Chapter Text
Grey hyena digits seamlessly strummed the chords of a bass guitar along, the owner of both sitting on the edge of his bed with a smaller beige mammal a bit over half his size beside him.
When he’d first gotten his apartment, Haida had specifically sought out an apartment complex that had decent sound-proofing between units. Those same kinds of places also happened to be the very same ones that were already priced above-average for other reasons, so out of the formerly three of them he had always been the one paying the most for his rent, given he knew both Retsuko and Fenneko’s apartments were just single rooms. It was one of the main reasons he never really had any measurable degree of spare savings in his account, along with all of the depressed after work drinking he used to go through, at least for the last six years until this one. The six years of Retsuko-seeking, that’s what they had been . . . six years of wasted time. But, that time had come to an end, nearly eight months ago now. And somewhere just short of six months ago now, a much better, level-hearted time had begun. Now, he had someone sitting next to him . . . and it was the one person who had already always been beside him.
Ookami had pointed out the fact that, even for the prior years at the office, long before Haida and Fenneko ever became a mostly-secret couple, Haida had almost always referred to them as “us”. He’d always just assumed Fenneko would be wherever he was, or would end up coming along wherever he was going. It seemed to be retroactively slapping him in the face; destiny or fate or whatever. Well, things were finally as they were supposed to be now. A single glance over at the little haha fox contently perusing social media histories next to him told him that much, and the tiniest, most content yeen smile came over him as he kept playing.
It only came to the hyena’s mind just then, as he finished playing out what would’ve normally been the lead-in music to a particular song, he didn’t even know whether Fenneko ever listened to any music.
“Citizen Soldier. That’s a throwback.” She said, without breaking her focus.
“Huh?” Haida was caught a bit by surprise. “Wait, you recognize the chords?” He asked.
“If that’s what they’re called.” She said back. “I don’t do music nerd stuff so I’m just gonna assume we mean the same thing.”
“Music nerd stuff?” Haida couldn’t avoid being amused at her consistent nerd dismissals.
“You know; notes, sheets, instruments—” Fenneko had begun.
But, Haid interrupted. “—So anything having to do with it?” He asked.
“Pretty much, yeah.” She answered.
His amusement leant some space to a realization then. “So, is it just a coincidence that nerd stuff just happens to consist of anything and everything I’m into?” He didn’t mean it in an offended manner, but he was legitimately curious.
“Huh?” Fenneko looked over and up at him, actually looking at least mildly confused for once. It only lasted a second, until her mind gripped the premise, and then her head snapped back to her phone just before a tiny bit of red came through on part of her cheeks. “I don’t what you’re talking about.” She spat out a quick set of words.
“Hahaha h’wait,” Haida had to ask, “don’t tell me that was all like, subconscious or whatever this whole time?”
“No . . .” Fenneko responded instantly, but then froze up for a second or two afterward. And with whited eyes and still-red cheeks, even Haida could easily tell she was trying to come up with something. “There’s other dumb nerd stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with you, you know.” She asserted.
“Yeah? Like what?” He asked.
“Huh? What . . . you know . . . like watering plants or something.” Fenneko did manage to produce a response that wasn’t tied to Haida, but it was still obvious for Haida that she’d only just come up with it then and there.
“Man,” Haida decided to run with a hopeful joke, “I better watch out or I might lose you to Resasuke too.”
“HAhahahaha,” for the first time since . . . the drinking party last year, Fenneko laughed her extremely rare, non-robotic, non-trolling, genuine laugh. “As if.” She then said, snapping right back into her normal voice.
Haida . . . had almost never heard that laugh. In fact, he could only remember that time at the department party last year, and maybe one or two other times before that. He had actually just caused one of the only four genuine laughs Fenneko had in the last six and a half years. It was more than enough to replace his amused look with a more content smile of fulfillment.
“Ok,” Haida said, “maybe not the space cadet. But, you sure you might not wanna grab some better guy? There’s gotta be some handsome fennec dudes out there.” He played it as a joke, but in the self-defeating part of his mind he still doubted.
Fenneko just tapped and scrolled for a few seconds before actually answering. “I already told you there’s almost nothing you can do to make me leave.” She reminded him. “What makes you think it’s any different from the outside in?”
Haida blinked a few times before he turned away for a moment. “I don’t know,” he admitted, unplugging his bass, “I guess I just got so used to being passed over for other guys.” He paused for a second to set the instrument back down in its usual place. “I mean,” he turned back over to her again, “I already did lose out to Resasuke remember, and to a computer program. It just feels hard trying to get used to the idea that I’m actually somebody’s top choice.”
“Get used to it.” Fenneko’s response came with the same dismissively condescending tone as when she told him to get over himself.
It came off somewhat odd at first, and left the hyena blinking a few times. But after a few seconds, a new smile, weak as his always were, came back to his face. “Ha, hehe, yeah,” he laughed a bit, while an embarrassed hand went behind his head, “I guess I’ll just have to then.”
It was enough to draw Fenneko’s glance away from her phone for a moment, just to stare up with her default Fenneko face. Though right as she turned head back down her phone, Haida was sure his eyes caught the edge of a mild smile.
“Yuh know,” Haida said, “I actually did wonder a few times whether you even listened to music.”
“You’d be surprised.” The little blue sweater fox responded.
True in fact, Haida was surprised. Though, he supposed after the number of recent discoveries like the Chess revelation, he probably shouldn’t have been. He’d just . . . never really asked her about anything she liked, not for the entire six years of work before they were together.
“Ha, let me guess,” he decided to continue correcting the past, in a way, “you do, just not the same kind of cringey stuff I listen to?” He went ahead and directed the joke at himself for her.
“Nah.” She confirmed. “Edgy, self-pitying punk songs aren’t really my thing.”
Where he used to struggle and fail to defend himself, instead Haida now just laughed for a few seconds before responding. “You know they weren’t all just self-pity songs.” He told her.
“Oh?” She asked, still without breaking her focus. “What else was there then exactly?”
“All the older more classic punk rock stuff.” Haida answered, even pointing towards his record collection with his foot. “Those are all just about the instrumentals.”
“I thought all that older stuff was about breaking rules and rebelling against authority figures?” Fenneko more stated than asked, again, but it was aiming for a response.
“Huh? Well, I mean yeah, that’s what the songs are like about,” Haida answered, “but that’s not why I’m into’em.”
“Really?” She responded, lifting her nose ever so slightly with a mild grin. “Pretty sure I remember hearing something about refusing to kiss up whenever we were all talking about following orders at work.”
“Akgh . . .” Haida had to blink for a few seconds until he realized, or rather remembered that the little fox was just amusing herself. “Well, yeah,” he responded, “I don't kiss up, I just always do my work just good enough and the bosses never feel like giving me any grief about anything.”
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.”
That response from Fenneko wasn’t what Haida was expecting . . . but somehow he realized he couldn’t imagine a more proper one. While it froze him mentally for a few seconds, a fresh, self-surrendered smile crept onto his face. That laugh . . . there was nothing out there more filling to hear than that robotic laugh.
“Don’t take it too bad.” Fenneko assured him, still tapping and scrolling away. “It’s not the worst lie you’ve ever told yourself.”
Haida blinked once, and kept half of his smile as he played along. “Which one was that?” He asked.
Fenneko more than willingly provided her answer. “Even back when you were just trying to chase after Retsuko, whenever romance actually got brought up in a conversation you said you were edgy, and edgy guys aren’t into stuff like that.”
“Huh? Wha—hey come on!” Haida protested as pathetically as always, but now with some measurable bit of happiness tapered in as well. “I’m totally edgy!” He even threw a pointing finger in the direction of the lone coat-hanging hook on the inside of his apartment door. “I wear a black leather jacket and everything!”
Fenneko left him holding out his pointing arm for an awkward moment before she actually looked up from her phone at the same jacket her friend-boyfriend wore nearly every day outside of the colder months of the year. “Wow,” she said, with absolutely perfect flatness, “that’s impressive.”
Haida was left to watch the fennec’s head tip right back down to her phone. And, after a few seconds passed by, he was left to just let his own head drop with a sigh . . . though in some strange way, it was a happy one. “Alright,” he said, once he picked his own head back up, “I’m not really edgy. But if I’m not actually edgy then you’re not actually a robot.”
“Oh? And what made you change your mind about that?” Fenneko kept her flat, yet ever-so-mildly amused tone.
“I don’t know,” Haida answered, trying awkwardly to make it playful, “maybe I just don’t think a Fenneko bot would freak out so bad when she thought I was gonna get myself sent to the hospital again—”
“Huh?” Fenneko stopped typing.
“Or have her face turn so red any time somebody brings one’a the times she actually showed emotions.” Haida added.
Fenneko’s eyes whited over, and some degree of red did in fact start to appear on her face, while her fingers remained frozen above the screen beneath them.
“Or break out into a cold sweat panic when her internet stalking predictions don’t come true. Or—”
The appearance of a faint anime sweat drop was enough to finally make Fenneko speak, granted it was still in a mostly flat voice. “Ok, yeah, I get it.” She admitted, and her fingers resumed motioning across her phone screen with added speed.
For a time, Haida was a left somewhat unsure over the whole matter. He wanted to assume, as he knew her to, that she was just quickly shutting down an embarrassing line of speech. But, given their togetherness now, he did have some degree of extra worry over whether he might have actually upset her. Whichever may have been the true case, he was unable to pin one down for himself.
In the absence of anything from the hyena, Fenneko eventually spoke again, now completely back to normal . . . and back to amused. “You know I don’t think I’d even know who you are if you weren’t clueless.” She remarked.
Haida’s mouth went open half way for a second, though nothing came out of it. Only after the embarrassment she had just felt was transferred to him did he vocalize anything. “Ah, uh, eheheh, heh, yeah.” He admitted, eyes shutting in place of his own face turning red, and one hand and arm going back behind his head like always. “Guess it’s a good thing you always hung out with the real me instead of . . . whatever it was I tried to put on around her.” He slowed himself in the later part of his sentence, as he realized, for what was by no means the first time, just how different his comfortability level was with, and had always been around Fenneko versus trying to be around Retsuko.
In the midst of his mental wandering, Haida suddenly felt a weight come against him.
When he returned his brain to processing his vision, he looked to find Fenneko leaning back against his right front, granted at something of an angle. They’d both been sitting with their legs over the edge of the bed, but given Haida was much taller, his legs were obviously longer, and so he was farther back from the edge than she was. It was just enough that she could lean back against him after she turned herself a bit. After a moment of looking down, Haida brought his right arm down and around her, and she set her own arms up and over his like it was a safety bar. And, without any comment, Fenneko let her head rest back against him as well, leaving the hyena with a fuzzy fennec skull brushing just up under his chin and two enormous radar ears grazing past each of his cheeks.
And for a time, they just sat like that. Haida strained his eyes a few times trying to look down past his own muzzle and focus on Fenneko’s phone below, but eventually he had to give up on such after he thought he was about to pull an eye muscle. He just let her type on, and just zoned out with his own eyes somewhere ahead, with his mind wandering here and there over how their lives had gone. Eventually, from lack of conscious focus, he began to let his head slowly dip, up until a point when it rested its weight more and more through his chin on top of the head of the smaller mammal underneath it.
“You know your head’s a lot heavier than you might think despite being empty.” A flattened, calmingly ever-so-mocking voice suddenly spoke up.
“Huh?” The sudden break from his wandering thoughts was enough on its own to make Haida lift his head up off of hers.
“Guess that worked.” Fenneko remarked about her comment’s unexpected results.
“Oh,” Haida’s brain just then caught up to what she had previously said, “uhhh, yeah, sorry. I guess my mind kinda wandered off on me.”
“Don’t go turning into Retsuko now.” She warned him, without restraining the mockery that came with it.
“Hah, heheh, yeah,” he agreed, “I’ll have to watch out and make sure I don’t wreck any business leopard guy’s van.”
Before Fenneko responded with anything, a double-note notification sound came from her phone.
“You know I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard your phone make a sound before.” Haida remarked.
“It’s only for only actual messages.” Fenneko said, flicking away the SocialNet page to reveal a text message alert on her main screen. “I wasn’t gonna have everybody’s social media posts setting it off every three seconds.”
“You stalk that many mammals?” Haida knew it was a question he already knew the answer to, but asking it seemed to just happen by reflex anyways.
“It varies. I told you it all depends on who’s downward spirals are actually interesting.” She answered, right as she opened the text message, revealing itself to be from Ookami.
It was a picture of something, not that Haida could initially see. He had to move his head over from its position above hers, so he could actually tilt it down and look ahead instead of straining to focus his eyes down and below his own hyena muzzle. Fenneko even waited to tap on the image until Haida had a proper line of sight.
It turned out to be a phone cam shot of a vending machine, but there was something immediately unusual about it, at least as either of them would define. There were a lot more rows of selection buttons than normal. And it took a second or two, but Haida came to see that they were actually three double-rows each containing the same set of selections, each pair of rows situated at a different height on the machine.
“Haha, hey, looks like it’s got a set of buttons you could reach yourself.” Haida couldn’t avoid speaking the obvious.
“Yeah, that’s kinda the point.” Fenneko responded. “Three different sets for three different height ranges.”
“Yeah? Where’s it from?” He asked.
“Zootopia.” She answered. “One of my chess opponents told me they had this kinda stuff, and not just the vending machines either. I almost didn’t buy it at first, but turns out Ookami’s got a friend over there and they snapped a pic for him to send.”
“Wait, other stuff?” Haida’s own curiosity asked.
“Yup.” She said. “I started digging through plenty of images on my own before Ooki even asked his friend for one. Turns out it’s pretty standard on everything; crosswalk signs, doors, trashcans, public transit access, restaurants, the whole deal.”
Haida had to blink a few times at the concept before he could respond. “That’s like, for real?”
“Nope, made up every word. Also don’t care about watching the demise of our coworkers’ realities through social media and I’m totally into VR.” The little fennec spoke the sarcastic response so matter-of-factly that had Haida not known her, he would have believed her.
“Oh? Sweet! Mind if I borrow your headset?” He regained a smile as he decided to play along.
Another notification sounded before either of them could continue the joke.
They both looked at the screen, Fenneko scrolling the new message up into view. It contained a form link underneath a text that read: “This is the one I’m really thinking about. I know you said you didn’t want to do the same type of monotonous numbers stuff again, but I figured you could at least show it to Haida, see if it’s in his frame.”
“Huh? Show me what?” Haida asked Fenneko, after reading their friend’s message.
“A job.” She answered, and then immediately had to play on him. “Did you think we were just move somewhere else and have money materialize itself for us?”
“Egh—uh, yeah, sorry.” Haida had to give an embarrassed apology. “I did think about that before,” he worriedly assured her, “just yuh know, sometimes my brain takes a few seconds to catch up to the moment.”
“I know.” The smaller mammal’s answer came with an audible . . . content amusement.
Haida’s nervous yeen face got replaced by unexpected surprise.
She believed him . . . she trusted him. Fenneko really did have some degree of non -sarcastic confidence in him.
He looked at the job page once she’d opened the link, and just as quickly again his expression had to change. “Uuhh, Fenneko, that’s . . . not even in Japanda . . .” He said with eyes wide.
There was a pause for a second, before the same words as before came again. “I know.” She said, but now . . . tinged with her very, very rarely heard insecurity.
Well, this time it wasn’t just his own cluelessness that kept him from initially having anything to say. In fact, all he could do right in the moment was feel the little fennec growing tense. That, also, he’d never known her to do before, he thought. But, he also hadn’t exactly ever been holding or hugging her prior to a few months ago. As the silence carried on though, he knew he obviously had to respond in some way . . . and in the end, for him, and he always supposed for his gender of his species . . . there was only really one.
“Uh, sorry,” he came off as easy as he could, “I didn’t mean it to come off in a bad way. I know you want us to move. I just, uh, didn’t know you meant to another continent.” He still had to admit.
Fenneko’s head spun around and semi-up to him, with visible unexpectancy.
“Is it just for the different height convenience stuff, or—?” Haida asked, almost half as a joke.
Fenneko didn’t gasp, instead only having an interrupted breath, as she normally did in place of such. Her mouth actually lingered open for a second, before she managed to re-flatten and re-Fenneko herself. “You know this would normally be the part where you’re supposed to actually speak up for yourself and tell me you don’t wanna go.” She said.
“Uuhh,” Haida needed a moment to articulate, but he did manage to put together his answer, “I mean, yeah, ha’that probably would be the case if it wasn’t me you’re dealing with.” He saw a tiny bit of the tension leave her eyes, but most still seemed to remain. “Come on, you know the whole guy hyena thing by now.” He said. “And it’s . . . you know, it’s not like I really don’t wanna go, I just, haha’really wasn’t expecting you to want us to go somewhere so far off.”
Fenneko kept her stare up for another moment afterward, over which some greater amount of her tension seemed to ease away. At the end of it, she just sighed and let her head turn back down to its original direction.
“Disappointing expectations again?” Haida joked about himself, though he was uncertain over how she was taking his response.
His uncertainty ended, however, when she just let herself fall back against him again. And, for another moment, she said nothing.
Eventually however, a few words did escape her again, and unlike the returned Fenneko flatness Haida expected, they instead bore a rarer tone to them, exactly like the kind that came the very few times over the years he’d managed to unwittingly win an argument of some kind and she’d been unable to produce a proper rebuttal.
“You’re dumb.” She almost muttered.
And that, somehow . . . was just too perfect. Haida laughed, truly, and for more than just a couple seconds. He couldn’t help himself.
While the hyena couldn’t really notice in the moment, the remainder of Fenneko’s unease and tension completely faded away, and the slightest amused smirk that had left her earlier found its way back to her face.
“Hey, uh,” Haida suddenly spoke after breaking away from his laughing episode, “can you send it to me? So yuh know, I can see it easier?” He asked. “And that way you can go back to stalking everybody.”
“Hm? Oh, yeah.” She went ahead and forwarded the link Ookami had sent.
Haida’s own phone dinged, drawing his attention over to it. It was sitting over on top of the bed stand beyond head of his bed. He had to lean way back to reach for it, and in fact he was all but lying on his back by the time his hand reached it. Just as he was about to pull himself back up, a sudden weight brought his other arm flat down just below his pillow. He looked to find an ever-so-slightly smug Fenneko now lying next to him on top of his arm, phone held up in front of her face, smug-casually scrolling along.
The hyena had to smile, before he shuffled to lie down properly himself, without moving his fuzzy armweight. He held his own phone up over his own face with his free hand as he laid his head back on the pillow beside hers, even having to turn just a bit to the side so the enormous fennec ear brushing against his face didn’t partially block his right eye.
When he did turn his phone screen on, there was the message waiting for him. Unbeknownst to Fenneko herself, Haida had in fact changed her name id in his phone to “Haha Fox”. He tapped on her name and the message that followed it. There was the link, which led to a job page on what ended up being a utility website.
“”Zootopia Nuclear Power Station””
The name of the hiring entity caused another surprise round in the hyena. “Ahh, Fenneko,” he asked, with some scratchy nerves in his voice, “I think this stuff kinda requires like, science, and engineering stuff and, yuh know, real degrees? Not just my accounting cert.”
“Did you try actually reading it?” She asked back, amused mockery back and audible again.
“Uuhhh—" Haida blinked a bit, and then looked at the page again, actually beginning to read it this time.
“”Power Demand Level Trends and Patterns Analyst””
Haida read down through the description. It was actually a numbers and analytics position, and the description of what it involved doing was actually extremely similar to a portion of the things they all did at work now, just that this would involve electricity usage numbers instead of money. They even specified that accounting was among the list of applicable backgrounds qualified to apply. And, apparently it also . . .
Haida’s eyes went wide. “Uhh, man, that’s—"
“A nice pay raise?” Fenneko knowingly cut him off.
“Ahh, yeah, you could say that.” Haida said. “This would be the same as something like, what, six million yen a year?” He asked.
“You’re gonna have to get used to using Z-dollar amounts when we actually go there, but yeah, something like that.” She answered.
Haida stared back at the screen he was holding several inches above his face. This . . . really was the beginning . . . or it was going to be.
***
Haida’s eyes blinked open some time later. They found the lights off, and he didn’t feel any weight on his arm anymore. Instead, he felt a fair weight on the right side of his torso, and a much lighter bit stretched across his chest. What he found when he looked down was a fuzzy fennec in grey pajamas, lying on her side and snuggling over onto him. She had one arm extended across his chest, with an open hand hanging over his other side and her phone having fallen out now resting against the inside of Haida’s arm below. A soft, sweet yeen smile took over his face for a moment, and had she not been asleep, and he not about to fall back asleep himself, he likely would have snickered at least a little.
So much had changed in the last handful of months. So much for him had finally changed, and still was. And, everything was only for the better.
He fell back asleep not long after, only really being awake long enough for his mind to linger a few moments on the amusing new thought: smol haha fox had now become smol snuggle phone fox.