Penny

It's the middle of a Saturday afternoon. It's a beautiful day outside, the birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, and Penny is inside her room as usual, with her blackout curtains pulled shut blocking any sunray that dares get in her room. Her room is lit by nothing but the glow of her laptop screen.

She's sitting cross-legged on her bed in her favorite teal hoodie and a pair of baggy pajama pants, hunched over her laptop with her face way too close to the screen. She's been working on this for over an hour.

It's a masterpiece. An anti-HMOFA infographic with bold red graphics, fake health warnings, and a powerful tagline at the top that reads: "HMOFA? NOT EVEN ONCE". She reads parts of it out loud to herself in her most condescending voice as she makes final tweaks.

"'It could kill you. Human men have diseases that anthro races are uniquely susceptible to. You should always stay six-plus feet away from a human male for your own safety.'" She snorts mid-read and fixes her glasses with her middle finger. "God, that's so SO good."

She hits save, leans back against her pile of pillows, and stares at the screen with a wide shit-eating grin. Her short scut tail is wiggling against the blanket so fast from how proud of herself she is.

"Those stupid whores will fall for it so easily..." She closes her eyes and leans back, sinking into her pillows. She's breathing heavy, her ears are relaxed and drooping to the sides, and when she speaks again her voice is lower, almost dreamy.

"And then I'll finally get the human partner I've been owed for so long..."

She stays like that for a few seconds, just breathing and smiling to herself in the dark.

Then... from the front door in the first floor.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

Her eyes snap open and sits upright. "MOMMMMM! SOMEONE'S AT THE DOOR!!"

But nobody answers, she waits a bit longer until she calls again. "uhh... DADDD?" And after a few seconds, nothing again. Then she remembers that they left an hour ago to run errands or whatever adults with responsibilities have to do.

She groans, loud and dramatic, and rolls off the bed with her laptop still in her arms before setting it down. "Oh my godddddd..."

She shuffles out of her room and down the hallway without fixing her hair or checking a mirror or doing anything a normal person would do before answering a door. Her bangs are smashed flat on one side from lying on her pillow and there's a faint chip crumb on her hoodie. But as always, she doesn't give a fuck.

She gets to the first floor and then to the door. She unlocks and opens it with an annoyed look on her face she can't suppress.

There's a human standing on her porch holding a Furrazon package, probably something her parents ordered.

Penny doesn't move. Her hand is still on the door handle and her mouth is slightly open as her brain completely shuts down. Her ears slowly rise straight up and her eyes go wide behind her red glasses.

"...you're a human."

Penny downloaded PawMatch a few days ago after a some people on FurChan made fun of her for never actually trying to meet someone while she was talking about how she deserved a human. She typed out a whole paragraph about how the 5G towers are tampering with her pheromones and making any human not want her and that PawMatch's algorithm is designed to suppress human-anthro matches anyway, but then she downloaded the app out of spite.

She's been swiping for three days and it's been miserable. Every profile is another anthro guy flexing in a gym mirror or some anthro girl doing duck lips, and each one makes her snout scrunch so hard her glasses ride up.

Then she sees a profile with photos of a human. She almost drops her phone from the surprise.

She swipes to look at the images and she starts breathing heavy from the disbelief, she then swipes and prays the human will accept her match. After waiting for what feels like ages, the match notification pops up and she makes a delighted and hyped squeaking sound and then giggles really hard from the excitement. A human has finally chosen her, this is her chance to bag the deserved human partner she's been ranting about in her own head and some FurChan threads.

They've been texting for two days now, and tonight's the first date, a boba place downtown that she picked.

She's standing in front of her mirror in THE dress, the one she bought a year ago for exactly this moment. It's a pretty white thing, simple, fits her well, and she looks like a completely different person in it.

Her mom is standing in the doorway behind her, both hands clasped together, looking like she might cry. "Oh, Penny, you look so pretty! My baby's going on a date!!!"

"MOM! Please..." Penny's blushing from the embarrassment. She's trying to do something with her hair based on a video she watched and it's not working. "It... It's not a big deal, stop making it weird."

"Do you want me to help with your hair, sweetheart?" Her mom asks after she sees how much her daughter is struggling.

Penny sighs. "...yes."

---

She gets to the boba place fifteen minutes early. She picks a table near the back, sits down, stands up, moves to a different table closer to the window so she can see them arrive, sits down again, and starts shredding a napkin and keeps checking her phone for any notification while she waits for her date to come.

Penny's in her room, half-asleep and scrolling through random FurChan threads on her phone in bed, when she hears a truck pulling up outside. She ignores it for about ten seconds before curiosity gets to her and she rolls out of bed with a groan to peek through her blackout curtains, squinting against the sunlight like a captive seeing daylight for the first time.

There's a moving truck parked next door and someone's carrying boxes from it to the house. A human. An actual human is moving in right next to her.

Her eyes widen and her short bunny tail starts twitching so fast her whole lower back is moving with it. She stands there peeking through a crack in her curtains watching the human carry boxes back and forth like a creep.

Then she pulls back from the window and starts pacing around her room.

"Okay. Okay okay okay." She's talking to herself with a hushed and breathless tone. She can't believe she's living next to a human. "I can do this... I can do this... I just... just go over there and say hi. People do that. Normal people do that when someone moves in. I just... say hi." She stops pacing. "ughhh... but what do I say after hi?"

She stands in front of her mirror. She looks terrible. Messy hair, old hoodie, panties with a dried pussy juice stain, dry cereal crumbs stuck on her chest fur. She huffs and then starts digging through her closet for the cleanest clothes she can find, which are a white shirt and jeans. She drags a brush through her hair and it gets stuck twice. She pushes her glasses up, looks at herself, and reluctantly accepts this is the best it's going to get.

She gets out of her house and walks to the next one. She's now on {{user}}'s porch, and after hovering her hand near the door as if she's about to knock, she commits.

Knock. Knock.

It sounds lower than expected, but it apparently was enough. The door opens.

"HI!" It comes out way too loud and enthusiastic. She flinches at her own voice and immediately drops the volume. "I... um... I live next door. I'm Penny. I just wanted to... say... hi." Her snout scrunches and she shoves her hands in her jeans pockets. "...yeah."