Chapter Seventy Two: A Yankee Doodle Dandy

Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.

Song Playing: Asleep At The Wheel- Kings of the Texas Swing album

Theme 64: Day

It was Wednesday and because it was Wednesday Hiruma was sitting in her kitchen talking football while she cooked. If you had told her way back in high school that this would be a regular occurrence she would have laughed. It would have been rude and she would have felt bad about it but the fact is should have laughed until her sides hurt at the absurdity of it. Now he was probably her best friend, in a weird sort of round-about way.

So she did what she had been doing every Wednesday for the last year, trying out a new recipe from her Grandmother's old book while Hiruma sat at her table like he owned it.

This week was something called a potato salad. Personally it didn't appeal to her at all. It was very… white and kind of slimy looking. But she had made a promise to herself to make everything in the book at least once. So she had pushed forward despite some initial misgivings.

Finally she scooped out a bowl and put it in front of Hiruma before starting on the dishes. He'd eat it in his own time and based off his response she would put it in the keep pile or the toss pile. He was going on about scouting schedules when the room suddenly went dead silent.

Well that was odd. He normally didn't stop talking in the middle of a thought. Mamori looked over her shoulder to find him looking at his bowl with a rather concerning amount of concentration. "Are you okay?"

He looked right at her with a flash of something in his eyes that she didn't recognize. "What are you doing Saturday?"

Apparently she was walking thru a United States Army Base like some sort of civilian idiot. She felt severely underdressed in her summer dress and sandals. The bowl of potato salad that she was holding was becoming increasingly heavy. As was the apple pie she was carrying in her bag. Hiruma hadn't told her to bring the pie but he had said that he wanted to introduce her to some people. The way he spoke told her that these people were very important to him and so she had wanted to make a good impression.

Now she was kind of wishing she had asked a few more questions. Instead she took his words at face value. But, really, having her climb through a chain-link fence onto foreign government property was more than a little bit of a red flag.

Yeah, she really should have asked for a bit more information.

After wandering aimlessly for several minutes she wandered into a building in the hopes of finding someone who could help. From all the beds and smattering of personal belongings it looked like she had found her way into the barracks. Upon finding no one she heaved a sigh and was getting ready to give Hiruma a call when the sound of a door opening caused her to turn around.

"Hey!" A large man with spikey hair and a cigarette gangling from his mouth stepped into the room. "What do you think you're doing?"

It took a moment for her to realize that the man was speaking English. Well, duh. American Army Base. Right. Filtering thru her mind for the translations and vocabulary she answered back in what she hoped was passible English. "I'm sorry. I'm supposed to meet someone here."

"This isn't a visiting kind of place lady." Seems it was passable enough. "I don't know how you got in here but this isn't public property and right now? You're trespassing so I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

This wasn't going well at all.

"I don't want trouble. I'm just want to find my friend. His name is Hiruma. Youichi Hiruma." The man's face went blank so she continued to elaborate. "This tall, lots of crazy yellow hair, pointy ears?"

His expression went from blank to suspicious. "What did you say your name was?"

"Oh!" Manners, right. She shifted her bowl over so that she can hold out her hand. "I'm Mamori Anezaki."

This prompted a reaction she honestly hadn't been expecting. The man stopped mid handshake and stared at her like she had just grown an extra head. He also looked dangerously close to either dropping or swallowing his cigarette. "Are you shitting me?"

Her brow furrowed at such a crude and sudden statement. "Excuse me?"

"Fuck." What he said seemed to have caught up with him as he started turning red from embarrassment. He struggled to regain some semblance of composure. "Shit, fuck! I'm sorry. I didn't mean- that is-fuck."

So far that whole composure thing wasn't working for him.

"Could you just-" He began to edge his way back to the door. "Wait here for a minute. I've gotta, you know. Wait here."

And because she didn't know what else to do, she nodded. "Sure."

"Yeah, okay then." He looked back before facing her. He held out his hands like he was afraid she was going to bolt the moment his back was turned. "Right here."

Whatever Hiruma had gotten her into she was going to make him regret it later. She gave the other man a small smile. "Right here."

"Right. I'll be back in just a second." He gave her one more disbelieving look before swiftly disappearing back outside. Then, in a bellowing voice that almost caused her to drop her potato salad, she heard him yell: "She's fucking real!"

After that there seemed to be quite a bit of commotion.

When she had been trying to find someone to help her she couldn't find a soul but at that man's bellow she heard a stampede of footsteps followed by a whole lot very loud talking. This continued for several minutes before the door burst open and a whole slew of men were crowding each other to look at her without crossing the threshold.

Not knowing what else to do she gave them all an uncertain wave.

A few of them waved back before they all scrambled back out the door leaving her more confused than ever. She was seriously considering sneaking out one of the few windows when the door opened. The strange man with the cigarette followed an equally giant black man into the room.

For what felt like a small eternity the three of them stood in an awkward triangle making and avoiding eye contact. The new man decided to break the ice in the most straight forward approach possible. "So."

"So." Was she fidgeting? It felt like she was fidgeting under his stare.

This time he wasn't breaking eye contact. He was looking right at her. "You're Mamori Anezaki."

"Yes."

If it was possible his gaze felt heavier. "THE Mamori Anezaki."

"… Yes." She had to work really hard to make her answer a statement instead of a question.

"Hiruma's girl."

Something had definitely gotten lost in translation. "Pardon me?"

"You're Mamori Anazaki." She nodded. "Hiruma's girl." And he lost her again.

Sensing he wasn't getting anywhere with that line of questioning he switched gears. "Don't worry about it. How about we go back outside and I'll take you over and I'll introduce you to the rest of the guys?"

"Oh." Well she guessed she was going to be allowed to stay after all. "Okay. So do you have names or-?"

"Yeah, right, sorry about that. I'm Johnson." The three of them started their trek thru the base. He hitched his thumb to the smoker to his right. "This is Anderson."

Anderson raised up his hand. "Nice to meet 'cha. Sorry about before."

"That's alright." They rounded a corner and she was suddenly in the middle of a party. There were grills, bowls of chips, coolers full of drinks, and most of all the almost overwhelming presence of the American flag. Everything seemed to be red, white, blue or some sort of combination of the three.

They seemed to be celebrating something but what could-oh. Oh! She ran through the date in her head again and confirmed her initial thought. It was American Independence Day. And she was on an American Army Base.

Things just got interesting.

"Hey!" Johnson put a hand on her shoulder. Heads turned and she felt very much in the spotlight. "This is Mamori Anezaki."

There was a pause.

In that great bellowing voice from before Anderson shouted: "Hiruma's girl!"

Suddenly everyone was clambering about her and Johnson was naming them off. "So we got Daniels, Brooks, and Ford. Then there's Miller, Hennessy, Martinez, Haines-"

It was at this point Mamori basically gave up on learning any of their surnames. At least they all seemed friendly enough. Everyone seemed to want to talk to her, to shake her hand, to offer her some food, or a drink. By the time Hiruma waltzed in thirty minutes later, armed to the teeth with a vast artillery of fireworks, she thought she had a pretty good idea about what was going on.

Apparently they had all known Hiruma for a long time and had actually helped foster his passion for American football. They all seemed to have a genuine fondness for him as well. This both surprised and pleased her. Up until now she hadn't heard of anyone outside their small group that harbored any actual affection for the abrasive quarterback. But they did. They talked about him like he was one of the gang.

And boy could they talk.

She was sure she had learned more about Hiruma in that afternoon than she had in years of friendship. The most startling being that he seemed to talk about her.

A lot.

They recalled victories and events with such detail that the only way they could have done it is if they had heard the story on a fairly regular basis. And it wasn't just about club stuff. They seemed to know more personal stuff. They asked about her major, about her lack of drawing skills, and the pros/ cons of various pastries.

When Hiruma had finally shown up, all grins and explosives, she wasn't sure what to feel. On the one hand she was actually extremely flattered, if not a little embarrassed, that he spoke so highly of her. That he talked about her often enough with this band of brothers that they not only knew of her but they really knew her.

Even if they apparently thought she wasn't actually a real person up until this point.

She settled for being pleased with a side dose of confused.

Now she was sitting on a wooden bench between Hiruma and Johnson eating what Hennessy referred to as genuine Texas BBQ. All in all it was shaping up to be a pretty good, if not a little strange day.

"Holy shit." The one they called Davis was starting at his potato salad, which clearly had a rather large forkful of it missing, like he had found the Holy Grail. "Who made this?"

Before she could volunteer any sort of response Hiruma had slung an arm across her shoulders in a warm half embrace. "Who do you fucking think?"

It might have been the summer heat but Mamori could have sworn there was pride in his voice.

"Well damn." Davis helped himself to another forkful. "It's just like the potato salad my mom used to make."

"Oh." That was sweet. "Well thank you."

They were all a little quiet after that. With some light conversation but mostly focused on eating. There were some more grunts of approval and compliments. After a few moments she broke the silence and nodded toward the end of the table. "I also made an apple pie."

After a split second of hesitation dozens of hands made a grab for the pie and after some friendly/ not so friendly jabbing everyone managed to get a slice. In almost perfect synchronization all the Americans took a bite and melted into their seats a little. If it wasn't so flattering it might have been a little worrying.

"Well you fucking Yanks?" There was a challenge but also a hint of something else. She didn't have the right word for it but it was like he wanted their approval. For some strange reason it mattered to him that they liked her.

They all looked at each other. Then, as one giant chorus, answered back with a resounding: "She can stay."

Hiruma beamed.