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[open] and your friends are gone, and your friends won't come

Who: Akira Kurusu & you!
Where: Damon's bar
When: Saturday, September 2nd
Rating: PG
Summary: (blanket spoilers for Persona 5 as always)
Bonds to others are where true strength lies. Until those bonds are abruptly and unceremoniously severed, anyway.
The Story:

Goodbyes are difficult. That's why Akira's rarely given them; too bittersweet to acknowledge a friendship let lie fallow, too awkward to reconnect and make assurances that they'll stay in contact. For Akira's sake, the stigma of becoming a parolee at sixteen saved him one kind of heartache at being put on a train to Tokyo at the expense of another, more bearable heartache. The kind that means you don't have to see the disappointment and distrust replace schoolyard camaraderie. A stranger's hatred is somehow tolerable in comparison.

The circumstances are different now, of course. There was no indication that over the course of a few weeks, he'd lose friends at random. First, Morgana not coming back to sleep on him, then Yusuke's uncharacteristic stand up at the art gallery - then he'd really known something was off. Ann was almost not a surprise at all after that, but a blade quickly removed to let the wound flow freely, pain to come once the adrenaline faded.

Akira didn't so much allow himself to think of it as much as it seeped into his actions, moodily avoiding Ryuji or throwing himself at the Danger Room when all he needed was an outlet for the bubbling rage at the unfairness, when he needed, above all things, to drive himself into numbness, into exhaustion in the absence of the ability to journey into Mementos alone. (Sorry, Mona.)

It isn't fair. It isn't fair.

He can't spend another night inside his room, taking whatever the closets unscrupulously give an underage teenager that asks. He's too bruised for the Danger Room, still nursing a busted lip from a training bot that got a lucky swing in. Distraction is at hand, guiding him to a bar he'd never been in nor has any business being inside on a Saturday.

Akira spends a while watching the drinking games other of-age patrons are engaging in, unconsciously half smiling with the hoots and hollers when someone was forced to take a shot. The clamor ensures that maybe, just maybe his sticky fingers can get to work on grabbing a bottle of his own and surreptitiously pour it into a pilfered glass. If no one catches a teenager grabbing a beer, anyway.

Eventually keeping his thief skills sharp loses its luster (or he stops being quite so capable of it) and Akira slouches openly at the bar, a haze of misery shrouding a nearby drink until his elbow sends it spilling across the bar, Akira staring at it after, stricken.

"Oh - damn, sorry. No, sit down, let me clean it up -"

[ closed to Goro Akechi ]

Akira being a mess sort of aligns with the messy company he keeps. Had Akechi told him that he works here? Since that zombie event the detective prince had been damned good at not being in the same place at the same time as Akira, with a few...notable exceptions...

Not that Akira thought of it often. Or at all.

Just catching a glimpse of him behind the bar sends odd prickles across his skin, a volcanic heat searing his gut that he blindly attributes to annoyance that the detective hunting him down in his world is here while many of his friends are not. Anger has always been a clarifying force for him, so he has to try and understand why Akira still has a murderer instead of his closest friends, robbing Akira of the one thing that distracts him from his loss of purpose, separated from the Phantom Thieves' mission.

Tries. And fails, as honesty breaks through the hard shell of the anger that he mostly feels he's playacting by now. Empathy is a hell of a thing.

He doesn't really know why he instead gives a half wave when Akechi's eyes glance past him, a faint smile in place. Hi there.

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[ akira has always been interesting. there is no exact definition or description for the boy other than rebellion. akira beats to his own drum and even when akira's presence annoyed the hell out of him, it always intrigued him. it was amazing how one person could strike out on their own, so deliberately, against all odds, and make so many friendships and such an impact in the world after being dealt such a shit hand. akira was an enigma he's tried to puzzle out because - even if most of the persona goro akechi put on was a facade - he liked solving mysteries. there was a certain rush about it. and akira was certainly a mystery and maybe that's why he kept indulging in his stupid whims. like dancing....

but good god why was he here? of all places? akechi's been actively avoiding him (again) since the festival and it's been going pretty well, all things considered. he needed to recalibrate, to sort out whatever the hell was going on. it was nothing. absolutely nothing. the festival had been silly remnants of the event and now it was over and now akira was an annoying presence once more that maybe he didn't exactly want to kill anymore but --

the mere sight of akira has akechi pausing, the towel in his hand he's using to dry the glassware coming to a complete halt. ]

Aren't you a bit young to be here? [ calmly, slowly, with a weak forced smile. he's also too young but who cares in wonderland to be honest? ]

[ Why indeed. But to that question Akechi already knows what he'd say, a pointed edge briefly in his eyes: You first, detective-san. ]

Just lonely I guess.

[ The airy tone belies the fact that that's... damn near on the mark. Ugh. Not that he's against telling Akechi the truth, but a confidant? Akira is used to reaching out from the other side of the looking glass. Trying to reassure Akechi specifically that he's allowed to rely on others. That he's Okay and Akira actually cares about the fact that Akechi's been dealt as shit of a hand as Akira and shittier yet.

It feels incredibly personal that he has to go further outside his ring of friends because that ring has shrunk considerably. Neither is Akechi a last resort, he just- needs someone. That doesn't play the same role as the others. That's what he'd been looking for, maybe.

Akira shrugs, a tightness in the way he holds himself. ]

You got hired here. Maybe I need an honest job.

[ for some inexplicable reason, akechi doesn't think akira's making a joke when he says that. it makes sense, of course, with the thieves dwindling in number in the past month or so. the little band of thieves no longer was sizable and an annoying presence he couldn't avoid. now, it was easier to sidestep the remaining hooligans.

he shouldn't care what akira feels. no one ever cared what he felt. ]

I don't think anyone is hiring delinquents.

[ a faint twitch of his lips into something that isn't a fake smile and more of a real-life stirrings of a smirk. accordingly, he sets the glass and towel down and props an elbow up on the counter, leaning his palm into his chin. ]

Do you want a drink? I've given up on the idea that normal laws and rules apply here.

Somehow I don't think you were entirely honest on your resume.

[ Caring is good - Feelings are Important to acknowledge, Goro. Otherwise they do all these crazy things just to get noticed.

Trusting he doesn't have to explain the big picture of why he's here, Akira instead lets himself indulge in the physical minutiae of the moment, how loud the pockets of competitive drinkers, the soft, flyaway strands of Akechi's hair catching in the dim bar light. Recent shower? That sounds nice. ]

Only if you have one with me.

[ It's just this side of flirtatious despite Akira barely knowing the hows of that particular behavior. Not like he has to work hard to keep Akechi's attention either, and Akira's ego ismaybe a little in love with that fact. ]

You're due for a break, right? Come on.

[ red flag. there are so many red flags popping up. warning bells are chiming a fantastic melody in his head and the hand that isn't propping himself up clenches ito a tiny fish to regulate his breathing. ]

Fine.

[ why does he always give in? it's a disease. he twitches his lips up and goes about making them a set of screwdrivers. simple and fruity and it's easy to hide the alcohol. it's not as strong as a manhattan but he doubts either of them need anything strong to make them tipsy. ]

So long as we can play a game, of course. Of my choice.

[ Akira's not going to argue with that, swallowing down his exhaustion in a fruity and faintly burning gulp. The partway full beers he thieved earlier were fine, but they were always more function than finesse when it came to its purpose. This way he gets to actually enjoy what he's drinking, giving Akechi a jaunty little toast in thanks. ]

Ah, like twenty questions? Never have I ever? You might be at a disadvantage against me~.

[ ..... are you suggesting you've barely done anything, akira? noted. ]

As tempting as those sound.... [ NO. ] I was thinking something more situational.

[ please excuse him as he heads around the bar and guides them and their drinks over to a stretch of the bar where a game of darts is neatly hung on the wall. ]

[ Wow rude. Akira can totally go somewhere he's appreciated. Totally.

At first following Akechi with the mere squeak of his rotating stool, he hums and soon rises to fall in behind him with drink in hand, eyebrows raised at the board. ]

I always thought it was weird that dart boards are in bars. [ One of the darts is plucked neatly out and balances between his long fingers, twirled with expert control even if nothing else of his quite wants to respond as dextrously. ] Have to think that everyone's aim would take a turn for the tragic.

[ tsk tsk we aren't all murderers, akira. only some of us. the witty remark dodson his lips and he watches the dart spun around on akira's fingers. how does he always do that? pencils and phones and darts? ]

It's an easy and competitive game. It requires little physical excursion but it's still enough of a sport to keep people entertained.

[ thanks.

anyway, he leans against a wall not in the direct path of the board and takes a long sip of his screwdriver. if akira's had anything before this, akechi can't tell. true he's great with observations but there's been a lot on his mind. ]

Go right ahead. You throw first.

Provided aim is good, sure. [ Akira's not quite confident enough to tumble the dart from between one set of fingers to the next like a coin and not tipsy enough to try. So, phew. ] Guess it's a relief that you didn't challenge me to three dimensional chess. I suck at chess.

[ Stepping up to the line as prompted, the line of Akira's grin grows cockier as he lifts the dart. There's two slow practice throws, getting a feel for the dart's weight and projecting its arc. Easy and competitive...

The dart flies through the air - !

And finds the plaster just outside of the outer rim, embedding soundly into the wall. Hm. That's... not how that was supposed to go. ]

[ honestly before working here he had zero idea nor interest in darts. it didn't accomplish anything. but boredom truly breeds interest and he can't help the smirk that's overtaking his features. ]

I suppose that's a good first try. No one lost an eye.

[ akechi please. he sets his glass down after another sip, walking to the wall to pluck the darts one by one off. all right so maybe his face is slightly warm from a sip of a drink before akira showed up and in general. what if it ... ]

Your stance is wrong. You need to tilt your body in a way that you end up keeping your elbow still when you throw. All the movement should be in your wrist. It's more precise that way.

[ he takes to the line, tossing akira a look as he shoots his first one. it isn't perfect but at least it hits the board? ]

[ Did he ask for critique. ] You picked the game.

[ It seems like a hobby that's only picked up in light of repeat exposure amidst boredom, yeah. Kind of the same way that Akira got heavily into jigsaw puzzles over one sticky Summer, having watched his parents peck over it and argue about shades of green fitting together.

Akira crosses his arms, leaning back on his heels while Akechi shows him How It's Done, which is to say that the dart is supposed to go into the board. Wooooow~. ]

You pop your butt out when you throw. [ AKIRA WHY ]

[ did you just comment on his ass?

it's a curveball, all right, and the good detective arches a brow and actually misses on that second shot. thanks, akira. you're a friend. a real chum. your plan totally worked. slow-clap for the hero. ]

It's a matter of pivoting, so yes, I suppose I do.

[ he says it with that plastic, made-for-tv smile, but there's something else there. it's different than back in japan. there's some underpinnings to it that start at amusement and end somewhere in the sheets.

he retrieves the darts and hands them to akira, the slight alcohol (albeit strong alcohol) in his system making him brush their hands together as he does so. ]

[ You're a celebrity, deal with it.

Akira'd be lying if he said he was expecting a semi-coherent response, so he doesn't have one ready in return. Just a lot of natural competitiveness that gets choked with teenage awkwardness at two hands that dare cross paths in semi-natural order.

Whew, time to take a break to sip his Cosmoplitan, pausing to carefully transfer the darts into his other hand, eyes skirting. What is it that he's so given to in the moment? The fact that he needs to be given to something so he's not consumed by something worse. ]

So were you learning in your off hours? Darts doesn't seem like something you pick up in the police.

Actually, a lot of the after hour meetings were in places like these. Naturally I couldn't drink, so darts was an easy distraction.

[ since he had to be there and all.

akechi shrugs and takes another long sip of his drink. it's starting to get sweeter and maybe that's a problem. it's probably a theme at this point that he gets tipsy around akira. maybe it's the only way he can process what the hell is happening between them. about his own future. ]

Here, on this try, try angling your body more to the left.

[ no he's not... using his free hand to drift along akira's lower back to grip his hip and try to forcefully angle akira's body. ]

Ryuji's waiting when Akira returns to the room they share, its small space comfortably lived in by now, but seemingly twice its size and emptier for it with the absence of a certain cat.

That he's waiting is a betrayal of some innate parts of his nature--he's not someone who takes to waiting with grace, always that person flipping through years' old magazines in the doctor's office, foot pumping an unseen pedal against the floor, watching the hands on the clock move. Restlessness has a way of setting in when his thumbs have nothing to occupy them except twiddling.

But it was either this, or put said thumbs to work composing a text message. Where are you? has an air of a micromanaging handler or overbearing mother and he hesitates to send it when he returns to an empty room. Akira's stuff is still there--he checks, a perfunctory act in Wonderland that's becoming uncomfortably second-nature. But no Akira.

Ryuji hasn't been blind to the distance between them; Akira's been a little off since their friends' disappearances. Withdrawn. And who can fault anyone for being off balance? Wonderland is like one endless rug being pulled out from under their feet, and the fall is a hard one. He'd be lying if he said it didn't bother him, though. Now's the time the rest of them should be banding together closer than ever, but it just seems as though he keeps walking into empty spaces.

Some day soon he could come back to their room and find one half of it stripped totally bare. It's an insidious thought, one he tries to keep at arm's length.

"Where've you been?" He sits up from his sprawl on the couch, valiantly managing not to make it sound like an accusation that insidious thought has given birth to.

He doesn't have any answers, Ryuj. If he did he could find their friends again, they could go home, anywhere they'd be together again, all right.

By the time he gets back he doesn't really have the strength to go through it all. He's been through it with Akechi and he might have had a few but Akira's got his wits about him, frayed as they are.

It's nothing Ryuji's done, of course. He'd needed someone to talk to with some distance, to help forget that half of the Thieves' founding member were now gone and no amount of Joker's legendary guile could fix it. And that fucking sucks. Akira's half convinced that he's going to walk into their shared rooms and find nothing waiting for him - no one to miss him until he's eventually erased too.

Damn. This is messing him up. It's hard not to take it as an accusation seeing as how Akira's pulled an extended disappearing act.

"Checking out Akechi's job at the bar. Didn't think you were waiting up for me."

Oh, he's been missing longer than that? Weird.

It is an accusation, a bit. They're the Phantom Thieves; they pull together, not apart. And more than usual, Ryuji's compelled to keep a protective watch over the thieves that remain, but he can't very well do that when they fail to keep in touch about what their schedule's looking like.

They can't just do that--what if something happens, and that's the one time the rest of them aren't around to...? To help, to be there. To... something.

Ugh.

He hates the atmosphere of uncertainty Wonderland's created, that one moment any of them could be laughing over breakfast only to turn a corner and be gone, but he hates the feeling that uncertainty creates in him even more. He's become his own mother, wanting to keep tabs and helicopter parent.

"Akechi?"

But Ryuji has faith in his friendships above all else, and when he hears Akechi and bar together, he leans forward with a new alertness, automatically assuming Akira means he'd been there for work. He probably hadn't thought to say he'd be out so long because he'd gotten busy with whatever it was. Makes sense. Keeping tabs on that guy is practically a full-time job.

"He up to somethin'?" He's all ears. Recon might be good to keep their head in the game.

Yeah they've been doing a great job of that lately, pulling together. Not - not popping out of existence without so much as a note, not disappearing within themselves like a coward afraid of the things that he's suddenly realizing are out of his reach. Joker sucks it down and leads. He doesn't let the team fall apart over public opinion turning on them or Morgana striking out on his own, spurred by the pain of being perceived to be without use.

Yeah. Akira can be reminded of these things, but can he feel them just now beneath a haze of loneliness, confused feelings, and pilfered half-full beer.

He jerks, maybe shaking his head. "Wh- no. Akechi's -" Something. He has no idea what Akechi is except human and incredibly warm to the touch. "Okay."

Akira rubs his face with the heel of his palm, scraping away the patina of insomnia that's plagued him these past few days/ Maybe longer, and he hadn't noticed. He understands Ryuji searching for something to act upon, some... point of focus but beyond surviving in this place it just doesn't exist. He flumphs down onto the couch next to Ryuji, their legs pressed together.

"I don't know what I'm doing anymore, Ryuj."

'Akechi'? 'Okay'? Two words that stand as opposing elements in the chemical makeup of the world so far as Ryuji's concerned; it's a consequence of having internalized this rule of physics that bemusement quirks his brows, finding himself at a dead end as to why Akira would cross into Akechi's orbit without a reason.

It's a question that can wait for another time. Now that he has a moment to get a good look at the other boy, he backseats the rest of his thought in favor of mounting concern. Akira looks... rough, to put it politely. He sits up straighter, following the other's weary progress across the room with the furrow pulling tighter between his brows.

It's only when Akira flops into the seat beside him that he catches a whiff of what Akira had meant by bar. "Have you been drinking?" he asks in surprise, nose wrinkling at the pungent aroma of beer clinging to his breath and clothes.

Going to a bar to play amateur sleuth--that's nothing new for them. But going to a bar to drink the actual drinks?

??? Did Akira misread and think Akechi was okay in his book? Thoughts tip and slosh around in his head, overfull, teeming with crossed signals and connections that don't quite reach one another like hands outstretched.

"Mmyeah. Not a lot. Some." He'd never get away with it at home, but here there is a lawlessness that we delinquents cannot distinguish themselves from, no society to oppose. It is unjust that they're here and their friends are slowing becoming Not and they can do nothing about it...

Akira may or may not mumble some of that at Ryuji, staring down between his knobbly knees.

"S'not fair. I miss them."

Correction: drinking and reading Tolstoy in a darkened corner lit by the flame of a single candle, apparently.

The mumble sets a mood somewhere between a tired drunk and that of a despairing philosophizer, and Ryuji turns to sit sideways, the better to see Akira. The more he sees, the more he frowns. Akira looks raw and worn-out in a way he hasn't seen since the winter when it felt as though the entire world's displeasure had turned on the Thieves with the force of a magnifying glass pointed at an ant.

"You mean to say that's where you've been all this time?" In the bar, getting shit-faced? Akira is just full of surprises. Sometimes to a worrying degree.

A beat to consider what to say to that admission, then Ryuji hesitantly ventures the thought on his mind: "Why didn't you call me? I wasn't busy. I would've gone with you." Maybe not to help himself to the liquid buffet, but he could've gone.

A double standard in a sense, deciding against texting Akira while acting like he'd been expecting one in return, but he's also not the one who keeps taking off without a word. Needing space has typically come with a negative value attached in Ryuji's experience; he doesn't like it, not with Akira of all people.

Damon notices the attempts to snag a bottle of his own. It's not like Damon has drinking ages he enforces in the bar, and he actually gave a teenager their very first drink at the bar while they talked about Damon's brother. He lifts his eyebrows from behind the bar, leaning against it, as he watches in amusement for awhile, and then when the teenager is a second away from finally, successfully grabbing a beer, Damon leans over and says loudly (too loudly),

"...practicing your pick pocketing skills?"

Jeez -

Akira straightens up pretty quickly, the smoothness of the action belying the way the man's voice suddenly breaks through his depressive haze. Jumpy - that's not usually Akira. Not that some guy working here would know.

The teen's expression goes quickly from surprise to Who, me? in a flash, spindly fingers returning to the rim of his Shirley Temple.

"Debatable, based on whether you think we really own anything here either way."

Damon smirks even as he lifts up an empty glass in the person's direction.

"You know you can just get a drink at the bar if you wanted, right? Alcohol drinking laws are pretty much bullshit."

Especially in the US.

Kids have to be 21? They sure don't have to be 21 to enter the army, to go off to die. Damon was eighteen when he entered the army, when he walked into the war.

What - no, of course he knew that. Ha. Ha ha.

"Hmm? Yeah." Akira manfully keeps the question mark out of the end of that. "I've gotten some drinks out of the closets before, so. No issues as long as you have none either."

Like he's aware of legal age laws and how routinely kids as young as him break them if called for, but he wasn't going to waltz into a public space and confirm a bartender's stance on the subject. Outside of Akechi, because He Knows.

It's not really what he's doing here anyway. Akira might even look it to the observant, like most who go to bars in search of an elusive something. That's what he's seen in movies.

"Been here months and I'm still learning peoples' rules, don't mind me."

Damon lifts his eyebrows like he doesn't quite believe that, but it's also now clear Damon doesn't have a problem with it. He's not about to start giving full glasses of heavy liquor to anyone under ten, but teenagers tend to drink anyway. And there are always closets. No one checks ids in the closet. Better people drink out in public where someone can make sure they don't die of alcohol poisoning.

That'd be a hilariously bad way to go in a magical, sometimes dangerous mansion...

"It was amusing watching you try. You weren't half bad," he says with a shrug. "Although it helps people are pretty hammered when they play a good drinking game. So what do you want from the bar?"

He can have his very own bottle.

Edited 2017-09-19 18:31 (UTC)

Zack doesn't drink often. He hates the taste of booze. Liquor's really bitter and gross and the smell reminds him of those ugly back alleys he once took refuge in. However, sometimes these bars had good food and sodas. Zack's really glad there is no currency here, otherwise he would be having a hard time ordering appetizers with coke.

Then he feels a cold liquid soaking through his sleeve.

"Hey! Watch what you're doing you damn... Kid?"

Zack stares blankly at the teenager who is immediately apologizing and offering to clean up. That's gotta be a teenager, right?

"Uh... Aren't ya a bit young to be drinking?" says the weird twenty something in the bloodstained hoodie and bandages.

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[open] and your friends are gone, and your friends won't come

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wild cards you like a rebel

doki doki~

<3

o3o

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Late Tag in but bar