#akam is a difficult pairing to write convincingly

[potahun]

thinking about akai and it rly hits me like a truck, only once in a blue moon, how he doesn't inquire into furuya's feelings regarding hiro. his conclusions during the scarlet arc were all about how much furuya may or may not resent him. and how that may influence the best course of action for conan's plan. then, during the stage of betrayal, more than furuya, his memories centered around scotch... more than empathy for furuya, his flashback plays out like a recall of his own regret at the way things turned out with scotch, for scotch's sake.

in akai's verbalised thoughts, or the hints we see of his thoughts through his flashbacks and other scenes, there simply isn't much interest in what hiro might have meant to furuya and how that death affects him emotionally today. akai, much like conan, often seem to think of furuya's grudge as a factor, a factor that needs to be taken into account to calculate the next best course of action. how much can furuya cooperate if he loathes me? does he hate me on a personal level and is it bad enough that i shouldn't risk my cover in an attempt to get him on my and bouya's side? can he be talked into focusing on the BO for now?

but i don't sense much interest from him in discovering how furuya may be affected as a person, and what hiro was to him

i guess part of it could be that akai himself processes feelings in a very internal manner so he doesn't see why agents like furuya or him would need any emotional care. he deals with losing his father and akemi but he's still level-headed on the job. Plus, he is lucky that his grudge is directed at someone he needs to take down anyway (inb4 gin turns out to be tsutomu) so he can work effectively for the goal of the FBI even while bearing a grudge (as opposed to furuya who is holding a grudge against someone who is not of the BO) he never enquires about jodie's feelings when she thought he was dead, either, so it's not like furuya is the sole exception; he simply doesn't do much about feelings and it's quite suitable for his job anyway.

but that's precisely it: furuya doesn't look like an exception. Akai doesn't seem to treat furuya differently from the rest... so, with this approach, i dont see furuya and him ever becoming close on a personal level. akai doesn't seem to have much interest in clearing the misunderstanding about hiro anyway. as it is, even if furuya were to digest it all on his own, they may simply drift into silence and avoidance, on both parts, unless furuya wants to know why akai never told him the truth (and even then akai might not give him the answer normally)

akai's actions until now don't show him as someone who takes active steps to get feelings out into the open and again, furuya doesn't really seem like The Exception for him until now (remember: until now furuya has been the one doggedly seeking akai out. akai has been giving reactions, yes, even when he showed his face to him, it was in reaction to furuya's role in the bell tree express and the danger he posed) so, depending on how much self-worth furuya has, he might never seek akai out again post-BO, even if he were to realise that his own footsteps had been the clincher in hiro's death. and if he doesnt seek akai out, i dont see akai doing that for him

i know one way to deal with it in fics has been to set up a joint investigative unit to give a reason for furuya and akai to spend extended amount of time together, thereby making it easier for them to open up. but that is fic shorthand (which is fine, but we have to recognize that in canon, there are reasons why it's not that easy or straightforward and even if there was such a unit, it might not look the same as MPD weekly meetings and such) so in fact akam is not an easy thing to write at all. it takes a lot of work to explain -- based on the canon hints we get of their personalities, and the canon way they mutually interact -- why it could work beyond hate-fucking

and for one, beyond hate-fucking initiated by furuya and beyond shorthands, one thing that would be very interesting to see in fanwork, based on canon, is why furuya might be or may become an Exception for akai