#rei does wear other sweaters too. but that first one is tinged with warmth and new beginnings

[the-red-thread-that-strangles]

Some more bonus thoughts for the sweater weather AU, Akai family edition™ (somewhat disjointed because I've been busy)

The Akai siblings all have one of the OG cream sweaters, it's a matching set (this is conjecture, but the Akais seem like an old family line to me, and so they have a family crest, which is sneakily integrated into the knitting pattern - this makes the sweaters distinguishable to those in the know). The sweater thing was all brought on by Mary deliberately misunderstanding Shukichi's polite nudges about her being cold to her children.

This fact makes Amuro's meeting with Masumi even more awkward than in canon! :) Because she's sure she's seen this guy before, and he's wearing the family sweater, which leaves two main possibilities: either a) Amuro killed Akai and took his sweater or b) Amuro was Akai's friend/lover and was either gifted the sweater or inherited it after Akai's death (because she knows Shukichi and herself still have theirs). The whiskey trio seemed friendly when she met them, but her big brother was an agent and possibly undercover, so it's a toss-up and she's gonna be real suspicious of Rei going forward. Throughout this whole exchange Rei is hugging the sweater to himself as if it could protect him from this feral teen. It's not helping :)

Sweater exchanges become significantly more difficult due to Masumi's stalking ["Do something, FBI dog. She can't keep following me, eventually she'll get wrapped up in something she can't handle. And she's annoying. Also, tell her to get a different hat, fedoras are so cliché." - "Furuya-kun, she believes I'm dead." - "Well, maybe you should fix that, actually." (Rei has strong opinions on not telling people you faked your death, he's still miffed about Scotch)]. As a side effect, this also drags Okiya's already shaky credibility as his own definitely real person in the mud, and Mary ends up figuring her son out.

We all remember that scene at the end of the Scarlet Bullet movie where Mary waits in Okiya's car with a gun and threatens him, right? Well, that happens, but it's "I don't blame you for not telling us you faked your death. But you really could've called and told me about your partner." To which Akai is like "??? - Mother, my ex has been dead for half a year now, and we hadn't been dating for three years before that?" Mary is tempted to just shoot her stupid son, she's seen the security footage of the blonde guy coming over and staying for hours on a semi-regular basis. Masumi has told her how long they've known each other. She's seen them fight.

(Though for what it's worth, Akai's telling the truth - he might be teasing Furuya but the agent is, at this point, barely tolerating to have a couple of drinks with Shuichi after a particularly bad day. Since becoming Okiya he's been bored a lot, so he's mostly humoring Furuya and enjoying company where he doesn't have to hide his true self. He figures Furuya might need the same).

Nobody bothered to ask Shukichi, who knew the whole time Akai was still around, whoops (when they eventually decide to tell him, he pretends to be pleasantly surprised). He meets Amuro in his favourite sweater, smiles cheerfully, comments on the need for such cosy clothing (to which Amuro agrees pleasantly), and files the information away for later use with a sly glint in his eyes.

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Sweater weather AU masterpost