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Hi! Second part of Keep Your Style! I'm just gonna post all my fic, in case anyone's interested. It's all on fanfiction.net/~starbrigid, but I think I might post it on comms! -beams- Exciting!
So...
Oh, and I'm sorry about Sadahara -cringes- I swear that's what my fansub said...
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Anime » Tennis no Ohjisama » Keep Your Style text size: (+) : (-)
Author: Starbrigid
PG-13 - English - General - Reviews: 25 - Published: 04-06-04 - Updated: 04-24-04 id:1805928
Pairings- Gen, InuKai, InuiTezuka, etc.
Disclaimer- PoT is not mine.
Author's Notes- Named after the ending song. I had thought Keep Your Style was a one-shot, but... I can't be finished with Inui yet, can I? I'd be betraying my InuKai roots! Definition from dictionary.com. As for Inui's name, it's Sadahara in the subs I watch, so I'm gonna write it as Sadahara, I guess, sorry. And Onee-sama means older sister- very respectful! I have an older sister, and that's what I call her, too! :-) Spoilers to episode 52. And yes, I now realize the timeline is more than a bit messed with. Sorry... the story's more interesting that way, anyway, so...
First person cut-ins are all from Seigaku regulars, and I'm pretty sure who they are needs little explanation. It's just a stylistic thing, it's whatever.
Dedicated to the author Monnie, for her InuKai story Sesshoku, and her abundance of wonderful Hyoutei goodness. Your ToriShishi does more for me than you could know.
***
Cognition-
1. The mental process of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment.
2. The psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning.
3. To become acquainted with, to know.
4. That which is known.
***
Inui Leiko stood at the door. "You broke them."
"Onee-sama?" Inui frowned. "Why are you home, Onee-sama?"
"We called her," Shinobu said, emerging from his home office to face his son.
"The one pair of contact lenses wasn't expensive at all," Inui pointed out, refraining from quoting the price as he normally would have.
"That's not the point," Yuzuriha said. Inui did know perfectly well "that" wasn't why they were worried or angry or anything like that. Of course the lenses' price wasn't the point. He loved the glasses perched on his nose.
Inui Leiko tugged on the skirt of her plaid uniform. "Why don't you give Sadahara and me a second?"
Their parents walked out, and Inui turned to Leiko, glasses on his face more apparent than ever. "The contacts didn't suit me," Inui said, voice almost frustrated before his prodigal sibling- but Leiko laughed, and the tension dissolved.
She walked forward and grabbed her taller brother, crushing him against her soft chest. Inui raised a leaned-down eyebrow around out-turned stomach and let himself smile. "Okaeri nasai, Onee-sama."
She let go of him, and said, "Okay," leaning in, tone of her voice changing to conspiratorial. "What the hell is up with Tou-san and Kaa-san? Are they on crack or something?"
"I think it's a phase," Inui said, and wasn't sure if his own words were correct. "But it's not as terrible as you might think. I haven't been able to see them as people for a long time, though, only representative images, if you well..." Leiko rolled her eyes. "I can barely see them. I don't know what it would be like to be close to someone now."
She groaned dramatically, placing a hand over her forehead. "You can 'see me', right? Sadahara, you know how you get when you start analyzing yourself. You're starting to sound incoherent. I didn't come because of the parental intervention, anyway, you know."
Inui absently noted she still stuttered a bit every so often. She gained some more weight, and her hair was styled a different way. "Why did you come to visit, then? You never do."
Leiko had gone to a boarding high school in the Tokyo suburbs for the past three years. She and her brother had kept in touch by email, but- "You stopped mailing. One message you never replied to, and it stopped."
"I've been busy," Inui said truthfully. "Gomen, Onee-sama. I suppose I just missed it somehow."
"I'll be graduating from high school in not too long, Sadahara," Leiko whined, voice worried. "You almost missed my birthday."
"I really do feel remorse right now," Inui said.
Leiko frowned. "Stop acting like such a robot. I always wondered why you did that when I visited."
"All three times," Inui said, raising his eyebrow again, rising the left one with it this time.
Leiko sort of heh-heh-ed embarrassedly, nervously changing the subject. "You're still as into tennis, right? You haven't given that up?"
Inui nodded. "I lost my regular spot, but I'll have it back very soon. I'm sure of it."
"Do you ever talk to Renji? Renji was cute," Leiko fished.
"Renji attends Rikkai."
"How's That Person?" Leiko asked, arms crossed beneath her expansive chest. Her short hair, unruly like his, shook as she tossed her head. Her mannerisms and body language had undergone more than a little change since the last time Inui had seen her.
"That person?" Inui asked, not even bothering to place the expected innocence in his tone that a question like that should have warranted.
"You know who I mean," Leiko said impatiently, though once again trying for conspiratorial as she spoke.
"Still without a boyfriend, Onee-sama?" Inui said, grinning. "Just because you don't have one, you have to live your romantic life through me. Posthumously, Onee-sama?" She squealed like a rather younger girl at that last remark and stomped his foot into the carpet. Inui groaned.
"Ow... And what are you going to do living with our parents again, especially if you're going to stay for the whole week? Your vacation... Do you still want them dead?"
"I think you've gotten too smart for me, Sada," Leiko just said.
After a while, they were called to dinner. Leiko looked so much more awkward at dinner, that bizarre pretension of normality, than her little brother did. Inui thought to himself, wondering about it. He hadn't come to rely on this new setup, had he?
"It's great to have the four of us together," Yuzuriha said, near the end of the meal, and that comment alone made Leiko, almost 17, stomp off, food only half done.
"It's a very well-prepared meal," Inui said, tone calculated, words and voice just a certain way, and he watched his two deceptively intelligent, newly earnest parents cringe.
Keep Your Style
Cognition
Starbrigid
"That Person is the same as always," Inui said. "I'll beat him when I get back on the regulars, Onee-sama."
"For the family honor?" she quipped weakly. "My kid brother is so weird."
"Hai," Inui said. "Tomorrow, come to school with me."
"Cool," Leiko agreed, careless. "I will."
"I'll be leaving now," Inui said.
Leiko glared at him. "Oh, that's nice."
"It's not like that," Inui said, in a rather good mood at the moment, actually, on the whole. "I just have a new training schedule. You could come running with me if you wanted."
"Training to beat That Person?"
"Not for the most part," Inui said. "Even though you've taken the one thing I wrote so out of proportion, I'm not your obsessed tragic hero. Tezuka's not a hubris. He's really nothing in the main."
"Tezuka?" Leiko said immediately, pouncing on the name as he'd expected she would.
"If you're good, I'll introduce you to him, Onee-sama," Inui smirked. "But I'd warn you, my honored sempai, that you may be, as the Americans say, barking up the wrong tree."
Leiko said it with him, sarcastic as always, "There is no tree."
"Do you want to come running with me?" Inui asked. He laughed inwardly at that. He knew there was a pretty good 69% chance she wouldn't, on account of her being physically unfit and hating exercise. She certainly wouldn't want to run miles or lift heavy weights.
"Eh- no thanks," she said, blanching. Inui smirked.
The trouble with euphoria in general, Inui thought, pulling his blue workout suit on, was that there wasn't much room for thought within it. Neither could something like hysteria think. His sister, though she rather made him happy, made him feel smart, too.
He knew Leiko herself wasn't as smart as him, or indeed very specifically talented at all. She was rather alienated from a good deal of people, still not focused on any sort of activities. But to Inui she predated analysis, much like his parents did, and she was Onee-sama still to him. He certainly didn't choose to do anything he didn't have to that he disliked.
Inui normally didn't like to think much about himself. He had come to understand himself thoroughly a long time ago, and things outside him, other people, usually interested him far much more. He'd once thought of his endeavors perhaps being defined by his general lack of ego, lack of need for recognition, smaller amount of self-interest, and yet was he ever interested in doing things for anyone but Inui Sadahara? He burst out running, thinking of Kaidoh, perhaps, as he touched the bracelet, realizing what his kouhai might have shown to him. Hey, Onee-sama, he thought. This is for myself.
He stopped, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed Fuji's number, stored in his memory like all the other regulars' numbers. Fuji answered, not his sister, probably out with friends, and of course not his brother, long-gone to St. Rudolph's.
"Fuji," Inui said into the receiver.
"Huh?" Fuji said. "Inui?" Inui could easily picture that small, endearing expression of puzzlement appearing on Fuji's face, the shifting of a smile underneath covered dark eyes.
"Fuji," Inui said. "When your brother Yuuta comes home, what do you do to welcome him?"
Inui's relationship with Leiko was of no importance to him, not a consideration at all, unlike Fuji's own brother to him, something that Inui may have seen as the prodigy's weakness. But it appealed to Inui, to act like this, his slightly odd sense of humor.
Fuji's smile at the other end could have shown sweetness or annoyance or both. The reply came a bit later than it would have for another question. "It doesn't really matter, does it, Inui?" Fuji didn't ask why Inui had said that. He probably didn't care very much.
What did Fuji care about aside his brother? Inui had sometimes wondered if Fuji might care about Tezuka or something, the only one the gentle boy let beat him at tennis all the time, the only one who in any case could. He might or might not have seen if Fuji felt something. It might happen, might not. Who could know Fuji Syusuke's mind? It doesn't really matter, does it, Inui?
Thoughts preceded dialogue. Inui couldn't make assumptions. He felt amused, meanly so. This was funny. "You mean it doesn't matter what you tell me, or it doesn't matter what you do, because it won't make any different to him?"
Fuji laughed, and Inui enjoyed its unusual windy sound. "That's funny, Inui, but I had just been about to leave. Good luck."
"Good luck, huh?" Click.
Inui really enjoyed seeing Kaidoh. He had always sort of liked Kaidoh's presence, perhaps identified with the dark loner a bit in an odd way, and now he was coming to understand his kouhai even more, shaping the data written in his notebook. Kaidoh was his partner because he'd chosen him, and the other boy might even be his friend. A little bit more, if not a terrible amount more, than the other regulars, that was.
Kaidoh was brought up associations in his mind, Kaidoh facing his pretty, awful old friend Kakeru, of Kaidoh meeting his gaze one day in Inui's second year, the freshman's presence at that time, because that made Inui think of Kaidoh made him keep thinking of Fuji the meaningless.
What would that gift be, to be able to become high on life, to live in the way that everything was hiddenly incredible to you and things came to you, instead of you having to look?
"Kaidoh," Inui said. "Thank you for all your hard work."
"How long have you been running?" Kaidoh asked, taking in the sweat on Inui's brow, dripping down his face and beneath his glasses.
"A while," Inui said.
"Have you increased your training schedule?" Kaidoh stared, maybe hurt.
"Yes," Inui said. Odd, unusual for Kaidoh to want to talk. "We should train now."
That day, Inui did all of Kaidoh's very excessive training with him, and practiced after he'd walked Kaidoh home.
When he stood back at the river, hauling his body's weight up and down for push-ups, drops of water spraying across his sight showed through to a darkening sky. He remembered Kaidoh's face by dusk and the glow of streetlights, harsh and strong, and heartrendingly sweet. The taste in his mouth he'd imagined remained, like sweat and orange sunset.
Leiko said goodnight to him that night, like he was her son or something, or so she said jokingly, rather uncomfortable at the realization. Inui's father, who'd been watching from the doorway, came in and patted Inui on the shoulder where he lay. "Ii data," Inui mumbled into his pillow and smiled at his father.
"I'd be unhappy if you left, too."
***
At the beginning of Inui's second year, he'd had a crush on Fuji Syusuke. That was about the time he'd really started collecting data very seriously, and Fuji was the only person on the entire team he couldn't get anything real on. It was like Fuji was some sort of hole in the fabric of reality, glowing around a set of numbers, a glitch in the Matrix, that movie. Inui had once entertained the idea that Fuji was the one person like him.
He'd spent a month or a week or so with that "crush" on the tensai, cultivating it inside him where he kept it so carefully hidden. Tezuka wasn't exactly like that, had always meant something different to him than those shallow, transient feelings. Tezuka meant something he couldn't quite describe, something he'd never read a satisfactory characterization of- nothing at all. But Fuji, his supposed anti-self, had held a place in Inui that Inui now loathed. It was to be expected, really, all of it was, easily trackable.
13-year-old Inui had his first sex dream about Fuji Syusuke, its subject, its center. Shining with the flicker of candlelight, crawling towards him in the dark, striking eyes open, bringing the antithesis of all he was and believed, his calculation, control... Fuji had come.
Some sort of wind had been howling around them, sending Fuji's soft, light tendrils of hair spinning around his heart-shaped face. The dark, heavy air had been clouded with mist, droplets of rain falling onto the sleeves of Fuji's Seigaku jacket, over dark eyelashes, crystal trails of delicate glass, startlingly oh-so-close.
Fuji had been whispering something, voice just as penetrating as the wind, as warmth. Sadahara sat there dumbly, frozen, spellbound. "Inui," Fuji said, and smiled.
Fuji's jacket, half-zipped over his jersey, trailed open, pushed off with long, slender fingers. Inui stared, and the other boy reached out, T-shirt going the jacket's way as Fuji grabbed onto Inui and Inui shattered into a thousand million pieces.
Inui's first kiss had been in fever dreams, everything that defined him melting away, to that person he didn't even know, not-shivering around him in the vacuum of emptiness, that hurtfully burning cold. The curve of best fit, quadratic, parabola, endless stretch of a hand, a smirk. Wetness, a scream, senses exploding, pleasure, pain, a cry.
Wake up hurting, shaking, damp, unsatisfied. Tennis practice that day, Inui met Fuji's eyes, opened for once, and look, he found cognition at last. Fuji could do anything he wanted with Inui, own him, hurt him, destroy him, had anything he wanted in his grasp, so easily. Fuji would never do anything like that, wasn't really that kind of person, but if he wanted to, the prodigy could and would break him, oh so easily.
He'd gone through the rest of practice disoriented, disturbed, unsure of himself for once. He'd somehow ended up staring at one of the freshman, whose name he'd actually known.
How could he not have known that freshman's name, though- for along with his enemy and friend Momoshiro, Kaidoh Kaoru was the only new member with any promise, the two amazingly driven again each other- how could he not have known someone like Kaidoh? His kouhai had an interesting personality, strange, oppressive, wearing distinctive bandanas and hissing, causing even older students to shy out of his way. He was driven, prideful, and unswervingly respectful. Snakelike Kaidoh turned and looked at Inui, too, and Inui realized something then, which he immediately forgot.
That was the day he got over Fuji Syusuke, who was just a simple acquaintance-ally to him now, and it was so much better that way.
***
Inui and Leiko walked to school early, Leiko chattering away about her high school friends. Inui thought about his new data and said "Good data," every now and then, so his sister thought he found what she was saying at least marginally interesting. He knew she was just trying to impress him, anyway, which was completely, fundamentally pointless. She was soon interrupted, however, by a voice much louder than her own, an earsplitting squeal sounding out into the early morning.
"Iiiiiiiinuuuuuuuuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" Kikumaru ran up and glomped Leiko's brother, apparently looking to his nearest available friend for comfort. "My sister used all my toothpaste again!"
Inui sighed, let Kikumaru drape his light little body all over him, just the way the cat-boy did with everyone else. His sister blinked, stared at her brother's friend. "Huh? Cute..."
"Nya nya?" Kikumaru turned, surprised. "Who are you sashi-datchi?"
"Leiko-chan," she smiled.
"I'm Eiji," he said, bounding forward and staring at her St. Katherine's uniform questioningly. Then he arrived at what was, for Kikumaru at least, the obvious conclusion. "WAH! Are you Inui's girlfriend?"
"She's my sister, visiting from out of town," Inui said placidly.
"Eiji!" they heard someone cry, and then Oishi ran up, panting slightly. "I was looking for you."
Kikumaru flung himself on Oishi. "Mou! Oishi! My sister used my toothpaste and now weird Inui's sister is here! It's weird! I want my toothpaste! Oishi, can you lend me some money? Oishi, I'm worried about our new doubles formation! O-i-shi!"
"Seigaku no Golden Pair," Inui said, grinning scarily at his sister's reaction. He really liked his life. "Our national-level Doubles 1."
"We're the best!" Kikumaru said brightly.
"And we're late," Oishi sighed.
"WHA? Why didn't you tell me!" Kikumaru sped away, wailing. Oishi sighed, recognizing the futility of it all, just hoping Fuji would keep the teacher from giving his partner yet another tardy.
Inui, however, thought he was going to enjoy this. Throughout the day, he looked out for the regulars and pointed out them out to Leiko. He wanted her to see his world, his friends, to meet them face to face. He might have felt proud to be a part of something like this.
Leiko met the rest of the senior regulars at lunch that day, bowing formally after her brother's introduction in a ridiculous way. Tezuka nodded to her, acknowledging her presence, but didn't say anything. Kikumaru and Oishi smiled and greeted her for the second time, Oishi hastily advising her to watch out for her little brother's health, which Inui himself sighed at but did not protest. Kawamura introduced himself to Leiko before Inui could do the honors, remarking that he reminded him of someone- Akutsu Jin's mother, Inui assumed. Fuji gave her his sweetest smile and leaned over to kiss her hand, making Kikumaru shriek and giggle and Leiko gasp.
"It's rare to see such a pretty girl these days," Fuji said gracefully.
Leiko smiled back, taking on a jovial sharpness. "Thanks, but what about you?"
"Onee-sama..." Inui said tightly, sounding a bit panicked despite himself.
Everyone besides Tezuka gaped, but Fuji himself just laughed. "Having someone new always makes things more interesting, doesn't it? It's nice to see you share more with your brother than looks."
"You're..." she trailed off, staring at Fuji. She felt very special today.
"Fuji, Singles 2," Inui said. Leiko looked surprised at that last detail, probably startled that such a small, non-threatening looking guy could have that slot, but about 80% of people did seem to have that reaction upon finding out if they didn't know Fuji, didn't they?
There was a pause, and then, "Tezuka desu," Tezuka finally said in turn, causing Leiko to shriek. Inui winced.
"T-Tezuka? You're Tezuka? Wow!" Leiko cried.
"See, Eiji, I told you all the girls like Tezuka," Oishi laughed, smiling.
"Oh? You've heard a lot about Tezuka, then?" Fuji asked innocently. "Does Inui talk about our buchou a lot?"
"No," Leiko said quickly. "I just heard that Tezuka-san plays tennis really well, that's all."
"Captain and Singles 1," Inui said, following the format. He did take pleasure in knowing things, even if they were easy, and others knew them also.
After that scene, he wondered if his sister truly registered meeting anyone else, so stunned just by the concept of Tezuka. She literally ran into Echizen and Momoshiro after lunch. The two boys had been running through the halls, Echizen trying to reclaim the books Momo had stolen from him. Momo's loud, playful taunts and Echizen's exasperated half-laughs stopped when the three collided and the impact slammed them to the ground.
Inui appeared suddenly behind where Momoshiro was sprawled, startling the younger boy severely, causing him to jump up haphazardly. Echizen pointed at Momoshiro's comic expression and began to snicker, not even acknowledging the girl's presence, much less preparing for an apology. "Mada mada dane," he said, very predictably.
"Shut up, Echizen! And don't DO that, Inui-sempai!" Momo yelled, incensed. He turned to Leiko. "Eh, sorry," he said sheepishly, demeanor changing, offering a hand to pull her up.
Echizen almost pouted, then snagged Momo's hand and pulled his own small body up in Leiko's place. "Thanks," he grinned.
"Hey!" Momo cried, and Echizen darted off, having reclaimed his books from Momo a long time ago, and successfully repossessed Momoshiro's own as well. Momo raced off after him, yelling more and barely avoiding knocking down other people in his pursuit, forgetting his victim easily. There was almost a 100% chance they'd both be late to their next classes.
"Singles 3, Echizen Ryoma, and Singles 3 also, Momoshiro Takeshi," Inui said, and loved his life.
***
Inui sometimes liked long tests, but at other times he hated them quite a bit. There were always external factors affecting his performance on such things, like the state of his body, the amount of awareness he had, his chemically-bound emotional state, and indeed simply enough just how much he knew on the topic. He was the master of the intellectual, tests not the same as his beloved data and experiments, but close enough, in their same category, that they supposedly became and indeed were his jurisdiction. A test in the English on the last period of the day that he hadn't remembered, and Inui heaved a long sigh.
Trying to remember the word needed and failing, Inui did know that this wasn't his specific specialty, and just that subject and adjective together were redundant, weren't they? Even if he pretended not to be that way, everyone did have some areas they excelled in, and the rest became comparatively deficient. He knew this, but, pencil doodling an angular geometric pattern in the examination's margin, the thought of Kaidoh's stubborn persistence, even to the point of hurt, in the boy's own chosen vehicle of the body, made Inui strain his own medium of the mind. He wasn't used to having to ache for something.
He wanted to bring home another 100 to his genius parents, and to see the jealousy on Leiko's face, and to not remark on it but jot it down for future use. He wished for that beginning for his new set of data, this one on his family.
Kaidoh couldn't come to practice that day, having to retake a major test. It was strange, Inui thought, that Kaidoh and Leiko had never met. Did that mean something, the event being held off, did that mean that its eventual occurrence would be that many times more meaningful? Was it all being built up to some sort of unwieldy climax?
Inui knew dramatics. He knew that time would be the ranking matches for the regulars at the end of the month. And he knew who would be in his ranking block, so maybe what he would get on that English test wasn't terribly important. Neither Leiko or Kaidoh would like each other.
***
"So tell me about who you like," Inui said, leaning toward Leiko with his manic grin to end all manic grins.
"What if I don't wanna?" Leiko whined, facing her little brother defiantly. Their parents, scurrying past to converse with each other and serve their children snacks, didn't comment.
Inui, sitting in T-shirt and sweatpants in preparation for his training later, a sharp contrast to Leiko's long white nightgown, took on a bit of a threatening air, whipping out a bubbling concoction from approximately nowhere. "Then you get the honor of being the first to try Inui's New Super Special Dynamite Love Aozu Remix- Now in Orange!"
Shinobu and Yuzuriha yelled out various panicked variations of "Don't do it, Leiko-chan! You have so much to live for!" The not-very-orange liquid made ominous sounds as it let off heat, almost sounding like it was hissing. The two scientist-businessmen had both made the mistake of trying some of Inui's concoctions a few days before, and knew the ridiculous danger of them firsthand.
"How bad is it?" Leiko stared at her brother's strange experiment in fascination.
"You won't believe it," Shinobu said with the utmost solemnity, and Leiko laughed a while before she realized whose joke she was laughing at.
Inui wrote the phrase "Full circle" on the page of his notebook and contemplated what it meant. Leiko ended up confessing her undying love for some popular boy in her class, escaping, sadly enough, Inui's New Super Special Dynamite Love Aozu Orange Remix. Yaru jan, Onee-sama. But her time would come... an ominous smile...
Even when he was jogging out of the house, making his way to the gym for extra training, Inui found his thoughts remaining at his house. He wondered what was happening there with Leiko and his parents. Somehow, the result was important to him. Was hate what he saw in the picture? 32% probability Leiko had already stormed far, far away from them.
***
"Leiko-chan, how do you think Sadahara's doing these days?" Yuzuriha asked, and fervently hoped her only daughter wouldn't just leave.
The three of them could all hear the slight grunts of exertion as Inui lifted weights next door, set after set worth. With the amount he'd been lifting weights over the past few days, though, even this probably wasn't too much yet. Inui kept track of those things, after all. Shinobu, who rarely attended the gym he paid a good deal to keep a membership at, felt rather guilty. He pushed that thought away, though, because that wasn't what they were talking about at all.
Sitting in Leiko's long-empty room, Leiko on the bed, Shinobu and Yuzuriha in dusty chairs, Sadahara was the question for the moment. Leiko sighed, rolled her eyes pointedly, smoothing her uniform skirt down over her legs. "What do you mean? Be more specific, Kaa-san." Somehow it always felt strange to Shinobu and Yuzuriha to even be called Tou-san or Kaa-san.
"Leiko, don't be like that," Shinobu sighed. "You know him better than we do. Of course we're really worried."
"You realize you picked a fine time to start worrying," Leiko snapped, but met her parents' hopeful expressions and relented. "Fine. You wanna know who Sadahara is? He's a smart-as-shit twisted sadist with a killer obsession with tennis and THE worst sense of humor."
Stares. Blank ones. Leiko shrugged. "Ranking matches for Seigaku's tennis club are tomorrow, you know."
"Should we cheer him on?" Yuzuriha said doubtfully.
Leiko couldn't seem to stop rolling her eyes around them. "As if, Kaa-san. We both know you have to work."
"He's going to graduate soon, just like you," Shinobu said keenly.
"And it's gonna mean a hell of a lot more to him than atashi-sama."
***
Even though it was early, Inui knew Tezuka and Ryuuzaki-sensei were already working on placement for Kantou. After all, they were going to be facing quite an opponent. Inui, being a coach, was also consulted on these things. There was a reason the other regulars sometimes came to him to request placements- not that he necessarily gave them what they asked for, of course.
He'd been helping them all this time, putting in his own input, but he had held back on telling them one thing until he was absolutely sure of it. Sitting in Ryuuzaki-sensei's office, rather late after practice, the topic of Doubles 2 was the focus once again. That was easily this year's team's weakest spot, after all.
Inui, bracelet falling about three inches as he raised his hand to interrupt, finally felt ready to make his announcement. "Tezuka. Ryuuzaki-sensei."
They turned to Inui, Ryuuzaki with a wearied look on her face, Tezuka stone. "Have some miraculous solution to our problems, Inui?" Ryuuzaki sighed wryly.
Inui pushed up his glasses with slightly manic grin. "Perhaps. Kaidoh and I have been training as a doubles pair. We can take Doubles 2."
"Kaidoh?" Ryuuzaki stared, surprised. Even Tezuka looked rather taken aback.
"You aren't a regular, Inui," Tezuka said coldly, though his voice was comparatively thoughtful, too, assessing.
Inui laughed. "We have ranking matches before Kantou, Tezuka. You might be surprised yourself."
"Then show us what you have, Inui," Ryuuzaki said, and smiled back.
***
Irony
234 words
Fuji or Inui- Age 10
Do you know what it's like to be hated for what you're good at?
I don't like other people. They don't understand a lot of things. Sometimes I feel just like them, sometimes I feel completely, fundamentally different. They're just as inconsistent as I am, even more than me in my mind, my ultimate truth, because I perceive even my mistakes as making perfect sense. Not that I make many.
I don't like people who aren't me because they don't do what I want them to do all the time. They say and do things sometimes that they definitely intend to hurt me, and sometimes that they don't mean to, but they all do wound, because I'm sensitive, contradictory, because I think so much. They can't understand something like that, because they're not in my head. I want to be like them and be hate them at the same time.
Why should I suffer just because they're lazy and stupid?
I think I'd like a friend who isn't family, who I'd never have to explain a word to that I didn't even speak in calculation, only said because that's the way I think. I want someone who does their work on their own. I'd like someone who enjoys philosophy and religion and speculation and understands the unparalleled satisfaction of revenge. I wish someone else would see the beauty and infinite complexity of just words, irony.
***
"Tezuka. I have gathered all the data. This time, I'll win. I will for sure."
***
Tezuka, Inui, you're both so serious now! This might be a little scary, but I can barely take my eyes off it! Wow, I had no idea Inui was like that! Oishi, Inui's really been aiming for Tezuka all this time? That weird guy's been after Buchou? Wow, you're so in control! I guess welcome back then, nya...
***
Tezuka, what are you going to do about this? I don't know who I want to win. This is the most fun I've had in a while. I'm glad you're strong, Inui. If you beat Tezuka, maybe I'll pay attention to you.
Ah, I'm not really ever that bored here at Seigaku, am I?
***
I'll be quitting tennis after this year. I didn't expect this, but there are a lot of things I don't expect, and I'm fine with that. Fujiko-chan, I bet you knew all about this, didn't you?
I'll be quitting tennis after this year. But at least Seigaku's really, truly strong.
***
This determination, this strength... to fight even with our buchou... how can this be possible? Sempai, even though I want to, I can't understand you. This is incredible. I suppose I shouldn't have underestimated you, sempai.
Even so, you're still holding me back. I don't want your tenacity, I want my own. Still, though, I guess I should be proud that you chose me. I wonder if that idiot is watching this.
To fight even with our buchou... what is the power of data? Your mind, your body... what kind of strength do they hold?
***
This match shouldn't be happening. It's not right for two teammates to fight each other so seriously. Tezuka's not a good goal for you, Inui! You shouldn't be doing this to yourself! If this keeps up, something bad will happen, I'm sure of it! How can I be acting so cool, so happy, when I feel like this, when this is happening!
I should have seen this coming. It's my responsibility. I only have myself to blame. You all deserve to know, because I saw it, and you didn't. Eiji, how can you look so pleased? This won't really help Inui, no matter what he thinks. This will only hurt him. This match should stop.
Tezuka, are you really trying?
***
So there isn't a place here for me anymore.
***
I really hate that style of tennis. It's my least favorite kind. It's sickening.
I didn't know this was going to happen. Buchou... what are you doing? I don't understand what's going on. Does anyone here?
Inui-sempai isn't that strong, is he? I didn't think he was determined or anything. He doesn't care about winning, except now he does. He's not talented at all. Then how can he do this? I wish I could do that. Buchou... do you hate that tennis, too?
Oishi-sempai, your story's interesting, but I'd rather watch.
Oh, well, I always thought Buchou would win, anyway. He beat me, so no way Inui-sempai could have beaten him. Yaru jan, Inui-sempai, demo mada mada dane.
***
"Kaidoh."
The day after the match with Tezuka, Inui held out a broken length of rope braid to his kouhai. Kaidoh, knee-deep in water, stared, not sure what to think of his sempai now.
"It's yours, Kaidoh. I'm giving it back."
Kaidoh's eyes widened. "Hazue's-" He stopped, looked up at Inui. For a second, his permanently angry face showed confusion, vulnerability. Then-
"Keep it, sempai," Kaidoh finally growled out. "It doesn't matter to me. Why would it?" He stopped for a second, shifted, cheeks a bit flushed from the setting sun's heat. "It was a good match, sempai."
"No, it wasn't," Inui said. "You should start your training now, Kaidoh."
Kaidoh tried to remember for a second what Inui had looked like with his glasses off. He couldn't, really. Then, before he could stop himself, he'd reached forward and pulled his sempai's glasses off, just the way he'd seen that blonde boy do.
Inui stumbled, vision blurring. "K-Kaidoh?"
"Shut up," Kaidoh said, and kissed him. At the time, Kaidoh didn't know why he'd done it, only that he was angry, and confused, and he wanted to.
He'd never kissed anyone before. His mouth met Inui-sempai's almost hesitantly, made its way inside, and it was strange, unbalanced, and Kaidoh stumbled, too, fell into Inui. Inui caught him automatically, body tense, shocked, frozen.
Inui-sempai was wet, warm but surprisingly cold, too. He felt his mind dropping away, failing him as his hands limply pulled onto blue Seigaku jersey, strange new taste like the slickness of honey, like a melting ice cube, and soft.
It was like a shock to his body, strange, completely new feeling traveling up his spine, to his brain, plaintive, confused, aching, the pleasure of everything he didn't and shouldn't know. His muscles snapped, inverting, and he stumbled back, awkward, so little balance today, the oxygen pouring in and out of his lungs like wildfire, escaping him.
He could feel his face filling with heat, red like a fire hydrant smashed open, spewing water open onto the path he jogged along each day. He didn't know what to do after that. So he just left, not even looking to see his sempai's face.
***
Inui returned to his house late, as he had the previous night. His family had been waiting for him there, Leiko, Shinobu, and Yuzuriha, all of them. "Tadaima," he said.
"Okaeri," Shinobu said back, Yuzuriha opening the door for him. Leiko, stretched out on the couch with a math textbook draped over her, stuck out her tongue at him. The radio was playing in the other room, some haphazard j-rock/j-pop piece with a female singer that didn't sound particularly happy but rather brave.
Then Yuzuriha got up and hugged him tight. Inui instinctively tried to break free, but then relaxed and let her, arms tentatively creeping around her middle. Shinobu, leaning in to kiss his wife, grasped Inui's shoulder. Then Leiko had flung herself on the three of them, and was suddenly crying, hysterically.
The probability of that had been 0%, or he'd thought so.
***
So here I am, Momo-sempai, and there's nothing I can do. I told all of them I didn't care about you, and it's true. I told them I don't know anything about you, and it's true. I said that we're not really close, and that's right. But why do I feel so strange? I don't know how to describe it. Away from all of them, and staring at your back... why do I feel like all the hurt you're probably feeling... is mine?
Are you ever going to come back? Are you ever going to play tennis again? Will you ever play tennis against me again? Will I ever kick your sorry ass at it again? Will you ever invite me anywhere, or let me freeload off you, or argue with me, or give me bicycle rides? Will you ever steal my things, or insult me, or call me cute and little, or bring me back Karupin? Will you be there to be the only one to think I'll win? Will you be nice to me for no reason and try to be friends with me anymore? We'll never play doubles again, especially after all this time, and I don't want to... but will I ever even speak to you again?
What are you feeling, Momo-sempai? Why won't you come back? I wish you would come back. I wonder if you're hurting. I hate it, but it feels like I'm hurting, too, like I'm the one who was dropped. The team won't be the same. I wish that things didn't have to be like this. That anyone had been dropped but you. This wispy, sad feeling, like that moth's wings or those chalky clouds in the sky...
You suck, Momo-sempai. Why can't you get it together? You shouldn't need me to do anything for you. You shouldn't need anyone else. So you're off the team. You should still be yourself. You're not as good as me, Momo-sempai, but you really are good. Do you know that?
I never thought like this until now. Why am I suddenly like this? Will I ever beat the old man?
Standing at the water, before the sun, you make such a dramatic, tragic figure. It doesn't suit you, Momo-sempai. It makes me want to laugh at you, even though I'm not.
This is the stupidest thing ever.
***
Morning practice, and Kaidoh and Inui, not paying attention, almost bumped into each other, coming face to face. Both of them were wearing the regular jersey today. Inui, despite the heat, was wearing the jacket with it. Kaidoh hissed menacingly before realizing who it was he'd practically collided with; upon noticing, he stopped.
"Kaidoh, did you do your training last night?" Inui asked, funny look on his face.
Kaidoh stared at him, then nodded. "O-of course, sempai..."
Inui proceeded to whip out a pitcher of ominously bubbling juice, scarier looking than ever. "If you don't work just that hard at practice today, Kaidoh, you get to be the first on the club to try Inui's New Super Special Dynamite Love Aozu Remix- Now in Orange!"
Kaidoh gulped. "Run, Kaidoh!" Kikumaru, passing by, yelled, not very helpfully.
The more things change...
***
"Kaidoh," Inui said.
"Aa?"
"Thank you."
***
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...
So...
Oh, and I'm sorry about Sadahara -cringes- I swear that's what my fansub said...
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Anime » Tennis no Ohjisama » Keep Your Style text size: (+) : (-)
Author: Starbrigid
PG-13 - English - General - Reviews: 25 - Published: 04-06-04 - Updated: 04-24-04 id:1805928
Pairings- Gen, InuKai, InuiTezuka, etc.
Disclaimer- PoT is not mine.
Author's Notes- Named after the ending song. I had thought Keep Your Style was a one-shot, but... I can't be finished with Inui yet, can I? I'd be betraying my InuKai roots! Definition from dictionary.com. As for Inui's name, it's Sadahara in the subs I watch, so I'm gonna write it as Sadahara, I guess, sorry. And Onee-sama means older sister- very respectful! I have an older sister, and that's what I call her, too! :-) Spoilers to episode 52. And yes, I now realize the timeline is more than a bit messed with. Sorry... the story's more interesting that way, anyway, so...
First person cut-ins are all from Seigaku regulars, and I'm pretty sure who they are needs little explanation. It's just a stylistic thing, it's whatever.
Dedicated to the author Monnie, for her InuKai story Sesshoku, and her abundance of wonderful Hyoutei goodness. Your ToriShishi does more for me than you could know.
***
Cognition-
1. The mental process of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment.
2. The psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning.
3. To become acquainted with, to know.
4. That which is known.
***
Inui Leiko stood at the door. "You broke them."
"Onee-sama?" Inui frowned. "Why are you home, Onee-sama?"
"We called her," Shinobu said, emerging from his home office to face his son.
"The one pair of contact lenses wasn't expensive at all," Inui pointed out, refraining from quoting the price as he normally would have.
"That's not the point," Yuzuriha said. Inui did know perfectly well "that" wasn't why they were worried or angry or anything like that. Of course the lenses' price wasn't the point. He loved the glasses perched on his nose.
Inui Leiko tugged on the skirt of her plaid uniform. "Why don't you give Sadahara and me a second?"
Their parents walked out, and Inui turned to Leiko, glasses on his face more apparent than ever. "The contacts didn't suit me," Inui said, voice almost frustrated before his prodigal sibling- but Leiko laughed, and the tension dissolved.
She walked forward and grabbed her taller brother, crushing him against her soft chest. Inui raised a leaned-down eyebrow around out-turned stomach and let himself smile. "Okaeri nasai, Onee-sama."
She let go of him, and said, "Okay," leaning in, tone of her voice changing to conspiratorial. "What the hell is up with Tou-san and Kaa-san? Are they on crack or something?"
"I think it's a phase," Inui said, and wasn't sure if his own words were correct. "But it's not as terrible as you might think. I haven't been able to see them as people for a long time, though, only representative images, if you well..." Leiko rolled her eyes. "I can barely see them. I don't know what it would be like to be close to someone now."
She groaned dramatically, placing a hand over her forehead. "You can 'see me', right? Sadahara, you know how you get when you start analyzing yourself. You're starting to sound incoherent. I didn't come because of the parental intervention, anyway, you know."
Inui absently noted she still stuttered a bit every so often. She gained some more weight, and her hair was styled a different way. "Why did you come to visit, then? You never do."
Leiko had gone to a boarding high school in the Tokyo suburbs for the past three years. She and her brother had kept in touch by email, but- "You stopped mailing. One message you never replied to, and it stopped."
"I've been busy," Inui said truthfully. "Gomen, Onee-sama. I suppose I just missed it somehow."
"I'll be graduating from high school in not too long, Sadahara," Leiko whined, voice worried. "You almost missed my birthday."
"I really do feel remorse right now," Inui said.
Leiko frowned. "Stop acting like such a robot. I always wondered why you did that when I visited."
"All three times," Inui said, raising his eyebrow again, rising the left one with it this time.
Leiko sort of heh-heh-ed embarrassedly, nervously changing the subject. "You're still as into tennis, right? You haven't given that up?"
Inui nodded. "I lost my regular spot, but I'll have it back very soon. I'm sure of it."
"Do you ever talk to Renji? Renji was cute," Leiko fished.
"Renji attends Rikkai."
"How's That Person?" Leiko asked, arms crossed beneath her expansive chest. Her short hair, unruly like his, shook as she tossed her head. Her mannerisms and body language had undergone more than a little change since the last time Inui had seen her.
"That person?" Inui asked, not even bothering to place the expected innocence in his tone that a question like that should have warranted.
"You know who I mean," Leiko said impatiently, though once again trying for conspiratorial as she spoke.
"Still without a boyfriend, Onee-sama?" Inui said, grinning. "Just because you don't have one, you have to live your romantic life through me. Posthumously, Onee-sama?" She squealed like a rather younger girl at that last remark and stomped his foot into the carpet. Inui groaned.
"Ow... And what are you going to do living with our parents again, especially if you're going to stay for the whole week? Your vacation... Do you still want them dead?"
"I think you've gotten too smart for me, Sada," Leiko just said.
After a while, they were called to dinner. Leiko looked so much more awkward at dinner, that bizarre pretension of normality, than her little brother did. Inui thought to himself, wondering about it. He hadn't come to rely on this new setup, had he?
"It's great to have the four of us together," Yuzuriha said, near the end of the meal, and that comment alone made Leiko, almost 17, stomp off, food only half done.
"It's a very well-prepared meal," Inui said, tone calculated, words and voice just a certain way, and he watched his two deceptively intelligent, newly earnest parents cringe.
Keep Your Style
Cognition
Starbrigid
"That Person is the same as always," Inui said. "I'll beat him when I get back on the regulars, Onee-sama."
"For the family honor?" she quipped weakly. "My kid brother is so weird."
"Hai," Inui said. "Tomorrow, come to school with me."
"Cool," Leiko agreed, careless. "I will."
"I'll be leaving now," Inui said.
Leiko glared at him. "Oh, that's nice."
"It's not like that," Inui said, in a rather good mood at the moment, actually, on the whole. "I just have a new training schedule. You could come running with me if you wanted."
"Training to beat That Person?"
"Not for the most part," Inui said. "Even though you've taken the one thing I wrote so out of proportion, I'm not your obsessed tragic hero. Tezuka's not a hubris. He's really nothing in the main."
"Tezuka?" Leiko said immediately, pouncing on the name as he'd expected she would.
"If you're good, I'll introduce you to him, Onee-sama," Inui smirked. "But I'd warn you, my honored sempai, that you may be, as the Americans say, barking up the wrong tree."
Leiko said it with him, sarcastic as always, "There is no tree."
"Do you want to come running with me?" Inui asked. He laughed inwardly at that. He knew there was a pretty good 69% chance she wouldn't, on account of her being physically unfit and hating exercise. She certainly wouldn't want to run miles or lift heavy weights.
"Eh- no thanks," she said, blanching. Inui smirked.
The trouble with euphoria in general, Inui thought, pulling his blue workout suit on, was that there wasn't much room for thought within it. Neither could something like hysteria think. His sister, though she rather made him happy, made him feel smart, too.
He knew Leiko herself wasn't as smart as him, or indeed very specifically talented at all. She was rather alienated from a good deal of people, still not focused on any sort of activities. But to Inui she predated analysis, much like his parents did, and she was Onee-sama still to him. He certainly didn't choose to do anything he didn't have to that he disliked.
Inui normally didn't like to think much about himself. He had come to understand himself thoroughly a long time ago, and things outside him, other people, usually interested him far much more. He'd once thought of his endeavors perhaps being defined by his general lack of ego, lack of need for recognition, smaller amount of self-interest, and yet was he ever interested in doing things for anyone but Inui Sadahara? He burst out running, thinking of Kaidoh, perhaps, as he touched the bracelet, realizing what his kouhai might have shown to him. Hey, Onee-sama, he thought. This is for myself.
He stopped, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed Fuji's number, stored in his memory like all the other regulars' numbers. Fuji answered, not his sister, probably out with friends, and of course not his brother, long-gone to St. Rudolph's.
"Fuji," Inui said into the receiver.
"Huh?" Fuji said. "Inui?" Inui could easily picture that small, endearing expression of puzzlement appearing on Fuji's face, the shifting of a smile underneath covered dark eyes.
"Fuji," Inui said. "When your brother Yuuta comes home, what do you do to welcome him?"
Inui's relationship with Leiko was of no importance to him, not a consideration at all, unlike Fuji's own brother to him, something that Inui may have seen as the prodigy's weakness. But it appealed to Inui, to act like this, his slightly odd sense of humor.
Fuji's smile at the other end could have shown sweetness or annoyance or both. The reply came a bit later than it would have for another question. "It doesn't really matter, does it, Inui?" Fuji didn't ask why Inui had said that. He probably didn't care very much.
What did Fuji care about aside his brother? Inui had sometimes wondered if Fuji might care about Tezuka or something, the only one the gentle boy let beat him at tennis all the time, the only one who in any case could. He might or might not have seen if Fuji felt something. It might happen, might not. Who could know Fuji Syusuke's mind? It doesn't really matter, does it, Inui?
Thoughts preceded dialogue. Inui couldn't make assumptions. He felt amused, meanly so. This was funny. "You mean it doesn't matter what you tell me, or it doesn't matter what you do, because it won't make any different to him?"
Fuji laughed, and Inui enjoyed its unusual windy sound. "That's funny, Inui, but I had just been about to leave. Good luck."
"Good luck, huh?" Click.
Inui really enjoyed seeing Kaidoh. He had always sort of liked Kaidoh's presence, perhaps identified with the dark loner a bit in an odd way, and now he was coming to understand his kouhai even more, shaping the data written in his notebook. Kaidoh was his partner because he'd chosen him, and the other boy might even be his friend. A little bit more, if not a terrible amount more, than the other regulars, that was.
Kaidoh was brought up associations in his mind, Kaidoh facing his pretty, awful old friend Kakeru, of Kaidoh meeting his gaze one day in Inui's second year, the freshman's presence at that time, because that made Inui think of Kaidoh made him keep thinking of Fuji the meaningless.
What would that gift be, to be able to become high on life, to live in the way that everything was hiddenly incredible to you and things came to you, instead of you having to look?
"Kaidoh," Inui said. "Thank you for all your hard work."
"How long have you been running?" Kaidoh asked, taking in the sweat on Inui's brow, dripping down his face and beneath his glasses.
"A while," Inui said.
"Have you increased your training schedule?" Kaidoh stared, maybe hurt.
"Yes," Inui said. Odd, unusual for Kaidoh to want to talk. "We should train now."
That day, Inui did all of Kaidoh's very excessive training with him, and practiced after he'd walked Kaidoh home.
When he stood back at the river, hauling his body's weight up and down for push-ups, drops of water spraying across his sight showed through to a darkening sky. He remembered Kaidoh's face by dusk and the glow of streetlights, harsh and strong, and heartrendingly sweet. The taste in his mouth he'd imagined remained, like sweat and orange sunset.
Leiko said goodnight to him that night, like he was her son or something, or so she said jokingly, rather uncomfortable at the realization. Inui's father, who'd been watching from the doorway, came in and patted Inui on the shoulder where he lay. "Ii data," Inui mumbled into his pillow and smiled at his father.
"I'd be unhappy if you left, too."
***
At the beginning of Inui's second year, he'd had a crush on Fuji Syusuke. That was about the time he'd really started collecting data very seriously, and Fuji was the only person on the entire team he couldn't get anything real on. It was like Fuji was some sort of hole in the fabric of reality, glowing around a set of numbers, a glitch in the Matrix, that movie. Inui had once entertained the idea that Fuji was the one person like him.
He'd spent a month or a week or so with that "crush" on the tensai, cultivating it inside him where he kept it so carefully hidden. Tezuka wasn't exactly like that, had always meant something different to him than those shallow, transient feelings. Tezuka meant something he couldn't quite describe, something he'd never read a satisfactory characterization of- nothing at all. But Fuji, his supposed anti-self, had held a place in Inui that Inui now loathed. It was to be expected, really, all of it was, easily trackable.
13-year-old Inui had his first sex dream about Fuji Syusuke, its subject, its center. Shining with the flicker of candlelight, crawling towards him in the dark, striking eyes open, bringing the antithesis of all he was and believed, his calculation, control... Fuji had come.
Some sort of wind had been howling around them, sending Fuji's soft, light tendrils of hair spinning around his heart-shaped face. The dark, heavy air had been clouded with mist, droplets of rain falling onto the sleeves of Fuji's Seigaku jacket, over dark eyelashes, crystal trails of delicate glass, startlingly oh-so-close.
Fuji had been whispering something, voice just as penetrating as the wind, as warmth. Sadahara sat there dumbly, frozen, spellbound. "Inui," Fuji said, and smiled.
Fuji's jacket, half-zipped over his jersey, trailed open, pushed off with long, slender fingers. Inui stared, and the other boy reached out, T-shirt going the jacket's way as Fuji grabbed onto Inui and Inui shattered into a thousand million pieces.
Inui's first kiss had been in fever dreams, everything that defined him melting away, to that person he didn't even know, not-shivering around him in the vacuum of emptiness, that hurtfully burning cold. The curve of best fit, quadratic, parabola, endless stretch of a hand, a smirk. Wetness, a scream, senses exploding, pleasure, pain, a cry.
Wake up hurting, shaking, damp, unsatisfied. Tennis practice that day, Inui met Fuji's eyes, opened for once, and look, he found cognition at last. Fuji could do anything he wanted with Inui, own him, hurt him, destroy him, had anything he wanted in his grasp, so easily. Fuji would never do anything like that, wasn't really that kind of person, but if he wanted to, the prodigy could and would break him, oh so easily.
He'd gone through the rest of practice disoriented, disturbed, unsure of himself for once. He'd somehow ended up staring at one of the freshman, whose name he'd actually known.
How could he not have known that freshman's name, though- for along with his enemy and friend Momoshiro, Kaidoh Kaoru was the only new member with any promise, the two amazingly driven again each other- how could he not have known someone like Kaidoh? His kouhai had an interesting personality, strange, oppressive, wearing distinctive bandanas and hissing, causing even older students to shy out of his way. He was driven, prideful, and unswervingly respectful. Snakelike Kaidoh turned and looked at Inui, too, and Inui realized something then, which he immediately forgot.
That was the day he got over Fuji Syusuke, who was just a simple acquaintance-ally to him now, and it was so much better that way.
***
Inui and Leiko walked to school early, Leiko chattering away about her high school friends. Inui thought about his new data and said "Good data," every now and then, so his sister thought he found what she was saying at least marginally interesting. He knew she was just trying to impress him, anyway, which was completely, fundamentally pointless. She was soon interrupted, however, by a voice much louder than her own, an earsplitting squeal sounding out into the early morning.
"Iiiiiiiinuuuuuuuuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" Kikumaru ran up and glomped Leiko's brother, apparently looking to his nearest available friend for comfort. "My sister used all my toothpaste again!"
Inui sighed, let Kikumaru drape his light little body all over him, just the way the cat-boy did with everyone else. His sister blinked, stared at her brother's friend. "Huh? Cute..."
"Nya nya?" Kikumaru turned, surprised. "Who are you sashi-datchi?"
"Leiko-chan," she smiled.
"I'm Eiji," he said, bounding forward and staring at her St. Katherine's uniform questioningly. Then he arrived at what was, for Kikumaru at least, the obvious conclusion. "WAH! Are you Inui's girlfriend?"
"She's my sister, visiting from out of town," Inui said placidly.
"Eiji!" they heard someone cry, and then Oishi ran up, panting slightly. "I was looking for you."
Kikumaru flung himself on Oishi. "Mou! Oishi! My sister used my toothpaste and now weird Inui's sister is here! It's weird! I want my toothpaste! Oishi, can you lend me some money? Oishi, I'm worried about our new doubles formation! O-i-shi!"
"Seigaku no Golden Pair," Inui said, grinning scarily at his sister's reaction. He really liked his life. "Our national-level Doubles 1."
"We're the best!" Kikumaru said brightly.
"And we're late," Oishi sighed.
"WHA? Why didn't you tell me!" Kikumaru sped away, wailing. Oishi sighed, recognizing the futility of it all, just hoping Fuji would keep the teacher from giving his partner yet another tardy.
Inui, however, thought he was going to enjoy this. Throughout the day, he looked out for the regulars and pointed out them out to Leiko. He wanted her to see his world, his friends, to meet them face to face. He might have felt proud to be a part of something like this.
Leiko met the rest of the senior regulars at lunch that day, bowing formally after her brother's introduction in a ridiculous way. Tezuka nodded to her, acknowledging her presence, but didn't say anything. Kikumaru and Oishi smiled and greeted her for the second time, Oishi hastily advising her to watch out for her little brother's health, which Inui himself sighed at but did not protest. Kawamura introduced himself to Leiko before Inui could do the honors, remarking that he reminded him of someone- Akutsu Jin's mother, Inui assumed. Fuji gave her his sweetest smile and leaned over to kiss her hand, making Kikumaru shriek and giggle and Leiko gasp.
"It's rare to see such a pretty girl these days," Fuji said gracefully.
Leiko smiled back, taking on a jovial sharpness. "Thanks, but what about you?"
"Onee-sama..." Inui said tightly, sounding a bit panicked despite himself.
Everyone besides Tezuka gaped, but Fuji himself just laughed. "Having someone new always makes things more interesting, doesn't it? It's nice to see you share more with your brother than looks."
"You're..." she trailed off, staring at Fuji. She felt very special today.
"Fuji, Singles 2," Inui said. Leiko looked surprised at that last detail, probably startled that such a small, non-threatening looking guy could have that slot, but about 80% of people did seem to have that reaction upon finding out if they didn't know Fuji, didn't they?
There was a pause, and then, "Tezuka desu," Tezuka finally said in turn, causing Leiko to shriek. Inui winced.
"T-Tezuka? You're Tezuka? Wow!" Leiko cried.
"See, Eiji, I told you all the girls like Tezuka," Oishi laughed, smiling.
"Oh? You've heard a lot about Tezuka, then?" Fuji asked innocently. "Does Inui talk about our buchou a lot?"
"No," Leiko said quickly. "I just heard that Tezuka-san plays tennis really well, that's all."
"Captain and Singles 1," Inui said, following the format. He did take pleasure in knowing things, even if they were easy, and others knew them also.
After that scene, he wondered if his sister truly registered meeting anyone else, so stunned just by the concept of Tezuka. She literally ran into Echizen and Momoshiro after lunch. The two boys had been running through the halls, Echizen trying to reclaim the books Momo had stolen from him. Momo's loud, playful taunts and Echizen's exasperated half-laughs stopped when the three collided and the impact slammed them to the ground.
Inui appeared suddenly behind where Momoshiro was sprawled, startling the younger boy severely, causing him to jump up haphazardly. Echizen pointed at Momoshiro's comic expression and began to snicker, not even acknowledging the girl's presence, much less preparing for an apology. "Mada mada dane," he said, very predictably.
"Shut up, Echizen! And don't DO that, Inui-sempai!" Momo yelled, incensed. He turned to Leiko. "Eh, sorry," he said sheepishly, demeanor changing, offering a hand to pull her up.
Echizen almost pouted, then snagged Momo's hand and pulled his own small body up in Leiko's place. "Thanks," he grinned.
"Hey!" Momo cried, and Echizen darted off, having reclaimed his books from Momo a long time ago, and successfully repossessed Momoshiro's own as well. Momo raced off after him, yelling more and barely avoiding knocking down other people in his pursuit, forgetting his victim easily. There was almost a 100% chance they'd both be late to their next classes.
"Singles 3, Echizen Ryoma, and Singles 3 also, Momoshiro Takeshi," Inui said, and loved his life.
***
Inui sometimes liked long tests, but at other times he hated them quite a bit. There were always external factors affecting his performance on such things, like the state of his body, the amount of awareness he had, his chemically-bound emotional state, and indeed simply enough just how much he knew on the topic. He was the master of the intellectual, tests not the same as his beloved data and experiments, but close enough, in their same category, that they supposedly became and indeed were his jurisdiction. A test in the English on the last period of the day that he hadn't remembered, and Inui heaved a long sigh.
Trying to remember the word needed and failing, Inui did know that this wasn't his specific specialty, and just that subject and adjective together were redundant, weren't they? Even if he pretended not to be that way, everyone did have some areas they excelled in, and the rest became comparatively deficient. He knew this, but, pencil doodling an angular geometric pattern in the examination's margin, the thought of Kaidoh's stubborn persistence, even to the point of hurt, in the boy's own chosen vehicle of the body, made Inui strain his own medium of the mind. He wasn't used to having to ache for something.
He wanted to bring home another 100 to his genius parents, and to see the jealousy on Leiko's face, and to not remark on it but jot it down for future use. He wished for that beginning for his new set of data, this one on his family.
Kaidoh couldn't come to practice that day, having to retake a major test. It was strange, Inui thought, that Kaidoh and Leiko had never met. Did that mean something, the event being held off, did that mean that its eventual occurrence would be that many times more meaningful? Was it all being built up to some sort of unwieldy climax?
Inui knew dramatics. He knew that time would be the ranking matches for the regulars at the end of the month. And he knew who would be in his ranking block, so maybe what he would get on that English test wasn't terribly important. Neither Leiko or Kaidoh would like each other.
***
"So tell me about who you like," Inui said, leaning toward Leiko with his manic grin to end all manic grins.
"What if I don't wanna?" Leiko whined, facing her little brother defiantly. Their parents, scurrying past to converse with each other and serve their children snacks, didn't comment.
Inui, sitting in T-shirt and sweatpants in preparation for his training later, a sharp contrast to Leiko's long white nightgown, took on a bit of a threatening air, whipping out a bubbling concoction from approximately nowhere. "Then you get the honor of being the first to try Inui's New Super Special Dynamite Love Aozu Remix- Now in Orange!"
Shinobu and Yuzuriha yelled out various panicked variations of "Don't do it, Leiko-chan! You have so much to live for!" The not-very-orange liquid made ominous sounds as it let off heat, almost sounding like it was hissing. The two scientist-businessmen had both made the mistake of trying some of Inui's concoctions a few days before, and knew the ridiculous danger of them firsthand.
"How bad is it?" Leiko stared at her brother's strange experiment in fascination.
"You won't believe it," Shinobu said with the utmost solemnity, and Leiko laughed a while before she realized whose joke she was laughing at.
Inui wrote the phrase "Full circle" on the page of his notebook and contemplated what it meant. Leiko ended up confessing her undying love for some popular boy in her class, escaping, sadly enough, Inui's New Super Special Dynamite Love Aozu Orange Remix. Yaru jan, Onee-sama. But her time would come... an ominous smile...
Even when he was jogging out of the house, making his way to the gym for extra training, Inui found his thoughts remaining at his house. He wondered what was happening there with Leiko and his parents. Somehow, the result was important to him. Was hate what he saw in the picture? 32% probability Leiko had already stormed far, far away from them.
***
"Leiko-chan, how do you think Sadahara's doing these days?" Yuzuriha asked, and fervently hoped her only daughter wouldn't just leave.
The three of them could all hear the slight grunts of exertion as Inui lifted weights next door, set after set worth. With the amount he'd been lifting weights over the past few days, though, even this probably wasn't too much yet. Inui kept track of those things, after all. Shinobu, who rarely attended the gym he paid a good deal to keep a membership at, felt rather guilty. He pushed that thought away, though, because that wasn't what they were talking about at all.
Sitting in Leiko's long-empty room, Leiko on the bed, Shinobu and Yuzuriha in dusty chairs, Sadahara was the question for the moment. Leiko sighed, rolled her eyes pointedly, smoothing her uniform skirt down over her legs. "What do you mean? Be more specific, Kaa-san." Somehow it always felt strange to Shinobu and Yuzuriha to even be called Tou-san or Kaa-san.
"Leiko, don't be like that," Shinobu sighed. "You know him better than we do. Of course we're really worried."
"You realize you picked a fine time to start worrying," Leiko snapped, but met her parents' hopeful expressions and relented. "Fine. You wanna know who Sadahara is? He's a smart-as-shit twisted sadist with a killer obsession with tennis and THE worst sense of humor."
Stares. Blank ones. Leiko shrugged. "Ranking matches for Seigaku's tennis club are tomorrow, you know."
"Should we cheer him on?" Yuzuriha said doubtfully.
Leiko couldn't seem to stop rolling her eyes around them. "As if, Kaa-san. We both know you have to work."
"He's going to graduate soon, just like you," Shinobu said keenly.
"And it's gonna mean a hell of a lot more to him than atashi-sama."
***
Even though it was early, Inui knew Tezuka and Ryuuzaki-sensei were already working on placement for Kantou. After all, they were going to be facing quite an opponent. Inui, being a coach, was also consulted on these things. There was a reason the other regulars sometimes came to him to request placements- not that he necessarily gave them what they asked for, of course.
He'd been helping them all this time, putting in his own input, but he had held back on telling them one thing until he was absolutely sure of it. Sitting in Ryuuzaki-sensei's office, rather late after practice, the topic of Doubles 2 was the focus once again. That was easily this year's team's weakest spot, after all.
Inui, bracelet falling about three inches as he raised his hand to interrupt, finally felt ready to make his announcement. "Tezuka. Ryuuzaki-sensei."
They turned to Inui, Ryuuzaki with a wearied look on her face, Tezuka stone. "Have some miraculous solution to our problems, Inui?" Ryuuzaki sighed wryly.
Inui pushed up his glasses with slightly manic grin. "Perhaps. Kaidoh and I have been training as a doubles pair. We can take Doubles 2."
"Kaidoh?" Ryuuzaki stared, surprised. Even Tezuka looked rather taken aback.
"You aren't a regular, Inui," Tezuka said coldly, though his voice was comparatively thoughtful, too, assessing.
Inui laughed. "We have ranking matches before Kantou, Tezuka. You might be surprised yourself."
"Then show us what you have, Inui," Ryuuzaki said, and smiled back.
***
Irony
234 words
Fuji or Inui- Age 10
Do you know what it's like to be hated for what you're good at?
I don't like other people. They don't understand a lot of things. Sometimes I feel just like them, sometimes I feel completely, fundamentally different. They're just as inconsistent as I am, even more than me in my mind, my ultimate truth, because I perceive even my mistakes as making perfect sense. Not that I make many.
I don't like people who aren't me because they don't do what I want them to do all the time. They say and do things sometimes that they definitely intend to hurt me, and sometimes that they don't mean to, but they all do wound, because I'm sensitive, contradictory, because I think so much. They can't understand something like that, because they're not in my head. I want to be like them and be hate them at the same time.
Why should I suffer just because they're lazy and stupid?
I think I'd like a friend who isn't family, who I'd never have to explain a word to that I didn't even speak in calculation, only said because that's the way I think. I want someone who does their work on their own. I'd like someone who enjoys philosophy and religion and speculation and understands the unparalleled satisfaction of revenge. I wish someone else would see the beauty and infinite complexity of just words, irony.
***
"Tezuka. I have gathered all the data. This time, I'll win. I will for sure."
***
Tezuka, Inui, you're both so serious now! This might be a little scary, but I can barely take my eyes off it! Wow, I had no idea Inui was like that! Oishi, Inui's really been aiming for Tezuka all this time? That weird guy's been after Buchou? Wow, you're so in control! I guess welcome back then, nya...
***
Tezuka, what are you going to do about this? I don't know who I want to win. This is the most fun I've had in a while. I'm glad you're strong, Inui. If you beat Tezuka, maybe I'll pay attention to you.
Ah, I'm not really ever that bored here at Seigaku, am I?
***
I'll be quitting tennis after this year. I didn't expect this, but there are a lot of things I don't expect, and I'm fine with that. Fujiko-chan, I bet you knew all about this, didn't you?
I'll be quitting tennis after this year. But at least Seigaku's really, truly strong.
***
This determination, this strength... to fight even with our buchou... how can this be possible? Sempai, even though I want to, I can't understand you. This is incredible. I suppose I shouldn't have underestimated you, sempai.
Even so, you're still holding me back. I don't want your tenacity, I want my own. Still, though, I guess I should be proud that you chose me. I wonder if that idiot is watching this.
To fight even with our buchou... what is the power of data? Your mind, your body... what kind of strength do they hold?
***
This match shouldn't be happening. It's not right for two teammates to fight each other so seriously. Tezuka's not a good goal for you, Inui! You shouldn't be doing this to yourself! If this keeps up, something bad will happen, I'm sure of it! How can I be acting so cool, so happy, when I feel like this, when this is happening!
I should have seen this coming. It's my responsibility. I only have myself to blame. You all deserve to know, because I saw it, and you didn't. Eiji, how can you look so pleased? This won't really help Inui, no matter what he thinks. This will only hurt him. This match should stop.
Tezuka, are you really trying?
***
So there isn't a place here for me anymore.
***
I really hate that style of tennis. It's my least favorite kind. It's sickening.
I didn't know this was going to happen. Buchou... what are you doing? I don't understand what's going on. Does anyone here?
Inui-sempai isn't that strong, is he? I didn't think he was determined or anything. He doesn't care about winning, except now he does. He's not talented at all. Then how can he do this? I wish I could do that. Buchou... do you hate that tennis, too?
Oishi-sempai, your story's interesting, but I'd rather watch.
Oh, well, I always thought Buchou would win, anyway. He beat me, so no way Inui-sempai could have beaten him. Yaru jan, Inui-sempai, demo mada mada dane.
***
"Kaidoh."
The day after the match with Tezuka, Inui held out a broken length of rope braid to his kouhai. Kaidoh, knee-deep in water, stared, not sure what to think of his sempai now.
"It's yours, Kaidoh. I'm giving it back."
Kaidoh's eyes widened. "Hazue's-" He stopped, looked up at Inui. For a second, his permanently angry face showed confusion, vulnerability. Then-
"Keep it, sempai," Kaidoh finally growled out. "It doesn't matter to me. Why would it?" He stopped for a second, shifted, cheeks a bit flushed from the setting sun's heat. "It was a good match, sempai."
"No, it wasn't," Inui said. "You should start your training now, Kaidoh."
Kaidoh tried to remember for a second what Inui had looked like with his glasses off. He couldn't, really. Then, before he could stop himself, he'd reached forward and pulled his sempai's glasses off, just the way he'd seen that blonde boy do.
Inui stumbled, vision blurring. "K-Kaidoh?"
"Shut up," Kaidoh said, and kissed him. At the time, Kaidoh didn't know why he'd done it, only that he was angry, and confused, and he wanted to.
He'd never kissed anyone before. His mouth met Inui-sempai's almost hesitantly, made its way inside, and it was strange, unbalanced, and Kaidoh stumbled, too, fell into Inui. Inui caught him automatically, body tense, shocked, frozen.
Inui-sempai was wet, warm but surprisingly cold, too. He felt his mind dropping away, failing him as his hands limply pulled onto blue Seigaku jersey, strange new taste like the slickness of honey, like a melting ice cube, and soft.
It was like a shock to his body, strange, completely new feeling traveling up his spine, to his brain, plaintive, confused, aching, the pleasure of everything he didn't and shouldn't know. His muscles snapped, inverting, and he stumbled back, awkward, so little balance today, the oxygen pouring in and out of his lungs like wildfire, escaping him.
He could feel his face filling with heat, red like a fire hydrant smashed open, spewing water open onto the path he jogged along each day. He didn't know what to do after that. So he just left, not even looking to see his sempai's face.
***
Inui returned to his house late, as he had the previous night. His family had been waiting for him there, Leiko, Shinobu, and Yuzuriha, all of them. "Tadaima," he said.
"Okaeri," Shinobu said back, Yuzuriha opening the door for him. Leiko, stretched out on the couch with a math textbook draped over her, stuck out her tongue at him. The radio was playing in the other room, some haphazard j-rock/j-pop piece with a female singer that didn't sound particularly happy but rather brave.
Then Yuzuriha got up and hugged him tight. Inui instinctively tried to break free, but then relaxed and let her, arms tentatively creeping around her middle. Shinobu, leaning in to kiss his wife, grasped Inui's shoulder. Then Leiko had flung herself on the three of them, and was suddenly crying, hysterically.
The probability of that had been 0%, or he'd thought so.
***
So here I am, Momo-sempai, and there's nothing I can do. I told all of them I didn't care about you, and it's true. I told them I don't know anything about you, and it's true. I said that we're not really close, and that's right. But why do I feel so strange? I don't know how to describe it. Away from all of them, and staring at your back... why do I feel like all the hurt you're probably feeling... is mine?
Are you ever going to come back? Are you ever going to play tennis again? Will you ever play tennis against me again? Will I ever kick your sorry ass at it again? Will you ever invite me anywhere, or let me freeload off you, or argue with me, or give me bicycle rides? Will you ever steal my things, or insult me, or call me cute and little, or bring me back Karupin? Will you be there to be the only one to think I'll win? Will you be nice to me for no reason and try to be friends with me anymore? We'll never play doubles again, especially after all this time, and I don't want to... but will I ever even speak to you again?
What are you feeling, Momo-sempai? Why won't you come back? I wish you would come back. I wonder if you're hurting. I hate it, but it feels like I'm hurting, too, like I'm the one who was dropped. The team won't be the same. I wish that things didn't have to be like this. That anyone had been dropped but you. This wispy, sad feeling, like that moth's wings or those chalky clouds in the sky...
You suck, Momo-sempai. Why can't you get it together? You shouldn't need me to do anything for you. You shouldn't need anyone else. So you're off the team. You should still be yourself. You're not as good as me, Momo-sempai, but you really are good. Do you know that?
I never thought like this until now. Why am I suddenly like this? Will I ever beat the old man?
Standing at the water, before the sun, you make such a dramatic, tragic figure. It doesn't suit you, Momo-sempai. It makes me want to laugh at you, even though I'm not.
This is the stupidest thing ever.
***
Morning practice, and Kaidoh and Inui, not paying attention, almost bumped into each other, coming face to face. Both of them were wearing the regular jersey today. Inui, despite the heat, was wearing the jacket with it. Kaidoh hissed menacingly before realizing who it was he'd practically collided with; upon noticing, he stopped.
"Kaidoh, did you do your training last night?" Inui asked, funny look on his face.
Kaidoh stared at him, then nodded. "O-of course, sempai..."
Inui proceeded to whip out a pitcher of ominously bubbling juice, scarier looking than ever. "If you don't work just that hard at practice today, Kaidoh, you get to be the first on the club to try Inui's New Super Special Dynamite Love Aozu Remix- Now in Orange!"
Kaidoh gulped. "Run, Kaidoh!" Kikumaru, passing by, yelled, not very helpfully.
The more things change...
***
"Kaidoh," Inui said.
"Aa?"
"Thank you."
***
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...