This was originally written for a prompt on the badbadbathhouse meme on livejournal, back in 2009. (Yes. I'm slow. What of it?) So OP, if you're still out there, this one is for you.

The prompt:

Naoto decides that, indeed, she is interested in Kanji romantically and decides to pursue him.

by wooing him in the same way a southern gentleman would a young belle

and Kanji has absolutely no idea what the fuck she's doing

1.

It was Naoto's hat that made Kanji start worrying.

The first time she took it off in front of him, Kanji didn't think much of it. He noticed, of course – noticed her bare temples, the flecks of perspiration that clung there, glowing in the summer heat – but he did not attribute any significance to the gesture.

And how could he be expected to? When she took a seat across from him at Junes, giving him a brief nod and a small smile, it took most of his concentration just to act normal. Natural things, like the amount of eye-contact you were supposed to make when you were talking to someone, seemed complicated and hard to remember all of a sudden.

She held her cap with one hand splayed out across the crown, pressed flat against her chest. Her stubby nails seemed at odds with the long, delicate fingers that they belonged to, masculine and feminine all at once, and it did nothing to help Kanji understand what he wanted from her.

"Good afternoon, Kanji-kun," she said, nodding politely in his direction.

Later, Kanji would not remember the words he answered with. Only the way that she nodded, seemingly satisfied, when he managed to get them out.

It would take almost a week of seeing Naoto's uncovered head before he started to wonder why she always carried her hat around with her if she wasn't going to wear it. Two more days and Kanji realized that Naoto was wearing her hat; she just wasn't wearing it in his presence. Every time he ran into her, she made an obvious point of removing it, even if they were just passing each other on the street. On these occasions she would lift it up as they passed each other, doffing it in his direction.

Kanji understood that taking off your hat in front of other people was supposed to be polite, but there was something about it that he didn't like. Naoto didn't seem too worried about manners when she was with the rest of the team. It seemed stiff and formal – wrong – after everything they'd been through together in the TV world.

The worst part of it was that he'd been getting his hopes up. Up until that point, he'd been starting to think that maybe, just maybe, the two of them were kind of on the same page. She hadn't said anything, exactly, but sometimes, she looked at him, and he felt like she was trying to ask him the same thing he'd been trying to work up the courage to ask her.

And now she was treating him like a stranger.

2.

Kanji had started his second year of high school feeling pretty fired up. After saving the world from a serial killer, a giant rampaging eyeball and an evil goddess, he had this awesome feeling of invincibility. Everything seemed attainable all of a sudden – even good grades.

His enthusiasm started to fade quickly, though, when he found out that Naoto wasn't going to be in his class. Not looking stupid in front of Naoto was a large part of his motivation to do better in school, and without her around, the whole endeavor felt a little bit hollow.

Now that he thought about it, he and Naoto really hadn't been spending as much time together as they did before. It was almost enough to make him miss fighting shadows. At least back then, he and Naoto had been united by a common purpose.

With summer holidays coming up, and Rise about to leave town for some tour or another, Kanji was starting to feel antsy. Without school, without shadows, and without Rise, he feared that Naoto would see no reason to talk to him anymore. He felt like he was trapped a parallel universe, wishing desperately that school would just go on and on.

The days wore on, and his meetings with Naoto were few and far between.

3.

He had Naoto's number. It would be easy enough to pick up the phone, call her, and say, "Hey, Naoto-kun, you wanna hang out this weekend?"

Of course, Kanji had been agonizing over whether or not to call ever since Naoto had first given him her card, back in May. He always found some reason to back out, like, "It's too late at night," or "Naoto has been really busy lately," or (prior to the events that had transpired in September) "I don't like dudes, anyways."

He was saved from his miserable thoughts by a polite knock on his bedroom door.

"Yeah?!" he called.

"Kanji, dear! Do come downstairs! Your friend is here to see you – you know, that nice young man…?"

His mother trailed off, having obviously forgotten the name. Kanji's first thought was of Souji, but Souji hadn't been able to make it for the holidays, this time around. His second thought was of Yosuke… even if he found it rather difficult to put Yosuke and the words, 'nice young man,' together in his head.

Kanji and Yosuke weren't on bad terms, precisely speaking, but there had always been a sense of unease about their friendship. It was rare for either one of them to seek out the other for company, and even then, they really only hung around at school, when circumstance brought them together.

Something had to be going on, for Yosuke to show up at his house out of the blue. And, in his experience, 'something else' usually turned out to be something bad.

With no more than a gruff, "Out of my way, ma!" Kanji barreled out of his room like he'd just been fired out of a canon. Had he continued at that speed all the way down the stairs, his trajectory would have carried him all the way out into the storefront, but his feet slowed when he caught sight of one conspicuously hatless head, framed in the fading light of the afternoon. He lost momentum, and came to a halt at the base of the last step.

It was easy to see how his mother had gotten confused. Naoto had elected to wear a cream coloured jacket, complete with shirt and tie. It made her back look a little broader, a little more masculine. Her hat was nowhere to be seen. When she heard his footsteps, she turned away from the storefront window to greet him with a slight smile.

"Good evening, Kanji-kun," she said.

That was, of course, Kanji's cue to say something back.

4.

Naoto cleared her throat.

"Kanji-kun," she said, all formal again, "If you would be so inclined, I thought perhaps you might grace me with your company, this evening."

"So… uh…" It took a moment for Kanji to get his thoughts back in order. "This ain't got nothing to do with shadows?"

The look on Naoto's face – surprise, followed by uncertainty – made him feel a little bit self-conscious. He'd asked a stupid question. Naoto wouldn't come over looking all fancy if she was expecting to get into a fight.

"Well, no." She frowned a bit. "I… well… I understand if you'd rather not…"

It was at that moment that Mrs. Tatsumi saved them both. At some point she had (in her quiet way) followed her wayward son down the stairs, just in time to surprise both of them with a soft-spoken interjection.

"Why, my Kanji would be delighted to go. Wouldn't you dear?"

His mother gave him an encouraging pat on the arm, nudging him just firmly enough that he was forced to take the last step down. Normally, Kanji would have protested such a display of affection in front of a friend, but he was still feeling slightly disarmed.

"Oh," said Kanji, and then, through a tremendous effort, he managed to add, "Um. Yeah."

He must have said the right thing, because Naoto looked greatly relieved by his words. She nodded to him, and then turned to address his mother politely.

"I'll have him back by nine o'clock. You have my word."

"Thank you, dear. You boys have fun, now."

Kanji was mortified by her error.

"Knock it off, ma!"

Feeling slightly hysterical, he looked at Naoto, expecting her to be offended. On the contrary, her wry little smile suggested that she might actually be pleased by the error.

"That's quite all right," she told both of them, turning to look Kanji in the eye. "Shall we?"

The girl who looked like a boy took two steps back, and opened the sliding door behind her, looking at him expectantly.

"S-sure. I mean, yeah!"

At last, Kanji felt like he was gaining some momentum. The trick now was to keep it going. He just needed to keep moving, keeping talking, and try not to think too much about how loud or how quiet he was being, or what kind of faces he was making, or what his hair looked like right now. Better to do something, even if he wound up looking stupid, in the end.

Steeling his courage, Kanji stepped past her, through the door and out into the night.

5.

It was only just starting to get dark when they left Kanji's place. A few years back, the shopping district would have been packed at this hour, but ever since Junes had opened, most people had stopped shopping. Kanji wasn't too worried - Tatsumi Textiles would hold its own – but the quiet atmosphere made him feel pressured to keep the conversation going.

The obvious questions all seemed too stupid to ask. He could just imagine the look on Naoto's face if he voiced them out loud.

Where are we going? Is this a date? Do you even like guys?

The detective prince stayed slightly in front of him, forcing Kanji to shorten his usually long strides or risk bowling her over. It was strangely reminiscent of the first time she'd invited him out. He hadn't been sure what to expect back then, either, but he'd followed her anyways, hulking along behind her like a big, black shadow; a blight upon the otherwise sunny backdrop of the Samegawa River Bank. He'd misinterpreted her intentions then – she'd taken him for a walk around the park, dammit, how was he supposed to know it was a friggin' interrogation – and he had no doubt that he was missing something this time around, too.

"Seersucker," he said at last.

To which Naoto replied, "Excuse me?"

"Your jacket. It's seersucker. Good for summer. S'good choice."

Kanji was already feeling stupid before the words were all the way out of his mouth. Trust him to pull out his random textile shop knowledge on a first date. (If they were, indeed, on a date, which he had yet to confirm.) All in all: very suave.

"Oh…" Naoto looked down at herself momentarily, as if she'd quite forgotten what she was wearing that day. It was unlikely; Naoto had a head for details, and Kanji knew that she put great care and effort into her attire. "Thank you." She didn't seem to know where to take the conversation from there.

"So…" he tried for something else. "Where're we headed?"

Naoto gestured a ways down the road.

"I thought you might like to go to Aiya," she said. "You're a frequent customer, is that not correct?"

There was no point worrying about how she knew; Naoto was observant to begin with, and she'd already confessed to investigating him and the team long before she herself had joined their cause. There was no point in getting all flattered about it, either. The fact that she remembered a few stupid details about the stuff he liked didn't mean anything.

"Dinner?" Kanji had already eaten. "Sure, that sounds good."

He thought it would be a good idea to cross the road – faster that way – but when he stepped off the curb, Naoto made a little noise of distress and grabbed at his elbow. Kanji froze on instinct (she was touching him) and narrowly missed getting clipped by a moving car.

"Shit!" he exclaimed. Seeing Naoto's alarmed expression, he felt a fresh wave of embarrassment wash over him. "Uh, sorry."

"No…" said Naoto, "I should have…"

She stopped. Looked at him.

Kanji wasn't sure how to analyze that one. The near-miss had him on edge; every time he messed up in front of Naoto, he couldn't help the niggling fear that this was going to be it: the final act that convinced her that he was a complete and utter moron. If she didn't already think so. Sometimes he got the idea that Naoto had half an eye on him all the time, like she was just waiting for him to screw up. Hadn't she always kept an eye on him on the TV World, too?

"What?" he said. It came out more like a bark.

"Nothing," she told him, but when he made to cross the road a second time, she kept an arm out behind him, as if to herd him towards their destination. She didn't touch him, but she was so close that he could almost feel her proximity, the slim fingertips that hovered dangerously close to the small of his back.

Perhaps it was nothing more than his imagination, but when the two of them mounted the curb on the opposite side, Kanji could have sworn that Naoto made a point of ushering him towards the building side of the sidewalk, deliberately placing herself between his body and the street.

6.

Naoto had always been pretty courteous, so Kanji didn't think much of it when she zipped ahead and opened the door to Aiya for him. Naoto extended a certain gallantry to everyone she met - that was just her way. Kanji's delinquent punk-ass had never been any exception.

The inside of Aiya was heavily air-conditioned and Kanji couldn't have been more grateful. The heat outside was enough to make him all sweaty on a regular day. With Naoto around, the effect was amplified, and in the short span of time it had taken to walk down the road to the diner, he'd already started to perspire through his clothes.

Naoto was already charging towards the nearest empty table, determined to snipe it before anyone else. Her small size made it easy for her to maneuver through the tight maze of tables and grab hold of one of the empty chairs.

It took Kanji a bit longer to get through the crowd. He was big and broad and he was in the habit of carrying himself in such a way that he took up as much space as possible. People generally moved out of his way when they saw him coming, but the furniture was less obliging.

He was half way to the seat on the opposite side of the table when Naoto spoke up.

"Kanji…" she was still standing up, with her hands on the backrest of her chair. He could see that she was holding it tightly, a faint blush on her cheeks. "You can sit here if you like."

The sound of wood scraping over linoleum seemed impossibly loud as she drew her arms back, pulling the seat out from under the table. Naoto looked at him, and smiled slightly. That little smile that had given Kanji hope for themso many times before.

There were curious eyes on them now, drawn by the noise or, perhaps, by the strange sight of what appeared to be one boy pulling out a chair for another.

Kanji knew it shouldn't bother him. It was such a small thing. It didn't mean anything – or it shouldn't, not to anyone else, anyways. But people in Inaba didn't need much fuel to get a new rumour started. The gossips around town were starved for material, and willing to jump on just about anything.

"S'okay," he said, trying to hide his embarrassment. "I got it."

He seated himself on the opposite side of the table, pretending not to notice that he'd left Naoto looking a bit flustered. It was just a little thing. He was overthinking it.

"Well," Naoto moved around the chair she'd pulled out with as much dignity as possible. "What would you like?"

"I can get it," he said, quickly. Naoto wasn't the only one around here with manners. "What do you want?"

"No, I must insist," Naoto was adamant. "You like the liver-leek stir fry, don't you?"

Kanji gave up.

"Yeah, that's fine."

Naoto seemed to be satisfied by his response.

"I'll only be a moment," she told him, weaving her way back through the crowd, this time in the direction of the restaurant's front counter. At one of the other tables, a group of Yasogami first-years burst into a fit of giggles. Kanji didn't like the way they were looking at him.

"What're you laughin' at!?" he challenged them, slamming both fists down onto the table. Everyone in the diner fell silent, turning towards the source of the clatter. Everyone including Naoto.

"You got something you want to say to me?!"

The kids at the other table were on their feet in an instant, tripping all over the other customers on their way out the door. Kanji had that effect on a lot of people.

People stared as the brutish looking teenager sat back down in his chair. He didn't want to think about their eyes on him so he closed his own and forced himself to lean back in his chair. His breath hissed out of him, like steam, all one big frustrated whoosh.

He didn't know what his problem was. So what if people thought that he and Naoto were on a date. Hadn't he been hoping that was what it was, up until only a moment ago?

A dull thud pulled him away from his thoughts, and he looked up to see his escort for the evening setting a bowl of noodles down on the table. She slid it across the table soundlessly, moving to sit down across from him.

"Well," she said, "this could have gone better."

7.

Naoto was wearing that wry little smile of hers again only, this time, it seemed false. Kanji had only seen that expression on her face once before. It had looked wrong to him then, too, ugliness exposed beneath the hot white light of a surgical examination light.

I won't throw a tantrum, she'd said, then, and Kanji had almost wished that she would. Because even after everything they'd been through together, he still didn't have the slightest clue how to decipher her thoughts.

Was she mad at him? Fed up, finally?

"Naoto, I'm really-

"It's alright," Naoto cut him off with a quiet word. She still hadn't so much as glanced in his direction. "I'm the one who needs to apologize. I've embarrassed you."

He startled at that.

"No. That ain't it," he told her – or tried to.

"It's fine," Naoto studied her chopsticks. "I know that I'm not the most… conventional person when it comes t-

"I said that ain't it!" Kanji banged his fist down on the table again. That was enough to get Naoto to look him in the eye, finally, but it also completely overturned his bowl of stir-fry, sloshing meat and sauce all across the table.

"Shit!"Kanji swore when half the meal ended up in his lap. He stood up, knocking his chair over in the process – "Shit!" – and grabbed for a fistful of napkins off the table.

He would never admit it out loud, but he'd spent hours sewing those jeans together. You couldn't just buy punk-ass shit like that in Inaba…

But the state of his jeans was the least of his worries. Naoto was finally looking at him again (him and the sad puddle that was all that remained of his meal) and he felt like an even bigger asshole than ever.

She sighed. Stood up.

"This was a bad idea," she said. "I'm sorry. Maybe we should go."

Kanji tried to think of something to say, something to salvage the situation.

"I'm sorry," he tried again. "Look. Let me pay."

But Naoto only shook her head. The disappointment rolled off of her in waves.

"There's no need for that," she said. "You should go get cleaned up. I'll settle up here."

8.

Kanji spent a long time leaning on the edge of the sink, staring at cracked bathroom tile that lined the countertop. He'd done his best to clean up, but he still didn't want to look at himself in the mirror.

Time stretched on, and Kanji tried to summon up the right words to greet Naoto with when he emerged from hiding. Communication had never been his strong suit (his shadow was proof of that) but he knew what he had to say. He was sure of his own feelings, and he was perceptive enough that he thought he knew what Naoto was going through, too.

What it came down to was vocabulary. Getting it across, somehow.

When he finally made his uncomfortable way back out into the restaurant, Naoto was waiting for him at the front door, frowning down at tiled floor. She'd never been one to make a show of her emotions, but right then, she looked about as miserable as he felt, plodding over to meet her and trying not to grimace at the feeling of his still sticky jeans clinging to his skin.

"Hey," he said.

Naoto glanced up, unfolded her arms and tucked her hands into her pockets.

"Hey." She looked back down at the floor again. Then she said, "I'll walk you home. If that's alright?"

"Yeah," said Kanji. He knew that he was probably past the point of salvaging the situation, but he had to give it a shot, anyways. "Listen, we don't have to just call it off. I don't want to call it off."

That was enough to get Naoto's attention back on him, and he felt the usual push and pull of emotions that went through him whenever she looked his way. He could never decide whether or not to bask in the attention or hide from it.

"You don't mind?" she asked.

The weight of all of those eyes in the room felt heavier than ever and a faint tickle of embarrassment warmed his cheeks, but he made himself look her straight in the eye, when he said it.

"No," he said. "I don't."

9.

Kanji didn't know if it was the mirror, the lighting, or his change of clothes that made the difference, but when he checked his reflection in his room, he suddenly felt a whole lot better about the way he looked.

Naoto was waiting for him on the back porch. She'd removed her jacket and now held it slung over one arm, looking smaller and softer in the pale light of the moon than Kanji could remember seeing her in a good long while. She smiled a little when she saw him; a tentative smile. He'd seen it on her face so many times, and he'd just figured it was his imagination, or optimism.

"I'm sorry," they both said the words at the same time, and then laughed, nervously, looking either way.

"Sorry," said Kanji again. When Naoto gestured for him to speak he shook his head. "Nah. You go."

The tiny detective nodded, looking solemn, all of a sudden.

"I really am sorry if I made you uncomfortable today," she said.

"You didn't -"

Naoto put up a hand. "Just! Hold on a second. Hear me out." When Kanji made no move to interrupt, she shifted her stance, placing a hand on her hip.

"I've been thinking about what I want to say and… I've always had a bit of difficulty connecting with other people," she admitted. "When I was growing up, my grandfather raised me to follow a certain code of etiquette… but as I'm sure you've gathered, the theories I've learned are only so helpful in practice.

"In retrospect, I think my grandfather was trying to deter me from this path. Insisting that I be tutored on the ways of 'gentlemanly conduct' was probably more of a joke than anything. But I saw it as a challenge, and so naturally I went along with it. And I guess I started to develop certain habits…"

She was blushing now, in earnest. Somewhere along the line she'd caught Kanji's eyes, and he could feel an answering heat rising up in his own face too.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that I… when I do things that might make you feel… well… It's not my intention to make you uncomfortable. I just… I really don't know how else to win your affections. This… may not be the right approach, but as a woman, I see no recourse. I don't know how to… I can't bring myself to… to bat my eyelashes and swoon."

Though she was still red in the face, Naoto's gaze took on an almost defiant hardness as she spoke. She squared her shoulders, ready to face his judgement.

"Nobody wants you to swoon!" Kanji said, his tone defensive. He wished immediately that he'd said something better, but it was too late to do anything but plunge on ahead.

"Look, Naoto, you've got it wrong. You don't make me uncomfortable. I make me uncomfortable. I embarrass myself with all this stupid shit! And it's my problem. The whole reason I like you in the first place is because you're… well. You're different. And… okay, yeah, I worry that liking you for that might make me some kinda... But that's my problem. You know? You ain't gotta apologize. And… you ain't gotta stop, neither. I don't want you to."

The tiny detective remained still, and for a moment, Kanji worried that he'd insulted her. But then she took a step closer to him, wearing that keen expression that she did when she was onto something.

"What about your reputation?" she asked, smiling slightly, gaining confidence.

Kanji knows he's smiling too, and as her face turns up his tilts down to meet it, only he has to lean down really far because she's not half as tall as she somehow makes herself out to be.

"I can do without my reputation."