your mother is a clown car

Jiro was more focused than any of his siblings had seen. Not that he cared to prove he could catch one, but now the game had begun. And with Seiko teasing him from behind, one hind paw reaching out to try and bop her with, Jiro knew he couldn't fail now. Taking after his father more than he cared to admit, he would at least try to catch one of these mice he claimed to live within the shadows of the bamboo.

"Pfft, just watch!" Jiro chirps, tossing Seiko a look over his shoulder that was a mixture of competitiveness and playfulness. After quickly sticking his tongue out at Seiko, he turns his focus back onto the bamboo. Near one of the bases, there is sign of mice. A few droppings that smelled not particularly recent, but it would at least give him a direction. Their claws hardly made a difference in the dirt and leaf litter that hid their movements. Keeping his nose to the ground, Jiro crawls forward on too large of paws and has trouble keeping his balance in such a way. "You can see where they chew and climb on the bamboo," he calls back to Seiko and Kina (if she were listening) and stuck his nose against one of the stalks that had miniscule claw marks in it.

"They gotta be here somewhere," he murmurs as he moves on to the next stalk.