A/N: This is an older fic, a response to a meme prompt requesting a truly gender-dysphoric Naoto.

Warning - some triggering content ahead (gender issues, disordered eating). Also a bit of Kanji/Naoto, in case that's not your thing.

All it takes is practice. A specific set of routines. It's finely crafted - and more unstable than he'd ever admit - but it works.

Given time and diligence a performance can reach near-perfection, and Naoto is a consummate professional. There are certain aspects that present a challenge: his height, his frame, a voice that has yet to (will never) break. That's fine. Every problem has a solution. And he's taken cues from every place his services were required; observed what worked, what didn't, what caused questions formed as jokes. Since he arrived in Inaba, nobody's thought Naoto to be anything other than the boy prince.

Perhaps his age is a distraction, though he would prefer to think that wasn't the reason. He congratulates himself on his success instead; each unasked question another victory. Combined, they almost make up for the moment, every single night, when he takes off the bindings and remembers precisely who (and what) Naoto Shirogane really is.

Almost.

By October, there's no need to remember, because everybody knows.

He's sold out by himself, which is oddly fitting. Sprawled on the floor of the Secret Base - an intricate construct tying neatly into a few of his other insecurities - Naoto almost laughs.

"Naoto-kun was a girl?" Satonaka asks incredulously. He'd genuinely convinced her. Later, he'll try (and fail) to take consolation in this.

Explanations are impossible - he doesn't have the language - so he delivers the sanitized version. Women aren't taken seriously in the police force, his internalized heroes were men, the ideal detective is a rugged male. It's all true yet only tells half the story - but everyone nods, believing they understand. He doesn't begrudge them that. The Amagi girl even tries to make him feel better, which is kind of her, Naoto thinks, swallowing the urge to scream.

After all, he did have them convinced. He made them see things the way they should be.

Except Seta. Seta, he suspects, might have known all along, because he doesn't seem the slightest bit surprised. He looks at Naoto with something close to pity instead - and that's far worse, when Naoto has more than enough for himself.

Mentally swapping pronouns no longer works, not when everyone around her uses the opposite. Illusions are fragile by nature, particularly for a rationalist and particularly when there is nothing to serve as a distraction.

Naoto has been in bed for a week now, feverish and barely able to stand. Kujikawa and the Tatsumi boy (whom she can barely bring herself to look at) visit her and explain this is normal. The same happened to them. Naoto has no reason to worry.

What were their Shadows like, she asks. Thinking, maybe they were ripped inside out too.

Kujikawa evades the question with the easy charm of a professional, while Tatsumi simply looks away in silence; suggesting that they were. Everyone has their issues. Naoto tells herself this on a regular basis.

Amagi and Seta also visit, two days later. Amagi's still terribly nice. Naoto looks at her - elegant, cross-legged, soft voice and softer gestures - and realizes there are some things she will never understand.

Seta says little. Amagi talks enough for them both, and he stands silent at her side, watching Naoto carefully.

The beauty contest is excruciating. Naoto spent ten minutes in the boys' bathroom beforehand throwing up her lunch. Chie eventually sent Kanji in to pull her out; insisted that Naoto could do it, it wasn't difficult, just get up on a stage for a few lousy minutes.

Easy.

Bright lights and whistles are about all she remembers. That, and trying to think of something to say at the microphone that amounted to more than a stuttered mess. But she did well, she thinks, at least until the second phase. Naoto can't imagine many things worse than a boy being forced to stand onstage in women's swimwear - but it's all in the way people see things. And for now, she is a girl. At only sixteen there's still been room for years of narrowing, compromising. Compression. A scaling back of expectations.

Naoto bolted nonetheless. She's back in the bathroom now, washing her face and trying to scrub off the small amount of makeup Rise and Yukiko insisted she wear. A girl in a boy's uniform stares back at her from the mirror and Naoto runs her fingers down the glass.

Won the contest too. Miss Yasogami High, 2011. Most beautiful girl in the school.

Her skin feels too taut yet too soft, and she holds her hands under the water till they wrinkle and fold.

At least there's the case. Naoto's always been good at pushing things to the back of her mind when they aren't relevant to the matter at hand. It might explain her tendency towards obsession.

However, without audience participation the illusion becomes untenable. She's just Naoto-kun, the girl who dresses as a boy. Consequently, certain things - the curves she tries to hide, the shake in her voice, the once monthly reminder that leaves her sick to her stomach - can't be ignored, not anymore. She can't hide in the ability to pass as a boy. To match up with what she - he - is, even if only to outsiders.

Naoto briefly considered asking people to refer to her as male, as before. It would help. It would also appear eccentric at best and ridiculous at worst. People wouldn't understand and there are already too many barriers, countless reasons the authorities devise to push her aside. Besides, words alone offer limited consolation. Naoto will still think like a man in the form of a woman - and she'll still go home at night, look in the mirror and find it impossible to reconcile the two.

Rise lets it slip one afternoon, walking home from school. Tells Naoto that Kanji had such a crush on her earlier in the year, even though he thought she was a boy (and Naoto tries to ignore the was). Still likes her now and she's apparently a total dummy for not noticing.

Naoto isn't sure what to make of that at all - or of Kanji himself. Perhaps he just can't make up his mind, she thinks - then realizes people would probably assume the same of her.

She has no right to claim an understanding of his motives. She also has no interest in romantic entanglements of any sort. They interrupt her work - and Naoto knows she can't be what any boy or girl would want, not really. Still, when Kanji tries to stutter his way through another awkward conversation she does her best to listen, and not just to what he's saying.

There aren't enough distractions. There can't be, not even with the case.

Naoto-kun the not-quite-boy can neither handle the contradictions nor pretend they don't exist. People refer to her as a girl and in turn she does too. Changing that is impossible. The Detective Prince becomes a Princess, but that's still better than the damage she'd do by asking otherwise. The police are intolerant enough at present.

Necessity, however, does not make something easier to stomach. When she leaves Inaba she'll be male again - but in the meantime, living this way is rapidly proving impossible. Something has to change. She can fix herself.

Himself, Naoto thinks, more firmly than ever.

"I swear, Naoto-kun, you never eat." Rise sits opposite him at the food court table, midway through demolishing another pack of Kanji's animal crackers. Naoto wishes they'd find another meeting place.

He briefly considers staying silent - but she appears to be expecting a response. "Of course I do." He shivers and shrinks down into his coat; November's far too cold to be sitting outside.

"Well, I never see it. And you're skinny," Rise points out, jabbing a finger in his direction. "Maybe too much." A pause, then a smile. "Though maybe I'm just jealous. The record company's gonna be livid when I come back all fat."

Naoto turns the conversation around, tells Rise she has nothing to worry about. She's slim and pretty. It isn't healthy for a girl to be too thin.

Rise looks at him for a long moment. Then she shrugs.

In the end, Naoto's defeated by himself (as always), because it's impossible for her to ignore the irrationality of her approach.

There is a scientific basis, of course. She wouldn't pursue it otherwise. With the loss in body mass, her chest becomes easier to bind and her curves less pronounced. Menstruation also ceases and Naoto no longer spends five days out of every month swallowing down acidic panic. It's possible to keep this at a sustainable level, for now - but it is not possible to delude herself completely. The attempt is irresponsible, and solves nothing.

Naoto - always rational - recognizes that there are certain things that will never be true. Or sometimes they are both true and false. She's male. He isn't. He never will be. She always has been.

He's a girl and she's a boy. It's about degrees of truth. Which, unfortunately, are relative.

Naoto is standing in the boys' bathroom at school when someone walks in.

He turns around to see Kanji - whom he's been talking with on occasion, or attempting to, though neither of them quite speak the right language.

"Yo, Naoto," he says. "You okay?"

Naoto glares. Asks, why wouldn't he be?

"Just. I dunno. You look...y'know, tired." Kanji rubs the back of his neck. "You should eat more, s'good for energy."

"Thank you for your concern," Naoto says, and leaves it at that.

Kanji stands there for another ten seconds, awkward and bewildered. Eventually he gives up and leaves the bathroom. Naoto watches him go, then watches himself in the mirror. Wide blue-grey eyes, soft skin, barely five feet tall without the shoes. Never changes.

He turns on the faucet just for some sound and holds a hand up against the bright overhead light. The skin seems almost translucent. The fingers, of course, are too small.

Naoto leans her head against the mirror and swallows hard.

November offers up three long weeks of complete distraction; three weeks where Naoto spends remarkably little time thinking about anything other than Namatame and what they need to do to reach him. It's wrong to think of the affair in such a way, of course. Naoto is genuinely horrified that Nanako was taken, for both Souji's sake and Nanako herself - but she simply takes her consolation where she can.

When the team pulls them both out, the case is over. Nanako's comatose in the hospital, five doors down from Namatame, and even if there are certain questions that still trouble them - questions Naoto isn't quite sharp enough to answer, not lately - they've captured the murderer.

The case is closed. She's free to go.

She just isn't sure it would make a difference.

"You gonna leave? Now it's all over?" Kanji asks her, when they're sitting in the hospital waiting room one late November evening.

"Perhaps," Naoto says, and can't quite look him in the eye.

Except it isn't over. Souji's the one to assemble all the pieces, and Naoto thinks, it should have been me- but it's been hard to think about anything lately.

They confront Adachi, who fills in the gaps they couldn't, but they cannot prevent his escape into the television. Unanimously, the team agrees to pursue him through Magatsu Inaba. Doing so will require a solid strategy, and over the following week Souji and Naoto meet in Aiya on a daily basis - something that appears to bother Kanji to a remarkable extent - to discuss preparations.

Adachi is a more intelligent man than she ever suspected. There was no reason to suspect him; three months working together and Naoto never glimpsed the shadows lurking beneath. Adachi - the culprit, the murderer - seemed nothing more than a perfectly incompetent junior detective.

The nature of the illusion may be different, but the jealousy is no less bitter on her tongue.

On the way out of Aiya, into a December snow that's half lost in the fog, Souji grabs her forearm and circles it with his fingers.

He looks at his hand, then at Naoto. "You know you can't keep doing this."

Naoto pulls back and turns away.

"I'm not going to pretend I understand. And I'm really sorry we found out." His hand grips her shoulder, gently this time. "But I need you at your best. Please."

Irresponsible, Naoto reminds herself. Souji - and the team and the case - deserves better. The required apology remains wedged somewhere in her throat.

"I won't let you down," she finally manages.

Souji lets out a breath. His hand drops from her shoulder. "Or yourself."

Kanji corners her on the roof at lunch, several days after their first excursion into Magatsu Inaba. Naoto did not acquit herself well in combat. Too many careless mistakes, too many missed shots.

He sits down next to her on the ledge, all long limbs and planes of muscle. Naoto keeps her gaze on the ground.

"Did Souji send you?" she asks.

Kanji shifts in place. Perhaps he didn't expect such an immediate question. Then again, he knows her better. "No. Already knew something was up. He just talked me into asking you 'bout it." His foot taps against the ground. "You don't look right."

Naoto almost laughs, except it isn't funny. She doesn't answer. Kanji's foot taps a little faster.

There's a long, brittle pause.

"I get it, sort of. Or some of it." His jaw tenses, and he swallows. "I-I mean, I don't want to be a girl, no way, but I like some of the same stuff they do and that ain't good for a guy who looks like me, y'know?" It comes out all in a single breath.

It's not the same thing, not at all. Naoto almost snaps out a rebuttal. But she's tired - she's been tired for months - and perhaps there's some common ground. "People expect you to behave a certain way," she offers, and Kanji nods.

"Yeah. That's why I pretended to hate all that crap. Sewing, makin' stuff. Even kitty cats," he adds with a grin.

He's trying, at least. Moreso than any of the others. No fault of their own; they have no frame of reference. Kanji probably comes closest. And if it hurts to look at him, he isn't to blame.

"I know, right, it ain't the same," he says. "And I still got my own crap to figure out. But if - if y'want someone to tell - I dunno, maybe..." He trails off.

Naoto puts her hand over his. It's surprisingly warm. "Thank you."

Nothing really changes. Souji is still distant, the team still plans, Naoto still tries and fails to fix herself. But she spends time with Kanji all the same; another distraction. She likes this one better.

"What'll you do after we catch him?" he asks, when they're sitting on the rocks by the river after school.

The air's frigid and the rocks are dusted with snow. Naoto half-shivers, half-shrugs. "Leave Inaba, perhaps. It depends."

"Not what I was talking about." He grabs her hand, practically enveloping it in his own and sparking a tiny, irrational burst of self-disgust. "Something's gotta change."

She swallows hard. Looks at him, then away. "I know."

"Yeah." He shifts against the rock, still holding her hand. "'Cause you're hurting yourself. So you have to figure out something different."

Naoto spends a lot of effort trying not to think about her options. They're hopelessly limited. Change physically and deal with the attendant hardships and disastrous effects on her career. Try for some form of self-acceptance and compromise herself (himself) in the process. Do nothing and remain in stasis.

"I don't want you hurting." Kanji squeezes her hand tighter. "I mean, it's you, right?"

Inside, Naoto winces.

It's painfully clear he's still interested in her, even she can tell that (and Rise is more than happy to provide regular reminders). Naoto hasn't found much to hold her attention lately - too tired, too cold, too much to think about - and there's no time for this.

But sometimes she thinks: maybe, maybe.

"I can't be what you want," she says, surprising herself.

Kanji looks startled. "What?"

"I'm neither male nor female. I'm both." She pulls back her hand. "Or neither. I know which I should be, but..." And it stops there, because she's falling into circles of words that say nothing.

"I-I don't want anything!" He smacks the rock with his palm - but then his shoulders slump, and he runs the same hand through his hair instead. "I like you. I did before and I still do now and I don't know why but thass how it is. So you, you gotta deal with that, okay?"

Naoto has no idea of the correct response to that, if one even exists. But Kanji is already standing up and moving to leave - and she instinctively grabs a corner of his leather jacket. "Do you mean that?"

He looks down, and nods.

"Because this - this isn't going away, Kanji. It's not - it isn't that sort of..." It's a tongue she's never managed to learn, even after all this time. Naoto stares up at him instead, willing him to understand.

"...Yeah. I know." Kanji sits down beside her and wraps one arm clumsily around her shoulders. Long arms, large hands, more strength than he knows what to do with. But when Naoto looks at him this time, it hurts a little less.

She slips her arm around his waist - trying to ignore that she can't quite reach - then leans against his shoulder and lets out the breath she was holding. Common ground, Naoto thinks, and tries not to shiver.