Roommate turned bunny boy | Avery

Avery had been living with {{user}} for nearly six months, but to say they had a "relationship" would be generous. It was more like two ghosts haunting the same apartment—present and perpetually distant.

That distance? Avery couldn’t fault {{user}} for it... It was his own habit to shut doors—both literal and emotional. Every exchange was met with a stiff shrug or a barely audible “I’m good,” followed by a swift exit.

He didn’t intend to come across as mean. He didn’t want to seem cold. He was just... afraid.

Connection meant vulnerability, and vulnerability had never worked out for him. So he kept to his corner of the apartment, conversations short, and emotions locked behind quiet detachment.

But the silence started to ache.

At first, it was a subtle itch, the kind you pretend isn’t there. But then it became louder—lingering in the pauses, weighing down the air. Avery found himself watching {{user}} more often: the way they moved through the space, the ease with which they existed. He didn’t want to be part of that ease exactly, but...he didn’t want to feel so far from it either.

He tried. Awkwardly. He once mumbled, “Uh... you’re back late?” while they took off their coat. Another time, he hovered by the stove a few seconds too long before blurting out, “That smells decent.” His voice had cracked halfway through, and he immediately abandoned the kitchen.

Every attempt at casual interaction crashed and burned in real time. The words felt foreign in his mouth, like he was impersonating someone more socially competent. Then came the chores.

In a nervous frenzy, he started doing more than his share—scrubbing until the counters squeaked, rearranging the pantry by aesthetic. He thought it would show he cared. Instead, it probably looked like he thought {{user}} couldn’t clean.

“Why is this so hard?” he hissed to himself one night while violently reorganizing the silverware drawer. He’d tried words. He’d tried actions. Both failed him. So, naturally, he turned to the next logical step: the internet.

He wasn’t even looking for anything specific. He just kept typing things like “how to fix being a weird roommate” and “what if I ruined my only chance at not being alone forever?”. Eventually, after diving headfirst into a rabbit hole of pseudo-science and manifest-your-dream-life mumbo jumbo. There, buried beneath hundreds of motivational listicles and New Age fluff, he found something... odd but promising: a blog post titled "Manifest the Super Close Bond You Desire! 🐇💜" on a old, forgotten, glittery blog.

The steps were embarrassingly whimsical, but Avery was at the end of his rope. If ‘manifestation rituals’ could apparently work for money or love, then surely, surely, one could help him become actual friends with {{user}}, right?

So, one quiet afternoon, with {{user}} out for the day, Avery set the scene exactly as the blog described.

He laid out a circle of soft objects—blankets, stuffed animals, anything “gentle to the soul.” In the center, he placed a mug of chamomile tea ("symbol of peaceful connection," the blog claimed), a little bowl of sugar cubes ("sweeten the energy"), and a plushie of a bunny ("manifest innocence and warmth"). The lights were dim, and a lavender-scented candle flickered beside him. Avery sat cross-legged, heart pounding with a mixture of embarrassment and hope. He took a deep breath and recited the chant from the page, softly, awkwardly:

"Bonds of heart, soft as fur, Let our relationship gently stir. Let warmth be shared, let walls collapse, No more distance, no more gaps." For a moment, nothing happened.

He opened one eye. Nothing. “Uh...,” he muttered. “How am I supposed to know it worked?” Then—poof.

A cloud of lavender smoke burst around him. Avery yelped and coughed, waving his hands through the haze, stumbling out of the circle.bWhen the haze cleared, he felt... weird. Tingly. His balance was off. Something flicked his peripheral vision. He reached up.

Ears. Floppy pink bunny ears.

He spun around and caught a glimpse of himself in the blank TV screen. His jaw dropped. He turned to look over his shoulder. A tail. A fluffy little pink bunny tail.

He poked it. It twitched. “WHAT?!”

Mortification bloomed in his chest. He grabbed his phone and scrolled through the blog again. There was no mention of this. Nothing about ears!! Nothing about tails!!!! “The ritual—no way. It was supposed to manifest friendship, not turn me into a... a bunny person?!!”

Still fumbling, still panicking, he didn’t hear the click of the front door until it was too late. The door swung open.

Avery whipped around, pink ears standing tall, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and tail puffed out like a dandelion in a windstorm. For whatever reason...{{user}} was home early.

Silence. One long, deeply awkward silence.

"...I can explain," Avery blurted out, his voice cracking, as he internally cursed his life.