Getting to Know Eachother: Part 1
Kaidoh's Pathetic Tale

~oOoOo~

9:30pm

Kamio stormed up the stairs, wanting to get to his room and take and shower and then maybe listen to some music.

Kirihara had been tailing him since they had been released from detention half an hour ago, chattering about nothing in particular. He followed Kamio all the way up the staircase and along the twist in the corridor that led to Kamio's room. Seeing that Kirihara did not seem to be leaving, however, Kamio strode straight past his room, not eager for Kirihara to find out where he lived. Instead, Kamio headed to the game room, thinking he would find someway to lose the other boy in there.

Noticing where he was headed, Kirihara raised an eyebrow. "Games at this time, Kamio-kun? I would have thought that you would be into something more serious."

"I have…something to do." Kamio invented randomly.

"Don't be stupid, no one has to do anything in the game room."

"Hey!" Kamio spun around. "It just so happens that I have a very, um, important match of…." His mind suddenly went blank.

"Foosball?" Kirihara supplied helpfully.

"AIR HOCKEY!" he screamed "to…finish."

"With yourself. I see. I think I'll tag along in that case. I'm rather curious as to who's going to win."

"Listen you—"

Kamio shoved open the door of the game room at that moment and was greeted by a chorus of "GAN BAI!" so loud that he almost jumped backwards into Kirihara's arms. Almost.

"What the…" for once, both Kamio and Kirihara were speechless. At the same time.

The room was a flurry of action.

Though Yuuta was sprawled over the red sofa in the corner with Kaidoh curled up at his feet, most everyone else was moving, integrating. Everyone was hanging out, chatting with people that they had previously never spoken to, playing games together. Everyone was being friendly and social and everything! What the hell was going on?

Then Kamio saw it. Kirhara followed his line of gaze and it all made sense.

In the center of the gameroom, there was a coffee table. And on the coffee table was beer. Not spilled there, of course. Just cans of it. Many, many cans of beer.

And now the boys saw the room in a new light.

Momoshiro was toasting to Christianity with some St. Rudolph guys while Kabaji sat like a boulder in a corner of the room, eyes unfocused and drooping.

David seemed to be playing poker with a group of Fudomine boys, who kept getting distracted by Ichiuma and Ichirou, who were by the pool table examining a line of pool balls. Ichirou and Ichiuma were acting most strange. Every once in a while, one of them would frown, pick up a pool ball, and move it to another place in the line. Then they would both stand back and appraise.

On the other side of the room, Echizen played a vicious match of ping-pong against Touji. One might think that he seemed to be the only sober one in the room, but in fact, if examined carefully, his eyes were quite obviously glazed with alcohol.

"There it is! Twist-o Serve!" The freshmen trio, who were standing nearby cried out as Echizen decided to make a decisive move. However, their cry was far less synchronized than usual. Their voices sounded dull and sluggish. They all finished speaking at different times and Horio completely slumped forward afterward.

The party had begun.

"Oiiiiii………Kamio and Kirihara are finally here!" Slurred a very pleased-looking Aoi, whose volume of voice seemed to be the only thing unaffected by the alcohol. "Have something to drink, there's plenty…"

"How the hell did you guys get ahold of this?" Kirihara asked incredulously, striding towards the drink table without hesitation. "Even Yukimura-sempai was never smooth to pull something like this!"

"Actually, it was Kabaji's idea." Said Yuuta from the sofa. His eyes were somewhat bloodshot, but overall he seemed the most sober of them all. "We were bored and trying to figure out some way to have fun. So on Kabaji's suggestion, we sneaked off the campus and kidnapped the first adult we saw. Then we told him to buy us alcohol."

"And he just agreed?"

"Well, we threatened to read him a passage from Twilight if he didn't." Yuuta explained. "Got him moving right away."

"Yeah." David interrupted. "When we mentioned Twilight, it was like he suddenly saw the situation in a new light!"

"David, shut up." said Yuuta without even looking at him. "Anyway, that was pretty much our plan."

"Ah. That was clever. But I'm surprised that you, Yuuta, were okay with kidnapping some random person."

"Well, at first I thought it would be kind of weird." admitted Yuuta. "But Kabaji convinced us. He gave a really inspiring speech."

"Is there any point asking how he gave a speech using only the word, 'usu'?"

"No." Shinji said flatly.

"Us—hic" Kabaji said.

There was a crash on the other side of the room.

Everyone looked over in shock to where Touji and Echizen had been playing ping-pong. It seemed that Echizen had attempted to do a Drive B, complete with scraping his fiery heels against his side of the court, and to make a long story short, had failed. He now had Touji in a rather compromising position.

Ichiuma and Ichirou were still gazing perplexedly at their line-up of pool balls. Finally, Sakurai snapped and stalked over and asked them what the hell they were doing.

"Well, first we lined them up by color…" Ichirou began.

"And then we lined them up.....by….number." Ichiuma mumbled.

"So what are you guys doing now?" asked Sakurai, completely nonplussed.

"Well, now we're trying to line them up by size…but it's somehow……not….. working……" Ichirou complained. He lifted up the eight ball from where it was fourth in line, examined it closely and then plonked it back down in seventh place instead.

The evening more or less progressed in that fashion.

XxX

11:00pm

"Kira-chaaaan," Kirihara drawled, approaching the sofa and collapsing next to the redhead, "I like you, ya know that? You're my friend. My best friend!" He threw his hands into the air for emphasis. Drunk Kirihara was more or less the same as sober Kirihara except that he was 100% fearless instead of 99%. As in, he didn't worry about the effects of calling Kamio such a cute name.

Fortunately, Kamio did not appear to have noticed. He had only registered the first word that Kirihara had said.

"Didja call me Kira? Like Killer Kira on Death Note? That's awesome. Now all we need is that girl with braids from Seigaku...."

"The head coach's granddaughter?" Momo asked confusedly. "Why?"

"Because then we would have Kira AND Ryuzaki!!" Kamio and Kirihara dissolved into laughter.*

David looked faintly disgruntled that someone had successfully made a joke more stupid than his.

"God, I'm so funny." Kamio exclaimed, wiping a tear from his eye. "I don't know why I never noticed. I'm a goddam riot!"

"HEY! Everyone…!" Everyone turned their heads. Uchimura had somehow got on top of the television and was addressing everyone in the room. "You, like, knew this had to happen. Otherwise all of us getting drunk would be completely, like, pointless! It's speech time!"

His next words were drowned out by everyone falling to their knees and screaming, "Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

"No, guys I seriously just want you to know," Uchimura cleared his throat and waited for the noise to die down. "It, like, might seem weird for me to say, but it's true: you're all Super Special to me." He paused. "I love you guys." Another pause.

Someone cleared his throat.

"So like, I think we should all thank Kachiro and Katsuo for suggesting this little session."

A few people clapped weakly and Uchimura turned solemnly to the freshmen. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but you guys actually did something useful for once. As in something that actually affected the plot."

The freshmen in question weren't sure whether to look pissed off or pleased.

"I feel like you guys are basically my best friends." He continued. "You've turned my life from like, a vortex of meaningless existence into like, a rainbow sunshine valley."

"Whoa. That's deep." Said Ichirou.

Everyone agreed.

"Yeah, and we're all like….great…and everything. We're awesome. We're like a dream team or something."

"Only not as gay." Said Kamio.

"Yeah. And I have a question for you guys." They listened carefully. He took his time, fondling his hair, as he searched for potent words with which to to articulate himself. "What would you say.....is like, the most awesome thing that's ever happened to you? Like, ever?"

Huh. Everyone had to stop and think about that seriously. There was silence in the room for a few minutes as everyone just considered.

"Ever? Hm, there's so much to pick from." Momoshiro muttered vaguely, leafing through his memories of beating Echizen in eating contests and............well, actually that was pretty much it.

"Hey, I know the best thing that ever happened to me!" said Kirhara brightly. "I can tell you all!"

"No, I've got a story!" whined Choutarou.

"Quiet!" Surprisingly, the words came from Kaidoh. Said boy got to his feet and made his way to the television.

He gestured for Uchimura to get off, and then he seated himself on top. "I have a story." He said. "And the best thing that ever happened to me will blow your minds. I have to tell you from the beginning."

"Who here severely doubts that this story is going to be mindblowing?" Kamio asked aloud.

Everyone but Kaidoh raised his hand.

"You just wait and see!" Kaidoh hissed angrily. He took a deep breath to calm himself. He hissed once more.

"Fifth grade." He began, wanting to open with something short and impressive, "was the year that I discovered my true calling."

He paused for effect to see if anyone seemed hooked by his intriguing statement. They all looked bored. Slightly miffed, he continued:

"I was on my way to school. I was walking along and I passed that gigantic drainage pipe thingy, or irrigation channel, or maybe it's a river. I never really figured that part out. Well anyway, I passed that channel of water with the bridge over it that I always train under. Incidentally, that water makes no sense because sometimes I'm standing in it and it comes up to my knees and then other times it's deep enough that I'm almost drowning." Kaidoh stopped here and frowned. He made a mental note to figure out what was up with that, later. "Anyway, I was passing this place and something completely cliché happened, although it wasn't cliché at the time because at that point it was the first time that it had happened."

Most people in the room had to think about that sentence and say it over in their heads a few times to understand it. Kaidoh obligingly waited and then moved on.

"Well, I was strolling along, without a worry in the world when I heard a soft, weak noise coming from where the supports of the bridge enter the water. A little gray and white kitten was perched on the base, meowing for help. No clue how it got there. I guess it's possible that it could have fallen off the bridge, but even that doesn't really make sense if you think about it, since the base doesn't jut out enough to catch a falling object."

Everyone was getting annoyed with the fact that Kaidoh's sentences were so long, they took a long time to digest.

"Well, despite the strangeness of the situation, I couldn't just leave the poor kitten there to die, could I? Since apparently I'm the only person in this whole city who ever notices lost animals, I knew I had to do something or the kitten would probably starve to death. I quickly assessed the situation and saw that it was, as I had expected, very dangerous indeed. It would take all my cunning and skill to complete this mission. But with the compelling motivation to rescue a kitten that I had known for thirty seconds, how could I falter? I dropped my backpack onto the ground, whipped off my shirt and shoes and bandana and dove into the icy waters!"

Kachiro fell asleep.

"The swim was difficult," said Kaidoh, who didn't appear to have noticed anything, "but I persevered. I got to the bridge and retrieved the kitten and returned to the shore with little more trouble than the time I spilled glue on Momoshiro's snowman project in second grade."

Momoshiro made a snarling noise, but Kaidoh continued.

"I had the kitten with me. And for the first time, it occurred to me that I had no idea to whom it belonged. For the first time, it dawned on me that it might have been a good idea to find the owner first, and then have them or the police take care of the situation. So I stood there, dripping and feeling pretty stupid, when a strange man walked up to me and said, 'what are you doing here, kid?'. I said, 'I'm trying to find the owner of this kitten. Then he said 'Ah' and was quiet for a moment. 'So you're not the owner? You just decided to help out the little creature in need?' he asked. 'Yes', I replied. He looked me over for a moment, and then turned back to me and said very mysteriously, 'you ever consider making a living out of this'? 'Out of what?' I asked. 'Saving animals and such. You start small, but you could save humans later.', he said. 'it's a fine business to be sure and it could take you great places.'

'Whoa…you mean like a superhero'? I said. The man looked like he wanted to say something else, but changed his mind and said, 'yes, just like a superhero. You can become one right now if you like.' I couldn't believe it. This was the most dramatic and incredible event of my young life. So I got down on my knees and asked him to show me. He obliged, placing one hand on my forehead and pulling a magical staff out of nowhere.

"'This is the finest choice of your life.' He said. 'But remember,' he warned me, looking gravely serious. 'With great power comes great responsibility'.

"Okay, seriously Kaidoh, you totally stole that from Spider Man!" Yuuta shouted.

"Yeah, we're bored of this story anyway," Shinji agreed. "Just shut up and sit down so we can listen to something that's actually interesting."

With murmurs of assent from all the other boys present, Kaidoh could see that he was outnumbered, and sighing with defeat, he headed back to his place. Last time I share a bit of my enigmatic self with any of you fools, he thought furiously. I miss Inui-senpai.

"You guys missed the best part of the story." He informed them. "I didn't get to the part where I was branded with this."

Kaidoh reached up with one hand and undid the first few buttons of this shirt, peeling both sides apart. All the boys leaned in to look.

Kaidoh was wearing what appeared to be a skin-tight spandex suit under his clothes. Actually, it looked more or less like the Spider Man suit, except that it was green and had a picture of a coiled serpent on it.

Still not impressed, everyone waved him off stage, and he was forced to concede defeat.

oOoOo

A/N: 1. hahaha, Kaidoh's lame.
2. *death note reference. and I must say, it's bloody hilarious.