pika318: Chapter 2 is here! After asking Moko-chan, the background of this fic is more based off 'Holding Back' and not 'Research Notes'. I hope everyone enjoys reading it!

Chapter 2: Nightmare

It was late afternoon. As people started to head home from work or school or from whatever leisure activities they were doing, the amount of noise and activity started to increase on the roads of Sasazuka. The noise reached the ears of a particular young man living in room 201 of the sixty year old apartment, Villa Rosa.

"Demon King-sama should be on his way back soon." The young man, Ashiya Shiro, also former demon general Alsiel, said to himself as he started putting diced vegetables into the pot.

With that task done, Alsiel went on to get some rice from his rice bucket to wash. After he gets that done, he would be able to take a short break until Maou comes home to get started on frying the eggs.

"Uh…"

Just then, he heard the other resident of the apartment, Urushihara, also known as the Fallen angel Lucifer, making a noise from the inside of the futon cabinet.

Given Urushihara's maladjusted sleeping habits, Ashiya knows that he's probably sleeping at the moment. Usually he wakes up on his own at the smell of dinner, but sometimes Ashiya would have to wake him up. Recently though, as they have been eating dinner with their next door neighbour, Suzuno, sometimes she would do this unpleasant task instead if Ashiya happened to be busy tending to the cooking. Sometimes, Ashiya felt quite disturbed that he could work so well with the person who is supposed to be his enemy when it came to cooking and Urushihara, but that was a topic for another day.

Anyway, regarding the current situation, as far as Ashiya's memories go, Urushihara was normally very quiet when he's asleep. So quiet that sometimes he would forget that the fallen angel was in the cabinet at all.

Ashiya turned towards the cabinet in slight confusion, but he heard no more noises. And since Urushihara has nothing to do with the dinner preparations, and he did have to finish the preparations before Maou came home, save for frying the eggs, Ashiya ignored the noise and went on to wash the rice, then he put the rice in the rice cooker and switched the appliance on.

Then he heard another noise from the cabinet. This time a bit louder.

"Ah..."

Ashiya turned towards the cabinet again and frowned.

What in the world?

Ashiya was familiar with that kind of sound. He heard the same sound before when he fought in the Demon Army. It was the cry that someone makes when they were wounded. Badly wounded.

Wiping his hands dry on a nearby towel, Ashiya quickly walked to the cabinet and slid the door open.

"Urushihara, what's wrong with…" Ashiya asked, in a slightly annoyed tone. But he stopped when he saw the other resident's appearance.

There was no doubt Urushihara had been sleeping. He was lying on his side and his laptop was shut. But to Ashiya's confusion, for someone who was supposed to be asleep, he looked to be in lots of pain. His eyes were squeezed shut and beads of sweat clung onto his pale skin. Both his hands gripped onto the front of his shirt tightly and he was making a pained whimpering sound.

"OI! Urushihara! What's wrong?" Now Ashiya sounded worried. He reached into the cabinet and shook the teenager's shoulder.

"Oi wake up! Urushihara, Urushihara…Lucifer!" After realising that Urushihara was not reacting to his Japanese alias, Ashiya, in desperation, used his actual name.

At this moment, Urushihara's eyes flew open and he shot up to a crouching position.

"!"

To Ashiya's surprise, the small youth suddenly pushed him hard and knocked him off balance. Ashiya quickly grabbed the side of the cabinet with his left hand to stop himself from falling on the tatami mats.

And then Ashiya's eyes widened in horror as the door rapidly slid close, too fast for him to react, and the edge of the door slammed onto his knuckles. Ashiya let out a yelp in pain and quickly put his right hand into the gap and yanked the door open again, removing the insult to his injury.

"Lucifer! What in the blazes is wrong with you!" Ashiya bellowed. He was not speaking in Japanese. In his anger, he had lapsed back to the language he used in Ente Isla. He was completely ready to drag Urushihara out of the closet and make his sit in the seiza position for at least 30 minutes for doing such a thing, but as he set his eyes on Urushihara, he quickly changed his mind.

Urushihara has backed up against the corner of the cabinet and was breathing hard. As he looked in Ashiya's direction because of the shout, Ashiya recognised the look that he had. It was the eyes of someone being hunted down. The same look that prey have when they have no way to run.

"Urushihara, what's wrong?" Ashiya reverted back to the Japanese language and was speaking in a gentler tone now.

This time, Urushihara actually looked at Ashiya in the eye and his breathing started to slow down. Then he said,

"This is Japan...right...I'm in Japan."

Ashiya frowned, confused at what Urushihara just said.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine...I just had a nightmare, that's all..." Urushihara's eyes trailed to Ashiya's left knuckle.

"Ah. Crap...d...did I just..." Urushihara pointed at Ashiya's currently bruised knuckle and stammered.

"Uh...don't worry about it, it's nothing." Ashiya said. Actually it hurt like hell, and he was worried that he might have a hairline fracture from that impact. But in the end, he had answered in a way which even he himself would admit that it was uncharacteristic of him to say that to ease Urushihara's fears, lest he go into another panic attack.

"I'm...sorry." Urushihara muttered as he used his shirt to wipe the sweat of his brow. After doing that, he curled up, putting his head on his knees. And from this distance, Ashiya could clearly see that he was still shivering slightly, unable to fully escape the terror which the nightmare, whatever it was, had caused him.

"I said don't worry about it." After saying that, Ashiya walked to the drawers on the other side of the apartment, grabbed a towel and a clean shirt and threw them at Urushihara. The towel and shirt flopped gently over Urushihara's head.

"Clean yourself up. You better change out as well before you catch a chill." Ashiya instructed.

"Thanks..." Urushihara raised a hand, removed the towel from on top of him and wiped his face with it. With the shift, the shirt fell at his feet.

Ashiya crossed his arms and then cautiously asked.

"You had a really bad nightmare huh?"

Urushihara did not even pause in his actions of putting down the towel and pulling his sweaty shirt over his head. It was only after he pulled the new shirt on did he speak,

"If you live as long as me, you're bound to encounter some really unpleasant things sooner or later."

"Oh..." Ashiya said. Then he sighed. He didn't have high hopes that Urushihara would explain anything about this nightmare, but the fact that the fallen angel really didn't want to talk about it still stung a bit. After all, they have been working alongside each other for a very long time, couldn't Urushihara see him as someone he could confide in, even just a little?

He saw Urushihara shift, clearly intending to get out of the cabinet so he could take the used towel and shirt to the laundry basket. Ashiya stretched out a hand in front of Urushihara.

"I'll take those. Just go back to sleep. I'll wake you up when it's time to eat." Ashiya said as he took the towel and shirt out of Urushihara's hands, then moved to slide the cabinet door shut.

"Eh?"

"You heard me." Then Ashiya slid the door to its closing position. But he left a little gap so that there would be some ventilation. And because he would be able to hear Urushihara better if something similar happened again.

After throwing the towel and shirt into the laundry basket, Ashiya rubbed his sore knuckles and moved to the kitchen counter to get the first aid kit to tend to his injury.

I guess I need to tell Demon King-sama about this when he returns.

pika318: That's all for chapter 2! Moko-chan is so mean, bullying Lucifer like this. Anyway, there's still a chapter 3 after this. Moko-chan didn't plan to have one until I convinced her to write one.