First post- a fic, TeniPuri
Fic! The link for it at ff.net is http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1805928.
I wrote this story last year and posted it, but I didn't know how to do lj cut then. My interest in lj has revived, and I also found out how to do lj cut, so... here it is. There are more chapters at ff.net...
Sorry about the lack of response to comments. I never saw them until now... -sweatdrops- Hope you enjoy the rest of the fic. And hi, Sara!
Pairings- Depending on how you look at it, gen, InuKai, InuiTezuka.
Disclaimer- PoT is not mine.
Author's Notes- Named after the ending song. The lyrics at the end are from the romanization at animelyrics.com
***
"And thus," Inui read, "The western novel The Lord of the Flies is an inaccurate representation of human nature." His gaze swept across the room, from the teacher to his classmates, light glinting off his glasses ominously. "Civilization would have deteriorated much sooner."
His report was met with silence, then the teacher nodded. "Thank you, Inui-san. Interesting points." Inui's gaze drifted further across the room, focusing on the regulars there, analyzing their actions, as always. They'd actually all listened. Fuji, in their class that day for some reason, was giving him a truly delighted smile, if what might have been a rather condescending one.
Inui's slight smile turned into something close to his trademark manic one. "I never said believed any of this. I wanted to see if I could make all of you think that way." He walked back to his seat, nodding as he passed Oishi, who smiled at him vaguely. He set himself back down in the chair, and the class continued once again without him.
He opened his green notebook under his desk, frowning irritably for a second when he noticed that a few pages at the front were falling loose of the spiral binding. He ripped them out fully and folded them in careful thirds, leaning down and pushing them into the pockets of his uniform.
His report had been done fairly hasty in comparison to his usual work ethic, but Inui found quick, more emotional actions like that could produce the most interesting results for correspondingly emotional questions like the one he'd been given, or at least they could be considered to do so from an impartial, detached perspective. He'd known there was a sufficient chance of about 78% that the teacher would be too intimidated by his intelligence and manner to truly ingest what he was saying anyway.
Part of his brain was working on the prospective ingredients for a new, even better health drink, as it had been for a large part of the morning. He would very much like to see even Fuji crumble under his new creation, though without any serious or long-term damage caused, of course. Pencil in his hand drawing out plans for Kaidoh and calculating probability of success of formations for their new pair, Inui's attention was really focused out the window. He could see Tezuka in a nearby classroom, also seated at the window and staring out, expression in those stern dark brown eyes unfathomable. Tezuka pushed his glasses up, and Inui did the same, an unconscious imitation he always felt the need to do when he saw someone complete the action.
Deliberately, he removed his own improbably thick frames, rubbing his eyes, careful to look away from his classmates, for this was something he wouldn't show any of them. Tezuka, the window, the classroom, the whole of Seigaku, all of them instantly became nothing but a dark blur. Normally, being without his glasses made Inui feel different, younger, less intelligent, less in control- stupid. But if he just closed his eyes, what he saw- didn't see- there, that was the exact same. Hmm. He wondered how the addition of salt would affect Penal Tea's taste.
Opening his eyes again, Tezuka was still in Inui's blurred sight. His mechanical pencil, mint green and smooth, skidded around his plans for Kaidoh, and beside them, just Tezuka's name. Blindly, the lead in Inui's hand traced out just one word, Soon.
He was patient, after all, more patient than anyone knew. Like Oishi, only not nearly so benevolent as the other boy. His chance would come. Because, if you had to choose between being the predator or being the prey, which would you choose?
Keep Your Style
Starbrigid
Inui loved tennis practice. Even though he was no longer a regular, he still got the best chance of the day to collect data and observe many of his subjects of interest at once. Today he watched Tezuka, Fuji, Echizen, all of them. He watched the Golden Pair, because they were an extraordinary doubles pair, but contrary to all that, their legend and greatness, they were far from perfect. He watched Taka and his power and personality changes with a quiet, almost sly focus, because he had a new theory about him, reaching farther into the past, and somehow, he thought watching could tell him if it was valid. He had to keep watching Momoshiro because the boy was constantly developing.
Echizen had been one of the foremost in his sight ever since he'd beaten Inui, the freshman being the most truly promising of the whole team. Fuji he had still not given up on trying to get consistent data on. Kaidoh was his new pet project. And Tezuka...
"Does anyone have any salt?" he asked loudly, as innocently as possible, thermos in hand, and watched nearly the entire tennis team, freshman to regulars, wince or cover their heads.
Inui might have said that Tezuka had the regulars spend too much time on practice matches and not enough time on enforcing basic skills, but practice matches were a good opportunity to observe. And it was 79.5% probable, too, that Tezuka's overall methodology would still draw out the greatest possible results, judging by experience and the team's overall spirit, even against Inui's own data.
A strange manifestation of that spirit was showing in Kaidoh at the moment, hitting a continuous snake against Echizen, running towards the net with a sudden uncoiling snap forward. Inui sighed, almost indulgently. Kaidoh either hadn't listened or had disregarded what Inui had told him the last time they met. He was still using too much power.
Tezuka and Oishi seemed to be having a fairly relaxed long volley between them, speaking to each other quietly across the net. Almost contemplatively, what might have been whimsically on someone who wasn't Tezuka, the captain was making Oishi run more, aiming precision shots to hard-to-predict, seemingly random places, though they were very slow shots.
Echizen was watching Tezuka, lips parted unknowingly and golden eyes hurtful under his trademark cap's shadow. The chibi was so absorbed, he missed the curve of a particularly treacherous snake, reaching it too late after the bounce to catch up. Inui smiled secretively. Thanks to him, Kaidoh's Snake had improved, just like the Boomerang Snake had. It wasn't a focus or anything, Kaidoh could already hit the Snake successfully. But a side effect of the training- one that there was only a 22% chance Kaidoh himself was aware of- was that the Snake had become harder to track, too. Inui could hardly be called lazy, except for perhaps in his own self.
The world was getting more and more transparent to Inui's data every second.
***
Inui was used to rejection. He didn't mind it. Maybe he even preferred it. Some things just weren't supposed to hurt someone like him. Time went on, and other things happened after that event, his mind experiencing sensory pleasure and bombardment on a purely physical level as well as various mental and psychological stimulates. Rejection, as well as its homonyms and various corresponding concepts, meant nothing to him, he thought to himself, because it could all be reasoned out, and he held not just the power of observance, he also possessed the rarer and yet most necessary corresponding trait of cognition.
Inui thought of his parents, wondered why he had, then knew, just as he walked into the house that was solely his. Maybe, this new year-
Wait. There were two cars in the carport. Inui's eyes widened behind the ultimate focus lenses that shielded them. He pushed the door open- it was unlocked for some reason, an ominous change- and made his way in. The lights weren't out like he'd left them, but switched back on, yellow glow streaming from various rooms. Inui's grasp on his notebook became painfully tight. "Tadaima," he called softly, flourescent light shining across his glasses.
And sure enough, two voices, for the first time in years, answered, "Okaeri!"
Inui sank into a chair at the dinner table, feeling smaller than usual. His parents walked in, looking exactly the way he remembered them- way too good-looking, even at their ages, to be his parents, smartly-dressed, and with the tracks of intelligence marking their faces as their years. Groaning, Inui let his head fall and bury itself in his notebook.
***
Dinner, a family event for the first time ever, or so it seemed, though that wasn't true. "We're going to be back for a while," Inui Yuzuriha began.
"Why?" Inui asked, turning to his father, mouth twisted up acrimoniously.
"I read a book," Inui Shinobu said, eyes big and liquid brown like a boy's or a woman's, unshielded. Inui looked away from his father uncomfortably. He was almost as tall as the other man now. "It made me think about things. Like you, my heir, Sadahara, and responsibility."
"What's your intention?" Inui asked tersely. He couldn't think of any data to scribble down, left side of his brain for once totally blank.
"I'm your mother," Yuzuriha said, infuriatingly gentle. "I'm going to start being it."
"I don't want or need parents anymore," Inui said, keeping his accent and language formal, tone and words detached. If emotion didn't come into any of this, he'd be fine. "I won't bind myself to your will just because you feel some new need to be altruistic or fashionable."
"It's not like that," Yuzuriha said, softer this time, shrinking back from him.
"Sadahara." His father's voice was unyielding. "You are aware of your obligation."
Inui thought of Kaidoh, the snake-boy's improbably happy family, and his dedication to propriety. He wondered what could make people so different. He wished he could see some sort of useful data in this new situation, but he couldn't.
"Hai," he said finally. Tennis, then, because some people really cared about winning or losing, but he didn't.
***
Inui had gotten used to rejection. He preferred his parents not being there. He argued with them often, or at least he had when he was much younger and they'd still had a good amount of contact. The two of them, independent entities in business, had grown in success over the years, gradually going away more and more of the time. For the past couple years Inui had possessed almost completely free reign, parents traveling and taking business trips and living their unusually mature son alone in the house.
Inui took care of himself and did pretty much what he wanted, especially experimenting without interference. Such utmost detachment was probably a good thing, because the kind of person he was only liked such a thing, and besides, he knew he wasn't who his parents would have wanted. It wasn't like he particularly cared what they thought of him, but still.
His parents didn't even like tennis. When he'd been forced to try a sport in elementary, they had, pressed for an answer, absently suggested football together. They both played the world of science business, not a green court. Inui didn't know what his ambitions for the future were, his goals and prospects always changing as he went through adolescence. Maybe he might end up selling his drinks, or coaching tennis, or even playing it when he became an adult. But what his parents would have expected of their collective clone-
Inui Sadahara wasn't ever going to get married, or ever do anything that they would have wanted. He'd known since he was 12, since he'd stood outside a tennis court and seen Tezuka Kunimitsu play for the first time.
And his path had gone to intelligence, data tennis and analysis, all for someone who bore no name of Inui. There were parts of him he never showed anyone, and didn't care about, maybe even a source of strength. He was the thing he was sure neither of them would understand.
***
For the first time ever, Inui missed their training session that day. Kaidoh stood at the side of the river, waiting, even though he knew his sempai, being this late already, would not be coming at all. He glared menacingly at anyone who gave him so much as a curious glance as they passed by. He waited for a long time, but eventually he had to go home. The sky overhead darkening by that time, Kaidoh raced off, pounding his legs as fast as he could. He passed the dunk smash idiot as he ran through the street tennis courts, but completely ignored the loud-mouthed broom-head, who was caught up arguing with some Fudomine player anyway.
Inui, entering the campus the next morning, was cornered by Kaidoh's low growl. "Where were you last night, Inui-sempai?"
Inui could look Kaidoh in the eye easily, because Kaidoh couldn't see his own. He absently noted that he could have reached down and pulled the dark bandana off his kouhai's head anytime he would have wanted, and without the slightest bit of exertion. "It was nothing. I apologize, Kaidoh. I'll be there tonight."
Kaidoh nodded. They'd stopped near a section of junior classrooms, the students there giving them a wide birth. Momoshiro walked by, shooting a brief antagonizing glance at Kaidoh before turning back to the girls he'd been talking to. Kaidoh's eyes followed his rival, a hiss escaping his lips, which caused another nearby group of girls to jump and shriek. Still he turned back to Inui, guilelessly earnest to his sempai beneath his rough exterior.
"You have class," Inui said. "You have to go to a special music assembly, and it's a three-minute walk from here. If you don't leave now, there's a 56% probably you'll be late. Unless you run, and that's against the rules, so there's a 42% chance you wouldn't allow yourself to do so."
"Hai, sempai," Kaidoh said, skulking off.
Inui made his own way through the halls, not observing his surroundings for once, but dedicating the majority of his attention to his own matters. He didn't completely understand what had happened at home or what it meant, or what his "angle" was to be on it. There weren't any numbers to be assigned to it. So his parents wanted to be with him, now? It was probably only a fad for them. They'd get over it soon enough after trying it and realizing its lack of glamor.
Fuji wasn't in Inui's class that day, which was probably for the better, even though the two of them got on well enough. Inui entered, muttering to himself, and barely registered the brief worried look Oishi shot him. He needed a new notebook, for this current one was almost full. The Tezuka sections of it, ill-taken care of and erased and redone too many times, were becoming disorderly, a disturbing contrast to the way their very contents should be.
He was playing tennis in his mind, tracking imaginary shots and the way he returned them. After days he'd had practice, during their following nights, the half-state between sleeping and waking, he saw tennis in his head, before he knew it having been in the middle of a game for quite a while. He wasn't someone like Echizen, wasn't really a true part of the game like that freshman's type of player, but he saw it just the same, like he saw it now, as if walls of words and numbers turned into atoms and molecules and the components of real life.
His racket fell out of his hand. Inui didn't have to pay attention to this class, so he didn't, his gaze fixed out the window. Tezuka wasn't there? Was he sick that day? No, Tezuka wasn't in Inui's view during this class, it was another class that he was. Strange that Inui would forget something like that. He pushed up his classes and pictured Tezuka there, to push his mind away from home. His racket had fallen out of his hand.
An almost regal figure, unmoving, eyes behind glasses like stone, uncleaned, unfaceted raw diamond, and Inui had a poetic side from all the books he'd used to read, too. Hair the still-rising sun struck bronze-gold-dirt. Cuffs on sleeves loosened, the only concession to the heat that was rapidly being trapped by the glass next to him, hands and wrists newly calloused, raw from unyielding practice, archetypal.
Sometimes Inui felt so frustrated he couldn't believe it. He just held it inside, because there was no one he was really connected to, no one to whom he could speak of such things, over the past three years it had always been that way. He answered the question the teacher asked him with his mind barely on it, but forced his habitually manic smile on. Gradually, it began to rain outside, spray mist pushing in, sprinkling, touching his face. He willed thunder to roll, to scream throughout the sky, to split it open, a true psychotic grin. Because he wasn't Fuji, but he liked seeing people suffer, too.
No one could have lunch outside because of the rain. As Kikumaru whined in such an ear-splitting way, there definitely wouldn't be any tennis practice that day. Even if the weather did stop, practice would still be called off because of the puddles that were already accumulating in the courts. Inui and the other senior regulars ate in an empty classroom. Tezuka and Oishi entered late, soaked from dashing across campus. Inui was sure Tezuka had done so in an eminently dignified way, though.
Kikumaru's eyes widened. He grabbed Oishi's hands and began to rub them together, and blew on them to give them warmth, making distressed noises that his partner sighed and laughed at. Fuji pulled a towel from somewhere over Tezuka's shoulders, Taka stuttering something indecipherable to their captain as well. The corners of Inui's mouth turned upwards.
Then there was dialogue, which some of them were part of more than others. Inui didn't mind socializing with the other regulars. He liked this. Still, though, there was a tenseness today, like the rain outside was pounding onto them here where they sat. Inui knew the weather had a psychological effect on all of them, even himself. He bit into his bland sandwich and thought about tennis and competitions and tennis competitions.
Out of nowhere, Taka suddenly breathed, "All the way to nationals." Inui turned, stared at the odd, fragmented statement. Fuji, seeming to understand, smiled and repeated it in his distinctive alto, looking at Tezuka as he did. Kikumaru understood, too, jumping up, delighted. His fingers stayed intertwined with Oishi's, like they were celebrating victory together already. Kikumaru pulled a CD player from his back- thoroughly illegal in school- and pressed its on button, bright green lights snapping on in the dark classroom. He slammed one of his long fingers into the track button several times, and then exuberant J-rock abruptly poured out, filling the room. Oishi started, then relaxed and laughed with Fuji's smile.
Taka had gotten a racket from somewhere, and was excitedly pumping his arms around to the stirring beat. "OH YEAH! RALLY MY HEART! YOUTH SPIRIT, MY GOOD MAN! HEAT! I WILL DESTROY YOUR MOM!" Oddly enough, he seemed to be yelling with the beat, and the others' laughter, too.
Tezuka rose to his feet, and the others stopped, apprehensive. Then, unsmiling but not unpleasant, Tezuka shut the door.
Inui threw his head back and laughed harder than he had in days. Kikumaru grinned a Chesire grin and grabbed Fuji, pulling him up and beginning to dance to the music. Oishi got to his feet, and Kikumaru grabbed his doubles partner's wrists and pulled him to the center of their circle. Oishi gave Tezuka a salute before disappearing.
Inui knew it was simply a release of the stress that had been building over time in all of them. It was good, though. The serotonin and other mood-controlling chemicals in his brain had kicked in, sending out practically palpable impulses of happiness and relief.
He wondered why Tezuka wouldn't let himself smile even at a time like this. But wasn't that part of Seigaku's strength, too?
"VICTORY!"
"Dance, Tezuka?" Inui asked, offering a hand to his buchou and giving him the most insane smile he had.
"All the way to nationals..."
***
Afterwards, Inui realized he'd forgotten to eat his lunch, and needing the energy, shoved the food down his throat as fast as he could. A boy he'd been friends with in freshman year walked back in his view, and, stomach groaning from eating the sandwich so fast, he made his way into the boy's path. It was a fairly isolated corner of the hall, anyway.
"Nice to see you, Kakeru-kun," Inui said, voice sounding strange to him, strained in contrast to his normal voice, oddly deep in comparison to the voice that had said that name before. He now towered over Ishida.
Ishida Kakeru stopped, tilted his head up, forced onto tiptoe in order to see Inui's face. He was much smaller than Inui would have thought. "Do I know you?" Kakeru frowned. Then he reached up, took Inui's glasses off his face for a second, and cried out. "Sadaha- I mean, Inui!"
"Long time no see," Inui nodded. "What have you been doing?" Neither of them had seen the other and spoken in years.
Kakeru shrugged, fingering a piece of his light hair in a way that somewhat disturbingly reminded Inui of St. Rudolph's manager Mizuki Hajime. "I'm on the writing club. You're in the tennis club still, right?"
"Manager," said Inui. "I make health drinks now, would you like to try one? I have Aozu in my bag."
"No thanks," Kakeru said, clearly uncomfortable with the whole encounter. "I'd better get to class. Well, I'll see you around, Inui."
"It's okay," Inui said, voicing the unsaid worry that had been hovering throughout the conversation. His voice was perfectly flat and controlled. "I don't want to be friends again, if that's what you thought."
Kakeru flinched, for even if that had been what he wanted, there was a 65% probability that having his old friend say that so openly still hurt him. "What?"
"Thank you, Kakeru," said Inui.
"Inui-sempai." Kaidoh stood there, having just walked up. He'd taken the bandana Inui had seen him wearing earlier off. Inui couldn't tell if the tone of his grim voice was any more or less disgruntled than usual.
"Huh?" said Kakeru. He shrunk back at the sight of Kaidoh scowling at him. Kaidoh was taller, Inui noted. And sure had a much scarier face.
Inui smiled, rather manically, rather detached. Strange, very strange, that he'd be introducing Kaidoh to Kakeru. "Ishida Kakeru, senior, Kaidoh Kaoru, junior," he said pleasantly, pointing to each in turn.
Even someone like him might have people they knew. Anyone in the world could connect. Inui Sadahara was going to Nationals with Seigaku.
"Ssssss."
Kakeru's grip tightened oon the notebook in his hand, like Inui's, only probably used for his creative writing. Inui probably didn't notice the way Kaidoh's eyes darted to it. "Are you on the tennis team?" Kakeru asked.
"Regular," Kaidoh said. "Singles 3."
"You should go to class, too," Inui pointed out. "At this point, there's a 40% probability that all three of us will be late."
"I'll see you at practice, sempai," Kaidoh said, slithering off.
Kakeru nodded, face transparent to Inui, full of confusion, regret. Inui simply smirked at him. Have a nice life.
Inui went back to his house smiling. The tune of the song Kikumaru had put on, that outflow of stress, was playing in his head. He didn't have the photographic memory he would have liked, but there were some things he was sure he'd remember. His parents were waiting, which hadn't been in the front of his mind. His mother, standing at the side of the front door as he entered, was smiling a painfully hopeful smile. He thought he might feel sick with hope. Hope was the most bittersweet feeling in the world. To hope for something, you had to not have it.
"Dinner," his father said. "It's on the table already."
The anticipated takeout okinomiyaki, of course. Okinomiyaki was okay. He took a seat and began to eat. Food and drink made him think of the prototype of a new kind of penal tea he'd been working on. He hadn't thought about it, hadn't had any new ideas about it for a while. Ah well, there were more pressing concerns.
"Are you in any extracurriculars?" Shinobu breached the silence with. Inui breathed out. Ah, the proverbial 20 questions.
"Yes," he said. "Tennis club."
"Are you serious about it?" Yuzuriha frowned, exchanging a disapproving glance with her husband over her son's spiky head.
"Usu," he said, picturing the stoic Hyoutei giant who said that word so much, whimsically for someone who wasn't Inui. He anticipated their next words. Shinobu- "Are you sure that's appropriate?" 89%.
"Are you sure that's appropriate?" Shinobu frowned, right on cue. Inui allowed himself a brief moment of nastiness in his feelings.
"I'm not a regular," Inui said, not even lying.
"What's that mean?" Yuzuriha blinked.
"I don't play in the competition matches," said Inui.
"That's alright, then," Shinobu said after a brief moment of consideration.
"My grades are fine," Inui said, before they could ask.
Uncomfortable looks again, as if he couldn't see them. "Do you have any friends, Sadahara?"
Inui pulled his large head back, startled. "Friends?" he asked, pushing his glasses up with one hand and picking up part of the okonomiyaki with the other. She'd surprised him with that question.
"Whatever you do, you're going to need to learn to relate to people," Shinobu said, rather harshly. "And you can't really be happy without other people," he said more gently, causing Inui to shift uncomfortably, looking away from him. "Who do you have?"
Neither of them could possibly understand. What could either of them know about him? They were the ones who'd left him. But this was a dangerous situation for him. Oddly enough, the film of euphoria from before hadn't faded at all.
"I have friends," Inui said. "Seigaku no tennis."
***
"I have to go."
"Stay," Shinobu commanded. "We're not finished."
"Shouldn't you be at work?" Inui asked. "I have to be."
"Work?" Yuzuriha frowned clinically. "I didn't know you had a job. Or- where are you going?"
"Do you know the river?" Inui asked carefully. "I'm going to help a kouhai train."
"In what?" Shinobu asked. "What does he need to train for if he's not a regular?"
"He is," Inui said.
"Then why is he getting training from you?"
"I'm the manager, and I'm leaving now."
"Are you friends?" Yuzuriha called after him.
"No," Inui said to himself, voice flat. He jogged out of his house, a look at his watch telling him he was already late. He didn't want to fail at this. He didn't enjoy the idea of any of his plans being interrupted.
Kaidoh's socks and running shoes had been left at the side of the river, Kaidoh already having waded in. Nearing, Inui could hear the snap of water whipping across the air, the slap of cloth, Boomerang Snake practice. "Kaidoh," Inui sighed, reaching the edge of the river. "I'm sorry I'm late." Kaidoh merely hissed in response, something Inui wouldn't have expected.
Inui frowned. "You're using too much power again."
Kaidoh stopped his motion. "Ssssss."
"Wait to do that part of your training until after we've done more basics," Inui said. "You won't be using your Boomerang right away."
"And what will you do until then?" Kaidoh asked, making Inui frown. For doubles? He didn't answer. He wasn't entirely sure if Kaidoh knew what he was talking about.
"You're holding me back," Kaidoh growled out, wrist snapping again. "I won't let anyone hold me back."
"You can't truly get better without my direction," said Inui, eyes narrowing beneath his glasses as he watched Kaidoh.
"That's not what I meant."
Inui studied Kaidoh, disturbed, and Kaidoh hissed, "What's on your mind, Inui-sempai," sullen. For Kaidoh, Inui was the only person he couldn't just dismiss. Inui himself would have just said he actually knew the real Kaidoh, since he alone had seen both parts of him.
"I may have to stop playing tennis," Inui finally admitted, strangely enough stumbling over the words. He hadn't stuttered much since third grade.
Kaidoh stopped, turning to stare at his trainer. Somehow he must have fallen in the river before Inui came, because he was covered in droplets of water, dripping down or evaporating off his skin in the heat. His small, shifty eyes visibly changed, angry to surprised. "Do you have an injury?" Kaidoh ventured, letting the towel fall out of his hand and splash into the water, ripples pooling across the surface of the water. The sunset behind them, reflected on the waves, was very pretty, but neither of them really cared very much about beauty.
"No," Inui said. "My family's the problem now." His new family. Inui's feet remained firmly in place on the grass, glasses easing the harsh glare from the sun, keeping his eyes from burning. Through the trees, the sun was the harshest at this time, glowing out fire. Kaidoh couldn't see, he was facing away from it. He wished Kaidoh would be dazzled, too. They both understood something like power.
Kaidoh looked down, maybe upset at the prospect of his sempai disappearing, tone when he spoke more bitter than usual. "Do you even care about tennis, sempai?"
Do you even care about any of... this? That was what Inui heard. "You're assuming I think like you, Kaidoh," Inui said smoothly, truthfully. "I don't think like you, not at all. And no matter what happens, I told you I'd make you go undefeated, and I'll hold to that." He wouldn't stop Kaidoh's training in the middle; if nothing else, it wouldn't be fair to the boy.
He pushed his glasses up, then stepped into the river, shoes still on. The riverbed wasn't made of sand but mud and slime and stones, sharp even under his tennis shoes, shoes that squished, absorbing water as he moved, socks no doubt browning from the flow of dirt. He felt the light current plaster turquoise fabric to his shins, and reached out and put a hand on Kaidoh's shoulder.
Touch was strange. Kaidoh rarely even touched his own family. And now a hand raised to Kaidoh in comradery instead of anger- something startling, certainly. That gave Inui power over him, over what his kouhai would decide this was. This was a way to reach Kaidoh, too. He could hold Kaidoh's thoughts in his hand, through a broad shoulder, lean, smooth muscles shaking from fatigue and gentleness. Kaidoh squirmed under his hand, skin slick with sweat and sand-water, slime, but didn't make Inui let go.
"You shouldn't give up on anything," Kaidoh hissed, turning back to Inui. "Ever." His eyes were fierce now, and Inui was startled for a second. Was that right, that he couldn't give up yet? "If I'm stuck with you, sempai, at least be a worthwhile partner. I'm not the only person who can win."
Then Kaidoh shrugged off Inui's hand, looked back down again and hissed, presumably embarrassed, a hot blush starting to burn on his cheeks.
Did Kaidoh mean to not give up on fighting with tennis? Or to not give up on reaching his family, too? Or both? Did it matter?
"Let's go running," Inui said, and decided they shouldn't talk any more that night.
***
Kaidoh knew. He didn't know the details, but he knew what was going on. At least the comforting thought was there that Kaidoh sure wouldn't tell anyone. Inui was positive of that fact. He returned to his house, tired from his own exertions, and met his parents there, white shirt and sweatpants he still hadn't changed out of after practice soaked with sweat. He was getting complacent. That wasn't good. He had to remember the goal he had ahead of him. As if he could forget it, but still...
He walked towards the stairs, but then his father had pressed a glass of ice water into his hand. "It's good you're training hard," Shinobu said. Yuzuriha, on the phone with someone Inui assumed was a supplier for the company, began to speak quickly into the receiver, an oppressively knowledgeable tone she rarely used with her son.
"It's not hard enough," Inui said, and, glass of water in his hand, bowed to his father, the strange urge to do so inexplicable but impossible to ignore. Shinobu nodded back.
"I saw your test," Shinobu said, gesturing to the table Inui had left it on. Mathematics. Straight 100, plus a bonus. "Good job."
"Ganbatte yo, right?" Inui said, raising his eyebrows at his father, then headed up the stairs. He needed to do some work on the computer. That, and he needed to do some weights, too.
Inui awoke the next morning with a new training plan envisioned already, Tezuka's face looming when he closed his eyes, Kaidoh's words like data in his mind. What did it mean, that he felt invigorated, motivated suddenly? What had changed about him? Was it Kaidoh? His parents? Just the external and internal factors involved with getting older? But Kaidoh had given him a message. He couldn't just focus on others. Inui had to hone himself as well.
***
Tennis practice that afternoon was very different than usual for Inui. His parents were watching it from outside the courts. He'd changed in the locker room, the first person there aside from Tezuka and Oishi, who were already out on the courts. He'd presented his variations on the training schedule to Ryuuzaki, who had been passing by, then watched her leave, going back to her office to work and to observe from there. Eventually more people had arrived, mostly at the same time, right at the start of practice. Training had started as usual, but then Inui, gaze far away, saw something most unusual. His parents, both in business suits, were walking up.
Kaidoh, also removed from the rest of the regulars as he had been during Oishi's address, noticed them, too, and pointed it out to Tezuka. Tezuka shook it off without a care. The murmurs coming from the other students showed them divided between them being reporters and scouts from another school. Inui knew better. But he would do practice as usual. He had to.
He took notes and commented, throwing out instructions to the freshmen as they practiced serving form. The juniors and seniors were having turns challenging the regulars, the same as Inui had planned. It was the end of the week, after all. Currently, Echizen was wiping the court with Arai. No real surprise there. The regulars, against normal form, seemed to be cheering for Arai against Echizen, rooting for the underdog, if Kikumaru's loud squeals were any indication. Inui forced himself to keep his eyes on Echizen's twist serve instead of his parents, heads bent towards each other in conversation as they watched him and only him.
"Game and match, Echizen. Six games to love."
Inui could tell Tezuka had been watching the match as well. He knew of Tezuka's fierce interest in Echizen. When he'd realized it, he may have even been jealous of it. But he wasn't a student like Echizen, anyway. He was a teacher.
He wondered what his parents thought of their talented freshman. They probably didn't care. 80% probability. That might even make their opinion of the tennis club worse.
Arisugawa, a quiet senior, had challenged Fuji. Inui sighed, wishing someone else was playing. Fuji wouldn't use any strength anyway. Knowing the tensai, he might just let the boy win for the fun of it. But no, beating Fuji was generally a privilege reserved for Tezuka, no matter the little one's careless ways.
He couldn't help it, he looked at his parents. Shinobu was whispering something to Yuzuriha that made her giggle, toss her hair. Inui wished his parents could be cold and scientific only.
Kaidoh made his way to Inui's side. Inui, attention still focused elsewhere, heard his kouhai ask, "Who are they?" Kaidoh had assumed Inui would know, of course. And he was correct this time, as he probably would be the next. He idly wondered what Kaidoh thought of him, then he remembered that he already knew.
"My parents," he admitted, light glinting off his glasses softly. It was alright to let Kaidoh know this, since he already knew the rest.
Kaidoh stared at Inui for a second, expression confused, then he stalked away from Inui without a word. It took Inui a few seconds to realize Kaidoh was going to talk to his parents. Inui hurried after him, surprised and dismayed at it.
"Game, Fuji. 3 games to love."
Apparently, Inui thought, without looking, Fuji was toying with Arisugawa, then, instead of just ending it as Echizen had. But then again, Echizen and Arai had always had a bit of a score between them, unlike the current match pair. And that was not what he should have been analyzing at that moment.
Kaidoh exited the courts, stopped in front of Inui's parents. He bowed to them, coughing to get their attention. "Excuse me," he said formally. "I am Kaidoh Kaoru."
Shinobu and Yuzuriha turned. Inui could see both of their eyes- it was easy to follow where they were looking, since neither wore glasses- both of their eyes had fixated on the Seigaku on Kaidoh's regular jacket. "Nice to meet you," Yuzuriha said. She looked at Inui, and Inui didn't look back.
"Do you have some business with us?" Shinobu frowned.
"Do you intend to remove Inui-sempai from this club?" Kaidoh asked bluntly, stance, manner, changing. He'd gone back to the Snake without even thinking about it.
"No," Yuzuriha said. "Physical exercise helps keep the body and mind healthy, though he doesn't seem to be doing anything today." Shinobu frowned again, then nodded his agreement slowly. Inui felt as if he wasn't there, like he was frozen in place behind them, invisible.
"Good," Kaidoh said in his low voice, and hissed loudly. Both Shinobu and Yuzuriha started, staring. Kaidoh's arms had slipped down, danging between his crouched legs. "He's my doubles partner."
***
Over two times Kaidoh's training schedule. Inui could handle it. And he didn't care what his parents thought of it. If possible, they wouldn't even know. Because he would defeat Tezuka. Until he did that, there was no way he would ever move on from this world of Seigaku's tennis, no matter how much his parents wanted him to. He wasn't ready for adulthood yet.
He wasn't sure what was going on in their minds, which was frustrating. Their actions had been inconsistent since their arrival, their intentions foggy to his perception. He couldn't quite see them as the enemy, not when they smiled at him when he came home, or corrected his homework the few times he made mistakes. "Evil" wasn't a concept he understood, not even for rivals schools, and evil didn't press a cold towel to his hot forehead after weight training, or pack his bento, or converse with him about politics. A rival wasn't someone who gave him what he'd secretly cried for when he was younger, what he'd prayed for in grade school, still small. Money existed as always, a bond, too.
Inui tried to monitor their work, and found it the same as it had always been, as far as he knew. And yet they were very different people than he'd last known them as. What had changed them? What was happening this year? What was happiness, anyway, or closeness, or warmth? Friends and family, what did they mean to Inui? He knew they were geniuses, much more intelligent, far-seeing than he was. They just weren't as obvious about it as he was.
Inui thought about nothing but Tezuka for a whole day, through class, weights, practice, home, training, Kaidoh, nothing but Tezuka. There was something he hadn't been seeing, that he'd been searching for three years and never found, some fact that had been eluding him. When he was little he'd constantly wished for the ability to read minds, and he still couldn't do that. He really knew nothing of what Tezuka felt at all, where his strength came from. Probably just being himself.
Where could he find that?
Over two times Kaidoh's training schedule, and just once, having pushed himself much harder than he had foreseen, losing control over his mind for once, he found himself collapsing in his parents' arms, feeling an inexplicable feeling of being surrounded by support and warm and just simply something besides himself.
***
One day a few months ago, Inui had been working with Kaidoh separately from the rest of the regulars, but on stamina training, not technique or combination like he was now. They'd still always met at the river, a constant Inui found comforting. He'd been late for some reason, perhaps the odd attempted conversation with Echizen, and had been coming down the hill. He'd seen something interesting at that time.
A stray cat had wandered past, then walked back, coming up to where Kaidoh was, seemingly awaiting Kaidoh like Kaidoh awaited Inui. Inui watched, perhaps feeling a bit sorry for the cat, anticipating an angry yell or something like that from Kaidoh and the cat's hasty running retreat. He was surprised to see Kaidoh respond very differently. He reacted as if scalded, looking around carefully to see if anyone was there. He hadn't noticed Inui standing there above.
Kneeling down, Kaidoh reached out tentatively and petted the darkly-colored cat, long fingers stroking its raggedly hair, exploring through its back and head and behind its ears. The cat purred, rubbing its face against Kaidoh's leg and hand. Kaidoh sat down next to it, and the cat scrambled up onto the boy's lap, surprising the normally fearsome player into falling over.
It mewed almost inquisitively, then purred again as Kaidoh relaxed beneath its weight. Then as Inui watched, unbeknownst to his kouhai, Kaidoh chuckled, and did something Inui hadn't ever seen him do before- really, truly smile.
Inui remembered gentleness in the club room Saturday afternoon, alone, facing Kaidoh's K-labeled racket, no doubt left accidently. He'd probably ran out with Momoshiro, the two of them in the throes of some quarrel. And there it was. Inui picked it up, weighed it, traced the length of rope tied around the bottom of the grip.
Inui didn't know what it was. Kaidoh could have told him its origin, if so inclined. Kaidoh's little brother Hazue, his smile a bit less weird than usual, had tied it there, a young boy's necklace removed directly off his neck where he'd been wearing it. A custom for luck he'd read about somewhere, Hazue had insisted on keeping it there on his brother's racket for the upcoming tournaments. Kaidoh had growled and threatened about it, but hadn't taken it off.
Inui didn't know any of that, and it might or might not have meant anything to him if he had. He unraveled the decoration, held it in his hand. Then he tied it around his wrist, like a bracelet. He liked it.
***
Inui's parents wanted him to get contact lenses. They wanted him to look more like the other kids at Seigaku. They wanted to be able to see his eyes. They wanted him to look handsome so he could get a girlfriend. That was basically the impression he got from the announcement they made that night at dinner to him. He'd never actually considered getting contact lenses before. He'd always assumed that there wasn't contact lenses powerful enough for him, anyway, but apparently that wasn't true. His parents would know.
Inui felt vaguely sick, suddenly, but he still agreed. Shinobu told him he'd set up an appointment for tomorrow. He wouldn't go to school, but would go to the eye doctor instead, and when he left, he wouldn't need to wear glasses anymore.
He had trouble getting to sleep that night. He didn't know why his mind was so much more charged up than usual. He decided he was worried. Finally he managed to sleep, body shutting down from sheer exhaustion. He woke up early that morning, but found himself unable to focus on the data files he kept on his computer. He read a book instead, some old collection of haiku he'd liked when he was in grade school.
Finally, Inui was called down for breakfast. He ate with his parents, as had become the norm by now. The food they had made wasn't very good at all. He didn't comment on it, though. When they were all finished, Shinobu looked at his watch and declared it time to go. Inui got into the backseat of his father's car, and they drove out.
***
Inui couldn't feel the contact lenses, even though he thought he'd be able to. He had rarely ever noticed his glasses after the first few months with them, but he felt the constant lack of them the moment he stepped out of the doctor's room. The sunlight was bright, cutting through the wet lenses he couldn't feel there embedded in his eyes, and making him wince.
He could see fine without glasses. It was very strange. He couldn't describe it very well, but he knew it was very strange. He'd almost forgotten what his eyes actually looked like, having not seen them clearly in many years. He'd seen them in the mirror at the doctor's when he'd put the contacts in for the first time.
They weren't strikingly colored like Fuji's or even Echizen's. They were normal black, and large, darker than his hair, the spots he'd always seen as dark holes in his face with his blurry eyesight before now clear. He could see himself reflected clearly in his eyes, like black holes with the insides the same as the outside. He could see his confusion in his face now clearly with them unblocked, every nuance of what he felt apparent. He didn't know if he was attractive without his glasses or not. He just looked odd to himself, like there were alien things on his head, bulging out, eating it. He hardly recognized himself, and yet-
He went to Seigaku, too late for the end of classes but in time for practice. He was slightly tardy, the only one in the locker room when he entered. When he changed, pulling his uniform shirt off, there weren't glasses blocking its way, no glasses knocked askew that he had to fix. He pulled his T-shirt on. The colors were too bright, even his white shirt, his sunlight-lacking pale skin.
He exited the room, and took the few steps to the courts. Practice had started already, voices yelling, balls flying. But it all stopped when he entered. His gaze swept the court, the alien, and he could see them staring at him, shocked. The freshman trio, frozen comically in the motions of stretching out. A group of juniors he didn't know, arms falling from the strokes of the racket they'd been executing. Momoshiro's hand, rustling Echizen's hair, falling off, turning with his kouhai, both in amazement.
Fuji and Kikumaru, test discussion they'd been having coming to an abrupt end, Fuji's eyes opening. Taka's burning serve, cut off in mid-swing, dribbling down to the concrete, loud jeers silenced. Oishi, presenting a chart to Tezuka, letting out a soft gasp of astonishment, a harsh contrast to the other's unchanging stony silence. Kaidoh's small viper eyes impossibly wide, something impossible to take in. Finally Tezuka's harsh yell spurred everyone back to work.
Inui walked off and fell down onto the bench, head down, staring into his knees, quiet. He stayed that way for the rest of the practice, and waited until everyone had left the court before leaving himself. He didn't go into the locker room to change, only went home.
Sitting on his bed, Inui stared at his knees again. He shifted his wrist, and the rope tied around it shifted with it. His glasses were an uncomfortable weight against his side where he had placed them, ends cutting into his leg.
He reached up and removed the contact lenses from his eyes, fumbling a bit at the unfamiliar task. He left them fall limply from his hands, like a racket knocked away.
Exactly 1.5 minutes later, two contact lenses were ground to dust under a tennis shoe.
***
Tsukinukeru sora ni
Hitomi wo tokashite
Koko kara hajimaru
Afuredasu jishin ni michite iku
Semarikuru toki karamitsuku kokyou
Tsukanoma wo kanjitara atarashii sekai he
I say you stay ari no mama
Kodoku sae mo daite
Keep your style keep your mind break it out
I'll stay with you doko made mo habataite yukou
Ashita wo tsukamu hi made
Sorezore no emotion...
I wrote this story last year and posted it, but I didn't know how to do lj cut then. My interest in lj has revived, and I also found out how to do lj cut, so... here it is. There are more chapters at ff.net...
Sorry about the lack of response to comments. I never saw them until now... -sweatdrops- Hope you enjoy the rest of the fic. And hi, Sara!
Pairings- Depending on how you look at it, gen, InuKai, InuiTezuka.
Disclaimer- PoT is not mine.
Author's Notes- Named after the ending song. The lyrics at the end are from the romanization at animelyrics.com
***
"And thus," Inui read, "The western novel The Lord of the Flies is an inaccurate representation of human nature." His gaze swept across the room, from the teacher to his classmates, light glinting off his glasses ominously. "Civilization would have deteriorated much sooner."
His report was met with silence, then the teacher nodded. "Thank you, Inui-san. Interesting points." Inui's gaze drifted further across the room, focusing on the regulars there, analyzing their actions, as always. They'd actually all listened. Fuji, in their class that day for some reason, was giving him a truly delighted smile, if what might have been a rather condescending one.
Inui's slight smile turned into something close to his trademark manic one. "I never said believed any of this. I wanted to see if I could make all of you think that way." He walked back to his seat, nodding as he passed Oishi, who smiled at him vaguely. He set himself back down in the chair, and the class continued once again without him.
He opened his green notebook under his desk, frowning irritably for a second when he noticed that a few pages at the front were falling loose of the spiral binding. He ripped them out fully and folded them in careful thirds, leaning down and pushing them into the pockets of his uniform.
His report had been done fairly hasty in comparison to his usual work ethic, but Inui found quick, more emotional actions like that could produce the most interesting results for correspondingly emotional questions like the one he'd been given, or at least they could be considered to do so from an impartial, detached perspective. He'd known there was a sufficient chance of about 78% that the teacher would be too intimidated by his intelligence and manner to truly ingest what he was saying anyway.
Part of his brain was working on the prospective ingredients for a new, even better health drink, as it had been for a large part of the morning. He would very much like to see even Fuji crumble under his new creation, though without any serious or long-term damage caused, of course. Pencil in his hand drawing out plans for Kaidoh and calculating probability of success of formations for their new pair, Inui's attention was really focused out the window. He could see Tezuka in a nearby classroom, also seated at the window and staring out, expression in those stern dark brown eyes unfathomable. Tezuka pushed his glasses up, and Inui did the same, an unconscious imitation he always felt the need to do when he saw someone complete the action.
Deliberately, he removed his own improbably thick frames, rubbing his eyes, careful to look away from his classmates, for this was something he wouldn't show any of them. Tezuka, the window, the classroom, the whole of Seigaku, all of them instantly became nothing but a dark blur. Normally, being without his glasses made Inui feel different, younger, less intelligent, less in control- stupid. But if he just closed his eyes, what he saw- didn't see- there, that was the exact same. Hmm. He wondered how the addition of salt would affect Penal Tea's taste.
Opening his eyes again, Tezuka was still in Inui's blurred sight. His mechanical pencil, mint green and smooth, skidded around his plans for Kaidoh, and beside them, just Tezuka's name. Blindly, the lead in Inui's hand traced out just one word, Soon.
He was patient, after all, more patient than anyone knew. Like Oishi, only not nearly so benevolent as the other boy. His chance would come. Because, if you had to choose between being the predator or being the prey, which would you choose?
Keep Your Style
Starbrigid
Inui loved tennis practice. Even though he was no longer a regular, he still got the best chance of the day to collect data and observe many of his subjects of interest at once. Today he watched Tezuka, Fuji, Echizen, all of them. He watched the Golden Pair, because they were an extraordinary doubles pair, but contrary to all that, their legend and greatness, they were far from perfect. He watched Taka and his power and personality changes with a quiet, almost sly focus, because he had a new theory about him, reaching farther into the past, and somehow, he thought watching could tell him if it was valid. He had to keep watching Momoshiro because the boy was constantly developing.
Echizen had been one of the foremost in his sight ever since he'd beaten Inui, the freshman being the most truly promising of the whole team. Fuji he had still not given up on trying to get consistent data on. Kaidoh was his new pet project. And Tezuka...
"Does anyone have any salt?" he asked loudly, as innocently as possible, thermos in hand, and watched nearly the entire tennis team, freshman to regulars, wince or cover their heads.
Inui might have said that Tezuka had the regulars spend too much time on practice matches and not enough time on enforcing basic skills, but practice matches were a good opportunity to observe. And it was 79.5% probable, too, that Tezuka's overall methodology would still draw out the greatest possible results, judging by experience and the team's overall spirit, even against Inui's own data.
A strange manifestation of that spirit was showing in Kaidoh at the moment, hitting a continuous snake against Echizen, running towards the net with a sudden uncoiling snap forward. Inui sighed, almost indulgently. Kaidoh either hadn't listened or had disregarded what Inui had told him the last time they met. He was still using too much power.
Tezuka and Oishi seemed to be having a fairly relaxed long volley between them, speaking to each other quietly across the net. Almost contemplatively, what might have been whimsically on someone who wasn't Tezuka, the captain was making Oishi run more, aiming precision shots to hard-to-predict, seemingly random places, though they were very slow shots.
Echizen was watching Tezuka, lips parted unknowingly and golden eyes hurtful under his trademark cap's shadow. The chibi was so absorbed, he missed the curve of a particularly treacherous snake, reaching it too late after the bounce to catch up. Inui smiled secretively. Thanks to him, Kaidoh's Snake had improved, just like the Boomerang Snake had. It wasn't a focus or anything, Kaidoh could already hit the Snake successfully. But a side effect of the training- one that there was only a 22% chance Kaidoh himself was aware of- was that the Snake had become harder to track, too. Inui could hardly be called lazy, except for perhaps in his own self.
The world was getting more and more transparent to Inui's data every second.
***
Inui was used to rejection. He didn't mind it. Maybe he even preferred it. Some things just weren't supposed to hurt someone like him. Time went on, and other things happened after that event, his mind experiencing sensory pleasure and bombardment on a purely physical level as well as various mental and psychological stimulates. Rejection, as well as its homonyms and various corresponding concepts, meant nothing to him, he thought to himself, because it could all be reasoned out, and he held not just the power of observance, he also possessed the rarer and yet most necessary corresponding trait of cognition.
Inui thought of his parents, wondered why he had, then knew, just as he walked into the house that was solely his. Maybe, this new year-
Wait. There were two cars in the carport. Inui's eyes widened behind the ultimate focus lenses that shielded them. He pushed the door open- it was unlocked for some reason, an ominous change- and made his way in. The lights weren't out like he'd left them, but switched back on, yellow glow streaming from various rooms. Inui's grasp on his notebook became painfully tight. "Tadaima," he called softly, flourescent light shining across his glasses.
And sure enough, two voices, for the first time in years, answered, "Okaeri!"
Inui sank into a chair at the dinner table, feeling smaller than usual. His parents walked in, looking exactly the way he remembered them- way too good-looking, even at their ages, to be his parents, smartly-dressed, and with the tracks of intelligence marking their faces as their years. Groaning, Inui let his head fall and bury itself in his notebook.
***
Dinner, a family event for the first time ever, or so it seemed, though that wasn't true. "We're going to be back for a while," Inui Yuzuriha began.
"Why?" Inui asked, turning to his father, mouth twisted up acrimoniously.
"I read a book," Inui Shinobu said, eyes big and liquid brown like a boy's or a woman's, unshielded. Inui looked away from his father uncomfortably. He was almost as tall as the other man now. "It made me think about things. Like you, my heir, Sadahara, and responsibility."
"What's your intention?" Inui asked tersely. He couldn't think of any data to scribble down, left side of his brain for once totally blank.
"I'm your mother," Yuzuriha said, infuriatingly gentle. "I'm going to start being it."
"I don't want or need parents anymore," Inui said, keeping his accent and language formal, tone and words detached. If emotion didn't come into any of this, he'd be fine. "I won't bind myself to your will just because you feel some new need to be altruistic or fashionable."
"It's not like that," Yuzuriha said, softer this time, shrinking back from him.
"Sadahara." His father's voice was unyielding. "You are aware of your obligation."
Inui thought of Kaidoh, the snake-boy's improbably happy family, and his dedication to propriety. He wondered what could make people so different. He wished he could see some sort of useful data in this new situation, but he couldn't.
"Hai," he said finally. Tennis, then, because some people really cared about winning or losing, but he didn't.
***
Inui had gotten used to rejection. He preferred his parents not being there. He argued with them often, or at least he had when he was much younger and they'd still had a good amount of contact. The two of them, independent entities in business, had grown in success over the years, gradually going away more and more of the time. For the past couple years Inui had possessed almost completely free reign, parents traveling and taking business trips and living their unusually mature son alone in the house.
Inui took care of himself and did pretty much what he wanted, especially experimenting without interference. Such utmost detachment was probably a good thing, because the kind of person he was only liked such a thing, and besides, he knew he wasn't who his parents would have wanted. It wasn't like he particularly cared what they thought of him, but still.
His parents didn't even like tennis. When he'd been forced to try a sport in elementary, they had, pressed for an answer, absently suggested football together. They both played the world of science business, not a green court. Inui didn't know what his ambitions for the future were, his goals and prospects always changing as he went through adolescence. Maybe he might end up selling his drinks, or coaching tennis, or even playing it when he became an adult. But what his parents would have expected of their collective clone-
Inui Sadahara wasn't ever going to get married, or ever do anything that they would have wanted. He'd known since he was 12, since he'd stood outside a tennis court and seen Tezuka Kunimitsu play for the first time.
And his path had gone to intelligence, data tennis and analysis, all for someone who bore no name of Inui. There were parts of him he never showed anyone, and didn't care about, maybe even a source of strength. He was the thing he was sure neither of them would understand.
***
For the first time ever, Inui missed their training session that day. Kaidoh stood at the side of the river, waiting, even though he knew his sempai, being this late already, would not be coming at all. He glared menacingly at anyone who gave him so much as a curious glance as they passed by. He waited for a long time, but eventually he had to go home. The sky overhead darkening by that time, Kaidoh raced off, pounding his legs as fast as he could. He passed the dunk smash idiot as he ran through the street tennis courts, but completely ignored the loud-mouthed broom-head, who was caught up arguing with some Fudomine player anyway.
Inui, entering the campus the next morning, was cornered by Kaidoh's low growl. "Where were you last night, Inui-sempai?"
Inui could look Kaidoh in the eye easily, because Kaidoh couldn't see his own. He absently noted that he could have reached down and pulled the dark bandana off his kouhai's head anytime he would have wanted, and without the slightest bit of exertion. "It was nothing. I apologize, Kaidoh. I'll be there tonight."
Kaidoh nodded. They'd stopped near a section of junior classrooms, the students there giving them a wide birth. Momoshiro walked by, shooting a brief antagonizing glance at Kaidoh before turning back to the girls he'd been talking to. Kaidoh's eyes followed his rival, a hiss escaping his lips, which caused another nearby group of girls to jump and shriek. Still he turned back to Inui, guilelessly earnest to his sempai beneath his rough exterior.
"You have class," Inui said. "You have to go to a special music assembly, and it's a three-minute walk from here. If you don't leave now, there's a 56% probably you'll be late. Unless you run, and that's against the rules, so there's a 42% chance you wouldn't allow yourself to do so."
"Hai, sempai," Kaidoh said, skulking off.
Inui made his own way through the halls, not observing his surroundings for once, but dedicating the majority of his attention to his own matters. He didn't completely understand what had happened at home or what it meant, or what his "angle" was to be on it. There weren't any numbers to be assigned to it. So his parents wanted to be with him, now? It was probably only a fad for them. They'd get over it soon enough after trying it and realizing its lack of glamor.
Fuji wasn't in Inui's class that day, which was probably for the better, even though the two of them got on well enough. Inui entered, muttering to himself, and barely registered the brief worried look Oishi shot him. He needed a new notebook, for this current one was almost full. The Tezuka sections of it, ill-taken care of and erased and redone too many times, were becoming disorderly, a disturbing contrast to the way their very contents should be.
He was playing tennis in his mind, tracking imaginary shots and the way he returned them. After days he'd had practice, during their following nights, the half-state between sleeping and waking, he saw tennis in his head, before he knew it having been in the middle of a game for quite a while. He wasn't someone like Echizen, wasn't really a true part of the game like that freshman's type of player, but he saw it just the same, like he saw it now, as if walls of words and numbers turned into atoms and molecules and the components of real life.
His racket fell out of his hand. Inui didn't have to pay attention to this class, so he didn't, his gaze fixed out the window. Tezuka wasn't there? Was he sick that day? No, Tezuka wasn't in Inui's view during this class, it was another class that he was. Strange that Inui would forget something like that. He pushed up his classes and pictured Tezuka there, to push his mind away from home. His racket had fallen out of his hand.
An almost regal figure, unmoving, eyes behind glasses like stone, uncleaned, unfaceted raw diamond, and Inui had a poetic side from all the books he'd used to read, too. Hair the still-rising sun struck bronze-gold-dirt. Cuffs on sleeves loosened, the only concession to the heat that was rapidly being trapped by the glass next to him, hands and wrists newly calloused, raw from unyielding practice, archetypal.
Sometimes Inui felt so frustrated he couldn't believe it. He just held it inside, because there was no one he was really connected to, no one to whom he could speak of such things, over the past three years it had always been that way. He answered the question the teacher asked him with his mind barely on it, but forced his habitually manic smile on. Gradually, it began to rain outside, spray mist pushing in, sprinkling, touching his face. He willed thunder to roll, to scream throughout the sky, to split it open, a true psychotic grin. Because he wasn't Fuji, but he liked seeing people suffer, too.
No one could have lunch outside because of the rain. As Kikumaru whined in such an ear-splitting way, there definitely wouldn't be any tennis practice that day. Even if the weather did stop, practice would still be called off because of the puddles that were already accumulating in the courts. Inui and the other senior regulars ate in an empty classroom. Tezuka and Oishi entered late, soaked from dashing across campus. Inui was sure Tezuka had done so in an eminently dignified way, though.
Kikumaru's eyes widened. He grabbed Oishi's hands and began to rub them together, and blew on them to give them warmth, making distressed noises that his partner sighed and laughed at. Fuji pulled a towel from somewhere over Tezuka's shoulders, Taka stuttering something indecipherable to their captain as well. The corners of Inui's mouth turned upwards.
Then there was dialogue, which some of them were part of more than others. Inui didn't mind socializing with the other regulars. He liked this. Still, though, there was a tenseness today, like the rain outside was pounding onto them here where they sat. Inui knew the weather had a psychological effect on all of them, even himself. He bit into his bland sandwich and thought about tennis and competitions and tennis competitions.
Out of nowhere, Taka suddenly breathed, "All the way to nationals." Inui turned, stared at the odd, fragmented statement. Fuji, seeming to understand, smiled and repeated it in his distinctive alto, looking at Tezuka as he did. Kikumaru understood, too, jumping up, delighted. His fingers stayed intertwined with Oishi's, like they were celebrating victory together already. Kikumaru pulled a CD player from his back- thoroughly illegal in school- and pressed its on button, bright green lights snapping on in the dark classroom. He slammed one of his long fingers into the track button several times, and then exuberant J-rock abruptly poured out, filling the room. Oishi started, then relaxed and laughed with Fuji's smile.
Taka had gotten a racket from somewhere, and was excitedly pumping his arms around to the stirring beat. "OH YEAH! RALLY MY HEART! YOUTH SPIRIT, MY GOOD MAN! HEAT! I WILL DESTROY YOUR MOM!" Oddly enough, he seemed to be yelling with the beat, and the others' laughter, too.
Tezuka rose to his feet, and the others stopped, apprehensive. Then, unsmiling but not unpleasant, Tezuka shut the door.
Inui threw his head back and laughed harder than he had in days. Kikumaru grinned a Chesire grin and grabbed Fuji, pulling him up and beginning to dance to the music. Oishi got to his feet, and Kikumaru grabbed his doubles partner's wrists and pulled him to the center of their circle. Oishi gave Tezuka a salute before disappearing.
Inui knew it was simply a release of the stress that had been building over time in all of them. It was good, though. The serotonin and other mood-controlling chemicals in his brain had kicked in, sending out practically palpable impulses of happiness and relief.
He wondered why Tezuka wouldn't let himself smile even at a time like this. But wasn't that part of Seigaku's strength, too?
"VICTORY!"
"Dance, Tezuka?" Inui asked, offering a hand to his buchou and giving him the most insane smile he had.
"All the way to nationals..."
***
Afterwards, Inui realized he'd forgotten to eat his lunch, and needing the energy, shoved the food down his throat as fast as he could. A boy he'd been friends with in freshman year walked back in his view, and, stomach groaning from eating the sandwich so fast, he made his way into the boy's path. It was a fairly isolated corner of the hall, anyway.
"Nice to see you, Kakeru-kun," Inui said, voice sounding strange to him, strained in contrast to his normal voice, oddly deep in comparison to the voice that had said that name before. He now towered over Ishida.
Ishida Kakeru stopped, tilted his head up, forced onto tiptoe in order to see Inui's face. He was much smaller than Inui would have thought. "Do I know you?" Kakeru frowned. Then he reached up, took Inui's glasses off his face for a second, and cried out. "Sadaha- I mean, Inui!"
"Long time no see," Inui nodded. "What have you been doing?" Neither of them had seen the other and spoken in years.
Kakeru shrugged, fingering a piece of his light hair in a way that somewhat disturbingly reminded Inui of St. Rudolph's manager Mizuki Hajime. "I'm on the writing club. You're in the tennis club still, right?"
"Manager," said Inui. "I make health drinks now, would you like to try one? I have Aozu in my bag."
"No thanks," Kakeru said, clearly uncomfortable with the whole encounter. "I'd better get to class. Well, I'll see you around, Inui."
"It's okay," Inui said, voicing the unsaid worry that had been hovering throughout the conversation. His voice was perfectly flat and controlled. "I don't want to be friends again, if that's what you thought."
Kakeru flinched, for even if that had been what he wanted, there was a 65% probability that having his old friend say that so openly still hurt him. "What?"
"Thank you, Kakeru," said Inui.
"Inui-sempai." Kaidoh stood there, having just walked up. He'd taken the bandana Inui had seen him wearing earlier off. Inui couldn't tell if the tone of his grim voice was any more or less disgruntled than usual.
"Huh?" said Kakeru. He shrunk back at the sight of Kaidoh scowling at him. Kaidoh was taller, Inui noted. And sure had a much scarier face.
Inui smiled, rather manically, rather detached. Strange, very strange, that he'd be introducing Kaidoh to Kakeru. "Ishida Kakeru, senior, Kaidoh Kaoru, junior," he said pleasantly, pointing to each in turn.
Even someone like him might have people they knew. Anyone in the world could connect. Inui Sadahara was going to Nationals with Seigaku.
"Ssssss."
Kakeru's grip tightened oon the notebook in his hand, like Inui's, only probably used for his creative writing. Inui probably didn't notice the way Kaidoh's eyes darted to it. "Are you on the tennis team?" Kakeru asked.
"Regular," Kaidoh said. "Singles 3."
"You should go to class, too," Inui pointed out. "At this point, there's a 40% probability that all three of us will be late."
"I'll see you at practice, sempai," Kaidoh said, slithering off.
Kakeru nodded, face transparent to Inui, full of confusion, regret. Inui simply smirked at him. Have a nice life.
Inui went back to his house smiling. The tune of the song Kikumaru had put on, that outflow of stress, was playing in his head. He didn't have the photographic memory he would have liked, but there were some things he was sure he'd remember. His parents were waiting, which hadn't been in the front of his mind. His mother, standing at the side of the front door as he entered, was smiling a painfully hopeful smile. He thought he might feel sick with hope. Hope was the most bittersweet feeling in the world. To hope for something, you had to not have it.
"Dinner," his father said. "It's on the table already."
The anticipated takeout okinomiyaki, of course. Okinomiyaki was okay. He took a seat and began to eat. Food and drink made him think of the prototype of a new kind of penal tea he'd been working on. He hadn't thought about it, hadn't had any new ideas about it for a while. Ah well, there were more pressing concerns.
"Are you in any extracurriculars?" Shinobu breached the silence with. Inui breathed out. Ah, the proverbial 20 questions.
"Yes," he said. "Tennis club."
"Are you serious about it?" Yuzuriha frowned, exchanging a disapproving glance with her husband over her son's spiky head.
"Usu," he said, picturing the stoic Hyoutei giant who said that word so much, whimsically for someone who wasn't Inui. He anticipated their next words. Shinobu- "Are you sure that's appropriate?" 89%.
"Are you sure that's appropriate?" Shinobu frowned, right on cue. Inui allowed himself a brief moment of nastiness in his feelings.
"I'm not a regular," Inui said, not even lying.
"What's that mean?" Yuzuriha blinked.
"I don't play in the competition matches," said Inui.
"That's alright, then," Shinobu said after a brief moment of consideration.
"My grades are fine," Inui said, before they could ask.
Uncomfortable looks again, as if he couldn't see them. "Do you have any friends, Sadahara?"
Inui pulled his large head back, startled. "Friends?" he asked, pushing his glasses up with one hand and picking up part of the okonomiyaki with the other. She'd surprised him with that question.
"Whatever you do, you're going to need to learn to relate to people," Shinobu said, rather harshly. "And you can't really be happy without other people," he said more gently, causing Inui to shift uncomfortably, looking away from him. "Who do you have?"
Neither of them could possibly understand. What could either of them know about him? They were the ones who'd left him. But this was a dangerous situation for him. Oddly enough, the film of euphoria from before hadn't faded at all.
"I have friends," Inui said. "Seigaku no tennis."
***
"I have to go."
"Stay," Shinobu commanded. "We're not finished."
"Shouldn't you be at work?" Inui asked. "I have to be."
"Work?" Yuzuriha frowned clinically. "I didn't know you had a job. Or- where are you going?"
"Do you know the river?" Inui asked carefully. "I'm going to help a kouhai train."
"In what?" Shinobu asked. "What does he need to train for if he's not a regular?"
"He is," Inui said.
"Then why is he getting training from you?"
"I'm the manager, and I'm leaving now."
"Are you friends?" Yuzuriha called after him.
"No," Inui said to himself, voice flat. He jogged out of his house, a look at his watch telling him he was already late. He didn't want to fail at this. He didn't enjoy the idea of any of his plans being interrupted.
Kaidoh's socks and running shoes had been left at the side of the river, Kaidoh already having waded in. Nearing, Inui could hear the snap of water whipping across the air, the slap of cloth, Boomerang Snake practice. "Kaidoh," Inui sighed, reaching the edge of the river. "I'm sorry I'm late." Kaidoh merely hissed in response, something Inui wouldn't have expected.
Inui frowned. "You're using too much power again."
Kaidoh stopped his motion. "Ssssss."
"Wait to do that part of your training until after we've done more basics," Inui said. "You won't be using your Boomerang right away."
"And what will you do until then?" Kaidoh asked, making Inui frown. For doubles? He didn't answer. He wasn't entirely sure if Kaidoh knew what he was talking about.
"You're holding me back," Kaidoh growled out, wrist snapping again. "I won't let anyone hold me back."
"You can't truly get better without my direction," said Inui, eyes narrowing beneath his glasses as he watched Kaidoh.
"That's not what I meant."
Inui studied Kaidoh, disturbed, and Kaidoh hissed, "What's on your mind, Inui-sempai," sullen. For Kaidoh, Inui was the only person he couldn't just dismiss. Inui himself would have just said he actually knew the real Kaidoh, since he alone had seen both parts of him.
"I may have to stop playing tennis," Inui finally admitted, strangely enough stumbling over the words. He hadn't stuttered much since third grade.
Kaidoh stopped, turning to stare at his trainer. Somehow he must have fallen in the river before Inui came, because he was covered in droplets of water, dripping down or evaporating off his skin in the heat. His small, shifty eyes visibly changed, angry to surprised. "Do you have an injury?" Kaidoh ventured, letting the towel fall out of his hand and splash into the water, ripples pooling across the surface of the water. The sunset behind them, reflected on the waves, was very pretty, but neither of them really cared very much about beauty.
"No," Inui said. "My family's the problem now." His new family. Inui's feet remained firmly in place on the grass, glasses easing the harsh glare from the sun, keeping his eyes from burning. Through the trees, the sun was the harshest at this time, glowing out fire. Kaidoh couldn't see, he was facing away from it. He wished Kaidoh would be dazzled, too. They both understood something like power.
Kaidoh looked down, maybe upset at the prospect of his sempai disappearing, tone when he spoke more bitter than usual. "Do you even care about tennis, sempai?"
Do you even care about any of... this? That was what Inui heard. "You're assuming I think like you, Kaidoh," Inui said smoothly, truthfully. "I don't think like you, not at all. And no matter what happens, I told you I'd make you go undefeated, and I'll hold to that." He wouldn't stop Kaidoh's training in the middle; if nothing else, it wouldn't be fair to the boy.
He pushed his glasses up, then stepped into the river, shoes still on. The riverbed wasn't made of sand but mud and slime and stones, sharp even under his tennis shoes, shoes that squished, absorbing water as he moved, socks no doubt browning from the flow of dirt. He felt the light current plaster turquoise fabric to his shins, and reached out and put a hand on Kaidoh's shoulder.
Touch was strange. Kaidoh rarely even touched his own family. And now a hand raised to Kaidoh in comradery instead of anger- something startling, certainly. That gave Inui power over him, over what his kouhai would decide this was. This was a way to reach Kaidoh, too. He could hold Kaidoh's thoughts in his hand, through a broad shoulder, lean, smooth muscles shaking from fatigue and gentleness. Kaidoh squirmed under his hand, skin slick with sweat and sand-water, slime, but didn't make Inui let go.
"You shouldn't give up on anything," Kaidoh hissed, turning back to Inui. "Ever." His eyes were fierce now, and Inui was startled for a second. Was that right, that he couldn't give up yet? "If I'm stuck with you, sempai, at least be a worthwhile partner. I'm not the only person who can win."
Then Kaidoh shrugged off Inui's hand, looked back down again and hissed, presumably embarrassed, a hot blush starting to burn on his cheeks.
Did Kaidoh mean to not give up on fighting with tennis? Or to not give up on reaching his family, too? Or both? Did it matter?
"Let's go running," Inui said, and decided they shouldn't talk any more that night.
***
Kaidoh knew. He didn't know the details, but he knew what was going on. At least the comforting thought was there that Kaidoh sure wouldn't tell anyone. Inui was positive of that fact. He returned to his house, tired from his own exertions, and met his parents there, white shirt and sweatpants he still hadn't changed out of after practice soaked with sweat. He was getting complacent. That wasn't good. He had to remember the goal he had ahead of him. As if he could forget it, but still...
He walked towards the stairs, but then his father had pressed a glass of ice water into his hand. "It's good you're training hard," Shinobu said. Yuzuriha, on the phone with someone Inui assumed was a supplier for the company, began to speak quickly into the receiver, an oppressively knowledgeable tone she rarely used with her son.
"It's not hard enough," Inui said, and, glass of water in his hand, bowed to his father, the strange urge to do so inexplicable but impossible to ignore. Shinobu nodded back.
"I saw your test," Shinobu said, gesturing to the table Inui had left it on. Mathematics. Straight 100, plus a bonus. "Good job."
"Ganbatte yo, right?" Inui said, raising his eyebrows at his father, then headed up the stairs. He needed to do some work on the computer. That, and he needed to do some weights, too.
Inui awoke the next morning with a new training plan envisioned already, Tezuka's face looming when he closed his eyes, Kaidoh's words like data in his mind. What did it mean, that he felt invigorated, motivated suddenly? What had changed about him? Was it Kaidoh? His parents? Just the external and internal factors involved with getting older? But Kaidoh had given him a message. He couldn't just focus on others. Inui had to hone himself as well.
***
Tennis practice that afternoon was very different than usual for Inui. His parents were watching it from outside the courts. He'd changed in the locker room, the first person there aside from Tezuka and Oishi, who were already out on the courts. He'd presented his variations on the training schedule to Ryuuzaki, who had been passing by, then watched her leave, going back to her office to work and to observe from there. Eventually more people had arrived, mostly at the same time, right at the start of practice. Training had started as usual, but then Inui, gaze far away, saw something most unusual. His parents, both in business suits, were walking up.
Kaidoh, also removed from the rest of the regulars as he had been during Oishi's address, noticed them, too, and pointed it out to Tezuka. Tezuka shook it off without a care. The murmurs coming from the other students showed them divided between them being reporters and scouts from another school. Inui knew better. But he would do practice as usual. He had to.
He took notes and commented, throwing out instructions to the freshmen as they practiced serving form. The juniors and seniors were having turns challenging the regulars, the same as Inui had planned. It was the end of the week, after all. Currently, Echizen was wiping the court with Arai. No real surprise there. The regulars, against normal form, seemed to be cheering for Arai against Echizen, rooting for the underdog, if Kikumaru's loud squeals were any indication. Inui forced himself to keep his eyes on Echizen's twist serve instead of his parents, heads bent towards each other in conversation as they watched him and only him.
"Game and match, Echizen. Six games to love."
Inui could tell Tezuka had been watching the match as well. He knew of Tezuka's fierce interest in Echizen. When he'd realized it, he may have even been jealous of it. But he wasn't a student like Echizen, anyway. He was a teacher.
He wondered what his parents thought of their talented freshman. They probably didn't care. 80% probability. That might even make their opinion of the tennis club worse.
Arisugawa, a quiet senior, had challenged Fuji. Inui sighed, wishing someone else was playing. Fuji wouldn't use any strength anyway. Knowing the tensai, he might just let the boy win for the fun of it. But no, beating Fuji was generally a privilege reserved for Tezuka, no matter the little one's careless ways.
He couldn't help it, he looked at his parents. Shinobu was whispering something to Yuzuriha that made her giggle, toss her hair. Inui wished his parents could be cold and scientific only.
Kaidoh made his way to Inui's side. Inui, attention still focused elsewhere, heard his kouhai ask, "Who are they?" Kaidoh had assumed Inui would know, of course. And he was correct this time, as he probably would be the next. He idly wondered what Kaidoh thought of him, then he remembered that he already knew.
"My parents," he admitted, light glinting off his glasses softly. It was alright to let Kaidoh know this, since he already knew the rest.
Kaidoh stared at Inui for a second, expression confused, then he stalked away from Inui without a word. It took Inui a few seconds to realize Kaidoh was going to talk to his parents. Inui hurried after him, surprised and dismayed at it.
"Game, Fuji. 3 games to love."
Apparently, Inui thought, without looking, Fuji was toying with Arisugawa, then, instead of just ending it as Echizen had. But then again, Echizen and Arai had always had a bit of a score between them, unlike the current match pair. And that was not what he should have been analyzing at that moment.
Kaidoh exited the courts, stopped in front of Inui's parents. He bowed to them, coughing to get their attention. "Excuse me," he said formally. "I am Kaidoh Kaoru."
Shinobu and Yuzuriha turned. Inui could see both of their eyes- it was easy to follow where they were looking, since neither wore glasses- both of their eyes had fixated on the Seigaku on Kaidoh's regular jacket. "Nice to meet you," Yuzuriha said. She looked at Inui, and Inui didn't look back.
"Do you have some business with us?" Shinobu frowned.
"Do you intend to remove Inui-sempai from this club?" Kaidoh asked bluntly, stance, manner, changing. He'd gone back to the Snake without even thinking about it.
"No," Yuzuriha said. "Physical exercise helps keep the body and mind healthy, though he doesn't seem to be doing anything today." Shinobu frowned again, then nodded his agreement slowly. Inui felt as if he wasn't there, like he was frozen in place behind them, invisible.
"Good," Kaidoh said in his low voice, and hissed loudly. Both Shinobu and Yuzuriha started, staring. Kaidoh's arms had slipped down, danging between his crouched legs. "He's my doubles partner."
***
Over two times Kaidoh's training schedule. Inui could handle it. And he didn't care what his parents thought of it. If possible, they wouldn't even know. Because he would defeat Tezuka. Until he did that, there was no way he would ever move on from this world of Seigaku's tennis, no matter how much his parents wanted him to. He wasn't ready for adulthood yet.
He wasn't sure what was going on in their minds, which was frustrating. Their actions had been inconsistent since their arrival, their intentions foggy to his perception. He couldn't quite see them as the enemy, not when they smiled at him when he came home, or corrected his homework the few times he made mistakes. "Evil" wasn't a concept he understood, not even for rivals schools, and evil didn't press a cold towel to his hot forehead after weight training, or pack his bento, or converse with him about politics. A rival wasn't someone who gave him what he'd secretly cried for when he was younger, what he'd prayed for in grade school, still small. Money existed as always, a bond, too.
Inui tried to monitor their work, and found it the same as it had always been, as far as he knew. And yet they were very different people than he'd last known them as. What had changed them? What was happening this year? What was happiness, anyway, or closeness, or warmth? Friends and family, what did they mean to Inui? He knew they were geniuses, much more intelligent, far-seeing than he was. They just weren't as obvious about it as he was.
Inui thought about nothing but Tezuka for a whole day, through class, weights, practice, home, training, Kaidoh, nothing but Tezuka. There was something he hadn't been seeing, that he'd been searching for three years and never found, some fact that had been eluding him. When he was little he'd constantly wished for the ability to read minds, and he still couldn't do that. He really knew nothing of what Tezuka felt at all, where his strength came from. Probably just being himself.
Where could he find that?
Over two times Kaidoh's training schedule, and just once, having pushed himself much harder than he had foreseen, losing control over his mind for once, he found himself collapsing in his parents' arms, feeling an inexplicable feeling of being surrounded by support and warm and just simply something besides himself.
***
One day a few months ago, Inui had been working with Kaidoh separately from the rest of the regulars, but on stamina training, not technique or combination like he was now. They'd still always met at the river, a constant Inui found comforting. He'd been late for some reason, perhaps the odd attempted conversation with Echizen, and had been coming down the hill. He'd seen something interesting at that time.
A stray cat had wandered past, then walked back, coming up to where Kaidoh was, seemingly awaiting Kaidoh like Kaidoh awaited Inui. Inui watched, perhaps feeling a bit sorry for the cat, anticipating an angry yell or something like that from Kaidoh and the cat's hasty running retreat. He was surprised to see Kaidoh respond very differently. He reacted as if scalded, looking around carefully to see if anyone was there. He hadn't noticed Inui standing there above.
Kneeling down, Kaidoh reached out tentatively and petted the darkly-colored cat, long fingers stroking its raggedly hair, exploring through its back and head and behind its ears. The cat purred, rubbing its face against Kaidoh's leg and hand. Kaidoh sat down next to it, and the cat scrambled up onto the boy's lap, surprising the normally fearsome player into falling over.
It mewed almost inquisitively, then purred again as Kaidoh relaxed beneath its weight. Then as Inui watched, unbeknownst to his kouhai, Kaidoh chuckled, and did something Inui hadn't ever seen him do before- really, truly smile.
Inui remembered gentleness in the club room Saturday afternoon, alone, facing Kaidoh's K-labeled racket, no doubt left accidently. He'd probably ran out with Momoshiro, the two of them in the throes of some quarrel. And there it was. Inui picked it up, weighed it, traced the length of rope tied around the bottom of the grip.
Inui didn't know what it was. Kaidoh could have told him its origin, if so inclined. Kaidoh's little brother Hazue, his smile a bit less weird than usual, had tied it there, a young boy's necklace removed directly off his neck where he'd been wearing it. A custom for luck he'd read about somewhere, Hazue had insisted on keeping it there on his brother's racket for the upcoming tournaments. Kaidoh had growled and threatened about it, but hadn't taken it off.
Inui didn't know any of that, and it might or might not have meant anything to him if he had. He unraveled the decoration, held it in his hand. Then he tied it around his wrist, like a bracelet. He liked it.
***
Inui's parents wanted him to get contact lenses. They wanted him to look more like the other kids at Seigaku. They wanted to be able to see his eyes. They wanted him to look handsome so he could get a girlfriend. That was basically the impression he got from the announcement they made that night at dinner to him. He'd never actually considered getting contact lenses before. He'd always assumed that there wasn't contact lenses powerful enough for him, anyway, but apparently that wasn't true. His parents would know.
Inui felt vaguely sick, suddenly, but he still agreed. Shinobu told him he'd set up an appointment for tomorrow. He wouldn't go to school, but would go to the eye doctor instead, and when he left, he wouldn't need to wear glasses anymore.
He had trouble getting to sleep that night. He didn't know why his mind was so much more charged up than usual. He decided he was worried. Finally he managed to sleep, body shutting down from sheer exhaustion. He woke up early that morning, but found himself unable to focus on the data files he kept on his computer. He read a book instead, some old collection of haiku he'd liked when he was in grade school.
Finally, Inui was called down for breakfast. He ate with his parents, as had become the norm by now. The food they had made wasn't very good at all. He didn't comment on it, though. When they were all finished, Shinobu looked at his watch and declared it time to go. Inui got into the backseat of his father's car, and they drove out.
***
Inui couldn't feel the contact lenses, even though he thought he'd be able to. He had rarely ever noticed his glasses after the first few months with them, but he felt the constant lack of them the moment he stepped out of the doctor's room. The sunlight was bright, cutting through the wet lenses he couldn't feel there embedded in his eyes, and making him wince.
He could see fine without glasses. It was very strange. He couldn't describe it very well, but he knew it was very strange. He'd almost forgotten what his eyes actually looked like, having not seen them clearly in many years. He'd seen them in the mirror at the doctor's when he'd put the contacts in for the first time.
They weren't strikingly colored like Fuji's or even Echizen's. They were normal black, and large, darker than his hair, the spots he'd always seen as dark holes in his face with his blurry eyesight before now clear. He could see himself reflected clearly in his eyes, like black holes with the insides the same as the outside. He could see his confusion in his face now clearly with them unblocked, every nuance of what he felt apparent. He didn't know if he was attractive without his glasses or not. He just looked odd to himself, like there were alien things on his head, bulging out, eating it. He hardly recognized himself, and yet-
He went to Seigaku, too late for the end of classes but in time for practice. He was slightly tardy, the only one in the locker room when he entered. When he changed, pulling his uniform shirt off, there weren't glasses blocking its way, no glasses knocked askew that he had to fix. He pulled his T-shirt on. The colors were too bright, even his white shirt, his sunlight-lacking pale skin.
He exited the room, and took the few steps to the courts. Practice had started already, voices yelling, balls flying. But it all stopped when he entered. His gaze swept the court, the alien, and he could see them staring at him, shocked. The freshman trio, frozen comically in the motions of stretching out. A group of juniors he didn't know, arms falling from the strokes of the racket they'd been executing. Momoshiro's hand, rustling Echizen's hair, falling off, turning with his kouhai, both in amazement.
Fuji and Kikumaru, test discussion they'd been having coming to an abrupt end, Fuji's eyes opening. Taka's burning serve, cut off in mid-swing, dribbling down to the concrete, loud jeers silenced. Oishi, presenting a chart to Tezuka, letting out a soft gasp of astonishment, a harsh contrast to the other's unchanging stony silence. Kaidoh's small viper eyes impossibly wide, something impossible to take in. Finally Tezuka's harsh yell spurred everyone back to work.
Inui walked off and fell down onto the bench, head down, staring into his knees, quiet. He stayed that way for the rest of the practice, and waited until everyone had left the court before leaving himself. He didn't go into the locker room to change, only went home.
Sitting on his bed, Inui stared at his knees again. He shifted his wrist, and the rope tied around it shifted with it. His glasses were an uncomfortable weight against his side where he had placed them, ends cutting into his leg.
He reached up and removed the contact lenses from his eyes, fumbling a bit at the unfamiliar task. He left them fall limply from his hands, like a racket knocked away.
Exactly 1.5 minutes later, two contact lenses were ground to dust under a tennis shoe.
***
Tsukinukeru sora ni
Hitomi wo tokashite
Koko kara hajimaru
Afuredasu jishin ni michite iku
Semarikuru toki karamitsuku kokyou
Tsukanoma wo kanjitara atarashii sekai he
I say you stay ari no mama
Kodoku sae mo daite
Keep your style keep your mind break it out
I'll stay with you doko made mo habataite yukou
Ashita wo tsukamu hi made
Sorezore no emotion...