Time: 34 minutes
Character/Theme: Inui, Shishido, Broken hearted
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis/Tenisu no Ohjisama is property of Takeshi Konomi. The Shonen Jump translation is extremely inaccurate and does not deserve to be called Prince of Tennis.

After the official tournament, Seigaku and Hyoutei began to set up practice matches quite often. Tezuka and Atobe (after getting past their original feuds) having become quite good friends, the teams began to mix on a social basis more often. Despite all the things that seemed wouldn't click between the schools, most of the members were able to get past their loyalty differences long enough to have relatively friendly matches against each other, and it wasn't long before Jiroh, Ohtori, and Mukahi were invited to karaoke by Oishi, Eiji, and Momo; Oshitari and Fuji were seen having tea together, and Kaidoh and Hiyoshi avoided everyone else together. There were some rivalries, of course, but those tended to be less serious in nature and the worst ended up starting a limbo contest in a karaoke box.

Inui felt strangely distanced from most of Hyoutei, though – they had no data collector, and his nature was far too analytical to mesh well with the trust fund kids. Their different status, in fact, made him want to study them.

Then one day he met with Shishido Ryou.

It was on one of those normal days when half the group split off to go shopping and gaming, and the other half went out to eat and have great discussions about things that Inui really couldn't care much less about. By some odd design, Shishido didn't bother to join the more serious group (as Inui had calculated he would), nor spend time with those Inui had dubbed 'frivolous'. But Shishido was most definitely someone who thrived on attention from others, so why would he stay alone? Inui wanted to know. He didn't have much of a plan in mind, so he counted himself lucky when the other doubles player stumbled upon him recalculating data on a bench outside the clubhouse.

"Didn't I play you in the Kantou taikai?"

Are? This was unexpected. "Yes. You are Shishido Ryou, correct? We both played D1?"

"Uh, yeah... You told the chair judge your shot was out, didn't you?"

"I abhor dishonesty."

"Yeah, well, that was... er, a really noble thing to do, I guess." He kind of trailed off and looked in the opposite direction.

"Thank you." It became uncomfortably apparent that Shishido had only been trying to make conversation, Inui mentally noted, and decided to take a more direct route.

"I assumed you had good relations with the rest of your team."

Shishido started. "Huh? Oh, yeah, we're pretty close. You guys are tighter than us, though."

"Why aren't you with them?"

"Oh, uh... why aren't you?"

A logical question. Inui was unwilling to get into an "I asked you first" argument and decided to go the diplomatic way. "I had something I wanted to take care of." There was still an unspoken "You?" hanging in the air.

"You take data, right? Do you have it on all the teams?"

Was this a subject change or a clumsy segue? "Yes, I do."

"So, uh... do you have data on me? Like my tennis, and Chou- Ohtori's and my formation?"

"I'm not going to let you see it."

"I didn't ask!"

"Most people do, eventually."

"Yeah, well, I don't care. I just want to know if you have it."

"Of course. If I didn't, I wouldn't be able to avoid that Scud Serve."

Shishido ignored the last comment. "Do you have... non-tennis stuff? Like... blood types and height and all that?"

"As much as I can get. But that relates to tennis as well." Inui was frustrated because, for once, he had no idea where this was going. If Shishido was pushing for information about an opponent, or wanting to look in the Notebooks, he could just bloody well ask, couldn't he?

"What about, uh, other things, like personal info or something?"

"I might make notes about outstanding personality traits, and no, I will not tell you what I've written about you."

"That wasn't my point!"

"If you have one, then, would you kindly make it? I was in the middle of re-calculating probabilities."

"Geez, sorry! I didn't know I was bothering you!" He got up to walk away when Inui fathomed a wild guess.

"Does this have something to do with your... doubles pairing?" Inui hoped his point was clear.

It was made, apparently, because Shishido stopped in his tracks. "Uh, what do you have about... about anything like that?"

"I did have a hypothesis about your relationship with Ohtori, if that was your question."

Shishido didn't turn. "Yeah, well, it's wrong. We're only friends, and I'm probably going to try singles again soon, and Jiroh's gonna try doubles."

"I didn't even tell you what it is...was."

"Would you?"

"No."

At this point Shishido walked back over to where Inui was seated, except his posture was now indicating, if not actual anger, at least extreme frustration. "Hey, I don't do data, and I'm not really good at reading people, but there's something between you and that kouhai, isn't there? That one you were playing doubles with?"

"I help him train, and work on specializing his techniques."

"Oh, is that it? I bet that's not what anyone else on your team thinks."

"WHAT are you implying?"

"You figure it out yourself, genius. Although I think it's kind of shitty, leaving your partner out to take a Scud Serve by themselves. I wouldn't do that to Choutarou even now."

"I was gathering data so he wouldn't have to anymore."

"Whatever, I can't understand anything anyway." He stomped off again, as Inui was left to collect and realign his thoughts. He didn't have any regrets about the Hyoutei match – he figured that was just Shishido assimilating his feelings on something he could associate with better – but was data really as inhuman as it was made out to be? He hadn't really contemplated what he felt for Kaidoh, nor calculated what his partner could feel for him, and thought it just a bit callous to calculate things like that in the first place... but if he did, would he even get somewhere with it?

Or would he be left broken-hearted, too?

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