“What was the name of that restaurant we went to on the first night of the Death March?” Mamori asked the person on the other end of the phone as she opened her refrigerator to pull out some apple juice. “I kind of want to go there again, for the memories.”

 

            “Footer’s? You want to eat at Footer’s.” Hiruma’s voice sounded somewhat unconvinced on the other end of the phone line. “Are you sure you aren’t developing Alzheimer’s?”

 

            “Yes I am sure!” Mamori snapped at him, huffing. “I just want to go there again for memories’ sake!”

 

            “Remind me what kind of restaurant it is.” Hiruma demanded.

 

            “Don’t you remember?” Mamori sounded amused.

 

            “Of course I do!” Hiruma growled, annoyed. “I need to be 100 percent certain you recall what kind of restaurant it is.”

 

            “If you don’t want to go, all you have to do is say so.” Mamori rolled her eyes.

 

            “I don’t care what restaurant it is, you might.” Hiruma remarked dryly. “Your last choice of restaurant was particularly poor, I don’t want a repeat.”

 

            “They had pretty good hamburgers….” Mamori didn’t bother trying to argue with Hiruma’s point since it was the blunt truth. After quitting her job in Japan, Mamori’s old boss had made her completely unemployable. So Mamori took Sena’s advice and moved to America, specifically to San Antonito, Texas, the same city Hiruma happened to be living in. After Mamori had finished her immigration and move, she enrolled at the local college to get her teacher’s certificate. Now that she was fairly established, she gave her old friend a call to arrange another lunch.

 

            “Please tell me you recall the waitresses.” Hiruma didn’t sound desperate, just exasperated.

 

            “The waitresses were special?” Mamori blinked, not recalling the waitresses at all.

 

            “D-cups or lager, tight shirts, short shorts.” Hiruma told her bluntly. “It was Doburoku’s idea.”

 

            “Oh!” Mamori blushed a little bit, recalling the waitresses now and how remarkable it was that the team ignored them for the most part. They had all been much more interested in chatting with each other; Doburoku had been the only one interested in the waitresses.

 

            “Still want to go to Footer’s?” Hiruma asked her as some mechanical noise started coming through the phone line along with his voice. Mamori correctly assumed that Hiruma was checking on his laundry.

 

            “Do you know a better place?” Mamori asked him. “Do they have anything like a Devie’s out here?”

 

            “The food’s not nearly as good.” Hiruma remarked as he walked away from the machine noise. “And I don’t really want to hit a family-friendly place if I can avoid it.”

 

            “Right.” Mamori remembered Hiruma’s paparazzi problem. It had gotten so bad that Hiruma had to be very particular about where he went in public so that he could minimalize the disturbance his presence caused.

 

            “…Come to think of it, Footer’s isn’t that bad a choice.” Hiruma remarked after some thought. “The cliental it attracts isn’t interested in the other clients….”

 

            “As long as you don’t spend the entire meal staring at waitresses I’m willing to go.” Mamori decided she could put up with scantly clad waitresses if it meant a peaceful meal.

 

            “Tch. D-cups are disgusting.” Hiruma scoffed.

 

            “I didn’t think you would, but you are a bachelor and supposed big time pervert….” Mamori teased Hiruma.

 

            “Do not remind me.” Hiruma was deadly serious.

 

            “Alright, alright, I’ll see you tomorrow at 12:15 then?” Mamori wanted for a confirmation.

 

            “I’m picking you up.” Hiruma announced.

 

            “We’re not meeting at Footer’s?” Mamori blinked, not expecting that.

 

            “You don’t know where it is.” Hiruma reminded her. “And you don’t have a car, how were you planning on getting there?”

 

            “…Hadn’t got there yet.” Mamori was blushing a little, feeling slightly stupid. “What kind of car do you have?”

 

            “A SAAB 95, red.” [1] Hiruma answered simply.

 

            “No Ferrari?” Mamori was mildly surprised.

 

            “Having one of those is just asking to get pulled over,” Hiruma commented, “the fucking cops around here want autographs.”

 

            “Let me guess, you don’t have a mansion either.” Mamori observed.

 

            “A four bedroom house is a mansion for one man.” Hiruma chuckled.

 

            “You have a four bedroom house?” Mamori blinked.

 

            “It’s practical if you get guests like I do.” Hiruma reminded her. Hiruma was often known for having the old Devil Bats come and visit him, having three guest bedrooms did make sense if you put international visitors into account.

 

            “I suppose so.” Mamori agreed.

 

            “How’s your fucking apartment?” Hiruma asked. Earlier, when he had heard Mamori was moving to San Antonio, Hiruma had gone apartment hunting for her. He had paid all the lease fees and first month’s rent for her so that she could move right in upon arriving in America. Of course, Mamori had written him a check and paid him back once she got her money exchanged and settled in American banks.

 

            “It’s really nice.” Mamori smiled. “There’s an excellent view of the park from my bedroom window and everyone’s so quiet and courteous!”

 

            What Mamori did not know was that Hiruma had a few words with the landlord about which of the available apartments Mamori would be moving into. And Hiruma had also had a few words with the current tenants, pulling out his Threat Notebook to get complete cooperation from all parties involved. Hiruma did not intend for Mamori to learn about that.

 

            “Good to hear.” Hiruma sounded smug on the other end.

 

            “You wouldn’t have had something to do with that would you?” Mamori asked him, suspicious. Two of the people on her floor reminded her of some of the more Hiruma-weary people she knew in high school.

 

            “All I did was pay your fees and make sure your lease was properly processed.” Hiruma was a master at lying, he sounded very convincing.

 

            “Okay then.” Mamori didn’t sound convinced, this was Hiruma we were talking about here. She had recalled how very enthusiastic he had been when he volunteered to help her move; there had been that hint of mischief and evil in his eye that only came with him having an opportunity to use his Threat Notebook.

 

            “See you tomorrow then.” Hiruma decided it was time to get off the phone.

 

            “Okay then.” Mamori waited until Hiruma hung up before doing so herself. Quickly Mamori looked around her new apartment. It was a single, with a small living room/kitchen and a personal bath. Mamori had been very happy to see that she had her own bathtub, a definite upgrade from the shower-only set up she had in Tokyo. Her walls were filled with pictures from high school, college, and from her last month in Japan. Mamori smiled as she looked over the picture of the old Devil Bats with the new Devil Bats outside of the clubhouse (Musashi had finished fixing the sign only an hour before). Monta and his fan, number 80, were both posing together, it was really cute.

 

            Mamori’s phone was ringing again, Sena was calling from Boston.

 

            “Sena!” Mamori called into the phone, excited as she answered.

 

            “Mamori-neechan!” Sena greeted her with the same enthusiasm. “Have you talked to Hiruma-san recently?”

 

            “Yeah, I was just on the phone with him,” Mamori remarked as she gazed out her bedroom window, “he’s doing fairly well, despite the paparazzi and all.”

 

            “That’s good to hear.” Sena sounded sincerely revealed about something.

 

            “Is there something Hiruma’s doing that I should know?” Mamori couldn’t help but to ask.

 

            “He’s been really lonely,” Sena explained, “outside of football, he doesn’t have any real friends. But that’s not a problem anymore! He has Mamori-neechan now!”

 

            Mamori recalled that Sena had been the one to tell Hiruma to come to Japan to rescue her from herself in the first place. Where the heck had Sena learned to manipulate situations like that?

 

            “I suppose he does,” Mamori consented, “we’re meeting up for lunch tomorrow.”

 

            “Really!?” Sena sounded pleasantly surprised.

 

            “Well I’m settled in now and he’s got some time off,” Mamori remarked, “and I promised him I would, we never did catch up properly in Japan.”

 

            “Ah.” Sena had heard about the miserable excuse for a lunch the two of them had had in Japan from Musashi, who had heard it from Kurita, who had heard it directly from Hiruma when he came back to change his clothes, ranting about how horrible it had been. Normally Sena wouldn’t trust information that had been telephoned like that, but Musashi and Kurita rarely lost anything in such an exchange. That probably had to do with the amount of time they had been friends, Sena and Monta didn’t have any issues passing on information between the two of them either.

 

            “So how’s Boston right now?” Mamori asked.

 

            “Very wet.” Sena told her slowly and bluntly. “Very, very wet.”

 

            “I feel kind of bad, it’s such a beautiful day over here.” Mamori smiled as she continued to soak up the sunshine.

 

            “Hiruma-san tells me the winters there are horrible.” Sena commented off-handedly.

 

            “Hiruma thinks winter anywhere is horrible.” Mamori rolled her eyes. “You and I both know he has no tolerance for cold.”

 

            “It’s what he tells me.” Sena chuckled.

 

            “Say, have you talked to Suzuna-chan recently?” Mamori asked.