It is not Kanji Tatsumi’s idea for him and Naoto Shirogane to break up.  It’s one hundred and ten percent her idea.  

She has some fancy dancy case to do, one where she’ll be away for a long while.  He insists that they’ll be fine, but she’s done research, you see, that shows that long-distance relationships don’t work.  

So she decides that it would be best to end things now, while they are on good terms with one another, “That way, no one is hurt,” she says.

Right.  Of course.  No one is hurt, obviously.

In the days, weeks, months after the break up Kanji decides to focus on being angry.  It’s much easier to be angry than it is to be hurt.  Let her go and do her detective gig, whatever, it doesn’t matter to him.  He even goes so far as to tell himself that he doesn’t need her.

It’s all a fucking lie.  He misses her like crazy.

What he doesn’t know is that she misses him as much as he misses her.  Naoto rarely regrets the decisions she makes.  She’s a rational person, she thinks things through, but in this case she knows that she has been absolutely wrong.  She’s written about five hundred and seventy-two emails – she knows this because she’s counted them – but she can’t make herself hit the send button.  It feels too impersonal, too half-hearted, to simply send him paragraphs of apologies.  If feels even less sincere to ask for another chance, especially since she isn’t coming home for a while.

Meanwhile, Kanji isn’t counting the days until Naoto comes home.  He’s not.  Totally not.  They’re broken up, so what does he care?  In fact, you know what?  Who needs Naoto Shirogane, anyway?  He’s Kanji Tatsumi, goddamnit, he doesn’t need some pint-sized detective.  He doesn’t care when she’s coming back.  She can do whatever she wants.  From this moment on he’s going to go out there and live a life without-

Knock.

Knock Knock.

When Kanji answers his door the last person he expects to see is Naoto Shirogane.  According to the calendar he’s been marking – not marking, totally not marking – Naoto wouldn’t be home for another forty-eight days.  Before he can ask why she’s standing at his door she starts going on and on about being foolish, about being sorry, about trying to come up with the proper apology, about coming here and only having a few hours before she needed to go back, but she really didn’t want to I would much rather stay and talk and work things out and- 

He has her in his arms in seconds, completely dispelling any earlier thoughts about not needing her, “And sorry I called you pint-sized, too.”

“… wait, when did you call me that?”