"Eijun? What are you doing here so early?" Haruichi asks as he walks into his and Kuramochi's shared living room. "It's only… 6am? And don't you have work today?"
"Oh Harucchi!" Eijun says as he stands up. He motions Haruichi to look at the bundle of blankets in his arms. "I came over to see if Mochi-senpai could treat this little guy I found yesterday!" Eijun then recounts to his best friend the long story of the events leading from finding the injured tanuki caught in a bear trap to him running over in the middle of the night.
"Wow, that's quite the story," Haruichi says, looking down at the animal, the now sleeping animal in Eijun's arms.
Then an idea comes to Eijun's mind. "Hey, Harucchi, do you think you could watch him today while I'm at work?" Haruichi did run a pet sitting business out of his and Kuramochi's house after all. He would be the best person to look after the tanuki while he was at work. Eijun couldn't leave him alone at his house, if the events of the night before were any indication.
Haruichi is silent for a moment, contemplating the offer before saying; "Yeah. Of course, I can."
Eijun gives a grin, excitement filling his chest as he jumps up and down. The movement causes the tanuki in his arms to wake up. It opens its eyes to stare back at Haruichi before blinking them open and letting out a noise. The tanuki's squirming movements then surprise Eijun, causing him to accidentally drop the injured animal.
The fall is painful and jarring. But luckily Miyuki doesn't land on any of his injured limbs. The animal quickly sits up and stares at Eijun with wide eyes.
"Be careful with him, Bakamura!" Kuramochi yells out from his position walking out of the kitchen. "I didn't fix the little guy up only for you to hurt him!" He yells around a mouthful of cereal. He continues his rant as Eijun rushes over to him with the injured animal in his arms.
Eijun holds the tanuki protectively in his arms, trying to calm the animal before it decides it likes Kuramochi better and bites him or something.
"Sorry, Mochi," Eijun apologizes, then looks at the animal. "Are you okay?"
The animal looks at Eijun, seemingly assessing his response. Then, the tanuki moves his head so it's staring straight up, making eye contact with Eijun.
Eijun feels his heart skip a beat. The animal's brown eyes hold a warm gaze, but Eijun can feel there's some else lying beneath it. Something dangerous and powerful. His breath hitches.
"Ow." Eijun yelps when the animal bites his shoulder. "You fucking little shit." The animal looks surprised by Eijun's outburst.
"Kuramochi, I think it wants some water," Haruichi says from his position while watching Eijun.
"Okay," the man says. He turns back into the kitchen and says. "Give me a second, I'll get a bowl.
While Kuramochi is in the kitchen, Haruichi gently takes the tanuki from Eijun's arms. "I think he was paying you back from dropping him," Haruichi says as Eijun grumbles and rubs his shoulder. "You should probably get going soon though, aren't you going to be late for work?" Haruichi asks as he looks at the clock.
Eijun was a police officer. And he often had to be at the stationary in uniform by 7:30 am. It was currently 6:53 am. "Ah, shit!" Eijun yells as he runs to the front door and quickly starts putting his shoes and jacket back on.
Haruichi follows him to the doorway, thinking. "If you're going to be looking after him for a while, you should probably name him," Haruichi says as he looks down at the tanuki.
Eijun, by the door getting ready to leave and go to his job, looks up. "Name him, huh?" He hums.
"Yes, it would probably be easier than just calling him 'tanuki for the next couple weeks, don't you think?"
Eijun hums. "You're right!" He says, seeing Haruichi's point. "But what should his name be?" Nothing immediately comes to Eijun's mind. He looks down at the tanuki sitting next to Haruichi's leg. For some reason, it looks like the animal is glaring at him. But that couldn't be right, why would the animal be mad at him? He said he was sorry.
"Don't you have to go?" Haruichi reminds Eijun, breaking him out of his thoughts. "Think about it today, maybe tell me your ideas when you come tk pick him up later today?"
Eijun looks down at the watch on his wrist. "Ah, you're right! I'm already late!" He quickly puts his jacket on and turns around. "I'll see you later than Harucchi!" He calls as he leaves Haruichi and the tanuki.
As they watch the man leave through the door window, Haruichi looks down at the tanuki. "Well I guess I should bring you to the room where you'll be spending the day with the other animals."
That statement catches Miyuki off guard. Other animals?
Later, as people begin to drop off their dogs and cats at the front door, Miyuki realizes what the 'other animals' mean. It seems this Haruichi person is a pet sitter of some sort.
Haruichi places Miyuki down in the middle of the room. Lifting his head up and looking around, Miyuki sees all the other animals staring at him. Some back away, some stare at him with wide eyes, but they all give him looks of distrust.
Miyuki expected this reaction. Non-shifter animals hate being around shifters. Even as a young pup, when he played out in the wild, they would run away from him and his mother whenever they went into the forest. One time, he had accidentally run through a rabbit hole, he never knew rabbits could be so fierce. Miyuki guesses they can smell the difference. A shifter's scent must be revolting to them. To be honest, Miyuki is surprised any of the animals are even calm in the same room as him.
Why did that human (Sawamura Eijun, Miyuki reminds himself now that he knows the guy's name) insist on him staying here? He would have happily slept in the guys house all day if it meant he wasn't being babysat like a child. Although looking back, Miyuki did run away through the man's windows when he was sleeping in the same room. So maybe he isn't one to talk.
i Grrrrr. /i
Miyuki glances around his shoulder and flinches at the sight. A large dog… some type of husky, Miyuki notes… growls down at him, and Miyuki is frozen. The dog is easily five times as large as Miyuki's small tanuki form. Once again, Miyuki realizes he is trapped in this form.
"Oh Koushu, play nice with him," Miyuki hears Haruichi say to the dog. Miyuki feels Haruichi pat him on the head. "He's going to be here until his leg heals, so please don't hurt him."
The dog, Koushu, eventually stops growling and walks away from them. Once Haruichi sees that Miyuki isn't going to be attacked by the other animals, he stands up and leaves the room, finally leaving Miyuki to his own devices.
Miyuki takes this as his chance to find another way out. He learned his lesson last night. At least this time he will find an exit that leads directly to a roadway, not some yard he is only going to get trapped inside.
When the other animals notice Miyuki looking around, they all tense up. Miyuki sees them do so. He should probably cut them out of helping in his escape attempt then. That just makes this slightly harder, but no biggie.
The first thing Miyuki can start with is getting a better idea of the layout of this house. Miyuki slowly gets up into a standing position, causing some of the other animals to look at him, but they don't move to do anything. Miyuki starts to walk to the doorway of the living room they are in. And… ouch… these injuries hurt a hell of a lot more than they did earlier. Why do they hurt worse?! He thought that the vet guy treated them. Shouldn't they hurt a little less now?
Never mind that though, Miyuki (slowly) makes his way over to the doorway and looks beyond it. He looks down a narrow hallway. Right across the hallway is the kitchen that Miyuki must have been treated in earlier. To the right is the front door Eijun had left out of about an hour ago. Miyuki can use that as his exit, but he doubts it will be that easy to escape.
That thought is confirmed when Miyuki steps out into the hallway and closer to the door. Haruichi must have heard him or something, for as soon as he pops his head up to look through the window, the man comes out of whatever room he was in and comes over to grab Miyuki.
"What? Do you think you can just try to run away again?" Haruichi admonishes him. Miyuki can only internally sigh. He only wanted to look out the window for now. But he really did need to leave sooner rather than later. It's already Monday morning, his life is going to be so off track by the time he gets back. "How'd you even get over here with those sorts of injuries, you really shouldn't be moving."
A couple hours later, Miyuki finds a bowl of some sort of food being placed in front of his face. Looking down into the bowl, this guy can't be serious, Miyuki thinks to himself as he looks down in the bowl. It's filled with dog food, kibble to be precise. Now granted, this guy doesn't know that Miyuki is actually a human in tanuki form, but there is no way he is going to be eating kibble. Hell, Miyuki would sooner do what wild tanuki's do and eat table scraps than this. He'll just wait until Sawamura gives him some more green beans later. It might not have been the best meal, but it was better than this.
"Oh come on," he hears Haruichi say behind him. "Are you not hungry? The other guys will take your food away if you don't eat it soon."
Miyuki raises his eyes and sees the dog from earlier, Koushu if he remembers correctly, eyeing his food bowl. Honestly if the dog wants it, Miyuki is fine with giving it to him. Maybe it will stop the dog from growling at him.
But first Miyuki will have to get this human to stop looking at him. Which Miyuki has been under constant surveillance since this guy found him by the front door. He's never getting out of here like this.
Then a commotion starts from the animals in the other room, causing the guy to leave to go see what's going on. Miyuki takes this as his chance, he quickly slides the bowl of dog food to Koushu, that will leave him alone for a few minutes, and goes in the opposite direction of where the human went. Good thing this kitchen has two doors.
Miyuki finds himself in an office of some sort, if the large desk alongside one of the walls with some sort of desktop computer is any indication. This is perfect, he might be able to find something to help him get out of here.
Miyuki then hears Haruichi come back into the kitchen, so he quickly hides under one of the low sections of the large desk. One of the good things about his tanuki form is that it's small, great for when he needs to hide. He sees Haruichi pop his head into the room, but he must not see Miyuki, for he quickly leaves, most likely to go look for him.
Miyuki takes this opportunity to pop out from his temporary hiding place to go looking around the room to see if he can find anything useful. The only thing he really finds is a phone, it's an old landline phone which this guy probably fuses for work. Well, Miyuki isn't much of a phone person, but that's okay, since this phone doesn't appear to be that advanced. Now, who should he call?
Who could possibly get him out of this situation?
There's also the matter that he is in his tanuki form, so he can't exactly speak. He also still can't seem to change back into his human form for some reason, which probably wouldn't be the best idea anyway considering his location.
Luckily for Miyuki, one of his oldest friends, if you could call the guy that, was also a shifter. Hopefully he could understand his tanuki sprach over the phone. He dials one of the only phone numbers he has memorized, that of Narumiya Mei.