mazeofrelationships | Naoto

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Naoto - Post Canon

Inaba is a quiet town now that the fog's gone. Yasogami is still the strangest school this side of Gekkoukan, and Junes is still a thread to some for its mere existence. However, things are looking up. The shopping district is gaining stores, current stores are revitalized, and the town is coming back into itself. Tokyo, on the other hand, is bustling. College students and workers alike run around the city like ants in an anthill. The seedier side of the city is also out in force, and as with any large city, crime is rampant. [OOC post for interacting with Naoto post-canon. Any set-up is fine, as well as any assumed relationship. College, post-college, still at Yasogami, anything goes! If you have a generic timeperiod, and want a starter, let me know. I can work with it.]

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Times like these, Claudia really wishes she was better with foreign languages. She's limping along, but Myka's off pursuing another leg of the case and it's next to impossible to get anything useful out of people alone. (Don't think she doesn't know what 'gaijin' means, guys, she's trying here.)

And while this may be small potatoes compared to the truly deadly ones, people's tattoos slowly turning into a list of their crimes? Not so great, actually.

She's just... going to boggle at the fact that the Japanese have bunny cafes, and enjoy a little cute while she waits for Myka and tries to get her head back together.

Naoto was coming into the cafe to wait for Kanji to get out of his last class, and she sits down at a table, letting a specific bunny up into her lap.

"Hello, Sherlock. One of these days, you're not going to let me leave without taking you home, are you? Silly bun." She pulls a textbook out of her bag and starts reading through it.

...That kid looks familiar. Why does that kid look familiar. (Now that's a mystery Claudia can actually handle, today.)

"Sherlock, huh?"

"I did not even name him." Naoto smiles, petting the bunny behind the ears. "He has taken rather a liking to me. Perhaps some kind of kindred soul. If rabbits even have that."

"Who knows. Why call him a kindred spirit just because of the name, though?"

...Or is it just because of the name? She could swear the face is familiar, to say nothing of the hat, just... not in person.

God donut this is going to get annoying.

Edited 2015-10-31 03:55 (UTC)

"I am a detective. While he is a rabbit and likely could not deduce his way out of a maze of leafy vegetables, he does have the name of a great detective."

Naoto smiles again as the bunny nuzzles her hand happily. Looking over at the woman, she shakes her head and switches to English.

"Your Japanese is not bad. Slightly shaky, but much better than some of my classmates' English."

"Really? Nice." And for once, Naoto, someone's not telling you you're too young to be a detective. Savor this moment.

She tries not to be too obvious in her relief at the language switch, but it's probably obvious to someone this observant anyway. "Seriously? I've always kinda sucked at languages if they're not programming languages."

Oh she does. There's an amused look on her face for a moment before she laughs.

"Those are still languages as well, ones that many people never even try to master, let alone succeed. What are you doing in Tokyo, if I might ask?"

Claudia sighs. "Work thing. It's... not going very well."

"My apologies. What is it that you do? Is there a language or cultural barrier? I could perhaps attempt to help a bit."

"It's... we retrieve dangerous objects." The simplest explanation is the best one to go with, and if she's talking to a detective, the whole thing's liable to come out sooner or later. Might as well lay good groundwork.

"So it's hard to get people to admit something weird's happening in the first place, there's the language thing, about the only word I'm sure of half the time is 'gaijin,' and people are even more reluctant to talk about their tattoos than usual when their tattoos are turning into a list of their crimes."

Especially when 'tattoos' apparently tend to mean 'criminal underworld' to begin with. Who knew.

"You're looking into that?" Naoto sits up sharply, and Sherlock squeaks in her lap. "I am as well, actually. My aunt called me in on the matter. I have not been able to make much headway, unfortunately. There is no connection between either the tattoos themselves or the artists who have created them."

She pauses, thinking. "This does not happen to be the kind of dangerous objects that are centered in South Dakota, does it?"

"...Okay, now I get why your grandfather said to look you up if we got stuck." Look, it didn't make any sense at first and she doesn't ask Regents what their families do.

"Why'd your aunt call you in on it?"

Naoto glances around, and stands up, keeping Sherlock in her hands, and goes over to sit at the other woman's table.

"My aunt is one of the top members of the Yakuza. She does not like that her people are being harmed in this way, and she believed that I could help find out what is going on."

Claudia snorts. "That's gotta make for some awkward family reunions." There's no judgment, though. Ho can she, when she got her own job by way of kidnapping a federal agent?

"That does raise a question, though. Is it just her people being affected? The source of this stupid whammy is somewhere, it can be found and stopped, and if you've already ruled out tattoo shops and artists..."

"We could ask her. I know where she generally is." Naoto pulls a paper out of her bag and scribbles a quick note in Japanese, then tucks it in Sherlock's collar: Had to leave for a case. Let's just take this little bun home already. I think the owner's been thinking we will for weeks. I love you.

Standing, she smiles. "Shall we go?"

"Ah, the fabled Japanese carrier rabbit." Despite the joke, Claudia stands as well. "Sure. We'll take any lead we can get, right now."

"Kanji knows this rabbit, so he'll get the message."

Naoto pulls out her wallet and leaves some yen on the table, and nods, leading Claudia out of the cafe, and onto the street, hailing a cab, and announcing an address.

Once they're settled, she turns. "I don't believe I caught your name, even though you seem to know mine."

"Kanji? Please tell me he's not named after a writing system." Seriously, that would just be weird.

Says the girl from the country where 'Moon Unit' was accepted as a name.

"Oh, right. Claudia Donovan. Good to meetcha. Your grandfather has a lot to say about you - all good, I just wasn't sure why he said to call you if we got stumped."

Perhaps one of the few times Alcuin is rather... less than graceful: when he is sprawled over the futon quite asleep. Small mercy that he doesn't snore. At the moment he has one of their criminology textbooks open on his chest and given the hour, it's likely that he fell asleep waiting for her to come home from her internship. But whatever the reason, he's certainly asleep, and he is going to have an incredible crick in his neck in the morning if he keeps that up.

Naoto is late, but this is not unusual. Quietly, she pads into the bedroom, and shakes her head, reaching over and picking up the textbook, marking it carefully, and putting it on a desk before returning to him.

"Alcuin? I'm home. And you might want to change your position. That will hurt in the morning."

He stirs, humming a soft interrogative before opening his eyes and smiling up at her. "Naoto..." He always says it like that when she comes home late. Low and sweet, like a grateful prayer. He reaches up to brush his fingers across her wrist, shifting enough that she could sit down if she wants to.

"Did you make any progress?" Work and accomplishments and unwinding come first. Let her celebrate her triumphs and bounce ideas off of him and vent her frustrations. Then he can make sure he's not lying on that book and figure out where he put his cell phone. And see if she's in the mood for lazy indulgent kisses.

Almost relieved, she sits beside him, reaching out to take his hand gently. Their soft touches always ground her and help her to calm down and think sometimes.

"Some, but not enough. A couple of the police officers I am working with are extremely stubborn and not listening to much of anything."

She shakes her head. "However, we did realize that there was one witness we needed to re-interview, so there is that at least."

He presses her hand and blinks the sleep from his eyes, becoming more awake by the moment. "They'll see. They've seen the reports - your results. They'll come around. You got them to recognize one mistake. Others will follow."

Lifting her hand, he turns it over and places a light kiss in her open palm, closing her fingers over it. "Take it with you," he'd said the first time he did that, back when they had first begun tentatively going out, "for luck." Now he doesn't need to say it. It's become its own shorthand for love and care and support in all that they do. They're in this together, and he'll do what he can to help.

New year and the start of his second year of university. Honestly, Yosuke is amazed he managed his way through his first two semesters without flunking out. Sure he was hovering on average after two less than spectacular semesters in the business department, but he was looking to get his third started with a little more oomph. His senpai said this was the semester the business classes started getting a little meatier. He had more of his general requirements out of the way and that made room for an extra business class. A class that sounded interesting in the course catalog and he'd been looking forward to all break.

Except as he walks in the door there's a student that shouldn't be in the class and he's confused. He hasn't picked up his books yet. The university is usually on top of things about book lists but sometimes especially in those first few days of the semester, he's learned there can be some hiccups. Book orders were out of date or they ran out of copies in the bookstore. Or something was added last minute and it was going to be the first book you needed. Either way he had held off until he had all his syllabi for the semester in hand.

But that didn't explain Naoto sitting in the room. Surrounded by a bunch of fresh faced kids that he didn't recognize. There should have been at least one face he knew. He'd registered in the same section as a couple members of his cohort in the business department, but they weren't there not even Takahashi and he was punctual to the point that it put Yu to shame. All the while he's standing in the doorway staring at Naoto and finally it dawns on him to check his schedule. Building 8, room 367; he checks the plate over the door, it's the right room.

Okay, he's just going to have to ask because he doesn't get it. "Hey Naoto." He greets sauntering over and taking up the seat next to her. "How'd you end up in my Business Ethics class?"

Naoto, honestly, has been trying to avoid the kids around her. As usual, they cannot seem to stop squeeing over the fact that they're in a class with the Detective Prince. Yosuke's entrance makes her sigh deeply, and smile a bit. Thank everything that there's someone sensible here. Or at least as sensible as Yosuke ever gets.

"Business Ethics?" She looks over at him, curiously, confused herself. "This is Intro to Criminology."

A pause as she pulls out her schedule. "At least, it is supposed to be. I could have made an error. Good to see you anyway."

He's plenty sensible. She has to admit he's shaped up quite a bit since she first met him. Still a goof but less foot in mouth and he's actually taken to trying to study like a normal person. He even takes pride in the work he puts out instead of just churning out homework assignments mindlessly or just not doing them.

He frowns. But he was in the right room. And again he focuses on the print out from this morning with his courses and their room assignments printed in clear dark ink. All the information for his classes right in front of him, and then one heading jumps out at him: course title. And next to Intro to Criminology.

"I think I made a mistake when I registered last semester." He puts his schedule down on the desk and starts digging in his pocket for his cell phone to navigate to the course catalog for the course number for the class he meant to take. He has a suspicion on what happened and he's going to be so annoyed with himself.

She absolutely knows that he's getting better, but she still teases him slightly about it. There's a little bit of payback involved for his teasing when she first went to Yasogami.

At this moment, she shakes her head, a tiny smile on her face. "Did you switch around a couple numbers, Senpai? I have not checked the business class codes, but that is likely what happened."

There is the tiniest flash of expression on her face, something that might be disappointment. "It is still within the window that you can switch classes, I believe."

Alls fair in friendship and war right? He'd be pretty pathetic if he couldn't take a little teasing anyway. Granted he sort of preferred her brand of teasing to Yu's flat out trolling.

"Yeah." He'd been so sure the numbers were right too. He must have flipped or transposed one when he copied it down so he could register during the beginning of his window instead of toward the end like first semester.

He's already clicking through pages of the school website to fix it. Thumb poised over the button to register for the class when he looks up at Naoto. His brows drawing down at the middle in confusion. He didn't expect her to look so put off at the prospect of him fixing his schedule so he'd be in the right class. With a shrug he snaps his phone closed and puts it away, he could fix it after class if he didn't like what he heard. "I can fix it later."

She shakes her head, highly confused. "No, you should likely switch now. The class that you meant to be in will likely fill up, and then you'll be stuck with these imbeciles."

The last bit is said much quieter as she waves a hand at the crowd around her, now distracted by something else.

"I swear, they all heard I was taking this class and switched to it." Yes, she's extremely exasperated.

"I think it'll be fine for one lecture. It isn't like this class is hours long, and first ones usually go pretty quick." He grins at her, "Or are you trying to shove me out the door?"

Why else would she call the rest of the class imbeciles if not to send him running from the room hurriedly registering for the right class?

"I doubt it. Not like first semester students have a lot of control over their schedules without special permission from their department heads." Ah no worries they don't look like they're that bad.

"Certainly not!" Her eyes widen, a bit shocked. "I wouldn't push you out at all, Senpai. I was just trying to save you some frustration and a waste of time. I, unfortunately, was not able to test out of this class." And that was a bit of a sore spot.

"I guess you're right." She makes a face. "I am perhaps extra-prickly today. Ten people asked me out, and four asked for my autograph."

[Lyserg's happy to be in Japan not on a case or... any of that other business he occasionally gets dragged into.

Inaba isn't the place most people would consider going to for vacation, and... honestly, Lyserg likes that. Small towns like those are a nice break from a big city like London. It's a nice day that sees him wandering the shopping district, although he's... currently absorbed in a book as he walks. Dumb idea to be sure, especially when he nearly collides with someone--he slams the book shut afterward.] I'm sorry! I should have been watching where I was going!

[Naoto was on her way to meet Kanji at Aiya for some lunch when she was bumped into, dropping the book that was in her own hands. She's startled, but not necessarily angry at the intrusion.]

It is not a problem. There are not many people here at this time of the afternoon, but you should watch out anyway.

[Lyserg crouches and picks up the dropped book, offering it to Naoto with a sheepish smile.]

Normally I'm a lot better about this kind of thing, I just got really absorbed in this book... I'm truly sorry.

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Naoto - Post Canon

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College Criminology Students/secret Persona users/relationship built on mutual respect

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