Yako woke up from a deep sleep and had the faint recollection of being carried.

Neuro!

She got up from the sofa and looked around. His desk was empty, and Akane was drying up on demonic power- turning gray. He had been gone for a long time.

She ran to the bathroom and looked into the mirror.

"Thank god. He didn't draw anything." She rubbed her face and and checked any uncovered skin. "He didn't attach anything weird either."

She grinned to her reflection. "Maybe he finally respects me enough that he wouldn't-"

The bathroom door slammed open. Neuro strode in, holding up a giant needle.

"Gaaah- Neuro, get out! This is the women's bathroom! What's the giant needle for?!"

Neuro grabbed her face and lifted her off the floor. He pointed the needle to her face and chuckled. "You see, I suddenly realized a suitable punishment for you. Permanent marker isn't really permanent, right? Well, I've discovered tattoos! So everything I do to you right now will stay with you forever!"

"Wha-What!?"

"Don't worry, I have alcohol and painkillers- the demon kind, that puts off the pain and returns it ten times worse- I have also researched tattoos, you couldn't get better quality anywhere... So! Where do you want my signature?"

"It wasn't actually that bad." Yako stared at her wrist. "You actually did quite a good job. And you were so fast I didn't even feel a thing until you were done."

Neuro looked up from his stack of papers. "Do you want a painkiller?" He held up a squirming bug that had been shot full of chemicals with a blank face. Crawling out of a jar on his desk and sliding around his desk were some slugs and centipedes, all clearly drugged.

"Eh... No."

"It's very high quality. Returns the pain twenty-fold."

"How is that better quality?!"

Yako examined the three lines on her wrists. An artistically scripted 'Neuro', a 'GODAI', a 'Akane' ran around her wrist like a bracelet. "Only one problem..."

Neuro was at once pressing her face to the ceiling. "Oh? Do you have a problem with my artistic work? Your impudence..."

"Neuro, let go of me! I meant to say that if I were in a situation where I needed a disguise- they would recognize me by this tattoo." Neuro let her go and sent her sprawling on the floor. "You fool. Did you think I would think of that? That is demonic ink- it can only be seen by who means you no harm... A good detector of liars, too. Don't get a big head now just because you got over a weak tool."

"S-sorry."

Neuro turned around from the ceiling and looked down at her. "However, you have finally learned to think for yourself, Yako. I am proud."

Yako looked up at him sarcastically. "I am so pleased, master."

Neuro let go of the ceiling and trapped Yako under him, arm on either side of her shoulders. "Say that again."

Yako could see his sharp teeth gleaming. "S-say what? Uh... If I were in a-"

"No, after that."

"Um... I am so pleased?"

"Yako."

"... Master?"

"Say it as if it was not a question!"

"Master!"

"Whisper it."

"Master."

Neuro leaned in and stared into her eyes for a long moment. Then he closed his eyes. And then he was back in his seat. Yako blinked. She looked over to him.

Neuro was grinning from ear to ear.

Yako's eyes narrowed. "What did I do?"

"I have chosen what you are to call me from now on."

"Oh, no."

"Neuro was always too informal- from now on it will either be 'Master' or 'Master Neuro'."

"... How about Nougami?"

"You have finally found something to get me into a good mood, Yako. Be proud."

"Of what? That every time you get pissed off I'd have to call you 'Master' over and over again?"

"Exactly."

"I'm hungry. I'm going out for some food. When I come back, we'll talk."

A few hundred sandwiches and half her week's pay later...

"Hey, Neuro- Nougami. Why did you give Higuchi that envelope? Did you need help finding the antidote?" Yako smeared mayonnaise on a slice of bread and stuck a slice of ham between that slice and another one.

"I was just too busy taking care of a few side mysteries to bother to find your antidote."

"... It wasn't used in the end anyways."

"How was it?"

"How was what?"

"..."

"Well, it was all kind of distanced and blurry. I did stuff I would have never done in my right mind."

Neuro didn't look up from his work. "Did you develop a liking to that freedom?"

"What?"

Neuro turned his face and looked at Yako. "The Love Tool is a drug for many humans. It destroys most of the conscience and the normal constraints of humanity. Most humans wouldn't go around kissing anyone they liked."

"How would humans get their hands on that sort of tool?"

"Demons would trick the humans into taking a small amount, and then a larger amount, and then get them addicted to the freedom of it all. We use it to get weak humans more easily under our control."

"I didn't really like it... It was more embarrassing than anything else. What happened after I passed out in Godai's hallway?"

"Godai drove you back here and I explained it all to him."

"Did someone carry me up the stairs?"

"I did."

"You?"

"You were burning up as an aftereffect of the tool. That's another thing- withdrawal effects, but I've already implanted stuff into your body a few years back that fought that exceptionally well. Godai was losing it, despite my assurances."

"Jeez, now I gotta... Wait a moment. You implanted stuff in my body a few years back?!"

"It was a side effect of being around me so much- my demon cells released as I became more and more human attached themselves to your skin and got sucked in. You got some very positive results from that."

"... I thought a sudden increase in stamina was on account of running around all the time."

"That too."

"... Are there demon cells still in the air?"

"You can't see it, but their clumping all over you. Especially the sandwich."

"Eek! What is that? I saw something nasty-green on my sandwich!" Yako threw the sandwich as far as she could away from her and started to ran her hands all over her skirt and shirt. "W-was that your cells?!"

Neuro chuckled. He waved a fluffy dark-green bundle of yarn that he had placed on sandwich when Yako wasn't looking "To think you'd fall for such a trick. Cells are extremely small. I'd have to have my micro-eye out to see them, and that takes energy. Energy I'd rather not waste. You thought that you could see my cells?"

"Hey, hey, you made me drop my sandwich!"

Yako ran a comb through Akane's long black hair. "I'm sorry for causing all that trouble and not getting any work done today, Akane."

Akane waved a strand of hair lazily. Yako rubbed conditioner into the hair and dipped the strands into a bucket of water. She then dried off her hands on a towel.

She sighed and leaned back on the wall. She watched as Akane wiggled her hair in the bucket.

"They all... Didn't react at all."

Akane stopped wiggling.

Yako stared out the window, where the sunset was painting the sky orange. Neuro was off doing whatever again, things that he didn't need her as a fake detective to hold off curious inspectors.

"I kissed all of them, but they didn't... Seem affected at all."

Akane lifted a lock of hair out of the water and shook it feebly.

"Yeah, I know, Godai blushed and Higuchi seemed surprised, but they... All just seemed as if they were more embarrassed than anything else- as if they were thinking of ways to reject me without hurting my feelings."

Akane scribbled a few encouraging words on her whiteboard.

Yako pushed her lock of hair back underwater.

"Let me speak. And then there's Neuro."

Akane sank deeper into the water. She felt somehow like she didn't want to hear this part.

"He didn't even react. He just pushed me away and put his poker face on."

Akane pointed frantically at the pile of dust labeled 'old desk,' but Yako wasn't looking at her.

"But, that may be a good thing."

Akane froze.

"Maybe we should just be coworkers, you know? Actually, that was what we were supposed to be, even less actually. Master and servant, demon and human, but somehow, I got this idea that..."

Akane was shaking her hair all around.

Yako shook her head and turned her head from the sunset and looked at Akane, who had pulled all of her hair out of the water for effect. "Never mind. Hey, you're supposed to be in the water! Your hair will dry up like that, the conditioner is going to affect you really bad if you don't wash it off soon!"

Akane tried to reach the white board, but her wet braid slipped.

Yako nodded to herself. "Yeah. The insensitive Neuro definitely wouldn't be able to get my feelings. I should give up on him. It'll be formal from now on."

"That's probably what he would have wanted anyway."

The sunlight's orange streaks on the wall slowly dulled and turned red. And then the end of the day came the and the moonlight drifted in with its silvery glow.