A/N: Dear Everyone, thanks for the Reviews. I'm crying with happiness. ::cries loudly::

Anyway, here's the next installment. Fast, yes? Only for you sweet people. Keep reading and REVIEW! I love it.

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"We need new cleats. " Mamori brought up the subject during one of their hang-out periods when they were supposed to be doing club activities. Hiruma was seated in his favorite chair, looking at a football magazine while everyone else was doing homework or going over strategy cards. Sena sensed some sort argument or confrontation coming on, one that he wasn't going to be happy with.

Hiruma turned from his magazine to look at her. He generously waited for her to make a point before just blowing her off.

"Look at these ones!" She held up a pair of shoes, two of the spikes missing and at least one that was loose. "You can't expect to win with these things!" Mamori sighed angrily and tossed them onto the table.

"Go buy them then." Hiruma turned back to his magazine, apparently not thinking this was that big of a problem. Sena thought about it critically, but he was sure his cleats were still in good shape. He wondered who owned those ones.

"It's a club expense! I'm not paying for them!" Mamori crossed her arms and glared at Hiruma.

"I'll pay you back," he said lazily in return.

"I don't have that kind of money!" She seemed to be irritated, but not mad. They were silent for a second. Apparently Hiruma couldn't come up with a response for that one.

Mamori unfolded her arms and softened her expression. "It'll just take a few hours-" Oh, Sena saw where this was going right away. He sat up quickly. "If you could just come with me really fast. I'm sure they won't let anyone but you pay anyway." She suggested innocently. Hiruma looked at her, annoyed.

'Say no!' Sena thought wildly, looking at Hiruma who wasn't looking at him. Too bad Monta wasn't there, or he would probably be helping out too.

Hiruma frowned, but made to stand up. "This better be worth it, Fucking Manager."

Sena abruptly stood up too, looking at the two of them intently. "I'll come too." They both looked at him, Mamori seeming more surprised than Hiruma.

"I thought you were on cleanup duty today…?" she replied nervously. Sena groaned inside his head. She was right: he needed to be back in the classroom in half an hour to wash everything down. He couldn't shirk it unless he was sick, and he had already attended classes today…

Sena looked down at the floor dejectedly.

"I'll go." That was Juumonji who had been reading Togano's Jump magazine. The other two piped up afterwards, although they didn't seem sure what for.

Hiruma looked slightly more surprised this time (he raised an eyebrow) and Sena could tell Mamori was sweating it out. She must have some sort of alternate plan…

"We really don't need so many-" She started, but Hiruma cut her off reluctantly.

"You guys are training with the Chameleons in an hour." Juumonji frowned. Apparently they had all forgotten that, too. Sena smiled weakly at Juumonji, trying to say thanks for the effort.

"It'll only be two or three hours…" Mamori commented, trying to make everyone feel better. No one said anything, so she mumbled something to Hiruma about going. As the captain followed Mamori out the front door he turned to Sena and gave him a questioning look. Sena just looked at him pathetically in response.

The room was silent until Monta burst in five minutes later. "Good afternoon-MAX!" Sena didn't even try to smile. Monta was worried for a second, but the shoes on the table caught his eye.

"H-hey!" he exclaimed, picking them up and looking at them closer. "What happened to my cleats?"

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Sena ended up doing most of the chores that his group was assigned to by himself. After Monta had arrived and Sena explained the situation to him, he took off towards the school, getting started early. Sena had already made up his mind to run and find the pair after everything that he needed to do at the school was done. It took longer than Sena would have liked, but he cut the time it usually took into a quarter. Now the problem was finding out were they were.

Unable to think of anything else to do, Sena just ran around up and down blocks in the general direction that they had headed. When he saw them, they were no where close to a cleat store and were not carrying any bags. Sena couldn't stop fast enough and ended up half way down the next block before he wasn't moving any more. He backed tracked what he needed to and approached them before either even noticed he had appeared.

"-like you." Mamori was talking at Hiruma seriously. Hiruma was looking away. Sena definitely picked exactly the right time (or wrong if it had been any other situation.) Both of his upperclassmen were surprised to see him; Mamori actually jumped when she noticed him a few seconds later.

"…I got finished early," he stated, innocent as Mamori had been earlier.

"S-Sena…" she was blushing deeply.

"We can't find the cleats store." Hiruma looked pointedly at Mamori, then dropped his gaze on Sena, relief barely apparent in his eyes.

"Um, actually…" Sena said shyly, almost blushing at Hiruma's gaze. "Monta said he had an extra pair of cleats--the ones you found were his old ones." Sena looked at Mamori for the second part of his sentence. It was a lie (and Mamori probably knew it) but she wouldn't say anything for fear of revealing herself. Hiruma nodded and looked annoyed.

"Back to the school, then, fucking manager." He emphasized the 'fucking' part. Mamori looked very embarrassed and like she was going to cry.

"Actually, this is close to my house, so I'll just go home." Another lie, but Sena didn't say anything. Hiruma didn't either.

Mamori took off around the corner, huffy and pouting, and the two boys watched until she was out of sight. Sena felt a little bad that he had done that to his long time friend, but he couldn't help but be jealous over Hiruma. He would tell her about them soon and then work everything out.

Sena didn't press Hiruma to tell him what happened, but it seemed like the older boy wanted to talk about it or say something.

"Did you know?" Hiruma asked Sena, looking out of the corner of his eye.

"Y-yeah. She told me a few days ago." He didn't feel like he should apologize, although every instinct in his body was telling him to. "I was really jealous when you went to that interview with her…" he added as an afterthought.

Hiruma just nodded and slipped his hands into his pockets. They walked back to the school in mostly silence. Sena decided that he would tell Mamori soon so he would stop feeling so guilty.

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A few hours later came the confrontation with Suzuna.

Sena was headed home by himself when Suzuna called out to him and skated down the street rather quickly to catch up.

"Mamori's upset. Do you know why?" she asked. Sena quirked an eyebrow. How did she know already? "…I called her…" She added as an afterthought and in response to Sena's strange look.

Sena looked away nervously. He definitely shouldn't tell her…

"She said she told Hiruma that she liked him," Suzuna started. Well, so much for avoiding the subject. "And then you showed up," she added as an afterthought.

"…yeah, something like that… I didn't really hear the conversation…" Sena made another attempt to avoid the subject.

Suzuna sighed and skated slowly along side Sena as he began to walk again. "I didn't think she would get a good response. It's just not the right way to deal with someone like Hiruma… You have to come on to him slowly-" Sena looked over at Suzuna, surprised. What was she saying?

She looked a little offended at Sena's look. "I just think they would make a cute couple, that's all. Gosh, Sena, you've been strange lately. I thought you would be happy for Mamori." For some reason, Sena was getting really mad with this conversation.

"It's not that, it's just… you make Hiruma sound like he needs to be handled or something…" he said poutily, speeding up his pace a little.

"Well, he's really hard to handle you know. I don't think he'll ever find true love…" she continued. Sena closed his eyes, trying to calm himself down.

"What are you talking about?! Why don't you just leave him alone?" It wasn't working very well: he was probably getting more pissed off than anything else.

"Sena, you are waaay over reacting! All I'm saying is that Hiruma needs to think about changing his attitude or he's not going to get any girls!" Suzuna was raising her voice now, as upset about this was Sena was.

"What if he doesn't want any girls? Did you think about that? Having a girlfriend doesn't make your life!"

"Oh yeah, and you would know, right? After you turned me down for no reason? Am I really that terrible?"

"Well, maybe I don't need any girls either!" Sena raged. He had changed in the last month, since they had been dating. Before he never would have gotten upset over a little gossip.

"Oh, so I guess you and Hiruma are just going to run off and be all happy gay together? Since you don't need girls?" She said snootily. Sena knew he should have stopped right there.

"Yeah, we will. I'm sure we'll be happier than we would be with either of you!" Sena took off around a corner, not outright running because he couldn't bear to leave the conversation there.

"Oh, so I guess you like him, right? That's why you don't like me?" Suzuna easily sped up to match Sena's speed.

"Yeah, that's exactly right! And he likes me too!" Sena stopped abruptly and faced her, angry forcing his eyebrows down in a defensive look. Suzuna didn't respond right away, somewhat surprised by what Sena said.

"You guys are…?" she left the question wide open, waiting for Sena.

Sena wasn't caught up in the moment any more, but he continued anyway. "We've been dating for a month." If he was going to tell Mamori too, he might as well take this small step. In fact, he felt a little better already.

Suzuna's mouth dropped. Sena turned back the way he had been walking and started off again. She followed for about two minutes before saying anything.

"I guess you want me to keep it a secret?" Suzuna asked calmly.

"I don't care." He hoped Hiruma didn't care either.

She seemed surprised, but neither of them said anything else. She slowed down until she was eventually stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Sena kept walking, taking deep breaths and trying to stop himself from looking back.