Dens

Emptiness.

Long expanses of emptiness.

It's whatever came to his mind when he thought about his world for too long, and it was something Teddie couldn't bear to think of.

It wasn't that he hated his world. Quite frankly, it was his first home... His true home. Not that the human world wasn't home either. Anyplace with Sensei and Yosuke and Nana-chan and all of his friends was a place he could consider home, and hos most loved home as well. The Junes food court was warm, and airy, and filled with comfortable chairs and delicious- if expensive- food and his dear, dear friends.

And the TV was so bear-ren.

Teddie rolled over again, trying to focus on anything else. He always felt a little sick when he didn't stay in the TV for too long, and while he did enjoy being here, the safest place in the TV, where no Shadows would attack him in return, was the open space between the Dungeons. It was quiet and empty, and safe. And empty.

Bear-y empty.

"... I'll be home soon..." Teddie mumbled, wrapping the blanket tighter around himself as he did so. But the TV was home too, wasn't it? It was the place where he came from... And it was safe, now that Adachy-baby was in jail and Namatame stopped throwing people in here. So he should have been much happier to be here, and much calmer as well. But still, all he could feel was a sense of gnawing painful gross-ness in the pit of his stomach, a feeling of dread he couldn't quite find the words for.

"Now, what are you doing?" Yosuke grumbled, kneeling on his hands and knees as he stared at the blond-haired boy-shaped bear who was currently hiding under his writing table. He should be used to Teddie's weirdness at this point, after living with him for god knows how long now. And yet, somehow he found new and exciting ways to through Yosuke through a loop. Ways like taking his and Yosuke's futons and bedding and making what could be generally described as a pillow-cocoon around his furniture.

"This? It's my seeecret hideaway!" Teddie beamed in return, little face inching out from below his table, a stick of pocky hanging loosely from his mouth as he crawled out. Yosuke groaned with annoyance, as he snatched the snack from his mouth, even as the Teddie whined in return.

"First of all, it's not a secret hideaway if it's in the middle of the room. Second, I told you no eating in here!" Yosuke said, holding the pocky gingerly. At least it was one stick of candy, but with the amount of snacks Teddie consumed, and his forgetfulness when it came to trash, he had to wonder if he was ever a Pig-Shadow at some point in his life instead of always a Bear-Shadow.

Teddie suddenly darted out from beneath the table, trying to nip out the cookie-stick straight from Yosuke's hands, the brunet only tossing the stick back away from the shockingly sharp teeth- even in human form, he had seen him chew through overcooked beef with the texture of tire rubber like it was butter. That was a lot of pain he didn't want to deal with, especially if he had to untangle the futons and beds again.

As Teddie chewed down the stick, swallowing it in less than two bites, he smiled up to Yosuke. "I got hungry while I was crafting my den. And I thought that one little box of Pocky wouldn't be toooo much of a mess, especially if I..." With a small smile, he pulled out the second packet and handed it to Yosuke. Yosuke looked down, before his expression eased up slightly and he took the strawberry-flavored sticks from Teddie.

"Well... I guess it's alright if you share it... But man, why my desk too? And the futons? Can't you just make your blanket hovel without getting the rest of my furniture involved in it?" At least he had enough sense to leave the game systems out this time, and used soft materials. But he needed that desk for homewo- Okay, who was he kidding, he needed that desk to rest his arms while playing Vita and messing with his phone. But the desk was the important feature in this situation.

Teddie looked down, at the squat little table he had to shimmy under, covered in and wrapped with piles of sheets, pillows and mattresses, to the point where it was no longer visible under the mass of comfort. For a second, his voice went quite, the exuberant joy over a pillow-and-desk fort and cookies replaced with a quiet unease, "I... Needed something to keep it whole instead of a pile of fluff. So I could feel safe, as well as warm and cozy."

Safe? ... What happened in the TV World the other night, when Teddie had gone in? Did he end up in one of the dungeons? Immediately, a look of worry crossed Yosuke's face. "Teddie..." He mumbled, but before he had a chance to ask him, the bear's expression shifted quickly back to his happier moment.

"Buuuut, now you're here too! And I'm here already! That means we have enough members to make a secret club!"

"What."

"Oh, Yosuke, it will be awesomesauce!" He was never going to forgive Chie for introducing that term to Teddie, as the bear went off in his own little tangent again. "You'll bear witness to the greatest association for the manliest of men, the Den-izens of Tomorrow! Oooh, or maybe Sensei's Soldiers! Do you think he'd like that, having us as his own personal army?"

"I think I need to lay down." Yosuke mumbled. Then, his expression soured deeper. "And I think you need to untangle my bed from my desk. Now."

This sort of thing wasn't too unexpected, all things considered. With the change of the season, the store would have a lot of small renovations to keep the style fresh and new, as well as replace any of the dinged up furniture and keep the store looking as nice as possible. It still felt like a shame though, Yosuke thought as he stared at the Secret Headquarters, the last remaining set of chairs and table that hadn't been send into the storage room.

"... 's weird seein' them like this, ain't it?" Kanji muttered, looking back at the empty plaza that had been the food court at the moment. It didn't look right, not without anything but the wood patio set and the small set of kid's playground equipment off to the corner. At least it was only a temporary thing, so they could wash off the deck, buff it until it shined again, and put out new furniture, but still... Didn't feel right, looking at it like that. It almost looked naked.

"It's pretty normal," Yosuke said, rubbing the back of his neck as he stared around the area. Still, even with being used to seeing the store at least twice a year and not even from just this location but with the Juneses he had been around since his dad became an assistant manager back in Naha, it... Felt wrong now.

Of course, he didn't like the physical labor involved. And at least Yu and Kanji had came around to help with this, so he didn't have to rely on those two girls... Who had called out the minute they realized the first sunny and warm day of the year was going to be spend power-hosing tile flooring and moving large amounts of steel chairs. But more than that, it felt weird seeing their "secret headquarters" like this. A stack of eight chairs and a table, the legs removed for easier storage.

"What will happen to it?" Yu asked, looking over the set as he placed the legs to the side. Even his voice sounded a little hushed at that.

"They change out the furniture every year... We'll probably keep this in storage for a while. The managers say they'll eventually recall them to the central offices, so they can get refurbished and reused... But really, we'll probably just toss them out soon." Yosuke muttered, running his hand along the edge of the table. Such a waste... Even if they were cheap seats, cheaper just to remake them out of plastic and metal every few years instead of the costs to ship them out or repaint them, they were still good. So they were a little chipped and dinged up? It wasn't like the rest of them weren't chipped and dinged up either.

"Well, that's shit." Kanji practically growled, as he picked up the chair stacks, not even wincing at the feeling of toting eight chairs on his own. One of these days, Yosuke was sure he was going to blow out his spine doing shit like that... But knowing Kanji, he could probably punch it back to normal, as if it was nothing at all. "If they're gonna just toss out perfectly good furniture like this, then it ain't any skin off their teeth if we just take it."

"... What, really?" Yosuke said in surprise, his eyes widening slightly. It didn't seem like that bad of a plan, to be honest. And it wasn't just Junes's tables and chairs... But it was THEIR table, THEIR chairs, THEIR headquarters, that would end up in a dumpster before the end of the year at this rate. He frowned at the thought, before being invigorated, incensed into the idea. "... Yeah. You're right. It's not like they're going to notice one more set that's missing."

"We'll need a place to store it." Yu said as he picked up the the table's base, already trying to think of the most logical while his friends ran with the more emotional ideas. The Hanamuras' house was already pretty cramped with the addition of Teddie, and it seemed impolite to ask Dojima-san to store chairs and a table for him, no matter the sentimental value. Perhaps Mrs. Tatsumi would be willing to take them, or one of the girls? Naoto might have extra room...

"We can toss it in the storage closet for now." Yosuke said, scooping up the table-legs and already walking to the spare room. "It's going to be at least a few months before they toss anything in there away. We've got until about the end of next summer before anything should happen."

As the boys carried the last remnants of their Investigation, taking care not to cause any more needless damage or drop their precious cargo, they talked aimlessly for a bit. Nothing of much importance, and more Kanji and Yosuke rambling on while Yu walked in silence. Not that it really mattered what was being said. It was filler, a distraction over the realization that everything had come to a close. Inaba was safe, there was no more worry about additional murders and kidnappings... And there was a sudden, and distinct scream from the area of the food court.

Teddie's scream, shrill and terrified, and very suddenly cut short.

Immediately, the boys ran back, Yosuke dropping the legs in haste as the brunet practically rebounded off the walls in an attempt to rush back, Yu and Kanji a close second. A chill went to the back of his neck, an impossible and shrill worry taking form from the sense of dread from the cry. Did someone attempt to hurt him? Did he fall? Was he alright?

He dashed back, to the sight that made his blood run cold for a moment. There laid Teddie, curled up in a ball face-down on the ground, obviously shaking from some unseen terror.

"TEDDIE!"

Immediately, all three boys crowded around him, Yosuke attempting to pull Teddie up. Dark thoughts plagued in his mind, of some unseen attacker who might have still been in the court, or perhaps maybe his human body wasn't as strong as they liked, and the scare they had back at Hagakure was a legitimate worry. Kanji already stood in front, still grasping one of the chairs in his hand as he immediately went into a defensive position, moves that came automatically from the constant stream of fighting in the past year. Yu brushed Teddie's bangs away, revealing his eyes, wide and shaking with terror.

"Empty..." Teddie mumbled, a quiver running along his thin frame. Yu rubbed along his back, as Yosuke just stared down in confusion, not sure what else to do. "It's... Empty..."

"What, do you mean the Food Court?" Yosuke asked, trying to figure out what was Teddie talking about. Was he that freaked out by that?! In a sense, he felt like he should be mad, smacking the dumb bear upside the head in return for scaring them all like that... But it wasn't Teddie just being over-dramatic, like usual. You can't just fake that level of watery-eyed terror, no matter how little sense it made. He attempted to reason with the bear, "Teddie, calm down. It's just being washed, and it's empty right now, alright? It's not staying like this-"

"Hold off a bit." Yu said, shushing Yosuke as he just kept stroking Teddie's back softly. The bear's trembling was beginning to subside, his breathing slowly turning normal as he started to calm down. Yosuke opened his mouth to interject, but held off. Yu was much better at this sort of thing than him, both medical bullshit and with knowing how to react to people panicking. Still, he hated not knowing what to do in a situation like this... Kanji was already in protective mode, even if he had gone more limp, a vague sense of unease in their kohai as he watched the scene. And Yu always knew what to do in something like this.

But all Yosuke could do was just wait for the panic to subside, and hope he could help after the initial panic, something he just hated but understood that it was the truth.

Teddie finally eased up, shutting his eyes for a moment as he sat up in a slight daze. He looked around to the group, clinging to Yu's shirt as he pulled himself into an upright position. He gave a small laugh, thin and dry, as one of his hands went to his hair, "O-Oh... I've... I've made a mess of my bear-utiful quaff, haven't I? Silly me..."

"Teddie, you were rolling around the ground screaming," Yosuke said bluntly. If anyone noticed as he held Teddie's hand in both of his own, they weren't planning on saying anything about it. "Any your first worry is your hair? Really, dude?"

Seeming a little more like his average self, Teddie puffed out his cheeks in a huff. "Well, you've said it yourself! A man's pride is his hair and all! And you're the one who gets huffy o-bear a little scrape on your face in a fight." Yosuke bit his tongue, as getting into an argument over why a five-inch gash along his nose and cheeks didn't count as a 'little scrape', as Teddie mellowed out again, "It's just... I really don't like it."

"... The emptiness?" Yu asked. Kanji placed down the chair he had grabbed as a weapon before, as Yu helped Teddie up off the ground and onto a chair.

The little bear nodded. "I... Can see the wood bench and the playground are still around, now that I'm out here. But when I got out of here in the first place, I just... Everything went stiff, and wrong and bad, and I couldn't breath... I could scream, but I just couldn't breath..." His grip on Yosuke's hands tightened, knuckles white in his grip as he spoke.

"... It's alright now." Yosuke said. "We're just cleaning it, it's not going to remain empty like this."

"Oh, I understand!" Teddie said, nodding sharply at that last point. "But... Seeing everything gone like that, it just made me think of... My world... And how everything is so bear-ren... I couldn't think, not of anything besides 'it's happening here too' and 'it's all empty now', and I just hate looking at all of that wide open space, because it's lonely when it's empty and you feel really alone... I don't like the open, I much rather prefer dens."

For a moment, the group sat in silence, Teddie still clutching to Yosuke's hands tightly, his breath returned to normal and his body no longer shaking, but still looking distraught, eyes staring down at the ground right in front of him rather than the expanse of the food court where there was nothing but that frighteningly empty wet tiling.

"... Y'know," Kanji said, coughing into his hand slight, "S'not like we need need anymore help with this, Yosuke-Senpai. Me and Yu-Senpai can finish putting the chairs away and hiding the 'secret headquarters'."

"That would be good." Yu said, "You and Teddie can head back and relax, and we'll get the new store decorations and tables out. You've been working all day and Teddie's having a rough time."

"Yeah. You two gotta have a break... Just, take some time to chill." With the tone of his voice, and the slight tilt of his head, Yosuke got the feeling it wasn't a chance for him to chill, so much as for a chance for Teddie to step away and relax and someone to keep watch on him. Not that he minded, of course... He didn't like the thought of having to stick around in Junes any longer than he needed to, especially with Teddie freaking out like this.

"B-But we have work to do, don't we?" Teddie asked, looking up at Yosuke in confusion, "Won't we get in trouble if we just up and ran from this?"

"It..." Yosuke started, pausing to take a moment to consider. Even with Kanji and Yu working together, it would still take them both the better part of the day to finish putting away the new tables. And it didn't seem fair to let them stick around and do all of the heavy shit, even if it also didn't seem fair to leave Teddie alone, when he was freaking out about emptiness... That sort of fear of his came from feeling alone, didn't it? And just always being alone in the emptiness of the TV? "... It sounds good, guys." He finally said. "I know you'll both get a few hundred extra yen for the trouble... Sorry we have to leave you like this."

"Tch, you act like we can't take care of this ourselves, Senpai." Kanji said, a sharp-tooth grin on his face as he rolled up his sleeves, flexing his muscles as he did so. "I mean, I've been doing the heavy work for you and me since I started. Ain't like it's gonna kill me to keep doing that."

Yosuke bristled slight, but had enough sense to keep his mouth shut as Teddie stood up. He turned, before finally releasing his hands from the bear's grasp, Teddie frowning slightly as he did so, before turning to the pair, "If you need us, we'll be back home, alright?"

"Back... Home?" Teddie asked, still slightly dazed from before. If Yosuke noticed his reaction, he hadn't said anything as he was more focused on the other two boys who were both agreeing to Yosuke's plan. Hopefully, they can just relax when they get back... Normally, he'd be up for any sort of fun-time jams and party-time, but today, all he wanted to do was lie down.

"Yoooosukeeeee..." Teddie whined, as he kicked at the door to the bedroom halfheartedly. It had been already twenty minutes since they got back home, and the first thing Yosuke did was hole himself up in his bedroom and locked the door. How rude! Leaving Teddie stranded out here like this! Not even letting him in so he could curl up in the futon to sleep for a little while! Teddie growled in annoyance, annoyed he had even been denied access to his fur, which had been also in the room at the same time. Now how was he supposed to relax like this?! "This is the opposite of helping!"

"Just a second, alright? I'm almost done!" Yosuke shouted back, as the sounds of the rummaging in the room increased. Well, he was renovating too! And without Teddie! And after all of the times he had yelled at Teddie too about it, about how he couldn't turn the table sideways even if it made for a wonderful headboard for the futons or how he was not allowed to knot all of their clothes together to make an escape rope... Why, he'd be enraged if he had the energy to.

Instead, he only had the sense to hang sadly against the door.

The lock snapped open, driving Teddie back up to his feet at full attention. Yosuke slipped out, blocking the sight of the room as he did so, "Alright... Sorry about that. But I think I've got something that should help you out, at least."

Teddie entered the room, and immediately began to beam.

The desk, as well as three computer chairs and the futons had been wrapped together with a pile of soft, fluffy pillows and thick blankets in the center of the room, making a cozy and cuddly little fort facing towards the TV. Within the pile, as well as a quilt and a couple of pillows, sat a bag of candy as well as a couple of video game controllers.

"You were saying how you hated emptiness... So I tried to make you a den." Yosuke said, as he crawled into the pillow fort, taking up one of the controllers and making room for Teddie to cuddle up beside him.

"... I don't... I thought you didn't like things like this?" Teddie asked, as he curled up within the den, hugging one of the pillows as he did so. "And people eating in your room."

"No, I don't like YOU eating my room, because you leave the trash." Yosuke said, as he opened a bag of chips. He held the bag out to Teddie, but not before popping one into his mouth with a quick chomp. "But I suppose it's okay if I'm doing it too... As long as you don't leave crap lying around, of course. And the den's okay... You just caught me off guard with it before. Besides, it's something that makes you feel better, isn't it?"

"Yeah..." Teddie mumbled. A sense of relief was taking over, as he leaned against the brunet human, grabbing a piece of creamy candy from the bag and watching Yosuke starting up the game system. A warm and cozy place... It felt good here, even if he didn't feel like doing much of anything still. So for once, it was a quiet afternoon for the two, as Teddie chowed down on sweets while Yosuke showed him how to play fighting games, the two Bear's Den-izens having a sense of relaxation.