Saturday, 10/15

"See, Ryuji, I'm no dentist, but the problem you have is obvious," Tae said. Ryuji's lips felt like they would rip from keeping his mouth open so wide while Tae peered in with a small flashlight. "You need your wisdom teeth removed." She withdrew the flashlight and stepped back from the examination table. Ryuji sat up to watch her slip the plastic gloves from her hands.

"Aw… shit." He knew that meant surgery and surgery meant money. It also meant that he would have to spend a lot of time in pain, therefore worrying his mother. Despite his lack of knowledge, he knew that wisdom teeth could eff off. "Do I have to?"

"Yes. Because you haven't already gotten them removed, there's a possibility of infection and damage to your other teeth." Seeing his head hang and his mood swing, Tae offered as much consolation as she could. "Sorry."

Ryuji thought of his mother working extra shifts just so he could get some teeth removed. "Is it expensive?"

"Well, yes, but…" Tae's hand pinched her chin and she turned away from Ryuji. She hurried over to her desktop, sat down, and started typing in a new file.

Ryuji raised his voice to remind her that he still existed. "But…?"

Tae spun around in her chair. "But I might be able to do it for free."

"But you're no dentist."

"That doesn't mean I can't easily take out your wisdom teeth."

"Wait…" Ryuji tried to do the math in his head. No matter how many different ways he thought about it, Tae still made no sense. "I'm pretty sure it does mean that you can't take out my wisdom teeth."

"Says who? Society? Dentistry degrees are social constructs." Tae crossed her arms and her legs. "Don't be a sheep, Ryuji. Let me take out your wisdom teeth."

Ryuji's head rocked side to side in between his options. He knew he shouldn't have considered the offer, but getting his wisdom teeth removed without causing his mom any trouble would be huge. If he did nothing, he would suffer more.

"I'll do it for free," Tae added.

Think of the value, Ryuji! You can't pass up a deal like that! His subconscious encouraged poor decision-making.

"When you put it like that…"

"So you agree?"

"Yeah, I'm in." He sat there, arms wrapped around his bent knees, waiting for something to happen. Tae blankly stared at him. The silence crept into his mind, making him uncomfortable with the lack of conversation. "Uh… what do-"

"Perfect. I'll have some documents for you to sign before the procedure, but-"

As soon as Ryuji heard about documents that needed signing, a thought popped into his head. Am I being taken advantage of? The answer was apparent, he just neglected to agree with it.

"-But I want to tell you now that we'll be using special anesthesia produced by me for testing purposes. You're fine with that, right?"

Ryuji shrugged. "If it gets my wisdom teeth out…"

Ren followed Makoto into Ann's home. It would be GRAVY's shelter for the evening, as Ann had offered her home as a substitute for Ren's. The most exciting part: Ren didn't need to worry about cleaning up afterward. Of course, GRAVY always stayed until things were clean, but some crumbs never escaped couch cushions, and spilled drinks always soaked into the carpet. Ren never complained, of course, because that would make him feel like an obsessive interior decorator when he shouldn't have given two shits about Junpei's furniture.

"Welcome, welcome…" Ann nodded to Ren and Makoto as they filed through the doorway. Ren's first time at Ann's home came with a few observations. First, it was far neater than he expected. Second, Ryuji—who was foretold by an ancient prophecy to already be at Ann's place—was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps Haru and Ann murdered him and hid his body in a closet.

"Where's the GRAVY Runner at?"

"Ryuji?" Ann walked across the room to her kitchen table and sat down. Haru was already there, still stuck in a textbook for midterms. It seemed that her studying wouldn't end until the rest of GRAVY—Yusuke and Futaba—arrived. "He had a toothache. I sent him to Takemi's clinic to get it checked out."

Uh… do I have to tell Ann that doctors and dentists aren't the same thing? I'm the kindest, most sympathetic person out there, so better me than anyone else, but I can't help but feel a little rude for wanting to explain it.

Ren scratched his head while Makoto voiced his thoughts. "But she's a doctor…?"

"Yeah, well…" Ann shrugged and shook her head. "I know, it's dumb, but she can probably tell what's wrong with him without charging him, right?"

"Maybe?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Ann said. Clearly, she felt judged for a dumb idea, yet Ren didn't really care about that part. He just wondered if Ryuji would fold under the unavoidable teasing advances that Tae made a habit of.

Ren and Makoto joined Ann and Haru at the kitchen table. Makoto scooted her chair towards Haru, leaning over her friend's shoulder to glance through the textbook. "Erosion of democratic norms…" she read aloud. "Government finals aren't until the end of the week."

"I'm ahead of schedule."

"Good to hear." Makoto scooted away to give Haru some space. Her friend buried her face in her book again, obviously not intent on socializing for the near future. "How about you, Ann?"

"Also ahead of schedule, so I took some time to help Ryuji," she said, smirking as she dove into recent memory. "He really, really hates Italian poetry."

Ren rolled his eyes. "Oh. That's given, isn't it? Who doesn't get bored while reading Dante?"

Silence lingered as Ann searched for an answer to the inherently false statement, yet nothing came to her. The home stilled as they all sat at the table in silence—only Haru's turning pages made a sound.

"I do not get bored while reading the works of Dante Alighieri!" a voice echoed through the house. Everyone, including Haru, turned immediately in the direction of the voice. Down the stairs came Yusuke clothed in the same outfit as ever, bearing no differences from his usual self.

I didn't know Yusuke got here so early. Wow. I've been lied to, betrayed, and backstabbed at every turn. I can't beli-

"Yusuke?! How the hell did you get in here?"

Oh. Guess Ann was betrayed, too. My feelings have recovered and my self-esteem is restored.

Yusuke stopped at the bottom of the stairs, pointed himself at Ann, and bowed. One arm swung around his chest while the other raised itself behind him. His pose held as he spoke. "Pardon?"

Ann's annoyance shot through her confusion. "Why are you here, Yusuke?"

Yusuke rose from the bow to shrug. "I received an invitation."

Ren chuckled. "No shit."

"No, I mean-" Ann cut herself off because everyone knew there was no point in understanding Yusuke. "Whatever. I don't care how you got in. Welcome to GRA-"

"I broke in."

"What?!"

"There's a broken window in the second-floor bathroom."

"Excuse me?!"

"I threw a brick through it."

As if he hadn't confessed to a crime, Yusuke sat down at the table with all eyes on him. Ann's disbelief was the common feeling. Even Haru's textbook closed itself with gravity as she forgot all about it in favor of staring at Yusuke with a dropped jaw.

"Yusuke, what the f-"

"I only kid." He looked away from Ann, then around the whole first floor. "Where is Ryuji? I miss him."

Ryuji would've assaulted Yusuke for property damage to Ann's home, I bet.

Ann shook her head, eyes narrowed at Yusuke. "Yeah, so do I. How'd you actually get in?"

"Tactical teleportation trick."

A collective sigh left the group as the usual mood set in. Yusuke was Yusuke, and there was nothing they could do about it. Questions would go unanswered, actions would be unexplained, and paintings would be painted. Life was too simple for him.

Sunday, 10/16

"Name and date at the bottom, please," Tae said. She tapped the bottom of her pen on the spotty line of the document. Ryuji, skimming through words that were far beyond his junior high reading level, took his pen to the dotted line and scribbled his signature. "Thank you." Tae retracted the document with a smile on her face. "Instead of going to the examination room, follow the hall and take the first door on your right."

Ryuji nodded. He turned away from the front desk, hearing Tae sort through papers behind him, and walked toward the hall. The overhead light flickered as he pushed open the first door he saw. He found a smaller room than the exam room, but one far more equipped for an actual procedure. An oral surgery chair, already leaning back, sat in the center of the room. Counters lined the walls with various instruments and metal devices organized across them. A man leaned against one counter—he wore an all-blue nurse outfit and had a surgical mask on his face.

"Take a seat, Sakamoto-kun," he said in a friendly voice, hand waving to the chair in the middle.

Ryuji settled himself into the padded chair. The air in the room thinned as the door opened and Tae Takemi made her presence known. "Ready to start, Okino?" Ryuji watched the nurse nod, then turn to face the counter. His hands toyed with something atop the counter, though Ryuji's sight was blocked by Tae coming around to his side of the chair.

A few minutes later, the nurse hovered over Ryuji's bare right arm with a threatening IV. "C'mon, man. Do me a solid and skip the needles. I can do this while awake."

The nurse chuckled. "I'm sure you can." Nonetheless, he scrubbed Ryuji's arm with disinfecting wipes while holding the needle in his other hand. "Just look away and you won't even notice."

Ryuji's face scrunched up. He could either throw a tantrum—an absolutely room-wrecking storm of a fit that would invalidate any birthday he had after the age of three—or he could be an adult for a minute.

His breath hitched when the needle pierced his skin. "Shit!" he yelled. He retained enough awareness to not yank his arm around, but the nurse was still aggravated. The grip he maintained on Ryuji's wrist tightened.

"Careful," the nurse sternly warned.

"How long is…" Ryuji's words were already failing him. His mouth could barely move, and his eyes didn't have the same speed to them as they once did. "What's the record for time before passing out?"

"You just beat it."

"I did?"

"No."

"Man, eff you."

The nurse stood up from his seat next to Ryuji's chair. Looking down at Ryuji, he shook his head. Ryuji's vision blurred as he tried to watch the nurse walk out, but the edges of his sight were out of focus. He heard a door open and close from behind the chair.

"Sakamoto-kun? You're still awake?" Tae walked around the front of the chair. Ryuji's head rolled against the headrest with ragdoll weight; the muscles in his neck had disintegrated. "My my, this is quite impressive."

Ryuji tried to respond, but the most he could muster was the pitiful curling of his lips. "Ish…"

"Ish indeed." Tae stepped closer to Ryuji. She cupped his chin in her hand. Her soft palms felt delightfully warm on Ryuji's numb cheeks. "But you're still awake, and that will not do." Her head snapped towards the door behind Ryuji's chair. "Gentlemen!"

Ryuji's head couldn't shake free of Tae's grip, only roll its muscles beneath her fingers. She pressed her nails into his face—the stinging was sharp enough to make it through the anesthesia. Ryuji wanted to scream, but his tongue died in his mouth.

Suddenly, she relented after Ryuji felt bloody holes opening in his face. Tae walked past the chair and out of the room entirely, only for more footsteps to enter the room and make their owners known.

A completely new person stepped into Ryuji's dimming sight. His eyes could barely stay open to scan the pale face before him.

"You must be new here. Have you signed the contract?"

Hey… ain't that Yusuke? Ryuji's throttled mind gained some life upon recognizing his friend, but it was still getting overpowered by the anesthesia. He's got… he has something funny on his head…

"You can't run from me, Ryuji. Sign the contract and we'll avoid needless suffering.

Contracts? Nah, eff that. If there's one thing I hate, it's writing shit down. Waste of time, waste of knowledge, Ryuji thought. Whole world's goin' in computers over the next decade. Why should I have to know how to write?

The pale face—which Ryuji was ninety percent sure belonged to Yusuke—pulled back into a sea of blurry fuzz that vaguely resembled the operating room when Ryuji first arrived. "You've chosen the hard road, then." Red seeped in the corners of Ryuji's vision; people of about the same height as Yusuke donned red and white tracksuits.

Yusuke, like Tae had a few minutes prior, stepped closer to Ryuji. His face dropped into focus, adorned with an afro wig atop his head. Blue strands of hair escaped the overbearing hairline of the wig via his forehead. "Goodnight."

"Ryuji!"

Darkness surrounded Ryuji no matter how many times he blinked his weary eyes. The lethargy of the drugs continued wearing off as he tried to find any surroundings. His eyes failed to adjust to the empty void, leaving him confused as to who was saying his name and where exactly he was.

Plus, his mouth hurt.

"Effers took my wisdom teeth… can't have shit in Tokyo, I swear."

A screen flickered to life and brought the room around Ryuji into focus. Judging by the messy shelves of boxes, the splintering wooden floor, tight walls, and the low wooden roof, Ryuji was in an attic. He was at its center, bound and gagged in an oral surgery chair. Two meters in front of him was that lifesaving screen that gave him hope; its clear image of an empty white room as vivid as the attic Ryuji found himself in.

"Ryuji!"

With his senses fully returned to him, Ryuji tried to find the voice. Its high, squeakiness ruled it out from being anyone Ryuji knew. It sounded more like a kid than a high schooler or any adult. Not only that, they put way too much eagerness into their call of Ryuji's name. It frightened him.

On the screen, a creature—one bearing an uncanny resemblance to the most terrifying mascot in Japan—jumped into the center of the camera. "Welcome, Ryuji, to the legal offices of Teddie!" Ryuji shrieked as he made eye contact with the god-awful blue and red terror of a bear. His legs tried to kick out, but they were tied together. The chair nearly tipped under his thrashing weight. "Sh sh shhhhh, it's okay, it's okay… you'll be fine if you do as I say."

Teddie must've forgotten that Ryuji was the top-ranked bear-hater in all of Tokyo. "Get the eff outta here!" he screamed.

"My beary talented paralegals and I have whipped up an itty-bitty contract for you to sign, if you don't mind." A paper teleported into Teddie's round paw, which he held up for the camera to convey to Ryuji. "But if you don't want to sign, that's okay too! You'll just have to trek through the labyrinth to escape bear-ternal damnation!"

"Uh…"

"C'mon, whaddya say?!" Teddie's stance of open arms, ready for a hug, was the worst thing ever seen by Ryuji.

See, Ryuji's brain was being overloaded by three of his top-five fears: Teddie the bear, writing, and the thought of legal processes. Contracts were tricky business no matter what they said, therefore Ryuji decided it was best to live in fear of such cruel things.

However, Teddie's intentional scares wouldn't break Ryuji. Sure, he'd already screamed like a pussy and lost his wisdom teeth, but he had a girlfriend, a club, and a GRAVY Saturday to make it to. Any bears crossing his path would be shot on sight. "I'll take my chances with bear-ternal damnation." It sounded cooler in his head.

"Suit yourself. Mweheheheh!" Teddie clapped his paws together and Ryuji felt the air shoot out of him as the floor of the attic dropped out.

A second later, Ryuji landed on cold stone. The chair he sat in—or the bindings that were tied around him—vanished. Ryuji was left alone in the new space, one that he quickly took to observing as he stood up. All around him was smooth stone. The floor, the walls, and the ceiling—which must've been a hundred feet tall—were all stone. Torches danced halfway up the massive walls.

As Ryuji marveled at the size, he came to focus on his more immediate surroundings. He had only two options—right or left. Instinctively, Ryuji walked right, again finding himself in a massive stone hallway which led to even more choices for paths. Must be a maze… shit. Well, the joke's on Teddie. I was always pretty good at drawing paths on those worksheets. The trick is to take your time and-

A robotic voice echoed through the maze. "ETA for Teddie, Hunter of Humans and Splinterer of Spines: Five minutes."

It seemed like taking his time wouldn't be an option.

Ryuji accelerated from zero to fifteen in one second. The short corridors and sharp turns kept him far below his top speed, but slamming into too many walls would slow him even more. Ryuji refused to be fodder, to be hunted by a celebrity bear that was supposed to be in prison.

From hall to hall, Ryuji ran. The skin of his shoulder scraped off against the rough stone of a wall, yet Ryuji didn't slow. Acid filled his lungs and his muscles; pain throbbed through him with every leap of a step he took. Still, he ran like Ann was there to cheer him on.

"The Hunter of Humans would like all participants to know that he loves you dearly and hopes you find pleasure in the pain," the robotic voice said. It confused the shit out of Ryuji, getting him to slow his pace to a stop until it spoke again. "ETA: Three minutes." Ryuji ran even faster than before, continuing through the maze without putting thought into his turns.

Fear carried him to the same sights as ever and to the thought that he could be going in circles. He had never considered taking the right path, only putting an appropriate distance between himself and the hunter. Finally, he turned a corner and a new image greeted him.

In the stone was a partition too straight to be a crack and too purposeful to be from erosion. The closer and closer Ryuji got to the strange detail in the stone, the more its shape came to him. A perfect circle wrote itself into the stone. The perfect edges surrounding it showed a lack of carving skill.

Ryuji's feet stopped moving as he came to a stop before the small circle. Instinctively, Ryuji's hand reached out to touch the carved stone without checking with his brain for second approval. Before he even realized what he'd done, a whole section of the wall vanished along with the circle. Ryuji jumped back from the surprise, finding no wall restricting him from the path forward. It was only when he settled from shock that he connected the dots—the circle was a doorknob; the empty space in the wall was a door.

Ryuji ducked into the dark room. He heard nothing, but the air of the room flushed behind him as the stone wall reformed itself. Ryuji silently prayed it was strong enough to withstand the hunter when he arrived. That is if he hadn't already fallen into a trap—his newest in a series of poor decisions left him alone in a dark room with no way of creating a light source.

"Man, why can't anything go my way?" Ryuji's tired legs ached for relief. He obliged them, sitting down on—surprise—a stone floor. "I gotta hear about contracts, I gotta get rid of my wisdom teeth, I gotta study Italian poetry… this shit sucks."

A familiar voice slithered out of the darkness to Ryuji. "Your mother is the one who sucks."

Strangely, Ryuji felt little surprise when blinding light came from the center of the room, and even less surprise when his eyes adjusted to see Ren at the center of the stone room. But because Ryuji simply wasn't allowed to have a normal Sunday, Ren wore the hideous outfit of a medieval court jester.

Black and purple divided Ren in half, alternating at every possible area to defy symmetry. The only items that matched each other with their color were his long, curling shoes. The ends—which fell back over the center of the shoes—were sharp.

Ryuji stayed sitting down, leaning his shoulders back while using his arms for support. Ren cocked his head to the side, confused at something Ryuji couldn't perceive. The unnecessary bells that dangled from Ren's jester hat uncomfortably violated the silence of the room.

"Really? That's it?" Ryuji asked. "That's gotta be your worst mom-joke ever. The bar is so low right now."

Ren shook his head furiously—bells swung and jangled to take the piss out of the moment. "Your mom is l-"

"Wow, you really do have nothing. You been living off of scraps of mom-jokes in here?" Ryuji looked around the stone room. It was completely empty, except for the two idiots. Sheepishly, Ren bowed his head and nodded. "Must be tough for a dude as unfunny as you. Can you tell me any jokes that aren't about my mom?"

Ren looked up. The bells swung with inertia, annoying Ryuji more and more every time Ren moved his head. After a moment of consideration, Ren shook his head.

"Tough life. Well, I don't care, so let's get to the important part." Ryuji stood up, hands on his hips while his judging eyes followed the bells of Ren's hat as they swayed. "We're stuck in a maze with a bear and we gotta get out."

"Your mom is stu-"

"So you can't even say anything that isn't a mom-joke? Damn, you are useless." For once, no bells jingled in the room. Ren's head hung in the midst of the unmistakable sound of awkward regret. When nothing changed after a few silence, Ryuji's conscience crept back to him. "Wait, I'm sorry, I-"

Jester Ren looked up with life in his eyes. His hand shot up to tell Ryuji to shut up, then his other hand reached into his black and purple robe, jostling underneath the fabric for some reason. Five more excruciating seconds of being uncomfortable passed, then Ryuji saw Ren's prize.

Out of the robe came a thin metal statue about a foot in length. Its silver body glinted under the light of the room as Ren held it up for Ryuji to see. As he looked, he began to understand the truth about Jester Ren: he was exactly like the version of Ren that Ryuji already knew.

The statue—for better or worse—was modeled after Makoto Niijima.

"Hail the Student Council President, Savior of Shujin, Conqueror of Kosei, Smiter of–"

Ryuji chuckled just enough to cut Jester Ren off. "Yeah, okay. Don't get ahead of yourself buddy."

"Hold your tongue in the presence of the statue!"

"Or what?" Ryuji reached to Ren as if he was going to place a consoling hand on his friend's shoulder. "You'll eff my mom?" Instead, Ryuji flicked a bell. "Good luck with that. Teddie's gonna crush that little thing, then he's gonna eat you."

"Your…" Ren's face reddened—not with embarrassment, but with effort. His lips pursed and unpursed every second as he tried to force words out of his mouth, almost as if the universe had disallowed him from saying anything beyond lame jokes about mothers. "...M-mother likes th-this statue!"

Unamused, Ryuji crossed his arms. "Really?"

"B-because there-" Instead of an unspeakable force interrupting Jester Ren, the room imploding around him did it. A wall—not the one Ryuji entered through—caved in from the force of a fat bear suit slamming against it. Debris flew through the room, giving Ryuji a soon-to-be bruise on his forehead. He winced away from the cave-in until the dust settled and the only thing preventing silence were some alarmingly rapid rings from Ren's bells.

Ryuji opened his eyes and turned to face the cave-in. There stood Teddie the Bear, a nine-foot demon with golden eyes and at least five-hundred pounds of gut—that must've been how he got through the wall.

High above Teddie's head was Jester Ren. Like his bells, he was being dangled. He swayed back and forth over Teddie's expanding jaw, head shaking in fright and his limbs squirming in between Teddie's fat paws.

"That's beary loud!" Teddie whined. "You need to be quiet!"

In horror, Ryuji watched as the paws that pressed Ren's bones into powder were pulled away and Ren slipped down. With one clean movement, Teddie's jaw slammed shut with all of Jester Ren on the wrong side of the bear's numerous teeth—all except an arm. That limb dropped to the ground, right in front of Ryuji, with the statue of Makoto still in its grasp.

Ryuji's head cocked. In his mind, it was oddly poetic—Ren, dressed as a jester, bases his life around worshiping Makoto until he was eaten by a fat cartoon bear that doesn't pay his taxes. Still, his life's work—the silver statue of Makoto—survived.

Maybe it wasn't poetic and Ryuji was just losing his mind. One of those options seemed more likely than the other.

Either way, Ryuji had no time to consider his choice. Because fate brought it to him, Ryuji took the statue—and the free hand that came with it—and ran. The wall he entered through vanished as soon as he faced it, his reenergized legs carrying him back into the maze. Like before, he ran without thought.

"I'm… still ticking!" Teddie yelled, letting out a mangled giggle through what must have been jester blood. "I have your scee-eeent!"

Ryuji didn't care. He ran faster than ever before. His arms pumped at his sides. Ren's arm dangled from the statue, leaving an obvious trail for Teddie. Ryuji, while running, dug his fingers under the tight grip of Ren's detached hand to separate it from the statue. He saw nothing weird about the act, nothing at all.

He realized his running slowed since he started the process. As he picked up the pace, his fingers grew slippery with sweat. They couldn't get a grip on the silver or the hand, and Ryuji soon paid the price. In slow-motion, the statue dropped right into the leg that Ryuji ran oh-so fast with, sending it down the hall of the maze with extra force.

Immediately, the statue shattered. Limbs flew, the base rolled away like a hockey puck on its side, and the head burst into a ball of green flame as all statue heads do when they're detached from their body. Obviously.

Terror floated through the maze to find Ryuji. "Come here, Ryuji-chan! I have a contraaaaact!" With that final word, a chill ran down Ryuji's spine. Ryuji knew he had enough distance to stop for a moment and beat himself up for a stupid mistake, yet he didn't want to do Teddie any favors. He nearly got back to his escape until he looked down at the remains of the statue.

Atop its shoulders, right where its head had been, a key protruded. Ryuji picked up the body, pulled the key from its neck like it was a sword from stone, and raised it in the air to celebrate his victory.

Somewhere, somehow, some music Ryuji recognized from a movie long ago faded in. He felt like a boxer standing at the center of a ring, staring down the unconscious body of a former opponent. The key made him feel like he had superpowers, like he could take on the world, like-

"Heeeere's Teddie!" Ryuji spun and saw the bear round the corner. Blood soaked the fur around his mouth and his gold eyes seemed to have darkened since their last encounter. "Come to papa bear!" He sank onto all fours and began to close the distance.

Ryuji took off in the opposite direction. He left the statue behind but clutched the metal key as tight as he could with his sweaty hand.

"You can't escape me, Ryuji-chan!" Teddie's voice became rabid. His incredible pace interrupted his words, bounding forward and forward far more quickly than Ryuji could run. He couldn't turn to see how close his pursuer was, only continue to swerve around corners and hurry down thin halls. "The school festival will bring you back to me!"

Even Ryuji's thoughts were panicking. The eff is he talking about?! He had no clue about a school festival involving Teddie the bear, let alone a school festival.

Ryuji went right, then left. His legs moved him so quickly that he skidded around each corner, his shoes dragging across the stone. He knew it was risky, of course, but he needed to maintain his high level of speed. Hell, he wanted to push himself even more. Teddie must've been gaining on him.

He sent a quick reminder to his legs that they would be permanently removed from his body by means of grotesque violence if they didn't work harder. His arms pumped more, his legs turned like chariot wheels, and his lungs blew down pig houses with each gust of breath.

All of it was for naught. Ryuji slid around the next corner and he never stopped. His shoulder and head slammed into the stone wall, bringing everything except for the massive bear to a halt. Ryuji's head pounded and his new gash burned. All the aches, cramps, and pains from his run set in at the same moment.

Teddie stopped bounding forward, instead rising to his hind legs. He gave Ryuji room to breathe—but not enough to escape. The bear closed in just enough to keep Ryuji in mauling distance. "Tsk tsk, Ryuji-chan. I thought you were on the track team."

"Yeah…" Ryuji wheezed. "So did I…"

Teddie shrugged. "Guess I gotta eat you now. Need a minute to prepare?"

"Nah…" However, Ryuji did take that minute. Slumped against the stone wall that hit him harder than anyone ever had, Ryuji looked right—another corner to turn. He looked left—no corner, just the first dead-end Ryuji had seen all afternoon. As Ryuji took up more and more of his last minute to live, he noticed something on the wall.

It gave him an idea.

Teddie's jaw opened and widened at the same time. He bared his teeth through a hideous smile. "Ready?"

"Just one question, Ted," Ryuji said, holding his hand up to signal for pause. Even a motion as simple as that made his arm ache with exhaustion. "I'll be dying, so I wanna know what it's like to score with a girl."

Teddie took a step back. "S-scoring?! The last time I talked about that, they put me in jail…" Ryuji smirked; it had been the scandal of the week when the clip first broke the internet.

"I'm no snitch." Ryuji could see Teddie's focus dwindling, his hunger subsiding. His jaw closed and his lips pursed as he thought about the act. All Ryuji had to do was push Teddie off the ledge and into his pit of memories. "Please?"

"Well…" Teddie's paw went to his chin as if there was a wise old beard to scratch while recalling the good ol' days. "It all started when Junes forced me to go on a diet, and-" Ryuji saw his opportunity. He leaped into a full sprint, pushing off the wall with his arms as he made a mad dash to the dead-end. His arm—the one holding the key—stretched forth, aiming at the little notch in the wall that Ryuji knew would take him home. "Hey! You get back here!"

Teddie roared. Not a roar like a bear, but like a whiny anime character that didn't get enough hate. Ryuji wanted to stop, turn, and laugh, but he had his priorities in order and his key aimed correctly. The metal slotted into the notch, the wall disappeared just like it had for Jester Ren's room, and Ryuji's momentum took him inside.

Again, the wall closing behind him sealed him in total darkness, but that didn't stop his senses from telling him where he was. Damp paper towels and soap clung to the air congested air. I'm in Shujin's third-floor boys' bathroom! The realization was a joyous experience for Ryuji, probably on par with occasionally remembering that he did, in fact, have a girlfriend.

Shujin's bathroom, specifically the one on the third floor, was something of a holy location for Ryuji. It was where he'd discovered his love for energy drinks during a break period as a first-year. There was no need for him to chug ten before going to history class, but it was just as much of an accomplishment as if the world depended on Ryuji doing it.

The light flashed to life, revealing Ryuji's assumption as the truth. His memory of the bathroom remained truthful, bar the missing stains on the walls. Odd nostalgia almost drove him down memory lane until a sound came through the bathroom door.

"Ryuji-chan! I know you're in there!"

Ryuji got to his feet. He felt like a rag doll, barely holding himself up straight on his noodle legs. All he could do was half-heartedly stumble into a stall and lock the door behind him. Finally able to rest, he sat down on the lid of the toilet. He rubbed his eyes with his hands to keep himself awake, but it did a piss-poor job. Every part of his body was screaming at him to nap.

Teddie knocked on the door again. "I'm coming in!" The door creaked for five whole seconds, then Teddie's loud breathing took over the bathroom. "Where could you be? Hm…" His breathing stopped and his nose took over. Ryuji pulled his legs to his chest so they couldn't be seen from under the stall. He bit down on his tongue as he held his breath. "You can't hide from all your problems in the bathroom, you know. It's bad hygiene!"

As if Teddie cared about that. Ryuji caught a whiff of his breath when he'd been cornered—he didn't intend on doing so again.

Teddie's sniffing stopped. "Strange… I don't smell Ryuji-chan." Disappointment tinged his voice, reminding Ryuji of a kid whose scoop of ice cream fell off the cone. "Aw man…" He heard the bear's weight shift around near the door to the bathroom. "More hunting for me!" The door opened and slammed within the span of a second as Teddie left the bathroom for the maze.

Ryuji exhaled a breath misted with blood from his tongue, but it was the best breath of his entire life.

It also might have been the last.

"Gotcha!" Teddie's head shot under the stall door, sending Ryuji at least ten feet off the toilet as he shit himself mid-air. "I'm gonna getcha, I'm gonna getcha!" Ryuji spread his limbs out to the stall walls. He had enough traction to barely hold himself over the stall, but his shoes were slipping on the greasy walls.

Teddie's mouth opened at the bottom of the stall, his golden eyes lifelessly staring upward. His eyes said everything—Ryuji would never escape. He'd never get out of the bathroom, or the maze, or that stupid fucking school he went to every day. Better to just submit to Teddie's will, right?

"Are you gonna drop down? Laying on the floor is gross," Teddie whined. "My fur is sticky."

"Dude…" Ryuji felt bad. It was a fate he wished on no man, woman, child, or bear.

"Pleeeeease?"

"I'll pass."

"Well…" Teddie crossed his paws on his chest. "Fuck you, Ryuji-chan! You coulda signed the contract and saved us both the trouble."

"Okay, that's it. I am sick and tired of bears and contracts and mazes and shit not making sense. I'm out." Ryuji let his feet slip. He didn't care if he lived or died—the goal was to at least stomp Teddie in the face once or twice, make the bear pay for chasing him around, then leave.

Teddie's jaw opened too quickly for any of that. Ryuji felt warmth travel up his leg as he fell, then his whole body followed. Despite the unfortunate situation of being swallowed whole, Ryuji was remarkably comfortable inside the bear. He even retained all four of his limbs—what luck!

"You just got g-g-gulped down by big bear Teddie!" the whiny voice yelled at Ryuji. He looked around the dark void to see where it was coming from. "I'll see you at the culture festival, Ryuji-chan!"

Festival with Teddie? The culture festival? Wait… oh my god, I'm so fucked. Ryuji's mouth opened to scream, but no sound came out. His terror simmered in the void of Teddie's belly, never to escape beyond the depths.

Ren opened his eyes as an obnoxious j-pop ringtone effortlessly cut through seven hours of sleep. On autopilot, his arm reached over to his dresser to slide the phone off of it. He squinted at the phone screen to see who the rudest person he knew was.

Dammit, Ryuji. I thought you slept in 'til noon every day. Fuck are you doing?

He answered the phone and held it to his ear.

"He-"

"Ren! " Ryuji bellowed through the phone. "He ate me, Ren! After I shit myself! He fed on my soul!"

"Uh, who-"

Ryuji shrieked as loud as he could. "And he's coming to the festival! Teddie is coming to the festival!" Ren wondered where on earth his friend was calling from because Eri Sakamoto certainly wouldn't put up with such volume. Ann wouldn't either. With few feasible options, Ren assumed that Ryuji was just being an idiot.

"Okay, Ryuji. You should go back to-"

"Ask Makoto!"

"What?"

"I need confirmation!"

""For w-"

"Don't fuck with me, Renny! Who's the guest for the festival?!"

"Oh, okay. One second." Ren muted his phone's mic, then rolled over in bed. He tapped Makoto on her forehead—it worked every time, for some reason—and her eyes opened immediately.

"Ren? Isn't it-"

"Who's the guest for the school festival?"

"Wha- I…" Makoto rubbed her eye and sat up in bed. Past Ren, she saw the clock that told her how badly she'd been wronged by Ren waking her up early. "It's… Teddie the Bear."

Ren nodded. He unmuted the phone and put it back to his ear. "She said it's Teddie."

"Fucking shit-balls!"

The line clicked immediately and Ren was left alone with a morning that started a little too early and a girlfriend none too eager to be awake.

"That was the strangest interaction I've ever had with Ryuji."

Makoto didn't move from her sitting position, giving Ren hope that she intended on going back to sleep once they were done talking. "He just wanted to know about the guest speaker for the festival?"

"Yeah… he was screaming about how Teddie ate him, and how he's coming to Shujin for the festival."

Makoto's face soured and Ren prepared for the worst. "He shouldn't know about that. Only Michiko and I…"

"Then how'd he find out?"

"Michiko wouldn't leak it, and I know I didn't tell him. I'm sure his sanity just failed."

"That'd make sense…" Ren chuckled at the vivid sound of Ryuji howling like an injured animal through the phone; he wouldn't forget it any time soon. "I should check on him. He seemed pretty down last night after he got back from Tae's."

"He was unusually quiet."

"Yeah…" Whatever it was, it didn't press Ren enough to leave his bed when there was still another person in it. "Well, back to bed, right?"

"Hm? I thought you woke me up to go to the gym."

"No, I woke you up to answer Ryuji's question."

"No, I'm pretty sure you want to go to the gym."

"I don't think I want to do that."

"Yes, you do."

Ren's head bobbed side to side in between his two options. His lips pursed and he hummed to give himself just enough of a sarcastic edge to get through the conversation unscathed.

"No, I'm pretty sure-"

Makoto cut Ren off by leaning in for the most persuasive kiss of all time. "Yes, you do," she said, looking him in the eye as she pulled back. She knew the power she had over him with an action so simple, and he knew it as well.

Ren conceded everything in a heartbeat. "I'll go to the gym."

"We'll go to the gym."

"Er, yeah. What you said."

A/N: Been a long time, so I wanted to do a chapter before the end of the year. Hope you guys enjoyed it and thanks for reading. Have a happy New Year.