THE HERO STRUGGLES TO DEAL WITH WORKPLACE ISSUES
“Wait, you don’t do it?”
“Why would we? It’s a pain in the ass.”
It was just past the lunch rush, and Emi was giving a smiling Akiko Ohki, coworker and veteran kitchen jockey, a surprised look. It was well into February by now, and as she compared the order forms for the seasonal Mini-Chocolate Pies with the inventory that came in, Emi thought to ask Akiko about how this MgRonald location’s staff handled Valentine’s Day. It turned out the female crewmembers didn’t bother with chocolate or any other gifts for the guys.
“Did you do that at your last job, Emi-Yu?”
“Not me , so much as everyone at the office.”
“Ahh, yeah,” Akiko replied as she stocked the heater with Mini-Chocolate Pies. “Call centers usually run on pretty stable shifts, so that makes sense, but there’s never been any obligation like that here in Hatagaya. I was expecting something like that when I came here last year, but it came and went with nothing to show for it, so I brought it up to Kisaki eventually.”
It seemed that Mayumi Kisaki, manager at the MgRonald, had a less-than-rosy impression of the tradition. “I wouldn’t recommend the custom between crewmembers,” she had said, effectively prohibiting it. “You’re free to give whatever you want to each other outside the property, but that’s strictly between you and the other person.”
“I think she’ll probably tell you and the other guys who came in this year about it soon,” Akiko added. (That would include Chiho as well.) “And besides, do you actually find giving out chocolate fun at all? I’m not expecting triple the amount back or whatever, but we got more guys than girls working here, so that’s more to ask of them. Plus, if you don’t have shifts around those times in February and March, it’s like you get shut out of the whole thing. Neither side really gets much out of it. But anyway, no, we don’t do it, for all those kinds of reasons.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.”
It wasn’t called Valentine’s Day, of course, but Ente Isla’s Western Island did have a tradition of women baking sweets for men as a sign of their feelings for them. Back in the village of Sloane, where she grew up, this usually meant cookies and sweetened bread around harvest time, but Emi wound up being thrown into battle against the Devil King’s Army before anyone taught her that custom, so she had never gotten to join in. Learning about Valentine’s Day last year, while she worked at Dokodemo, therefore made her more than a little excited. She gave her obligatory chocolate to her boss and her boss’s boss; they replied on White Day with little boxes of rakugan , a traditional Japanese treat, to all the women on staff.
“ Rakugan ?” Akiko remarked. “That’s those hard sugar candies that get served with tea and stuff, right? Those are neat.”
Emi recalled how enthralled she was by the intricate shapes and designs rakugan came in. She became a regular purchaser for some time afterward.
“So…”
“Hmm?”
“Talking about outside MgRonald…”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have, like, a reason to think about Valentine’s Day this year, Emi-Yu?”
“……………Oh.”
There was nothing very sudden about the question. It was Emi who brought the topic up. But still, for just a moment, her brain shut off on her. She groaned, and that groan kept her from answering immediately. Akiko, of course, picked up on that interval of silence.
“Whoa, no way.”
“N-no! I don’t!”
It was really remarkable. Subtle shifts in breathing rhythms and microscopic changes in your line of sight could sometimes be so much more eloquent than the words themselves.
“Wow, I’m surprised.”
“I said I don’t!”
“I didn’t think you were into that kind of romantic stuff.”
“Akiko!”
“But he doesn’t work here, right? You’re part of the team by now, but you haven’t been here that long… Oh, but you knew Maou before now, didn’t you?”
“W-Wait…”
This was tremendously frustrating to Emi. She wasn’t trying to hide anything, but there was no way to phrase a response that implied the opposite. She could feel her cheeks redden—not out of shame, but out of simple panic. Akiko wasn’t the type to take a topic and go hog wild with it, but given the air around them as of late, her and Maou being treated as an item was beyond inconvenient.
“Aw, there’s no need to get so worked up about Valentine’s chocolate. It’s not like one or two boxes are going to dictate the rest of your love life.”
“I’m not getting worked up!”
But Emi knew full well that it looked that way. Or maybe she really was worked up. Because when Akiko—who was now smiling warmly at Emi’s reaction—first asked the question, she had, for a single instant, a thought. The time lag between having the thought, and realizing she was now capable of naturally thinking such thoughts, was what sealed her fate.
“By the way, there’s a superawesome chocolatier near my school. You wanna know more about them?”
“No, thank you!”
“Aw, you’re so cute , Emi-Yu.”
Emi, realizing this line of talking would only drag her further into the swamp, ended it and tossed the final chocolate pie into the heater. But then, demonstrating perfectly terrible timing, Maou made his way downstairs from the café counter.
“What’re you two chatting about? Kisaki would yell at you if she was here. Do you have a copy of the order form? There’s something I need to check upstairs.”
“Um, oh, uh, right. The order form… Oh, here it is.”
Emi had been raising her voice. Realizing the cause of her delayed response to Akiko pitched it up even further. Akiko, whether she picked up on this or not, grinned to herself as she walked by Emi.
“Sorry, sorry. Emi-Yu just said she passed out chocolate on Valentine’s Day at her last job, so I was telling her how we don’t do that here, y’know?”
“R-Right,” Emi stammered.
“Oh. Valentine’s, huh? …Ah, yeah, we got one extra pack here we didn’t order.”
Maou demonstrated little interest in the topic as he skimmed through the order form, eyebrows lowered. Seeing this annoyed Emi a bit, but Maou lifted his head before she could fire back.
“Hey, speaking of Valentine’s, I got some thank-you chocolate just yesterday.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, did you?”
Emi looked taken aback. Akiko, on the other hand, leaned forward to hear more.
“Yeah, but I don’t know what to do about it. It’s not like her and I have any relationship at all, so…”
“Maou, if Kawacchi heard that, he’d diagnose you with rich-kid disease and kill you.”
“No, I mean, we haven’t even seen each other all that often. What do people normally do with things like this?”
“Well,” Akiko said, “a lot of people give out chocolate out of habit more than anything, instead of expecting anything back. I’m not saying you should ignore it, but there’s no huge, pressing need to give her something, is there?”
“Mmm, maybe, but it came from a pretty fancy place. Have you two ever heard of…”
The French-sounding brand name Maou then uttered was unfamiliar to Emi’s ears. Akiko, on the other hand, blinked a few times in response.
“That’s…that’s the chocolatier I was gonna tell you about, Emi-Yu.”
“Oh…”
“Choco… What was that?”
“Chocolatier! A person who makes fancy chocolate for a living. There’s this little one in a residential neighborhood near my college. It’s not even all that well-known on the net or anything. Wait, are you sure this was just ‘thank-you’ chocolate? ’Cause that place doesn’t go cheap at all.”
“I…I’m pretty sure? She’s one of the people training with me, but this was only the third time we’ve seen each other.”
“Hmm… It’s hard to tell from that, but that chocolate seems like more than a thank-you to me.”
Akiko scrunched up her face a little, although there was still brazen curiosity peeking out from it.
“Well, what are you gonna do about it?”
“Huh?” Maou frowned at Emi’s oddly blunt question, then at his own indecision. “…Well, I dunno what. Aren’t you supposed to repay a gift with something half the value or whatever? Ashiya will yell at me if I just let it be, but I have no idea how much this cost her. I don’t have a computer at home right now, and it’s kind of a pain to search on the net with my old phone…”
“Half the value?” Akiko rolled her eyes. “This isn’t a business negotiation.”
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s expensive or not,” sniffed Emi derisively, “or how rare it is. You think she gave it just to be polite, don’t you? Then why don’t you be polite to her in return?”
“Is that all there is to it?”
“What else is there to it?”
“Yeah, I guess so, huh?” Maou looked convinced enough at Emi’s dry assessment. That, too, got on Emi’s nerves. “Ah, well. Sorry to take up your time with that.”
“Yeah, I bet Kisaki would yell at you if she heard this.”
“I hear you. See ya for now.”
Maou breezily returned upstairs, with Emi glaring at his back and Akiko watching her from the side before saying something that snapped Emi back to reality.
“…You think Chi knows about that?”
Emi turned toward Akiko. “I don’t think so!” she blurted with the urgency of a war declaration.
“Yeah, probably not. You know how Maou can totally forget about stuff like that sometimes. I feel like Chi’s intelligent enough to not let things like this faze her, but intelligence is different from feelings, so…”
The fact that Chiho had feelings for Maou was an open secret, clear enough to anyone close to the two of them. Those emotions were so clear and straightforward, everyone around them hesitated to mess with or poke fun at them about it. But this wouldn’t be the first time mental lapses on Maou’s part affected Chiho’s public behavior—something Kisaki upbraided him about every time it happened.
“Yeah,” reflected Akiko, “Maou may look nearly perfect, but that’s the one bad habit he has, and it’s a killer.”
“You said it.”
Emi could name quite a few more bad habits (or worse), but she held back on saying them out loud. If she did, she knew Akiko would ask how Emi knew all that stuff about him.
“How much you wanna bet that in a few days, he’ll be all like Oh no, I got chocolate from Chi, too, now what? ”
Judging from past behavior, that sounded incredibly likely to Emi. But if she ordered him to keep quiet about this other woman, she knew it could come out anyway and damage Chiho’s pride. Letting Chiho know in advance, meanwhile, would just mess her up even more. And considering all the warnings Ashiya and Suzuno had given him, not even Emi thought Maou was dumb enough to ask Chiho directly for advice.
“……”
But thinking that far, a bizarre supposition formed itself in Emi’s mind: What if he receives this chocolate but can’t talk to Chiho about it, then gets guilty about hiding things from her, so he starts acting all weird in front of her and she figures out the truth anyway?
As her friend, Emi never wanted to see Chiho’s feelings get hurt. Turning her thoughts around, this was a situation Emi needed to keep an eye on for Maou’s sake, lest Maou’s thoughtlessness traumatize Chiho. But would “looking out for him” wind up making her the person acting weirdly, exposing it all?
Emi felt frozen in place. And while Akiko knew about Maou and Chiho, she didn’t have all the facts. She didn’t understand they were purposefully keeping some distance from each other. And given her personality, any lecturing she might give Maou about it would have little effect.
“…Why do I have to go out of my way to worry about the Devil King’s personal life?”
The propellerlike motion of Emi’s brain was frustrating her. Now she wasn’t so sure why she hesitated to answer Akiko’s question earlier. She, of all people, had no reason to consider this matter for even a moment:
What kind of chocolate would Maou like?
Thanks to that ridiculous thought crashing through her mind for a single instant, she had to deal with yet another wave of pointless anxiety. Neither she nor Maou had the wherewithal to address silly little events like that. She had a semiliteral god to defeat. Why did she have to get so worked up about some contrived Japanese custom like this? She had so many other things that required her attention.
Attempting to get her mind out of its current rut, Emi turned toward the restaurant entrance.
““…””
Akiko saw him at the same time she did. The sight made both of them visibly frown. Mitsuki Sarue, manager at the Hatagaya location of Sentucky Fried Chicken directly across the street, was passing by. His eyes, as he peered into the MgRonald dining room, were as pure as a child’s, eyeing something he knew he could never attain. One look at them indicated to Emi and Akiko that his expectations for Valentine’s Day were way off the charts.
He didn’t venture inside, as he was busy with his own job at this time of day, but Emi and Akiko still exchanged glances with each other.
“…Akiko, did she tell you what to do if…something happened?”
“…All I know is, Kisaki won’t be here on the fourteenth.”
“…No? He’s gonna pitch a fit, isn’t he?”
“…He hasn’t done anything before, but we’re supposed to call the police if that kind of thing happens.”
No matter how far-reaching and tragic their pasts were, Maou was currently the Devil King, and Sarue was an archangel. If Maou learned how preoccupied both he and Sarue were about something like Valentine’s Day right now, the ancient Devil Overlord Satan would probably look for some shrub to weep behind—and Ignora, the “god” leading the angels, would probably call her whole mission off. It was a worthless thought, but it entertained Emi for a moment.
“You think he cares about this that much?”
“Hey, some people do.”
Whether male or female, this land of Japan seemed to all but force you to keep Valentine’s in mind. It puzzled Emi. And while she hadn’t heard anything from Chiho yet, if Chiho was expecting to enjoy this Valentine’s Day, Emi hoped whatever was going to happen would send her heart soaring into the heavens, rather than crashing down to earth.
However…
This fleeing hope was crushed before Maou or Emi could do anything about it.
“Maou received some chocolate?”
“Uh-huh! It was the very expensive-looking chocolate, too! And the giver, she was pretty beautiful woman! This is the big problem, Chiho! It calls for the swift action!”
And at almost the same time as a wide-eyed Acieth blurted out the news to Chiho at Sasahata North High School’s front gate:
“I…I was too late…”
Chiho was surprised all over again by Suzuno crumpling to the ground, covered in sweat, a sleeping Alas Ramus on her back. And then:
“Sasachi, you…?”
Unfortunately for everyone involved, Chiho wasn’t the only person to hear Acieth’s report.
“You still haven’t settled things with that guy?!”
Kaori Shoji, who was about to walk home with Chiho, heard it all. And as she put it later, Chiho could barely stand to watch the mask of despair that descended upon Suzuno’s face.
Even after she learned the truth about Ignora, Suzuno Kamazuki retained her faith in a benevolent god. She was currently begging this god she held inside her for forgiveness.
“What, so you finally gave up, Sasachi?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“But it is the Maou! You know, Chiho, he is the easily manipulated!”
“That’s…well…not un true, but…”
For whatever reason, Suzuno had taken Chiho, Acieth, and Chiho’s apparent classroom friend Kaori Shoji to the Sentucky Fried Chicken in Hatagaya.
“Didn’t you tell me before, Sasachi, that he’s got a lot more freedom in his life than you do? He’s busy with this training right now, and if he gets hired on full-time, he’s gonna start meeting all kinds of people, isn’t he? You don’t have any choice but to be a student for now—if you keep wasting time, you’re gonna be left in the dust, you know?”
“But we were on the same page back at Christmas…”
“You are the too gullible, Chiho! Kaori, she is correct! And maybe not right now, but as long as Ashiya is there, Maou only has so much of the time to return favor! You must take the brisk action!”
“Yeah, but what kind of action?”
Suzuno was curled up next to Chiho, still holding Alas Ramus. Acieth and Kaori—remarkably kindred spirits, considering this was their first meeting—were busy interrogating the poor teen in front of them.
“Acieth is right! You can cook, Sasachi. Just attack him with some homemade chocolate and beat an answer out of him! Ambush him when he’s done with his shift or whatever! It’s okay if it’s a few days before or after the fourteenth, besides!”
“Homemade, huh? I haven’t really done any confectionary work before.”
“Huh?! Chiho, you cannot make the sweets?! Me, I counting on you!”
“It’s not that I can’t… I mean, like, I haven’t made anything too fancy yet…”
“Then go buy a candy bar or a bag of chips from the convenience store! I’m telling you, you’ve had all these near misses—it’s time to put an end to it! You gotta start applying some pressure, lady!”
“Hmm…”
“Stand! Stand up, Chiho! Maou, we will wow him! Make him give you chocolate back for White Day!”
“I—I dunno if that’s really what I want…”
“…zzz…”
In front of Kaori, who presumably didn’t know what was going on with Ente Isla, and Acieth, who could never lie or deceive anyone, Suzuno sat straining, sweat pouring out from her body as Alas Ramus kept sleeping in her arms.
Emi had been put in a similar situation at this same exact fast food joint in the past once. Her friend Rika Suzuki didn’t know anything at the time; she was just curious to uncover the truth about Maou and Emi’s relationship.
Ashiya’s sudden intervention saved the day then, but Suzuno was still an unknown to Emi at the time; she must have been on pins and needles trying to keep her secrets away from Rika. Now, Suzuno couldn’t help but feel Rika was paying the price for it.
Kaori knew nothing about Ente Isla, but she seemed fairly intimate with Chiho. Judging from the way she seemed to easily accept Acieth, Alas Ramus, and Suzuno—all three rather uncommon sights around the city—Chiho must have told her about them, in a nonincriminating fashion. That was Chiho’s decision to make, and Suzuno didn’t resent that, but the problem was Acieth. She had none of Ashiya’s quick-wittedness, and her being around the same age (?) as Kaori meant they instantly got along. There was no telling when a slip of her tongue might arouse Kaori’s suspicions. Plus, the guy running this place was still, in the end, Sariel. Considering his usual behavior, holding a conversation about Valentine’s Day in here ran the considerable risk of making life miserable for Chiho, Emi, Maou, and everyone else at Sentucky and MgRonald in very short order.
With all this in mind, Suzuno was honestly scared out of her wits. But even though she was in the exact same position, Chiho seemed perfectly natural as she fended off Acieth’s and Kaori’s barrage of questions. Suzuno had chased down Acieth out of concern that Maou’s lack of forward thinking would hurt Chiho yet again; now, her mind was filled with the single desire to make this situation a thing of the past as soon as possible.
“By the way, Suzuno, what do you really think of him? Maou, I mean.”
“Hwah?!”
Kaori suddenly tossing the subject her way almost made Suzuno leap out of her seat.
“What do I…think? Think how?”
“Is he the type of guy who’d appreciate some homemade chocolate?”
“Ah, um, I wonder… I think he would appreciate most things edible, but, um…” She realized midway that wasn’t what Kaori asked. “I mean, he isn’t the kind of person to fail to notice the feelings behind a gift…I think.”
“But then,” a dissatisfied-looking Kaori replied, “what about all the meals you’ve been preparing for him, Sasachi? Because I think you put a lot of feeling into those.”
Suzuno couldn’t help but feel like she was being assaulted. Maou never failed to thank Chiho for whatever she brought in, but nonetheless, Kaori wouldn’t be satisfied. Chiho, for her part, seemed to know that.
“It’s not really about that,” she said, backing up Suzuno more than Maou at the moment. “I did it because I wanted to have dinner with the whole gang.”
“But Maou being there wasn’t exactly a minor part of that decision, right?”
“Um… When you put it that way, then no, but…”
In the end, it was Suzuno who induced Chiho into providing that support. She had been serving consecrated food to the demons, hoping to sap them of their powers, and Chiho had stepped up to counteract that with her own cooking. It made it hard to comment on this line of questioning, even though it led (after a long, winding road) to things like Suzuno teaching Chiho how to cook and learning about Japanese and Earth cuisine herself. It built a relationship between them, and that relationship taught Suzuno how to understand Chiho’s thoughts on Maou. And now, despite the conflicts she felt about it, she had settled into a position of support for Chiho.
“I mean…”
“Hmm?”
“I think,” Chiho said, “I’ve been a little too selfish lately.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve been so reserved up until now, so I guess I didn’t really know how I should break through that. And now I’ve caused all this trouble for you, Kao, and for Suzuno. Acieth, too, I guess.”
“Huh? You mean, this is the payback for something?”
“Yeah.”
Acieth wouldn’t have known, but the night Rika tried and failed to make Ashiya her boyfriend, Chiho had taken a step forward thanks to the words Acieth had given a confused Chiho inside Sasazuka Station. So say the thing when you can, before you cannot say it anymore. Chiho had “said the thing” long ago, and she had shown, through her behavior, that she still meant it. All that remained was to trust in him, and wait.
“I’m just thinking I should stop pestering him until next July.”
“Huh? Next July? That’s so arbitrary.”
“You—you will extend the Valentine’s until July?!”
Acieth was in her own dimension as usual. But Suzuno, knowing where the July deadline came from, turned her eyes down at the heavy child in her arms. The Obon Festival next July. The “birthday” of Alas Ramus, and the deadline Maou set for their journey to destroy heaven. To Maou, of course, defeating Ignora was a side quest; the main goal was to give Alas Ramus the best birthday she’d ever had, and Chiho agreed with him.
“So I mean, I’m just not sure I should worry about Valentine’s right now.”
““Whaaat?!””
Kaori and Acieth both lunged at her.
“What do you mean, you’re not sure?! Are you crazy, Sasachi?”
“Chiho, have you lost the mind?! You must give chocolate, or he no give you the chocolate back!”
They were criticizing her from two rather different vectors. Chiho raised both hands to calm them down.
“No, I mean, I’ll probably do something. Probably. But…Suzuno?”
“Hmm?”
“Have you seen Maou at his apartment lately?”
“Yes, I saw him as he left for work this morning.”
“I was just wondering, how’s his place looking these days? I feel like the fatigue’s getting to him lately.”
“I am not sure. We have said little but hello to each other as of late.”
Suzuno’s schedule was structured more around Emi’s than anyone else’s, so she’d often not see anyone at all on the way back to Room 202.
At that point, Acieth spoke up. “Maou, he is the really, really tired. I know. He even said ‘Oh, I’m sick of eating out anymore!’”
“He’s sick of eating out?”
Chiho took a moment to ponder what this could mean. It didn’t take long to glean something from it.
“Ah… Ohhh. Ashiya isn’t there, so he has to deal with breakfast and dinner himself. I get it.”
“Ch-Chiho?”
“And lunch is one thing, but I know he’s been closing a lot of days lately. I don’t know when he’ll be home from training, so it’s hard to drop in on him. I could leave something with Yusa, but it’d have to be on a day when they’re both working.”
“Um, Sasachi?”
“Hmm… Okay.” Chiho’s voice went flat. “Kao, Suzuno, Acieth… What do you think about me giving Maou a freeze-dried miso soup set for Valentine’s Day?”
“““…”””
Suzuno’s, Acieth’s, and most of all, Kaori’s faces told the whole story. Something was wrong with Chiho today.
“…Are you serious?”
“Huh? Kind of.”
“This isn’t a classroom party!!”
“Yeah, but if I want to bake him something homemade, I’ll have to spend a lot of money buying good chocolate somewhere. If I’m gonna invest in that anyway, why don’t I spend it on something he actually needs?”
“Um, Suzuno? From what I am discerning, Valentine’s Day, it’s that kind of thing, no?”
“I am impressed you are ‘discerning’ anything at the moment, but yes, I agree.”
“You’re right,” Kaori said, “if this was for some normal day. But that’s not any different from the food you brought over before, is it? You know what I mean? Valentine’s Day is all about chocolate ! Even if you wanna get creative about it, it’s still got to be something sweet!”
“I know. I know that…” Chiho sighed, shoulders drooping downward. “But I… I haven’t said this before, but I actually have been pressing Maou for an answer, a little.”
““Huh?!””
“Phew!”
Kaori and Suzuno opened their eyes wide. Acieth almost whistled her approval.
“Back when we all went to Nerima together…”
“Oh, back then?”
“So? So what did he say to you?!”
“Well… He did kind of give me an answer. He said he’ll tell me once he gets everything in order.”
“Huh?” Kaori gave her a stupefied tilt of the head. “That’s the same as just stringing it out some more. There’s nothing definite about it at all.”
“No, I guess not…” Chiho gave the group a half smile, a tad embarrassed. “But it feels to me like we set a new deadline, kind of. I feel like, if I give him some fancy chocolate right now, that’ll go beyond pressure and feel more like stress to him.”
Suzuno, of course, knew the truth lurking behind Chiho’s words. It kept her from saying No, that’s not true right now. Certainly, here was a man who knew Chiho’s feelings and was letting them float around aimlessly. Something needed to be done. But considering the enormous, complex issues Maou wrangled with, forcing him into a decision about Chiho felt like it’d bring nothing but bad repercussions.
“You…may be right.”
“Of course, if Acieth is telling the truth, that’s more stress for me, but…”
“Oh, it is no lie, I am the guaranteeing you of it! I saw Kusuda! She had the leer at him!”
“Acieth! You didn’t say that before!”
“Hmm… Kusuda… Hmm…”
Chiho’s face went blank for a moment. She shrugged, looking a little tired again.
“I didn’t mean to let Valentine’s Day go by without any comment. But looking at Maou right now, anything I do seems like pushing my emotions on him, or like it’d seem out of place right now. But I can’t just sit by and pretend this day doesn’t exist, so I thought over what I should do, and I didn’t have any bright ideas, so here I am. I mean…like, Yusa or Suzuno or Amane, or their landlord even—that’s one thing. But to get some chocolate from someone none of us even know?”
“Ahh… Um, well… True. Yes.”
Acieth described it as “expensive-looking” chocolate. But it wasn’t too long ago, Chiho felt, that Maou would’ve gone right to her for advice on what to do in social situations like these. It was exactly what Emi and Akiko thought, back at MgRonald, at almost the same time.
“I’m sure none of this would’ve happened if Alciel was around…”
Ashiya’s absence from Room 201 had caused Maou to become fatigued, oblivious, and open to attack. It made Suzuno wonder how the Devil King’s Army ever stayed together without him. No wonder Emi had plowed through them.
“Oh, right,” Kaori said, face brightening as she sat up. “Kisaki is the manager at MgRonald, right? Why don’t you have her mix it in with the rest of the chocolate getting passed around the staff? Just say it’d make things weird if you personally gave it to him.”
Chiho scowled. “We’re prohibited from giving out chocolate.”
“Huh? Why?”
“She told me herself; the crew can’t give chocolate to one another. Like, ‘If you wanna do it, do it in private,’ she said. I guess it causes problems.”
“Ohhh, I see. Maybe that’s what happens if you got a big staff like that. Hmm. What should you do? Are you really just gonna do nothing?”
“Honestly, part of me thinks that’s the best solution right now.”
“Mmmm… But… Mmmm.” Kaori seemed to understand Chiho but didn’t seem willing to accept it. “But it’s Valentine’s and everything. You can’t just… Oh!” She glanced at Suzuno, eyebrows raised. “You’re friends with Maou, right, Suzuno?”
“Excuse me?” Suzuno froze. “Um, well, who can say? I suppose we are rather close fr… neighbors .”
Suzuno had all but stopped bringing up the discord between humans and demons with Maou, unless she was deliberately trying to needle him. But being asked by an outside observer if they were “friends,” she found it hard to give an instant reply. To someone like Kaori, they were friends and/or neighbors, but she just couldn’t use that word, leading to an oddly ambivalent response.
“Well, if the workplace is a no-go, could we do a trade between close friends, and you can mix it in there?”
“W-Wait, Kaori, are—are you telling the rest of us to give Maou chocolate as well?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s the only way to do it. Would you guys mind pitching in for Sasachi’s sake?”
“H-Hold on, Kao! What are you even asking from Suzuno?! Sh-she’s fine! This is all about my own stuff; I can’t put that on her shoulders!”
There was something very “teenager” about Kaori’s out-of-control suggestion. Chiho almost felt the need to apologize to Suzuno. Suzuno, meanwhile, was blushing ear to ear and staring at Kaori.
“M-Me? Give chocolate to him? Wh-what?”
“…Suzuno?”
“How could I look at him? What excuse could I give? And what would I give him? Matcha powder? Wasanbon sugar? Kuromitsu syrup?!” Her eyes darted from person to person as she mumbled. “I—I am not sure about any of that! Perhaps, if it was seen as the polite, social thing to do, it would not seem unnatural… Would it? I did give him those udon noodles at first… Oh, but things are so different now!”
“Suzuno? Suzuno, you are the seriously worried? Why?”
“Ah!”
Acieth’s cold voice snapped her out of her stupor. Noticing the three pairs of eyes staring at her, Suzuno looked downward, face reddening again.
“I—I am sorry. I mean, something like Valentine’s… I have never done anything of the sort before. So…the idea of giving sweets to a member of the opposite sex…”
““Huhhh?!””
This came as a surprise to Chiho and Kaori. To the latter, someone as young-looking but mature as Suzuno having no experience with this was an honest surprise; to the former (although she never worried about it before), the thought of her never giving any man a gift in Ente Isla was beyond her wildest dreams. Chiho and Kaori weren’t so experienced that they had a right to look down on her, but Valentine’s was something you learned in preschool, really, or within your own family.
Suzuno used the hand that wasn’t supporting Alas Ramus to reach up and hide her watering eyes. “R-Regardless,” she said, voice low as she tried to defend herself against the two teens, “if I gave him sweets as well, that would be all the more unnatural. To Maou, I am, er, not at all the sort of person to do that. I think the camouflage would be all too obvious.”
“Then let me do it, too!” Acieth blurted out, whether she knew Suzuno’s feelings or not. Acieth, of course, wasn’t even hiding her desire to be showered in chocolate on White Day; it’d be much more natural for her to do the Valentine’s deed.
“Hmm… Sorry, Acieth, but I think it’d still be a little tough.”
Acieth’s presence still wouldn’t be enough to dull the impact of Chiho presenting chocolate to Maou. To serve as camouflage, their gifts would need to be presented to Maou at the same time—but if Maou was in Sasazuka right now, he likely wouldn’t return until late at night, and he’d be right back at work in the morning. Chiho’s high school schedule kept her from visiting his home that late, and workplace chocolate was already deemed verboten. It was hard to picture a situation where both she and Acieth could give him a gift at the same time.
“So what’re we gonna do?! It’s like there’s no way out!”
“Umm, well, if I can pair up with someone, I can do that,” Chiho stated, “but now’s not the right time for it, and I can’t really expect someone to join me on this. I don’t think we can do anything.”
There was no answer they could ever reach. Beyond anything else, Chiho just didn’t have the drive to push through this apparent impasse. The conversation was starting to visibly fizzle before their eyes.
“Nh… fwahhhh …”
Then, in Suzuno’s lap, the napping Alas Ramus lifted her heavy eyelids open.
“Aw, cute!”
Kaori, seeing her awake for the first time, fawned on the awkwardly squirming toddler.
“Oh, Alas Ramus, are you awake?”
“Hahh… Suzu-Sisss… Goo’ morrrning… Uh?”
As she sleepily greeted Suzuno, she turned and realized she was no longer where she was before she began her nap.
“Magrobad… No? Where aww-we?”
“Good morning, Alas Ramus! No, this isn’t MgRonald. This is Sentucky.”
“Snntuh-key?”
“That’s right, Big Sis! The place evil, annoying angel runs!!”
““Uh, wa—!!””
Chiho and Suzuno panicked, as Acieth treated Alas Ramus the way she always did. Fortunately, the novelty of a young child in front of her caused Kaori to pay it no mind.
“You’re so cute ! Wow, and she’s so small, but she’s got a big vocabulary, huh? You guys are pretty far apart in age to be sisters, huh, Acieth?”
“Oh,” Acieth replied, “not as much as it looks.”
“…Whozzat?” Alas Ramus asked, a little suspicious at the unfamiliar face.
“Oh! Um, uh, hi, my name’s Kaori Shoji…”
Kaori found herself flustered, unsure how to deal with such a young child. Chiho deftly stepped in.
“Alas Ramus? This lady’s my friend. You can call her your big sis Kaori!”
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