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"Hey, look at that"
"Huh? Oh......"
"Yeah! It's kind of surprising, isn't it? He's VK, right?'
"Maybe it's because he's VK. There aren't many pets on the isle. Because you know, Cruella"
Animals get their fur ripped off just by walking past her! One of the chattering group concluded, and the girls all shivered in dread of the De Vil. At Auradon High School, the courtyard surrounded by the U-shaped building is often frequented by gossip-hungry students who come to inspect this and that of the promenaders. Today's victim is a boy who hangs on a bench nearby, the infamous Harry the son of Captain hook.
His face is as handsome as any prince's. His manners may seem a bit rough to most of the people in Auradon, but some of the girls think he's the epitome of bad boy they've dreamt of, and his playful demeanor has made him strangely popular with some of them.
His grades are below average, but he's not lacking in brains, and he's still making it to graduation because of his aloofness and irresistible attitude, even though he hasn't taken his classes properly.
He's worldly, elusive, and his cunning and cynical demeanor is inexplicably charming. That was Harry Hook, who was known to all the students of Auradon High School.
Harry was taking a nap on a bench in the courtyard, all to himself. That wasn't unusual. Villain kids tend to be instinctive, or rather, wild, and often sleep on the floor, both indoors and out, so after the first month, AKs no longer said anything.
But today was a different story. Everyone moving through the courtyard from the old school building to the new one was taking double looks at Harry Hook lying on a bench. Even the bored girls were staring at him, secretly fangirling. A group of students holding their usual study session in a nearby table, an art teacher who happens to be passing by, and a the son of Sleepy who was about to take his fifteenth big yawn of the day all take one look at him and stopped.
There's a bench carved out of an oak tree that once grew there. Here Harry Hook was lying on his back. With something fluffy.
Its round eyes were blue just like its owner's. Its fur was just like floss of dandelions, fluffy and soft in the wind, and its small feet were peeking out beneath the body.
The thing that drew people to the scene of Harry Hook taking a nap, was a cat.
"Awww! Is that a cyberian?"
Harry was a boy who was like a stray cat, tolerate only women and children. And now he has a cat as napmate. That was all it took to get the schoolgirls squealed with delight.
A black leather-gloved hand loosely lifts up and strokes the soft, bushy tail of the cat. It looked a bit like hooked, and Harry's happy laugh echoed as it twined the tail around his fingers. The cat, who seemed to be as chilling as its owner, was lifted into Harry's arms and held there without complaint. Harry put his lips on its forehead and nuzzled into its fur.
When Harry returned to his napping position after petting the cat for a while, the cat also lay down and closed its eyes.
"The cat seemed to like him a lot"
"Ahhh I kind of miss my parents' cat now"
"I didn't know Harry had a cat"
In less than half a day, the rumor had spread by the girls and many others who whispered to each other in the following class that they had seen a rare side of the VK.
Harry Hook had gotten a cute cat.
"I thought it was a cat?"
"I think it was, but it's cute!"
A few days later, Harry reappeared in the courtyard and the girls were excited to see what he was holding. The creature in his arms, though different from the last time, was still adorable. Its fur was dark brown and translucent white. It had a tail that rose softly from its roots and ears that looked like butterfly wings. The Papillon, a relatively popular dog breed in Auradon.
When Harry reached his usual bench, he set the dog down on it and sat down next to it himself. Strangely enough, the dog seemed to be more important to him than he was, and he took the trouble to lay a large handkerchief from his pocket on the bench before letting the dog sit on it. The dog was surprisingly well-behaved, and except for a few moments of stamping over the handkerchief, it sat without a huff.
"Wow, smart dog"
As the startled girl muttered to herself, Harry took out a container from his pocket and opened it to bring a piece of cut fruit to the dog's mouth. It was getting stranger. Most of the time, dogs eat with their faces in the dishes placed at their feet. The courtyard was once again glued to the scene, which seemed to indicate that the owner was attending to the dog.
But isn’t it too smart? Unless the prying eyes were wrong, the dog had just wiped Harry's mouth with its paw, wiping the watermelon juice from his chin. The more people looked at the duo, the more they wondered who was the master.
"Aren't they too smart to be a dog?"
"A little. But if they're that smart, he'll let you touch them, won't he?"
I love dogs, one of them said with a twinkle in her eyes.
She had thought that the VK's dog would be different from the Dude, a therapy dog originally assigned to the campus, but she was sure that a dog that gentle as Dude would allow her to pet.
She had a tendency to be too innocent and ran up to the bench without hearing her friends stop her. Harry tilted his head at the sudden presence of a stranger who spoke to him a short distance away. Eventually, Harry shook his head and she returned, looking disappointed.
"Did he say no?"
'Yes. He said Queenie was not in the mood"
The girl was disappointed, yet she continued with a faint of smile.
"But Harry is nicer than I thought. He asked Queenie if I could touch her"
"He asked the dog? Queenie?"
"That's her name, Queen. Harry told me that the cat was Captain"
After listening to their friend, the girls all turned to the bench. It seemed that Queenie was on her way back to Harry's dormitory in his arms.
"Oh, yeah, she definitely is all hail her majesty kind of dog"
Everyone nodded their heads in agreement with that statement.
One of them wondered if it was her imagination that the dog seemed to stare at them over Harry's shoulder and then turn away as if she had lost interest in them.
"He doesn't have the Captain or Queen"
"Is he alone today?"
"No, I don't think so. Look, on his shoulder"
"......Oh! It's so cute"
The girls squealed, their mascaraed eyes widening and narrowing as they gazed at what they found.
A white thing moving through Harry's ear-length black hair and over the black collar that covered the nape of his neck. The round ears were thin and pale pink with the color of blood showing through. Its body was plump and covered with short hair, and a large blue ribbon was tied to its spindly tail. On Harry's shoulders as he walked slowly down the sidewalk, holding onto his jacket with all four paws, was a house mouse.
"A mouse. ......What an unexpected choice'
Auradon was a vast kingdom with about nineteen autonomous provinces from north to south, east to west, but the only person who has ever had a heart-to-heart with mice was Cinderella. Who would have thought that a pirate who grew up on the isle of the Lost would follow in her footsteps?
Suddenly, Harry stopped his way down the sidewalk. He brought his fingers to his shoulders in a casual manner and gently picked the mouse in his hand.
"Darling, no,"
He said.
"Don't take a bite, I bought you a blue one so you would at least tolerate it"
Harry pulled the ribbon away from the nibbling mouth. The mouse didn't like it on its tail. When his fingers plucked the ribbon from its chubby paws, the mouse let out a disgruntled squeak.
"Oh, now that's what a mouse does. ......Don't get so upset. It's a compliment"
Harry's finger was held out to it as if to say, "That's great, darling," but the mouse pushed it away with its paw in disgust. It's as smart as any pet he's ever had.
Like a human, one of group of bystanders said in her mind, and she laughed. That's not possible. A long time ago, in the parents' generation, there would have been a plenty of wizards and fairies who could do such tricks, but nowadays, most wizards are retired as royal advisors, and even Mal, the fiancée of the current King Ben of Auradon, using magic is usually not looked upon well. Besides, this is a high school. There was no one who could think of doing such an advanced thing.
"Okay, okay. Let's head back"
With a wry smile, Harry turned on his heel. As he strode back the way he had come, the girls were talking about his smile and his appearance. One of them said.
"He's got a funny name for a mouse, too, isn't he?"
"Captain" for the cat, "Queen" for the dog, and "Darling" for the mouse. They're all respectively strange, so even if you put all of them together, it's still a strange combination.
But ......It sounded familiar.
The door to the dormitory room opened slightly, and Harry slipped in as if he doesn't belong here. The room was cluttered, but there were no cat beds, dog toys, or a cages for the mouse. Harry gently set the mouse down on the bed in one hand, and pulled out a snack from his pocket to the desk.
He only looked away from the bed for a few seconds, but when he looked back again, Harry didn't raise an eyebrow at the sight of much bigger figure than a mouse there. Instead, he smirked.
'You're not going to like it, but the ribbon looks good on you"
"Don't be silly, help me take it off"
There was a girl with blue box braids all tied up into a ponytail. She struggled to untie the ribbon and growled in frustration.
"Have you tied it in a knot?"
Harry reached for the ribbon, and in less than a second he had it untied.
"You pull it from here and its undone. Common knowledge among sailors"
He said.
"Good. Now I know how the mast feels"
Harry shrugged his shoulders at her bite. Uma was always like that when she's in bad mood, and it never bothered him.
'So, the cat form then? It was big enough and didn't need a mark"
"Yeah, and no one will try to touch you when you're a cat with a temper"
Uma smiled, remembering the other day. There's the difference between cats and dogs. For some reason, people would never dream of just touching a cat without its approvals because it would bite you, but it's mostly a different story with dogs. What kind of nerves do people have when they are both creatures with their own feelings?
All those shenanigans were just an experiment. An Octopid like Uma, which shares much of its biology with the octopus, has the ability to transform beyond imagination. It was an experiment to test its capacity and to find the most practical form for the future. By practical, Uma doesn't mean stealing or taking advantage of other people's weaknesses. Rather, it's a little story that's harmless and cute compared to the crimes she could commit if she wanted to.
"Hmm, should I buy a cat tree or something? It's weird that there's no sign of me being a cat owner"
If I do, I'll put it by the bed. If you want to put it by the bed, you can use it as a shelf, Harry said so rather to himself than Uma, already picturing a plaything replacing his side chest.
"Tell them I'm semi-feral. Your new roommate didn't seem to have a brain anyway"
"Sure you are semi-feral, Uma darling. ....... And here he comes"
Harry, who has a keen sense of approaching presence from years of experience, and a hearing sense like his father's that allowed the old man to hear the voices of fairies, alerted.
As he had warned, eventually the footsteps stopped in front of the room and knocked the door twice.
"Oh, you're here too. And is she the Captain that everyone says?"
The boy walked into the room then perked up when he recognized a cat on Harry's bed.
"I'd heard rumors that you had a cat, but I thought it was just a fake news because I never saw her in the room"
He was a roommate who had just enrolled this semester, after Harry had been enjoying his room by himself for months. He is an Auradon boy with a laid-back attitude and calm demeanor. He walked past Harry, who greeted him vaguely with a "Hi," set his tennis racket down on his bed, and began to hurriedly look for his textbook for the next class. With the book in his hand, he turned around and says.
"She's a beauty"
"I know! Don't fall in love with her. She's my captain"
Harry smiled at Uma disguised as a cat on his lap. He also noticed the color of the cat's eyes and whispered to her.
"......Darling, you're supposed to have blue eyes"
"Meow,"
Uma meowed in annoyance, and in the blink of an eye, her eyes changed to a deep sea blue. Harry jokingly stroked her belly, and her tail slapped his arm as if to tell him to stop.
"Oh I'm jealous of you guys. I've got to go. You know, Merry-not-so-merry-weather"
"Oh, yeah. Good luck"
"Thanks. Usually I'd say you too, but you're always in the room, so I don't know"
Harry's roommate laughed and hurried out of the room.
After a few moments of silence, Harry picked up the cat,
"Nice first impressions, eh?"
Uma tilted her head. With that attitude, a cat has an authority of pirate captain.
"You forgot to tell him about the night. When I scratch the door, you or he is supposed to let me in because I'm semi-feral and stay here as I please"
"Oops"
The purpose of this experiment was, to cover up for the duo so they could stay together after curfew.