Chapter 11: Sarutahiko Mei, Tadano Hitohito

Tadano was just walking home from a certain girl's house when he heard a familiar shout to his right as he approached an intersection. His friend, Sarutahiko, was chasing a large dog with brown fur, as tall as Tadano's waist. The dog's leash whipped against the ground.

Tadano ran next to her. "Sarutahiko, what's going on? Whose dog is that?"

"I dogsit on the side," she said. "It's because...never mind that! Help me! The dog, Yuni, always went crazy around this time."

"Okay!"

However, no matter what, Tadano and Sarutahiko couldn't catch the dog.

Tadano looked at Sarutahiko. "Do you mind if I ran behind you?"

"Why?"

"She's not familiar with my smell."

"Okay, then," Sarutahiko said. She was already faster than him, so not much change there. Why must every single dog she sat be this painful? The dog turned right. Sarutahiko thought she could cut her by moving on the inner curve, but no luck.

There was a man pushing an oden cart just exiting a house. Yuni stopped, allowing Sarutahiko to come closer. Sarutahiko swore the dog grinned that so reminded her of that most annoying 'Dog'.

She was merely an arm's length away to her collar before Yuni turned around. A blur of brown fur made a whirr as she dodged Sarutahiko's grab and left her confused. Additionally, the leash hit the side of her shins. A feint? Sarutahiko thought. That bloody bitc-

"Gotta work harder if you want to catch Yuni, girl," the man pushing the oden cart said.

Sarutahiko quickly stood up and chased after the dog. But fatigue caught up to her. What am I doing? Do I really need a puppy? No. Unlike before, the distance kept increasing. Just gonna apologise to the owner, she thought. Besides, Yuni can go home by herself.

Yuni turned around to see her chaser giving up and smugly grinned. Someone's hands grabbed into her leash and collar.

Sarutahiko blinked. "Tadano?"

Tadano wrapped the leash around his right arm and his left arm went around Yuni's neck. Yuni was as surprised as Sarutahiko. He smiled. "Sometimes it's good to be a forgettable nobody." Before Sarutahiko could get to him, however, Yuni started running, dragging Tadano with her.

Tadano regretted wrapping the leash around his arm as he scraped against concrete. Yuni was such a powerful dog Tadano's weight meant nothing. Tadano failed to undo the leash.

Sarutahiko made a loud beastly scream. When Tadano looked, he noticed Sarutahiko wasn't running. No, she was jumping into a house wall on the side of the street, grabbing into an overhanging branch of a tree, then swung from that branch to the top of the wall, and then jumped from the wall, landing just slightly ahead of Yuni. "Let him go!" She grabbed into Yuni's collar and pushed down, forcing the dog to stop.

Tadano untied the leash and handed it back to Sarutahiko. "That's incredible! I didn't know you can do that."

"Do what?" Sarutahiko looked back at the wall and saw her footprint on the wall. "Oh. That. Are you hurt, Tadano?"

Tadano brushed his right arm. "Oh, I'm fine." There was a bruise on the right side of his abdomen, but he pretended everything was fine.

"Sorry," Sarutahiko said.

"No worries," Tadano said. "When did you begin dogsitting?"

"The end of the second year, I think," Sarutahiko said. "A month or so after you started dating Komi." Sarutahiko looked at Tadano's right arm. "Thanks a lot, Tadano."

Tadano laughed. "Oh, it's nothing. I didn't end up doing anything. Will Yuni be okay?"

"She's a tough dog, she'll be okay," Sarutahiko said. Yuni seemed to agree; she sat silently, catching her breath.

"Were you thinking of buying something? I don't think you did any part-time jobs before," Tadano asked.

"Not in it for the money," Sarutahiko said. "I wanted a puppy, but my mum told me I must show that I can take care of a dog before she'll get me one. Well, looking at what I did, I'm not getting any puppy anytime soon." She sighed.

"Sarutahiko, I'm sorry if I'm stepping over the line. But...I think you should just talk to him," Tadano said.

Sarutahiko coughed. And coughed. "W-what? What do you mean?"

"You started working with dogs to see if you can actually like dogs, right? Including of course, the 'Dog'. Because you felt confused after White Day."

"H-how can you tell?"

"I think it's very obvious," Tadano said.

"I-I'll see you tomorrow! Bye bye!" Sarutahiko said, running away. Yuni's eyes sparkled and she too began running.

[break]

Komi was touching Tadano's right side all over. "Are you still hurting?"

"K-komi...that story was before third year started, it's healed for quite some time now…"

Komi realised where her hands were and quickly moved away. "That's good. Did Sarutahiko end up getting a puppy?"

"Yes she did. Inui also ended up getting a pet monkey."

"...why?"

"Turns out they're just like each other," Tadano said. "I hope the two can get together eventually."

"We took quite a long time," Komi said under her breath. She flipped through her notebook rapidly. Before Tadano could say anything, she said, "I want to tell a story about Rumiko and Shinobino!"

Author's note: 'Yuni' is of course 'inuy' backwards, and 'inuy' is a butchering of Inui's name.