just as you place your faith in me, I place mine in you. We will both find our way, free of the illusion of monsters."

...Oh.

Akira's hand tingles, warm, from Goro's touch. All his defenses and masks are down, down so far that there's nothing left on his face but an innocent amazement with sparkling glitter in his wide grey eyes.

He squeezes back. "I believe in you," he says, for lack of anything else. A little black goop drips from his mouth. "You're human. No matter what you did."

It's just a repeat of what he's already said, but. Brain 0.

Edited 2025-02-01 23:20 (UTC)

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