It's time for *more drumroll*
COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY DISCLAIMERS!!
As well as obligatory whining about my personal life, shameful begging for more positive feedback, and talking to imaginary characters.

Gosh, this is so hard. Where should I start? I had a horrible oral exam today minna (Notice the insertion of obligatory Japanese fan girl speak) and so I'm really sorry that this chapter took a whole day longer to be posted.
(Insert obligatory imaginary character talking to readers in defense of author and the use of Japanese fan girl honorifics)
Kyou: It was a really hard exam and everyone should give their condolences to Hime-sama

I hope everyone survived the many months between my stories because I know you are all horribly addicted to my writing. Mwahahahaha! (--Inserted obligatory evil laugh caused by obligatory statement of author being evil in some way to her readers)

Oh, I almost forgot to shamefully beg! Please, please, pleeaaase leave me kind cuddly cotton candy comments (I just love alliteration) so that my ego inflates to the point that it reaches maximum capacity and explodes! I love you all to pieces! *squeeze*

Wow, that was harder than I thought!!!! On to the next page!!! (--Obligatory overuse of exclamation points)

Ring Around the Collar Page 2

As was common for such nice days, the mall was packed full of happy go-lucky people, although people weren't the only ones to frequent malls when the weather was nice. In the corner of the mall pet shop, conveniently located next to the food court so that the smells of food kept the animals in eternal hunger and the smells of animals kept the people eternally nauseous, sat a little brown and white hamster called Ebichu. Goshujin-sama had left for the weekend with her lousy boyfriend and Ebichu had managed to finish all her housecleaning chores. On the rare days she had any free time, she liked to visit the nearby pet store to talk to others of her kind. Ebichu, as naive as she was, was still quite liberal and associated herself with not only hamsters, but gerbils, guinea pigs, and mice as well.

Upon entering the mall at the food court entrance, which was the closest entrance to the pet shop, Yuki's stomach rumbled loudly in large protest of hunger. "I guess in my hurry, I didn't think to grab breakfast," he thought, and headed off to buy a muffin. In a hurry to get to the pet store and complete his devious mission, he ate while walking and didn't pay much attention to where he was going. Of course, on a crowded day as this, it was a fatal flaw; he bumped into a woman and transformed into a mouse in the middle of the food court. Luckily, no one really noticed and the women just shook her head in confusion and continued on. Unfortunately, the gods were against Yuki that day, most likely because he was plotting to do nefarious things to his older brother.

Two younger boys were sitting at a table nearby when the transformation took place. They were just killing time waiting for their food to be done and picking at their soda bottles. Eventually, one managed to wrench the plastic ring off of his drink and flicked it into the air at the crowd. Under most circumstances, the act was at worst littering, but in this case, it was assault. The ring managed to slip itself over Yuki's head as he transformed and got stuck around his neck.

Thinking he would transform back in short order, Yuki quickly decided to head to the dressing rooms of the nearest clothing store. Coincidentally enough, it was right next to the pet shop. Unfortunately, a strait shot to the store would have been fatal with the amount of foot traffic, so he stuck to the walls and detoured into the less busy pet shop to cover the distance.

Murphy really had a grudge on Yuki that day. Running as fast as he could, he didn't manage to spot the mousetrap until it was too late. "We caught another one!" cried one of the employees. "Looks like we've caught almost all the rodents that escaped from that cage this morning." The clerk then took removed Yuki from the human mousetrap and gently set him in a cage with a brown and white hamster. The clerk must have been an idiot not to notice that one of the "mice" he had caught was a hamster and that the other had a collar around it's neck.

TBC...