The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 13

by Satoshi Wagahara

  The calls were from her mother Riho, dated around the time school ended. She wasn’t around when Chiho came home, likely for some errand or another. She gave her a call back, only to hear Riho half shout at her.

  “Chiho, I called you a bunch of times this afternoon! Why didn’t you answer?”

  “Sorry, Mom, I left my phone at home this morning, so I didn’t have it again until now.”

  “Ohhh. Are you at home?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “All right. There’s an old classmate of mine that’s in the hospital, so I’m meeting up with a few local friends and we’re all going to visit him.”

  “Oh, okay. Is it bad?”

  “It sounds like he broke some bones in an auto accident, sadly. Nothing life-threatening, but it’d be heartless of us all not to visit him. Today’s about the only day that works for all of us, so we’re all gathered in Shinjuku right now. It’s not the hospital you were in.”

  “All right. I’ll figure out something for dinner, then.”

  “Would you mind? I don’t think your father will be home tonight, either.”

  “What about you? Are you eating with your friends?”

  “That’s the idea, although we won’t be drinking. We all have work, so I shouldn’t be too late. Thanks!”

  “Okay, see you later! …Hmm. Now what?”

  After hanging up, Chiho buried her head in her pillow, dwelling on her thoughts. Breaking a sweat during kyudo practice made her extremely hungry, but she had expected dinner waiting at her house, so she turned down Kaori and Yoshiya’s offer to stop by a café on the way home. Whether she ate at a restaurant or picked up something from the convenience store, she’d have to drum up the energy to go out again—but after today’s events, she had no drive to whip something up from scratch. Something told her that her mind would start to race again while she started cooking.

  “What to do…? Hmm?”

  So while playing with her phone to delay the question, she came across a text from today’s messages from an unexpected name, sandwiched between two coupons from Len and Mary’s and MgRonald.

  “That’s rare. What’s up?”

  She skimmed the text, then immediately called the sender back. It was a dinner invite from Rika Suzuki.

  It was just past six at Sasazuka station, rush hour only beginning as Chiho found Rika standing by the turnstiles, looking uncomfortably out of sorts.

  “There she is. Hey, Suzukiii!”

  “Oh, hi, Chiho! Sorry to call you out this late.”

  Running up to her, Chiho noticed that Rika was done up to the height of fashion, instead of sporting her usual casual wear.

  “Was your family all right with this?”

  “Sure. My parents are out all evening. Are you coming back from something?”

  “Yeah, sort of,” Rika replied, a bit vague. “So like I wrote you, would you be interested in dinner with me?”

  “Sure, certainly.”

  Chiho couldn’t guess why she texted her about it. She had grown fairly acquainted with Rika as of late, but if Rika was going to ask anyone out for a quick dinner, it’d be Emi first.

  “Today,” Rika added as if reading her mind, “I wanted to see you instead of Emi, so…”

  “Really?”

  She didn’t mind the attention, of course, but it still seemed a bit off-kilter. Rika was dressed far more sharply than usual. She was always so bright and bubbly deep down, even when Gabriel and the Eastern Island forces attacked her (although she was no doubt scared, too), but today there was this bizarre pall in her expression.

  “Let’s figure out where we’ll go first. I can’t take you anyplace where alcohol is served, so it’ll have to be a diner or something, but is that okay?”

  “Of course. Anywhere’s fine.”

  “Okay. Ready to go? I don’t really know what’s around here, but do you have any local recommendations?”

  “Well…”

  What kind of restaurants would a young office gal like Rika go to? It felt like a test of Chiho’s tastes, in a way. She crossed her arms. It was hard to imagine Rika dolling herself up just to see her. Maybe there was something related to Emi or Maou she wanted to talk with her privately about. It’d have to be someplace that served food, was slow-paced enough that they could talk in peace, and allowed underage customers at night. That, and most importantly, the way today worked out had made Chiho almost unbearably hungry.

  “I know!”

  “Oh, you got an idea?”

  “It’s kind of a walk, but do you mind?”

  “No, let’s do it.”

  They walked a bit over ten minutes away from Sasazuka station, Rika idly asking about school and Chiho leisurely fielding her questions, until they reached Gyo-Gyo-En, a conveyor belt sushi joint famous for its standard hundred-yen-per-plate pricing.

  “Oh, nice. That’s a good choice.”

  Rika’s expression told Chiho she had chosen wisely.

  “Do you come here a lot? I know the name, but I’ve never been inside. It’s kind of outside where I normally hang out.”

  “I’ve never eaten any really fancy sushi, but I definitely think you’ll like it.”

  “Ooh.”

  “I haven’t been here in a while, but I read an ad somewhere about their new high-end menu, so I figured now would be a good opportunity.”

  “Yeah, you see a lot of chains that began at one hundred yen per plate, then started charging two hundred for anything decent, or offering ramen and other nonsushi stuff or whatever.”

  “I don’t know if they have ramen here or not,” Chiho said, grinning as they opened the door. Fortunately, the evening rush hadn’t hit here yet, allowing them to take over a booth by themselves.

  “You should expect it to be pretty decent, though,” she added as she wiped her hands with a towel. “Emeralda couldn’t stop raving about it when she first came to Japan. I think she had a stack of almost thirty plates going.”

  “Whoa… That tiny woman?”

  Rika’s eyebrows arched upward in surprise for a moment before she grabbed a towel of her own and leaned back against her padded seat.

  “Oooh, I’m exhausted. Sheesh.”

  “Did you go somewhere far away?”

  “Nah. Really close in fact,” she groaned as Chiho picked up her cup of green tea. “I was out on a date with Ashiya in Shinjuku.”

  “Wow, a date with……………………………………………ouch!”

  It took a few moments for her brain to comprehend Rika’s statement. When it did, it made her spill a bit of piping hot tea on her lap.

  “Ack! You all right? Did you burn yourself?”

  “N-no, I’m fine. I’m fine, but whaa?! Suzuki, you were out on a date with Ashiyaaa…? Really?!”

  “You don’t have to act so surprised, Chiho. I’m a grown woman, you know. I go out on dates and stuff.”

  “Yeah, of course, that’s not what I’m surprised about. I mean, a date? With Ashiya?!”

  Combining Ashiya with date seemed about as absurd to her as combining Urushihara with honest labor. It shocked her so much, she lost her voice for a while.

  “It’s that unexpected?”

  “…It really is, to be honest.”

  “That much?”

  “Uhm, no, I’m not saying you aren’t attractive or anything, Suzuki, but I’ve never heard of Ashiya going out anywhere besides the grocery store, the library, temp work, or to deal with Maou’s problems.”

  “Oh, that’s what it is?” Rika sat up, smiling. “This isn’t the first time I’ve gone out with Ashiya. Maou and Suzuno were with us last time. I was joining them when Maou bought a new TV.”

  “But that’s not what we’re talking about, right? I mean, if you’re on a d-d-date with Ashiya, then…”

  “Right. Just the two of us.”

  “Wowww!”

  With the mixture of surprises Rika had for her this evening, that was about the only appraisal she could offer.


  “Well, I’m kinda glad you feel that way, actually.”

  “Oh? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so rude…”

  “Nah, nah. You should probably apologize to Ashiya, not me. I don’t know how he is at home, but outside he’s so well put together.”

  “That I…know, yeah.”

  “But if that’s how you responded, I guess word hasn’t leaked out yet, huh?”

  “About what?”

  “You didn’t hear anything from Maou or Suzuno?”

  “From them? About this date?”

  “No, not that. Like, I’m calling it a date, but it really wasn’t that different from when we went TV shopping earlier. Ashiya finally purchased a mobile phone today. A smartphone even. I was his shopping advisor.”

  “Ashiya brought a phone?!”

  It was as if the Earth was going to start spinning in the opposite direction. It amazed Chiho so much she almost dropped her cup of tea entirely.

  “I guess he kind of felt the need for one already, because he asked me for advice during that TV run, too, but it all kind of got delayed. You know there was this and that, so…”

  “‘This and that’… That’s certainly one way to describe it.”

  “Yeah, isn’t it?”

  In the time between Maou’s TV purchase and today, Chiho had learned how to cast magic and faced mortal danger over it, while Rika had her entire concept of worlds and humanity ripped to shreds.

  “He wanted to apologize to me about all the Ente Isla stuff and go into more detail about the stuff he didn’t tell me back then. That kind of thing. So I said yes!”

  “Ohh, all right.”

  “It was mostly the same as what you and Emi told me, but hearing it all from the demons’ perspective was kind of fresh. Once he started rambling about which region had the strongest knights and how much pain Emi and Emeralda caused him, I thought my eyes were gonna glaze over, but…”

  “I know what you mean. They told me a lot about the demon realm before they attacked Ente Isla, too. I don’t want to show too much of an interest in it, out of respect for Yusa and Suzuno, but…”

  “Oh, totally! Emi kept saying I didn’t need to worry about it, but as a third party, it’s kinda hard to know how to react to a lot of it.”

  Rika smiled warmly, let out a hefty sigh, and rotated her right shoulder around.

  “Ugh, this is still aching a little…”

  She sighed again as she tried to knead out the shoulder pain.

  “What’s up?”

  “Ah, well, we had some stuff happen while we were out.”

  Now she was rolling her neck around, taking in deep breaths.

  “Um, are you okay, Suzuki?”

  “I’m pretty much back to normal now…but yeah. So anyway, we said our good-byes right before I met with you.”

  She had looked a little morose back at the station—but here, face-to-face in this brightly lit restaurant, Rika really didn’t look that well. There was a lack of healthy pink to her skin, as if she was recovering from an illness. Chiho worried for her health.

  “And, you know, I told him I wanted to be a couple, and I totally failed.”

  That would explain it. Chiho’s thought processes, as well as the noise of the restaurant around her, all flickered out of existence. All that remained was Rika’s flat expression as she so casually let it leak out.

  “Wha…?”

  Rika just smiled. “It was, you know, kind of a pain. But we shouldn’t talk about this on an empty stomach, you know? Let’s order something.”

  Her eyes naturally turned toward the conveyor belt. Meanwhile, Chiho was still paralyzed. Her hunger now had no presence at all in her brain.

  Maybe she put a little too much effort into it.

  Rika gave a final check to her outfit as she waited for Ashiya at JR Shinjuku station’s west exit.

  “…This should work.”

  Even if it was only the two of them, it wasn’t hard to figure out that their date wouldn’t be the giddy, frivolous affair the term suggested. It involved an apology, some explanation, and some phone advice—none of which exactly suggested pulse-pounding romance.

  She was in a beige trench coat and dress, holding a handbag she reserved for special outings and sporting a pendant on a thin gold chain she almost never wore. It was definitely a higher shade of fancy than what she picked for the office.

  “Ashiya’s probably gonna dress the same as always. I need to act like I’m taking the initiative here!”

  This would be the first time she was alone with Ashiya since Gabriel took him away. Even in this season, where layering was a must, Rika wasn’t enough of an innocent young maiden to expect Ashiya to spend any money on his wardrobe.

  “I apologize for making you wait, Ms. Suzuki.”

  That was why, when she heard the familiar voice and still felt her heart race a little from it…

  “Ah—ahh—ahhhh—huh?”

  …she then felt it almost palpitate at incredible speed from the sight entering her eyes.

  “I am sorry for keeping you in this cold. I am experimenting a bit with this outfit, so it took some extra time for me to prepare.”

  “Uh, no, um, I just got here; it’s fine, but…”

  “Is something the matter?”

  “N-no, ah, uhm…”

  Ashiya gave Rika an odd look as her pulse continued to quicken. She could feel all the simulations she had played out in her mind before coming here, partly in an effort to keep herself calm, instantly shatter to pieces. Nothing at all could have prepared her for this.

  “I—I didn’t expect you to wear a…a suit to this…”

  He was wearing a sharply tailored, charcoal gray three-piece suit.

  “Oh, this?” Ashiya smiled. “I had purchased it rather a long time ago, but this would be the second or third time I have worn it.”

  It was accompanied by a well-ironed dress shirt, a pair of brand-new leather shoes, and a perfectly positioned striped tie. The coat he had draped over one arm looked like a UniClo light fleece affair, but everything else he had on made him look like a model for a line of gentlemen’s clothing, it was so perfectly suited for his tall frame and body shape. Rika, unable to slow her pulse, could feel the blood rush to her cheeks. This was so cheating. Talk about getting ambushed.

  “I am so unused to this that I forgot how to tie a tie even. Very embarrassing. Hopefully there is nothing out of sorts with this?”

  “No!” she reflexively screamed. “Not at all! You look soooo cool! I mean, I’m sorry my outfit isn’t quite up to that level!”

  A few moments ago, she was content in the fact that she didn’t put too much effort into this. Now she was racked with regret. She should’ve put everything she had into her fashion from the start. Her coat was on the brink of everyday wear, something she took to the office now and then, and she couldn’t even remember when she purchased the shoes she had on. She did like her handbag, but there was a small scratch on one of the pocket flaps.

  But Ashiya just flashed a breezy smile and shook his head. “No, no, you have nothing to worry about. I am sure this has been nothing but a series of nightmares for you, Ms. Suzuki, and I had all but resigned myself to your refusing my offer. I truly appreciate you coming out here for me tonight. There is nothing for you to be sorry about at all. You are quite attractive.”

  “Eeee…!”

  Rika’s brain was already past the boiling point. She was usually never the sort of person to let pat compliments like You are very attractive get to her head, but there was nothing at all contrived about the way Ashiya put it. He really did find her attractive.

  “Th-thank you…”

  And if he did, the only way to answer that was with heartfelt honestly.

  “So where shall we go, then? I do have a few things I would like to discuss with you forthwith, Ms. Suzuki, so I thought perhaps we could enjoy a meal somewhere first.”

  “Ah—ahh, um, sure! Please!”

  The criti
cal hit delivered by this ambush had wrecked all of Rika’s plans. All she could do was nod at Ashiya’s suggestion.

  “Very good. I have a small list of candidates on hand…”

  He took a neatly folded slip of paper out from an interior pocket. The mere act of seeing a man in a well-tailored suit take something out from his interior breast pocket was enough to make Rika’s heart zoom into rapid-fire mode.

  “There is an Italian restaurant down the train tunnel that has decent wood-fired pizza, and I read about an innovative Japanese place in the Lumina that offers an all-you-can-eat lunch special for obanzai, traditional cuisine from Kyoto. That, and a little walk away is a Russian restaurant known for its beef stroganoff…”

  “Oh, that place closed.”

  Having something suddenly familiar thrust before her helped Rika regain enough composure to respond.

  “Ah, did it? I suppose the site was out-of-date.”

  Ashiya must have looked up a restaurant review site and printed out a map with the results. He mentioned his inexperience with electronics before; he must’ve enlisted Urushihara or someone for help.

  “I liked it a lot, too, but it actually closed just a little bit ago. It got replaced by a pasta joint, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend them.”

  “I see. Come to think of it, you did live in the direction of Shinjuku, did you not? I’m sure you have a fine knowledge of the area, so if you have any suggestions my feeble attempts at searching failed to come up with, I would be glad to accept them.”

  “Oh, um…”

  For a moment, Rika thought of the Manmaru Udon place she went to with Maou and Suzuno a while ago. She quickly shook it off.

  “The obanzai place is perfect!”

  “Is it?”

  “Y-yeah,” she replied, her hand toying with the handle on her bag. “Like, Italian is fine, but I don’t want you spilling sauce on that fancy suit, Ashiya! I haven’t been to that other place before, so…um…your choices are fine.”

  A familiar sort of frustration filled her heart. It was like she was back to being a teenage girl.

  “Very well, then. Shall we?”

  “Su-sure!!”

  Ashiya gave her another sincere, nonaffected nod, then invited her to join him. To reach the Lumina from the west exit, it was fastest to walk down the subterranean mall next to the Keio Line turnstiles, then take the stairs to the left up a small ways. Being the lunch hour, it was a bit crowded around Shinjuku station as the two of them walked.