Disclaimer: Eyeshield 21 is © Inagaki Riichirou and Murata Yuusuke, Shueisha, Viz, etc. This is a nonprofit fanwork.

False Arrest

"Hey," Officer Sakamoto said in an aside to Hirai who was manning the front desk, "what are those kids in for?"

Hirai hid a smile and accepted a binder from him. Flipping through it, she said with a veneer of unconcern, "What, you mean those two waiting outside the Chief's office?"

"Yeah." He grinned. "The girl's real cute."

"And the boy?"

"The pierced bleach job? I can just imagine what he's in for. He saw me looking at them and looked like he wanted to rip my head off. I'm pretty sure he started swearing me out in French or something. He's bad news, that one."

Hirai rolled her eyes. "The Chief arrested them for PDA."

"What?" Sakamoto blinked. "Can we arrest people for that now?"

She hid another smile. "No, but the Chief made an exception for those two."

"Why's that?" he asked, smiling at her. He'd just been transferred to their branch and he thought Hirai was just about the prettiest girl he'd seen in law enforcement. "Public indecency?"

"It's an excuse for him to lay down the law." She noted something down from the binder, closed it, and handed it back to him. "That blonde kid? That's-" She stopped herself short, motioned at him to lower his head, and whispered the rest of the explanation to him.

He looked blankly at her for a long moment, the binder in his hands, then looked back over at where the two teenagers were sitting.

--

"You don't have to be so fuckin' pissed," he said, staring straight ahead at the wall which was lined with certificates and criminal profiles. "It won't go on your fuckin' permanent record."

At that, she raised her face from her hands and looked at him furiously. "I'm in the police station. I've been arrested. For making out with my boyfriend. I am handcuffed. Of course I'm pissed. They can't do this to us!"

He looked over at her, smirked a little, and said, "Look, it's not a real fuckin' arrest. There's something I haven't told you."

"Oh God," she said, pressing her fingers against her temples, then looked up at him again. "You're wanted. By the police. For gun-running? Blackmail? Fraud?"

"Fuck no."

She began ticking off potential reasons on her fingers. "Extortion? Trespass? Arson? Vandalism?"

He gave her a look. "What, you think I'd be fuckin' caught for any of that shit?"

That gave her pause. "Then what-?"

"It's a fuckin' joke is what it is-" But before he could say anything further, the door of the police chief's office opened and the exiting officer jerked his head towards the room. "Inside."

After walking reluctantly in, the door shutting behind them, Mamori said self-righteously, "Okay, look, you can't do this. We haven't done anything wrong!"

"You're quite correct," the police chief said calmly.

"And another thi-What?"

"Please," the police chief said, "let me remove those handcuffs."

She moved cautiously over to him as he took out a key from his desk and unlocked the cuffs. Rubbing her wrists, she backed away and said, "So you're saying this is all a mistake?"

"Not precisely."

"Hey, old man," Hiruma drawled from one of the chairs behind the desk, "what about my cuffs?"

"You can wait," he said dismissively before turning his attention back to Mamori. "And you would be-?" She glanced from Hiruma, who was sporting a closed, almost grim expression, to the police chief who was pointedly not looking in Hiruma's direction, and said, "The officer who brought us in must have told you. Anezaki Mamori."

"Age seventeen. Deimon High. Honor Student."

She frowned. "If you already know, why bother asking?"

He sighed. "I wanted to meet you under better circumstances, but Youichi refused to cooperate so I was forced to take certain . . . measures."

Okay, things were getting just a little too weird for Mamori.

"Mamori-san." Mamori's head whipped around so fast she thought it might snap off. She stared at Hiruma who was glaring at the police chief. What the heck was going on! In addition to Hiruma being polite of all things, he hadn't even said "fuckin'" once since they'd entered the office. She might as well be in an episode of that old American series, The Twilight Zone. On the upside, he looked like he wasn't very happy with the words coming out of his mouth.

"Meet my old man," he said, tossing his handcuffs at the police chief. His father caught them with a stern look. Mamori couldn't decide whether he didn't like that Hiruma had somehow unlocked himself, had launched a projectile object at him, had propped his feet up on the desk, or that despite the carefully polite words his tone and expression were anything but.

She sunk into a chair next to Hiruma. This was not exactly the type of first impression she had wanted to make on his parents.

"Youichi," his father said stiffly, "feet off the table."

Hiruma scowled but did as he was told, knocking off a mug of pens as he did so.

"I'm disappointed in you. I realize you have no consideration at all for your reputation, but you might think twice about dragging Anezaki-san's through the mud with you."

Mamori colored. All this for a kiss on a mostly deserted street?

Hiruma looked like he wanted to shoot something.

"How long've you had a tail on us, old man?"

"A month."

Hiruma looked skeptical.

"Maybe two."

"And what gives you the fuckin' right-"

"Language. I didn't raise you to speak like some hoodlum off the streets even if you persist in behaving like one. I brought you in here today to make sure of one thing."

He looked at them.

They looked back at him.

"You are making sure to use protection, aren't you?"

Well, Mamori thought detachedly, that was that. Her life was officially over. Hiruma would kill his father and they would flee somewhere - Rio de Janeiro? - as two wanted fugitives. There was nothing more anyone could do to her now. She was beyond caring.

"Oh, and Anezaki-san, I've called your parents. I thought it might be nice to have a parent-to-parent chat about our children's relationship."

Fuck.