Best Kept Secrets
by aishuu
Credit to Yukihou for providing me with a better ending.
It was perhaps the best kept secret among the Seigaku tennis team. Though there was no conscious plot to keep it hidden, it benefitted all the regulars to hide the truth, so they did.
Some people might have thought it was Tezuka's phone number, but they would be wrong. Fuji had mailed it in a fit of pique one night to Hyotei's Atobe Keigo, which had triggered a whole chain of events which were amusing for most and painful for Kawamura and Ibu Shinji of Fudomine.
Others might have guessed it was the ingredients of Inui juice, but Inui was always quite willing to share his formulas with others, provided they sample it.
A few might even have believed it was the true nature of Oishi and Kikumaru's relationship, but Kikumaru would freely admit that while Oishi had a great ass, he much preferred the company of women, and was currently hanging around Fuji in hopes that Yumiko would someday decide she was interested in dating a much younger man.
No, Seigaku was an open kind of place. Secrets didn't remain secret for that long. The biggest secret of Seigaku, unsurprisingly, involved Kaidou Kaoru.
Simply put, Kaidou Kaoru was a soft touch.
He wasn't a pushover, exactly - anyone who'd ever seen him argue with Momoshiro would know that - but Kaidou simply didn't possess the ability to say no when someone asked him a favor. It came from trying to be a good senpai and a good kohai, and a whole slew of other manners that kept him from turning anyone down. People may have thought that Oishi, with his mothering nature, or Kawamura, in his kindness, would have been the best people to go to to get things done, but that wasn't they way the world worked.
By the end of Kaidou's first year, it was obvious to his senpai that he would do what he was asked and do it well. Most of them found it relatively pleasant, especially after dealing with the hot-tempered Momoshiro and Arai. A few began to take advantage of it - like Oishi. Whenever he needed something done, he would ask Kaidou, and it would be done promptly and well.
Gradually it progressed so all of his teammates were doing the same. If Tezuka didn't feel like ordering first years to deal with the nets, he'd ask Kaidou to manage them. If Inui had a project he needed a subject for, Kaidou was always his first pick. When Fuji had somewhere else to be, he'd always dump whatever work he needed done on his capable underclassmen's shoulders, and Kikumaru followed his example readily.
Sometimes Kaidou would start to get rebellious about his role, but then someone would remind him of his manners, and he would bite his tongue and suffer through it.
When the third years graduated, he breathed a sigh of relief, figuring that he was finally finished being everyone's lap dog. Ryuuzaki even appointed him captain, which he figured was a just reward for all of his hard work.
He didn't realize how wrong he was until he arrived the day before practice started to organize the clubroom.
"Kaidou, I'm glad you're here! I've got a ton of work to prepare for classes, and would you mind maybe taking care of a few things for me?" Ryuuzaki Sumire asked, waving a pile of papers meant for the tennis club.
If Kaidou had been the type, he would have cried. Instead, he merely hissed at her which confirmed the unequivocal fact that everyone already knew.
Marshmallow. Pure marshmallow.