Title: Leading the Visually Challenged

Series: None

Fandom: Prince of Tennis

Rating: G Pairing: InuKai

Genre: Light romance and humor

Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis and all associated characters belong to Konomi-sensei. I m not making anything off of this.

Leading the Visually Challenged

After a long afternoon of strenuous workouts, Inui stopped at the park water fountain to rinse the sweat from his face before heading home. After thoroughly drenching his head under the tap and then cursorily wiping it with his towel, he reached for his ever-present square glasses only to have his hands meet bare stone where the frames should have been.

Slowly, as he felt along the entire surface of the fountain and then the nearby ground, Inui felt a sense of panic starting to settle in. His glasses were missing. He couldn't see without them. He didn't even have a spare pair with him, since he hadn't had the chance to replace it after the match against Rikkai Dai. How in the world was he supposed to get around now?

"Inui-senpai?"

The familiar voice jolted Inui out of his preoccupation. His head jerked up in response, only to get conked against the edge of the fountain that he was searching under.

"Ite-ite-ite!"

Rubbing at his head, Inui decided that seeing stars wasn't an improvement over seeing blurred nothingness.

"S-sorry, Inui-senpai! Are you all right?"

Of all the days for his kouhai to take this route through the park on his evening run – and Inui knew he did so only 30% of the time – it would have to be this one. If Inui hadn't been worried enough to be grateful for someone with functional sight to look for his glasses for him, he'd have been mortified. Well, more mortified than he already was.

With a resigned sigh, Inui carefully felt his way back up from under the fountain and turned toward the direction that Kaidoh's voice had come from.

"I'm all right, Kaidoh," he said with as much calm as he could muster. "You merely caught me by surprise."

There was a moment of silence where Inui waited for Kaidoh to respond. However, he didn't hear any reply from the vaguely human-shaped blur in front of him, not even the trademark hiss. For a moment, Inui wondered if he'd imagined Kaidoh's voice or if he was accidentally staring at some piece of statuary.

"Kaidoh?" Inui took a step toward the blurry figure, hoping that being closer would allow him to see if he'd been making a fool out of himself.

"I-Inui-senpai!" Kaidoh stuttered, seeming to have recovered from his lapse. "Watch out for that--"

Inui's foot came into contact with something hard, throwing off his balance as he careened forward.

"--step."

"Wagh!"

"Nnff!"

Instead of landing on the cold hard ground, however, Inui landed on something much softer and definitely human. That was strange, he thought idly, since according to his calculations, the size of the human-shaped blur indicated that it was definitely not that close by. Were his (admittedly handicapped) observations off or… did Kaidoh move?

"Inui-senpai…" From somewhere directly above him, Kaidoh sounded as if he was speaking through clenched teeth. "Are you all right?"

Realizing that, in intercepting his fall, Kaidoh had taken the worst of the impact to the ground, Inui felt like flushing. Really, it was hardly the role of a senpai to need his kouhai to look after him. Mentally, he made a note to repay the favor by making Momoshiro be the one to taste test his next batch of Inui Juice.

Pushing himself up from his kouhai's lap (yet another reason to be mortified about this whole incident), Inui squinted at where Kaidoh's head should be, relative to the greenish blur that indicated his bandanna.

"Yes, I'm fine except for my pride," he replied, standing. "Though as you've no doubt noticed, I'm having a bit of trouble seeing."

"Anou… y-your glasses…" Kaidoh was still stuttering nervously, though Inui couldn't think of any reason why. Was he still winded by the fall?

"I distinctly remember placing them on top of the fountain," Inui told him. "However, I can't seem to find them now. Can you see where they are?"

He heard rather than saw Kaidoh also getting to his feet and shuffling around the fountain.

"Sorry, senpai, but I don't see your glasses anywhere."

"That can't be right," Inui frowned and he started to mumble to himself while he thought over the problem. "I only took them off to wash my face, and even if they'd fallen, they couldn't have landed too far away. It's not like they could walk off by themselves, and I doubt someone would have any reason to walk by and take--" He suddenly froze as one possibility sprang into mind.

"--My notebook!" Inui looked wildly around, trying to see the bench where he'd left his equipment on. "Did someone use that as a distraction to steal--"

"Senpai!" He heard Kaidoh call out through his panic. "Your notebook is fine."

Inui jumped as something was pushed into his hand. With a sigh, he recognized the familiar feel of his notebook. Kaidoh had apparently retrieved the item while he was panicking. That was a relief, since the notebook contained Inui's own data, and there would have been hell to pay if someone had stolen it.

However, that also left no possible motive for anyone to take his glasses, and thus no clue at all where they had gone.

Inui sighed again. "This is going to be a problem," he mumbled rhetorically.

He felt a slight tug on his sleeve.

"Inui-senpai, I can help you get home," Kaidoh offered.

"That's… nice of you, Kaidoh" Inui replied tentatively. It was also rather embarrassing, but it looked as if he had no other choice.

With his kouhai's help, Inui gathered up the rest of his things and made ready for the arduous journey home. They quickly found out that verbal instructions weren't much help to prevent Inui from tripping over things in his path, so he ended up taking a hold of Kaidoh's arm as a guide. Somehow, a few steps later, that turned into a hold on the younger boy's hand.

Inui felt quite embarrassed on top of his helplessness. He could also well imagine that Kaidoh must be blushing red now. It was such a pity that he was in no condition to see it or enjoy the other's embarrassment.

But before they had left the confines of the park, Kaidoh suddenly came to a stop, causing Inui to bump into his back.

"Kaidoh? What is it?"

"Fsshhhhuuu… Senpai, I think I see your glasses," Kaidoh mumbled back, sounding rather hesitant.

"You do? Where? Who took it?" Inui's hand tightened for a moment on his kouhai's as he wildly looked around to no avail.

"Ah… I'll get it, senpai," Kaidoh told him quickly. "I'll be right back."

And then he was gone, his steps receding. Inui blinked where he stood and all of a sudden missed the warm touch of a hand in his and the closeness of Kaidoh's presence. Straining his ears, Inui tried to pick out what was going on.

"Tsu, tsu, tsu… Hora, hora…"

Was that Kaidoh? Who could he possibly be saying that kind of thing to? Had it been a little child who had wandered by and taken his glasses? Or was it a--

"REEOOW!"

"Fsshrrrkkk."

--a cat? Inui looked in vain toward the direction where the sounds were coming from, but suddenly Kaidoh was back by his side, and then the world crystallized into shape as a pair of glasses was gently slipped onto his face.

Inui's hand automatically went up to adjust his glasses as he stared into Kaidoh's embarrassed face.

"…Senpai?"

Inui smiled. "Aa. These are my glasses. Thank you."

Kaidoh hissed and blushed, his eyes turning down to look at the ground. It was then that Inui noticed that his kouhai was missing his bandanna, and he wondered how he had been certain of Kaidoh's identity a moment ago without the telltale marker. He filed the thought away and looked around. Immediately, he saw the true culprit behind his missing glasses.

"Is that Echizen's cat?"

"Aa."

Inui stared at the Himalayan, who was now in possession of Kaidoh's missing bandanna and looked as if it was not going to let go any time soon. He supposed that he was only lucky that the creature hadn't scratched his glasses while it had them in custody.

"You're not going to get your bandanna back?"

Kaidoh shrugged and looked down even more. His blush must have deepened. "No. It can keep that."

Inui nodded. "Then I suppose I should get you a new bandanna to replace it."

"Eh?" Kaidoh's head snapped back up. "Y-you don't have to do that, senpai."

"Nonsense," Inui told him firmly as he grasped his kouhai by the elbow and started to steer the other out of the park. "Since you've obviously sacrificed your bandanna to get my glasses back, it's only right I should get you something to repay you for the help."

"B-but…"

"I've already decided, Kaidoh. Don't argue with your senpai."

"…Hai."

Inui cautiously let his hand slide down from Kaidoh's elbow, but instead of withdrawing, he grabbed the other's hand again. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kaidoh flush bright red as the younger boy stared fixedly at the ground.

But Kaidoh hadn't complained. Ii data.

"Let's also have dinner out somewhere tonight. My treat."

"Eh? Anou…but…I…" Kaidoh shot a look at his implacable senpai and sighed. "Fssshhuuu… Hai."

Inui grinned.

~ owari ~

Author s Notes:

This was actually written back in 05. I'm just now getting around to publishing it here.

This fic is primarily inspired by the chibi-episode where Inui s glasses went missing. I remember when I saw the episode at the time that I suspected Karupin at first, since the sneaky cat was lurking around the fountain when Inui realized his glasses were gone. Of course, since I like my InuKai, the story is written with only the two characters in mind, and with less crackiness than you d find in a chibi-ep.

The title is inspired by a cool line from Highlander: the Series, where Methos snarks to Duncan or Joe to the effect of talk about the blind leading the visually challenged.