“Akio! Where are you?!” it was difficult to get her to panic, so used to being the one who needed to keep a level-mind. But when it involved her beloved canine partner, she couldn’t keep her calm as she made her way around the unfamiliar neighbourhood. She should have maybe paid a bit more attention to where she was going with how bad she was with directions, but she couldn’t concentrate as panic enveloped her heart.
Comfortable shoes be damned, she didn’t care that she was running around in an uncomfortable pair of flats or the fact that she would eventually end up with blisters and scratches by the end of the night. She had dashed off the moment she found out that the dog had ran off fifteen minutes before she came home. With her brother combing the other side of the neighbourhood, she had quickly shoved on a pair of shoes before running off with her cellphone in her pocket.
She took quick notice of how late it had gotten, almost time for dinner and she still hadn’t found the small bundle of joy. From how her cellphone hadn’t rang, it wasn’t hard to guess that her brother hadn’t found the lively dog nor had he came home since her mother would’ve called and told her to come home. Sighing to herself, maybe she would make one last round through the neighbourhood. Maybe her beloved canine partner had gotten into someone’s house by mistake, or got stuck in someone’s yard ornaments again.
“Young Master…?”
Hakuba looked up from his book in the study to see Baaya, wringing her hands together. She was a fretter by nature, which is probably why the pair of them got along so famously, and it only took him a moment before he, too, felt anxious. “What’s wrong, Baaya?”
“There’s a dog on the lawn.”
The detective blinked and pulled himself up from the lazy lounge he’d taken to a formal sit. “A dog?”
“Y-yes. And it’s digging up your mother’s flowers.”
Hakuba frowned. “Have you tried shooing it away?”
“Yes, but it seems rather determined.”
“Can you physically move it? What kind of dog is it?”
“It’s a… a hound of some sort?”
“How big?”
“Big…ish…"
"All right, all right, I’ll take care of it, Baaya." After a sigh, Hakuba marked his place in the book and got to his feet.
The woman was wonderfully good at many, many things, but when it came to strange or wild animals, she was wary. Understandably, but that meant that Saguru often had to step in. Especially as all of the other house staff were terrified of anything that scurried. Silly.
"Is it just out front?”
“Yes. Ah, be careful, young master!”
Hakuba let himself out, quick to close the door behind him to prevent any such animals from getting inside, then set to investigating. It didn’t take long, though, to find the beagle overturning the yellow tulips. He smirked. A beagle? Baaya was scared of a beagle.
The detective moved around, calmly, slowly, and crouched nearby, holding a hand out loosely in case the dog wanted to sniff his hand. “Oi, pup,” he called in English, smile fond. “You can’t be digging around in the flower bed, my mum’ll be quite cross, you know? Oi, come here, then, love. Let’s see if you’ve got any identification on you.”
He whistled and clicked his tongue, then patted his lap – something that had always been quite effective on his own animals.
