Even if it was for Alas Ramus’s sake, certain things were simply off the table for her—as a Hero, and also as a woman.
“Could we store Lucifer in the closet? …Hmm, maybe not.”
Seeing him emerge from the closet, like some kind of ghost possessing the apartment building, would undoubtedly make Alas Ramus burst into tears. Urushihara and Ashiya stayed at Suzuno’s place during the last “family” meetup, but that was under extremely exceptional conditions.
“I guess,” Emi said in a depressed whisper, “I’ll just have to make Alas Ramus deal with it.” She wondered why she had to worry about any of this, like a divorced parent wrangling over visitation rights. “I have no idea what makes for a good child futon, either… I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”
She turned on her smartphone to find out. The last time she’d purchased any bedding, it was at a local shop—one that didn’t deal in children’s stuff at all. (She had double-checked on the way home the previous night.) And it wasn’t like online shopping would be ideal, either. This was going to be Alas Ramus’s futon. Emi would prefer to buy something the child liked, but since she was going in half with Maou, she’d have to consider the Devil King’s financial sensibilities or risk getting chewed out endlessly later on.
What would work?
Emi, by now, had fallen into the habit of asking the people around her if something about Japan was confusing her. So, earlier in the day, she had gone up to Rika Suzuki, a coworker and friend at the Dokodemo call center they both worked at.
“Hey, do you know where you can buy a futon sized for children?”
“Huhh?!”
Rika went wide-eyed. She placed her fork down and left her lunchtime pasta bowl be for the time being. The dramatic response put Emi off guard for a moment.
“Like, where’d that come from? That’s about the last question I would’ve expected from you, Emi.”
“Yeah, well…um, I told you about the kid Maou had at his place, right?”
It wasn’t the first time Emi had discussed Alas Ramus with her. But this time, she had brought up the topic a little too naturally for her own sake.
“Right…?”
“Well, right now she’s…………”
At that moment, Emi froze. She had totally screwed this up, but she couldn’t take the words back now.
“Right now she’s what?” Rika asked. “This is the girl who thought you were her mom, right?”
“Y-yeah, but…so, like, that girl, um…”
…is living at my place. Emi rued not thinking about Rika’s reaction to that bombshell a little before speaking up. She was a good friend to her, but unlike Chiho Sasaki, she didn’t know who Emi and Maou really were. She knew about Alas Ramus, but not what she was, exactly—just a relative of Maou’s, is how Emi put it.
“She’s come to visit now and then…and, like, she’s been staying over sometimes…”
Emi knew the words out of her mouth were terribly strained. But there was no changing the subject now. She had to fess up.
“Come to visit? Like, your place? What’s up with that? Are you taking care of that Atlas girl or whatever her name was?”
“Alas Ramus,” corrected Emi, even though she knew that wasn’t Rika’s main issue with this revelation.
“She’s related to Maou, isn’t she? Why are you looking after her? ’Cause that’s kind of weird, isn’t it?”
Well, yeah. Even Emi knew it was weird. Until just a few days ago, really, there wasn’t any connection between her and Alas Ramus—nothing besides the child’s completely wrongheaded ideas about her.
“Wait… So I’m not saying this is true or anything, but is this Maou guy taking advantage of that girl’s fondness for you and making you look after her?”
Emi paused.
“No, no, nothing like that! He’s not pushing me into it or anything…”
“So what, then?! ’Cause depending on what this is, I won’t be afraid to give Maou a piece of my mind for you, okay? Like, I could probably hook you up with a lawyer from my dad’s company, too!”
This was how Rika always ticked. She was always ready to turn any grievance into a civil lawsuit.
“Hey, hey, calm down, okay? I don’t need a lawyer from Kobe quite yet. He’s not a deadbeat dad.”
Emi had to assuage Rika before she started beating down Maou’s door. If she did, after all, it’d be just as much trouble for Emi as it would be for him. Regardless of what Maou thought about it, Emi and Alas Ramus were indivisible at this point.
“So,” she began, “you know how it is at that age—it’s like they miss their mother a lot and stuff, y’know? And Maou’s got nothing but guys living with him, and I guess Suzuno living next door isn’t good enough for her, so… And Maou’s one thing, but I kinda like the girl, so…you know, she’s been welcome at my place at times when we really need to do it. It’s all clear with his relatives, too, so…”
“Hmm… Well, weird, is all I can say. But if you’re cool with it, then fine, I guess.”
“Yeah. She’s a big fan of Chiho, too, but we can’t really leave her in the hands of a minor, right?”
“Well,” said Rika, still sounding unconvinced, “leaving her in the hands of someone who’s not even his girlfriend isn’t exactly normal, either. But that’s what you want a child futon for, huh? You aren’t gonna pay for it, are you?”
“Nah, Maou’s covering all that.”
Covering half of it. But saying that would accomplish nothing for her.
Rika pondered over this, fork halfway in her mouth. “So, like, a bedding shop or something? I usually go to Torikawa Sleep Center, but that might be kinda out of his price range, by the looks of things.”
“…Torikawa, huh?”
It was one of Japan’s oldest continually operating retailers, in business for more than four hundred years. As a brand name in bedding, it was well-nigh unstoppable.
“Yeah,” Rika hedged, “that might be going overboard, ’specially considering she’s gonna outgrow it pretty quick anyway. Though maybe you could just get him to buy a size too big for her instead, huh? I mean, Alas…Ramus, right? She must be gettin’ pretty big by now.”
Emi’s eyes turned skyward. She didn’t recall Rika ever meeting the girl before.
“…Oh, I mean, just based on what you’ve told me about her, that is!”
It might have been Emi’s imagination, but she could have sworn Rika gasped for just a moment before speaking up again.
“But anyway! I know going full brand ain’t cheap, but you could probably find a Torikawa futon at a discount kids’ place like Hishimatsu for a little less. You gotta go online to get the real deals, but I guess you’d want to be sure the kid likes the thing first, huh?”
“Hishimatsu?”
“You never heard of it? They sell kids’ clothing and accessories and stuff.”
Emi took out her phone to search for it.
“Oh, I’ve never seen them in the city itself, though,” Rika continued, enjoying the iced coffee that came with her meal. “They’re mostly out in the suburbs and bedroom communities… Oh! Hey! Maou lives right near the Keio rail line, right?”
“Huh? Yeah,” Emi replied, almost dropping her phone at Rika’s suddenly loud voice.
“In that case, why don’t you try visiting stops like Seiseki-Sakuragaoka and Minami-Osawa?”
“Why’s that?”
Emi knew the names, at least, having idly stared at the Keio rail map during more than one boring train wait. Seiseki-Sakuragaoka was a stop on the special-express line, while she was pretty sure Minami-Osawa was one of the stops on the branch line she had never been anywhere near before. Eifukucho, the main station she used, was on the Keio line—but she took the Inokashira line to work instead, switching at the Meidaimae station three stops from Shinjuku, so she knew little about what lay beyond.
“There’s a big outlet mall off Minami-Osawa. They sell all kinds of cheap brand-name stuff there, though I dunno what th
e scene is as far as futons go. Seiseki has a bunch of Keio-run shops right off the station that’re pretty cheap. Fun to browse through, too!”
“Hmm. The suburbs then, maybe?”
Emi began searching the station names on her phone.
“Whoa, Alas Ramus. Take your shoes off first.”
“No!”
“No pouting. You’re gonna get the seats all dirty.”
“Awww…”
Emi grabbed the legs of Alas Ramus, eagerly trying to grab a view out the train window, and attempted to wrest the sandals off her feet. It was proving a difficult task.
“Come on, Alas Ramus,” admonished Maou across the aisle. “Listen to your mommy.”
“…Aww, okeh.” With a nod, the girl let Emi do her work, then kneeled on the seat as she took in the outside scene.
“Ugh, she always listens to you,” Emi said as she followed her gaze out the window.
“Yeah, because I’m more of an authority figure to her.”
“Oh, sure, in your T-shirt, shorts, and sandals, right? That just exudes authority.”
“Hey, it’s hot today. This is what dads wear on their days off, okay?”
Maou took a look around the train car. Emi joined him.
“Whether they do or not,” Emi said, “they don’t do it if they’re as young as you are.”
There was no point bickering about this any further. Emi sighed just as the PA system announced their upcoming arrival at Chofu station. It was a Sunday train run on the Keio special-express line bound for Hachiouji, and given the early-afternoon time frame, it was fairly crowded. The three of them had managed to find seating close to each other nonetheless.
Emi had informed him earlier in the weekend that they’d be traveling to some station called Seiseki-Sakuragaoka in order to purchase Alas Ramus’s futon. They’d have to switch trains at Meidaimae to catch the express one. Maou was dead set against it at first. Looking at the map, it seemed like it was on the other side of the country to him, and Emi’s lecturing about prices and selection all flew over his head.
Then Emi put Alas Ramus on the phone.
“I wanna go out with you, Daddy!”
And before he knew what he was doing, he agreed to it.
But if Alas Ramus was going out, that naturally meant Emi would be joining her. He didn’t think about that until after he hung up.
“What’s that note you got?” Emi asked. Apart from his wallet and phone, it was all Maou had with him.
“Oh. A shopping list. Ashiya told me to buy this stuff if I found it for cheap.”
He extended his arm over Alas Ramus. Emi picked up the note, despite herself, and gave it a quick once-over.
“One bag of onions, some natto, dishwasher liquid fillers… Is this really stuff you’d go on a train ride to get at a discount?”
“Yeah, I dunno what he’s thinking, either.”
Maou grabbed the note off Emi’s out-thrust hand, jammed it back in his pocket, then suddenly turned toward Alas Ramus.
“Hey, what’re you seeing out there, little girl?”
“Mmm, airplane!”
“Oh? Ooooh, you’re right. Wow, it sure is high up, huh?”
“And Magrobad.”
“Huh?”
“Magrobad!!”
“What’s that?”
Alas Ramus was staring right at him, hopping up and down and pointing.
“Uhh…”
“She’s pointing at a MgRonald sign,” an exasperated Emi explained.
“Oh, really?”
She had spotted a MgRonald facing the roundabout in front of a passing station.
“Daddy! Magrobad!” she shouted, as if she just discovered a new species of fish or bird.
“Ooh, yeah, you’re right.”
“She’s been wanting to eat there all the time lately,” Emi flatly stated, keeping Alas Ramus from spotting her pained look. “I keep telling her she’s too much of a baby for it still.”
“She has?”
“Yeah. She says it ‘smells like Daddy.’”
“…Aw, what a good girl you are, Alas Ramus!”
Maou reached out to rub the girl on the head, quite the opposite reaction to Emi’s wincing. But then:
“Oww!”
Alas Ramus, forehead plastered to the window, hit her head against it as a passing train whizzed by at full speed, making the glass rattle. The resulting surprise led to predictable results.
“Nn…nhh…waaaaaaaaahh!”
“Ooooh, uh… Yeah, I bet that hurt a little, huh? You okay, Alas Ramus?”
Maou picked her up with the hand he was going to pat her with, trying to ease her out of her crying jag.
“S-sorry, sorry,” Emi whispered to the passengers surrounding her. Then:
“Oh, come on!”
She groaned as Maou took the seat directly adjacent to her, Alas Ramus on his lap and the annoyed stares of the general public surrounding them.
“…Whew.”
Emi and Maou stepped on to the curved platform of Seiseki-Sakuragaoka station, gave each other a look, and sighed.
“Look, Emi, she waged this epic battle against an archangel without breaking a sweat. Why does hitting her head a little against a glass window make her cry?”
“That…that’s what I want to know.”
Alas Ramus, upon crying herself out, promptly fell asleep in Maou’s arms. Even in the humid air that surrounded them, she showed no signs of waking up.
“Raising a kid’s just an endless spring of surprises, isn’t it?”
“At least I don’t have to worry about losing her in a crowd… Hmm?”
As they spoke to each other, a young couple passed by their side, pushing a stroller that contained a child maybe a little younger than Alas Ramus.
“…You could always do that,” Maou suggested.
“Ah, there’s too many curbs and stairways I have to traverse in my neighborhood. It’d be too much of a pain, and Alas Ramus would outgrow something that size pretty quick anyway.”
“Well, hell, I dunno, we sometimes get customers with kids in strollers that look like they oughta be in kindergarten. Oof!”
Maou adjusted his body to get a better grip on Alas Ramus, who was just about to fall out of his arms.
“Yeah, you do, don’t you? But for a child this size, I bet they’re gonna be pretty…expensive…?”
Out of nowhere, Emi pictured herself right now. Standing right next to Maou, peering at Alas Ramus’s face as she slept, having the most normal of conversations with him. Then she recalled their exchanges on the train itself.
“…Um, hello?”
“…Nnngh!”
She immediately sat herself down on a nearby bench.
“What, you gettin’ too hot or something?”
The worst part of it was that Maou looked genuinely concerned. She sized him up with her eyes, bottom to top.
“This is like…like we’re a real married couple or something…”
The resentment in her voice sounded like it was bubbling up from the underworld.
“…Uh?” Maou arched an eyebrow, feeling a tad insecure. “Look…”
“What?”
“When a girl says something like that, they’re supposed to act all awkward and flirty and stuff.”
Emi began to feel like the heat really would claim her before long.
“Is that how you want me to react?”
“Hell no.”
“…I swear I’ll kill you…ugghh.” She stood up, face still pale against the sun. “Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen again, all right? Let’s just finish this shopping trip and go home. This is driving me totally bonkers.”
“As if it’s not for me.”
But despite all that, Emi and Maou still walked down the rail station stairs together. Alas Ramus was there, after all.
“…If Chiho saw us right now, it’d be a disaster, wouldn’t it?”
“How?”
“…Never mind,” Emi said.
“Oh, what a cute little girl! How old is she, ma’am?”
“…”
“…Uhh, she just turned two a bit ago! Ha-ha-ha…”
They were in the baby department of the Seiseki-Sakuragaoka Shopping Center, just a few steps away from the station turnstile. The question from the well-meaning saleswoman immediately froze Emi on the spot, forcing Maou to provide backup with the most strained smile of his life.
“Will you get it together, please?” he snarled as he grabbed the spaced-out Emi by the shoulder. Alas Ramus was still napping in his other arm.
“Agh!” Emi yelped.
“So how can I help you today?”
“Oh,” Maou blurted in place of the still-bleary Emi, “we thought you might have a futon big enough for her to use, so…”
“Ah, perfect! Were you using a crib or baby bed up to now, sir?”
“Oh, she was with her mother,” Maou replied, too scared to reveal to a stranger that she was sleeping on bare floors.
“…!”
Emi froze yet again.
“Emi, will you please stop spacing out the moment anyone treats us like a family?!”
“Umm,” said the saleswoman.
“Oh, sorry, it’s no big deal. She was sleeping in the same futon as her mom, I mean.”
“Ah, right…with her mother. So she doesn’t fuss very much at night, then?”
“…No, not really. She’s pretty quiet, I think.” Judging by his limited experience with Alas Ramus, Maou didn’t imagine she rolled around too much once she was asleep. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, well, young infants can often act pretty different once they’re taken out of their familiar crib or whatnot. I hear from a lot of young mothers who take the step up from cribs to futons, and they’re just amazed at how much they start fidgeting all night!”
“I see…”
“Of course, a lot of families don’t use cribs at all, so it all comes down to what works best for you! But if she doesn’t move around much when she’s sleeping, I think it’d be a good idea to provide her with the best futon you can. I have a few different ones I can show you, if you’ll come this way…”
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 7 Page 10