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“We’d like to present Ms. Naoto with her award now, but it looks like she stepped outside.”
Ms. Naoto
ms naoto
MS NAOTO
She’s Naoto Shirogane. That’s her right there, that detective chick. She’s a girl.
she her she her she her
She twists the swimsuit in her hands so tight it nearly rips in half.
She knows she’s not really a boy. Of course she knows that. She was just pretending so her career would have a fighting chance. And now that everyone knows the truth, she should be relieved.
Instead, she just feels vulnerable. Out of place. The same strange brand of all-wrong she’s felt all her life but never been able to put her finger on.
Idiot. You’re supposed to be a detective and you can’t even figure out why the thought of going out in public in a swimsuit – hell, even without a binder – makes you want to crawl into a hole. What’s wrong with you? How are you supposed to understand anything if you can’t even figure out yourself?
The door swings open, and Naoto’s head swings up to meet Kanji’s gaze. His eyes widen. “Woah... are you okay?”
She understands his concern. Right now she’s curled up into a ball, cap drawn as far down on her head as she could get it, slowly rocking back and forth, tears streaming down her face, breath coming out in broken gasps. She slowly shakes her head.
“Uh... okay, okay.” He looks around, not seeming to know what to do. “I can go get a teacher if you –”
“NO!” she screams.
Kanji reels back. Moron. You scared him. Now he’s not gonna want to help you and you’re just going to stay here and they’ll all come out and see you breaking down like a baby what is wrong with you stop stop stop
Naoto takes a shaky breath, not daring to let her concerns leave the confines of her mind. “Sorry, but... no. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”
Kanji nods, seeming to understand. “Do you want me to go, or...”
“No,” she says immediately, although thankfully more quietly. “I... I’d like you to stay, if you don’t mind.” Her breathing has slowed. The panic attack is receding. If only I could find its cause.
“Uh...” Kanji looks very uncomfortable. “Just gonna be honest – I’m not too good at the whole feelings thing. But I can totally stay if you want.” She nods, and he sits down next to her. “So... are you feeling better?”
She forces a smile. “A little. I just...” She looks back down at the bathing suit, and that coppery taste comes back. “I got overwhelmed. That’s all.”
Kanji nods, and they sit in silence. Naoto doesn’t quite know what to say, and Kanji clearly doesn’t either. But it’s not a bad thing. She likes his company. He’s not fake, or mean, or stuck-up, like ninety-eight percent of Yasogami High (Naoto has done the math). He’s just himself, only ever himself, and in her opinion, that’s the bravest thing it’s possible to be. “Why did you come out here?” Naoto asks eventually.
“Ah...” Kanji looks away, blushing. “The announcer guy said you stepped out, and I was...” He squeezes his eyes shut. “Alright, I was worried about you, goddamn it!”
She doesn’t understand why he’s so worked up, but she’s not really used to understanding other people anyway. “Well, thank you. For worrying.” She hates to admit it, wants to insist she didn’t need any help, she could take care of herself just like always. But she did. And Kanji is safe to tell. He puts up a tough act, and he’s a little strange, but he’s kind.
“Something on your mind?” Kanji asks. She looks at him, and he blushes again. “Sorry, just... you were lookin’ off into space like you were bothered or something.”
“No,” she assures him. Then thinks about it for a moment. “Well, yes. But it’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“Yeah, prolly,” Kanji admits. “But if you wanna talk about it, I’m here, damn it!” He’s blushing yet again, but not so much as before. He seems to be getting used to her.
Naoto runs the calculations. There’s no real reason for her to tell him. Really, the only thing it accomplishes is giving him leverage over her and becoming that much more vulnerable. But it seems that while the rational part of her was crunching the numbers, the rest of her had started talking, and it seemed a bit late to stop herself now. “I don’t feel comfortable as a girl. Which I know is entirely irrational, but... it’s true.”
It was, and she hadn’t realized just how true it was until the words were out of her mouth. And now that she had made the connection, she could reverse-engineer the conclusion to find the patterns. That panging feeling in her heart, and that bizarre coppery taste – they only sprung up when someone talked to her. No, that wasn’t quite right. It was when people called her a girl. Even an innocent “She’s Naoto, right?” between classmates sent her stomach dropping. And the idea of showing her true body to the entire school... well, that was what had gotten her out here in the first place.
Oh God.
“Huh.” Kanji nods. “Yeah. I kinda know how that feels. I’ve never been much like a guy myself. But accepting that really helped me out, and now I’m okay with it.”
That sounds about right. But it doesn’t feel right. Which probably means nothing, Naoto’s no expert on human emotion, but she still doesn’t think that’s it. “I don’t think that’s it, really. Less like I act like a boy but feel like a girl, and more like... like I was born in the wrong body. Like a boy who somehow received the wrong chromosomes.”
They’re silent again, and Naoto’s heart sinks. She remembers how the crossdressing pageant went, how the few people who weren’t laughing hysterically were disgusted, shouting about how wrong it was. That lines up fairly well with a lot of her life experiences, actually. Pretending to be a boy to advance your career, now that’s fine, some people might even see it as cool and empowering (which Naoto was beyond startled to discover), but if you went out there and genuinely tried to make people see you as a different gender simply because that was how you felt you were, and they saw through you, they laughed in your face or called you sick. And they were probably right. Kanji’s right. She’s terrible. She’s wrong. She feels her face growing hot, her breathing starting to accelerate again.
“Do –” Kanji’s voice is quiet, almost small. Not panicked, as he has been for most of this interaction, just awkward and uncertain. “Do you want me to call you, you know... he?”
Naoto’s heart jumps into her throat and starts doing gymnastics. The feeling is so overwhelming she – he – almost doesn’t feel the fresh wave of tears flowing down his face. Yes. Things are settling back into place. The fractures dissolves back into nothingness, and he feels more right than he has since – well, since he got sucked into the TV for the first time.
He’s Naoto Shirogane. That’s him right there, the Detective Prince. He’s a boy.
Yes. That feels right.
He swallows hard, wiping his eyes with his hand. Kanji’s seen him cry enough for one night. “It’s not... weird, or anything? You would really be all right with that?”
Kanji shrugs. “Ain’t more weird than me knitting dolls or Chie bein’ able to eat twenty grilled steaks in half an hour. It’s just... you’re Naoto, right? Don’t really matter what pro nons you use for yourself. You’re still you, you know? Whether you’re a boy or a girl, you’re you. And I like you.” He blushes furiously once again. “I – I mean we all do, you know? ‘Cause you’re really, you know, smart and nice and cool, and – yeah.”
“Pronouns,” Naoto corrects automatically, then blushes. “Sorry. You’re being very understanding. I shouldn’t be nitpicking your grammar.”
“Hey, don’t apologize. Least you didn’t laugh at me like everyone else does when I screw up.” Kanji hesitates. “I’ve kinda been struggling with something similar, actually. Like, not myself. I’m a guy, I know that. But... well, liking somebody who’s... also a guy.” His face is officially on fire.
“Oh.” Naoto doesn’t quite know how to respond to that. He searches within himself and is shocked to come up with an odd combination of disappointment and hope. “Well, that’s perfectly fine.”
“But I’m not gay!” he says hurriedly. “Not like that’s wrong or anything. But I mean... I liked this one guy, and I liked this one girl, and now I think I like a guy again, but it wasn’t really ‘cause of their gender, you know? I just liked them ‘cause they were them. So I don’t think I’m really gay or straight. And...” His face suddenly becomes unreadable, and Naoto is filled with concern. One of the first things he’d learned about Kanji was that he was an open book. “Yosuke keeps giving me shit about it. He found out by accident and he won’t stop bringing it up like it’s somethin’ to be ashamed about. That’s why I was ashamed about it for a while. But...” He sighs. “Don’t really matter, right? That guy I was talkin’ about doesn’t like me back, so, whatever.”
Naoto can almost feel something shift in his mind as his opinion of Yosuke immediately changes from ‘strange, perverted, but mostly harmless’ to ‘must be destroyed’. He feels a strangely distant kind of rage, suddenly overwhelmed by realization. This one guy, this one girl, a guy again. I just liked them ‘cause they were them.
There haven’t been many moments in Naoto’s life when he’s seriously wished he were good at understanding social cues. Now, though, he’s close to banging his head against the wall for not picking it up sooner. “Do you like me?” Naoto blurts out before he can stop himself. He should’ve seen that coming, honestly. He’s always been impulsive.
Rather than turning an alarming shade of red like Naoto had expected, Kanji’s face goes completely white, eyes fixed ahead, a true deer in headlights if there ever was one. He looks about two seconds from bolting.
That impulsive side of Naoto takes control again, and he reaches out and takes Kanji’s hand. Smiles, and for once in his life, it’s fully sincere. “I like you too.”
Kanji turns to face him in almost slow motion. Color begins to come into his face again.
He grins, and that looks fully sincere too. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Naoto agrees.
Kanji’s hand grips his, and it feels electric. His heart is racing again, but in a good way this time, which Naoto hadn’t realized was possible. “So are we, like...” Kanji says, leaving the end of the question hanging.
“Boyfriends?” Naoto offers tentatively. “Yes. I would... I would like that very much.”
Kanji’s smile is wide, and pure, and Naoto isn’t sure whether he’s about to kiss Kanji or faint dead away. He does neither, just sits there, in the warmest moment he can ever remember experiencing. “I’d like that too.”
Their hands lock together a little tighter, and they sit back against the building, looking up at the sky. It’s cloudy, a little gray, and Naoto doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything so beautiful. The sounds of the auditorium, the concerns of the shadow world, all the needless and inexplicable pain they’ve ever experienced, it all fades away, and for a moment, the only thing in the world is them.