Disclaimer: Eyeshield 21 is not mine nor do I particularly want it.
It started out like this.
There was a princess, a knight, and a dragon. All of which behaved precisely according to their assigned roles.
So what if the princess was a speedy midget, the knight was more like a spider, and the dragon a dog from the depths of hell? It was still exactly like the way it should go in stories.
Enter the princess, pursued by the dragon.
Sena was running, as usual. Something about building stamina via running for one's life from trainer's vicious dog due to attached piece of meat.
He was going to run out of breath eventually. It happened as he was in the middle of some random street, far away from home.
Sena looked at the dog's large, toothy countenance and then looked at the quivering mess of his legs. He waited for the inevitable crunch.
Enter the knight.
Or he could be described as a wandering spider, also training his own skills. This was in the morning at 4:00, by the way.
He saw the dragon bearing down on the innocent maidenly princess and immediately sprung into action. Let no one say that Sasaki Kotaro was not smart.
With one kick, the piece of raw meat went straight up into the sky and landed somewhere mercifully far away. Cerberus made a beeline for it, immediately uninterested in other pieces of meat.
Sena gave heartfelt gratitude to the God of Football. How lucky, to bump into someone who could take care of his problem so neatly.
Then he saw the kicker's uniform and reevaluated. Come to think of it, there was a football team called the Bando Spiders… and the uniform seemed to have a spider web design on it…
The God of Football is obviously capricious and merciless to helpless little runningbacks. Sena decided to rename him Hiruma. God is Football is too much of a mouthful, anyway.
"See that? That was smart!" his rescuer declared. "Only the number one kicker could have done that!"
"…Shin-san could have saved me, too," Sena thought quietly, realizing too late that he'd said it out loud. No, he was infatuated with the Oujou linebacker. He just idolized him.
"Shin Seijuro of the Oujou White Knights? He's only good at blocking and running!" the other insisted loudly. "Football-" he paused dramatically, possibly waiting for Sena to hold his breath in anticipation, "is all about kicking!"
Sena disagreed. Kicking was important, but he'd never seen any of his teammates kick except Hiruma. Say, whenever Hiruma kicked the stuffing out of either him or the ball. It didn't seem to matter which.
Shin was the archetype of what the best football player should be. If Shin had come along, then he would have… probably held Cerberus up and stopped him from biting with one finger or something. Maybe Shin wasn't the best choice as a knight rescuing a damsel-in-distress – which Sena wasn't, of course.
"Thank you for your help," Sena said politely, because he'd learned the hard way that a weak runt could only be polite or he'd get beaten up more often than he would be for just being a weak little runt.
And they left, never to see each other again.
Naturally, the God of Football, aka Hiruma, believed in cruel and unusual meetings.
Mamori had decided that Sena needed guidance as a secretary and had chosen a nice, older female manager to help him. Sawai Juri seemed like good role model, not to mention that she never got bullied by her quarterback.
It didn't seem all that likely that Sena would ever hit Hiruma with a clipboard, though.
"Go out with me, Juri!" Kotaro asked/demanded, pointing his comb/knife-thing at her.
Uh-oh. Sena, who had been dragged unwillingly to this meeting, could remember Kotaro. He hid behind Mamori as much as possible.
"Hello, Mamori-chan!" Juri called, waving at the two. "You must be Sena-kun."
Kotaro combed his hair viciously, looking disgruntled at having his proposal ignored – again. He glanced in their direction and saw Sena. "You!" he cried, whipping out his comb-knife again.
"They're from Deimon, Kotaro-kun. Don't be rude," Juri scolded.
Kotaro rushed past, grabbing Sena on his way.
"Kotaro! What are you doing?" his manager shrieked.
Sena blinked as he was dragged away, leaving the two managers to their tête-à-tête where they would commiserate over the troubles of being young, pretty, and forced to watch over decidedly eccentric football players.
"Hey! Do you know Musashi, the Sixty-Yards Magnum?"
"Who? What?" came Sena's intelligent and informed reply.
"He's an urban legend from Deimon! If I can beat him, then I'll be the number one kicker!"
"Really?" Sena asked, already wondering why he had never heard of such a thing.
"I'll show you my kicking skills if you don't believe me, and then you can tell me if you've ever seen a better kicker!"
So Kotaro dragged Sena along to watch him kick cans. Sena oohed and aahed at the appropriate moments, aware that he was collecting information, in a way. At least it made Kotaro happy to have someone pay the attention his kicking deserved.
When they reunited with the girls, Juri hit Kotaro on the head. It messed up his hair.
The next time they met was near Sena's school. To be more precise, it could be described as on top of Sena's school, but who's picky?
"I challenge you, Musashi!" Kotaro screamed. He kicked a can from on top of the football club/illegally run casino into a trash can with perfect accuracy.
The kick was extremely impressive, given that the trash can was about half a football field away, not to mention at a weird angle from Kotaro's position.
The other impressive thing about it was that the can had been full. Kotaro's shirt was completely soaked. Worse, so was his hair.
Sena handed him a towel, blushing for no good reason.
"Thanks, Sena-kun," Kotaro said off-handedly. "Now, where's Musashi?"
Hiruma had Cerberus chase them both out. "Kekeke, fraternizing with the enemy are we, fucking shrimp?"
Sena was not doing any such thing, thank you very much. Kotaro's shirt was very wet, though, and sort of clung to him…
"My house is closer. You can change there," Sena offered meekly.
"You're much better than that stupid Akaba, Sena-kun!" Kotaro announced for no good reason that anyone could see. Perhaps he just didn't want to go all the way back to his home to change, but he accepted the offer.
So they went, and Kotaro dried off then went home. Nothing happened.
Kotaro started seeking out Sena more and more. It could have been due to the fact that Sena paid attention to him.
Sena was having a lot of trouble practicing and not giving himself away as Eyeshield 21. He'd decided to up his confession to the next match which, incidentally, was the one with the Bando Spiders.
"Sena, you're Eyeshield 21? That's smart!" Kotaro said, eyes red from crying after his team lost.
"I didn't mean to hide it! Are… you angry?" Sena asked, pouting adorably.
"Not at you," Kotaro assured him quickly. "Hey, Sena – want to go out with me?"
"W-what?"
"Come on! We could be the best kicker/runner combo in the football team! We'd be great together!"
"What about Juri-san?"
"You're nicer than she is and you're a better football player, too. Besides, she hits me."
This, by the way, was the first recruitment offer Sena had received since he'd outed himself as Eyeshield.
He didn't accept – Hiruma would murder him!
But he didn't say no either.
A/N: I think it's probably pretty rare, but Kotaro/Sena is one of my two favorite pairings in this fandom. Why is it so rare? His switchblade comb is just so cool. Fangirling aside, I just can't write seriously about the two of them. Talk about a crack pairing.