what_we_dream: (Eyeshield 21)
[personal profile] what_we_dream
Title: The Spice of Life
Series: Eyeshield 21
Pairing: Hiruma/Mamori
Rating: PG for cursing

Summary: Not very many things surprise him. He's smart enough not to let go of the ones that do.


Hiruma learns very young that intelligence and predictability have a positive relationship. The smarter you are, the more predictable the world becomes. School curriculum, games, people, it’s all the same. If you’re smart enough, there’s very little that you don’t see coming.

Hiruma is very smart. By the age of 14, he’s also very, very bored.

The first time Hiruma blackmails a teacher, it’s almost inadvertent. He catches his math teacher with the music teacher in the supply room. The next day in class, his math teacher starts to reprimand him for his uncompleted homework, and Hiruma looks up. He doesn’t particularly mean to menace the man, he just happens to catch his eye in such a way that it’s challenging. And the teacher backs down. Hiruma rides the high of his surprise for almost a week. And then he starts laying plans.

The first time he sees American Football, Hiruma thinks it looks ridiculous. A quick read of the rules show the stratagem possibilities to be relatively simple – they all revolve around three options: run, throw, kick. Then he plays in a skirmish, and realises very quickly that the game is much more complex than he realised. And that that ever-changing complexity is fun.

The first time Hiruma meets Anezaki Mamori, she is trying to pull his newly-recruited genius running back out of the football club. And as she starts to threaten him – she, who as a member of the disciplinary committee, has the power to have him kicked off the team – Hiruma begins to pull out his little black book. And then puts it back in shock as she tells him she won’t kick him off the team, despite having caught him red-handed, despite her beloved underclassman lolling melodramatically in her arms, despite knowing all the infractions the rest of the committee have been too afraid to punish him for. He’s never been so shocked.

If she hadn’t voluntarily joined the club he might have blackmailed her into it, just for the heady rush of being constantly surprised.

----------------------------------------------------

“You are not seriously going to allow students to gamble in here,” she says, with her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed.

“Gambling? What gambling?” Hiruma gives her a look of wide-eyed innocence. Anezaki reaches out without looking and pulls the dust-sheet off the slot machines. Points, wordlessly. Hiruma shrugs.

“Oh, that gambling. Aa. It’ll provide good revenue. After all, it’s not like we’re going to be holding bake sales or any of that crap.”

“We cannot fund this club through illegal activities!

“What the hell d’you think built this club? Good Samaritanism?”

The fucking manager purses her lips. Hiruma stares back. Off to the side, the fucking baldy opens the club door, looks in, and then slowly closes it again.

Finally, Anezaki looks over at the machines. “What odds are you offering?”

“1 in 4.”

“Make it 1 in 3, and I’ll look the other way. Provided you set a maximum of 2,000 yen per student per week.”

“Are you trying to bankrupt us?”

“Are you trying to get arrested?

Hiruma frowns. “Che. Fucking miser.”

She sticks out her hand. “Do we have a deal?”

He takes it; her skin is soft and cool. He puts on a hard face, sharp teeth showing. “Fine. But don’t expect to see a cut of the profits.”

Anezaki stares right back at him. “As long as I see all of them in the monthly books, I don’t want to.”

----------------------------------------------------

For several minutes, they all stare in dejection at the posters advertising tomorrow’s unscheduled match on home-turf. Or rather, the half of the posters’ page which advertise the game – the other half is completely blank.

“It’s okay, Sena.” The fucking manager puts a comforting hand on the goddamn useless runt’s shoulder as he cowers in the corner. “Anyone can make a mistake.”

“It is not fucking ‘okay’,” growls Hiruma, pulling out a P90. “It’s a fucking disgraceful disaster.” With the game tomorrow, there’s no time to photocopy more afterschool today. Or to blackmail the principal into arranging for some. “Someone’s going to have to sneak into the staffroom and photocopy these again. Which means someone’s going to get detention for the next week.”

He turns on the runt; his aiming is intercepted by a mop before he’s anywhere near a lethal trajectory. “You, fucking runt, are too necessary to sacrifice.”

Behind the manager, the kid sighs in relief. Hiruma continues to swivel until he’s staring at Yukimitsu. The fucking baldy is already shrugging in a mix of fear and resignation. “You, fucking baldy,” begins Hiruma, and gets no further.

“Don’t be ridiculous Hiruma-kun. Of course Yukimitsu is necessary. I’ll do it.” She picks up the original poster from the table, giving him a cool look.

“You’re gonna sneak into the staff room and photocopy that? You know clubs don’t have permission to photocopy without approval from their sponsoring teacher, and the useless fucker is out on medical leave again.”

“I do know, and yes I am.” She puts down the mop and marches out of the clubhouse.

She’s back half an hour later just as they’re heading out for classes, with an armful of posters and the first detention of her life.

----------------------------------------------------

Anezaki raises a hand to her mouth, smiling with coy maliciousness. “We’ll obliterate the red team!”

----------------------------------------------------

“I’m going back out there,” he tells her in the dark room below the stadium, staring out the tiny glass window towards the light. “Wrap my arms. Both of them.”

She turns to look at him, face white and eyes hard. “Hiruma, you can’t –”

“Do it, fucking manager.”

“Are you crazy? Your arm is broken, if you go out there on the field you could shatter it. You could damage it permanently.” She makes a wide, cutting gesture. He doesn’t break eye contact. Stares her down, as he’s tried to do unsuccessfully so many times before. This time there are no guns, no shouting and cackling, no larger-than-life persona. Just the two of them in the empty room, and his dream in jeopardy on the other side of the door.

“Anezaki. Do it.”

She opens her mouth, and then closes it. Shakes her head, and picks up the bandages.

-------------------------------------------------------

Hiruma’s sitting on the bench during halftime, watching idly while the fucking manager and the damn cheerleader argue with the team on the other side of the field. They’ve been sent over as an official protest against the morons’ cheerleaders’ repeated throwing of pompoms and scarves onto the gridiron during game time. The Shirogane Dollars aren’t a strong team, but a distraction’s a distraction and Hiruma’s not willing to ignore any screwing around, no matter the stupidity level of the perpetrators.

The fucking manager and her sidekick make their protest to the Dollars’ manager and head cheerleader, who frown but eventually wilt under Anezaki’s razor wit. Hiruma, popping a stick of gum in his mouth, is about to turn away to plan out a couple of strategies, when he notices the Dollars’ quarterback step in front of the delegation.

The Dollars’ quarterback isn’t outstanding in any way, but whatever he says still manages to make the fucking manager turn red – not an easy feat. And then, as Hiruma watches with sharply-focused eyes, she raises a hand and slaps him across the face.

He’s on his feet before she’s finished whatever it is she’s saying, but there’s no protest as she and the fucking cheerleader return to their proper side of the field. By the time they’re back, he’s sitting on the bench again drawing out strategies on a pad of paper. He hardly looks up as they approach him.

“Got a bit too friendly for you, fucking manager?” he asks, looking up without raising his head. Anezaki, rubbing her hand, flushes slightly.

“Something like that,” she says, and hurries off to pick up some discarded water bottles.

Hiruma makes sure to trounce the bastard properly in the second half for the principle of the thing, but it’s only after the game that he hears from the damn cheerleader what was actually said.

“He said You-nii was a cheating scumbag who couldn’t win a game with his own skill against a team of pre-schoolers.”

-------------------------------------------------

Hiruma’s sitting alone in the clubroom updating the team website when she comes in, letting in a gust of cold winter night air in with her. The sun set hours ago, and the rest of the team has long since gone home. Anezaki’s skin is pale from the cold, but her face is flushed and her eyes and bright and narrow. She wasn’t at the afternoon practice, unusually; that she’s still here is just as surprising.

She marches right into the room until she’s standing right beside him. Hiruma looks up.

“Do you know Suita Amano?” she asks without preamble, hands on her hips. Close to, he can see that her lips are taut and white and her hands tense.

“3rd year class 4, soccer club, average grades, no girlfriend,” he answers.

“Do you know anything about him?” she asks, using her tone to distinguish the question from the nearly identical one she just asked. Hiruma raises an eyebrow.

“Are you asking if I can blackmail him, fucking manager?”

She doesn’t hesitate. “No. I’m asking if you can expel him.”

Hiruma blinks, and then shuts the lid on his computer with a loud click and sets it aside. “You want me to have him expelled. You?”

Anezaki crosses her arms. “Yes,” she says; her tone is almost certain.

Hiruma stands so suddenly she backs up, and then glares at him. But her glare changes to an expression of surprise as he moves to stand directly in front of her, staring down at her from inches away, close enough that he can smell the sweet shampoo she uses.

“What did he do to you?” His hand is fighting to reach out and catch hold of her; he fists his fingers and forces it down. But he already knows what her answer will be, and his heartbeat is slowing; she has not flinched from him, shows no fear or wariness.

She shakes her head coolly. “Nothing. Not – not to me. I can’t tell you. But I want him out of this school. Now. You of all people won’t tell me to go to the cops, or the teachers.”

“Nope. You’re not an idiot. You know what will happen if you report an incident involving someone else without naming names to the cops – fuck all – or to the school – a few questions.” He sits down and opens his computer again. Goes through a few files, and pulls a USB stick out to slide into its port. “And you know if you expel him and don’t report anything, he’ll just go on to do it again somewhere else.” He looks up at her in time to see her jaw clench, and pulls out the USB stick.

“Here. It’s got everything you need to get him kicked out of Deimon, if you’re smart about it.”

The fucking manager takes it from his hands almost gingerly, holding it between the tips of her fingers. “…That’s it?”

“You were expecting stacks of VHSes and wiretap transcripts?”

“No, I mean… You’re just going to give it to me? You don’t know what he did, you have no idea if this is the right thing or not.”

Hiruma shuts the laptop down and stands. “That’s right, fucking manager. It’s your choice, and your responsibility. You want to do this, you’re the one who pulls the trigger. Or were you hoping I’d do your dirty work for you?”

The fucking manager shakes her head slowly. “I was hoping you would care. You can ruin people with this, and you just give it away like it’s worthless?” She waves the data stick.

“Don’t be an idiot. Spilt secrets are useless.”

“Then why are you giving it to me?”

To his credit, he doesn’t freeze. Just extends his hand, palm up. “You don’t want it?” She doesn’t make to give it back, and he shrugs and pushes past her towards the door. “You’ve got what you want, fucking manager. Don’t ask questions.”

“But why?” she calls after him.

He turns back in the doorway, frosty air raising the hairs at the back of his neck. “You think I’d let someone I don’t trust manage my fucking team? Even if you are, apparently, more of a coward than I’d thought.” He steps outside before she can answer him. If he walks away faster than usual, there’s no one there to see.

The next morning, he finds the USB stick in his locker, with a note taped to it.

“I’ll find a better way. A.M.”

When he inserts it into his computer, he finds the stick has been formatted over. He laughs so hard the damn pipsqueak almost works up the nerve to ask him what he’s planning.

-------------------------------------------------------

“You did it,” she tells him, standing at his shoulder looking at the darkened stadium.

“Bah, barely. Next year those fucking brats’ll really have to –”

Anezaki takes his jaw in her hand, turns him to face her, and kisses him.
From: [identity profile] frauleinfrog.livejournal.com
Oooooh, right. Clearly it's been too long~ ^^;;;;

I do! I should be writing an application essay though. >.>

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