As per routine, Naoto's always reaching for something just out of her reach.
As per wont, Naoto's stubbornness drives her to take every length to overcome the distance, all by herself.
Haru stands against the doorway of his office and watches Naoto, perched tip-toed on the arm rest of his office chair, grasping with her tiny fingers that just won't touch the book's spine.
He would help, but he's too caught up in how adorable her scrunched up look of determination is. It's a face with a seriousness that a three-year-old couldn't yet grasp, and Haru knows it's too cute for this world.
And it's a cruel, cold world; one he'll protect his daughter from, at all costs.
Naoto stops reaching for a moment and instead grabs hold of the shelf for support and breathes a tiny, frustrated sigh. She stares at the ground for a moment, frowns a tired man's frown, and then resumes her efforts.
Haru chuckles to himself, and almost calls his wife in to watch. Then, he thinks better of it: she's bound to scold them both for letting Naoto put herself in danger, endearingness of it notwithstanding.
Which, really, is unnecessary: Haru's never letting danger or harm or whatever twisted crap the world's full of anywhere near Naoto. Cross his heart, hope to die.
Quietly, he slips into his office – though Naoto's too focused on her task to notice – and swiftly throws her up, leaves her air bound for a moment, and catches her firmly by the sides.
Naoto's a quiet kid, so she doesn't make a sound of surprise, but Haru can feel her gasping. She just gets frightened so easily, and still refuses to show it.
"Gotcha, champ," he sings, turning Naoto around to face him and lifting her as high as his arms could.
Naoto smiles small, waves her arms, and squirms a bit. Haru waves her around a bit, but her attention quickly goes back to the bookshelf.
Haru gets the hint; he drops Naoto against himself, propped on one arm, and snatches the book she was reaching for off the shelf. "This one, right?"
Naoto doesn't nod, doesn't make any affirmation, just lifts her hand out to the book.
"Well, let's see what you got."
He spins the chair around, pulls it away from the bookshelf and closer to the desk. The lamp is on, and it uses a lightbulb that heats up too fast and warms the room up with a gentle, yellow glow.
He drops into the chair, drops Naoto into his lap, and holds the book in front of them both.
"Somebody Else's Summer, huh?" For the most part, it's an uninteresting cover: off-white in colour, if by design or age, with a sunflower in pieces. "You really know how to choose 'em, huh?"
Naoto touches the cover. He can only see the back of her head, but he can imagine the look on her face, the one of wonder she gets when she's gawking at a kumiki or a radio box or something of that ilk.
"God, I'd better keep my old man away from you." He ruffled Naoto's hair. "He'll cultivate that stale taste until you're a boring, braindead statesman like him."
Camille would also scold Haru for insulting his own father like that. But, Haru thinks bitterly, Camille's had to face firsthand the grimness of the man – someone who can't accept a daughter-in-law who wasn't raised against the Ten Commandments of Japanese hierarchy – and his obsession with Shirogane honour this, Shirogane tradition that.
It's a headache at best. Haru's lived his whole life being not-Shirogane-enough for his father to know it's all just a bad habit that goes four generation deep.
Haru kisses Naoto's head. The Shirogane crap ends at four. Naoto could be an inventor, or a doctor, or a pilot or whatever she wants.
Detectives hunt down vile, inhumane people by studying vile, inhumane people. Somebody else can do that. Doesn't have to be Naoto.
He cracks open the book, and imagines a plume of dust falling off the pages. "Let's see what we've got."
Naoto makes a small sound, almost like an 'oh'. Then, she tugs at the pages and turns them over until she reaches the first one – the cover page bearing just the title – and turns that over the other way so she's on the first page.
Haru's pretty sure she's not supposed to be able to read, but every evening either him or Camille reads to her before bed, so he wouldn't be surprised if she could.
Also, she's a genius, he thinks. He knows.
She taps his arm, and tries to look up at him.
She's a genius, he knows. She's just quiet. "What's that, champ? I can't hear you."
Naoto taps his arm a little harder, and then twists so he can see her face.
"Words, Naoto." He shakes his legs, and she shakes with them. "What do you want me to do?"
Naoto hesitates, makes a face like he's asked her to eat something unpleasant. "Read – read the words loud."
"Dites 's'il vous plaît'," he says, almost teasing.
"Please?" Naoto adds, reaching to touch his chin.
Camille reads to her in French. Naoto understands it, but doesn't understand enough to answer back in French.
Still, it's a start: a start to making the house feel more like home to Camille, too, even when anything remotely familiar to her is oceans away.
God, they should have stayed in France. Away from the Shirgane and the detectives and the cases that keep him away from home for weeks.
"Papa?"
Haru melts every time Naoto calls him 'Papa'. Every time.
He leans forward and kisses her cheek, does so in spite of the small, Shirogane voice in his head reminding him that showing such affection is undisciplined. "Papa's reading the words, champ, Papa's reading the words."
And so he does, reading an overall boring chapter about a man who doesn't belong at his daughter's wedding. But Haru wouldn't care if it was the Encyclopedia of Shirogane History – which probably exists somewhere in the Estate, he knows – because Naoto's latched on to every word, gripping part of his wrist in one hand.
At some point, he's not even sure what he's reading; he's lost in thought, of his wife and his daughter and his future. It's a circling narrative that keeps him up at night: one that features a man, who's never fit his heritage, drag the people he loves most to suffer in the world he hates most.
Naoto sits small in his lap, innocent and unaware of the vicious things that wait outside. She's curious, she's tenacious, she's quiet, and they'll prey on that.
Haru knows this. He's seen them do it to Camille, and she's stood by him through it all without a complaint. Just a lot of tears.
He shouldn't have failed his wife. He won't fail his daughter. He swears it on the Shirogane name, for all its apparent power and magnificence.
He turns the page, and on the next one sits a photograph. Naoto touches it.
"What's that, Naoto?" he asks her and himself. He leans forward, inspects the photo.
There's a woman in a traditional kimono, sitting on her knees, but her face is mostly cut out by the border of the photo. Only her smile, delicate and slightly wrinkled at the edges, were captured.
Beside her stands a young girl – maybe a year older than Naoto, but looking at least two older – in a similarly formal kimono, cherry-blossom pink with red accents on the flowers and folds.
She's smiling, too: youthful, excited, blissful.
Naoto doesn't really smile like that – more restrained, like it's a difficult thing to do. Maybe that's why she looks smaller than this girl.
Or it's the clothing: Naoto likes button up shirts and pants – hates dresses, to Camille's discontent – but this girl looks like she's mid-spin, modelling confidently her kimono.
It's the hair, Haru decides then. Naoto likes hers short and messy; this girl's hair was straight down to her shoulders, raven-black.
Haru shakes his head; his ingrained detective habits have him inspecting a photo of a stranger.
He's about to discard the photo when Naoto picks it up. She's staring at it, in curiosity.
Maybe some part of the detective thing is inheritable. Maybe that's a bad thing.
Naoto turns around and pulls Haru's shirt. "Girl?"
He nods. "Yup, looks like it."
Naoto looks back at the photo for a moment, then back up at Haru. "Who?"
Not that Naoto really ever interacted with the other kids – she usually tries to climb the trees when they take her to the park – but Haru didn't expect her to recognise the girl when he didn't, and he's been around, unfortunately.
"I dunno," he says, shrugging. Something nags him, tells him don't not know, insists he find out who.
Naoto returns to gazing at the photo. She holds it up to the light, turns it around in her hands, and creases her mouth into a thin frown.
It's too pure for the universe. Haru isn't sure it won't implode on them under the gravitational pull of cuteness.
"Talk to me, champ. What're you thinking? qu'Est-ce que c'est?"
But Naoto doesn't answer. She sits there, in her father's lap, and he thinks she's found the greatest mystery in her life.
He hopes, prays her world stays that safe. And he promises to himself, again, that he'll keep it that way.
He gives her another minute to examine the photo before ruffling her hair again.
"All right, Naoto. I was supposed to have you in bed twenty minutes ago. You're mom's gonna freak on us both."
She doesn't freak, really. Camille frets, worries about others. Haru does, too. In his head.
Naoto looks up as if snapped back to reality, and then taps Haru's arm and points at the book.
"Quoi?"
"Book."
He juggles Naoto, still clutching the photo, and the book in his arms as he stands up and shakes the sleep from his legs. "All right, how 'bout this: we tuck you in for bed, and I finish reading this to you then, 'kay?"
Naoto nods and makes a noise of agreement. As he carries her to her room, she returns to scrutinizing the photograph.
He wonders if she'll one day find out who it is. The thought amuses him before it walks down the beaten path of his mind, makes him think of the future.
He could be the greatest Shirogane detective ever, but he knows nothing can hint him to what the future is hiding from them.
But come rain or rain or dark clouds that rain and cover the sun, he'll be Naoto's umbrella. He'll take all the Shirogane crap and all the criminal crap and solve it or indict it or whatever, and leave just happiness and home for his family.
Minus his father, because that man's moldy in the brain and half the problem.
He thinks he might take Camille and Naoto on his next case, if it's somewhere far away from here. Maybe they'll stay there.
"Papa?" Naoto peeps, and while Haru's melting he realises he's staring at the bedroom wall.
He looks down at her – he seems to have auto-piloted and tucked her in already – and she's slipped the photo halfway under her pillow. She's staring up at him, bright-eyed and waiting.
Haru smiles a small, tired smile. He leans down, and kisses Naoto's forehead. "Good night, ma choupinette."
Naoto blinks, and realises she's been staring at the bedroom wall.
She reaches for her cup, sips her almost-cold black coffee, and rifles through the stack of stapled papers on her desk again.
She's been through them twice already. Her grandfather has often enlightened her that rehearsing material is the best way to retain it.
A case in a small town called Inaba. Mystery murder that confounds the people.
She estimates boredom and lack of experience are involved.
Simple murder. Tame to what she's had to deal with in the past. The hanging from a telephone is cheeky at best. Maybe the psycho-prophetic statement of a hayseed with little better to do with his time.
She'll have it solved quick, she – he knows.
Naoto knows he'll solve this case, quick, and move on to the next one, like business. Like usual.
Naoto pushes his chair back, stands, and grasps for his cup blindly. When he looks away from the papers and sees it's out of reach, he chooses to leave it.
Names, places. The casework include photos. Yamano Mayumi, Konishi Saki.
He looks over the other disappearances that start with Amagi Yukiko.
A visual similarity, perhaps. It's reaching, but he may as well remove the question.
The lamp that sits on his desk is sharp and white, and the shape of the shade aims all the light to a corner.
Naoto leans over the desk, places the papers on it. The light illuminates the photo that sits on top.
A girl, maybe her – his – age, looking down the sleeve of her traditional kimono, coloured pink. Black hair, straight down.
No similarities: Yamano's hair was recently cut short, and Saki's was curly.
Conclusion arrived to, as expected.
No matter. Naoto knows he'll find the answer as soon as he gets on-site. He hopes the police will cooperate, or at least not hinder his work.
Naoto piles the papers, stacks them straight against the desk. He then slips them into the envelope they came in, sent by his grandfather.
He stares at the Shirogane crest that decorates the seal. Detective, it says. Proud, strong, triumphant.
Naoto will be.
He goes to place the envelope in his book bag when something slips out. It's difficult to see in the lack of light, but he bends down and picks up the photograph of Amagi Yukiko.
For a long moment, it holds Naoto's attention.
The photo looks warm. Amagi Yukiko looks happy.
Naoto stares.
He decides he'll place it in order in the morning on the train. He slips the photo into the envelope and stows the envelope away.
Naoto then switches the light off, and slips into bed. He lies awake, perhaps as a cause of the coffee – which Naoto remembers still sits on his desk – and thinks over the case, until it breaks off onto a tangent, down the beaten path of thought in his mind.
A/N: Ah, pre-Shadow Naoto. So cold, like her coffee.
Naoto's parental history is a half-shameless headcannon that I've introduced in Well I Wonder. I hope to expand it soon. I have also grown too attached to Haru, Camille, and Baby Naoto. This is probably unhealthy.
Would love to hear what you think! Leave a review!