“Man, oh man, oh man. This is a mean prank to pull, mm-kay?”
Emerging from Room 103 of Villa Rosa Sasazuka, looking like he just got out of bed, was Gabriel, being rather immodest with his T-shirt, boxers, and hair flying every which way.
“If you wake me up in this heat with this tab, I’m liable to have a heart attack, y’know.”
“Have it after you cover your share, dude.”
“My share…? How much can four kids even eat? I ain’t gonna cover you, Lucifer.”
“All I had was oolong tea! This isn’t the yakiniku I wanted!”
“Hey,” interjected Maou, “next time, take them to my favorite horumon place, okay? I’ll tell you where it is.”
“Yeah, I know it, dude. We already got banned from there! And that was a solo trip for Acieth!”
“It was?!”
“But all of you guys went together? If it was all of you, it can’t be that bad if you split it.”
If Emi, Alas Ramus, Laila, Nord, and Chiho were there, then yes, a yakiniku party split evenly wouldn’t break the bank. But before anyone could set Gabriel straight, it was (for some reason) Acieth who first took offense.
“No, this price, it is the true blue what four of us eat. When I eat, I not rotten enough to take help from others!”
“What are you talking about?” Gabriel asked. Everyone else could sympathize for him, but Acieth couldn’t.
“Now, you pay the money we eat! In full!”
“Not even demons are this cruel, you know. Ugggh…”
Resigned to his fate, Gabriel took out a long wallet atop the stand by the front door—brand name, much to everyone’s chagrin.
“Is 20,000 yen all right? That’s all I have on hand.”
“Tch! How the broke you are! Okay, Lucifer, thanks for lunch!”
Acieth snatched up the bills and politely gave them to Urushihara with both hands.
“Dudes…don’t try pulling this act with anyone else, okay?”
Even Urushihara, who had eagerly come here to take Gabriel for all he had, felt a little guilty. He felt it proper to turn around and give the other three Sephirah a warning.
“We won’t, I promise. I’m not that much of a dummy, Lucifer.”
“Acieth, I really don’t think that was very nice to do.”
“I felt bad for Gabriel from the start.”
Watching Nyx, Eleos, and Erone plead their cases, Urushihara breathed a sigh of relief. The others looked at him.
“Urushihara’s sure matured, too, huh?”
“Yeah, despite it all, he’s become a good caretaker.”
“I’m glad to see that. I mean, Lucifer, of all people! What an amazing person he’s become…!”
“It’s really true, isn’t it? The worse a kid is, the happier you are when he grows up.”
“Lushiferrr, you’re like a big brother now!”
Chiho, Emi, Laila, Suzuno, and finally Alas Ramus all showered Urushihara in warm praise.
“I totally regret taking this job, dude!!” was the reply.
“Yawwwn… What a terrible way to wake up. On my day off, too…”
“What’s it like upstairs, Gabriel?”
Gabriel winced as Maou pointed at the second floor. He followed the finger upward, one eyebrow raised.
“I think it was quiet. I didn’t hear any noise. Hope she didn’t die in this heat…”
The building had been fairly extensively renovated, but it was still decades old, so the first floor could hear almost everything that went on upstairs.
“All right. Thanks. I know she’s eating, but…”
“Is she? Hopefully that’ll make my shift easier, starting tomorrow.”
“I’ll go check on her later. Sorry to spring that on you. Rest up, okay?”
“I don’t have the nerves of steel to go back to bed after this. Yawwwn… I’m all sweaty, too. Maybe I’ll go to the bathhouse. When I’m helping Mikitty with her work, I barely have enough time to bathe.”
The gutted-looking Gabriel waved a hand at Urushihara and Acieth, shooing them away, and promptly closed the door.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Keter’s been growing little by little lately. Sandalphon says it’s just a matter of time now. But that makes Acieth hungrier, and that’s what led to today. I dunno what to do, dude.”
Maou, talking alone with Urushihara in Room 201 for the first time in a while, offered him some iced coffee from the fridge.
“Is that from your café?”
“Kind of. It’s a blend of beans I’ve been testing out for sale.”
“Oh. You’re sure dedicated.”
Urushihara noticed an unfamiliar machine sitting in a corner of the kitchen. It wasn’t there when he was still a resident. Picking up the glass (straw and all), he took a sip and nodded, convinced.
“It’s good, yeah, but do you really need to go through the trouble? You can get something this good in the refrigerator aisle at the supermarket, if you don’t mind payin’ for it.”
“That’s not really the point, man. This is a hobby, but it connects directly with the work I’m doing. It’s a hobby like the video games you’ve been playing since the freakin’ moment you came here.”
“Oh. Yeah, it’s not nice to make fun of people’s hobbies. I’ve really come to think that lately.”
Urushihara looked out the closed window, peering into the backyard.
“I never thought I’d keep up the gardening Bell taught me for so long, dude.”
“Yeah, and I doubt Suzuno thought you’d be taking care of the Sephirah, too.” Maou sipped his own iced coffee. “I thought trees and vegetable gardens would be totally different, but I guess the fundamentals of plant care are the same anywhere. When Keter began growing little fruits, I couldn’t help but think they looked like the eggplant at Komagane, kind of.”
“Yeah. And Kazuma threw out the eggplant that didn’t make the grade, right? I think about that a lot lately. You can’t coddle these guys too much.”
“You don’t think? Because I don’t think you can group Sephirah with eggplant.”
“Sure you can. Keter’s been growing fine since I’ve been managing it, right?”
“Mm… Yeah, I guess so.”
Maou didn’t have anything particularly convincing to dispel Urushihara’s pet theories with. And if he was the one dealing with the Sephirot every day, that must’ve been backed up by experience.
“But it’s really true. Gardening is a good way to get off your ass and start working. You can do it at your own pace.”
“Ahh, shut up.”
Urushihara finished the remaining coffee, then turned back to the wall behind him, over toward Room 202. Suzuno used to live there.
“But how’s she been?”
“Hard to say yet. She’s eating now, but… You worried?”
“A little,” Urushihara said, giving him an honest nod.
“…Yeah. But maybe you bringing Nyx here will be a good influence on her. She’s really her only ally, in a way.”
Maou tried to cheer up the slightly downcast Urushihara. But his reply wound up surprising him.
“Huh? So how about we just bring Nyx back to the other side, then? I don’t want her recovering that fast.”
“Huh?”
“When my work’s going this well, it’d be annoying if she recovered and started griping at me.”
“…Yeah, sounds true to me. I don’t need to be Copyhara to see that.”
“You lie a lot more than I ever did, Maou.”
Maou put a hand to his head. “Wait… You’re not actually Copyhara, are you?”
Urushihara attempted to deny it, but seeing Maou’s confusion inspired something within him. His evil grin was there as always.
“Well, who knows, huh? If you think I am, you’d better not think anything too mean, y’know?”
“Stop it, you asshole.”
No, he couldn’t help but implicitly threaten his old master.