[fic] Kasa

Title: Kasa
Author: Ciara (zukkii)
Pairing(s): InuKai
Rating: PG
Warnings: Boy kissing, super saptastic fluff
Dedication: disutansu for pre-reading, the idea, and encouraging me.
Disclaimer: Idea mine, words mine, characters not mine: don't own, just playin' with 'em.
AN: It's sheeting rain out here from Hurricane Emily and I'm stuck at work writing. So here we go, fruits of my labor. This is a post-Seigaku fic, both are in college now. And, 'Kasa' is Japanese for Umbrella (My textbook says so. No grief on it). WC: 1,129.

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Kaidou regretfully walked out of the library and upon his first step, he found himself entangled in the torrential downpour of rain on the school. He knew if he were out for too long he’d be stuck with a fever and probably a thorough ear lashing from his mother and his senpai for his not taking better care of himself.

Luckily, an umbrella suddenly appeared over his head and the rain stopped drenching his hair. “Kaidou. I would have assumed you knew we were expecting typhoon-like rains today.”

“Inui-senpai,” he managed, swallowing. “I just stepped outside. I didn’t know it was raining.”

“Where are you heading?”

“The dorms,” he answered. Now in college, he lived on-campus and away from his parents. Inui attended this school and it had been a primary reason for his choosing it.

Inui hadn’t realized Kaidou was living here. He had his own apartment off-campus and refused to let anyone inside his sanctum. Kaidou though… Kaidou was his own monster. Kaidou was the sole person he would allow in, his parents excepted. “Are you doing studying or anything, Kaidou? I offer the quiet of my apartment if you need it.”

His eyes widened ever so lightly. “I…” Pause. Try that again. “I wouldn’t mind it, senpai.”

“Call me Inui, Kaidou. We’re no longer in the senpai-kouhai relationship we shared in junior high and high school. We’re on equal footing. Come with me.” Putting the umbrella back over their heads and nudging Kaidou forward, he pointed southeast and indicated that was their current direction.

Kaidou felt slightly unnerved. The closeness of sharing the umbrella was making Kaidou’s skin crawl in the weird way it did when they shared close quarters many times during their excursions in Seigaku during mountain retreats. Hell, even sharing a bed once during one of the excursions made him as nervous as this simple sharing an umbrella. Why?

Inui mentally noted Kaidou’s unease and also noted, with a drop of humor, Kaidou had been edging away from him and was now about halfway out from the umbrella’s cover. “Kaidou?” It was odd for him to not speak a word, even considering by now he’d often coerced a hiss of some sort from his former kouhai. Of course the older boy wasn’t blind to Kaidou’s feelings; it had never proved a suitable time to breech discourse on them. Perhaps now… “Kaidou, you’re walking out from the umbrella.”

His head jerked up when he felt mottled drops of water on his neck, slicking his hair down to his skin. He needed a shower. “Sorry,” he mumbled nearly incoherently as Inui pulled him close once more – to cover him with the umbrella. That was, at least, his aim. The arm over Kaidou’s shoulder to drag him inside the haven of dry cover remained there. “Uh, Inui…” Kaidou nodded his head toward the hand on his right shoulder, the one farthest from Inui, “your hand?”

“I’m making sure you don’t wander out from under the umbrella again and make yourself ill.” Kaidou had figured right. Of course Inui was taking care of him again. It only made sense, after their several years together from tennis. It ached to definitively decide that was Inui’s gesture, and not that he held some warmth in ways other than mere senpai-kouhai residual feeling for him.

“Of course, senpai… I mean Inui.” Kaidou would have to take a bit of time to get used to that. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Kaidou.” The warmth in his tone really made the ache amplify. “I’m glad to see you’re attending here. How are your courses? Making friends? Playing tennis still? Keeping your training regimen?”

“Che. Of course I am. I’ve faithfully continued it. I rather am accustomed to it now.” Cruel Inui, torturing me this way, his brain added. “And I’m doing well in classes… playing tennis… studying a lot.” He purposely left out any discussion on ‘friends’, as he knew Inui would understand. It was not that they purposely had small (if any, in Kaidou’s case) circles of friends, but more that their individual quirks left them barely any room to find like-minded people.

Inui did know. And he smiled. “It’s been a while now since I saw you last. You’ve grown two inches.”

“Yes.”

“I’m impressed. I hadn’t expected that to happen.” Kaidou had turned out rather amazingly, if Inui could say so. He had wondered a lot during Kaidou’s final year of high school how he’d turned out, since he didn’t make it home often. They hadn’t spoken much, either, that year, and Inui often had worried about his kouhai. Even now as they walked together in the rain, Inui wondered what other little things he’d missed from that one year of time. The arm around Kaidou tightened slightly.

Kaidou shivered at being pulled closer. He could tell it was a nervous twitch of Inui’s that had brought him closer but he wasn’t about to give up the warmth of Inui of which he was drawn into. Kaidou rested his head on Inui’s shoulder and let his left arm rest at Inui’s waist. A warm shiver of tension wracked his body, but he held it in check.

Inui kept walking, but with Kaidou’s arm around him and head on his shoulder, he now couldn’t restrain his questioning face. “Kaidou…?”

“Inui?” Kaidou waited for the rejection he assumed so readily would come and hoped wouldn’t. If there’s a god…

He merely smiled. “I don’t mind.” Both let out the breaths they didn’t realize until now they had been holding. “I…” How to say it. “I’ve wanted to for a while.”

“Me too.”

The two took pause on the street corner and waited for the crosswalk light to change. When it did, they crossed the street, still linked together, and waited on the corner for the other light to change. When it did, they rushed across and inside the gates to Inui’s apartment complex. They were greeted by a dainty flowerbed being doused by rain, along with a stonework fountain. Kaidou held his breath and tugged Inui’s shirt, bringing the older boy to face him. “Yes, Kaid”

He was unable to finish his sentence as Kaidou’s lips met his. Inui wished he could turn off the signals in his brain collecting data on this kiss – from the softness of his lips, the slight hesitation to daringly thrust his tongue into Inui’s mouth, the shiver in his spine when Inui finally returned the kiss. The umbrella tumbled to the ground beside them, forgotten, as their arms tangled around one another tightly and the kiss deepened. When it broke, Kaidou was first to speak. “We should go inside.”

Inui laughed, and nodded, noting they were already fairly drenched. “I think you’re right.”