A foolish man can not tell the difference between a Leopard and a Jaguar. A Dead Man stands still to try and figure it out.
Yosuke Hanamura was rather confused.
He didn't get much about his friend Quavious, from his weird hair color to his impeccable physical abilities.
Seriously, you ever tried to fight a guy like that?
But the thing that always confused him the most about Quavious was his taste in women.
Partially because he had no idea what it was.
There were beautiful girls all over him all the time. Yukiko, Rise, hell even that one girl from their school that almost every guy had a crush on at one point.
None of them tickled his friend's fancy.
He one time asked his friend what kind of girls he liked. He received a dead grey gaze in return, Quavious simply shrugging and looking away. He had said something really weird as he stared off into the distance.
"Women are beautiful, but I want a woman that's mesmerizing."
He understood that to a degree, wanting a bombshell that'll leave your eyes bulging from their sockets and jaw on the floor like an old cartoon.
Which is why he was bamboozled in this moment.
Because he saw Quavious leaving the movie theater. And he wasn't alone. He was walking hand in hand with a familiar shape. Petite and blue haired, shorter than him and small enough to make him look downwards.
It was Quavious' friend from the basketball club, Kou.
His eyes were glued to their intertwined fingers, the taller male leading his short friend about as the sun began it's descent in the sky.
If he wanted a woman that was truly mesmerizing, what exactly was he doing walking hand in hand with another guy?
As much as he'd like to simply walk up to him and confront him about it, he knew that was a terrible idea. He knew Quavious very well to a degree, and the silver haired Persona user wouldn't take kindly to having his date interrupted.
This led Yosuke to one other conclusion.
The next day, the group had gathered without their de-facto leader. He had excused himself for a part time job, something that they all knew was a common occurrence for him. He was always working and always improving himself. He never slept as far as they could tell.
"You guys… I saw Quavious on a date yesterday."
A series of stunned gazes moved to him, the group shifting to exchanging glances between each other.
"What's that any of your business!?" Chie asked, finding it a little uncouth to talk about their friend's love life behind his back.
"Because I wanted to know if any of you guys knew anything about it." he said, and they all looked to him.
"I definitely knew nothing about it. I am curious though." Yukiko said, reigning herself in to at the least appear more composed than Yosuke was about the whole thing.
"Yeah, It's not really any of our business unless he brings his date around us." Kanji said, not really concerned with the whole scenario. He wanted to talk about something more masculine. Surely guys don't always go around gossiping about their friends like this.
"But that's the thing! He was on a date with a guy!"
Stunned silence crossed the table, Yosuke's surprised outburst silencing them almost as much as the outlandish words that escaped his lips.
Quavious? On a date with a guy?
"I think the summer heat is getting to you. Perhaps it was simply a girl with short hair." Naoto said, and Yosuke shook his head.
"There's a difference between this and a girl with short hair. I know the guy." he said, and Teddie hummed.
"Well, at the bear-y least it wasn't me."
Yosuke facepalmed at the bear's statement. That much was completely obvious. If it was, the shadow would be unable to shut up about it no matter how silent Quavious would want him to be.
"Obviously you idiot. It was Kou from the basketball club."
Another series of confused gazes and glances.
The short, blue haired boy that convinced Quavious to join the basketball club in the first place? Well, at least it made a degree of sense in that instance.
"And what's wrong with that?" Kanji asked, rather confused, again wondering why it was any of their business. Yosuke was wildly obsessed with this to him.
"Because I think it's a big deal to find out your friend is gay!" he said, and Kanji simply rolled his eyes.
He rose from the table, glancing to the group before simply grunting and walking away with a wave.
Naoto followed suit, Yukiko and Chie soon departing as well. Teddie waddled off mumbling something under his breath. This left Yosuke and Rise alone, the two the most invested in this.
"We gotta get to the bottom of this!" Rise said, and Yosuke nodded in agreement. Finally, someone with some kind of sense.
"Are you out of your fucking mind?"
Well, that wasn't how they were expecting Kou to react.
"No way dude, I saw you!" he said, and Kou sighed, jumping and throwing the ball at the hoop. It bounced off the rim, and he growled and shook his head.
"That's the first shot I've missed in an hour. You better have video or text messages to prove it because I know for a fact I wasn't walking the streets holding hands with Quavious." he said, a furrow in his brow and a scowl across his face.
Yosuke, convinced that what he saw was real, was beginning to wonder what Quavious saw in Kou. He had a foul temper, and if he didn't know better, he'd think that Kou wanted to beat the ever loving shit out of him.
Was Quavious into that kind of stuff?
"Look, play dumb if you want, but I saw you with Quavious yesterday. I will find proof or get one of you to admit it." he said, jabbing a finger in Kou's direction.
Rise watched in silence as the shorter male grabbed Yosuke's wrist, clenching it in an iron grip that brought pain to his entire arm, making him collapse to one knee.
"Let's get a couple of things straight here, dumbass."
He twisted his wrist harder, making him yelp in pain as he leaned closer to him.
"First. I was not on a date with Quavious. Second. I would tell you if I was. Third. You sound jealous that it's not your back he's blowing out. And lastly, if I was dating Quavious, I'd tell him that he'd have to choose between me or you. And I think I'd know who he's choose."
He tossed Yosuke to the ground, ignoring him and heading for the dejected basketball on the other side of the gym, grumbling to himself about how annoyed he was.
With a sore arm and a series of questions about how deep his friendship with Quavious really was, Yosuke departed the gym and decided that he'd wait until tomorrow and simply ask Quavious about it. The silver haired student never told him a lie before. Why would he start now?
Quavious Stunting considered himself a relatively intelligent individual. He had a quick wit, and was one of the highest scoring students in the entire school. His knowledge, in his eyes, was only surpassed by his good looks.
However, despite all of his intelligence, his brain failed him in this moment. He was asked a question that was so out of left field that it nearly halted his life for a split second. He could swear that he felt his heart cease beating for but a fraction of a second.
"What?"
A frown crossed the features of Naoto Shirogane as she folded her arms. She glared at him, and the sight made Quavious roll his jaw. Damn did he like that look.
"I asked if you were cheating on me." she said, and he blinked. What exactly brought this on? He knew that the group had gotten together without him today, and he was curious as to what they talked about.
Apparently it was his fidelity or supposed lack thereof.
"Absolutely not. Who the hell put that in your head?" he asked, and she rose a brow.
"Don't worry about it. Explain to me why my… informant, spotted you seeing a movie with Kou Ichijou yesterday. Walking hand in hand." she said, demanding a response from him as he blinked.
"I promise you that I wouldn't be walking hand in hand with Kou. It's not his style." he said, narrowing his eyes. He was not happy right now. Someone was putting ideas in his girlfriend's head, and their relationship was still in it's infancy. They hadn't even told the rest of the group about it.
"If I was going to date Kou, I promise you that we'd be more likely to end up in a gymnasium broom closet than a movie theater." he said, watching his girlfriend's anger dissipate for surprise and confusion.
"So you've thought about dating… a guy?" she asked, and he rose a brow.
"Are you surprised? Last time we went on a date, I'm sure half the looks we got were because everyone else thought the same thing." he said, and she sighed.
He noted the slouch in her shoulders and sighed himself. This was really, really annoying him. He needed to get to the bottom of this before it affected his relationship with Naoto.
"Look, I'm with you no matter what. Good, bad, happy, sad. Even if I have to take a bullet from a common criminal for you, I will not touch another woman, or a man, unless you want me to." he said, and she blinked at that.
He was giving her that much power over him? It was a weird statement to make, but she appreciated that he was telling her that he was hers to use, in a sense. He looked away from her before his eyes shifted back to the shorter Persona user.
"Just know that you'll be short an informant if I can break their cover." he said, smiling at her and placing a hand on her shoulder as he walked away.
Naoto glanced behind her to watch him depart. He'd never walked away from her before. This let her know one thing.
He was not happy.
When the group met up again, their eyes were all shifting back and forth between Quavious and each other. It was like they were silently asking each other who'd bring up Yosuke's accusations first.
They were even silently wondering if Teddy would blurt something out because he doesn't understand the sensitivity of the situation.
"Alright, I've had enough of this." Yosuke said, and Quavious looked to him, the look on his features unreadable.
He looked to his silver haired friend, who seemed completely nonchalant despite the tension hanging over them.
"When were you planning on telling us that you hooked up with the guy from the basketball team!?" he shouted, and Quavious shifted and placed his head in his hand.
"You never asked."
Stunned silence followed his statement, their leader finding it rather odd that Yosuke would be the one to say something.
Unless of course he was the informant that Naoto talked about.
"He almost broke my wrist yesterday telling me that I was seeing things! I saw you two at the movies!" he said, and Naoto could barely resist palming her own face.
What kind of informant snitches on themselves?
"He's shy and embarrassed. He's from some kind of rich, noble type family. They didn't even like him playing basketball, what do you think they'd say to him if he said that he was getting his back blown out by a half-American transfer student?" he asked with a lecherous grin.
The silence that followed was music to his ears.
Forget the fact that he had told them that he was apparently Half-American, the part about blowing backs out was what really surprised them.
Naoto could barely tell if he was lying or not. Everything was said with no emotion, no shift in physicality or body language. He was lying as sure as he was breathing.
Or was he?
"W-well… you could have told us you were gay at least." Yosuke said, trying to bring a sense of normalcy to the conversation.
A lone silver brow went up.
"I'm not. I'm… indiscriminate. I had assumed that you knew that. I guess you're stupider than I thought." he said, and Yosuke grit his teeth.
"You don't have to insult me, dude. I was just surprised to see you holding hands with a guy."
Quavious hummed at that.
"You sound jealous." he said, earning a few chuckled from the table as Yosuke rose from his seat.
"I am not! Just because you wanna go around playing Brokeback Mountain with some midget doesn't say anything about me." he said, and Quavious chuckled, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Is that one of your favorite movies?"
Yosuke realized, given that Rise was laughing at that one, that he was being made a fool of. He needed to redeem himself. In the only way a real man could.
He clenched his fists and swung on Quavious.
Given that Quavious was sitting at a bench, he assumed that he'd strike true and start a fight that'd at the least get his frustrations out.
He was wrong.
The next thing that he knew, his face was flush against the table.
"You accuse me of being unfaithful to my girlfriend. Then you accuse me of cheating with one of my best friends, who you interrogated on your bullshit claims. Now you attempt to strike me because I cracked a couple of jokes on you?"
Quavious was standing now, holding his left hand between Yosuke's shoulder blades while his other hand held his wrist behind his back.
"Let me make myself very, very clear."
"I do think that Kou is cute. It's why I joined the basketball club. However, I am a faithful man. My affection is solely for and to be taken advantage of by Naoto. Naoto, who came to me with accusations of infidelity yesterday. Tell me why I shouldn't break your arm for causing me such aggravation."
Yosuke didn't dare speak, fearful that he could lose his arm should he say something wrong. He had seen Quavious like this before, and he couldn't really fault him. They were friends to be sure but with the way that Quavious put it, he'd acted way out of pocket. Made him feel like he almost deserved it.
"Let him go Quavious."
The Wild Card looked to Naoto, who folded his arms and frowned at him. He let Yosuke go, exhaling and shaking his head. His arms went into his pockets and he walked away as Yosuke grabbed his arms and grit his teeth at the pain he was in.
The blue haired girl looked to Yosuke, raising a brow and cracking a smile at his suffering.
"Why do you think that I suggested it was a girl with short hair?"
He felt his jaw go slack as he looked to her. Of course. She was short, petite and had blue hair. The distance made him mistake her for Kou since he normally only saw them while Quavious was around. He set himself up and now he looked like a complete idiot.
Not that anyone would mock him for it. There was something far more important on the agenda for the group.
Chie shifted her gaze from the near injured idiot who couldn't tell a female detective from a male basketball star to said detective.
"You're dating Quavious!?"