Dog Days
By Sam Bytes
Chapter 04: Daylight
Hiei spent the night in the laundry room, curled up on his comfortable bed of towels. He had gone there willingly; Mackenzie had not had to force him back into the small room. He was still tired from the days before, still reeling from the shock of his new body, and he had slept like the dead. But then the sun had leaked in the uncurtained window, and he woke up restless. He heard her moving about the kitchen early that morning, but she had not checked on him; perhaps she thought he was still sleeping as he made no noise lying as still as he did on his bed. It was only after she left that he stood up and trotted around the room to keep from getting too bored, and when he heard the unmistakable sound of a door slamming in the house an hour or so later he bolted toward the door in excitement. Mackenzie opened it to the sight of Hiei shifting his weight from foot to foot, and the minute the door cracked open he forced himself out into the kitchen.
"Well good morning to you, too," she said with a laugh.
He trotted around the room, sniffing cabinets and the table legs as Mackenzie checked out the laundry room for purposes of her own.
"Do you need to go outside?" she asked. "Here, I'll open the door."
Hiei cocked his head to one side. The thought of the outdoors appealed to him, but why did she ask in such an apprehensive tone? Still, he did not complain as he followed her out of the laundry room's outside door and into a large yard. He ran around it, nose to the ground, exploring the small brick patio and mowed grass. The yard was bordered on one side by the house, on another by a building that was presumably a garage, and on the other two by tall wooden fencing.
"I'll be back in a few minutes, so do your business while I'm gone, OK?" she said. The door to the laundry room shut behind her, and for a long moment Hiei felt puzzled by her words. 'Do your business?' What in the world did she mean by—
It hit him, then, and if his face had not been covered in fur, he probably would have turned bright red. It was obvious. Dogs 'did their business' outside.
Thanking fate that Mackenzie had chosen to leave him be and not remain an audience, Hiei found the most secluded part of the yard to 'do his business' in, and he felt more humiliated than he ever had before in his life as he slunk back to the laundry room. I will kill that damn wolf for this, he thought repeatedly as he paced back and forth by the door. I will kill him.
He managed to get a good look at the back of the house while he waited to be let indoors. He realized that the house had a second story; a large circular window looked in on a dark room high above his head, but Hiei was too low to see into it. On the back of the first story, there were only two windows: the one into the laundry room and one other, larger window in a room Hiei had not yet seen. As he looked at the high window he thought he saw movement within, but he could not be sure if it was Mackenzie or merely a reflection of one of the few tall trees scattered around the back yard. A light wind stirred their leaves and ruffled Hiei's fur.
It did not take Mackenzie long to reappear from wherever she had been. "Well, it appears you're housebroken," she remarked as she let Hiei inside. "You're definitely not a stray—hey, what's that look for?"
Hiei had, unintentionally, started hanging his head when Mackenzie commented on him being "housebroken." She just had to rub it in, didn't she?
"Weirdo," she said affectionately, and she reached down to touch his head as he moved past her into the laundry room. "Say, I need your help with something. Come with me."
The pair went through the kitchen and then out of it into a large room—the dining room, outfitted with a large wooden table polished to a lustrous glow. Floor-to-ceiling windows let mid-morning sunlight stream in, and the effect was a homey sort of beauty, but the dining room was not their destination. She led Hiei out of the dining room and into another room he had never seen before: a living room that contained three red couches arranged in a semi-circle around a large glass coffee table and a television set. Small tables and antique lamps lent a comfortable air to the large room, and the place was cozy despite its size. A set of scarlet-carpeted stairs led to a second story, and Mackenzie started up them without much pause.
Hiei, however, took an interest in the big room. Nose to the ground, he began to sniff at the wooden floors and the hems of the sofas. A scent had caught his attention—a familiar scent, but he could not place it. It lingered the most heavily on the center couch, above which was a large bay window looking out on the back yard—the one he had seen earlier, he realized.
"Hey, what are you up to?" Mackenzie said, standing on the bottom step. "I need you to come upstairs with me."
But Hiei was insatiable. He knew the smell was familiar—he knew it! Still, he would have to ponder it later, because Mackenzie was looking impatient. He took one last whiff of the elusive scent and trotted over to the stairs. Mackenzie patted his head briefly before taking the stairs two at a time and into a long hallway. Doors lined the hallway, but Mackenzie bypassed them all for the door at the hall's far end. It creaked open beneath her touch, and Hiei walked inside.
The circular window he had seen from the yard stood across from him. Right in front of it sat a desk and a chair, both very tall and both made of white wood. Cups built into the desk held pens and pencils and rulers; wire drawers underneath the desk top held jars of what appeared to be paint and ink. The desktop itself was tilted so the user could work at it without having to hunch forward. A bar along the bottom held papers in place, although the desk was empty and the bar was therefore not in use. Two filing cabinets stood on either side of the window, and a large desk of the typical office variety sat like a beached wooden whale on the room's far right. Stacks of papers sat precariously on the top of the desk, threatening to toddle over with the slightest touch. But the thing that drew Hiei's eye were the pictures—pictures of places, of animals, of people, of objects; from magazine clippings to paintings to sketches, everything that could have been there was there. They draped almost every square inch of the room's walls, a kaleidoscope of color and form dizzying to behold.
"This is my studio," Mackenzie said, moving toward the desk on the right wall. From a drawer behind it she removed a large black object—a camera, Hiei knew; Botan had gone through a phase where she had carried one around with her all of the time, taking photos indiscriminately. Hiei had tried to stay out of sight as much as possible, but despite his best efforts the Shinigami had managed to take a few of him. As a result, Hiei backed away when he saw the camera, retreating out into the hallway.
"Oh, come on," Mackenzie griped. "I need a picture for the posters, you dummy. Just one is OK, so get your butt in here."
Hiei, trying not to look cowed, slunk over to Mackenzie. That's right, he thought, the posters. Yusuke will see them—surely he'll recognize me. The sooner I play along, the sooner I can get out of this stupid body.
Mackenzie positioned Hiei up against one of the picture-covered walls, but then she frowned and began t move the white desk out from in front of the window. When Hiei shot her a look of What in the world are you doing, woman?, she shook her finger at him and said: "Get over here; the light's better."
Hiei sat obediently in front of the window, and Mackenzie remarked: "You're awfully well-trained."
Hiei tried not to fidget. He hadn't thought about staying as dumb as the average dog. What would happen if Mackenzie started to get suspicious?
But what of? he realized. It's not like she knows about demons. To her, all I will appear to be is a very well-trained animal.
Mackenzie shook her head, knelt in front of Hiei, and said: "Eh, whatever. Now try to look cute." She raised the camera to her eye.
Hiei—as his human 'owner' snapped a few pictures—studied her. She was a small, trim woman with pale skin and blonde hair as fine as corn silk. Her hazel eyes glittered in the sun as she smiled at him from around the camera; pink lips and a snub nose made her resemble something cherubic and innocent. She was perhaps a trifle too thin for Hiei's taste, and her jean-clad legs looked knock-kneed beneath the fabric. Does the woman not eat or sleep? he thought as he noticed the bags beneath her eyes. She did not look very healthy.
"Well, that's that," Mackenzie said, rising to her feet with a grunt. Hiei stood up from where he had been sitting and shook himself. "You wanna hang out in here, boy? I've got a little work to do."
Hiei's dog-instincts immediately kicked in: plopping down onto his belly in the pool of mid-morning sun, he stretched out like a long black puddle and settled in for a nap.
Mackenzie chuckled to herself as she watched the dog sleep. I hope his family comes for him, she thought as she sat behind the large desk. She booted up the sleek silver laptop on the desktop and plugged in her camera's memory card. He's so cute, she thought, burning the photographs to a disk so she could take them to the copy store and have them turned into posters.
She took a moment to study the pictures. The dog, in the first picture, had been staring off into the space above her head, eyes distant and untouchable. Despite the far-ff expression, his narrow face and large eyes—huge eyes, Mackenzie corrected herself—gave him the look of the eternal puppy, if not, of course, for the white crest that looked almost like a large jagged semi-circle of a unibrow on his forehead.
The next few pictures looked similar, but the fourth or fifth shot showed the dog looking straight at the camera. The expression was serious; the stance, regal.
"Pretty dog," Mackenzie murmured, and then felt her jaw drop as she saw the next picture. His eyes had softened slightly, and the light from the window had caught them in just the right way, making them sparkle—
"Red," Mackenzie whispered. "Wow. Weird." She had taken pictures of dogs before—too many pictures, she thought, heart sinking, but before she could dive into ennui she tore her thoughts off of that path—and had never seen red eye-shine on a dog. Yellow, gold, white—but red? Was that even possible?
The picture, despite the disturbing red effect, was a beautiful one. His fur glistened; you could see the wonderful structure of his face. She cleaned out some of the pervasive red shine in Photoshop and decided to use that picture for the poster. His expression—as much as she could tell on a dog, anyway—had softened, and his jawline was more relaxed.
"Bingo." She glanced over at the sleeping dog, and smiled. But then the smile faded, and she opened her desk's top drawer. In it lay a picture frame, and in the picture...
"Miss you, Shiro," she said, eyes on the frame, "but I think you will be happy to know I am helping someone, now."
She glanced at her sleeping house-guest, at the way the light played over his midnight fur.
"And he's helping me too," she said. "Not that he even knows it."
Placing the frame on the desk between stacks of her piled papers, Mackenzie opened another drawer and pulled out a few sheets of plain white paper and a pencil. Then, eyes on her sleeping friend, she began to create.
