The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 7

by Satoshi Wagahara

The vet gave Maou a puzzled look.

  “I mean, picking him up even though I was in no shape to care for him. And then he was like that, you know? I’d be pretty hopeless if I wound up making him starve to death…”

  Ever since he first planted his flag in the ground in the demon realms, Maou always held the philosophy that anyone who joined his force would be fairly treated and generously taken care of. But, without his demonic force, he couldn’t even take care of a domesticated animal off the street correctly. He hadn’t felt this powerless in at least a century or so.

  “Mr. Maou,” Dr. Yoshimura replied as he watched Silverfish paw at the walls and chew on the towel inside the box, “you haven’t done anything irresponsible at all. I mean, maybe your landlord won’t be too impressed…but you’re feeding him, you’re trying to find a home for him, and you brought him here when you realized something was wrong. If you hadn’t picked him up, he might’ve died before you could even name him, much less have me look at him. You don’t have a single thing to regret, I don’t think. If anyone’s acting irresponsible here, it’s definitely the person who abandoned Silverfish in the first place.”

  Receiving this mental encouragement from a human veterinarian made Maou feel even more hopeless than before. “Yeah,” he protested, “but I still haven’t found anyone to take him in…”

  There was no way he could dump Silverfish on the road now. But after tapping all the (rather meager) social resources he had, nobody stepped up.

  Dr. Yoshimura thought for a minute. “Mr. Maou,” he began, “did you notice the bulletin board in the waiting room?”

  “Oh, about the rabies shots and stuff? …Oh!”

  Along with all those medical notices, he recalled, there was a piece celebrating that recent puppy adoption blitz.

  “I can’t guarantee we’d find anyone immediately, but would you like to maybe put up a notice on that board? I think Silverfish’s got a lot of attractive features, and you don’t see a silver cat this pretty too often at all. I’m willing to bet one of our regular visitors would love to take a look at him. You’ll have to keep him in your home for a little while longer—we don’t have a boarding service here, I’m afraid—but I can promise you that we’ll refer any qualified candidates over to you.”

  “Mewww!!”

  Silverfish accepted the unexpected offer before Maou could even nod.

  “Hmm,” Ashiya mused as he looked through his paperwork. “So this is no longer considered a child?”

  It took something of a dedicated effort to get Silverfish home safe without him clawing the box to shreds in the process.

  “They’re fully grown after a year, is what he told me. I thought I was gonna need a new box on the way home!”

  Even as they spoke, Silverfish was playfully bounding across the tatami mats that lined their room. It was doubtful a cardboard box could do much to confine him any longer.

  “All right. So…”

  Ashiya warily eyed the other merchandise Maou brought home with Silverfish.

  “He said I’d need this stuff as a bare minimum.”

  Lined up next to Silverfish’s box was a package of milk additive for cats, the solid flake-style weaning food the Aurora Animal Clinic recommended to him, a dish to place it in, some kitty litter, a beginner’s handbook to raising kittens, and so on.

  “It didn’t cost as much as it looks,” Maou explained. “Even with the admission fee, it was only around seven thousand yen.”

  Ashiya’s face tightened at the lofty figure, but:

  “Meww! Mewww!”

  His eyes met Silverfish’s round, beady ones as he sidled up to him, padding elegantly across the room, then stopping occasionally to look up at the ceiling.

  “Well,” he observed, “perhaps it is all for the best.”

  “Pssht! …Meww.”

  “Heh, um, ummm, so, how much of this weaning food should I give him per meal…?” Ashiya asked.

  It was the sensation of Silverfish’s fur against his leg that caused Ashiya to make that sequence of odd noises near the beginning of his question. He walked carefully to avoid stepping on him, but Silverfish remained constantly at his feet, refusing to retreat. The sight forced Maou to crack a smile, but then he went to his shopping bag again, remembering something.

  “Also, I went to the pharmacy and brought a pretty good-looking allergy mask. Make do with this for a little while, Urushihara.”

  “Come onnnnn, dude!!”

  “Meww! Meww! Meww!”

  The fallen angel’s complaint from the closet was half screamed. Silverfish left Ashiya’s feet and meowed at the door, as if teasing him.

  “It is utter chaos in there,” Suzuno remarked over in the other room—but if anything, her voice betrayed her relief that Silverfish was fine after all.

  More time passed.

  Silverfish, now fully used to the Devil’s Castle cast of characters, had regained his kitten-like playfulness, distracting the demons from their world-domination plans on a regular basis. Still, this was the Devil King and the best of his four top generals. They never deviated from Silverfish’s prescribed feeding plan, and they took steps to keep him from bashing into furniture during particularly heated play sessions. It was to the point that they could instinctively sense his potty breaks before he took them on the litter.

  Ever resourceful, the demons even took pains to replace the threadbare towels they placed in Silverfish’s box for extra comfort. The feline milk they purchased for emergency purposes was just about to run out. The jingly cat toy Maou bought at the hundred-yen shop was already a favorite of its target, to the point that Silverfish would thrash around on it without Maou having to wave it around for him.

  “…You seriously think you’ll be fine if an adopter shows up?”

  “Do not bother asking me.”

  “Aw, he’s so cute!”

  Emi, Suzuno, and Chiho could only watch as the two grown demons messed around with the silvery ball of fur.

  “Ahh-choo!!”

  Urushihara also provided his own commentary.

  A few more days passed. It was now nearly two weeks since Silverfish had entered their lives.

  “…!”

  Maou’s phone received a call from the Aurora Animal Clinic. It was right in the middle of his now customary evening kitty playtime, and it almost made him break out in a cold sweat.

  “Hi, Mr. Maou! This is Dr. Yoshimura. We had someone in here today who’s interested in adopting Silverfish.”

  “Oh…really?”

  “Mewww? Meww! Meww!”

  Silverfish, miffed at the sudden lack of play, started climbing up Maou to get his attention. Maou tried to shake him off as he kept up the phone conversation before he ripped up his shirt. Ashiya, looking on, was already feeling a wistful sense of passing in his brain. Urushihara held his breath…and sneezed.

  “…”

  By the time phone conversation ended, Silverfish was on Maou’s shoulder, forgetting his initial objective and trying frantically to scale his master to the very top.

  “We got an adopter.”

  “…So we do, my liege.”

  “The vet told me it’s a good one. He’s got a lot of experience with cats and stuff, and he said his last one lived a lot longer than average.”

  “…Well, what more could we ask for?”

  It was cause for celebration, but both Maou’s and Ashiya’s voices were gloomy and restrained.

  “It sounds like we can take him in tomorrow. We’re free to say no, of course, but…”

  “…I doubt we have any right to, my liege. The cat, sadly, has no right to be here.”

  The whole reason for the adopter search was because Silverfish couldn’t spend his life in this room. Now he had the ideal owner. They had no reason to refuse.

  Maou picked up Silverfish, who had just completed his epic journey to the top of his head, and brought him close to his face.

  “Great news, huh, Silverfish? You’ve got a new master.�
�

  Looking down at his oddly sullen temporary master, the young Silverfish opened his mouth wide, as if to yawn.

  “Roww…pfft.”

  “…Could you cough up a hairball some other time, please?”

  This was nowhere near as emotional a moment for Silverfish, as evidenced by the current frenzied flailing of all his legs.

  “We better let Emi and Chi know, too. They helped us out a lot with him. Tell ’em they don’t have to worry about us eating him from now on, huh?”

  By now, of course, it was far too late to go back. Maou and Ashiya both had developed a special, unique affinity for the kitten.

  “Meow Meow go to the doctor?”

  Alas Ramus looked up from the child seat installed on Dullahan II.

  “Yeah,” Maou nodded as he pushed the bike with him. “We’re gonna go meet his new owner.”

  Inside the box fastened to the front was Silverfish. It had been his first time out in a while, and that had put a dent on his usual frenzied playfulness.

  Emi, for whatever reason, had decided to show up with Alas Ramus after he gave her the news. She asked how far the vet’s office was, and after confirming it wasn’t a long distance, took the almost unheard-of step of letting Maou take the child over there. “She won’t have a chance like this again, after all,” she rationalized.

  “Have you caught the kitty flu or something?” said Maou, a bit stunned by the non-Emi-like offer.

  “Well, I got to talking with Rika about it,” Emi replied with the casual, low-tension manner she had exhibited a lot of lately. “She said that when you give an animal up and you’re alone, it feels totally awful on the way back. Hey, why don’t you go out to eat somewhere with her, too? It’s still hot, though, so make sure she doesn’t get dehydrated.”

  “…You’re creeping me out even more now.”

  Not only did Emi figure out how broken up he was over Silverfish’s departure, she was virtually giving him a consolation gift.

  “Oh,” she chided, “so you’d prefer if one of us watched you bawl your eyes out after you give the cat up?”

  Maou had little answer to that.

  “If you wanna go by yourself, then fine,” she continued. “Did you hear that, Alas Ramus? Daddy doesn’t want to be seen with you in public anymore. What do you think about—”

  “All right! I’ll take her!!”

  Brushing off the ever-malicious Emi, Maou pedaled off to the Aurora Animal Clinic, Ashiya, Suzuno, and Chiho seeing him off with eyes full of regret.

  Alas Ramus swung her arms in the air as she walked, singing a bizarre melody of “Meow meow, meow meowwww” in no particular key. Maou smiled at her and walked on, trying to keep the box steady as he slowly walked to the clinic, savoring the moment.

  He parked his bike by the building’s wall, removed Alas Ramus from her seat, then—with a word of warning to keep calm—unfastened the rope keeping Silverfish’s box in place. Alas Ramus toddled along beside him, holding both hands against her face for some reason.

  “Why’re you covering your mouth, Alas Ramus?” a curious Maou asked.

  “I’m a good girl. Ssshh!”

  In her mind, being a good girl apparently meant shutting up. Maou smiled at the effort, although her interpretation of those rules were still a tad childish. It made him feel at least a bit relieved as he opened the door to the clinic.

  “Oh, hello there, Mr.… Oh, is that your child, Mr. Maou?”

  Yoshimura the vet was already in the waiting room, eyes wide and round upon noticing Alas Ramus.

  “Yeah, she’s my daughter, pretty much.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Woof woof!”

  Alas Ramus’s “sssh” dissipated rapidly at the sight of a large ceramic dog perched by the waiting room entrance.

  “Whoa, Alas Ramus! We’re in ‘shhh’ mode, remember?”

  “Shhh? Woof Woof shhh, too!”

  The ceramic retriever was too busy holding an OPEN sign in its mouth to respond. Alas Ramus placed a finger over her mouth at it anyway.

  “So who’s going to adopt Silverfish?” Maou asked.

  “Oh, let me introduce you. Right this way…” Dr. Yoshimura pointed at someone sitting on the bench. He stood up and made Maou’s heart skip a beat.

  “Whoa! Mr. Hirose?!”

  “Oh,” exclaimed the surprised Yoshimura, “do you two know each other?”

  It was Mr. Hirose, all right—proprietor of the bicycle shop Maou frequented. He had already turned down Maou’s kitten offer once, making his presence all the more of a surprise for him.

  “Hey, uh, sorry I disappointed you last time, Maou!” Hirose grinned nervously. “Didja hear from Dr. Yoshimura that I used to have a cat at home?”

  “Yeah, and…uh, it lived for a really long time?”

  “Uh-huh! Pretty much! Used to, anyway. She passed away two years ago.”

  “I’m sure Luna lived a very happy life with you, Mr. Hirose,” Yoshimura gently added.

  “Oh, her name was Luna?”

  “Ehh, more or less,” the ever-workmanlike Hirose confessed. “I had her since back before I got married, so she was actually older than my first kid. The whole family pretty much lost it when she died, I tell you. So I turned you down at first ’cause I didn’t think we had it in us to keep a cat besides Luna, but… Hey, you mind if I open the box?”

  His hand made for the lid once Maou nodded his approval.

  “Meww?”

  Silverfish, as if waiting for his cue, meowed with gusto.

  “Y’know, I didn’t realize it until I saw the pics, but this guy looks exactly like Luna did. She was a Russian Blue, too, and you wouldn’t believe how bright and silvery her hair was. I don’t think she was purebred or nothin’, but still, she was a sight to see, y’know? It’s almost the anniversary of Luna’s death, so I figured I’d call on Dr. Yoshimura and see how things are going, but then I saw your poster, and it felt kinda like…I dunno, destiny or something. What’s his name, anyway?”

  “Silverfish.”

  “Silver…?”

  The initial confusion quickly gave way to a broad smile.

  “Well, you mind if I take him? It’s not like I’m aimin’ to replace Luna or whatever—I just figure it’s about time we add a little one to our family again. I dunno what the kids’ll think of ‘Sil-verfish,’ but I’ll try to get ’em on my side.”

  “Ah, you can call him whatever you want, sir. Just take good care of him for me, okay?” Maou replied, smiling as he handed Hirose the box.

  “Oh, can I go and visit him now and then?”

  “Well, of course!”

  “Meww.”

  Silverfish had no objections.

  “Oh, he’s right here in the neighborhood?”

  “Yep! I totally know the guy, too.”

  “Woof Woof! Woof Wooooof!”

  Alas Ramus was carrying a small ceramic dog in her hand.

  Emi frowned at Maou, figuring he was spoiling her yet again. “Well, that’s too bad,” she observed. “I was hoping you’d come back here as brutally depressed as you were when Alas Ramus went away.”

  “…Thanks a lot.”

  Maou was more than a bit offput. It sounded like Emi was both razzing him and expressing concern for him at the same time.

  “So it was Mr. Hirose? The same Hirose who runs the bike store where all the shops are?”

  Chiho had just as clear a grasp of the local geography as Maou had.

  “Well, that’s great!” she continued. “That’s right nearby here! Now you and Silverfish don’t have to be lonely at all!”

  Somehow, the lack of ulterior motive behind Chiho’s encouragement made it feel all the more embarrassing for Maou. “Ahh, it’s nothing like that,” he countered. “I gotta get all this cat stuff over to Mr. Hirose later on anyway, so it’s not like we had some kinda tearful good-bye.”

  Since they had no more use for the remaining cat paraphernalia laid around Devil’s Castle, Maou agr
eed to give it to Hirose later. They figured having a few familiar toys and such on hand would make the transition easier for Silverfish. The entire kit fit into a pretty small bag by this point. It was only when he put the dangly cat toy inside, fresh bite marks still adorning it, that Maou felt a twinge of heartbreak.

  “Y’know, Emi…?”

  “What?”

  “…Thanks a lot for bringing Alas Ramus over.”

  “…”

  Emi was about to say See? You’re totally depressed after all, but quickly lost the chance when Maou averted his eyes.

  “…It is hard to explain, my liege. It feels like the energy has been sucked out of the room somehow.”

  That night, Ashiya sighed for what must have been the eight hundredth time.

  If anything, Ashiya was experiencing more separation anxiety than his boss. He had shared Silverfish feeding duties with Maou. It would take a while to shake the habit of looking at the clock, then the box in the corner.

  Maou, for his part, had made playing with Silverfish a must after every work shift for the past few days. Now he was lying on the tatami mats, nothing to while away the time with.

  Urushihara, meanwhile…

  “…”

  …still hadn’t left the closet.

  “Look, can you just come out of there already? Silverfish is gone, man. It’s gotta be like a sauna in there.”

  “…”

  Maou’s pleading made the door open just a sliver. Half of Urushihara’s face was visible through it.

  “Geez, you don’t have to act like a ghost…”

  “…Uh, not yet.” He shut the door before Maou could respond. “Ashiya, could you please vacuum this place for me? Tomorrow’s fine.”

  “Why are you ordering me to vacuum?” Ashiya sourly replied.

  “’Cause it’s still there, dude. Silverfish’s dander ’n’ smell ’n’ stuff. It’s still making my nose feel all itchy! Please, could you just do it first thing in the…heh…hahhh…”

  Urushihara’s breathing accelerated in volume for a moment before the big reveal came.

  “Hahhhh-choooo!!”

  “Someone’s sure got it rough,” Maou remarked. Unlike with Urushihara, there wasn’t a trace of Silverfish left on his body.