Well, nothing about today had gone the way anyone expected.

Retsuko and Tadano's relationship had come to surprising end. Even though it had been Retsuko herself who ended it, Haida had still wanted to punch Tadano over it. But, like his first desire to punch him, that hadn't exactly materialized . . . like almost everything else Haida ever intended to do.

Actually, he realized, there was nothing really unexpected about that. Maybe kicking a can on the sidewalk and falling flat on his back again was, if only because it was such a very specific thing to have repeatedly happen . . . especially since he had just done the same thing only a short time ago when he'd first learned about Retsuko and Tadano being together.

Now here he was on his back again. At least he was inside though and not lying in a puddle in the rain. Instead, here he was on Fenneko's floor, staring pathetically up at his friend's ceiling while she sat at the end of her bed nearby, eternally hunting through others' social media histories. She had been the one to come out and drag him up off the ground . . . again. He'd been waiting for her to eventually just leave him out there to die one of these times. But no, she always showed up.

"Why am I here?" He asked, eyes still fixed on the ceiling above.

"Because if I'd taken you back to your place instead you'd be alone and depressed with a bunch of cheap alcohol." She answered, ever so stabbingly truthful as always.

The miserable hyena considered the answer for a moment, eventually rolling his head to the side to look up at his friend instead of the ceiling.

"You have alcohol here though." He said.

"Had." She corrected him without her eyes even leaving the laptop screen in front of her. "I poured it all down the sink before I came to haul you off the sidewalk."

Haida had to smile for a few seconds, a smile of acknowledgement for his stupidity before he rolled his head back to staring straight up.

"Why do you have to be so smart?" He asked her.

Fenneko actually did lift her eyes up from her screen this time, looking down at the incarnation of self-defeat lying motionless on her floor.

"How many times would you be dead or broke if I wasn't?" She asked back.

". . . Enough." Haida admitted.

Fenneko resumed typing and searching, while Haida resumed focusing his vision on random patterns in the ceiling paint. He laid there contemplating his own degree of pathetic, like he so often did. He just wanted . . .

. . .

"Why doesn't she like me?" He found himself asking aloud.

The typing nearby stopped before an unexpected answer came. "Because she doesn't." Fenneko said plainly, and then waited for her friend's head to roll over in her direction.

Haida obliged the expectation, meeting his friend's cold expression with what amounted to sad puppy shock.

"Being in love with someone doesn't obligate them to love you back, Haida." Fenneko said, eyes turning ever so slightly sympathetic. "Even if they're already cool with you it doesn't mean that switch is gonna flip, no matter long you spend obsessing over them."

Haida's head rolled back straight, with him forcing his eyes shut. Although his ears didn't notice, for the entire moment he spent looking at the inside of his eyelids, his friend's typing never resumed. Too many whys drowned his mind, until another eventually escaped.

"Why do you keep coming to get me?" He asked as his eyes opened again.

"Who else is going to?" She asked in return.

Well . . . she had a point. Really, he had to wonder, who else would? Most of their coworkers were, in a way, obligatory friends to some extent. But, how long was his friends list really, apart from Fenneko? He had Fenneko, and . . . he wanted to say Retsuko, but he really couldn't. She was, but, she wasn't. And, he supposed that part was no one else's fault but his own. No, there was no one else, just Fenneko. Always just Fenneko.

"I'm sorry." Haida's voice barely escaped mumbling, managing to come out as weak whine instead. "You shouldn't have to put up with me."

The typing suddenly resumed.

"Oh please," Fenneko responded, "how else am I supposed to entertain myself?"

Haida thought about it, his mind taking several seconds to process most things in its current state. "Hah, at least I'm good for something." He said.

"Oh believe me," Fenneko said, "you're quite efficient at it."

The hyena chuckled just a little, before going back to staring at the ceiling in near-silence. The only sounds in the tiny apartment were the quiet rush of the central air system, and the tapping of his friend's fingers on her keyboard keys. It created a really easy environment for him to let his mind fade away in for minutes at a time, not wanting to actively think about just how his life had gone. But, overwhelming reality was inescapable.

He wondered. He really wondered . . . could he actually make that decision?

Nothing.

There was no one in his head, no version of himself telling him one way or the other. No, even with Fenneko less than two meters away, it was just him. Gravity began to weaken, and the uncomfortable, gut-lifting feeling of freefall began to take hold before he even spoke.

"I'm done." He said.

The fennec's ears twitched and her fur jolted as she looked up from her screen. "Uh, Haida?" She prodded for an explanation with a nervous voice. There were two possible ways he could've meant that, one was dark, and the other was bleak but also hopeful.

Please be bleak and hopeful!

"With Retsuko." Haida furthered what he'd said, to his friend's great relief.

A moment of silence passed them by afterwards; no words, no tapping of keys, only the current of air coming out of the vents. Eventually, after the moment had passed, Fenneko let out a sigh as she dipped her head for a few seconds.

"Well," she said, lifting her head back up until her eyes were on her friend, "that's gotta be the healthiest decision I've seen you make in a long time."

"Ha!" Somehow Haida was able to conjure a single laugh. "Yeah, I'm pretty pathetic."

Another, much more brief round of silence passed.

"Haida." Fenneko spoke the yeen's name, leading him to roll his head in her direction again, finding her actually staring back at him. "Do you actually mean what you just said though?" She asked.

Haida wondered that himself, rolling his head back to facing up. If he didn't . . . well, someone was certainly going to be disappointed. He heaved himself up off his back to a sitting position, letting his head hang for a moment the headache that had subsided was brought shrieking back. He waited until the initial pulse of pain dulled down before he turned his head to her.

"I guess I have to." He said through whatever kind of pitiful smile he was able to create.

The little fox lowered her eyes to her screen and resumed typing while she spoke and listened. "Can't say I'm gonna miss the daily after-work whining."

The hyena shifted himself about so that he actually faced her directly without having to turn his head, still seated on the floor, now with his arms resting on his knees. "You're not gonna hang out with me anymore?" He asked with a cracking voice.

"I didn't say that." Fenneko flatly corrected him.

Now the poor yeen was confused. "But . . . but you said—" His jaw fidgeted in place while he finally managed to subtract one from two. "Oh." He finally grasped the concept. "Ah . . . sorry I ruined stuff all the time . . . with the Retsuko whining."

"The past can't be erased." She said, without ceasing typing.

"Uh . . ." Haida wasn't always sure just exactly how or in what way the little fox meant some of the things she said.

"But as long you actually hold up to what you said we might actually be able to enjoy drinks for the first time without you sulking about your most recent failed attempt." Fenneko spoke again.

"You know you were helping with half of my attempts to ask her out, right?" Haida thought he was reminding her, though once his brain caught up he realized he should have known better.

"Only because you wanted to be with her." She told him, as simply and as plainly as anything else.

. . . Guilt.

The hyena's strained mind could only handle one major thing at a time right then, and guilt was the most major thing. His mind even failed to continue sending fresh commands to his mouth, and so his jaw simply closed itself, leaving the lower teeth of his underbite protruding from his lips in that perpetually sad expression. Whether consciously or not, Haida pulled his knees closer and looked away from his friend, down at the floor instead. A moment passed like that, until the smaller of the two of them broke it.

"Now you're sulking over your own sulking?" Fenneko asked, and obviously mocked at the same time.

Haida lifted his back up again. His mouth opened, though the sadness it had born merely transferred to the rest of his face. But even after it had opened part-way, his mouth just froze like that with no words coming to trigger any other movement.

"Am I the kind of animal that does anything she doesn't want to?" Fenneko spoke up instead, asking him.

He had to think for a moment. Not about the answer, but more rather about how exactly she meant the question to be framed.

"Uh, well you did get dragged into going to that work party that one ti—"

An abrupt pair narrowed fennec eyes cut Haida's first set of words off, forcing him to reroute his train of speech.

"No! No, you're definitely not." He declared with a cowardly smile.

Fenneko resumed typing for a few seconds before responding. "I wouldn't have tried to help you all those times if I didn't want to." She told him.

". . . That doesn't exactly cut down on the guilt all that much." Haida said.

"Oh well." Fenneko said back, eyes still on her screen.

Haida's jaw shut again, returning to his teeth-protruding sad yeen face as he turned his head to look down and away. He didn't know what to think right then, what to think about or even at all. And he realized, it wasn't just regarding the immediate thoughts of right then. The lack of clarity was much larger in scale than just that.

"I don't even know what I'm supposed to do now." He managed to say in an actual voice, though it was still pretty close to a muttering.

"Hm? You mean like making decisions that aren't just on a day-to-day basis and don't entirely revolve around trying to help her, ask her out or just desperately yearn for her attention?" She asked the rhetorical question.

Silence followed, save for the typing of Fenneko's keys.

"Yeah." Haida eventually answered, eyes still on the floor.

"Well," the typing stopped, "you can always start by not going out of your way to stick around." She said.

"Huh?" The hyena looked back up at her, unsure of what she meant.

Fenneko had lifted her eyes off the screen again, and was actually looking eye to eye with her larger friend. "Both the company and our department have a higher-than-average quit rate." She said. "Animals either leave, or take any chance at a promotion they can get up and out. You've stuck around and put up with everything, and based on company statistics along with how much you kiss up, you should've been offered a promotion more than once by now, going on six years. Which means you obviously turned them down, since you're still chilling with us as a baseline accountant. And it's even more obvious that you've only stuck around at the bottom of life so you can stay around Retsuko."

Haida just blinked.

Everything she said was right. But . . . well that wasn't a surprise.

"You've stuck around too." He reminded her.

She looked, for once, like she didn't actually expect what he'd said. Though the visibility of her off-guard lasted all of a single second.

"Yeah well, somebody had to be around to keep you from completely destroying yourself." She said.

Haida blinked again, twice this time, at least before he felt compelled to look away.

MORE guilt.

"Seriously?" He asked, his head even drifting down under the weight of the unexpected revelation. He probably should've expected something of the sort to end up being the answer. But even if his brain had been working properly enough to expect it, the reality probably would have still produced the same effect anyways.

"No," Fenneko allowed a tiny bit of sarcasm to bleed through the monotone wall, "I just completely enjoy all of our work's intolerable crap."

Haida's jaw drifted open for a few seconds, and then slowly shut itself again. His mouth wanted him to say something, but his mind still wasn't exactly on-pace. Or, maybe it was, but it just didn't work all that well to begin with. He didn't know.

"Ah—I'm sorry." He eventually managed to say, again, bringing his gaze back up to his friend once more.

"What did we just discuss?" She reminded him, eyes remaining on her screen.

". . . Yeah but . . . come on, that doesn't make it any less bad." He sputtered a few words out.

"Neither does mentally condemning yourself over it." She responded.

Haida had nothing, again.

He turned himself about on the floor, about ninety degrees until he was facing Fenneko's window. Eyes focusing on the rain still falling outside, he let everything else just fade away.

"Fenneko?" Haida asked after a minute or so had passed. The pause between her name and her friend's actual question was enough to make the fennec lift her own head up from the screen in front of her to the hyena beyond it. "Why'd you stay friends with me the whole time?"

For the first time that night, even if only for a few seconds, Fenneko's default face actually broke completely. Her ears fell to their sides about halfway, and her eyes shot open beyond their regular dimensions. Everything returned to normal quickly enough, or at least close to it, though in the end her expression still visibly lacked some of her normal, flat-mood contentment.

"Come on Haida," she asked, looking aside, away from both him and her laptop screen, "what's that even supposed to mean?"

"You know . . ." Haida himself wasn't even sure, so the answer came out broken. "Like . . . you've always been like, an awesome friend."

"You know I chide and mock you repeatedly every single day?" She tried reminding him, in rhetorical question form.

"Huh? Yeah, but like . . ." The hyena tried to speak to the fact that she had always been there, but he couldn't really formulate a proper collection of words, not right then.

"If I am such a great friend," Fenneko took over direction again, "then why would I leave?" She asked.

Haida looked at the little fox again, his mouth trying to open but only making it partway. When he had nothing, it pulled itself closed again, leaving his bottom teeth to protrude over his lip. Why was she always right? Always.

"You know," she spoke again, returning to her computer screen, "you almost sound like you want to get rid of me."

"Wh—ah—not . . . no! That's not . . ." A few sounds and words escaped Haida before he had to stop and turn away, waiting to let something actually come together in his head. "Now that, you know, I'm actually thinking about stuff," he managed to say, still looking down, "you've always been there. But, I've . . . I've just been weighing you down."

The typing and scrolling ceased, and the fennec's head lifted to look at her friend, choosing at the last second to narrow her eyes. "Haida." She spoke his name, and waited until he looked at her again to finish. "The only person you've held down is yourself."

. . .

This time, this time his mouth didn't even open. His jaw stayed shut, locked by the bluntness of the truth.

Haida had to turn away. His gaze returned to the window, or rather the square of nighttime city light shining onto the floor through the window. Why? Why couldn't things have just gone right, even once? Why didn't Retsuko . . . why didn't . . .

A burning tingle began to form in his upper muzzle, manifesting from just above the tip of his nose up to the very base of the spot between his eyes. It began as a tingle, for a second, until it quickly grew sharper, and grew to sting and burn. Was it really that feeling? Well, the welling of saline water at the bottom of his eyes answered that question. It was. It had been the precursor to a cry.

This wasn't normal though. He always moped about it. He always got mad, and bitter, and . . . and that was always with alcohol. He always just got bitter about the latest guy Retsuko said yes to, or whatever she had elected to do instead of coming along with him and Fenneko. And, he always dragged poor Fenneko along to listen to him grumble and whine.

Why was he crying this time? Even if it was without sobbing or sniffling, only the silent welling up of tears in his eyes until they ran over and dampened his fur beneath them. He was still crying. But why was it crying this time, instead of bitter grumbling and face-slamming into a table? Was it just because he was completely sober? Or was it . . . was it because this time his depression wasn't just about Retsuko not reciprocating his feelings? Or maybe it was both. Maybe even, it was because he had only ever brooded and yearned for things to finally go his way before. But this time, somehow . . . somehow Fenneko had gotten him to accept reality.

The crying yeen's churning mind kept him from noticing the change next to him. Fenneko, sitting there on her bed, had never returned her eyes to computer. They had stayed on her friend even after he had turned away, and she had seen the glistening in his eyes as the tears had formed. And as they did, her face had changed into a form it rarely ever took. Last Christmas it had shone, and on rare occasions across time before then, and only ever when Haida wasn't looking. That part, that wasn't even intentional. But, the rarity didn't matter, it was there now, covering her face.

Sympathy. Genuine sympathy.

She let him cry. Not forever, but, enough to let his eyes empty what they needed to. It wasn't as if there were some way for her to gauge when that actually was, but she tried to at least use the best of her cold, calculating intuition for a caring purpose.

"Haida." She spoke for his attention.

He was quite surprised hearing his name again, after falling inside of his own thoughts. He turned over to her again, after trying to rub away some of the tears from his eyes and the fur underneath them.

"Since you completely failed at not doing something you'll regret," she asked, "can you at least promise not to backtrack on this? I'm saying the word, since you owe me."

The tears had at least stopped, it seemed. Now it was blinking, sad confusion that was staring back at the little fox.

She answered his obvious question. "Each of those times I went out of my way to help you with Retsuko you constantly knelt to my level and told me you owe me, and that if there's anything you could do to pay me back, just saw the word. So, I'm saying the word for you to finally pay me back for all the times I helped you chase after Retsuko . . . by not chasing after Retsuko anymore."

The hyena just blinked. As two blinks turned into three, she watched his still-glistening eyes start to narrow just by a little bit. And then, to her unusual inability to explain, she saw the ends of his mouth curl just ever so slightly upward in some weak, odd smile.

"Heh. Man, that's cold." He said.

She blinked once, before the proper response came to her. "As cold as my soul." She said back.

Haida's eyes opened back up, and his very faint, odd smile . . . actually grew. "Aha, ahehe, heh, yeah," he said, "I guess I really do owe you." He stopped to rub his eyes again, taking a second to clear away whatever salty tear water remained. "I promise, no relapses."

"Don't make promises you can't keep." She said immediately he'd finished his last word. "Natural psychology's set pretty heavily against you. You're going to relapse over her. Just promise you won't try to act on your relapses." She told him.

He stared for a moment, before his eyes slipped closed and his head dipped just a ways down. A pathetic sigh came out of him, even while the weak smile he'd put on somehow held itself together.

"Yeah, you're right." Haida agreed, picking his head back up. "I promise. I really do kinda have to pay you back anyways."

"Yeah," she said back, "you kinda do." And finally, the sound of her incessant typing resumed, only for the sound of another weak laugh from Haida to re-draw her attention a few seconds later.

"Hey Fenneko," he asked, "you think you could stop being such a great friend, you know, so I can feel less guilty about stuff?"

Even if it was probably only humor meant to be self-alleviating for the Hyena in the moment, the mere fact that her friend was actually able to do it caused the ends of Fenneko's own mouth to curve upward just a little bit. It was no traditional smile; hers never was. With a fennec's face, any smile of any kind or degree almost always still appeared like a mischief smirk more than anything else. But, behind the appearance, right then it was actually something a lot more sincere-hearted.

"Hmmmm," she answered, "I'm gonna have to go with no."