Disclaimer: I don't own Mai Hime.
I have a bunch of 'intros' stuck in my folder and in my head so its nice to be able to write out the beginning to one at a time. I finished this one on New Years, so Happy New Years? XD;;
I chose 'Japanese Albino Rat Snake' because 1) its found in Japan and 2) its albino so it has "red" eyes. XP Also, there's a lot of 'animal turns into human' with Natsuki as the animal/human, so I thought I'd switch that up. XD Please enjoy!
Title: Classroom Pet
Rating: T
Pairings: Mainly Shiznat with minor others.
Genre: Humor/Romance
Summary: AU. Kuga Natsuki was assigned to watch over the class' new pet snake. The problem is that the snake only stayed a snake every other day, choosing to be human whenever it could. (If anyone has any better ideas for a summary, I'm up for suggestions. XP)
"And that's why our class now has a pet snake," Midori ended with a smile on her face as she patted the top of the snake's large glass tank. The rest of the class had bewildered looks on their face as they looked at their homeroom teacher. Their thoughts were collective: Is she insane?
"Um…" One of the boys sitting around the middle of the class was brave enough to cut through the thick silence. "What?" Tate put down his hand, waiting for an answer.
Sugiura-sensei lost her enthusiasm, "You mean I have to repeat all that?!"
Mai Tokiha gave their teacher a helpless smile, "We're sorry, but if you could explain it one more time, maybe we can understand why there's an Japanese Albino Rat Snake in our classroom."
"Aren't those under protection?" Another girl in class chimed a question.
"Alright, fine, I'll explain once more." The teacher cleared her throat, "So your science teacher told me what you guys will be doing later in the year and it turns out you guys have a lot of biology coming up." She ignored the groans and continued, "She told me she'll be bringing in different animals to study their anatomy with. She also told me that she would be bringing in a live snake because their anatomies are different from many other animals and yet they can still function perfectly fine.
"She then told me I'd have to buy a snake in order to do that and I replied that we could bring a snake into our apartment when we already have a cat. She then gave me that scowl of hers and I ended up buy a snake anyway."
Mai sighed, "So basically, Youko-sensei told you to buy a snake and you did, but you brought it to class because one of the students need to take care of it outside of class?"
The girl from before piped up once more, "Again, aren't those suppose to be under protection? As in, cannot be bought? Where exactly did you buy it?"
Midori seemed to pause at this, "… Well, the place did look kinda shady…" She grinned right after, "But who cares! It's a white snake with red eyes! And it's non-poisonous! What more could you want?" She pointed excitedly at the snake in the tank.
Another boy from the back spoke up, "But school dorms don't allow pets."
"Which is why it'll be taken care of by someone who doesn't live in a dorm room!" The redheaded teacher looked pointedly over at the raven-haired girl daydreaming next to the window. "Natsuki! How about you take her?"
Green eyes blinked before looking away from the window, "Take what?"
Sugiura's eyebrow ticked, "I am not explaining all that again! You're going to take this snake home to your apartment as a pet for the rest of the school year! You can name it, play with it- whatever! Just make sure it's alive when bring it to class every school day!"
The biker frowned, "I can't take that snake home!"
"You can and you will. You're the only one here with an actual apartment outside of the school," The redheaded teacher added, matter-of-factly. "The school dorms and teacher's housing won't accept pets."
"So just because you can't house a live pet your girlfriends tells you to keep, you pass it onto one of your students?!" Kuga's glare was on full power, "What a load of bull—"
The end-school bell cut off the rest of whatever Natsuki was going to say.
"See you on Monday, kids!" Midori beamed, zooming out of the room before Natsuki could talk to her any more about the snake. As the other kids were packing up, Natsuki turned her gaze to the tank in the front of the room, watching the snake's curious red eyes follow the kids out the classroom.
"Don't worry, Natsuki," Emerald eyes turned to find Mai grinning at her, "It can't be that bad. Just think, it won't need to be walked like a dog or anything—"
"If I had to take care of an animal," Natsuki said, cutting her best friend off, "I'd rather it be a dog, not a snake." The black-haired first years stared at the white-scaled creature. "I don't know anything about snakes!" She scowled, "And I'm sure as hell not taking it home with—"
"Natsuki!"
Kuga looked at Mai, wondering what she did to earn Tokiha's infamous 'motherly scolding'.
The carrot-top continued, her hands akimbo, "I'm ashamed of you! That poor snakes has no home and no one to take care of it! You're its only hope of living a normal life now that its been taken away from it's natural habitat. Now it doesn't have a family and can't feed itself because it's restrained to the confines of a single glass tank—"
"Fine!" Natsuki butt in before sighing. "Spare me the guilt-trip; I'll take care of the damned snake." She rubbed her temples, feeling a headache start. She glared past her hand and looked dead into Mai's purple eyes, "But only on one condition."
The group's motherly figure tilted her head, "Yes?"
"You're helping me take care of it."
"Gladly!" Mai beamed. "I'll even get other people from the group to help out every once in a while!" She turned to the retile, which was watching the two girls in the room inquisitively, "As for today, you probably have to get books and stuff from the library about snakes—"
"Can't I just get info from the internet?"
Mai gave the biker a dry look, "Wikipedia isn't the answer to everything." Mai tilted her head once more in thought, "As I was saying, you and I can check out books and go to the pet shop and get things. Mikoto can take the snake to your house and even look after it until you get back."
Natsuki frowned, "Mikoto?" Mikoto taking care of anything living is almost a sure recipe for disaster. Sure, Natsuki might not want to take care of the snake, but she didn't want to put it in danger either.
"It's either her or Nao," Mai reasoned.
Natsuki's frown furrowed, So it's a choice between it getting either Mikoto or Nao; should I risk it getting eaten by cat girl or having it completely ignored by spider woman? Emerald looked back to her friend, "What about Chie and Aoi?"
Tokiha shook her head a little, "No can do. Those two told me they'd be going out on a date today after school, it is Friday after all."
Natsuki sighed heavily, "Mikoto it is."
Natsuki placed her book of snakes down onto the check-out desk of the library while Mai made one last round for any more books that might be helpful.
The librarian's purple eyes lit up, looking amused, "Find all you need?" She asked, failing to keep the humors tone from her words.
Natsuki stared at the librarian blankly, frowning even deeper when the woman only smiled more in the silence, "Yes." She answered severely, the single word carrying through all her feelings to the tattooed woman.
The short haired brunette merely nodded, taking the book and scanning them to Mai's library card. She raised an eyebrow, "Your card's picture doesn't match your image Miss…" The librarian gave Natsuki a side-ways glance as she ended, "Tokiha."
"That's because Mai's wandering around," Kuga thumbed over her shoulder just in time to point at an orange-haired girl walking over to them.
"Ah, okay," The librarian, whose name tag gave the name of Anh Lu, finished scanning and told them their books would be due back by the end of the month. "Have fun reading up on snakes," Anh tried to keep the amused smile off her face, but just couldn't as she watched the pair walk out the door with twenty-three different snake books.
Natsuki opened her door to find her place… completely trashed. "What the hell?!" She exclaimed, her anger rising by the second as she looked at the small, chaotic up apartment she called home. Sure, she didn't clean up after herself a lot of the time, but it looked like her place had been picked apart by burglars. "Mikoto!" She yelled, seething.
"Yeah?" A familiar head popped out from behind the over-turned couch. Her braids jiggled as she appeared, a small smile on her face.
"What… the hell happened?" Kuga growled out slowly, barely keeping herself from snapping at the young middle schooler.
"Well, I let the snake out to play, and apparently it wanted to play hide-and-seek- it slithered off to hide really fast!" Minagi's smiled brightly, "I found it a could times, but then it just bolted off somewhere else before I could catch it."
As if on cue, a white blur darted from the apartment's open door.
"Oh no you don't!" Natsuki quickly reached down, catching it by its tail before leaning back up, "This is your fault as much as it is Mikoto's." She glared down at the snake as it tried to swing free.
Mai sighed, shaking her head as she continued to hold books from the library and a bag from the pet store, "It was probably just running from Mikoto because it was scared she was going to eat it."
The cat-like girl frowned, "I wouldn't eat a snake!"
"Besides, this is as good a time as any to clean up your apartment. With the mess you had before, it'd be hard for the poor snake to get around without getting hurt," Tokiha finished, placing the newly check out and bought items on the floor near the door.
"H-how do you keep it from biting?!" Natsuki said, her tone turning anxious as she saw the snake use its own body to climb up from its dangling position. "Is it poisonous?!"
"No, it's not poisonous," Mai said calmly, hoping her calm would project onto her classmate.
"How do you know that?" Natsuki calmed down a bit.
"Midori-sensei told us."
Kuga's alarm came back, "How am I suppose to believe anything that woman says?!"
The cook rolled her eyes, "It was also in the books we checked out so you can relax." Her amethyst eyes watched Natsuki stiffed up as the snake started to move up her arm, toward the biker's head. "Here," She reached for the snake, which Natsuki all-too-gladly gave up. "If you wanna hold it without taking the chance of being bitten, you should grab it behind the head lightly like this and let the rest of it's body curl around your arm." She looked back to her friend to meet inquisitive green eyes, "I saw it a few times on Animal Planet."
"Huh."
Natsuki stared through the glass at slit, crimson orbs, "I can't believe I have to take care of the class snake." Mai and Mikoto had gone back to their dorm about twenty minutes ago, leaving Natsuki alone with her new pet at nighttime, "I don't even have a name for you yet." She ran down a list of names in her head, Scales? Slytherin? Sir Hiss?
The albino snake stared back, its tongue darting out every now and then.
"Well, I guess I have to let you out eventually," Kuga muttered, still bending down so she was eye-level with the large, glass tank. "Now," She looked right at the snake as it licked the air curiously, "If I let you out, you have to promise not to do any creepy snake things. Hell, I'll even let you out of the tank for the whole night. However, one if you do just one weird snake thing it's back in the box for you, got it?"
There was a silence as the snake tilted its head slightly to the side, simply watching Natsuki intensely.
"… I'll take that as a yes," Kuga sighed lightly, opening the black top and fishing for the snake's body. It started to slither about, alarmed once more. "Whoa! Hey, stop! I'm not going to harm you," She grabbed the white-scaled snake behind its head like Mai taught her and brought it to eye-level as she stood up straight. She gently laid its body across her shoulders, wrapping a single loosely around her neck and letting the snake's head go, "See? That wasn't so bad, now was it?"
The scales shifted around a bit as the snake wriggled, testing its new resting spot. Finally it lifted its head and looked at Natsuki, its tongue darting out once as if to say, 'Well, I suppose this is satisfactory for now.'
Natsuki gave a small smile back, "If only my mom could see me now: Natsuki with a pet snake wrapped around her neck." The smile slowly grew mirthless, "She'd… probably die from a heart attack if she wasn't already dead…" The grin went away completely as memories flashed across her mind.
Only when she felt something rub against her cheek did she come back. Green eyes turned to see red staring at her questioningly. "Huh? Oh, it's nothing. I'm fine." She then frowned, "I'm I honestly having a conversation with a snake?" She shook her head, "I need to go to bed."
After doing her nightly chores, she finally settled into bed, placing the slightly reluctant snake onto the pillow beside hers. "Look, you're not going to curl around my neck twenty-four/seven. If you're going to sleep outside your tank, it's going to be on the pillow." Natsuki slid into the covers. "I should probably just be happy you aren't a constantly-meowing-for-food cat. I think I'd kill myself if I had to deal with two Mikotos." She smirked at her own little joke as she turned off the light. She turned her body onto her side, "'Night, Sir Hiss."
"Natssuki, I'm hungry."
The black-haired girl groaned, trying to stay in dream-land.
"Natssuki, I'm hungry. Pleasse get up."
"Get your own food," The biker scowled, burrowing deeper into the covers.
"'Get your own food'? But I can't hunt anything like thiss." Natsuki felt something poke her shoulder. "Pleasse get up, Natssuki."
Kuga, who was severely pissed to have to wake up earlier than natural on a Saturday, turned her head to look over her shoulder, "Who…?" She blinked, her drowsy eyes meeting familiar red. "Oh, Sir Hiss." She turned back around, grumbling something incoherent.
"Ara, I think you mean 'Lady Hisss'," The accented voice replied humorously.
Natsuki's eyes blinked open once more, 'Lady Hiss'? She turned to look over her shoulder, seeing those red eyes again, but now also seeing the rest of the body… "Why is there a girl in my futon?!" Natsuki, now wide awake, ripped off the covers and stumbled away from the bed, staring wide eyed at the older girl.
She frowned, steeling herself for an attack as she got up, staring at the brown-haired girl in her bed. One to always secure the situation before asking questions, she gave the naked person in her bed one chance to redeem herself, "Who are you and what're you doing here?!" She growled out threateningly.
"Ara…" The girl's tongue flickered out for a couple seconds before going back into her mouth. "I am 'Ssir Hisss' your pet, yess?"
Natsuki blinked, completely stunned at the sight of the snake-like, forked tongue. Her curled fists dropping from their ready stance, "… Huh?"
Yes, that double 's' thing is annoying, I know. However, I wanted her to retain the forked tongue (don't ask why, even I don't know) so I thought it'd only be right if she had a natural hiss in her voice. Oh, and she would only do it to 'es' sounds. If its a 'sh' sound like in 'Shizuru', I wouldn't happen.
Why did I make Anh Lu the librarian? Well, she has the words 'infinite wisdom' in her GEMs name so I thought, so why not? And yes, if I continued this story, I would probably pair her with Yukariko. :P
Like it? Don't like it? Please review. :3
