Disclaimer: Persona IV is the property of Atlus. Rating is for language. And biology dissections. Story takes place between January and April 2012.

Specimen

Introductory Reading:

Because of budget cuts in Yasogami High's funds, Kanji Tatsumi got his first kiss. And he wound up smelling like formaldehyde for a week.

Actually, it wasn't his first kiss, as Teddie was wont (was quite eager) to remind him. Kanji maintained, strenuously, that forced kisses, accomplished only by the element of surprise and a sudden headbutt - when coming from inebriated male bear Shadow blonds intent on preserving their chastity - Did Not Count. So by Kanji's reckoning, it was his first kiss, by Teddie's reckoning his second. Yosuke reckoned it a zero, given the circumstances surrounding the kiss.

Everyone agreed on the formaldehyde.

1:1 Specimens

Staring at the bulletin board in the first-year hallway, Rise made a sound that is difficult to transcribe, but it began on a "yech" and ended on an "ugh".

"What's wrong?" Naoto asked, stopping alongside the pop idol, fresh from the last class of the day. "Are you ill? Did you have lunch with Souji-senpai?"

"No - that is, yes, and the creme caramel was lumpy - but look."

Naoto glanced, her neutral expression sharpening with interest. "Ah, yes. They announced that on Monday."

"They did? Seriously?" Rise wound a curl around her finger and chewed her lower lip, though much of it was for effect. "Maybe they only mentioned it in your class. I mean, 1-1 is for all the smarties. They probably didn't bother with the rest of us."

"They announced it across all the first-year classes," Naoto said firmly, half turning at the sound of approaching footsteps. "I imagine we can partner up, if you'd like."

The footsteps skidded, and Kanji stopped so quickly he almost landed on his rear. He stared wide-eyed at Naoto, then Rise. "Huh - what?"

Naoto gestured to the billboard, then to both of her friends. "The dissection lab tomorrow. All the first-year biology classes are being consolidated to conserve resources."

"P-partner?" Kanji said faintly.

"Hey, that sounds like a great idea." Rise clasped her hands behind her and rocked back on her heels. "Kanji and I can make Naoto-kun do all the work. No, no, don't give me that look. You're smart, we're just cute. Doing all the work is what you were put here to do."

Naoto smoothed the sleeve of her uniform jacket. "If you're going to take that attitude, I won't partner with either of you."

"Okay, no problem," Rise sing-songed, eyes curving. "With all the lovesick girls in your class, I'm sure you'll have no end of partners." Giggling at the next glare Naoto offered her, she squeezed the detective around the shoulders. "C'mon, partner with me and Kanji. Kanji-kun's big enough to scare off your admirers."

"Uh - I didn't-" Kanji cleared his throat and straightened his spine, looking resolutely away from Naoto. "Forget this, I'll cut. I ain't interested in this shit."

"I never said you were," Rise said. "But you want to partner with Naoto, right?"

"Don't put words in my mouth!" Kanji's cheeks were red, and there was something desperate in his voice. "I said I ain't interested!"

"Well..." Naoto tipped her head back to look at him, eyes concerned. "I can see why this wouldn't hold your interest. But the lab's simple enough, and I'm sure you could get a good grade."

Kanji glanced down at her, then away, then back, his flush mellowing to rosy pink.

"I'd enjoy working with you," Naoto continued, smiling tentatively, then looking over to include Rise. "Both of you. I've done this dissection before, so it should be no problem."

"Great!" Rise clapped her hands together once. "This is perfect. I thought I'd have to bust my brain all night prepping, but now I can go to Okina with Senpai instead. Thanks, Naoto-kun!" Without warning, she latched onto Naoto's neck with one arm and gave her a hug, pressing her cheek against Naoto's and releasing her before the Detective Prince could do more than squeak in alarm. "My love life lives on because of you. Lunch just about killed it." And, knowing better than to wait until Naoto had collected her arsenal of wits, she turned and trotted towards the lockers, waving one hand behind her.

"Sh-she should really study," was the first thing Naoto managed to say, blinking a few times before she could un-widen her eyes. "I'll call and remind her." She turned. "Shall I call you as well?"

"Uh - sure." Kanji gave her another quick glance, then stared fixedly at the sign to the girls' restroom. "I mean - yeah. Why not?"

"Marvelous." He turned in time to see Naoto touch her cap brim to him as she headed off for the lockers. "I'll call you at eight o' clock. I'm glad you're becoming serious about studying."

Kanji blinked. "Studying?"

1:2 Tools

Naoto had called him last night, and Kanji managed to get through a half minute of conversation without stuttering. But all she did was remind him what chapters they were supposed to read to prepare for the lab. Kanji had opened his lab book, flipped to the right page, scanned the first paragraph, re-scanned it because he hadn't picked much up the first time, then shaken his head and tossed it back with his other textbooks. Screw it. The hell he have to know how to dissect a frog for?

Still, he showed up for the lab, sauntering into a large room packed with the combined first-year classes, everyone shuffling around, grabbing lab kits, complaining about uncomfortable goggles and banging their hips against the long tables. And everyone was in flimsy lab coats, mass-produced in only one size. Kanji grimaced with distaste at the wretched tailoring, his wrists hanging out of too-short sleeves and the front barely able to cover his chest. He hung the goggles round his neck, grabbed a kit, then went to find his friends.

Rise and Naoto had commandeered half a table, Rise with her luxuriant pigtails curled up into two buns and protected by the head scarf she usually wore at Marukyu, Naoto folding the sleeves of her lab coat up over her hands.

"Now just remember," Rise was saying to Naoto as Kanji sat on the detective's other side, straddling his chair, "we're here, we're your friends, and we promise we won't ever leave you alone."

"What?" Naoto said, fumbling her lab kit's lid as she opened it.

"And no one cares that you're not a boy," Rise went on, "it's not important, you're an amazing detective, and girls are just as good as boys."

"Rise-chan?" Naoto said blankly, eyes rounding.

"And we definitely, absolutely do not think of you as a kid. You're geriatric to us, Naoto-kun."

"What are you talking about?" Naoto asked, hands tight on her kit.

"Just keep what I said in mind," Rise said, patting Naoto's arm. "Let's face it, you look a little too much like your Shadow in that coat, and if you start getting all teary and yellow-eyed, Kanji's going to have to beat you into submission in front of the whole grade. So I'm just taking preventive measures."

"I-! Rise-chan, how could you possibly think I'd-"

"Just making sure," Rise said serenely.

1:3 The First Incision

By rights, there should not have been small open tubs filled with preserved bullfrogs right there in the classroom. Each reeked of formaldehyde, so they should've been outside or behind another door at the very, very least. But the biology teacher, Mr. Fukazawa, believed in efficiency, not safety. It was also strongly suspected he'd lost his sense of smell. In any case, he ignored his students' groans, grimaces and pleas for mercy and instead told them to stop snapping their surgical gloves and get to work.

There was a tub of frogs perched on the corner of every third table, theirs included, so Rise told Kanji to grab them a frog before all the good ones were taken (good meaning that there were no guts hanging out). Kanji grimaced as he stared at the pile of amphibian corpses, slimy, black, bloated. They retained the swampy smell common to frogs, even through the formaldehyde. Swallowing a nauseous little hitch up his throat, he grabbed one and conveyed it to their seats, where it lolled like a very large, very damp, very heavy prune.

"Hey," Rise said, "doesn't it look like it could be Ohtani-senpai's little brother?"

"Let's not waste time," Naoto said, fingering through her kit, bringing out scissors, scalpels (with various blades that she'd brought from home), pins, ruler and her own laser pointer. She turned the frog on its back, head towards her, then picked up her scissors.

"Oh. No. Oh no no no no," Rise said, shaking her head. "I can't watch you do this."

"Of course you can," Naoto said under her breath. "You've seen me fight Shadows."

"Shadows just sort of evaporate when you kill them. No one cuts them open." Rise's wide eyes hadn't left the frog.

Naoto sighed. "You'll get used to it. It's really not that big a deal." She set the blades to the corner of the frog's mouth.

"How can you be so calm?" Rise said. "You aren't really turning into your Shadow, are you?" As Naoto dropped her scissors with exasperation, Rise went on, "I mean, it's just a little - creepy - doing something like this. And your Shadow was all into, um, drills and spinning blades."

"It is not creepy," Naoto said, recovering her scissors.

"Kanji agrees with me, right?"

Both of them looked up at him. Kanji winced. "Uh, I mean - It's not something I like doin', but..." He gestured. "S'just a dead frog."

"Thank you," Naoto said with a slight inclination of her head towards him. "Would you like to make the first cut, Kanji-kun?"

Kanji cleared his throat, staring at the scissors. Seeing his hesitation and mistaking it for uncertainty, Naoto put the scissors down and offered him the scalpel instead.

He was saved from having to answer by the sound of Ayane Matsunaga fainting from two tables over. Ayane was a classmate and friend of Naoto's, so she jumped up and jogged over, joining a small cluster of students around the insensate girl. Mr. Fukazawa had joined them in a moment, crouching as he still held a partially dissected frog in one gloved hand.

The students blocked the activity from view. After a moment, Kanji stood to join Naoto, but Rise pulled him down again by the back of his lab coat. Glancing, Kanji saw that she was rather pale, and she kept her face turned away from their dissection project. "You all right?" Kanji asked.

Rise grimaced, then nodded. Then released a whoosh of breath and seemed to regret it as she tasted formaldehyde. "Shoot, I'm just not Naoto, you know? I don't want to cut up a frog, no matter how dead and ugly it is."

"Yeah," Kanji admitted, looking at the scissors. Cloth, there was no problem with cutting cloth. Cutting dead flesh? Leather, he told himself. Leather's dead stuff too. You're wearin' leather right now. Just pretend it's a leather frog so you can cut it up and sew it into something.

His stomach bucked, but he swallowed and was all right by the time Naoto sat down between them again. Rise watched wistfully as two girls escorted Ayane out of the room to the nurse's office. Mr. Fukazawa cast a glare around the room, daring any other student to be faint of heart.

Kanji's stomach bucked again as he realized Naoto had scooted her chair closer to his, the better to oversee his operations. Her shoulder brushed his arm. "Started yet? Just cut along here."

He glanced down at her, his face tilted to hers. She looked up, looked quickly down, then looked up again and lifted the corners of her lips in a brief smile of encouragement. Somehow, this outweighed Rise's pained wince, the bite to her lower lip, and the fact that, once he picked up the scissors, she could only look at him through her fingers. Kanji swallowed, squared his shoulders, angled the scissors, then tucked one blade between the lips.

"Kanji?" Rise said faintly. "Kanji-kun?"

Kanji glanced over. "Yeah?"

"Could you - could we not cut up the frog just yet?" As Naoto also looked over, Rise did her best to give a deprecating smile, even trying for a pretty head tilt. "I mean, I'm a little shook up because of Ayane-san. I - I don't think Mr. Fukazawa would be happy if two students hit the tile in one lab."

Naoto narrowed her eyes, tapping her index finger on the table. "Rise, you're just delaying the inevitable. We should get this over with as soon as possible, and then we can leave and we'll all feel better."

Rise's smile turned uncomfortable, though there was something calculating in the way she crinkled her eyes. "There you go again, pushing the whole surgery thing along. Are you sure you're not feeling Shadowy?"

When Naoto began to splutter again, Kanji figured it out. He could already tell Rise wanted to be anywhere but here, and that Naoto was going to keep insisting they stay put and press on. Rise was fighting back in the only way she could, and effectively.

"I put that all behind me last year," Naoto was insisting, "I do not have a preoccupation with surgery or - or extreme - operations or-"

Rise shook her head slowly, smile more genuine. "I didn't say anything about extreme operations. Where did that come from? I was just talking about surgery."

"Then why are you - I just - I thought you were - just because my Shadow - No." Naoto closed her eyes and spread her hands on the table, as if simultaneously collecting herself and bracing. "No." She opened her eyes. "We must concentrate on the task at hand. Kanji, please begin. You'll find the skin resistant at first, but if you can get it past about there, it'll pull off easily."

"Actually, it's okay if you're feeling Shadowy," Rise said quickly, paler still. "I mean, your Shadow was so cute, aside from being psychotic. When it started crying, we all just wanted to go up and squeeze it and say everything was going to be okay. So if you start crying, Kanji and me, we'll just squeeze you, all right? You really do want to be squeezed, you know."

"Rise-chan!" Naoto started on a very high note, then brought herself under control again. Though she had to push her chair away from Rise and focus all her attention on Kanji. "Please. Begin."

"Kanji, seriously." Rise leaned around Naoto so she could see him. "I'm going to throw up or something if you do."

"Kanji-kun," Naoto said, in that even tone that meant things were going to be accomplished, "we have a limited time to complete this lab. If we do not complete it, we will all receive zeroes."

"Do you want to see me lying in a heap on the tiles?" Rise asked, voice trembling. "If you cut that thing open, I'm gonna - I'm gonna-"

"It is a simple assignment," Naoto said smoothly, like a zen master on the edge. "And I want us to get good grades for it."

"What if I hit my head on the edge of the table on the way down?" Rise bit her lower lip, eyes liquidy. "What if I'm lying here in a pool of my own blood? What're you gonna tell Senpai?"

"Kanji-kun, if you just make that one cut, I'll do the rest of the work."

"If you make that cut, how am I supposed to ever trust you again? Don't you care about my health?" Rise's tears shimmered in the florescent light.

Kanji looked at Naoto, her eyes steely, her hand lying close to the scalpel.

1:4 Pinning the Specimen

Kanji swallowed. Once. Twice. And put the scissors down. "Sorry, Naoto."

Naoto's eyes widened. Rise's jaw went slack, her lips parting slightly.

"Oh," Naoto said, shoulders slumping, lids half dropping over her eyes. "I'm - I thought... Very well then, I'll do the dissection." And she reached for the frog.

"Kanji - you - you disagreed with Naoto." Rise stared at him. "You took my side even though she was telling you not to." And stared. "You stood up for me even though she was being responsible and I was being..." And stared. "You - you're so sweet!" And then she lunged across Naoto to kiss Kanji's cheek. He jerked reflexively to the side, Rise overcompensated, and Mr. Fukazawa looked over to see Kanji Tatsumi falling out of his chair, Rise Kujikawa on top of him.

1:5 Clean Up

Kanji gasped as he hit the floor, the wind knocked out of him, then gasped as Rise's elbow rammed his stomach. She squealed and rolled off him, frowning down into his face. "I'm sorry, are you all right?"

"Shit - yeah - think so." Kanji rubbed the back of his head, but the hand came away bloodless. "You?"

"Of course I'm fine." She studied him a moment, then smiled again. "You're so sweet, standing up to Naoto, asking if I'm okay. What a good Kanji." And she leaned down and lightly tapped his lips with her own. "There! Something to make Senpai jealous with."

Kanji blinked up at her. And he wasn't light-headed or nosebleedy or even happy, all things considered. He was just confused. "What?"

"Did you just - kiss-?" came Naoto's voice, but it quickly cut off.

"C'mon, just get up," Rise said, standing. "Unless you want to chill with Ayane-san in the nurse's office."

Ignoring the pain in his lower back, Kanji climbed to his feet, boot heel sliding on the tile, putting him off balance again.

Just as Mr. Fukazawa rushed over, wildly throwing his hand out to help Kanji up.

Naoto had also stood, leaning forward, her elbow close to the tub of formaldehyde.

Supplementary Reading:

The smell did not wash off for more than a week.

There were three viable theories as to how the tub overturned, splashing formaldehyde and four dead bullfrogs over Kanji Tatsumi's face and upper body.

Despite plentiful evidence and several dozen eye-witnesses, Japan's foremost rising detective declined to instigate an investigation.