A GIFT FOR THE PRINCE

Disclaimer: Persona 4 is owned by Atlus
Author's Notes: This story is set two years after Persona 4 Golden's True Ending (or the Golden Ending, as they put it).

CHAPTER 1: Getting Ready

It was April, year 2013, and with the strange case of kidnapping and serial murders in Yasoinaba put to a rest two years before with the arrest and subsequent confession of police detective Tohru Adachi, the people that have contributed most to solving the mystery, a group of high school students of Yasogami High, have decidedly moved back to living their normal lives. No one in town had spoken of the incidents ever since, and the town was surprisingly in high spirits once again.

Kanji Tatsumi, one of those responsible for putting the truth of the mystery to light, was now living his life as a 3rd year student at Yasogami High. While he gained infamy during his freshman year when he was a known delinquent in the town, he eventually gained the respect of many of his fellow students as time went on. While off from school, he is known to help with his family's textile shop, handcrafting several animal themed stuffed dolls by himself. These dolls proved to be pretty popular with the children of Inaba, and business has never been better for Tatsumi Textile. It wasn't until his creations became widespread knowledge that people started to see Kanji in a new light. For Kanji though, it was a bright opportunity to be accepted as he is, as he felt he has made good to his promise with his senpai, Yu Narukami.

One time after school while working on more stuffed dolls for his shop to sell, Kanji glanced up at the calendar to find that it was only two days before April 27, a day he considered to be quite special. "So it's already that time of the year, eh?" he smiled as he drops the doll he was currently working on back to his table and slides a box from underneath it. Opening the box, he took what appeared to be an unfinished doll that was visibly larger than those he would regularly make and proceeded to work on it.

A few minutes later, his cellphone rings. Grunting in annoyance as to who might be calling him, he picked up his phone and pressed the receiver button without bothering to look at the caller ID "Hello?" his tone mirrored his annoyance.

"Kanjiiii! It's meee!" replied an enthusiastic feminine voice, Kanji sighs as he quickly recognized who it was.

"Rise…what do you want!? I'm busy!" Rise Kujikawa had been his classmate during their second year at Yasogami, and had strangely become her best friend, but had decided to return to being an idol full-time after that year. Ever since, the teen idol had only kept in touch with him by calling him over the phone during her breaks, pestering him like she had always done well.

"Oh come on, I haven't talked to you in a while, is that how you greet your best friend now!?" when Kanji didn't say anything, she quickly realized why he was busy "Oh sorry! I forgot it was almost the 27th! Are you making something for her right now?"

Kanji had already put his phone on loudspeaker as he resumed working on the doll from the box "Yeah, I am. So what?"

"Nothing. I already had the idea that you were going to at least give something to her, this is the first time you'd be seeing her after she left for that case early last year."

He takes note of her words as she spoke "Wait, have you seen her already since then?" he asked, pausing his work to wait for the idol's reply.

"Yeah, just once though, she told me she needed help with something and I was doing a shoot near where she was staying." Rise replied casually, then she remembered something "Oh wait, I didn't tell you that, did I? Sorry, must have slipped my mind…"

Kanji returned to working on the doll, observing the details he had carefully sewn into it "Nah, nevermind, it probably would slip your mind, given that it's you we're talking about. I could tell you something right now and you'll end up forgetting it a minute later." He could feel that Rise pouted at his remark.

"Well at least I'm not like you, Moronji."

"You take that back woman!" even though they become best friends over the course of their sophomore year, Kanji still couldn't take being called by that "endearing" nickname by Rise.

Rise only laughed at her friend's reaction "Seriously though, Kanji, we both know you've never had anyone else on your mind but Naoto-kun, you could at least pick her up from the station when she gets to Inaba."

The tailor stopped stitching once again "What did you say, Rise? She…she's coming here!?"

"What!? You didn't know!? She sent us a message about that!" Rise was bewildered, for if it was about Naoto, Kanji was always the first to know. "Didn't you get one?" she asked.

Kanji then reached his phone and when he looked, there was a new message icon displayed on it. "No, I got one, I must've somehow missed seeing it earlier."

Rise sighed in relief "Well, I'll leave you to that, I'm not sure if I could make it back home earlier but I'll surely be there for her birthday. I'll talk to you later, the shoot's about to start again. Bye Moronji!" she piped.

"Yeah, yeah, bye." Kanji then ended the call and proceeded to read the message.

"I'm going back to Inaba tomorrow and I'll be staying for a week. I hope to see everyone there."

Since she didn't change her number, everyone else she sent the message to would surely know that it was Naoto. Kanji stared blankly at the ceiling for a while, it had been over six months since he last saw Naoto Shirogane, and during the time that she was still around, he still wasn't able to muster up enough courage to tell her what he felt about her. He liked her, yes, probably loved her even, but everytime he tried, he just couldn't put it together and he ends up bailing on his attempts until the time came that she had to transfer schools to go undercover for a case she was working on. She had not been in contact with him since then, and he thought Rise's little rendezvous with her might have been pretty short too.

He then remembered Rise's suggestion to pick her up from the station the next day, and still holding the phone in his hands, he navigates to Naoto's number, and after staring at it for what seemed like forever, he finally pressed the call button. His heart started to beat faster as the line started to ring.

A couple rings later, a voice came through, and it nearly gave him a heart attack "Hello? Kanji-kun?" the low, yet feminine voice was undeniably hers.

It took him a few seconds before he could reply "Uh, hey…I got your message, you coming home tomorrow?"

"Yes, right now I'm just fixing my belongings so I won't have to rush anything tomorrow."

"Yeah…well…I, uh…" Kanji was fumbling with the words in his mind, he didn't exactly knew how to ask Naoto about what time she was going to arrive. In the end, he decides to hold his breath for a while and just go for it "What time will you be arriving here, I'll wait for you at the station."

"I'll most likely arrive as early as 8 in the morning if the trip goes smoothly, but you don't have to do that, I'd hate to bother you when I can handle myself just fine."

"I don't have class tomorrow, it's no biggie." He insists, strangely enough, he feels comfortable in doing so.

"Kanj-kun, I appreciate the thought but I'd really hate to be taking your time, besides, I might encounter some mishaps along the way and you'd end up waiting longer." For a moment, Kanji heard Naoto's voice crack.

"No, just let me do this, okay Naoto?" He replied in a softer tone than he usually would.

Naoto fell silent for a moment, then sighing before she spoke "I suppose you would still do it if I said no, right? Alright then, I'll be looking forward to seeing you at the station tomorrow, Kanji-kun." She replied, relenting her resistance, knowing how Kanji was.

"A'ight, I'll see ya."

Kanji was about to press the call end button on his phone when he heard Naoto say something "Oh, and Kanji-kun?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you, I really appreciate it." Naoto says warmly before ending the call herself.

Kanji put his phone back on the table and found himself staring at his unfinished doll for far too long. The doll was humanoid in shape, and it was dressed in a blue dress shirt with a plain black tie, black pants with matching black shoes. He was currently in the process of stitching what appeared to be blue hair that fringed a little in the front, and he glanced at the piece of fabric that was left inside the box he took it from: a dark blue police cap.

"I can't believe I actually said all that…" he mentally slapped himself for what he said during the call, but he smiled, knowing that he had at least given himself an opportunity to get closer to her. Rise's suggestion might've actually made sense.

Over on the other end of the line, Naoto Shirogane looked herself over in the mirror, she had only her handbag to fill up since her other luggage was already full. She took note of her indigo hair that she had grown over the past two years. She chuckled as a thought came into her "Apart from Rise-san…I wonder if anyone would recognize me?" she said to herself "But more importantly…would Kanji-kun recognize me tomorrow?"

Remembering the time when she first got involved with the Investigation Team by interrogating Kanji Tatsumi, an encounter which would earn his interest in the woman he thought was a man at that time, she realized that even after the time they faced her shadow, he still showed interest in her, perhaps even more than before then. While she didn't really know what to make of it back then, she grew rather fond of his company, and his personality during their second year in Yasogami when they were classmates. "Kanji Tatsumi, huh?" she blushed a little and smiled softly "Maybe I do miss him a little, he was always…the interesting character out of everyone in the group. I wonder how much he's changed though…"

She then went on to pick out her outfit for her trip the next day, then setting the rest into her bag. It was sure to be quite a long week.