Chapter Text
The January sky hung low over Seattle, a ceiling of iron-gray clouds that promised nothing but more of the same. Snow flurries drifted between the downtown buildings like lost thoughts, never quite committing to the ground before the wind scattered them into nothingness. The Space Needle rose in the distance, its silhouette faded behind veils of winter mist, a landmark that meant nothing to the wolf climbing out of the moving truck's cab.
Radon Maxwell's boots hit the wet pavement with a sound that echoed in the early morning quiet. His breath fogged in front of him, a small cloud that dissipated almost instantly in the cold. He stood there for a moment, looking up at the five-story apartment building that would become his new address, his new attempt at something resembling a life.
The building was unremarkable. Red brick darkened by decades of Pacific Northwest rain. Windows that reflected the gray sky like tired eyes. A modest awning over the entrance that provided questionable shelter from the elements. Nothing special. Nothing memorable. Perfect.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the address one more time. Fifth Street. Apartment 117. The numbers matched. The key the landlord had mailed him sat heavy in his jacket pocket, a small piece of metal that represented yet another fresh start in a long line of fresh starts that never quite took.
Radon was twenty-four years old. In those twenty-four years, he had lived in seven different cities, held four different jobs, and accumulated exactly zero meaningful relationships. This wasn't an accident. This was a pattern he had cultivated with the careful attention of a gardener tending to a particularly stubborn crop. People, he had learned early, were temporary. Connections frayed. Friendships faded. Better to expect nothing and be pleasantly surprised than to hope for something and be inevitably disappointed.
The moving truck's engine idled behind him, coughing exhaust into the cold air. He had rented the smallest one available—anything larger would have been an admission of failure, a confession that he owned more than a person should when they planned to leave at a moment's notice. The driver was already pulling away before Radon had finished unloading the last box. He'd paid extra for the one-way rental specifically so he wouldn't have to return it, wouldn't have to explain to anyone why a wolf his age had so few possessions.
He watched the truck disappear around the corner, its taillights blinking once before vanishing into the Seattle morning. Good. One less thing to worry about.
The boxes sat in a neat stack on the sidewalk where he'd arranged them. Not heavy, any of them. That was the thing about owning very little: moving was easy. No furniture to speak of, just a mattress he'd bought secondhand and a desk he'd assembled himself from parts ordered online. No photographs in frames. No accumulated memories given physical form. Just books—too many books, if he was honest—and the essential tools of his trade as a programmer. Laptop. Monitors. Cables that tangled no matter how carefully he stored them.
Each box was labeled in his neat handwriting. BOOKS - FICTION. BOOKS - TECHNICAL. KITCHEN. WORK. MISC. The labels were practical, devoid of personality. Anyone looking at them would learn nothing about the person who had packed them, and that was exactly how Radon preferred it.
He grabbed the first box—WORK, because his livelihood took priority—and hefted it into his arms. The weight was manageable, but the box was awkward, its corners digging into his forearms as he made his way toward the building's entrance. His tail, gray like the rest of his fur, hung low, barely swaying as he walked. His ears lay flat against his head, not from fear or aggression, but from the simple habit of making himself smaller, less noticeable, less present.
A woman passed him on the sidewalk, walking a dog that yapped at his ankles. Radon stepped aside without making eye contact, waited for her to pass, then continued toward the door. The interaction lasted perhaps three seconds and required nothing from him. The ideal social encounter.
The lobby door was heavier than he expected. He had to set the box down, pull the door open, catch it with his foot, then retrieve the box and shuffle through before the door swung closed on him. The maneuver was graceless, but there was no one watching. No one to caAre.
The lobby smelled of coffee and old wood, a combination that was somehow both inviting and sad. Warm air wrapped around him, a sharp change from the January chill outside. He paused, letting his eyes adjust to the interior lighting—softer here, warmer, the kind of light that made a space feel lived-in rather than merely occupied.
A bulletin board dominated one wall, covered in flyers and notices that spoke of a community Radon had no intention of joining. PICKYPIGGY'S RESTAURANT - GROUND FLOOR - HOME COOKING AT ITS FINEST. ROOFTOP ACCESS - RESIDENTS ONLY - KEY AVAILABLE FROM MANAGEMENT. COMMUNITY POTLUCK - FIRST SATURDAY OF EVERY MONTH. His gaze slid over them without interest. Community events weren't his concern. He was here to work, to sleep, to exist in the margins of other people's lives without ever actually entering them.
The elevator was at the far end of the lobby, its doors scratched and worn from years of use. He pressed the call button with his elbow, balancing the box against his chest, and waited. The machinery hummed somewhere above him, gears engaging with a reluctant groan. This building was old. Not historic-old, not charming-old, just old. The kind of old that meant the plumbing probably made strange noises at night and the heating was either too much or not enough.
The elevator arrived with a cheerful ding that seemed out of place in the quiet lobby. The doors slid open to show an empty car, mirrored walls reflecting Radon's image back at him from multiple angles. He stepped inside, turned, and pressed the button for the fifth floor.
The wolf in the mirror looked tired. Gray fur that needed brushing. Dark circles under eyes that had spent too many hours staring at screens. A posture that curved inward, protective, closed. He was tall enough—taller than average, actually—but he carried himself like someone trying to take up less space, like someone apologizing for existing simply by the way he stood. His silver coin pendant caught the fluorescent light, the only thing about him that seemed to shine.
The elevator rose. First floor. Second. Third. The numbers ticked upward, and Radon watched them change with the detached interest of someone who had ridden countless elevators in countless buildings in countless cities, none of which had ever felt like home.
Fourth floor. Fifth. The doors opened.
The hallway that greeted him was warmer than the lobby, both in temperature and in feeling. The lighting was softer here, more residential. The carpet underfoot was worn but clean, patterned in a way that had probably been fashionable decades ago. Doors lined both sides of the corridor—116 to his left, 118 to his right—with 117 straight ahead at the end of a short stretch.
Somewhere, behind one of these closed doors, he could hear music playing. Something soft, something with strings. And beneath that, barely perceptible, the sound of laughter.
Radon ignored it. He walked to apartment 117, set down his box, and fished the key from his pocket. The lock turned smoothly—at least something in this old building worked properly—and the door swung open to show his new home.
It was small. A single main room that served as living space and bedroom both, with a kitchenette tucked into one corner and a door that presumably led to a bathroom. One window faced the street, offering a view of gray sky and distant buildings. The walls were off-white, unmarked, waiting for someone to make them personal.
Radon wouldn't. He never did.
He stepped inside, placed the box on the floor, and turned back toward the hallway. More boxes waited downstairs. More trips in the elevator. More opportunities to be alone with his thoughts, which was exactly what he wanted.
What he didn't want—what he absolutely had not planned for—was for the door across the hall to swing open just as he stepped out of his apartment.
The dog who emerged was, for lack of a better word, golden. Not just in fur color, though his coat was a warm, sunny orange that seemed almost impossible in the gray January light. Warmth came off him in waves—in his expression, in his posture, in the way his tail began wagging the moment he laid eyes on Radon. He was big, too. Bigger than Radon, which was saying something, with broad shoulders and the kind of frame that suggested regular time at a gym.
"You must be the new neighbor!"
The voice matched the appearance: warm, welcoming, impossible to ignore. The dog's smile showed just a hint of fang, friendly rather than threatening. He wore a pendant around his neck, a small orange sun that caught what little light filtered through the hallway window. A faint vanilla scent drifted from him, pleasant and unobtrusive.
"I'm Dogday." He extended a paw. "I own the building. Well, sort of. It's complicated. But the point is—welcome! Do you need help with your stuff?"
Radon stared at the offered paw for a moment too long. Social interaction. He'd been hoping to avoid this for at least a few days, time enough to establish his routine, to become invisible. Time enough for his new neighbors to learn that he wasn't worth the effort of befriending.
"I'm fine," he said, taking the paw briefly, releasing it quickly. "Really. I don't have much. I can manage."
Dogday's smile didn't waver. If anything, it grew warmer, as if Radon's reluctance was a puzzle he was eager to solve. "Everyone says that. Nobody means it."
He turned his head toward the hallway and called out, voice carrying with the confidence of someone used to being heard: "Hey, everyone! New neighbor's moving in! Come say hello!"
Radon's stomach dropped.
Doors opened. Not one, not two, but several, all at once, as if they had been waiting for exactly this signal. Faces appeared in doorways. Voices called out greetings. And the quiet hallway that Radon had hoped would be his sanctuary filled with exactly the kind of chaos he had spent his entire adult life avoiding.
A thin wisp of orange smoke curled from Dogday's nose as he smiled—not cigarette smoke, something else, something that seemed to be part of him. "Don't worry," he said, misreading or perhaps perfectly reading Radon's expression. "We don't bite. Well, most of us don't. Hoppy might, but only if you're too slow."
Before Radon could ask what that meant, the hallway filled with color and noise and life, and his carefully constructed plans for a quiet, anonymous existence crumbled into dust.
They came in waves, each one more overwhelming than the last. First was the cat. He emerged from apartment 116, the door directly to Radon's left, moving with the fluid grace of smoke curling from a candle. His fur was a deep purple that bordered on black, and his eyes were half-lidded, giving him an expression of perpetual drowsiness that Radon would later learn was more or less accurate. A gold crescent moon pendant hung from his neck, catching the light as he drifted into the hallway. He said nothing. Just looked at Radon with those sleepy eyes, nodded once, and positioned himself against the wall like a shadow given form. A faint lavender scent followed him, mixing with the vanilla that still hung in the air from Dogday.
"That's Catnap," Dogday explained, as if introducing a piece of furniture. "Don't mind him. He's not much for talking, but he's a good person." Before Radon could respond, not that he knew what to say, the stairwell door burst open with enough force to rattle the nearby doorframes. A chicken exploded into the hallway, all yellow feathers and boundless energy, practically vibrating with enthusiasm. An orange star pendant bounced against his chest as he moved.
"New guy? Yes! Finally, some fresh blood!" The chicken thrust a wing toward Radon with the force of someone attempting a high-five. "Kickin Chicken. That's me. The coolest guy on the fifth floor. Actually, the coolest guy in the building. Actually, probably the coolest guy in Seattle."
"Kickin," Dogday said with the patience of someone who had said the same name in the same tone countless times before. "Volume."
"Right, right, inside voice." Kickin lowered his volume by perhaps ten percent. "Welcome to the building, man! You lift? You look like you could lift. We should hit the gym sometime. I'm there every morning. Every. Single. Morning. Dedication, you know?" Radon opened his mouth to politely decline, but the chicken had already bounced away, taking the stairs two at a time despite the elevator being right there. Yellow smoke trailed behind him, dissipating before it reached the ceiling.
More followed. An elephant named Bubba Bubbaphant, according to Dogday's running introductions, who moved with surprising grace for his size and spoke in measured, thoughtful sentences that made Radon feel like everything he said was being carefully catalogued and analyzed. A gold light bulb pendant hung from his neck, and his eyes held the sharp focus of someone whose mind never stopped working. Faint aqua-blue smoke puffed from his trunk when he exhaled.
A bear named Bobby Bearhug came next, and she immediately lived up to her name by pulling Radon into an embrace that pressed his face into soft red fur. The smell of roses hit him like a wall, sweet and overwhelming. A red heart pendant pressed against his cheek as she squeezed.
"Welcome, welcome, welcome!" she said, her voice muffled by her own fur as she held him. "We're so happy you're here. The fifth floor hasn't had a new face in ages."
Radon stood rigid in her arms, unsure where to put his hands, unsure if he was supposed to hug back. He settled for an awkward pat on her shoulder that she either didn't notice or chose to ignore. Radon can feel the bones cracking along his back wondering how strong she is.
A rabbit called Hoppy Hopscotch arrived next, circling him twice with the speed of someone who had never learned to stand still. A gold lightning bolt pendant swung wildly as she moved, and green smoke puffed from her nose in short bursts. She declared him "acceptable" after her inspection and then challenged him to a race down the hallway before being talked down by the others.
"Maybe later," Dogday said, steering her away with a practiced hand. "Let the man breathe."
"Breathing is for people who aren't fast enough," Hoppy shot back, but she backed off, bouncing on her heels instead of actually running.
Then there was Craftycorn. She was small, the smallest of the group by far. A unicorn snow white fur. Her eyes were huge, the kind of eyes that saw the world differently than everyone else. She wore a pendant shaped like a flower, five petals in five different colors surrounding a yellow center, and she carried herself with a shyness that Radon recognized because he saw her from the window outside when arriving.
"Hi," she said softly, barely audible above the chaos of the others. Sky-blue smoke curled gently from her nostrils, so faint it was almost invisible. "I'm Craftycorn. I live down the hall. If you ever need anything... I mean, I'm not very useful for most things, but I can make stuff. Art stuff. If you like art." She trailed off, looking like she regretted speaking at all. Radon understood that feeling. The urge to take back words the moment they left your mouth. The certainty that you'd said too much, or not enough, or the wrong thing entirely.
"Art's good," he said, and the surprise on her face made him realize how rarely he offered even that much.
Finally, emerging from the elevator with timing that suggested she'd been waiting for the right moment, came a pig carrying a tray loaded with food. The smell hit Radon before the introductions did, something savory, something that made his stomach remember he hadn't eaten breakfast. A red apple pendant bounced against her chest as she walked, and pink smoke curled from her snout.
"Pickypiggy," she announced, balancing the tray on one hand with practiced ease. "I run the restaurant downstairs. You're skin and bones, pup. We need to fix that." She thrust the tray toward him. "Here. Welcome to the building. Eat something before you fall over."
Radon stood in the center of the hallway, surrounded by strangers who were looking at him like he was already a friend, like he already belonged, and felt nothing but the overwhelming urge to retreat to his empty apartment and lock the door behind him.
"I appreciate it," he managed, "but I really can han-."
"Nonsense!" Bobby had already scooped up one of his boxes from somewhere, when had anyone brought those up? and was heading into his apartment. "Many paws make light work. That's what my mother always said. Or was it many hands? Either way, the point stands."
"I'll get the heavy stuff," Bubba offered, already moving toward the elevator. "Dogday, you coordinate. Catnap, try to stay awake long enough to actually help." The purple cat's only response was a slow blink that might have been acknowledgement or might have been the beginning of a nap. Just like that, before Radon could mount any further protest, his moving day had become a community event.
They moved with surprising efficiency, these strangers who had appointed themselves his moving crew. Kickin Chicken, having returned from wherever he'd bounced off to, carried boxes two at a time, his competitive nature apparently extending to manual labor. He raced Bubba up the stairs despite the elephant taking the elevator, and somehow declared himself the winner both times. Bubba handled the heavier items, including the disassembled desk that Radon had been dreading reassembling alone. The elephant examined each piece with the careful attention of an engineer, sorting them into logical groups before they even reached the apartment.
Bobby directed traffic with gentle but firm authority, ensuring boxes ended up in the right places. "Books go by the window," she decided, without consulting Radon. "Better light for reading. Kitchen stuff in the kitchen, obviously. Work things near the outlet. You'll need to plug things in soon, yes?" Radon nodded, because nodding was easier than arguing, and because she was right.
Hoppy made a game of it, racing herself up and down the stairs while the others used the elevator. She kept a running count of her trips, announced loudly to anyone who would listen, and challenged Kickin to beat her record. He accepted. They both lost track of the actual number within minutes but continued arguing about it anyway. Dogday moved through it all like a conductor, offering help where needed, smoothing over the moments when Kickin's enthusiasm threatened to knock something over or when Hoppy's speed nearly caused a collision in the hallway. He had a word for everyone, a solution for every small problem, a way of making chaos feel organized. Catnap did very little, but somehow was always exactly where he needed to be. Holding a door. Catching a box that tipped. Standing in the right spot to prevent a collision. He moved like water finding its level, and Radon found himself watching the purple cat more than he meant to. Pickypiggy had disappeared back to her restaurant but sent up more food via Hoppy, who delivered it with the announcement that "the pig says you need to eat more, and she's always right about food stuff."
And throughout it all, Craftycorn struggled. Radon noticed it during his third trip down the stairs; he'd insisted on helping carry his own belongings, partly out of guilt and partly because standing around while strangers did his work felt worse than the work itself. She had grabbed one of the book boxes marked BOOKS - FICTION, the one that was deceptively heavy because it contained his entire fantasy collection, and was attempting to carry it up the stairs alone. Her small frame bent under the weight. Her hooves scraped against each step as she forced herself upward, refusing to ask for help despite clearly needing it. The box wobbled in her grip, threatening to spill its contents with every step. Pride, Radon thought. He recognized that too. The refusal to admit you couldn't handle something. The determination to prove yourself useful even when the task was beyond you.
He watched her reach the third floor landing, watched her pause to catch her breath while trying to make it look like she wasn't pausing at all. Watched the box tilt dangerously as her grip shifted, her hooves slipping on the cardboard. He didn't think about it. Didn't weigh the social implications or calculate the appropriate response. He just moved. Three flights of stairs, taken quickly enough that he reached her just as the box began to slip. His paws closed around it, taking the weight from her before it could fall.
"I've got it," he said quietly, not making eye contact. "This one's heavier than it looks." Craftycorn's eyes went wide with embarrassment, with gratitude, with something Radon couldn't quite read. "I was doing okay," she said, but her voice held no conviction.
"Books are deceptive." He adjusted his grip, started up the stairs. "I probably packed too many."
"There's no such thing as too many books," Craftycorn said, falling into step beside him. The words came out quick, automatic, and then she blushed, actually blushed, color rising in her cheeks beneath the rainbow fur. "I mean, that's what I think. Other people probably disagree. Most people probably disagree. I read a lot. Too much, maybe. I should probably-."
"I agree," Radon said, and the surprise on her face almost made him smile. Almost. "About the books. There's no such thing as too many."
They climbed the rest of the stairs in silence, but it was a different kind of silence than the one Radon usually inhabited. Less empty. Less cold. She stayed beside him, matching his pace, and when they reached the fourth floor landing she held the door without being asked. At the fifth floor, she ducked under his arm as he passed through, a small gesture that required her to move closer than strangers usually did. "Thank you," she said softly. "For the box. And for not making it weird." Radon nodded, because nodding was easier than finding words, and continued toward his apartment.
He didn't notice Dogday watching from the hallway, a thoughtful expression on the golden dog's face. Didn't notice the way Catnap had paused his drifting to observe the small moment. Didn't notice anything except the weight of the box in his arms and the unfamiliar feeling settling in his chest, something warm, something uncomfortable, something he hadn't asked for and didn't know what to do with.
By early afternoon, the moving was done. The boxes were stacked in his apartment with something approaching organization. The desk was reassembled, Bubba had insisted on helping, and Radon had to admit the elephant's engineering instincts made the process significantly faster. The mattress was in place. The essentials were accessible. The Smiling Critters, that's what they called themselves, Radon had gathered from scattered conversation, gathered in his small apartment, filling the space with their presence in a way that made the walls feel closer and farther away at the same time.
"Not bad," Hoppy declared, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet as she surveyed the space. "Small, but cozy. You could do a lot with this. Some posters, maybe. Plants. Do you like plants? I kill every plant I try to keep alive, but some people have the gift."
"He needs curtains," Bobby added, nodding toward the bare window. "The light in the morning can be brutal. I have some extras if you want them. Nothing fancy, but they'll do the job."
"What he needs," Pickypiggy interjected, she had reappeared at some point with yet another tray of food. "Is a proper meal. You can't live on takeout and instant noodles. I can tell just by looking at you, that's what you've been eating. Probably for years." Radon had, in fact, been living on takeout and instant noodles for years. He didn't confirm this out loud. Her look that she gave him reminded of his aunt that makes a ton of food daily and would stuff a turkey for breakfast to feed the kids before heading to school.
Dogday stepped forward, cutting through the well-meaning chaos with his natural authority. "Alright, everyone. Let's give Radon some space. He's had a long morning, and I'm sure he wants to settle in." He turned to Radon, that warm smile still in place. "Welcome to Fifth Street. We're glad to have you."
One by one, they filed out. Bobby with a final hug that Radon endured rather than reciprocated. Kickin with a reminder about gym schedules that Radon immediately filed away under 'things to avoid.' Hoppy with a wink and a challenge to a rematch race that Radon had no memory of agreeing to in the first place. Bubba with a thoughtful nod and a comment about the desk's structural integrity that Radon didn't fully understand. Pickypiggy with yet another tray of food that she deposited in his kitchenette without asking permission. Craftycorn slipped out without saying goodbye, just a small wave from the doorway that Radon almost missed. He caught it at the last moment, raised his own hand in response, and saw her smile before she disappeared. Catnap was the last to leave. He had said perhaps four words the entire afternoon, "heavy," "left," "careful," and "door."
He paused at the threshold, those half-lidded eyes meeting Radon's with an intensity that seemed at odds with his drowsy demeanor. He said nothing. Just looked at Radon for a long moment, something unreadable passing behind those sleepy eyes. His tail, which Radon now noticed was far longer than a normal cat's tail should be, curled and uncurled slowly behind him. Then he nodded once, a gesture that felt like acknowledgment and assessment and something else entirely, and drifted away. The door closed silently behind him, as if even the hinges knew better than to disturb his exit. Radon was alone. The apartment was quiet. The boxes were stacked. The food was cooling on his counter. He stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by evidence of kindness he hadn't asked for, and waited for the relief to come. It didn't.
The silence should have been a relief. For years, Radon had cultivated silence the way others cultivated gardens or friendships. He had built his life around it, choosing apartments with thick walls, jobs that let him work remotely, routines that minimized contact with other people. Silence was safety. Silence was controlled. Silence was the absence of all the things that could go wrong when you let other people close enough to matter. However, the silence in apartment 117 felt different. He stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by boxes he had packed himself, in a space that was technically his but felt borrowed. The warmth of the afternoon had dissipated with the departure of his unexpected moving crew, leaving behind an emptiness that seemed more pronounced for having been briefly filled.
Radon shook his head, physically trying to dislodge the thought. This was what he wanted. This was always what he wanted. A place to exist without being seen. A life without complications. The Smiling Critters were an anomaly, a burst of unasked-for kindness that would fade as soon as they realized he had nothing to offer in return. He began unpacking with methodical precision. Work setup first. Laptop on the desk, positioned at the exact center. Monitors on either side, angled at the precise degrees that minimized eye strain. He had measured once, years ago, and the numbers had stuck in his head ever since. Cables were organized with the kind of care that bordered on obsessiveness, each one labeled with small strips of tape so he would know which was which without having to trace them.
The keyboard went in front of the main monitor. The mouse to the right, on a pad he had owned for six years and refused to replace despite the worn spot where his palm rested. A small lamp for late nights, positioned to illuminate the desk without creating glare on the screens. When he finished, the workspace looked exactly like every workspace he had ever set up. Functional. Efficient. Ready for the work that paid his bills and filled his hours and gave him an excuse to avoid everything else.
Kitchen supplies came next, what little he had. A single pot, scratched from years of use but still serviceable. A single pan, nonstick coating wearing thin in the center. Two plates, one for use and one for backup, because backups were important when you lived alone and couldn't borrow from neighbors you refused to know. Two sets of utensils, same logic. A coffee maker that had survived three moves and still produced mediocre coffee every single morning.
He arranged everything in the small kitchenette with the same precision he had applied to his desk. Pot and pan in the cabinet below the stove. Plates and utensils in the drawer beside the sink. Coffee maker on the counter, positioned near the single outlet, cord tucked neatly against the wall.
The books took longer. He had too many of them. He knew this. Every time he moved, he swore he would get rid of some, donate them to libraries or leave them in little free libraries or simply throw them away. And every time, he packed them all, because the thought of abandoning a book felt too much like abandoning a friend. Which was ridiculous, because books weren't friends. Books were objects. Paper and ink and binding, nothing more. The fact that he had read some of them four or five times, that he knew certain passages by heart, that he sometimes opened them just to visit familiar words like visiting familiar places, meant nothing. He shelved them anyway. Fiction on one shelf, organized alphabetically by the author. Technical manuals and programming references on another, organized by subject. A small stack of books that didn't fit either category went on the floor beside his mattress, within arm's reach for nights when sleep refused to come.
The food Pickypiggy had left sat on the kitchenette counter, containers stacked neatly, still faintly warm. The smell had been filling the apartment the entire time he unpacked, a constant presence he had been trying to ignore. Something savory. Something that smelled like home, or what he imagined home might smell like if he had ever had one worth remembering. He ignored it for as long as he could, which turned out to be approximately forty-five minutes. The first bite made him pause. He stood at the counter, fork halfway to his mouth, and just stopped. The flavor was unexpected. Not restaurant food, with its careful balance of salt and fat designed to make you want more. This was different. This tasted like someone had made it specifically for him, had thought about what he might need after a long morning of moving, and had put care into every ingredient. The second bite made him sit down. Or rather, lean against the counter, because he still hadn't unpacked his single chair and the mattress was too far away. By the third bite, he had given up any pretense of doing anything else. He stood there in his empty apartment, eating food a stranger had made for him, and felt something he couldn't name. It was good. Not just edible, not just adequate, but genuinely good. The kind of good that made him slow down, made him actually taste what he was eating instead of just shoveling fuel into his body. Home cooking, Pickypiggy had called it. Radon couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten anything that qualified. When the food was gone, he washed the containers carefully and set them aside to return. Because that's what you did when someone gave you something. You gave it back. And then you moved on.
The afternoon faded into evening. The gray sky outside his window darkened by degrees, the Seattle skyline transforming from a collection of shapes into a constellation of lights. Radon sat at his desk, laptop open, staring at code that needed debugging but finding himself unable to focus. His mind kept drifting back to the day. To Dogday's immediate warmth, offered without expectation of return. To Kickin Chicken's boundless energy, exhausting but somehow not hostile. To Bubba's quiet competence, Bobby's maternal care, Hoppy's competitive spirit that seemed more playful than aggressive. To Craftycorn, struggling with a box she couldn't carry, refusing to ask for help. To Catnap, saying nothing but seeing everything. They were strangers. They would remain strangers. Radon had made an art form of keeping people at arm's length, and these new neighbors, however kind they seemed, would be no exception.
This was temporary. All of it was temporary. The apartment, the job, the city. Seattle was just another stop on a journey that had no destination, another place to exist for a while before circumstances or restlessness or both propelled him somewhere else. That was the truth Radon had accepted years ago. People didn't stay. Connections didn't last. Every friend he'd ever made had eventually become a name he struggled to remember, a face that blurred at the edges, a text thread that went unanswered until it stopped existing entirely. It was easier this way. Cleaner. If you never let anyone close, you never had to feel the loss when they inevitably drifted away.
His phone buzzed. A text from a number he didn't recognize. He picked it up, read the message. ‘Hope you're settling in okay! This is Dogday, by the way. Got your number from the lease application. Hope that's not weird. Just wanted to say, if you need anything, 118 is literally right next door. Don't be a stranger!’
Radon stared at the message for a long moment. His thumb hovered over the keyboard, considering possible responses. Something polite but distant. Something that acknowledged the kindness without encouraging further contact. Thanks would work. Or Appreciate it. Something short, something that closed the door without slamming it. He closed the messaging app without replying. The evening stretched on. Radon finished unpacking the last of his boxes, flattened them for recycling, and surveyed his new domain. Everything was in its place. Everything was organized. The apartment looked exactly like every other apartment he had ever lived in. Functional, impersonal, ready to be abandoned at a moment's notice.
Perfect. He showered in the small bathroom, noting the water pressure, which was acceptable, and the hot water reliability, which was surprisingly good. The slight mold problem in one corner of the ceiling was typical, expected, nothing worth complaining about. He had lived with worse. He changed into clothes that weren't covered in moving-day dust and sat on his mattress. No bed frame, just the mattress on the floor, because bed frames were heavy and complicated and temporary. Everything was temporary.
Through the wall, he could hear something. Music, maybe. Or conversation. The sounds of life happening in the apartments around him, muffled but present. Radon closed his eyes and listened. There was laughter. Bobby's, he thought, though he wasn't sure how he knew that. A burst of something loud that was probably Kickin. A lower rumble that might have been Bubba. The Smiling Critters, living their lives, sharing their evening, being together in a way that Radon had never quite figured out how to be. He should close the window. Block out the sound. Return to the silence he had cultivated so carefully.
Instead, he lay down on his mattress, staring at the ceiling of his new apartment in his new city, and listened to the distant sounds of belonging that filtered through the walls. They're just being polite, he told himself. That's what people do when someone new moves in. They help, they smile, they are nice. Then they go back to their own lives and forget you exist. Give it a week. Maybe two. The attention would fade. The interest would wane. Radon would settle into his routine, work, sleep, minimal interaction, and the Smiling Critters would find other things to occupy their time. It always happened that way. It always would. He closed his eyes, but sleep didn't come easily. His mind kept returning to the day, replaying moments he didn't ask it to preserve. Dogday's immediate warmth. Craftycorn's grateful surprise. Catnap's lingering gaze. When he finally drifted off, somewhere in the small hours of the morning, his last conscious thought was a question he didn't want to answer. What if this time is different? But he already knew the answer. It wouldn't be. It never was.
*****
The first week in Seattle passed in a blur of routine. Radon woke early each morning, before the January sun had fully committed to rising, and worked through the gray hours with the kind of focused intensity that had made him valuable to employers despite his complete lack of social skills. The code he wrote was clean, efficient, and functional. Everything about his personal life was not. There was comfort in that contrast, in having at least one domain where he knew exactly what he was doing. His current contract was with a tech company based in Austin that had never required him to step foot in Texas, which suited everyone involved. Remote work meant no office politics, no mandatory social gatherings, no pressure to perform the complex dance of workplace friendship that Radon had never learned the steps to. Just assignments sent via email and deliverables submitted the same way, his entire professional existence reduced to timestamps and commit messages.
The fifth floor proved harder to ignore than he had hoped. Not because anyone demanded his attention. Quite the opposite, actually. The Smiling Critters seemed to have an almost supernatural sense of when to appear and when to vanish. Radon would open his door to fetch the mail, and there would be Bubba, passing by with a thoughtful nod that required only a nod in return. He would make a rare trip to the lobby, and Bobby would appear from the stairwell, offering a smile and a quick wave before continuing on her way. Small interactions. Brief encounters. Nothing that required more than the most basic social response. And yet. Dogday knocked twice that week. Once to deliver a package that had been misdelivered to his door, standing in the hallway with the box in his arms and that easy smile on his face.
"Happens all the time," he said. "The delivery guys get confused. Let me know if you're ever missing something."
The second time was an invitation. A building-wide dinner at Pickypiggy's restaurant, everyone gathering downstairs for food and conversation and the kind of casual togetherness that made Radon's skin itch just thinking about it. He declined with an excuse about deadlines that was technically true but mostly convenient. Dogday accepted the refusal with grace, no pressure, just a "maybe next time" and that warm smile that seemed to come as naturally to him as breathing. Orange smoke curled gently from his nose as he turned to leave, vanilla scent lingering in the hallway long after he was gone.
Pickypiggy left food outside his door three separate times that week. Containers of things Radon couldn't name but couldn't resist eating, accompanied by notes written in looping script. The first one scolded him for being too thin. The second praised the empty containers he had returned, washed and stacked neatly outside her restaurant door. The third simply said, "Eat. You need it." He tried to pay her once, pressing bills into her hooves when he caught her in the hallway. She had looked at him like he'd offered her an insult, her snout wrinkling and pink smoke puffing in short, offended bursts.
"Family doesn't pay family," she said, and walked away before he could argue with either the premise or the conclusion.
Kickin Chicken remained a force of nature, appearing at unexpected moments with invitations to gym sessions that Radon consistently declined. The chicken didn't seem offended by the refusals. If anything, he seemed to view them as challenges, each "maybe another time" interpreted as "definitely another time, just not right now."
"You're coming eventually," Kickin said on day five, pointing a wing at Radon with absolute certainty. "I can tell. You've got potential. Just need someone to unlock it."
"I really don't thi-."
"Tomorrow. Six AM. I'll knock." He bounced away before Radon could refuse, yellow smoke trailing behind him like a victory flag. He did knock. Radon pretended to be asleep. Kickin knocked louder. Radon pulled his pillow over his head and waited until the chicken gave up, which took longer than expected.
Hoppy challenged him to various competitions throughout the week. Races, arm wrestling, staring contests, a game involving bottle caps that Radon didn't understand the rules of and lost anyway. She had a seemingly unlimited supply of competitive energy and limited outlets for it, and Radon had somehow become her favorite target. He lost every challenge he was somehow talked into accepting, which seemed to delight her.
"You're terrible at everything," she announced after beating him in a thumb war, her ears twitching with satisfaction. "I love it. Finally, someone I can actually beat."
"You beat everyone," Bubba pointed out from somewhere down the hall.
"Yeah, but they try. He doesn't even try. It's refreshing." Radon wasn't sure if that was a compliment or an insult. He decided not to ask.
Bobby appeared periodically with offers of things. Curtains for his bare window. A lamp she wasn't using anymore. A small rug that would "really tie the room together." He declined everything as politely as he could, but she didn't seem discouraged. Each refusal was met with a patient smile and a promise to ask again later, as if his resistance was simply a temporary condition that would eventually pass.
Bubba was the easiest to deal with, mostly because the elephant seemed to understand the value of silence. They passed each other in the hallway several times, exchanged nods or brief words about the weather, and went their separate ways. No pressure. No expectations. Just two people acknowledging each other's existence without demanding anything more.
"Cold today," Bubba said on day three.
"Yeah," Radon agreed. That was the entire conversation. It was, by Radon's standards, perfect.
Craftycorn he saw less often. She seemed to operate on a different schedule than the others, emerging from her apartment at odd hours and disappearing just as quickly. When they did cross paths, she offered small waves and smaller smiles, never pushing for conversation, never making him feel like he owed her anything for the moment on the stairs. On day four, he found something under his door. A drawing. Simple, done in colored pencil on plain paper. A wolf reading a book, curled up in a chair that looked nothing like any furniture Radon owned, surrounded by stacks of more books. The wolf's expression was peaceful, content, lost in whatever story filled the pages. No note accompanied it. Just the drawing, signed in the corner with a small rainbow. Radon stared at it for longer than he cared to admit. The detail was impressive for something so simple. The way the wolf's ears tilted forward, focused on the book. The way the light seemed to fall across the page, suggesting a window just out of frame. The careful attention to the book spines, each one a different color, each one suggesting a different world.
Someone had thought about him. Specifically him, not just the anonymous new neighbor. Someone had created something in response to a conversation that had lasted maybe two minutes, a shared opinion about books that Radon had almost forgotten. He tucked the drawing into one of his books, telling himself he'd throw it away later. He didn't throw it away. It was a nice gift and honestly a lovely gift.
Then there was Catnap. The purple cat seemed to exist on a different plane than the others. While everyone else filled space with words and energy and presence, Catnap occupied silence. He would be in the hallway when Radon emerged for his occasional trips downstairs, leaning against the wall or sitting on the floor with his back against his door, never doing anything obvious, just existing. Watching. Waiting for something Radon couldn't identify. They had exchanged perhaps a dozen words total across the entire week. "Morning." "Night." "Cold out." Fragments of conversation that other people would consider barely worth having.
Radon found himself noticing Catnap in ways he didn't notice the others. The way the cat's eyes tracked movement even when he seemed half-asleep. The way his tail curled and uncurled with a mind of its own, sometimes stretching to lengths that seemed impossible before contracting back to normal. The faint smell of lavender that surrounded him, barely perceptible but always present. The purple smoke that drifted from his nose in lazy spirals, dissipating before it reached the ceiling. There was something about Catnap's silence that felt different from Radon's own. Not defensive or protective, but comfortable. Chosen. As if he had simply decided that most things didn't require words and saw no reason to pretend otherwise.
Radon envied that, in a way he didn't fully understand.
By day seven, the pattern had become something approaching routine. Wake, work, minimal interactions, work more, sleep. The same cycle Radon had maintained in every city he'd lived in, adapted slightly for new geography but fundamentally unchanged. He should have been comfortable. This was what he knew. This was what worked. But something was different this time, and Radon couldn't quite put his finger on what. Maybe it was the way his apartment never felt quite as silent as his previous ones had. Through the walls, through the floor, through the ceiling, traces of life seeped in no matter how carefully he curated his isolation. Laughter from Dogday's apartment. Music from somewhere down the hall. The heavy footsteps of Bubba going about his business, the lighter patter of Hoppy's perpetual motion.
Maybe it was the food, warm and homemade, appearing outside his door like offerings. The notes that came with it, cheerfully demanding nothing except that he eat something that wasn't instant noodles.
Maybe it was the drawing of a wolf with a book, tucked inside his copy of a fantasy novel he'd read four times, a small piece of evidence that someone had thought about him and created something in response.
Or maybe it was simply the cumulative weight of kindness offered without conditions, piling up against the walls he had built, not demanding entry but simply present. Waiting. As if the Smiling Critters had all the time in the world and had collectively decided to spend some of it on him.
Radon didn't know what to do with that. He had built his entire adult life on the assumption that kindness was transactional, that every gift came with strings, every favor required repayment, every connection existed only as long as it was useful to both parties. The Smiling Critters violated every rule he had established, and he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. It hadn't dropped yet. That, more than anything else, was what made him nervous.
*****
The second week began with snow. Not the half-hearted flurries that had greeted Radon's arrival, but real snow. Thick and white and insistent, piling up on windowsills and burying cars and transforming Seattle into something softer, quieter, more forgiving. Schools closed. Businesses shut their doors. The city, unaccustomed to this level of winter, ground to a halt and waited for nature to remember that the Pacific Northwest wasn't supposed to get this kind of weather. Radon watched it fall from his window, coffee in hand, and felt something he couldn't quite name. The snow changed things on the fifth floor. With everyone trapped inside, with normal routines disrupted, the building turned inward. Radon could hear more activity than usual. Footsteps in the hallway, doors opening and closing, the general hum of people who suddenly had nowhere else to be. Dogday knocked on his door mid-morning, snow still melting in his golden fur from a trip outside. His ears were damp, his tail leaving wet marks on the hallway carpet, but his smile was as warm as ever.
"Just checking in," he said, orange smoke curling gently from his nose. "Building's have heat and power, but let me know if anything acts up. These old radiators can be temperamental." Radon nodded, because that's what you did when your landlord checked on you during a snowstorm. Normal. Expected. Not worth examining too closely. But Dogday didn't immediately leave. He stood in the doorway, that warm presence filling the space between them, and looked at Radon with an expression that held too much understanding.
"We're doing a movie thing later," he said. "In my apartment. Nothing fancy, just everyone piling on the couch and arguing about what to watch. You're welcome to join."
"Thanks, but I've got work to finish." The refusal was automatic, rehearsed.
"The whole city's shut down, Radon." Dogday's voice was gentle, no judgment in it. "No one's expecting anything from you today. Not even your job." Radon had no response to that. His usual excuses evaporated in the face of simple truth. Dogday smiled, that knowing expression that seemed to see right through every wall Radon had built.
"The door's open. No pressure. But if you change your mind..." He shrugged, turned, and walked back toward apartment 118. The vanilla scent lingered in the hallway after he was gone, mixing with the smell of snow that had followed him inside. The door closed. The apartment was silent again. Radon stood there for a long moment, staring at the back of his own door, feeling the weight of the invitation pressing against his carefully maintained solitude. He returned to his desk. Opened his laptop. Stared at code that seemed less important than it had an hour ago.
Through the walls, he could hear them gathering. Voices muffled but recognizable. Kickin's loudness, impossible to mistake for anyone else. Bobby's warmth, her laugh carrying even through the barrier between apartments. Hoppy's energy, audible in the rapid-fire way she spoke. The sounds of people coming together because the world outside had given them permission to stop moving, to simply be with each other. He could join them. It was just across the hall. A few steps, a knock on a door, and he would be part of something larger than himself. The thought terrified him. Not because they were strangers. They weren't, not quite, not anymore. Two weeks of small interactions had accumulated into something approaching familiarity. He knew the sound of Dogday's knock, the pattern of Catnap's presence, the rhythm of Pickypiggy's deliveries.
No, what terrified him was simpler and more complicated than that. It was the possibility of wanting something and not getting it. Of reaching out and finding nothing to hold onto. Of letting himself hope and being reminded, once again, why hope was a luxury he couldn't afford. The afternoon darkened. The snow continued to fall. Radon sat at his desk, not working, not reading, not doing anything except listening to the muffled sounds of community happening without him.
At some point, Pickypiggy knocked with another container of food. She didn't wait for a response, just left it outside his door with a note. He heard her footsteps retreating before he even reached the hallway. The note said simply: "You can be lonely tomorrow. Tonight, eat something warm." He stood in his doorway, container in hand, reading the words three times. The handwriting was the same looping script as always, but something about this note felt different. Less scolding, more invitation. Less demand, more understanding. She knew he wasn't coming. She had left him food anyway. He ate it at his desk, alone, while laughter filtered through the walls.
The movie, or movies judging by the shifting soundtrack, ended late. Radon heard the dispersal around eleven, doors opening and closing as the Smiling Critters returned to their own apartments. Footsteps in the hallway that paused, briefly, outside his door before continuing on. He didn't check who it was. Didn't open the door. Didn't do anything except sit in the dark of his apartment, watching the snow fall through his window, feeling the absence of something he had never actually possessed. His phone lit up. The group chat that Dogday had added him to, without asking, had been active all evening. He picked it up, scrolled through the messages he had been ignoring.
Photos from the movie night. Bobby and Hoppy making exaggerated faces at the camera, Hoppy's ears sticking straight up while Bobby's paw covered half her own face. A badly lit shot of food that Pickypiggy had probably taken herself, captioned "leftovers available for anyone who missed out." Kickin flexing in front of the TV, blocking whatever movie was playing, with Bubba's trunk visible at the edge of the frame pushing him out of the way. A single purple emoji from Catnap. A crescent moon. Nothing else. Somehow it conveyed more than the paragraphs of text surrounding it. At the bottom, a message from Dogday: "Great night everyone. Radon, hope you're warm over there. The offer always stands."
Below it, various responses. A sleeping emoji from Catnap. A muscle flex from Kickin. Hearts from Bobby and Craftycorn. Hoppy had sent a string of snowflake emojis followed by the words "REMATCH WHEN THE SNOW MELTS" in all caps. Radon read every message. He did not respond. But he didn't close the app either. And when he finally set the phone down and climbed onto his mattress, the screen still glowing faintly in the dark room, he let himself feel it. The loneliness. The wanting. The fear. They're just being polite, the familiar voice insisted. Give it time. They'll forget about you. Everyone always forgets. But there was another voice now, quieter, newer, less certain of itself. What if they don't?
Outside, the snow continued to fall. Inside, Radon Maxwell lay awake in his empty apartment, surrounded by the sounds and smells and evidence of a community that kept reaching out despite his best efforts to remain unreachable.
He thought about Dogday's words. "You don't have to earn your place here. You just have to stay." He hadn't said that today. He had said it in passing, earlier in the week, a throwaway comment that Radon had filed away and tried to forget. But it kept surfacing, those words, every time he convinced himself that this was temporary, that these people would eventually give up on him the way everyone else had. You just have to stay. Such a simple thing. Such an impossible thing.
He thought about Craftycorn's drawing, still tucked inside his book. About Pickypiggy's food, warm and homemade, asking nothing in return except that he eats it. About Catnap's silence, which felt less like absence and more like space. Room for Radon to exist without having to explain or justify himself.
He thought about Bobby's hugs, which he had learned to endure. About Kickin's persistence, which he had learned to expect. About Hoppy's challenges, which he had learned to lose with something approaching grace. About Bubba's thoughtful nods, which somehow said more than most people's conversations.
Two weeks. Fourteen days. An eyeblink in the span of a life. And yet.
Something had changed. Not dramatically, not obviously, but in small ways that accumulated like snow on a windowsill. Radon wasn't who he had been when he stepped out of that moving truck on that gray January morning. He wasn't better, exactly, or happier, or more connected. But he was less certain. Less confident in his isolation. Less convinced that the walls he had built were protecting him rather than imprisoning him. The Smiling Critters had done that. Without pressure, without demands, without any of the social obligations that usually made his skin crawl. They had simply been kind, over and over again, until kindness started to feel less like an anomaly and more like a language he might one day learn to speak. He didn't know what to do with that. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he wanted to find out. Sleep came slowly, as it always did. But when it finally arrived, it was deeper and more restful than usual, and Radon's last conscious thought was not a reminder of how temporary everything was, but a question. ‘What happens if I stay?’
The snow continued to fall outside his window, covering Seattle in a blanket of white, transforming the familiar into something new. In apartment 117, on the fifth floor of an unremarkable building on Fifth Street, a wolf who had spent his entire life leaving began, without quite realizing it, to consider staying.