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

by Satoshi Wagahara

It was unclear exactly what her father was referring to. Emi wasn’t sure she wanted to know. He was the one who should be yelling at them for eating that way.

  “I better take better care of your diet, Alas Ramus, huh?”

  “Oooh, only Accith again…”

  Alas Ramus, in the newly resolute Emi’s arms, gave a distressed frown once more when—

  “Emilia?!”

  Everyone on the scene turned around at the high-pitched voice.

  “…………Laila.”

  Laila was standing there, a puffy jacket worn over her usual denim. She had both hands over her mouth, eyes glassy, a look of sheer shock on her face as she looked at Emi.

  “You…showed up?”

  “Not because I wanted to.”

  Emi readjusted her grip on Alas Ramus, keeping her distance. Her mother, she feared, looked ready to leap forward and embrace her.

  “That’s all right. I don’t mind that. Thank you for making the time.”

  “……”

  Laila was almost shedding tears of joy. Emi couldn’t look her in the face, silently turning away instead. Not even for a moment did she want to see her mother happy. It might make her think, for the tiniest bit of time, that coming here was the right thing. Nord nodded deeply at this, even as he bit his tongue.

  “And all of you, too… Thank you very much for taking the time to come here.”

  She wiped her eyes a little, then bowed her head deeply at Maou and everybody else behind Emi and Nord.

  “Ah, you don’t have to count me and Gabe. Aunt Mikitty just ordered us to serve as bodyguards, if it came to it.”

  “…Yeah.” Erone solemnly nodded.

  Laila took a moment to run a hand through Erone’s black hair. “Really,” she sadly stated, “there should have been a place for you to live your lives freely…but we took that from you.”

  “It’s not only your fault, Laila,” Erone quickly replied.

  “Hey, uh, yeah, sorry about that and everything, but should we really be talking about that in the middle of this station?”

  Compared to the crestfallen Laila, Gabriel sounded like he couldn’t care less.

  “Besides, apart from Erone, Acieth Alla, and this little kid, we’re all on the same page in terms of what we know, right?”

  “On the same page…” Chiho raised an eyebrow. “Are we?”

  Was he talking about Laila’s doomsday dossier? Chiho had taken a read through it, and Maou and Nord must have as well. Amane knew about Laila since long before, too. But Emi and Emeralda had been almost entirely hands-off with her, and—perhaps following her friends’ lead—Suzuno hadn’t had any particular relations, either. Ashiya and Urushihara, as potential negotiation partners for Maou, had to have heard the basics, but since Laila’s plea was to save humanity on Ente Isla, a pair of demons like them couldn’t have been terribly interested.

  Besides, regarding Ashiya, Chiho had a concern that could barely be called a concern but still wasn’t anything she could ignore. Was Maou aware of the fact that Ashiya hid enough demonic force to return to demon form before Rika’s eyes? There was no way Ashiya could be attempting to overthrow Maou or anything—but it was hard to imagine him retaining that force without a solid reason.

  Ashiya wasn’t part of the group today—to keep the wholly uninterested Urushihara in check, as Chiho heard. But she couldn’t believe that keeping an eye on Urushihara ranked higher in his mind than helping Maou come into closer contact with Laila. It seemed terribly out of place, like a piece of gristle in an otherwise fine piece of meat loaf, but discussing it with someone else could cause deep wounds to Rika’s pride down the line.

  Laila, picking up on her concerned expression, must have thought it was in response to Gabriel’s question. She smiled a little at Chiho as she spoke to him.

  “Enough of that topic for now,” she firmly stated. “It is a violation of the terms Satan and I agreed on.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Then she turned to the others. “Amane, I am unsure if Ms. Shiba told you or not, but my housing within the nation of Japan is located in the Nerima ward of Tokyo.”

  “Nerima?!”

  “That’s so nearby…”

  “A decent distance from Mitaka,” Nord felt it prudent to add.

  “Wow,” Maou added. “I’ve been put on support duty at Fushima-en over there all the time.”

  “You have?” a wide-eyed Laila asked.

  The easiest way to reach Nerima from Shinjuku was to take the Toei Oedo Line in the direction of Hikarigaoka. Fushima-en, one of the most notable amusement parks within Tokyo city limits, was accessible by taking a branch of the Seibu Ikebukuro Line from Nerima proper. MgRonald had a franchise within Fushima-en, and with Kisaki’s coworker and childhood friend Yuki Mizushima serving as manager over there, they sometimes traded personnel with each other.

  “I’ve never been to Fushima-en, but I live in an apartment about five minutes’ walking distance from Nerima Station. Ms. Shiba is my landlord, and she gave me a discount on the rent there. When I have work, I travel to Shinjuku from there.”

  “Work?” Chiho asked.

  “Yes, I mean to explain that to you all today, too—what kind of life I’m leading in Japan.”

  “I see,” she replied, before noticing something. “Wait, Laila, are you not feeling well?”

  “Hunh?!”

  Chiho’s observation made Laila, for whatever reason, send forth a near scream of horror.

  “Yeah,” Amane rather rudely added, “you got these dark rings under your eyes.”

  “Oh, that, um…”

  She made Laila lose her presence of mind for a moment, eyes turning to and fro before they settled on Nord.

  “Listen, I know I said this before…”

  “Oh?”

  “But don’t be too surprised, okay?”

  “About what?”

  “I tried. I tried really hard…but I’ve been so busy that I let things slide for far too long. There was only so much I could handle in one day’s time.”

  What was she talking about? Nobody there had a clue.

  “But—but anyway, let’s get moving! Nobody has any objections to the Oedo Line?”

  She tried her best to amplify her voice, despite her pallid complexion, as she took the lead.

  “…What’s with her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Maou and Nord didn’t know what to make of the bizarre tension Laila was letting off, but the whole group followed her anyway. Going through the Oedo Line turnstile to the right after passing through Keio Shopping Mall, they descended deeper down to the platform, barely in time to catch a train for Hikarigaoka. Compared to Tokyo’s other rail lines, the rolling stock serving Oedo was a unique, more compact type. Acieth and Alas Ramus spotted it right off, and even Suzuno and Emeralda gave the trains furtive, curious looks, much to Maou’s exasperation.

  Laila sat down next to Nord, occasionally daring glances toward Emi, who would instinctively meet her gaze, then immediately avert it. This cycle repeated several times, forcing Emi to rather awkwardly turn toward Chiho each time. To Maou, well used to riding the Oedo Line and finding it not so rare of an experience, he felt painfully out of place.

  Soon they were at Nerima Station. Back at street level, Laila once again took the lead as they walked the city blocks. They took a right past the turnstiles, winding up on a wide street that ran parallel with the train tracks, the Nerima Ward Office offering some eye candy to look at as they walked five minutes toward a residential neighborhood.

  “…This is my apartment. On the third floor.”

  Laila had stopped at just another ten-floor apartment building in the area—walls of beige, no doubt housing a bunch of studios like every other structure on this street.

  “Nothing very surprising so far,” a wary Nord observed. “Compared to the apartment the Devil King Satan calls home, it hardly seems exceptional for an angel to be living here.”

  “It seems m
uch less expensive than Lord Sariel’s residence,” replied Suzuno.

  “I’d be surprised if it was,” a smiling Chiho remarked. As the only regular human being in the group, she couldn’t help but grin at this. After hanging around with Devil Kings and angels for so long, not even God himself living the next block over would shock her anymore.

  “Pretty boring,” came the final, damning appraisal from Acieth.

  “It—it’s pretty easy to live in, at least. The entrance is out behind the main street, so you don’t hear much traffic. The government office and a lot of stores are right nearby, and so’s the station…”

  “Yeah, great,” Maou moaned. “I’m still not believing you until we go inside.”

  “Oh…right…”

  But here, of all times, Laila began to act all indecisive again.

  “…This is your place, right?”

  “It—it is. I really live here. Don’t I, Amane?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. It matches everything I’ve heard anyway. Why don’tcha look up there, Maou?”

  “Mm?”

  Amane motioned up at the gold-plated sign adorning the building.

  “Royal Lily Garden Toyotama…”

  Having a name like this for such a humdrum, nondescript apartment building was definitely a Miki Shiba touch.

  “All right. Sorry. Need to rev myself up a little… Come on in. I think we can all fit in one elevator.”

  Laila headed into the lobby.

  “…Hey, Chi?” Maou whispered toward the back of the crowd.

  “Y-yes?” she replied, instinctively straightening her back a bit at the sudden voice.

  “I’m sorry, but can you make sure you observe everything carefully here?”

  “Observe… You mean in Laila’s room?” she whispered back.

  “Yeah. Like, whether Laila really lives here. Whether it really feels lived in to you.”

  “Lived in?”

  “I mean,” he said as he scrunched up his face, “whether it looks like a woman lives in there alone or not. I don’t know what that should look like, so I might not notice if it looks all fancy on the outside. I want a female perspective. If you see anything that looks weird or unnatural, tell me, no matter how small it is.”

  “I—I dunno how much I can help with that, but… Oh!”

  The elevator opened for them just as they made it inside.

  “Um, sorry. Take the next one.”

  It filled up instantly, leaving only Maou and Chiho behind. There were twelve of them in all, counting Laila, a pretty tight fit for an elevator serving studio apartments. There might be larger elevators in bigger places for moving purposes, but it looked like this building had only one.

  “We can take the stairs. Third floor, right?”

  “Thanks! See you up there.”

  Gabriel jabbed at the DOOR CLOSE button the moment Maou stopped talking.

  “…Sorry to put this on you,” he muttered to Chiho as they stared at the closed door and heard the motor hum. “Like always, I’ve taken you too much for granted, and I knew that.”

  “Ah…”

  Chiho gasped at this unexpected confession.

  “You were willing to deal with it, so I always had you hang out with me, and I’m always making you tag along for stuff like this. I’m really sorry about it.”

  Just as, for example, she was assigned the stairs because she happened to be with Maou.

  “I don’t… I mean, I’m here because I want to be, so…”

  “Yeah, but still, it’s outrageous, the way I’ve used you without even trying to guess what was lurking behind your feelings. Ashiya really gave me an earful about it yesterday.”

  “Ah…?”

  The unexpected introduction of Ashiya’s name to the conversation made Chiho’s heart skip a beat again. Why did he say something like that to him?

  But Maou simply laughed instead of answering Chiho’s curiosity. “Who knows when he was last that angry, huh? The day before that was pretty eventful, too, and even Urushihara is too afraid to butt in with his sass. Out of the frying pan into the fire, you know?”

  She didn’t know what those events were or what “that angry” meant. But if that was how Maou was putting it, she could easily imagine Ashiya reaching a level of rage that went beyond even what she personally witnessed.

  “But…you know, Chi, you’re so nice to me, I couldn’t help but do it. Even now. I’m sorry.”

  His voice was halting—because he was at a loss for words, because he was choosing them carefully, or maybe because he still hadn’t worked everything out in his mind.

  “Man, I’m a wreck,” he awkwardly continued. “I can’t even put a sentence together. Um, if I’m being a burden on you, then just—”

  “There’s been a lot of times lately where I felt maybe I was being forgotten by you, Maou.”

  The word burden made Chiho open her mouth before she knew what was happening.

  “But I told you a long time ago: I love you.”

  “Eahh?!”

  The straightforward declaration made Maou yelp.

  “I’ve never thought of you as a burden. You’ve always trusted in me, and that makes me so happy. If I could have the chance to spoil you, Maou, that’s no problem to me.”

  She glared at the man, her lips tense.

  “I’m still a young woman. I want to know why you put that trust in me or why you think I’m spoiling you. Just a little bit is fine. But I want to hear it from you, if I can.”

  “Uhhmm…”

  The words that had reflexively come out of her mouth, Chiho realized, could be hiding the key to undoing the haziness in her heart.

  “I don’t doubt your trust or anything, and you aren’t a burden at all to me. But really, I’ve never had any idea why you’ve placed so much trust in me.”

  She wasn’t powerful like Emi or Suzuno. She didn’t have any old bonds with him, like Ashiya or Urushihara. She hadn’t saved his life, like Laila. She was just this new girl at work, and yet Maou was relying upon her for so much. Why? Trust between people, of course, is accumulated over lots of little events, often getting based on nothing more than vague impressions. That made it all clear how lacking Chiho was, socially, for all this trust heaped upon her.

  “Could you tell me why sometime?”

  But if such an answer existed, it would likely be the same thing as the other clear answer Chiho was waiting for. The answer to her question about Maou’s own love. An answer that wasn’t worth forcing out of him while people were waiting upstairs.

  “…Honestly speaking, I really don’t know myself…”

  “If you don’t, that’s fine. But if you do figure it out, I want you to tell me first.”

  “…All right. I promise.”

  If Kaori were here, she’d probably chastise Chiho for giving Maou yet another reprieve. But this was about the best she could manage. A single choice made during his talks with Laila, and Maou might put himself into a deep, dark, potentially lethal situation. Asking him for this would be like trying to dissect his very psyche. It’d be nothing but stress, and Chiho didn’t want to be a source of that for him.

  “Let’s go. Laila and everyone are waiting.”

  “…Yeah.”

  Guided by Chiho, Maou staggered his way over to the stairway toward the side of the lobby. The bewilderment clear in his behavior was heartrendingly painful to see, but the fact Maou had been seriously thinking about her made Chiho happy nonetheless. She grabbed his hand, pulling him forward.

  “Hurry up or Yusa’s gonna yell at you.”

  They hurried up the stairway, steps echoing upward, as Chiho felt the sensation of Maou’s hand in hers. The dry winter air and his daily working habits made it feel cold, dried out, and a little rough. It reminded Chiho of the first time they had held hands. Back then, when the seedlings of yearning were building the foundation needed to bloom into true love, taking his hand required the most courageous decision she had made in her life up to t
hen.

  “Do you mind if we…uh, hold hands?”

  “Sure, whatever.”

  The moment she felt a new sort of heat in her hand, she thought her heart was going to leap out of her throat. It was so surprising, so joyous, that she didn’t even remember how Maou’s hand felt. She was sure, though, that the way he reflexively clenched his hand around hers as she pulled it forward was exactly the same then as it was now. After everything she had gone through, she had no reason to doubt it.

  “Not to put more pressure on you!”

  “Huh?”

  “But if I can be with you, Maou, I’d like to take the stairs slower than the elevator!”

  “Wh-what’s that mean?!”

  “Exactly that!”

  Maou seemed too confused to know what she meant by it. But that was fine for now. Chiho could feel the black morass that dominated her mind for the past few days finally go away.

  “Did you have trouble finding the stairway?”

  Laila was fidgeting on the third floor as she waited.

  “Oh, we kind of lingered in the lobby a bit,” Chiho said, bowing slightly before Maou could speak. “Sorry to keep you.”

  Laila didn’t seem concerned. “No, I’m sorry you had to use the stairs. Anyway, that’s my place over there. Room 306.” She pointed at a door in a corner down the hallway. “I already told everyone else, but…try not to be too surprised, all right?”

  Her continued warnings were starting to make even Chiho nervous. She tried to hone her perception like Maou asked, but her imagination couldn’t help but go on flights of fancy. What if the door was connected to some kind of subspace, and she was sucked into another world the moment she opened it?

  Taking a key out of her coat pocket, Laila inserted it in the door, took a deep breath, then turned back toward Nord, then Emi.

  “I think this might be another trying…or, at least, embarrassing experience for you.”

  ““Huh?””

  “So I’m really sorry, all right?! This is my home in Japan!!”

  Finally throwing all caution into the wind, she unlocked the dead bolt and threw the door open.

  “Th-this…?!”

  And the first exclamation of surprise came from none other than her husband, Nord.