[ Right... What Goro Akechi Did, and the consequences of. There were a lot of things, none of them great. Apart from the part where he ate that spicy takoyaki and suffered for it - why couldn't one of those memories have come up instead? ]

Maybe I was. [ He shrugs. ] But I never knew what his perspective was, because he wasn't willing to tell me. Not transparently, at least.

[ With hindsight, maybe there were hints. Maybe there were moments when Akechi had seen the hand he was holding out to him, hoping he'd take it, and had brushed their palms together briefly. But nothing solid, nothing that suggested he wanted or accepted the support Akira had considered offering. ]