FIC: Playing Pro
Title: Playing Pro
Author: shikanashi_kk
Recipient: huabot
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1,884
Summary: In the name of tennis, Kaidoh finds himself in Okinawa and living in an apartment with a landlord named Inui.
Author's notes: Shiranui is from Higa-chuu. :D I hope you enjoy this! :)
What a rural place, Kaidoh thought. No wonder Shiranui-kun's skin was so dark; the blistering heat of the sun was already making Kaidoh's skin red -- and it hadn't even been ten minutes since he stepped out of the airport! Of course, he figured that going to Okinawa during the peak of summer wasn't exactly the wisest thing to do if you were wary of the heat, but Kaidoh was an athlete after all.
What was a little Okinawan sun compared to all those hours training during the day in Tokyo?
He called for a taxi.
Shiranui may have already quit playing tennis, but he just couldn't stay away from the sport. After high school, he ended up as a coach. If he wasn't a coach, he was more often than not a scout for his fellow coaches. It may have been just Fate that he bumped into Kaidoh once again during one of his trips in Tokyo.
They had played against each other before, during their competitive junior high school days.
Shiranui was kind of excited to finally see the Viper in action again.
Kaidoh covered his nose.
There was no bad smell really, just... a really suffocating feeling. His eyebrow twitched. That Shiranui... What kind of room was this? It looked like it's been uninhabited for decades! He crossed the room, covering his mouth and his nose and squinting his eyes so as to not get dust in them. He immediately shoved the windows open, and coughed his lungs out.
He looked back to the dust-covered room.
First day in Okinawa. Spring cleaning.
He hissed.
1 PM.
Kaidoh flopped on the wooden floor and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. The room was more or less dust-free now, but that wasn't the reason why he was so out of breath.
Hissing, he grabbed the front of his (wet) shirt and wiped it across his forehead, effectively dampening it further. He scowled. "Hot..." he muttered.
Outside, crickets sang along with the sizzling sound of the summer sun.
As if part of the melody, Kaidoh's stomach chose that moment to make itself noticed.
"Ugh..."
1 PM.
The last thing he ate was that energy bar that tasted like cardboard, and that was when he was still on the plane. He looked around the room.
Empty, save for a small table and a telephone stuffed in the corner. There was a futon shoved inside the closet, but Kaidoh chose to ignore that for now because he didn't want to encounter any more dust at the moment. Forcing his sticky, sweaty back off the wall, he crawled towards the phone.
"Oh, that's a nice sight."
Kaidoh's sweaty palm slid across the floor and his chin met wood quite abruptly. He might have scrubbed the floor a bit too much earlier.
Face burning, he immediately sat up, pulling down his bandana and hissing.
His visitor chuckled. "Happens more often than not to new tenants, I assure you."
Kaidoh was not assured. He looked up at his visitor. Jogging pants, plain white shirt, clean shave, clean cut, and really thick glasses. The man must have really poor eyesight. Really, really poor. His glasses were probably thicker than those of Rikkai's Gentleman.
And Rikkai's Gentleman had really thick glasses.
"Who are you?" he finally said, which was more of a mumble than any proper speech. Kaidoh cursed himself quietly and hoped that that didn't make him seem rude.
The visitor didn't pay any mind to it though. "Inui," he said. His smile had this really welcoming tinge to it. "I'm your landlord. You must be the new tenant Shiranui told me about."
Ah, so that explained the welcoming smile.
Kaidoh stood up. "I'm Kaidoh Kaoru. Please take care of me from now on," he said, bowing politely.
Inui's smile widened. He entered the room. "Don't be so formal, Kaidoh-kun."
Kaidoh figured that Inui really wasn't a formal person, if his skipping the --san and going straight to --kun was any indication.
"Kaidoh Kaoru, huh..." Inui murmured, more to himself really. He walked closer.
Kaidoh blinked. "Inui-san, you're --" Too close, he wanted to say, but Inui stopped walking at that moment. They stood only a feet away from each other with Inui standing still and silent, looking at him with crossed arms and a thoughtful expression across his face.
"Kaidoh Kaoru, 19, roughly 173 cm tall..." Inui mumbled to himself, before pausing. He cocked his head to the side. "You're blood type B, aren't you?"
Face now slowly turning red at the proximity, Kaidoh felt flustered. He hissed. "How did you --"
"That was just a guess," Inui remarked, chuckling. "Looks like I was right."
Before Kaidoh could be annoyed at that, he suddenly felt fingers pressing at his biceps and yelped. "W-what are you doing?!"
"Oh, don't be alarmed," Inui said, but didn't move his fingers. "Just gathering some data. It's my hobby, you see. I was once an athlete myself, and I'm curious as to what type of training you do. Your muscles have built up really well."
Inui pressed his hand against Kaidoh's chest and squeezed. Kaidoh let out a very undignified squeak.
Blissfully ignorant, Inui let out a hum of appreciation. "Really well."
Growling, Kaidoh punched him in the face.
"I think we got off on the wrong foot, Kaidoh-kun," Inui said, when he woke up. At least, he tried to say but he wasn't sure if he managed to get the message across because his swollen cheek was making it hard for him to speak.
The fact that Kaidoh had given him an ice pack and haven't kicked him out yet was a good sign though.
The five feet fixed distance and the death glares weren't.
"I assure you, I'm no pervert," Inui explained.
Kaidoh hissed at him, so he figured he should probably shut up for a while. They sat in silence, with Inui holding the ice pack to his cheek and Kaidoh five feet away with a sour expression.
After a while, Kaidoh started to fidget in his place. He looked at Inui carefully. "You said you were once an athlete?"
Inui nodded. If his cheek didn't look like an overly ripe raspberry, he would have smiled because Kaidoh speaking to him of his own accord meant that his status as a pervert was on its way to being gone. "During my elementary and junior high school days."
The death glare was back.
"So what's with the..." Kaidoh started, but found himself unable to finish as his face started turning red yet again.
Inui blinked at him. "The?"
Hissing, Kaidoh looked away. "You know. Earlier."
"Oh! The touching?"
Kaidoh hissed more vehemently.
Inui stored that little piece of data to be analyzed later. "I don't play anymore but I still make training programs as a side job. That's why I was rather curious."
"But how did you know that I did sports?" Kaidoh muttered.
At that, Inui's lips twitched up into a smile. (At least, one side did.)
"You're Kaidoh Kaoru."
Shiranui wondered for the umpteenth time if it was alright to let Kaidoh stay in Inui's apartment. Of course, it was a good decision as part of Kaidoh's training. Inui could monitor the boy's food and more importantly, ensure that he's not over-exerting himself.
But there was just one problem...
Shiranui shook his head furiously.
No, no. Inui was a professional.
He just... had difficulty in controlling himself when it came to things he was interested in.
Apparently, the boy did not know just how famous he was.
Inui found himself amused.
Cute.
"Do you have any plans for lunch?" he asked. Then he paused, realizing how awfully creepy that might have made him seem. Thankfully, Kaidoh didn't think anything bad but merely looked thoughtful.
"No..."
"You've just arrived this morning, right? If you'd like, you can come to my place. It's just downstairs."
Kaidoh's stomach growled.
"Do you usually invite strangers into your home?" Kaidoh muttered as Inui placed the food on the table in front of him. It wasn't a question meant to be rude, but just really curious. Kaidoh also wanted to ask why Inui was wearing a pink, frilly apron but that would be rude.
"You're not a stranger," Inui replied off-handedly with an amused grin as he sat down on the floor across his guest. "And do you usually accept the invitations of strangers to come to their place?"
Once more, Kaidoh's stomach growled.
"Ah, this is a one time thing, I see," Inui continued.
Kaidoh would have glared, but there was food in front of him and he was brought up by a good family. "Itadakimasu," he mumbled.
Fish, rice, and tofu.
So Japanese, he thought.
Inui blinked. "Ah, I forgot something." He hurried towards the small fridge and pulled out a pitcher of questionably green liquid. He prepared two glasses of it, and carried it back to the table.
"Shake?" he said, smiling.
Kaidoh thought it was avocado.
It was actually a mixture of cabbage, sardines, bell pepper, Tabasco sauce, kiwi, banana, and a lot of spinach.
"Hello, Shiranui? Yeah, well, about Kaidoh-kun... There's a 95% probability that he won't be able to come to training for the next three days."
"...Inui, did you..."
"It was, err, still in the experiment stage."
"..."
"It's not lethal, I assure you! He'll be up and around soon!"
"Inui."
"Good evening," Inui greeted him good-naturedly. "Feeling better?"
Kaidoh felt like his stomach's been run over by a truck five times over. "Nnnghh," he replied.
"Oh, good," Inui quipped. "I've already called Shiranui and told him that you won't be able to see him today. You should just rest. You just flew in from Tokyo this morning, right?"
Kaidoh blinked the sleep away from his eyes. He looked around. The window was closed because the air conditioner was on, but he could see the night sky through the glass anyway. How long had he been asleep? How did he get to sleeping anyway?
They were back in Kaidoh's room, with the futon in the middle (that was probably not the same one as the one he saw inside the closet, because the one he was lying on smelled like flowers) and Inui hunched over the small table by the corner, furiously scribbling something on a notebook.
"While you were sleeping, I took the liberty of gathering data on you," Inui said, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. "I hope you don't mind."
Kaidoh's blood ran cold when he realized that he was already in his pajamas.
He shuddered.
Pervert. The man was a pervert.
"Your training menu should be ready in two days or so," Inui said, smiling to himself. He was rather proud of his work.
Kaidoh stared. "Training menu?"
"Oh," Inui said, too cheerfully. He turned towards Kaidoh, lips twitched upwards and his thick glasses shining. "Didn't Shiranui tell you?"
Shiranui. Kaidoh was going to kill that man.
"I'm your new coach."
Shiranui sneezed.
Weird.
His thoughts returned to Kaidoh, and wondered if he had made the right choice.
He shrugged.
Well.
It was the famous Inui Sadaharu after all.
Just a pity that the man stopped playing after junior high.
Shiranui simply hoped that Inui won't bully the poor kid too much.
Author: shikanashi_kk
Recipient: huabot
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1,884
Summary: In the name of tennis, Kaidoh finds himself in Okinawa and living in an apartment with a landlord named Inui.
Author's notes: Shiranui is from Higa-chuu. :D I hope you enjoy this! :)
What a rural place, Kaidoh thought. No wonder Shiranui-kun's skin was so dark; the blistering heat of the sun was already making Kaidoh's skin red -- and it hadn't even been ten minutes since he stepped out of the airport! Of course, he figured that going to Okinawa during the peak of summer wasn't exactly the wisest thing to do if you were wary of the heat, but Kaidoh was an athlete after all.
What was a little Okinawan sun compared to all those hours training during the day in Tokyo?
He called for a taxi.
Shiranui may have already quit playing tennis, but he just couldn't stay away from the sport. After high school, he ended up as a coach. If he wasn't a coach, he was more often than not a scout for his fellow coaches. It may have been just Fate that he bumped into Kaidoh once again during one of his trips in Tokyo.
They had played against each other before, during their competitive junior high school days.
Shiranui was kind of excited to finally see the Viper in action again.
Kaidoh covered his nose.
There was no bad smell really, just... a really suffocating feeling. His eyebrow twitched. That Shiranui... What kind of room was this? It looked like it's been uninhabited for decades! He crossed the room, covering his mouth and his nose and squinting his eyes so as to not get dust in them. He immediately shoved the windows open, and coughed his lungs out.
He looked back to the dust-covered room.
First day in Okinawa. Spring cleaning.
He hissed.
1 PM.
Kaidoh flopped on the wooden floor and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. The room was more or less dust-free now, but that wasn't the reason why he was so out of breath.
Hissing, he grabbed the front of his (wet) shirt and wiped it across his forehead, effectively dampening it further. He scowled. "Hot..." he muttered.
Outside, crickets sang along with the sizzling sound of the summer sun.
As if part of the melody, Kaidoh's stomach chose that moment to make itself noticed.
"Ugh..."
1 PM.
The last thing he ate was that energy bar that tasted like cardboard, and that was when he was still on the plane. He looked around the room.
Empty, save for a small table and a telephone stuffed in the corner. There was a futon shoved inside the closet, but Kaidoh chose to ignore that for now because he didn't want to encounter any more dust at the moment. Forcing his sticky, sweaty back off the wall, he crawled towards the phone.
"Oh, that's a nice sight."
Kaidoh's sweaty palm slid across the floor and his chin met wood quite abruptly. He might have scrubbed the floor a bit too much earlier.
Face burning, he immediately sat up, pulling down his bandana and hissing.
His visitor chuckled. "Happens more often than not to new tenants, I assure you."
Kaidoh was not assured. He looked up at his visitor. Jogging pants, plain white shirt, clean shave, clean cut, and really thick glasses. The man must have really poor eyesight. Really, really poor. His glasses were probably thicker than those of Rikkai's Gentleman.
And Rikkai's Gentleman had really thick glasses.
"Who are you?" he finally said, which was more of a mumble than any proper speech. Kaidoh cursed himself quietly and hoped that that didn't make him seem rude.
The visitor didn't pay any mind to it though. "Inui," he said. His smile had this really welcoming tinge to it. "I'm your landlord. You must be the new tenant Shiranui told me about."
Ah, so that explained the welcoming smile.
Kaidoh stood up. "I'm Kaidoh Kaoru. Please take care of me from now on," he said, bowing politely.
Inui's smile widened. He entered the room. "Don't be so formal, Kaidoh-kun."
Kaidoh figured that Inui really wasn't a formal person, if his skipping the --san and going straight to --kun was any indication.
"Kaidoh Kaoru, huh..." Inui murmured, more to himself really. He walked closer.
Kaidoh blinked. "Inui-san, you're --" Too close, he wanted to say, but Inui stopped walking at that moment. They stood only a feet away from each other with Inui standing still and silent, looking at him with crossed arms and a thoughtful expression across his face.
"Kaidoh Kaoru, 19, roughly 173 cm tall..." Inui mumbled to himself, before pausing. He cocked his head to the side. "You're blood type B, aren't you?"
Face now slowly turning red at the proximity, Kaidoh felt flustered. He hissed. "How did you --"
"That was just a guess," Inui remarked, chuckling. "Looks like I was right."
Before Kaidoh could be annoyed at that, he suddenly felt fingers pressing at his biceps and yelped. "W-what are you doing?!"
"Oh, don't be alarmed," Inui said, but didn't move his fingers. "Just gathering some data. It's my hobby, you see. I was once an athlete myself, and I'm curious as to what type of training you do. Your muscles have built up really well."
Inui pressed his hand against Kaidoh's chest and squeezed. Kaidoh let out a very undignified squeak.
Blissfully ignorant, Inui let out a hum of appreciation. "Really well."
Growling, Kaidoh punched him in the face.
"I think we got off on the wrong foot, Kaidoh-kun," Inui said, when he woke up. At least, he tried to say but he wasn't sure if he managed to get the message across because his swollen cheek was making it hard for him to speak.
The fact that Kaidoh had given him an ice pack and haven't kicked him out yet was a good sign though.
The five feet fixed distance and the death glares weren't.
"I assure you, I'm no pervert," Inui explained.
Kaidoh hissed at him, so he figured he should probably shut up for a while. They sat in silence, with Inui holding the ice pack to his cheek and Kaidoh five feet away with a sour expression.
After a while, Kaidoh started to fidget in his place. He looked at Inui carefully. "You said you were once an athlete?"
Inui nodded. If his cheek didn't look like an overly ripe raspberry, he would have smiled because Kaidoh speaking to him of his own accord meant that his status as a pervert was on its way to being gone. "During my elementary and junior high school days."
The death glare was back.
"So what's with the..." Kaidoh started, but found himself unable to finish as his face started turning red yet again.
Inui blinked at him. "The?"
Hissing, Kaidoh looked away. "You know. Earlier."
"Oh! The touching?"
Kaidoh hissed more vehemently.
Inui stored that little piece of data to be analyzed later. "I don't play anymore but I still make training programs as a side job. That's why I was rather curious."
"But how did you know that I did sports?" Kaidoh muttered.
At that, Inui's lips twitched up into a smile. (At least, one side did.)
"You're Kaidoh Kaoru."
Shiranui wondered for the umpteenth time if it was alright to let Kaidoh stay in Inui's apartment. Of course, it was a good decision as part of Kaidoh's training. Inui could monitor the boy's food and more importantly, ensure that he's not over-exerting himself.
But there was just one problem...
Shiranui shook his head furiously.
No, no. Inui was a professional.
He just... had difficulty in controlling himself when it came to things he was interested in.
Apparently, the boy did not know just how famous he was.
Inui found himself amused.
Cute.
"Do you have any plans for lunch?" he asked. Then he paused, realizing how awfully creepy that might have made him seem. Thankfully, Kaidoh didn't think anything bad but merely looked thoughtful.
"No..."
"You've just arrived this morning, right? If you'd like, you can come to my place. It's just downstairs."
Kaidoh's stomach growled.
"Do you usually invite strangers into your home?" Kaidoh muttered as Inui placed the food on the table in front of him. It wasn't a question meant to be rude, but just really curious. Kaidoh also wanted to ask why Inui was wearing a pink, frilly apron but that would be rude.
"You're not a stranger," Inui replied off-handedly with an amused grin as he sat down on the floor across his guest. "And do you usually accept the invitations of strangers to come to their place?"
Once more, Kaidoh's stomach growled.
"Ah, this is a one time thing, I see," Inui continued.
Kaidoh would have glared, but there was food in front of him and he was brought up by a good family. "Itadakimasu," he mumbled.
Fish, rice, and tofu.
So Japanese, he thought.
Inui blinked. "Ah, I forgot something." He hurried towards the small fridge and pulled out a pitcher of questionably green liquid. He prepared two glasses of it, and carried it back to the table.
"Shake?" he said, smiling.
Kaidoh thought it was avocado.
It was actually a mixture of cabbage, sardines, bell pepper, Tabasco sauce, kiwi, banana, and a lot of spinach.
"Hello, Shiranui? Yeah, well, about Kaidoh-kun... There's a 95% probability that he won't be able to come to training for the next three days."
"...Inui, did you..."
"It was, err, still in the experiment stage."
"..."
"It's not lethal, I assure you! He'll be up and around soon!"
"Inui."
"Good evening," Inui greeted him good-naturedly. "Feeling better?"
Kaidoh felt like his stomach's been run over by a truck five times over. "Nnnghh," he replied.
"Oh, good," Inui quipped. "I've already called Shiranui and told him that you won't be able to see him today. You should just rest. You just flew in from Tokyo this morning, right?"
Kaidoh blinked the sleep away from his eyes. He looked around. The window was closed because the air conditioner was on, but he could see the night sky through the glass anyway. How long had he been asleep? How did he get to sleeping anyway?
They were back in Kaidoh's room, with the futon in the middle (that was probably not the same one as the one he saw inside the closet, because the one he was lying on smelled like flowers) and Inui hunched over the small table by the corner, furiously scribbling something on a notebook.
"While you were sleeping, I took the liberty of gathering data on you," Inui said, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. "I hope you don't mind."
Kaidoh's blood ran cold when he realized that he was already in his pajamas.
He shuddered.
Pervert. The man was a pervert.
"Your training menu should be ready in two days or so," Inui said, smiling to himself. He was rather proud of his work.
Kaidoh stared. "Training menu?"
"Oh," Inui said, too cheerfully. He turned towards Kaidoh, lips twitched upwards and his thick glasses shining. "Didn't Shiranui tell you?"
Shiranui. Kaidoh was going to kill that man.
"I'm your new coach."
Shiranui sneezed.
Weird.
His thoughts returned to Kaidoh, and wondered if he had made the right choice.
He shrugged.
Well.
It was the famous Inui Sadaharu after all.
Just a pity that the man stopped playing after junior high.
Shiranui simply hoped that Inui won't bully the poor kid too much.