Furry High (furry 'coming of age' story) R18+

10

"Yeah sure, I guess." I said with a shrug.

Those four words. How could I have known that those four, fucking, words would completely shift the outcome of my life?
I had dreams, before those words. Dreams of a kind wife and a few kids of my own that played around as Jake does now. A career interesting enough where I didn't want to kill myself at 7 am every morning, yet predictable enough where a good-morning coffee could never do me any harm.

See, in primary school, a dream like that is called a 'day at daddies work'.
In high school, we'd probably call it 'some swing-and-a-miss career that leads into a boring-ass office job'.

But once you get older - or you're ahead of the curb like I am - do you know what we'd call it?
Do you want to know, how a rodent would think of that minimum wage shitty job?:

Staying afloat.

Simple as that. The only way to stay alive in a sea of greed and desperation.
And those four words that just came out my mouth will start pulling me down into dark water pretty soon, I promise you.

The otter smiled, more out of relief than anything, before he turned straight around and began walking to his car.

I watched him go half of the way in a sort of puzzled amusement.

Sooner or later he caught on that I wasn't following him and he turned back around on the sidewalk.
"Oh, sorry... Um... Come with me please." He said as loud as he could manage - which wasn't really that loud at all.

I blinked and gestured a little stupidly to my front door.
"Didn't you want to tuh... t-talk with me?"

His face flushed a little red. Poor little otter, all flustered and innocent...
"Yeah, I do..." He lowered his head below his shoulders and eyed me down desperately. "Just... Not here."

"Why not?" I said, stretching my words a little.

His voice turned firm, and I swear I could see his eyes change a little in detail.
"Just get in the car."

I widened my eyes with a chuckle and walked over to the car.
"Sh-Sheesh alright then, t-tough guy."

We both climbed into his car, although it was more of a truck. Rusted, not well cared for. Simply to get from A to B.

"Sorry..." He said, rubbing his temples as I watched from the passenger's seat.
"I'm just under a lot of... Pressure, as of now."

I smiled apologetically.
"I get it. I'm not muh-making it any worse, am I?" I asked with concern.

The otter gave a quick shake of his head and returned the smile.
"No, of course not."
Key's turned, a denty engine roared awake from its dusty sleep. Motion kicked its way into our spines, and just like that we were off.
The otter turned his head to face me, still smiling.
"You're just the one who caused it."

Not really knowing how to respond to that, I kept my mouth shut for the rest of the trip.

Pretty soon - and disproving my theory that Mr Otter here would drive into an alleyway and straight-up murder me - we pulled into the parking lot of Furger Palace (your classic greasy fast food place with shitty burgers and even shittier fries. But hey, they were certainly 'staying afloat' for whatever reason)

The otter reached into his pocket without a word, took out a cigarette and used his already lit one to light it.
Ha, we've got ourselves a chain-smoker.

"We guh-getting out?"

He nodded, more concentrating on kindling his lung cancer, and next minute we were walking in.