Chapter Fifteen - Look, they care deeply
Ashiya, Emi and Chiho watch with a mixture of curiosity and concern as Maou carefully leads Urushihara out of the bathroom.
The hot water seems to have done him good. Urushihara is not quite so pale anymore. He wears the same lined sweatpants as before, but also one of Maou's hoodies and colorful socks. Emi raises her left eyebrow when she sees it. But she says nothing. After all, Maou's clothes are of a better quality and therefore a lot warmer.
With every step that Maou leads him to the table, Urushihara leans on him a little more trustingly. Maou himself never lets him out of his sight for a second.
Embarrassed, Chiho lowers her eyes and stirs her pudding. She doesn't want to stare at him because she's sure that Urushihara can feel her eyes. At the same time, she feels a small pang of jealousy in her heart. She wishes that Maou would give her the same loving attention as Urushihara, but these are very selfish thoughts. After all, Urushihara is blind, so it is only logical that Maou takes care of him.
"Papa!" calls Alas-Ramus, slipping from Emis's lap and pulling the empty chair next to her off the table. "My Lucifer sits by my side."
"Of course, Alas-chan," Maou smiles and leads Urushihara to his designated seat. Then he pulls up another chair and sits very close to him.
Ashiya uses a ladle to scoop up some home-made vegetable broth from the soup tureen on the table into a bowl and then places it in front of Urushihara.
"Enjoy it," he says.
"Wait!" Emi interrupts with a piercing voice and takes the thermometer out of the pocket of her cardigan.
"First we take Urushihara's temperature," she says. Bending over the table, she jams the ear thermometer into his left ear.
The fallen angel makes a startled noise and jerks back violently and would have fallen off the chair if Maou had not wrapped an arm around his waist.
"Emilia Justina!" Maou glares at her angrily as he grabs the thermometer from her with his free hand. "A warning would have been nice! "
Then he mumbles something in Urushihara's direction and presses the device into his hand so that he can take the temperature himself.
"Oh, don't be such a baby!" Emi jumps back and suddenly realizes that not only Maou is staring at her, but also Chiho and Ashiya. And especially Alas-Ramus. Emi blinks in surprise, but then remembers. Involuntarily, her eyes wander to Uruhihara's blind eyes.
"Oh," she says embarrassed. For a moment, she had forgotten.
Luckily for her, the beeping thermometer lets her out of this uncomfortable situation.
"Thirty-five point eight degrees," Maou reads aloud from the digital display.
"He just took a hot bath," Ashiya notes dryly, "so it would be more accurate to subtract one degree. And that is still far too low. So..." He pushes the bowl a little closer to Urushihara.
"Drink your hot soup, it will warm you up, it's healthy and it's right in front of you."
Urushihara nods in agreement and gropes in front of him until he reaches the smooth porcelain.
Carefully, he puts his hands around the bowl.
"You have to drink and sip," Alas-Ramus explains in a tone that the others used to dismiss as old-fashioned. Now that they know better, however, they only show a collectively affected expression.
Urushihara gives Alas-Ramus a grateful smile and lifts the bowl to his lips to follow her advice and drink from it. But after just a few sips, he puts it down.
"Thanks," he mumbles hoarsely and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
"You're welcome," Ashiya replies kindly.
After this short dialog, a certain silence spreads between them. It becomes more and more oppressive with each passing second.
"'Jeez," Emi finally blurts out, "if no one dares to open their mouth, then I'll take over. Lucifer," she raises her voice, then notices Alas-Ramus' reproachful expression and relaxes a bit. "Since when exactly, and how exactly, did you become blind? And have you no shame at all in involving my innocent daughter in all this?"
"Mama!" Alas-Ramus protests, grabbing a strand of Emi's long red hair and pulling at it.
"Ouch. Alas-chan, what are you doing?"
"Emi," Maou interrupts with a piercing voice, "Lucifer did not involve anyone. And it's not his fault that we were too stupid to understand anything. It was a bacterial infection. Meningitis," he explained to everyone in a softer tone. "Almost five weeks ago."
"Almost five weeks ago," Ashiya repeats thoughtfully as he begins to search his memory for the relevant event. You can tell when it hits him because his eyes widen and his mouth opens in a silent "oh".
"I don't understand," Chiho frowns in confusion. "I know you don't have much magic, but didn't you say that it was always enough to protect you from serious diseases? Like a sprinkler system that doesn't start with cigarette smoke, but with a big fire?"
The comparison made Urushihara smile involuntarily.
"There was nothing left for the late effects," he explains willingly, breaking into a hoarse cough at the end of his sentence.
"Oh. I understand," Chiho bites her lower lip, "but would you heal with more dark magic? Can't you help him?" she turns to Maou and Ashiya.
She is really just a nice person, Urushihara is surprised and yes, very impressed. Not for the first time, he hopes that Maou has enough reason not to give in to her advances, no matter how much it flatters his ego. None of them can live long in the other's world without giving themselves up entirely. And as little as he wants Maou to stop being Satan, he wants Chiho to stop being Chiho.
"The longer the damage, the more magic is needed to heal it," Ashiya patiently explains to the teenage girl. "To gather that much negative energy, it would take the fear and desperation of thousands, as in a serious disaster."
"Unfortunately, there is no zombie apocalypse on the horizon," Urushihara chuckles wearily.
"Lucifer." Still with an arm around his shoulders, Maou touches his cheek with his free hand and turns his face towards him. He stares intently into Lucifer's purple eyes, even though he knows how useless it is.
"I won't fail you again, I promise, and I'll help you in any way possible. I'll buy you a seeing-eye dog, no matter what our landlady says about pets."
"Seeing eye dogs are not like ordinary pets," Chiho explains eagerly. "They have to be allowed. It's the law."
"Oh yes, a dog!" exclaims Alas, clapping her hands. "Mama, I want a dog too! "
"Eh - better get one knitted by Urushihara first," Emi suggests evasively.
"Oh yeah! Lucifer, will I get a dog? "
"Of course," Urushihara promises without really listening to her because Maou's weird behavior successfully distracts him from everything else.
He feels Maou's forehead on his, feels and smells his breath on his face and the warmth of his hand on his cheek. Maou's arm around his shoulders and neck suddenly seems to weigh tons and he gets very hot from so much closeness.
"I promise you," Maou repeats in a whisper and then his lips gently rub Urushihara's.
Only for a tiny moment, but everyone here has seen it.
Emis eyebrows creep up to her hairline and she hastily covers the eyes of the cheerfully gurgling Alas-Ramus.
Ashiya's expression remains completely unmoved and does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about his thoughts, quite the opposite of Chiho's, which first shows confusion, then disbelief and then her usual happiness again.
And even when Maou repeats the gesture, this time a little more emphatically, and then firmly embraces Urushihara, nothing changes, as if she had decided to dismiss it as a purely friendly gesture.
"Is this real? "Urushihara breathes into Maou's shoulder while he tentatively clutches his fingers into his cuddly wool sweater.
It's been centuries since he's let anyone get this close to him, and much longer since he's been kissed - except for Alas-Ramus. But she's a child, and that doesn't count.
"As real as it can be," Maou answers just as quietly, burying his nose in Urushihara's hair, still damp from the bath, and inhaling his scent, his warmth, his closeness - simply the life behind it.