My Dearest Tanuki

Moving In

the most unrealistic part of this fanfic is that Redd has been at an island for more than one day )

After returning to his trolly, Redd struggled to fall asleep. He was afraid he would have another nightmare, one similar to the last and he didn't want to live through that again. Staying awake eventually led to Redd falling asleep without him remembering, and luckily the only thing that disturbed him was a light knock against the front side of the trolly. His ears perked up to the noise before he even moved. After hearing the knock again, he decided it wasn't insane so he stretched out his long limbs and let out a moan once he relaxed again.

Who is here this early and why..

He complained in his head. Redd wanted to see who it was before he even bothered to fix himself up. He just barely looked through the space of the wall and tarp to see something brown and fuzzy. Of course his mind went to Tom.

Upon realization, Redd struggled and scrambled around to quickly get himself presentable before he lifted the tarp to see a quite impatient and exhausted looking tanuki. "Hi, Nookie!" Redd chimed with a small bag of his tail, to which Tom reached over to grab his tail so it would stay still. Redd suggested he wasn't in the best mood then, so it tried to make the wagging stop himself. "You're up early?" Redd added, saying it like a question since Tom didn't look like he wanted to talk.

"I never went to sleep." Tom answered.

Redd frowned. "Why not? Why are you here and not in bed?"

"You wanted a house, hm?" Tom asked with a small tilt of his head. "Well, yeah, but if it meant you had to wake up this early and stay up all night to work-"

Tom shook his head. "That's not why I didn't sleep." He corrected. "Then why didn't you?" Redd asked then, he couldn't understand why.

Ignoring his question, Tom handed the printed bill to Redd. "This covers everything, the house, the bits of furniture I've added into it, the phone and utilities." Tom explained.

"Phone?" Redd asked.

"Oh, right, forgive me." Tom stressed then gave him one of the Nookphones. "Here, this is the only phone that is able to work on the islands."

Redd took it into his hands to examined it for a moment. "You got your own merchandise too, huh?"

Tom nodded, "I do, in fact you can go purchase a shirt at the services building." He informed while pressing a paw to Redd's bare chest. This caused Redd to flush pink and Tom to draw his hand back.

There was an odd..tension..between the two.

"Anyways," Tom started to break the silence, "With the bill is a map of the island, your home is highlighted. Go on and move in, yes? Get this pollution factory off of my island." He dismissed with a shoo to Redd. "Oh, and on the phone is important contacts. Services building, Isabelle's, Mine, the Cranny's, Able's , even Kicks has his number in there. Just call if you want to order anything or need help, okay?" Tom informed.

..but Redd stopped listening after Tom said his number was in there.

"..Okay." Tom said slowly since he didn't get a response. "Anyways, no interest, no dates, but I do expect to be paid back."

"Aw, I can't get one free for old times sake?" Redd asked, obviously as a joke.

"If that was the case you would have a sheet on the ground in the woods, sweetheart." Tom muttered.