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“Why on earth do we have to do it this way?” Akechi asked exasperatedly as Sumire pushed him into her closet.
“Because you’re the surprise! Come on, it’ll be sweet!” she said excitedly. “Now hurry, he’s going to be here any minute!”
Closing the door, Sumire turned to make sure everything else was all set. The food was all set, enough for the three of them, and she had no other plans all day! They could freely talk all afternoon.
And boy, did they have a lot to talk about.
Sumire still couldn’t believe she’d found him. She had been out of town, in a more rural area to do a smaller competition, when she noticed a familiar face in the crowd.
He obviously hadn’t expected to be caught. “I just happened to be staying here for a few days,” he had said, not making eye contact “I came because there’s absolutely nothing to do in this decrepit old town.”
Sumire couldn’t help but giggle at the thought. Akechi may be skilled liar and have a superb poker face, but no amount of deception can stop your face from flushing! It had taken quite a bit of convincing to get him to come back with her, but she just knew it was going to be worth it!
There was a quiet knock at the door. “Sumire?”
“Akira!” she excitedly ran to her door, only hesitating to make certain the closet was shut. Don’t want to ruin the surprise now!
As the familiar sight of messy black hair and glasses greeted her, she couldn’t help but smile. “I’m so so glad you’re here, I was worried I’d miss you before you had to go home again!”
Playing with his hair like he sometimes did, Akira smiled back. “You know I would always make time for you.” he said smoothly.
There was a muffled sigh from the closet.
Ignoring it, she invited him in and brought out the food she’d made, hiding the third plate for now. “I can’t wait to tell you about my vacation! I had quite a surprise during it” she told him, trying to keep down her smirk.
“Heh, I had a surprising trip too…” Akira said, sounding tired.
“Oh really?” she asked, heading towards the closet. “How surprising?”
“Well, it kicked off with fighting a sexual bunny monster in horny jail, how’s that for an exciting hook?”
The door opened the slightest crack, Sumire froze. After trying and failing to process that sentence, she made eye contact with Akechi, who seemed equally bewildered. Wordlessly, they both agreed.
This could wait.
With that, Sumire promptly spun herself around and sat back in her seat, facing Akira.
“Well… you definitely have my attention!” she laughed.
Akira laughed too. “Yeah, I kinda figured that’d be a bit of an eye opener.”
____
The rest of the story was… a lot to take in honestly. Apparently their so called vacation had had them crawling through several dungeons over the span of a single month. Between things such as ‘the larping jail’ and ‘murderous Tony Stark’ as Akira referred to them, Sumire genuinely didn’t know what to say. Several times during the story, she could see movement come the closet. She could only imagine the reactions Akechi was having to the story. They were very lucky Akra’s back was facing him.
“So you made friends with both an AI and… an old man?” she asked.
“Well… he wasn’t that old,” Akira admitted. “We just called him gramps to get under his skin.”
“And they both had personas?”
“Yeah, Zenkichi’s made him look like a bloodborne character.”
“And you fought a god like giant robot because it wanted to delete emotion? Just… as a concept?”
“Pretty much!” he said casually, as if this had been just another average week in the life of Akira Kurusu. “On another note, my cooking’s gotten a lot better! You should try my ramen, it made Ryuji cry.”
“Wow… that was quite a story Akira!” she said. “It makes mine feel less eventful.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to take the wind out of your sails Sumire.” he said, a bit bashful. “What was it you wanted to share?”
“Ah, well, while I was out of town for a tournament, I found a little something!” she told him, rushing over to the closet. She felt kind of bad for leaving him in there the whole time, the story was a lot longer than she’d expected.
Not a moment after she opened the door, Akechi was stomping up to Akira with intent.
“You are the BIGGEST IDIOT to EVER grace this god forsaken earth.” he started, clearly having opinions that must be shared. “First of all I can NOT believe you trusted this Ichinose character, I mean honestly do you just fall for ANYONE who approaches you, makes small talk about food, and has a fake personality??” he shouted, pointing his finger right in Akira’s shell shocked face. “And I CANNOT get over the fact you let this- this WITLESS so called investigator make the damn calling card, it reads out like a GODDAMN POLICE REPORT, you are excessively lucky that even WORKED! And for the love of christ, CAN YOU NOT GO MORE THAN A FEW MONTHS WITHOUT FIGHTING GOD??”
Seemingly done for now, Sumire glanced between Akechi, glaring and heaving from all the yelling, and Akira, who still looked incredibly stunned.
“Um… Surprise?” she tried feebly.
That seemingly broke the spell, and Akira suddenly pulled the other boy into a big hug. Akechi, for the most part, seemed unaffected, still scowling at him.
“That… wasn’t exactly how I was going to present him,” Sumire said sheepishly “But I’m glad you still enjoyed your gift!”
“It’s the best lecture I’ve ever had!” Akira said with a huge grin on his face.
“I don’t suppose you’ll actually take any of that rant to heart, will you?” Akechi deadpanned.
“Absolutely not!” Akira proudly stated.
Akechi, still in Akira’s vice grip of a hug, turned to Sumire “How the hell did you convince me to submit myself to this idiocy again?”
Sumire giggled as she came over to hug him too, causing him to groan.
“You came back cus you love us, don’t even lie.” Akira teased.
“I am already contemplating shooting you again.”