It really was like unwinding thread. She spun and the hair fell into a coil she could hop right out of, and the smile was easy to form upon that demonstration. That's just what he gets for doubting somebody who's lived with it all her life, right?

But he blinked, gathered the heart charm dangling at his neck and inspecting it, the faint purple among that sea of black stone. "That's weird... it was all black before."

His eyebrows lowered briefly as he scrutinized it - and hers, too - before he had himself an idea. "Think it's like a mood ring?"

Kanji paused, then nodded. Yeah, that had to be it. "There's this shop back home that sells these weird rings that change color depending on your mood. Purple's pretty good, I think!"

If he figured something out, then that was a good start. So he'd close his eyes and think about his friends for a moment, and how happy they make him. He thought of Souji, Yosuke, Chie, Yukiko, Rise, Teddie, and that fuzzy purple turned into hints of green, hints of yellow as he opened his eyes and looked in that heart-shaped stone. But then his head filled with the detective with the short, choppy hair and big blue eyes, a hand on the hip and that smirk on her face she gets when she's got everything all figured out.

As his face burned, that fuzzy glow couldn't decide between yellow and brief hints of orange.

"It's... it is a mood thing," he said, awed.

"I-I mean, I'm just thinkin' about all my friends back home and it's shiftin' around a little. But it's still all black. What's that mean...?"