Title: Strange Flavor

Author: Mirai2

Summary: Mizuki's away for summer vacation, and Yuuta is left to practice on his own. Slash, strange flavor. Try it; you might like the taste.

Disclaimer: This fic is not my fault. It's my buddy's fault. There's a story behind this… You know how /some people/ like to put chunks of names together to describe their favorite couples? Inui/Yuuta, she pointed out, would be Inyuu. Hence the fic. Like I said, it's not my fault.

Practice with Inui wasn't what he expected. In addition to volleying against one another, Inui had created a special training program for Yuuta that left him exhausted at the end of each practice. After the first practice, Yuuta had asked Inui why he would give so much aid to someone who wasn't on his team. Inui hadn't answered at first, as they walked toward the train stop before their paths split. Finally, he'd said simply that if Yuuta was to practice with him, it made no sense to allow his partner to be less than a perfect opponent. This made sense to Yuuta.

So, most evenings, Yuuta would ride the train home in the evening, limbs worked to exhaustion, the last points they'd fought playing themselves over against the back of his eyelids. Inui was a strong opponent, and one who played perfect devil's advocate to Yuuta's weaknesses. Yuuta found that the exercises improved his game, but Inui improved similarly, so that their skills were closely matched.

One evening, Yuuta had thrown himself down on the cool grass, exhausted. Inui stood looking up at the sky.

"And that's it," Inui said.

Yuuta sat with his eyes closed for a few minutes before answering. Running up and down the small hill on the edge of the park for the last fifteen minutes had exhausted him. Finally, he had caught his breath sufficiently to respond.

"And that's what?" He glanced over at Inui.

"Now it's time to take a break," Inui said, inscrutable as ever.

"Break, ha!" Yuuta said, closing his eyes again. "I'm done for the night."

"I didn't mean for the night," Inui said patiently. "We won't be playing for two weeks."

"What?" Yuuta asked, scrunching his face up. "Why?"

"It's necessary. When you reach a certain plateau… Have you ever tried to learn how to do something?"

Yuuta snorted. "I would think running up and down a hill while a senile old man yelled obscenities at me from his porch constitutes trying very hard to learn how to play better tennis. But yes, I used to play piano."

"Did you ever get stuck on a song?"

"Sure," Yuuta said, rolling over onto his stomach. If this wasn't going anywhere, he would just keep his eyes closed for a little while on the nice grass…

"And what did you do?" Inui sat down at the picnic table that Yuuta was laying next to.

"Well, finally I gave up because I was driving my mother nuts playing the same song for hours straight," Yuuta said.

"And did you ever come back to it?"

"Yes. I can play it now, a melody by Chopin… In fact, when my teacher asked me to play it, I had given up on it weeks before, and hadn't played it since. I played it almost perfectly the first time… Is that what you're getting at?" The grass smelled so good. It must have been cut recently.

"Yes, exactly. You'll find that your mind and reflexes improve from the break. Everything will seem sharper."

"So, if I'm not playing tennis, what am I supposed to be doing for two entire weeks?" Yuuta asked. Tennis was so much a part of his life, he couldn't imagine not playing for a week straight, not to mention two.

"Whatever you like. Puzzles, reading, swimming, anything but tennis or similar sports."

"If you think it's that important…" Yuuta trailed off skeptically. He had become accustomed to taking Inui's word as law.

The cicadas and the sound of Inui's pen scratching over paper were the only sounds that reached Yuuta's ears above the rustle of the breeze.

"I do," Inui said. "Do you agree to it, then?"

"I suppose. If you won't be playing, I don't have anyone to play against anyway, so I might as well agree, right?"

The pen paused. "What about your brother?"

That didn't deserve a response, Yuuta decided. He kept his eyes closed and waited for Inui to say something else, but he was writing in his notebook again. Yuuta decided he'd get up once Inui was done with his data. He didn't want to interrupt after all… and the grass was so comfortable…

"Mmf, ugh, brother, I can land the plane by myself!"

Yuuta's eyes snapped open. Strong hands were holding his shoulders, and for some reason he was leaning into them, as if he was trying very hard to fall down. Inui was looking at him with a small frown and what looked like the closest thing Yuuta had seen to annoyance on his features.

"Uh… I was having a dream," Yuuta said weakly, catching his balance.

"I noticed," grunted Inui, releasing his shoulders now that Yuuta seemed to be awake. "I tried to wake you up several minutes ago. I shook you and asked if you were ready to go. Finally, you said yes, stood up, and almost fell over… Perhaps that last training was a bit too much. I didn't take the heat into account earlier."

"No, no, I'm just a heavy sleeper," Yuuta said, yawning and shoving off the last of his fatigue. "Sorry, I shouldn't have lain down."

"It wasn't a problem," Inui said, and Yuuta glanced over at him quickly. The corners of his mouth did that little twitching thing. Yuuta got the feeling that Inui was laughing at him, and couldn't help but feel vaguely annoyed. "I thought I might have to abandon you in the park or carry you. Fortunately that wasn't the case."

They began walking their regular route, Yuuta toward the train stop, Inui to his home.

After a while, Yuuta said, "thank you for waking me up. It's dark. I'd better hurry home lest my family calls the police." Yuuta couldn't see Inui's face very well in the dim lamplight, but he thought the other man was smiling.

"Your family seems to be very protective of you," he said.

"They are," Yuuta agreed. "That's the problem with being the youngest child. No one seems to realize that I'm old enough to do things on my own."

"Hmm," Inui drawled. Yuuta couldn't see it, but he knew that Inui had that irritating not-quite-smirk on his face. He hated that; he hated feeling like someone he respected was making fun of him.

"What?" Yuuta asked curtly.

"Do you think that perhaps they're being protective… because they want to protect you?"

Asking a ridiculous question like that simply added insult to injury. Yuuta gritted his teeth together. He hated being patronized.

"I can take care of myself," Yuuta said.

Inui paused, and Yuuta stopped a few steps ahead of him. Dimly he realized that Inui should have turned to go home a few blocks back. They were already at the terminal. The wall behind him had a schedule better read in daylight of the train times. A small circle of light cast by the street lamp above surrounded Yuuta. Inui, on the edge of that circle, was in shadow. He pushed his glasses up his nose. Yuuta looked at him curiously. Did he have some last minute training advice?

"Didn't you ever bother to consider what they might want to protect you from?" Inui asked.

Yuuta hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then he swung his arm up. He never did know exactly what he intended to do; Inui had grabbed his wrist before he could think any further and pinned him against the brick wall. Something – Inui's notebook? - was digging into the side of his stomach. Inui was breathing heavily – no, Yuuta realized it was his own breath rasping in his throat. His face was so close that he could almost read the expression in the dark eyes hidden by those glasses. There was a faint smell to him, something a little bitter, a little sweet, that made Yuuta think of the thick leather-bound volumes sitting on his brother's desk.

Then Inui had released him and he was standing, trying to catch his breath, against the board with the J-train's running times.

"The-the-what the hell was that?" Yuuta asked, wishing that his voice hadn't come out quite so panicked.

"A joke. Obviously in poor taste. I apologize," Inui said. He had turned his back to Yuuta and was already walking away from the terminal. There was no inflection to his voice to tell Yuuta what he was thinking, not even the usual hint of derision.

"What kind of- wait!"

"You'd better hurry. You'll miss your train," Inui said.

Even as he said that, Yuuta could hear the train coming. Inui was already half a block away, making good time with his long legs. Yuuta decided to catch the train and think later. When he ran down the stairs to the platform, half a dozen sleepy-looking people glanced up at his energetic display. The train stopped, the doors opened, and he darted in.

Staring out the window at the nightscape outside, his mind was curiously blank. For some reason, the same line kept playing in his head: "Didn't you ever bother to consider what they might want to protect you from?"

The darkness outside held no answers.