Cat and Dog

April woke up to the sound of her alarm clock.

"....I don't wanna go to work."

She kept staring up at the ceiling before unconsciously opening up her phone. The still open dating app 'Let's Meet!' from last night greeted her and made her frown.

"Making an account....I really don't want to…...but Steph's gonna be so annoying…..."

April groaned and threw her cover over her head while rolling around her bed.

"Women and men and couples and breakups, this is all so annoying…...why can't I just live my life peacefully single?! I'm only 23....only…...23….."

She accidentally rolled off the bed and fell onto the carpet with a thump. April sat in a daze with a blank mind before her second alarm suddenly rang out and woke her up. She jumped up and looked at the clock in panic.

"Ah! It's already so late?! No time for breakfast, I'm going to be late-!"

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"Look who's here! April! How's your morning so far? I'm sorry about leaving before we were finished yesterday but….."

April kept listening to the coworker who had left her yesterday to finish the project with a forced smile on her face.

".....so no hard feelings, right? You managed to finish it in time after all! Everything's good!" He said while patting her on the back. "Let's keep up the good work!"

"....Right…..haha…." April awkwardly chuckled. "Well, I'm going to get started then. Good luck."

She quickly headed to her desk and sat down with a sigh.

'What the hell?! Leave me to do all the work and then come back perfectly fine and refreshed and you think everything is fine with just a half-assed apology? Yeah, I see how it is!' April yelled in her head while keeping up a poker face.

'I guess there's nothing that can be done, it's not a super big deal anyway….better to keep out of unnecessary trouble….'

April leaned back on her chair and calmed down.

She didn't want a hard life, just get enough money to support herself and that's enough. Lay low, be laid-back, don't get involved in drama, keep away from gossipy people, don't get in trouble.

Enjoy life with her few friends and family members, work in a good environment, and live a common life.

So far so good. Life's been going as planned since high school. April wasn't an honor student but always had decent grades as well.

Her family was not rich but they didn't struggle financially either. She'd never been through any relationship problems, never made any bad friends.

April finally smiled after reciting her daily mantra to herself. She was pumped back up and ready to finish the week!

Sitting back up and turning on her computer, she buried herself into her work with renewed energy.

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April let out a deep breath as she finally finished up her work for the day. Since she was so productive, she managed to double her speed and was done a few hours before her coworkers.

Of course, at the cost of skipping lunch break and not talking at all.

Starving was worth it though. Now she could go home and eat something good for dinner!

With a happy grin, she cleaned up her desk and walked to the office's break room for some water. When she entered, she realized that the room was currently occupied by some ladies who were on at least their tenth break of the day. When they saw her heading towards the water bottles they stared at her with contempt but also concealed jealousy.

"....What the heck….she's already done for the day?"

"That's impossible, there's still a few hours before everybody gets off work. She must have gotten less work than us again."

"Tsk, favoritism is the worst. Not fair at all. I wonder what she did to get it..."

April glanced at the women whispering and simply snorted before going back to making her coffee. Favoritism? Yeah right. In fact, she's been having more work than them for the past weeks since her productivity was noticed by the team manager.

Words don't hurt. It's not like she needs a bunch of friends at work in the first place. As long as they don't cross the line then she'll just keep ignoring them.

Having to deal with their gossip after only working here for a few months was annoying though.

Downing her drink and throwing away the empty plastic bottle, she packed up her stuff and left work after telling the team manager that she had finished her quota for the day.

April arrived back home and changed from her formal work clothes into a more casual outfit of jeans and a baggy hoodie. Planning to just have a relaxing evening at home instead of going out again, she removed all her makeup and sat on the only chair in the apartment with her phone out.

Opening 'Let's Meet!', she started making an account.

"Err….name? April…..age...23…..female….." She muttered while filling out her information. "Profile picture? I'm not comfortable with using my face, I guess I'll just use this picture I took of a stray cat. Birthday...blah blah blah…..alright."

She breathed out a breath of relief after finally finishing with her account registration. She lightly skimmed over the tutorial and closed the app.

There was no way that she was actually going to use it! The only reason she made an account in the first place was to get Steph off her back. Now that she had done it, hopefully she wouldn't bother her anymore.

Or at least, that was the plan before she suddenly got a notification on her phone.

Zane woke up to the sound of his mother knocking on his door.

"Zane! I've made some lunc-, or uh, breakfast for you to eat, you can come down when you are fully awake. Since you had a hard day yesterday I told your brother to give you a day off. Rest well!" She informed through the door before the sound of her footsteps headed back towards the kitchen.

He groggily sat up in his bed and checked his phone for the time.

2 PM? He sighed and rubbed his face.

Maybe he should just get up. Sulking in bed wouldn't do anything to ease his pain.

Lazily stretching with a yawn, Zane got dressed and walked into the kitchen to eat his 'breakfast'. He finished in less than a few minutes due to how hungry he was.

Without any work to do, he simply sat in his room alone in a daze while staring at his phone's screen which showed the picture of his ex-girlfriend.

"No no no this isn't going to work….."

He shook his head and forcefully snapped himself out of his depressed state.

'Dumbass! She doesn't care about you. Forget her. Forget her….'

Zane started repeating it to himself over and over again before he finally relaxed.

He took out his phone and quickly opened up the app that his brother had downloaded.

"Distraction huh….I guess trying it out wouldn't cause any harm. 'Create an account'..."

He smoothly went through the entire creation process but finally got stuck when choosing an avatar photo. In the end, he finally settled with just taking a picture of his family dog and using it.

After finishing setting up his account he followed the app tutorial and started scrolling through possible 'candidates' who had the same hobbies and personalities like him.

Yet, the longer he scrolled the darker his face became as all the profile pictures that he saw were mostly of either women with heavy makeup on(which was not his type at all) or pictures with no faces at all.

After an hour of looking around, Zane was just about to give up when he coincidentally saw a newly made account that had a cat as its avatar. He rubbed his chin with a grin on his face while thinking that it was interesting how his picture was a dog while this one was a cat. The account's information was also plain and straightforward, obviously the person was not interested in just having fun online or fooling around.

He smiled and decided to message the cat account.