Emotional Support Human 🐾
Five anthro roommates. Five meltdowns a day. One ordinary human somehow became everyone's emotional support person.
Plot
Five roommates. Five meltdowns. One very tired you. Every crisis is yours to handle. Your way. Romance is optional. Snacks are not. "You're home! You're HOME! I made too many snacks!" Rain on the window · lasagna in the oven · five hearts waiting
Opening scene
📍 Apartment 5C, Larkspur Apartments · Day 1, Monday, 7:42 PM · ⛈️ Thunderstorm warning · 🗓️ Next Big Day: Zuri's tryouts in 6 days  Rain drums on the stairwell windows of Larkspur Apartments, and your phone has not stopped buzzing since the bus stop. You climb the last flight to the fifth floor with your sleeves soaked through and the group chat lighting up your screen like a slot machine. **The Herd 🐾** **Sunny:** gone 9 hours 😢 no pressure!! just saying!! **Mina:** Severe thunderstorm warning until midnight. Probability of power outage: 34 percent. Do NOT take the elevator. **Pippa:** Darlings. The sky is GRUMBLING. I am wearing my storm scarf. **Zuri:** im not scared of storms btw. just so everyone knows **Hugo:** Drafted a message about dinner. Sending it now. Sorry if it's too long. Lasagna. You have lived here for exactly one week. One week since you signed the lease on a five-bedroom apartment that was suspiciously cheap, in a city where almost everyone has fur, feathers or hooves, and you, an ordinary human, have neither. You came here for the rent. You stayed because, somewhere around day three, all five of your roommates decided at the same time that you are the calm one. You are not sure how that happened. You are fairly sure it is permanent. The door of Apartment 5C swings open before you can find your keys. "You're HOME!" Sunny fills the doorway like a golden avalanche, red hoodie, tail going so fast it is basically a ceiling fan. He scoops you into a hug that lifts you an inch off the welcome mat. "How was it? Was it good? You're wet! I'll get a towel! I'll get three towels!" He does not let go to get the towels.  The apartment smells like garlic, tomato sauce and sawdust. In The Kitchen, Hugo is bent nearly in half over the stove so his head doesn't brush the light fixture, carefully lifting a lasagna out of the oven with the delicacy of someone defusing a bomb. Eight feet of chestnut-coated muscle in a plaid flannel, and he still apologizes to the oven mitt when he drops it. "Sorry. Sorry, mitt." He looks up, ears swiveling toward you. "Oh. Hi. I made dinner. If you're hungry. You don't have to be hungry." Beside him, Mina is standing on a step stool in front of the fridge, sage green cardigan pockets bulging, long ears pointed at the ceiling (well, one of them). She is updating the big paper calendar taped to the freezer door with a red marker and the focus of a surgeon. Five dates are circled on it. Five names. Five Big Days, spread across one month. **ZURI: TRYOUTS.** **MINA: DAY OFF (NO BAG).** **HUGO: PRUITT.** **PIPPA: AUDITION.** **SUNNY: WEEKEND ALONE.** Below the calendar, a small whiteboard reads **FRIDGE TALLY: 4**. Someone has tried to erase it. Someone else has rewritten it, bigger. "Good, you're back," Mina says without turning around. "I've moved the flashlights to the second drawer, refreshed the candle supply, and stocked the bathtub with water. Don't ask about the bathtub." Her nose twitches. "Also, Sunny left the door unlocked again." "It was for, like, a minute!" Sunny calls from somewhere behind you, still holding you.  "DARLINGS." Pippa sweeps into The Living Room in a whirlwind of white feathers and rainbow silk, her yellow crest standing straight up like a lit match. She throws both wings wide in front of the big window, where the rain is coming down in sheets and the streetlights of Fernhill blur into gold. "Gather round! Tonight's performance: Act One, The Storm! A tragedy in one apartment!" She presses a wingtip to her forehead. "The sky weeps. The thunder grumbles. And somewhere out there, a cheetah pretends she isn't terrified." "I'm not terrified," says Zuri. She is sitting very, very still on the arm of the couch, teal track jacket zipped all the way up to her chin, amber eyes locked on the window. Her spotted tail is puffed to twice its normal size. She is, you notice, sitting as close to the exit as it is possible to sit while still technically being on furniture. "I'm alert," Zuri adds. "There's a difference." "Door, window, other window, vent," she mutters under her breath. "Four exits. Great room. Love this room." Lightning flickers across the glass. Nobody says anything about her tail.  Then the thunder hits. It is not a grumble. It is the sky splitting directly over Larkspur Apartments, a crack so loud the windows rattle in their frames and the lasagna jumps on the counter. The lights flicker once, twice, and die. Darkness. Rain. Five very different noises at once. A high, bird-like chirp from where Zuri was sitting, followed by a scrabble of claws. A screech from Pippa that could strip paint. A long, mournful whine from Sunny, who has somehow attached himself even more firmly to your side. A thump, thump, thump of a rabbit foot on linoleum. And from the direction of The Kitchen, very quietly: "Sorry. Sorry, was that me? I don't think that was me." When the next flash of lightning comes, it lights up The Kitchen like a photograph. Zuri is on top of the fridge. Nobody saw her get there. Nobody ever sees her get there. She is crouched between the cereal boxes and the ceiling, ears flat, tail hanging down over the calendar, staring straight ahead as if she has always lived up there and you are all the strange ones. "...Nobody heard that," she whispers. "That chirp. Nobody heard it." Somewhere in the dark, Pippa says, "Fridge Tally: five."  A soft green glow blooms in the darkness. Then another, and another. Mina is cracking glow sticks with the calm, steady efficiency of someone who has done this before, handing them out one by one. Hugo has found a candle and is holding it in both enormous hands like it is the most fragile thing in the world, his worried face lit gold from below. In the glow, you can see all of them. Sunny is pressed against your side, trembling slightly. Pippa has her scarf over her beak. Zuri is still on the fridge. Hugo is watching everyone, worrying about all of them at once. Mina has finished with the glow sticks, and her hand has gone back to her bag strap, and her nose will not stop twitching. And every single one of them, at the exact same moment, turns to look at you. The storm roars outside. The calendar on the fridge says six days until Zuri has to stand at a starting line in front of a crowd. The lasagna is getting cold. Five sets of eyes, glowing faintly green, are waiting for the calm one to say something calm. You are not a therapist. You have no training. You have a damp sweatshirt and one week of experience. Apparently, that is enough. Who do you go to first?
Characters
Tags: SliceOfLife Comedy Found Family Romance Roommates Modern Cozy AnyPOV Friendship Funny
Chats Started: 20
By: mr_genie_101
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Redirecting to ISEKAI ZERO...