CHECKMATE

“Yes that will be quiet alright.” 

“Yes I am on my way now to collect the key.” 

“No please it isn’t any trouble. I’ll be there shortly.” 

The Ace Detective removed the cell phone from his ear and hit the end call button through his black leather gloves. He sighed quietly to himself before placing the item back into his pocket, grabbed his breifcase that was sitting near his feet and started his path towards the subway lines. 

Goro Akechi had just returned back to Tokyo after finishing college in America and was now heading to get the room key to his new apartment flat. Yale to be percise. Achieving a Master’s degree in just four very gruling years. He has fully intended on staying in the states after graduation, but something inside him had been changing. For reasons unknown to him, he felt the need to return.  No. That wasn’t entirely correct. 

The Phantom Theives. 

Akechi’s eyebrows furrowed at the thought. The group had been extremely quiet the last few years and that bothered the detective. It was as if pieces of his memory were missing when it came to everything involving the Theives. 

How the group “changed a person’s heart” and who the leader of the Phantom Theives was were all a mystery to him. But why? Had things resolved themselves while he was away? He couldn’t be sure and it was frustrating him to his very core. 

Not that Akechi would ever reveil this piece of information, but while in the states he had been attending therapy. During his Sophomore year he started having vivid dreams about his mother, about Shido, and about two very strange creatures that looked like something out of a cartoon. Total opposites from one another. His therapist had told him it was perhaps two vesions of himself. One good and one—well not so good. 

Akechi was lost in though when he arrived in Kichijoji, the location of his new apartment. After walking past several familiar stores and bars he noticed a familar shape in the crowd. Akechi tilted his head slightly at the vision of the figure moved closer to him. His eyes widen as a name escaped unwillingly from his lips. 

Life had changed since Ren’s probation had ended. Of course, his time in Tokyo had come to an abrupt end as he said his goodbyes to his little found family among the former Phantom Thieves. He’d returned home with a renewed sense of purpose- one the teen sorely lacked a year ago, and a plan for the future.

He’s back in Tokyo now- no longer a schoolboy delinquent but instead a mild-mannered college student with an odd record. The moment he set foot in his original home, Ren had decided that was not where he wanted to stay- Sojiro had been more than happy to let the boy stay with him free of charge, but the offer was stubbornly refused.

The Metaverse may be gone, but his desire for change has not wavered. Perhaps it was his difficult upbringing or even his close relationship and deep conversations with Maruki- but Ren’s desire to see people change manifested in his pursuit to become a psychologist.

It was... rough, to say the very least. Between studying and homework, the former Phantom Thief had also taken up his previous job at Crossroads. Lala was more than happy to have an extra pair of hands to help out around the bar.

He was...  happy, despite everything.

To celebrate his completion of a rather stressful essay, Yusuke had invited him to Penguin Sniper for darts. It felt a lot like that year hadn’t passed, and the two were simply here between Mementos runs, laughing and talking like nothing ever happened. It left a warmth in Ren’s chest as the two parted ways and the raven-haired male waded through the small sea of people bustling through  Kichijoji. 

He doesn’t see him first- he hears him. Clear as a bell, clear as the day he’s promised they would defeat Maruki.  It... can’t be. Even the most vivid of Ren’s night-terrors could not produce something this authentic: Goro Akechi standing before him, crimson eyes surprised but still guarded with that familiar stoicism.

He doesn’t even apologize as he breaks through the crowd, his eyes never leaving Akechi- if he does the other will disappear - and when he stands mere feet from the other boy, he still is marvelously solid and clearly alive.