What in the world had he done to deserve such a weird kid? He didn't smile, he didn't laugh, and he didn't bring hot babes home. Honestly, if it weren't for the way he smirked and his trademark phrase, Nanjirou would've thought his son wasn't his son at all.
The kid couldn't even get his tennis right. He had spent nine years trying to perfect his tennis, and nine years only got him this far.
He had to give the kid a little credit though. He was of smaller build than a lot of other players; the strength that seishounen had in his arms now were the results of hard work and a lot of mule-headed stubbornness.
And life wouldn't be as interesting without him. That boy was so fun to tease, the way he would pout almost outrageously whether he was aware of it or not, and it was always so funny the way the kid would try to look threatening, but end up looking like a teddy bear instead.
It wasn't that he didn't like the kid or anything. it was just that sometimes the kid really got on his nerves, the way he didn't seem to be like a normal twelve year old boy.
Why wasn't that brat out with his friends, smoking, or doing drugs? Even having the idiot snort cocaine was better than this strange isolation. Why hadn't he reacted to any of the porn lying around the house, why hadn't he ever brought anyone home, female or otherwise?
The only one the brat ever seemed to talk to was Karupin. And Karupin was the Spawn of Hell, so he didn't count. And Karupin was a Cat, so he still didn't count.
He didn't know what had happened to his son; the boy seemed to have all emotions drained out of him. And Nanjirou sincerely believed that tennis wasn't the cause. It must have been something else. Perhaps his son had lost something important to him over the years, or maybe he had gotten rejected by a girl and his father hadn't found out.
It was strange. When Ryoma was little he'd followed him all over the place like a puppy, demanding to be lifted up, or to be fed, or to have his diaper changed. Even as he grew older, when he hadn't felt like he'd been getting enough of it, Ryoma would demand his father's attention, through tennis or by other means.
Daily fights, shredded magazines, and sweat on a green court were their hugs and kisses, and the swift smack to the back of the head and the face full of porn were just their other ways of saying 'I love you.'
Their relationship had been a strange one, but it was a healthy relationship nonetheless, in Nanjirou's opinion. He had seen nothing wrong with it; it was just another way of expressing their feelings, but in a more refined manner. Any other way would have been too awkward for the both of them.
But Ryoma was throwing it all off. He didn't see much of the boy anymore; he was always studying or playing tennis. While it was great to see such enthusiasm inclined toward the sport, it was slightly worrisome when Ryoma began to spend time with his racket and ball past midnight. He looked more tired these days, and they barely ever fought anymore.
Nanjirou almost missed the fights that he used to have with his son. Anything at least, to have some kind of communication with him. But the boy was steadily fading away from him, little by little, and he didn't know what to do about it.
"I'm home." Quiet, almost invisible. A small shadow walked into the house, and Ryoma paid him no mind as he dropped his tennis gear down by the dining room table and dragged himself toward the stairs. He looked dead on his feet, body hunched and toes dragging slightly.
"Wait." Ryoma stopped, glanced at his father with cold indifference. Nanjirou made himself look back. "Seishounen...is there something you want to tell me?"
"No," Ryoma answered, blunt and to the point. And there really was nothing that was to be discussed with his father; there hadn't been anything that needed to be discussed in years, really.
He watched his son trudge up the stares, step by step. His back hadn't gotten bigger at all; he was still the same boy who'd stared up at him with liquid golden eyes and a million dollar smile and raised his hands with a demanding, 'Up!'
He didn't remember when Ryoma started calling him Oyaji.
--nervosa--
Something is wrong with Echizen. It had always been hinted at before, it's blatantly obvious now. And it's annoying to hear everyone talking about it; all of them know something's wrong with him and there's no point in talking about it if none of them will do anything.
So he decides to ask somebody. Someone who will understand the first year, someone who gets him on a wavelength that no one else in the world possesses.
"Buchou…do you know what's wrong with Echizen?"
Tezuka looks at him for a moment, seems to want to say something, pauses, and ends up not saying anything. Kaidou waits for his answer, knowing that his captain will give him one eventually.
The captain's brow furrows. "I...don't know."
"But you know that something's wrong, right?" Kaidou prods on. "You must know."
Tezuka shakes his head, solemn in his stoical poise. He swings his racket bag onto his shoulder, shuts his locker with a click of the lock and gathers his school things.
"You're leaving?" Kaidou's voice is a little incredulous, and Tezuka knows what he is thinking. "Don't you care about Echizen at all?"
Tezuka doesn't answer, and Kaidou waits. "...That's not it."
"Fsssh! What is it then? Echizen may be a brat, but he's still our kouhai."
Tezuka looks at Kaidou for a long moment, before he averts his gaze to the floor. He eventually turns around and walks away for a second time, and Kaidou makes no move to stop him.
--nervosa--
He was Echizen's best friend.
It was something to be proud of, to be the best friend of such an antisocial kid, it made him feel special, privileged.
He was by no means, however, the closest thing that Echizen ever cherished. In fact, Momo reckoned that Echizen liked his cat more than any of his friends. Truthfully, Echizen wasn't Momo's best friend either. There were many more people that Momo hung out with who were ten times more pleasant than his sometimes irritating kouhai.
It wasn't that Momo disliked him or thought him annoying. He just wished that the boy would sometimes smile more, or give out a laugh once in a while. It was a bit irking to see Echizen so calm all the time. He certainly didn't act like any of the other people who were in the tennis club.
It was like watching a robot. All his responses were the same. How many times had he seen that smirk appear on his face as an answer to yet another question?
During his lunchtime naps too, Echizen always woke up right before the first bell rang. It was creepy, it was weird, and it was just plain unnatural.
If Momo had been four years old when he met Echizen, he definitely would have screeched and pointed at the boy, calling him an alien and running away. But the now almost fourteen year old tennis player did not do that. Rather, he just watched Echizen, day by day, who always had that same old smirk on his face.
Sometimes he wondered about it, why he was even friends with someone like Echizen. He was the sort of emotionless, arrogant person that was always the type he had hated and he surprised himself one day when he figured out that he actually liked his first year kouhai.
If it had been anyone other than Echizen, he probably would have punched the kid in the face already. But, no, Echizen had some sort of quality that was different from all those other arrogant, emotionless people that Momo hated.
It was ironic. Even though Echizen was always so cocky, he always tried his best. It was almost admirable, how he had kick-started Seigaku into their current regiment. Like Oishi-senpai had said, Echizen's determination and drive were contagious.
It seemed that all the boy ever thought about was tennis, tennis, tennis, tennis, always tennis, as if he couldn't get enough of it. Momo had always asked Echizen if he always thought about tennis, but all he got was a smirk and a 'mada mada dane'.
He wasn't expecting to get a serious answer.
"Yes."
"...What?"
"I said yes, Momo-senpai." This time, the smirk was absent from the boy's face.
"You asked me a question, didn't you?" Momoshiro stopped, stunned, putting his foot down on the asphalt of the road. Echizen stepped off the extended axles of Momo's bike. The second-year had gotten them especially for him, after the first few times of dual bike riding.
"Well, I answered," Echizen said simply, crossing his arms. "Isn't that what you wanted, an answer?"
"You weren't supposed to say yes!" Momo yelled at him incredulously.
"You wanted me to lie?" Echizen snapped at him, pinning him with a golden glare. "Friends don't do that to each other, senpai."
Mocking. Mocking, this, was this even a friendship at all?
"Do you even consider me as a friend?" Momo asked him, staring back at him. "What exactly am I to you anyway, Echizen? Something that's second-rate compared to tennis?"
Echizen turned to him as he continued to walk past him. "What are you to me, Momo-senpai?"
"I don't know! Isn't that what you're supposed to tell me?!"
Echizen didn't even spare him a glance this time. "You don't have to pick me up anymore, Momo-senpai."
"Hey! You haven't even given me an answer yet! And what do you mean I don't have to pick you up anymore?" Momo demanded.
"You heard me. You're not deaf. I said you don't need to pick me up anymore."
"What?! Echizen! What are you trying to pull?! Give me a proper answer and stop lying!"
"You don't want to hear this answer, and I don't want to answer you. What makes you think I'm lying?"
"You can't think about tennis every single day, Echizen," Momo said. "You have other hobbies, don't you?"
Echizen gave him a flat look. "What makes you think I lied about that? Do you have any proof? Not everyone can freely flit from hobby to hobby. Some people don't have a choice."
"Don't have a choice? Of course you have a choice! Everyone always has a choice!" Momo yelled, chasing after Echizen, wheeling the bike along beside him.
"You're just as stupid as Kikumaru-senpai," Echizen snarled, walking even faster. "And you're all just as ignorant and idiotic."
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Momo flinched back, thoroughly offended. "And what did you do to Eiji-senpai anyway?!"
"Che," Echizen snorted. "I didn't do anything to him," he said disdainfully. Don't pick me up tomorrow, Momo-senpai."
"Wha-Echizen, you-"
"Shut up, and don't pick me up tomorrow. I don't want to see you."
Only a lonely blue painted bike and a shadow stayed behind to keep Momo company.
--nervosa--
Inui had spent most of his life poring through his green composition notebooks, jotting down notes and making sure he didn't forget any details. It was something that he had picked up from childhood, after he had gotten a 80 on his math quiz. He vowed afterwards to take notes on everything, from human behaviors to academics, just so he wouldn't fail again.
It really paid off for him. His little habit let him see an array of things that others always glossed over, made him perceptive, honing his natural instincts of observance to a fine point.
He knew all of his friends like the back of his hand. He knew their behaviors, how they would react, what tennis move they would use, everything. Their facial expressions he could outline clearly, noticing whenever they were in a good mood or in a bad mood. Inui was confident in his observational skills, confident that his observations weren't ever going to fail.
Data was reliable. Numbers were concrete, something he could hold on to, and his faith in science would never let him down.
He'd never abandon his data. The very idea was inconceivable on such a large scale; it would take Armageddon to rip him away from his notebooks.
So when the very first murmurs about Echizen's peculiarities began to stir, he ignored them. When Echizen and Kikumaru began to rub each other the wrong way, he didn't see anything wrong with it; there had always been a 5.967 percent chance that Echizen would get sick of being glomped at one point, and blow up.
When he saw Momo during tennis practice looking very upset, he didn't even pay a second glance at it. After all, there was always a 43 percent chance that Momo would seem depressed; it'd just blow over after a couple of days.
And that argument between Taka and Echizen was not all that unexpected. Of course Echizen, being a naturally private person, would be irritated at being interrogated about his personal dealings with Kikumaru.
So, being Seigaku's data tennis player, Inui Sadaharu really didn't see the fact that there was something abnormal about the tennis team, that these events happening all at the same time weren't normal at all.
It all fit in with the data.
And the data was never wrong.