Work Text:
He’s young, about 15 or so. He looks strangely familiar, but in an unimportant way. Something in the eyes, maybe.
“He has two of them,” Wakaba says, like that's supposed to mean something.
Shido sets the file down to look her in the eye. “How’d you find him?”
“That’s the weird thing,” she says, “He found me.”
“Parents signed off on it?,” Shido asks, brows raised.
Wakaba shrugs noncommittally. “Foster family didn’t care. He says he’s filing for emancipation soon.”
Shido can’t say he’s surprised. The foster care system in Japan was terrible, or so he’d been told. Come to think of it, improving it had probably been one of his campaign promises. He makes a mental note to schedule a photo-op with some particularly pathetic looking orphans soon.
“Anything else?,” he asks.
Wakaba hesitates, as if unsure if she should say something or not.
“He wants to meet you. Keeps asking about the person in charge.”
“Tell him he needs to work a lot harder if he wants to pull that off,” Shido responds, amused.
A young self-starter with delusions of grandeur and nothing to lose. The worst kind, Shido thinks to himself.
“Congressman Shido?,” the kid asks, sticking out a gloved hand. “Akechi Goro. I’ve heard so much about you.”
Shido snorts internally as he begins detailing a laundry list of Shido’s accomplishments.
Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you?, he thinks. The star-struck act is half-passable, but the kid— Akechi?— hasn’t learned that less is more yet.
It reminds Shido of himself, almost, back in the old days when he was trying to cozy up to senior party officials. The look of contempt in their eyes as they saw him for what he was— a power-hungry upstart who was more than willing to trample anyone in his path on the way to greatness.
Now he has an office with wood-paneled walls on the top floor of the National Diet building and they’re rotting in the prison cells he put them in.
He should give them a call sometime.
Akechi is fairly useful once he’s been given direction. Like setting a rabid dog on an unsuspecting target.
Two of Shido’s most outspoken detractors, dead, in less than three weeks— with no physical trail of evidence whatsoever. He could get used to this.
But Shido didn’t make it as far as he has by failing to account for contingencies. He has Akechi kill a few others at random so the connection won’t be too obvious.
Akechi does it in a heartbeat.
The kid isn't even all that broken up about it, reporting his success the next day looking fresh as a daisy.
Even Shido lost sleep the first time he had someone whacked, and he wasn’t even the one dealing the killing blow.
Granted, he was up all night fucking the man’s wife, but that’s neither here nor there.
Akechi’s willingness to do whatever he tells him is fascinating. Shido’s never met a kid so eager to please in his life.
Not too long into their partnership, Shido asks him to kill Wakaba, just to see if he’ll do it.
She’s not a big nuisance now, but she’s always been a little too intelligent for his tastes. Knows him better than she should.
Besides, it’s a good test of loyalty.
Akechi’s a kid with no family who’s spent the past few months working with a mother. There’s no way he didn’t imprint on her in some way. Sure, Wakaba’s far from maternal, but he has to feel something for her considering how much time they’ve spent together.
You would’ve thought that Wakaba was his worst enemy. Akechi gets it done in two days, even drafts up a suicide letter. For a car accident.
Hilariously, the kid blames it all on her daughter for being too demanding.
Shido’s read manifestos from men who committed murder-suicides that were less ruthless.
He supposes he can’t blame an orphan for having a mother complex. It wasn’t that he felt nothing for Wakaba— it was that his attachment to her manifested entirely in the hatred of a grade-schooler he’d never met for being more loved than he was.
It’s fascinating how transparent he is.
Akechi’s smiling when he reports back to him. Shido wonders what he would've done with all that apathy had he not found him.
Probably politics, he muses. He’s got the face for it.
Shido’s feeling pretty indulgent that day, so he has his people plant the letter.
Good behavior should be rewarded, after all.
The thought about the politics sticks around.
Shido’s had Akechi force enough mental shutdowns that people are starting to notice. He has more than a few allies on the inside, but Akechi’s practically chomping at the bit for more responsibility.
“Is there anything else you need, Shido-san?,” he asks after almost every hit, the naivete of his words undermined by the sentiment.
Having him carry out all of Shido’s political assassinations isn’t a completely terrible strategy— between the mental shutdowns, the psychotic breakdowns, and their mutual willingness to orchestrate unrelated civilian deaths with the same tactics, there’s more than enough variety to deflect suspicion.
However, there’s a reason why Shido delegates responsibility. He was never a big fan of putting all his eggs in one basket.
Shido’s in a god awful meeting with the head of a department store chain who'd personally insisted he check out one of their locations— like it’d stop him from slashing their obscene subsidies—when it hits him.
One of the TVs is playing some old special with that Shirogane Naoto brat from a few years ago.
The moron of a businessman he’s been talking to pauses, noticing his trailing gaze. “I see you recognize Naoto-kun!,” he says brightly. “One of our pride and joys here in Inaba.”
Given what Shido has seen of Inaba so far, he doubts the bar for being deemed one of this backlick shithole’s ‘pride and joys’ is particularly high. Any idiot more notable than a bank teller probably qualified.
Shido nods absentmindedly as the man prattles on about Inaba’s strange string of criminal cases.
He can work with this.
Akechi is overjoyed at the responsibility, just like Shido knew he’d be.
“I promise you won’t regret this,” he says, beaming.
“I better not,” Shido warns darkly, studying his face carefully.
The teenage years seem to be catching up with Akechi. It probably has something to do with the fact that he’s actually being fed. Shido would know. The taxpayer money he’d embezzled was funding it.
Aside from shooting up like a sprout and putting on some weight, the kid’s also grown more into his facial features— sharp cheekbones and strong jawline.
Shido’s listening to his report on the latest shutdown (or non-shutdown in this case— apparently the public service official he’d sent him after was too ‘pure of heart’ to have a presence in the cognitive world), when Akechi’s face twists a certain way.
That’s who he reminds me of, Shido registers. That woman.
She was a prostitute he’d met at the beginning of his career, back when he was nameless and flat broke.
Despite his inability to pay her fees— somewhat exorbitant for a a common whore— he’d been able to fuck her anyways, using the empty promise of a nice life by his side once he made it as collateral.
He can’t say what drew him to her, all those years ago. Something about the fact that she was the only prostitute he’d ever met with any life in her eyes. Like she actually believed she had a future.
Shido hadn’t thought about her in years. God, he can’t even remember her name. Not that it mattered, of course.
Akechi’s whole deal suddenly clicks into place and he almost laughs out loud.
How far will you go, kid, he wonders, just for the chance of having me care about you?
“Stop,” Shido says, holding out a hand and cutting off the latest in the list of excuses Akechi had been rambling on about. “Forget about it. I’ll have my men figure something out.”
“Of course, sir,” Akechi says, jaw clenched. “I trust your judgement.”
Shido pulls a bottle of scotch and two glasses out from his desk.“Drink,” he says, pushing a glass towards Akechi.
“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly—,” Akechi protests.
Shido snorts, amused despite himself. “I wasn’t asking.”
Akechi holds his liquor well.
Just like his dad, Shido thinks wryly after he gets the DNA sample back from the lab.
A cheek swab would’ve been best for accuracy, but he didn’t poach a cancer research team from Kyodai for nothing.
He muses on next steps as he feeds the documents into the paper shredder beneath his desk.
The kid was useful, for now, and a hell of a lot cheaper than the Yakuza guy he kept on retainer. But that was a straightforward business relationship— they had a truce as long as kept the cash flowing.
Akechi’s motivations, on the other hand, were less clear.
As much as he liked to prance around in cashmere vests and silk button ups like buying overpriced tailored clothing was his sole purpose in life, he’d gotten absolutely nothing out of Shido when he worked in the lab.
Hell, he probably dropped a few hundred yen every week on the train fare. No, Akechi wasn’t driven by anything so base as money— which means Shido couldn’t use it to guarantee his loyalty.
He also had nothing to lose: no family Shido could threaten unless he developed a sudden penchant for self harm, no friends. Not even a dog.
Blackmail wouldn’t work, either.
Getting the Detective Prince indicted for anything would be a royal pain in the ass, given that he’d already won the court of public opinion. Throwing him in jail without cause was out too, unless Shido wanted a few hundred thousand people taking notice. Even threatening to kill him was useless— Akechi didn’t seem to have any more regard for his own life than he did for others’.
In short, Akechi was a wildcard who Shido had absolutely nothing on.
He could probably get a few more years of faithful service out of him, up until freshman year of college at the very least— Akechi would need that letter of recommendation if he wanted to get into Todai, after all.
But Shido didn’t like unknown variables. Things he couldn’t control.
He decides he’ll have him dead by the next election.
The Phantom Thieves throw an unexpected wrench into things.
He doesn’t know what it is about high school brats and ruining his plans, but he’s getting pretty sick of it.
Akechi, on the other hand, is all too excited about this new development, even pitching having Shujin organize a school trip to his recording studio to root them out.
Shido will admit his ideas have improved since the Wakaba days.
Their leader is an unassuming kid with thick glasses, messy black hair, and a mild slouch. Akechi is obsessed with him.
It’s hilarious.
He’d always suspected the kid was gay— that, or he’d heard more than enough of his fair share of sex during his formative years to turn him off of it entirely.
Still, there’s a difference between liking men and treating the first guy you meet like the male coming of Helen of Troy.
Akechi is overly eager from the beginning, forcing Shido to cut him off from his in-depth reporting on the brat’s personal life early on.
“How many years have we been working together?,” he demands during one meeting, halting Akechi’s excruciatingly long re-enactment of one of their insipid conversations.
“...Three, sir,” Akechi responds, confused at the sudden change in topic.
Shido pins him down with his gaze. “And in those three years, how have I always told you to convey information?”
It takes him a second. “On a need to know basis, sir.”
“Exactly,” Shido says, eyes blazing. “Now tell me this, Akechi. Do I need to know any of what you just said to me?”
Akechi swallows, the motion nearly imperceptible. “No, sir.”
“No, I don’t,” Shido repeats, driving the point home. “Now quit wasting my time or get the fuck out of my office.”
Watching Akechi clumsily fumble his way through his first crush, it quickly became apparent that he inherited none of Shido’s sexual prowess.
He’d infiltrated the Phantom Thieves’ ranks easily enough, but he’d failed to take any type of control over their operations. Incomprehensible, given how experienced Akechi was compared to their ragtag band of delinquents.
If Shido had been in his shoes, he would've had the whole group at his beck and call and the leader sucking his cock months ago. You’d think with a prostitute for a mother, he’d know more about getting a guy to fuck him, but evidently not.
Based on how thrilled Akechi is at the thought of killing the boy, he suspects he’d even been turned down.
What an embarrassment to his bloodline. Three years to learn from Shido and he couldn’t even take what he was owed like a real man.
But despite everything, Shido still feels a hint of paternal affection towards the kid— enough to throw him a bone before he’s tragically caught in the crossfire of a Yakuza turf war on his way home from work.
Shido likes to think of it like a last meal. Maybe it’s just him getting soft in his old age, but there’s something pitiful about the idea of his son dying without ever getting his dick wet.
“You’ll have the better part of an hour before anyone comes in to check on you,” he tells Akechi, sharp gaze boring into his head. “He’ll be drugged up to his eyeballs and the cameras will be off.”
Akechi nods.
“I don’t give a shit about what you do in there as long as he ends up dead, understand?,” he says bluntly.
Akechi looks ill all of a sudden.
“Don’t go getting cold feet on me now,” Shido warns, watching him warily.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, sir,” Akechi responds, face wiped of all emotion.
As they stare each other down across the desk, both men wonder if the other knows he won't survive to see the new year.