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hi!! maybe jax x fem!reader fic where reader got in the digital circus when ribbit and kaufmo were still there (it doesnt need to take place right when they appeared) and reader is almost like jax except that jax hides his feelings with humour while reader hides her feelings with anger/being mean and pushing ppl away (similiar to jax LOL) i cant take any more kind reader i need some hurt/comfort

ꜰʀᴀᴄᴛᴜʀᴇ

tadc jax x reader

takes place shortly after jax joins the circus, fem!reader (she/her pronouns), no beta we die like caine

word count: ~13138 (uhhhh whoops)

synopsis: something about you feels off lately.

jax would really prefer not to care.

Everyone realized the camping adventure had gone wrong somewhere around the third time the forest path looped back to the same stupid log.

Jax knew this because Kaufmo had carved a miserable little face into the bark the first time they passed it. Mostly out of boredom, probably. By now, the expression felt less like a joke and more like a warning.

Kaufmo stopped in front of it, hands settling on his hips while he stared down at his own carving. “Okay. That is definitely my work.”

Ribbit leaned closer to inspect the log, her expression flat. “It looks like you.”

Kaufmo turned toward her. “Rude.”

“Accurate,” she replied, a smug grin stretching across her face.

A few feet ahead of them, Ragatha stood with Caine’s brightly colored trail map unfolded in both hands. She turned it sideways, then upside down, like the paths might start making sense if she approached them from a different angle. The map was covered in cheerful illustrations of pine trees, campfires, and smiling woodland creatures, none of which matched the actual forest around them. According to the map, they should have reached the campsite twenty minutes ago.

According to the forest, they had apparently offended it personally.

“Well,” Ragatha guessed, trying very hard to sound optimistic. “Maybe we’re just taking the scenic route?”

Jax leaned back against the nearest tree, eyeing the log. “The scenic route past Kaufmo’s sad little tree portrait?”

“It’s not sad,” Kaufmo argued.

Jax tilted his head. “It has your face on it.”

Kaufmo frowned at the carving. “Wow. Okay. I’m hearing a lot of judgment from someone who hasn’t contributed artistically to this survival effort.”

Before Jax could answer, Caine’s voice boomed cheerfully from somewhere above them.

“Splendid progress, campers!” Heads tipped up automatically. Caine hovered between two branches with Bubble floating beside him, both of them wearing tiny scout uniforms. Bubble’s sash was covered entirely in badges that appeared to be different pictures of himself.

Caine clasped his hands together. “Remember, the wilderness is not simply a place, but a state of mind! And occasionally, a mildly disorienting maze with educational properties!”

Ribbit squinted up at him. “You said this was a team-building exercise.”

“It is!” Caine replied brightly. “Nothing builds teamwork like shared confusion!”

Nearby, Kinger crouched beside a patch of neon mushrooms, holding one carefully between both hands.

“...this one’s whispering my tax information to me.”

Ragatha turned sharply toward him. “Please don’t eat that.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Kinger denied.

“You were bringing it toward your mouth.”

Kinger looked down at the mushroom. After a moment, he slowly lowered it. “It was persuasive.”

Jax snorted and leaned more heavily against the tree behind him. The trunk creaked beneath his shoulder with something that sounded suspiciously irritated. He straightened fast, throwing a quick look over his shoulder.

“…great,” he muttered. “Hostile forestry.”

The only person who didn’t seem amused, even slightly, was you.

You stood apart from the rest of the group, near the edge of the path, while you stared into the fake forest ahead of them. Something about your expression had shifted over the past hour. Not annoyed, exactly. Everyone was annoyed. Even Ragatha’s smile had started to fray around the edges.

This was different.

Jax had learned that much about you by now, mostly against his will.

You had been in the circus longer than him. Nobody ever said it outright, but people acted weird whenever time was mentioned around you. Everyone was careful, in a way Jax found immediately intriguing because careful usually meant interesting.

He had pieced together enough over the months to know you were one of the older arrivals. Not Kinger old, obviously. Nobody was Kinger old. But old enough that sometimes you said things nobody else seemed to understand. References to places, people, old adventures that made conversations stall before moving on again. Even Ragatha occasionally looked lost. Then somebody would change the subject, and everybody would move on like it hadn’t happened.

Which was stupid, in Jax’s opinion.

You were not fragile. You were mean.

Not even in the fun way most of the time, which was disappointing. Jax appreciated a little cruelty when it had style. Yours did, occasionally. Most of the time, it just felt sharp in all the wrong places.

You had not been like that when he arrived. That was the annoying part.

For about a week, you had been almost bearable.

You showed him where things were without making it weird, you warned him which doors Caine forgot to stabilize. You told him, very seriously, never to trust the left hallway after midnight, then laughed when he spent the next three nights checking over his shoulder. You were sarcastic, but strangely patient in a way that had made Kaufmo grin a little easier whenever you stuck around.

Then, almost overnight, you stopped. Jax still couldn’t figure out what exactly went wrong.

One day, you were sitting beside Ribbit during breakfast, stealing pieces off Kaufmo’s plate while insulting his taste in syrup. The next, you were at the far end of the table, silent enough that the space around you seemed intentional.

Six months later, you still looked at Jax like he had personally ruined the weather.

A sudden rustle came from the bushes.

Ribbit turned first at the sound, shoulders tensing. “Please tell me that’s not another animal.”

Kaufmo looked genuinely offended. “Okay, in my defense, I didn’t know raccoons could unzip tents.”

Ribbit stopped walking. “It locked you outside.”

“It made eye contact while it did it.”

Another rustle came from the bushes behind them, followed by a small masked face poking through the leaves. The raccoon stared at the group for a moment, wearing Kaufmo’s hat and what looked suspiciously like Ragatha’s emergency whistle around its neck.

Ragatha inhaled slowly. “Oh, come on.”

The raccoon raised one tiny paw and blew the whistle directly in her face.

Chaos broke out immediately.

Kaufmo lunged for his hat. Ribbit grabbed the back of his collar before he could trip over a tree root. Ragatha made a distressed noise and reached for the trail mix bag right as two more raccoons dropped from the branches above her. Kinger shouted something about a hostile kingdom. From somewhere above, Bubble laughed so hard he briefly turned inside out.

Jax stayed exactly where he was, mostly because the whole thing was funnier from a distance.

One of the raccoons made a grab for the food.

You intercepted it before anybody else could react, snatching the bag before the animal could drag it into the bushes.

The raccoon hissed at you.

You stared down at it. “Do not start with me.”

For one strange second, the animal seemed to consider that.

Then it backed away.

Kaufmo blinked toward you, still halfway caught in Ribbit’s grip. “That…that was actually kind of terrifying.”

You barely glanced up from checking the supply bag. “Thanks, Kauf’.”

Kaufmo frowned. “That wasn’t a compliment.”

“Then work on your delivery,” you teased, already tossing the bag back toward Ragatha.

Ribbit’s expression softened. Jax found himself oddly reluctant to look away.

There. That was the version of you he remembered.

You stepped toward Kaufmo, eyes narrowing at the mess of rope tangled around his arm from when he had nearly chased the raccoon into the brush.

“Hold still,” you said.

Kaufmo glanced down at himself. “...I think I’ve become one with the campsite.”

“You’ve become a liability.”

“That too.”

You moved closer and started working the knot loose with quick, impatient fingers. Kaufmo stood unusually still while you untangled him, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and something quieter. Ribbit watched from beside him, less guarded than she had looked all afternoon.

Jax noticed that too. He hated that he noticed.

“You know,” Jax called from near the tree, “if you’re takin’ requests, I’d like to be rescued from this whole adventure.”

You didn’t look at him. “You’d have to be useful first.”

“Ouch.” Jax pressed a hand to his chest. “And here I thought we were bonding.”

“You thought wrong.”

“Common problem for me, apparently.”

That earned him the smallest huff from you. Not a laugh, not really, but close enough that Jax caught himself watching your mouth before he could stop.

Annoying.

You freed Kaufmo’s arm and stepped back just as quickly, like you had only realized after the fact that you had been standing close to anyone. The change was subtle. Most of them probably missed it. Your face closed off as you turned toward the trail.

“We need to stop following the map,” you deflected.

Ragatha looked up from where she was trying to reorganize the supplies. “But…Caine said the map was part of the challenge?”

“Caine also said the tents were emotionally supportive.”

One of the tents behind them gave a wet, miserable wheeze before collapsing in on itself.

Ribbit stared at it. “That one just gave up.”

“Relatable,” Jax grinned.

You ignored him and pointed down the left path. “The loop keeps resetting when we take the marked trail. We go off-path.”

Kaufmo raised a hand. “Question. Is off-path where the knife squirrels live?”

“Raccoons,” Ribbit corrected.

Kaufmo nodded gravely. “They’re evolving.”

Ragatha glanced between the trees, clearly uneasy. “Are we sure leaving the trail is a good idea?”

“No,” you replied. “But standing here waiting for the forest to fix itself sounds worse.”

Kaufmo’s smile faltered before the joke returned to his face.

“Well,” Kaufmo concurred, clapping his hands once. “Off-path it is. Love a terrible plan with confidence.”

For a while, the terrible plan worked.

The forest thickened around them as they moved between trees that were almost convincing if nobody looked too closely.

The bark repeated in patterned strips, and the moss glowed faintly whenever someone stepped near it. Birds chirped the same three-note song from different directions until Ribbit threatened to start throwing rocks. Above them, the fake sky remained cheerful and bright, completely indifferent to the fact that everyone below it was damp, hungry, and tired of being educated through inconvenience.

Jax kept to the back, mostly because it offered the best view of everyone else struggling. Kaufmo nearly wiped out on a root system every five minutes, while Kinger kept falling behind to inspect plants that may or may not have been talking to him. Somehow, Ragatha still tried maintaining morale through all of it.

You stayed near the front, moving with tense purpose while everyone followed.

That should not have interested him. It did anyway.

You were good at this, in the irritating way people were good at things they pretended not to care about. At one point, you caught Ribbit by the back of her sleeve before she stepped into a patch of glittering mud that hissed when disturbed.

Kaufmo somehow ended up with a canteen in his hands before he even asked for one.

“You look like a dehydrated sock,” you remarked when he thanked you.

Every decent thing you did came wrapped in something unpleasant. Jax understood that more than he wanted to.

By the time they finally reached Caine’s designated campsite, everyone looked about two wrong comments away from violence.

The campsite sat in a clearing surrounded by tall, evenly spaced trees. A cheerful wooden sign read CAMP WONDER-WHATEVER in red letters that kept rearranging themselves when nobody watched. There was a firepit in the center, several logs arranged in a circle, and enough camping supplies stacked nearby to suggest Caine had never actually seen anyone camp before.

Ragatha crouched near the supplies, lifting a metal pot with a frown. “Why do we have six ladles and no matches?”

Caine popped into existence above the firepit. “Resourcefulness!”

You shut your eyes briefly before Caine had even finished talking, and Jax found himself oddly unsurprised.

“Campers must prepare their own dinner, construct shelter, and share one meaningful lesson they learned about friendship before nightfall!” Caine announced, spinning his cane as fireworks burst from nowhere. “Failure to complete all three tasks may result in mild penalties.”

Ribbit looked up sharply. “Define…mild?”

A bear roared somewhere in the distance. Caine smiled wider. “Motivational consequences!”

Then he vanished.

For about five seconds, nobody moved.

Then everyone started talking at once.

Kaufmo headed for the food while Ragatha tried redirecting everyone toward the firepit. Ribbit was still muttering about the suspiciously amplified bear, and Kinger had somehow become fascinated by the ladles.

Jax sat on one of the logs and decided not to help.

You stood in the middle of it all, jaw tight enough that Jax expected yelling.

Instead, you started organizing.

“Kaufmo, stop touching things before they bite you,” you said. “Ribbit, tents. Ragatha, there’s a switch under the firepit.”

Kinger turned one of the ladles thoughtfully in his hands.

You paused.

“Kinger, no.”

Kinger lowered the ladle carefully. “That seems premature.”

A second later, blue flames burst to life from the firepit.

Ragatha let out a small breath. “Oh. Good eye.”

“It was obvious,” you mumbled.

“Hidden under a rock,” Jax pointed out.

You looked over at him for the first time in several minutes. “And somehow I still found it before you.”

Kaufmo laughed under his breath.

Jax tilted his head. “You always this charmin’ in the wilderness?”

“Only when I’m trapped in it with idiots.”

“Aw,” Jax said. “You think about me in groups.”

Something moved at the corner of your mouth before you looked away again.

Jax found himself watching as you redirected Kaufmo away from a suspiciously twitching cooler, irritation written plainly across your face.

The artificial sunset cut through the trees, spilling gold across the clearing in a way that made the whole scene look a lot warmer than it felt. For a moment, with Kaufmo complaining nearby and Ragatha crouched beside the fire, Jax could almost picture how you might have fit among them once.

The thought sat strangely with him, irritating enough that he looked away before he could think too hard about it.

The peace lasted maybe ten minutes. Then dinner started falling apart.

By the time Ragatha finally got half the food arranged near the fire, Kaufmo had somehow dropped an entire pack of buns into a stream that had not been there five minutes ago.

You stared after them without moving.

Kaufmo lifted one hand slowly. “In my defense—”

“Don’t.” The word came out sharper than expected.

Kaufmo lowered his hand, and everyone stayed quiet. Ragatha took a cautious step closer.

“Hey,” she consoled, voice gentler now. “It’s okay. We’ll figure something out.”

You didn’t answer.

Ragatha hesitated before trying again. “Kinger mentioned you used to like stuff like this. Campfires and cooking and…” Her expression softened, uncertain around the edges. “All of it. With the others.”

Jax saw the change instantly. Whatever had briefly eased in your expression disappeared.

Ragatha seemed to realize she had stepped somewhere wrong a second too late. “I just thought maybe it’d be nice,” she said quickly. “Since you used to—”

“Stop.” Your voice stayed quiet, which somehow made it worse.

Ragatha froze. “I was only trying to help.”

You laughed once under your breath, humorless.

“Help?” you echoed. “Right. Because waiting around for everybody else to mess it up has gone great so far.”

Ragatha lowered her hands slowly. “That’s not fair.”

Your attention dropped toward the fire before lifting again.

“You think bringing people up fixes anything?” you asked, voice lower now. “You weren’t there.”

The clearing went quiet. Ragatha opened her mouth, then stopped.

Something unreadable crossed your face before hardening again.

“I’m serious, Ragatha. Go sew something. Rearrange a shelf. Whatever it is you do when you’re trying to feel useful.”

Nobody moved.

Kaufmo stared hard at the ground. Ribbit looked like she wanted to say something and thought better of it.

Jax felt his own expression flatten.

That was the part that landed wrong. Not because you were being cruel. You were cruel all the time.

But because for half a second, right before the words came out, something in your expression had looked less angry than trapped.

Your hand closed around the nearest camping mug before anyone could say anything else. It struck the rocks beside the firepit with a crack loud enough to make Kinger flinch.

You stared at it briefly after it shattered.

“Enjoy dinner.”

Before anyone could respond, you had already turned, disappearing into the trees.

The hallway felt quieter after the adventure ended.

Quiet enough to notice, anyway. Bubble was still yelling somewhere farther down the hall, insisting he deserved emotional compensation for “repeated camper disrespect,” and somewhere overhead, Caine narrated some unrelated catastrophe with the enthusiasm of somebody who had never once experienced consequences.

But still, it felt quieter.

The six of them stood scattered across the main hall, carrying the kind of exhaustion only Caine’s adventures could manufacture.

Kaufmo scrubbed both hands down his face. “Okay,” he groaned after a second. “That officially sucked.”

Ribbit brushed confetti from one sleeve. “You almost died for bread.”

“I was trying to help.”

“You chased floating buns into a moving stream.”

Kaufmo hesitated. “In hindsight, sure.”

That got the corner of Ragatha’s mouth to twitch, though it faded quickly. Her attention switched down the hallway instead.

Toward where you had disappeared. Jax noticed before he meant to.

Kaufmo exhaled quietly and shoved his hands into his pockets. “She’ll cool off.”

The words came too easily. Practiced.

Ribbit followed the glance, expression harder to read. “…hopefully,” she muttered.

Ragatha pulled at the edge of her sleeve. “I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

“C’mon, don’t say that, Rag,” Kaufmo responded.

“I know, I just…” Her voice trailed off. Nobody finished the thought for her.

Jax leaned one shoulder against the wall, eyes moving between them.

“Well,” he said eventually, because the silence had started to itch, “good to know we all just let each other storm off into dramatic lighting now.”

Ribbit looked at him flatly.

“She just needs to clear her head,” Kaufmo insisted, quieter this time.

Nobody bothered to disagree.

Breakfast the next morning felt even faker than usual.

Bright syrup shimmered unnaturally beneath the circus lighting, and all of the fruit had a strong synthetic scent. Toast steamed politely in perfect rows like it had unionized.

Jax hated it on principle.

Kaufmo arrived late, dark circles sitting heavy beneath his eyes, and started loading food onto a tray before even sitting down.

Kinger sat at the end of the table, staring suspiciously into a bowl of cereal.

“The milk keeps changing opinions,” he informed no one.

Jax leaned farther back in his chair, ignoring Kinger as he watched Kaufmo add toast, fruit, and what looked like an aggressively over-sweet cup of coffee onto a plate.

Ribbit scanned the table. “Did Caine do bacon today?”

Kaufmo jerked his chin toward the other side of the table. “Think so.”

She reached across the table. Jax moved his plate away immediately.

“What do you think you’re doin’?”

Ribbit ignored him completely and plucked the last strip of crispy bacon from his plate.

Jax stared.

“…seriously?”

“She likes crispy.” The words came absentmindedly, like Ribbit had not realized she said them out loud until after.

Kaufmo nodded once, already adding it to the tray.

Jax frowned. “You people are weird.”

“Thanks,” Ribbit said.

“No, I mean weird weird.”

Kaufmo finally glanced up. “That narrows it down exactly zero.”

Across the table, a chair scraped softly against the floor. “We should take it up,” Ribbit said, already standing.

Without much discussion, the tray ended up in Kaufmo’s hands.

Jax watched them head toward the hallway.

Then, because minding his own business had never once improved his life, he followed.

Neither of them questioned it.

Kaufmo balanced the tray carefully while Ribbit walked a few steps ahead, checking over one shoulder when the coffee sloshed too close to the edge.

“If she throws this at me,” Kaufmo muttered after adjusting the plate for what felt like the fourth time, “I’m blaming both of you idiots.”

“You chose to bring it,” Ribbit laughed.

“You stole bacon off Jax’s plate.”

“A necessary sacrifice.”

Jax crossed his arms. “Nobody asked me.”

“You survived,” Kaufmo elbowed him.

“Emotionally?” Jax asked. “Still debatable.” Ribbit made a quiet sound that might have been amusement.

The hallway stretched longer than Jax remembered.

At first the doors looked familiar enough, brightly colored icons stamped across each one. Closer to the dining hall, most belonged to the people he actually knew. The farther back they went, the stranger things got.

Faces disappeared first, giving way to blank mannequin heads, smooth and expressionless beneath polished glass. Then even those changed. Characters Jax didn’t recognize stared back from the doors instead, bright designs buried beneath thick red X’s painted across their faces.

More unsettling somehow, Ribbit passed them without slowing, while Kaufmo only adjusted the tray higher against his chest and kept walking like none of it deserved attention anymore.

Jax found himself looking back once anyway.

“Okay,” he started after a second, pointing at one of the crossed-out faces. “What’s with the horror hallway?”

Kaufmo shrugged lazily. “You ask a lotta questions before lunch.”

“And yet somehow you avoid answerin’ every single one.”

That earned him a tired snort.

By the time Kaufmo finally slowed, the hallway had settled into silence.

Your room sat near the end beside Kinger’s, tucked between faces Jax didn’t recognize anymore than the others. The bright red X’s painted across the doors on either side made yours stand out.

Kaufmo hesitated briefly before knocking twice.

“Breakfast,” he called after a second, voice lighter than yesterday deserved. “Before Ribbit starts stealing from your plate again.”

Ribbit crossed her arms, shaking her head. “One time.”

Silence.

Kaufmo adjusted the tray against one arm. “Coffee, too. Extra sugar and creamer, just the way you like it.”

Jax waited for the inevitable insult through the door, maybe something sharp enough to bounce back into the hallway.

Nothing came.

Ribbit crouched first, lowering the tray carefully to the floor. The movement displaced the fork slightly before she straightened it out of habit.

“She’s ignoring us,” she muttered.

“Maybe she’s asleep,” Kaufmo said, though he sounded unconvinced. “She sleeps when she’s upset.”

Kaufmo lingered near the door. “Used to, anyway.”

Jax waited for somebody to get annoyed.

For Kaufmo to knock again. For Ribbit to mutter something sharp under her breath.

Instead, Ribbit turned toward the hallway and Kaufmo followed after one last glance at the tray.

Jax frowned.

“She’ll take it eventually,” Kaufmo stated, motioning for Jax to follow.

Jax looked between them. “Okay. Seriously. What the hell is this?”

Ribbit and Kaufmo exchanged a look.

“Not here,” Ribbit said finally.

Kaufmo jerked his head toward the hallway behind them. “C’mon.”

Jax fell into step beside them with an exaggerated sigh. “Love when everybody starts actin’ mysterious.”

“You’d complain if we told you to mind your business,” Ribbit replied.

“I’m complainin’ now.”

“Yeah, but now you’re moving while you do it,” Kaufmo joked.

The walk back felt shorter. Maybe because Jax wasn’t paying attention this time.

Kaufmo stopped a few doors down and pushed his room open without ceremony.

Jax wandered in after Ribbit automatically, already familiar with the uneven mess of the place. Kaufmo’s room had a habit of becoming wherever the three of them ended up after dinner, after adventures, after boredom got too loud.

Nothing about the room had really changed.

Bright blankets sat thrown unevenly across furniture, shelves crowded with random circus junk and half-finished gags Jax vaguely remembered helping create. Props leaned against walls in ways that probably violated several imaginary safety codes. Mugs lingered near the desk long past the point they should have vanished, abandoned there because nobody cared enough to move them.

A camera sat near the edge of a cluttered table beside scattered photographs and mismatched frames. He had probably seen it before. Just never really noticed.

Ribbit dropped automatically into a familiar spot near the bed while Kaufmo drifted toward the desk, already pulling open a drawer.

Jax watched him. “Okay,” he said slowly. “You two are bein’ weird weird.”

Kaufmo lingered with one hand still inside the drawer. Something uncertain crossed briefly over Ribbit’s face before she leaned back against the bed.

“You gonna tell him,” she asked, “or keep pretending this is normal?”

“...I was thinking about easing into it.”

Jax frowned. “Into what?”

Kaufmo pulled something from the drawer and shut it with his hip. A thick photo album, edges worn soft from use.

Nobody rushed to speak. Ribbit leaned back against the bed while Kaufmo turned the album once between his hands, thumb lingering against the worn edge.

Jax shifted where he stood. “You gonna explain why this suddenly feels like an intervention?”

Kaufmo’s mouth twitched faintly before the expression disappeared. “You’re the one who wanted answers.”

“Didn’t think the answer involved arts and crafts.”

Ribbit finally reached over and flipped the cover open before Kaufmo could argue.

The first photograph made Jax pause.

You sat on the floor between Kaufmo and Ribbit, turned halfway toward whoever had taken the picture with the distracted look of somebody interrupted mid-sentence. Kaufmo seemed seconds away from laughing at something outside the frame while Ribbit sat close enough that one shoulder brushed yours, annoyance softened by something warmer.

Jax frowned. “…that’s you?”

The question slipped out, directed at nobody in particular and strange enough that he almost corrected himself.

Kaufmo kept his eyes on the photograph. “Yeah.”

Jax studied the picture again. Nothing about you had changed, really. Same face. Same vaguely irritated relationship with existence. Still, the photograph felt unfamiliar in a way Jax could not place. Maybe it was how easy you seemed there, shoulder brushing Ribbit’s while your arm rested loosely around Kaufmo, as if closeness had once come naturally.

Ribbit turned the page.

A beach stretched across the photograph, the water blue to qualify as real and the shoreline crowded with ridiculous details Jax suspected Caine had found funny. Palm trees leaned at impossible angles near the edge of the frame while something inflatable floated in the distance with an expression Jax found mildly threatening.

You stood ankle-deep in the water beside Kaufmo, soaked enough that somebody had clearly started something stupid. The two of you grinned openly at the camera. Farther back, Ribbit held a striped umbrella, looking deeply unimpressed with the entire concept of sunlight.

Jax stared at the photograph longer than intended.

“She actually did adventures?”

Kaufmo snorted softly. The next page turned before Jax could ask anything else.

This photograph sat crooked in the plastic sleeve, edges softened from being handled too often.

A grassy hill stretched beneath an open night sky, blankets thrown unevenly across the ground.

Nobody seemed aware of the camera.

Kinger sat near the middle in an embarrassingly fuzzy sweater. Beside him sat another chess-piece figure, similar enough in shape that the resemblance felt intentional.

One of your arms rested loosely around the stranger’s shoulders while your head leaned there easily. Kinger’s hand lingered lightly against your back like it belonged there.

The three of you leaned together, nobody seemingly aware that the moment had been captured at all.

Jax said nothing.

The version of you in the photograph barely matched the person who had snapped at Ragatha the night before.

Finally, he broke the silence, pointing toward the unfamiliar figure.

“Who’s that?”

Ribbit followed the gesture. “Queenie,” she answered.

“Caine took it,” Kaufmo added, thumb brushing against the edge of the sleeve. “Apparently spying counts as friendship where he’s concerned.”

A quieter breath left him. “She hated this one for a while.”

“Why?”

Kaufmo fell silent. Ribbit held briefly at the edge of the page before letting go.

Neither dared to answer.

A second later, Kaufmo closed the album.

Jax stared at him. “Oh, c’mon.”

Kaufmo leaned back against the bedframe and avoided looking at either of them. “You asked."

“I asked why.”

“...it’s not really a one-answer kinda thing.” Ribbit mumbled.

“Okay, then maybe start with literally anything.”

Kaufmo tipped his head back briefly. “She wasn’t always like this,” he said.

Ribbit traced once at the edge of the blanket. “Not even a little.”

Jax looked between them. Nobody continued.

Kaufmo sat with the album resting shut across his lap while Ribbit picked absently at the blanket.

“...that explains exactly nothing.”

Kaufmo let out a tired breath that might have been laughter on a better day. “Yeah.”

Jax frowned harder. “So what happened?”

Ribbit answered before Kaufmo could. “Something went wrong,” she muttered, gaze still lowered. “One of Caine’s adventures, a long time ago. He thought he was helping and it just sort of…” her fingers twisted once against the blanket. “Got bad.”

Kaufmo turned toward her. “Rib.”

Ribbit went quiet.

“Got bad how?”

Neither of them answered. Kaufmo rubbed once at the back of his neck before exhaling quietly.

“Jax,” he leaned back against the bedframe with a sigh that sounded older than he usually let himself, “it’s not my story to tell.”

That irritated Jax.

The photographs still sat fresh in his head. You laughing on a beach. You asleep against somebody’s shoulder. You, somehow, seeming like the kind of person who stayed in rooms instead of finding reasons to leave them.

None of it lined up.

“Fine,” he muttered, pushing himself upright. “Be weird and cryptic, see if I care.”

Kaufmo snorted at that. “You definitely care.”

“...Wrong.”

Ribbit finally spoke. “You’re pacing.”

Jax stopped moving long enough to notice. “I’m explorin’.”

Kaufmo barked out the loudest laugh yet. “Sure you are.”

Jax rolled his eyes hard enough to count as exercise and headed for the door before either of them could decide to get insightful.

He wandered without much direction at first, hands shoved into his pockets while Caine rambled somewhere overhead about “surprise recreational whimsy.” Bubble yelled something back that sounded legally threatening.

The older end of the hallway found him again before he really thought about it.

Your door stood exactly where he remembered.

The tray still sat outside the door, coffee cooling untouched beside toast and fruit no one had bothered with.

Jax slowed.

The bacon was gone.

Jax spent the rest of the morning pretending he had better things to do.

Mostly, this meant wandering the circus without direction and thinking longer than he cared to admit about bacon.

Which was probably why he almost missed the fact that somebody had redecorated the main hall.

Balloons hovered near the ceiling in colors Jax instinctively distrusted. Glitter littered the floor for no obvious reason, and somewhere near the entrance a cardboard sign informed him he had apparently entered a TEAMWORK ZONE, which felt menacing.

The banner overhead made things worse:

WELCOME TO THE TRUST TUNNEL OF INTERPERSONAL HARMONY™

By the time Jax wandered closer, everyone else looked like they had been there awhile.

Ragatha already looked worried, which honestly felt fair.

She stood near an aggressively cheerful balloon arch while Kaufmo leaned against the wall beside her, arms crossed. Ribbit had apparently given up early and settled onto the floor instead, staring up at the banner overhead with an expression that suggested she disliked where any of this was headed.

Kinger stood near the wall, studying a cardboard standee with narrowed eyes.

“I feel like he’s waiting for me to go first.”

Jax lifted his head toward the ceiling automatically.

“Caine,” he called out, “...what did you do?”

“THANK YOU FOR ASKING!”

Caine appeared upside down directly above him, close enough that Jax nearly stumbled backward into a balloon display. Bubble floated beside him in a tiny referee shirt, whistle already hanging from his jagged teeth.

“Today,” Caine announced, spinning upright with theatrical enthusiasm, “you lucky contestants will participate in a thrilling interpersonal exercise involving trust, cooperation, emotional honesty, and proximity!”

Jax groaned.

“That sounds threatening.”

“Nonsense!” Caine replied. “The Trust Tunnel of Interpersonal Harmony™ is a carefully engineered collaborative labyrinth designed to strengthen emotional bonds through teamwork!”

Kaufmo rubbed at his face. “See, the problem is somehow that explanation made me feel worse.”

“Aw, c’mon.” Jax nudged his shoulder lightly. “Best case scenario, we get paired together and spend the whole thing bein’ unbearable.”

Kaufmo shook his head once, grinning. “You say that like we aren’t already.”

“Partners,” Caine continued brightly, cane sweeping through the air as confetti burst from nowhere, “have been selected personally by your wonderful ringmaster, ME! Certain participants have…demonstrated a troubling reluctance toward collaborative growth.” His smile widened. Slowly.

Jax followed the look around the room.

“…where’s grumpy?”

Kaufmo and Ribbit exchanged a look. “Didn’t come out,” Kaufmo muttered.

“Again,” Ribbit added.

Caine’s expression brightened with sudden purpose.

“NOT TO WORRY!”

He snapped his fingers.

You appeared beside Jax fast enough that coffee sloshed over the rim of the mug in your hand.

You only stood there, eyes widened. Then you looked toward Caine with the kind of calm that usually arrived seconds before violence.

“…did you just teleport me out of bed?”

“TRANSPORTATION!” Caine corrected cheerfully.

Jax watched from beside you.

Exhaustion sat differently on you today, your clothes rumpled, expression flattened beneath what looked suspiciously like genuine irritation instead of the usual, sharpened version.

Then he noticed what sat pinched between your fingers. Jax tilted his head.

“…is that my bacon.”

Your eyes narrowed immediately. “You gonna cry about it?”

“Depends,” Jax replied. “How attached are you to your kneecaps?”

Kaufmo glanced between the two of you, expression already drifting toward concern. “Okay, cool. Great start.”

Ribbit pushed herself upright from the floor. “I give it ten minutes before somebody gets shoved into a wall.”

“Five,” Kaufmo corrected.

“You people say things about me like I’m not standing here.”

“You were in bed thirty seconds ago,” Ribbit replied. “Emotionally, we’re still adjusting.”

Your eyes moved toward her once before returning to Caine. “What exactly…is this?”

Caine clasped both hands together, visibly delighted to have regained control of the conversation.

“A marvelous collaborative labyrinth!” he announced. “A whimsical maze of emotional growth, teamwork, and interpersonal trust! Participants will remain with their assigned partner while navigating increasingly enriching obstacles designed to strengthen your emotional connection!”

Jax frowned immediately.

“…you keep sayin’ emotional connection like that’s supposed to help.”

“Partners must also remain within one friendship unit of each other at all times,” Caine continued, pointing his cane toward the banner overhead. “Failure to cooperate may result in temporary rerouting, environmental instability, or mild consequences!”

“…what the hell is a friendship unit?” Jax probed.

“Approximately two feet!” Caine replied cheerfully. “One, for optimal bonding.”

Somewhere near the wall, Kinger straightened. “I don’t like when consequences are mysterious.”

“Nobody does,” Ragatha muttered.

Caine spun once in place, somehow producing cue cards from nowhere.

“Now! Pairings!”

Kaufmo immediately pointed toward Jax. “Calling him.”

“Denied!” Caine exclaimed.

Kaufmo lowered his hand. “…that feels targeted.”

“Kaufmo and Ragatha!” Caine announced.

Ragatha blinked once. “Oh.”

Kaufmo looked almost alarmed. “No offense, Rag, but I think we panic differently.”

“Ribbit and Kinger!” Ribbit looked up slowly.

“…huh.”

Kinger brightened. “Boy, we’re not very good at this, are we?”

“And finally…” Caine turned with theatrical delight.

Jax already felt dread creeping in. Your expression suggested homicide.

“Jax and our delightfully participation-resistant friend!”

The whole room fell silent. Kaufmo took a moment to shut his eyes. Ribbit looked toward the ceiling. “Wow.”

You stared at Caine. Then at Jax.

Then back at Caine.

“…no.”

“Aw,” Jax tilted his head toward you. “C’mon, dollface. Try to contain your excitement.”

“I would genuinely rather walk into traffic.”

“Lucky for you,” Caine interrupted, “the maze will not permit separation!”

You glared, your expression flattening further. “You cannot seriously think this is a good idea.”

Ribbit sounded almost thoughtful.“No, this actually has potential.”

Kaufmo looked mildly alarmed already. “I’m just saying, statistically, somebody’s getting threatened before we hit the entrance.”

“Threatened?” Jax tilted his head. “Kinda rude.”

You looked toward him slowly. “You’ve been here five minutes and somehow made yourself everybody’s problem.”

“Damn. You rehearse that one?”

“Try harder.”

Ragatha clasped her hands together, gaze flicking toward Caine. “Could we maybe hear the rules before everybody starts arguing?”

“A wonderful suggestion, my bombastic, blossoming buttercup!” Caine spread his arms wide.

Reality tore open beside him in a bright burst of color.

The portal hovered several feet above the floor, glowing edges crackling around a sunlit entrance that looked suspiciously cheerful for something already making Jax nervous. Beyond it stretched twisting hedges, oversized flowers, and pathways folding in impossible directions beneath a sky far too blue to be trustworthy.

Jax raised a brow.

“…still sounds threatening.”

“Partners who cooperate may discover shortcuts, rewards, and enriching interpersonal experiences,” Caine explained with excitement, gesturing grandly toward the portal. “Partners who resist cooperation may encounter rerouting, instability, or motivational consequences.”

You stared toward the opening with visible concern.

“Temporary discomfort!” Caine announced. “Marvelous for growth!”

Jax stepped closer before catching himself near what was probably the invisible limit. “Relax, dollface,” he replied. “It’s only a few hours. Try not to miss me when it’s over.”

Your attention slid toward him. “You say that like it ends.”

Kaufmo pointed once between the two of you. “See? This is exactly what I meant by potential.”

Ribbit dragged a hand across her face. “We’re doomed.”

Caine clapped his hands together, delighted with himself. “Wonderful!” he announced. “Please proceed toward interpersonal enrichment!”

Nobody moved. Bubble blew the whistle hanging from his mouth. “MOVE IT MAGGOTS!”

Ragatha startled. Kaufmo muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a prayer while Ribbit rose from the floor with the exhausted acceptance of somebody who had already decided resistance was pointless.

Kinger, somehow, looked encouraged.

“Well,” he said carefully, “I suppose if worst comes to worst… we could always try not thinking about it.”

Nobody acknowledged that.

One by one, everyone made their way toward the portal. Ragatha disappeared through first after a hesitant glance toward Kaufmo, who followed close behind, already mildly overwhelmed by responsibility. Ribbit walked beside Kinger.

You stayed exactly where you were.

Coffee still sat in your hand. The half-finished strip of bacon had disappeared at some point, though he had no idea when. You stood facing the portal with the same flat expression you had worn since Caine dragged you out of bed, posture drawn tight.

Caine tilted in midair.

“…friendo?”

“No.”

“But the maze!”

“Still no.”

“The collaborative growth!”

“Especially no.”

Jax stepped closer to you. “You know,” he said, tipping his head toward the portal, “this is startin’ to feel personal.”

“You should feel lucky I’m only ignoring you.”

“Aw. There’s the attitude.”

Before either of you could say anything else, a glowing line flickered suddenly into existence between your feet.

Bright lettering hovered in the air: 1.7 FT

“…okay, that feels invasive.” Jax chuckled.

You took one step backward. The number flashed red.

Somewhere inside the portal, something mechanical groaned loud enough to shake the floor beneath them.

Caine lifted one finger.

“Corrective rerouting begins in three!”

Your head lifted sharply. “You’re joking.”

“Two!”

Jax closed the distance without thinking. The number flickered green again.

Then your expression flattened further. “Move.”

“Can’t,” Jax taunted you easily. “Friendship law.”

Somewhere inside the portal, Kaufmo’s voice carried faintly back toward the hall. “Uh…guys?”

A low mechanical sound rolled through the maze beyond.

“Okay, no, seriously, the walls are moving.”

The floor gave beneath the two of you before either of you had time to react.

Caine clapped overhead, laughing maniacally while the floor lurched. Jax barely had time to catch the look on your face before the portal swallowed both of you whole.

Landing hurt less than expected.

That alone felt suspicious.

By the time Jax pushed himself upright, the maze had decided to look welcoming in the most menacing way possible. Sunlight spilled across towering hedges that curved around twisting stone paths, all the while uncannily large flowers swayed to a nonexistent breeze.

Somewhere farther ahead came Kaufmo’s voice. “WHY DOES IT KEEP ASKING HOW I FEEL?”

Ragatha answered something too distant to make out.

You stood close to Jax.

Closer than either of you probably wanted. The glowing number hovered quietly between you: 1.8 FT

You looked once at the number before meeting his eyes again. “Don’t.”

He raised a brow. “Didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

A path curved ahead beneath signs that only made the whole thing worse:

COMMUNICATE OPENLY

TRUST YOUR PARTNER

SHARE A VULNERABILITY

Jax hated every single one.

“Hypothetically,” he started, brushing dust from his sleeve, “if we fake our deaths, you think he notices?”

Before you had time to respond, the hedge beside you rattled violently. A hidden pathway slid open and confetti burst all over you.

WELCOME, PARTNERS!

Silence settled for all of half a second before you turned and headed the opposite way.

The glowing number flashed red.

Stone vanished beneath your feet fast enough to make you stumble back, the edge of the path dropping into empty space where solid ground had been a second earlier. Jax moved fast enough to catch your wrist just as the maze corrected itself, and the number flickered green again.

Up close, coffee still clung faintly to your sleeve, exhaustion sitting heavier on you than it had yesterday. Your attention dropped toward where he still held your wrist.

“I was fine.”

“Sure,” he replied. “You almost ate concrete, but sure.” Before he could say anything else, the flowers around the two of you burst open again.

Confetti launched directly into his face.

EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT DETECTED!

You pulled your arm free, stepping as far away as the glowing number allowed. “Right,” you muttered, staring past him. “Not doing that.”

The maze groaned around the two of you as the hedges folded apart, revealing a wider path that curved toward an enormous painted sign.

The sign rotated once before stopping, painted letters rearranging themselves with an overly cheerful pop:

LEVEL ONE: MIRROR MAZE

Jax stared at it as the entrance opened with a metallic scrape, revealing a narrow corridor lined wall to wall with mirrors. It looked normal for about two seconds. Then one reflection smiled too late.

You stared, too. “Great,” you said. “That one has your timing.”

“Rude.”

A mechanical voice chimed overhead before you could answer.

PLEASE SHARE ONE POSITIVE OBSERVATION ABOUT EACH OTHER TO BEGIN.

The nearest mirror had enough time to fog impatiently as the two of you stood silent.

Jax gave in first. “Fine. You have decent taste in stolen breakfast.”

“...you’re easier to tolerate when you stop talking.”

The mirrors lit up green.

POSITIVE OBSERVATIONS ACCEPTED.

Jax’s eyes widened. “That counted?”

“Don’t question good luck.”

The maze opened ahead.

For a while, the mirror maze was mostly annoying. The walls copied the two of you from far too many angles, stretching movements a second too long or catching expressions neither of you had truly made. Every time you drifted more than two feet away, the mirrors slid inward until Jax had to step closer again. You looked increasingly unimpressed with the entire experience.

“Move slower,” you snapped after the third wrong turn.

Jax laughed at you. “You say that like I’m sprintin’.”

“You walk like you’re trying to get lost on purpose.”

“That hurts. I’m naturally difficult.”

“You’re naturally a problem.”

“See, now that one felt personal.”

You angled around another mirror before pausing when three more identical hallways appeared.

“...I hate this maze,” you muttered, rubbing at your temple.

“Aw,” Jax replied. “Thought we were havin’ fun.”

“You walked into your own reflection twice.”

“It had a smug face.”

“Yeah, because it was you.”

The mirrors flashed pink. The two of you froze.

“…okay. What was that?”

“I don’t know,” you replied, “and I’m not interested in finding out.”

A door opened at the end of the corridor with a cheerful chime neither of you trusted. For once, the maze seemed satisfied enough to stop interfering and let the two of you leave.

LEVEL TWO waited on the other side.

The path ahead had traded polished mirrors for rows of tall corn stalks that stretched far above both of you, rustling beneath a sky gone artificially yellow near the horizon. The air smelled fake and sweet, and somewhere deep in the maze, something crunched beneath its own weight.

Jax went completely still.

You looked from the corn to him. Then back again.

“…seriously?” you probed.

Jax glared over at you. “What?”

“You’re making a face.”

“I don’t make faces,” he argued.

“You absolutely make faces,” you replied.

He checked the corn again, and this time, something deeper in the rows to rustle loud enough to sound intentional.

Jax nearly jumped. “…I just think it looks stupid,” he muttered.

“You’re scared of corn,” you said, voice tipping upward just enough to sound halfway between accusation and realization.

“…don’t say it like that,” he groaned.

Jax tried to look bored, which worked for maybe one second before the corn nearest to him bent inward with a dry scrape. He stepped back on instinct, shoulder knocking against yours. The glowing number between you pulsed green.

You looked at him.

Jax kept staring ahead, lifting one hand to point toward the maze. “Lead the way.”

Your brows drew together. “That bad, huh?”

“You wanted me useful. I’m delegating.”

“That’s not useful.”

“It is to me.”

The corn rustled again. Jax flinched.

For a second, you stood there staring between him and the corn.

Then, with visible irritation, you lifted the coffee mug and hurled it somewhere into the stalks.

A distant crash followed.

“…feel better?”

“Marginally.”

The stalks ahead moved apart to reveal a scarecrow half-swallowed by corn. Its head turned to glare at the two of you.

Jax shoved himself behind you.

“...just close your eyes,” you reluctantly instructed.

“Absolutely not.”

“Then stare at the corn and have a crisis. I don’t care.”

He lasted maybe three more seconds. Then he shut his eyes. “Tell anyone,” he warned, “and I’m making this everybody’s problem.”

“You already do that. Walk,” you replied, reaching for his wrist. You could feel his glare, even behind closed eyes.

“If this ends badly,” he warned, “I’m blamin’ you.”

“Shocking.”

The glowing number dipped lower: 0.7 FT. OPTIMAL

Your fingers closed lightly around his wrist as you started forward. The contact should have been nothing. It was barely anything. Still, Jax followed the pull of your hand through the corn maze, eyes squeezed shut, listening to your footsteps and the occasional rustle of stalks brushing too close.

You were annoyingly good at it.

That was the frustrating part.

You counted turns under your breath, corrected him when he drifted too far left, and yanked him back once before he walked straight into a fence that had absolutely not been there earlier.

Jax kept his eyes shut. Mostly. He tried to crack an eye open once, saw a wall of corn leaning toward him, and immediately closed it again.

You noticed. “Pathetic.”

“Cruel thing to say to a man in distress.”

“Did you just call yourself a man?”

“...Focus on the maze.”

Your laugh barely counted, but it was there. It slipped out before you could swallow it down, quick and disbelieving, and Jax hated the little jolt of satisfaction it gave him.

The corn thinned ahead.

A wooden arch waited at the exit, covered in painted sunflowers with faces that turned to watch as the two of you approached. Jax opened his eyes only when you let go of his sleeve.

The absence of your hand registered faster than he liked.

You put as much distance between the two of you as possible, expression closing again before he could comment. The arch glowed green overhead:

LEVEL TWO COMPLETE.

Jax panned from the sign to you. “See? Great team.”

“All you did was close your eyes and complain.”

“Still counts.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Yeah, but you’re startin’ to sound less mad about it.”

That was the wrong thing to say. He knew it as soon as the words left his mouth.

Your expression did not change much, but your shoulder tightened. The small ease from the corn maze vanished in an instant, as if the maze had reached out and taken it. Your attention moved past him, toward the final path, where hedges were folding open with a slow, heavy sound.

Jax almost made another joke. He thought better of it.

The last sign rose from the ground ahead.

LEVEL THREE: EXIT INTERVIEW

The words sat there innocently for half a second before smaller text appeared beneath them:

ANSWER TOGETHER.

Your face went blank.

Jax read the sign again, disliking the way the air had changed. The final stretch appeared shorter than the others, just a straight path between two walls of hedges toward a bright red exit door at the end. Halfway down the path stood a pedestal with a large button on top.

It felt too easy.

Caine’s voice rang out through the maze, cheerful and distant.

“Final level, partners! Simply answer one meaningful question, press the button together, and proceed proudly toward victory!”

Jax glanced at the exit. “That’s it?”

The hedge beside the pedestal bloomed open, revealing words carved into the wood beneath the button:

WHAT MAKES YOUR PARTNER SAFE?

The silence that followed landed differently. You went quiet beside Jax.

He paused at the question, then turned to look at you. “That’s stupid.”

“Then answer it.”

“Why me?”

“You love hearing yourself talk,” you rolled your eyes.

“Wow. Mean.”

He should have made a joke. He had several ready. Something about your anger issues. Something about the fact that he had not shoved you into a wall yet. Something simple enough to make the maze accept it and let both of you move on.

Instead, he thought of the breakfast tray outside your door. The bacon gone. The photo album in Kaufmo’s room.

Your hand clutching his in the corn maze.

“...you don’t ditch people.” The words slipped out before he could stop them, unpolished.

Jax hated them immediately. You glared at him so fast he almost regretted saying anything at all.

The hedges stirred quietly around the two of you.

“That’s not an answer,” you said after a second.

“Sounded like one.”

“You don’t know that.”

Jax shrugged one shoulder, already irritated with where this was going. “I know what I’ve seen.”

“You’ve seen nothing.”

The maze gave another low tremor beneath your feet. Ahead, the exit still waited at the end of the path, bright and stupidly close like the whole thing was still winnable if one of you would just stop talking.

Jax knew that.

He kept going anyway.

“Kaufmo does somethin’ stupid, you fix it. Ribbit nearly walks into disaster, suddenly you’re there. Kinger gets two seconds away from eating something cursed, and suddenly you’re watching him like it’s your job.”

“Stop.”

“You dragged everybody through that nightmare forest yesterday.”

Your expression hardened. “I said stop.”

Jax hesitated. Then, because apparently today had become dedicated to making bad decisions, he continued.

“You always make sure everybody else gets back first.”

The hedges pressed inward hard enough to make the exit feel farther away, stone shifting beneath the two of you with an uneven groan that pulled at the edges of the path.

Jax thought about the sound you had made back in the corn maze. Small enough that it had almost slipped past him, gone before either of you had really acknowledged it.

This laugh landed differently.

Short. Sharp.

“You think that means something?”

Jax hesitated.

You met his eyes then, the careful distance that had settled back over your expression after the corn maze beginning to slip.

“You think noticing one thing means you figured me out?”

“I didn’t say that.”

The counter flashed red as you stepped back.

The maze reacted with an uneven shudder, the path lurching unevenly while the hedges folded inward and apart all at once, stone groaning beneath both of you in a way the earlier levels never had.

Jax moved first, hand lifting. “Hey.”

You pulled back before he could reach you.

Suddenly, the maze had completely transformed around the two of you. Not hedges. A hallway, with doors. Faces crossed out in thick red lines.

Then, Jax blinked, and the maze corrected itself so quickly he almost convinced himself he had imagined it.

The exit still waited at the end of the path, bright red and stupidly cheerful beneath a sign that continued glowing:

FINAL STEP!

Caine’s voice rang overhead, eerily cheerful. “Partners must complete the final level together!”

Jax took another step forward, slower this time.

“You always look around before you leave a room.” The words arrived strangely certain. Jax wasn’t even sure where they had come from. He only knew they felt true.

The maze went completely still.

You said nothing, shoulders drawing tighter.

“That’s not—I wasn’t—”

You shook your head once. “...no.” The word barely carried.

The path dropped out from beneath the two of you.

Stone jerked violently beneath both of you, throwing the exit sideways while the hedges folded inward with a grinding sound sharp enough to scrape against the inside of his skull. Somewhere overhead, the bright yellow sky fractured into static.

“Participant incompatibility detected!” a robotic voice chirped. “Fantastic effort!”

Jax caught himself against the nearest hedge before it gave away beneath his hand.

The counter flashed red so brightly it hurt to look at.

Across from him, your balance caught and slipped every time the floor jerked beneath you, breathing uneven enough now that he found himself listening for it.

“Wait—”

For one sharp second, the world broke apart: corn where hedges should have been, mirrors flashing overhead, hallways and doors and crossed out faces stretching as far as the eye could see.

Static swallowed the edges before the world corrected itself. A sharp snap echoed somewhere above, the sound cutting through everything.

Suddenly, the circus returned all at once, confetti bursting overhead.

“And in THIRD PLACE!” Caine announced, entirely too cheerful.

Kinger stood near the center of the hall holding what appeared to be a first-place ribbon made entirely of plastic insects while Ribbit stared at it like she regretted everything.

“We did very well,” Kinger informed no one in particular. “Apparently knowledge of agricultural insect populations is valuable.”

Across the room, Kaufmo sat slumped against the floor while Ragatha offered him what was probably a participation sticker.

“Second place!” Caine turned toward them. “Marvelous emotional resilience!”

Jax barely registered any of it. You had already started moving.

Your breathing sounded wrong.

One of your hands was pressed hard against your arm while the other caught against the wall as you passed, footing uneven enough to stumble as you walked.

Ragatha took a careful step forward.

“Hey—”

“...please.” You did not look at her.

Jax caught something that sounded dangerously close to a swallowed breath before you disappeared down the hallway.

Or maybe a sniffle. He could not tell.

The room went quiet after you disappeared.

Even Caine stopped talking.

Kaufmo still watched the hallway, even after you disappeared. Beside him, Ribbit had gone strangely still, fingers loosening around the ridiculous plastic insects Kinger had apparently won until they slipped from her hands.

“…oh,” Kinger whispered quietly.

Nobody moved.

Not toward the hallway. Not after you.

Kaufmo only forced an awkward smile while Ribbit stood beside him, posture gone tight in a way Jax had learned meant bad news.

Something turned low in Jax’s stomach.

Because none of this felt surprising.

Not to them.

Jax lasted maybe twenty minutes.

He made one lap around the circus. Pretended to care about whatever disaster Caine had turned the dining hall into. Listened to Bubble threaten legal retaliation against a vending machine for reasons nobody explained. At one point, he stood in front of a wall for a full minute thinking very seriously about absolutely nothing.

Unfortunately, thinking about nothing naturally evolved into thinking about you.

Your stumble in the hallway, the way your breathing had sounded.

That quiet little “please.”

Annoying.

By the time he found Ragatha, she had somehow acquired a step stool and was fixing one of the paper decorations Caine had left hanging crooked near the theater entrance.

Or pretending to. She had been staring at the same streamer for at least a couple minutes.

Jax crept up behind her. “You know that thing’s still ugly, right?”

Ragatha startled hard enough to nearly drop the tape dispenser. “Oh!” She steadied herself quickly. “You scared me.”

“Should I start jinglin’ bells before I walk into rooms?” He grinned.

Something softer crossed her face before she looked back toward the decoration.

“…you okay?”

Jax’s smile dropped. “What’s with everybody askin’ me that?”

Ragatha adjusted the streamer once. “You’ve been weirdly quiet.”

“That your professional opinion?”

“Yeah, actually.”

Jax rolled his eyes, shoving both hands into his pockets.

“…okay. Hypothetically.”

Ragatha turned.

Jax already regretted this.

“If somebody completely loses it in a maze because you accidentally say one thing—”

Something shifted across Ragatha’s face. “Oh.”

There it was again. He wasn’t going to let it slide this time. “No. Stop doin’ that.”

“Doing what?”

“That thing.”

“What thing?”

“The weird face!”

Despite herself, Ragatha laughed softly. “You mean concern?”

“No, I mean everybody suddenly actin’ like they know somethin’ I don’t.”

The laughter faded.

Ragatha set the tape dispenser in her lap.

“...So, you talked to Kaufmo and Ribbit.”

Not a question.

“Yeah, well, apparently everybody in this place decided mystery’s a personality trait.”

Her mouth pulled slightly to one side. “They weren’t trying to be difficult.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

The paper streamer slipped loose again overhead. Neither of them bothered fixing it.

“…look,” Jax clenched his jaw, already annoyed he had to say it. “Something’s wrong.”

Ragatha’s voice came out weaker than usual. “Yeah, it…started before you got here.” She adjusted the tape dispenser once, then gave up on the streamer entirely and stepped down from the stool. “There had already been a lot of abstractions by then.”

“Yeah, okay. I know people abstract.”

“People they knew,” Ragatha continued, ignoring his banter. “People the rest of us didn’t.”

She paused, choosing her words more carefully.

“I guess after enough time…people stop bringing them up as much. You hear stories sometimes. Somebody who stole fruit at breakfast. Somebody who hated card games.” She smiled faintly before it disappeared again. “But after a while… people move on. You stop talking about them as much. Then not really at all.”

Ragatha exhaled. “And eventually it feels like they just…” her voice caught in her throat, “like they were never here.”

The hallway had gone quiet.

Jax thought about the photo album. The weird details you always seemed to know.

The feeling that you had walked into the circus already carrying history nobody else could see.

“She remembered what the rest of us didn’t,” Ragatha continued. “Not stories. People.”

Jax crossed his arms.

“…okay.” The word came slower this time. “What does that have to do with the maze?”

Ragatha seemed to weigh the words before answering. “Not the maze…an adventure, the one you skipped.”

“…what?”

“It was only your first week, and you were having a hard time adjusting…you stayed in your room. Kinger skipped too.”

Her hands folded together.

“Things had been rough. Everybody was upset, morale was bad, and I think Caine got worried, or well…as close to worried as Caine gets. He’s not always very good at understanding when something’s wrong, or what to do with it once he does.”

Jax disliked where this was going.

“He thought maybe something familiar would help,” Ragatha continued. “Something comforting.”

Whatever came next seemed harder to say.

“So he built an adventure around old faces.”

“...what?”

“He reuses NPC code all the time,” her voice lowered. “Models, personalities, little habits. We didn’t think anything of it at first. It just felt like another weird Caine adventure.”

She turned the tape dispenser once between her hands. “But she kept stopping. She’d just… freeze. She’d stare at somebody and go quiet. Correct little things.” Ragatha rubbed lightly at one arm. “Stuff nobody else understood.”

“You mean—”

“The abstracted people,” Ragatha clarified. “Or pieces of them, maybe.”

Jax stayed still against the wall.

“Kaufmo, Ribbit, and I had no idea who we were looking at,” she continued. “Most of them abstracted before we ever got here. Most of them…” Her expression tightened. “I don’t even think I knew their names…but she did.”

Ragatha went quiet for a moment before continuing.

“We thought something was wrong.”

“With her?” Jax asked.

Guilt flickered across her face.

“…yeah. I mean, we were worried. She kept freaking out and none of us understood why. I’d never seen her like that before.”

Jax stayed quiet.

Because suddenly the maze felt different.

The hallway, the crossed-out faces. The way you had looked at him.

“Afterward,” Ragatha sighed, “things changed. She just…got harder to be around, I guess.”

Jax frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She stopped sitting with us as much.” Ragatha shrugged. “If she did, she usually left early. Conversations got shorter.” She hesitated only long enough to rethink the phrasing. “Everything felt sharper after that.”

Jax looked over.

“…sharper?”

“She got irritated easier. And, she became quieter, which somehow felt worse.” A weak laugh slipped out, gone almost immediately. “You kind of stopped knowing what version of her you were gonna get.”

The humor disappeared.

“She still showed up,” Ragatha said. “It just stopped feeling like she was really there with us.”

She paused before continuing. “Kinger figured it out later.”

That got Jax’s attention. “What?”

“I didn’t know what else to do, so I went to him,” Ragatha admitted. “She wouldn’t talk to me, Kaufmo and Ribbit were worried, and I just…I didn’t understand what had happened. So I tried explaining it. I told him about the adventure, the NPCs, everything.”

Her voice lowered.

“And Kinger just…went really still.”

“Like normal Kinger still or weird Kinger still?”

“Weird,” Ragatha replied. “He started asking questions. ‘What did they look like?’ ‘What were they saying?’”

She stopped there for a second.

“And then…he told me everything. He said Caine must’ve copied them somehow. Their models, mostly, and maybe a few habits, but that was it. Just enough to convince you at first glance if you knew them.”

Ragatha grimaced.

“She’d recognize somebody immediately and go over to them, and at first you’d think maybe…” Ragatha stopped herself, expression tightening. “But they’d just smile and start talking about whatever Caine had programmed them to talk about.”

Ragatha lifted a hand to rub at her shoulder.

“She kept trying anyway. Correcting things, asking questions. Trying to explain why something was wrong, and none of us understood what she meant because to us it just looked like she was getting upset at NPCs.”

Her mouth twisted faintly. “I remember one of them asking if she wanted help finding treasure or something right after she’d been crying. She looked at him like something in her had just…” Ragatha exhaled once, frustration creeping into her voice. “I don’t know. Shut off. I think that’s when I finally understood why she changed.”

Her voice softened. “Imagine being the only person in the room who remembers someone enough to know they’re wrong.”

She looked at him properly then. “And nobody believes you.”

Neither of them said anything.

The crooked streamer overhead slipped loose again.

Ragatha noticed this time. She climbed back onto the stool, pressing one side of the decoration flat against the wall with far more focus than necessary.

“I don’t think she ever really forgave Caine for it,” she admitted after a moment. “Or herself, honestly.”

“…herself?”

“I think she hated that it got to her,” Ragatha admitted. “Like she felt stupid for caring when nobody else even remembered them anymore.”

The tape caught crooked.

She peeled it back off.

“And after a while…” Ragatha exhaled softly. “I think everybody just stopped asking.”

The words stayed with him longer than they should have. Something about that sat wrong. Wrong enough that Jax pushed himself upright.

“...Jax?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He shoved his hands back into his pockets. “Don’t make a thing outta it.”

Something soft crossed her face. “You should probably go check on her.”

He rolled his eyes so hard it almost counted as effort.

“Wow. That’s a weird thing to say out loud.”

But he was already walking. Halfway down the hallway, he heard Ragatha call after him.

“Hey?”

Jax stopped.

“If she tells you to leave…maybe don’t.”

He glanced back and stared at her for a moment. Then looked away first.

“…yeah. Whatever.”

He kept walking anyway.

Jax was already past Kinger’s door when he realized he had absolutely no plan.

Which felt irritating, because plans implied effort and effort implied this suddenly mattered more than he wanted it to.

You had snapped at him before. Yelled, ignored him, threatened violence in at least three increasingly creative ways. None of that technically counted as unusual.

Still.

Fragments of you kept replaying wrong in his head. The breathing, the shaking hands. That small, strained please.

By the time he reached your door, irritation had settled somewhere unpleasantly close to concern, which felt manipulative, honestly.

The hallway remained stubbornly quiet.

Jax stood there longer than he meant to before finally digging through the ring of keys in his pocket with an exaggerated sort of annoyance, like inconveniencing himself somehow made this less embarrassing.

The lock clicked open easily.

The room beyond caught him off guard. Not because it looked sad. Sad would have made sense.

Instead, the whole thing felt soft in a way the circus rarely allowed itself to be.

The circus rarely bothered with softness without turning it into some kind of joke, but this was clearly an exception. Blankets layered unevenly across a couch near the far wall, thick enough to disappear into, spilling halfway onto a fur rug. Pillows crowded corners without any real order to them, oversized and worn at the edges in ways that suggested use rather than decoration. Warm light softened everything into shades of cream and pale gold while gauzy fabric hung loose near the ceiling, shifting faintly every time the artificial breeze from somewhere unseen caught it.

The window overlooked the digital lake.

Rain tapped quietly against the glass despite the sky remaining clear, sunset frozen across still water with the sort of careful perfection that immediately gave Caine’s work away. The kind of view somebody built after deciding comfort probably looked like rain and sunsets and quiet water, never really stopping to question whether any of those things belonged together.

Flowers crowded a shelf near the window, some fresh, some not. A few drooped where they sat forgotten in cloudy water nobody had changed.

Sticky notes lingered in stranger places, tucked near shelves and half-hidden against the edge of a side table:

REMEMBER BREAKFAST.

CHECK THE LOCK.

ASK KINGER ABOUT—

One near the window had been crossed through hard enough to wrinkle the paper beneath it.

Several picture frames rested facedown beside a stack of books. Another sat turned carefully toward the wall, hidden beneath folded fabric.

The room should have felt comforting. Instead, it carried the strange feeling of something built to survive inside.

Soft enough to hide in.

Jax shut the door behind him without meaning to. The sound pulled movement from somewhere beneath the blankets.

“Oh my god.” Your voice came rough around the edges.

He looked over.

You sat folded into the far corner of the couch beneath an unreasonable number of blankets, expression flattening almost immediately once recognition settled in.

Neither of you said anything.

Your gaze moved once toward the door. Then toward the keys still hanging loose from his hand.

“…you broke into my room?”

Jax lifted the ring slightly. “Breakin’ implies effort.”

Your expression somehow flattened further.

The silence afterward stretched.

You looked tired in a way he had not really noticed earlier, irritation sitting heavier now with no one else around to absorb it. The sharpness still existed, but dulled strangely at the edges beneath exhaustion.

A mug sat abandoned near the couch, cold coffee gathered at the bottom.

“You gonna stand there,” you muttered eventually, voice scraped thinner than usual, “or are you planning to leave?”

Neither option sounded particularly inviting. Jax glanced toward the artificial window instead.

“…your room feels weird.”

You looked unimpressed. “Thank you.”

“No, I mean—”

He gestured vaguely. “It feels…” He gestured toward the blankets, the flowers, the aggressively peaceful fake sunset outside. “Like Caine trapped somebody inside a scented candle.”

Your attention shifted toward the window. “So?”

“So,” Jax replied, leaning one shoulder against the closed door, “for somebody actin’ all terrifying lately, this is kinda pathetic.”

Your expression stayed frustratingly flat.

Your fingers gathered absently against the blanket. “You done?” you asked.

The room settled around the question.

Somewhere outside, rain continued tapping softly against fake glass, distant thunder rolling on a loop that sounded suspiciously prerecorded.

One of the sticky notes near the lamp had curled halfway loose.

DON’T FORGET—

The rest had been torn off.

“You always live like this?”

Your attention lifted slowly. “Like what?”

“All…” His gaze moved across the room again. “This.”

“...it helps.”

The couch sat close enough to the window that pale light caught unevenly against the blankets gathered around you. Even from here, it looked easy to disappear into.

With the vague irritation of somebody inconveniencing himself on purpose, Jax pushed away from the door.

“What are you doing?” you tensed.

“Relax.” He dropped onto the opposite end of the couch. “You looked one bad day away from hauntin’ the place.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Neither does this room.”

Your attention dropped again. Outside, thunder rolled softly through the fake sky.

“…you looked bad earlier.”

You laughed once, tired enough to sound brittle. “Wow.”

Jax frowned. “What?”

“Nothing.” Your fingers tightened briefly against the blanket before loosening again. “Didn’t know you cared.”

“Didn’t say that.”

“You kinda did.”

He clicked his tongue once, already irritated with how badly this had gone. “You looked like hell, alright? Happy?”

The joke landed crueler than intended.

Your mouth pulled slightly at one corner before disappearing again.

Silence stretched between opposite ends of the couch, thin enough that even the soft hum of the room started feeling louder.

Then, for the first time all night, you turned to meet his gaze.

“You don’t have to do this.”

Jax looked over. “Do what?”

“This.” Your hand moved vaguely between the two of you. “Pretend.”

Something about that landed wrong. Maybe because you sounded tired instead of sharp.

Maybe because for the first time since he’d met you, you sounded like you actually believed it.

He leaned back harder into the couch.

“Oh, here we go.”

Still, his attention snagged again despite himself. Your hands had twisted the blanket into itself somewhere between the conversation and now, fabric gathered tight enough between your fingers to wrinkle.

“You gonna stop doin’ that?”

“Doing what?”

He reached over, catching lightly at the edge of the blanket where it had bunched between your hands.

“That…looks uncomfortable.”

You went quiet after that. Your hand stayed where he had loosened the blanket, fingers no longer twisting quite so tightly into the fabric. The space between both ends of the couch felt smaller now.

“You really suck at this,” you muttered eventually.

Jax let out a deep exhale. “Yeah, well.”

His hand remained where it had ended up against the blanket pooled loosely in your lap, closer now than either of you acknowledged.

“…clearly.”

Your shoulder brushed his a moment later.

Maybe accidental.

Maybe not.

Neither of you moved.

“You can stop, y’know.”

“Stop what?”

“This.” Your hand moved vaguely between the two of you. “Whatever weird…guilt thing this is.”

He raised a brow. “That’s annoyingly specific.”

“I’m serious.” You pulled the blanket slightly closer again, fingers catching in the fabric. “I’ll be fine.”

“I didn’t say you wouldn’t be.” His voice came out rougher than intended. Jax looked away.

“…I just…didn’t really wanna leave you alone.”

Silence stretched. Your shoulder stayed where it had bumped lightly against his. Close enough now that he could feel warmth through too many layers of blanket.

“You really suck at this,” you repeated, quieter now.

“Yeah, okay, you mentioned that already.” He looked back at you again, only to catch you staring.

Something small and tired slipped out of you, closer to a full laugh this time. It disappeared quickly.

“…quit lookin’ at me like that.” Jax mumbled.

“Like what?”

His hand fidgeted awkwardly, fingers brushing lightly against your sleeve near your wrist. “You keep lookin’ like you’re about to…” He stopped, whatever joke had been sitting there disappearing before trying again.

“…I dunno.”

His next words abandoned him somewhere between the look on your face and the sudden, embarrassing awareness that the couch had gotten a lot smaller.

The movement surprised you as much as it surprised him.

One second he was trying very hard not to say something stupid. The next he was kissing you.

Messy enough to almost count as impulse, but warm and strangely careful. You kissed him back, not for very long but just enough to make it real. Jax pulled away first, barely moving an inch. The smugness that usually lived somewhere behind his expression seemed to have misplaced itself entirely.

“Oh.” His voice came out soft, his hand still resting uselessly against the blanket gathered in your lap.

You stood so quickly the couch shifted beneath both of you.

“...No.” Your hands found your head briefly before falling again, pacing already carrying you halfway across the room. “No…no, no, no. Absolutely not.” The words came faster now, sharpness returning. “This isn’t—” You stopped yourself hard enough to swallow the rest. “No.”

Jax pushed himself upright more slowly.

“…okay.”

You laughed once, voice thin and wrong. The sound disappeared almost immediately as you turned toward the window, then away from it again before really stopping anywhere at all.

“This doesn’t matter,” you muttered, mostly to yourself. “This isn’t a thing.”

“Little offensive.”

“Jax.”

That got him to stop. You had stopped pacing without him noticing, now standing near the window with one hand gripping your neck like a vise.

You started pacing again.

A blanket still dragged unevenly around one shoulder where you had forgotten to let it fall.

“I can’t do this,” you muttered. “Not now. Not—”

Your hand pressed against your forehead.

“Okay.” Jax glanced toward the door, then back at you. He had not quite settled on what he was supposed to do here. “You’re doin’ the scary thing again.”

The silence afterward stretched awkwardly.

“…bad wording.”

You didn’t look at him. Your hand caught briefly against the edge of the side table before balling into a fist.

“Get out.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“No, you’re just—”

“GET OUT.”

Jax stayed where he was.

Long enough that the sound of rain against fake glass suddenly felt louder than it had just a minute ago.

“…fine.”

He moved toward the door slowly, pausing once like maybe something smarter might still arrive at the last second.

It didn’t.

“You better not do any weird dramatic circus nonsense,” he raised his voice, hand catching against the doorknob. “I’m serious.”

You didn’t answer. That bothered him more than it probably should have.

The door opened with a quiet click.

Jax hesitated again.

You were still looking out the window.

“…don’t make me come back in here.”

The door pulled shut behind him, stopping just short of closed. Barely an inch.

Rain kept going outside, thunder rolling softly overhead. For a while, you just stood there, the blanket still sitting unevenly against the couch where Jax had left it, half-slipped toward the floor.

The air felt wrong somehow, hot in a way that pressed too heavily against your skin, too close, like the room had quietly shrunk around you while you weren’t paying attention.

Your hand grabbed at the edge of the side table hard enough to rattle one of the overturned picture frames.

You set it upright without thinking and paused. You didn’t recognize the face.

The wrongness of it settled instantly. You should have.

The thought slipped sideways before you could hold onto it. Fake thunder crackled from outside.

This was all wrong. You pressed both hands hard against your temples. Breathing had become too fast, too shallow. The room seemed to tilt around the edges. Outside, the view flickered, only briefly. The sunset warped strangely across the water before correcting itself.

Your fist slammed hard against the window, the sound cracking violently through the room. Glass scattered across the floor, inward. Rain disappeared mid-sound. The lake tore sideways where your hand had gone through.

Not a window. A screen.

Static burst violently across fractured color while the audio stuttered overhead, thunder distorting into a warped, metallic sound. The sunset collapsed into bright distortion.

Something sharp and awful twisted low in your chest.

Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong—

You stumbled backward hard enough to knock against the couch.

Somewhere in the hallway outside, the door remained open just enough to let pale light spill through the crack.

Dinner should have been louder.

Kaufmo usually complained about something. Ribbit argued with somebody. Ragatha filled silences before they really settled. Even Kinger quietly explaining something nobody had asked about would have counted for something.

Instead, the room sat strangely empty.

Cold plates lingered untouched beneath lights that suddenly felt too bright. Somewhere overhead, one of Caine’s instrumental tracks played through the speakers, all bright brass and carousel nonsense in a room suddenly too quiet for it.

Jax’s attention drifted toward the empty seat at the end of the table before he clicked his tongue and turned back toward the door.

Something about the dorm hallway felt off before he had even fully stepped into it.

When he turned the corner, everyone was already there, gathered strangely still beneath flickering color.

Ragatha stood off to one side, arms folded tightly enough to wrinkle fabric beneath her hands. Ribbit lingered beside her, unusually quiet. Even Kaufmo had gone still.

Kinger stood closest to your door.

The door remained cracked open barely an inch, colored light pulsing unevenly through the gap while distorted sound drifted into the hall, something sharp and scratchy buried beneath rain and breaking thunder.

Static.

By the time anybody spoke, Jax had already crossed half the hallway.

“…Jax.”

Kinger did not look away from the door. For once, his voice sounded frighteningly clear. “I wouldn’t.”

Jax rolled his eyes. “Oh, cool. Great. Everybody’s bein’ weird now.” He took another step.

Kaufmo stood abruptly. “…don’t.”

No joke. No grin. Nothing.

Only then did Jax realize nobody had tried opening the door.