FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I sighed, staring at all the books around me. I hadn't expected to end up employed so easily, or to find a home with the person who saw me walking along the side of the interstate one night. To be fair, they had been welcoming; their car had been warm, and they'd immediately offered a place to stay that was my own. I didn't have to share my cabin; I had my bedroom, my small living room, and a kitchen large enough to care for myself. I paid no rent. The only condition had been this job, and honestly? I'd have taken the job and paid for a place like that anyway. It was a gift, and I recognized it as such.

The only thing about it was that I hadn't expected to be running the paperwork end of a fairly popular club in my early twenties with no degree to prepare me for this.

Thankfully, we had enough patrons come in that worked in the financial district that I could cozy up to for help, and I was learning quickly. I rarely had to go up and pretend to be useless at the bar anymore so some helpful person would ask what was wrong. I'd probably be in some trouble when tax season came around, but for the day to day, I could handle it.

I sighed over the expenses for the staff. We had a number of dancers, dedicated bartenders, security personnel... and yet we still needed to hire more. Word of mouth had our customers increasing every day, but I wanted to increase our profit margins. If I could streamline some processes for the bartenders, at least, we could continue working with what we had. We'd have to pull any of them that were both dancers and bartenders to only the bar, but that was fine. Dancers weren't as expensive to hire, since they could mostly rely on tips to more than double their salary.

I stood up, closing the books and looking around my office. It was a room in the basement, where only the VIP clients were occasionally brought down. It was the quietest place I could ask for in the building, the sound dampened by the amount of books on shelves. My empty fireplace hearth had a few candles burning in it rather than a fire built; it was easier to put out when I needed to.

I snuffed the candles and moved upstairs, out into the empty club. The start of my day was the early afternoon, since the active hours ran late into the night. Despite being evening, it was time for my lunch.

I adjusted my skirt and grabbed my sweater from the coat room; there was a deli down the street that I often visited. They recognized my face, and usually made an effort to give me a nice window seat, back away from as many people as possible. In exchange, I always left a hefty tip. I'd seen whispered fights before when I walked in on who got to claim the table- and thus, an easy and lucrative customer.

So with my tea and my sandwich, I stared out the window at the surrounding shops, trying to decide what to do. Tala managed the dancers, auditions, and interviews. While I was technically a manager, I didn't interact with the employees or the customers. The entire business was numbers to me, which kept me out of touch with the realities. On paper, we needed help. I wasn't sure if we did in practice, and they would probably be able to tell me.

I realized I'd been staring at a new place, one that had been empty for quite some time. The windows in the front showed a number of boxes open and their contents strewn about, and every so often, I saw a tall figure moving within. Despite the distance, I recognized quite a few of the objects on the ground as mechanical in nature, but nothing like what I recognized. Whatever this shop was, it was something more interesting than the others.

I paid for my meal and left the expected tip, deciding to stop by on the way back to the club. It wasn't as if I needed immediately, anyway.

The shop bell jingled as I entered, and I could hear someone muttering in the back room. I looked at the opened boxes, noticing a lot of wires and metal and things I couldn't identify. I recognized some bits of technology- I'd worked with enough computers just for fun- but most of it was beyond even my imagination.

"Where IS it, I swear, nothing is ever in the place that it needs to be-" I heard a voice, strange in quality, approaching ever closer from the back room. When the source of it turned the corner, we both stared at one another, startled.

To be fair, they hadn't been expecting to see anyone standing in their clearly unfinished workspace.

I hadn't expected a six foot tall robot.

Their face was a display, with only a set of pixelated eyes and brows staring me down. There'd been a brief moment of surprise, followed by...confusion. The light from outside reflected across the black metal of their body, with very few scratches or scuffs. Two speakers rested on their head, and from the shape of both those and the angular features of their head and body, they reminded me vaguely of a cat. A long, segmented section of metal coming from their back seemed to move like a feline tail, anyway.

"Can I help you?" They spoke first, distracted from whatever task they'd been on by my trespassing. Their voice was not unfriendly, but was not welcoming, either; I was a stranger, and I'd disturbed them.

"Sorry, I work around here and hadn't seen this place before. I was just curious." I answered, trying to keep the nervousness out of my voice. It wasn't easy to interpret the look they were giving me, and there was no body language to help.

They remained silent for a few seconds, and then stated, matter-of-factly, "Curiosity killed the cat."

I flicked my ears, staring back at them. I couldn't read their tone, either. "But satisfaction brought it back?" I finished, with a tiny smile, trying to make a joke.

Their eyes flickered, and they were silent for a few moments again. Then, they turned towards one of the boxes, moving it out of the way to check beneath it. "In your snooping, did you happen to see a box containing pieces of a shelf? Whoever unpacked my workshop in here didn't keep any of my organization-"

I whipped around and headed back towards the front of the storefront, standing by a series of rectangular boxes, all with diagrams of shelves on their front. "These?"

They sighed. "Yes. Those."

They brushed past me to pick up one of the boxes, carrying it to the back room again without another word. I hesitated before following for half a heartbeat, deciding that if they had wanted me gone, they would have said so. The back was a much larger room than the front, and in a similar state of existence. The robot's legs folded under them, and they opened up the box, removing all of the parts they'd need to set up their storage.

"You're still here," they observed, barely glancing over the instructions of assembly before starting to execute it seemingly without effort.

I nodded, reconsidering my decision to follow them. "Yes. Yet more curiosity. Who are you? What are you intending to do with this place?"

"Are you with the zoning board? I got everything approved, you have those records on file."

"No, I'm not. I just work around here," I responded sheepishly.

"I'm Louie. I make machines, or parts for them," they explained, not focused on me. "People request things they'd like built, and I make it happen. I needed a bigger place to work, and this seemed adequate." Finally, their face turned towards me. They looked focused, I guessed; I wondered if the expressive display was entirely for the benefit of those who might be observing.

When I'd first looked at them, had their display even been on? I'd been too focused on other things to be sure.

They looked back at the shelves, and it occurred to me that I kept thinking of the eyes on their face being where they saw, but that couldn't be the case. They were getting input from other places. I wondered how they saw me, and what I looked like processed in their mind. I had so many questions, and a draw towards them I hadn't really felt before. I didn't want to be rude by asking how they worked, though, so instead I watched.

"Is your curiosity sated?" They asked, after some time of silence. Aside from their hands and arms, nothing on them moved, and I realized that I was relying on body language that would never arrive to tell me if they were uncomfortable.

"Sorry, you're just...interesting" I confessed, looking away from them and to the rest of the room, trying to find anything I could ask questions about that wouldn't be rude. "Do you want help?"

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" They asked. I was certain they didn't mean it to be rude; it was hard to judge their tone. Their voice wasn't suited towards more than the barest traces of emotion that, I suspected, had mostly to do with the accent of whoever's voice they were borrowing.

I hesitated. I did need to get back to the club at some point, but... It wasn't immediate. "Not right now," I answered, truthfully.

They finished the shelf they were building, putting it against one of the bare walls. They disappeared and returned with another boxed up shelf, starting the process all over again. "The completed shelf is for everything in those boxes." They inclined their head toward a stack of unopened boxes on the opposing wall. "You can unpack that if you want."

I went over to the boxes and opened the top one, curious what was inside- and found, mainly, a bunch of manuals. Some of them weren't even in my language.

I moved the first box closer to the shelf, and started unloading the books onto the empty shelves. There were at least four boxes with the same marking; getting them all out was the easy part, I was certain. Organizing was going to be hard.

"Who are you?" They asked, after a few minutes of silence, save for the quiet whirring of their body or the soft thumps of the books hitting the shelf.

"I'm Sadira," I answered, tossing an empty box into a pile with a couple other empty boxes. "I work at the club a block down the street."

"You don't look like you work in a strip club." They paused. "Or maybe you do, what do I know? It is not what I have been informed is the usual clothes for people in your profession, but I have never been myself."

"Ah, well." I finished emptying the next box into a pile of disorganized manuals. "I don't work the floor. I manage the books, and trying to figure out how to streamline everything to be more cost effective. Right now, my problem is that we have a lot of staff and should hire more, but I feel like if I could just take some of the tasks off of the bartenders that it could make their job easier and I wouldn't need to hire more." I cut myself off, certain that hadn't been anything they cared to listen to. It was just still weighing on my mind.

"Hmm. What kind of tasks do they have to perform?"

"We have a menu of drinks they have to remember. They go between the tables on the floor and the bar, take orders, make drinks, and then deliver them to the clients. They take payments for all of that, give out change, keep an eye out to make sure customers aren't getting too drunk. When we're getting hundreds of orders at once, they get overwhelmed, and it can take twenty minutes to half an hour just to get people something simple." I sighed, tossing the next empty box into the pile. It was an issue that couldn't be helped. Dedicated waitresses had lightened some of the load, and sometimes the dancers helped out to get orders out, but it wasn't enough.

"It sounds difficult." They said, and placed the new- completed- shelf into another location. They retrieved yet another box, focused on getting all of the storage built first, I guessed. "I need to power down soon, and I do not want someone in here when I am off."

"I'll finish with these books and head out," I promised. It didn't take long; with all of them on the shelf, I was able to sort them into various categories. Most of the diagrams were similar, just model-specific, from my best guess. I didn't know what order to put them in, but at least if like was paired with like, they could move categories around as it suited them.

They didn't speak again, and after I left, I saw them lock the door and draw the metal grating down that protected the store in case of a break-in, and I supposed, them as well. I focused on the club as soon as I returned, spending most of the evening observing how smoothly we were running once customers started to show up.

As I'd vented about to Louie, it wasn't ideal, and a few hours before last call the bartenders got overwhelmed again.

When it came to my days off, I was grateful. The first couple days of the week had less customers, and so I could stay at home and let someone else manage the profits.

The last evening before I had to return, I let myself sink into my bath, the warm water and soap soaking into my fur. Since I didn't want to keep focused on the problems awaiting me at work, instead, I thought about that strange bot.

Finding augmented people wasn't uncommon, but completely autonomous robots weren't nearly as frequent. Sure, you saw one every now and again, but it was still new technology. I wondered who had created this bot and released them. I wondered if I'd ever see any human around coming to check on them. They seemed competent, and I wasn't sure if my company had been welcomed. Did they even have a desire for social contact, or friends?

I wasn't even sure why I was thinking about them, or why I was so curious. I just wondered what their life was like, I supposed. I wondered about what made us different.

I wondered what made us the same.

I wondered if they were lonely.

It wasn't long before my bath had turned cold, and the chill from the outside air coming through my window reminded me how long I'd been drifted out of my mind, thinking about a robot who'd probably stopped thinking about me the moment I'd closed the shop door behind me. Maybe I'd stop by again once their shop was officially open to the public and see what they were selling. I didn't know another way to put myself in their presence that wasn't strange.

Turns out, I didn't need to bother. When I arrived at work the next day, I noticed a completely new setup at the bar- a touch screen machine in place of where there had once been beer taps, with a stack of various glasses at the top that fed into it. It looked brand new.

I went down to my office, expecting a bill on my desk that Tala would expect me to figure out a way to cover. What I found, instead, was a note from them.

"You could have asked me before requesting strange new tech for the club, but thank you. We're barely getting a backlog even at the busy times. It really helped to get things running smoothly. It was dropped off by a robot who asked for you; I don't know if you know them, so I told them you were off and that you'd get in touch when you came back.

<3 Tala"

I didn't bother to sit down, I just left at a brisk walk down the street. My boss seemed to think that I knew what it did or that I ordered it. Obviously, the one who had dropped it off wasn't a mystery, but I had about a million other questions about this.

Their shop door was open, but the storefront looked vastly improved since I'd seen it last. It was clean, and rather than the cheap bells from before, there was a digital tone that went off once I cleared the door. There wasn't much except places to sit, examples of previous work... Nothing premade, as far as I could tell.

I didn't want to assume anything, so I hovered in the entrance, flexing my claws in and out. I resisted the urge to chew on my tail(my usual nervous habit), and instead focused my spare energy into willing them to come out faster.

They stepped out from the back as if summoned by my thoughts, and I could imagine that the look they gave me was pleased. "You are back."

"Yes. Why did you give me the...thing? Do I need to pay you for it?" I immediately asked, flexing my claws out of anxiety again.

Their display flashed between a few different looks, settling on confusion. "You were talking about a problem you were having. It seemed simple enough to solve. You helped me, so I made you something to help you. It was repayment."

I stared, surprised. "So I helped you with something that didn't cost me any money at all, and you spend...untold amount of money making me a custom machine that-" I realized I hadn't actually asked. "Um."

"Oh. I looked up your drink menu online and had someone program the machine to be able to make them if your workers just press the right button. It's just an advanced beverage dispenser. It automates one of the more time consuming tasks, but you mentioned that they have to monitor how intoxicated your customers are, so it frees them up for only the things that require more intelligent eyes," They explained, like it was nothing, like they hadn't given me something that no other club in the world had.

"And you just...gave it to me. For free. Built this very expensive, one of a kind thing, and just." I didn't know what else to say. I was still struggling to understand.

"Well, most of it was built out of scraps I had lying around. As I mentioned before, it's just an advanced version of an existing machine, so it didn't take much." They paused. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No!" I exclaimed, realizing that I seemed ungrateful. I threw my arms around their center without thinking about what I was doing, unable to think of any other way to show how thankful I actually was. Their body was unforgiving, and the metal didn't give at all with my touch, but they were warmer than I expected. There was a small hum I felt with my fur pressed against them, and an unexpected purr responded from my chest. "Thank you. My boss is already so pleased with it; it helps so much."

After a few moments, a single one of their arms rested around my back. I realized how heavy it was, how easily they could pin me to them if they wanted- and as soon as I had thought it, their arm was gone.

"I am glad that it works well. Excuse me." They disappeared into the back room and out of my sight, and I heard some sort of loud whirring sounds follow.

I let myself into the back room again, but this time, they were not actually there. Their noises were coming from farther within. Here, I saw most of the shelves that had needed assembling, and on them various boxes closed and labeled with what I guessed to be order numbers and nothing more. There were a few much larger boxes, and those actually had shipping labels, but I only skimmed them. I didn't care who was commissioning them for things, I cared what they were making.

I went further in, following the sounds of their labor, and found them behind a half-wall. One of their hands was a blur of motion, and their display was turned off. I rested quietly against the wall, watching them.

I couldn't tell what they were working on, but they didn't notice me yet. I suspected whatever they used to see was focused on their project, and they couldn't hear me over the sound of their work. I wasn't unhappy about this; I wanted to observe them, anyway.

What did I want here? As far as they were concerned, our business was complete. Yet, I still longed for their companionship in a way I did not understand.

I'd met them once. Twice, now. Why did they stick out in my mind?

I couldn't pretend it was just that they were different. Yes, I very rarely saw a robot, and especially not one I could talk to, but that didn't explain why I wanted to be around them so much. If I was going to be normal, I would quietly slip out and go back to the club. I'd take what they'd given me, be grateful, and let everything go.

They finally moved their hand back, and I saw they were working on...an arm? They reached to the wall behind them, giving a sharp yank to their own hand. It came off, and they replaced it with a new one from the shelf with a decisive 'snap'. When they turned back towards the table, they stopped.

Their display clicked on, and turned towards me.

"You're still here," they observed. They added nothing else; I assumed the question was obvious enough.

"Yes. Do you get lonely?" I rushed forward with my question before I could overthink it.

Their brows quirked at my question. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I don't know if you have a...creator, or whatever, and there aren't a lot of bots around here- especially not of your caliber- and since you just moved here, alone it seems like, I was..."

"Curious," they guessed. When I nodded, they turned back towards the table, giving a few experimental whirs of their hand. "Yes, I get lonely."

"Do you have a...creator?" I fumbled for the words, unsure of how else to ask. Whatever they were doing was less loud, connecting stray wires from place to place, so I felt like a conversation was possible.

Their face turned back towards the table, though I wasn't sure if that was necessary yet. They seemed to have noticed me earlier without facing me, so as I'd guessed before, the display was just to make people like me more comfortable. To make them seem more human to us. "Yes."

I hesitated before my next question, unsure if I was getting too personal. "Why are they not here with you? Did they let you go free or something?"

The silence before they answered me stretched out so long I thought, perhaps, I wasn't going to get one. I started thinking of other questions, but their voice sounded again before I settled on one. "I did not quite meet expectations in certain qualities. They gave me what I needed to get my shop set up here, but my only obligation to them is a loan repayment once monthly."

"Ah," I answered quietly. I knew that was as much as I was going to get out of that subject, considering how long it had been just to get that vague answer. Pushing it wasn't going to help me. "I kinda know what that's like. I ended up living in my boss's compound after I ran away from home; I was much different than the daughter they wanted. Tala picked me up on the side of the road and gave me a job I like and a cabin I'm happy with."

They froze, and did I imagine their body seemed to be even stiffer than usual? "You live with your boss?"

"Well, they weren't my boss originally. And I don't live directly with them, I live in a cabin on their land, but so do a bunch of other people," I explained.

"Do these other people also work for them?"

"Yes?"

"So. You live in company housing." They stated, in a tone that had me bristling immediately.

"No! It's not like that. Tala doesn't charge me rent or pay me less for it. They just gave me a place to live, free of charge, no strings attached. All I pay for is the utilities I use and the upkeep on it while I'm living there, which I don't even pay to them. The job was just until I found my own, so I'd have money coming in, but I ended up liking it and didn't want to leave."

"I see," they said, and resumed whatever electrical work was beyond my paygrade to understand. "Is Tala the one who told me you were off work?"

"Yes. They own the place. Sometimes they still dance, but mostly they're just the stage manager. They also manage the, ah..." I trailed off. I wondered if they would care if I revealed the other half of our business. "...VIP section of the club." I finished, deciding that would suffice.

They didn't respond, and I decided I would just keep talking to them. They were a good listener, at least. "Tala picked up a new guy last week who was living on the street, and it turns out he's a pretty good DJ. He's my neighbor now; his name is Dae. He's this big, intimidating bear, but I've honestly never met someone so sweet. Our security manager is Strea, and she's kind of scary; she only works the VIP section if she ever does more than just keep an eye on rowdy customers."

"What makes Strea 'scary'?" They asked idly, still focused on their project.

"She's like, six foot five, and she's just..." I gave a low whistle. "She wears these latex boots like, all the time, and she constantly has a look like she'll devour you if you do something wrong. Some customers like it, though. She's our best Domme."

"Domme?"

"Oh, um," I realized I'd slipped up. "The VIP section isn't just...Dancing. It's other services, too. She does acts of sadism on people who enjoy that kind of thing and are willing to pay for it."

"Ah." They stepped back, changing the hand they were working with once more. "I didn't see these services advertised when I was doing research on your menu."

"Well, we don't advertise them," I admitted.

"Why? Sex work is legal here, isn't it?" They asked, picking up what I recognized clearly now was a hollowed out arm that looked almost exactly like their own, save for a sizing difference.

Their casual question to a sensitive topic both surprised me and made me blush. "Well, yes, but we don't want people treating it like a brothel; that's an entirely different kind of clientele. Plus, not all of our dancers or staff are on offer. The people who know about those services are people we trust, regulars who follow the unspoken etiquette of being at a club like ours."

"What unspoken etiquette?"

"Oh, the usual ones, I guess. Tip after every song, especially if you're sitting next to the stage. Don't touch the dancers; hands off of them unless they invite you. During a lapdance, hands stay on the waist if they rest anywhere, otherwise at your side. At the end of a dancer's set, tip more. Don't put your money in their panties, that sort of thing." I answered matter-of-factly.

"Why does that need to stay unspoken?" Louie questioned, turning to look directly at me.

I blinked, realizing I'd never thought about it. Honestly, I didn't know either. "They're not requirements, they're just polite. If we put those kind of rules in place, we'd get less customers. Designated drivers often don't come with money, for example, so we'd have to kick them out if it was a hard rule."

"I see," they responded. "Excuse me a moment." They walked out of the room, and I heard rummaging in another, before they returned with a small, broken down box. In what I imagined to be record breaking time, it was assembled, and the arm placed carefully inside it and sealed up.

"What is that?" I finally asked.

"A commission for a customer." They answered, and I guessed from their tone of voice that I was not supposed to ask further information.

Before I could continue my conversation with them, a rumble of my stomach interrupted me. They focused on me again, not needing sight to place a label on the box just like the others in the front. "You need to go eat, and I need to charge," Louie said.

"Okay," I said softly. I stood up from the wall, giving a thoughtful chew to my bottom lip. "Can I come back tomorrow on my dinner break again?"

"Why?" They seemed perplexed, moving a step closer. I looked up at their display, seeing the pixels in sharp detail. Should it unnerve me, to be around simulated life? It did not. I recalled the unexpected warmth from when I hugged them before. I recalled them saying they got lonely.

"Because I get lonely, too," I said quietly. "And because I like you."

"Why?" They asked again.

"You're interesting. What you do here, how you came to be. You have been patient with listening to me and you made me a very expensive thing because I mentioned needing help in passing. I'd like to learn more about you."

"I see." They stared at me for a few more moments, and then moved towards a room off to one side. I saw the tip of their tail open, and a plug reveal itself.

I took that as my cue to leave,and walked back across the street to grab some dinner. It would be a long night at the club, and I looked forward to seeing them again the next day. What exciting new thing would they be working on? What sort of things could I talk to them about that they would find stimulating?

The night eventually passed,and I returned the next day, as I said I would. We fell into an easy routine; I kept them company for a few hours every day while they worked, and we spoke at length about some things or another. Sometimes it was philosophy, other times it was the current state of the world, still others were our personal interests and going into detail about how they worked. We were natural friends, it seemed. I stopped seeing them as being strange, and felt silly that it had even been something I'd felt in the first place.

Sometimes, I was around when customers came in. I watched Louie talk to them,and it was clear how uncomfortable they were with people. Sometimes, they missed a few cues that could have led to a bigger commission or additions to their work. So, I started taking over that aspect. A person would come in and I would quickly help them, getting the forms together for Louie so that they could continue to work on the things they enjoyed doing.

One day, they questioned this. "Why do you keep doing that?"

"I enjoy helping," I answered truthfully. "I like to feel like I'm helpful to you. Before, all I did was just... sit and talk..."

"You should not feel like you have to work for me to be helpful. Your companionship was helpful." They responded.

"Fine. Take me out to dinner sometime, then," I joked, shaking my head- and was startled when they seemed upset at that response. It had been a bold choice of words on my part- implying, perhaps, that I wanted a date. Perhaps that was what they were upset about. I tried to backpedal. "Really, I do this because I want to help you, not because-"

"Then you should at least be paid for it."

"No!" I responded incredulously. "Absolutely not. I make more than enough at my job, I don't need you to pay me."

"It's not about the money,it's about the principle. You're doing work for me; you should be paid."

"No. Then you become my boss or something."

"So?"

"So that changes how we are! Instead of me hanging out because I'm your friend and I like you, it becomes a transaction. I want to stay on equal ground with you, of doing things because I want to, because I like your company."

They went silent for a few moments. "You're not going to change your mind."

"No."

They stayed silent a little bit longer. "I see." They changed the subject, and I thought I had won- until, a few days later when I came in, a new person was standing at the counter. She very politely shooed me away whenever I came to greet a customer, and I realized Louie had found a solution to our dilemma.

Their solution had not been to kick me out. They rarely said it, but I realized they enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed their's.

I continued to visit daily until around the middle of winter, a few months after we met- and one of the patrons of the club had managed to get quite a few of us sick with the flu, including me. With no way to send word to them, since neither of us had tried to maintain contact outside of my daily visits, my sudden absence left me feeling guilty. I couldn't leave bed except to make myself soup, and I spent most of my time sleeping.

As soon as I started to feel better, I went back, though I was still off from working at the club. I just missed them.

"You're back!" The secretary, I'd learned her name was Lexie, greeted me. "Louie has been asking me for the last few days if you'd left a message. I think they missed you."

"Thanks, Lexie. Yeah, I had the flu...I should have just called up here, but I didn't think about it. I'm sorry." I went back into the back where they were working, and leaned against the wall, immediately sneezing into the tissues I'd brought with me. Louie's head snapped towards me, their tool turning off.

"You've returned. Are you alright? You don't look yourself." If I didn't know better, I would have thought they had worry in their voice.

"I caught the flu," I admitted, sneezing again and rubbing my nose. "I'm still off work, but I missed you. I wanted to see you."

"I see. I thought I had done something to upset you," they admitted. "You have been coming by for so long, it seemed out of character unless you did not intend to return."

"Oh, Louie," I said softly. Thankful for their metallic body, unable to catch my virus, I moved closer and wrapped my arms around their- once again, surprising warmth. "No. I just wasn't feeling well and couldn't contact you. I'm sorry. I can't imagine ever wanting to stop hanging out with you. You mean a great deal to me."

They hugged me back, and a few things occurred to me. They didn't release me immediately as they usually did; in fact, their squeeze was a bit tighter. Their conversations with me had been more emotional, more open, over the last few weeks. I meant something to them, more than I had interpreted.

I was the first one to let go, and they followed suit, returning to their work. They changed the subject, but I could almost imagine they seemed happier than they had before.

I was focused on the feeling of their hug again, and how warm it was. Something twinged in my heart, more than just the warmth and curiosity I'd been feeling thus far. I couldn't place it, but it was sweet, an ache I hadn't ever felt.

"Are you okay?" They asked, and I realized I hadn't been paying attention.

"I'm great," I answered, smiling, and leaned forward to put the thoughts out of my mind. "What were you saying?"