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It was a cool April morning, shortly before her third school year was about to start. Naoto had just gotten off the bus into the Southern Shopping District and was on her way to Marukyu to see Rise. She needed Rise's advice on something that had been… sitting with her. Recently she had been feeling strange whenever she was around Kanji. Her heart beat erratically, her breath shortened, and her face felt flush, as well as her thoughts seemed to drift and focus on Kanji more and more whenever he wasn't around. The thoughts of Kanji seemed normal to her, they were best friends, had been for the last two years so it was only natural to think of her battle (and temporarily dance) partner. But the shortness of breath and beating heart, signs of her fight or flight response, made no sense. Even when she had first encountered the boy at the very beginning of her time in Inaba, before she ever would’ve believed in TV’s or monsters or Personas, she never felt threatened by him, in fact he had seemed scared of her upon their first meeting, and much of their first year together, as he was broke into a stutter and couldn't look her in the face. He was mostly better now, but there were still times when Rise was not with him that he broke into those old habits of his.
Naoto broke from her thoughts with a chuckle at the memories of Kanji’s nervousness around her, and how unfounded it all was. While lost in her thoughts she had gone past both the gas station where everything had started those years ago, and Diedara’s where they had always stocked up before each expedition into the TV world, and she now found herself in front of Marukyu. And as she stood there she realized she had never even checked with Rise to see if she’d be home or if she’d be with Yu-senpai, since they were rarely together in inaba due to both their job schedules, how unlike her. She pulled out her phone to send a quick text.
>Naoto: “R U FREE? Y/N”
Rise luckily only responded about 10 seconds later.
>Rise: “yup! why?ᕙ(`▿´)ᕗ”
>Naoto: “AM OUTSIDE. MAY I COME IN? Y/N”
>Rise: “of course (っ◔◡◔)っ ❤”
Naoto slid her phone into her pocket smiling at the insistence on Rise adding her emoticons to every message. She walked through the front entrance and was greeted by Rise’s grandmother.
“Greetings Kujikawa-san.” Naoto gave a slight bow with this. “I’m here to see Rise.”
“Ah, hello Naoto-chan, I’ll let Rise know you’re here.”
Kujikawa-san left her to fetch Rise, so Naoto took the opportunity to just look around the shop, it seems little had changed in the last couple years. She hadn’t been in since freshman year, as Rise was only home sporadically, and more often than not she was eating something Kanji had cooked up, considering it was often just them together. With all their senpai at varying points of work and university, and Rise continuing to rise in the idol world, she and Kanji spent many days together after class and on weekends, when Naoto wasn’t assisting her grandfather on a case, and Kanji assisting his mother at the textile shop. She was shaken from her thoughts as some unknown mass latching onto her back, knocking her hat off her.
“NAOTO! I’VE MISSED YOU SO MUCH!”
Naoto struggled against Rise’s surprisingly strong ‘hug’ (through grasp was more accurate) from behind.
“Please Rise, it’s only been a couple months since we last saw each other, and with school starting up again you'll be in Inaba much more often”
“Yeah it has been a couple months, a couple months too many!” She punctuated this with one more squeeze, Naoto feeling like her shoulders might pop out of their sockets, before she let go to allow Naoto to turn around and allow her to give Rise an albeit brief, but nice hug.
“I have missed you though, Kanji and I both.”
“ Oh? And how are you and Kanji?” Naoto was uncertain of the devious smile that spread across Rise’s face for a moment before flashing back to her natural smile.
“Actually… Kanji and I is what I’d like to talk with you about today if you have the time?”
Rise’s smile faltered for a moment as if the words Naoto had just spoken were the last things she thought she would hear, before a bizarre look came onto her face. The team navigator looked like she had just won the lottery.
“Of course I have the time!” she nearly shouted at the bluenette, “Do you wanna just stay here in my room or did you wanna go out somewhere?” Rise was practically bouncing up and down and yet Naoto still could not think of what was exciting the idol so much.
“I’m perfectly fine if you would just like to speak in your room”
“Awesome! Then just follow me!” Rise spun around and walked off to the back of the shop with Naoto in tow.
They entered Rise’s room and was immediately overcome with how pink everything was. Surprisingly the freshman trio had never actually spent time at Rise’s, opting to spend time at the textile shop, Junes, or Souzai Daigaku, and she now saw why. While her room was perfectly suited for her, it was definitely never meant to be a room multiple people spent time in, the only real sitting room was on the futon itself which while for the two of them now was fine, trying to fit them and Kanji’s much larger muscular frame in with them definitely wouldn't have been the easiest.
“Soooooooo what’s up with you and Kanji?” Rise sounded relatively normal while asking, but the look on her face was like she had some grand expectations for what Naoto was about to say.
Naoto paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts before speaking. “It’s not exactly Kanji and myself, moreso just me.” Rise’s smile faltered a bit at this but nodded her head, as if to say ‘go ahead’ to the bluenette. “Well you see, recently I’ve been some strange thoughts and… feelings regarding Kanji. When we’re not together I find my mind drifting to him, wondering what he’s doing or where he might be. But I feel that that’s only natural as were best friends and partners. But it’s my recent feelings toward him that have me a bit perplexed.” She looked up at Rise but the teen idol was staring intensely at the detective's face, extremely intent to hear what Naoto would say next. “Whenever we're together recently, I feel myself becoming confused, my face heats up, my head feels light, and my heart begins to beat erratically. It’s as if his mere presence sets of my fight or flight response, despite having nothing to fear from him. Even with his tall stature and muscular frame I know he would never hurt me. But I am not as… good with personal emotions as you Rise, so I was hoping you could help me understand.”
Rise sat for a moment with her eyes shut, then she opened them allowing a large grin to spread across her face, giving her a look that makes it seem like this is something shes needed to hear for years. “Naotoooooooo, you have no idea how amazing this is! And you really don’t see what's happening?”
“No, that’s why I wanted to ask you.” Naoto was thoroughly confused at Rise’s excitement.
“Oh Naoto, it’s painfully obvious, you have a major crush on Kanji! Maybe even more than just a crush!” She added with a wiggle of her eyebrows.
Naoto blinked once, twice, and three times before she turned bright red. “W-w-w-what are you talking about? That’s simply preposterous, Kanji is my best friend, I think I would know if I l-l-l-liked him in more than a platonic fashion.”
Rise put both of here hands against her face and took a long breath, of course this wasn't that simple, “Look, Naoto, think about it. You feel warm around him, your heart beats faster, you think about him even when you’re apart, doesn’t that sound similar to what people that are in love act like?”
Naoto stared blankly at Rise for a moment, then blinked in realization. Of course, it was so simple but Naoto had never felt this way about someone before so she had no frame of reference for these feelings, then she felt her face becoming flush. “Ah. I-I suppose that should’ve been obvious. It’s textbook ‘crushing’ isn’t it?” She looked down dejectedly at her obliviousness. “And I’m acting like a- like a-”
“A love sick detective?” Rise had a cheeky smile now, but there was that distinct Rise brand of care showing in her eyes, “Oh don’t be so hard on yourself, you’ve never felt this way, but this is great now! So what are you gonna tell Kanji?”
“T-tell Kanji? N-no that would be foolish, there's no p-possible way he could be interested in someone like me.” Naoto was getting redder by the second.
“Hey!” Rise shouted sternly, grabbing Naoto by the shoulders. “Don’t ever talk about yourself like that missy! You are an absolute catch your brilliant and amazing, and I know it doesn't matter to you much but you’re an absolute looker.” Naoto might as well have turned into a tomato at this point, “You should really tell Kanji how you feel, expressing your feelings to him can’t hurt, and hey, he might even be happy to hear it.” she added with a large grin.
With Naoto now more than a little red from there discussion, Rise practically dragged Naoto out of the tofu shop and pushed her onto the street.
“Let me know how it goes!” she almost sang, blowing Naoto a kiss bidding her farewell and quickly ducking back into the shop.
Naoto stood for a moment, before smiling and instead of heading back down the shopping district towards her apartment, she turned north to head towards a certain textile shop where a certain talented tailor might be. On her walk there she reminisce on all the times they had spent together, momentarily feeling guilty that the only reason they ever met was because she had pinned him as a suspect. Then she thought of him carrying her out of the TV and all the way back to her apartment despite her telling him there was no need, and of all the days spending time after school, and mostly about the ski trip, the very first time she realized that he was truly her greatest friend. While she was lost in thought she had made it nearly to Tatsumi Textiles, and the former blonde was right out front, mindlessly sweeping at the front, despite there appearing to be no dust or dirt anywhere, even thought she knew that wasn’t good enough for Kanji, never could be too clean. He seemed lost in thought so she called out to him.
“Hello Kanji, beautiful day isn’t it?” Ugh, that might’ve been the most awkward greeting she's given in a long time.
“Huh? Oh hey Naoto” His cheeks were tinted pink, “You feelin ok, you’re lookin kinda red?”
Naoto tilted her hat down to try covering her face to retain at least some of her dignity, “I just came to see if you were free for a little bit…?”
“Uh yeah what did you wanna do?”
Naoto paused; she honestly hadn’t thought this far ahead, “Um, let's just take a walk over to the shrine if that’s alright with you?”
“Yeah sure, just let me tell Ma an’ grab a hoodie.” He disappeared into the shop and she could very distinctly hear him shout ‘I’m goin’ out Ma!’ from inside, before he emerged back from the entrance now wearing a pink hoodie with a bunny design on the front, no doubt hand made. “So uh, lets go"
The walk there was short but it felt like an eternity, she kept going over potentially ways this could end up going. Anywhere from him politely declining, to him being weirded out that she had feelings for him, and sadly it never crossed her mind that he’d say yes. She just couldn’t imagine a world where her ‘crush’ worked out that well. She thought this until she noticed that they had arrived, no one appeared to around which was some weight off Naoto’s shoulders, not even the Fox appeared to be around.
“So uh… what’s up?”
Naoto smiled, Kanji even after all this time seemed to be nervous around her for some reason.
“Well, I just um, wanted to ask you something, if that’s alright?” God, why was she feeling so nervous, drawing this out, she just wanted to tell him.
“Yeah sure. Anything!” He was looking directly into her eyes now, pink spread across his nose now.
Naoto cleared her throat, “W-well, you see, recently I have been having some thoughts? And uh, feelings? And I was with Rise earlier as she, understands feelings much better than I feel I do, so I wanted her thoughts on these… feelings. And she really helped me understand what they were?” ‘Spit it out Shirogane!’ she could feel her inner self shouting. “What I’m trying to say is, uh, would- would you- would you like to go out with me?” she practically shouted the last part, closing her eyes, not able to look at him. And she felt strong calloused hands grip her shoulders as she opened up her eyes. Kanji was looking at very intensely.
“Naoto, are- are ya joking? Did- did Rise put you up to prank me?”
“K-Kanji? No! Of course not what do you mean? I- I genuinely like you…” she petered off “Do you- do you not like me?”
“What! No! It’s just Rise’s always teasin’ me cuz’” He let Naoto go, scratching the back of his neck as his face turned redder than a soul tomato, “Cuz’ I’ve liked you for a hell of a long time Naoto”
“W-what? When? How long?” Naoto stuttered out a line of questions.
“Um, since I first metcha’ back in May before I got kidnapped”
“Y-you mean back before you knew I was even a girl?” Naoto’s face had joined in Kanji’s in turning the same shade as Yukiko’s sweaters.
“Uh, yeah, really confused me for a while there ya know, even though the whole team, mostly Yosuke, teased me about it I never stopped-”
Naoto was so shocked to hear this but she decided to do something else impulsive today, the first being confessing at all, “Kanji?” he stopped as she interrupted him, and she grabbed into his hoodie and pulled him down into a kiss. It was messy, neither of them having any prior experience in anything relationship related, but it was sweet, and the happiest moment of Naoto and Kanji’s life. “I’m glad I came to investigate you then” she let out a small laugh.
“Y-yeah me too” Kanji looked like he was about to melt, his brain going a little haywire after being confessed to and kissed by his crush of almost 3 years now. “Uh so whatda we do now?”
“Well, Rise asked me to tell her how this went, so I’d say maybe we go tell her?” she usually would just grin or give small smiles when she was happy, but right now, she had a big smile stretching across her face as she said this looking up at Kanji, her boyfriend, that would take some getting used to. Kanji nodded, needing to restart his brain a bit, and as they started to walk back down to the tofu shop, Naoto bumped the back of her hand into Kanji’s pocket and he looked confusedly at her, before he noticed her gesturing him to take his hand out of it, and when he did she slipped her hand into his intertwining their fingers, and she leaned her head into his shoulder before they continued to deliver Rise the good news.