May I Have This Dance?!

The big night finally came, the night of the school dance. Obon was already right around the corner. While the rest of Japan nervously awaited the arrival of their long-gone ancestors, I nervously awaited the arrival of my new boyfriend. Shōko, my best friend in the whole world, helped me prepare by lending me one of her fancy dresses. I tried to tell her I had a few of my own, but she insisted.

“I think this dress compliments your eyes a lot better,” Shōko told me as she showcased a bright sunset-pattern dress. Complement my eyes? That dress was almost the color of my eyes! Still, I couldn't deny that it was one of the prettiest dresses I'd ever seen, perhaps rivaled only by some of the outfits Aoki wore on the job.

“I love it!” I told Shoko. “But I think it compliments your eyes a lot better than it does mine.”

“Told ya I'd treat you right,” Shoko answered with a slight giggle. “Any bestie of mine has to look her best for the big dance.”

“You did not have to do this, Shōko…”

“Oh I absolutely did have to do this,” Shoko insisted. “Not just anyone can say they're dating the cutest boy in school.”

“So who are you going with?” I asked her.

“Me, myself, and I,” Shōko immediately answered. “I'm mainly just going to make sure nobody ruins your special night.”

Classic Shōko move. She'd always been there for me, ever since we were little.

With my (temporary) dress on, all Shōko and I had to do was wait for Kenichi to arrive. Just as promised, at 8:45, Kenichi Ishida arrived at my house to bring us to the dance. To my surprise, his dad was the one driving, not him. There, I learned that despite being a third-year student, he was the same age as me.

•

We arrived at Susaki High just in time for the big dance to begin. The whole school was there: all the students and all the teachers and all the administrators. The music playing alternated between classical romantic music, more modern bubblegum pop, party music from the 90s, and random anime opening themes, but none of that mattered. This was our night.

Kenichi and I danced through every song they played. We danced the tango, the macarena, the waltz, and many other dances. Whatever was most appropriate for the song they played, we decided to use that dance.

All the while, I continued to get lost in Kenichi's sparkling green eyes…

“You're pretty good at this,” Kenichi told me, startling me back into focus.

“Yeah… Well, I've had a lot of practice,” I replied. “I would only hope I'm half as good as you are.”

Kenichi got a good chuckle out of that. “I'm still pretty new to this kind of dancing. I'd be happy to be half as good as you are.”

Three more songs played, all anime openings from various genres: the hard rock opening to That Time I Got Reborn as a Cat During the Demon Lord Apocalypse, the bubbly sweet opening to Me and My First Girlfriend, and a classy opening from the 60s anime Magical Witch Chocolat. I had to wonder who picked out the setlist for this dance. Most of the time, I wanted to thank whoever was responsible for that. However, some of the songs weren't very… good…? for this kind of school dance.

But before I could figure that out, at the end of the third song, the music suddenly stopped. I spotted a boy with cream-colored hair that oddly enough looked styled to look like dog ears right where his actual ears should have been. He was speaking with the people running the music, presumably giving them a suggestion for the next song. The song Canine Entropy began to play, which, funnily enough, despite the name, consisted entirely of various auto-tuned meows. Unfortunately for me, even the mere thought of cats made me want to start throwing a sneezing fit. Oh well… Kenichi and I tried to ignore the music and just enjoy our time together.

The boy walked up to me, revealing icy blue eyes and a very youthful, almost puppy-like face. He almost reminded me of Aichi, except human… Could he…? No, that wasn't possible.

“Ayame?” the boy asked me. “Is that you?”

“How do you know my name?” I asked the boy. “Do you need something?”

“Who are you?” Kenichi asked the boy. “And what are you doing with my girlfriend?!” Kenichi's hands let go of mine and began to curl up, as if he was getting ready to fight.

“Hang on, Kenichi,” I calmed him down before turning to the other boy. “What do you want me for?”

“Let's just say you and I need to talk right now, ~woof,” the boy told me. That woof, however, gave away the entire game.

“Aichi?!” I knew it was him the moment he said woof. Aichi was the only one who spoke like that. The music immediately stopped, almost as if intentionally, so as to make this moment even more awkward.

“Uh… I can explain…”

Aichi then dragged me out of the school and onto the parking lot. Whatever it was that he had to… transform into a human? Was all that effort really necessary in order to tell me something?

“Aichi?! What are you doing here?” I asked him. This was so embarrassing! The best night of my life up to now with Kenichi Ishida was mine to seize, and this pooch had to come along and try to ruin it! Anger didn't even begin to describe my feelings on this… fiasco…

“~woof, I knew I should have stopped you from going to this dance!” Aichi immediately answered. “That pretty boy is no good. I think he might be the Dark Master ~woof!”

“What are you saying?” I protested. “Look at him! He wouldn't hurt a fly!”

“~woof, Ayame, you gotta hear me out on this!” Aichi was persistent, but something was telling me not to listen to him… I wasn't sure what it was, though…

“Look, Aichi…” I said to him nervously. “Do you have any actual evidence or are you just pulling things out of your ears?”

“I have actual evidence, ~woof,” Aichi insisted while messing around with his ears that I had thought was just his hair. “The only stuff that's in my ears right now is this sticky brown stuff that I've never had to deal with before.”

“You mean earwax?” I asked. “Yeah, it's annoying, but we humans just gotta deal with it.”

“How do you humans live like this?” Aichi asked in response. “This stuff is gross and it causes a lot of pain inside my ears.”

“I'm sure the school nurse can help you out with that,” I told him.

“Okay, but real quick, I saw the footage of that baseball game ~woof,” Aichi explained. “That game was so obviously manipulated by magic.”

“How could you tell?!”

“I'm a dog, well, Hollow,” Aichi continued, “and my hearing is, like, fifty times better than yours. He was casting all kinds of spells. And not just any spells, ~woof, very powerful spells that bend the laws of physics. Either he's the Dark Master or he just so happens to use really powerful magic to cheat at baseball.”

He read like an open book, or so I thought.

“I see what's going on here,” I told Aichi. “You're jealous!”

“I am almost five hundred years old, Ayame!” Aichi shouted.

“Five hundred years old and since you met Kenichi, you've done nothing but complain about him, insinuate that he's evil, and complain that I don't call you cute like that,” I scolded Aichi. “And now, you're here, interrupting my very first date, looking like a boy with dog ears! If that isn't jealousy, then I don't want to know what is.”

I began to storm off, back inside the school where the dance was still going on.

But I turned around to face Aichi one more time.

“And don't go around throwing your age at people if you can't act your age,” I told him. And I just… left him there.

“I am so sorry,” I apologized to Kenichi as we resumed our dance, though not telling him the whole truth. “You know how boys can be sometimes.”

“Well, yeah,” Kenichi replied. “I am one, so you'd think I'd know a thing or two about my own gender.”

“Right, right…” I blushed in embarrassment. “Let's just forget about all that and dance the night away!”

As we danced all through the night, nothing seemed amiss, though I did notice Kenichi was muttering something strange to himself. My first assumption was that this was his way of tracking his own steps while he danced. But what kind of language was that?

Before I could figure out what he was saying, something began happening to me that basically answered the question for me… The pressure began building up on the sides of my head and roughly where my spine ended, gradually at first, and then rapidly accelerating as the dancing continued. I wasn't sure how, but…

…

I was beginning to sprout cat ears and a tail! Ah-CHOO!