Hataraku Maou-sama! - Volume 13 - Chapter 3

THE HIGH SCHOOLER SEARCHES FOR A GUIDE 
As the lunch bell rang and the classroom brimmed with the excitement of sweet release, one student remained unmoving at her desk. Then, as the bell’s final echoes faded, she slowly, gradually slumped over the desk, intractable as a stone. 
“Hey, Yoshiya?” 
“Huh?” 
“Did you hear anything?” 
Kaori Shoji, member of Class 2-A in Sasahata North High School, was chatting in hushed tones with her old friend and frequent collaborator Yoshiya Kohmura at his desk. 
“What, about Sasaki?” 
Yoshiya shook his head, keenly aware of what Kaori was talking about. In their eyes, Chiho Sasaki—fellow classmate, school club partner, and good friend since they all entered high school—had come to classes today with the will to live sucked out of her. She totally blanked out when her name was called during class. During breaks, she either slumped over her desk like now or wandered off to parts unknown. 
It gave Kaori so much concern that she asked her what was up at the end of third period. “Sorry to make you worry,” Chiho replied with an obviously contrived smile. “I just forgot my wallet, my phone, my memo pad, my pencils, and two of my notebooks at home, but it’s okay.” Anyone who knew Chiho knew that was not okay, as excuses went. The notebooks and pencils were one matter, but the rest of her lost items were the kinds of things that made you worry whether they were gone for good. 
“If you don’t know anything, it’s not like I would.” 
“Yeah, I guess. But it doesn’t look like she’s eating lunch or anything…” 
“If it’s because she forgot her wallet, you or me could lend her some cash for today…but she usually brings her own bento lunch, doesn’t she?” 
“Not always…” 
They got along well, but Yoshiya, involved with different clubs from Chiho and Kaori, wasn’t together with them as often. Students usually wound up segregating themselves by gender during the lunch break. Chiho, Kaori, and a few other classmates would normally eat lunch together, and Chiho would bring her own food around 70 percent of the time. 
“A bento lunch, huh…?” 
“…What?” 
“Oh, nothing related to you.” 
“Huh? The hell it ain’t,” the off-put Yoshiya replied after being dragged into this conversation. “I’m club president. If someone on the team’s depressed about something, I think I gotta offer some help.” 
With all its senior members now gone, the Sasahata North High School kyudo club had a whopping three second-year participants—Chiho, Kaori, and Yoshiya. Yoshiya, defying the predictions made by every other member of the student body, was now club president. Most expected the role to fall upon either the stable, reliable, talented Chiho or the serene, caring Kaori, but Yoshiya nabbed it instead. 
The reason was simple: Thanks to his netting a few fresh club members from the incoming middle school grads, Sasahata North’s kyudo club barely managed to keep enough people to field a full five-person squad for team events. Thus, Yoshiya had four first-year boys and one girl to look after. “You got all those people under your wing,” reasoned Kaori, “so why don’t you just be club president? We can be your two vice presidents instead.” 
Chiho had no objections, so that was how things worked out back this summer. The summer school tournament later that season ended disappointingly, with Sasahata being eliminated at the semifinals in both the individual and team events—but they still made it that far in the team competition with Chiho shooting first and Kaori fifth and last, which was a decent achievement as far as club sports went. 
As Kaori was recalling now, Chiho’s lunch-eating habits had started to change around the summer period. She noticed because of how boundlessly fancy Chiho’s bento meals became. She began bringing a large box to class around the tournament period, and its contents clearly had extra care applied to them, far more than just a bunch of frozen junk cobbled together. 
“Hmm…” 
“Shoji?” 
“I think I might have an idea about this. I’ll see if I can make her snap out of it before club activities start up again.” 
“Really? Best of luck!” 
If Kaori claimed she’d do it, Yoshiya was willing to let her shoulder all the burden. Even the younger club members knew that leaving things to Chiho and Kaori usually worked out more smoothly. But it was also clear that Yoshiya’s attitude—completely mindless to put it harshly, boundlessly optimistic to put it nicely—had a positive impact on the people around him. Compared to back in the spring, when figuring out life after graduation drove him half-insane, Yoshiya looked like a heavy weight was taken off his back. Chiho’s sober dedication had a lot to do with that, but from Kaori’s perspective, she wouldn’t want Yoshiya any other way. 
At the same time, dealing with Chiho when she’s all clammed up like this couldn’t be more difficult for her to deal with. She had to make her cough up whatever she was hiding in her shell, or it’d make everybody worry before long. So she sat down at the empty desk in front of the still-sprawled Chiho. 
“Hey, Sasachi, you kinda under the weather today? Not feeling up for lunch?” 
“…Nnnnno, no, I’m hungry.” 
The reply sounded more energetic (and self-serving) than she expected. 
“Okay. There’re probably no seats left in the cafeteria, so you wanna eat here? I heard you forgot your wallet, but you didn’t forget your bento, did you?” 
“No, I did…” 
“Wow!” Kaori couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, I’ll have Yoshiya pay for it, so let’s have some curry or udon noodles at the cafeteria. They oughta still have some left if we go now.” 
The battle to secure lunch at the Sasahata North High cafeteria was a constant struggle most days, but the school organized their purchases so there was always plenty of curry and udon on hand, often leaving quite a bit left after the initial rush subsided. They both cost a mere two hundred yen, making them easy enough to order even on a high school student’s average allowance. 
“…” 
Chiho pondered a moment, head still against wood. 
“I can’t eat curry or udon. Anything but that today. I’d feel bad.” 
“Bad? What, for the curry and udon?” 
“Yeah.” 
“Did curry or udon do something to piss you off?” 
“…They’ve been a lot of trouble for me.” 
“Curry and udon have?” 
“Yeah.” 
“So are you, like, actually the Soba Fairy and you refuse to accept blasphemy like curry and udon for lunch?” 
“The udon party. Yeah.” 
“Ooh, pissed off by the udon party, huh?” 
This not-quite-a-conversation continued for a while longer before Kaori finally heaved a light sigh, crossed her legs on top of the chair, and looked around. Yoshiya was already gone, perhaps out eating lunch with the other boys, and the bento-bringers left in the classroom were busy with their own chattering. Kaori surveyed her surroundings closely, then leaned in close, whispering to make sure only Chiho could hear her. 
“You get dumped?” 
“N-no!!” 
“Ooph!!” 
“Agh!! Nh!” 
Chiho shot up, causing the back of her head to slam against Kaori’s face. The subsequent rebound back to her desk landed a fairly severe blow to the tip of her nose. The force of the surprise impact made Kaori rear back, almost making her fall off her chair. 
And so… 
“Um, sorry.” 
“Me too.” 
The two were all smiles as they hung out in the nurse’s office. The sight of two young women about to bud into adulthood, both bleeding profusely as they waited there, wasn’t exactly charming. The nurse applied some quick first aid, and they were out once Chiho’s nose stopped bleeding, walking down a corridor that the afternoon sun did little to light up. 
“So…?” 
“I have to tell you?” 
“If you don’t, let’s go eat curry or udon.” 
“Oof…” 
“What?” Kaori gave a confused smile. “Do you really hate them? That wasn’t just an analogy or something?” 
“It’s kind of an analogy but not really. I don’t hate them, but it’s hard to face up to them, so…” 
“Well, how ’bout we go outside?” 
Kaori guided Chiho out to the school courtyard. A few boys from some other class were playing soccer in their school uniforms, sweating in their dress shirts despite the cold. A lot of them sported pants that were heavily worn around the cuffs; they must have spent a lot of afternoon breaks this way. The two of them leaned against the wall at one corner of the school, feeling around for something to talk about. 

“If you followed me without complaining, you’re willing to talk to me?” 
“I guess you won’t let me go until I do.” 
It was surprisingly difficult to find an area in school free of other people during lunch. You might think nobody would be up on the roof, but step up to the landing and you’d see groups of people relaxing or playing cards to avoid any snooping faculty. The competition for space was intense. The more specialized rooms, like the computer lab and home ec department, tended to get taken up by the clubs and other groups that used them a lot. In a season like this, it was much easier to find solitude outside. 
“Whew… I dunno where to begin…” 
“Well? Who is it? That guy from work?” 
“Kao?! I haven’t even said anything…!” 
Having Kaori drive into the very heart of her issues before she could even formulate an introduction made Chiho physically leap into the air. It also made her realize there was no trying to dodge the question now. She fell to her knees on the landing, cowering down. Kaori had visited her at the Hatagaya MgRonald several times, even talking with “that guy from work” at least once, but Chiho hadn’t told her much else about the workplace. She wasn’t expecting such a pinpoint diagnosis. 
“Ah, it’s easy to work out my stuff with you, Sasachi. As far as what I could figure out, I was expecting to make you confess to it and beg for mercy as we were having curry or udon, but…” 
“What kind of scenario is that?” Chiho attempted to complain, even as she realized that, given Kaori’s experience, maybe her guess wasn’t so out of the blue after all. “Lemme just say, though, I wasn’t dumped or anything.” 
“Okay, so what is it, then?” 
“…Um.” Chiho chose her words carefully. “I wasn’t dumped…but I kind of lost my temper.” 
“Lost your temper?” 
“Yeah… Um, it was nothing…but between that nothing, a whole ton of stuff happened, and it felt like it threw everything up in the air for me.” 
“‘A whole ton’ sounds like a lot. And if you say there was nothing and it made you lose your temper, that sounds a lot like you’ve been dating that guy for a while, but now you’re angry because he won’t, like, go to the next step with you.” 
“N-no!” Chiho hurriedly replied. “It’s not that! We aren’t dating or anything!” 
“You aren’t? What was this guy’s name again? He had kind of a weird one.” 
“Maou.” 
“Maou. Was that it?” Kaori shrugged. “It usually takes me a few repetitions before I remember someone’s name. So why’re you going on about nothing if you aren’t even dating? Do those fancy bentos you had in the summertime have anything to do with it?” 
“You noticed that?” Chiho asked, surprised. 
“Well, yeah, they’re totally a step above the rest of the class. Bigger, too.” 
“…Yeah, I gained some weight for a while thanks to that.” 
“Oh? Well, that’s interesting.” 
Once the ice was broken and Chiho was ready to talk, she found Kaori’s friendly tone irresistibly comforting. 
The whole reason Chiho began bringing food to Room 201 of Villa Rosa Sasazuka was because Suzuno, who moved in that summer, started hanging out there all the time. Thanks to the mistaken notion that Suzuno might be falling for Maou as well, Chiho was suddenly burning to do something about it—but the new girl’s cooking skills were admittedly far beyond the realm a high schooler like herself could reach. Taking the normal approach wouldn’t be enough to overtake her, so for the first time in her life, Chiho undertook a crash course in finer cuisine. 
Her mother, of course, saw through this almost immediately. She even told her father. He had mixed feelings about it, but her mother approved—“it saves me from thinking up a new menu every day,” she said—and she wound up teaching her daughter quite a bit. 
This marked the beginning of Chiho’s demonic food donations, and truthfully speaking, her dishes took up maybe a third of all the food on the table at Devil’s Castle. She underwent a long trial-and-error process at first, in search of a way to win out against Suzuno, and that often led to taking on more than she could handle in the kitchen and failing spectacularly. 
She had first expressly confessed her love to Maou on that first day she brought meals over. It seemed like quite a while ago, but it hadn’t even been half a year. The sweltering heat and the cicadas all seemed to melt away from that sweet moment in time, the way Chiho sensed it. It wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment impulse or someone egging her on—it was her firm, indomitable belief. 
As she thought, there was no better time to spring the news. Unlike earlier, when she was just beginning to foster feelings for him, she now knew quite a bit of his backstory. She knew it, and it didn’t change her emotions at all. So she went out with it—out to the first man she ever loved in her life. 
“Wow! Pretty scintillating!” 
“…Don’t pick on me. It’s so embarrassing I could die.” 
Chiho had censored out everything involving Ente Isla, but the rest of her story was the truth. It made Kaori break out into an exaggerated whoop of delight. Despite the cold, her face felt warm to the tips of her ears. 
“You know,” Kaori said, “when I was in middle school, I just kind of assumed that everybody in high school is busy dealing with their boyfriends or girlfriends all day. But it really doesn’t feel that way to me, you know? Or to a lot of people around us. It is with some people, but you know. So having a friend of mine lay it all bare to a guy like that… I don’t think I’ve heard a story like that before.” 
“Ooh…” 
“Aww, you’re so cuuuuute, Sasachi! So what’d he say?” 
After a love confession like that, anyone would be curious about the reply. But it only made Chiho’s face darken. 
“Well, that’s one reason why I kinda lost my temper… I haven’t gotten an answer yet, really.” 
“Whaa?!” 
That reaction was no exaggeration. 
“You told him during summer break, didn’t you? Huh? It’s December right now!” 
“Yeah.” 
“So… You’re still working at that MgRonald together and stuff?” 
“…Yeah.” Chiho nodded. They were together in quite a few other places as well, but she glossed over that. “I told him that I didn’t want a response immediately, but…” 
“Ohhh. Well, huh! Even so…you know? Ah, well. So that’s one reason. Is there anything else?” 
“Yeah, um…” 
If Chiho wanted to go into any further depth, the topic of Alas Ramus would have to come up. She did her best to summarize the situation, taking care to avoid any Ente Isla–centric keywords. As she put it, Maou had kind of a drifter relative who left him with a child, an infant really, to take care of. As a high school student, Chiho couldn’t offer much help to a single father trying to raise a kid. 
“Well, yeah. If you do that and the teachers found out, you’d have to deal with a lot more than just the guidance counselor.” 
“Yeah. Our boss at MgRonald yelled at him over it, too, the whole ‘Think about what society might think of you guys’ and stuff.” 
Despite that, at Maou’s fervent request, Chiho decided to do whatever she could reasonably offer to help out. However, the care of this child was eventually left to another woman. 
“Ooh, here comes your rival, huh?!” 
“Kao, stop acting like this is so much fun for you.” 
“What do you want? How could I be anything besides excited when this new cast member comes up?” 
“Maybe, but…she’s not really a rival exactly.” 
That would be Emi Yusa, an old acquaintance of Maou’s and a single woman who wouldn’t have any social stigma preventing her from helping out at his place. It was debatable how much enthusiasm she had for coming over, but in the end, the child wound up bringing Emi and Maou closer together (at least proximity-wise). It was Emi, as well, who had told Chiho all about Maou down to the slightest detail, in the end. 
“She’s a really strong, really pretty woman. Kind of a reliable big-sister type. We really like each other.” 
“…I can tell you feel that way, Sasachi, but this sounds like a huge drama pit.” 
They were old acquaintances, but Emi and Maou also had a great deal of trouble getting along. If it wasn’t for the child, there were times when they wouldn’t even want to talk to each other. 
“So why is she so set on taking care of this child she isn’t related to?” 
“It’s a long story, but let’s just say she’s got her motivations. For one, the girl really loves her.” 
“Ohh.” 
So the two didn’t get along well with each other, but as their mutual friend, Chiho had always hoped they would find a way to make up sooner or later. Eventually, Emi lost her job following some personal issues, but thanks to her skills and proactive attitude, it wasn’t long before she found her next one. 
“Wait, don’t tell me…?” 
“Yeah. At the MgRonald me and Maou work at.” 
“Whoooaa. You’re puttin’ yourself through hell, girl!” 
“It’s not hell, really. I told him I loved him, but we’re not exactly a couple yet. Me and Yusa get along pretty well, too, and really I’m glad she’s on the team. We had kind of a staff shortage at the time, so I was the one who suggested to Maou that we should hire her on.” 
“Wow, again? Why?” 
“Well, I figured maybe they’d mend things up a little if they worked together.” 
“Why are you creating this personal hellscape for yourself, Sasachi…?!” 
“I told you, it’s not hell! I’m not having a huge argument with Maou or Yusa or anything!” 
“But what, then? If you’re sure it’s not a hellscape for you, then it’s all working out just the way you hoped it would, isn’t it? You’re working with friends and people you like, and you aren’t in a hurry for a response, although I really think you should press him a little, girl. You’ve factored everything in, yeah?” 
“Yeah…pretty much, but…” Chiho looked down at the ground. “One of the veteran crewmembers is leaving the MgRonald. He’s looking for a career job somewhere, but it made me think…like, everyone in our class better start thinking about entrance exams, too, huh?” 
“Oh, yeah. A lot more classmates are going to after-school prep centers these days.” 
“But that guy leaving makes everything a little different from how it was before. You notice that his name isn’t on the shift schedule anymore; you start getting assigned to different work stations in your own shifts… I started noticing those little changes, and I was like oh, craaaaaap! Like, it made me realize that I can’t keep things like this forever.” 
“What do you mean, ‘like this’?” 
Chiho noted Kaori’s quizzical look as she attempted to piece together all the thoughts she had gone over in her mind today. 
“It’s my next-to-last year in high school. I’ve grown up comfortably with parents who love me. I haven’t had any big exam or other life-altering event. I go to school, hanging out with you and Kohmura and everyone, taking notes and eating lunch and practicing kyudo. When I go to my job, I can hang out with Maou and Yusa and Ms. Kisaki, and over at his apartment building, there’s Suzuno, and Maou’s friend Ashiya, and this guy Urushihara… And it all seemed like a given to me, but the other day, I realized, it’s all a temporary thing. That finally struck home, I think.” 
“Right.” 
“So then I realized, I’ll be like Kota someday, too. This day will come when I’ll just disappear from someone’s life. And when I think about that, these things I never cared at all about before get so important to me that I don’t even know what to do.” 
“Kota’s the guy leaving MgRonald?” 
“Yeah. Um…Kotaro Nakayama is his full name. We use nicknames a lot around the kitchen, so I needed a moment to remember his real one.” 
“I hear you there.” 
“So then, after that, I started thinking about all kinds of stupid stuff at once…” 
This nickname system was a deeply embedded part of the culture at the Hatagaya MgRonald. It wasn’t anything forced; more of a case-by-case deal, with some going by their real names and others not. Chiho was Chi to everybody on the payroll except for Emi. 
“But you know, among his circle of friends, I’m the only one Maou calls by a nickname. He calls Yusa ‘Emi,’ and his neighbor is just ‘Suzuno,’ but I’m still ‘Chi’ to him.” 
“Hmm.” 
A nickname isn’t necessarily a sign of looking down on the person in question. Maou adopted the habit long before they had any deep relationship. But Kaori simply nodded at it without further comment. 
“And I told you they don’t get along, but really, he’s way nicer to Yusa than he used to be. Like, he acts all curt and mean around her, but it’s really just so Yusa can keep her pride intact more than anything.” 
“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.” 
“But I’m the only member of this circle who’s a student living at home, and I’ll have college exams next year. I won’t be able to see them nearly as often then…and…” 
“And?” 
“…And another acquaintance of Maou and Yusa’s showed up recently…and she’s offering a really huge job to both of them.” 
This “huge job” was, of course, the rescue of all Ente Isla’s humanity at Laila’s request, a detail Chiho thoughtfully omitted. 
“Mmm, all right.” 
“We had all been together up to now, and I sort of assumed that could keep on going indefinitely. But it’s not, and in fact, what I assumed was normal life for me actually isn’t gonna last very long at all. And it kinda made me panic.” 
“Right, right.” 
Kaori nodded, crouching down next to Chiho and patting her on the back. 
“Like, maybe Maou and everyone else are gonna be off somewhere before long. But I can’t join them. I have to stay here, because he and I come from different worlds anyway. So I just… I wanted an answer, ASAP.” 
“Yeah.” 
“I wanted Maou and Yusa to get along all this time, but now it’s, like, seeing Maou meddle with Yusa’s affairs is so hard for me to watch. No matter what I do, by next year I can’t be together with Maou and them all like I am now. And I know I’ll only be busy with exams for a year. It’ll be as short as this moment maybe. But if they decide to go and take on this big job…I don’t really know how it’ll turn out. I may not see them again for years. I’m so jealous of the people who get to stay with him. It drives me nuts.” 
“Yeah.” 
“But…I really love Yusa, too. But I’m getting all jealous over this stupid, pointless thing I can’t do anything about, and it’s, like, what am I even doing? This is exactly what I wanted for them, but no matter what I do…” 
“Yeah!” 
Kaori wrapped her arms around Chiho’s shoulders. They didn’t look at each other’s faces. That was the rule. 
“So I wonder, what even am I…to Maou?” 
That was the small, ever so tiny, thornlike concern that had been jabbing away somewhere in her mind all this time. 
“He’s always looking out for my safety, I’m always dragging him down… I might be a major pain in the ass, for all I know, but maybe he’s too kind to come out and say that. My thoughts go into this huge negative spiral, and I can’t climb out of it.” 
She had confessed her feelings to Maou but not in the standard Would you like to be a couple? kind of way. All she did was say, in a person-to-person kind of way, that she loved him. That was why, even if she wanted a response, she wasn’t even sure what kind she wanted. 
“Not that I’d really know…but it sounds like you really enjoy these people, Sasachi. Maybe I’m a little jealous even.” 
“Oh, um, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like…” 
“No, I get it. They’re them, and I’m me. I know a lot about you, Sasachi, that I bet they don’t know about. So basically, you hate yourself for being jealous, but you still can’t get your own emotions together, so you’re freaking out. Is that right?” 
“Yeah…” 
“Your face looks awful. You got a handkerchief?” 
“…No.” 
“Here’s some tissues.” 
“Thanks…” 
The tears had started rolling out again, along with some embarrassing nasal discharge. 
“…And the worst thing is, I vented my anger at Suzuno.” 
“Ooh, that sounds bad. That was Maou’s neighbor?” 
“Right. I ran into her in town, and I was kind of falling apart back there, too, and before I knew it, we were at the Tacoma’s Best in the station and she was trying to console me. Looking back, I really put her in this horrible place, but she heard me out all the way.” 
But as much as she understood Chiho’s anguish, Suzuno had no answer for her. She went into several rants about how thoughtless Maou was, how much he was letting Chiho spoil him, but when it came to how their paths might diverge before long, she didn’t have much to offer. 
“Mmm. I see. Your lover isn’t giving you an answer, you’re getting all jealous of your best friend, and you complained all about it to this other friend of yours? No wonder you’re kicking yourself over it.” 
“…Yeah. So that’s why I’m like this today.” 
“All right. Well, I think I understand. Definitely goes beyond anything curry and udon could handle.” 
Kaori briskly nodded. 
“So now what? Should I tell you what I’m thinking?” 
“…If you have anything, I’m all ears.” 
Between Suzuno and now Kaori, Chiho hated how pathetic she must’ve looked, clinging to her friends like this. She had no idea where her own feelings lay any longer. 
“All right. If you ask me, I think you should be a little more selfish.” 
“What do you mean?” 
“Exactly that. Just grab Maou by the collar and demand an answer! Tell him you don’t like how nice he’s being to Yusa! What could go wrong?” 
The suggestion was so provocative that it almost horrified Chiho. 
“Wh-wha—? How am I supposed to do that?” 
“Why not?” 
“Why not? I…” 
Yeah, why not? Why couldn’t she do that? Was she forbidden to? Why? 
“You never have before, huh?” 
“I have, kind of, but…” 
“I’m not saying you should deliberately start drama between you and Yusa, but if you’re that buddy-buddy, I really think you’re safe in telling her exactly how you feel. Say you want to date him, and like, you’re gonna have this to deal with next year, but you wanna all be together for as long as you can. Because I don’t really think there’s any other way to solve this.” 
“Mmmmmmaybe.” 
“That’s my main takeaway from all this. Also, I don’t know how important Yusa really is to you, but if a guy you like is acting all nice toward someone else, of course that’s gonna be frustrating to you. That’s normal. And if you’re getting all depressed because of this jealousy that Yusa herself isn’t even aware of, that’s just lame, girl.” 
“Oww…” 
Provocative and merciless. Chiho had her suspicions about it, but having it stabbed into her like this completely sunk her battleship. 
“It’s lame because it makes you look like you’re trying to be the only good guy in all this. People get jealous all the time, but a friend’s always gonna be a friend. So what’s the big deal? If it hurts your friendship, then…well, that was probably bound to happen anyway.” 
Suzuno hadn’t offered her anything like this. It was merciless, but with Kaori saying it, Chiho had nothing to counter with. Coming from the same generation as her, it was the most bleedingly obvious thing. 
“You’ve already confronted him once. Why’s it gotta be so scary to do it one more time for keeps? And if Suzuno was that worked up about it, then you definitely gotta use her as your ally. I mean, procrastinating on a reply for four months is far too long.” 
“Y-yeah…” 
“So I know that’s all easy for me to say, not being involved. You’re the one who makes the final call, Sasachi.” 
“…Right. Thank you. Sorry I’m being so incoherent.” 
“It’d be worse if you were coherent. I’ve got no love experience, so if you said something like your boyfriend’s cheating on you, I would’ve fled hours ago. Oh, and I don’t need regular updates, but once it’s all settled, make sure to report back to me, okay?” 
“All right…” 
Sensing how serious-minded Kaori was about this, Chiho resolved to reveal one more shameful aspect of herself while she had her ear. 
“Also…” 
Kaori patted down her skirt as she stood, looking toward the school building. Following her gaze, Chiho saw the clock above the front door. 
“Ah!!” 
Now she understood Kaori’s concern. The clock was cruelly, ruthlessly showing five minutes until the end of lunch break. 
“We can talk about missing out on lunch later.” 
“Um, maybe when I have my wallet again…” 
Chiho instantly felt hungry again, now that her feelings were all out in the open, but it was too late. She was forced to tackle the subsequent fifth and sixth periods on an empty stomach. 
“Ahhh… I’m hungry…” 
Upon returning home, Chiho collapsed into bed. 
She did manage to borrow some money from Kaori so she could buy a roll from the nearby convenience store between sixth period and her kyudo practice, but for someone with an appetite like hers, a single roll would never fill her stomach. Having Kaori light a fire under her made practice just as chaotic for her, ruining her stance and breaking her arrows. Her stomach growled so loudly that the first-year students could hear it. 
It was awful, given how she usually took a bold, measured stance at the archery range, but there was no way she could admit to skipping lunch after whining about her love life all day. Kaori, at least, played defense for her against Yoshiya and the rest. Between that and the roll she paid for, she’d be owing her for a while to come. 
“Oh, right, my phone.” 
The phone, still plugged into its charger by the bed, reported a few missed calls and text messages. 
“Huh? Mom?” 
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 critical 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. 
Rika noticed that Ashiya was casually taking care to match his walking pace with her own. Every time she spotted their reflection in a store window or mirror on the wall, she could feel something sweet throb inside her. They looked like coworkers in the same company or friends seeing each other for the first time in a while. That, or just two lovers out on a date. It made Rika recognize all over again that, even after learning the truth and having the most terrifying experience of her life, her feelings were still true. 
Right now, she thought, I know I love him from the bottom of my heart. But even so, she couldn’t quite will herself to hold the hand Ashiya dangled shortly ahead of her. 
She continued to fidget just as nervously as they sat in front of the restaurant, shoulder to shoulder, and waited for a table to open. When it did, Ashiya removed his suit jacket, the sight of him in his prim vest quickening her pulse all over again. This constant rush of emotion was already starting to tire her out. 
“Hmm…” 
As Rika worried about whether she’d be able to keep her head on straight for their shopping trip, Ashiya intently peered at the menu. 
“…Ah.” 
Rika took a peek at it as well. Then she spotted the prices. They made her raise her eyebrows a bit. Everything on the lunch menu was over a thousand yen, the priciest items pushing one thousand eight hundred. By Rika’s standards, that was a lot to ask for lunch. She knew full well that Ashiya wasn’t exactly rolling in it. 
“Um, are you okay with this, Ashiya?” 
If he had picked this place himself, he must have been aware of the cost. Still, considering his consternation when they were TV shopping, he might be stretching himself a tad too thin. It was a matter of pride, too, given that he had invited her to this. Rika thought a bit about how she could tell him—as lightly as possible, of course—that he didn’t need to break the bank for her sake. 
“Actually…” 
Ashiya shook his head, eyes still on the menu. 
“I was just thinking about whether I could prepare this golden eye snapper and boiled vegetables combo at this price.” 
“Huh? At home?” 
“Yes. One thousand two hundred yen might seem high for a single dish, but it might be surprisingly hard to save any money cooking this myself, I thought.” 
“R-really?” 
“Indeed.” He placed the menu down and nodded, face cold and calculating. “The snapper itself is not an inexpensive fish. Seafood has been on the rise across the board lately. I would conjecture that a single fillet alone would cost three hundred yen.” 
“Ahh.” 
“In a restaurant like this, it is safe to assume that each customer will order something different. In the family kitchen, however, that isn’t possible—not with the time and equipment your average family has to work with. I have three people to cook for, counting myself, so that would be three fillets at nine hundred yen. Plus, this is all-you-can-eat obanzai, complete with a small bowl of rice and miso soup. Free refills on the rice as well, I may add. If I attempted the same offer in Devil’s Castle, the three of us would exhaust our rice supply in short order. I imagine this restaurant sells a given number of these snapper combos per day, but serving the same dish daily at home will simply not cut the mustard, so to speak. As a result, the amount of work and money it would take to duplicate this dish for a single meal would likely go far beyond expectation. That is why I thought, perhaps, one thousand two hundred yen is actually quite an appropriate price point.” 
“Wow, yeah. Never really thought of it that way, but…” 
Rika was dumbfounded at first, but the nerves faded as Ashiya began to act more and more like his normal self. 
“Oh, and I know it is normally my creed to scrimp and save as much as possible, but since you’ve made the effort to join me, Ms. Suzuki, there is no need to be concerned about such matters today. Times like these are exactly why I engage so enthusiastically in thrift.” 
“Sure. All right. Just make sure you don’t make Maou mad, okay?” 
Rika, it turned out, had nothing to worry about from the start. 
“I will keep that in mind. Well… Now, then. Where should our conversation begin, I wonder?” 
“Aw, no need to be too formal. I’ve already heard a lot about what happened after Urushihara showed up and what went on in Ente Isla and stuff. I’d like to know what went on after you got kidnapped, though.” 
“After that? I did hear word from Ms. Sasaki that you were in ill health for a while. Did you recover well?” 
“Ah, you know how much of an optimist I am at the root of it! Chiho and Ms. Ohguro really looked out for me back there. Plus, I know the whole story, and I’m still going out with you today, right, Ashiya? You get the picture.” 
“Mm. Very well. I interrogated Gabriel and the Inlain Jade Scarves in detail afterward, but none of them had any word about what happened to you. I was quite worried. And in fact…” 
And so Ashiya began to recall what happened after Gabriel kidnapped him, an event that had everything to do with Emi’s own trip to Ente Isla. Rika listened, a calm, collected smile on her face. Much of it was a bit too difficult to grasp in the first repetition, but essentially everyone Rika cared about was safe and sound, and with Emi’s mother back and possessing just the info they needed to tackle the riddles Ashiya couldn’t quite grasp earlier, they had a great deal to look forward to. 
“Sounds like quite an ordeal, but in the end, everyone’s one step closer to their goals, huh?” 
“Indeed. Although, perhaps not in a way I anticipated back when the Devil King’s Army was alive and well.” 
“Yeah, and I doubt myself a year ago would ever seriously believe any of this nonsense, either.” 
Their orders arrived soon after, driving their conversation in the direction of food, Ashiya’s and Rika’s daily routines, matters around the workplace after Emi was fired, and other little trivialities. 
Between Maki Shimizu and the rest of her coworkers, Rika had no lack of fun friends to eat out with, but this lunch outing felt totally different. Ashiya was talented at driving a conversation forward, and he was a good listener to boot. It was kind of funny how talkative he got whenever the topic veered toward Maou, Urushihara, their battle against Emi, or the Devil King’s Army of the past. 
“Regardless, considering our ongoing issues with Urushihara, we need to keep the running phone costs at an absolute minimum.” 
It was a given for Ashiya that he had to factor Urushihara’s embezzlement habits into whatever he bought today. 
The secret behind the very non-demon-like suit came out as well, in the midst of their talking. A little bit before Maou was hired at MgRonald, the two of them each purchased a suit at a menswear store offering a “buy one, get the second for one thousand yen” deal, figuring they might take on jobs in the future that required more formal wear. They never did find that job, so the outfits had spent most of the past year mothballed in the closet, accompanied by a pair of black and white ties for formal occasions. 
“With the store’s stock, they had a rather limited selection for someone of my height, so my liege was forced to purchase the thousand-yen suit instead. It is something I regret to this day.” 
“Well, not much you can do about that. Without a deal like that, the second suit probably would’ve cost twenty or thirty thousand yen otherwise, wouldn’t it?” 
“Indeed. And come to think of it, this may be the first large purchase I’ve made for myself since.” 
“Oh? Well, you oughta get something decent for yourself, then. Do you have any models or brands you’re aiming for?” 
“Not at the moment, sadly…” 
“Ah. Actually, all the companies changed their pricing plans a little after you bought that TV. I think the types of phones you’d be best able to deal with are…” 
After dinner, now fully used to the presence of Ashiya, Rika took a pen and memo pad out of her bag and shifted completely into work mode. After quizzing Ashiya on what he was looking for, this was her conclusion— 
“So you want to go as cheap as possible. You can use that Idea Link thing as long as the handset works as a phone at all, so you aren’t picky about brand or model. You’re mainly using it for voice calls but not very long ones. The only people you’re likely to text with it are the people who live in your apartment building. No plans to move outside large urban areas. You don’t download games or music, but you might want to access the Net fairly often. Does that all sound right?” 
“Yes.” 
“Okay. Sounds good. It’s kind of a pity Emi didn’t say something when Maou had to switch phones earlier…but I don’t know much about AE, and I guess Maou’s been with that carrier for a while. Maybe he had his own reasons for going with another feature phone like that.” 
Rika looked over her notes one more time. 
“So if we’re going to buy a phone without any monthly payments, how much are you willing to spend?” 
“Monthly payments?” a confused-looking Ashiya asked. “Indeed. If I paid out everything I had, I think I could manage fifty thousand yen…although I understand most people pay by the month for things like this.” 
“Yeah, some of the newer phones go for a ton of money these days. A lot of customers go for monthly payments on their phones on top of their regular bill, but if you go that way, you’re gonna have to shell out at least six thousand yen a month.” 
“Six thousand a month…” Ashiya visibly soured. “My liege’s monthly phone bill teeters around the four-thousand mark, so I was anticipating approximately that…” 
“Mmm, I dunno when she bought it, but if Emi paid for Maou’s phone in one lump sum, it’s that much less he pays monthly, of course. Feature phones don’t use up a ton of data for anything, so that’s probably about right. But, for example, if you buy a fifty-thousand-yen phone and go for a two-year payment plan, that’s gonna be a little over two thousand a month, just ballparking it. You’re a new customer, Ashiya, so you won’t get a loyalty discount, and Maou doesn’t count as family, so you can’t share a common plan. Factoring all that in, even six thousand a month might be kinda optimistic. It might go up a little, depending on which one you choose and how you wind up using it.” 
“Hmmmm…” 
“So that’s why I thought I’d ask whether you want to buy the phone in one payment.” 
“Oh?” 
“Roughly speaking, if you buy your phone outright, there’s a way to keep the monthly bill at three thousand or below. It’s not very common, but…” 
“Not very common? Do I need to perform some kind of complex operation with my device?” 
“Nope. I only mean it’s not very common to see in Japan yet. It requires a smartphone, too, so if you aren’t up for that, it ain’t gonna happen. You gotta buy the phone outright, and your carrier won’t assign you a static e-mail address, so the longer you’ve been using your account, the harder it is to switch over to this. Along those lines, Ashiya, as long as you can afford the device, you can go with that right off.” 
“I’m not sure I follow everything you just said, but is this something you might be able to assist with as an employee, Ms. Suzuki?” 
“Nothing like that. I’m not a full-time employee, and this is something open to anybody if they want it. And even though it’s cheaper, it doesn’t degrade the features and services available to you.” 
“Then why isn’t it more commonly used?” Ashiya asked. 
“Oh, a lot of reasons. It isn’t advertised a lot. Japan’s phone markets evolved in kind of a unique way from elsewhere, and this wasn’t even available in Japan until recently, so it’s only gotten started. But it’s nothing you have to worry about, Ashiya. All that matters is whether you want to purchase a phone outright or not. If you don’t think that’ll happen, you might be able to find a cheaper plan that restricts what you can do, but…” 
“No. The creed of Devil’s Castle is to keep ongoing costs at a minimum. If my monthly fee can become that low and you say it is accessible to me, I have no reason not to pursue it, Ms. Suzuki.” 
“Great. Unless you want something else here, let’s go find someplace selling Dokodemo phones.” 
“It will be a Dokodemo contract?” 
Rika thought a bit over how to explain this to the technologically backward Ashiya. 
“Not exactly, but you could kind of say it is, if you’re willing to fudge the details. Have you ever heard of an unlocked phone before?” 
“Unlocked how?” 
“Um, how ’bout I fill you in on the way there?” 
Rika stood up and grabbed the bill from the table out of habit. 
“Oh, allow me.” 
Ashiya’s hand landed on top of hers as he attempted to snatch it away. 
“Huh?! Ah! B-but?!” 
“I invited you here today to apologize, and I wanted to enlist your help after this. Please allow me.” 
“…Okay…” 
The sense of calm that prevailed after all that phone talk vanished once more as Rika pulled her hand back. Ashiya gave this a satisfied nod, putting his suit jacket back on as he headed for the register. Looking on from behind, Rika tightly clutched her right hand in front of her chest, as if trying to embrace the feeling of this man’s large, slightly rough hand against hers. 
“My, it has certainly grown dark, hasn’t it?” 
“Yeah. It’s only five, too.” 
It was almost five o’clock sharp by the time they left the phone shop. Ashiya, quick to take action once his mind was made up, had fully purchased a slightly outdated Dokodemo smartphone, unlocked at Rika’s recommendation. The store then set him up with a monthly service contract, providing the Dokodemo SIM card that hooked the device up to the Net. 
Reaching this point, however, was an odyssey. The only electronics Ashiya interacted with were home appliances, calculators, and TVs, and now he was trying to purchase a smartphone. When the salesman explained that he could download a pdf manual if he couldn’t figure out to use it, the color drained from his face. Realizing that he wouldn’t even use the phone if left at sea like this, Rika dragged him up to the shop’s upstairs café and gave him an impromptu lecture, beginning with how to turn the phone on. 
As part of this, Rika opened up her phone book app, complete with her name and number right at the top. Maybe that didn’t mean anything to Ashiya, but to Rika, it was an unexpected miscalculation that filled her with joy. Even that fright she received when Ashiya took the bill began to ease itself, with her growing gradually more used to brushing against his hand as they handed her phone back and forth. 
With a couple of well-timed breaks in between, Ashiya had learned how to make calls, send and receive texts, add and dial numbers, and use the map and train schedule apps—all within a mere two hours. 
“Boy, you might already be better than Maou at this, huh?” 
“His Demonic Highness is one thing, but now that we are in the same arena of smartphones, I could hardly allow myself to lose out to Emilia.” 
Rika couldn’t guess what kind of battle he meant to wage in this “arena,” but it was cute to see him act all cocky again. By the time he mastered the map app, he was clearly getting used to the whole thing, his enthusiasm resembling that of a small child in a tall man’s body. 
But this fun moment came to an end all too quickly. 
“Well, I do apologize for making you do all this for me. Thank you so much for everything today.” 
It was five PM, the sky already a deep shade of blue. The househusband had to go home and perform his family duties. 
“…No, um, I’m just glad I could help you out.” 
She knew from before that he had evening responsibilities at home. She had assumed they had a lot more time than this. 
“Indeed you did, Ms. Suzuki. Without your aid, I doubt I could have ever purchased and set this up by myself.” 
“Yeah.” She nodded back. 
“You live in Takadanobaba, correct? Perhaps I could take you there…” 
“N-no, I’m fine. It’s not dangerous or anything, and I know you have to get home soon.” 
Ashiya began to walk off, his hand barely too far away from hers, but the station turnstile just too close for her tastes. It felt like they had been to a thousand places, but Shinjuku station wasn’t even a ten-minute walk away. Seeing the turnstile where they met made Rika feel like a kindergartner back from an afternoon field trip. The fun was over, her friends leaving the bus one by one, and she was all alone and feeling vaguely rueful about it all. 
Something in her said she didn’t want this to end. The feeling would be weirdly gone once she was back home, but the way back felt so painful. It wasn’t like she’d never see Ashiya again—with everything she knew, it seemed fair to say they were closer together than before. But they lived in different parts of Tokyo. They quite literally came from different worlds. 
Then she recalled someone else. Someone they all knew. Someone who deliberately, by her own will, chose to stand strong with all these people. 
“Um, hey!!” 
Ashiya looked beady eyed at Rika as she stood in front of the station entrance, yelling at him. 
“Hey, um… Do you have maybe just a little more time?” 
“Er, yes? Yes. A little.” 
“Okay, um… Umm, I just…want you to listen for a bit.” 
“Listen to you? Should we perhaps go somewhere more private for this?” 
“No, here’s fine.” 
The western exit was starting to fill with rush-hour commuters and people setting off to explore the city. 
“Do you mind if I ask something…a little weird?” 
“What is it? If it is that strange, I think I have already asked a great number of strange and bizarre questions today.” 
“Well, I expected that. This is the first time for you, so it’s fine to act like a beginner. But it’s not about that.” 
She had reflectively smiled, but looking up at Ashiya’s face, she realized—her own was so tensed that Ashiya felt it best to try loosening her up a bit. 
“Not about that, but… You know, about Emi…” 
“Emilia?” 
“Yeah. Half human, half angel, right?” 
“It seems so, yes.” 
“Which means that on Ente Isla humans and angels can get married…can’t they?” 
“I suppose it is so. Certainly no need to wrangle with the local government office and go through all the name change bureaucracy, I imagine.” 
“All right…so…” 
Her heart was pounding scarily fast, harder than ever before this day. In one corner of it, she apologized to her friend for planting the idea in her head. 
“So,” her trembling voice began, “can demons and humans…come together that way?” 
“………Er?” 
Even Ashiya found himself lost at this transition. He frowned a little as he thought over how to scrutinize this. A few moments of confusion later, he opened his mouth. 
“…To be frank with you,” he carefully intoned, “I am not sure I follow. Unlike humans and angels, demons come in a great variety of species and individual forms, each with differing body types, physiques, even shapes and organ structures. Perhaps it would be possible with the more humanlike races, but I am not aware of any concrete example, so I am unsure what to say…” 
He scratched his head, worried about where to go from here. 
“Honestly, I am somewhat surprised to hear the question from you, Ms. Suzuki. Since I have actually had my own thoughts about humans and demons, as of late.” 
“Huh?” 
“Regarding Ms. Sasaki, I mean.” 
“Chiho…?” 
The sound of Chiho’s name from Ashiya’s pained-looking face filled Rika with a foreboding unrest. 
“Ms. Sasaki continues to have deep feelings for my liege, even after knowing everything there is to know about our past. Not long ago, however, there were concerns voiced over whether my liege is allowing himself to be too spoiled by Ms. Sasaki’s goodwill. It led to some conflict within our apartment building.” 
“Maou’s being spoiled by her?” 
“She is a very wise young woman, so she never becomes emotional or blindly devoted to him as she deals with my liege. She deals with us fully aware of the anger and hatred all of Ente Isla’s humanity foster against us, so she often sides with Emilia and her friends on matters. But…if relations between my liege and Emilia were to falter again, I am sure Ms. Sasaki would side with His Demonic Highness, in the end.” 
“Oh?” Rika interjected. “That wouldn’t necessarily be the case…” 
“I am sure that is what my liege thinks to himself, too.” 
“…Huh?” 
“What I mean is, my liege has offered a great support to all of us. To Bell when she was just getting used to life in Japan, to you when you became caught up in our crisis, and to Emilia when she was targeted by intrigues in Ente Isla. But his care for Ms. Sasaki has been, shall we say, comparatively lacking. He claims to care about her as her boss and coworker, but one step away from MgRonald, and it is Ms. Sasaki’s generosity that has helped him countless times, not the other way around. I fear his recognition and understanding of that was rather too shallow.” 
If Ashiya was willing to go that far, he must have been absolutely sure of it. 
“To put it in a kind way, he trusted her broadly in all areas. In a bad way, he was spoiled. Either way, Ms. Sasaki is the only person His Demonic Highness will fully open his heart to. That was true, perhaps since even before Urushihara came here to confront us.” 
“And…so that’s why, after the battle with Urushihara, Chiho was the only one…” 
“Indeed. The only one whose memories my liege did not erase. And I did find it rather strange back then. It is easy to imagine now that she meant something special to my liege even at the time. A special relationship, one that continues to this day. And so, I have come to think as of late, I would appreciate it if you did not speak of this to others, however…” 
He brought a hand to his chin. 
“If my liege decided to make Ms. Sasaki his partner…or, in other words, his wife, what would happen then?” 
“His—his—his wife?!” 
The raw energy of that keyword struck Rika dumb. 
“Such was my concern about this issue, you understand. But…well, I would hardly declare myself capable of reading His Demonic Highness’s mind. If it comes to that, we can consider the issue then, I trust… Er, what were we talking about?” 
“…Ah, um, uhhm, whether demons and humans can get married?” 
“Ah, yes, yes. So what about it?” 
“Well…” 
Well, indeed. After a conversation that stark and unfettered, it almost felt easy now. Easy to say, that is. The words came out like a river. 
“Well, kind of like Chiho and Maou, I…I think I’ve started to really like you, too.” 
“Ah………………huh?” 
Ashiya nodded his understanding as always…then froze. 
“Meaning…” 
“I like you. A-as a woman.” 
“But…Ms. Suzuki, I…” 
“I know. I totally understand how Chiho feels. I’m not asking to be your girlfriend or your wife or whatever; it’s not like that. But I just thought I wanted to tell you. That I had to. I wanted you to look at me that way.” 
All her senses were finely honed now, all sounds silenced except the ones she and Ashiya made. 
“Is that bad?” 
“……” 
Ashiya looked at Rika, face as stern as hers. But when their eyes were about to drift apart, Ashiya took his freshly purchased phone out of his pocket. 
“Give me one moment, please.” 
“Okay.” 
He opened up his phone book with halting swipes and taps, then brought the phone to his ear. 
“………About time. If you are glued to your computer anyway, I want you to answer the phone immediately… Yes. Alciel… I did. Add this number to your list. I will be slightly late returning home. My liege is working late tonight, so if you need to, eat whatever you want… Hmm? Pfft. So be it. Do what you like. But if you leave any food out on the table, you will pay dearly for it. Farewell.” 
Rika could tell who that terse conversation was with. Urushihara, no doubt, holding down the fort over at Villa Rosa Sasazuka. 
“…My, I must be losing my composure. Urushihara threatened to have pizza delivered, and I actually said yes to him.” 
“…Sorry about that.” 
Rika didn’t have much to defend herself with. Ashiya sighed, thrust the phone back in his pocket, and looked at her. 
“Would you…mind coming with me for a bit?” 
Ashiya strode slightly ahead of Rika as they walked down the tunnel. Judging by their direction, they seemed to be heading for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, forcing them to wade through the crowds of workers going against them. Soon, they were back on the surface, amid the high-rises that marked Tokyo’s business center. 
He stood there for a moment, scoping out his environment. “This way,” he finally said, inviting Rika away from the road. The wind around Nishi-Shinjuku, lined with corporate headquarters and five-star hotels, was powerful—and even colder, Rika felt, than when they left the phone shop. 
“Where are we?” 
They had stopped in the open patio area of a now-closed café sandwiched between two large buildings. Its opening hours were probably matched with the offices it shared this block with. Nobody was around. 
Ashiya turned toward the incredulous Rika. 
“Excuse me a moment, Ms. Suzuki.” 
“Huh? Ah! Whoa!” 
Then he grabbed her by the hand and brought her closer to him. 
That alone would have been enough to make Rika’s heart explode, but he wasn’t done. Her feet were leaving the ground. Before she knew it, she was being carried in his arms. 
“Wha—wha—wha—wha, Ashiya? I— Wha-what’re you…?!” 
“Hang on tight, please. Keep your mouth closed so you don’t bite your tongue.” 
“My, my tongue? Why’re you…?” 
She had no way to execute the whispered instructions before it began. 
“Whoaaaaaaa?!” 
The next moment, Rika was experiencing the Shinjuku cityscape like never before—from the sky. 
“Hyeeeeeeegh?!” 
She hugged her arms around Ashiya’s neck—a fairly standard response for someone at as high an altitude as her. 
“Wha—wha—whaaaaaa—?!” 
“Right. That is the most stable way. I will be moving a little, so hold on.” 
“Ah—ah—ah—ah—ah…” 
She was flying the friendly Shinjuku skies, safe in Ashiya’s arms. In a film or something, this probably would’ve been a magical, fantastical, romantic situation, but getting thrown into this scene without warning as a human being incapable of flight, Rika couldn’t do much apart from tense up her facial muscles and hang on for dear life. 
It was beautiful down there. And she couldn’t complain about her beloved holding her tight like a fairy-tale princess. But between the height, the cold, and the suddenness, it was maybe a little too much stimulation all at once. 
Thus, unable to enjoy this scenario that every little girl in the world has dreamed of at least once, Rika found herself plunked down on the roof of one of the taller buildings in the neighborhood. 
“Haah…haah… You totally freaked me out there…!” 
“I apologize. I felt the need to be as far away from other people as I could manage.” 
“Where…is this?” 
“The roof of Tokyo City Hall.” 
“Of what?!” 
Rika shot to her feet in a cold sweat, looking around. 
“Wh-why?!” 
“I needed a large, open space with nobody else in it,” Ashiya replied with a smile as he began to walk a distance away from Rika across the large windblown heliport. 
“Ashiya?” 
“I am very happy to hear about your feelings for me.” 
“Um?” 
“It is a surprise for me, as well. I used to think of humanity as lowborn vermin worthy of nothing but contempt, but when I learned of your feelings, Ms. Suzuki, it did not discomfort me one bit.” 
Shinjuku at night was bright enough to blot out the moon itself. Ashiya began to blend in with the shadows. 
“Sadly, though, I have no way of reciprocating those feelings. That is because…” 
The wind was laden with a dark, heavy chill, just as it was when Ashiya invited Rika into the alley before. It now seemed to Rika that Ashiya was fully lost in the shadows, as absurd as she knew that was. This was a wide-open, flat roof. It had to be bathed in moonlight right now. But before she could figure out why it was so, a dark shade enveloped Ashiya as a howling gale coursed across the roof. 
“Ah, agh!” 
Rika fell to the ground as she felt a sudden tightness in her chest. This was no sweet, refreshing feeling driving her heart any longer. It was a pain like nothing she felt before—like she was given poison to drink, robbing her of the air she needed. 
“Wh…what…?” 
“…Because there is no such thing in this world as a man named Shirou Ashiya.” 
“—?!” 
From the shadow Ashiya disappeared into, there arose a voice like none she had ever heard. It was low but still mighty and grating upon her ears. 
“Are you in pain? This form, this power is what I truly wield, human. Everything you have seen before is a false body, a false name, to allow me to blend in with humanity.” 
She forced her face upward, gasping for breath, only to find a figure there larger than the one before. The glinting from its eyes as it walked forward made Rika shake, despite her will. It was a reaction driven by fear, the primal emotion that no human could ever fully shake off. 
“My name is Alciel. A Great Demon General, a demon that no human can ever even set foot near. If you wish not to die, keep your distance. Our demonic force can easily take the lives of a human, weak as you all are.” 
Standing before Rika was a creature like none she knew, covered in a black shell. This armored carapace completely enveloped its body, its twin-pronged tail waving ominously in the air, the dully glowing eyes staring right at her. 

“Ah…Ashi…ya…” 
“The humans who dwelled on Ente Isla kneeled before me in terror at my form. And we will return one day to make them acquiesce to our will.” 
“Ng…gh, haah!” 
Nausea and tears welled up within Rika as she finally collapsed in a heap. 
“Do you understand? Understand how foolish, how misguided, how much of a folly your feelings are?” 
“Nn…nnggh…” 
Her joints began to ache, as if she suffered from a high fever. It was growing difficult to even look straight at him. 
So this is a demon? This demon she had heard about multiple times but never actually saw for herself? These people who killed and ruled over humanity on some faraway world? 
Fending off the fearsome pressure and terror assaulting her body, Rika’s mind began to whir into motion. 
“Wh…why…?” 
“Enough of your inane queries. I suggest that a human woman like you never make the same foolish mistake against a higher-level demon like—” 
“Why did you show that to me…?!” 
“………What?” 
“I can’t breathe… I—I heard about it, but I didn’t think it’d be so—so rough… Gehh… I couldn’t come near you if I tried. I can’t move my legs…” 
But even so, Rika drummed up enough willpower to look up and speak before the horrifying demon could answer. 
“Thank you…for showing me who you really are.” 
“…!” 
For one second, the confusion in Alciel’s mind made its way to his face. 
“If I was misguided… If I was in the way… You could erase my memories, couldn’t you? I heard about that. So why…?” 
“…” 
“I’m scared. This really hurts. I don’t want to go anywhere near you. I don’t know what to do…but…” 
Rika was unable to wipe the flowing tears away. 
“But I still love you. No matter how much you try to scare me. No matter what awful things you say to make me go away. I know how kind you really are. That’s why I love you. It’s not me being misguided.” 
“…” 
“You took me here…to keep from hurting other people, didn’t you? You stepped away to keep me from—from danger.” 
Her pleading was mostly screamed out at this point, but it was odd how that first instant of pain seemed to relax itself now. 
“You showed this to me because you wanted to give a serious reply to my feelings, didn’t you?” 
Alciel simply looked at the shouting human, face not moving a muscle. He could come no closer to the desperate woman. Only in his eyes could there be found an inexplicable sort of agitation. 
“I knew that. I knew that…I could never be your lover or anything…but I can still say it now. I love you. I love you for using your precious store of power to give me a sincere no. That, I’m positive, was no mistake of mine.” 
But she had reached her limit. 
“Thank you…Alciel…” 
And just as there was that final, fleeting image of her lover from another world—in his true form, to her—she fell into darkness. 
 
“Yeah, so that happened. The next thing I knew, I was on a bench in Shinjuku Central Park. Ashiya was back in human form, and he kept on apologizing to me, so it actually got a lot more awkward. Like, I think it woulda been a lot better if he simply disappeared into the night, all mysterious-like, you know? But he said if something happened to me, Emi would’ve killed him and he woulda had no defense for it. So there he was, regular old Ashiya, none of the dignified demon stuff from before, and seriously, it made me feel so embarrassed for what I said to him. Hey, um, aren’t you hungry, Chiho?” 
“Ahh…” 
Chiho’s empty stomach was no longer a concern to her. Rika’s story was enough to overwhelm her completely. Rika, meanwhile, was stacking up the sushi plates as if she hadn’t just experienced a cross-world dumping. 
“I know it sounds really silly, but you know how big demons get when they transform, yeah? He actually went behind that shadow to strip down beforehand so he wouldn’t wreck his suit, he told me. I asked about his underwear—which I know is the stupidest thing to ask ever—and he said they were elastic enough that they were okay, which totally made me laugh. Like, that’s so Ashiya for you.” 
“Ahh…” 
“And then we said good-bye just now, at Shinjuku station. I could’ve gone home, but I didn’t want to be in my room alone right after dealing with this insane broken heart, so as much as I hated to do it, I figured I’d give you a call, Chiho.” 
“Ahh…” 
All Chiho could do was nod, holding a cup of tea that had long grown cold in both hands. 
“And, you know, I heard that demonic energy was bad for you, but actually feeling it for myself, holy crap, it was rough! My joints hurt, I had this chill up my spine, I was nauseous… It totally wrecked me. It took this whole dinner for me to recover, really.” 
“Recover” was the way she put it, but judging by the color of Rika’s face, the recovery process had only begun. In Chiho’s case, it took a good night’s sleep for all the aftereffects to go away. Whether that was because the Devil King was that strong or the combined forces of Maou, Ashiya, and Urushihara were too much at close range, she didn’t know—but she remembered full well how, if it weren’t for Emi’s protection, she could have very well suffocated under the strain. Receiving treatment from Suzuno afterward—and learning holy magic for herself—made Chiho inextricably involved. But even so, that first instant of being exposed to the Malebranche’s evil force still felt supremely uncomfortable to her nerves. 
Rika, meanwhile, had no protection and faced the brunt of that force until she lost consciousness. And strangest of all, as far as Chiho was concerned, was Ashiya transforming before her eyes, despite claiming he had no need for demonic force in his regular life, after returning from Ente Isla. By her understanding, demons like Maou needed to retain at least a given amount of force within their bodies to perform the transformation. Maou used what little force he had remaining upon falling into Japan to establish a life for himself, but the effects of that cost him his original form, turning him into the regular human being Chiho knew well. 
It meant, in other words, that Ashiya had been keeping enough demonic force to transform this whole time, in secret. Perhaps it was out of an abundance of caution—maybe he didn’t quite believe everything about Gabriel or the heavens closing up—but then he would’ve told someone. It didn’t seem to Chiho that Maou or Urushihara had any idea—or were they just not telling Chiho about it? 
“…” 
She immediately dismissed the idea. After all, if all three of those demons were keeping it a secret, that wouldn’t explain why Ashiya revealed his true form to Rika. Did Ashiya always plan to scare Rika out of her feelings for him? If so, it meant he knew about Rika’s love and prepared the required demonic force for the act in advance. But that didn’t sound like the Ashiya that Chiho knew, and it’d contradict Rika’s story. 
To Ashiya, the love confession came completely out of left field. He was a kind person, and in order to nip her feelings in the bud, he tapped the demonic force he happened to have around for some reason and made the terrifying transformation he did. If Rika was to be believed, this explanation sounded much more like Ashiya’s approach. 
But if so, what was that “some reason”? It made even less sense. Ashiya knew that Rika was on good terms with Emi, Chiho, and Suzuno. If Rika told them that Ashiya had enough demonic force left to transform, that’d set Emi and Suzuno on guard again, right when they were starting to soften their stance a little. There was no merit to the demons antagonizing their old enemies all over again. 
Chiho didn’t get it. And as the inscrutable anxiety crashed over her again, Rika let out a heavy sigh. 
“Man, I’m stuffed. This place is really good! I guess a hundred yen still gets you a lot more than I thought.” 
“Oh, um, great…” 
“Ahhh… Whew.” 
Rika exhaled in front of the fifteen plates stacked up on the table as she poured another cup of tea. Chiho was even hungrier than before, but the story shocked her so much that she only managed five plates. 
“Y’know, Chiho…?” 
“Hmm?” 
“Let’s do it.” 
“Huh?” 
“…Urp.” 
Rika took plate number sixteen out from the belt, already looking fairly pained as she brought a tuna-salad gunkan roll to her mouth. 
“Um, you aren’t pushing yourself too much, are you, Suzuki?” 
“Yeh.” 
“Um?” 
She was already on plate seventeen. It was no kind of meal a fit woman like her should be having. 
“I gotta or I can’t go on. C’mon, join me, Chiho. I’ll pay.” 
“N-no, I couldn’t.” 
“Please. There’s no way I could ask Emi to do this.” 
One hand was on her lips while the other took plate eighteen. 
“I really didn’t get it. Even if Ashiya gave my feelings the nod and so on, I couldn’t have really done anything. He’s got his own future to pursue, and it’s not the kind of future some girl on planet Earth he happened to run into can keep up with. But…” 
“Suzuki…” 
Plate eighteen remained on the table as Rika covered her face with her hands. 
“But…it’s weird. I’ve got no proof of this…but I can’t help but think you can keep up with the future Maou’s gunning for, Chiho. ’Cause right now…you’ve still got the freedom to choose your own future.” 
“Choose my future…?” 
Chiho wasn’t sure what Rika meant at first. Then it struck her, causing her to sit straight up. 
“I mean, I may not look it, but, you know, there’s a lot for me to shoulder and stuff, so…” 
“Suzuki?!” 
“I’m sorry. I tried my best, but now that I’m full, I’m kinda…letting my emotions go. This is really good…” 
“Oh, don’t cry, Suzuki. I mean, me too…” 
“I’m older than you and stuff, too… I’m sorry. I get dumped in the most pathetic way, I turn to food to deal with it, and I’m sobbing my eyes out. I’m sorry.” 
“…!” 
Chiho stood up from her facing seat and jumped over to Rika’s side, hugging her by the shoulders. 
“It’s all right… It’s all right.” 
“I’m sorry… I—I know this is just as hard for you, Chiho.” 
“It’s fine. It’s fine.” 
“Nn… Nnngh…” 
Rika leaned into Chiho’s shoulder a bit, gritting her teeth. 
“If I had it my way…I’d rather he told me never to see him again… Then I could make a clean break finally…” 
“…Ashiya’s too kind for that.” 
“He’s too kind, yeah… If he had to go that far, why’d he…? Why’d he have to worry so much about my—my health and stuff…?” 
“It’s totally something Ashiya would do. Really.” 
“I love him… I still love him now…” 
Chiho kept hold of the quietly sobbing Rika until she calmed down. 
By the time they split up, it was nearly eight o’clock. Rika apologized to her when they did, now fully composed again—but as she watched her go through the Sasazuka station turnstile, there was none of that nice, easygoing, big-sister type present, the lady who liked wheedling Chiho and Emi more than anything else. 
“Suzuki…” 
Kaori told her to stand strong and put her feelings straight across. But that’s just what Rika did, and it both literally buried her and did nothing to put her emotions in order. That scared her. She never thought about that when she made her own confession to Maou—but when the answer finally came, would it mean a final, decisive split away from him? 
“What should I even do?” 
What about Rika? With her mind still a mess, would she start avoiding Ashiya or the town of Sasazuka in general? It didn’t feel that way to Chiho. Even if she and Ashiya didn’t become an item, after that bold stand she made, wouldn’t she still want to be near him? Or would being so close and never managing to cover that final gap crush her? She didn’t know. No matter how much she thought about it. 
“Huh? Chiho? Why are you out of the doors now?” 
“Agh?!” 
Right then, Chiho leaped at the voice erupting from behind her. 
“A-Acieth?!” 
Acieth Alla was standing there, chewing on a chocolate ice cream bar in the frigid night, carrying a shopping bag full of other snacks. 
“Going home from the work or something?” 
“N-no, just back from having dinner out…” 
“Dinner?! Now?! Me, can I join?!” 
Her willful ignorance of the words back from exasperated Chiho, but the realization that Acieth hadn’t changed her ways one bit made her smile in relief. 
“Sorry, but I’m full. Besides, if you go out to eat somewhere right now, that’s gonna melt, Acieth.” 
Chiho pointed at the ice cream bar in her mouth. She nodded back, as if noticing it for the first time. 
“Mmm, yes, maybe so…” 
“Are you alone right now?” 
She looked around. None of Acieth’s more or less guardians were near. 
“No, not alone.” 
“Oh?” 
The obvious contradiction in her answer made Chiho freeze. 
“I am going home from eating the dinner, but Amane and Erone, they became lost, so I search for them.” 
“Huh?!” 
Realizing what had happened, Chiho wordlessly took out her phone and called the number Amane gave her for emergencies. She picked up on the first ring, a bit out of breath. 
“Chiho! Hey, have you run into Acieth or anything?!” 
“Sure have. I ran right into her at Sasazuka station… Sure, I’ll wait here.” 
With a grin, she promised to keep Acieth in place until Amane could run over before hanging up. 
“You see? It is why Maou should buy me the phone, too, when this happens.” 
“Ha-ha-ha…” 
It was the perfect picture of brazenness from Acieth, whether she herself realized it or not. 
“By the way, Chiho, were you with the other person? I can smell Rika a little from you.” 
Chiho stared at her. Acieth was right, but how could she have smelled that? 
“Wow, I’m impressed you knew… Ah.” 
The surprise of it all loosened her lips a little too much. Chiho instantly regretted it. Acieth was currently shacking up at Shiba’s house adjacent to the apartment, but she was a regular visitor to all the tenants inside. Emi would be there soon to pick up Alas Ramus—what if Acieth ran into her and told her Chiho was with Rika? That struck Chiho as something to avoid for now. Rika would probably tell Emi herself sometime, but until Emi had a better hold of herself, learning the news from Acieth would put far too much stress upon her. 
“Oh, um, Acieth? If Yusa is at the apartment, can you keep it a secret that Suzuki was in Sasazuka?” 
“Huh? Why?” 
What could she say to make Acieth understand? It was easy for Chiho to picture her saying something like Rika was together with Chiho, but it is secret, so I cannot say it! to her. But there was no way she could tell Acieth the whole story. Acieth wasn’t deliberately bad, but she had no mute button at all. 
After several moments of thought, Chiho built a story that would be safe for Acieth to blab about. 
“Um, well, we got invited by Laila to see her place tomorrow.” 
“Mom’s place? Ooh. Yes, there was the place for her, eh?” 
Even a mystery archangel needed someplace to live in, after all. 
“Right. And usually Suzuki’s one to talk about her troubles with Yusa, but Yusa’s got enough trouble dealing with Laila right now. So Suzuki came to me instead this time.” 
Acieth briskly nodded, still chomping away. “Ohhh. I wish Emi was more the, um, flexible with family.” 
“I’m totally sure Suzuki will talk to Yusa later on about it, so can you keep quiet about it for now?” 
“Okay! Yes, it can’t be helped! Secret is safe with me!” 
“Ha-ha-ha… Thanks.” 
Chiho was less than confident about this, but there wasn’t much more she could do. 
“But still…Emi and Rika, they are same, yes? If there is something to say, just say it fast or else lots of regrets. I know there are the issues, but sometimes I see them and I really worry.” 
“Oh? What do you mean?” 
“Mmm? Me and my big sister, we were separate for such the long time. So say the thing when you can, before you cannot say it anymore. Eat the thing you want when you can!” 
“Before you can’t say it anymore…” 
The last part of it was a bit off-kilter, but the passing remark from Acieth held heavy meaning for Chiho. 
“Acieth, have you…ever not been able to say it anymore?” 
“A little.” 
Acieth stuck her thumb and pointer out, marking a distance in the air that meant nothing to Chiho. 
“But now I see my sister and Erone again. Maybe I had chance and lost it, but you know, that was not last chance forever. But, you know, the wait until the next time, it was really rough.” 
“…Mmm, really?” 
“Really, really! So, Chiho, say the thing you must say. Eat the thing you must eat! Okay! Here is one for you!” 
“Um, thanks.” 
She was having trouble keeping up with Acieth’s flow, but Chiho accepted the packet of gum planted in her hand anyway. 
“Ooh! I haven’t seen this in a while. They’re still selling these?” 
It was a cheap package with a picture of an orange on it and four balls of bubble gum inside. 
“Mikitty said the balls, they are smaller than the past, but do you know, Chiho?” 
There was a time in Chiho’s youth when she was obsessed with the stuff. The first bubble gum she successfully cajoled her mother into buying for her was this exact type—a memory she never thought she’d recall here. That was the first of several occasions, each ending with her happily blowing bubbles as she skipped down the street. But then she lost interest, and she’d hardly tried the stuff since. She had liked it a lot, but now she couldn’t guess when the last piece of orange gum she had was. 
“I guess I’ve changed, too, while I wasn’t paying attention.” 
Was that maturing or just changing? She didn’t know. All she knew was that it took time to recall the things she adored as a kid when she ran into them again—those crushes that you unconsciously shunted into the past all the time. 
“I don’t want to make it a thing of the past.” 
“Mmm?” 
Chiho smiled, grasping the small pack of gum. “Thanks, Acieth. I feel a little bit better now.” 
“Oh? I dunno what you are meaning, but you take more, if want. Eating always makes better!” 
“Huh? Oh, I don’t need that much!” 
“No need for the politeness! This is not my own money, that I buy with!” 
“That’s all the more reason not to take it! …Ah, thank you, that’s enough!” 
Despite the Urushihara-style heinousness of Acieth’s spending habits, Chiho wound up accepting three packets of gum, two boxes of caramels, and five different snack bars. All this was fished out of her shopping bag, so she must have paid money for them—likely provided by Shiba or Nord. No way Maou would ever trust her with cash. 
As she thought about this, Chiho spotted Amane on the other side of the rail-station mall, Erone in tow. 
“Chiho! Whew, thanks a lot! You were coming home from going out?!” 
“Good evening, Amane. That’s right. I was having dinner with a friend…” 
“Ohh. Well, thanks for helping out. Come on, Acieth! I told you not to wander off like that! And where’d you get that ice cream and all that candy from?!” 
“I think she bought it with the allowance someone gave her, maybe?” 
“Someone too weak to defy her, I’ll bet. Either Nord, Laila, or Aunt Mikitty!” 
Chiho completely agreed. And considering the retro bubble-gum purchase, Shiba was likely the victim. 
“I cannot believe this. And did you know that all-you-can-eat deals aren’t all-you-can-eat, either? The manager can stop you anytime they want!” 
“Um, neat…” 
So after eating so much of the restaurant’s pantry that the manager had to intervene, Acieth still had enough room in her stomach for ice cream and sugary snacks. It gave Chiho a fright to think of. 
“I tell you,” sighed Amane, “we should really start looking for places with those ‘eat this massive sandwich, win money’ deals! We’d clean up!” 
Something told Chiho this wasn’t a good idea. Given Acieth’s knack for timing, she’d no doubt throw in the towel when she had one more chicken wing or whatever left to eat. 
“But anyway, I’m taking you two back to the apartment! Thanks again, Chiho! I can’t accompany you since I have these hellions to deal with, but take care on the way home!” 
“See ya, Chiho!” 
“Bye-bye!” 
“See you. And thanks, Acieth!” 
Chiho sighed a bit as she watched the two distant Sephirah relatives walk off. She felt bad for Amane, but as much fun as both of them seemed to be having, she could just barely imagine how much time it took for them to see each other again, laughing and smiling and saying what needed to be said to the other. 
Even if her feelings didn’t quite come across, she still wanted to see them through, rather than condemning them to the past. Merely waiting around, waxing nostalgic about it long after the fact, would be the worst thing she could do. 
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained, huh?” 
Rika really was a good big sister to her. When Chiho hemmed and hawed about taking action, Rika pushed herself into doing it. She didn’t just unconsciously push those emotions into her past. 
But she had a more pressing concern—namely, the double handfuls of candy she was now carrying. 
“What should I do with this? I don’t have my bag…” 
“Chiho? What’re you doing here?” 
“Oh! Mom!” 
Just then, Riho Sasaki walked out of the station and gave her daughter a dubious look. 
“What’s a good girl like you running around this time of night for? And all that candy, too?” 
Her mother gave her a friendly grin as she took a caramel from Chiho. 
“Wow, this sure is an old brand. As far as I can remember, I think these caramels were the first candy you harangued me into buying for you. I didn’t realize they were still on sale.” 
“Huh? Really? I thought it was bubble gum.” 
“Oh, you begged me for all kinds of candy back then. Boy, were you a ravenous child!” 
“Wow… Really?” 
“Mm-hmm. So what did you do for dinner? Not just this candy, I hope.” 
“No, um, I had a friend invite me out to the conveyor-belt sushi place over that way.” 
“Ooh, look at that! A piece of candy used to satisfy my little girl, but now she’s going out and eating at fancy sushi places! You must have a lot of free money, hmm? I’ll be expecting something very nice next Mother’s Day.” 
“Mmm? I guess so, yeah…” 
Chiho gave an ambiguous smile as she dumped the candy into her mother’s purse. They continued to chat aimlessly on the way home, both feeling more than a little relieved. 
 
“Oh, Emi! Welcome back!” 
“Acieth? What’re you doing out this late?” 
The sight of Acieth with a shopping bag in front of the apartment made Emi do a double take. 
“I ate dinner with Amane and Erone, and at station, I run into Chiho and we talk!” 
“Chiho? At this time of night?” 
It was odd for Chiho to burn the midnight oil like that if she wasn’t at work. 
“Today, who is big sister together with?” 
“Bell. Alciel said he had something to do out this afternoon, and the Devil King was at work, too.” 
“Oh! Can I visit Suzuno? I have the question to ask her.” 
“Hmm? You should be fine…but let’s ask.” 
Acieth climbed the stairs behind Emi. The light was on in Room 201, Ashiya’s and Urushihara’s voices just barely audible. His date with Rika must be over, she surmised. A date that filled her with trepidation. But Alas Ramus came first. 
“Hi, Bell! Hi, Alas Ramus!” Emi chimed. 
“Emilia?” 
“Mommy! Hiiii!” 
Both voices made their way through the door, one after another. 
“Can we come in, Bell? Acieth said she needed to ask you something.” 
“Hmm? What is it?” Suzuno asked as she opened the door, letting both of them in after seeing Acieth behind Emi. 
“Oh, you work, too, Accith?” 
“No, big sis. I bought snacks, a little early.” 
“I wan’ some!” 
“Whoa, Acieth, don’t show those to her. It’s too late to eat those.” 
“Aww, tell me before now…” 
“Now, now, Alas Ramus, we’ll save that for tomorrow.” 
“Keh!” 
Ever since she heard about Acieth and Erone plowing through five-thousand-yen worth of MgRonald combo sets, Emi had grown a measure pickier about Alas Ramus’s eating habits. There was the small but rigid thought in her mind that she couldn’t let her daughter be as gluttonous as these guys. 
“Mommy is telling you this so you don’t get cavities, Alas Ramus. You need to be patient.” 
“Aww, but Accith’s eating them!” 
Suzuno’s lecture had little effect on Alas Ramus, now engaged in a rare pouting session. The sight of the little sister being allowed candy treats while the big sister was barred from them must have put her off. The speed of their respective growth presented certain unsolvable problems like this all the time, but there was no point explaining it to her in detail, so Emi simply put Alas Ramus in her lap and rocked her back and forth. 
“So,” she asked Acieth, “what did you want to ask Bell?” 
“Not just Suzuno. I want to ask you, too, Emi.” 
“Oh? What about?” 
“I heard you both go out tomorrow. You will?” 
““Huhh?”” 
Emi and Suzuno both gave her odd stares. 
“Go out where?” 
“Huh? You are not going?” 
“Going where?” 
The conversation from the surprised-looking Acieth was going nowhere fast. 
“You and Suzuno, you go to Mom’s house, no? I heard.” 
““Wha—?!”” 
That exclamation represented both Emi’s and Suzuno’s surprise. 
“If Emi and Suzuno go, then I know Maou go, too, and Ashiya and Lucifer, too?” 
“Uh? W-wait a second! Who did you hear that from?!” 
Acieth turned toward the frantic Emi. “Chiho said to me, she said, ‘We go to Laila’s place tomorrow’! So I thought you go, too, Emi!” 
If Chiho were here, she’d no doubt be rolling on the floor and holding her ears by now. Acieth stuck to her word, mentioning nothing about Rika, but everything else was fair game. She couldn’t be blamed for assuming “we” included Emi and Suzuno, given their cozy relationship, and the fact that Ashiya and Urushihara were enemies of Emi’s was a tad beyond her comprehension. But Emi never told Chiho she was coming, or anyone else for that matter, so having word spread to the contrary wasn’t exactly fair to her. 
“We-we’re not going.” 
“Uh? No? Suzuno, too?” 
“Er, likely not, no. I had no intention, at least…” 
Emi and Suzuno didn’t have a clue how this topic came up between Chiho and Acieth in the first place, but neither of them had any intention of going near the place. 
“Wait, so when Chiho says ‘we,’ she only means Maou and Ashiya and Lucifer?” 
“If you are talking about tomorrow, I heard nothing about Alciel and Lucifer visiting, either.” 
“Huh?! So tomorrow, it is just Maou and Chiho and me?!” 
Acieth was inserting herself into the equation for the simple fact that she couldn’t be too physically separated from Maou. 
“I think my father’s going, too, but…” 
“So Dad, Maou, Chiho, and me at Mom’s place… I have the feeling the talking there will be awkward. Nothing to say!” 
It was a surprise to see Acieth demonstrate that much care for someone besides herself, but she was right. It was hard to imagine what kind of conversation those members could even have with one another. 
“…So, yeah, sorry, but we’ve got no plans to visit Laila tomorrow. If it gets too awkward, you can always go inside Maou’s body, right?” 
“Ooh, yes, but going on the long trip like this, you know…” 
Just as Acieth was frowning at this— 
“Goin’ on a trip, Accith?” 
The word trip triggered a flag in Alas Ramus’s mind. 
“Uh-huh! To Mom’s place with Maou and Chiho.” 
“Daddy and Chi-Sis…” 
““Ugh.”” 
The impending signs of doom emanating from the child atop Emi’s lap caused both her and Suzuno to tense. 
“Mommy!” 
“Um, what is it, Alas Ra—?” 
“Field trip!!” 
“F-field trip?” Emi parroted back, tone rising at her daughter’s resolute face, voice, and hands gripped around her arm. “Y-yeah, uh, how about we go to the park by the rail line with Emeralda—” 
“No!! Wif Daddy!!” 
Emi’s childish feint could never fool Alas Ramus. 
“L-listen, Daddy has to go out on an important, um, job? We can’t be a bother to him…” 
“Why’s Accith okay an’ I’m not?!” 
“Um, well, Acieth is more grown-up than you at the moment—” 
“No! I’m big sis!!” 
“Y-yes, I know, but…” 
The candy refusal earlier had put the child into full rebel mode. 
“Uh, it is not really the ‘job,’ yes?” 
The added dagger from the absentminded Acieth was enough to put even Suzuno into a panic. 
“Acieth! Emilia is not talking about that!” 
“Suzunooo, no lieeees! Parents, they do things like that sometimes, but if you think the child is fooled by that, ooh, you think wrong!” 
“Why do you only start making sense at times like these?!” 
“Mommy…you lie?” 
“A-A-A-Alas Ramus, I’m not. I’m not lying! Daddy’s really out on a job, okay? It’s just that—” 
“Daddy ’n’ Chi-Sis ’n’ Mommy, all same job! Why don’t you go, Mommy?!” 
Describing it as a job was ill-advised. It gave Alas Ramus all the leeway she needed to hang on. She was being weirdly sharp and observant again, like how she was during battle sometimes, and Emi no longer knew if she could talk her way out of this. 
“I mean, it’s a different kind of job from normal.” 
“Accith said it’s nodda job!!” 
“Mm-hmm! Not a job! No sir!” 
“Acieth! Please learn to read the room a little!” 
“Yeahh, sorry, but if it’s big sis, I take her side, okay?” 
“Field triiiiip! Field triiiip wif Daddy!!” 
“Whoa! Alas Ramus! It’s late…” 
“Nnnnnn-waaaahhhhhh! Fieeeeeeeellllldddd trrriiiiiiiiiippp!!!!” 
There was no bottling her up now. Alas Ramus was falling into a tantrum like none before. 
“E-Emilia! Do something! I—I have never seen this before!” 
“Me neither, Bell! P-please, Alas Ramus, just listen to me—” 
“I wanna gooooooooooooooooooo!!!!” 
And amid it all, it was Acieth who picked up the howling Alas Ramus and rubbed against her, cheek to cheek. 
“Aw, sis, so cute!” 
“What the hell’s going on in there?!” 
“You’re keeping the whole city awake, dude. What’s up?” 
“What is the meaning of this? I only pray that you have not done physical harm upon poor Alas Ramus!” 
“Stay out of here, guys! You’ll only make things worse!” 
“Wwwaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!” 
The sound of Maou, Urushihara, and Ashiya all storming out into the corridor and shouting through the door only agitated the child further. She jumped out of Acieth’s arms and toddled toward the front door, Emi and Suzuno falling to their knees and pleading to the heavens above. 
“Daaaaddddyyyyyy! Fieeeellllddd trrrriiiiiiiip!” 

“Wh-what’s going on? Emi, what’d you do to her to make her bawl that much? Open up, Suzuno! Don’t worry, Alas Ramus! Daddy’s right here!” 
The concern was clear in Maou’s voice as Alas Ramus batted her fists against the door, still crying. 
“Here I am.” 
Acieth, the only person retaining any sense of calm, stepped up to unlock the door without the tenant’s permission. Alas Ramus took the opportunity to bound right into Maou’s arms, tears, snot, and all. 
“Fiiieeeelllddd trriiiiiiip! Not just Acieth! Not faaaaiiiirrr!!” 
“Huh? What’s not fair?!” 
Maou turned to Emi and Suzuno for some assistance. Both of them were still too dazed to offer any. 
“Maou, you go to Mom’s house tomorrow?” 
“Um? You mean Laila’s place?” 
“Big sis, she wants to go, too.” 
“Oh? And that’s what’s making her scream at the top of her lungs?!” 
“Fwweeeehhhhhh…snif…ngh…” 
“All right, all right, calm down… Emi?” 
“………………………………………………………………What?” 
She held it in for ten seconds before half groaning out the one-word reply. 
“Do I take this to mean you’re not gonna go? Seriously?” 
“…………………………………………………………………No.” 
The news of her refusal never did get relayed to anyone besides Suzuno. Until now. Having it revealed like this was beyond her wildest nightmares. 
“Man…” Maou winced, then took closer looks at both Alas Ramus and Emi. “You don’t think I don’t wanna go is gonna work with this girl now, do you?” 
“…I can’t just leave her with you or Chiho midway and go kill time somewhere else while you’re gone?” 
“Dumbass.” 
Emi’s pointless struggling was effortlessly flicked away. 
“Laila’s meeting us at Shinjuku, but we have no idea where she’s taking us after that. If we go too far away and she’s thrown back into your body, how’re you gonna explain that to her?” 
“……………………Erg.” 
Emi groaned, still unwilling to accept defeat. 
Even now, she honestly didn’t want to know a thing about Laila. The more she knew about her, she feared, the more the assorted categories of anger she had for her might grow diluted, indistinct. Exactly like it had against Maou. Even if all that anger faded away, there was no way they could ever have a normal mother-daughter relationship. 
The mere idea scared her. She had no idea how she should deal with Laila going forward, assuming she learned more about her. She had no idea how Maou and Chiho were going to settle the rift between each other. The weakness writhing in and around Emi’s heart made itself known again—and it took Maou’s calm rebuke to drive it away. 
“Look, if you absolutely can’t do it, I won’t make you, but I don’t think Alas Ramus is being so massively selfish here, either. If you can’t win her over and it ends up with her like how it is with you and Laila right now, don’t blame me.” 
“…!” 
Alas Ramus almost never threw a fit like this. She was much more attentive usually, able to tell right from wrong. If she could tell that Emi didn’t want to go, Emi couldn’t deny that it might spawn feelings of mistrust between mother and child. 
Her rejection of Laila was a backward-facing rejection, caused by her failure to face up to the simple confusion and indecision in her mind. Even she knew that Laila was slowly but surely making concessions, gaining a better grasp of what made her tick. That was why Emi had no firm motivation for refusing the request out of hand, and while Alas Ramus might not understand the details, she had a keen sense of her mother’s indecision. That was why she wasn’t listening to her. 
“I think, um, time for the giving up?” 
“……” 
Acieth had to be doing all that on purpose. But Emi had no way of proving it. She looked up, resigned to her fate. 
“Mommy…” 
“Emi?” 
Her eyes met the weepy face of Alas Ramus and the stern face of Maou. She drummed up as much energy as she could, ready to admit defeat. 
“…………………………All right. I’ll go.”