Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21. Darn.

Author's note: Follows shortly after Short Pass: Almost.

Short Pass: Birthday

It's the little things.

It started with a box.

A box wrapped in pretty red metallic paper, tied with a gold ribbon edged in black. When she unwrapped it, inside was probably the biggest creampuff she had ever seen, Kariya's special super deluxe edition, and a small card saying, "Happy Birthday." There was no name.

Mamori stared at it. It was sitting in her locker when she got to school that morning and she had no idea who it was from. She might have worried how it could have gotten in her locker in the first place, but it wasn't as if Deimon High had very secure locks. If you popped the door in the right place, it would spring open-she'd had to help Sena numerous times when he forgot his combination. Come to think of it, she'd given Sena her combination when he first started at Deimon as another place to store his stuff, since the bullies used to steal things from his locker and make him do errands to earn them back.

She took the box to practice that day and beamed at her de-facto little brother. "Thank you so much, Sena!"

The boy blinked at her, pausing in the middle of lacing up his shoes. "For what, Mamori-neechan?"

She held out the box. "For this! I wasn't sure that you remembered."

"Remember what-AHH!" Sena's face contorted in a ghastly manner. "I'm sorry, I completely forgot!"

"Forgot what?" Monta asked him.

Mamori's heart sank a little. She hadn't wanted to make a big deal this year, what with everything going on and them still buzzing about what they had learned at the Oujou school festival yesterday, but she would have thought that Sena would have remembered on his own. Oh well. "It's okay," she reassured the running back. "I didn't say anything-"

"What's going on?" asked Suzuna, skating up. She eyed Sena's face, which was a terrible mask of guilt. "What did you do?"

Sena gave her a tragic look. "I-I-I forgot it's Mamori-neechan's birthday."

Silence.

"MUKYAAA?"

"WHAT?"

Mamori was mortified. Now the whole team was running over, trying to figure out what was going on. "No really! It's ok!"

"Why didn't you say anything?" Suzuna demanded.

"Well, we've been so busy lately that I-"

Sena was desperately searching his stuff. "I...I have a pencil I haven't used yet," he said, looking like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die. He held it out to her. "You can have it, if you want..."

Mamori laughed. "No, you can keep it-"

Not to be outdone, Monta shoved a banana in her face. "I haven't eaten this banana yet-"

Suddenly everyone was pushing things at her. New erasers, pens, a loaf of bread (Kurita), a reference book (Yukimitsu), the newest issue of Jump (Toganou)...

"It's fine!" Mamori cried desperately, trying to make herself heard over the babble of voices. "No, I don't need an autographed picture, Taki-"

BANG. "What the fuck is going on out here?"

Everyone jumped and turned around to see Hiruma standing at the clubhouse door. He'd fired a shot in the air.

"We forgot Mamori-neesan's birthday!" everyone told him.

He stared at them all and blew a bubble. "And what," he said, "the fuck does that have to do with anything? Get on the field, you fucking brats!" He fired another shot that sent them scrambling to their practice areas.

Suzuna, however, didn't. Instead she put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "What do you mean, what does that have to do with anything? A girl's birthday is very important!"

"Do you know who put this in my locker?" Mamori asked.

He looked at her and then grinned in that evil way of his. "Kekekekeke! Of course."

"Really?" Then Mamori wondered why she was so surprised. Hiruma probably knew what everyone in school had for breakfast that morning. "Then can you tell me who-"

"Run faster, idiots!" he yelled, striding out onto the field. "Do you think that you think you'll beat Oujou with those slow asses? I'll get Cerberus out if you don't-"

Suzuna sighed, and picked up her pom-poms. "You-nii is impossible sometimes." She walked over to where the rest of the cheerleaders were. "Okay girls, routine 21!"

Well...thank you, whoever you are, Mamori thought, setting the box carefully aside and picking up her clipboard.

"I'm surprised you haven't finished that yet, fucking manager."

Mamori looked up to see Hiruma leaning back in his chair, looking pointedly at the remains of the creampuff still sitting at her elbow. As usual for after practice, they were alone in the clubhouse. She was sitting at the table, trying to organize her notes from the Oujou Knights vs. Sado Golem game, while he was typing away at that computer of his doing...well, whatever he did to come up with all those plays.

"Well...it's Kariya's super deluxe size," she answered. There was still about a quarter left. "I'd get sick if I ate it all at once. Besides, I owe it to whoever gave it to me to savor it, don't you think?"

"Hmph." He turned back to his computer. "You're weird, fucking manager." He typed away for a few more minutes before realizing that she was still looking at him. "What?"

"How's your head?"

"Fine. Don't worry about it-I told you not to worry about it."

She'd gotten up to take a look herself. "I don't trust your 'fine," she retorted. "You told me you were fine after the game against Shinryuuji and you passed out in the street."

"I didn't pass out, those damn kids threw a ball at my fucking head-"

"Which you could have dodged if you were actually fine, but you weren't, so you didn't," she said matter of factly, gently pushing blond strands back from his hairline and temple to check on the scrape and the bump. He continued to hit buttons and blow bubbles. "Hmm...well, it looks like its scabbed over and the swelling is pretty much gone."

The bubble popped. "I told you," he said again and powered down his laptop. She stepped aside as he slid it into his bag and headed for the door-except he stopped to look down at the open creampuff box.

"Huh," he said, putting another piece of gum in his mouth. "I forgot." Opening another pocket in his bag, he took out something and placed it next to the creampuff before grinning at her stupefied expression. "There."

His laughter faded out the door as she slowly moved toward the table. Reaching into the box, she pulled out his new addition and smiled. It was a little figure of herself to match the ones he used to illustrate plays.

On the bottom was written, "Happy fucking birthday, manager."