Chie smirked as she looked down at the shrunken boys that had intruded on their slumber party.
"Take your pick of the litter. I call first pick!" Chie shouted, already reaching for Yosuke.
"What? HEY! NO! PUT ME DOWN!" Yosuke protested, flailing as Chie easily lifted him up and brought him to her malevolently grinning face. "Why me?!"
"You know why you, Yosuke," Chie growled.
"Oh come on, are you STILL mad about that Trial of the Dragon DVD? That was MONTHS ago!"
"It was limited edition! It was signed by Bruce Lee himself!"
"Bruce Lee died before DVD's were even invented! That second-hand store ripped you off!"
"Don't bring your crazy conspiracy theories about Bruce Lee's death into this!"
Naoto tuned out Chie and Yosuke, who continued their argument, and looked down at the remaining boys, locking eyes with one in particular.
"Kanji-kun," she said.
"Um... y... yeah?" Kanji asked nervously.
"Given what I know of you, I doubt you were a willing participant in this. At least, not to the degree of Yosuke and Teddie. What, exactly, are you doing here this evening?"
"Um... well..."
"If you don't wish to answer willingly, the interrogation techniques I've learned as a detective should be quite... effective... on someone your size."
"I DON'T KNOW, okay?!" Kanji blurted. "I just... Yosuke an' Ted were makin' fun of me, an' I wanted to prove I was a man, is all."
Naoto raised an eyebrow.
"That's very foolish, Kanji-kun," she said as she held out a hand, beckoning him to get on. "Come with me. I feel we need to discuss this further."
"I don't want to," Kanji grumbled, petulantly folding his arms.
"I'm sorry, Kanji-kun, did I imply I was giving you a choice?" Naoto asked, some heat finally entering her voice. "Because that was not my intention. Now come."
Fearfully, Kanji stepped onto Naoto's palm and let the titanic detective carry him away. The remaining two boys looked up at the remaining two girls with vastly different feelings. Teddie was literally vibrating with excitement, wondering which of the lovely ladies would choose him. Yu gulped nervously as his overenthusiastic underclassman and the refined yet silly inn heiress looked down at him, poorly concealed longing in their eyes.
"Dibs on Senpai!" Rise cheered.
"I choose Yu-kun," Yukiko said at the exact same time.
An awkward silence hung in the air as the two girls turned to look at each other. In the back of his mind, Yu could hear the song that played in Kill Bill just before violence would happen.
"Yukiko-senpai," Rise said with a forced sweetness. "Wouldn't you rather take Teddie? This is a good chance to get back at him for all those 'scoring with you' remarks."
"I just thought you'd prefer Teddie, Rise-chan," Yukiko said, a deliberately clueless tone coloring her voice. "His fur is so soft, I bet he'd be fun to play with."
"Then you take him," Rise offered, smiling in a way that bared teeth. "I choose Senpai."
"It's my family's inn, and Yu-kun is here uninvited," Yukiko said, her own smile beginning to slip. "I must ensure he is punished. I suspect you'll just coddle him."
"And you won't?" Rise countered. "I see how you look at him when you think nobody's looking. You're going to absolutely pamper him! You've been waiting for something like this to happen, I bet!"
"Just what are you implying?" Yukiko asked offended.
As Yu watched his two massive friends get into an increasingly heated argument over who would get to torture him- or sloppily make out with him, as the case may be- he turned to Teddie.
"Come on," he whispered to the bear. "Let's get away and try to rescue the others."
"Why don't they want Teddie?!" Teddie bawled, despondent that neither girl would pick him.
"They don't know what they're missing, Ted," Yu said kindly, dragging the bear behind him as he fled the giant distracted women.
Unaware that the object of their argument was no longer there, Yukiko finally held up a hand to stop her underclasswoman's tirade.
"Rise-chan, wait. We're being awful to each other. This night was supposed to be fun."
Rise sighed. "You're right, Yukiko-senpai. I'm sorry. Do... do you want Senpai for now? And maybe we can switch later?"
"Why don't we make Yu-kun choose?" Yukiko asked with a smile. "The grief we give him over it can be part of the punishment for sneaking in."
"That's a great idea," Rise cheered as she turned back to the TV. "Alright, Senpai, who's it gonna be? The lovely Risette? Or... some... inn... keeper..." Rise trailed off as she looked at the empty patch of floor her senpai and Teddie had previously occupied.
"WHERE DID HE GO?!" Rise squawked angrily. Next to her, Yukiko burst out laughing. "And why are you laughing?!"
"Sorry.. snrk... it's just... your voice just now!" Yukiko got out before she exploded into another peel of laughter.
"Come on, let's look for him," Rise said, getting up. "They're small, and it's not a big room. He can't have gotten far."
As for Yu and Teddie...
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