Current mood:	sleepy
Entry tags:	es21, fic, yukimitsu

[ES21] Happiness for Now
Title: Happiness for Now
Series/Pairings: Eyeshield 21; Yukimitsu
Notes: For 31_days: September 5 / 3am on a school night. Also, first time writing in this fandom, so. Feedback would be great.
Summary: Yukimitsu Manabu has always been dutiful, but never happy.

Happiness for Now

Yukimitsu Manabu knows this: the path to a secure future is to study hard and test well and enter a prestigious university that will pave the way for many job opportunities. He will become a salaryman who marries a nice girl, and they will have two-point-five children, and he will bring home enough money to feed and clothe his family. Sometimes, he will go out with his coworkers and share a drink so that they can commiserate on the ridiculous demands of their boss.

(They will sigh and wish for something exciting to happen in their lives, but each of them will go back to that cubicle and do what is expected of them because it’s a relief to not worry about where the next paycheck is coming from.)

This future is what his mother wants, what his mother dreams of, and Yukimitsu is a dutiful son. He will go to cram school and he will test at the top of his class. He will make his mother proud.

**

Yukimitsu’s desk is right by the window facing the front lawn. When he was in the fifth grade and in the process of preparing for junior high entrance exams, he would always be distracted by the sounds of his classmates playing on the sidewalk. Sometimes, there would be a mini-soccer game, or a makeshift game of baseball would form in the grass.

Once, he had gone downstairs and asked his mother if he could take a break and go outside to play. He told her that one of his books said that exercise had proven to be very important to a developing brain and the developing body. He recited statistics and drew up a very compelling argument.

His mother was compelled and told him what a smart boy he was. He was relegated to study on the treadmill, so that he could continue to review for the upcoming practice exam and be healthy at the same time.

Yukimitsu soon found articles stating that exercise could prove to be very dangerous. He rattled off numbers concerning concussions that occurred on treadmills. Soon, the treadmill was collecting dust in the basement.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be physically healthy, but running alone just didn’t have any appeal.

**

There was a tree on his junior high campus that Yukimitsu favored. He liked to sit underneath it and study or eat lunch. It was nice to occasionally change the environment while studying (and it was also effective, as research had shown).

On an otherwise unremarkable day, a peculiarly shaped ball interrupted Yukimitsu’s contemplation of his flashcards. His color-coded index cards flew around him like a multi-colored whirlwind, and in his lap, there was an oblong piece of leather inflated with air.

There was a small group of people who had been tossing the football around before a moment of distraction (the girl he liked walking past the field, Yukimitsu later learned) caused a player to throw the football with more strength than he had intended. The boy apologized, and then he asked if Yukimitsu wanted to join them for a game or two.

Yukimitsu was tempted, and his fingers twitched around the white laces of the ball. But then he remembered that his mother somehow knew everything that happened in his life, and her hysterics and lectures were getting more and more long-winded.

He declined their offer, and clumsily (regretfully) tossed the ball back. After that, more often than not, Yukimitsu stared at the football instead of at his notes.

**

For two-and-a-half years of junior high, he came straight home from school to study the material covered in his highly acclaimed school. Then, he would go to cram school to study material that might be included on the entrance exams for the highly acclaimed schools that his mother wanted him to apply to.

Halfway through his third year, he finally managed to convince his mother to let him join the community service committee on the student council. (She quickly caved when he juxtaposed the percentage of student council members gaining entrance to a prestigious high school against the percentage of regular students who did.)

A week before his entrance exams, the committee was scheduled to do some weeding for a park. The day had dawned cloudy and gray, and by noon, it was pouring mercilessly. Yukimitsu ran home as quickly as he could, and like the health textbooks advised, he was going to step into a hot shower to prevent the stirrings of a cold. However, his mother caught him at the door, yelling about how much time he was wasting doing extracurriculars when the tests were one week away. Yukimitsu barely managed to change into dry clothes and grab a towel before he was buried in his books once more.

He wasn’t particularly surprised when he woke up with a fever, but his mother was furious. Yukimitsu didn’t do very well on his high school entrance exams, and his mother never allowed him to do any more after-school activities.

The only school that admitted Yukimitsu was Deimon High.

**

Yukimitsu is realistic. He knows that because all he’s ever done is study (excepting that brief stint on the treadmill), he is a poor athlete. All his muscles are weak and untrained, except those in his right hand, which have been used since he was little to write the answers on test after test.

His brain has demanded too much of his attention.

But for a moment, Yukimitsu felt hope when he saw Eyeshield 21 race down the field. Despite Eyeshield’s amazing background, he is still human, and comparatively speaking, Eyeshield is shorter and skinnier than Yukimitsu. If he can become the ace of Deimon’s American football team, then surely Yukimitsu can make it onto the regulars with some hard work.

He is nothing if not tenacious, and he will never lack in persistence and effort. If Hiruma wants him to climb up Tokyo Tower on foot towing a huge bag of ice, then he will do it. He will dodge bullets, run from terrifying dogs, and endure the sweltering heat. Because no matter how exhausted he is, and no matter how much his muscles protest, this is his last chance. This is his only chance.

Just another floor, he tells his weary body, just another door, just another meter, just another step. As if the opening of the door was a signal, all of Yukimitsu’s muscles slacken and he collapses in a heap on the ground.

Hiruma says, “Pass.” There is the cheerful sound of bullets ricocheting off the metal supports of Tokyo Tower. Yukimitsu sprawls on his back and stares at the blue, blue sky.

It had been two years, eight months, and seventeen days since he last held a football in his hand, but his fingers still tingle with anticipation at being able to hold it once more.

**

Yukimitsu Manabu knows this: he will never become an amazing football player. He won’t even come close. He starts running on this road seventeen years too late, and he has no hidden potential or God-given talent to fall back on.

He will always be mildly envious of people like Shin, who have worked hard and have glorious results to show for it, and he will always be extremely irritated with people like Agon, who have such fantastic gifts but waste them completely.

He will always admire Sena, who showed him that a person like him, who has atrophied buried underneath his books, can also run side by side with champions on the football field.

His life will follow the careful plan that his mother has laid out for him, but for now, he will lie to his parents so he can keep running on this long, green field.

Yukimitsu muscles burn as he struggles to catch up to the backs of his teammates, and he thinks that this might be what happiness tastes like.