Happy spring, everyone!
Title: Sakura
Recipient's name: Everyone ever!
Pairing: Inui/Kaidou
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Tennis no Oujisama belongs to Konomi Takeshi-sensei.
Author's Note: Please forgive the excessive usage of 'sempai' (an honorific for someone in the class above you). I couldn't imagine this pairing without it.
Inui would calculate the chance of Kaidou falling in love with him, but he knows better than to work with no data.
Kaidou runs past the bench where Inui sits, notebook in hand. The sweat clings to his bandana and runs down one side of his face. For today, Inui has decided that the final segment of training should include twenty circuits of the park near his house. The shadows cast by the late afternoon sun are getting longer and he knows that it's time to go home. He considers ordering one more lap because he knows Kaidou would willingly push himself for one more.
"That's enough for today. Too much can be as bad as too little."
Kaidou skids to a halt, sending dirt and sand flying in the opposite direction. He pivots on one foot and heads towards Inui. His eyes burn and his lips form into a kind of half-pout.
Inui has never dealt in 'what-ifs', but one strikes him now. What if he were press his lips against Kaidou's?
"Sempai?"
Kaidou grabs a towel and wipes himself down, keeping his eyes fixed on Inui as if he were an animal that might attack. Inui's glasses hide this expression magnificently, he feels.
It's natural for them to return home at this point and no chance of them stopping along the way. A burger bar would be an otherwise perfect choice, even if Inui loathes fast food, but there's a 96% chance that they'd run into Momo. That's not the way Inui wants to start an evening. The obvious solution is for them to return home together.
His lips are dry, but this is the perfect time to ask.
Kaidou suddenly looks over Inui's shoulder and Inui counts to ten silently before turning around.
At the park gates, Fuji is talking to his sister, Yumiko. He stops, smiles and his camera whirrs as the lens zooms in on the cherry blossom buds.
Kaidou's eyes have narrowed and Inui wonders what's going through his mind. Yumiko approaches with Fuji trailing behind, still photographing the almost-blossoming trees.
Fuji catches up. "Inui. Kaidou-kun. What a surprise."
He doesn't look surprised, but Inui knows by now that there's more to it than whether his eyes are open or closed. If anything, they're a decoy.
"Fuji-sempai." Kaidou's voice has a feline growl to it that makes Inui take another look at him.
"What brings you here, Fuji?"
Fuji tilts his head slightly, with a crooked expression. "Trees look more beautiful when they're just buds. A sign of potential. Don't you think so, Inui?"
"See you at school." Inui doesn't acknowledge the implication and turns to leave. His fists clench as he calculates the percentage that Kaidou will take the chance to say his goodbyes here and head home. It's too high. Too damn high.
Fuji makes a strange sound in his throat, causing Inui to stop and turn.
"Have you seen Yuuta? My brother, I mean."
Inui shakes his head and Fuji smiles. "Thanks anyway then. See you at school."
If his nails weren't neatly trimmed they'd be drawing blood from the palms of his hands. Inui heads towards the park gates, his shoulders slumped.
Behind him, he hears the crunch of sneakers on gravel.
Inui keeps walking, his heart skipping a little each time he hears an echo of his own footsteps behind him.
As he passes the wrought iron gates that mark the entrance to the park, he pauses for a split-second (0.75, by his calculations). Kaidou is beside him once more, keeping in step with his pace.
"My mom is making Italian tonight. Do you want to come along too?"
Kaidou hesitates. "I...I really like my mom's cooking. And we might have home-made yoghurt tonight."
"It's probably not too late to ring her," suggests Inui.
He knows that Kaidou reveres his mother's cooking, so he's even more surprised when the boy pulls an old green cell from his bag.
"Sempai... Please wait for me."
The look in his eyes makes Inui wonder if Kaidou thinks he might run away. No, not a chance.
"I'll wait. Promise."
Kaidou walks to a nearby tree and starts tapping furiously on his cell phone. The conversations lasts forty-two seconds according to Inui's watch.
"She says it's okay because she hadn't started cooking. But I don't want to upset her..."
"It's okay." Inui tries to smile.
"It's not just that. I told her that because you were my sempai, you could help me study."
"Yes. We can do that after dinner."
Why does Inui feel so ill? Kikumaru and Ooishi spend more time together than they do apart and practically live at each other's houses. Echizen and Momoshiro can always be found together after school and Ooishi and Tezuka often study together. This isn't usual. But, despite his suspicions about the others, he feels his motives unique.
They keep walking until they reach Inui's house. Inui lets himself in and places his shoes neatly in the shoe rack. Kaidou does the same.
"My bedroom is this way. What homework do you have tonight?"
"Math and biology."
Inui chuckles. "Fantastic. Not my best subjects, but pretty close."
Inui's bedroom is compact with a black, grey and white colour scheme. The carefully-made bed is in the centre, but the room is built around the computer desk in the corner. Like the bedroom, it's small, but that's because it's only a few months old, not a reflection of its processing capacity.
It's then that Inui realises that he only has one chair. He frowns. How unlike him not to account for that. "You can sit on the chair," he says.
Kaidou is already sitting on the bed. He blushes and gets up immediately, moving over to the computer chair.
Inui can't quite put a name to this feeling, but suspects it's something akin to panic. "I mean... I wanted to show you a computer program I wrote."
"Oh." Kaidou's flushed face returns to a more normal colour.
Inui boots up the PC, counting the seconds as it loads. Black screen, then the logo, then another black screen followed by a black screen of a differing shade. And he's in. Inui leans over Kaidou's shoulder to double-click on an icon of a single cherry blossom. A map of Japan pops up with tiny images of cherry blossom petals spread over Okinawa and the southern parts of the country. Tokyo is barely touched so far.
"They said on the news that the blooms should have withered already, with the height of the season falling on the fifteenth due to the mild winter. Fools!" Inui laughs and laughs.
The other boy is sitting there, unmoving. His eyes are wide and slightly damp. Inui stops abruptly.
"That's amazing, sempai! Your program predicted it correctly!"
Maybe it's Inui's imagination, but he thinks Kaidou leaned against his arm slightly more when he said that. If only he had a pressure gauge to check his hypothesis.
"Well, so far." He's never been one for modesty, but it seems appropriate this time. "I think dinner might be ready soon."
"I haven't even started on my homework," Kaidou murmurs, as if he's trying not to complain too loudly.
"I have a spare set of pyjamas," Inui says hopefully. "Can you stay the night?"
***
Inui feels Kaidou jerk awake next to him. He can feel soft vibrations as the other boy rubs his eyes and stretches like a cat.
"Mmm... sempai."
He presses against Inui more insistently now, and the vibrations have moved lower in the bed and more rhythmic.
Inui stretches and yawns loudly. Kaidou jumps.
"I... I..."
It looks as if Kaidou might cry. Inui can't have that.
"I was just asleep... is there something wrong?"
Kaidou shakes his head, unable to meet Inui's gaze. "No... I didn't realise... I forgot I wasn't at home."
"Dreams, huh?"
Kaidou nods, but Inui doesn't think it means anything.
"We should go to Ueno Park today. It's the perfect day for blossom."
Kaidou nods, still unable to look Inui in the eye.
***
Blue sheets cover the ground in Ueno Park. TV crews and photographers gather under cherry trees and surround beautiful men and women who are modeling anything from lipstick to green tea. Each group is accompanied by someone with a stiff sheet of cardboard who keeps waving it to make the petals float better than they do naturally.
People sit drinking Asahi beer and the rubbish piles up beside them.
"It's not how I imagined it would be." Kaidou kicks a discarded lunchbox to the side. "And all the good spots are taken."
"You've never been to Ueno before?" asks Inui.
Kaidou shakes his head. "I always went to the park near my home with my mum and dad. I've seen it on TV though..."
...With someone off-screen making the petals fly through the air and clever angles to hide the mounds of rubbish, thinks Inui. In truth, he's never been here before either, although he's seen it every year on TV too.
A deserted park lined with cherry trees with two lovers holding hands underneath...
He feels cheated.
"Let's go for a walk," suggests Kaidou.
Inui feels warmer inside. Kaidou took the initiative.
"Don't you like exercise... sempai?"
Kaidou has a look about him that Inui has never seen before. Something has changed. Before he can think much more about it, Kaidou is running ahead of him. Dodging the crowds is part of the game. Past the Tokyo Metro Festival Hall, past Shinbazu no Ike Pond and they stop near where they started, the Tokyo National Museum.
"Poor Sakura-chan. You really are weeping, aren't you?"
Inui and Kaidou's heads turn to the sound in unison. A boy stands behind a cascade of weeping cherry blossoms. His voice is soft, but unmistakable. If Inui was in any doubt, he can just see his trainers are by Nike, a brand Fuji loves.
"Really? Well, I'll kill them all for you. They'll never throw trash at your roots again." Fuji chuckles softly. "What was that? No, I was only joking. Don't worry, Sakura-chan."
There's a whirr of a digital camera; Fuji parts the drooping branches and emerges from underneath the tree.
"Inui? Kaidou? Again?"
"On the other side of Tokyo too. What a coincidence." Inui pushes his glasses further up the ridge of his nose.
"This place is famous." Fuji's eyes narrow and then he returns to his familiar smile.
"Absolutely correct, of course." Inui can recite visitor figures for cherry blossom viewing season last year. That should have given away the fact that this place had the potential to become ugly at short notice. He steals a quick glance at Kaidou to check that he's not too uncomfortable with the strange atmosphere that seems to have developed.
"Well. Looks like spring has finally come."
Fuji stalks past them and his posture reminds Inui of when the other boy has played Tezuka or Ryouma in the past.
"Spring has come... for so many people. Isn't that nice?"
Inui watches Fuji leave and ducks under the tree. It's sheltered from the rest of the park and the falling blossoms allow them to see out with no one else able to see in. Trust Fuji.
He takes a seat at the base of the trunk and looks up at the tree. "Cherry blossom...is meant to symbolise the fleeting lives of the samurai and of youth."
Kaidou throws himself down beside Inui and grabs his hand. "I swear I'll do better at tennis!"
"I didn't mean that..." Inui begins, but his voice is drowned out by another familiar voice.
Mizuki...? That would explain a lot.
"They put those dratted blue sheets down on our tennis court! It's an outrage, Yuuta! An outrage!"
They're walking so close to their tree, but Inui and Kaidou can't really be seen unless someone looks closely.
Yuuta is flushed and Mizuki, despite his raised voice, has a saunter that Inui can only describe as 'smug'. Both are wearing their tennis uniforms, but their polo shirts are unbuttoned as far as they can go. Mizuki's flies are undone too, but Inui feels no need to draw his attention to that.
Kaidou hasn't noticed the obvious flaws in their appearance. Instead he's looking at Mizuki with some kind of awe.
Kaidou still hasn't let go of Inui's hand yet. Inui takes off his glasses with his free hand and faces him. He knows it's irrational, but he doesn't want that boy looking like that at anyone else.
"Kaidou..." His voice trembles.
Kaidou smiles shyly, but doesn't meet his eyes.
"Look at me." Inui usually wields his deeper voice to his advantage, but it seems more of a squeak now, as if there's no depth to it.
Kaidou looks.
"They're... green."
"Did you wonder?" Of course he did, Inui thinks. He wouldn't say that otherwise.
"Sempai..." Kaidou leans forwards to kiss Inui, their noses bumping together until Kaidou finds the right angle.
Again, Inui feels a shot of warmth run like lightning to his stomach. Letting Kaidou into his home, really letting him into his life... it changed him. He couldn't imagine this even yesterday.
Kaidou's mouth is really warm, he notices. Suddenly, Kaidou is aiming much lower.
Now, Inui doesn't need to worry, since he knows he's above average. He has the spreadsheets on his computer to prove it. And yet he still flinches when Kaidou's warm hands brush up against his skin. His hands are rough where they grip the tennis racket and Inui tries not to notice whether that's Eastern Grip or the Western Grip.
He leans forward, bringing his arms entirely around Kaidou. This is what he needs right now. He wants to truly love him, before it becomes too complicated
"Kaoru..." he murmurs, liking the way it feels on his tongue. It feels different and a little strange.
Kaidou almost instinctively curls up, like a cat. As if it were planned, two petals fall on his cheek, matching the pale pink of his blush.
Nature has some advantages, thinks Inui.
Recipient's name: Everyone ever!
Pairing: Inui/Kaidou
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Tennis no Oujisama belongs to Konomi Takeshi-sensei.
Author's Note: Please forgive the excessive usage of 'sempai' (an honorific for someone in the class above you). I couldn't imagine this pairing without it.
Inui would calculate the chance of Kaidou falling in love with him, but he knows better than to work with no data.
Kaidou runs past the bench where Inui sits, notebook in hand. The sweat clings to his bandana and runs down one side of his face. For today, Inui has decided that the final segment of training should include twenty circuits of the park near his house. The shadows cast by the late afternoon sun are getting longer and he knows that it's time to go home. He considers ordering one more lap because he knows Kaidou would willingly push himself for one more.
"That's enough for today. Too much can be as bad as too little."
Kaidou skids to a halt, sending dirt and sand flying in the opposite direction. He pivots on one foot and heads towards Inui. His eyes burn and his lips form into a kind of half-pout.
Inui has never dealt in 'what-ifs', but one strikes him now. What if he were press his lips against Kaidou's?
"Sempai?"
Kaidou grabs a towel and wipes himself down, keeping his eyes fixed on Inui as if he were an animal that might attack. Inui's glasses hide this expression magnificently, he feels.
It's natural for them to return home at this point and no chance of them stopping along the way. A burger bar would be an otherwise perfect choice, even if Inui loathes fast food, but there's a 96% chance that they'd run into Momo. That's not the way Inui wants to start an evening. The obvious solution is for them to return home together.
His lips are dry, but this is the perfect time to ask.
Kaidou suddenly looks over Inui's shoulder and Inui counts to ten silently before turning around.
At the park gates, Fuji is talking to his sister, Yumiko. He stops, smiles and his camera whirrs as the lens zooms in on the cherry blossom buds.
Kaidou's eyes have narrowed and Inui wonders what's going through his mind. Yumiko approaches with Fuji trailing behind, still photographing the almost-blossoming trees.
Fuji catches up. "Inui. Kaidou-kun. What a surprise."
He doesn't look surprised, but Inui knows by now that there's more to it than whether his eyes are open or closed. If anything, they're a decoy.
"Fuji-sempai." Kaidou's voice has a feline growl to it that makes Inui take another look at him.
"What brings you here, Fuji?"
Fuji tilts his head slightly, with a crooked expression. "Trees look more beautiful when they're just buds. A sign of potential. Don't you think so, Inui?"
"See you at school." Inui doesn't acknowledge the implication and turns to leave. His fists clench as he calculates the percentage that Kaidou will take the chance to say his goodbyes here and head home. It's too high. Too damn high.
Fuji makes a strange sound in his throat, causing Inui to stop and turn.
"Have you seen Yuuta? My brother, I mean."
Inui shakes his head and Fuji smiles. "Thanks anyway then. See you at school."
If his nails weren't neatly trimmed they'd be drawing blood from the palms of his hands. Inui heads towards the park gates, his shoulders slumped.
Behind him, he hears the crunch of sneakers on gravel.
Inui keeps walking, his heart skipping a little each time he hears an echo of his own footsteps behind him.
As he passes the wrought iron gates that mark the entrance to the park, he pauses for a split-second (0.75, by his calculations). Kaidou is beside him once more, keeping in step with his pace.
"My mom is making Italian tonight. Do you want to come along too?"
Kaidou hesitates. "I...I really like my mom's cooking. And we might have home-made yoghurt tonight."
"It's probably not too late to ring her," suggests Inui.
He knows that Kaidou reveres his mother's cooking, so he's even more surprised when the boy pulls an old green cell from his bag.
"Sempai... Please wait for me."
The look in his eyes makes Inui wonder if Kaidou thinks he might run away. No, not a chance.
"I'll wait. Promise."
Kaidou walks to a nearby tree and starts tapping furiously on his cell phone. The conversations lasts forty-two seconds according to Inui's watch.
"She says it's okay because she hadn't started cooking. But I don't want to upset her..."
"It's okay." Inui tries to smile.
"It's not just that. I told her that because you were my sempai, you could help me study."
"Yes. We can do that after dinner."
Why does Inui feel so ill? Kikumaru and Ooishi spend more time together than they do apart and practically live at each other's houses. Echizen and Momoshiro can always be found together after school and Ooishi and Tezuka often study together. This isn't usual. But, despite his suspicions about the others, he feels his motives unique.
They keep walking until they reach Inui's house. Inui lets himself in and places his shoes neatly in the shoe rack. Kaidou does the same.
"My bedroom is this way. What homework do you have tonight?"
"Math and biology."
Inui chuckles. "Fantastic. Not my best subjects, but pretty close."
Inui's bedroom is compact with a black, grey and white colour scheme. The carefully-made bed is in the centre, but the room is built around the computer desk in the corner. Like the bedroom, it's small, but that's because it's only a few months old, not a reflection of its processing capacity.
It's then that Inui realises that he only has one chair. He frowns. How unlike him not to account for that. "You can sit on the chair," he says.
Kaidou is already sitting on the bed. He blushes and gets up immediately, moving over to the computer chair.
Inui can't quite put a name to this feeling, but suspects it's something akin to panic. "I mean... I wanted to show you a computer program I wrote."
"Oh." Kaidou's flushed face returns to a more normal colour.
Inui boots up the PC, counting the seconds as it loads. Black screen, then the logo, then another black screen followed by a black screen of a differing shade. And he's in. Inui leans over Kaidou's shoulder to double-click on an icon of a single cherry blossom. A map of Japan pops up with tiny images of cherry blossom petals spread over Okinawa and the southern parts of the country. Tokyo is barely touched so far.
"They said on the news that the blooms should have withered already, with the height of the season falling on the fifteenth due to the mild winter. Fools!" Inui laughs and laughs.
The other boy is sitting there, unmoving. His eyes are wide and slightly damp. Inui stops abruptly.
"That's amazing, sempai! Your program predicted it correctly!"
Maybe it's Inui's imagination, but he thinks Kaidou leaned against his arm slightly more when he said that. If only he had a pressure gauge to check his hypothesis.
"Well, so far." He's never been one for modesty, but it seems appropriate this time. "I think dinner might be ready soon."
"I haven't even started on my homework," Kaidou murmurs, as if he's trying not to complain too loudly.
"I have a spare set of pyjamas," Inui says hopefully. "Can you stay the night?"
***
Inui feels Kaidou jerk awake next to him. He can feel soft vibrations as the other boy rubs his eyes and stretches like a cat.
"Mmm... sempai."
He presses against Inui more insistently now, and the vibrations have moved lower in the bed and more rhythmic.
Inui stretches and yawns loudly. Kaidou jumps.
"I... I..."
It looks as if Kaidou might cry. Inui can't have that.
"I was just asleep... is there something wrong?"
Kaidou shakes his head, unable to meet Inui's gaze. "No... I didn't realise... I forgot I wasn't at home."
"Dreams, huh?"
Kaidou nods, but Inui doesn't think it means anything.
"We should go to Ueno Park today. It's the perfect day for blossom."
Kaidou nods, still unable to look Inui in the eye.
***
Blue sheets cover the ground in Ueno Park. TV crews and photographers gather under cherry trees and surround beautiful men and women who are modeling anything from lipstick to green tea. Each group is accompanied by someone with a stiff sheet of cardboard who keeps waving it to make the petals float better than they do naturally.
People sit drinking Asahi beer and the rubbish piles up beside them.
"It's not how I imagined it would be." Kaidou kicks a discarded lunchbox to the side. "And all the good spots are taken."
"You've never been to Ueno before?" asks Inui.
Kaidou shakes his head. "I always went to the park near my home with my mum and dad. I've seen it on TV though..."
...With someone off-screen making the petals fly through the air and clever angles to hide the mounds of rubbish, thinks Inui. In truth, he's never been here before either, although he's seen it every year on TV too.
A deserted park lined with cherry trees with two lovers holding hands underneath...
He feels cheated.
"Let's go for a walk," suggests Kaidou.
Inui feels warmer inside. Kaidou took the initiative.
"Don't you like exercise... sempai?"
Kaidou has a look about him that Inui has never seen before. Something has changed. Before he can think much more about it, Kaidou is running ahead of him. Dodging the crowds is part of the game. Past the Tokyo Metro Festival Hall, past Shinbazu no Ike Pond and they stop near where they started, the Tokyo National Museum.
"Poor Sakura-chan. You really are weeping, aren't you?"
Inui and Kaidou's heads turn to the sound in unison. A boy stands behind a cascade of weeping cherry blossoms. His voice is soft, but unmistakable. If Inui was in any doubt, he can just see his trainers are by Nike, a brand Fuji loves.
"Really? Well, I'll kill them all for you. They'll never throw trash at your roots again." Fuji chuckles softly. "What was that? No, I was only joking. Don't worry, Sakura-chan."
There's a whirr of a digital camera; Fuji parts the drooping branches and emerges from underneath the tree.
"Inui? Kaidou? Again?"
"On the other side of Tokyo too. What a coincidence." Inui pushes his glasses further up the ridge of his nose.
"This place is famous." Fuji's eyes narrow and then he returns to his familiar smile.
"Absolutely correct, of course." Inui can recite visitor figures for cherry blossom viewing season last year. That should have given away the fact that this place had the potential to become ugly at short notice. He steals a quick glance at Kaidou to check that he's not too uncomfortable with the strange atmosphere that seems to have developed.
"Well. Looks like spring has finally come."
Fuji stalks past them and his posture reminds Inui of when the other boy has played Tezuka or Ryouma in the past.
"Spring has come... for so many people. Isn't that nice?"
Inui watches Fuji leave and ducks under the tree. It's sheltered from the rest of the park and the falling blossoms allow them to see out with no one else able to see in. Trust Fuji.
He takes a seat at the base of the trunk and looks up at the tree. "Cherry blossom...is meant to symbolise the fleeting lives of the samurai and of youth."
Kaidou throws himself down beside Inui and grabs his hand. "I swear I'll do better at tennis!"
"I didn't mean that..." Inui begins, but his voice is drowned out by another familiar voice.
Mizuki...? That would explain a lot.
"They put those dratted blue sheets down on our tennis court! It's an outrage, Yuuta! An outrage!"
They're walking so close to their tree, but Inui and Kaidou can't really be seen unless someone looks closely.
Yuuta is flushed and Mizuki, despite his raised voice, has a saunter that Inui can only describe as 'smug'. Both are wearing their tennis uniforms, but their polo shirts are unbuttoned as far as they can go. Mizuki's flies are undone too, but Inui feels no need to draw his attention to that.
Kaidou hasn't noticed the obvious flaws in their appearance. Instead he's looking at Mizuki with some kind of awe.
Kaidou still hasn't let go of Inui's hand yet. Inui takes off his glasses with his free hand and faces him. He knows it's irrational, but he doesn't want that boy looking like that at anyone else.
"Kaidou..." His voice trembles.
Kaidou smiles shyly, but doesn't meet his eyes.
"Look at me." Inui usually wields his deeper voice to his advantage, but it seems more of a squeak now, as if there's no depth to it.
Kaidou looks.
"They're... green."
"Did you wonder?" Of course he did, Inui thinks. He wouldn't say that otherwise.
"Sempai..." Kaidou leans forwards to kiss Inui, their noses bumping together until Kaidou finds the right angle.
Again, Inui feels a shot of warmth run like lightning to his stomach. Letting Kaidou into his home, really letting him into his life... it changed him. He couldn't imagine this even yesterday.
Kaidou's mouth is really warm, he notices. Suddenly, Kaidou is aiming much lower.
Now, Inui doesn't need to worry, since he knows he's above average. He has the spreadsheets on his computer to prove it. And yet he still flinches when Kaidou's warm hands brush up against his skin. His hands are rough where they grip the tennis racket and Inui tries not to notice whether that's Eastern Grip or the Western Grip.
He leans forward, bringing his arms entirely around Kaidou. This is what he needs right now. He wants to truly love him, before it becomes too complicated
"Kaoru..." he murmurs, liking the way it feels on his tongue. It feels different and a little strange.
Kaidou almost instinctively curls up, like a cat. As if it were planned, two petals fall on his cheek, matching the pale pink of his blush.
Nature has some advantages, thinks Inui.