Title: Pursuit
Author: Double A. Incognito
Pairing: InuKai
Warnings: shounen ai
Rating: PG
Note: For Helen because she had a crappy day yesterday. Hopefully this'll help a little. :)
Summary: Kaidoh was being stalked by a girl. It was not a good day.
Pursuit
Kaidoh was having a bad day.
Not that he ever had good days--just days when he didn't have to put up with as many annoyances as others.
But today was definitely bad.
He was being trailed by one of the girls who normally squealed over Echizen. She wasn't even good at trailing someone--he'd been almost worried (almost)that she'd pass out during his run, but she had just huffed and puffed while trying to remain away from his line of vision. It was akin to being stalked by a herd of elephants--nothing like Inui-senpai, who was more of a mountain lion when it came to following Kaidoh. Most of the time he wasn't even aware of Inui's presence unless the older boy decided to make it known.
A little corner of his mind was hoping this was one of the days Inui-senpai had chosen to shadow him, as if he would somehow cancel out the freshman girl's presence.
With a low hiss he set his tennis bag down near the bank of the river and dug around for the towels he used to train. Then he waded into the water and pretended to not notice the girl trying to hide behind the guard rail. He made an effort to block her out of his conscious thoughts, but there was something unnerving about her watching his training. Consequently, his muscles were unusually tense, and he couldn't attain his normal rhythm of swings.
When she tripped over nothing trying to get closer to the river, he decided he'd had enough.
"What do you want?" he growled, crossing his arms over his chest and turning to face her fully.
"I'm curious about your reasons for following Kaidoh all day as well. I've narrowed the possibilities down to three options, but none seem 100 viable."
Kaidoh valiantly tried to feign indifference to Inui-senpai's abrupt appearance on the other riverbank as the girl floundered, stammered, then ran back the way she'd come.
"Peculiar," Inui murmured. "Must be scenario two, then."
Kaidoh snorted and went back to practicing, now easily falling into his usual pace. Inui waded around him and went to sit on their usual side of the river with one of his notebooks. When he was done, Inui handed him a dry towel wordlessly, barely glancing up from whatever he was writing. Kaidoh sat next to him to dry off, then laid back to stare at the clouds changing color with the sunset, slowing relaxing to the familiar sound of Inui at work.
He was half-asleep when Inui stated more than asked, "You let her follow you because you thought she'd eventually give up?"
"Something like that."
"Hm. Were you aware she was carrying some sort of love letter?"
"Why would she run around after me, then? I'm not Echizen," he replied, then winced slightly at the memory of when he had been mistaken for the freshman. He did not want to be Echizen.
"Scenario two indicated that the love letter's recipient was meant to be you." Kaidoh's eyes widened in alarm and he sat up quickly, starting at his senpai incredulously. Inui laughed softly. "That would have been an interesting confrontation to witness. Observing your interpersonal communication outside of tennis is more difficult than I anticipated."
"Why would you want to see that?" he muttered, turning to stare blindly at the sunset's reflection on the water.
"To perfect my approach. Though it is doubtful that I would ever attempt to deliver a love letter to you in such a manner."
Kaidoh made a strangled noise at the thought of Inui-senpai giving him a love letter; Inui continued speculating aloud as if he hadn't noticed. "For other people, an indirect approach would be best, instead of just handing such a thing to you. However, I have reason to believe you would not be completely adverse to a more direct method coming from someone you have a reasonable level of familiarity with." The direction Inui's theory was taking was beginning to set off alarms in Kaidoh's head.
"For instance, I've calculated that I would only sustain a minimal amount of physical damage if I were to kiss you." Kaidoh decided now was a good time to be selectively deaf and blind, because Inui was not leaning steadily closer to him. No, he was not. And he hadn't just said anything about kissing him.
"However, I have no desire to damage our friendship, and such an action could be detrimental to it." Maybe he'd get out of this unscathed after all, he thought with a relieved sigh--except Inui was even closer to him than before. "But at the same time..." Warm fingers gently tilted his face toward the other boy. "I find myself unable to resist."
Maybe it wasn't such a bad day.
end.