Any random numbers you see within the fic are supposed to have percentage signs after them. FFnet just sucks.
Title: Measures of Time: Chapter 2 of 3
Author: A. A. Incognito
Pairing: InuKai
Warnings: shounen ai
Rating: PG
Note: Timeline notes from first chapter still apply.
Summary: Inui's first day of research, more picking on Tezuka, and guilt.
Measures of Time
Chapter 2
Inui started his research the next morning at practice. He'd come slightly later than he usually did in order to avoid running into Kaidoh in the locker room -- his main objective today was to observe Kaidoh's behavior around people other than himself, and seeing Inui could skew the results if Kaidoh really did have an issue with him in particular.
Practice hadn't officially started yet, so almost everyone was gathered in their normal social groups, talking. Practices had been more relaxed of late, because they had just won the regional tournament rather decisively. Kaidoh was off to the side -- even after several years, he still wasn't associated with any particular group within the team. Of course, had it been a normal morning, Inui would have been standing with him, discussing training, the upcoming ranking matches, or something Kaidoh's brother had recently done.
But today he lurked around the edge of his fellow juniors, only half paying attention to Eiji's story about toothpaste and Oishi's fish. Arai had just approached Kaidoh; they did share a few classes this year, perhaps that was the topic of conversation? Or was Arai threatening Kaidoh's regular position? Most likely the former, as Kaidoh didn't appear angry or annoyed, just a little surprised.
Kaidoh said something, and Arai grinned and clapped him on the back before going back to his usual group of second years.
Arai, hm? Were he and Kaidoh friends and Inui just hadn't noticed it? Not impossible, but close to it. He was certain he wouldn't have missed such a relationship in Kaidoh's life.
Momoshiro was the next to interact with Kaidoh. It looked like -- yes, Momo was asking Kaidoh where Inui was. Interesting. He watched the exchange carefully over Fuji's shoulder; Kaidoh scowled at Momo and snapped something, Momo looked faintly shocked and began firing off more questions that Inui couldn't quite catch with his limited lip-reading abilities. There was a 70 chance that Kaidoh would end up punching him if no one interrupted them, and Inui started to step forward to do just that -- but no, that would interfere with his data collection. And Momo probably wouldn't punch back. Practice would be starting soon, as well.
Inui was so focused on Kaidoh he barely noticed Fuji turning to see what he was staring at.
"Is something going on with Kaidoh, Inui?" Fuji asked, turning back to look up at him.
"That's right, you normally talk with him in the mornings -- not that we don't like having you here," Oishi interjected with a slightly worried smile.
It looked like the two sophomores weren't going to go beyond their usual shirt-grabbing this morning, he noted with relief. It would have only gotten them laps, and after Kaidoh's run that morning, it would not be beneficial to him.
"Inui?" Fuji asked again.
"Ah, sorry, what did you say?"
Not good -- the expression on Fuji's face meant trouble 83 of the time. "I asked if something was going on with Kaidoh. Did you have a fight?"
"I'm not sure yet, and no." The less information Fuji had, the better.
"It's nothing serious, is it?" Oishi asked, throwing a concerned glance at the boy in question. "He never tells anyone if there's something wrong. Remember his ribs?"
Inui did, unfortunately. "It has nothing to do with a potential physical injury. I can't calculate the degree of severity right now, but I doubt it is anything dire."
"Let us know if there's anything we can do, nya?" Eiji piped up, slinging an arm around Oishi's shoulders. "Do you want to play a match with us?"
"Mm, not today. Tomorrow, perhaps, if I've obtained sufficient data." If there was something wrong, a match with the Golden Pair would likely take Kaidoh's mind off of it, even if he was partnered with Inui. They'd been switching back and forth with the other pair in the doubles one and two spots for the last few months, which seemed to please Kaidoh. Not as much as staying at D1 would, but different opponents called for different strategies.
They had come quite a way to be able to consistently rival the Golden Pair's near-perfect coordination.
Conversation had drifted toward the upcoming inter-team ranking matches when Tezuka and Yamato-buchou finally emerged from Kurosaki-sensei's office, and practice began.
It wasn't as difficult as he had anticipated to keep an eye on Kaidoh during practice: they'd both been challenged by irritated fourth-year students still indignant about having their regular status revoked in favor of a wave of younger players.
Azuma-senpai's backhand was particularly weak when returning balls at the baseline, and he had a tendency to avoid closing in on the net. If Inui hit a deep shot to the backhand side, there was only a 60 chance he'd return it, and then it was child's play to hit a forehand drop shot near the net. His opponent had approximately a 2 chance of making it past the first three shots of the rally, disregarding the serve.
Kaidoh's opponent was of slightly higher caliber, but the Boomerang Snake never failed to phase any of his kouhai's opponents, young or old. He was playing normally enough -- his pace just a little faster than usual due to his lingering annoyance at Momoshiro. There would be no lasting consequences of such a minor variation. It was too bad, really. There was no challenge in such a match for Kaidoh, and without challenge the rate of his growth as a tennis player decreased exponentially. Inui tried -- and succeeded, 94 of the time -- to provide that challenge. Little else annoyed Kaidoh more than being predicted; it was a wonder in itself that he continued to associate with Inui. But his aspiration to become unpredictable at will had kept him coming back.
The more Inui thought about it, the less satisfactory their situation seemed. He frowned even as he hit the match-winning drop shot. This would not do at all. Perhaps it had just been Kaidoh's inherent politeness yesterday that had stopped him from... stopped him from what? This train of thought was illogical at best, too influenced by Inui's personal feelings. He shoved it into a tiny corner of his mind, not to be forgotten, but to wait until he was in a more objective frame of mind.
Azuma-senpai was waiting for him at the net and shook his hand grudgingly. Inui couldn't really blame the seniors for their annoyance, but being older did not necessarily imply that they were superior players. He hadn't even been on the regular team his first year -- there were too many singles players, and he had been reluctant to acquire a new doubles partner. Instead, he'd gathered notebooks upon notebooks of data, and put it to good use the next year when Kaidoh and Momoshiro rejoined their ranks. It had surprised him, how glad he was to have Kaidoh back.
Reasoning to himself that it wasn't really interacting, he walked around the courts until he reached the one where Kaidoh was playing to watch the rest of the match. It didn't take him long to end it, and he was just as standoffish as he normally was, though he did concede to shake his opponent's hand.
By the time morning practice was over, Inui had concluded that there had been no significant changes in Kaidoh's behavior toward other people. Which meant the phenomenon was limited to Inui himself. How troublesome.
During English, Inui composed a list of factors present the previous day that had varied significantly from their usual interactions. His appearance had obviously been the most noteworthy of changes, so he broke that variable into subsections. His hair -- but he had fixed that fairly early on, so its effect was negligible; Tezuka's shirt -- it had been purple, but otherwise fairly typical; and the contacts -- that part must have been the most surprising to Kaidoh, even Inui thought he looked strange without his glasses.
...Really, anyone who customarily wore glasses looked odd without them. Would Kaidoh have the same reaction to another person he was familiar with without theirs?
Inui glanced over at Tezuka, who was paying flawless attention to the teacher, as always. Should he just 'borrow' them, or explain the situation and the hypothesis he wished to test? The odds were nearly overwhelmingly in favor of Tezuka denying the requested favor, or outright ignoring Inui entirely. Borrowing it was, then.
---
An opportunity presented itself at practice after school. Due to the unreasonable heat, Tezuka had taken his glasses off and left them on top of the fountain in order to splash his face with water. Inui walked past and casually reached out and dropped them in his pocket. Kaidoh was coming up the path a ways after Inui, pulling his bandana off as he went. Perfect. Inui quickly stepped back into the shadow of the clubhouse.
Tezuka finished drying his face just as Kaidoh rounded the corner. It would be impossible for Kaidoh to miss the absent glasses. The second year paused for 1.86 seconds as Tezuka swept his hands over the top of the fountain, searching. Other than that, no reaction whatsoever.
Hm. Disappointing.
He couldn't leave Tezuka blind, however, so as soon as Kaidoh had gone, he approached the fountain and crouched, removing the glasses from his pocket in the process. "Tezuka, perhaps you dropped these?" he said as he straightened, holding the glasses out.
Tezuka accepted them wordlessly and gave him a suspicious look that spoke volumes. Maybe he had noticed the missing shirt... No matter.
From today's research he could assume with 98 certainty that Kaidoh's odd behavior the previous day could be attributed solely to... himself. The next step would be to interact with Kaidoh as he usually did and see if his behavior continued to display abnormalities.
---
It was raining, a slow, steady downpour. Against probability, Inui's umbrella hadn't opened, so he was soaking wet by the time he got to Seigaku. There wouldn't be practice, that was for certain, but he went to the clubhouse anyway -- he had a dry shirt there for situations like this.
Kaidoh was there, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Inui hadn't expected that.
"Good morning," he said to mask his surprise.
"Morning," the sophomore replied tersely. "Don't you have an umbrella?" Classic Kaidoh concern if he'd ever heard it. It made him smile.
"I do, but it failed to open."
"Oh."
Inui stripped off his wet shirt and toweled his hair off. His glasses were dotted with raindrops as well, so he removed them after he put on the dry shirt. It was impossible not to notice the potential for research the current situation provided. He slowly rubbed his glasses with a corner of his shirt, thinking.
"Why are you here? Practice is always canceled when we have this sort of weather," he said eventually. He could have easily predicted the reason himself, but then he would have had to have come up with another ploy to get Kaidoh to look at him.
A sudden intake of breath just shy of a gasp was his reward. Quickly he put his glasses back on so he could see Kaidoh's face -- and yes, his cheeks held an unmistakable tinge of pink, just 10 away from their normal color.
"Momoshiro was annoying me." No stumbling over his words this time, so that must have been a unique reaction.
"Was he doing anything in particular?" Inui asked. A hiss was the only response he got, which meant there had been something specific, but the likelihood of finding out what it had been was seven percent at best. Not particularly encouraging odds.
"Senpai."
"Yes?"
"Why were you avoiding me yesterday?"
It was never "were you" with Kaidoh. Once Kaidoh had decided something was true, dissuading him was a task of monumental difficulty. Inui had only succeeded five times in the past three and a half years.
"I apologize. I had some research to conduct." Kaidoh's sense of propriety wouldn't allow him to ask what the research was about, but under normal circumstances there was a good chance Inui would tell him anyway -- but he couldn't this time, not yet. "Is that what Momo was bothering you with?"
"Sort of," he muttered, staring at his knees.
Inui sat down on the bench and looked at Kaidoh curiously. He was sitting on the floor with his back to the lockers, now with his knees drawn up to his chest. A defensive posture if he'd ever seen one. Defensive. It was a good word to describe Kaidoh. Rarely he would drop some of his pretenses with Inui and talk to him -- about how he was worried about his grade in chemistry, how he didn't really hate Momoshiro, how he couldn't help but be the slightest bit envious of Echizen... Things that wouldn't seem terribly uncommon or important to other people, but to Kaidoh, who kept nearly everything to himself -- and it was Inui who got to witness these breaks in character. He lacked a way to reliably predict when one of those moments would occur, but perhaps now would be one of those times.
Except the silence stretched on, until he couldn't stand not having the slightest hint about what his partner was thinking. "Kaidoh?"
"I won't let you avoid me today." The second year looked up at Inui, challenge glinting fiercely in his eyes.
"I hadn't planned on it." But what would happen if he did? It was an interesting thought.
"Good."
"Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?"
"Maybe." The real question was would he talk? The distance Inui had put between them yesterday was more of a barrier than he had initially calculated, and he began to feel more than a little guilty. He tried to rationalize the guilt away by reminding himself that he had been trying to find out what had bothered Kaidoh so much in the first place, but he was unsuccessful. Replaying the events of the previous day, he found himself remembering Fuji asking if they'd fought, Oishi's concerned expression...
He and Kaidoh were not as close emotionally as Eiji and Oishi were, certainly, and their personalities did not have an abundance of similarities with the Golden Pair's. Still, the comparison wasn't necessarily flawed -- he and Kaidoh not speaking for an entire day was not unlike Oishi and Eiji avoiding each other, something that almost never happened. Inui could only recall six days in the last four years when the Golden Pair had been at odds with each other.
"I'm sorry," he heard himself say. He meant it, but he hadn't meant to say it. It got Kaidoh to look him in the eye again, though, so it was okay. "I was..." How to explain his actions? Was there a way without affecting any results he could have derived from today's data?
"It's fine, senpai."
"Is it? I didn't mean for --"
"It's fine," Kaidoh repeated.
To test the honesty of Kaidoh's statement, Inui stood and offered his hand to his kouhai. "We should go."
"Aa." Kaidoh glanced to the left, the right, and then accepted the hand. Inui pulled him to his feet and smiled. Things were fine between them. It almost quelled his urge to seek out Momoshiro. Almost.
end chapter 2.
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