(no subject)
Data Pair ficlet for....White Day? Pi Day? :D
Title: Twenty-Three Minutes, Starting Now
Word Count: 1,250 ....because this particular picture is worth more than a thousand words *is bricked*
Characters: Niou, Inui/Yanagi, Akaya, Chitose
Notes: Based on that one image from the 2008 Tenipuri Calendar (behind the cut)....Niou plots, and receives some help.
"And, though Niou makes it a rule not to get too attached to any of his own schemes, he means it now
when he glares at Chitose out of one eye and thinks, you’d better not mess this up."
They’re halfway to the ski lodge, and Niou’s spent the past fifteen minutes talking mechanically and unobtrusively to Akaya about everything from movies to tennis to the Wii that Akaya got for Christmas. As much as he hates to admit it, though, he hasn’t managed to come up with a single workable idea.
The problem, mainly, is that it’s Yanagi.
If it had been anyone else walking behind them, there would have been at least ten different ways he could think of that would have gotten him and Akaya away from there without stirring up suspicion. He could’ve challenged the kid to a race back to the lodge, or pretended he’d forgotten something and dragged him off to look for it. Hell, he could even have dumped snow on Akaya from the overhanging tree branches, since the ensuing snow war would have been certain to lead them off the walkway, at the very least.
So many ways, in short, of wandering off and leaving the rest of their small group none the wiser and, more importantly, alone.
Yanagi, though, would’ve known right off that all of those things counted as abnormal behavior for Niou (who, despite his reputation, actually never took the initiative or wreaked havoc without a very good reason). He would’ve then pointed this out to his walking companion, and Niou could just imagine, from there on out, the two of them going ridiculously analytical and getting caught up in data and all sorts of other mundane things instead.
No, not at all what he was trying to accomplish.
Which leaves him, again, struck by just how difficult the whole thing had turned out to be, and how quickly it was getting to be a matter of pride for him, to be able to pull it off.
And, if only Yagyuu were here instead back at the lodge doing homework....
He’s just gotten to the point where he’s even ready to let Akaya in on the plan and get him to start something (not that he expected Akaya to be very subtle, but any reasons Akaya might have to leave the scene in the hurry would probably come across to Yanagi as a lot less threatening than Niou’s, and thus a lot less distracting) when a new and heavy set of footsteps come moving in rapidly from behind, falling into step a few paces behind him.
“Yo,” says Chitose, with a wry smile that seemed to be his default expression. He’d been wearing it, at least, each of the times Niou had caught a glimpse of him on the slopes that morning, including when he'd been falling all over the place. “You guys heading back early, too?”
Akaya answers him. Niou turns and gives a slight nod, mind working fast. Because there were definitely ways he could use this to his advantage.
Chitose was, for all intents and purposes, the perfect wild card. From what he knew, the tall Kyuushu player was erratic, known for being pretty impulsive, and at the same time wasn’t a very interesting subject for study (off the courts, at least) to the two people walking behind them.
They certainly wouldn’t find as much to analyze if it were Chitose suddenly throwing snow at people, for example. Especially if it were at Akaya, who always tended to provoke people into throwing snow at him.
What was more, Chitose even seemed the laid-back-but-nosy type who wouldn’t mind going along with what Niou had in mind.
Niou thinks he just might be all set, if only there was some way for him to surreptitiously get the idea across --
And then, all of a sudden, Chitose glances over Akaya’s head and winks at him.
Ah.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Niou turns nonchalantly and keeps walking steadily ahead. He has no idea, of course, of what Chitose’s going to do, but inwardly he's still smirking and giving an anticipatory puri at the prospect of witnessing something, anything, finally being put into action.
“Kirihara-kun, I was going to ask,” says Chitose, still hovering a little behind them as they walk. “Does your hair naturally looks like that?”
Akaya glances over his shoulder, looking nonplussed. “Err....yeah, I guess so.”
“Ever thought of getting it dyed?” Chitose presses on, draping one hand good-naturedly over Akaya’s shoulder. “Just the other day, I ran into a friend who still had some of this really interesting gold dye on hand, now that I think of it --"
Niou, for his part, begins to think that, whatever Chitose was going to do, he could at the very least set it up talking about something that wasn’t so sudden and completely off the wall.
If Yanagi hadn’t been so interested in whatever was in that notebook, they'd have attracted his attention several times over by now.
“-- but his hair’s always been all wild and shapeless no matter what color he changed it to. It’d probably work a lot better for you --”
He has no choice but to let it play out, though. More likely than not, anything he did to try to cut Chitose off would run the risk of being just as attention-worthy.
Niou remembers the last time he’d chanced a quick glance behind them, a few minutes ago, and had to raise his eyebrows at the unexpected sight - that of their strategist, eyes clear and peaceful and actually smiling, as he walked close in step with Seigaku’s Inui. Who, for his part, seemed just as content if a little fidgety, with his left hand hovering about Yanagi’s right, as if he wasn’t sure whether to lean in and grab hold of it.
It was after that that Niou had gone from idly sifting through scenarios in his head to actively trying to come up with a serious and workable plan. Sometimes, he looks at Yanagi, and really wonders how it's possible for someone to be so brilliant and so clueless at the same time.
And, though Niou makes it a rule not to get too attached to any of his own schemes, he means it now when he glares at Chitose out of one eye and thinks, you’d better not mess this up.
In the end, Chitose does not disappoint. Akaya opens his mouth to reply to something that's been said, and ends up shrieking instead.
His hands flail uselessly about his collar and the back of his jacket, where, from the looks of it, Chitose has managed to slip a lump of snow down his shirt.
As his kouhai chases Chitose over the hedges lining the walkway and into the snow-covered, tree-smattered field beyond, and as Niou pretends to amble lazily after them, he's aware of, behind him, Yanagi and his walking companion stopping to watch for a few seconds with mild interest, and then continuing, unperturbed, on their way.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“That didn’t go too badly,” Chitose remarks, leaning against one of the trees dotting the field. His hair hangs in wet clumps in the places it’s not powdered white, him having allowed Akaya to pummel him with snowballs until the other two were safely out of earshot.
“Keh,” mutters Akaya, and Niou ruffles his hair. “You could have told me. Are you sure Yanagi-senpai won’t figure it out?”
Far in the distance, now, and through a thick curtain of white, beadlike snowflakes, Yanagi is walking with his head held high, and in all likelihood still wearing that solemn, open-eyed smile from earlier. Inui’s hand now rests on his arm.
“Twenty-three minutes,” says Chitose with an exaggerated sigh. “Is the amount of time they’re going to keep looking at that notebook, before they move onto to something else.”
Niou smirks.
“Puri.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Only began working on this this morning, when I realized I wanted to write something with Inui in it for 3/14. It turned out a little more Niou-centric than originally intended, but I'm pretty happy with it, overall, given the time available.
....pretend that there's a good reason for them to all be randomly at a ski lodge somewhere? It was the first thing that came to mind when I looked at the picture. (Maybe the top four teams at Nationals won a skiing trip? :D)
aa
Title: Twenty-Three Minutes, Starting Now
Word Count: 1,250 ....because this particular picture is worth more than a thousand words *is bricked*
Characters: Niou, Inui/Yanagi, Akaya, Chitose
Notes: Based on that one image from the 2008 Tenipuri Calendar (behind the cut)....Niou plots, and receives some help.
"And, though Niou makes it a rule not to get too attached to any of his own schemes, he means it now
when he glares at Chitose out of one eye and thinks, you’d better not mess this up."
They’re halfway to the ski lodge, and Niou’s spent the past fifteen minutes talking mechanically and unobtrusively to Akaya about everything from movies to tennis to the Wii that Akaya got for Christmas. As much as he hates to admit it, though, he hasn’t managed to come up with a single workable idea.
The problem, mainly, is that it’s Yanagi.
If it had been anyone else walking behind them, there would have been at least ten different ways he could think of that would have gotten him and Akaya away from there without stirring up suspicion. He could’ve challenged the kid to a race back to the lodge, or pretended he’d forgotten something and dragged him off to look for it. Hell, he could even have dumped snow on Akaya from the overhanging tree branches, since the ensuing snow war would have been certain to lead them off the walkway, at the very least.
So many ways, in short, of wandering off and leaving the rest of their small group none the wiser and, more importantly, alone.
Yanagi, though, would’ve known right off that all of those things counted as abnormal behavior for Niou (who, despite his reputation, actually never took the initiative or wreaked havoc without a very good reason). He would’ve then pointed this out to his walking companion, and Niou could just imagine, from there on out, the two of them going ridiculously analytical and getting caught up in data and all sorts of other mundane things instead.
No, not at all what he was trying to accomplish.
Which leaves him, again, struck by just how difficult the whole thing had turned out to be, and how quickly it was getting to be a matter of pride for him, to be able to pull it off.
And, if only Yagyuu were here instead back at the lodge doing homework....
He’s just gotten to the point where he’s even ready to let Akaya in on the plan and get him to start something (not that he expected Akaya to be very subtle, but any reasons Akaya might have to leave the scene in the hurry would probably come across to Yanagi as a lot less threatening than Niou’s, and thus a lot less distracting) when a new and heavy set of footsteps come moving in rapidly from behind, falling into step a few paces behind him.
“Yo,” says Chitose, with a wry smile that seemed to be his default expression. He’d been wearing it, at least, each of the times Niou had caught a glimpse of him on the slopes that morning, including when he'd been falling all over the place. “You guys heading back early, too?”
Akaya answers him. Niou turns and gives a slight nod, mind working fast. Because there were definitely ways he could use this to his advantage.
Chitose was, for all intents and purposes, the perfect wild card. From what he knew, the tall Kyuushu player was erratic, known for being pretty impulsive, and at the same time wasn’t a very interesting subject for study (off the courts, at least) to the two people walking behind them.
They certainly wouldn’t find as much to analyze if it were Chitose suddenly throwing snow at people, for example. Especially if it were at Akaya, who always tended to provoke people into throwing snow at him.
What was more, Chitose even seemed the laid-back-but-nosy type who wouldn’t mind going along with what Niou had in mind.
Niou thinks he just might be all set, if only there was some way for him to surreptitiously get the idea across --
And then, all of a sudden, Chitose glances over Akaya’s head and winks at him.
Ah.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Niou turns nonchalantly and keeps walking steadily ahead. He has no idea, of course, of what Chitose’s going to do, but inwardly he's still smirking and giving an anticipatory puri at the prospect of witnessing something, anything, finally being put into action.
“Kirihara-kun, I was going to ask,” says Chitose, still hovering a little behind them as they walk. “Does your hair naturally looks like that?”
Akaya glances over his shoulder, looking nonplussed. “Err....yeah, I guess so.”
“Ever thought of getting it dyed?” Chitose presses on, draping one hand good-naturedly over Akaya’s shoulder. “Just the other day, I ran into a friend who still had some of this really interesting gold dye on hand, now that I think of it --"
Niou, for his part, begins to think that, whatever Chitose was going to do, he could at the very least set it up talking about something that wasn’t so sudden and completely off the wall.
If Yanagi hadn’t been so interested in whatever was in that notebook, they'd have attracted his attention several times over by now.
“-- but his hair’s always been all wild and shapeless no matter what color he changed it to. It’d probably work a lot better for you --”
He has no choice but to let it play out, though. More likely than not, anything he did to try to cut Chitose off would run the risk of being just as attention-worthy.
Niou remembers the last time he’d chanced a quick glance behind them, a few minutes ago, and had to raise his eyebrows at the unexpected sight - that of their strategist, eyes clear and peaceful and actually smiling, as he walked close in step with Seigaku’s Inui. Who, for his part, seemed just as content if a little fidgety, with his left hand hovering about Yanagi’s right, as if he wasn’t sure whether to lean in and grab hold of it.
It was after that that Niou had gone from idly sifting through scenarios in his head to actively trying to come up with a serious and workable plan. Sometimes, he looks at Yanagi, and really wonders how it's possible for someone to be so brilliant and so clueless at the same time.
And, though Niou makes it a rule not to get too attached to any of his own schemes, he means it now when he glares at Chitose out of one eye and thinks, you’d better not mess this up.
In the end, Chitose does not disappoint. Akaya opens his mouth to reply to something that's been said, and ends up shrieking instead.
His hands flail uselessly about his collar and the back of his jacket, where, from the looks of it, Chitose has managed to slip a lump of snow down his shirt.
As his kouhai chases Chitose over the hedges lining the walkway and into the snow-covered, tree-smattered field beyond, and as Niou pretends to amble lazily after them, he's aware of, behind him, Yanagi and his walking companion stopping to watch for a few seconds with mild interest, and then continuing, unperturbed, on their way.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“That didn’t go too badly,” Chitose remarks, leaning against one of the trees dotting the field. His hair hangs in wet clumps in the places it’s not powdered white, him having allowed Akaya to pummel him with snowballs until the other two were safely out of earshot.
“Keh,” mutters Akaya, and Niou ruffles his hair. “You could have told me. Are you sure Yanagi-senpai won’t figure it out?”
Far in the distance, now, and through a thick curtain of white, beadlike snowflakes, Yanagi is walking with his head held high, and in all likelihood still wearing that solemn, open-eyed smile from earlier. Inui’s hand now rests on his arm.
“Twenty-three minutes,” says Chitose with an exaggerated sigh. “Is the amount of time they’re going to keep looking at that notebook, before they move onto to something else.”
Niou smirks.
“Puri.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Only began working on this this morning, when I realized I wanted to write something with Inui in it for 3/14. It turned out a little more Niou-centric than originally intended, but I'm pretty happy with it, overall, given the time available.
....pretend that there's a good reason for them to all be randomly at a ski lodge somewhere? It was the first thing that came to mind when I looked at the picture. (Maybe the top four teams at Nationals won a skiing trip? :D)
aa