Title: Meet the Family

Fandom: Prince of Tennis

Pairings: Inui Sadaharu/Kaidoh Kaoru

Rating: G

Meet the Family: Inui

Kaidoh tentatively knocked on the door to Inui's house, wondering what new insane plot or taste experiment his senpai had called him over for and whether he should be considered insane himself for agreeing to come by.

The door opened promptly, and Kaidoh blinked in surprise at his senpai, who was for once looking rather... frazzled. Maybe his new Inui Juice concoction had blown up in his face while he was mixing it, as Kikumaru-senpai had always claimed would happen if Inui ever got his karmic desserts. Well, Kaidoh could hope, as long as he didn't have to drink anything.

"Ah, Kaidoh," Inui said, looking for all the world like he wasn't sure what to do with the younger boy at his doorstep, which was again certainly a first in Kaidoh's experience. "Ah... come in."

Kaidoh gave his senpai an odd look as he entered the house and took off his shoes. Then he simply waited for Inui to tell him whatever it was he had been called over for.

Inui visibly gathered himself together. "Surprisingly, my mother is home today," he said, as if that explained everything.

Kaidoh nodded. Inui's parents were rarely if ever home, being quite busy with their respective jobs. That would certainly explain why Inui seemed so out of sorts to suddenly have a parent unexpectedly home.

"Yes, well," Inui sighed, "I suppose we'll have to do... what I asked you over for some other day." He adjusted his glasses nervously. "I should introduce you," he muttered, finally remembering some semblance of manners.

Kaidoh simply nodded again and followed his senpai toward the kitchen. He idly wondered what Inui-senpai's mother was like.

"Kaidoh, I would like to introduce you to my mother..." Inui announced as the two boys entered the kitchen.

There was no one in the room. There was, however, a brand new electric blender sitting on the middle of the kitchen table. There was a pair of thin rectangular glasses sitting in front of it.

Silence. Kaidoh stared at the blender. He didn't dare to look at his senpai, for fear that what he might see would send him screaming out of the house. Maybe this was just a weird nightmare or an Inui Juice induced hallucination. Though, in a much deeper and darker corner of his mind, Kaidoh thought he heard a "that explains a lot."

"Did you call me, Sadaharu?" a voice came from behind the two boys.

"Gyah!" Inui jumped nearly a foot into the air and immediately whirled around. "Don't sneak up on me--Okasan, what are you doing!"

Kaidoh thought Inui was really not one to talk about being sneaked up on, but then he turned around and the thought fled his mind.

Well, at least this time it was actually a woman who was standing in front of them, with the same vivid green eyes that his senpai obviously inherited. However, she was also dressed from helmet to boots in a thick airtight suit.

"Why are you in a hazmat suit?" Inui demanded. Apparently, Kaidoh wasn't the only one who thought the scene strange.

"I saw a cockroach," the woman said simply. She raised her arm, which held a nozzle that was attached to the fumigation pack strapped to her back.

"..." Inui stared, speechless for a moment, before he turned to his still boggling kouhai. "Did I say this was my mother? Actually, I've no idea who this person--"

*CONK* The head of the nozzle impacted with Inui's head.

"Ite!"

"Mind your manners, Sadaharu," the woman informed her sulking son.

Inui sighed. "Hai. Okasan, this is Kaidoh Kaoru, a year behind me in Seigaku. Kaidoh, my mother."

Ingrained habit allowed Kaidoh to respond despite being freaked out. "Pleased to meet you," he said, bowing low.

"Oh, what a cute kouhai you have, Sadaharu!" the woman almost squealed. "And so polite too!"

On hearing the unexpected praise, Kaidoh immediately blushed down to his neck. Inui cleared his throat, for once also unsettled by the source of his kouhai's embarrassment.

"Hm... yes, here we are," continued Inui's mother, who had pulled out a pocket computer and was quite skillfully handling it despite the thick gloves of the hazmat suit. "...Kaidoh, ah yes. You and your family have an excellent genealogy record. Such excellent genes!"

"Okasan!" Inui sputtered semi-incoherently. "You can't--where did you--that's--abuse of your position!"

Kaidoh remained speechless, staring yet again. If this was where Inui-senpai got his data gathering skills and stalking habit, he and the rest of the tennis club should really consider themselves lucky. And again, the deep dark corner of his mind muttered something to the effect of "I think I prefer the blender." He immediately shushed the internal voice, feeling a stab of guilt at thinking such thoughts about Inui-senpai's mother.

Meanwhile, Inui's mother had waved off her son's attempts at protest, continuing blithely in her exposition. "Saa, it's nothing to be embarrassed about, Sadaharu. Take us for instance. Aside from the need for corrective lenses and a tendency to be abducted by extraterrestrials involved in an international governmental conspiracy, the Inui family passes genetic muster!"

At this rate, Kaidoh thought hysterically, his eyes were going to fall out of his head and he'll never be able to speak another word again. He supposed that being the result of an alien experiment would explain a lot about Inui-senpai as well. Or maybe he was an alien hybrid sent to analyze the weaknesses of Earthlings, but then got distracted by tennis. Oh, Kami, he was losing it.

Inui, however, just sighed in exasperation. "You've been watching your X-Files tapes again, haven't you?" he accused.

His mother sniffed. "They're classics."

Inui muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

His voice wasn't soft enough. The woman perked up again. "Yes, that's right. There have been some bees around lately. I'll need to do some more fumigation work." She tilted her head just so, and the light glinted off her facemask in a familiar sheen. The two boys shuddered in unison.

"Okasan, it's spring," Inui tried to dissuade his mother as she turned to leave the room. "Of course there are honeybees out. They're normal, common specimens of apis cenara with absolutely nothing to do with government conspi--you're not even listening to me are you?" The door closed in his face.

There was a short moment of silence in the room, one of sullen fuming and another of dazed shock. Eventually, Inui let out a deep sigh and turned back to his kouhai. Kaidoh didn't have the chance to say a single word - not that he would have been able to come up with anything to say - before he was abruptly pulled into a tight embrace.

Kaidoh finally found his voice. "S-senpai?" he asked tentatively. For the first time, Inui was the one to hide his face against the other's neck.

Inui pulled back just enough to murmur directly into his kouhai's ear. "Thank you, Kaidoh... thank you for being so normal."

"......Fsshhhuuuu."

~ owari ~

Author's Notes: Another fic written back in '05. This was inspired by dinner. Or at least it was during dinner when my muses whacked me over the head with this idea.

Disclaimer(s): The line "Aside from the need for corrective lenses and a tendency to be abducted by extraterrestrials involved in an international governmental conspiracy, the Mulder family passes genetic muster!" and the bee paranoia are all from X-Files, in case you can't tell. I don't own PoT and I don't own X-Files.