CHAPTER 2: Partying Up
He was surrounded by pillowy softness. Nothing in the world could match up to the pliability of the surface his head was resting on. He could have sworn to himself that Lugnican pavement was not this soft! Although only acquainted for a short while, he was intimately familiar with it, after all. The only thing that could even dream of matching the doughy nature of this surface was his favorite body pillow. Maybe he truly was never a lost boy. Perhaps this weird world where apples were called pineapples was merely a dream…
"It's so soft!" mumbles Subaru happily in his half-asleep state.
"I know, right? I take gooood care of my fur" came the rather unexpected reply.
"Yeah, you sure do…hey, wait. WHO ARE YOU?!"
Not expecting to be sleeping atop a sentient pillow, Subaru's consciousness bolts out of its sleepy state and registers the face staring at him from above. Subaru quickly realizes that he was lying on the lap of a being from the deepest recesses of 4Chan: "Hi, little boy! Do you know what a fffFURRY is?" Screaming at the top of his lungs, Subaru jumps away from the grey humanoid cat and presses himself against the alley's wall.
"Oh, come on, we were gonna have a moment!" the cat whines with a cloying look on his face.
"I had a moment when my heart stopped beating," Subaru retorts angrily, "Does that count?!"
"YES!" came the reply from the cat, a shit eating grin gracing his feline features.
After taking a few seconds to calm his racing heart, Subaru sees Satella sitting beside the furry. Observing that her rescue is now fully awake and healed, the silver-haired girl begins with her inquiry: "Hello, sir. I'm a girl, a lost girl, and I am lost. Will you, a fellow girl, hold my hand and assist me in not being lost any longer?" Subaru, stunned by the display, could only mutter his assent. "Sweet!" the girl replies with cheer, her face breaking out into an enchanting smile.
Subaru, now back to his senses, asks the first question that pops into his mind. With awkward pauses, he requests from his savior the name of the designer behind her, er, eye-catching outfit. "Oh, it was Puck," came the reply.
It is at this moment that the truth dawns on Subaru. In a world where he was beaten by women for simply introducing himself, made to become an expert swimmer for asking directions, and forced to learn the intricacies of pavement design by his best friends, he had found something to be happy about; Subaru has finally made his first true friend. Indeed, the dress the girl was wearing showcased an unholy amount of cleavage, and he had the furry to thank for it. Heart overflowing with adoration, our hero turns to the humanoid cat and whispers his gratitude.
"You're welcome, compadre," the humanoid cat replied, following up with a wink that sent chills down the boy's spine.
Deciding to not rile up the furry while he was practically defenseless, Subaru averts his gaze from the cat, sets them back on the girl, and announces: "And now we are a party. What do we do now, party?" Upon hearing this question, Satella perks up. She takes charge and is about instruct them on their next steps when a brilliant idea worms its way into the furry's head. The humanoid cat does not hesitate to interject:
"I'm going to reinvent myself through interpretive dance!"
Satella and Subaru stare dumbly at the cat in utter puzzlement before wordlessly coming to a joint decision to ignore the furry's inane musings.
Satella lays down her plan with the utmost confidence, "I'll tell you what we're gonna do!" Without the slightest hint of doubt in her voice, she continues, "We're gonna wander around town until we get UN-losted!"
At this point, it was simply replacing one deranged rambling with another. But the boy cared not for logic anymore. Subaru stares at Satella dreamily as he broadcasts the thoughts of his innermost self, "I…LOVE…that dress." "A-And whatever you just said," adds our hero, making a pathetic attempt at keeping a semblance of dignity.
"Alright! Let's zoom, zoom!" says an oblivious Satella as she zooms towards the alleyway's exit. "She gets me so well," Subaru mutters to himself, resolving in his mind to follow the insane beauty to the ends of the Earth itself, no matter the danger the furry poses to his innocence.
It is truly a shame that God blessed man with two heads, but only enough blood to operate one at a time.