Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.
Author's Note: Not exactly a romance, but I just thought this would be funny. For the many reasons why rabbits thump, see Understand-Your-Rabbit
Long Pass: Pets
No fuzzies were harmed in the making of this fic.
"What the hell is that?"
"It's a rabbit."
"What the fuck is it doing here?"
Mamori sighed. "Yoichi, I told you about this last week. My friend Sara's roommate is moving in with her boyfriend, and he's allergic to rabbits so she can't keep Mr. Bunny. I agreed to take care of him until he could find a new home."
They were in the American Football club offices at Saikyodai and Hiruma had entered after his morning classes to find this fuzzy, hopping thing on the office table. His finger was still pointing at it accusingly.
"Why? Can't Sara take it? It's her damn roommate."
"But she's spending this semester overseas, remember?"
He glared at the rabbit. "We don't need more fucking pets. We just got rid of Butaberus," they had given him to Kurita as Enma's mascot, to the pig's everlasting relief, "and we still have Cerberus." His mouth suddenly stretched in a wide grin. "Kekeke! Or were you planning on Mr. Bunny being the new food source?"
Mamori smacked his arm lightly. "Don't even think about it! Look," she said, when his mouth opened to make more arguments, "I'm going to be late for class. I'll be back this afternoon for practice, and I expect to find Mr. Bunny safe and sound when I do: not exploded, not shot, and not eaten. Not missing, not in hiding, not "ran away, honestly," not anything but here, perfectly healthy, whole and traumatized in any way. Got it?"
Hiruma looked at her stern face and wondered if she realized how hot it was. He rolled his eyes. "Fine. The fucking hopper will be as safe as a damn virgin in a nunnery."
She beamed at him and kissed his cheek. "Thank you, Yoichi. Don't worry, Mr. Bunny won't be here long."
Hiruma spend the rest of the afternoon trying to find a loophole in his girlfriend's order. There wasn't, which made him simultaneously annoyed and proud that she knew him so well.
But the fucking hopper was just so annoying.
At first it was ok. Hiruma didn't have any afternoon classes that day, so settled into his usual routine of refreshing his player stats and drafting up the practice schedules for the next week. An hour passed in perfect silence except the tapping of his computer keys and he hardly even noticed the rabbit was there.
Then...thump.
The sound came out of nowhere, and the quarterback jumped. "What?"
He looked around. There was nothing.
Thump.
"The fuck?" This time he stood up, gun in hand, chewing furiously on his gum. He did a slow circuit around the room, peered out the windows and opened the door, but there was nothing and no one-
Thump thump.
"Goddamnit!" He whirled around. Where the hell was that sound coming from? He scanned the room again until his eyes fell on the table and-
The bunny's back leg spasmed as it hopped around the cage, causing a-thump!
"Stop that," Hiruma snapped. "It's fucking annoying."
Mr. Bunny stood up on his hind legs and twitched his nose.
"I mean it," said Hiruma, feeling vaguely ridiculous, and returned to his chair.
But however successful his intimidation tactics were on humans, they proved to be spectacularly ineffective on rabbits. Probably because he was prevented from blowing the fuzzy fucker up, so the damn thing thumped his way throughout the whole afternoon. Like what the hell? What the hell was all the damn thumping for?
Thinking that maybe the stupid rabbit was protesting its confinement in the cage (well, it's not like it could talk), Hiruma took it out of the cage and put it on the table. It hopped around peacefully for an hour and then resumed the damn thump. Maybe it was hungry-he fed it a carrot. It nibbled like its jaws were motorized and then-thump.
By the end of the afternoon, Hiruma was at his wits' end. There was no rhyme or reason to the thumping, so he couldn't ignore it like he would a ticking clock-instead the damn animal thumped whenever it freaking felt like it, derailing his thought processes. He didn't get any work done.
That's it, he though crazily. Mamori was going to be mad, but Hiruma Yoichi was not going to let some fuzzy motherfucker get the best of him. Cackling, he found his largest gun and-
"DON'T SHOOT MR. BUNNY!"
The Saikyodai players looked at each other and then ran the rest of the way across the field.
The shouting was coming from their club offices and they reached the doorway just as their manager snatched a white rabbit from the table and held it protectively to her chest. She was glaring at their quarterback captain, who had been pointing one of his obscenely large guns at the animal.
"What did I tell you?" Mamori demanded.
Her boyfriend was looking even crazier than normal. "That rabbit," he spat, "is a fucking menace. It thumps! Like," he waved his hands around, "thumps whenever it fucking wants!"
Mamori stared at him. "Yoichi, are you feeling ok?"
Agon was already regretting his decision to come to practice that day.
"What's going on?" Banba rumbled from the doorway.
Hiruma pointed at him. "You! You told me yesterday that you wanted a fucking pet, didn't you?"
"What?" The lineman was taken aback. "No, I didn't-"
"Or you!" Hiruma pointed at Yamato. "You need something cute and fucking fuzzy in your life, don't you?"
Yamato's face clearly said that he thought his quarterback had lost it, but was too nice to say so. "Hiruma, why don't you calm down for a second-"
"This is stupid," Agon spat. "I can't believe the team is made up of such trash." He turned to go.
Unfortunately for him, Hiruma chose this moment to snatch the rabbit from Mamori and aimed at Agon's head. When the dread-locked one spun around to slap the gun away, he was showered with confetti from the trick gun. Hiruma dropped the rabbit into his hands.
"What the hell?" Agon yelled, the bunny looking up at him with terrified bunny eyes. Goddamn god-speed impulse.
Hiruma cackled. "Kekekeke! Congratulations, fucking dread. You are now the proud owner of a new bunny!"
"You blond trash-"
Everyone else looked aghast. "You can't give the bunny to Agon," Ikkyu protested. "He'll eat it!"
Silence. Even Taka looked surprised.
"What?"
Ikkyu cringed as Agon's glare transferred to him and hastened to explain. "Because Agon is, you know, evil..."
It occurred to him that that wasn't exactly the best thing to say either, and he hid behind Banba.
Agon scowled. "Again," he snarled, "this is stupid and I can't believe you all are such trash." He flung the rabbit away and stalked off.
"MR. BUNNY!" everyone else yelled.
"CATCH MAX!" came the reply.
"Huh?"
Monta rounded the corner. "All right, who's the monster throwing bunnies around?" he demanded. The shivering bunny was cradled to his chest.
Mamori gave sigh of relief. "Oh Monta, thank goodness. Come here quickly and get the rest of Mr. Bunny's things before the poor thing expires from fright." She glared at Hiruma. "I can't believe you. I told you that Mr. Bunny wasn't going to be here long. If you could have been a little patient, but no-"
"The bunny is Monta's?" asked Ikkyu.
The other receiver scratched the back of his head in an embarrassed sort of way. "Well, Wakana's really. Or it will be. It's sort of a surprise because her birthday is coming up and she said she always wanted a rabbit so...Mukyaa..." He trailed off, flushing red and hurried inside the clubhouse to gather the rest of Mr. Bunny's stuff.
After this, Agon eating things because of his EVULZ became a running joke throughout the rest of their college career. At least while his back was turned.
However, Wakana was very happy with her new pet. Her new pet was even happier to be away from the crazies. And Monta was ever happier with Wakana's reaction to her gift.
Mamori, on the other hand, fumed at Hiruma until he gave her a whole box of Kariya creampuffs. Every day. For a week. When he added wearing the bunny suit from high school, she laughed and gave in. The rest of the team's chuckles were held at bay when Hiruma immediately turned around and forced them to run laps by chasing them with his M-16.
"Run, my fucking forest friends! RUN! KEKEKEKEKE!"
Just another semester at Saikyodai.