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“Hey, guys,” Chie says, addressing the group.
“Hmm? What’s up, Chie?” Yosuke asks.
“Don’t you think Naoto-kun’s been acting kind of… weird lately?”
“What do you mean, Chie?” Yukiko questions her.
“Well, I mean, lately she looks pretty tense when we gather, but I can’t figure out why.”
“I noticed that too, Chie-senpai!” Rise pipes in, “But she wasn’t like that before… I wonder what happened?”
“Who knows, but if she’s got a problem, we should probably help, yeah?” Kanji adds.
At that moment, Naoto walks to the table and plops down on a chair. This time, the group pays extra attention to the young blue-haired girl. Embarrassed by the sudden attention, Naoto quietly says, “U-Umm… Is something the matter?”
“N-No, it’s nothing in particular…” Chie stammers out.
“Hey guys.”
With the exception of Chie, whose sole focus is Naoto at the moment, the group turn to see their team leader and great friend, Yu Narukami.
To Chie’s surprise, Naoto begins to tense up at this moment.
Suddenly, the young detective stands up, seemingly in a panic. “I-I just remembered! I have a prior engagement with Grampa! I-I must be going!”
And with that, Naoto rushes away.
“Hey, Yu! C’mon! These drinks aren’t gonna deliver themselves to the club, you know!” Kou shouts from a distance.
“Alright!” He yells back, before turning his attention to the Team, “I gotta go, see you guys tomorrow.” After trading goodbyes, Yu runs towards his other friends.
When both of them are gone, Chie speaks up in a whisper. “Hey, did you guys see Naoto-kun?”
“Whaddya mean, senpai?” Kanji asks.
“Well, she tensed up a lot when Yu got here…”
“Really?” Yosuke asks, “You think something happened between them?”
“I dunno, but it’s pretty weird, don’t you think?”
“Maybe they got into a fight?” Yukiko suggests.
“You think she’s avoiding him?” Rise says doubtfully, “They got along so well though…”
“Yeah, Yu-senpai isn’t really the type to get into fights with others too,” Kanji adds.
The group crosses their arms in thought. Chie suddenly stands up, “Well, there’s no point thinking about it here! Maybe we should just ask them?”
Yosuke rolls his eyes, “That’s such a Chie suggestion…”
Chie glares at him, “What?! That’s the quickest way to resolve this, isn’t it?!”
“And if they are fighting,” Yukiko adds, “It could be personal. It shouldn’t really be our business to interfere…”
“But if our friends have a problem, we gotta help ‘em, yeah?” Kanji counters, “This ain’t any different.”
The group begins to think. Kanji does have a point.
Chie claps her hands together, bringing everyone’s attention to her. “Alright, then I guess we have no choice but to try to ask them tomorrow!”
The rest of the group nods in agreement before breaking off for the day.
After class, Chie gives a signal to Yosuke as she leaves to look for Naoto. Yosuke nods at her and turns to his best friend, causing Yu to look at him.
“Is something up, Yosuke?”
“I feel like I should be the one asking you that, dude,” Yosuke grumbles.
Yu looks at him in confusion, “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing, nothing… Hey, I know she’s been part of the group for a while already, but what do you think of Naoto?”
Yu looks up pensively. “She’s smart and determined, and her Persona’s pretty powerful. Not only that, she’s been a pretty good friend to us all. Why?”
“That’s… not what I meant, dude…”
“What did you mean, then?”
Yosuke tries to think of something to cover up his questions. “Hehe… W-Well, you know how it is with us guys, right?”
Yu raises an eyebrow, looking at him in further confusion.
“Haha… You know what, nevermind…” Yosuke can feel the awkward sweat drop down his cheek. Dammit, why is Yu always so hard to decipher?!
“Well, I have to go now, man. See you around,” Yu tells him
“Haha… Alright, see you…”
As Yu leaves to go to his club activities, Yosuke sighs and scratches his head.
“Yeesh, that didn’t work at all… I hope the girls are having better luck…”
“…As I said, everything is fine!” Naoto says, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must be—,”
“Are you sure, Naoto?” Rise says, worry evident in her voice.
“Y-Yes, now I must—!”
“Okay then, I’ll ask you straight out, Naoto-kun: did something happen between you and Yu?”
Naoto looks at Chie in wide-eyed shock. “H-How did you—?”
“Aha! So something did happen between you two!”
“N-No! Well, in a sense, but—!”
“You can just tell us, Naoto. We’ll keep it a secret too, if you want,” Rise assures her.
“Th-That’s not the issue here!” Naoto says, nervously trying to stand her ground, “L-Look, I really must be going, I need to meet with my grampa’s secretary now. I’ll see you tomorrow, Rise-san, Satonaka-senpai.”
Naoto rushes to leave the two girls, who finally back down and just stare at the detective leaving the building.
“Ugh, that didn’t go so well…” Chie groans
“Yeah, we might have been a little too pushy…” Rise says.
“Yikes. Sounds like you two didn’t have any more luck than me, huh?”
The two girls turn to see Yosuke coming down the staircase.
“Hey Yosuke… Yeah, we couldn’t get much out of her,” Chie says with a sigh.
“We did get that something happened between them, though,” Rise adds.
“But now we have no clue why she’d be so tense around him though,” Chie says.
Suddenly, Kou approaches the group. “H-Hey Chie,”
Chie turns around, “Oh, hey Kou. What’s up?”
“N-Nothing much! Haha… Hey, umm…” Kou stumbles over his words, “You wanna… go hang out next Saturday? I heard that there’s a new action movie coming out in Okina Theater, and I got tickets, so…”
Chie’s ears perk up at the mention of an action movie, and she was about to agree, but Yosuke and Rise nudge her to remind Chie that Yu scheduled a training session on that day, just in case another incident like Nanako’s happened.
“Erm… Hehe, sorry Kou, but I already made plans with some other people… You know how it is,” Chie says, trying to make an excuse.
As a dejected Kou leaves with Daisuke comforting him, the very random event gives Yosuke an idea.
“Hey, wait a sec… What if Naoto has a crush on Yu?”
Rise looks at him in surprise, while Chie looks at him in confusion, “Huh? Where the heck did you get THAT idea?”
Feeling a bit sorry for Kou, Yosuke tries to push through, “Nevermind where I got the idea! Just think about it for a sec, would you?”
Rise continues Yosuke’s line of thinking, “It does make sense… She’s not avoiding him because of any ill will—she’s just feeling shy around him! That’s kind of cute, actually!”
“Hoooold on, that’s only if it’s true!” Chie tries to reign in Rise’s imagination, “We don’t even know if Yosuke’s harebrain idea is even valid.”
“Oh, c’mon, how is my idea any more harebrained than anything you thought of?!”
“God, I can hear you two from the other side of the hall…” Kanji says as he approaches the group, “So, we find out anything?”
Leaving their two senpais to do their daily argument, Rise answers him, “Well, we figured they’re not fighting, but…” Rise starts to hesitate.
“But what?”
“…Well, Yosuke-senpai is suggesting that Naoto-kun has a crush on Yu-senpai…” Rise peeks up at Kanji’s face to see his reaction.
Kanji doesn’t, however. “Huh. I guess that would explain it.”
“Huh?”
“What?”
Rise is flabbergasted herself. “Aren’t you gonna, like, argue against it? I mean, didn’t you like Naoto?”
Kanji simply scratches his head. “I mean, yeah but… she’s her own person that can make her own decisions. It ain’t my place to say who she can—H-Hey wait a sec, the hell’re you making me say?! What about you, huh?! You’re always clinging on to Senpai!”
“Well, I can’t force Senpai to like me as much as I like him, and if he likes Naoto-kun, then the best thing I can do is support them as their friend.”
“Geez, why do I always get the short end of the stick…” Yosuke grumbles as he finishes up his argument with Chie, who’s angrily pouting.
“Well,” Rise says, trying to regain some semblance of order in the group, “Why don’t we come together tomorrow? Sort this out then?”
The group sighs and agrees to the plan.
“Senpai, umm…” Naoto says nervously, “Can I ask you to meet me in the park later, after school?”
Yu looks at the petite detective. “Sure thing.”
Kanji, Rise, Chie, Yukiko, and Yosuke—who were chatting animatedly with Yu before Naoto arrived—all look at each other.
“…When I’m with you, I become scared,” Naoto admits, “Afraid that the instant I admit the truth, everything will spill out…
“But I need to say it… My true feelings…
“I love you.
“E-Err… Anyway, that seems to be the truth.”
“Huh, looks like you were right, Yosuke”
“Pipe down, stupid!”
“Ow! Hey, move over, Moronji!”
“Quit calling me that!”
“Huh, what’s this?”
“H-Hey Yukiko-senpai, that’s my foot!”
“I said pipe down! They’ll hear us!”
Yu’s eyes look away from Naoto, focusing on a bush. The group freezes in place. Crap, maybe he saw them?
“Hrmph, I’m so embarrassed… I feel like I could die…”
Yu turns his attention back to Naoto, and they spend a long time together, mostly Yu comforting Naoto on her new-found feelings. Once Naoto decides to leave, Yu stands up to see her off and, once she’s out of earshot, turns around.
“You guys can stop hiding now.”
The group slowly stands up, guilty that they party crashed a confession.
“Sorry, Yu…” Chie says looking down.
“Sorry, man…” Yosuke starts, “We were just worried about you two…”
“I’m so sorry…” Yukiko apologizes, too ashamed to look him in the eye.
“We’re sorry, senpai,” the two kouhais say in unison.
Yu just chuckles. “It’s fine, guys. Just give us some privacy next time, okay? It’s a good thing Naoto didn’t see you, or you guys would have seen the business end of a revolver.”
The group is silent.
“Well, I was originally planning to keep our relationship a secret, since it might make her uncomfortable if it was known, but now the cat’s out of the bag, I guess. Yeah, Naoto and I like each other, so we’re thinking of dating.”
“Uhh… Congrats, dude!” Yosuke was the first to react with congratulations.
““““Congratulations!””””
Yu chuckles and thanks them, then sighs, “Now how am I gonna tell her that you guys know already…? Ah well, I’ll figure it out later.”
Seeing as the sun is setting soon, the group part ways for the day—Yu, with a spring in his step. He'll need to call Naoto later, just to tell her that they got found out, but the idea of talking to her again so soon made him a little happy.