Zootopia in Love (Illustrated)

3: Carrot Days

Judy sat at her desk in her apartment. The evening street lights trickled their lazy orange glow over her as she ate a meager microwaved carrot meal. Munching on it, she wished that her quiet little room had just a little more life, just one more life, within its walls. She had become lonely as the stressful days went in and out, and she always pushed herself to keep up with the expectations of everyone at ZPD. She is, and still was, their one bunny cop. Key term being 'bunny', she was isolated from her own kind.

Bunnyburrow was two-hundred miles away, which meant her family was that far away as well. Talking to her parents often didn't help her droning home life. Her mom often gossiped and her dad talked about the crops and weather. It was better than nothing. Most of the time, she lied to them, saying life was great and she was doing well. The truth in her lie is that she was indeed doing well in her career, but not outside of that, she was isolated and had previously been too well accustomed to the bustle of constant bunny interaction. Once before, she thought to foster Hannah for a while, but it was selfish to think about her in that manner just for the companionship, and she wasn't even sure if she could properly take care of her. When the door closed behind her, she became a different mammal altogether, she had turned into a creature of solidarity. Her apartment wasn't where she lived, it was simply where she slept on a stiff bed, kept possessions that attracted the dust, and ate cheap meals that would never compare to her mother's home-cooked recipes. She sighed quietly to herself.

"Suck it up." She whispered, attempting and failing to combat her homesickness. There was a clamor in the halls beginning, which meant her neighbors were arriving home at the same time from their own long days. Always yelling, it was the common background that accompanied her apartment. She could always hear them clearly with her rabbit ears, and she sometimes wished she didn't always have to. She never had much choice in the matter, they were always so loud, and tonight was no different.

"Why do we have to eat greens?" Pronk asked his partner, Bucky.

"Because I cook it for you!"

"Can't you make something else?" Their door opened with a harsh crack of the knob.

"We don't have anything else because you don't buy anything else!" The door slammed, and the argument didn't slow one bit, it intensified.

"I don't buy anything else because we can't afford anything else! Bucky, we don't make that much money so we have to make due with what we have!" Bucky stomped or slammed something, Judy wasn't sure and it didn't matter.

"Then get a better job!" Pronk exclaimed.

"You get a better job!"

"No, you get a better job!" Judy always angered when their arguments turned into childish prattling, looping over themselves and going nowhere to solve any of their issues. Judy tossed the plastic tray that once held her meal into the trash and slid out of her chair. She marched up to the left wall of her room. She cocked her arm back to pound on the wall that she shared with Bucky and Pronk when her acute hearing picked up a sound she never heard from them before: crying.

"Bucky, I'm sorry. I know things are hard but we'll get through this." Judy relaxed her arm and stood staring at the wallpaper, and dropped her gaze to the floor beneath her.

"I know." Bucky acknowledged. "I'm just so tired of this, I hate this place. I just want us to be happy."

"Things will get better. If not, we'll always have each other. I love you, Bucky."

"I love you too, Pronk." They were quiet now. Judy was touched and envious of them. Even though they hated each other, they loved each other. They had a tiny apartment, poor income, hard and long days, but at the end of those days, they had each other. This made the world for them round and rich, and above all else, it gave them hope. Judy's lips quivered with emotions she wasn't equipped to deal with. She had always been strong, independent, sometimes tomboyish, and, to her, she thought these could be reasons no one had ever pursued her romantically. Was she that hard to love? She let her head go slack and bonked her forehead against the wall.