This was inspired by some incredible art by kawaii-bunny-mel on tumblr. Go check them out sometime.
The only thing that could make an eight-hour shift at Junes even more miserable was having to walk home in the rain afterwards. Yosuke's arms were already tired from stocking the high shelves, so he had to keep shifting which hand he held his umbrella in. He couldn't even distract himself with his phone without risking both arm cramps and water damage. His headphones could only do so much.
And to top it all off, the stupid light refused to change, despite there being no cars around. He knew better than to risk jaywalking, though. Knowing his luck, a police car would pull up right as he stepped into the street.
He was moving to jab the crosswalk button again when something heavy hit his umbrella. He had just enough time to think, "What the hell, I didn't even do anything," and then he was on the ground. He considered staying there. He couldn't get knocked down again if he was already down, and at least lying on the ground gave his arms a break.
The cold water seeping into his clothes changed his mind. He pulled himself up and began looking for his umbrella before he got even more soaked. He found it lying by some sort of animal. The thing had rounded ears, but its face was shaped like a cat's. It was barely moving, but its tail seemed to be twitching like a dog's, however weakly. Yosuke had no idea what all that added up to.
He wished Souji were there. Souji loved taking care of lost animals. He'd probably know not only what this was, but how to take care of it without getting bitten or otherwise mauled.
Yosuke poked it. It didn't react. It didn't seem to notice the discomfort of the wet pavement, either.
He groaned. Trying to carry both it and his umbrella without getting soaked was going to be a nightmare.
He ended up carrying the animal in his arms with the umbrella wedged in his elbow. It was awkward and uncomfortable, and he spent the entire trip convinced the thing would wake up at any second and attack him, but he'd already committed himself to this course of action. He didn't have any better ideas for getting it home anyway.
Getting through the door of his apartment required a juggling act and nearly dropping his keys, but there was no one around to see it, so Yosuke was beyond caring. He let the umbrella fall in the entrance as he worked his shoes off. He could deal with it later. Taking care of this random animal he'd brought into his home was more than enough work for one evening.
He grabbed a pillow off the couch and set the animal on top of it. It immediately occurred to him to wonder if the thing had fleas. It had a collar, but depending on how long it had been lost, that might not mean anything. Or maybe it had just wandered outside for a minute, and he'd kidnapped someone's beloved pet.
Whatever. He'd keep an eye out for lost cast (or maybe dog? Its ears weren't quite right, though) posters and it would be fine. He couldn't do much else at this point.
He threw himself across the couch in an effort to shut his mind up. It worked for a minute, the relief of not having to do anything washing over him, but the doubts inevitably crept back in. It felt like all he did was go to work, then come back and immediately crash. Even on his days off he was too fried to do anything more complicated than playing video games. Picking up this maybe-dog was the most interesting thing to happen to him in months. "God, my life is so lame," he said aloud.
He probably would have kept wallowing in self-pity if it weren't for the knock on the door. "Yeah, I'm coming," he called, trying to keep the resentment out of his voice. He peeled himself off the couch and went to answer the door. He picked his umbrella up as he passed it, hoping he could claim he was about to go out.
He was completely unprepared to find Souji standing in the hallway. He smoothed his hair back hastily, wishing he'd had time to shower or even change out of his wet clothes. "Uh, hey," he said.
"Hey." Souji scratched the back of his neck. "How bad was work today? I mean, it's been raining all day and all…"
Yosuke laughed nervously. "That part was fine. I mean, I wasn't on cart duty, so I didn't have to deal with it. Just stocking and customer service. And then I had to walk home, I guess, but I had this, so…" He held out the umbrella as proof, but whether through wet fingers or just his own clumsiness, he hit the button to extend it in the process.
The pole shot forward, right into Souji's crotch. Souji made an awful wheezing noise. Yosuke felt his spirit wither up and die as Souji sank to the floor. "I – I'm so sorry! Here, let me go get–" He didn't even try to finish the sentence.
Souji made a choked sound that Yosuke chose to interpret as acknowledgment. He ran back inside, only realizing once he was halfway down the hallway that he'd slammed the door in Souji's face in the process. He was killing this "interacting with your crush/only friend" thing today.
He fumbled some ice cubes into a plastic bag. "I've got some ice for your crotch!" he yelled. He didn't think he could look Souji in the eyes at this point, so he did the next best thing and crouched by the gap between the door and its frame. "I'm shoving the crotch ice under the door!"
He regretted saying it as soon as the words left his mouth, but Souji didn't comment. The bag disappeared silently under the door. Yosuke stared at the space it had been, thinking about all the ways he'd managed to screw up a five-second interaction. He hadn't even asked why Souji had come over in the first place.
He gathered his courage and opened the door again. "Hey man, I am so sorry," he began. He stopped when he realized he was talking to thin air. The only thing in the hallway was a covered ceramic dish. When he picked it up, it was warm to the touch.
He felt his mood lifting despite the terribleness of his day. Souji's cooking was always amazing.
He went back inside to find the mysterious animal standing in the middle of the living room. "Oh, you're awake." It was good to know it hadn't died while he was gone. With the way his day was going, he wouldn't be too surprised.
It occurred to him that it was probably hungry. He didn't know what it ate, though, and he didn't have much food lying around anyway. That was another thing he'd have to deal with tomorrow. For the time being, he held up the one thing he had that was guaranteed to be edible. "How do you feel about casserole?" He lifted the cover enticingly.
As if it knew what he was asking, the creature came over to investigate. Yosuke shoved it away. "Whoa, hey, this is my dinner too. Don't just shove your face in it."
He got out plates for the both of them. He tried to separate the meat out of what had turned out to be a lasagna, figuring it was probably healthier for a possible cat than the noodles. He tried to ignore the sad meatless portion he was left with as a result.
He at his meal staring into space, willing himself to erase the entire day from his memory. At least he was only scheduled for four hours tomorrow. He couldn't handle two days like this in a row.
He barely had the presence of mind to take off his binder before passing out on the couch.
Yosuke was falling through a black void. Glowing golden eyes surrounded him, watching him, but he wasn't afraid. It was like he'd known these eyes his entire life.
A wind blew from below him, stopping his fall and leaving him suspended in the air. The creature he'd rescued that day rode a cloud up to meet him. Its eyes were gold. Yosuke somehow knew that his eyes were gold too. He waved at the animal. "What's up?"
The animal babbled in response, high pitched and unintelligible. "Whoa, slow down, you're talking too fast," Yosuke said.
It began to fidget, and then it was a boy with blonde hair. He looked up at Yosuke and smiled, but his eyes were sad. The gold of them was hollow and faded.
"Who are you?" Yosuke asked.
The boy opened his mouth to respond. His entire body flickered once, twice, and then he was gone. All that was left behind was a frog. It hopped into Yosuke's open hands.
Yosuke looked out into the void, hoping for answers, but the eyes had all closed. He looked back to see that the frog had closed its eyes as well. "Why does this make me feel so lonely?" he asked.
All at once, the wind died down, and Yosuke was falling once again.
He woke up with a start to find his new maybe-pet sleeping on top of him. "Man, what a weird dream," he muttered. "You aren't secretly a frog or something, are you?"
The animal didn't even open its eyes. Yosuke laughed tiredly.
He stopped laughing when he noticed his phone's alarm had been going off for the last half hour. "Oh crap, I'm gonna be late!" He flung himself off the couch, earning a glare from the animal in the process.
He raced through a streamlined version of his morning routine and show up at Junes only a few minutes after his shift was supposed to start. He nodded along to the standard lecture about punctuality. He was pretty sure he could have given it himself by now, but he was very sure he didn't want to call attention to how many times he'd come in late. Finally he was released and sent to work the registers.
His shift was identical to hundreds he'd worked before. The customers were no less demanding but no more insane than usual. He could have handled the generic interactions with his headphones on.
But even if it felt like some strange endless purgatory, it was bound to end eventually, at which point Yosuke found himself standing in the pet aisle wondering why pet food flavors even mattered. From what he'd heard from Souji, cats would eat their own puke if you didn't stop them. They couldn't care that much about taste.
He eventually gave up on trying to decipher the food labels' science-babble and grabbed anything he thought an animal might need. A few days of the wrong food wouldn't be enough to kill it.
It wasn't until he was had to walk home with his overfull bags that he began to think he'd gone too far. At least it wasn't raining today.
He made it back to his apartment without anything falling onto his head, something the previous day had taught him to appreciate. He was a little surprised by how excited he was to give the animal its gifts. He must have been even lonelier than he thought. Maybe it was time to accept his fate as the crazy dog-cat guy.
He shook off that depressing train of thought. "I'm home!" he called, as much to distract himself as anything. He pulled off his shoes and went inside.
The creature was walking his direction when he came into the living room. "Hey, good timing," Yosuke said. "Check out this stuff I got for you."
He dropped his bag on the couch, and the animal hopped up next to it. "Let's see, I've got you a bed and a blanket… here's a squeaky toy, but I got some catnip that I could probably put in it if you want… oh, and I wasn't sure if you needed cat food or dog food, so I just got some of both. And then there's a leash and rain boots in case you need to go for a walk." Yosuke wasn't carrying it through the rain again, that was for sure. "There's also shampoo and stuff, but you probably won't want that." All in all, Yosuke was pretty pleased with himself. He'd managed to remember all the important things.
His stomach growled, and he realized that he had not in fact remembered all the important things. "Crap, I forgot to buy food!" His next paycheck wasn't for another week, either. Yosuke wouldn't call himself poor, but his budget was not built to support suddenly buying a ton of pet supplies, especially not this close to payday.
The animal straightened from where it had been investigating the rain boots, as if it knew this was its fault. Yosuke waved a hand dismissively. "Nah, it's fine. I'll just be eating a lot of ramen this week, I guess."
The zipper on the creature's collar started to glow. Yosuke rubbed his eyes, since he was apparently hallucinating now, but when he opened them again the glow was still there. It concentrated into a beam of light, then solidified into a blue envelope.
Yosuke pushed himself as far against the arm of the couch as he could. "What the – what the hell?" No, seriously, what the actual hell? The weird thing he'd taken in off the street had just materialized a letter out of thin air? This couldn't be real. He was so tired he had gone crazy, or something.
He was yanked out of this train of thought by something hitting his face. The animal had picked up the envelope and smacked him with it, looking very pleased with itself. "Hey, what was that for?" he demanded. He thought his reaction was totally reasonable, given the circumstances.
The animal responded by holding the envelope out to him.
"Is this… for me?" he asked. How would that even work? Who would know to write to him by way of the magical envelope-summoning pet he'd picked up off the street just yesterday?
It held the envelope out again, more insistently.
Yosuke took it, if only to avoid getting hit again. "Okay, okay, I get it. If this turns out to be a trap, though…"
He opened the envelope gingerly. The paper inside was a light blue, which went nicely with the darker blue of the envelope. It looked like this thing had a theme going. "Dear Teddie," Yosuke read aloud.
He looked at the animal. "Is that your name?" he asked.
It nodded. Yosuke chose not to wonder about the fact that his pet could also understand him and just accept the new name. It was more convenient than trying to think of Teddie as "the animal" all the time.
"I have another request for you," the letter continued. "Please report to the Velvet Room so I may explain. Sign below."
There was so much going on, but Yosuke's immediate reaction was, "How is it going to sign if it doesn't have hands?"
His question was answered when Teddie leaned in and pressed a paw to the letter. The paper sparkled where it made contact, because apparently everything about this situation had to be glowy or sparkly or something. The sparkles grew and surrounded them both. They seemed to go through them, even. Yosuke could feel himself dissolving into the sparkles. "Come on, man, I explicitly said no traps!" he said, and then he was gone.
The next thing he knew, he was falling through nothingness. That was the last straw for him. He started yelling, not even sure what he was saying. Probably something he'd be embarrassed about if he wasn't about to die alone in space because of a weird magic animal. Even through his panic, though, he couldn't help but feel that this was all strangely familiar.
There was a voice. It was young and masculine, and though it didn't have an accent, it spoke as if it wasn't used to Japanese. "Don't worry," the voice said. "I'm pretty sure no one has ever died here. I think."
This would have been more reassuring if Yosuke had heard the voice. What he had actually heard was high-pitched lyrical nonsense, like someone had stuck an idol in a blender. The voice had just materialized in his head. The confusion was enough to shut him up. "…Teddie?" he asked.
"Yup! I'm so glad I can finally talk to you." Teddie sniffled, the sound strange amidst his singsong voice. "I was so lonely!"
Yosuke had no idea how to respond to that, or any of this, really. "I'm sorry?" He shook his head. "Wait, more importantly. What the hell is going on right now? I mean, where are we?"
"Oh, you'll see." Teddie's mental voice was annoyingly self-satisfied.
Before Yosuke could retort, they were inside a very blue car. There was no sign of the void they'd been falling through before. It was just blue décor and a woman in an equally blue dress, looking at them curiously. "Welcome to the Velvet Room," she said. "I'll be with you in a moment, Teddie. First, though, this man doesn't seem to be a guest here. Due to increased security measure, I'm afraid I'm going to have to electrocute him." She reached for a book lying on the seat next to her.
Yosuke's eyes were very wide. "What?!"
"No, wait!" Teddie cut in. His feline face showed an impressive amount of concern. "He's my… sidekick! Yeah."
"Really?" Yosuke said without thinking. He looked back at the scary lady with the book. "I mean, um, yeah. That's me."
The woman nodded. "I understand. In that case, welcome."
Yosuke glared at Teddie. They were going to have to talk about this later.
Teddie didn't seem to notice Yosuke's ire. "It's always such a pleasure to see you, Margaret! What kind of request do you have for us today?"
"Ah, yes." Margaret set the book down.
Yosuke breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
"You'll be going to the Shopping District today," Margaret said. "It seems someone wants you to retrieve a barrel of Mori Ranmaru Shochu."
Yosuke blinked. After all that magic and weirdness, they were just going to do someone's grocery shopping?
"Please hold still as I assign your uniforms."
Yosuke had just enough time to wonder what that meant before he was bathed in a bright blue light. His comfortable sweater and shorts transformed into an obnoxious white and purple jumpsuit. Even worse was the matching helmet. For whatever reason, it had ears shaped like Teddie's. The outfit's only saving grace was that it flattened his chest without the discomfort of a binder, and even that wasn't worth the rest of it. "Oh, come on," he said.
Margaret didn't acknowledge his complaint. "And here we are. Please be careful as you exit the car."
The car's door opened, and Yosuke found himself getting pulled out of the car. As soon as he and Teddie were out, the car vanished, leaving them alone on a dilapidated street.
"…Okay," Yosuke said. "So what, now we just walk in and buy the shochu?"
"Don't be silly," Teddie said. "There's no one around here to run the shops. We're just going to walk in and take it."
That really didn't help the creepiness factor. Neither did looking up and realizing that the sky was bright red and black. Yosuke had a feeling Margaret wasn't going to let them leave until they were done, though. At least the job itself was easy enough. "All right," he said. "Let's go."
He followed Teddie to a store that looked as abandoned as all the others. Its entrance had the same eerie glow as the sky. It didn't look inviting, but Teddie walked through without hesitation, so maybe it wasn't as bad as it looked.
Yosuke closed his eyes and stepped through. There was a slight electrical buzzing, enough to give him goosebumps, and then he was fine. It was when he opened his eyes that things started to go wrong. Standing in the middle of the store was himself, wearing the same sweater and mismatched socks he'd been wearing before Margaret had forced him into the jumpsuit.
"Hmm," Teddie said. "Weird. Anyway, let's find that shochu."
Yosuke nodded distractedly. He took another step towards his doppelganger, hoping to find some flaw in its imitation of him. They both had the same nail polish, chipped in the same ways. Its hair stuck out in all the same places. He hadn't memorized the locations of his freckles or anything, but even those seemed to be laid out the same way on its face.
He shook his head. This was too freaky, even by today's standards.
Teddie called out from the corner. "Hey, Yosuke, I found it! Could you come carry it for me?"
"Yeah, all right." Yosuke forced himself to turn away from his apparent clone.
He had just bent down to pick up the barrel when he heard his own voice. "Wow, this is great," it said. "All I do is wait, and everything I could ever want is just handed to me. A job, an apartment, and now an exciting new reality, and I didn't have to do anything!"
Yosuke turned around to see that his doppelganger had animated. It was now leaning against a precarious stack of barrels, a smirk on its face. He glared at it. "What are you talking about? I work my ass off every day, I think I've earned a chance to do something interesting for a change."
"And why do you have that job in the first place? Because your father took pity on you." The doppelganger shook its head. "Really, though, that's probably for the best. You don't have the ambition or the skill to decide things for yourself. You really ought to just sit back and let everyone else make all your decisions for you. You can just play dress-up with your cat and act like you aren't wasting your entire life."
Teddie growled. "I don't know who you are or what you're talking about, but I'm not a cat! I'm a bear!"
"Whatever." The thing that wasn't Yosuke shrugged. "It's not like I ever cared about you in the first place. All that matters is that you can save me from my oh-so-boring life of having everything handed to me."
"Stop it!" Yosuke wasn't going to listen to this thing. "I didn't know about all this when I took him in. I just wanted to help."
"Mm-hmm." It crossed its arms. "And it had nothing to do with your own loneliness, right? Because for some unfathomable reason, this whole 'wait and see' approach of yours doesn't work when it comes to making friends. Maybe Souji took pity on you, but most people want you to actually put some effort into a relationship. And you're too scared to do that, so instead you just sit around and feel sorry for yourself, as if you've done anything to deserve half the things you have."
"Shut up!" Yosuke couldn't look at Teddie. He couldn't stand looking at his doppelganger, either, but he couldn't tear his eyes away.
It laughed. "What, now you're too scared to even face yourself? I can't say I'm surprised. After all, I know everything about you." Its eyes narrowed. "All the lies you tell yourself. How you're too tired from your job to spare a thought for anyone else, how this is just a temporary thing while you figure yourself out. I know better. You see, I am you."
"No!" Yosuke could feel his heart pounding in his ears, loud and fast and overwhelming. He couldn't take this anymore. "You can't be me. You're nothing like me."
The thing that wore his skin leered at him. "Go on. Say it."
"You're not me!" It was Yosuke's final argument, and it tasted both bitter and sweet on his tongue.
His satisfaction died as the doppelganger began to laugh. "That's right," it said, "I'm not you anymore. Now, I am me!"
Yosuke took a step back as the thing was consumed by tendrils of black light. A wind blew through the store, stirring up the stale air. Yosuke had to shield his eyes as the light grew brighter and brighter. He felt seconds away from passing out.
When the light faded, he was no longer looking at his own face. In its place was a monster. It had four amphibious legs, but its upper body was still humanoid, albeit faceless and too smooth. An massive sharp-toothed smile was pasted over the seam where the two met. "I am a Shadow, the true self," it said. Its voice echoed, but not enough to distract from the fact that it was still Yosuke's own.
Before Yosuke could react, the enormous mouth opened. A long tongue shot out and wrapped itself against Teddie. He struggled as he was lifted into the air. "Ack! Save me, Yosuke!" he yelled.
"Teddie!" Acting on instinct, Yosuke brought his hands to the zipper at his collar. A pair of collars materialized in a burst of pale blue light. Yosuke grabbed them and ran towards the monster. He still didn't understand any of what was going on, but he couldn't sit back and watch Teddie die.
The monster laughed. "Do you really think you can do anything? Why not wait and see if I'll go away? It's how you handle all the rest of your problems."
"Would you be quiet already?" Yosuke swung a dagger at the Shadow's nearest leg. It didn't seem to care.
"Get me down from here!" Teddie flailed his legs ineffectually.
Okay, that was something Yosuke could do. He jumped up and grabbed the monster's tongue, grateful for once for his bodysuit. He'd take as many layers between him and a giant tongue as he could get.
When he was sure he wasn't going to fall, he began sawing at the tongue with his daggers. The monster screamed. It snapped its tongue, throwing both Yosuke and Teddie to the ground. Yosuke sat up and rubbed his head, dazed.
Teddie tugged at his arm. "Pick me up!"
Yosuke blinked. "Uh. Okay?" He did so.
"Now cock my tail."
Yosuke didn't even question it at this point. He grabbed Teddie's tail and pulled it back. Teddie responded by shooting a beam of ice from his mouth.
"Whoa! What?" Yosuke nearly dropped Teddie in his surprise. He managed to hold onto him, though, and swung him around to face the monster. The beam hit it right in its smaller face.
The monster screamed a final time. It fell to the ground, black smoke coming off its body in wisps before it dissolved into white light. When it reformed, it was Yosuke once again.
Yosuke forced a smile. "So, I guess it's time to get the shochu, huh?"
"Yosuke…" For something that sounded no older than a teenager, Teddie had a remarkably effective I'm-disappointed-in-you voice.
Yosuke sighed. "Okay, fine, so maybe it wasn't totally wrong. I've probably had more opportunities than I deserved. I'm anxious and lazy and use that as an excuse not to be better. I'm a terrible person who only has friends because someone took pity on me and kept hanging out with me even though I have nothing to offer. Are you happy now?" He took a ragged breath.
Yosuke's doppelganger pulled itself to its feet and nodded. "I am thou," it said. "And thou art I." It rose into the air. This time, its metamorphosis was much less flashy. Its limbs simply flowed into something less human. Its fingers grew webbing, and its facial features vanished. It had the same sharp smile as before, but this time, it looked less like it was planning to eat you. When the transformation was complete, the thing nodded at Yosuke, then vanished.
"Oh," Yosuke said. "This is my Persona. Jiraiya…"
Teddie nudged Yosuke's leg with his face. "Congratulations," he said. His voice was uncharacteristically subdued. "And, for what it's worth, I don't think you're as bad as that thing made it sound."
Yosuke huffed a laugh. "You've only known me for like a day, how would you know." He looked away. "But, um. Thanks."
"Now let's hurry up and finish our job," Teddie said. "I'm sick of this place."
"I hear that," Yosuke said.
The shochu barrel was surprisingly light for the thing that had gotten them into all this. Yosuke had no problem carrying it back out to the street. There was a blue door waiting for them, one that hadn't been there before. Yosuke took a wild guess that it had something to do with the Velvet Room.
As soon as he stepped through, gravity changed direction, and he was falling face-first. "Again?" he thought as he crashed into his own couch. His clothes were back to normal, and the barrel was gone.
Teddie landed on top of him a moment later. "Come on, man," Yosuke muttered.
Teddie hopped off the couch just in time for a wad of cash to fall on top of his head. The money was tied up neatly with a blue ribbon, because of course it was. Teddie took a portion for himself and handed the rest to Yosuke. "Here you go!"
Yosuke stared at the money. Something so mundane seemed out of place as a reward for an impossible near-death experience, but he definitely wasn't complaining. "Oh, nice! Thanks!" He flipped through the cash, trying to work out how much he had. "I can use this to get Souji a book to thank him for that casserole. If I can find one he hasn't read, anyway."
"You should get him one on bears!" Teddie suggested.
"Wait, that reminds me." Yosuke looked at Teddie more closely. Teddie looked sort of like a dog, and sort of like a cat, and not at all like a bear. "Are you really a bear? You don't look like one."
Teddie gasped. "How rude! I can't bear-lieve you would doubt me like that."
"You aren't even really speaking Japanese, how are you able to make puns?" Yosuke flung an arm over his face. "Actually, no, don't answer that. I'm not dealing with any more of this craziness right now. I'm going to go buy myself some actual food, and then I'm going to pass out, because it turns out that fighting a giant demon frog version of yourself is exhausting."
He got up and stretched his arms over his head. "You're not getting out of this that easily, though. I have a ton of questions, and I'm going to need answers eventually."
"Yeah, yeah." Teddie jumped back up onto the couch and curled up into a ball. "Good night, Yosuke."
Seeing Teddie looking so peaceful was enough to make Yosuke smile despite himself. Even with all the strangeness of the last 24 hours, he was glad he'd taken the weird little bear in. "Good night," he said. He turned out the light and left the room.