Who's That Talking Puppy?!

That afternoon, we made our way out to Kōchi, which was a fairly short drive from Susaki. Sakamoto was already hard at work writing tomorrow's top story. Kaneko was driving us there. Aoki sat up front to make sure Kaneko kept his eyes on the road and not on anything else. And Masuda looked… unusually bored for once.

“I opened up a tip line hoping we could get more information on the disappearances,” Sakamoto explained to us. “I've already gotten a dozen calls talking about other missing cases that could be linked to this one.”

“What?!” Kaneko asked in shock. “That's great news!” Anything even remotely connected, no matter how or why, to selling more papers or subscriptions would get Kaneko very excited. His thick, dark hair would almost sprout up as if he had cat ears. The others in the office often had a saying for him: Kaneko only loves three things - money (ōkane), cats (neko), and baseball.

Aoki nudged him in the shoulder while he was driving.

“Sorry… obviously that's terrible news for those affected by the disappearances,” Kaneko corrected himself.

“Of course, nothing concrete yet, but I figured I could head out to some of these addresses and ask questions,” Sakamoto continued.

“Great idea!” Kaneko told him. “I'll send Miss Tanaka to help you.”

“Are you sure that's a good idea, boss?” Sakamoto asked. “She's still new to the whole -”

“Mr. Doro has complete confidence in our ability to sort this case out,” Kaneko continued. “Besides, who better to show the newest member of the team the ropes than you?”

I kinda spaced out during the rest of their conversation. My mind began to wander, as all of this was still very new to me.

And that was when I saw it.

A flying puppy pulled up next to the car, gave me a wink, and then flew away.

I couldn't believe what I had just seen. I wanted to ask the others if they saw it too, but wanting to not look foolish, I kept my discovery to myself. I didn't get a very good look at the puppy anyways…

“H-how many disappearances did you say there were?” Masuda asked. There she went with the questions again. Once Chihiro Masuda started asking questions, it was hard to make her stop. But that was good for the job, so nobody cared too much. When she wasn't asking questions, she always hid her bashful blue eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses, an obviously fake dialect that nobody could place, and a mild stutter. Nobody knew if her hair was naturally the color and consistency of blue cotton candy, or if it was dyed and styled, and nobody ever bothered to ask.

“Roughly a dozen,” Sakamoto answered. “All of the calls were from the Kōchi Prefecture and all of them were within the past two weeks.”

“Y-you don't think there might be a maniac on t-the loose, do you?”

“That's why we're investigating them, Masuda,” Kaneko answered. “Besides, if anything out of the ordinary does happen, I got your back. Isn't that right, Sakamoto?”

“I am not answering that question, Kaneko,” Sakamoto answered stoically.

“Oh, come on, Sakamoto. Help a guy out here. Homies help homies, as they say.”

•

Once we made it to Kōchi, we went our separate ways; I went off with Sakamoto to investigate some of the other reported disappearances while Aoki and Masuda went with Kaneko to scour the main crime scene. On our way to the first address, I decided now would be a good time to get to know Sakamoto better.

Hiroki Sakamoto was tall. Very tall. He reminded me of those news anchors I would see on national TV: never spoke much unless it was work-related or sports-related, handsome but in a very conventional and average way, and the kind of short, spiky hair that, again, looked very oddly like cat ears. Why he was stuck working in a tiny city like Susaki and not for the bigwigs in Tokyo was anyone's guess.

“Mr. Kaneko must have a lot of respect for you if he lets you run off and do your own thing like this,” I commented.

“It is what it is,” Sakamoto answered. Of course, his answer was way too short. 

But it was what he said immediately after that which surprised me.

“This job is very important to me, and I'll need to do whatever it takes to get it done.”

“I see…”

And then he turned to ask me a question, something he would have never done back at the office. We never spoke all that much unless it was to ask me for a coffee or to run some kind of errand for him.

“Is this job important to you, Tanaka?”

“...” How was I supposed to answer that?! I was just an intern! This wasn't much of a job, at least not until now. Prior to today, my job consisted of running errands for everyone else.

“Tanaka?”

Oh dear… He was pushing the matter. He has never done that! What was I supposed to say?!

“Sorry… The future is very important to me. I want to do what is right, and, you know, this journalism thing just… feels right.”

“I understand,” Sakamoto told me. “In that case, you want to do whatever you can to protect what is important to you.”

“Yeah…”

“We're here.” Sakamoto pointed me to a small house on the outskirts of the city. This was the first address he wanted to go to. As he made his way to the front door, he told me, “Keep watch while I get this interview out of the way. If you see anything out of the ordinary, don't be afraid to take pictures. It'll look good for the paper.”

And I was left all alone outside.

I figured the interview would only last a few minutes. Sakamoto would have asked a few questions, said thanks to the people in the house, and then gone on his merry way. That was his usual method of doing things.

But tonight was… different…

For some reason, it was taking longer than expected. I did not like the feeling of being all alone in a place I did not know. Why did I let my coworkers talk me into doing this?

That was when I saw it again, the puppy from earlier. It seemed as if the puppy and I were all alone in the world. It was standing completely still, so I got a better look. It was a little Shiba Inu puppy with fluffy and curly cream colored fur, staring right through me. I wanted to say something, but it said something first.

“Ayame, it's so good to meet you ~woof,” the puppy said.

A talking puppy?! I couldn't believe what I was seeing!

“How do you know my name?! Who are you? What are you?”

“I'm just a fluffy stuffed animal ~woof,” the puppy lied. “Don't you worry about me.”

We both saw it at the same time, a large, thin tendril covered in white and red thorns, almost like a giant rose stem. I hadn't seen anything like that before. As Sakamoto told me, I grabbed my camera and began taking pictures.

It then began to move…

And the puppy started following after it…

Not sure of what to do, I started following after the puppy.

I chased both the puppy and the tendril down long streets and narrow alleys. I was worried about losing sight of them, but I managed to follow closely.

The puppy stopped in the middle of a busy street, playing with the tendril.

“Hey! Stop that!” I called out to the puppy. “You don't know where that's been!”

But I had to act quickly, as a big truck was charging its way down the street, with the puppy right in its path.

I darted into the street to get the puppy out of the way.

“Stop!!”