[closed] all around you the buildings sway

[flightpen]

They wanted to beat the weather home, but Ren took too long choosing vegetables, and then Akechi got really excited about a weird-looking mix from the bakery section and deliberated about which to try until Ren, holding the increasingly heavy basket, pointed out they were free and Akechi could just take them all. So in the end, the threatened rain started to fall just as they're bagging their groceries. Oops.

Ren grimaces as they head for the door, watching the rain through the windows.

Comments

[pheasantboy]

"Listen," Akechi prattles gently as they stare at the rain, "just because you can take all of something, that doesn't mean you should. What if it doesn't... grow back, or whatever it is it does?"

Too late, as ever, it occurs to him that might be the sort of thing Ren doesn't like to hear him say. The rain trails lavishly down the window, leaving slow trails. It reminds him of something, he thinks; he squints, trying to recall it.

[flightpen]

But, hideously, Ren is more used to Adjustment Akechi than he used to be. Soon he will have known him longer than he ever knew Justice Akechi. He tries not to think about that.

"Why would you think it won't come back?" he asks, more quietly than he means to. "Stuff always has before."

[pheasantboy]

"But—that doesn't mean it always will, does it?" Feeling around the edges of the thought, he experiments with his curiosity; it feels as precipitous as ever, even if the sentiment is what Ren has in the past called conformist.

"Things can change. And there's a delay, as when that other Ren blew up Shinjuku. What if someone else wants"—he glances into the bag—"curry pan?"

[flightpen]

"Then they can go to the store two blocks down. Just like we could have."

He shoots Akechi a probing look. Is that really what's bothering him? Taking all the food from an endlessly replenishing supply? Or is there more to it? Before, there would have been. Now, Akechi may really just be fretting about being a good citizen.

[pheasantboy]

The rain pours and pours, down the plate glass door in front of them. He does want to be a good citizen, but Ren's not wrong there's more to it. "It's just ... something about the rain is strange. I can't place it."

He says it in that careful way that means I think I've forgotten it: that their whole environment is cognitive, and so the rain seems strange.

[flightpen]

"Like how it started just as we were leaving?"

A year ago, he might've said this in a light, teasing tone. Now he sounds more tired and sardonic. But he is making a joke, in his way.

[pheasantboy]

But Akechi turns to him with a small smile, so much more relatable than the bright ones that he now more often than not means. "You think I'm imagining things? I have to put something up there, after all."

It is a joke, though he can't match Ren's sardonic tone.

[flightpen]

"Akechi," he sighs. Don't say that, he wants to add, but the swirling wisp of darkness in his chest kills the words before they reach his mouth. Not a surprise. The remnant of Akechi's Shadow he carries with him tends to dislike it when he tells Akechi to do things.

His mouth twists. "Everything here is weird," he says instead.

[pheasantboy]

But Akechi's noticed. He reaches out to brush Ren's fingers with his own.

[flightpen]

At the touch, he glances sidelong at Akechi, not in anguish, as he might have done in March, but tiredly. After a second, he finds it within himself to offer a faint, apologetic smile.

[pheasantboy]

And there's no sign that the rain is letting up. Rather than take Ren's hand, he draws it back, to take up his own bags of shopping with a faint smile of his own.

"Well," he tries, turning to the door. "Shall we brave it? Or raid the store for an umbrella?"

[flightpen]

He considers the question. The ghost of his months-ago self sprints through the rain, laughing, daring Akechi to beat him.

He holds out his bags. "Stay here. I'll find one."

[pheasantboy]

"Do you think somebody will walk off with the bags?" But he takes them all the same, ready to wait as instructed rather than fight.

[flightpen]

"An employee might return them to the shelves. Or maybe someone has a cognition that this shop gets stolen from a lot, I don't know. Be right back."

He returns a couple minutes later with a large black umbrella scavenged from the staff room. The rain shows no sign of letting up. As he reaches Akechi's side, he holds out his hands for his bags. "Thanks."

[pheasantboy]

It's a massive umbrella; he can't help but laugh at the sight of it. But he holds on to the bags. "If you have the umbrella, I can hold the bags. Where did you find that thing?"