Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!
(featuring the Tokiha family pet)
There was a knocking at the door of the dormitory apartment.
"I'll get it, Mai!" Mikoto caroled. She sprang over the back of her chair and scrambled to the door on her hands and knees in a split second, then bounced to her feet. She opened the door to the deliveryman.
"I've got a package for a Mai Tokiha?"
"Uh-huh! She lives here!" Mikoto exclaimed, then snatched the box and shut the door in the face of the bewildered driver. "Mai! You've got a package!"
"I do? I'm not—oh! That's for Kagutsuchi."
"It is?" Mikoto made a confused face.
The dragon-phoenix's ears twitched at the sound of his name. He stirred from his basket, then flew over to Mikoto.
"Can I open it?" she asked.
"Go ahead; just save me the packing slip so I'll have it for when I reconcile my accounts at the end of the month."
"Okay, Mai!"
Disdaining such civilized innovations such as utility knives, Mikoto dug her fingers under the box flaps and ripped the cardboard apart, dropping its contents onto the couch.
"It's a cassette tape. Um...'Whalesongs of the World'?"
"Uh-huh. It was only a hundred yen, since nobody wants cassettes these days."
Kagutsuchi stripped the cellophane off the cassette with his claws, then picked it up and flew back to his basket. Mikoto watched with interest as he extracted the tape from its case, inserted it into a Walkman, and got the headphones in place over his ears. He played the tape for a couple of seconds, then stopped it, lifted his head, and gave an echoing cry not unlike a whale's. He then rewound the tape a bit and hit "play" again. After a few seconds he stopped it again, then repeated the cry in a slightly different timbre.
"Mai, what's he doing?" Mikoto asked.
"Practicing."
"Practicing?"
"Sure. You don't think whale is his natural language, do you? He likes to listen to native speakers in order to make sure he has his pronunciation and diction right."