#maouxemi

The new neighbor's gift is helping mitigate the dire food situation somewhat, but the udon will only last for so long. Hence his willingness to let Suzuno come and go as she pleases, despite her clearly suspect motivations for playing housekeeper. Maou knows that she's almost certainly a church lackey, and if anyone should be paying for Urushihara's costly presence in their postage-stamp apartment, it's the church. Whatever resources she attempts to ply them with in an effort to lower their guards, he considers restitution.

As he walks home, Maou dutifully recites the tenants of the shift manager training manual Miss Kisaki gave him. Mere days from now, he will need the knowledge at his beck and call, and anything less than perfection is an outcome he cannot afford—quite literally, with a new roommate eating up the very limited resources of the devil's castle. Their only hope to sustain like this—if Urushihara proves to be as useless an earner as Maou expects—is for the devil to quickly climb the MgRonald's ranks.

From the street, Maou can hear the sounds of Suzuno lecturing Lucifer about vegetable preparation in her overly formal cadence, with his far more casual answering complaints. It isn't until Maou nears the stairs that he catches a faint whiff of something familiar, but out of place. A honey-sweet aroma that always spells trouble for him.

Emi. Oh, this ought to be—

Before he completes the thought, the pounding of heeled feet echoes above and the hinges of the door to the landing squeal as it's thrown open. Pink hair whips around as Emilia the Hero careens gracelessly off the top step and directly into his arms—for some maddening reason perfectly extended to catch her.

It's the second time in a week a woman has tumbled down those stairs into him, but the lurching in his stomach and shake of his knees is new. He tells himself it's the princess hold he has Emi in—more weight on his joints after a long shift. Anyone might tremble.

The sweat-soaked button down she's wearing that's plastered to her skin and translucent enough that he can make out the shadow of her bra beneath has nothing to do with it. The hot press of her abdomen into his side, the slick thigh against his left hand—they're utterly inconsequential. Disgusting even. Here he is, overheated and low on fuel, and this infernal woman who isn't even supposed to be here throws her drenched self at him out of nowhere? 

He should be irritated or…offended, even. Yes! A heavy dose of exasperation will cover the way his hands are clenching slightly into the fabric at her shoulder, pulling her tighter against him.

"I don't think you actually know how to use stairs," he snipes.

 "Maou?" Emi blinks open her eyes, dropping a wincing grimace, and Maou scowls back at her.

"Seriously, you need to practice or something."

Her eyes narrow, then widen again, a peculiar sort of humiliation dancing in them. Her attention darts down to her knees, the pencil skirt she’s wearing having ridden up well above where the demon was gripping to hold her aloft. He thinks he should probably drop her now, or at least gently set her back on her feet. She cannot be allowed to glean any ammunition from this. But before he can move, her freehand crashes into his cheekbone with the power of celestial force.

He reels, still somehow maintaining his grip on her, and she strikes again—this time with a sharp knee, catching him square in the nose. His vision goes black as he falls backward, and the last sound he hears is her crying out as she hits the grass.

 —

Later, after Emi had thoroughly insulted him and positioned herself as guardian over the girl who was clearly a representative of the same organization that tried to kill her barely two weeks prior, Maou finds himself alone again with his two roommates. He sits against the wall, a manga propped on his knees, pretending not to think about going after Emi and shaking some sense into her about Suzuno.

Urushihara lets out a smug sort of sigh, leaning back on his hands in front of his computer and turning his head. "So…you and Emi are awfully cozy. Even Suzuno noticed." Maou's eyes narrow and leave his book to meet the sly half-smile Lucifer's directing at him. "I thought it was weird how you were protecting her when me and Olba attacked you, but now I get—"

"Ashiya!" Maou exclaims in mock excitement. "Did you hear that?" The man in question stirs in his sickbed, looking wearily up at his compatriots.

"What is it, sire?"

"Urushihara here just volunteered to handle the shopping until you're feeling better. Maybe Suzuno has been a good influence on him, afterall."

"What the crap, man? No, I said that you—"

"Oh, what's that? You want to look for a job, too, once Ashiya's back on his feet? How responsible of you!"

Urushihara falls silent with a roll of his eyes, returning his attention to the computer. "Whatever, man. Live in denial."

"What you're implying is out of the question," Ashiya half groans, turning on his side toward the window. "Our lord has seen no end of trouble from that woman."

Maou humphs an affirmative, returning his gaze to his manga, while his treacherous brain steeps with thoughts of Emi's hot skin against his.

Don't get it twisted; we will never be intimate, she had declared when Suzuno probed her on the subject. Maou had studiously continued washing the dishes during this exchange, hiding the uncomfortable pinch that appeared between his eyebrows at her words. His brain flits back to their conversation following the battle in Sasazuka.Don't make it sound like such a challenge, Hero, he'd told her. And damn her, she just can't help herself, can she? Every fierce denial hangs in the air like the draw of her sword—an invitation to lock eyes and meet her in the middle.

Emi's tears have begun to plague Maou, which is particularly disorienting because the reverse should be true. The despair of a human in his direct vicinity should be enriching. He should draw power from it like a leech—he is a demon after all. 

Instead, Emi’s hurt lances through him with a lasting sting. Any increase to his reserves is accompanied by a thick cloud of guilt that sticks around until he’s expended the magic in service of others. It’s maddening.

Maou sends Ashiya out for gauze because, yet again, Emi arrived uninvited on his doorstep, then quickly devolved into a disaster, careening down his stairs and lashing out like a wounded animal while she bled on his tatami mats. The tears should have been an anticipated outcome—he’s learning her patterns, isn’t he?—but somehow, he’s still surprised at the mounting vulnerability that reveals itself when they’re alone.

She screams at him, swears never to forgive him for killing her father, and he does something strange he’d never felt the need to do with Emi before. 

Maou lies. 

He claims he hasn’t given his past motives much thought, even as he haltingly begins the apology he’s rehearsed twenty different ways since he realized what it was to be human and to care for them. 

Emi’s hands are clenched over her face, fingers digging into the bandage on her forehead, and Maou is struck by the consuming urge to pull them away. Ashiya returns, Chiho in tow, before Maou's arm can stray from his side, and Emi’s embarrassment is thick in the silence after the door slides open, revealing the high schooler Maou—the ancient demon king—went on a date with yesterday. Chiho misunderstands the scene and is watery and whimpering in an instant.

Again, Chi’s devastation should be delicious. Restorative. Instead, it tastes like ashes.

“You really are a thing.” Her accusation settles into Maou like mold in the floorboards.

His fascination with Chi’s easy trust has always been his own, certainly, but encouraging her affections to the degree that he has? That’s largely because it annoys Emi. The hero’s pain hurts him, sure, but he delights in her irritation.

“I swear we’re not,” Emi assures Chi, and, damn her, a tiny protest crawls inside his ribcage—an invading cockroach. He tries to stamp it out before it can escape into the depths of his psyche, but success in such a goal is ephemeral at best.

When Chi flees the scene, there’s no gut wrenching urge to go after her. His landlady has to show up, armed with information she should not possess and a clear concern for the girl’s safety, to convince him to follow. Emi, as usual, is hot on his heels.

He tells himself he would have been just as slow to act were Emi the one to run off, but that feels a lot like his second lie of the day.

---

“Congratulations, you found me out,” Olba says from the heap of rubble he and Lucifer stand atop like gargoyles. "And Emilia, you’re certainly looking lovely.”

Olba is a grease-slick of a human, obviously trash in a robe to anyone with eyes, but Emi had trusted him. Which might say something about her begrudging faith in Maou, but so what if it did? Maou was easily ten times the person Olba would ever be, and he’d only had months of practice.

"Olba?" Emi was clearly stunned when she saw Lucifer, but she’s utterly crushed to find the priest with him. The hurt in her wobbly voice is clear when she asks, “Why? How could you work with Lucifer? ”

Maou’s eyes cut over his shoulder for a fraction of a second, taking in the tears brimming in hers. She’s small and fragile in the wake of this discovery—not Emilia the hero, but Emi Yusa, the girl who went to pieces in his apartment not twenty minutes prior.

This time, Emi’s tears make him angry. 

Who does Olba Meyer think he is, tormenting the hero? I’m the only one with that privilege.

The fact that the priest is clearly here with the goal of killing them both fuels his fury. He knows the Church trained her from childhood, brought her up to wield Better Half in the fight against him. It isn’t surprising to learn that the high priests know nothing of loyalty—it’s far more surprising to discover that Maou does.

"You really want to know?” Olba laughs at Emi’s horror, boiling Maou’s blood. “I’ll tell ya, but it’ll be the last thing you ever hea–”

“The hero was really throwing her weight around,” Maou cuts him off sharply, “and you couldn’t abide that, so you figured, ‘after she ousts the demon army, let’s execute her.’ Spot on, huh?” Olba’s face sours and brows shoot up. The idiot evidently doesn’t think his machinations are as clear as day. “And you got Lucifer here on your side by promising him a golden ticket back to Heaven town.”

“Damn! How’d you know that?” Olba guffaws.

Lucifer’s eyes stray from Maou to briefly assess his bumbling partner.

“C’mon man, that’s the oldest trick in the book!” Maou’s tone grows even more mocking. “And who says ‘the last thing you’ll ever hear?’ I’ve seen B-movies with better scripting than that, baldy . Get a wig!”

The soft huff of Emi's laugh is like a cool breeze in the sweltering heat, and Maou swells with triumph unlike any he'd known on the battlefield. He pays for the tirade immediately—Ashiya's reprimand about spending on movies is sharp and poorly timed. His general won't forget it any time soon, and will likely hound him about it every time he leaves the castle without reason, but Maou doesn’t have any regrets. It’s worth the consequences to dispel Emi's gloom.

Of course, it’s all strategic. Taking the acid from the battery. He has to keep her from further empowering Lucifer with her despair. If the weight he'd been carrying since their reunion gets a little lighter as a result…well, that’s a welcome side benefit and nothing more.