Disclaimer: Persona 4 is owned by Atlus.
CHAPTER 2: The Emperor's Fortune
April 26, 2013 - Early Morning
As early as 7:30 the next day, Kanji was making his way down the stairs of his house in a hurry. He was heading out the door when his mother called him "Kanji? Where are you going this early in the morning, you don't have classes today, do you?" Tatsumi-san asked.
"No, Ma, I-uh…I've got to pick up a friend at the train station today." Kanji replied as he was putting on his shoes.
"Aren't you at least going to have breakfast first, dear?"
"Nah, I'll be late if I do, I'll try to eat if I get back early though." Kanji then finishes tying his shoelaces and heads towards the door "I'm heading out now, Ma! Don't wait for me to open the shop!"
"Okay dear, take care."
With that, Kanji left the Tatsumi Textile shop and quickly headed for the bus stop by the gas station in the Shopping District. Along the way, he took a peek inside the Marukyu Tofu to see if Rise had returned early, but her grandmother told him that she wouldn't be around until later that night. Luckily, when he arrived at the bus stop, there was already a bus parked, and he was able to set off to the train station earlier than he expected. He looked at his wristwatch "7:45, knowing Naoto she would always try and get the earliest train home."
Kanji arrived at the train station only a few minutes past 8, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw no one waiting outside yet. He decided to get a drink by the vending machines beside the entrance as he waited for her. He stood by the vending machine as he waited, then ran a hand through his black hair when the morning breeze came. He had grown his hair a bit longer from the time he last saw Naoto, as it now covered up the scar on his temples, and when he looked himself over the mirror that morning, he couldn't help but snicker at how different he looked from their first year, to the point that he looked like an entirely different person now.
A few minutes later, as he finished his drink, he felt that someone had come up to him, and when he looked, he saw a short girl with long indigo hair and equally dark blue eyes, wearing a beige short-sleeved shirt, cream pants and white sandals. She was carrying a black handbag while pulling along her black luggage. At first, he didn't understand why the girl had walked up to him, so he tried asking nicely "Err…what do you need?" he said as he adjusted his glasses.
The girl simply stared at him for a few more seconds, then she chuckled and smiled at him, this of course, caught Kanji off-guard "Wha-what!? Do I have somethin' in my face or what!? You're creeping me out already, lady!" he cried out.
"I had an idea you won't be able to recognize me today, I never thought it would actually be that way." The girl spoke up. Her voice was low, but still feminine, and Kanji quickly recognized who the girl was.
"Na-Naoto!?" sudden realization hit him and he jumped back a little, his glasses becoming crooked as it rested unevenly on the bridge of his nose "Is that really you, Naoto Shirogane?"
The girl bowed slightly "It's nice to see you again, Kanji-kun." She said "I hope I didn't surprise you much."
Kanji was at a loss for words, Naoto really looked like a girl now, and a real pretty one, at that. He couldn't help but look her over several times before setting on her face, she was definitely Naoto. Her hair might've gone longer and even styled differently but her face was the same, the face he'd grown to like more and more as time went on. He then realized she'd stepped back a little with an embarrassed look on her face "Uhh…is there something on my face, Kanji-kun? It's kinda rude to stare…" she trailed off, trying to hide her blushing cheeks.
"Huh!? I-uh, no, it's not like that…it's just…you've become prettier, is all." Kanji said, his voice growing lower that the last bit was almost inaudible.
"What was that? I didn't quite catch that..." asked the detective.
"Nothing, forget it." The tailor quickly dismissed it and grabbed Naoto's luggage "Come on, let's get going." He said as he carried the heavy case down the stairs. As they walked towards the bus stop headed for the Central Shopping District, Naoto noticed that she actually had grown quite a bit, as she now stood as high as Kanji's shoulder. Observing Kanji further, she noticed that he looked a lot less intimidating now than he did the last time she saw him, with him dressed in a plain shirt and pants along with his less aggressive hairstyle. Caught up in looking at her friend and how he's changed since they last met, she nearly jumped when he throws a question out of nowhere "Hey Naoto, have you had breakfast yet?"
Naoto shook her head in response "No, I actually left early so I haven't had the time to eat yet."
Kanji looked down to her "Do you want to stop over my place first so we could eat? You've had a long trip, after all." Though he was looking down at her, he couldn't hold his gaze for long as blood quickly rushed to his face when he did "Damn it, why did she have to come back to be this pretty!?"
"I'd like to, but I would want to drop by the Shirogane estate to see my grandpa first." She replied "Besides, I don't want to bother you for longer."
"Hey, the estate is still about half an hour from here, your gramps wouldn't want ya' to come see him dragging all your stuff with ya'." Kanji insisted, before she left to attend to her case, Kanji, along with Rise, had become familiar with Naoto's grandfather, the detective having brought them over for group studies in the estate's library during their exam periods. Kanji saw how the elder Shirogane treated his granddaughter really well, and it showed just how he cared for Naoto like her own daughter. "Besides, you're not really bothering me at all, I mean, I did want to pick you up from the station. I could go with you to the estate after we eat, whaddaya say?"
Naoto could feel that Kanji was being more insistent this time, and even though he always had been, she still couldn't help but smile at how…gentle he seemed to be with his words "Alright then, if you insist." She agrees. "I have a question, though, if you don't mind." She agrees, but for only him to be here to pick her up from the station, she could feel that there was something strange going on with it.. She asked as they stopped walking to wait for a bus to come by.
"Go on, what is it?" the tailor replied without looking at her.
"You and the others aren't up to something now, are you?" she asked sternly, seeing if she could get some sort of reaction from him that would act as a tell.
"Huh? What do you mean?" he replied, rather casually too, far from what she expected. What she learned in the past was that if her friends were planning something, subtly pressing Kanji would easily give the surprise away because of how he would quickly react on the defense. That was not what was happening now.
"No, nevermind." She said as she shook her head "I just thought it was strange for only you to come see me when I got back, I actually thought you and the others were planning some sort of surprise." She admitted, her detective's instincts having failed her this time around.
"I don't know if you've heard, but all our senpai have gone to college. As far as our old gang's concerned, I'm the only one around Inaba now…well, except for Rise whenever she goes home." He replied "Sorry if I wasn't the surprise you expected, though." He looked down as he spoke, his voice sounding a bit hurt, which alarmed the detective.
"Kanji-kun, no, I didn't mean it like that…I'm sorry." She said "I'm actually glad you called last night, saying you wanted to pick me up today. I've been quite nervous about going back to Inaba, to be honest."
"Now that's something new, the detective prince being nervous about going back to her own town." He said as he looked curiously at her "Or should I call you the detective princess now?"
She chuckled at his last remark "Any would be fine, but I don't know if anyone would still call me by that old nickname given how I look now." She then laughed sheepishly "As embarrassing as it sounds, I actually felt nervous. I feared that the place would've changed so much that I'd end up getting lost if I went around on my own. I'm actually glad to have someone making sure I don't get lost." She said as she looked up at him, smiling at him when their eyes met.
He quickly looked away, feeling his face burn up once more "Re-really, it's nothing, I told you that already." Then a bus headed for the Shopping District came by, there was surprisingly a lot of free seats so they took the nearest they could find. The detective sat by the window while Kanji took the spot beside her. "How have you been though, the last case go well?" he asked, trying to stir up a topic for a conversation.
"It went by fine, of course, I had a little bit of trouble along the way, nothing out of the ordinary though." She replied.
"What? Your superiors giving you shit again for being a younger and smarter detective than they are?" he asked, rather worried of her experiencing the same thing she experienced during her time in Inaba.
She shook her head "No, nothing of the sort." a smile slowly crept to her lips as she recalled what she did during that last case "My superiors were actually nice and accepting, kind of like how Dojima-san was. It was just that I got in touch with that world again during the last case."
"I see..." Kanji was genuinely surprised, he never expected to hear anything more about that world ever since Teddie had gone back to guard over it. "...but I can't see how that's nothing out of the ordinary though..."
"I never thought that I'd find myself using my Persona again, but this time, I had awakened to a new power, and I had new friends with me that had awakened to the same power." Kanji could tell that it wasn't exactly like the normal cases that she used to tackle in the past, she was beaming as she spoke, and the last time he saw her like that was after they had solved the mystery of the serial murders and the fog in Inaba. "It was a short-lived case, but at least the threat of shadows in that world have been reduced."
"That makes it easier for the dumb bear to handle things, I guess."
"Yes, I suppose." Naoto looks out the window to find many new shops in town, but nevertheless, it still looked like the same, lively Inaba that she knew "The town has changed only a little bit, I see."
"Nothing much happened while you were away, really. Junes is still the same place as it was before, and the revived Shopping District is still pretty much it."
"The place may not have changed a lot, but still, it was enough time for some of the people to." She said with a sweet tone, looking at him. He looked at her and realized she was referring to him.
"Hey! I haven't changed THAT much, have I?" he looked away from her again, flustered and with his face turned beet red.
"You've become quite a bit of gentleman, and you don't look quite as intimidating as you did before." She began "Far from the Kanji Tatsumi that I first met while trying to gather information for the case."
"Is…that a…bad thing?" a confused Kanji asked.
The detective chuckled and shook her head "No, no, it's actually a good thing. I like you like that." His stunned reaction made her realize what her words implied and quickly backpedaled "I-err…what I meant was, it's a good step for you, Kanji-kun, and I'm impressed by it." She quickly said, her voice faltering and her eyes wandering, trying not to set her sights directly on him. She felt relieved that he wasn't looking, removing the need to hide her flushing red cheeks.
It took a few seconds of silence and absence of eye contact between them before the tailor spoke up "Heh, I never figured you to be the type to do a double take." He laughed.
The detective cleared her throat "I have my moments, too, you know." she gave him a dry smile. The two of them eventually burst into stifled fits of laughter, nothing like their Yukiko-senpai's, but just a short moment of mutual amusement.
When their laughs subsided, Kanji once again looked "Seriously though Naoto, thanks for the compliment. I'm happy to know someone thinks I'm getting better at this." He smiled at her before looking back to the road ahead. He was getting strangely comfortable being with her, and that thought bugged him: What if she didn't feel the same? What if she was getting uncomfortable having him around?
Naoto nodded "You don't have to thank me, Kanji-kun, you really have changed for the better, I probably won't be the only person to tell you that." she tilted her head to side for a moment "I'll be honest, I'm enjoying your company right now, I was kinda expecting a more quiet trip here, but now that I think about it, this is much more preferable." She then looked at him with a warm smile "Thank you, Kanji-kun."
Kanji's face turned red at the detective's remark, but he found himself drawn in to her more and unable to look away, his earlier thoughts swiftly discarded "You know, Naoto…I really missed you being here. Things just aren't the same without ya'" He said, swallowing as he saw her looked surprised, now he was mentally preparing himself for a long, awkward silence, or even a remark from her brushing him off.
Naoto took a moment to collect her thoughts, as Kanji took the words out of her mouth. She sighed in disbelief "You really are full of surprises…" she muttered before looking back at him "To tell the truth, I've really missed you too, Kanji-kun." she paused for a moment to gauge his reaction, he looked genuinely surprised, yet with a light smile on his lips "My time at Yagokoro City felt a bit lonely at times, I didn't have you nor Rise-chan with me there, after all. Just like you said, things were not the same."
The two of them kept their gazes locked to one another's, they weren't inching closer, but they were each burning the image of the other in their eyes. Their contact was only interrupted by the bus driver announcing over the PA system that they were nearing the Central Shopping District bus stop, the loud voice over the speakers nearly making the two of them jump. They both chuckled at their reaction, and standing up from their seats, they exchanged smiles as they both stepped out of the bus, Kanji still taking the heavier of Naoto's luggage. The two of them started to make their way to the Tatsumi Textile shop, when Kanji's stomach started to rumble, garnering a round of laughter from the detective.
Rather than being flustered though, Kanji simply shook his head and smiled as they continued along. At least for a moment, he was able to make her drop her serious detective attitude in exchange for a laughing fit, and he didn't even have to do or say anything. Although he now hoped that his mother had set his share of the breakfast aside when he left.
