Kanji stared at his reflection in his bathroom mirror, pouting. He cared more about his looks than most probably realized and he was about to make a big decision. It had been quite a few months since the murders were solved; Kanji felt that was more than enough time for him to figure himself out. He had broken down a lot of walls but there was one last barrier he was hiding behind and that was his appearance.

Kanji couldn't remember when the first time he dyed his hair was, though he was pretty sure it was sometime shortly after his father died. And ever since then he had only caught fleeting glances at his natural color in his growing roots before he dyed them again. Kanji pulled back some of his hair to expose his scalp and there it was, black as night; a complete opposite to the platinum blonde that he normally kept his hair at. That was the point, of course, but not anymore. Normally he would have re-dyed it around now; it wasn't grown out enough to show yet, but it would be soon. Kanji sighed as he brushed his hair back down. He knew growing it out would make him look funny for a while and that he'd have to endure all of the jabs from Yosuke-senpai and his other friends, but this was all for the sake of change. And this wasn't even the only big change he was going make.

Earlier that morning, Kanji spent about an hour digging around his room looking for a small hinged case. He eventually found it and it sat open on the counter in front of him. Inside sat a pair of black, oval-rimmed glasses. Kanji made a face at them as he gingerly picked them up. His mom had dragged him to the eye doctor just before he started high school to get these and he hadn't worn them once. Being only mildly nearsighted, not wearing his glasses didn't affect his crafting, only his ability to see things at a distance like the school's chalkboard, which he didn't care much about until now.

Kanji opened the arms and set the glasses on his nose. He blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted to the shock of being able to see clearly for the first time in years. As he stared at his new reflection, he couldn't help but smile a little. This feeling of sudden clarity reminded him of the first time he put on his other glasses in the TV world. He had become rather fond of that pair and absently wondered if Ted could make him a prescription pair, just in case. After a few moments, Kanji turned back to his hair. He figured that if he was going to go back to his natural color, he should probably go with a new style for it too. He grabbed a comb and started messing with it, settling on a part over his left eye. It would take some getting use to, he knew, so he ignored the awkward feeling it gave him and continued to get ready.


Kanji walked down the shopping district, trying to dismiss the nervous feeling he had welling up in his stomach. There were barely any people out in the district today, yet he felt like he had a million eyes on him. In spite of this, he kept his head held high. If Kanji was going to show the world who he truly was, he was going to stand up to it like a man! He stopped on the corner, near the bus stop. He had made plans to meet Naoto here so that they could spend the day together. It was because of this that Kanji decided that today would be the day he would change his appearance. He wondered what Naoto would think; he was more nervous about that than anyone else's opinion. So he stood there waiting on the bus stop, wishing she would show up faster.

"K-Kanji?" a familiar voice called him from behind.

"Naoto! H-hey!" Kanji said happily, spinning around. "S-so, wha-" He stopped mid sentence as he got a good look at his girlfriend. She was wearing a simple light blue blouse, but there was something very different about it compared to her normal attire. Naoto's clothes normally ranged from unisex to masculine; she had expressed in the past that she was simply more comfortable wearing them. But today she wore a top that was clearly feminine. It was cut to fit a female body, so that it was tight in the right places to show of her curves without being too revealing. She had even removed her signature hat, leaving her deep, blue-gray eyes nothing to hide behind. Kanji was rendered utterly speechless. He thought she was perfect in anything (he did first feel an attraction to her when he thought she was a boy, after all), but he wasn't going to lie and say that he didn't think she was extra cute wearing girl's clothes.

"S-stop staring..." Naoto told him, blushing.

"Oh! Sorry." Kanji said. "It's just...you look...wow."

"R-really?" Naoto asked. "I-I went shopping with Rise. I told her that I wanted to find something nice. She of course took that to mean feminine..."

"Ya, she probably had a field day with that one."

"But, it's OK." Naoto said happily. "I decided a while ago that I could be a girl and still accomplish anything I put my mind to. So I can wear what I want, whenever I want, even something girly."

"That's great." Kanji said, smiling. "I'm happy as long as you're happy." Naoto beamed back at him.

"What about you?' she asked. Kanji gave her a confused look, so she pointed at her eyes. He brought his own hand up to his face and touched his glasses. In the shock of seeing Naoto, he had completely forgotten he was wearing his glasses.

"Oh!" he said, surprised. Naoto chuckled. "I-I wear glasses, so..."

"I can see that."

"I'm suppose to wear them all the time, but I stopped because I didn't think they made me look tough or whatever. Same thing with my hair and my piercings..." He pointed to his bare nose where his stud would have been if he had put it in that morning. "But I don't want to 'look' tough anymore. I know how tough I am and I don't need anything else to prove that to people except for me. So, I'm going back to me, the real me."

"Wow. That's a big step." Naoto said. "But, are you sure that you're not just going to the other extreme now?"

"What do ya mean?"

"Well, you went from changing everything about yourself to the complete opposite and now you're going completely back. You must have made some choices based on what you like, right? Are you sure you want to change everything?" Kanji thought about her question for a moment.

"Well, I might put my piercings back in." he finally said. "My face feels kinda naked without them...But, if I'm being truthful with myself, this is what I want to do. Besides, I need my glasses to do better at school and as for my hair, well, I'll save a ton of money on dye!' Naoto laughed at him.

"It's as you said, 'I'm happy as long as you're happy'." she told him, smiling. The two started walking down the shopping district towards Aiya for lunch. "So, what is you're natural hair color?"

"Black."

"So you really did go as opposite as you could, didn't you? But, wait a minute...If you're going let it grow out, doesn't that mean..."

"Yep, gonna look all stripy for a little while."

"Yosuke-senpai isn't going to let this one go by quietly. Teddie probably wont either..."

"I know. But that's where you come in."

"Me?"

"Yeah: My girlfriend has a gun and I'm not afraid to use her!"