Change

“I just don’t get, it Grizz. Why him? Of all people…”

Grizz nervously wrung his paws as he watched Panda pace back and forth, while Ice Bear sat quietly on the sofa with his arms crossed, a hard frown on his face.

“Look…Panda, can’t you just try to understand?”

Panda stopped to shoot him an angry glance. “I am trying to understand! Help me understand, because I don’t! I mean…how? When did this happen?”

“Well, I ran into him at Burger Boy a few months back. He didn’t look like he wanted to be bothered with me, but I just tried striking up a conversation with him. And I don’t know…I said something that made him laugh and we just talked for a while. We kinda started hanging out after that, and then…well…we just clicked.”

“Clicked?” Panda scoffed. Grizz only nodded. “So this is why you’ve been leaving the cave all the time and being vague about what you were doing?”

“Yeah,” Grizz responded softly, guilt evident in his tone. “Pan-Pan, I’m sorry, but I know how you guys feel about him and I just didn’t really know how to tell you yet.”

“Have you forgotten everything he’s done? How he treated you? How he treated me? Heck, all of us!”

“That was a year ago, Panda. People can change.”

“No, this is…this is just sick, Grizz!” Panda shouted, causing his elder brother to flinch as though he had been struck. “It’s as if none of what he did matters to you!”

“Of course it does.”

“If it did, then you wouldn’t be dating him! Look, I wanted to like him, okay? I tried giving him a chance, but he’s already proven that he doesn’t care about anyone but himself! He’s bad news, Grizz. You deserve so much better than that jerk.”

Grizz bit into his lip as he tried to will himself not to cry. He had expected this kind of reaction, but he wasn’t as prepared for it as he had hoped. His gaze shifted from Panda to Ice Bear, who he saw was still sitting with his arms crossed and looking non-too-pleased about the situation. “Well?” Grizz whimpered. “Are you going to say anything?”

Ice Bear lifted his head and looked at him for only a moment before promptly standing up and making his way into the kitchen. Grizz could hear the fridge door being yanked open and then loudly slamming shut, causing the pictures on the wall to rattle slightly. Grizz’s shoulders slumped, and his gaze fell to the floor.

“We’ll talk about this later, Grizz,” Panda sighed. “I’m going to bed.”

Panda shuffled his way towards his bedroom, quietly closing the door behind him.

Sighing heavily, Grizz turned and headed for the front door, not sure whether or not he even wanted to go back inside when such a heavy amount of tension had been left hanging in the air. As the bear closed the front door behind him, he glanced to his right to find the subject of his brothers’ displeasure residing in one of the lawn chairs, his expression hard to read. “How much did you hear?”

“All of it,” Nom Nom responded quietly.

Grizz made his way over and had a seat beside him, placing his face in his paws. “I knew they probably weren’t going to take it well, but…I don’t know…I just really hoped they might be okay with it.”

“Look, you told them. That’s all that matters. Whether they accept it is up to them, not you. I think expecting them to be one hundred percent okay with it was asking too much, don’t you think?”

“I wasn’t expecting it…I was just hoping for it, that’s all,” Grizz said as he blinked away tears.

The chair creaked slightly as Nom Nom leaned back against it. “Well…now they know, and that’s the important thing. Now I have to figure out a way to tell basically the entire internet about us, because this sneaking around stuff is exhausting.” Nom Nom paused momentarily before adding, “Honestly…I’m thinking about just calling it quits and closing down my channel.”

Grizz’s eyes widened as he turned to Nom Nom sharply. “What? Why would you wanna do that? That's…That’s your whole life!”

“Grizz, my popularity has only been going down, not up. Look, a year ago I wouldn’t have been able to stomach the thought of giving up my job, but now? I don’t really care anymore. Nothing lasts forever, and it’s time I realized that. Things change. Not only that, I know exactly what’s going to happen the moment word gets out about our relationship. A huge portion of my fanbase is children, and trust me, all the homophobic soccer moms and the ignorant masses in general will come crawling out of the woodwork, sending angry e-mails and comments about how me being in a relationship with a guy is ‘inappropriate’ for their darling little wee ones,” Nom Nom spat sarcastically. “The whole thing will cause so much controversy and drama that I’ll be spending most of my time pushing back against all the criticism.”

Nom Nom’s expression darkened. “And trust me…you think my meltdown a year ago was bad? Oh ho ho, believe me, my response won’t be pretty. I’ll rip into them so hard, so fast, they’ll shut my channel down faster than you can say, "Come at me, bro!” It’s probably just best if I bypass that mess altogether and retire before things get ugly, and they will get ugly. At least with my channel being closed, I won’t have to do damage control. I mean sure, people are still going to talk about it, but it’s not going to matter because I won’t be doing videos anymore.“

Grizz closed his gaping mouth as he let Nom Nom’s words sink in. "Nom Nom…I don’t want to be the reason for you giving up your livelihood.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said it doesn’t bother me anymore. My job lost its luster months ago. I had to disable comments on all my videos because of all the hate I get. I screwed up too many times, and there’s no fixing it.”

“But won’t you miss it?”

Nom Nom thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. “Not really. I’ll be spending all my time with you, anyway, so it’s not like I’ll even have time to care.”

Grizz raised a brow. “You’ve been getting very…mature lately, which is weird considering who you’re dating,” he replied with a laugh. “I like it.”

Nom Nom felt himself blush as he shifted around in the chair, avoiding the bear’s gaze. “Yeah, well…” He looked up in surprise as he suddenly felt himself being scooped up and held tightly against the other’s chest.

“Don’t worry, even if you never make another video ever again, I’ll still think you’re the cutest,” Grizz assured him. His smile brightened as he felt the koala press closer against his chest. “You don’t mind if I stay with you tonight…do you? I don’t think I can go back in there. I think I should give them at least a day to process all this.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Thanks,” Grizz sighed as the heaviness of the situation returned, squeezing Nom Nom just a little tighter.