It looked like rain.

The sky was dark, but that was normal for the early post-dawn hours of the morning. The sky was lit with a bleary, gray light instead of the usual colorful morning haze. Inui could feel the heaviness in the air, the condensation on the grass soaking the ankles of his jogging pants. It didn't really bother him, though, and it would bother him even less once he started jogging.

The air was thick -- he could taste it when he breathed.

He didn't have to wait long at the door, and he never had to knock. His partner was never late. Kaidoh emerged from the doorway, wearing his obligatory black tank top and broken-in sneakers.

"Senpai," he said quietly, nodding once at Inui.

"Ready?" Inui inquired. It was a stupid question, Kaidoh was always ready. He received a sharp nod in return.

These early-morning runs had become a ritual between the two, lately. One early Saturday morning, Inui had run into Kaidoh while on a run. They hadn't spoken, simply continued to run beside one another. For some reason, the presence of his senpai was comforting to Kaidoh, although they didn't say anything to one another, and it might as well have been exactly the same as if he were alone.

For some reason, he just felt better having Inui there.

They matched each other's pace evenly. Neither stopped for a break, neither seemed to get tired before the other -- or if they did, they didn't show it outwardly.

Inui had mused while he ran. He respected a good many things about Kaidoh, and a good many things about Kaidoh vexed him. Of course, he had quite comprehensive data on the other boy, about his tennis style, about the things he liked to do, and personally designed his training menus.

Kaidoh never followed the menus. Ever. He always went above and beyond. Knowing this, Inui tailored the menu to Kaidoh, wanting to make sure he didn't overexert himself and injure himself permanently. However, he always had a strange feeling that Kaidoh knew that he knew about Kaidoh's overachievements.

It was a losing battle.

At least, if Inui was with him, Kaidoh would never bring himself to be 'rude' and leave his senpai behind if Inui needed to stop or got tired.

Thus far, it hadn't come to that point. Up until now, they were matched, step for step.

Inui nodded back at Kaidoh, turned, and began to jog. He heard Kaidoh grunt in turn, and fall into step beside him.

These early Saturday mornings felt good. If they'd spoken, Inui and Kaidoh would have agreed on that point.

It was usually quiet, as people were mostly sleeping in from their Friday-night gallivanting trips or enjoying a much-needed day off from work. Or school. The weather was usually wonderful, but even when it wasn't, they ran anyway. A little rain or wind hardly bothered either of them.

Today, the sky was threatening menacingly with the promise of rain.

There was no thunder or lightning, but the air was charged. Inui mused about whether or not they would arrive back at Kaidoh's house before the humidity broke, and it began to pour. He calculated a 98.32 percent chance that they were going to end up soaking wet. Rather than deter him, this data only served to pique his curiosity to see whether or not he'd be correct. And as long as they didn't dawdle out in the rain for too long, there was virtually a zero percent chance of them getting sick from it.

Kaidoh looked up at the sky mid-run. He just wished it would hurry up and rain. He honestly didn't care what the weather was like -- he would run no matter what -- but he hated the sticky feeling that the humidity left on his skin when he wasn't even breaking a sweat from running yet. Even his shoes had felt damp when he pulled them on this morning.

He concentrated on letting himself be absorbed in the feeling of his muscles working into the run, letting everything else slip from his mind. He tended not to brood on trivial things too much anyway.

The only sounds he could hear were of restless birds chirping in the cloudy early morning, the beating of his own pulse in his ears, and the soft, evenly exerted breaths of Inui running beside him.

It was cathartic, it was calming, and it just plain felt good.

Once in a while he debated speaking, but Inui seemed just as content as he to remain silent, just enjoying the quiet and feeling of his muscles stretching, taking in whatever their surroundings offered.

Inui no longer noticed that the cuffs of his jogging pants were damp, or that beads of sweat were breaking out on his forehead and neck. It felt good to run and think, and that was really all that mattered.

He didn't even notice when the first half-dozen droplets of rain splashed against his skin. He was lost in thought, then, his feet carrying him along a well-known path that he didn't even have to think about consciously to stay on. And if he'd strayed, Kaidoh would have stopped him with a quiet, "Senpai?" and nudged him back on the correct path.

So his thoughts moved to tennis, because his life revolved around little else.

He thought about playing doubles with Kaidoh, and how they'd honestly bombed. Inui had thought that with his knowledge and data of Kaidoh and his play style that they'd be able to make a good doubles pair. He'd been completely wrong, really. He grudgingly had to acknowledge that he really much more approved of the Momoshiro-Kaidoh pair. They were the same age, and they drove each other on like nobody else could.

Inui wasn't certain, but he felt something strange at the thought of it. Perhaps a slight bit of bitterness. It wasn't jealousy. It was just that... Doubles had been his first love in tennis. He'd fallen in love with the game and the adrenaline rush it brought all those years ago, playing doubles. He was doing marginally well at singles in SEIGAKU, but with the arrival of Echizen he'd realized just how inept his data could be at times. He really didn't feel like he stood out at all, and losing his spot on the regulars temporarily had reaffirmed those feelings.

The pavement felt firm underneath Inui's feet, much to his own personal comfort. A few light drops of rain had splattered themselves on his glasses, but he didn't notice that it was raining until a large, fat drop had splashed between his eyes and pulled him from his musings. He sighed inwardly. He really thought far too much about things, but it was in his nature to get to the very basest particle of every matter, and pick it apart from the inside out. It had served him well in the past, really.

He stole a quick glance at Kaidoh, who seemed to also be paying no mind to the rain. They had run about 23 percent of their usual distance, and were almost halfway to the point where they would turn around and head back. With the absence of thunder or lightning, and the fact that the rain was very light, little more than a drizzle, Inui felt comfortable continuing the run. And of course, he knew Kaidoh would run whether or not a tsunami threatened them, so there would be no argument from him.

Inui felt a brief pang of something he didn't really understand during that brief glance. A heavy, silent sigh stole the breath from his lungs for a moment. He used the outrush of air to purge whatever feeling had just gripped him.

Facts were facts, no matter what one wished. One could not change that. One could manipulate raw data, but one could not change the nature of the data itself. One could not create data from nothing, or make data vanish. Einstein's theory of relativity was a lovely thing in text, but when applied to real life... well, things didn't always feel so simple.

They were both sweating with light exertion now, and the sweat refused to evaporate from their skin, due to the high moisture content in the air. The wind was beginning to blow angrily, but even that wasn't helping very much. The air that it blew across their faces and arms was heavy and moist.

Inui's thoughts crept back to tennis -- and more importantly the most recent match he'd played. It had been the first time he'd ever felt that he really shone at singles. For once, he felt like he'd earned his place among the SEIGAKU regulars in talent, passion, and ability, and not simply because of his data. It was a pivotal match for him, and a pivotal point in his life, although he didn't feel obligated to discuss it with anyone else.

Everything suddenly felt like it had changed, and yet everything felt like it stayed the same. He was still here, running with Kaidoh, like they did every Saturday morning. Like they would continue to do, every Saturday morning.

It would have been foolish to try and organize a doubles pair with Kaidoh, anyway. The facts and data were stacked there, undeniably. They were in different years, in different classes. At the end of this year, Inui would be attending high school, in a yet-to-be-determined school. It would only make it that much more difficult to establish a team and have it broken so very soon afterwards. At least Momoshiro and Kaidoh were in the same year, and could work together on their game, and grow and learn together. Regardless of what he felt, Inui had definitely been impressed by their ability to work as a team when it came down to the wire.

Perhaps he just felt wistful of the past, more certainly now that Yanagi Renji had appeared in his life again. He'd known that they would meet when SEIGAKU faced Rikkaidai, but it had been no more than a passing thought in the back of his mind until he'd actually seen Renji's face again. He felt suddenly like nothing had changed, and that they would be able to pick up right where they had left off.

And they did, in a way.

And in other ways... nothing was the same at all.

The rain was falling harder, but he didn't really notice. His shirt and jogging pants were speckled with dark spots from rain droplets. The rain was piling in droplets on the lenses of his glasses, but he really didn't need to see where he was going. His feet continued to carry him down that well-known path. The same path he ran every Saturday, with Kaidoh.

There was so much comfort in that one small thing, Inui nearly laughed in spite of himself.

The rain was making Kaidoh's hair stick to his face, what little of it splayed out from underneath his bandanna. The bandanna itself was getting waterlogged, but it would be easy enough to wring out when he got home. The rain was cold on his bare arms and legs, but it felt good compared to the heat his body was releasing from the exertion of the run.

Inui resisted the urge to steal another glance at Kaidoh, as though looking at him would suddenly solve all his problems, and answer all the questions buzzing in his head.

For a brief moment, Inui suddenly felt naked. He felt stripped of his data, stripped of his facts, and most of all stripped of his certainty of the future. Where was he going? What would happen to them all? SEIGAKU's regulars were going to be separated at the end of this year. The only ones that would remain were Kaidoh, Momoshiro, and Echizen. It felt like he was being pulled away from something he didn't want to let go of.

He worked it out in his head -- the percentages of where everyone would attend high school and college, the statistics of how many of them would remain in tennis and how many would pursue other goals and interests. Honestly, it was more speculation than anything, and the only thing he could come up with 100 percent certainty about was the fact that they were all going to go their separate ways.

They were all going to grow up.

A completely irrational feeling set itself upon Inui, who indignantly wanted to battle against this fact. He loved data. He loved the firm, unchanging nature of facts and science. Once you discovered a piece of irrefutable data, it stayed that way. You could mold it and shape it as you liked, but the data itself remained.

It still bothered him that no matter how good his data was, he would never make an adequate doubles pair with Kaidoh.

That part of him that clung silently, secretly to the past was hurt.

They reached the halfway point of their run, and when they turned to head back in the direction that they had come, Inui finally noticed that it was beginning to rain quite hard.

Inui wanted to laugh, honestly. He hated feeling like an emotional, vulnerable child.

That was another one of the reasons he kept himself so occupied with his data collection. He really had no time left to himself to muse or worry about things. He filled his life with facts and figures, with numbers and variables. Every question had an answer, and everything was certain.

It was extremely comfortable. And extremely safe.

The sky cracked open and began to pour.

They were already on their way back home, so there really wasn't much to do apart from continue until they reached their destination.

Inui laughed at himself inwardly. He'd spent all this time thinking about such stupid things, really. What was the point? He wasn't really accustomed to losing himself in thought this much, unless he was working on a project or immersed deeply in an experiment.

He glanced once more at Kaidoh, who looked calm and cool, as usual. He bit his lip in thought for a moment, before turning back to the road ahead of him.

It stretched out for what seemed like forever.

He knew this path would lead him home -- but he also knew there were so many different paths that intersected and crossed it along the way.

It was a strange way to think about life, but it was an accurate metaphor.

He knew the path that he was accustomed to treading, but what would happen if he took another? Where would he end up? If he took the road most traveled, he knew exactly where he was going, and where he would end up. Could there be something better along one of the other paths? Was it a risk he was willing to take?

What would it be like to plunge into the unknown, headfirst and eagerly -- like a diver immersing oneself in a deep, murky sea? Were there pearls to be dug, or would he just find sand?

Why did life suddenly feel so uncertain? All he was doing was running, like he did every Saturday, with the same person he ran with every Saturday. Nothing was different.

And yet, everything was.

Taking a deep breath, Inui tasted the rain. It was cold and refreshing.

Going around in circles of thought was only going to make him feel upset, and that was really completely unnecessary.

They had nearly reached their final destination, where they would part ways. Inui would return home after their run and sit at his desk, compiling whatever his newest data was, scribbling furiously in one of his many green notebooks. It would make him feel better, he thought, when he arrived home and was able to slip back into what was comfortable and familiar. Facts and figures were so utterly soothing. He could find himself lost in them for hours without realizing it.

The rain pounded the pavement in rhythm with their running feet. Their breathing was a little deeper, a little quicker. The sweat from the exercise was washed away in the rainfall, leaving them soaked through.

Inui stopped thinking, and ran.

When they reached Kaidoh's house, they were both panting, and short of breath. Inui's glasses were covered in raindrops, and he couldn't see anything. He took off his glasses to clean them, and Kaidoh avoided looking directly at his face, thinking it impolite since Inui took so many measures to keep his eyes hidden most of the time.

He did, however, steal a brief glance while trying to look away.

He saw something in Inui's gaze that made him blink, and then stare at the rain-wet ground, swallowing a lump in his throat.

"It was a good run, Kaidoh," Inui said, trying to wipe the water from his glasses, but his shirt was so completely soaked that all he succeeded in doing was smearing the water around.

"Hai," Kaidoh, as always, was a boy of few words. Inui still hadn't put his glasses back on. Kaidoh wiped the water from his face, pulling his dripping bandanna off.

Inui wiped the water dripping in rivulets off his own face. He smiled at Kaidoh.

"Same time next week?"

Kaidoh looked up when he saw Inui smile out of the corner of his eye. That look in his eyes from only moments before was gone, and his eyes were crinkling at the corners in a genuine smile.

He stored the memory in his mind. He didn't know if it was something he'd ever see again, and he knew it was something special. His eyes widened just slightly, before his usual cool expression returned.

"Hai, senpai," Kaidoh replied, his voice low. He nodded in affirmation before turning away to head inside.

Inui tried to wipe his glasses once more before putting them back on. They were miserably smeared, and he tucked them safely in his pants pocket instead of putting them back on.

The world was exactly the same as it had been, but it looked completely different.

But that was okay.

He didn't need to see. He knew exactly where he was going.

"Kaidoh."

Kaidoh, one foot inside the door to his house, turned and looked.

"Senpai?"

Inui grinned. "Thanks."

Kaidoh looked wonderfully confused. Inui didn't wait for him to respond before turning and running towards his own home.

He would see Kaidoh again next Saturday. And the Saturday after that. And the one after that, until there were no more Saturdays for them to run together. He would see what happened, then... but today, he was happy with the moment here and now.

He chose a different route home that day.