Happy Despair and Loneliness Day!

Valentine’s Day is bullshit.

It started out as a holiday for a made-up saint who did made-up bullshit in a made-up story. In the middle ages, some poets decided that it had something to do with romance. Later it became a way for businesses to sell cards and make money. So, you see, Chloe had some entirely legitimate reasons to hate Valentine’s day, aside from the ones that actually mattered to her personally. It wasn’t just because she felt excluded from the holiday, or from the entire concept of romance. It wasn’t just because she feared that nobody would ever be able to love someone like her.

Chloe made Cheeto a Valentine’s card anyway. Not one that she bought, though. She made it. It was in the shape of a heart. An anatomically correct human heart, to be precise. It had a little smiley face drawn on the right ventricle in sharpie, but the rest of the details were done with pencil. On the back, it read: Happy Crippling Despair and Loneliness Day! I hate February 14th, and I hate that traveling to a different universe couldn't save me from it. Want to hide out in one of our rooms until it goes away? - CB

She hated Valentine’s day, but she liked Cheeto. Though, maybe not in that way. Unless it actually was in that way. Chloe neither knew nor cared.

So here she was, knocking on Cheeto’s door, her macabre card held against her chest where the goblin would see it.

As soon as Cheeto greeted her, she was running back into her room. “…Hi, Cheeto,” Chloe stammered. She giggled as the goblin scurried over her bed. “What are you…?”

Oh.

They exchanged Valentines. For a split second, Chloe regretted her macabre artistic decisions – it wasn’t an entirely uplifting, bright, or cheery kind of card. Why did she think it would be smart to make the message of her valentine ‘I hate this holiday?

Cheeto’s made her smile. “I think it’s great,” she assured the goblin. Cheeto always seemed to know just what to say, or write, to counteract the demon’s ever-despairing inner thoughts. “Cheesy, but in a really good way. And, uh, no pun intended.”

"So, uh..." Chloe hoped this question wouldn't make things weird between them. "Wanna spend Valentine's together?"

“…Okay.”

Chloe tried to smile, but she was becoming uncomfortably self-conscious. As fun as hanging out with Cheeto and watching Netflix would be… was ice cream supposed to make her feel better? Why did Cheeto seem so worried? Was she showing some sort of suicidal red flag?

She sat down by Cheeto’s computer. Noticing a minimized web browser, she moused over to it. “Ice cream sounds like a good idea and all,” she began. “But I hope you don’t think that I,” click. “uh, I…”

There was a picture open on Cheeto’s browser. It was a cartoon drawing of two furry anthropomorphic creatures. They were both biologically male. One of them, who was decidedly more androgynous, was wearing a frilly apron and nothing else. The other was only mostly wearing his pants. Bodily fluids featured prominently.

Chloe blushed. She cleared her throat “Cheeto, I’m really sorry. I didn’t…” She trailed off again. The demon couldn’t take her eyes off the screen.

She didn’t know how to react. She already regretted bringing attention to it – she could have just opened up Netflix and avoided this entire situation. Worse, Chloe’s mind was dwelling far too much on what Cheeto’s porn preferences might mean. So she sat there like an idiot, staring at the screen until Cheeto closed it.

Time for damage control. After a pause that she probably should have spent thinking about videos, she spoke up: “It’s… nothing to be ashamed of. Really.” Chloe grabbed her bowl of ice cream and slid away from the computer. “I mean… I look at stuff like that too, sometimes.” She hoped she wasn’t making this worse by dwelling on it. The demon shoved some ice cream in her mouth before she could say anything else that was stupid.

For a split second, Chloe thought Cheeto was offering to watch gay furry porn with her. Her blush intensified. This probably wasn’t the case, though.

Click. Click. Click. Why was she was looking in the Gay and Lesbian section of Netflix?

“Is that what they’re called?” The name summed up Chloe’s reaction nicely. Her blush had just started to die down, too. “Never heard the name, but…” This wasn’t anything worth being ashamed of, but it was still embarrassing to talk about. She mustered her courage and pressed on. “I haven’t looked at a lot of furry stuff, until recently. And most of that involved girls.”

Click. Click. Wasn’t the point of this to distract themselves from the entire concept of romance? Nothing in the gay and lesbian section would help them there. Maybe sci-fi would –

“High school romance is stupid anyway,” she blurted. “Relationships are measured in weeks.” She turned to look at Cheeto. “I spent about 8 weeks with my first sort-of-boyfriend, not including the time he spent kidnapped. Then he dumps me for one of the girls who also got kidnapped, this incredibly basic…” not knowing what word to use, she made a vague gesture and moved on. ”Who then proceeds to dump him in 9 weeks, to get back with some idiot she had dumped earlier that year.” Chloe sighed, shrugged, leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “It’s all garbage. I don’t know why I care.”

Chloe didn’t know what she was looking for. Some kind of sympathy? Proof that romance was a real thing? She ate another spoonful of ice cream. Chocolate and tiny marshmallow bits wouldn’t dump her in a matter of weeks, at least.