Eyeshield 21: Winter 2023 Gift Exchange
This is my piece for @eyeshields! I was working with the prompts winter vacation + getting cozy, and to me there’s nothing more warm and close during winter break than baking together.
I really hope that you like it! 🎄🏈
The door to the kitchen bursts open with a force that rattles the walls, and Kurita drops the scoop of flour he’s been measuring. A cloud of white rises into the air before settling on his face and shirt like a layer of dust.
“Hiruma!” Kurita swipes at his eyes with the back of his hand, which only pushes the flour further into his eyelashes, eyebrows, and even his hairline. “Are you here to help with the cookies?”
Hiruma stares at him, then glances at the mass of dough on the countertop that’s nearly twice the size of Kurita’s head. With a snort, he jabs the barrel of his machine gun into it. “They not feeding you enough over vacation, fucking fatty?”
Actually, Kurita could go for a light snack about now. It had been almost two hours since breakfast.
He shrugs and begins counting on his fingers. “I just want to say thank you to Sena-kun, and Monta-kun, and Yukimitsu-kun, and Mamori-chan, and everyone who joined the Devil Bats.”
Kurita pauses, weighing everything he’s feeling and everything he wishes he could tell Hiruma. That he’s so grateful. That he’s so happy. That he wants to win, and more than anything, he wants to win with this team and these friends.
But Hiruma likely won’t put up with all that mushy feelings talk, and so finally Kurita just says, “I want to say thank you to them for making our dream… possible.”
Hiruma narrows his eyes and plants a strong, solidly aimed kick into Kurita’s backside. “We haven’t achieved anything yet, idiot. And you can say thank you by winning our next game.”
But unasked, he slings his machine gun off his shoulder and begins rolling up his sleeves.
Kurita’s smile is so wide his cheeks hurt. Turning to the recipe, he double-checks it to make sure the oven is preheating at the right temperature, and then pulls out a second cookie sheet for Hiruma to use.
“So what are we making?” Hiruma rips off a hunk of dough and starts to shape it between his long fingers. “Fat fucking beardies in suits? Little toy-making slaves? AK-47s that say ‘Win, Devil Bats!’ on them?”
Kurita is not about to give out cookies with icing threats as a way to say thank-you to his friends, but it is a very Hiruma-like idea.
“We have to roll the dough out first,” Kurita reads. “After that we can cut it into shapes. I thought we could make everyone’s faces as a way to cheer them on?”
As Kurita reaches for a rolling pin, Hiruma pulls out another gun—from where, Kurita can’t begin to imagine—and rests the cylindrical barrel on top of the dough. They both roll out their respective halves back and forth, back and forth until two thin and more or less even sheets of dough have taken up the entire counter.
Kurita begins humming a cheery and festive tune that he can’t quite remember the name of, and the two get to work cutting and lining up dozens of raw cookies onto the baking sheets. While Kurita finds it easier for his large hands to work with cookie cutters, Hiruma has enough skill and dexterity to carve shapes out of the dough with a knife. Every so often a nasty-sounding kekeke cuts through Kurita’s song, and he smiles thinking his very best friend is having just as much fun as he is.
Though his progress is slower than Hiruma’s—about one in four raw cookies end up in Kurita’s mouth before they can make it onto the tray—eventually everything is ready to bake.
Kurita sits on the floor in front of the oven, silently cheering the cookies on as they cook. Maybe it’s because they’re shaped like his friends, but in a silly way he feels like if they turn out well then so will the team. So as he waits, he wills them not to burn, and Hiruma comes over to rest his gun-slash-rolling-pin atop his friend’s head and begin cleaning it.
“There’s a tradition in some countries,” Hiruma begins casually, which is enough of a red flag for Kurita to know that what’s coming out of his mouth isn’t about to be casual at all. “It’s called a king cake. They hide a coin or a plastic baby inside for good luck.”
He cackles and leans against Kurita’s back, popping a stick of gum into his mouth. “Fucking stupid tradition, if you ask me. Devil Bats don’t rely on luck. So I put something else in a few of the cookies instead.”
Kurita glances at the butt of the gun jutting out beside his head, then looks up. “Hiruma!”
“It’s a reminder from their captain—they better be ready to work their asses off!”
The laugh from his body is raucous, and Kurita can feel the vibrations of it. It’s enough to end his protests before they really start.
A bullet isn’t enough to crack anyone’s teeth, is it? It will probably be fine—after all, Hiruma wouldn’t do anything to seriously get in the way of their teammates’ playing.
Kurita makes one more wish for his friends’ safety and good health.
Once the cookies have come out of the oven and cooled, the icing can begin. Kurita looks at their blank forms, trying to imagine iced hair and eyes, but something is missing.
“We should draw Santa hats on everyone, too!” he exclaims suddenly. Why didn’t it occur to him before? “I want everyone to think of the Christmas Bowl when they see their cookies.”
Hiruma snaps a piece off one and pops it into his mouth. “Tastes disgustingly sweet,” he says, wrinkling his nose up in distaste. “Last thing they need is extra icing.”
Hiruma watches over Kurita’s shoulder as the lineman clumsily begins outlining faces and hats. His hand isn’t steady, and the icing tube is hard to control—it comes out in a thin line at first, and then all at once, and Kurita has to scrape some of it off into the sink. By the time he’s done with Eyeshield’s mask, it’s nothing but a green smear with a few wobbly white lines running across the bottom.
Mamori’s turns out particularly rough, one eye practically off the cookie entirely and a crooked, toothy smile that could rival Hiruma’s. Her hat looks more like a horn has sprouted from her head rather than any sort of Christmas accessory.
Hiruma snatches the cookie off the counter and howls with laughter, twisting and turning it under the light.
“This,” he says between breaths, “this is some real blackmail material. She pulls that fucking ogre face exactly when someone steals the last cream puff!”
Kurita scrambles to take the cookie back, knowing Hiruma is near impossible to steal from both on the field and off it—and knowing that somehow, magically, it’s already been immortalized in Hiruma’s book.
“Please put Mamori-chan down,” Kurita begs, making a dive as Hiruma dances nimbly out of the way. He looks up from the floor. “She’s supposed to feel like giving her all when she receives it!”
Hiruma squats down in front of him and dangles the cookie over his head. “You offering a deal?”
Kurita nods so vigorously that his head brushes against the floor. “Anything!”
Dropping Mamori’s face into Kurita’s outstretched hands, Hiruma stands and brushes his hands off on his pants. “Then you’re icing my cookie next, and when I see it, it has better make me feel like we made it to the Christmas Bowl.”
Kurita blinks, caught off-guard. For as long as he can remember, Hiruma had set his jaw over winter vacation and simply run their practices harder and longer. It made Kurita sad to see his friend like that, determined but a little bit ragged, pushing himself harder and harder while watching his goal stay just out of reach.
But this year—this year was different. Wasn’t this the first time Hiruma had participated in something really feeling like winter spirit?
And Kurita has been waiting for this joy, this spark, for a long time.
Trying not to feel too embarrassed, he shuffles around to the other side of the counter. “Actually… I made yours already. Though I know you don’t like sweets.”
Now it’s Hiruma’s turn to be surprised. Kurita is pulling out a celophane gift bag with a snowflake ribbon tied around it, inside which is a stack of messy cookies that have something resembling his own face iced on.
They’re all smiling, eyes drawn arching upward as little crescent moons, and it’s quite possibly the least malicious Hiruma has ever looked in his life.
He laughs again, realizing how easy it’s been to do tonight, and takes the bag from Kurita’s hand.
“I’ll eat them,” Hiruma declares, stomach turning a little at the thought. “No matter how fucking disgusting they are, I’ll eat them all. No fucking cookie is going to get in the way of giving my all for the Christmas Bowl.”
Kurita beams at him. True, he’s not 100% sure what that means, but it’s definitely good.
It’s definitely how Hiruma should feel over winter vacation.
“Actually…” Kurita starts, and when Hiruma looks up the fucking fatty’s arms are full to the brim with bags and bags of holiday cookies. “I made a few test batches of you, too…?”
Hiruma reaches for his machine gun.
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