To make up for last chapter's fillerness, we've included a bonus short explaining the confusing mix-up with Daisuke's dad! Whootitude!
Satoshi entered the pet store. Of people, it was completely empty, but there were lots of animals around. There were so many to choose from and Satoshi didn't know which one he wanted. A bell sat on a desk, so Satoshi pushed the little button on it to make it ring. A very annoyed-looking saleswoman walked up.
"What?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips.
"Oh, um… I was wondering if you could help me find an animal companion that would match my lifestyle," Satoshi asked. "I don't really spend a lot of time at home and I need a pet that can mostly take care of itself."
"Want a chinchilla?" the woman asked, sounding eager and seemingly crossing her fingers under the desk.
Satoshi blinked. "I'm afraid I don't know what that is."
She sighed. "Join the club. They're adorable and furry when you first look at them, but that's just their disguise. They're really evil."
"Then why were you trying to get me to buy them?" Satoshi inquired. Chinchillas, whatever they were, sounded a lot like Krad.
"Why? Why?! Because they've been living at my house and I have to feed seven babies with an eye dropper ever half hour, that's why!" she shouted. "And every time I finish feeding the last one, I have to start over!"
Satoshi drew back. "Could you please just help me find a pet?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'll help you. No one cares about the psychotic employee," she mumbled to herself, then jumped over the desk. Satoshi couldn't help but notice she had Band-aids all over her arms and legs from various animal-caused injuries. "Okay, over here we've got cats. I call this one Steve. He doesn't do anything." She picked up his head and then let go; it flopped limply onto the bottom of his cage. "Maybe he's dead... anyway, here we have dogs. You don't want a dog. Then we have guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, chinchillas-" – she said this in tone like she was sucking on a rather sour lemon – "- and rabbits. Any appeal to you?"
Satoshi blinked yet again, still trying to recover from the 'dead' cat. A few seconds later, he replied, "Um… but do you have anything that doesn't really, you know, do anything and is still alive?"
"How about a fish?"
"You can have a fish for a pet?"
"How about a rabbit? Here. This one looks especially stupid." The salesperson pointed to a fat white one with red eyes sitting in the back. "You can pick it up tomorrow."
"Wait!" Satoshi shouted before she wandered back to watch TV. "Is it a boy or a girl?"
"Ask someone whose job it is."
"Wait… but isn't it-?" But she had already gone into the back room.
Satoshi sighed. Why did it seem like everyone went out of their way to plot against him?
"Okay, Daisuke! Tell me: what are you going to do today?"
"I can't believe you're making me do this. I have an exam today!"
"Oh, poo to that! You have an exam every day, my little piece of Wonder-bread!" Daisuke's mom said, ruffling his hair.
"Mom… I told you to stop it with the stupid pet names," Daisuke growled, putting his hair back into its usual spiky appearance. "How would you like it if I started calling you 'Dad'? Or 'Grandpa'?"
"Hmm… 'Grandpa'…"
"Mom!" Daisuke sighed. "Whatever. I'll just do what you told me. I'll follow around Donis A. and stuff."
"That's my boy! I love you!" Daisuke's mom gave him a big hug. "Give us any information you've got. Okay?"
"Right… Whatever, Mom." So Daisuke set off for school.
"Take Wiz with you! He's good at getting around in small areas." Wiz happily hopped into Daisuke's backpack, not forgetting his last adventure. Now Daisuke really did set off for school.
"Like I'm going to let you be me again. Absolutely not," Daisuke said, sighing. Wiz licked his face like a good rabbit creature, but Daisuke still ignored him. "You can help me, as long as you promise to be good. And not say anything. Because you definitely know more than 'Daisuke, yes, no'. Got it, you little weasel?"
"Kyu," Wiz said cutely, his eyes shining like two big, red blobs of Jell-O.
"Okay. Ready to go in?" Daisuke was wearing all black, even though there was truly no need, and hid in the closet of Adonis' first class, art. He knew this because he figured out his class schedule from reading Ayaka's notebook. She had written down every one of his classes. Maybe she has the stalker gene too.
The first person to walk in was, fortunately, Adonis or Donis A. After him followed about seven laughing fan girls. Donis was laughing too, in his weird, manly way, most likely about some joke he'd just told.
Truthfully, Donis was nothing like Daisuke expected. Unlike Takeshi, he succeeded in being a lady's man. He also seemed to have an ego problem; basically, he loved himself. He flipped his long wavy hair around and it hit one of the girls in the face. She went flying out of her chair and through the door. Donis didn't seem to notice this, but if he had he probably wouldn't have cared much. He began telling another joke and the other girls listened carefully, their eyes as wide as pie pans. It wasn't long before the rather impatient Daisuke fell asleep.
He was awakened by someone poking him in the arm with a ruler and Dark shouting in his head to get the heck up. It was one of the Donis fan girls and she now had taken to beating him upside the head with some other heavy weapon that felt sort of like a nightstick. Daisuke could make out Donis and four fan girls standing next to a three-legged wooden table.
"Please - OW! – stop that," Daisuke growled, holding his head.
"Susan, desist!" Donis shouted and only then did she stop, mumbling something that sounded like, "Yes, my liege."
"Are you alright, small child?" Donis asked, staring down at Daisuke and not sounding the least bit concerned.
Daisuke growled. "What kind of question is that? I was just whacked repeatedly with a table leg by a girl I've never seen in my life! Do you think I'm alright?"
"Maybe," Donis said confindently, shrugging with a large grin plastered on his gleeful face. "My name is Donis! This is a very strange way to meet, by the by, but by any chance were spying on us?"
"Yes… until I fell asleep," answered Daisuke. "I'm sor-"
"Don't be! I'm flattered! But of course, why shouldn't anyone want to spy on me?" Donis laughed heartily and the fan girls joined in, giggling much more stupidly, wondering if they'd just missed the joke.
"Can I talk to you alone, by any chance?" asked Daisuke through gritted teeth; Donis was one of those people who thinks the world revolves around himself. Or he could just be a soap commercial guy who thinks he's going to be really famous, but still isn't doing enough sales for L'Oreal or Dove.
"Of course, my good chap! But I'll have to fit you into my schedule sometime." To Daisuke's regret, Donis had pulled out a dictionary-thick planner (which was covered in pictures of himself) and flipped to today's date after licking his finger. "Hmm… I'm completely booked today, sorry. I've got polo practice right after school, and then I have to go home and study… tomorrow I'm booked as well, have to go bicycling and training, but the next day… oh wait, that's right, I'm teaching orphans how to read that day… and then I have cricket lessons until seven..." Donis was temporarily distracted as one of the fan girls came up to tell him how generous he was. Daisuke rolled his eyes and looked at his Digimon watch, obviously bored again. Donis began biting his nail, feigning distress. "Ah, what to do, what to do… perhaps I can pencil you in for, maybe, seven months?"
"I'll be a grandpa by then!" Daisuke shouted, who was still wondering what polo was.
"Happens to the best of us," Donis replied, shaking his head sadly.
"No! I mean- Get over here." Daisuke firmly grabbed Donis by his ruffled shirt and pulled him into a corner.
"I know what you really are," Daisuke growled. "You're an evil spirit and you're trying to hug all those girls to kill them! But you won't get away with it!"
Donis blinked, his expression blank, then he looked quite cheerful. "Ooh! I know you! You're that funny man's son! He thought I was evil too!"
"What do you mean 'thought' you were evil?" Daisuke asked, wondering if he was just trying to worm his way out of this.
"I'm not evil! Everyone just thinks I am!" Donis said, then looked rather glum. "But no one really knows what its like, being a statue and then you realize you can't hug anybody when you're a person… it's quite sad, actually." He sniffled and the fan girls raced over to adorn him with adorationizing and pity, even though they hadn't paid any attention to what had just been said.
Daisuke frowned. Not only was he too lazy to fight this guy (not that he could in front of all these people) as Dark, but there was something, somehow, about Donis that was trustworthy. Like in soap commercials, you just had to trust those people, even though they were scamming you with long-haired, middle-aged men wearing loads of make-up to make themselves look twenty years younger into buying their soap. For effect, Donis flipped his hair again, hitting another and sending one of the fan girls flying into the ceiling, where her head disappeared in the plaster. He didn't notice again, not even when the class ran over, shrieking and dialing for an ambulance on the cell phones they weren't supposed to have in class.
"Trust me! I won't hug a soul!" Donis said truthfully, holding on hand up and putting the other over the area where his heart should be. "Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye!" Daisuke sighed and decided to let him go. Dark wasn't responding anyway.
BONUS SHORT
"Hey, Dad," said Daisuke, walking in the door and tossing his backpack against the wall, Wiz shrieking from inside. "I was just thinking about how you could possibly be Dark; it came from my mom's side of the family." Finally, he realizes!
Daisuke's dad laughed. "Oh, son! I wasn't actually Dark; I was Inspector Darkness! I'm always getting those confused."
Daisuke sweat dropped, wondering if he should have asked. "Um… who exactly is Inspector Darkness?"
"Here, I'll show you!" His father pulled out a picture of a younger form of himself dressed up like Sherlock Holmes and wielding a magnifying glass.
"Wow. That's really stupid," Daisuke said plainly, making a mental note to burn that picture later.
"That costume made me meet your mother!"
"At a costume party, I hope?"
"No… she hit me with her truck because she thought I was a criminal," Daisuke's dad replied, half-embarrassed.
"Okay then… Bye." Daisuke walked upstairs, wondering who it was, exactly, in his family he had gotten his normality from.