I'm not kidding when I said that these popped up in my head playing the game. There's a reason it's one of the greatest games of all time.
What if a certain someone already knew Naoto's secret? And what if he figured out in one of the silliest ways possible?
Jiro 'The Ghetto Shaman' Uchiha, OTF Inc.
It was a nice autumn day, the sun hanging in the sky as a brisk breeze blew. The breeze was chilly, letting you know that it was almost October, something that briefly hung on the minds of many of the people shopping at the Junes Department Store. Should they pick up a costume now, or wait until closer to Halloween incase of a sale? Oh, but what if the costume they wanted is out of stock later? Decisions, decisions.
Sitting at a table away from all of the ruckus on a welcome day off from school, a group that adoringly call themselves the 'Seekers of Truth' were all simply sitting and staring. You see, they were all pretty surprised by something pertaining to their newest 'member', an eighth person, oddly staying in the same town at the same time, to unlock an ability called a 'Persona', a spiritual manifestation of their soul.
Of the seven staring, six of them possessed Personas that reflected their innermost thoughts and beliefs, borne from them accepting the worst parts of themselves, be it repressed desires or negative thoughts about the people or things they loved. Which is exactly what happened with their newest addition.
"I know it's weird to stare but… I'm a little dumbfounded." one of them said, a shaggy haired fellow named Yosuke. He was trying not to come off as a creep or a pervert, something his female friends loved to insinuate he was, but he couldn't help himself. This was crazy.
"I must admit that I'm rather surprised myself." another stated, a well put together girl wearing a red top named Yukiko.
The one in question, being stared at by seven pairs of eyes, seemed to shrink under the gazes. "I-it wasn't something I expected anyone to figure out. It's… not that I was trying to deceive you." she said, her voice low and almost sad.
"It doesn't change that we're friends but still…. Whoa." a fellow with a scar on his forehead named Kanji stated.
"I know this is going to take some getting used to… for all of us, but please try not to look so starstruck. It makes me feel uncomfortable." she said, pulling on the brim of her hat. It was like she was trying to shrink into it, avoid the gazes or at least pretend they weren't there.
"I can't help it, Nao-Chan! I mean, it's un-bear-lievable!" an odd fellow named Teddie shouted. He was the oddest one of the group to the young detective. He was sometimes an odd, multicolored stuffed animal with a zipper about it's throat, a bear if his puns had anything to say about it. But when they spoke like this, he was a pretty boy wearing a frilly shirt.
"Didn't she just say not to point it out!?" another girl yelled. Her attitude was very outgoing, bold even. Teddie groaned in return. "You can't be mad at me when you're staring too, Chie-Chan!"
Naoto shrunk even further at the ruckus. She was often the center of attention, but never in a fashion like this. She felt a nudge at her side, glancing to the leader of this motley crew, a kind fellow with silvery eyes and hair that smiled at her softly, as if trying to reassure her.
She felt heat rise to her cheeks, mumbling to herself as she realized that this day would come eventually. She was still a person regardless of how much she buried herself in work despite her age. She'd eventually want to stop and have a family, something that she yearned for ever since the untimely death of her parents.
Then, she noticed something. He wasn't surprised. While all of their other friends were gawking at her and fawning, or arguing and trying not to gawk and fawn, he just sat calmly. Why was that? Was he really so impervious to being phased, or did he have a better poker face than any villain she'd ever seen? It was confusing.
"I gotta admit though, the 'Detective Prince' being a girl is one of the few things I would have never expected." the final member who had tried to keep quiet said, a former idol in the same grade as Naoto, a girl named Rise Kujikawa. Naoto was familiar with her from her days as the idol 'Risette', who was a far cry from the girl sitting across the table form her, and thankfully so.
With all of the commotion starting to die down, Naoto's nervous silence slowly getting to all of them, Yosuke gulped. It was an audible shifting of muscles that normally precedes a bad decision made by someone. "H-hey, n-not to be a p-perv or anyth-thing…." he began, his stammering and word choice letting all of them know that he was asking this specifically because he had his mind in the gutter.
"A-are you really… flat?"
The question sent Naoto's head reeling. She had never, never been asked such a question before. How do you even respond to that question? She'd seen it in movies, TV shows, and even in the lobbies of precincts, but she never thought that she'd be on the receiving end of a question about her breasts.
She was so taken aback, she didn't even notice Kanji or the other girls scolding him, her mind so scrambled she missed the glorious sight of Kanji holding Yosuke in a Full Nelson while Chie screamed at him.
When the group settled down, the sore and half deaf Yosuke frowned. Something about this was bothering him more than the fact that he'd been around a girl the entire time and never noticed. He glanced to his friend, his brother in arms, his partner. The entire time, he'd sat there silent.
When they first arrived and Naoto explained her situation and thanked them for rescuing her, the oddly quiet lunch they ate as a group, even all of the recent conversation, he didn't say a thing. Infact, he didn't even look surprised. "Hey, Q, why the silent treatment? Don't you have anything you wanna ask Naoto?" he quipped, the group all switching their focus to the leader.
He cast his silvery gaze to the shorter student, a smirk tugging at his lips. "Can you ever forgive me for letting my buddy ask you such a heinous question?" he asked, Naoto finding his odd nonchalance alluring, confused as to how people who he was the 'leader' of could act out without repercussions.
She nodded lightly, and he smiled again, nodding his own head in turn before looking to Yosuke. "Satisfied, Yo-yo?" he asked, Yosuke gritting his teeth at the nickname. It was one of the few things that his friend could do that upset him. The duo had gotten into fist fights for the sake of blowing off steam, and he'd lost each time, but that didn't bother him. Being called 'Yo-yo' did.
"I told you not to call me that, Quavious. And why are you so damn smug anyway? Aren't you surprised that the famous Detective Prince, the second coming of Sherlock Holmes or something is not only sitting next to you, but is a girl?" he asked, the gazes returning to him, even Naoto's. This was the big question. A single silver brow came up in response, his face as blank as the school's blackboards right now.
"No."
That took all of them by surprised. He wasn't surprised? Be it when they rescued Naoto from her Shadow, or even the days between that Naoto took to recover, the other six members of the Seekers were flabbergasted and even after Naoto explained everything they were still shocked. He wasn't surprised at all, even a little?
"How doesn't this surprise you? I mean, Naoto-kun has the whole boy act down to her voice and chest." Chie wondered aloud, and the leader, a young man baring an odd name from his American Father, Quavious Stunting, tilted his head a bit.
"I knew."
"How?" Naoto asked, unable to give their shell-shocked and confused friends a chance to interrogate him. He rose a brow, looking to her with that smirk again. It infuriated her how much she liked and hated that look at the same time. With his silver hair and eyes, and smug grin, he reminded her of some kind of villain in a show she'd watch as a kid.
"Well, I had my suspicions from the first time I met you. Your hair is too soft, your hands are too soft, and your eyelashes aren't as long at most males. Look at Teddie's." he noted, Naoto glancing to the odd blonde, who did infact have long, luscious lashes.
"But I could have just been effeminate, like Teddie." she said, narrowing her eyes. There was something he wasn't saying. Did he spy on her? Visit her at home while she was asleep? No, there's no way anyone would have let him in. Quavious rose a brow, glad that their other friends were silent for once.
"You don't think like I do, Naoto-chan. To me, there's a difference between a cute guy like Teddie, and a cute girl like you. A different… aura, I guess." he mused, Naoto trying to comprehend what she was hearing. Was he implying that if a pair of fraternal twins looked identical down to the measurements, that they'd be attractive to him for different reasons because of their gender? What exactly did that mean? She grit her teeth.
"That doesn't make any sense. There had to be something else. It couldn't be my appearance or voice, because everyone else in Inaba was convinced I was male. How did you figure it out?" she asked, sounding slightly agitated and defensive, keeping the others from saying anything for fear of upsetting her further.
Quavious, however, was unbothered. He glanced to his friends, and then back to Naoto. He smirked, an action filled with a level of almost criminal arrogance and smugness. It was like he was about to show her the Holy Grail or summon the Lord God Almighty to vouch for him. "Let's see. You knew that you had to explain everything to us, but because you're still nervous, you're subconsciously clinging to the masculine facade, while realizing that you can't keep it up forever, right?"
Naoto couldn't believe it. It was like he could read her mind. Was this an ability of his Persona? What was his Persona anyway? She'd seen at least three different creatures summoned by the silver haired warrior during the fight against her Shadow. It was like he could switch Personas at will, something exclusive to him, hence his status as the leader.
"Imply that you're right. What does that have to do with anything?" she asked, narrowing her eyes. She was getting fed up with his dodgy dialogue. It was like he was trying to upset her.
"They're blue today, aren't they?"
Naoto blinked, confused by that weird, off handed question. She looked to the others, who all shrugged and remained silent. They had no idea what he was talking about. He was asking her about something that could change colors. A color she could consciously choose to change based on her actions.
A rush of heat ran up to her face. Was he talking about her underwear? No, that couldn't be the case. She'd never changed her pants around him, and Naoto wore male undergarments just in case. It was extreme, yes, but she felt it was necessary. Before she knew it, she had a fond attachment to men's boxer briefs. So… that wasn't it. What was it? What else could she change the color of that was blue today?
When the realization hit her, the heat left her face. He could predict the color by her mood and actions that she'd take? How was that even possible?
"You can't be serious." she said, and he shrugged, that confident sort of shrug filled with a self accomplish arrogance, a self righteous aura.
"Come on, don't you think it's a little odd that I asked you out? Why would I, a man's man surrounded by three beautiful women, ask out an introverted workaholic who was a guy?" he mused, finding this verbal game of cat and mouse more entertaining than any class trip or venture into the TV.
"Wait, you asked her out!?" Yosuke asked, and Quavious nodded. "Yeah. Come on, what's not attractive about Naoto?" he asked, shifting his posture to Yosuke to turn the situation on him. Yosuke blinked, all of the attention shifting to him. "U-uh, E-er…"
"We thought Naoto was a guy!"
"Point being?"
"She works all the time!"
"I have no problem with that, so do I."
"Sh-she might tie down h-her…."
"So? What's wrong with a little bondage?"
"She acts like she's a guy, dude!"
"Role-play experience. Nice."
"Her job is dangerous!"
"And what we do isn't? Come on now Yo-yo, I know you remember that time I summoned Mara."
Yosuke shuddered. He hated this. He was on the losing side of this, boxed and beaten into a corner by his friend's overwhelming understand and positivity. He hate to come up with something that Quavious had no answer for, and fast. He had to think. Naoto was a workaholic, a detective, tried to be as masculine as possible. If he put those three things together under the pretext of 'undesirable in a girlfriend', one off thing came to light. He gulped, realizing that this was his end all be all. He'd be shunned forever if Quavious had a rebuttal for his most obscure negative.
"Walking around crime scenes and running around hunting bad guys all day every day would make for a chick with some pretty gross feet!" he shouted, the group falling into even further, even more incomparable stunned silence.
For Naoto, this back and forth hit home. For every nice thing Quavious had to say, Yosuke had something else negative to say. Things that beat at and damaged her already nonexistent femininity. She didn't like being a girl to begin with very much, for Yosuke to say that she'd be a bad companion because she was a chest binding, masculine, workaholic with 'gross feet' that could die on someone at any moment made her eyes water.
"Lie again."
Naoto blinked, her tears not fully formed enough to withstand the force of her eyes snapping open and closed in response to those two words. She looked to Quavious, shocked to see that his almost criminally arrogant aura had never faded once.
That's when she understood. His strength wasn't his Personas, or his physique, or even his intelligence. It was his serpentine, silver tongue. It's no wonder that Eve bit the forbidden fruit, if the Serpent of the Garden was even half the talker that Quavious was. She understood that this entire debacle was him manipulating the situation to flirt with her indirectly.
"What?"
Quavious rose a silver brow, folding his arms as he stared at his friend, who had gone all out thinking of and saying his last remark. Exactly as he planned it.
"When I said 'they're blue today', what did you think I was talking about?" he asked, a smile still lurking on his smug lips.
Yosuke blinked. He played right into Quavious' hands, again. He had gone all in thinking up that last remark, just like Quavious wanted. It was all a ploy to indirectly answer Naoto's previous question. "You son of a bitch." he sighed, slamming his head against the table and groaning.
"Wait, I don't get it…." Kanji trailed, confused at anything and everything he just witnessed.
Naoto looked to Quavious, finding his nonchalance extremely odd. "Exactly when did this happen?" she asked, and he looked to her, blinking. "The day before I asked you out. You don't remember asking me where my favorite place to eat was while you changed out of your school shoes?"
Naoto blinked, but it was Rise who spoke first. "Senpai, you're trying to say that you could tell that Naoto was a girl because you saw her… feet?" she asked, and Quavious, as if humility and modesty were alien concepts to him, nodded blatantly.
"Of course. It just happened too, all of it clicking. Wasn't on purpose." he mused, scratching his head in a rare moment of normalcy.
"I was just watching Naoto change shoes and thought to myself 'Y'know, for a girl wearing so much blue, she had the prettiest red toes I'd ever seen'."