Chapter 18

The Internship

Futaba took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes as her phone buzzed, letting her know her time was up, she sighed and leaned back in her chair, staring at her ceiling fan as it silently raged against the summer heat, squeaking as it wobbled in place before she shut her eyes.

She had been sifting through Akechi's computer for a couple of hours and stumbled across additional layers of security that had been implemented. She guessed that those folders held the best intel on his plans.

In hindsight, it didn't surprise her all that much that Akechi would be someone who actually took computer security seriously.

Even her own boyfriend refused to take her advice on how to make his laptop more secure, despite the fact she had hacked into his steam account several times and changed his username to SexyButtGhost69 just to prove her point.

She reached over to her phone without looking and tapped blindly at the touch screen for several seconds before the phone fell silent and the door behind her creaked as it was opened.

As she opened her eyes, she saw her boyfriend, wearing a white dress shirt and black slacks, lean down and plant a kiss on her forehead. She smiled softly at him before she put her glasses back on and wiggled her eyebrows at him.

"Hubba hubba." She said as he rolled his eyes.

"Gotta say I prefer my thief suit." He told her as he threw a red necktie around his turned-up collar. "These clothes feel…stuffy."

"They're built for function not form, but I definitely don't mind your form in those." Futaba continued as she pulled her legs up onto her chair and rested her chin on her knees.

Akira smirked before he began to tie his tie.

"I mean I miss your thief suit for sure, but this, yeah I can work with this," Futaba said with an approving nod.

"Oh yeah?" Akira asked, not even looking up from his tie.

"I was thinking kind of a 'cocky intern has a crush on the office's sweet secretary, and she likes him too but they're too shy to admit it' kind of thing. I'll admit it I'm still working on the finer details, but it ends with you using that tie of yours to tie me up."

She could tell he was still trying to focus on tying his tie, but his cheeks were bright red.

"Someone's a little thirsty today."

"All work and no plays makes me a thirsty girl. So what do you say, tonight after you get back from helping Yoshida, let's have some fun."

"That would be a lot of fun, but you seem to be forgetting something, tonight Sojiro is staying in because you're supposed to be going to Haru's for that sleepover."

Futaba groaned and leaned back in her chair.

"Craaaaaap, I forgot about that."

Akira chuckled as she slowly slid out of her chair and onto the floor.

"I hope it doesn't turn into a disaster." She said from the floor, her face hidden behind her hands.

"Are you still worried about how's Haru has been acting toward you lately?" He asked, the vibe in the room suddenly changing.

"Honestly? Yeah. She's been really distant lately." She began, her hands falling away from her face.

"I mean I'm sure she's still shaken up from almost…well you know."

Akira nodded, the alertness in his eyes showing he was still engaged in the conversation even if it was detrimental to getting his tie tied.

"Well, she's still talking to you right?"

"Kind of. Aside from the invite to the sleepover, she sent me some puppy videos the other day. But I sent her one first so maybe she was just being polite by responding." Futaba said with a shrug. "Or maybe she just responded to shut me up, but then wouldn't she have just told of me to leave her alone? Well…Haru isn't very confrontational, just like me so if I did something to make her mad it could just be festering and if I do something wrong tonight she might decide she doesn't want to be my friend anymore."

Futaba hadn't realized her hands were shaking as she fidgeted with her hair until Akira knelt down and gently grabbed them to steady her tremoring.

"Taba, you're in a tailspin." He said firmly, trying to anchor her immediate surroundings rather than the anxious thoughts that were churning in her head.

She tried to reply as she started hyperventilating but Akira just helped her sit up and lean up against him as she switched over to her breathing exercises, trying to calm herself down.

"Haru doesn't secretly hate you, and before you ask, no I don't secretly hate you."

Futaba chuckled at that, Akira knew her all too well.

"I know Haru has been spending a lot of time with Makoto as of late because of everything that happened in Singapore, so that's probably why she's seemed so quiet. I know Makoto is still pretty shaken up too." He explained, sitting down as she lifted her head before laying it back down in his lap.

"That's true, I remember when you were in jail I was pretty withdrawn from the group too." She said as he meticulously brushed the hair out of her face, nodding in agreement as she talked.

"Hey, I need you to promise me something."

He nodded in response as she reached up and caressed his face.

"Don't ever go where I can't follow."

He knew right away that she was worried about him, worried about him running off to fight Akechi and his gang of persona users with the Investigation Team so he could keep the rest of the Thieves safe. Or heading home on his own to find out what was going on with this dad.

He would be lying if he said he hadn't thought about it.

"Futaba…" He protested but she quickly silenced him.

"You're not doing Christmas Eve to me again. Promise me."

He shut his eyes and took a deep breath, when he opened them again, he saw her violet eyes gleaming at him in the soft yellow light of the later afternoon, peering through the blinds as if the sun was also curious to know his answer.

"I promise." He lied.

She smiled at him.

"Good." She said, putting another hand on his face and pulling him down to her level for a quick kiss, which was interrupted by his phone's alarm going off.

"Duty calls," Akira said, frowning as he pulled away from her.

"If only we had more time." Futaba pouted, pulling her laptop off her bed and into her lap.

Before Akira could even finish tying his tie, his phone buzzed again. He pulled the device out of his pocket to see an alert from the app he used to view the different train schedules and saw that the Ginza Line was running late.

"Everything ok?" Futaba asked, closing her laptop and putting it back on her bed.

"It would seem my train is going to be late." He replied.

"Oh no, well I'm sure Yoshida will understand," Futaba assured him before tackling him back to the floor.

His tie was the first thing to come off.

…

The train delay meant the pair ended up leaving the house together. Futaba had thrown on her pajamas and packed all her essentials in a small backpack, while Akira carried a messenger bag with everything he would need for the night's work. A notepad, some pens, and his laptop and its charger.

"How do I look?" Akira asked, still fidgeting with his tie as he walked. He had been fiddling with it since they started walking to the station.

"You look great. Very professional." She assured him, reaching up and grabbing his hands, pulling them away from his tie.

Akira nodded.

"Sorry, guess I'm just nervous. I've never thought of myself as a leader, or as someone that people are going to be looking to for answers. Thieving was one thing, but politics is a whole other world. I'm just hoping I don't make things harder for Yoshida."

"Look I know adulting is boring compared to stealing hearts and I know your nervous that you're not going to do a good job, but remember, some of your skill points you got from thieving are going to transfer to politics no problem." She said as they came to a stop at his platform while the train pulled into the station.

"You're a natural leader, Yoshida couldn't ask for a better intern."

"Think so?" Akira asked before his girlfriend got on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his lips.

"I know so." She said as the doors to his train opened.

"Whelp…here goes nothin." He said as he turned to get on the train after giving Futaba a quick hug, picking her up as he did so.

"Text me when you get to Haru's ok?"

"I will tell Yoshida I said hi." She asked as he put her down and planted a kiss on her head.

"I will, love you!" He said as hopped onto the train.

"Love you too, remember you got this!" She said as the train door's closed before turning and leaving for another platform.

As she walked away, he felt a pang of guilt resonate in his chest. He felt awful lying to her about his promise, but after Singapore, he knew what was at stake.

He had to keep her safe, even if that meant keeping her out of the loop about what was really going on with Akechi and his father.

There would come a time when he would have to deal with both of these problems, and he would need to do it alone.

The fates must not have agreed with his judgment, as only now did he realize the train door had closed on his tie.

His reflection stared back at him, looking at conflicted as he felt before the train plunged into the dark tunnels of the subway.

…

Goro Akechi checked his watch, one of the few things his captors had let him keep when they brought him here, wherever here was. It was almost time for another patrol to pass by.

He looked up through the almost comically typical bars of his cell and just as expected, an armed guard strolled by his cell, hardly looking at Akechi as he passed by.

Once he had walked by Akechi checked his watch and mentally marked the tine before he heard a startled gasp from the other side of the cell.

Akechi pivoted to make sure that his good eye could confirm what he expected.

In the bed across the room, a young woman with fluffy hair sat upright and alert, her gaze fixated on him like he was already pointing a gun at her.

"Akechi-Kun," Haru said coldly.

"Okumura-San." He replied, tapping into his Black Mask persona to try and dissuade her from just attacking him outright.

She wasn't intimidated by his change in tone and her hand still reached for her invisible mask. As she closed her eyes Akechi took a cautious step back. Her brow furrowed before she huffed in frustration and opened her eyes.

"I suppose you must not be able to summon your persona either?" She asked.

Akechi shook his head, not surprised she had made that observation. If he could summon Loki, he would have called him forth just to something to put between himself and the floofy haired girl sitting across the room from him.

Aside from Makoto and Akira, Akechi made sure to be wary of Haru in the past. Spending most of her youth around Japan's elite had granted Haru to read a room. She knew when to speak and when to listen. She knew the difference between someone who was feeling left out and someone who had something to hide.

There were several times during the infiltration of Sae's palace where he was worried that she had him all figured out. Then again, maybe she had detected his treachery from day one. It was impossible to know for sure.

After a long silence, Haru seemed to relax but only just a little bit.

"When I saw you last...you didn't seem yourself." She began, still studying him like he was a mess she had been tasked with tending to.

"I could say the same to you," Akech replied before gesturing to the hallway outside their cell.

"You were marching through this place like you had owned it for years."

"Where is exactly is this place anyway?" She asked, standing up and taking a few steps forward, allowing the dim orange light of the hallway outside her cell to reveal her battered form. She was wearing an elegant dress. A pink skirt and plum-colored corset peppered with tears and scorch marks, all covered by a thin pink shawl with gold embroidery on the chest, embroidery that was already coming apart.

"I haven't the faintest idea," Akechi said, preferring to stay cloaked in shadow but even the shadows couldn't conceal him from the girl's piercing gaze.

She tilted her head and took another tentative step toward him, her gaze locked on the black leather eyepatch that was covering his left eye.

"What happened to your eye?"

Akechi sighed.

"My helmet failed me, took a bullet right through the visor. The glass was supposed to be bulletproof but at close range against a .45 caliber pistol, it couldn't do much. I suppose it could be worse though, I could be dead."

"Although if I had died, I'm sure that would have been a relief to you all."

"Akechi, we mourned you," Haru said firmly, the apprehension in her voice from earlier evaporating as those words jumped from her mouth.

The detective raised an eyebrow at her statement.

"Even Joker?" He asked.

"Yes of course!" She protested.

Akechi rolled his eyes, turning away from her.

"Now I know you're lying to me. Joker hated me, and I hated him."

Haru snickered at that, despite the venom in his voice. Akechi was so shocked by that, turned back towards her.

"You think he hates you? Akechi-Kun, for being a detective you aren't very good at picking up clues." She said shaking her head.

"People always think hatred is the ultimate expression of your dislike for someone, but I've always thought it was apathy." Haru began.

"If you could care less whether someone does well or does poorly, where you refuse to even acknowledge their success or failures. To me, that is the ultimate form of hostility. You cared enough about him to save us from your shadow in your father's palace. That isn't apathy."

"What does that prove? We're still enemies." Akechi asked, hoping she would stop yammering if he pushed her to get to the point.

"It proves that you loved how Akira saw you as an equal. A worthy adversary. He was someone who didn't treat like a teen celebrity or some prodigy that was put up on a pedestal. He just saw you as Akechi. His friend and you were grateful for that. You don't hate him because you are enemies, you hate him because he understood you. He saw behind your mask. That bothered you...didn't it?"

"What are you expecting from me at this point? A tearful apology? Some magnificent storybook moment where I look deep inside myself and realize that I change if I really want to and when I open my eyes there's a new persona standing behind me, wreathed in flame? Even if that did happen, it doesn't change what I've done!" Akechi snapped, surging into the light, revealing the scar tissue that wasn't covered by his eyepatch.

"You're absolutely right, it doesn't," Haru said, refusing to move an inch.

"However, that doesn't mean I'm not going to try and help you."

Akechi scoffed and turned his back to her, moving back into the dark corner of the cell.

Another long silence filled the air as Haru walked back to her bed and sat down, but Akechi could still feel her gaze on him. He turned to look at her over his shoulder, the light illuminating the right side of his face.

"Why are you trying to help me Okamura-San?"

"Because I see in you what I saw in my father. Ambition blinded and constricted by a desire to be validated and praised by others. To prove that you are not a mistake. I think that was the heart of my father's distortion and it destroyed him. As a Phantom Thief, it's my duty to help those in need and punish the wicked but when we change hearts, we do it so that person can be punished. After that, they start over and we hope that they can do better the next time around."

Haru took a shaky breath and barely got the next sentence out.

"My father never got that chance, but you did...so please, don't waste it."

Now Haru was in the darkness, and Akechi, facing her again, was standing in the light.

He knew he should say something, anything, but he had never been good with small talk.

It seemed like nothing but a waste of time, idle obligatory chatter meant for people with nothing to do or nothing to say

Yet here he was, with nothing to say. He knew that if he was going to escape his imprisonment, he would need to earn her trust.

Easier said than done all things considered, but like all the hardest things in his life, he decided to take it one step at a time.

So, he swallowed hard, and then he spoke.

"What's the occasion?" He asked, gesturing to her dress.

"This? Well, Yusuke got invited to this art museum that was opening in Singapore and they were throwing a party to celebrate the opening, Makoto went and got me this dress before we flew out as a surprise."

"Makoto got you that dress?" Akechi asked, tilting his head.

Haru nodded.

"We're dating now."

Akechi seemed pleasantly surprised by this.

"You and Nijima-san? Huh."

"Surprised?" Haru asked with a snicker.

"It wouldn't be the first time you all have surprised me." He replied with what seemed like a genuine smile, but even that could not hide the hint of bitterness in his voice, but Haru's mind was already elsewhere.

"Makoto…" She said softly springing up to her feet.

"You said the last time you saw me I was walking around like I owned the place right?"

Akechi nodded quickly before he realized where her mind had wandered off to.

"Damn…I was in Singapore wasn't I?"

Haru nodded quickly before looking outside their cell.

"Which means someone is sending these doppelgangers out in our place."

She turned back to him, stepping into the light.

"We need to get out of here, what's your plan?"

"What makes you think I have a plan?" Akechi huffed, feigning offense.

"You're Gorro Akechi, you always have a plan," Haru said, sounding annoyed that he would even pretend he hadn't thought of how to escape.

She was right of course; he did indeed have a plan.

...

A.N- Hey guys! Sorry for the long wait and sorry this is so short but I wanted to get this chapter out, so you know that this story isn't dead. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy and I hope you enjoyed this new chapter!

Until next time,

See yah!