Notes
In the dim (haha, sorry) light of the comments I got, I'm calling dogs "he", not "it", from this point on, not that it matters as much anymore; I'll also go back and change the 1st part to suit that a bit later. Enjoy! (not that I'm trying to tell you what to do.)

Kuroko was at a loss. He couldn't come up with a way to communicate his identity to his teammates, and even if he could, they probably wouldn't pay attention to what he was doing long enough to understand. What would the team do with the extra dog incident? No one would have the resources to take care of two of them. Even #2 had been a struggle, everybody taking turns to help with his food when they happened to have enough money.

He was lucky sneaking out of situations was his specialty. The others would definitely look after #2, even if two of them would be too much, so he'd just have to manage on his own for a while. It was probable that the drug's effect wouldn't last forever, so he'd just have to think of some good excuses for his absence. Maybe he could say his parents' pet parrot had died. That would shut them up.

Really, the Seirin basketball club was full of idiots. You shouldn't leave your pets in the storage room for a whole day without giving them any food or water. Not to mention your friends (though that obviously couldn't be helped); Kuroko was getting bored.

There wasn't much to do in the room. He did a round, and the only interesting thing were the basketballs, which he couldn't, of course, play with in the way that he would've liked to. He pushed one around and #2 got interested in the rolling game for a while, but it didn't provide much amusement for the dog either; he was used to catching objects thrown into the air, so a rolling basketball wasn't much fun.

They did, in fact, bring them some food on the lunch break. Some dog food. That was another problem Kuroko hadn't come to think of. He suspiciously stared at the brown goo while #2 was wolfing the stuff down at a speed that suggested if Kuroko didn't make his mind up soon, his pet would make the decision for him by devouring his share too.

He took a step toward the can and sniffed the food. It smelled completely different to a dog's nose. He was really hungry and Koganei was looking at him expectantly.

Well, he supposed that it was the best option anyway, him being a dog now. Kuroko didn't want to hurt his stomach with something meant for humans in case he'd have to manage on his own for a while; that would be a disadvantage. The stuff tasted weird, but it was edible, and provided nourishment that he'd need in case his transformation would last.

The storage room's door was opened at the beginning of the basketball club's practice, and Kagami jumped back as the two beasts rushed out. For a moment, he felt like a gladiator forced into a battle till death on a closed arena. One of the dogs pattered around enthusiastically, looking like he might playfully jump onto him any moment, and the other one was just calmly menacing.

"Where the hell has Kuroko run off to, seriously?" he whined. "The dog's his responsibility, and just today, he has to decide to skip school."

"Has anyone even tried calling him, though?" Izuki asked. "Maybe he's sick, and that's also the reason he brought #2 to Kagami, though he doesn't dig dogs." His joke was coldly ignored once again.

"You're right. I'll try calling him", Hyuga said, a glazed smile on his face. "I'll tell him what I'd like to do to people who skip school and disturb practice without even informing anyone." He raised the phone to his ear, listened to the beeps on the other end of the line, and looked tiredly at one of the dogs, sitting quietly next to Koganei. The dog shook his head at him. Huyga blinked. It was strange behavior for an animal all over; staring someone in the eyes, sitting still among a ring of humans without being told to, and shaking his head like that. Not that you could ever tell what was normal for #2, though.

No one answered the phone. Hyuga listened to the dull female voice of the answering machine, just a bit annoyed. Just a bit.

"Kuroko, it's common courtesy to explain what's going on when you dump dogs on people and skip school. You'd better call back and explain", he said onto the record, and pressed the red button. The dog shook his head again.

"Well, that was that. We can discuss the matter of the extra dog later. Let's start practice now, the dance club has reserved the gym after us", the coach shouted, clapping her hands together to get the others to shut up. While she gave the orders, the dog that'd been sitting still among them moved to the side of the hall, as if understanding what was going on, and the other dog joined him. They were both so unreadable, it felt like Seirin's #2 had really just cloned itself.

In the middle of a practice match between the age groups, the gym door flew open once again, and Kaijou's Kise Ryouta stormed in like an overly excited golden retriever, demanding everyone's attention. "Hey, guys!" he shouted, as if he was best buddies with all of them.

The effect he had wasn't exactly what he'd hoped for. Most of the team just stared, and the coach pushed him back.

"Take your shoes off before entering, thank you", she said and let him stop at the doorstep.

"Sorry", Kise muttered, putting aside his professional charm, and came back in after leaving his shoes by the door outside. It was raining, so he had made small puddles on every step he took with them on. "I came to ask if you've seen Kurokocchi today. He wouldn't answer his phone and I got worried."

"No, Kuroko-kun hasn't been at school at all", the coach replied. "He didn't answer our call, either."

Kise looked concerned. "Well, alternatively, have you encountered any weird animals or something like that?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Kagami asked, doing his best to appear menacing for the sake of competition. "Why are you suddenly so worried about him? Is this some weird Generation of Miracles crap again?"

"No", Kise said, taking up the challenge. "Look, I didn't come here to waste your time, I'm just trying to make sure of something. I'll be off your backs as soon as you answer my question."

"We did find another weird dog in addition to our own", Teppei told him, smiling. "They look identical. It's a mystery."

"THAT'S IT", Kise declared enthusiastically, turning to look. "WHOAH!"

"What's it? You haven't exactly made it clear what the connection between this and Kuroko's absence is", Hyuga asked, totally done with the day already.

"Well, you see…" the color yellow said, cheerfully, "I played a friendly prank on Kurokocchi, and it seems like it worked, after all!" He crouched down in front of the two dogs, ready to pet one, when he was hit on the cheek with a surprisingly powerful puppy paw. Kagami quickly and silently retreated to the opposite end of the hall.

"Ow! I'm sorry! You've heard about the new techniques to turn people into animals, right?" he asked, earning a few nods and a lot more confused stares.

"It's legit", the coach said. "Follow the news, basketballheads. Is this going where I think it is?"

"Well", Kise said, averting his eyes in theatrical quilt, "I think so. I got some samples of the drug so I could play a prank on Kurokocchi. Though at first, I didn't think it had worked, since nothing at all happened while we were chatting at the cafe, and I didn't hear from him all evening."

He turned to look at the dog that had slapped him. "So, in other words, this is probably Kurokocchi!"

He got slapped again.

"Sorry, Kuroko!" the Seirin basketball team and Kise said in unison. "For locking you in the storage room and for giving you d-dog food…" the end of the Koganei's sentence was muffled by chortling. They earned a blank stare that was extremely discomforting when its owner couldn't say anything, for good or bad.

"Hey, Kise! What are we supposed to do now? You have some antidote for that drug or something, right?" Kagami, unsure of what to do, went back to his glaring. It was bound to work someday.

"In fact, no", Kise answered with an uncomfortable look on his face. "I kinda lost it. We'll have to wait for the effect to wear off."

Kuroko let out a third whiny sigh, and that, he thought, was a quite reasonable amount for all today's frustration. He was equally fed up with everyone in the room. This was the sort of a day on which it would've been completely reasonable to skip school.

"How long will it take, then?" Furihata asked, taking a glance at Kuroko. Maybe he wasn't quite that fed up with Furihata, Kuroko decided.

"It shouldn't be longer than a day or two, anymore", Kise said, the sides of his mouth twitching suspiciously. He wasn't sorry at all, just excited. It was a trait that Kuroko disliked about him.

"Maybe I can take care of him for that time", the airhead went on to suggest.

Kuroko got up, effectively making everyone stop talking, walked to Kise, and as his target unsuspectingly crouched, hit his cheek again.

"So that's that", the coach said, ignoring Kise's complaints about hitting a model's face. "Who's going to take care of Kuroko-kun? And someone has to look after #2, too."

"I don't think any of us has the resources to take care of a dog, except for Kagami", Teppei said with his angelic smile.

"No way! Do you think I could sleep in the same house as one of those creatures?" Kagami blurted.

"Yeah, yeah, we understand you're scared of dogs, but it's not like you're scared of Kuroko, right?" Hyuga bargained irritably.

"Yeah, normally, but I thought even before that he's a bit like a dog! Look at him! It was okay when he was a human, because I could at least ask him what he was thinking, but now, no way. I don't want him in my house, scaring the crap out of me and hitting me when I don't understand what he wants!"

Teppei took on a displeased tone. "No, you look at him! You can't just let your friend down like that. It's still Kuroko and he's been turned like that against his own will." Kagami did as he was told, and found that Kuroko had at some point sat down right in front of him and was staring at him quite as accusingly as his senpais. He took a huge step backwards, and earned another dog-sigh.

"Then why don't you take care of him?" the redhead barked. "…Senpai."

"Oh, me? I'm considering bankruptcy", Teppei declared with a proud smile. "No, seriously, the month's nearing its end and I'm living on the rice that's left in my closet, you know. Haha!"

That shut Kagami up, and made him consider treating his senpai to a few hamburgers, at that. Lack of food was an argument that worked wonderfully against him.

"That's how it is, so Kagami-kun'll take care of Kuroko-kun, right? OK!" the coach announced without leaving any room for complaints. "Now we only need someone to look after #2, and just so you know, tomorrow's practice will be tough since we've wasted so much time on this today."

"Well, Kise has offered his help, right?" Teppei pointed out. "He's the one who's responsible for this whole deal, after all."

"Eh? Well…"

"It's almost like having Kuroko, right? #2 looks just like him."

Kise couldn't come up with any objections that wouldn't be met with angry glares. Kuroko patted his knee in a way that made him quite unable to refuse, and so he took off, defeated, with #2 in his arms.

Kuroko lay down by the wall of the gym, relieved at the turn of events. He'd already gotten a small revenge on Kise and gotten him out of his hair by dumping #2 on him, and an evening with Kagami was bound to be interesting. The redhead was having a good fight with the senpais on the court, and his other classmates were almost holding their ground with his help. They were losing, but they were losing honorably, and if Kuroko was there, they would probably have won. The addition of Teppei had made Team Senpai stronger, but not crushingly so.

Kagami really was the best option to ask for help. His apartment was huge, he wouldn't bug Kuroko about being cute, and there was nothing to feel guilty about even when making him use money for food, because the guy practically swam in it. It was too bad for Kagami that what he had turned into was a dog, but he felt he was entitled to a bit of fun after what he'd gone through today.

Furihata made a basket, and he cheered, letting out an unintentional bark