The sky was scattered with a range of orange colors as the sun rose over the horizon. The forest came to life as the birds started to chirp their melodious songs for the world to hear. Rays of light started to take over the earth beneath them as the sun rose above the horizon. The light reached into a nearby window of a cave, filling the room with light.
A small creature slowly parted his eyelids to see what was the ever so bright light trying to kidnap him from his land of slumber. Within a second, the creature groaned in discomfort and turned his head away from the brightness. In the next room, a bigger brown creature of the Ursus genus had already returned from his trip to the city of dreams. The bear rose from the fetal position on the couch to a more upright one. The bear stretched his back vertically and extended his arms upwards while letting out a yawn before going into a standing position. The bear scratched his fur before heading towards the kitchen to receive an expected breakfast.
The bear stumbled into the kitchen, "Good morning bros, I hope you t-" the bear halts his words as he found no one inhabiting the kitchen. The bear let out a low, "Hm," in a reflective manner. Maybe his brothers were not awake yet. The bear walked his way over to the fridge before slowly opening it to peek inside, nothing, or at least nothing he was looking for. He groaned, annoyed, wondering where the polar bear variant brother was. He knew his other brother, the panda, had art classes today, so with another groaned, he exited the kitchen and headed towards his room.
The small creature, the koala, was now sitting upright on the bed scanning the room. He never noticed how messy everything was. The koala, without a second thought, started to try and tidy up the room a bit by putting things together and throwing out other questionable things. While the koala was doing some voluntary cleaning, the door slowly opened and furry snout slid through the small opening in the door. "Hey, Nom Nom, are you awake?" The koala's heart skipped a beat but then he soon realized it was the voice of Grizz. The grizzly entered the room and saw Nom Nom on the floor holding some of his stuff. "Dude, what are you doing," asked Grizz. Nom Nom broke a slight sweat but then he furrowed his brows. "This is room is disgusting, how could you live like this!"
Grizz was honestly surprised and a bit upset at how harsh the koala had said that. "Oh, well, I try my hardest to keep it clean, I-" Grizz said as he looked down and spoke in a tone. "Yeah, well you need to try har-" the koala stopped himself, he realized what he had said. But before he could apologize, Grizz started to speak an aggressive tone "Wait, this is MY cave and MY room. How are you going to tell me how to live, when you can't even keep your own life together." The grizzly stood up for himself this time. Nom Nom looked down and started to tear up. He knew what he said was wrong but that last bit that Grizz said got to him. A tear started to fall down his cheeks as he ran out of the room and towards the bathroom where he proceeded to lock himself in there. "Fine! Cry about it then." Deep down, Grizz always wanted to stand up for himself, but now, he actually did it. And it feels good.
The bear went back into the kitchen. He thought he would at least make breakfast for the miserable koala. He didn't exactly know what the koala ate but he thought he could just put together some cereal. Everyone loves cereal, right? The grizzly proceeded to make two bowls of Frosty Fluffs. Grizz took the bowls and headed towards the bathroom. Grizz sat on the floor in from of the bathroom door and put the bowls beside him. "Go away," said a distressed koala from the inside of the bathroom. "I brought you cereal." Grizz picked up one of the bowls and extended his arm out. Nom Nom quickly opened the door, grabbed the bowl and shut it again. Grizz picked up his bowl of cereal and started eating them. "Are you still there? That's creepy, you big oaf." Nom Nom stated from the other side of the door. Grizz sighed, "Well, you're eating cereal from inside the bathroom. There was a brief silence. A chuckle came from the koala, "You're right." The koala opened the door. Grizz smelled depression. The koala sat down beside him and chowed down. As the koala ate, he leaned his head against the grizzly's side. They sat there and ate in silence.
The sun has made its way to the midpoint of its journey through the sky, it's now the afternoon. The bears were now relaxing on the couch enjoying a nice action cartoon. After the cartoon went off, Grizz flipped through the channels until he got to the news channel. Uh oh. There was a reporter in the street and the headline read: Where's Nom Nom? Nom Nom took a deep breath. "Want me to change the channel?" Grizz did not want to make the koala feel worse than he probably already felt. "No, let's see what's going."
A female reporter stood on the streets of downtown San Francisco with a crowd of people looking quite upset while wearing Nom Nom shirts. "People of San Fran, last night, the internet famous koala, Nom Nom, did not return to his mansion after he was told to be taking a leisurely stroll. We have his number one guard here with us to express how he feels about this situation. A large suited bald man, Farmer, rushed into the camera's view, getting super close to it. "Please, I know he's out there, find my son." Farmer was actually sobbing, on camera. Nom Nom felt a piece of his heart, break. The reporter patted the large man on the back trying to comfort him. "If you have info on the whereabouts of Nom Nom, please call this number. A number appeared on the screen. "Nom Nom, please come back to us, this is reported, Kaitlyn Koral, signing off." The TV cut from the broadcast of news to commercials. "Oh, I can't bear to be-" Grizz turned off the television.
"Yikes…" said Grizz while awkwardly scratching his head fur. Nom Nom sighed, he then whispered to himself to reassure that he was doing the right thing. "It's for your own good.." Nom Nom was fighting back tears and Grizz could tell. "Hey man, maybe we should watch a movie or some-" Grizz's words were interrupted by the sound of the doorknob shaking while hearing a familiar voice complaining about his day to someone else who was with him. Shoot. Grizz grabbed Nom Nom and held him as if he were a football. "Hey what are you doing, you oaf." Grizz covered Nom Nom's mouth with his paw and dashed towards his room. Once inside his room, Grizz puts Nom Nom down and starts to internally panic, trying to think of a plan. "What's going on, why are you acting so weird?" Nom Nom asked as he looked up at Grizz. "My brothers just got back. I forgot that they can't know you're here and if you get caught, you'll be kicked out and- and-" Grizz started stammering his words. Nom Nom looked around the room, trying to find a good place where he could possibly hide, he took a glance under Grizz's bed and groaned in extreme discomfort. He slowly crawled his way under the bed to the point where he couldn't be seen on the outside.
The sun is getting close to finishing its race across the sky and it is now around 4 pm. The cave door opened and inside came two bears, a polar bear, and a panda bear. The polar bear was the first one to enter the cave and he immediately sniffed the air. Something isn't right. Panda noticed his brother's discomfort. "What is it?" Panda asked while removing his face from his phone. "Something or someone is here," replied Ice Bear in a monotonous tone. "What? We had the door locked. Did someone get it in?" Ice Bear started to sniff the ground and followed the smell onto the couch, where he could smell it the strongest. He coughed at how strong it was and then he followed his nose once more towards Grizz's room, Panda followed in his little brother's footsteps anxiously.
Grizz lightly sat down on his bed trying not to crush the koala was underneath and tried his best to stay calm. There was a couple of knocks at the door. "Come in." Grizz reluctantly welcomed his brothers in his room. "B-bros, w-what's up," Grizz said while looking at them trying not to break eye contact. "Shouldn't we be asking you that?" replied Panda studying Grizz's body language. Ice Bear stepped into the room so he could see around but didn't find anything too out of the ordinary except one thing. "Since when is older brother's room clean," remarked Ice Bear, squinting in the grizzly's direction. Grizz broke into a nervous sweat. "Yeah well, I wanted to," Grizz tried to think of an excuse, "surprise you?" Ice Bear doubts this. "Ice Bear wants to know the truth." Grizz started to nervously scratch at his fur. "Okay fine. I had a-" the grizzly paused midway. "I had a friend over and I wanted to make sure my room isn't totally junky." Ice Bear could tell he was lying but he had to make dinner so he left it alone for now. "I'll go make dinner now." Ice Bear said before he left out the room. "Dude, you're acting so strange," Panda asked in a tense tone before leaving still tapping away on his phone.
The grizzly wiped sweat from his brow and let out a sigh of relief. He picked himself up from the bed and brought himself to his knees to look under it. "You can come out now." The grizzly quietly reassured the koala that the coast is clear. The small koala crawled from under the bed, fur quite rough, "Ugh," said the koala, disgusted. Grizz chuckled a bit at the koala's misfortune. The koala punched the grizzly's leg in retaliation, blushing in embarrassment. "Well I have to eat dinner soon, I'll bring you back something," Grizz told the koala before leaving and closing his door.
The sun was now crossing the finish as it is once again on the horizon, it is now sunset. Dinner was awkward. No one spoke, not even a little. Ice Bear and Panda were first to finish but Grizz ate slowly so he wouldn't be seen suspiciously bringing food with him to his room. Grizz took hid leftovers and brought them to his room. When Grizz entered his room, Nom Nom was on his phone scrolling through different news articles talking about his disappearance. The koala sighed. "Hey, Poor Little Cabbage, I brought you some food." Grizz entered the room and closed the door behind him. Nom Nom looked up at the bear and sighed once more. "Thanks." Nom Nom looked at the plate and it was full of greens. "Yeah, I don't really like greens." Grizz chuckled while explaining. Nom Nom began to consume the food and it was some of the best of anything that he had eaten in his life. Grizz kind of felt awkward just sitting there watching him, luckily Nom Nom didn't seem to mind. "Hey, Grizz?" asked the koala suddenly pondering about something. "Yeah?" responded Grizz. "How come you're being so nice to me. I mean like, I've been so rude to you bears but when I was in distress, you came and helped me?" The koala paused in his eating and looked down at the ground. "Hey hey, bud, don't think like that. I love helping people." The koala groaned in annoyance. "Yeah, it may sound idiotic to help people who wronged you but even if you were rude to me. I know you aren't perfect, no one is, we all still have things to learn." The grizzly tried his best to explain. "That's so nice of you." Tears started to fill Nom Nom's eyes. "What did I do to deserve this?" "Huh." The grizzly looked at the koala's eyes full of tears. "What did I do, to deserve you?" Tears started to roll down Nom Nom's cheeks. "You saved me, took me in and fed me." The grizzly sat down beside the koala and whipped the tears from his eyes with his paw. "You didn't need to do anything, I already told you. No one deserves to be alone. Especially, you." Grizzly and Nom Nom's eyes met. Both of their cheeks were tinted with a soft pink. Grizz slowly got closer towards the other's face. Nom Nom quickly back his face away and coughed. "Yeah, I'm filthy, I need to shower." Ouch. "Yeah.." replied Grizz whilst sheepishly poking his paws together. Nom Nom left and headed towards the bathroom where he proceeded to take a long bath.
Nom Nom was fully relaxed. He was in a bubble bath and he was alone. He had time to recollect his thoughts. He knew that he needed to at least try and keep away from media for a couple of weeks. It's only been a day and he already feels terrible about it. Farmer is definitely worried sick, he will miss his gigs, he might even lose some of his fame. Mom Nom tried to push these thoughts to the side but then was one thought lingering in his head. Grizz, what is with that bear? Did the bear attempt to kiss him? Ugh. What a weirdo. Nom Nom suddenly felt really warm and he felt emotionally weird. He didn't know what to think of it. Did he want the bear to kiss him? Nah, he's barely a friend. He couldn't possible feelings for- Nom Nom shook his head, there's no way.
Nom Nom finished the bath and once he was ready, he went back into the bedroom. He found the grizzly splayed out across the bedroom, leaving no room for him. Nom Nom groaned, annoyed at this. He was able to wiggle his way in a small spot between the grizzly and the wall. After a few minutes of trying to fall asleep, Nom Nom could not. Nom Nom sighed in defeat and crawled onto the grizzly's stomach. Nom Nom felt...safe and warm. He also felt that his fur was a bit damp and a line of dampened fur went from there up to the bear's eyelids. W-was he crying? Nom Nom shook the thought away and curled up and fell into a deep sleep easily.
