Notes: I wrote this a long time ago. I just noticed I'd never shared this here and thought people would have fun reading it :) Set in the future, when Kaidou and Hazue share an apartment together close to Kaidou's university.

Neighbourly Benefits

Summer is in progress; the apartment's sole air-conditioning unit broken and at the bottom of Kaidou's 'To Do' list, when Hazue comes thumping into his bedroom and swings around the doorway. Kaidou instantly spots his brother's hand on the doorway and imagines the sweat and dirt marks he'll have to clean off later before their mother comes to visit.

"Nii-san," Hazue begins, tone instantly recognisable as the 'I'm bored/hungry/hot; can we do/eat/drink something?' tone. "I'm so hot. Can't we call up Inui-san and ask him to fix the thing for us already?"

Kaidou answers with the slightest twitch of irritation. The air-conditioning unit has already become 'the thing' to Hazue, and although Kaidou firmly believes that he should concentrate on his studies (and so should Hazue) and leave the fixing of 'the thing' to later when he can afford the time to do it correctly, Hazue keeps coming up with the excuse that he can't study without 'the thing'. Kaidou isn't sure how an air-conditioner works, and so despite dripping sweat as he sits at his desk to work, he'd rather leave it alone. He's sure reading the manual will take hours let alone actually understanding what he's reading. And besides, he's more tolerant of the heat than his brother.

"I'll bring you the phone," Hazue half-pleads and bribes, but when Kaidou refuses to turn around from his book, Hazue adds that he'll do the dishes for a week if Kaidou will only call up Inui and ask. It's a tempting offer, but Kaidou would feel bad for taking Hazue up on it; they're supposed to share chores equally and making a phone call is hardly an equal trade with a week's worth of grimy, slimy dishes.

Kaidou sighs as he hears Hazue thumping into the kitchen to fetch the fixed line phone. It's so easy for him to call up Inui, and yet, he knows that if he does, Inui will probably drop everything he's doing just to come over and do something so little. Kaidou doesn't want to bother him, but also doesn't want to show his technical incompetence. He's sure that if Inui comes over, it will turn out to be a case of flat batteries in the remote or something equally inane.

"Here," Hazue thrusts the phone onto Kaidou's desk. Hands behind his back, a smile on his heat flushed face, Hazue is the perfect picture of a hopeful sibling.

"No," Kaidou grouches, and almost feels bad.

"But Inui-san said if you needed anything –"

"That's exactly why we can't call him. We have to do things ourselves," Kaidou insists stubbornly. He feels embarrassed as he recalls Inui's pledge to help Kaidou and Hazue into settling into their own place. The commute to their respective universities became overwhelming some time ago, and so the decision to find and move into a better situated two-bedroom apartment was made. Inui was overwhelmingly helpful during the research process, so much so that when presented with a 30-page report on the pros and cons of various options, Kaidou didn't know whether to thank Inui by getting on his knees or curse him for producing a document he had to spend a lot of time reading. In the end, he found himself reading the report in bed one night, and by the time he'd reached the end of it, realised that seemingly against all odds, Inui had most highly recommended the apartment closest to his own with the reasoning: "Financial advice, human movement services, sports training advice, counseling, computer servicing, food services, juice delivery services, electrical support, lightbulb fixing services all within a 3.7 minute walk courtesy of Inui.*"

Then in smaller print at the bottom of the page: *This time is a guide only and is based on a male of Inui's height, weight and physical capabilities. Test walk was carried out in temperate conditions and may vary due to season/temperature/air density/time of day/footpath traffic density/unexpected obstacles.

Kaidou remembers being caught out by the sentence; he'd felt funny inside. Warm and cared for and as though reading all thirty pages had been worth it just to get to the last one. He'd thanked Inui for the report by taking him out to dinner, where Inui had intensely demanded to help Kaidou immediately express his interest in the apartment Inui had most highly recommended to ensure that he got it.

Kaidou doesn't want to further burden his senpai for asking for help with a measly air-conditioning unit. Hazue just needs to work on his endurance, he figures. 'The thing' has only been broken for six days now, and according to the weather presenter on the news channel, Tokyo's supposed to cool down in another two days. Then the temperature will drop below 28 degrees and they can hope sipping crushed ice drinks will get them through.

As the day drags on, Kaidou grows tired of sitting, glued with his own sweat to his desk chair. He ends up slumped forwards on the glass tabletop, books brushed away and onto the floor. The glass is hardly cool and it absorbs his body's heat quickly, denying Kaidou any relief from the warmth.

A cold shower is a stop-gap measure. A cold drink only gives Kaidou the pleasure of freezing from the inside when he sculls it without thought. Lying flat on the floor denies him the air movement of his mini desk fan. Sitting up means sitting against a sticky chair.

He hates to admit it, but his resolve is wearing thin. He has one screwdriver and one hammer and he hopes those are enough to help him open up the old air-conditioner and peer at it.

(S)

"Senpai," Kaidou blinks. Sweat falls from his forehead. "What are you doing here?"

"Warm in here, isn't it?" Inui asks, and pushes his glasses up his nose.

Kaidou has to agree with the statement. The air inside the house is nearly the same temperature as that outside.

"Did something happen to your air-conditioner?" Inui asks.

Kaidou feels surprise and embarrassment, but his initial reaction is closely followed by suspicion as he turns his eyes towards Hazue. Inui is carrying a sort of toolbox, after all.

Hazue seems to take the hint because he disappears into his room and Kaidou hears the door shut in a hurry.

Inui doesn't wait for Kaidou's invitation to enter the apartment, and slips off his shoes at the door. He's obviously headed for the kitchen and living area.

"Uh… Senpai?" Kaidou asks. "Please don't go in there." A flutter of nervousness causes his voice to rise a few pitches and his knees to feel weak. "It's too messy for you here. We can go somewhere else if you would like a drink."

Inui ignores him and walks determinedly into the living room, where Kaidou hears him stop. Clearly he's seen the mess Kaidou's made. There's no denying it; Inui is going to think him stupid and incapable.

"Kaidou," Inui calls out. "What's this?"

Kaidou enters the living room with trepidation. If he weren't already sweating because of the extreme heat, he's definitely sweating bullets not knowing what Inui is thinking about him. He hadn't wanted Inui to see his sorry attempt at examining the air-conditioner. Really.

Inui's finger is pointing at the hammer, the fork side – that was what Kaidou called it for lack of another name – wedged in the side of the air conditioner between the seal of two panels. It's stuck there, because Kaidou had genuinely tried following the instructions in the manual as to how to open the unit, and it hadn't worked. He wants to tell Inui that the manual isn't very user friendly, the unit is as old as he is, and if he's broken it, it was probably time for it to go anyway. But that would sound childish.

"It's a hammer, senpai," Kaidou answers. Well duh, it's a hammer. Maybe he needs to offer Inui-senpai a drink to distract him from the mess. But he doesn't get around to offering the drink, because Inui gets there first.

"You look uncomfortable, Kaidou. Well, that's not unexpected since the ambient temperature in here is approximately 29.4 degrees and has not dropped below 28 degrees for the past three days, I'm not surprised. I'd recommend a glass of milk immediately followed by a glass of water and if I may, I have some juice at home that I would like to bring over for you. I think you'll find it recharges you."

Kaidou feels a queasy feeling brewing inside. The thought of juice and his stomach is already protesting.

"In the meantime," Inui continues, "I'll be fixing this. I estimate that it will take no more than 3 minutes."

"How do you know?" Kaidou asks curiously. Surely Inui doesn't have so much experience fixing air-conditioning units that he knows at a glance what the problem is.

"Yes, I'm quite sure about it," Inui answers, yanking the hammer out of its position. "Now, if you'll go to the kitchen and have a drink to re-hydrate yourself…"

Inui stares at him until Kaidou leaves, and Kaidou can't help but feel he's being chased out of the room. The kitchen is hardly further away than where he's already standing, and he doesn't know why he's not allowed to just watch.

Feeling dejected, he does as Inui says and drinks a glass of milk slowly, sipping at the cold liquid and wondering why Inui hasn't said anything about the hammer. He hasn't seen Inui for a while, it's a shame Inui's only coming over to fix the air-conditioner because once he's finished, Kaidou's sure he'll have a lot of work to do at home and will have to leave. And then that will be it again for a week.

Once a week. It's how often they've been seeing each other lately, and Kaidou had thought that Inui must be missing their sessions together as much as he does, but Inui (strangely enough) hasn't called him for a week. So perhaps he just has too much on his plate right now.

"Finished!" Inui yells from the living room, and Kaidou hurries out of the kitchen. He's greeted by the rumbling sound of the old unit starting up again.

"Senpai," Kaidou exclaims under his breath. "How did you do it?"

"Ah," Inui smiles slightly. His glasses glint and Kaidou is reminded in a flash that he'll never stop learning new things about his senpai. Sometimes he thinks he doesn't even know what he doesn't know.

"It was just a small problem. If you have anything else you'd like me to do, please don't hesitate to call me. I'm only 3.7 minutes away."

Kaidou rubs at his hair awkwardly. "No, that's all. Senpai…"

"Yes Kaidou?" Inui peers at him.

Kaidou imagines he's examining his skin for signs of neglecting his health. Next thing Inui will probably be offering him juices to rejuvenate his skin, which Kaidou must admit is sunburned.

Inui remains silent though, surprisingly.

"I'm really sorry you had to come over here and fix our… thing." Hazue's nickname seems to have rubbed off. "It's so bothersome for you. I told him I could do it myself but he went and called you anyway."

Inui straightens his glasses. "You know I'm willing to come and help no matter what. For example, if your microwave should happen to break or your toilet blocks, I'll be here in 3.7 minutes. 5 if you consider I should lock my own place and put on suitable footwear before I leave."

Kaidou feels that warm feeling again. "Thank you Senpai. We really appreciate it." He has to thank Inui somehow. "Would you… If you're not busy, would you like to have dinner with me?"

Inui looks pleased. "Of course."

(S)

After Inui has helped pack away the leftover food and wash the dishes and Hazue's flopped on the floor in front of the air-conditioner (after thanking Inui for fixing 'the thing'), Kaidou escorts Inui to the front door. There's just one thing he has to say to Inui before he leaves.

"By the way, Senpai, how did you know what temperature our apartment was?"

Inui looks suddenly awkward. Kaidou can tell by the way he moves his feet and adjusts his glasses simultaneously.

"Estimation based on the amount of sweat per square centimetre on my arm," he replies vaguely.

Kaidou frowns. Inui gave his answer to a decimal point, so he had to have reason to do so. Could one really estimate temperature based on amount of sweat? And how would one measure sweat anyway? "Senpai," Kaidou almost hisses.

"Thank you for dinner Kaidou, it's been a lovely night," Inui all but blurts out. His fingers tremble while he fiddles with his glasses and then, in a second, he turns around and starts running home.

Kaidou figures he won't chase him. Not today anyway.

(S)

Inui lets out a sigh of relief as he sits down at his desk for the night. He has but a few things to jot down in his notebook; the detailed notes will come tomorrow when he's had more time to reflect on the day's happenings.

Heat exposure experiment completed.
Subject unwilling to engage to ask for assistance in fixing broken a/c. Would rather suffer temperatures of 29 degrees and higher for a prolonged period of time.
NB: Subject has still failed to note temperature sensors placed strategically in his environment. Informer still good – must remember to bribe with homework answers to get better detail.
Note to self: Large reward received for fixing a/c. Good strategy to break electrical objects in order to engage with subject more frequently. Perhaps blocking toilets will result in earlier call to help? May also result in unpleasant mess. Will possibly test after microwave scenario.

(S)

The next day, summer is still in full swing and their air-conditioning unit working overtime to compensate for the buildup of heat in the apartment over the past week. It's noisy and rumbles like Kaidou's stomach when he hasn't eaten for a day, but it's working.

Kaidou sits peacefully at his desk, books spread in front of him and his favourite pen in his hand when Hazue comes running into his bedroom and almost falls through the doorway.

"Nii-san," he says. "I think you should call Inui-san."

"Why?" Kaidou grumbles, and turns around to glare.

Hazue twists his hands around each other nervously. "I think the microwave broke."

"Bring me the phone," Kaidou sighs. He knows better than to argue over the microwave oven. Hazue can't live without it.

Once Hazue is gone, he frowns. He re-organises his text books on his desk and in doing so, knocks one over the side of the desk.

When he picks it up, he sees two things of interest – the first is that there is the most massive spiderweb he's ever seen in his life. The second is that there appears to be a black box with a small antenna stuck to the side of his desk and he doesn't think he put it there. It's flashing a number at him: 26.2.

Kaidou blinks.

When Inui comes over to fix the microwave, Kaidou's going to make a point of asking him how he measures sweat per square centimetre on his arm. Inui better have a good answer prepared.