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One

Val stared out the window at the college campus below. It looked so huge. Classroom buildings ten stories high. Dorm buildings twice that. Val was standing in his new dorm room sixteen floors up. He'd never been so far off the ground in his life.

His phone chirped, and he looked down at it, then texted a response with his foot. "Yes, Aunt Jane, I'll text you three times a day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Everything's going to be fine, I promise."

Aunt Jane was a little overprotective. She'd taken Val in and raised him after his parents died. Raised and homeschooled him. Val knew he might be considered a little sheltered, especially in an inclusive public school like Vanguard University, but he was okay with that. Going to Vanguard was a victory. Aunt Jane wanted him to take online courses from home, or at the very worst, join a private Christian college she'd hand picked for him. He understood her reasoning. He wasn't like most people, and things could be a little dangerous for him without someone to look after him. It wasn't something Val was happy about, but he'd come to terms with it by now. Mostly.

But he'd won the argument. He still didn't know how, but when he'd told his aunt firmly that he'd made his decision, and that she wasn't going to be able to change his mind, and that his scholarship allowed him to choose any accredited university he wished... Well, somehow she'd caved. For the first time Val could remember, Aunt Jane let him have his way even when she disagreed with him. And she'd looked proud when she told him that he'd won. Proud and sad.

"Stop worrying," he foot-texted. "I know to be careful." He waited a moment, then sent another response. "Okay, yes, I'll introduce you to every friend I make." Val laughed silently, shaking his head. She was just going to keep at it unless he ended the conversation. "I'm really excited, but I have to go now. About to meet the roommate!" His roommate wasn't exactly knocking on the door right then, but he needed an out. He had a lot of unpacking to do, and freshman orientation was just in a couple hours.

The excited part, that was true.

His phone chirped again, and glancing down showed him that Aunt Jane was still asking questions and demanding promises, but he ignored it for now. He'd get back to her at dinnertime, just like he'd said.

For now, he had to set about climbing down the desk he was standing on.

Val Baroque was a teenager with several inescapable disadvantages in life. The first was that he was a hybrid. An hybrid stoat, to be precise, though any hybrid in America faced racial discrimination and bias everywhere they went. It was an unfortunate fact of life, though one Val hadn't needed to confront very much, since he'd hardly ever left Aunt Jane's house while growing up. Jane was a human, and not actually related to Val by blood, but she was very openminded and tolerant. She said so all the time.

He was also mute. He couldn't even make animalistic squeaks or chitters, which was unique to him among hybrids, so far as he knew. Most animal folk could speak just fine. Fortunately, Val was a texting champion, and could spell out a message on his phone as fast as most people could talk. Even if it took his whole paw to do it.

As if that wasn't enough, Val had faulty adaptive scent glands. That was a fancy way to say that he gave off random smells, and in his unique case, those smells seemed to be tied to his emotions. They weren't bad smells, mostly. Right now his dorm room was filled with a minty scent overlying a subtle strawberry: excitement and happiness. But it was a weirdness that he would have a hard time explaining if anyone asked. Genetic engineers had tried to cancel out the musk of hybrids in the weasel family, but the company that had originally designed Val's ancestors had been too creative. Aunt Jane had told him that his dad and his mom only had one scent each, sawdust and pine, respectively. Val was pretty sure he could give off every smell there was, if his emotions bounced around enough.

Last was his most obvious disadvantage, currently being thrown in his face as he lowered himself down from the desktop to the small wooden chair beside it.

Val Baroque was the smallest hybrid in the world.

Two

Okay, he wasn't that small. He stood a full eleven-and-a-half inches from head to toe. Hybrids ranged across almost any size that animals did, but just as it was almost unheard of for anyone to actually be as big as an elephant, it was extremely rare that an hybrid would stop short of two feet tall. Generally, they tended to be somewhere between the size of an average human and the size of their animal halves. Val, though, was exactly the same size as an actual stoat, if a larger one.

It made for some unique challenges.

Stretching up with both arms, he hefted his cell phone from the desktop, where he'd left it hanging slightly off the edge. It was heavy, but not too bad. He couldn't exactly slip it in his back pocket, though.

Moving to the edge of the seat, he repeated the maneuver to get to the floor. Then he walked over to the corner of one of the dorm room's beds, set his cell phone with the rest of his things, and set about climbing up the blanket dangling nearly to the floor.

Since no one else was in the room, he jumped on the springy bed a couple times, grinning. College was going to be so much fun! He hadn't decided on a major yet, but figuring that out would be part of the thrill.

He hoped his professors would be nice. That they'd be patient with him. He'd been assured that V.U. could accommodate his unusual handicaps, but he was pretty sure they'd never had to try before. That said, he wasn't about to let his size slow him down. He'd already been given permission to ride his bicycle everywhere on campus, indoors and out, so he could compete with his peers' longer strides.

The thought of all those people was kind of intimidating. Humans accounted for about a third of the student body, even though Vanguard had started as a hybrid-exclusive university, and some hybrids could get big! Even at a human's size, a person could do some serious damage if they stepped on Val accidentally. But it wasn't like he was too small to see. He was almost a whole foot! He'd be fine, he'd just have to do some slick maneuvers on his bike when people around him were distracted.

He was flopped on his back on the huge bed's pillow, arms crossed behind his head and tail flicking idly between his knees, when the dorm room's door swung open.

Val jumped to his feet, an abrupt spike of cedar scent filling the air around him. The smell wasn't too smoky, though. Just nervousness, not fear.

Whoever paired up dormmates had a weird since of humor. Because in walked the absolute tallest giraffe Val had ever seen. On TV, anyway. He'd never met a hybrid giraffe in real life. The backpack over this guy's shoulder was big enough that Val could have fit in the small mesh zipper pouch in front that held a bunch of pencils, and the whole pack looked tiny_when the giraffe tossed it on the foot of the empty bed. He had to duck his head, not just to get in the door, but to avoid bumping it on the actual, nine-foot ceiling. He had to duck it _a lot.

"Huh," the giraffe said in a surprisingly warm, mellow voice. "He must be in the bathroom." Then he finished examining the--to him--tiny room, and saw Val standing there on the other bed's pillow. "Woah!"

Val tried a nervous, toothy smile and waved up at the giraffe.

"I...I'm sorry, I didn't see..." The big guy cleared his throat. "Are you Val Baroque?" When Val nodded, the giraffe just stood there for a few seconds, both of them staring at each other awkwardly. "Okay," the giraffe finally murmured, nodding as if to himself. Then he hunkered down in front of Val's bed and held out his hand. "Well, uh... I'm Darnell. Uh... Nice to meet you."

It took a couple steps to get within range of that hand, and Val was only able to get his paw around one finger. It was a bizarre handshake, but Val didn't have a very big pool of handshake experiences to compare it to. When Darnell stood back up, he instinctively kept his head dipped low to avoid bumping his round horns--ossicones, Val thought they were called?--on the ceiling. "So, I guess we're gonna be bunking together," Darnell said, rubbing the back of his neck. He shook his head, chuckling. "Man, whoever paired us up must have a weird since of humor." His leaf-shaped ears flicked up, and he hastily added, "Uh, no offense! It's just, you know..." Grinning self-consciously, he gestured at himself with both hands.

Val knew right then that they were going to get along just fine.

"So, uh... The head residence aid guy, can't remember his name, told me that you can't, you know, talk?"

Val nodded, plucking at the sleeve of his shirt. Then he perked up and scurried to the edge of his bed, trying not to feel too flustered as he clambered down the blanket to the floor. Val smelled bacon coming off of himself, but he willed that scent away. He was not embarrassed by his size.

Darnell looked a little bemused while he watched Val hunker down in front of the stoat's cell phone. He started a text to himself, then used both paws to slap away at the digital keyboard before hitting send and holding the phone up toward the giraffe with both hands. "Sorry," the message said. "It's nice to meet you, too! I can talk like this just fine."

The giraffe had to crouch down close and squint to read the message, but then he grinned, fishing out his own phone from his jeans pocket. It was almost as big as a tablet, but still looked little in Darnell's hand. "Well, perfect! Here, let me give you my number to make things easier."

Val beamed a smile up at him and nodded.

They sat on their beds talking and texting to each other for a little bit after Darnell unpacked, but time was flying. The giraffe looked at his oversized wristwatch and asked Val, "Hey, you going to orientation?"

The stoat nodded across the room at him.

"Me, too. Might head out now, see if I can get an aisle seat."

Val moved to his phone and texted, "Good idea. I wouldn't mind getting there a little early." He swung himself down to the floor and headed to his things at the corner of the bed.

"Cool! Um..." Darnell scratched at an ear. "Might be weird to ask, but... You want me to carry you or something? It's all the way across campus."

Grinning, Val shook his head and got his bike up on its tires, already swinging a leg over the seat. It was a one-to-five scale Shawing 21-speed. He could get that puppy going six miles per hour easily, and he doubted Darnell walked faster than that, even with those long legs.

"Oh! Heh, okay then. I guess we'll take the elevator?"

Val nodded.

"Uh, you gonna carry your phone, or...?"

That made the little stoat blink. His phone. When you never leave your house, you can keep your phone in one place, but here... How was he going to take the thing with him on his bike? How had he never _thought_of that before?

"Hey, no worries," Darnell told him, plucking up Val's phone and pocketing it along with his own. "I'll hold onto it until you need it. Just stick close to me, right?"

Val took a deep breath. Right. It wasn't ideal--he'd really wanted to stretch his independence muscles out here--but he was who he was, and he had to make do. At least Darnell was nice. He could rely on the giraffe tonight, until he figured something else out. He'd have to. They wouldn't have all the same classes, after all, if any.

The giraffe opened the dorm's door, and Val kicked his bicycle into gear.

Three

So. Many. People.

It was bad enough out on the sidewalks and streets getting to the building where orientation's auditorium was, but inside the auditorium itself, after everyone began filing in...

So many!

It was a crowd like Val had only ever seen on TV before, a hundred, maybe two hundred hybrids and humans all bustling in and filling the hall. Val thought every single seat had a freshman in it.

He was glad they'd gotten there early. Darnell had claimed his aisle seat, and Val got the one next to it, leaving his bike underneath as he made the treacherous climb up to its cushion while the giraffe watched. Darnell had offered to lift him up, of course, but Val wanted to do it himself. It was bad enough he was using the giraffe as a phone taxi.

Unfortunately, Val didn't weigh enough to get the seat's bottom to go down. But then, if he did, he wouldn't be able to see anything, so he climbed the rest of the way up to the top of the backrest and perched there, instead. His view was still blocked by the canine head in front of him when the orientation lecture began.

He could barely concentrate on everything that the faculty went over. So many people, and so much attention! Everyone kept looking his way. Well, first they looked at Darnell, elbowing each other and snickering at how high the giraffe's neck stretched. The leopard girl forced to sit behind him wasn't in a very good mood. But after everyone got done staring at Darnell, they noticed the white stoat sitting beside him, and Val was pretty sure he'd caused so much whiplash with all those double-takes, he should be getting a commission from the local chiropractor.

He sat in a cloud of bacon and cedar. Mint, as well--this was all still so exciting--but boy, was it embarrassing to be such a tiny spectacle.

At one point Darnell tilted his head down at him. "Are you wearing cologne?" the giraffe whispered. Val just looked away and shrugged. If Darnell could smell him all the way up there, he must really be putting those aromas out. But the giraffe just told him, "Huh. Good choice." And he got rewarded with an extra puff of embarrassed bacon for the complement.

The freshmen were given a list of locations to visit and tasks to complete, but nothing was mandatory. It was all just to help them get their feet under them and learn the campus's layout. Val still resolved himself to go everywhere and do everything that was suggested.

His first real college challenge, though, came after the lecture ended. Because he had to pee.

The stoat was far from the only one, after sitting in the auditorium for more than an hour. The bathroom stalls were nearly all taken. All but one. He strode into the stall and reached up to close the door, the lower metal edge a little above his head. He stood no chance of reaching the latch, so he had to leave it slightly ajar.

He'd encountered public bathrooms before, and had resolved at a young age to avoid them at all costs. His dormitory, though, only had communal bathrooms and showers, one on each floor, so this was something he was going to have to get used to.

But God! The stink! Someone had peed all over the toilet seat, and Val had to climb up that thing! He couldn't see where the urine was puddled, so it was sheer luck that his paws found dry spots, but the porcelain was slippery, and he had to hug his whole body to the rounded ledge, kicking with his feet, before he managed to haul himself up. And that was the easy part.

Okay. There was a nice, clear section right where he was standing. But toilet seats were designed to slant inward, and it was just as slippery on top as the round sides. He really had to go, though, so he got his feet in a good, sturdy stance, and unzipped his doll-sized khakis.

Just as he began to let it flow, the stall's door swung open, and a human teenager gawped at the urinating stoat. Val twisted around to look back at the human, his paw holding his sheath steady, but he couldn't exactly say anything, and it took the other student a while to realize he was staring. "Uh. Sorry..." He backed away and shut the door behind him.

Bacon and burning cedar and pee. Val left that stall with a truly bizarre cocktail of aromas.

Four

Back in their room that night, Val discovered that he wasn't the only one with unusual challenges. It was late, they were tired, and tomorrow was going to be a long day, so both he and Darnell got to bed early. But despite the climb, that was easier for Val than it was for the giraffe.

Darnell's legs hung off the edge of his eight-foot bed, from knees to hooves. He said he didn't mind, that he was used to it, but it really didn't look comfortable. Val decided to take him at his word, though, and snugged himself against his pillow, using a tiny fraction of his blankets to keep warm. The giraffe waited a few minutes, but Val was still awake when he heard a quiet rustling behind him, and he turned back around curiously.

The lights were off, but that was no obstacle for a stoat's night vision, so Val watched as his roommate shrugged out of his big white tee shirt and dropped it to the floor beside his bed. The stoat's heartbeat amped up a notch when Darnell's arms went back under his covers and continued rustling about. There was a quiet zip, a lot more rustling, and the giraffe's lower legs tucked up under the covers for a few moments before reappearing sans jeans, geometric patterns covering his shins and calves. Darnell's pants landed on top of his shirt, and the giraffe seemed to settle after that.

Val flopped onto his back and drew the bedsheets up to his chin. Don't think about it, he told himself. It's normal. I took off my shirt, too, and it would be totally fine if I slept in just my briefs. It's normal.

The stoat had never had a roommate before. He'd never really even had an actual friend, aside from online. But no matter how much he told himself not to, he couldn't not think about there being another guy in the room with nothing on but underwear.

But it was normal. No matter how much bacon Val was giving off, Darnell had every right to do whatever he needed to sleep comfortably. And it was just embarrassed bacon. There was absolutely no trace of pumpkin pie in Val's scent. No pumpkin at all!

Self-consciously, he lifted his sheets and dipped his muzzle into them for a small sniff.

Dammit. Well, he couldn't pretend the big giraffe wasn't handsome. With a silent sigh, Val closed his eyes and tried to get some sleep.

That wasn't easy, though. He managed to calm his thoughts enough, but every time he started to doze off, Darnell would shift around with a frustrated mutter. It was obvious the giraffe wasn't as comfortable as he claimed, and though he wasn't loud at all, Val was so unused to hearing someone else in his bedroom, every slightest noise from his roommate shook him from his slumber.

It was around midnight when the stoat grimaced and pushed the covers off of himself. He made his way down his bed and found his cellphone, then sent Darnell a text: "Hey. I have an idea, but I need your help."

"Hrm?" the giraffe mumbled when he heard his own phone chime. Blearily, the big male rolled onto his side, his lower legs sticking out awkwardly, and fumbled around blindly for his pants, then fumbled around some more for his pocket when he found them. He squinted at the faint light when he unlocked his phone, then looked over at the stoat. "Mm, it's really late, Val. Can it wait?"

Shaking his head, the stoat tapped out, "There's enough room to fit my bed past the foot of yours, if we move it sideways."

Squinting at his phone again, Darnell scratched the side of his head. "I guess," he said out loud.

"That way you can prop up your feet and sleep on your side if you want to!"

The giraffe had to think about that for a few seconds. "But then where will you sleep?"

Val got to paw-typing. "There will still be enough room on my bed for me. I can fit on my pillow." Sometimes being small wasn't a bad thing.

Another few seconds. "You sure?"

"Of course!"

"Okay," Darnell murmured, turning off his phone and tossing his blankets aside as he got to his feet. He bumped his head on the ceiling and grunted, pausing to rub between his horns. "Ow..." Val couldn't really think about that, though, his eyes wide and his little ears standing up in surprise.

Darnell wasn't wearing underwear.

The giraffe must not have thought about a stoat's night vision, because he stood there naked for another couple seconds before letting out a sleepy sigh and crouching down for his pants. That just put his crotch even more on display, and Val couldn't begin to bring himself to look away.

Darnell had a big, dark equine sheath, a wrinkly lump at least seven inches from top to bottom, sitting above an absolutely massive sack. Each oval testicle looked like it was almost as big around as Val was tall! And they wobbled and bounced around every time the giraffe so much as breathed. Even after he pulled his jeans up and covered his enormous privates from view, Val couldn't get the image of them out of his head.

The giraffe walked over next to the door and hit the light switch. "Thanks," he said, unconcerned about being shirtless in front of the little stoat. He clearly worked out. "I guess I'm not as used to small beds as I thought."

He made short work of moving Val's bed over, and soon enough the stoat was lying atop his pillow with his blanket over him again, Darnell's big hooves propped up a yard or so to his right.

He was just managing to doze off when the giraffe mumbled, "Why do I smell pumpkins?"

Five

It seemed like bacon was becoming Val's permanent scent.

He stood in Floor 16's shower room after revisiting the challenges of peeing in a public bathroom. It was around 7:30 in the morning, and three other students were using the showers already. They had curtains behind the metal barriers for privacy, though both curtains and barriers stopped more than a foot above the floor, but at his angle in front of the shower room's main door he couldn't see anything he shouldn't. Not in the showers, at least. But the cheetah that had just walked by him with nothing but a towel on had dropped that towel as soon as he left the main hallway, and was sashaying his way to an empty stall completely bare.

Dumbstruck, Val stared at the cheetah's spotted butt until the feline turned in his stall and noticed the stoat looking at him. The lithe cat grinned and gave Val a teasing wink before shutting his curtain and starting up his shower.

Giving himself a shake, Val hurried into another stall. There were eight of them, so he chose one on the far side of the room as the cheetah.

Taking a deep breath, he dropped the wash cloth he had wrapped around his own waist. His pink member was peeking from his sheath, pumpkin pie muted in the air from all the steam in the room. He glowered at his privates, telling them in his mind to leave him alone. Shaking his head, he reached for the handle to turn on the water...

And found that it was two feet above his head, with nothing between them except slippery, vertical tile.

Val blinked. The university had modified his dorm room's door to have a handle just above floor height for him. He had to throw his whole body into it, but at least he could get in and out of his room. But he hadn't thought about the showers. His bath tub at home had the usual amenities, its knobs just within his reach. But here...

He looked around the little stall. There was a soap rack at the same height as the water dial, but otherwise, nothing else. Aside from the wash cloth he'd brought with him to dry off with, he only had a bottle of honey citrus fur shampoo. He knew he couldn't jump that high. Grimacing, he tried, anyway, tossing one end of the wash cloth up to try to loop it around the dial, as if that would do anything other than wind up with him dangling from the square of fabric.

Huffing with frustration, he looked through the steam toward the nearest student, seeing human feet three stalls over. The water had turned off in that stall, though, and finished drying, the human's feet walked away. Whoever else had been showering was already gone, so the only other feet he could see were spotted yellow feline ones all the way across the tiled floor.

Val looked up at the shower dial again. Then he hung his head and closed his eyes, sighing.

Then he wrapped his washcloth around his curvy hips again and started walking right underneath the shower stall barriers, shampoo bottle in hand. He didn't even have to duck his head.

Once he reached the stall next to the cheetah's, he rapped his knuckles against it, then knocked a second time when the tall cat didn't respond. After a third knock, really getting his fist into it, the cheetah peered down from over the top of the barrier, water dripping from his soaked face.

"What is it?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow. "I'm kinda washing, here."

With a huff, Val moved up to the wall and reached up toward this stall's dial, making it clear that it was far out of his reach.

"Oh." The feline blinked water out of his eyes. "You want a hand?"

Sighing, Val nodded, and the cheetah turned off his own shower. He tossed open his curtain and stepped around to the stoat's stall without doing a single thing to cover himself up. Because of course he didn't.

The cat's balls and sheath were nothing on Darnell's, cute rather than intimidating, but Val still had a hard time not staring up at them. And the cheetah was clearly aware of it, grinning down at him while turning the water on. "There you go, cutie. Let me know if it's too hot." His grin grew as he turned around, sinuous tail high in the air, and padded back to his own stall, turning his shower back on to finish cleaning. "Man," the cat said. "Was one of those guys using bacon scented shampoo? Some people are just weird, yeah?"

Yeah... Some people... Gulping, Val tried to keep out of the water's spray as much as he could to keep his washcloth dry while moving over to his curtain. He had to reach up to shut it, and when he moved back toward the back wall, he suddenly felt incredibly dumb.

Even at the back wall, he could still see all the way to the shower room's main door. Which meant anyone coming in would get a clear, unobstructed view of him. Taking a deep breath, he made himself set his makeshift towel aside anyway. He couldn't go all semester without washing.

The stoat kept his back to the curtain and his short tail lowered as he began scrubbing shampoo into his fur, closing his eyes and letting the water wash over him. It was a little too hot, after all, but he wasn't about to ask the cheetah to cool it down for him.

He was just about halfway done, getting to work on his legs, when the water stopped in the stall next to him. The cheetah didn't leave, but Val tried not to dwell on it. The cat did have a lot of fur to dry off, but that didn't explain the steady pat, pat, pat, coming from the other side of the barricade.

The stoat had one leg up to work shampoo between his toes when a voice came from right above him. "You probably get this a lot, but I've never seen someone as small as you."

Gasping, Val slipped on one foot and almost fell over completely, his tail whipping around to cover up his lap as he looked up to see the grinning cheetah watching him from above the plastic barrier.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to surprise you." The feline didn't pull back, though, and shamelessly looked the naked mustelid over. "I'm just hanging around to turn your water off when you're done."

Well. That part made sense. But he had no business looking at Val while the stoat was naked! Head down, the little male went back to washing his other leg, though he ignored much of the thigh this time.

"Take your time. My first class today isn't for four hours." That steady patting was still coming from the other stall. He couldn't be...

Val shook his head. Of course the cheetah wasn't. That was just stupid. Though the cat was still watching him from above, and the stoat still had his rump and crotch to scrub... Gasping, he realized that the pink head of his cock was showing at the top of his sheath, and he hastily covered it up with his paws.

The cheetah chuckled, but finally stepped away from the barrier between their stalls. "Just knock when you're done, little guy!"

Val swallowed back a humiliated lump in his throat, sniffing at the smell of wet bacon. At least he didn't smell like something bad when he got embarrassed, like moldy cheese or something. He made quick work of the last of his shower, careful not to rub himself too much, and rapped his knuckles on the barrier above him.

The cheetah's curtain opened, and then so did Val's, and the feline walked right in. Val's jaw dropped. The lithe cat was sporting a full, six-inch pink erection, complete with throbbing, feline barbs. He _had_been masturbating while the stoat bathed.

"There you go," the cheetah said cheerfully, turning off Val's water. "I'm going to hang around in here for a few more minutes." He was already stroking himself as he made his way back to his stall.

At first, Val was unable to move at all, he was so stunned. Then he heard more wet pats coming from the spotted cat's self pleasuring, and he hastily grabbed his wash cloth, barely drying himself at all before fleeing back to his dorm room.