Psidai - Analysis
Mar. 6th, 2005 10:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanithryudoTitle: Analysis
Series: Psidai AU, part 3 of the InuKai sequence.
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Rating: G
Word Count: 1798
Pairings: Inui/Kaidoh, Golden Pair
Summary: It turns out that Pavlov isn’t just for the dogs. Kaidoh puts his foot down.
Timeline: Takes place sometime soon after Observation, a little before the Nationals.
Analysis
After the misunderstanding with the birds, and a while for Kaidoh to stop glaring at him, Inui decided to switch tactics. With his kouhai already on guard, there was no further point to gather data through covert tactics.
Fortunately, the fact that the nationals were about to begin also contributed to his plans, since whenever doubles practice rolled around, they were invariably put together. After all, while Momoshiro and Kaidoh had a good doubles record, theirs was a pairing that simply could not be practiced by working together, since they’d indubitably end up wasting more time arguing with each other than actually practicing their play. This meant that doubles practice typically consisted of Inui-Kaidoh against Taka-Momo or Taka-Fuji, and on rare occasions, Momo-Echizen, with the Golden Pair rotating around to give each combination pointers.
…Well, most of the other combinations, at least. Since Inui had a stellar history in doubles himself, the training of his pairing with Kaidoh was usually left up to him. And now, since his previous observations had uncovered nothing that would contradict an animal side to his kouhai’s psyche, Inui thought he knew just how to further test his hypothesis.
That was how he came to be in the clubhouse before practice one afternoon, fastening an old worn bell-collar around the neck of a fidgeting Kaidoh while Eiji, the donator of said collar, looked on in amusement.
“There,” Inui reluctantly removed his hand from Kaidoh’s neck. “Is that too tight?”
Kaidoh hissed and stood up. The bell twinkled faintly. “It’s distracting,” the younger boy said flatly.
“Give yourself some time to adjust, Kaidoh,” Inui reassured him. “You’ll forget it’s there as soon as you start playing.” At seeing the consternation still on his kouhai’s face, he explained further. “This is the same method that Yamato-buchou used to start off the Golden Pair in their doubles training. The results are, as you can see now, indisputable.”
“Hoi, hoi, it works like a charm,” Eiji put in. “You don’t even have to do anything, Kaidoh. The bell is just to let your partner learn your movements until he doesn’t even need to think to know your moves anymore, just like Oishi.”
“Hai.” Resigned to his fate under the onslaught of both his senpai-tachi, Kaidoh just picked up his racket and headed for the door.
The bell twinkled slightly as he stepped outside. And suddenly Oishi was by his side.
“Eiji?” The Seigaku fukubuchou looked somewhat confused.
“Nya?” The redhead hopped up to his doubles partner.
“I thought I heard—nevermind,” Oishi shook off whatever he was going to say and smiled at his partner. “Let’s go warm up, Eiji.”
“Let’s go!” Eiji echoed enthusiastically, and the Golden Pair headed off.
Inui and Kaidoh, after warming up also, began their practice game against Momoshiro and Echizen. Not long into their game, though, it became apparent that the use of the bell-collar was not working.
Despite Eiji’s claims, Kaidoh could not ignore the bell’s presence after the game started, no matter how hard he tried to focus. The tiny twinkling was simply too distracting, and the collar was an alien presence that itched around his neck. Inui, as well, was not playing as well as he usually did. Though for his part, it was because he was spending half his attention taking notes on Kaidoh’s reaction to the collar rather than his partner’s reactions in the context of the game. At the court change after the fifth game of the match, Kaidoh finally had enough.
“This isn’t working, senpai” he hissed to Inui.
“Give it some more time,” Inui persuaded.
“It’s loud and distracting and it’s chafing me,” Kaidoh complained, tugging at the collar and causing the bell to twinkle wildly.
“Ah! OISHI!!” The yell from the neighboring court suddenly diverted everyone’s attention.
Oishi turned back from where he had been staring in Kaidoh direction just in time to see the ball flash right by him.
“Oishi! What’s wrong with you today?” Eiji demanded of his partner petulantly. “Why do you keep staring over there?”
“Ah, sorry,” Oishi replied weakly. “It’s just… just…”
“Just what?” Eiji persisted when Oishi trailed off.
Oishi blushed slightly, though it was difficult to tell if it was from embarrassment or something else. “Just… I think I heard a bell… your bell…” He scratched at the back of his head. “Ne, you’re not wearing it all of a sudden, are you? I must be hearing things today…”
Eiji’s eyes had widened in shock on mention of the bell. “Ah… you’re not imaging it, Oishi. Inui borrowed it from me today to use in their training.” He looked at his partner curiously. “You can hear it from here?”
“Aa.” Oishi looked relieved. “I guess I’m not going crazy and hearing things after all,” he said ruefully as he turned to look at Kaidoh. Eiji followed suit, and Kaidoh was abruptly the uncomfortable focus of several pairs of eyes.
“Interesting,” Inui muttered from behind Kaidoh. “It seems that Oishi has been ingrained to the sound of the bell, even though he no longer needs it to read Kikumaru. A classic Pavlovian response.”
“Eh?” Kaidoh looked up blankly. Whatever his senpai was saying, it didn’t sound good to him.
“You’re wearing a bell-collar?” Momoshiro snickered from across the net, having picked up on the conversation. “So you’re a tamed animal now, eh, Mamushi?”
“Urusai!” Kaidoh snapped automatically, stalking up to Momo at the net. “You want to fight?!”
“Tch. Are we going to play or not?” Echizen asked from behind Momoshiro, sounding as bored as always.
Unfortunately, despite the anger spurring him and his best attempts at focusing, Kaidoh still found himself constantly being distracted by his bell-collar. When they finally lost the last game and the match, he couldn’t stand it any longer, and ripped the collar from his neck.
“I’m not wearing this anymore!” He exclaimed to Inui, shaking the twinkling bell at his senpai.
“OISHI!” Meanwhile, things had not fared any better on the other court, and the Golden Pair actually lost their match because Oishi constantly found himself torn between supporting his partner and his involuntary movements in response to Kaidoh’s bell.
“Sorry! Sorry!” Oishi apologized profusely.
But Eiji wasn’t even listening anymore. The redhead had stomped up to where Kaidoh was waving the collar at Inui, and swiped the offending object out of the second-year's hand in one smooth move.
“Nya! Stop distracting my Oishi! Get your own bell next time!” He glared at Inui and Kaidoh with all the fierceness of a fluffy kitten before stomping back to his partner in a huff.
“‘My’ Oishi?” Echizen quoted from across the net.
“You’ll understand when you’re older,” Momoshiro smirked.
“Ii data.” Inui had pulled out his notebook from nowhere and started to scribble in it, muttering as he wrote.
Kaidoh stomped away as soon as he started hearing disturbing sentiments from his senpai that sounded suspiciously like “…try it with bells on both partners.”
The rest of practice went by fairly normally, much to everyone’s relief. However, after it was over, Inui asked Kaidoh to come to his home to go over some of his analysis of the day’s events, as well as possible methods of further training. Kaidoh was naturally reticent about the whole thing, but as Inui predicted, his kouhai’s natural deference to his elders prevented him from telling Inui off.
When they got to Inui’s house, the older boy pulled out a box of various ornaments, and pulled out several bells of various sizes and shapes. He looked up at his fidgeting kouhai with light glinting off disturbing from his glasses.
“I thought we could use a different bell--” Inui began.
Kaidoh hissed and backed away before his senpai could finish talking. “Iie! I refuse.”
Inui froze at the words. He didn’t think the phrase that had been bothering him the last few weeks would make another appearance so soon.
His kouhai must have noticed the (alien) look of shock on his senpai’s face, because the normally terse boy hurried to explain.
“I’m not Kikumaru, senpai. We’re not the Golden Pair. That training method won’t work for us. The bell distracts me.”
Inui found enough of his voice to ask, numbly, “so you refuse because you think it wouldn’t work?”
Kaidoh gave him an odd look, then abruptly turned his head away. “Why else would I refuse y-- I agreed to all those other training methods and playing doubles, didn’t I?”
Now that Inui thought about it, Kaidoh’s previous rejection while amnesiac had been in response to the proposal of getting hit on the head again as a cure. Could it be? Could it be that Kaidoh’s acceptances and rejections of his suggestions had nothing to do with him, but actually with the sensibility of the suggestions themselves?
“Aa,” Inui muttered mechanically, still pondering his revelation. Well, that was that for the bell exercise, he supposed. Though, it was a pity since Kaidoh did rather look like a cute if frightening cat in that bell-collar.
“I am not a cat,” Kaidoh suddenly snapped, and Inui became aware that he had spoken that last thought aloud. The younger boy then hissed and blushed furiously, probably in response to the “cute” remark.
“A snake then?” Inui asked, half teasing. Since Kaidoh was being surprising forthcoming at the moment, he might as well take advantage of it.
“Iie, Inui-senpai, I am not a snake.” Kaidoh was too respectful to talk slowly to his senpai as if to a child, but his words definitely had overtones of the obvious to it. “You know I only hiss to intimidate my opponents and keep morons away from me (even if Momoshiro is too stupid to stay away). It’s just a habit now.”
“Aa. I see,” Inui muttered as he immediately pulled out his notebook to scribble down the new information.
Kaidoh shuddered at the mad grin on his senpai’s face as he worked in that frightening notebook. “I should be going now, senpai,” he said dully. It was probably better to escape now before he was roped anything else.
“Mmm,” Inui muttered, still distracted by the notebook. When he finished writing, he looked up and found Kaidoh still there, much to his surprise. His kouhai was staring oddly at him again with one hand on the door, as if struggling with some decision.
“Inui-senpai?”
“Yes, Kaidoh?”
“The next time you’re wondering about how my attunement affects me or… or what I think about y--things… just… ask me.” Instead of molesting the birds was left unsaid.
With that, Kaidoh disappeared out the door before Inui could reply, leaving his senpai to stare blankly at the closed door with an unfamiliar warmth in his chest and a slowly growing smile on his face.
~* Owari *~
Fukubuchou = Vice captain/president
Mamushi = Viper (Kaidoh's nickname)
Urusai = Shut up
Ii data = Good data (Inui's trademark saying)
Iie = No
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis and all associated characters belong to Konomi-sensei, not me. The idea of the Golden Pair using a bell for their doubles training in their first year was inspired (stolen) from The Golden Bell by Toasted Marshmallow, a GP fanfic I found on ffnet.
Continuity notes: I'm ignoring the part of anime continuity with Echizen going off to America during the nationals. I'm also ignoring the anime ranking matches had Echizen remained, cuz that would mean Kaidoh would've been dropped from the Regulars. I'm also not sure if I'm following manga continuity which has a line-up sans one of my favorite characters (Oishi). So I guess I'm just going to leave it vague and up in the air just what lineup/continuity I'm using.
Series: Psidai AU, part 3 of the InuKai sequence.
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Rating: G
Word Count: 1798
Pairings: Inui/Kaidoh, Golden Pair
Summary: It turns out that Pavlov isn’t just for the dogs. Kaidoh puts his foot down.
Timeline: Takes place sometime soon after Observation, a little before the Nationals.
After the misunderstanding with the birds, and a while for Kaidoh to stop glaring at him, Inui decided to switch tactics. With his kouhai already on guard, there was no further point to gather data through covert tactics.
Fortunately, the fact that the nationals were about to begin also contributed to his plans, since whenever doubles practice rolled around, they were invariably put together. After all, while Momoshiro and Kaidoh had a good doubles record, theirs was a pairing that simply could not be practiced by working together, since they’d indubitably end up wasting more time arguing with each other than actually practicing their play. This meant that doubles practice typically consisted of Inui-Kaidoh against Taka-Momo or Taka-Fuji, and on rare occasions, Momo-Echizen, with the Golden Pair rotating around to give each combination pointers.
…Well, most of the other combinations, at least. Since Inui had a stellar history in doubles himself, the training of his pairing with Kaidoh was usually left up to him. And now, since his previous observations had uncovered nothing that would contradict an animal side to his kouhai’s psyche, Inui thought he knew just how to further test his hypothesis.
That was how he came to be in the clubhouse before practice one afternoon, fastening an old worn bell-collar around the neck of a fidgeting Kaidoh while Eiji, the donator of said collar, looked on in amusement.
“There,” Inui reluctantly removed his hand from Kaidoh’s neck. “Is that too tight?”
Kaidoh hissed and stood up. The bell twinkled faintly. “It’s distracting,” the younger boy said flatly.
“Give yourself some time to adjust, Kaidoh,” Inui reassured him. “You’ll forget it’s there as soon as you start playing.” At seeing the consternation still on his kouhai’s face, he explained further. “This is the same method that Yamato-buchou used to start off the Golden Pair in their doubles training. The results are, as you can see now, indisputable.”
“Hoi, hoi, it works like a charm,” Eiji put in. “You don’t even have to do anything, Kaidoh. The bell is just to let your partner learn your movements until he doesn’t even need to think to know your moves anymore, just like Oishi.”
“Hai.” Resigned to his fate under the onslaught of both his senpai-tachi, Kaidoh just picked up his racket and headed for the door.
The bell twinkled slightly as he stepped outside. And suddenly Oishi was by his side.
“Eiji?” The Seigaku fukubuchou looked somewhat confused.
“Nya?” The redhead hopped up to his doubles partner.
“I thought I heard—nevermind,” Oishi shook off whatever he was going to say and smiled at his partner. “Let’s go warm up, Eiji.”
“Let’s go!” Eiji echoed enthusiastically, and the Golden Pair headed off.
Inui and Kaidoh, after warming up also, began their practice game against Momoshiro and Echizen. Not long into their game, though, it became apparent that the use of the bell-collar was not working.
Despite Eiji’s claims, Kaidoh could not ignore the bell’s presence after the game started, no matter how hard he tried to focus. The tiny twinkling was simply too distracting, and the collar was an alien presence that itched around his neck. Inui, as well, was not playing as well as he usually did. Though for his part, it was because he was spending half his attention taking notes on Kaidoh’s reaction to the collar rather than his partner’s reactions in the context of the game. At the court change after the fifth game of the match, Kaidoh finally had enough.
“This isn’t working, senpai” he hissed to Inui.
“Give it some more time,” Inui persuaded.
“It’s loud and distracting and it’s chafing me,” Kaidoh complained, tugging at the collar and causing the bell to twinkle wildly.
“Ah! OISHI!!” The yell from the neighboring court suddenly diverted everyone’s attention.
Oishi turned back from where he had been staring in Kaidoh direction just in time to see the ball flash right by him.
“Oishi! What’s wrong with you today?” Eiji demanded of his partner petulantly. “Why do you keep staring over there?”
“Ah, sorry,” Oishi replied weakly. “It’s just… just…”
“Just what?” Eiji persisted when Oishi trailed off.
Oishi blushed slightly, though it was difficult to tell if it was from embarrassment or something else. “Just… I think I heard a bell… your bell…” He scratched at the back of his head. “Ne, you’re not wearing it all of a sudden, are you? I must be hearing things today…”
Eiji’s eyes had widened in shock on mention of the bell. “Ah… you’re not imaging it, Oishi. Inui borrowed it from me today to use in their training.” He looked at his partner curiously. “You can hear it from here?”
“Aa.” Oishi looked relieved. “I guess I’m not going crazy and hearing things after all,” he said ruefully as he turned to look at Kaidoh. Eiji followed suit, and Kaidoh was abruptly the uncomfortable focus of several pairs of eyes.
“Interesting,” Inui muttered from behind Kaidoh. “It seems that Oishi has been ingrained to the sound of the bell, even though he no longer needs it to read Kikumaru. A classic Pavlovian response.”
“Eh?” Kaidoh looked up blankly. Whatever his senpai was saying, it didn’t sound good to him.
“You’re wearing a bell-collar?” Momoshiro snickered from across the net, having picked up on the conversation. “So you’re a tamed animal now, eh, Mamushi?”
“Urusai!” Kaidoh snapped automatically, stalking up to Momo at the net. “You want to fight?!”
“Tch. Are we going to play or not?” Echizen asked from behind Momoshiro, sounding as bored as always.
Unfortunately, despite the anger spurring him and his best attempts at focusing, Kaidoh still found himself constantly being distracted by his bell-collar. When they finally lost the last game and the match, he couldn’t stand it any longer, and ripped the collar from his neck.
“I’m not wearing this anymore!” He exclaimed to Inui, shaking the twinkling bell at his senpai.
“OISHI!” Meanwhile, things had not fared any better on the other court, and the Golden Pair actually lost their match because Oishi constantly found himself torn between supporting his partner and his involuntary movements in response to Kaidoh’s bell.
“Sorry! Sorry!” Oishi apologized profusely.
But Eiji wasn’t even listening anymore. The redhead had stomped up to where Kaidoh was waving the collar at Inui, and swiped the offending object out of the second-year's hand in one smooth move.
“Nya! Stop distracting my Oishi! Get your own bell next time!” He glared at Inui and Kaidoh with all the fierceness of a fluffy kitten before stomping back to his partner in a huff.
“‘My’ Oishi?” Echizen quoted from across the net.
“You’ll understand when you’re older,” Momoshiro smirked.
“Ii data.” Inui had pulled out his notebook from nowhere and started to scribble in it, muttering as he wrote.
Kaidoh stomped away as soon as he started hearing disturbing sentiments from his senpai that sounded suspiciously like “…try it with bells on both partners.”
The rest of practice went by fairly normally, much to everyone’s relief. However, after it was over, Inui asked Kaidoh to come to his home to go over some of his analysis of the day’s events, as well as possible methods of further training. Kaidoh was naturally reticent about the whole thing, but as Inui predicted, his kouhai’s natural deference to his elders prevented him from telling Inui off.
When they got to Inui’s house, the older boy pulled out a box of various ornaments, and pulled out several bells of various sizes and shapes. He looked up at his fidgeting kouhai with light glinting off disturbing from his glasses.
“I thought we could use a different bell--” Inui began.
Kaidoh hissed and backed away before his senpai could finish talking. “Iie! I refuse.”
Inui froze at the words. He didn’t think the phrase that had been bothering him the last few weeks would make another appearance so soon.
His kouhai must have noticed the (alien) look of shock on his senpai’s face, because the normally terse boy hurried to explain.
“I’m not Kikumaru, senpai. We’re not the Golden Pair. That training method won’t work for us. The bell distracts me.”
Inui found enough of his voice to ask, numbly, “so you refuse because you think it wouldn’t work?”
Kaidoh gave him an odd look, then abruptly turned his head away. “Why else would I refuse y-- I agreed to all those other training methods and playing doubles, didn’t I?”
Now that Inui thought about it, Kaidoh’s previous rejection while amnesiac had been in response to the proposal of getting hit on the head again as a cure. Could it be? Could it be that Kaidoh’s acceptances and rejections of his suggestions had nothing to do with him, but actually with the sensibility of the suggestions themselves?
“Aa,” Inui muttered mechanically, still pondering his revelation. Well, that was that for the bell exercise, he supposed. Though, it was a pity since Kaidoh did rather look like a cute if frightening cat in that bell-collar.
“I am not a cat,” Kaidoh suddenly snapped, and Inui became aware that he had spoken that last thought aloud. The younger boy then hissed and blushed furiously, probably in response to the “cute” remark.
“A snake then?” Inui asked, half teasing. Since Kaidoh was being surprising forthcoming at the moment, he might as well take advantage of it.
“Iie, Inui-senpai, I am not a snake.” Kaidoh was too respectful to talk slowly to his senpai as if to a child, but his words definitely had overtones of the obvious to it. “You know I only hiss to intimidate my opponents and keep morons away from me (even if Momoshiro is too stupid to stay away). It’s just a habit now.”
“Aa. I see,” Inui muttered as he immediately pulled out his notebook to scribble down the new information.
Kaidoh shuddered at the mad grin on his senpai’s face as he worked in that frightening notebook. “I should be going now, senpai,” he said dully. It was probably better to escape now before he was roped anything else.
“Mmm,” Inui muttered, still distracted by the notebook. When he finished writing, he looked up and found Kaidoh still there, much to his surprise. His kouhai was staring oddly at him again with one hand on the door, as if struggling with some decision.
“Inui-senpai?”
“Yes, Kaidoh?”
“The next time you’re wondering about how my attunement affects me or… or what I think about y--things… just… ask me.” Instead of molesting the birds was left unsaid.
With that, Kaidoh disappeared out the door before Inui could reply, leaving his senpai to stare blankly at the closed door with an unfamiliar warmth in his chest and a slowly growing smile on his face.
Fukubuchou = Vice captain/president
Mamushi = Viper (Kaidoh's nickname)
Urusai = Shut up
Ii data = Good data (Inui's trademark saying)
Iie = No
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis and all associated characters belong to Konomi-sensei, not me. The idea of the Golden Pair using a bell for their doubles training in their first year was inspired (stolen) from The Golden Bell by Toasted Marshmallow, a GP fanfic I found on ffnet.
Continuity notes: I'm ignoring the part of anime continuity with Echizen going off to America during the nationals. I'm also ignoring the anime ranking matches had Echizen remained, cuz that would mean Kaidoh would've been dropped from the Regulars. I'm also not sure if I'm following manga continuity which has a line-up sans one of my favorite characters (Oishi). So I guess I'm just going to leave it vague and up in the air just what lineup/continuity I'm using.
