#cherryton

You tore off a bite of the lettuce wrap and chewed as you watched him with half-lidded eyes. “No greeting after all that? Well good morning to you too Shunshine.”

He ignores that.

“This isn’t your father’s office,” he gesture sharply as he turns. “The entire campus is one spark away from collapsing, and you decide to pour gasoline on it."

You swing your feet, watching his antlers carve sharp lines in the air as he moves. “Gasholine?” you repeat. “Pleashe. I wazh more like...the foam thing they uzhe on firesh.”

You raise a hand and waggle your fingers like jazz hands. “Plush the crowd? Loved it. Shtanding ovation in their heartsh. I could feel it.”

Louis stops dead. Slowly, very slowly, he turns to stare at you. “You humiliated two carnivores...”

“They were about to go for round two anyway,” you give a loose shrug. “From what I shaw, fox boy was presshed and cloudy-day-wolf looked like he wazh about to have a breakdown. Then here I come, crackin a few jokesh and boom—the lovebirdsh retreated. You’re welcome.”

“Do not call them lovebirds,” Louis mumbles.

“Aww look at you,” you coo, letting your voice pitch up into mocking sweetness. “Cherryton’sh little Golden Boy™ trying to protect the shcool image. How noble. Very mush on brand.”

His eye twitches. “Do not call me that either.”

“You right. How about Future Beashtar? Shavior of coexishtence. And Me? I’m just helping your campaign babe. The more incidentsh you shtop, the better you look. I’m like…your emotional shupport gremlin.”

Louis pinches the bridge of his muzzle hard for a long silent second.

“I am not a Beastar. Yet,” he says through gritted teeth. “And I don’t need your help turning the cafeteria into a circus.”

“Ouch,” you say, wing to your chest. “That’sh rude to the circush.”

He gives you a look that says he is absolutely calculating how much trouble it would cause if he threw you out the window.

You rolled onto your back with a groan at this point, tray balanced on your stomach as you stare up at the dorm ceiling. “Look, did anyone elshe get bit after I walked in?”

He hesitates. “...No but—”

“Shee?” You spread your free wing in a ta-da fashion. “No fatalitiesh. Ten outta ten conflict resholushion.”

Louis made a strangled sound in the back of his throat, something halfway between a scoff and a laugh.

“This isn’t a game,” he insists. “Do you have any idea what it’s like here right now? Tem was murdered ____. In this school...on these grounds—”

“Tem,” you repeated softly, the name slotting itself into place from the secondhand gossip you’d overheard on move-in. “The alpaca right?”

Louis’ eyes flicked to you, assessing whether you were actually listening or just repeating. You placed your tray securely beside you on the bed as you sat up.

You knew how to recognize the shift when Louis went from annoyed to serious. This was the latter.

“An herbivore dying violently on campus,” he began, voice flattening into that calm reasoned tone he used on his fellow peers. “Everyone knows what that implies—even if they won’t say devoured out loud. The administration is terrified...parents are terrified. And herbivores are...they’re looking at every carnivore like an attack waiting to happen.”

“Harsh,” you murmur.

“No, accurate,” he shot back. “Do you know how many safety meetings we've held since it happened? How many times they’ve said ‘coexistence program’ in the last month? They’re clinging to their image by the whiskers, and you—” he jabs toward you “—waltz in and shine a spotlight right on a fox and a dog trying to rip each other’s throats out in front of the entire school.”

“Firsht of all no one’sh throat got ripped,” you said. “Shecond of all, I took that shpotlight and rotated it to clownery. Very different vibe.”

“And Legoshi,” Louis continued over you, practically vibrating with the need to get his point out. “You drew even more attention to his teeth.”

You snorted at that. “Hish teeth drew attention to themshelvesh. I just mentioned the elephant tooth in the room.”

“He is a wolf,” Louis said sharply. “One with very little control over how he’s perceived. And now you’ve got half the cafeteria muttering chompers under their breath when he walks by.”

You thought back to the wolf’s face—stretched somewhere between guilty and dazed—and felt a little flicker of something that wasn’t quite guilt.

“Yeah,” you said slowly. “But nobody wazh shcreaming by that point. I’ll take 'wow that guy hash teeth' over 'oh no hesh gonna eat me’ any day.”

Louis could only shake his head, exhaling hard through his teeth.

“You don’t get it,” he muttered. “You never had to. All your father does it just throw money at the problems until they go away. But the thing is? It won't work at this school. Not right now. Any public scene that involves aggression and carnivores is dangerous. Even if you turn it into a...a bit.”

You perked up immediately at that.

“A bit?” you echoed. “Sho you admit it wazh a good bit.”

“I did not—”

“You called it a bit, that’sh legally binding!” you haughtily declared. “You acknowledge my craft.”

You pop a pea into your beak as a mini-reward.

“Look,” you said around it, “I get it. Tem’sh dead. But what do you want me to do Louish? Walk in, shee shome animals playin’ tug-of-war with each other’sh limbs and go ‘oh dear, I shall mind my own businesh’? That’sh borin’.”

“Yes!” he snapped.

You blinked at him.

“Yes,” he repeated, more controlled this time. “Or at the very least don’t insert yourself right in the middle of it. You’ve only been here half a day and already made yourself the most talked-about herbivore on campus.”

You fluffed a little at that, feathers preening at his words. “Awww. Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“Well you shouldn’t have phrashed it like one,” you said primly.

For a moment Louis was too stunned to respond. Then his brows knit, and you can practically hear his blood pressure spike.

Before he can decide whether to lecture you about responsibility or nepotism first, the familiar vibration of your phone buzzed against your thigh.

You fished it out from the pocket of your blazer without looking and glanced at the screen.

BIG POPPA 🤑🦆🥰 [Incoming call]

You smile despite yourself.

“Oop. Timeout,” you said, already swiping to accept. “Dad’sh calling.”

“Of course he is,” Louis muttered under his breath. “You probably set off some psychic rich-person alarm when you said ‘fight’ in a fifty-meter radius.”

You hit speaker and set the phone on the bed between you and your tray.

“Pumpkin!”

Your father’s voice bursts out of the tiny speaker like it’s too big for it; rich, warm, and booming warm in a way that always, always hits the same spot under your sternum.

“Oh listen to that echo—is that your room? Tell me that’s your room. Does it have a window? Are there bars? Do tell me if the accommodations are insufficient, I’ll buy the whole building and knock out a wall myself.”

“Hi Daddy~” you sing-songed as you tried not to laugh, glancing around at the bland furniture and suspiciously thin mattress.

“Cherryton treating you right?” he barrels on before you can answer. “You call me if anyone so much as looks at you sideways ya hear? I’ll have their job by Tuesday.”

Louis quietly sinks into the desk chair, elbows on his knees, listening with the grim resignation of someone who has been through this before.

“It'sh only been like five hoursh Dad,” you say, kicking your feet lazily in the air. “At leasht give it a day.”

“A day is plenty of time for incompetence,” your father declares. “You’re surrounded by teenagers after all. And do you know what teenagers are? They’re lawsuits waiting to happen.”

You snort. “I’m a teenager.”

“No. You’re an angel,” he corrects immediately. “There's a difference.”

That earns a involuntary huff from Louis. You glance over in time to catch him looking like he just bit his own tongue.

'Oh...he hates that,' you realize.

A little spark of mischief lights up in your chest.

“Weeeeeell,” your eyes linger on Louis just long enough to make sure he sees the smirk forming on your beak, “now that you menshion it...”

There was a pause on the other end.

Just long enough for the hairs on the back of your neck to prick.

“What happened,” is all your father says. It wasn’t a shout, but all the air seemed to still for a moment.

You popped a piece of corn into your beak to buy time.

“Oh you know,” you finally speak. “Jusht a fox bein’ a fox. He tried to threaten me on the way outta the cafeteria with the ‘watch my back’ schtick. Very creative, I know.”

“....Threatened you?” your father repeats, voice suddenly quiet.

You toy with a loose thread on your blazer sleeve with a shrug.

“Yeah,” you admit lightly. “But like...how threatening could he really be? Orange mangey thing—no bigger than the dog that bit hish assh on the arm five minutsh before. Hell, everyone in the cafeteria thaw it. Exshept me of courshe.” You sigh dramatically. “Shame too. Got there too late, it sheemth.”

There’s another beat of silence.

“So he’s injured...Good. That’s enough for me to identify him.” You could already picture your father’s eyes narrowing, gaze turning cold in a way you’ve seen directed at board members and those who disagreed with him.

Louis’ head swiveled so fast you heard something in his neck pop. “Is he—”

“Tell me something Pumpkin!” Your father cuts over him, voice snapping back to its usual cheery cadence. “Is it getting chilly over there yet? I saw on the forecast it might be.”

“Uh....I mean, I guesh? Why?”

“Just because. My baby duck would do very well with a nice warm fox-fur neck warmer. Don’t you think?”

Louis stares at the phone like he’s hearing a crime in progress. “Is he serious?” he hissed at you.

You shrugged one shoulder. “Hesh just talkin’ big...probably.”

“To be clear,” your father continued, “that was a joke for legal purposes—alleged if you may. Now if some little red-furred punk with a bite on his arm happens to disappear from the class roster?” You can hear the shrug in his tone. “Who knows.”

“Dad,” you roll your eyes even as warmth curls in your chest. “You can’t just threaten to make people into clothing every time they’re mean to me. It’sh tacky.”

“I’m not threatening,” he says, affronted. “I’m planning. There’s a difference.”

Louis press into his eyelids as if trying to hold back a migraine.

“This is exactly what we need,” he mutters under his breath. “An overprotective rich parent casually talking about making students disappear.”

Your father hums on the other end. “...is that Louis in the background?”

Louis straightens instinctively, shoulders going stiff. “Good afternoon sir,” his tone slips into that careful politeness reserved for adults who had the power to ruin his day.

“Ah my favorite stag,” your father speaks cheerfully. “How’s my little staff member doing?”

Louis’ eye twitched.

“I’m...a student,” he said with strained patience. “Same as your daughter.”

“Mhm,” your father hummed. “And yet who’s the one keeping her from ruining the cafeteria completely? Feels like staff-level responsibility to me. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure they give you a raise.”

You snickered. “He already actsh like he run the place. The Future Beashtar they call him.”

“That’s good,” your father said. “Aim high son. Just remember: my girl is management. You are support.”

Louis says nothing else—just a simple, long controlled breath through his nose.

Your father’s theatrics may have rattled other people. But to you? It was just the sound of home.

“Anyways! Now more about your room Pumpkin. Is the mattress okay? I told them I’d send a truck if it’s not....”

As he launched into another rambling mini-lecture on your well-being, you found your mind slipping into memory.

Your mother had died before you were old enough to store more than scattered flashes of her in your mind. And so, your father had become everything: protector, provider, the duck-shaped sun your little world revolved around.

He worked too much, worried too loudly, and absolutely refused to accept that you should ever bend in order to fit into someone else’s expectations.

"You didn’t do anything wrong Pumpkin," he'd say. "People just can’t handle greatness."

When regular schools decided you were too much—too loud, too talkative, too easily distracted, too unwilling to sit still and quiet—he’d taken you out to be homeschooled.

And that you did.

You learned math and literature and how to file a complaint.

How to watch adults across big mahogany tables, how they flinched at your father’s voice, how they folded when he leaned back and smiled with all his teeth.

It didn't take long for you to figure out that the world was a place where people either shrank you or you expanded until they were the ones scrambling to accommodate.

That puffing up, hissing, and throwing your weight around like the male ducks was right if that’s what it took to keep anyone from pushing you around first.

Somewhere in the middle of all that Louis had arrived.

You can still remember the first time you saw him: too skinny, ears too big for his small head, antlers just starting to push through skin as he stood like he was waiting to be put back where he came from.

He’d moved in next door after that whole underground mess your father had never told you the full details of. The only knowledge you've gotten was hearing words like rescued and sold for meat whispered between adults during dinner, or when your father’s feathers would puff up every time he said the word black market.

Your father had looked at you, at Louis, and then clapped his wings together like he’d just been given the world’s easiest project. “Perfect! ____ will help him socialize.” he’d declared.

Across endless arranged playdates you’d dragged Louis everywhere you went like he was a prop and you were the showrunner. When he’d go quiet, you filled the gaps with your own voice. When he stumbled over words, you bulldozed ahead for both of you.

Now here you are years later—sprawled on a dorm bed while that same boy paces your room, caught between wanting to strangle you and wanting to shield you from the consequences of your own mouth.

“...Pumpkin? You still there?”

Your father’s voice snaps you back to the present.

“Yesh,” you say. “Shorry. Got losht in thought. You were shaying...mattressh?”

“I was saying if the bed is bad, I will burn that school to the ground and rebuild it,” he says as if it was a perfectly normal solution. “But never mind that now. I want you to make sure and email me if any administrator gives you a look. Even if a janitor breathes crooked in your direction—”

“Dad,” you cut in with a smile despite yourself. “I can handle a crooked breath.”

“Of course you can Pumpkin,” he immediately rearranges his words around your interruption with practiced ease. “You shouldn’t have to. That’s the point.”

Louis watched your face as your father went on. You could see it in his eyes; the understanding, the faint pinch of something like envy, the resignation of someone who’d long ago accepted your father as a permanent environmental factor.

“Anyways!” your father's voice dropped into that syrupy warmth he reserved only for you. “Don’t worry your pretty feathers about any of this. Let the adults handle it. You just eat, sleep, and have fun okay? And listen to me sweetie—don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re too much. There is nothing wrong with you.”

The words slid into that familiar empty space in your chest and settled there warm and heavily. “Yeah,” you said quietly. “I know.”

“Say it back,” he prompted like he always did.

You rolled your eyes, but your beak quirked. “There’sh nothing wrong with me,” you recited.

“Exactly,” he said. “Now I have a meeting in ten minutes where I’m going to pretend to be a reasonable man. Make sure to text me a photo of your room later so I can judge the curtains. Call me if you need anything and I’ll send a lawyer...or cake.”

“Preferably cake,” you said. “Love you Dad.”

“Love you more,” he shot back. “My perfect girl.”

The line clicked off.

For a second, there was just the hum of the light and the fading echo of your father’s voice in your ears.

Louis leaned back heavily in the desk chair as if someone had taken a weight off his antlers and set it on his shoulders instead.

“You know he’s going to email the headmaster now,” he stared at your phone like it might explode.

You shrugged. “And?” Picking up the cup of orange gelatin, you poke it to watch it wobble. “They’re lucky. Do you know how much money he dropped on preservashionsh to get me in here?”

“Do not call them that,” Louis groaned. “They’re donations to the coexistence program.”

“Either way it we all win,” you chirped. “Cherryton got a brand new language lab and I got a front-row sheat to Wolf v. Fox smackdown.”

“There are easier ways to attend this school,” he says dryly.

“Not for me~”

He didn’t argue.

Lunch forgotten, you hop off the bed in a burst of energy, nearly tipping your tray as you make your way over to your suitcase and start rummaging through the clothes, humming some nonsense tune under your breath.

Louis watched you for a moment then narrowed his eyes. “...what are you doing now?” he asked warily.

“You’ll shee.” You dig until your feathers close around a folded tote bag; yanking it out with a triumphant noise and stuffing things into it.

Behind you Louis sounds like every molecule of his being is bracing for impact. “____” he says slowly.

"Okay...I'm ready!" You sling the tote’s strap over your shoulder and turn to him with your brightest smile.

He blinks. “Ready for what.”

“Your Drama club of courshe,” you clarify, beak curling. “The fact you have a whole little theatre cult going on and you didn’t invite me? I feel betrayed.”

“Definitely not,” Louis immediately stands up as if he can physically block the door by will alone. “You are not stepping foot into the drama club.”

You unwaveringly saunter over and pat his arm like you’re soothing a nervous child. “Relax babesh. I just wanna shee you in your natural habitat. You know, watchin you yell at people productively and shtuff.”

He bristles. “It’s not yelling, it’s directing,” he snaps. “The drama club is the one stable place left on this campus. And I refuse to let you turn it into whatever it is you turn things into.”

“Fun?” you suggest.

“Chaos.”

“Tomato tomahto.”

You can see the gears turning in his gaze—the arguments he could throw at you, the appeals to for you to listen, the subtle reminders that your father’s money won’t protect him if his beloved club implodes.

You also see the moment he realizes none of that matters.

Because you’ve already decided.

He scrubs a hand over his face, looking toward the ceiling as if praying for a meteor.

You rock back on your webbed feet with hands clasped behind your back.

“I’ll come by later beshtfriend,” you say softly, holding his gaze, eyes wide and guileless. “I promishe I’ll be on my besht behavior.”

You both know you are undeniably lying.

Louis’ jaw works. He looks like he wants to argue more, but the fight’s gone out of his shoulders a little.

“....Rehearsal starts at four,” he finally mutters. “If you’re going to show up, at least don’t be late.”

Your grin is blinding. “Yesshir Director!”

“Don’t call me that either.”

Moving to the bedroom door, he pauses before looking back once more. “Just....try not to make any more enemies today, all right?”

“Oh no promisesh,” you say cheerfully. “But I’ll try not to make any boring onesh.”

Shaking his head, Louis says nothing else and simply leaves.

The room is quite now that your main source of entertainment was gone.

You take the chance to wander over to the window. From here you can see a slice of campus: manicured lawns, the path leading toward the main buildings, a glimpse of the auditorium’s peaked roof in the distance.

Somewhere over there, a tall gray wolf is probably still sitting in the cafeteria, picking at his cold bean steak and wondering what hit him.

His face pops in your head again—those big anxious eyes, the way his ears had flattened when you called out his teeth, the stunned look when you told him he looked like a cloudy day.

A little spark fizzes in your chest. Maybe its Interest. Maybe its mischief. Or maybe its something else you don’t bother naming.