Shuake fic where Ren and Akechi independently decide that they need to seduce the other for the sake of their missions. It takes place after rank 4 of Akechi's social link. Sae happened to see Ren and Akechi together when they left the Jazz Jin, and she had questions. Akechi went off to answer them on his own and Ren met up with Mona and explained what happened. While chatting with their respective guides, Mona and Sae said something to the effect of "idk man, it sounds like this guy really wants to date you". And that gave Ren and Akechi a stupid idea at the exact same time.
Akechi believes he can use seduction to put Ren in a vulnerable state, making it easier to extract information from him. Hell, he may even be able to manipulate Ren into becoming his accomplice, if he plays his cards right. Ren believes he can seduce Akechi over to the side of good with his lovable charm. Hell, Ren may get top secret information on the Phantom Thieves case to boot, if he plays his cards right.
The kicker is they're both wrong.
They'e both TERRIBLE at seducing each other, for completely different reasons.
Akechi's naturally anti-social, has zero dating experience, and can barely hold a real conversation with someone his age. He has no idea what being a boyfriend is like. The best he can do is guess how the detective prince should date someone (based on how 'good' romances play out in books/movies + whatever fantasies his fans post about him online); he should be sweet, polite, and adorably shy. Solid plan. But then that plan is ripped to shreds when he realizes that Ren doesn't actually LIKE that version of Akechi. Ren likes the 'real' him, the one that's mean, angry, and breaks things. Because Ren is a weird freak and this is the first time Akechi actually puts that together. So in practice, he and Ren don't do anything traditionally romantic, they just play their competitive games and have homoerotic trash talk. Then they make out. Is it working? Who knows, Akechi sure doesn't. He's a lot more comfortable with the manipulation part, but that doesn't yield the results he wants either, since Ren's so stubborn. It's annoying (it's also hot but Goro would never admit that out loud).
Ren has dating experience and is naturally charming (unlike Goro), so he's got the normal dating part down. The problem is that Ren is too distracted by his massive crush on Akechi to get any useful information out of him. He's just having so much fun actually getting to date him and kiss him and cuddle him, he can't help himself. They play 20 questions a lot, but every time Ren has the opportunity to ask about the case, he just asks about Akechi's hobbies/interests/passions instead. It's the REAL Akechi he's seducing, too, which makes it even harder to focus. Ren doesn't have the detective prince in his arms, he has the competitive, angry, PASSIONATE man behind that plastic smile! How could anyone focus, really? How could anyone keep their head on straight with something so tempting? Outside of that, Ren struggles to bring Akechi over to the good side, too. He doesn't like manipulating people (unless it's for something silly that doesn't matter, like goading Akechi into playing another game by bruising his ego), but even if he did, he still couldn't change Akechi's mind. He's dead set on capturing the Phantom Thieves. He's just too stubborn to change without a lot of work. Ren thinks it's hot (which he would admit out loud to almost anyone).
They both suck at it. But they still think the other is doing worse (because Ren is a love sick idiot and Akechi bit his own tongue the first time they kissed). Which means eventually, one of them will win. So they both just keep going forward with this stupid plan, internally freaking out yet somehow convinced that they have the other in the palm of their hand
