There had been a slight, nagging discomfort about the situation in the back of her mind ever since it had dawned upon her that Hiruma wanted something from her. After all, their meeting had been a rocky one, and she had been used before. It was an uneasiness that she couldn’t exactly claim had disappeared quite yet, even though she had agreed to his deal and had accompanied him to his practice. But there was something about seeing the satisfaction in his manic grin whenever his teammates made progress, about seeing all of the sweat and effort he poured into leading them, about seeing how seriously he took the sport of American football. It made all the questions swirling in her head about whether she’d made the right decision or not quiet a bit.
Her lips curled into a smile of her own, mirroring Anezaki’s own at the warning she’d given to her. After working with a literal demon for months on end, Yako certainly knew when to keep her mouth shut about such things. Telling the prickly quarterback that she could see how much he cared about his team would be just as risky as telling Neuro that she could see how much his interest in humans had grown beyond what they could provide him in the way of food.
No, her mouth would stay clamped shut while her eyes would simply watch fondly from the side.
She spent the rest of the time listening to anything else that the manager wished to tell her and then took just a bit more of her time to ask the questions that she had been holding in. By the time that the players’ practice seemed to be winding down, she felt that she had a fairly decent grasp of how the game worked and some of the more simple plays that the Deimon Devil Bats ( she’d almost choked upon hearing the name ) often used. Her understanding of it was far from complete, though; she knew that over the course of the next week or so she would probably have to be reading up on football whenever she could spare the time between work and school.
❝I think I have all the basics down,❞ Yako replied, standing up as Hiruma made his way back over. It did not slip through her notice that Anezaki had seemed to have a sixth sense to his approach, but she quickly brushed it aside for later so that she could continue. ❝And I’ll be sure to do some reading on my own time to learn more.❞
Her response issued a wild grin from the quarterback -- it was disturbing on a certain level, that while the rest of the team appeared entirely spent and exhausted from such an intense practice, Hiruma seemed to be just as thriving and lush with vitality as he had at the start of the session. He had an almost Spartan-level of energy, it seemed as he propped his cleat up on the bench beside the young detective and braced his elbow against his bent knee, leering over her with a sadistic glean.
❝ – yeah, you be sure to do that, fuckin’ piggy. ‘Cause startin’ tomorrow, yer gonna be promotin’ us at every interview, every news report, every friggin’ publicity opportunity ya get. ❞
Clearly he already had carefully laid plans for her, much to the obvious chagrin of his manager, whose expression had morphed into one of exasperation as she sighed behind him and simply shook her head. Quite obviously, she knew precisely where this was going, as she had seen it many times before, though she said nothing as the quarterback continued.
❝ – But not before you sit in one our scrimmage game tomorrow afternoon. ❞