Act 1: One and The One

1. Sarah Bareilles – Love Song

(Make me think that I need this too…)

If you asked around Deimon High who was a most wanted girl, the majority of the male student won't point at the refined, long-legged model-like girls, but at that particular one, lean and curvy at the same time, with that sincere polite smile almost glued to her face and softness to all her features, not to mention the tastiest bentoes in the whole school. A girl that could cook, sew and had excellent grades (except for art, but who counts that). You wouldn't want to show that girl to your parents, because they would want to organize a marriage right away.

There was basically nothing Mamori Anezaki couldn't do.

Except for accepting the confessions of boys age 15 to 18. And there were plenty.

They could have called her an Ice Queen, Thick-Skinned and all those mean things teenage boys say about girls who reject them, but they couldn't. Most of them where brought up better than that, but just the way she made a simple "I'm sorry, but I don't feel the same way about you. Maybe we could stay friends?" sound… Let's say she made all her rejection sound so comfortingly right, that just after few moments the boy would think that she is just too good for him, in a very good sense of that phrase. She would probably make an excellent wife for a prime-minister or a high government official, or a successful businessman….

Her best friend, basically a younger brother, a scrawny kid of no particular talent, who entered the school one year later, just proved the fact the Mamori was the representation of proper, righteous and upright Japanese woman, respectful to her elders, supportive to her juniors and generally perfect.

So when the rumor came around that gentle Mamori Anezaki, never too harsh in words or actions, became the manager of Hiruma Yoichi's American Football club – key word being Hiruma Yoichi, not American Football – and on free will at that, there was an expected denial and claims that there had to be a good reason.

"Maybe she can change Him that way," they said.

"Maybe He likes her – girls don't play American Football, do they?" they asked.

"He doesn't like anyone. He doesn't know how," they laughed tensely.

No one dared to ask her out ever since.

2. Vertical Horison – Everything you want

(I say all the right things at exactly the right time, but I mean nothing to you…)

He heard about them.

He read about them.

He saw movies about them on TV.

Until her, he never met them.

On his first year of the high school, Hiruma Yoichi met that mythical creature everyone called a Dream Girl.

She annoyed him to the state of scrawling, and shouting and kicking walls.

Fucking Old Man just couldn't stop taking a piss.

"Oh, look. That girl of yours is coming here to tell you what a bad person you are. Should I give you two some privacy?"

And Hiruma would wave his guns around, shout, insult the girl in all the ways possible and walk away carelessly, just to trash something around the nearest corner.

Sometimes, he wondered – and so did the sagacious Musashi – if he did all this crap on purpose. And he couldn't help but listen to what everybody else said about her.

"She is pretty," but he grimaced dismissively because it was a rubbish reason. (She was fucking beautiful, but that really was a rubbish reason.)

"She is smart," and he accepted it with a hint of hesitation. (She was way smarter than everybody noticed.)

"She is perfect," all he could do was laugh because nobody was perfect. (But she could be close enough.)

"You are sad," and he prominently kicked Fucking Geezer as hard as he could.

"Pathetic" was a much better description. That must be what having all these hormones feels like.

3. Sarah McLachan – Building a Mystery

(A beautiful fucked-up man, you're setting up your razor wire shrine…)

Hiruma Yoichi was a disturbing, aggressive, manipulating, sadistic, black-hearted sociopath.

Mamori couldn't understand what exactly was Sena's goal in staying in the club, but if he did – so did she. Sena was just too helpless to stand for himself against him.

Hiruma Yoichi was also one of the loneliest people Mamori ever met.

Of course, there was an obvious explanation: he alienated himself, creating a wall between his person and the rest of the world.

He didn't care for people. They were just toys in his grand schemes of social distortion.

But he loved American football.

And that fact only made her wonder: if there was a thing that this obvious delinquent was so fascinated with, there had to be more to him. Real delinquents focus only on being delinquents.

Hiruma Yoichi worked towards his goal in mysterious and, she had to admit, rather fascinating ways. Ways that were against her ideas of right and wrong, but worth of observation never the less.

He was also rather handsome, but that was a completely different matter.

4. Placebo – Every me, every you

(Another love I would abuse, no circumstances would excuse…)

He Was Ecstatic.

There were very few times when Hiruma thought about divine providence, but that was most definitely one of them.

Fucking Shrimp – yes, he already invented a nickname for him – was that one thing he was looking for: small, inconspicuous in everyday surroundings and very, very fast. And a complete rag, so Hiruma didn't even need to strain to kick him around.

The more he hung around – the better things went.

Fucking Ha-ha Brothers, Fucking Monkey, Boldy, Fatty, all those things he was working for, year after year, they all started to come together in that knot of luck he waited for, no matter what he said about strategies and schemes.

But she, she was more that he signed up for.

Suddenly, she was right here, at the same table, arguing with him about strategies (she learned a full fucking book of rules by fucking heart in one fucking evening!), cleaning his clubhouse and repairing his uniforms, feeding his dog and motivating his team by her cheer fucking presence.

For Hiruma, she wasn't motivating. She was that shot of adrenaline right into the heart, no needle needed, and he had to keep his hands busy or tightly in fists so that his fingers won't twitch in excited bliss, or worse, long to touch that soft-looking hair, or the smoothness of her skin, or any other part of her anatomy, just to satisfy his curiosity, whether she was real or just some sort of a unreasonable hallucination of his.

The only thing he allowed himself to do is to scrawl and snarl in her face, and observe from very close distance how her eyes would round in astonished shock, and she would open that pretty mouth of hers to say his name again and again, loud and clear.

Oh, but how he loved to abuse his authority over her as the team manager…

5. Cranberries – Animal Instinct

(And the thing that gets to me is you never really see…)

Sometimes she imagined what she would do if she knew a martial art, or at least could hurt people. Well, she wouldn't normally attack people. It must be only Hiruma who could be as provocative as to make her want to give him a slap. Even better a scratch. Or to punch him. Or to kick him, there must be something attractive in it if he does it all the time.

Biting also sounded like a pretty good idea. She could be able to manage it.

His teeth looked really sharp though. And he would definitely bite back. He always fought back.

She wondered if he would kiss back… and really hoped she wouldn't think of him in that way.

6. Incubus – Anna Molly

(Please do persist, girl, it's time we made a mess…)

Obsessing was bad.

No, let's put it the other way.

Obsessing over something other than football was bad. Not when thing were going so well. Not when he was so close, working twice as hard, training for three for his dream, for their dream of Christmas bowl.

But maybe she was the reason he was putting that much work on his shoulders, just not to think of her. He would thank her later for that.

He understood he was obsessing over her the first night he had a dream about her.

It was rather innocent. She was telling him something and laughing, but he couldn't quite catch the meaning of her word, because he was too busy looking at her face, the way her lips formed the words before she even said them, and he though that there was no particular reason to pronounce them because he would understand them anyway, by the way her eyes sparkled, or nose wrinkled or how she was tucking strands of her hair behind her ear, very elegant and feminine. Then those fingers were forming sighs for him, only for him (he got pleasant chills just from the fact that there was a different kind of communication between them).

To think of it, this particular dream wasn't all that innocent after all. It was just satisfying him in an esthetical sense. And giving him an esthetical hard-on when he woke up.