I hate this part... it seemed like a good idea at the time though... oh, and I edited the last part of Chapter 24 as well.
Disclaimer: Riichiro Inagaki and Yusuke Murata own. I only love a character.
"Hey, wake up." Kris felt a finger jab her side sharply and she rolled onto her side, curling into a ball. "... damn mutt, get up." Hiruma poked her again, this time on the back of her neck and ten to fifteen times.
"Gah! Shit! I'm up, I'm up! Stop!" She wrenched his hand away from her neck and shot him a glare while sitting up. "What time is it?" She yawned and noticed that the light didn't hurt her head near as much as it had when she had first woken up.
"You missed school, but you're fucking coming to practice." Hiruma stated, trying to get his hand back from her. "If you really wanna hold my hand that bad you have to pay ten thousand yen." He said finally and Kris let go immediately.
"Touch my neck again and I'll cut your hand off." Kris growled threateningly.
"I'm trembling in my cleats." Hiruma snickered and turned to walk out. "Oh, and we started practicing in separate groups this morning- in the practice you missed. You're in mine." He stated, and walked out.
"I really am trembling in my cleats..." Kris muttered and hopped off the roulette table. "My clothes are old enough to work construction in..." she muttered and walked out the door to the sounds of normal construction. "... I'm going to kill that boy." She growled, pressing her temples with her fore and middle fingers before walking over to the site of the new locker rooms and receiving instructions to unload lumber from one of the trucks.
"It's just so irresponsible! And it's a foul habit to get into, worse than Hiruma's mouth!" Kris was using the table as a pillow as she received her lecture from Mamori. Hiruma had told her everything and Kris was currently plotting to kill him. "... and his compulsive lying as well!" She added for good measure.
"I know, I'm sorry Mamori-chan." Kris apologized with a sad smile. "I'll never do it again." She promised, it was half true... she would never get drunk again if she could help it and she probably wouldn't touch alcohol for a while. "Just... please don't tell Kyle?" She asked hopefully, Mamori was only informed of her role in this when she had gotten to school and Hiruma had explained why Kris wasn't in her uniform and looked like she was dead.
"... fine." Mamori sighed she was immediately hugged by an ecstatic Kris and had to smile.
"I'm exhausted..." Sena sighed, coming in with his school uniform on and flopping into a seat, the rest of the team slouched in behind him. "Th-thank you." He stuttered as Mamori started massaging his shoulders.
"It's sure gonna be tough to practice after working construction." Monta slouched cross legged on a chair and stretching his shoulder out.
"Is it gonna be this hardcore until the locker room is built?" Kuroki puffed.
"Looks like it, Kuroki-kun." Kris sighed, leaning against the wall.
"Hey, she knows my name." Kuroki said in surprise.
"And yet I'm too tired to remember the other two... oh well." She smiled when Jumonji started fuming.
"It'll be three weeks at the earliest until completion." The lead carpenter told them, leaning against the door to the club. "If the boss weren't in the hospital, it might be a little sooner."
"He hasn't been discharged yet?" Hiruma walked into the club with an AK-47 leaning on his shoulder.
"No, not for a while." Was the answer; Sena let out a gasp.
"Come to think of it, I still haven't gone to visit Sakuraba-san." Sena said, sitting up. "But I don't know which hospital..." he admitted, swiveling his chair around.
"I tried to find out because I wanted to send flowers from the Devil Bats..." Mamori rested her cheek on her right hand and crossed her left across her stomach. "But it must be a secret so that his fans don't disturb him."
"Ask Hiruma, nothings a fu-" Kris stopped, and coughed before saying, "secret to him." Mamori nodded as if considering her idea, oblivious to her almost using Hiruma's favorite word..
"The boss is at Joka-Machi Hospital..." the lead carpenter said, attracting Mamori and Sena's attention. "And since mid-April... there's been a football player with a bone fracture in room 418. He's a celebrity." He added, pushing off the wall and crossing his arms. "I think they said he was Sakuraba from Jari Productions..."
"Th-that's him! He's the one!" Sena stood quickly.
"That guy from the American Burger commercial?" Kris asked, raising a brow.
"Yeah, aren't you excited you'll get to meet him if you go with them?" Hiruma rolled his eyes, unwrapping a piece of gum.
"Pretty-boys aren't my type." Kris stated, shaking her head.
"Aw, poor Lank." Hiruma gave a mocking pout and wrote something in his black book. Mamori went with Monta and Sena to pick out a fruit basket from the Deimon Sun-Sun East store.
"Yeah, sure..." Kris muttered and her cell phone rang. "... oh... God... please tell me you said something to Kyle?" She asked as the name 'Ky-Ky' flashed across the front of her phone. She looked at Hiruma who pointedly ignored her.
"H-hello?" Kris answered quickly before her phone went to voice mail.
"Hey, did you have fun at Midori's?"
"Mamori..." Kris corrected him, confused beyond all reason. He sounded cheerful, and not mad that she was gone for the entire night.
"Yeah, her." He said, same cheerfulness and Kris could imagine the huge grin he probably had. She mouthed 'what the fuck?' to Hiruma but he just sniggered lightly and shrugged, closing his eyes and leaning back with his feet on the roulette table. Kurita and Daikichi were watching an old football game with Kurita explaining the things the line were doing and why. The Huh Brothers had left already.
"Uh... yeah! I had lots of fun... but I have to go, I'll call you later." Kris said quickly and hung up just after Kyle said 'later'.
"Hiruma..." Kris whined. "... I'm more confused!"
"Good, now go away." He replied, cracking an eye open.
"... explain." She demanded with frown, walking over and sitting in the seat next to him at the roulette table.
"Since when do I take orders from you?" He raised a brow and looked over at her.
"Since I asked you nicely."
"What part of whining is 'nice'?" Hiruma scoffed and rolled his eyes.
"Why did Kyle think I spent the night with Mamori?"
"Because, as much as I'd enjoy watching him go psycho big brother on you I chose to not be a bastard this once and save your ass." Hiruma sneered, closing his eyes and leaning back again. "Got it?"
"That I now owe you big time?" Kris smiled and scratched the back of her neck nervously. "Yeah... wanna hug?" She spread her arms out with a cheesy smile. Hiruma eyed her up and down with a raised brow.
"I'll pass." He stated, locking eyes with her. Kris blinked and averted her eyes to the screen, she still saw Hiruma, but Kurita was standing next to him, a score board was also visible.
"0-54 in the third quarter?" Kris asked, seeing the names above the scores.
"Yeah." Hiruma shrugged. "It was Ojo." He said it like it explained everything.
"Right... the only way that score could be possible is if you guys sucked and they were really good."
"Me and damn fatass were the only people in the football club last year... the others were just support." Hiruma said with a frown.
"... sorry." Kris muttered, feeling that she might have- if possible- hit a soft spot on the demon.
"Whatever..." Hiruma stared at the screen in silence for a little while before saying: "This is my last year."
"Huh?" Kris asked turning towards him. She was startled that he'd said something. "I thought that you had one more year...?"
"At Deimon you have to quit all clubs for your third year so that you can focus on college exams." He informed her and shrugged. "This is the last year for us to make it to the Christmas Bowl."
"... I see." Kris nodded, understanding the hectic training and the do-or-die attitude that drove him.
"This year we've got the damn brothers, fatass jr., and the damn pipsqueaks... also you... this year, we have to make it." Hiruma said confidently. Kris nodded, watching the determined look on his face fade back to normality and Hiruma looked over at her. He looked like he was about to say something when the door to the club slid open and Mamori walked in.
"Well, they should be back in about a half-hour." She smiled cheerfully and grabbed her school bag, pulling out a few books and opening them. "Now for you to make up your work that you missed as school today.
"Oh, goody..." Kris grimaced and Hiruma cackled at her before standing and walking out.
Kris walked out of the club- finally finished with her work. Monta and Sena had returned a few minute earlier- an hour past the time Mamori had predicted- with a pillow from the hospital for some reason. She saw a few people heading home from their own clubs and was just past the work-out room when three people hurried out, muttering about 'a jerk'. "Hey," she stopped them. "Who's in the work-out room?"
"Hiruma-sama." One of them answered softly, as if afraid to say his name. "He's been in there for about an hour, he just kicked us out."
"Alone? That idiot." She growled when they nodded. When she called him an 'idiot' their eyes widened- horrified- and quickly ran off. Kris went inside the work-out room which- for some reason- had the lights out except for the few over the bench presses. She saw Hiruma benching about fifty kilograms and walked quietly over with all the intent of chewing him out for not having a spotting partner. 'I think Mamori-chan is rubbing off on me...' Kris thought wryly just before she saw Hiruma's hand slip on the bar.
"Fuck...!" Hiruma muttered, clenching his eyes shut on reflex just before Kris caught the bar and quickly racked it.
"The hell are you thinking?!" She asked, clenching the bar with her left hand and smacking him in the side of the head with her right.
"That's a fucking good question for you." Hiruma snarled, standing and glaring at her over the bar.
"I asked first." Kris growled. "You could have hurt yourself!"
"You sound like the fucking manager!"
"Maybe because in this case she would have the most logic!" Kris retorted. "The first rule of the bench is to always have a spotting partner for a reason!"
"Why do you care?!" Hiruma wiped his sweaty hands on his pants (what had caused him to slip in the first place) and rested them on the bar between them.
"Because I...!" Kris paused and swallowed dryly.
"Because you...?" Hiruma's eyes narrowed but were thrown wide open by her next action.
Kris leaned up and pressed her lips gently to his.