~ Sidelines ~

"There will be a slight detour before I drop you off today," Ren informed Kyoko as they were walking to his car together. "I hope you don't mind."

"A detour?" the girl repeated, nonplussed.

"Yes. I'm sorry it's a bit out of the way, but Yashiro has an errand..." he trailed off as they reached their destination and all of Kyoko's attention was consumed by the fact that Kanae was waiting in the car.

She didn't even notice the puppy until it wriggled out of Yashiro's arms, jumped into her lap, and started licking her face.

"Ooh, a puppy!" Kyoko squealed excitedly. She petted Koyuki as it continued to lick her. "Wait, why is there a puppy in here?"

"So, like I was saying," Kanae said, clearly irritated at having to repeat herself (although she should be used to Kyoko's tune-outs by now), "we're taking Yuki-chan's puppy to its new home today. That's all. Stop getting so worked up over it."

Kyoko gave her friend an odd look and said, "You're still calling him 'Yuki-chan'?"

"He's still calling me 'Kanae-chan', so that's what he's getting called!" Kanae snapped, scowling. The light blush that broke out across her cheeks at this pronouncement was almost unnoticeable, and although Kyoko - being hyper-aware of all things concerning her best friend - did notice it, she decided not to call attention to it in order to avoid embarrassing the other girl any further.


"You can drop us off here."

"Here?" Ren asked skeptically. They were in the middle of a middle-class residential neighborhood.

Kanae pinned him with a baleful glare and replied flatly, "Yeah."

"Alright, if you say so," Ren conceded with his patented sparkly Gentleman Smileā„¢, and pulled over to the side of the road so that Kanae and Yashiro could get out of the car.

"Hey, isn't this-" Kyoko started, but Kanae cut her off.

"Yes. Shut up."

Kyoko got teary-eyed and whined to Ren, "Waaahhh, Moko-san told me to shut up!"


"Try not to be too shocked, or anything."

That was all the warning Yashiro got before Kanae strode up to the door of a rather normal-looking house and knocked. He rushed to catch up with her, and barely had time to note that the nameplate on the front of the house read Kotonami before the door was flung open from the inside.

"Kanae's here!" the woman who answered the door - presumably Kanae's sister - called out, and a horde of children stampeded into the front hallway to greet them.

"Kanae's here, and she has a puppy!" the oldest Kotonami brother shouted in surprise.

"Kanae's here, and she brought a guy home!" the second-oldest brother cried out, sounding equally shocked.

Any further comments by the elder siblings were drowned out by the children's excited cries of "Onee-chan!" and "Puppy!"

~oOo~