The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 3 (22 page)

“Mommy?”

Alas Ramus worriedly looked up at Emi.

Maou, watching the both of them, grinned a little. He turned toward the wall clock in an attempt to brighten the mood.

“Right! Better get some shut-eye, then!”

“Wh-what?! It’s not even ten yet! That’s way too early!”

“Too early for us grown-ups, but Alas Ramus needs to get to bed. Whether we stay up all night or not, Gabriel’s still coming tomorrow.”

“B-but…but…”

“Sleep together, Mommy! All sleep together!”

“Oooooh…”

The Devil’s Castle lacked any fluffy beds or futons to sleep on. There were just a few medium-weight blankets to share. The effect wasn’t nestling together as a big, happy family so much as three guys crashing on the floor with whatever was handy.

But to Emi, the idea of lying down in close proximity with Maou, whether Alas Ramus was between them or not, had to be tough to swallow. This, after all, was voluntary, far different from the last time she spent the night over.

And it was the same for Maou. He had trouble turning over to his side, the vision of Emi’s hands upon Alas Ramus’s throat the moment he fell asleep vivid in his mind.

But Alas Ramus was too eager to sleep together with Mommy and Daddy. Even now she was excitedly pulling the blankets out from the closet, spreading them out in any number of chaotic configurations.

“Whoa, whoa, don’t trip again.”

“Come here, Alas Ramus. That dumb ol’ daddy of yours will take care of it.”

Emi watched as Maou sluggishly helped set up their bed.

“…You better put on a light somewhere.”

She said it out of something between caution and confirmation.

“Well, yeah. She gets scared when it’s too dark.”

That wasn’t why she asked for it, but—oh, right, kids
did
use night-lights sometimes, right? Well, fine. That worked, too.

“Oh, does Alas Ramus have any nightclothes or anything?”

“You mean like pajamas? …You know, that’s actually all the clothes she has, I guess.”

Maou glanced down at Alas Ramus’s yellow dress as she set up three blankets on the floor.

“Uhh… You’ve been doing her laundry and stuff, right? Did you ever give her a bath?”

Emi was unable to hide her surprise at this new nugget of information. Apparently Alas Ramus had sported a single outfit since she showed up several days ago. In the dead of summer, no less.

“I did her laundry, okay? And I took her to the public bath. You don’t have to treat me like an idiot. Her stuff dried really quick in the heat, and she just trotted around the room in her diaper otherwise.”

“…I don’t believe you.”

Ignoring his sleeping partner’s disaffected stare, Maou looked at Alas Ramus’s straw hat hanging on the wall.

“Yeah, well, we haven’t bought her anything besides that hat, so… I forget if the UniClo in Sasazuka sells children’s clothes or not.”

“Oonislow?”

“I really wish you’d stop treating UniClo as the solution to every single problem in your life. She’s a girl, remember? Didn’t you ever think about finding something cute for her to wear?”

“What do you want from me? I don’t know where they sell that crap.”

“Ugh… I should’ve expected that men like you wouldn’t care about that.”

“Well, look…”

Maou casually stood up, bringing his hand to the string hanging underneath the ceiling light.

“How ’bout we just worry about seeing this through, okay? So that I
would
have to care.”

“Um…yeah. Sure.”

Thrown off guard, Emi found herself nodding in agreement. Alas Ramus, having trouble following the conversation, groped upward.

“Mommy! Mommy, here!”

She patted her arm against the tatami-mat floor next to her.

“Okay, okay.”

Keeping a wary eye on Maou, Emi uncomfortably laid herself flat on the floor.

Waiting for the moment she was down, Maou prodded Alas Ramus.

“Hey, better hug Mommy tight, okay? That way, she won’t go away on you.”

“Okay!”

“Agh…!”

Confused, Emi found herself slowly embracing the joyfully grinning toddler.

“Huh? Hey…what’s that you’ve got there, Alas Ramus?”

Something thin and unbending made its presence felt between Emi and the girl.

“Picture!”

It was the mounted photo they purchased at the Ferris wheel.

“Wow, you must really like that… But it’ll get all folded up and icky if you bring it to bed. Put it next to your pillow, okay?”

“Okey.”

Emi gently took the photo and placed it bedside as Alas Ramus ruefully watched. Maou smiled a bit.

“Okay, I’m turning it off.”

After a quick advance warning, Maou shut off the light, leaving a smaller night-light on to the side.

“Oof.”

Emi, her eyes not used to the darkened room, felt goose bumps erupt across her body as she heard Maou grunt from far closer than she was expecting.

“G-get away!”

“I’m not gonna go hugging you, too, all right? I just can’t get any farther away as long as Alas Ramus is like this, so…”

Looking aside in the darkness, Emi realized that the sleepyheaded child had somehow grabbed hold of both Emi’s and Maou’s shirts.

“…Pull anything weird and I’ll kill you.”

“You’re
still
being a bad influence on her, you know.”

“You’re one to talk. You’re like a walking, talking bad influence on society.”

“And yet there’s still someone out there who loves her daddy. Right, Alas Ramus?”

“Mm…Hee-hee!”

“I think she’s denying it.”

“Ah, she’s just shy. She says it around other people.”

“Daddyyy, tell me a story!”

Alas Ramus’s voice was already heavy with fatigue.

“Hmm? A story? Don’t want to hear a story from Mommy?”

“Mm…Mommy, tell a story tomorrow…”

“!…”

A dagger stabbed into Emi’s chest as Alas Ramus revealed her future plans.

A pained smile crossed Maou’s face as well, before he gave Alas Ramus a gentle pat on the stomach and looked upward in thought.

“Hmm, let’s see… How ’bout we pick up the story from yesterday?”

“Okey.”

“Great! Uhh, where did we get up to last time…”

“The traveler, and the angel.”

“Oh, right, right. Boy, you have a good memory.”

“Ee-hee!”

Emi, looking on curiously as Alas Ramus spoke to Maou, gasped a bit when Maou turned toward her.

“I started telling her stories ’cause it kept her from putting on a big scene or whining about being lonely at night. I had no idea her diaper was the cause that first night, though…”

“I wasn’t asking.”

Maou paid no mind to the gruff reply, slowly easing into his tale.

“Right…so the poor traveler, who was injured in the middle of his journey, was rescued by the angel.”

The poor traveler, injured after an unfortunate run-in with a mean, nasty demon, was rescued by a kind, gentle angel.

The angel told the traveler all kinds of tales he had never heard before.

Tales of high, high mountains. Tales of wide, wide oceans. Tales of deep, deep forests. Tales of kings, and princesses, and stores, and gold. Tales about plants and fish. Tales about soldiers. Tales about gods, and the world of the stars…

The traveler was very excited at all this, and listened on as the angel kept speaking.

One day, the angel gave the traveler a special charm as a present. The traveler was overjoyed to receive it, and with the charm and everything the angel told him, he set off once more.

Thanks to everything he learned, the traveler eventually became a wise and just king, one who ruled for years and lived in great happiness.

“…
snrrrf
…”

“…And there you have it. Night.”

It was hard to say when she fell asleep. But once Maou wrapped up his tale, he immediately turned over and away from Emi.

The only sound was the cry of the kingdom of summer insects outside.

“…Hey.”

“…Yeah?”

Emi caressed the hair of the sleeping Alas Ramus.

“What happened to him after he became king?”

Maou turned his head back. Even in the dimness of the night-light, she could tell he was looking at her like a father escorting her drunken daughter away from her wedding reception.

“I just made that up to get her to sleep, man. How do I know? He lived happily ever after, the end, all right?”

“He didn’t go back to his homeland or go searching for the angel or anything?”

“…Look.”

“Oh, just tell me. I’m gonna need some material for my turn tomorrow.”

“……”

Maou failed to understand what made Emi say “tomorrow.” He flashed her a very deliberate look of scorn before turning away from her again.

“She’s not gonna be able to follow some kind of epic backstory, you know. Just make up whatever you want. That’ll be perfect.”

As far as he was concerned, the subject was over. Emi bunched her eyebrows in dissatisfaction.

“Hey, can I ask—”

“Just go to sleep. If you start talking to me, we’re gonna fight and Alas Ramus’ll wake up.”

“If the traveler became king and everything, why did he want to go to some other country? I thought he lived happily ever after.”

“……”

“…No?”

It was now the softest of whispers.

“Well, getting to be king probably made him greedy.”

“Eh?”

“…If Alas Ramus asks about it, I’ll make something up for her.”

Maou flew through the sentence in a hurry before breaking into a loud, contrived snore.

He wasn’t Alas Ramus. There was no way he could fall asleep that quickly. It was just his way of expressing his lack of interest in answering any more questions.

As if called to action by the sound, Alas Ramus removed her hand from Emi’s shirt and sidled up to Maou’s side.

“……”

Watching on, Emi gave Alas Ramus another caress before bringing the blanket up to her shoulders and turning her back to the two of them.

She now faced the wall separating them from Room 202.

“…He’s got
such
a twisted mind… I’m so worried, I don’t know if I’d even dare leave this to him.”

The thought whispered itself out of her mouth.

In Room 202 of the Villa Rosa Sasazuka apartments, Suzuno and Urushihara sat silently.

There was an old-fashioned mirror stand emblazoned with a cherry blossom design accompanied by a traditional round tea table. The paulownia-wood dresser to the side was brand-new.

While the room’s furniture was strictly “old Japan,” the refrigerator was full-sized and boasted all the latest energy-saving features, and the combination drum washer / dryer outside offered built-in disinfecting and a stand for ironing. The microwave, however, was
as compact and simple as the one in Devil’s Castle, likely due to amperage issues with Villa Rosa’s ancient wiring.

The electric fan was the latest model from Tyson, one of those bladeless types where air seemed to magically flow from an empty oval frame. Urushihara stuck his hand in and out several times to entertain himself.

“…Nothing?”

Ashiya strode in through the front door.

“You did return Chiho safely, yes?” Suzuno inquired immediately.

“Of course. She was rife with concern for my liege until the moment we parted.”

“Indeed. But we certainly cannot afford to bring her into this affair.”

“Absolutely. If anything were to happen to Ms. Sasaki, we’d be unable to continue our current arrangement. I told her not to set foot near our Devil’s Castle until some sort of closure has been reached.”

“…Well. A wise decision, there.”

Ashiya idly sat himself down in the center of the room.

“Alciel, I need to ask you something.”

“What? If you’re expecting rent, forget it.”

“Who would ever dream of saying such miserly things? I am not
you
, after all. I wish to ask of you, and your demonic forces.”

Suzuno lifted her head from resting on her folded legs.

“What drove you to attempt to conquer the world?”

It was an unusual question to lob at two young men who looked like they hailed from Anytown, Japan.

“Because I…have grown less and less able to understand why the thought even occurred to you to invade our land,” she finished.

“…I have to say, I envy your refrigerator.”

“Um?”

Ashiya’s reply seemed completely unrelated. But, as he appraised the top-of-the-line, enviro-friendly fridge Suzuno had bought on Emi’s recommendation the other day, his face was deadly serious, and so too his voice.

“Open the door, and I am sure you will find the meat, the milk,
the vegetables you bought yesterday. Anything missing from today’s menu, you can run to the store to purchase. You can make wonderful dishes, and eat them at your leisure. …I, and His Demonic Highness, too, I imagine, invaded Ente Isla in search of such things.”

“…?”

“I am not asking you to understand me. Regardless, it is my lot to work as hard as I can until the day we can return to Ente Isla… Do you understand me, Urushihara?”

“Hey, I’ll work, dude. Once I can.”

“Listen, you…”

In consideration for Room 201 and its current occupants, Ashiya and Urushihara’s verbal scuffling proceeded at a hushed tone.

Suzuno, listening to them, placed her head back down toward her folded knees.