CROSS POSTED ON AO3
Category: M/M
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Characters: Persona 5 Protagonist, Morgana (Persona 5), Sakamoto Ryuji, Takamaki Ann, Kurusu Akira, SEES, Kirijo Mitsuru, Arisato Minato, Niijima Makoto, Kitagawa Yusuke, Sakura Futaba, Okumura Haru, Phantom Thieves of Hearts, The Shadow Operatives, Maruki Takuto
Additional Tags: Philemon - Freeform, Fix-It of Sorts, Literary References & Allusions, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Self-Indulgent, References to Depression, Canonical Character Death, Rating May Change, Developing Relationship, Unreliable Narrator, Non-Linear Narrative, Angst, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Mystery, Dialogue Heavy, Additional Warnings In Author's Note (when we get there), Persona 5: The Royal Spoilers, References to Previous Games
This is the 2021-2023 updated version. Betas: JadeDraggy2017 and TwilightKnight17.
Oct 2 ⇒ Oct 3 ⇒ Oct 5
"Man lives consciously for himself, but was an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity."
—Leo Tolstoy
—
"Senpai, can you tell me that story again?"
He asks this impulsively. The words push past his lips, and he flushes. But his senpai only smiles gently, and takes the seat next to him. His legs cross in that familiar manner. Deep blue slacks over brown dress shoes. He thinks that the other is so old, yet so young at the same time. Youthfulness is in his age and body. Wisdom is in his soul.
"Which one?" Delicately, delicately, two fingers grace the handle of porcelain. The smile slips behind the rim. It's teasing. Senpai knows what he's asking for. Still, they play this game.
Behind them, the pendulum swings.
"The one about the Prince." He stirs the liquid counter-clockwise. A loop, then two. "Prince Moonlight."
Tick, tock.
His senpai smiles fondly. It is ironic that this conversation is here, under the moonlight. The brightness is high in the sky and their windows were lacking in size, but still the light streams in. His lips part—
— ζ —
The angel fell. The angel was wingless, so he plummeted, like the morning star. The landscape warped, the metal expanse shuddering with every beat of non-existent wings. Their eyes clicked into place. Iron upon silver, silver upon iron.
He reached out. The star of the morning light fell. The sky was green. The sky was green . Darkness had swallowed the light. The universe had shifted on its axis, as it should. Should it? Was that not right?
An imprint, upon his mind.
He lowered his head and brought his fingers up to his temple, gently. A whisper curled around his mind. There was no pain. Not anymore. The sight still lingered. He must have seen a deity. That was what the boy must have been, for nothing else touched the soul so.
He looked back up. The expanse was blue. The tremor in his hand faded, and he turned back towards his friends.
— ζ —
The fight was unsatisfying. His friends glanced at him worriedly — his enthusiasm for battle was not usually so forced, after all. He did not ignore them, but he made no indication of acknowledgement either.
Ryuji put a hand upon his shoulder, once, in between breaths. He offered help on behalf of the others.
Would you have ever done this for me, Watanabe-kun?
Akira smiled, and then he declined.
— ζ —
"You're home late again," Sojiro said. It was the first thing he heard, even as the bell still sung. Boss did not turn to look at him. He was immutable as always, the art of the brew steady within his hands. The fluid flowed counter-clockwise. It pooled between the beans and carried away essence.
Boss set the pot down and looked at him at last. There were bags under his eyes. Not nearly as terrible as some days Akira had seen them; in those days before Futaba.
"It's only 8," he said. His mouth flapped open and closed, because he does not think before he speaks, does he? There was no apt response. The heavy weight of his gaze hung behind his skull, and his head spun. He shouldn't have said anything.
"Yes it is," Sojiro agreed. He did not blink. "But it's not summer anymore, and the sun sets earlier."
Should he make an excuse? He didn't want to argue. It was expected of him to answer, regardless. He said: "We can't slow down. There's no time."
" You can't slow down," Boss corrected. His gaze shifted back to the coffee. It threatened to overflow, but then the stream stopped just at the brink of spoiling the craft. Well-worn hands placed the kettle down gently. The smell permeated the air.
"What about the others?" Boss wiped his hands on a rag. "What about the others, Akira? They follow you out of loyalty to their friend. Can they keep following you as you throw yourself into battle again and again?"
Akira shifted on his heel. There was nothing said, even as he turned away.
"Listen to me." Sojiro looked raw, as if he was about to sweep around the counter to face him properly. He pulled his glasses off and wiped them with the hem of his shirt. "Listen to me."
Akira stopped, and listened.
"You can't keep doing this. You will collapse. The others will collapse. What then?" Surely, the man must be thinking of his daughter. There was a promise, spoken once in lowly voices between the two, that hangs unspoken and heavy now.
Mouth made of clay and molded in whimsical shapes, Akira said: "I don't have a choice."
Sojiro's fingers faltered at the edge of the glass. Something unreadable set within his jaw. "Don't try me." He brought his glasses up to their place on the bridge of his nose, and then the tension bled out of coiled muscle.
"Where's the cat?" He gestured in Akira's direction with his chin. The crow's feet faded, slightly. Akira didn't say anything in response, but he slipped his arm to the bag on his shoulder. His fingers lingered on the warmth — rise and fall, rise and fall went the cover — before he pulled it open in revelation. The look in Sojiro's eyes was fond, he thought. For all his facade of gruffness, he had taken to Morgana quickly and easily.
The man who was his father in all but blood sighed, and reached over to the finished brew. Akira stood in his place. His feet were lead. Delicately, there was a familiar scent. He watched, even as hands gestured him closer.
The heaviness lifted, and his feet were at the chair in a blink. He lowered himself into the seat slowly. His hands found the handle, and he brought it up to his lips. The taste was familiar, and warm.
Blue Mountain.
Sojiro reached over. Akira embraced the warm presence that came close to crushing him, even as the cat in his lap was lifted away and into awaiting arms. Morgana didn't stir beyond the slightest inward lean. He felt strangely wanting.
"Look, even Morgana's asleep." There was an expression of consideration on the man's face. A moment passed, then two. He sat there, not quite frozen, but not quite mobile either. The heady warmth of the cafe entrapped him in contentment. He did not want time to proceed. It would be easy to stay like this.
"Take a break, kid."
This, he heard.
He should. He wanted to. He wanted to say that he would. Bring forth a promise and solidify its existence. Akira swallowed the coffee, and his words, and then he pushed his chair back and clamored for the bathroom door. At least he'd had the sense to set his bag on the stool. Morgana slept away peacefully unaware.
When he got inside, he retched into the bathroom sink, not bothering to shut the door behind him. It was a miracle the sink did not crack with the force of his fingers gripping the bowl. The nausea abated, briefly. The vestiges of humanity's subconscious clung to him like mud.
Akira chanced a look into the mirror in front of him. Public as this restroom may be, it was still well kept. Only a thin, silver line split across the mirror face. It looked as if his forehead was slit down the middle by some blade. He brought his thumb up, and traced it down from between his eyebrows to just below his cheekbone where the trail ended.
The surface rippled. For a second, the black of his hair reflected the almost-blue wash of fluorescence. The gaze that met his own held a keen feline quality. His head spun.
He retched into the sink again.
The door swung open fully, and Sojiro stepped in, eyebrows furrowed and a frown on his face. He put his hand to his back carefully, trying to soothe Akira. Eventually, the nausea subsided and Akira turned away to sit on the toilet cover.
"I don't think that coffee was a good idea. It would've kept you up, too," Sojiro said. He walked out for a moment, and then came back with a glass of water. "Here, drink."
Akira took it silently. The cold water left a refreshed feeling in his chest. It grounded him from the buzz of his head.
"Akira, you can't keep doing this." Sojiro watched his face, eyes full of concern.
Tick tock.
The man closed his eyes, and then the moment was broken. The impasse was dissolved — a conclusion was made. "Promise me that you won't go out at night for a while." The words were spoken with a reluctant firmness. It was not a retreat. It was not anything permanent either, he could tell, but it was a compromise all the same. It was this, or nothing.
Akira nodded. "I promise."
— ζ —
The sky was blue.
The wind stole from around him, kindlessly, the heat of the sun. He paid it no mind, and kept walking. The sky was blue.
The sky was blue, therefore he spoke. "Do you remember what happened the day before yesterday? When… When we first stepped into Mementos."
Akira was not the one who spoke, usually. He was the listener. He was the silent slab of rock that can be sturdily leaned onto, and one who implicitly understands without words. That's why this wasn't in front of everybody, but in a private setting. Ryuji was his first. Ryuji held a wordless understanding of the unspoken emotions he couldn't express well. So he spoke. He trusts him to speak for him.
Ryuji shifted lightly. "Yeah, I do." He looked as if he wanted to turn to face him fully. "You stopped for a sec at the entrance. I— We—" He falters for a second. Akira was patient. "After, something was off. I dunno what, but something was up and you weren't like usual, even when we were fighting." His fingertips came to rest upon the back of his neck.
"It was that obvious, huh?" Akira smiled. "I saw something strange."
"Strange?"
"I'm not sure if strange is the right word." The words came carefully. "I saw someone falling from the sky." His eyes flickered to the window of the shop they were passing by. Yusuke was right. Darker colors did look better against light colors.
"What?" Ryuji raised his eyebrows. "Why didn't you say anything?" There was no accusation, simply curiosity.
"I wasn't completely sure I saw correctly." He fiddled with the leather of his bag strap. His eyes did not move from the projected image of himself. "It was strange. He didn't really feel human. It was nostalgic, almost like I was seeing myself in the mirror. And my head hurt for a while after, so I thought…"
He brought his fingers gently up to his temple. "I thought the angel was a persona or something. I don't know."
This was the most he's spoken in a long while. The most, where someone had listened. Akira released the strap from his fingers and let his hands fall. Silver eyes watched his friend as he waited.
Ryuji's eyes quietly followed the fall of his hand away from his head. "Maybe this person could have been a shadow." Ryuji brushed a thumb across his chin. "You called him an angel, right? Did he have wings?"
He shook his head no. There was no real logic to it, but even wingless, the feeling was that of the divine. "His eyes…" He thought back to the encounter. The image came far too easily. "His eyes were silver."
Like rewinding a VHS tape — time rewound itself. His memories passed by like a strip of film. This existed in the vague places between existence and nothingness, here and there. Somewhere, there was the sound of coffee being stirred.
The escapement shifted before he could blink, and he was back in that moment again.
The blue of the sky had darkened into putrid green at some point. His sight was upwards only by caprice. The light had grown horribly distorted, yet that ivory had glowed brilliantly. Though he bore no feathers, the impression was of the flightless wings of a dove. Stiffened in his place, Akira, lucid as he might be in this memory, still could not move. Their eyes came to meet.
Yes, he understood more clearly now — the feeling that thrummed in his third eye was most akin to nostalgia. A strange disembodiment in which what he knew clashed with what he saw. The reflection had smiled of its own accord.
"Not a shadow, then." Ryuji's words pulled him back into the present time. When did they stop walking? He had been staring at the glass, but it was brief. It was brief. His best friend had come to stand by his side at some point, shoulders a hair away from brushing.
"'Kira." Brown eyes stared at him, at the glass, and then back to him. The corner of his eyes pinched, as if there might be something curious about the clothing on display. Or something behind Akira's frames. "Whaddya looking at?"
Akira considered the image of the brilliant sky mirrored upon the glass. His reflected image was dark in comparison. The tips of his hair seemed almost blue due to the light. A memory came to mind — of Yusuke's solemn, controlled movements before the canvas, and the passion as he spoke of exposure and value and color —
He tore his eyes away, and ignored the spectre. "Just the sky."
Was the point of this not a placement of trust? He'd breached the silent agreement he had made with himself in starting this conversation. In any case, he did not move, but waited for his companion to walk first. Ryuji did not walk away. He stared at him head-on, and this time, he didn't hold his words back.
"Were you expecting to see the angel fall again?" His brows raised.
Akira didn't respond.
"There's somethin' else, isn't there." His eyes were unwavering and still. "You told me about what happened. But what did you think about it?"
Akira slid his eyes closed, and turned away from the mirage.
"It wasn't as if I was trying to hide it," he said, because he wasn't. "I just wasn't really sure how to say it." The back of his neck itched.
Ryuji waited, patient as a sentinel. He spent a second under that expecting silence.
He caved.
"Have you ever looked in the mirror in the dead of night, and not recognized your reflection as yourself? I suppose it's something like that." His fingers unfurled. "Maybe you moved, but your reflection didn't. This other self in the mirror who should be you is not you." He met Ryuji's stare, turned the corners of his lips up lightly, and laughed. "Is this what they call deja vu? Well. I guess it's a given that something this weird isn't easily forgotten."
"Akira," Ryuji said.
He responded, "Yes?"
"You're an idiot." Blunt, and on that fine line between rough and harsh, that was who Ryuji was. His friend patted him on the back affectionately. The touch was jarringly firm, and Akira let himself get pulled back into a stride. "I don't really understand all that well, and I probably won't ever, but I'll help ya out. Carrying that kind of weird-ass feeling around… it ain't good."
Akira asked, "Shouldn't you have more questions about what happened? I'm not even sure if I saw correctly."
"Yeah, but I'm not really that kinda big thinker, am I?" Ryuji gave him a side-eye. " I'm straightforward. I'll just go eat burgers with you."
"Are you going to tell the others?"
His friend blinked, but his words came out with a heavy smoothness. "Only if you want me to."
Akira's footsteps fell neatly in time with his best friend's. He said: "If you would, then."
— ζ —
The next day, Yusuke showed up like a spectre by the last booth. "I've been informed of a spectacular scenery someone has sighted. As such, I must request you join me in this venture."
Akira let out a fond sigh. "At least eat something, first. I can make you curry."
Yusuke looked alight at the idea of being fed, but he shook his head. "No, it is alright. I've eaten suitably while I waited. Perhaps, we could eat when we return…?"
Akira handed him a packaged melon bread as they left the cafe.
"Where are we going?" he asked when they stepped into the train. He had a general idea of the direction due to the train line that they were on, but it was still uncertain.
"A house," his friend responded. "Ah, or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it the absence of a home?" The pencil in his hand did not cease its movement. "Hm, an illusion of an enclosed space would be good."
"Somewhere out in the open, then. A park?" Inokashira Park was in the opposite direction, though.
"Quite, but not completely so." The tip of his pencil stilled. "A mirror…"
Akira closed his eyes and opened them slowly. "Yusuke. Is this about what happened the other day?" He had not looked at the main chat for a while. He was uncertain of what had grasped him, but there was nothing he really wanted to say or hear regarding the issue. Cowardice, he thought. Cowardice and fear.
"Again, quite, but not completely so. It would be more apt to say that the topic is about symbols." His hands returned to life. "Art is about symbols, after all. Symbols, and the meaning attached to them." He held his hand out and stuck his index finger up. "Angels —" He stuck his middle finger up "— and mirrors."
Akira held himself still and relaxed. It would be silly to not at least hear what his friend wanted to say.
"Let's consider the former first. The description presented to me about that scene included an angel falling, did it not?" Yusuke watched for a reaction.
Akira gave it some thought. "Yes, the angel was falling, but he didn't feel fallen ."
"Angels are very much an embodiment of the pure, of the righteous, of the kind, but they are too easily corrupted. Even so, you say this angel you saw was not yet fallen, even as he was falling?"
"I'm not sure how to explain the difference," he spoke.
"Hm. My memory is unclear, but in the description, there were no wings. No wings, but no scars. A fallen angel is one cast out of his home. A falling one would simply be lost." Yusuke suddenly stood up. "Our stop is here."
Akira followed him through the station, and out onto the streets. "Kanda? Why are we in Kanda?"
"If an angel was lost, then it is only right to direct them home," his friend said simply. "What do we call God's home?"
They turned the corner, and Akira's feet stilled. "A church." He had a floaty remembrance of this location and the trips he had taken here. He mostly came here during the nighttime, and so absorbed in their conversation, he did not notice until he was here. But that was no excuse. He had been here with Yusuke before. Hifumi would be disappointed. "We're drawing at a church?"
"Come." Yusuke led them around the walls of ivory stone. A garden came into view, decorated with effigies of the departed.
"I don't really know why we're here," Akira confessed. To his knowledge, neither of them had family here.
Yusuke closed his eyes briefly and hefted his sketchbook up. "A test location, of sorts. We are close to a house of God, but we are not in it. Akira, could you stand there? Yes, in the space between those two." He bent down in an uncomfortable position and stared up from a low angle. "Yes, yes… a little to the right."
He complied, quietly. "I didn't know you wanted me to model."
Yusuke gave a careless tilt of the head. "You saw the angel as your reflection. It only makes sense that you would be the subject."
"I'm not so sure if that sight was something worth painting," Akira said. Even still, he remained placid and let himself be guided as a mannequin.
"What is considered a sight worth painting? What isn't?" His friend was just as placid in his sketching. "I am a painter — but art isn't always created by paint."
He mulled over the words to the soft scritch-scratch of pencil on paper. Yusuke's perspective was an interesting one, for sure. He wondered how long it would take for a grounded angel to fall from grace.
"Akira." The call of his name brought him out of his thoughts. The lack of honorifics jarred him less than the quality of his voice. "I've got a question for you."
"Hm?"
"How were you able to see the angel?" At that distance — came unspoken.
That was a good question. He spoke slowly: "I don't know."
The clouds swam by, and the shadow of his head was defined once more. The light descended down his form, revealing more and more. The shadows of the two statues unfurled into a stretching length, and then finally came to a joining with his form. Why was the angel falling? Akira stared down at the form fading with the passing of yet another cloud. Perhaps he just did not use his wings.
Yusuke set down his pencil and sat down. The look upon him was inquisitive. "I think I understand now."
"About what?" Akira took this as a cue to relax, and settled down beside his friend.
"You saw something that was unseeable. In the first place, this was a sight meant for you only." The cover of the sketchbook closed. "Whether it's something meant only for people with your ability to wield multiple personas, or for you personally, I don't know. But what is clear to me is that you saw this for a reason."
"Me…" There it was again, the ringing of a bell within his head. The tips of his fingers curled slightly against his thigh. "I suppose that makes sense. That there would be a reason."
Yusuke gazed carefully at him. "Do you know for what reason you might be shown such a sight?"
Akira closed his eyes, and shook his head lightly.
"Thank you for joining me on this venture." Yusuke stood up, and extended his hand. "I am flattered."
"About what? It was nothing." Akira looked at the hand, and took it.
"You had no obligation to speak of this to me, but you did so anyway." They stood together. Beside him, his friend asked: "If I may, I have one last question."
He tilted his head. "What is it?"
"What does it mean for you, if your reflection was a falling angel?"
— ζ —
"What kind of prophecy was he given?" He's heard this prophecy many times, but he still does not understand. This story's roots are not very strong in Japan. Perhaps he will learn of such things in college. He doubts it.
Senpai smiles. It is kindly and gentle, like always. "The Buddha, Sakyamuni, spoke to him:
Following five thousand years,
teachings from the grave, forgotten.
On the precipice of losing dharma,
returns the child, order."
The words are well-worn, as if he is speaking of something he knew intimately. For all his vigor, venerableness is his upperclassman. Any other person would have looked pretentious speaking such words, he thinks. But when it was Senpai — the words fit him perfectly. The archaicness of an old soul.
"He was a messiah?" asks he.
His senpai smiles again, this time melancholically. "No, not quite."
This first chapter was posted wayyy ahead of schedule. Currently I'm around 18~20k into this fic, but I'd like to have at least half done before I start posting. I ask for everyone's patience.
This was originally betaed by fineinthemorningand Arowen12, Needless to say, this version is quite different from the original they read years ago but I would like to thank them in any case.