Chapter 2:
***Hiruma's Flashback: Day Sleeping Beauty woke up***
Hiruma cracked open one eye and yawned loudly. He quickly straightened up and walked over to Sena. For the first time in many nights, Hiruma got a good night of rest free from nightmares and this made him suspicious. After checking over Sena and seeing that there were no changes in comparison to last night, Hiruma gave a quick sigh of relief. It was short lived as his sharp ears picked up the sound of loud chattering coming closer to the hospital room, forcing Hiruma to walk back to his seat. He managed to sit down and put on a blank face before the door opened to reveal the whole Deimon Devil Bats American Football team.
"You-nii" said Suzuna as she rollerbladed over to look at Sena. "How is he today?"
"Does the squirt look like he changed?" Hiruma replied
"No" Mamori whispered quietly to herself, but in the small hospital room, it was loud enough for everyone to hear clearly
Silence filled the room as everyone stared at Sena and as each person wandered around in their own thoughts. They were all there when it happened. It was Saturday afternoon and after practicing since the sun came up, Doburoku-sensei told the team to stop and take a break. Kurita's stomach was the first to express hunger, followed by Monta's, and soon the rest of the players' stomachs were growling. With a chuckle and suggestion from Dokuroku-sensei and a nod from Hiruma, the team decided to treat themselves for the day and went to the nearest restaurant for barbeque. It was a long walk from the school to the restaurant, but it felt shorter than usual when armed with good friends, nice weather, and light conversations on football. They were a street away from the restaurant when Sena stopped laughing and Mamori screamed, "Look Out!". Before the last syllable left her mouth, Sena rushed over and scooped the little kid out of danger, but Sena didn't see the car that was turning as he ran for the sidewalk. Upon contact, Sena crumbled to the ground, but luckily, the kid was protected from the car and from the fall, escaping only with a few cuts on one side of his arm. The driver immediately drove off and the Devilbats team forced their shock paralyzed bodies to run over to Sena as Hiruma wrote down the license plate and Mamori called the ambulance.
After the ordeal in the emergency room, the doctor reported that there were no severe or permanent damage, just some broken bones and a hit to the brain due to the fall. As a result, Sena was in a coma. The doctor reassured everyone as best as he could that Sena would wake up soon, but it was a question of time; it could be a few weeks or a few months at most. Ever since then, Hiruma had been accompanying Sena and the rest of the team would visit every day before practice though it was not the same without Hiruma's gunfire and yelling and Sena's face of determination.
As the Devilbats experienced their own little flashbacks, they were startled to hear footsteps coming closer to the room. Once again, the door opened to reveal an array of people from all the teams the Devilbats faced in the past few months: Ojou White Knights, Seibu Wild Gunmans, Shinryuji Naga, Bando Spiders, and Poseidon to name a few. They were all carrying bouquets of flowers and get well fruits basket which later turned Sena's room into a mini florist shop. After everyone crammed into the small room and made their greetings to one another, they gathered into a semi circle around Sena's hospital bed and wondered if he will wake up in time for the long awaited Christmas Bowl.
It was like if Sena, somewhere in his deep sleep, heard the many different versions of the same question and answered with blinking eyes. Suzuna, one of the people nearest to Sena, saw the opened eyes and responded with a loud and ecstatic,
"Seeenaaa! You're awake!"
***Fast forward a little bit***
It took a few minutes, but before long, there were a lot overlapping questions, each vying for Sena's attention. Mamori, being ever so protective of Sena, saw the confusion on Sena's face and the loud ruckus everyone was creating, forcing her to slam the door on the faces of everyone except for the Devilbats. She walked slowly over to Sena and started talking. She told him about his current situation, what his name was, who he was, and introduced the remaining visitors, ending with herself.
"I am Mamori Anezaki, a childhood friend of yours. You have always called me Mamori-neechan. Do you remember?" she asked softly
"Ma-mor-ri-nee-chan?" said Sena, playing around with the sound of the words in his mouth. He racked his empty head for any sign of a spark, but he could only shake his head at the resulting confusion.
"How about you tell him one of your fondest memory, to jumpstart his memory?" Musashi suggested
"um… Sena, do you remember that one time we played dressed up? You looked so cute as a girl and afterwards we got cream puffs together and talked about your crushes…" Mamori said with a whimsical note in her voice
"A recent memory" Musashi said
"That was recent" Mamori stated looking straight at Sena who still had a confused look on his face
"I'm Suzuna Taki. I'm the head cheerleader for the Devilbats football team and everyone here is on the team. Mamo-nee is the manager and you are our running back. Do you remember? How about that one time a few weeks ago when I taught you our cheers and you performed it in front of the whole team while wearing our cheerleading uniform?" Suzuna stopped to giggle at the memory, while all the boys groaned. After that 'performance', all the guys had mysteriously disappeared into the shower room. It took half an hour before they reappeared and another hour was spent reassuring Sena that his cheering was great and that they all had felt feverish and needed to take a shower immediately. They didn't want to worry Sena and it was definitely not due to Sena's performance that they left. Only after a hour of lying and a million excuses did Sena come out of his slump and returned to normal, but before Suzuna had lead him away to change, Sena turned around and said, "Since you guys liked it so much, I'll make sure to do it again". At the time, they couldn't say anything in response and hoped that Sena forgot. This was one memory that they wished Sena never remembered. Luckily for them, Sena's face remained confused.
"Ok, I'm next. I am Taro Raimon. Also known as Monta, a reference to the great Joe Montana who played in the NFL…" Monta said
"Don't listen to those lies" Jumonji said with an eye roll
"It's true, right Hiruma-san?" Monta asked the guy who came up with his nickname while scratching his head and jumping up and down
"Sure, monkey" Hiruma replied
Monta was fuming over the monkey remark and although Sena had amnesia, he was still a pacifier by nature. He attempted to calm Monta down, by saying, "Monta, can you continue with what you were saying?"
"Well, before I was rudely interrupted. I was going to say that I am your best friend and the wide receiver on the team. As for fondest memory….That's kind of hard…How 'bout most embarrassing moment? That'll probably get you to remember me. So, for my birthday, my great aunt from my mother side of the family got me a gift card to this photography place. We went together after practice and spent like an hour browsing at the stuff they got there. There were a lot boring stuffs there, nothing worth spending the money on, stuffs like getting your own picture on a mug, on a t-shirt, family albums, and other things like that. We were going to leave when I spot the gag gifts they had. I really wanted the picture printed toilet paper and was planning to put Hiruma-san's face on it, but it was out of my price range so I finally decided on the picture printed boxers. It was too creepy to put anyone else's picture on it without them knowing so we decided on your face. It was a piece of art. There were about forty miniature photos of your face plastered all over the pair of boxers. I was never going to wear it, just for keepsakes."
"That's quite a memory, but I still don't remember it…" Sena said with a small frown and furrowed eyebrows
"Wait, I'm not done. That was not the embarrassing part" Monta said
"So, like a few days ago, I ran out of clean underwear and had no choice but to wear that pair of boxers."
"That's embarrassment for you. No one would have known if you didn't tell them" Kurita said
" Still not done. I was also late that day and was doing my dash MAX to school. I catch up to Sena on the way and was about to slow down to talk to him when I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk. I tried to steady myself by reaching for Sena, but we both fell as a result. I landed on top of Sena. The embarrassing part wasn't the position we were in, but the fact that my pants ripped and the boxers was peeking through. " Monta said while pulling his hair and turning pink as he relived the experience in his mind "There were so many girls from our school behind us and now they all think we are gay!"
"But I am gay" Sena stated with a bright smile.