Work Text:
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Kanji insisted, dropping his pencil on the table in frustration. “The hell am I doin’ with all these cabbages? Did I buy ‘em just so I could chuck ‘em out a window? S’a waste of perfectly good food!”
For approximately the seventh time in the past hour, Naoto let out a slow breath, trying to maintain her level head. “Kanji-kun, please, I told you not to worry about that. It’s only a math problem, the context is irrelevant.”
“Tch.” Kanji folded his arms, glaring at the notebook in front of him. At least half of the solutions he’d come up with had been corrected in Naoto’s handwriting, and a fine layer of eraser dust covered the paper. “If I’m some kinda food-wastin’ hooligan, throwin’ vegetables outta windows for no reason, what do I care how fast it takes ‘em to accelerate to maximum…whatever?”
Naoto’s fingers drummed ever faster against the table. “Fine. We’ll – we’ll come back to that one.” Picking up the textbook, she flipped through pages of practice problems, trying to find something that would click with Kanji. She prided herself on having grown more patient and personable during her time in Inaba, but math study sessions minus Rise’s bubbly presence plus Kanji’s tendency to get discouraged and give up after a few wrong answers often equaled one irritated Naoto.
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Kanji huffed, “I ain’t gonna get it, just like I ain’t gonna get anything on the test next week.”
“Would you please stop saying that,” Naoto requested through gritted teeth. “You are going to pass this test if it kills me.”
She didn’t look up at him, but swore Kanji mumbled, “whatever,” under his breath. With each passing lesson, Naoto had become increasingly more frustrated with his insistence that he was incapable of doing well in school. Even though last year’s case had almost completely dominated their time, no one on the team let Kanji slip back into his old habits of skipping school unless it was absolutely necessary, and he had managed to salvage his grades and pass freshman year with the other underclassmen. And now that the time previously spent fighting supernatural monsters could be allocated towards studying, he’d shown a drastic improvement in only the first trimester.
Despite all this, which Naoto interpreted as him being perfectly capable, Kanji would simply shut down when faced with a problem he didn’t understand, or a series of mistakes, which only served to lead to a vicious cycle in which his mood and performance worsened. He was still currently passing all his classes, but if he kept letting his occasional failures get to him, Naoto feared they would become less occasional and more frequent until he was back to his old ways and refused to put the effort into maintaining his current success.
“Let’s go back to systems of equations,” she suggested in an attempt to get their studying back on track. “The concept isn’t that difficult, and –”
“Maybe not to you,” Kanji snapped.
Naoto shut the textbook with a thud, patience wearing thin. “I know you’re frustrated,” she said slowly, “but this is an ineffective way of expressing that. Refusing to continue working will not help you to improve. I understand –”
“No you don’t!” Kanji interrupted sharply, sitting up on his knees and gesturing wildly. “You’re the Detective Prince! You’re a genius, you’re only sixteen and ya solved all these cases, of course all’a this high school crap comes easy to ya. You get good grades without hardly tryin’, so you think if you just keep sayin’ the same thing over an’ over, it’ll make sense to me, ‘cause it makes sense to you, but that’s not gonna work!”
Naoto blinked, taken aback by his sudden outburst. “I…perhaps I need to adjust my teaching methods when you’re having trouble with the material, but –”
“Look, you don’t get it, okay?” Kanji slammed his fist down on the table, anger flashing in his eyes. Naoto drew back in surprise, having witnessed his temper before but never once been its target. “You’re, like, a child prodigy or whatever, you don’t get it!”
“Kanji-kun, I – I’m sorry,” she hastily apologized, though not entirely sure what for, “I –”
“You got no idea what it’s like to feel stupid!” he yelled over her, shoulders squared and palms splayed out flat against the table. “Teachers don’t look at you like you’re a waste’a space! When I started comin’ back to school, and my grades got better, they thought I was cheating, because ain’t no way Kanji Tatsumi could ever get a B on his own! I haven’t been able to keep up since my dad –” His voice cracked. “And everyone knows it. Everyone knows I can’t do this. No one had time for a lost cause like me when I started fallin’ behind. Now everyone’s just waitin’ for me to slip up again, and every time I do, I know exactly what they’re thinkin’ – it was just a fluke after all, ‘course that punk ain’t smart enough to keep it up. Dunno why he even tries in the first place.”
Aggressively wiping away a tear that had slid down his face, Kanji turned away, folding his arms and breathing heavily. Naoto opened her mouth to say something, but was speechless. The silence was thick as she cast her gaze around the room, desperately trying to think of a response. It was true that she had no clue how he felt: she hadn’t been formally education in years because she had convinced her grandfather she could study on her own while working full-time, and then had no problem catching up when she’d enrolled at Yasogami. While she understood that not everyone functioned the same way as her, she regretted to admit that it never truly occurred to her the way Kanji struggled with and was affected by school.
Still, Naoto remained convinced that he was dead wrong about his recent success being a fluke. He may not have been a straight-A student, but flunking out of high school was by no means the best he could do. There had to be something she could say to convince him of this.
Suddenly, her eyes lit on a pile of plush dolls in the corner, each one a miniature version of one of their Personas. Kanji had been working on them for months, and the only one he had yet to finish was Yosuke’s Takehara Susano-o. Pushing herself to her feet, Naoto crossed the room and dug Sukuna Hikona out of the pile. She turned it over in her hands, smiling fondly. The amount of detail was truly impressive – Kanji must have dyed the flowy fabric used for its wings by hand to get that color scheme, and the tiny suit with its tiny gold buttons was both adorable and well-tailored.
“You made this from scratch, didn’t you?” she prompted. “All of these?”
Kanji warily glanced at her, at the plushies on the floor, and back to Naoto. “So?” he finally asked.
“They’re all very well-made, and incredibly accurate,” she pointed out. “I would imagine there was no commercial pattern available for the physical manifestations of our individual psyches?”
“Uh…no,” Kanji confirmed, narrowing his eyes. “Put those together without one.”
“And Rise-san’s stage costumes, you custom-make each of those, yes? Do you use existing patterns, or modify them in any way?”
Kanji scoffed. “Risette wouldn’t be caught dead performin’ in somethin’ just anyone could just buy a pattern for. Have to pattern all those frilly things myself.”
“And, correct me if I’m wrong, but you create patterns based on measurements?” She raised an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth turning slightly upwards. “Numbers?”
A look of realization crossed Kanji’s face, but he frowned. “I mean…you only got so many shapes to work with in a pattern. I just make ‘em different sizes dependin’ on measurements, and change ‘em from there.”
“Kanji-kun, most people would not speak of what you do in such casual terms. To create the things you do from scratch…you are talented indeed. You may not be sitting down and consciously thinking, for example, ‘I’m doing geometry,’ but I believe you have an innate understanding of the mathematical principles that your craft requires, not to mention an extremely creative mind. You are not stupid, no matter what anyone may say differently, yourself included,” she insisted.
“Naoto…” Shaking his head, Kanji sighed. “I appreciate you tryin’ to make me feel better, but unless they’re gonna test me on how well I can tailor a princess seam, this ain’t gonna help.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong,” Naoto countered, opening her arms wide. Her mind was spinning with ideas, excited at the prospect of adapting their lesson plan. “You’re clearly a visual, artistic individual. If we can get you to think about these problems in a different way, perhaps the concepts will make more sense to you.” She held Kanji’s gaze, determination lighting her own. “I know you can do this. I do not believe your improvement since last year has only been a fluke – you are determined and hard-working, and this material is not beyond your grasp. If private lessons every day is what it takes to discover how you learn best, then so be it. But I need you to stop giving up on yourself every time you make a mistake. It doesn’t mean they’re right about you; they don’t know you, Kanji-kun. I do. And I say you can succeed if you put your mind to it.”
For some reason, Kanji’s cheeks had gone pink, and he stared at Naoto with an expression on his face that she couldn’t name – something like awe, perhaps, though a bit wistful. Finally, he cast his gaze downward, rubbing the back of his neck. “I…” He bit his lip. “I mean, I ain’t ever gonna be a genius, but…if ya really think I could get some’a this stuff if we try somethin’ different…I guess I’m down…”
“I really do think so,” Naoto said firmly. “You aren’t unintelligent, despite what you’ve been told. Your circumstances combined with a different learning style may not have been conducive to academic success, but you’ve proven that you can do better than what your detractors expect. And…” She paused, carefully arranging words in her head so as not to misspeak. “If I may say so, your skills are far more than just what can be measured in school. You are strong, intuitive, and, as I’ve already said, excel in the arts far beyond anyone else I’ve ever met. I believe that will take you further than many subjects we study in class.”
“Man,” Kanji muttered, face growing redder, “didn’t know ya…thought that much’a me. Um. I, uh…I’m sorry for losin’ it like that, before. I was angry and felt stupid but I shouldn’t’a blown up at you. Wouldn’t’a blamed ya for walkin’ out right then.”
Naoto shook her head. “It shouldn’t have taken me as long as it did to realize why you were so frustrated. Obviously, my attempts to help were not always…well, very helpful. I truly want to see you do your best, but it took me far too long to figure out that my way isn’t the best way for you. I hope that, with both of us working together, you’ll be able to make sense of this curriculum.”
Grinning, Kanji ducked his head. “Wow…for once, I’m actually lookin’ forward to somethin’ to do with school.” Naoto couldn’t explain why that simple comment stirred her stomach, though it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. “Thanks. For…for not givin’ up on me and all.”
“The pleasure is mine,” Naoto found herself saying, even as her cheeks grew warm.
A silence that was much less awkward than theirs from this time last year stretched out for a minute before Kanji made a soft noise. “Oh! Hey, hold on.”
He stood up and left the room, gesturing for Naoto to stay where she was. After a few minutes, he returned, arms loaded with books. As he set them down on the table, Naoto scanned the sides and saw that they appeared to be instructional in nature, filled with crafting patterns and tutorials. “You keep talkin’ about there bein’ math in sewin’ and stuff,” Kanji explained as he sat back down, “and like I said, I never really think about that, but…maybe you can find somethin’ in here to help with…whatever you’re tryin’ to show me.”
Naoto picked up the top book, flipping through pages of knitted animals. “That’s a good idea, Kanji-kun, these could be very useful. Let’s see what we have to work with. In the meantime…” She leaned over and dug Amaterasu out of the pile of Personas. “If I asked you to draft a simple dress for this doll, how would you go about that?”
Kanji looked at the plush for a moment, something in his expression changing. For the first time since they’d started studying, he looked confident and determined. He reached behind himself and grabbed a measuring tape and ruler off his desk, then set to work. Naoto watched as he swiftly marked and erased lines – solid and dotted, curved and straight – in his notebook, taking the shape of something blocky that resembled a dress folded in half. As he sketched, Naoto noticed something unusual.
“Kanji-kun, you’re using your left hand now, but…weren’t you doing math with your right hand earlier?”
“Huh?” He paused, frowned at his hands, and switched the pencil between them before returning to his task. “Uh, maybe. Sorry.”
Naoto raised an eyebrow. “What? No, don’t apologize, you – are you ambidextrous?”
“Ambi…what?” Kanji’s forehead wrinkled in confusion.
“Ambidextrous,” Naoto repeated. “It means you’re equally skilled at tasks such as writing and drawing with both hands, whereas most people are either right-handed or left-handed.”
Staring at his hands, Kanji finally shrugged. “I guess? I, uh…don’t pay much attention to who’s doin’ what with which hand, really.”
Naoto couldn’t help giving a small chuckle as she filed this information away for reference. Though he still seemed slightly confused, Kanji smiled too, a bit nervously, glancing up from his notebook at her every so often. “You really are quite intriguing, Kanji-kun.” Perhaps she had a lot to learn from these lessons as well – this was a subject she thought she wouldn’t mind pursuing.