Deimon Daycare

Sena loves his job. He just wishes he didn't have to dodge bullets, politely refuse sexual advances, and avoid other occupational hazards on a daily basis.

Eyeshield 21 ©Riichiro Inagaki and Yusuke Murata

I don't own anything.

This is for you, Hadaka-san.

Edit: Special thank-yous to pianomaestra and Grissini for pointing out the glaring problems with the tense in this chapter. Thank you so much! I have (hopefully) fixed all the problems, but please continue to give feedback and correct my writing! I've been told I have a somewhat masochistic personality so I won't mind any criticism. :D

"Welcome to Demon Daycare!"

Said the sign, but Sena double-checked anyway. He glanced down at the slip of paper, glanced back up, and became confused. Huh, wasn't there an"i" between the "e" and "m"? Because the sign spelled –

The decrepit door creaked open, and Sena came face-to-face with a set of vicious-looking and blindingly white teeth. The creepy smile that framed them did nothing to slow his raging heartbeat, so acting on his acute sense of self-preservation, Sena screamed.

"DEMON!" The brunet performed a spectacular about-face and was about to book it, aiming for 4.0 for the 40, when his right leg was pulled out from under him. Sena landed face-first onto the concrete with a resounding THWACK. No one was surprised when he promptly blacked out, and the last thing Sena heard was a deep chuckle followed by, "Nice catch, Shin-kun."

When Sena woke up, he was tied to a chair.

The bright side was that his hands were free as well as his upper body. The not-so-bright-nearing-on-eternal-darkness side was that he was restrained from the waist down by a belt wrapped around his middle and two ankle ties. As soon as Sena looked around, he despairingly realized his situation. The office-like room was sparse, the only furniture being the two chairs and an ornate desk. Sena heard a cough and turned towards the source. In front of him and across the desk was a larger and more comfortable office chair. His brain worked overtime, computed the signs (tied to a chair, dimly lit room, facing back of a large and ominous chair), and swiftly reported, "You are a dead man."

In his plain wooden seat, Sena cowered.

He heard a noise, like someone shifting in a large, ominous chair. Then, a voice asked, "Do you know why you are here, Sena Kobayakawa?"

Sena was sweating bullets by now, feeling like an extra in The Godfather. He nearly bit his tongue when he answered. "N-no?"

The chair squealed as it slowly swiveled, and Sena flinched as if the sound was a whip whistling through the air. He heard the voice cough and then, "Sorry about that – this chair needs some oil."

That was anticlimactic. Sena expected something more along the lines of "Any last words?" But he wasn't complaining – not at all. After an awkward pause, Sena hesitantly opened his eyes.

A very handsome face greeted him, composed of perfectly coiffed hair, dark eyes, a straight nose, and a friendly smile. Sena almost relaxed at the seemingly harmless sight, and then he remembered that he was tied to a chair. Unperturbed by the brunet's stiff and frightened posture, the handsome stranger introduced himself. "Kobayakawa-kun, I am Takeru Yamato –the director of Deimon Daycare."

Surprise lifted his eyebrows and dropped his jaw as Sena gaped at his to-be boss. He can't be more than two years older than me, and I'm 21! Yamato discerned the silent question on the brunet's face and answered it with an easy-going manner, "I'm just the de facto boss, Kobayakawa-kun. I'm looking over the daycare as a favor to a friend. And I'm 23, by the way."

Oh, one mystery solved. Another thing popped into Sena's mind. "Deimon-?"

Yamato, with his amazing Q&A powers, resolved his confusion. "Ah, the sign – that's just some vandal's work." Yamato smiled widely, his pearly white teeth dilating Sena's eyes. But his temporary blindness could not deter the brunet's anger.

"Why would someone do such a thing?" Yamato chuckled in his seat. Sena was enticingly red, lips drawn in a full pout, and his eyes set in a determined, yet cute glower. Oh yes, he'll definitely keep this one.

"Well, Sena-kun," Yamato began. Meanwhile Sena blinked. When did Yamato-san start calling me –?

Both explanation and thought were abruptly interrupted when the door came down and a man half-dressed as a dragon barged in. "Yamato, you fucker –!"

Sena blinked again and rubbed his eyes. He must've hit his head pretty hard in the fall. Sena peeked up from his hands. No, the semi-dragon man was still there, and he looked mad. Sena gulped, Mad enough to kill someone. He glanced at Yamato-san and bit his lip at the steely glint in the man's eyes. The friendly smile from before had vanished. So this is what it means to be caught between a rock and a hard place.

Yamato stared pointedly up at the intruder, hands folded and partially hiding his face. "Not now." The onslaught of authority in his voice urged Sena to prostrate himself before his shoes, all the while screaming, "Yes sir! Forgive me, sir!" The dragon man was unfazed, his snarl still in place.

Twelve seconds into the stare down, with Sena starting to feel a bit dehydrated from all the sweating he'd done, Yamato broke eye contact in order to shoot a close-eyed smile to Sena. The brunet flinched– the glint of teeth was almost sinister.

"Let me finish my business with Sena-kun, and then we'll talk."

Dragon man grunted, ruffling the 'scales' of his ridiculous papier-mâché outfit. Sena tried hard to be more intimidated than humored, even if the scary man could easily blend in with a Chinese New Year celebration. Still, Sena breathed a sigh of relief when he turned and left, his flimsy tail trailing after him.

Then he looked up and caught Yamato's eyes, and he gulped. There was an uncanny sharpness in the man's eyes, like that of a shrewd business man. Yamato pulled out a drawer and plopped stacks of papers onto his desk. Sena gaped – he had seen insurance claims smaller in size.

The keen, positively sinister smile was back on Yamato's face and the shaded windows added ominous shadows that partially hid his eyes. Sena wanted to run away, but then he remembered he was still tied down to a chair. Damn.

"Well then, where shall we start?"

Sena scanned his job application. He had gone over his salary negotiations, work schedule, and the professional conduct expected of him. Then he flipped the page. He eyes popped out at the printed letters.

"On the job accidents?" He cried, staring at the insurance form and waiver. 17,000 yen for an arm? Only?

Yamato merely chuckled and tried to distract his newest employee with a disarming smile. He even added a twinkle. "Oh, just certain precautions. Our kids have known to be quite... vivacious."

Sena stared at him blankly. Yamato merely smiled back and guided Sena's hand to the bottom of the page. "Just sign here, Sena-kun. It's nothing quite serious."

An hour later Sena emerged from the office with a liberated circulatory system and as a new employee of Deimon Daycare. Honestly, he never wanted to repeat that experience again. Negotiating with Yamato was like bartering with the devil.

The said demon poked his head out from the open door. "Sena-kun."

"Ah, yes, Yamato-kaichou?" Sena did not like the mischievous tone in his new boss's voice, so he stifled his uneasiness with politeness. (Upon retrospection, he should have ran when he heard it.)

"About your orientation," here Yamato pointed to a figure a little ways down the hall, cloaked in shadows. "Agon here will teach you the ropes."

The man grunted and walked, no – swaggered toward Sena. The brunet looked up in wide-eyed recognition, it was the man from earlier, the one in the dragon ("Naga, actually," corrected Yamato) costume. Agon sneered at Sena. Sena, on the other hand, felt like a lamb sacrificed to slaughter.

Then Agon turned around, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, and stalked down the hall. Yamato continued to smile even when Sena sent him a pitiful Do I have to? glance. Seconds later, an angry bark reverberated down the hallway.

"Hurry the fuck up, trash!"

Sena was still stuck on the fact that the name "Agon" sounds eerily similar to the English word, "agony."