Keeping Track

By Kay

Disclaimer: Wish I did, wish I did, wish I did. If wishes were footballs, Hiruma would be a happy demon lord.

Author's Notes: Musashi/Hiruma implications, spoilers for the Wild Gunmen and Devil Bats game in the tournament. Please enjoy!

"You kept track," Musashi says, not because he's surprised but because he's still not sure how to apologize properly, and not even sure he wants to. This is a safe foothold—as safe as it ever gets with Hiruma, anyway.

Hiruma makes a noncommittal noise. He's rubbing a towel over his face, scrubbing at the sweat. His mouth is muffled by terry cloth when he tells Musashi, "So were you, fuckin' old man."

Musashi can't deny it. "I don't look that old anymore."

"Hadn't noticed." And Hiruma glances at him, as if actually taking it in for the first time even though they both know he's already catalogued it all down to the last detail, every little change, every thing he'll want to change, the proportions of Musashi's jaw and the steel to his grin. When Hiruma's eyes slide away, resting instead on the far edge of the field where the Gunmen are still celebrating, Musashi feels almost cold. "It'll have to do," and now he's laughing like a man who just won the gamble of his life, "for now, at least."

The corner of Musashi's mouth twitches up, for the first time in what feels like years. A lifetime. "I was about to say the exact same thing about the Deimon Devil Bats team. Funny, huh?"

No grin should have that many teeth. He's missed it. "The fuckin' shrimp's gonna make it. We're going to Christmas Bowl."

"Yeah."

"All of us, even the idiots."

"Especially the idiots."

"You won't leave again," Hiruma says. It's not a question. Musashi answers it, anyway.

"No."

"Good." And Hiruma deposits the damp towel in his arms, all business except for the way his hand rests just a little too heavy, a little too long. "Because if you do, I'll fuckin' kill you."

And forgiveness, Musashi discovers, is a little scratchy and an ugly shade of blue, but it's so light around his neck that he doesn't care at all.

The End