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"My name is Kouta, and I'm transferring here as of today. My hobbies are hiking and drawing. Please take care of me."
It's the beginning of a new term, and he found himself halfway across the country. With one of the inns owned by the other half of the family in dire straits, his uncle had begged him to lend a hand with running it to save costs, offering free food and a room if he did. He'd jumped at the opportunity, desperate to get away from his family and snatch some independence for himself. Yuka might have been clingy at times, but she was nowhere near the pain in the backside his sister could be. He'd been planning to go to university out this way regardless; all the offer had done was move his plans forward.
Honestly, he'd only been back in town for a couple of days and already he'd been reminded of why he loved Kamakura so much. Cleaner air, clearer skies and nicer people. That said, while he received a decent welcome from his new classmates, they seemed to get colder and more closed-up the closer he got to his chair at the back of the room, eyes fixated either straight forwards or locked upon their desks. Except for his left-hand neighbour, staring blankly out of the window.
Even without the odd aura that seemed to surround her, she would have stuck out like a sore thumb. For one thing, she was wearing a thick black woollen cap indoors, long reddish-pink hair creeping out from under the edge and rolling down her back. Stern features reflected back at him from the brief glimpse he caught of her in the glass, predator's eyes tracking him from behind that stringy fringe, before she sighed and returned her attentions to the courtyard. For reasons he couldn't put a finger on, his heartbeat was hammering in his throat as he took a seat beside her, that blood-red gaze sticking with him all the time he set about preparing his new desk.
He doesn't know what's going on here, but it was beyond ridiculous to be afraid of someone just because they were a little off, and so he swallowed his heart and leant over.
"Good morning."
Red girl stirred a little, but made no effort to displace herself. He was about to say it again, louder, when his right-hand neighbour tapped his shoulder. Looking back found the other boy frantically shaking his head back and forth, his face tight and pinched.
Kouta didn't exactly understand, but the choking sensation had passed as soon as it had overwhelmed him, and so he set his own gaze forward and prepared for the first lesson of the day.
"Yo, new guy! Look at the balls on you, giving Devil Girl such an enthusiastic greeting! Must have a death wish or something."
As a new member of the class he was the obvious gimmick of the early school year, and as the class broke up for the first of many lunches together, he found himself quickly called over to the other side of the room with the other boys. Red Girl had departed at the sound of the bell, having failed to open a single book nor draw a pen from her raggedy, animal-sticker decorated pencil case throughout the whole morning. The teachers hadn't even asked for her name during registration, merely giving her quick glances and marking her as present. With her gone, the room began to lighten up, students speaking far louder and happily pushing tables together, yet not a one near her desk.
"I'm sorry… Devil Girl?"
The short-haired boy with the gaunt features at the head of the group bit into his sandwich aggressively, talking through a mouth full of noodles.
"Yup, that bitch. Spat out from hell itself. Used to think she was nothing more than a dumb animal, but that's just how she gets you."
"Gets you how?"
A sudden heavy air dropped over the tables. The boy slammed his lunch down and rolled up his right sleeve with his left hand. From the way he struggled with it, he clearly wasn't left-handed, yet he'd spent the entire morning with his right arm hanging limply by his side, and saw no reason to change that now. As cloth folded up, Kouta was given the answer.
The lower half of his arm was plastic and metal, bound to pale skin with straps and Velcro. It was Kouta's first time seeing a prosthetic limb, and immediately the back of his mind crawled, informing him that there should be a full, human arm there instead. And yet he couldn't tear his eyes away from the divide of artificial shell and gangly muscle.
"Gets you by ripping half your arm off with her fucking witchcraft, makes it so it doesn't work right no more."
"But… why?"
"What reason does a devil need to do anything? Cause she's evil, that's why. Loves causing humans misery, it's the only way she can live."
"But if she's done this…"
He started looking about, trying to pick out any other prosthetics in the class. The other boys shook their heads, but he could see the weight of experience hanging on their shoulders with its grim mantle.
"Nah, it's just me. Which is why it's my duty to let everyone know about her. Me, her, couple of the other kids; we all come from the orphanage up the road. Real shithole, let me tell you. And we've never been able to get out, cause people take a look at her and think we're all devils. And ever since she took my arm, she's used her magic to convince the adults to keep her around, overlook her true nature. But I tell you right now Kouta, you'll know her true nature by looking at her. She tries to hide them, but under that hat, that's where you'll find her horns."
Tomoo's been on his crusade to warn everyone for a while, ever since the orphanage kids joined up with general classes back in middle school. Even Yuka knows about Devil Girl, and she's about as far removed from gossip circles as you can get.
"I'm sure it's not quite as dire as he makes it out to be. Probably just an accident from when he was young that he's spun up in his head over the years. That said, I wouldn't go near either of them if I was you. I hear he's no model student, and she…"
She paused in their mopping of the bathhouse, dwelled on the matter for a moment.
"One of the girls in my class comes from the same orphanage. And she says that Devil Girl is positively frightful when she's angry. Best just eat lunch with me in future, don't you think?"
Kouta grunted in half-agreement, if only so that she wouldn't nag him on the subject. Yet as he set to mopping again, he couldn't help but think that it was somewhat cruel that even level-headed Yuka hadn't taken the time to find out what Devil Girl's real name actually was.
Despite the warnings, he couldn't bring himself not to greet the back of her head each morning, and say goodbye before he headed home. It was just the good and proper thing to do, regardless of Tomoo's wild stories. And if those stories were true, there was nothing to lose from being polite. The rest of the class looked at him in abject terror each time, yet Devil Girl never so much as flinched. Tomoo cast scowls from across the room however, and more than once Kouta caught him talking loudly in classrooms and corridors about how it would be such a shame when she finally snapped and tore his face off, before turning on the rest of them.
And so it was that Kouta found himself more and more often without someone to talk to in class, the bulk of his school interactions consisting of his lunchtimes with Yuka. The sole interaction with the boy on the right came from the poor lad forgetting an English textbook, the two boys having to pair up so that he could get anything done. The second the class ended he couldn't get away from Kouta fast enough. Strangely enough, Kouta found himself at peace with this. While it was a shame to learn that the people out here could be just as nasty as those back home, a certain sense of moral justification set in with every cold shoulder and whispered comment that they thought he couldn't hear. He was doing the right thing, and no amount of paranoid superstition could shift him now.
She caught him walking home alone one day. While his arrangement with his uncle didn't exclude him from joining any after-school clubs, only the art club really interested him, and he soon realised about a week after joining that he was bringing down the tone of the room by dint of association with Devil Girl and quit. So now he was a proud member of the go-home club, which came with its own perks, like getting starting on inn chores earlier so he could spend his evenings as he pleased. The beauty of art meant that he didn't need a classroom to perform it anyway.
And that was supposed to be the plan for today as well, right up until he exited a convenience store and found her there, drifting like a lonesome ghost out front.
"Ah… hey again."
It was the first time looking at her head-on, instead of catching some side-on glance in the window. She was more imposing from the front, those deep red eyes boring into him from behind a shield of hair, those sharp features readied like a knife aimed at his heart. She was slouched, the casual stance betraying that odd aura that seemed to irradiate from her, that feeling of subtle fear, urging him to turn his back and get out of her sight. And yet, as he stood there, stuck under that hollow stare, he was overcome by twin feelings. One, that she was very beautiful, and two, that she seemed immeasurably sad.
"Whatever you want from me, get it over with and go back to your normal life. I'm not your puppet to be played with."
"What I… want from you?"
"Don't play stupid. No-one gets involved with me unless they're trying to make themselves feel better about their lives. So get it over with, and then you can go buddy up with Tomoo and everyone else, and tell them all about how easy it is to get one over on 'Devil Girl'. I've fallen for the fake friend trick before; I know how this routine goes."
"Look, I'm sorry if I've upset you, but I'm not putting anything on here. I really was just trying to be friendly. Although, I'll admit that I've probably kept at it longer than I normally would, if only because it seems to upset Tomoo so much that someone's talking to you."
She cocked her head to the side, what little eye he could see narrowing as she looked him up and down. Then she grabbed him by the wrist, and began dragging him towards the street. Her grip wasn't terribly tight, yet there was nothing he could do to stop himself from following her.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
She stopped, tilted her chin towards the store.
"Doing you a favour. The idiot inside is about a minute away from calling the police and trying to do us for loitering. Trust me, he's very trigger-happy with that phone. Only power he has in his miserable life."
And so the dragging continued until Kouta pulled himself together and shooed her off, resuming his usual walk back towards the inn. Devil Girl hung a step behind on the inside line, away from the road. She never stopped staring at him as they went. Not saying anything, just staring. Eventually, he cleared his throat to kill the silence.
"You know, I don't know about Tomoo's story about you taking his arm or anything, but I do think it's wrong to exclude people just because of something they can't change about themselves."
There was a small scoff from behind.
"Of course he told you about the horns. Probably tells everyone I killed his parents and got him sent to the orphanage."
"No, just that you're the reason they don't get adopted."
A short, bitter laugh.
"Well, that one's true. Of course, the fact that it's a run-down dump filled with angry brats out here in the middle of nowhere might have something to do with it. That, and every family who wants children in this town has them by now. No need to include the castaways."
"Yeah, I don't much get the impression anyone would be lining up to give him a home, with or without you about."
Another laugh, this one a little sweeter but no less dry. They were quiet for a long while after that, just heading up the hill, the inn now in sight. The town puttered gently around them. Cars rolling past, a wing of gulls heading inland overhead, the sun drifting on by peacefully, dotting them through the leaves on the trees, freshly renewed with spring. In any other circumstance, with any other girl, it might have been romantic.
"Is it true? Did you cut his arm off? Or was it just an accident?"
Devil Girl said nothing, and in the silence between them he noticed her footsteps come to a stop. When he dared turn around to face her the sad beauty had seeped out of her, leaving only a dark, glaring statue.
"He attacked my dog. I gave him what he deserved. Less than, even. I should have crushed his head."
"I… how? Wait, he attacked a dog?"
There, on that lonely road, Devil Girl told a miserable tale. One of a girl who couldn't fit in, no matter what she did, simply because of who she was. Of horrid, spiteful little children, who bullied her until she was driven to silence, and then tried to pry her out of it with worse cruelties. Of her first and only friend, a secret kept only to herself. Until the other girl came along, with promises of a second friendship. A secret divided, then spilled out for all to see. Horrid, spiteful little children, ready to sink to unthinkable depths just to get a rise out of her.
"He brought the vase up and I just… snapped. Next thing I know, I'm out in the woods, running for my life, the puppy in my arms. Ran until I got to town, found a vet and begged them to save him. They took pity on me, and brought him in. But he wasn't my dog, not really, so they said that in exchange for not paying them, they would have to find him a real home. I was okay with that. One of us deserved a good life. When I finally wandered back to the orphanage, there was blood all over the floor of that room, and no-one would look at me anymore. I got grounded for a month, and when I got out, Tomoo was missing an arm."
She smiled for the first time since he'd met her. It wasn't a pleasant smile, crawling too far up at the edges and filled with poison.
"And that's the story of Devil Girl. I recognised that I was never getting out of there, stopped trying to be a nice girl and just… did me. Which has worked out just fine for everyone, because no-one wants to lose an arm. Until you came along, oh hero, boy filled with…"
She stopped, for he was crying. Terribly unmanly though it might have been, he couldn't help himself. It was the worst story that he'd ever had the misfortune to bare. Devil Girl's awful smile dropped, some of that sad beauty seeping back in.
"Look, just do yourself a favour. Pretend like I hunted you down, kicked the crap out of you, put a curse on you, whatever. Go back to Tomoo and tell him he was right, give me the cold shoulder from now on and they'll let you back in. It's better for everyone this way. No-one gets hurt."
She went to push past him, but now his hand trapped her wrist, refusing to let go.
"How can I pretend all that, like you aren't hurting already? It's not fair."
Her hand found his, gently started prying fingers away.
"Life isn't fair. My story should have told you that much."
She started walking away again, dark pink hair floating behind her. He brushed the tears away forcefully, grabbed onto the bolt of resolve that had taken hold in his chest.
"What's your name?"
She paused, and from behind all he could see was the slightest tint of her cheek.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Because you're not a devil. Maybe you did something awful, but if you don't remember and Tomoo's going to cut out the part of the story where he was about to beat a puppy to death, then it can go hang. I'm not going to play along with this anymore."
The sun was starting to dip now, and he became very aware that he was extremely late for work. It could wait. There were more important things at stake.
"Kaede." She said finally, and started striding uphill, as quickly away from him as she could.
"See you tomorrow, Kaede!" He called back. Her power walk faltered, then broke into a run, the girl sprinting up the hills and out of sight.
He caught hell from his uncle afterwards, but it was completely worth it.
The first thing he did the next morning, and every morning afterwards, was greet her just as he ever did, watching the class flinch as he rolled out her real name. For her part, Kaede didn't move away from the window, but simply nodded an acknowledgement in return. It might have been a trick of the light, but he thought that he could see some red in her cheeks.
It was a random day like any other when he decided to step things up a notch. Lunch time came around, and she was almost away like usual when he caught her bag. Kaede stopped, and although her face was set in stone, he was sure that he could see a twinkle behind the fringe.
"Hold up, I know a good place to eat."
She went still. Looked left. Looked right. No-one in the class was moving, with the exception of Tomoo, practically vibrating with fury. There was a soft sigh, and Kaede let herself be tricked again.
"Okay. But I need to go buy my lunch first."
"Great, I'll come with."
He swept up his things and starting making for the door with her. There was a clatter from the side of the room; Tomoo, on his feet, beet red in the face.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
"Shut the hell up, dog abuser."
Tomoo stopped, gaging like something had just leapt down his throat. Which was all the confirmation Kouta needed to believe in Kaede. He could feel his own anger, bubbling under the skin. That the gaunt, spiteful boy before him had been making a girl's life utter hell in revenge for the crimes he committed against her in the first place, and was able to hide his venom well enough that it could seep into everyone else, unnoticed in the guise of good intentions. He probably would have carried on, even escalating things to violence, had Kaede not tugged on his arm.
"Oi, we going or what? You know we don't clean up the trash until the end of the day."
Some brave soul outside of Tomoo's sight let out a whistle of appreciation, but Kouta and Kaede were already away as the classroom exploded into chaos behind them. As they walked down the halls, her face was split from cheek-to-cheek in what was easily the biggest and best smile of her life, unable to be hidden from him no matter how she tried to smuggle it away.
Unsurprisingly, Yuka wasn't particularly pleased to have their lunch interrupted by a third party, giving him an earful about how long she'd had to wait while they'd wandered about the convenience store picking up Kaede's lunch. Her eyes kept darting to the other girl as well, and he couldn't tell if she was annoyed by her presence, or actually as afraid of her as everyone else was. Either way, he put his foot down.
"Look, she's my friend and I want her to eat with us. If that's going to be a problem, just give me my lunch and you can go eat with your friends instead."
Yuka's face switched through an array of emotions, before finally transferring to dignified seething, and she shoved the bento box into his chest and sat down beside Kaede instead. The contentious third party finished tipping crisps into her mouth, looking sideways with a raised eyebrow.
"What?"
"Yuka. Pleasure to meet you. I'm Kouta's cousin, but I don't think I'll be talking to him for a bit, so you'll have to suffer in his place."
Kaede looked to him, and Kouta just sighed, and took a place on her other side.
"Just go along with it, it'll be more peaceful for all of us."
Kaede was quiet for a spell, switching glances between the two of them. Eventually, she shrugged, and held a hand out to Yuka.
"Kaede. You probably know me by my other name."
Yuka took the western-style greeting in good stride, even if she was put off a bit by the greasy fingers. In her typical way, she had wet wipes to hand, and made good on her promise by talking Kaede's ear off about this and that, summoning whatever topics came to mind to avoid addressing the sole male on the grassy bank for as long as possible. Which gave Kouta enough time to finish his lunch in peace until the bell rang and Yuka snatched the empty box out of his hand, storming off and leaving a stunned Kaede in her place.
"Does she… always talk that much?"
"Only when she's mad."
"How often is she mad?"
"Depends on what I've done that day."
"I don't think she likes me too much. Can't say I blame her."
"What? She just spent half an hour talking to you."
"At me, not to me. And besides…"
Her gaze fell quietly upon him for a second.
"Call it women's intuition."
"Well, she'll just have to get used to it. If it's going to be a problem, we'll just eat by ourselves in future."
Kaede flashed one of her usual sad smiles, tinged with something he couldn't quite pick up on as they stood up, dusting themselves down.
"I need a break after that break. I'm going to the bathroom. See you back in class."
"Sure. Catch you there."
They split up, Kaede vanishing around the building in what was the sure-fire longest route to the toilets while Kouta took the straight path back the classroom, heading towards the courtyard. They'd taken lunch a fair distance away from the main building, and by the time he got there the majority of the student body had already vanished inside. Walking past the well-kept effort of the agricultural club really highlighted how prefect a spring day the weather had turned out; the sun gently shining off the lush greens and budding flowers.
Lost in thought with how he'd frame the new daisies if he had the chance to sit down and draw them, the blow to the back of his head came completely out of nowhere.
There was noise; some sort of shouting, more emotion than real words. Kicks to the ribs and legs, stomps to his face as he tried to get his arms up in defence. Kicked over, the sun only stopped blinding him when his assailant planted weight upon his midriff, casting him in shadow, and the shine of a knife.
"Poor little Kouta, seduced by a devil. Gotta beat the evil out of you, yes we do."
Tomoo, wild light shining in his manic eyes as he brought the switchblade closer. Kouta's arms were pinned by the two goons he always hung about with. The same crazed zealotry wasn't shared by them, the one trapping his right arm glancing nervously to the one kneeling on the left.
The knife circled his forehead, tip of the blade nipping the skin. Wanting to press down further, taste sweet hot red upon the metal.
"Let's see. I think we need to go in for a lobotomy, and that means cutting open the forehead."
He opened his mouth to call for help, only for plastic fingers to ram themselves in, medicinal and unpleasantly warm upon his tongue. He could feel a lurch in his chest, lunch returning the way it'd gone.
"Ah-ah-ah. You've got to be brave Kouta. We don't have an anaesthetic here. Gotta get medieval to drive her out."
The knife came down, and Kouta screwed his eyes shut tight.
In the dark, there was a heavy thud. The weight upon his waist lessened, and a furious cry broke the spring quiet.
"Get the hell away from him, you bastards!"
His arms broke free in a second, and instincts pushed him to roll away, retreat in his pain-damped haze and lick his wounds. He hadn't thrown up – a small mercy, since everything else hurt like nothing else. The world bobbed and swam, and as he flopped upright and sat himself against a bench, he saw Kaede rushing to his side. Two of the three boys had departed, jacket tails flapping behind them as they sprinted off, leaving the body of Tomoo behind. The lunatic was moving slowly, twisting about in pained choking as he tried to recover from whatever had happened to him.
Kaede fell to his side, grabbing his face with both hands and staring him dead-on. Her red eyes weren't quite so intimidating filled with tears.
"Kouta, are you okay? Talk to me, I don't know what they did. Are you dying, tell me you're not dying!"
"Okay… I'm okay. Hit a little."
Full sentences were a challenge right now. Kaede let him go, breathed out heavily, held herself steady. A veil dropped over her with his confirmation. The tears started to dry, the concerned quivering deadened, and when she rose to her feet, it was with a dark expression like nothing he'd seen before. He couldn't call it anger – it ran far deeper than Tomoo's unhinged fire, and promised a far more terrible outcome.
She began to stalk across the courtyard. Tomoo had found his feet, but they were swept out from under him by something unseen. His head had barely cracked against the ground before his body started to rise up of its own accord, leaving him flailing about it mid-air, unable to right himself. Spinning, twisting, and judging by his cries, hurting. Blood dripped down his temple, feeding the grass.
"I thought you might have learned by now Tomoo. What happens when you hurt the things I love? Hmm. Love. Funny, how little it took for me to fall. Just goes to show how awful humans are, I suppose. That it took a boy with no relation to this town before I got a taste of the same decency that you hand each other so freely."
Tomoo had nothing but insults for her musings, as his limbs began to stretch beyond the limits of his frame. The prosthetic cracked and burst, plastic shards punching out the air and digging into the arm it had just been attached to.
"Devil Girl, demon, bitch, oxen, cow. Horns. You've always had a name for me. I suppose the comparison to a demon isn't totally unfair. He called me by my true name, and it felt so good I could have died from joy. It's all too sweet, actually, this basic decency and friendship. I think I've grown addicted. I was away from him for but a moment, and found myself hurrying to get back to his side. Which leads me to wonder… why do I have to work so hard for this, when you all have it so easily? Why, when I finally get a taste, do you start conspiring to take it away from me?"
The insults deepened, darkening to curses Kouta wouldn't have used even if the knife had found its mark. Kaede didn't so much as blink.
"Well, I suppose all this is wasted on you, an idiot who loses half an arm and abandons use of the whole thing."
"You cursed me!"
"You're flailing it around as we speak, idiot. It's pride, isn't it? You lost something precious and irreplaceable to the dumb horned girl because of your own hatred, and you couldn't handle it. So you pretended that I was the source of your atrophy. I wonder, what lie will you spin for yourself when then rest of them go?"
He fell silent for the first time, and as he drifted upside-down, and his eyes met hers, his voice was but a whisper.
"Please. No."
"Please?"
His body whipped away, slammed into a wall.
"Please?"
He was thrown up into the air, spinning without control, only to be caught and dunked back down to earth. There was a dull crunch as something broke, Tomoo wheezing, desperate for the slightest hint of oxygen.
"You beat the shit out of my friend, went to cut him open, and you dare beg for mercy you yourself don't have in your heart?"
He jolted, crucified before her. Tears ran freely down his face, and the crotch of his trousers had grown dark. He needed to scream, but his mouth was clamped shut, rattling under pressure.
"I was going to ask you which limb was your favourite, and take it from you last. Now? Now I'm going to rob you of them all at once. Count to three Tomoo. It'll be just like ripping a plaster off. I'll help. One… Two…"
She stopped, for Kouta's arms were wrapped around her in a hug.
"Stop. He's not worth it. It's not the right thing to do."
"He didn't do the right thing. He wouldn't stop."
"I know. But you're better than him."
"I…"
She looked at him. Back to Tomoo. Back to him. Tomoo dropped out the air, hit the ground in a heap. Kaede picked up the switchblade, folded it up and pocketed it. She adjusted them, so that she was hanging under his arm, helping him to walk. She spared Tomoo one last hateful glare.
"Run. And never so much as look at us again."
Tomoo whimpered, and slumped over. Kaede was already leading Kouta away, heading towards the nurse's office.
"I'm fine, really. It was just a little scrap."
"I'll be the judge of that. Shirt up."
She dabbed at his injuries, the cotton bud stinging as she treated each budding bruise and open cut in turn. The nurse was away, but Kaede had an irritating amount of experience in first aid. She shared awful stories as she worked. The time Tomoo tried to put centipedes in her cereal, the time he nearly pushed her down the stairs. He wasn't sure who she was trying to convince about her supposedly misplaced mercy more; her, or him. The darkness had fled her, and even in the midst of her most painful orphanage stories, her concern was more towards him than any sort of self-pity or revenge. Eventually, the task was done, and he sat there stinking of disinfectant, Kaede sat beside him, casting him side-long glances.
"Thanks for saving me."
"Of course. You're my… best friend, after all."
She flinched as she said it, as if he was going to slap her down and correct her before it was even out in the air.
"Yeah. You're my best friend as well."
She vanished behind her hair again, hung over forward.
"Come on. Don't cry, or you're going to set me off as well."
But she was sniffling now, scrubbing awkwardly at her eyes with the back of her hand.
"I'm a monster, you know? Not a real human at all?"
"Don't be stupid. You're as human as I am."
"No I'm not. If you hadn't stopped me, I would have pulled him apart. I would have loved every minute of it. When I was throwing him around and breaking him, I enjoyed that. It felt so good to get back at him, to toy with his life, and I – "
"You stopped. So you're not a monster."
"Really? What kind of human can do this?"
She stood up, holding her hands out. All around the room, medicine bottles and medical equipment began to lift up, moving through the air as Kouta looked on, open-mouthed.
"You can't see them, but I've got these arms coming out of me. Invisible hands. Normally there's about four of them, but I can summon loads on my bad days. I used them to cut off Tomoo's hand. I used them to bash him around. I was going to use them to pull him apart. I… I get this feeling, sometimes, like I could destroy the whole world with them, if I wanted."
"Oh, so it's telekinesis. That's neat."
"You're not listening."
"I am. It doesn't matter. So what if you've got horns? So what if you've got invisible hands? The Kaede I know didn't go out to the courtyard looking to pull anyone apart. You came to save me. You could have pulled him apart when you were kids, and you didn't. You could have done him in any day since. He wouldn't even see it coming. But you didn't. The second some dumb kid went against his Devil Girl story, he snapped like a breadstick. I know who's more human between you two, and it sure as hell isn't the guy screaming about demons and horned girls."
The various objects slowed, returned to their proper places. Kouta swung off the bed. He was still a little uneasy on his feet, but good enough to take her hand and start walking. Kaede, lost in her own thoughts, didn't resist, letting him pull her along with a dumbfounded look upon her face.
"Come on, let's ditch. I'm taking you somewhere good as thanks for saving my life."
The attendant was sceptical of letting them in, but when Kouta agreed to pay adult prices and hide any emblems of the school they were admitted without issue. Kaede didn't know where to look first, her head on a swivel, bouncing from animal to animal in turn, as shocked now as he'd been seeing her arms at work.
"I used to come here with my sister and Yuka every time we were in town for the summer. I'm pretty sure that's the same elephant that's been here since I was six. Anyway, since you seem to like animals so much, I figured – "
She hugged him from behind, so tight that all of his injuries complained at once.
"I love it. Thank you."
"No worries. Come on, I'll give you the grand tour."
They had to head back early, which was still more than enough time to see a dolphin show and for Kaede to throw herself headlong into the petting zoo and be buried in puppies for a good minute until Kouta rescued her from the adorable torment, only for her to stagger towards the reptile house and cover herself in a Ball Python to follow.
The bus trundled along as they headed back to town, the fare the last of Kouta's cash to hand. He'd be living hard for a bit, but it had been totally worth it. Kaede sat next to him, smiling dopily as she flicked through an encyclopaedia that she'd purchased with the money the orphanage gave her for food.
"Feeling better?"
"Much."
"Can't promise we'll be able to go all the time, but hey, if I'm not grounded forever, maybe we can go again next month or something."
She thrilled a little at that.
"Why would you be grounded?"
"Part of my agreement with uncle is that I keep my nose clean and keep going to school, so that my dad's got no reason to complain. And well, playing hooky to go to the zoo kinda undermines that. Plus, you know, the fighting."
"What if… we just didn't go home?"
The book closed up, and she slipped it into her bag.
"What if we just rode the bus to the depot, and got on a new one, out the other way? Stopped off in the first town that looks nice, found a house and lived there instead? I mean, I could probably make one, with all my arms."
"I barely have enough money to last this trip, let alone another one out of town. And well, I do like living here. I love my family, even if they do drive me nuts sometimes. And the people aren't all like Tomoo and the orphanage matrons. Besides, we haven't even finished high school yet. No-one's going to hire a couple of teenagers."
"Especially one with horns."
"I'm sure someone will. Once they met the real Kaede."
"The animals would probably be scared if they knew I had horns."
"Why would they? Lots of animals have cool horns and tusks."
She dipped back into silence, staring out the window. He was so dearly tempted to whip that black beanie away, and see for himself what all the fuss was about, what terrible brands had forced her to live to life she did. But they'd already gone from crisis to crisis today, and the last thing she needed was another existential shock.
They were coming up to their stop, and so he gently ushered her up. They were becoming quite comfortable with holding hands, and as they stood on the road leading back to the inn, he found himself not wanting to let go.
"How much does it cost to stay at your inn?"
She held a dull leather purse, faded with age. It must have been handed down again and again since the sixties at least.
"More than two thousand yen, I can tell you that."
She went all pinched at that, tucking it away and tightening her grip on him.
"I don't really want to go back tonight."
"I know. I don't think I could convince uncle to let you stay in my room though."
"Do you think he'd let me watch you work or something? Just for a couple hours?"
"Kouta!"
They snapped up the road, to Yuka, standing there pointing at them, a waste water bucket and ladle in hand.
"Where on Earth have you been? I heard something about a fight, and you haven't been answering your phone! I thought you were dead!"
"Bit of an overreaction." Kaede muttered, pressing up against his arm, the familiar hard mask slipping back into place. Yuka glared at her with the kind of heat reserved for when he really said something stupid.
"And you! I bet you've been tempting him into all sorts of trouble, haven't you?"
"You have no idea what – "
"Girls, please! Yuka, has that wedding group come in yet?"
"What? No, but they're due within the hour, and we're massively behind, and – "
"Great, I've brought an extra pair of hands. Sorry Kaede, but could you help us out?"
"I've never worked in an inn before."
"Don't worry, it's really simple. People yell at you and you get them things, and there's some cleaning involved."
"I have experience in half of that."
"Then let's get to it."
His uncle wasn't a very large man, but that didn't stop Kouta from feeling two feet tall as he stood in the foyer, arms folded.
"So I got a call from the school. Apparently you got into a fight with some crippled kid and broke his prosthetic arm, then ran off and skipped afternoon classes?"
"That's bullshit!" Kaede bristled. "Kouta was the victim, and I'm the one who beat up Tomoo. Everything he says is a lie!"
Uncle's gaze fell upon her.
"Which makes you the girl they were fighting over."
"No-one was fighting over me. I wouldn't touch Tomoo with a twenty-foot barge pole. He was just pissed that Kouta was treating me like a real person, and attacked him for it. He was going to cut him open with a knife before I got there!"
His uncle jolted at that, stroking his chin.
"They didn't mention a knife. Alright, explain your side, and quickly. We don't have much time."
And so they did, leaving out the parts about Kaede's temptation to dismember and her powers in general. While Uncle nodded along quietly, Yuka looked more and more shocked, and then rather annoyed when they brought up the trip to the zoo.
"So yes, I know I'm back late and we've got that big party coming down in like twenty minutes, but Kaede didn't want to go back to the orphanage, so could she please work tonight as well? Give her my cleaning jobs, I'll help serve the wedding guests."
Uncle dwelled on it, then looked back to Kaede.
"You know how to clean?"
"We have to. At the orphanage."
"Can you do anything else?"
"Not… really." She admitted with a wince. "I'm good with animals?"
"Not much call for that around here, and I'm not letting a sixteen-year-old girl take care of the party animals. Alright, cleaning it is. We'll get you a proper uniform, and the hat has to go. We've got a certain image to keep up."
Kaede went stock still, quivering slightly. Kouta stepped in to save her.
"Umm, uncle? Kaede has these… birthmarks, they're the reason Tomoo picks on her. Could she keep it on? She's going to be mostly working away from people anyway, right?"
"What kind of birthmarks?"
"Horns." Kaede whispered, her voice a sudden ghost of itself. Uncle snorted.
"Yeah right. Let me see, I'll be the judge of that."
Kaede locked up, all drawn in on herself. For a moment Kouta thought she had fainted standing up, and was about to put a hand on her shoulder when she came back to life, jerking about with small, stiff movements. She cast a look back to Kouta, and then, with trembling hands, slowly reached up and pulled her hat away.
There, nestled in loose reddish-pink strands either side of her head, two nubs of bone, shaped like low-lying cat ears. Uncle tilted his head left, then right, taking a full look at them.
"That's what all the fuss is about? Good lord, you kids and your body issues. Yuka, take the girl out back and get her a uniform and a bandana. Get all that hair tied up while you're at it."
"Sure."
Yuka didn't look sure, but she took Kaede by the arm and guided her out the room nonetheless. Uncle whirled around on him next.
"Right, let's have a quick chat, man-to-man. You definitely got swung on first?"
"Yessir."
"And this prick's definitely been picking on her?"
"Yessir."
"And he definitely pulled a knife on you?"
"Yessir."
"Did you fight back?"
"Didn't get much of chance. They kicked the crap out of me."
"Shame. And you're not just taking advantage of this girl's issues for a free lay, right?"
"What? No!"
"But you do like her?"
"I… yeah. I do."
"Right, you're still in trouble, but not with me. I'm not telling your dad nothing if you don't, but just grit your teeth and bare whatever bullshit the school gives you. As far as I'm concerned, you did the right thing, and no-one's going to be able to take that away from you. Now, get a uniform on and hop to it. I'm getting my money's worth out of you kids tonight."
"Yes sir!"
They didn't see each other for the rest of the night, Kouta rushed off his feet serving drinks and bringing out meals for the guests. The wedding reception wasn't bothersome, but it was large, and there was always something new to do. Even his bathroom breaks had to be completed in a couple minutes maximum.
It was near midnight by the time the party had quieted down and the guests shuffled off to their respective rooms, and he found himself slumped over in the staff room, half-watching some comedy show with bleary eyes.
The door creaked open, and he was dimly aware of the girls coming in, heralded by the faint strawberry smell of Yuka's shampoo.
"Kouta? You still with us?"
"Not really. You guys?"
"Barely. Kaede, help me get him up, would you?"
Kaede nodded and took his arm. It was a slight touch, but he could feel several hands behind him, ushering him forward. Gentle hands, handling him as if he were made from china. She was dressed in a set of Yuka's pyjamas, a plain white kitchen bandana tied about her head.
"You look nice."
She grunted an agreement, keeping her head down as they eased him towards his room.
"Your horns are nice too. They look cool."
Fingers tightened in his shirt, and he idly wondered if maybe he should save the complements for when he wasn't all floaty and saying the first thing that came to mind.
"They are… unusual, but yes, I don't see what Tomoo's so afraid of. I'm going to tell Sakura she's got you wrong as well." Yuka's voice drifted from the other side.
"So that's where she ended up." Kaede muttered, so small that Kouta wouldn't have caught it if she hadn't been right beside him.
They guided him to his bedroom, where male pride finally took root and he disengaged from them, waving them off and promising that he'd take a shower come the morning, get some of the bar smell out of his clothes.
He was near asleep as he collapsed onto the futon, the girl's voices low on the other side of the wall as they exchanged rapid conversation. The blanket pulled itself up over him, and he fell into comfortable darkness.
When he woke the next morning, it was with a strangely ghostly warmth upon his lips.
Kaede ended up staying for the weekend, uncle putting in a call to the orphanage and being told in no uncertain terms that they were happy to loan her out for as long as he wanted her to stay. Kaede just rolled her eyes at that.
"Any other kid and they'd be climbing the walls in terror. You could have sent a kidnapping letter and they would have written back, 'she's your problem now, moron'."
Either way, uncle was happy to keep her, seeing as the floors had never been so clean. She'd even cleared out the hard-to-reach gutters and fixed the loose pipe. Of course, seeing her surrounded by four brooms moving of their own accord, it was pretty simple to figure out how she was outshining both of them so easily.
But Yuka was still queen of the kitchen, tilting her chin and puffing up her chest every time she served dinner, while Kaede had to devote her full attention to not burning the omelettes for Monday's bento boxes. There was something odd going on between them, the girls constantly shooting each other glares and smug grins, and always wanting his opinions on things that didn't really seem to matter. But when he'd asked, they'd simply smiled at one another and informed him that it was none of his business.
And so the new week rolled around, and they found themselves walking to school as a trio. Kaede stood a little straighter, her hat not pulled down quite so far.
"I hope two are ready for whatever comes from this." Yuka noted, checking her bag for the fourth time to ensure her homework was actually there.
"Let them try. Worst comes to worst, there's a new batch of Devil Girl rumours about. And you know what? They can say what they want. I have a best friend and a rival now, so screw 'em."
"Rival?"
"Don't worry about it Kouta."
They were coming up closer now, but despite her confident words, Kaede started to slow, drifting behind them. The cousins came to a stop, looking back.
"Something wrong?"
"If you forgot anything, you're going back for it alone."
Kaede stood there awkwardly for a moment, pinching the back of her hand.
"Did you mean what you said the other day? About my horns?"
"You're going to have to remind me, I was dead on my feet."
"That they're… cool."
"Oh, absolutely. They're super cool."
"If you're tired of wearing a hat, we could see how they look with ribbons on. Have ourselves a girl's night at some point."
Kaede deflated for a second with a sigh, then drew herself back together. Not quite steady, but close enough.
"Thank you. Both of you."
She caught up with them in a second, grabbing Kouta's hand and pulling him forwards, smirking at Yuka's outburst from behind them.
"Hey Kouta, what university were you thinking of going to?"
"Probably just the local one. Someone's got to keep an eye on you, after all. And I get to keep my job."
"Ha-ha."
"Why'd you ask?"
"I never really put thought to it before. Figured I'd just drop out from school, go feral. Probably would have ended up doing some awful things to stay alive once the orphanage kicked me out."
"Hey, I told you…"
"No, listen. It's fine. Thanks to you, I finally get to live like a real human. So I want to go where you go. I want to do what you do. And… I really want to get a job working with animals. At the zoo, perhaps. And if humans don't want me there, well, I'll pay you guys back by working at that inn of yours. So, what I said about my horns, and everything else, it goes double for you, because I wasn't be considering any of this before you came along."
She squeezed his hand even tighter, smiling so brightly he thought he might go blind.
"Thank you for everything. Really, really thank you."
He smiled in kind and squeezed back; her hand wonderfully warm in his.
"Shall we see what trouble we've gotten ourselves into this week?"
"Absolutely. We're stuck here for two more years after all. Let's give them hell."