The morning feels new, and the sunlight in this place sure seems to mean business. I’m positive that I would get a sunburn very quickly if I wasn’t so dang super fluffy. I remind myself of a dandelion puff.

  I’m still a little giddy about Bunbun and all of these adorable critters, but my giggles soften into something quieter. They’re all very cute. I am hopeful for today to be a good day.

  I feel odd, realizing this sudden state that is in full contrast to my old personality. Maybe this is what hope is? A gentle, constantly warm ache instead of an empty void.

  Yesterday, or whatever ‘yesterday’ is here, my whole world was lead and static, and every happiness always slipped through my fingers before I could even bother to try and hold onto it. Now I feel delirious and not as I used to be. I am still me, but I feel as if somebody had taken a syringe and injected whimsy into the insides of my lizard brain. All of my hissing and gremlin-like tendencies have been replaced with what I always assumed extroverts felt all day, every day.

  Damn them.

  I drift in my glade, legs tucked under me as I bounce along the grass, delightfully floating with every skip.

  Skipping playfully is my primary method of motion now. Because I am so light and my legs are so short, walking and running look ridiculous and are very inefficient. But at the same time, my wings are too useless and stumpy to really generate any lift either. So by playfully bouncing around, I am able to make full use of my new features within the scope of their limitations. I am the ultimate life form.

  Sunbeams and dew pool around my plush body. Bunbun runs at my side as we play. But my ears are twitching to every distant snap and chirp even during our games. The world here is alive, loud with birdcalls; grass bends below me. Beneath it all, there’s still a little thud of worry down in my core: I’m not made for battle. I’m all fluff and softness. I’m a marshmallow in a world that has claws, and I feel as exposed as I did when I was a little kid, hoping for an old adult stranger to sit next to me on the bus so that the school bullies would leave me alone.

  Bunbun is at my side, twitching his nose through the bluebells. “Safe,” he says, looking up at me. He feels my tension. I know he’ll protect me, but he’s also just a cute little bunny-guy. He won’t be able to do anything if anything bigger than a salty badger finds us.

  But I nod.

  Right now, I am the adult stranger from my metaphor for him. “You’re safe,” I tell Bunbun too, not entirely sure I can enforce that promise, though.

  Since our game has stopped for literally thirteen seconds, sleep is now tugging at his face and at the corners of my mind, too. I just love sleeping. I yawn, breathing in the scent of fresh air, and look up through the bright rush of green above me.

  No. Focus. I can’t nap now. I need to do something about this problem I'm facing. Will I always feel this unguarded? Maybe. But being eaten alive by wolves wouldn’t be very cute, and so I need to deal with that now.

  I want a place that will wrap me up and make every part of me untouchable, just for a little while. That would make napping even more special. A nap fortress, if you will.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice to have walls?” I whisper, stretching out my stubby plush toes through the small daisies below me. They giggle, laughing. I giggle too. They’re very silly little things. “Or just a pillow fortress,” I muse. “Giant enough for everyone. Maybe even a roof, if I get really fancy.” The wind flicks my halo sideways, and I tap Bunbun’s paw with my own.

  He opens one eye, bleary. “Nap?” he asks, having already beaten me to the punch. The little devil.

  I shake my head, denying him. There is work to do. Silly, lazy bunny.

  “I wish we had a place to nap that was super duper cozy,” I murmur back to him, nudging him to keep him awake. He’s lying on the ground, dozing. But his body wiggles from my every cotton prod against his ribs as I force him to stay away with a series of torturous pokes. “I bet a dungeon could have a room just for that. With warm stones, a pillow for everyone. Let’s try, Bunbun,” I say, more for me than for him.

  I don’t think he gets it.

  He’s already starting to doze off.

  I poke him again. He looks at me, and I smile, my feet wiggling below me as I hover above the grass like an eager child on my tiny cherub wings. My paws are at my delightfully whimsical face as I try to suppress a giggle.

  — I am an abomination.

  But hope lights up in my chest, yuck. It’s a genuine feeling. But uncertainty is there too, very familiar to me. How do I even do this?

  I don’t know anything about being cute. And I don’t know anything about… dungeons? I mean, I guess they’re like caves, right? But there are monsters and traps. But that doesn’t sound adorable at all.

  The ‘system’ isn’t very helpful; it only dangles the ‘Build Room’ menu at me if I work at it. But it doesn’t do anything. I hammer my soft, squishy fist against the glass, expecting a squeaky-dog-toy noise to come out with every fluffy punch. “Otome games never had a construction tutorial,” I mutter. In them, you’re usually already born rich, or one of your star-crossed lovers will provide for you without you ever having to commit.

  I look at Bunbun. “Hey, Bunbun,” I start, watching his ears twitch. “Do you know how to build things?”

  His paws twitch. “Burrow,” says a sleepy voice.

  I stare. I'm not sure what I expected from a rabbit. “…Burrows aren’t very cute either,” I mutter, looking back at the window. No, I need to do something different. “What if I mess it up? What if everyone laughs, and I lose your respect for being a flop architect?” I ask Bunbun.

  His nose twitches, his eyes closing again. I don’t think rabbits understand social insecurity. My cheeks go warm, but I can’t not try.

  I pat at the grass. “Okay. Please let there be a ‘make home’ button,” I beg, but in this world I might just have to improvise.

  I raise and pull out my star-bauble wand from a secret spot that is very cute and close my eyes. I feel inside of myself for that gentle, shimmery space where love and magic overlap.

  A menu appears

  With the ‘Build Room’ menu open, I picture a round room. It’s built for nestling, for laughter. It’s a place so inviting you couldn’t feel alone for a second even if you tried, like some kind of… love prison. But not in a sketchy way. That sounded worse in my head than how I meant it.

  “Build… cuddle-castle?” I say, trying to think of something cute on the spot and the magic bubbles inside me.

  The name isn’t precise, but the intent lands. I press my wand against the soil. It lets out a soft cat’s meow. I don’t know why.

  I wish otome games covered dungeon engineering.

  However, I think it works. A little pulse of magical energy flows into the ground. The green grass turns into shades of pastel pink. The moss parts, the dirt moves, not violently, just the way bread dough shifts when it rises. It looks squishy and soft. The daisies cry out in joy as they rise along the freshly rising hill that begins to shadow me. Their laughter and giddiness overpower the desperate screams of the ones who are crushed below the shifting mass.

  The expression in my dead eyes spares no mercy for the weak.

  — This reminds me of baking!

  Maybe it’s because the dirt looks so squishy?

  Like when baking, I shape with what I imagine and sprinkle in comfort until it feels right.

  I used to bake for a little while in my old life, back when I thought I could maybe convince someone to like me if I showed I was good at something. But I stopped because I never found anyone to give the things I made to, and I got tired of eating it all by myself.

  The dirt has moved, but nothing happens. Where is my cuddle corner? I need this.

  A warning pings in my vision.

  I’m too weak for whatever I just tried to do, I guess. I repeat it out loud: “Okay. Uh… Build a small cuddle corner?” I amend, setting my scale lower as I tap the soil again with my wand.

  The wand lets out a whimsical ‘whee’ as I swing it.

  I concentrate, picturing circles. Safe open spaces fluffed with petals, with little nooks for animals who need to be alone sometimes, fill my mind. Magic flows out of me easily now, humming softly to itself, and my hands smooth the moss, humming something I half-remember from rainy mornings as I follow my deeply confusing instincts and spin in a circle, as if I were a tribal shaman. I make up an incantation on the spot.

  I have no idea how this works, so I am just trying things at this point.

  “Build up strong, build down round! But nothing scary and nothing loud!” I declare, doing my little cheerleader wiggle.

  The flowers cheer in joy. A beautiful rainbow crests across the glade. I think of the Book of Revelations.

  A circular den forms beneath me in the groove I made. A hollow, built mostly by instinct and partly by desperate guessing, begins to appear before my adorable, large, and glistening eyes. The floor gets layered with pillowy moss and thick bluebell leaves; I nudge bigger stones in the corners by swinging my wand at them, the magic making them roll into place. The sun-heated rocks radiate the kind of warmth that feels like an invitation to doze.

  Magic is fun.

  I add pastel walls, all the colors of a cotton-candy sunrise. It isn’t perfect, but it’s mine.

  I don’t finish right then, however. Instead, after placing the rocks, I lie down and take a nap with Bunbun next to the construction site. Then I get back to it. Then I nap again. I think my nap-work ratio skews toward the former.

  It takes two days and at least five pudding breaks. It turns out I can use my new ‘summon soft things’ spell to make pudding. Also, there are a few group naps with Bunbun and some overambitious mice to finish the first three soft corners. I use my magic, and Bunbun collects flowers to decorate with. But he eats most of them before he can place them. The mice burrow little tunnels and shafts for air and light, and they carry in seeds to plant in the turned soil so that flowers will blossom here soon.

  I hope they don’t talk as much as the first one did.

  Each nap seems to give me more power, and every time a friend helps, the system window hums louder.

  It turns out that I grow in ‘love power’ from every interaction like this. Whenever a friend helps me, whenever I tightly hug any of them, or whenever I take a very comfortable nap in the warm sunlight, I get more love power. This love power is my measure of strength. So when my magic runs dry and I run out of juice, I have to spend hours hugging and squeezing Sir Bunbun to recover.

  He doesn’t seem to mind. Thank you, Sir Bunbun.

  I exhale, laughing out loud at the system’s proud little chime. “Oh, that’s actually amazing!” I say, shaking out my paw and bouncing in the grass, looking at the chamber that finally takes full shape as the magic completes.

  Bunbun pokes his head into the little new space, hidden below the meadow’s newest hill. He sniffs and blinks slowly. “Soft?” he asks, ears tilted all the way sideways.

  I nod and flop belly-first into our new nest, landing on a big, fluffy, fat moss pillow that is larger than me. “Come on. Try it! You helped build it, after all.” I pat the spot by my side.

  He rolls over next to me, and together, we nestle into the cushion. The ground is so plush it tickles my back. My cheeks buzz faintly with comfort. I yawn hard into my paw, almost drifting off right there. Bunbun spreads out across my side, his tail flicking suddenly, however, as he, in an unusual aggression that surprises me, chases off a few mice who try to take the best spot in my arms.

  “That’s not very nice,” I scold, wagging a finger at him.

  He doesn’t respond, simply lifting his nose indignantly before settling in. What a naughty guy.

  But it doesn’t matter. Every little nose finds a place to set itself down on or around me.

  It’s warm.

  Lying there, I flip through my new status windows as if browsing my phone in bed in my old life. A coziness meter is counting gently upward and then falling again between the numbers five and seven, like a heartbeat.

  If only real-life friendship had a meter, maybe things would have been easier there, too.

  The moment settles golden over us. I feel it: safe, for the first time since I woke up. That anxiety, that weird feeling of being see-through and fragile, is replaced with the confidence of the shelter provided by my… no, our, new creation.

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  We made something together.

  I think this is maybe my strength. Like in an otome game, the heroine is perfect and amazing, yes. But the real secret of her success is that she lets the desperately longing souls around her help her make the world better.

  I scribble a mental note. ‘Let the group set the pace. Rest. Share chores. Make daily hugs a mandatory real requirement.’

  The hugs are the most important part. Hugs make me stronger. I will enforce a new hug law to the full extent my iron fist allows. From now on, everyone must hug me every day or be banished into the forest. Hugs or death.

  Most of the day after that first nap is spent testing the new cuddle corner with further naps in different positions and places to make sure they are all adequate. Then, we get back to work, sprucing it up a little more.

  Bunbun collects the biggest shiny leaves; the mice roll in petals and bits of dry grass. I get fancy with the magic, focusing my spells into smaller projects. My power is enough for new flowers so that every corner of the room smells like honey and bread.

  I make them without mouths. They watch me, us, and I know they’re always screaming behind their little, shiny eyes. But I can’t hear them.

  So it’s fine.

  Plus, they smell nice. The flowers in this world are really very odd. I don’t know why some of them smell this way. Bunbun watches in awe for a while as I work and then bosses the mice into taking ‘practice naps outside’ so that we’re alone and insists afterward the most ambitious of them should bring me wild blueberries, ‘just in case I need a snack.’

  He is becoming a ruthless right hand to my dastardly kingdom. Thank you, Sir Bunbun.

  More mice come from the forest, having met my first few. They told them how nice it is here, and now there are a lot more of them. I stand there, watching a small gray puddle move as a swarm, carrying blueberries and mushrooms on their backs as they make a food stockpile of only the most delicious treats the forest has to offer.

  One of them brings me a frog.

  I look at him in disdain and then point toward the forest, banishing him to die.

  — Just kidding. I love frogs.

  The mouse gets a little kiss on its head, and so does the frog, who does not turn into a prince. Imagine my surprise. Seeing this, however, Sir Bunbun is stamping the ground in jealousy. It’s very cute. He gets a kiss too, but then I deduct the same kiss from him a second afterward by sucking the air back through my lips to ‘pull it back’ from his fur again, because getting insecurely jealous and so possessive isn’t very cute.

  He is devastated.

  I am a harsh overlord.

  As for the mice, a window appears as I watch them move together as a whole, now motivated to each earn my affections as they witnessed the grand reward awaiting their services.

  Interesting. I was not aware that mice had an emergent property of becoming a hive mind upon reaching critical mass.

  By midday, the wind slides in, bringing with it a sharper chill and hint of warning; I realize the world outside is still dangerous, still pressing in as a storm grows.

  …Storms aren’t very cute, are they? I liked storms a lot in my old life, though. I had always wished it would storm more. But now I want sunshine forever.

  We retreat all back together into the underground Cuddle Corner as the outside world rumbles, scary and loud. The Fluff Squad is frightened by every crack of thunder, and they squeak, hiding in my fur. The sparrows nuzzle together tightly on my halo, where they have gathered some sticks and twigs to nest in. It’s a little dark down here when the sun is away.

  “Okay…” I close my eyes and wave my wand and call up sunshine, a blanket of pastel glow that settles at the center of the room, soothing every soft thing it touches. The glowing orb bobs, casting comfort out and warding off the dark at the corners.

  This power seems broken. Is this how it’s supposed to work? Can I summon anything? Can I summon a soft atomic bomb?

  I don’t think I will try it.

  “Perfect,” I whisper. Bunbun circles me, nose down, basking in the glow of my newest creation. “Cold goes away,” he declares, and I can tell he’s happy. The little sun I’ve made down inside of our nap cave glows warmly, like a heater.

  The storm outside sounds angry that we’ve escaped it.

  I shake my fluffy gyatt toward the door, smacking it a few times for emphasis. Take that, Mother Nature.

  “Exactly,” I say, pulling him closer as I settle down. “Nobody’s ever going to be cold here. Not if I can help it.”

  I hug Bunbun repeatedly, farming him for hug points. Every time I squeeze him tightly, a new number is added to my daily hug tally in the system window. He also makes a comical squeaking sound that I think is funny. It's just too bad that my hug counter resets every day.

  Hugs seem to be a modifier of my power. My spells are stronger the more I’ve hugged someone today. But the hugs reset every day, so I’m limited by my capacity to embrace in this strange, stubby body. Perhaps there are some safety guardrails installed in this magical system to make sure I don’t break the world after all.

  Before the storm ends, other creatures arrive to seek shelter, following rumors spread by the Fluff Squad in the forest.

  Two squirrels chatter at the threshold, tails spiky with doubt. A bashful hedgehog circles the pillow nest, giving Bunbun a few challenging looks before deciding he can sleep right by my legs. The mice, the Fluff Squad, officially move aside to give a little more room to the newcomers who join their ranks, adding their bodies to the swarm.

  It’s getting pretty full in here. I look around myself at the sea of tiny snoozing snoots that surround me on our moss bedding.

  I realize that a pillow room like this isn’t going to be quite enough if the entire forest moves in. How many mice live in a forest this size? There are probably thousands of them, let alone the larger animals.

  My mind races as I lie there like a destitute single mother at night, wondering with haunted eyes as to how in the world I could ever make enough pudding to feed them all.

  I will need to build more to become stronger. And most importantly, I will need to nap very often. The only thing that could make this any easier right now, within my ‘budget,’ would be if I had a blanket. The thought makes me laugh, but then inspiration hits. I focus on love, push it through my wand, and let a corner of the nest shimmer itself into a mountain of pastel blankets.

  Each hums quietly, warm as a dry towel just out of the sun, or maybe even warmer.

  “Okay, now I’m showing off,” I joke aloud, waving a paw to Bunbun. “Honorary co-architects get first dibs,” I say, patting my leg as I stretch out and grab a blanket.

  He’s my favorite, after all.

  He puffs up and, with the speed of a conquering white knight returning to his princess, lays across my lap, shooting the hedgehog a possessive glare. Such a mean little guy. I smile and pet his floppy ears, giggling. “You can’t be my lap guard forever, Bunbun. There’s a cuddle tax for everyone here, not just you.”

  “Mine,” he says, closing his eyes sadly and nuzzling me.

  Aw…

  Hearing this, the mice pile around, debating and arguing over which of them gets to lie in the best spots inside of my fluff as I rearrange my sleeping position. A big one with scars and rougher fur, who I have dubbed ‘the Big Cheese’ as he is clearly their ringleader, delivers a pretty stone as a gift to me in an attempt to bribe his way into my heart like a little mafioso.

  — I accept his bribe. I am very easy to buy. He is allowed to sleep in my arms. I make sure that the others see so that they know my love is for sale. Bring me wealth.

  I look down at the tiny riot that is circling me, the blanket rippling and moving as they get comfortable. There is laughter and sleepy squabbles, but they begin to fade as the debate ends in giggles and a few surrender snuggles after I forcefully squish some of the rivaling mice together like dolls I am making kiss.

  There’s a faint system blip.

  Is that really a problem? Pondering, I look down, seeing everyone sleeping. But Bunbun and some of the mice are exchanging cold looks, clearly each wordlessly warning the other about their closeness to me.

  I think.

  Cuddles power up my core, so maybe a little rivalry doesn’t hurt? If everyone is possessive about me, they’ll all want to hug and snuggle with me even more to outdo the others.

  — I’m not sure if this is manipulative or not.

  As the last snores settle in, I yawn. “If anyone has ever earned a nap, it’s us.” Bunbun stretches out and droops over me like leftover pudding, a hedgehog curls at my feet, and squirrels and mice weave into the edges. I close my eyes, lost to a nest of warmth, and, for now, I can imagine nothing better.

  My vision goes dark.

  I fall into a half-dream.

  In this vision, I see that outside, evil magic stretches across the world.

  My sanctuary feels like a flickering beacon in a storm in contrast to it. I can almost see it: the ring of a welcoming pulsation of energy, pushing the grumpy miasma further from the glade and inviting the lost into our new home.

  My territory has gotten bigger since I got here. The edges of the forest around my glade are starting to heal. The black ooze is being burnt from the branches and bushes there by my expanding territory stretching out into the corrupted landscape.

  In my mind’s eye, as I feel the territory of my dungeon, I see a little more color at the edges of the Withered Forest. Gnarled trees soften, ferns test the boundary of the glade, and even more animals look in from the edge toward us. But there’s something else out there in the darkness, something deeper and far away.

  It feels very mean. But it’s distant, and it doesn’t seem to have noticed I’m here yet.

  “I’ll get you,” I mumble in my daze, feeling like I really want to hug this unidentified evil force.

  We all nap for a long time.

  Night sneaks into our burrow, cold. It’s the old familiar chill of the gray world, the kind that wants to chase you out into itself in some kind of sick trap because it has you looking for somewhere warm out in the darkness instead of just staying where you are. But it’s never crossed the sanctuary border thus far; the golden orb of magical light flickers to keep us warm, the Fluff Squad is nose to tail, and Bunbun is impossibly smug about his throne. Me.

  — As he should be.

  I’m warm and safe. The night is cold, but it can’t compete with the heat radiating from my body.

  By the time I wake up, I see a new window hovering in the air.

  I whisper the skill. Warmth dances out of me, a swirl of blue glowflies spiraling over the Cuddle Corner. One lands on Bunbun’s nose. He twitches.

  I open my status window again to confirm and nearly squeal.

  I leveled up from napping with a bunch of forest critters. I must have missed the notification because I was snoozing when it happened.

  This is the life.

  All that? Earned with snuggles. Not a scrap of struggle. I want to keep it this way, but I know it won’t last. There’s still so much corruption pressing in at the border, so many lost hearts out there. I can only imagine there are more animals and maybe even people outside who are like Bunbun was, touched by some evil force.

  It’s up to me to be the softest defender in all of existence, for their sake!

  When I wake up from my next nap, which I had to take from all the excitement of leveling up during my nap before, there are footprints and a scribble in the grass at the den’s entrance. A mischievous blueprint has been drawn in the grass with a discarded stick for what appears to be a ‘Hug-Net Trap.’

  Confused, I look around the glade, looking for the mysterious artist. But I don’t see anyone. My mind races to thoughts of a person having been here, a human maybe? How exciting!

  So there is life in this world that isn’t just some critter or animal. Good to know. But why are they shy about knocking?

  Despite the intrusion into my space, I smile so big I worry my face will stay that way forever. Traps, huh? That’s a good idea. I can’t always be awake, and our cozy burrow will be all the safer if we have some functional defenses.

  Before I start my new day, I sneak a look at some system information.

  I clutch the closest mouse and snuggle Bunbun under my arm.

  “Let’s go play, guys!” I say, rested and ready for the bright, new day that we spend playing tag, hide-and-seek, holding a dance battle that brings me close to leveling-up again already, and a new game that I just invented, ‘Who can be hugged by me the hardest.’

  They think it’s just fun, but in reality, I am ruthlessly growing in power at their expense. Soon, I will become an unstoppable force of wholesome destruction like the world has never seen.

  — A mouse squeaks delightfully in my fluffy arms as I squish it.

  Hihi!

  Shoutout!