AN: Wow! I'm surprised that I got so many good responses! I was a bit sceptical about making an ongoing Hiruma/Sena fic, since there are hardly any people who are interested in Eyeshield 21 (as you can see from the few fics here O.o), so I had maybe expected… two people or so to respond on this xD. Thanks a lot, everyone!
And yeah, I've read most Hiruma/Sena fics here already (except for the angsty ongoing fics though, I don't like angst that much ; D), so pah T.T
Maybe I should start a challenge? XD Winner gets a drabble? Winner can choose whatever he/she wants to have in it? ; D. Just an idea though .
Here's the second chapter. Don't worry, it won't be such a cliché that Sena can ask anything of Hiruma…-grin-. Well, it might still be cliché-ish, but not really… THAT cliché… if ya catch my drift.
Warnings: Slight OOC-ness on Hiruma's behalf, cute Sena, boy x boy love (spread the Hiruma/Sena love everyone!), strangeness.
Chapter 2: the Demon
The next day, right before Sena left for school, he made sure he put the Devil's Handbook in a drawer. He then continued to lock it and pocketed the small key in his jeans, taking one look at it. He felt a bit like an idiot for doing so, but nonetheless wanted to be sure.
He swung his backpack on his back and left his house, saying a quick goodbye to his mother. As usual, Sena ran all the way to school; it was to build up some stamina for football. He really wanted to be a running back, score touchdowns and hear the crowd cheer for him; that really was his ultimate dream. Not to mention the fact that he wanted to stand alongside Kurita as they won the Christmas Bowl together.
He sighed, disappointed. Now that he thought about it, hope for making the team seemed to be very little for him. He had been refused five times already; how many more refusals could he handle? He wanted to work hard, but the only thing that kept him going was that stupid, impossible dream of making the football team.
As he looked down at the ground while running towards his school, he bumped into something soft.
"Oops, I'm sorry—" he stopped mid-sentence when he saw Juumonji towering over him, grinning lightly at Sena. "…sir," he squeaked finally, finishing the line he was going to say. Juumonji raised an eyebrow and grabbed Sena by his collar, pulling him closer.
"You're lucky the others aren't here with me, so I won't pound you good," he grunted, slipping his free hand into Sena's pocket, searching for the phone. The poor boy's eyes widened slightly when Juumonji grinned triumphantly at him and he feared that he had indeed found his cell phone—the taller boy pulled his hand away and looked at it, scowling. "Damn it, it's just some worthless book," he muttered.
Sena's breathing stopped, looking at the object Juumonji was holding in his hand. But… that can't be! he thought, eyes widening at the sight of his Devil's Handbook. I left it in the drawer! Maybe… in one swift motion, Sena grabbed the book from Juumonji's hands and pulled himself free from the boy's grasp, running away as fast as he could. He heard Juumonji calling him from behind, but nobody could keep up with him in such a big crowd; if there was one talent Sena had, it was avoiding people and always knowing which road to take.
After five minutes of constant running, Sena was close to his school, though he didn't go there immediately. Instead, he opted to hide himself underneath a small bridge, away from sight as he eyed the Devil's Handbook, inspecting everything from the leather cover to the skull.
He had been one hundred percent certain that he had left it at home this time; he had even locked it so nobody else could touch it. Was someone playing a prank? No, because they couldn't have access to the thing if it had been safely locked in a drawer… it had to be something else.
"But… it can't be cursed, right?" he muttered to himself, lightly tracing the pattern of the skull with the tip of his finger. "There are no such things as curses…right?" He looked at the book as if he wanted it to answer, but he got nothing.
He suddenly felt the urge to open it though.
Sena fumbled with the cover, opting to do it. Why was he so reluctant anyway? Oh yeah, 'cause he was a scaredy-cat. Sena sighed—why couldn't he just gather his courage and do it?
"It can't do any harm… can it?" he muttered to the book. As expected, it didn't respond, relieving Sena slightly. "Stop being such a wuss, Sena!" he scolded himself, firmly grabbing the cover. "It's just a book with a… very creepy name, but still just a book! Just open it already," with those thoughts in mind, Sena closed his eyes and grabbed the cover more tightly.
He quickly opened it.
While still holding his eyes closed, he tried to listen, feel and even smell something abnormal, but the only thing he heard was the water flowing down the river, the only thing he felt was the cool breeze and the only thing he smelled was the fresh scent of grass. He opened one eye and peeked at the book, which looked even more ragged and torn up now that he had opened it.
The pages were blank, Sena realised, and he opened his other eye, going through the pages one by one. Each was blank, though as he finally came across the very middle of the pages, he realised that there was only one filled.
Well, not exactly filled. There were only two words written there; two very small words filled the entire page. Sena blinked at them, wondering if the old man had played a prank on him or something, as he slowly read them out loud.
"Ya…ha?" he muttered.
He instantly wished he hadn't. Before he knew it, the pages started flapping themselves over, the book began glowing and burning and Sena threw it on the ground a couple of feet away from him, staring at it as the book continued. Sena slowly realised, as he took a better look at it, that the pages were filling themselves, black ink was starting to write words, but where it all came from he didn't know.
"What—what's happening!" he exclaimed. He wanted nothing more than to run away, but he found that his body had frozen. Whether it was because of the book, or just because he was just too scared to move, he didn't really know, but all he could keep his eyes on was that Devil's Handbook. The pages were still being filled and Sena realised that, when the last page was being written, the glowing stopped and the book didn't seem to be burning anymore.
Everything became quiet again.
Sena slowly blinked, still not taking his eyes off the book as he scrambled up. What the hell had happened? He crawled over to where the book was lying peacefully, his eyes falling on the couple of words that were scribbled at the end of the page.
"…Look up?" he asked, unconsciously following the Devil's Handbook's orders. He cast his eyes upwards.
Blinked.
And screamed.
Above him, like it was nothing, was a boy maybe a couple of years older than he was standing upside-down in the air, his hands lazily stored in his pockets and a demonic grin on his face.
"Yo," he said, getting one hand out of his pocket and waving at the stunned Sena, who looked at him with frightened eyes. The boy turned and let himself fall to the ground, landing graciously on his two feet. It enabled Sena to take in this person a little better; he was very tall, much taller than he was. That was the first thing he noticed.
The second thing were his long, pointy ears where he had two earrings pierced in each one. It gave him some sort of super-natural look; like an Elf, or a Demon, of some sort. Based on the rest of his appearance however, Sena took the latter; he looked more like a Demon.
His blond hair was spiky and stood up nearly straight, save for a small part that covered a little bit of his forehead, and his teeth were sharp and pointed, like a shark. He was thin, though his upper body was pretty muscled from what Sena could see and he wore all black clothes, from his shoes to his shirt.
The boy had an aura of superiority around him and he seemed to be someone who didn't take crap from anyone, nor did he seem like the kind of person who would take 'no' for an answer. Sena, despite the fear he felt, didn't think he was that evil either, despite the fact that he had the appearance of a devil.
"Who—what are you?" Sena asked, correcting himself in the middle of his question. It was rude to ask 'what', but that really was what he was curious about; no normal human being could stand upside down in the middle of the air or could come out of a book. The boy seemed irritated by his question and grabbed the Devil's Handbook from the ground, wiping off the dirt and mud.
"Well, that's pretty rude, you fucking shorty," he said. Sena wondered vaguely who was ruder, since this new boy had called him a 'fucking shorty', which was more insolent in his eyes than asking a perfectly normal question. "Yoichi Hiruma," he continued, not looking at Sena but going through the book. The smaller boy blinked at him from the ground, cocking his head confusedly.
Everything was still spinning from the things that were happening.
"Huh?" he asked him.
"That's my name, fucking idiot, Yoichi Hiruma," the boy, now identified as Hiruma, said. "You want me to spell it out for you or something? Che." Sena blinked again, looking at Hiruma who, after paging through the book, finally stopped and had a pleased look on his face as he started to read something. It took him a couple of seconds, before he started reading out loud for Sena, who had finally gathered enough courage to stand up from his position on the ground. "Kobayakawa Sena, age seventeen," Hiruma looked at Sena, before turning back to the book. "Fucking shorty, he looks more like thirteen to me," he muttered.
"Hey!" Sena objected, and was about to say something more, but was cut off by Hiruma.
"Desires, become a football-star. Fears, the dark and bullies. Best friend, Anezaki Mamori. Most embarrassing moment, getting his pants pulled down in front of the entire school in the third grade," Hiruma frowned, while Sena was turning red.
"H-How do you know all that!" he demanded, his fear momentarily forgotten as his anger built up. "Are you a stalker or something?" Hiruma cocked his head, tapping his index finger against his chin.
"Stalker?" he questioned.
"Yeah! You know, someone who follows other people around and is obsessed with them and stuff," the smaller one explained, his anger diminishing slightly as Hiruma honestly seemed to have no idea what he was talking about. He grinned, showing his pointed teeth as he closed in on Sena, who slightly cowered away in fear. He began wishing that he had never taken the book and that he would've listened to the old man as Hiruma threw an arm around his shoulder, holding up the book in front of Sena.
"This is you, right?" he asked, pointing at three small pictures of him that were glued on the yellow paper. At first, Sena was highly embarrassed (those were pictures of him, sleeping in his teddy-bear pajamas at the age of fifteen), but then began to observe the Devil's Handbook more closely, disbelieving his eyes. The pages didn't seem to be so old as before anymore, and the cover wasn't falling apart—it was instead making itself as seconds went by. He looked at Hiruma who was still intently reading Sena's profile, occasionally sneaking glances at the smaller boy whenever he read something embarrassing.
"Well, fucking shorty, it seems as though we're stuck together," Hiruma finally declared, shutting the book. Sena blinked vaguely, wondering what it was that Hiruma was talking about. "You opened the Devil's Handbook, right?" he explained, getting slightly annoyed with the boy who was pretty dense.
"Yeah…" Sena answered slowly, still not understanding where this was heading.
"Since you opened it, you gotta listen to me," Hiruma declared, grinning lightly, pointing a long finger at Sena's nose.
"Listen to… WHAT!" he exclaimed, eyes widening. This guy was kidding, right? He couldn't be serious about this… yeah, this was all some kind of bad joke. He was probably some new kid who got bullied into frightening Sena—that was probably it.
"Those are the rules, fucking chibi. You can read it in the handbook," Hiruma grinned as he opened the black cover and showed the first page of the Devil's Handbook, that previously had been empty. It was now filled with what seemed to be rules of some sort.
"If a human opens this Devil's Handbook, then he is bound to the spirit inside," Sena read out loud, narrowing his eyes. "The human may ask for favors from the spirit, but it is up to the spirit whether or not he fulfills them. If the human fails to listen to the spirit's request, it may encourage him to do so with violence or release of information about the human's personal life." Sena cocked his head, looking at Hiruma.
"What does that mean?" he asked him.
"It means that I can either hurt you or give everyone in school, at home or whatever embarrassing information about you if you don't listen to what I say. This book contains everything I need to know about you in order to do that, fucking pipsqueak," he replied. "Are ya done reading or what?" Sena shook his head, finding this little game they were playing slightly amusing, though a bit creepy. They were really going far to make him into an errand-boy again. He had to give Hiruma some credit though; he sure was a good actor.
"When the spirit is satisfied with all four of his requests, the spirit will be forced to go back into the Devil's Handbook until another human frees him," Sena continued. He raised an eyebrow. "So you can ask for four things?" Hiruma nodded. "But what if I'm not able to fulfil them?"
"Then I can ask ya for something else," he replied, grinning. "It says, 'when I'm satisfied', right? So it all just depends on whether or not I'm happy with it. If I'm not happy, then I won't leave ya until I am." Sena became a little dizzy and looked away from the Devil's Handbook; there was one rule left, but it wasn't so important ('If the subject burns, destroys or throws the book away, the spirit will always come back to him/her') and instead he fell on his knees, laughing lightly. Hiruma raised an eyebrow at the human's odd behaviour.
"Haha, I can't believe this!" Sena said happily, clutching his stomach while he chuckled. "I can't believe the guys at school would actually do this just to bully me!" Hiruma once again cocked his head, letting himself fall on his butt so he could look in Sena's eyes.
"Sorry, fucking pipsqueak, but this ain't no joke. You're bound to me and I'm bound to you, for as long as I want to be. And since I haven't left that goddamn book for the pas three hundred years, I ain't going anywhere."
By the seriousness in Hiruma's voice, Sena realised that Hiruma wasn't joking. He was dead serious.
He fainted.