Mei knocks on the door to Miyuki and Nabe's apartment. He waits impatiently for one of them to answer. Hopefully Miyuki and he can embarrassingly admit that he mistook some random animal as his best friend earlier today.

Nabe opens the door, seeing the man standing in front of him, he asks, "Narumiya? What are you doing here?"

"Where's Kazuya?" Mei asks, skipping introductions.

In hindsight, that is probably the wrong question Mei should have asked, judging by the looks on the other man's face.

"What do you mean, 'where's Kazuya'?" Nabe asks, an edge to his voice. Mei looks at him confused, so he continues. "I've been looking for him for the past five days. Each time I tried calling you, you never picked up."

Oh, Mei thinks. Something probably happened to Kazuya. Something that has Kazuya's roommate pissed at him. "Did something happen to him?" Mei asks. At that question and the look on Nabe's face, Mei knows he must have done, or didn't do, something wrong.

"How should I know?" Nabe asks tensely. "I haven't seen or heard from him since last week. Aren't you his best friend or something? I thought you would've known."

"You haven't heard from him since last week?!" Mei exclaims. "What do you mean by that? Have you done anything? Called the police? Maybe he's been kidnapped!"

That would explain everything he saw yesterday! Miyuki was obviously kidnapped by that weird guy who must've done something to prevent Miyuki from changing back into his human form. Mei's parents always told him to be careful about watching your surroundings when you shift, there are some weird people out there and there's no saying what would happen if they caught a shifter.

"Of course I went to the police, you idiot!" Nabe snaps Mei out of his spiraling thoughts. "I went and put in a missing persons report the other day. The police said they would look into it. They haven't contacted you yet?"

"No one's contacted me about anything," Mei answers. "Are you sure they said they would look into it? Or did they just say that so you would leave? I've heard them telling that to people."

Nabe sighs. "The detective in charge of the case said he would look into it and he didn't seem like the type to lie," Nabe says.

Mei back off of Nabe at that. "Fine then, I'll believe you for now," he says. "But if I don't hear from them by tomorrow I'll go down and give them a piece of my mind." Mei knows they would have to contact him eventually. It's not like the police will have much luck finding someone in a shifter form, especially if the shifter has been kidnapped by the so-called police.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

And luckily, or unluckily, for the police, they did show up at Mei's door the next morning.

"IT'S YOU!" Both mei and Eijun shout when Mei opens the front door of his apartment.

"You're the guy that tried to steal my tanuki the other day!" Eijun shouts.

"You're tanuki?!" Mei shouts back. "I told you he was mine!"

"Ah, it seems you know each other," Chris says as he stands next to Eijun. "This might make this interview go better," the detective says as he walks past Mei into the man's apartment, leaving the other two stewing at the door.

"So did you finally come back to return my tanuki?" Mei asks with gritted teeth.

"Why would I return him to YOU of all people?" Eijun asks. "He's lucky I was the one who found him, who knows what state he'd be in if it was you who found him."

"You found him? More like you sto-"

"Alright, if I can pause this conversation for a couple minutes," Chris says, interrupting the argument. "I don't know what sort of interactions you have had in the past or what this argument is about, Narumiya-san, but we have come here to ask some questions about your last interactions with a certain Miyuki Kazuya."

"Miyuki Kazuya? That's exactly what we-" Mei catches himself before he drops his and Miyuki's secret. "That's exactly what I've been trying to call your office about for the last few days! You guys are just getting around to talking to me! How long are-"

"Okay, Okay," Chris motions for Mei to sit at the table near the front door and tries to get him to calm down. "We just want you to know that we're putting all of our resources into this investigation."

"Yep, everything!" Eijun says nodding behind Chris.

" We were tracking down some other information, and are now here to ask you some questions."

Mei crosses his arms. "So what are your questions then?" he asks.

And Chris starts the twenty minute interview, asking Mei about his relationship with and last interactions with Miyuki Kazuya.

"So you guys have made progress in finding Miyuki, right?" Mei interrupts Chris's concluding statement to ask. He has to know what these guys know. It will help him figure out how Miyuki ended up at that idiot's place. And also help him break Miyuki out of there.

"I'm sorry Narumiya-san, but I can't tell-" Chris attempts to say.

"Don't give me that 'you can't tell me' crap," Mei again interrupts. "He's one of my best friends, you have to-"

"Just know that the information you have provided us will be very useful. If we have any other questions, please be available if we need to contact you," Chris says as he makes his way to leave, pulling Eijun along with him so the two don't get into another argument.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

"So? How's he doing?" Eijun asks as he looks down at the tanuki on Kuramochi's table.

It had been a week since Eijun first showed up at Kuramochi's door, frozen and hurt tanuki in his arms with Eijun begging the vet to save him.

Honestly, looking back on it, Kuramochi had no idea what thoughts were running through his mind at that moment. He wants to say he was surprised, which maybe he was surprised about the early morning visit, but if someone would have told him that Eijun would show up one morning begging him to save a wild animal he found hurt in the forest- no, Kuramochi would not be surprised. It's something with Sawamura Eijun's name written all over it.

Kuramochi gently unrolls the bandages wrapped around the tanuki's legs. Surprisingly yet again, the tanuki doesn;t seem to be making any fuss about it. He thinks it's odd really. Just about any other animal he's worked with would try to squirm out of his arms. But this wild animal in front of him has yet to do that. It's almost like he's not an animal at all.

Then again, from the times Kuramochi has seen Eijun try and handle the tanuki, maybe the animal is wild after all.

Luckily for everyone involved, it seems the tanuki's injuries are healing quite nicely. There might be some scarring left on the little guy's arms, but once the fur grows back in it should be able to be nicely covered up. Then again, do animals really care about scarring? In his many years working with animals, Kuramochi honestly doesn't know.

"His injuries seem to be healing nicely," kuramochi tells Eijun as he begins to rewrap the bandages around the tanuki's legs. The wounds are no longer bleeding, so it's probably not necessary. But Kuramochi doesn't want Eijun to bang against his door tomorrow morning because the animal wanted to pick at his wounds.

"Really?" Eijun says. "That's great to hear! Did you hear that little guy?!" Eijun says as he tries to scoop the tanuki up in a hug again. This is met by the usual paw in the face courtesy of said tanuki.

"So are you going to let the little guy go once he's all healed up?" Kuramochi asks, not wanting to watch the two idiots, … no, animals… no, make that idiots again, doing… whatever it is they're doing.

The question catches the other man off guard. Eijun honestly hadn't even considered the question. But the question obviously raises Miyuki's attention and he looks up to see Eijun's face. Truthfully, Miyuki has been doing everything possible to try and escape. But it has been proving to be… hard. The pain in his leg acts up at the most unfortunate time, he always seems to be under the supervision of… someone, and he still hasn't figured out why he can't change back into his human form. The longer he stays in his tanuki form, the more worried he is starting to grow. It hasn't ever been this long since he has shifted from one form to another.

He only hopes that with the encounter with Mei on the street a couple days ago, the blond would have realized that something is wrong and be working to fix it.

"Hmm," Miyuki is broken out of his thoughts by Eijun humming. "I honestly haven't thought about that."

Hopefully this means that this man will let Miyuki go once the vet gives the all clear. And hopefully that day comes soon, Miyuki can't imagine all the stuff that's going on at home. After running into Mei the other day… who knows what that idiot is doing.

"I was actually thinking about keeping him as a pet!" Eijun shouts out.

Wait- What? Miyuki freezes, he heard that wrong, right?

"Wait a minute, Eijun," Kuramochi says. "You aren't serious here, are you? This is a wild animal we're talking about here. Keeping it as a pet?"

"Yeah, Kuramochi. Just look at him, he's so cute! And we get along so well!"

"Now, now, wait Eijun," Kuramochi tries to make him pause his train of thought. "I might have said this was a good idea while the little guy was injured. But now that he's about to be healed up, you gotta be prepared to let him go. He's a wild animal after all, and studies show that wild animals live longer when they're… left in the wild."

Eijun's facial expression tells Kuramochi that this is the last thing the young police officer wants to hear. "But… But… Kuramochi! The little guy likes living with me!"

Kuramochi looks down at the tanuki. The tanuki that's trying desperately to escape Eijun's arms.

"Are you sure about that?"