Free The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 5 by Satoshi Wagahara Page A

more attention to you was the same thing, 99 percent of the time, as confessing you have a thing for him.
    “Can…can I ask you a question before I answer that, Rika?”
    “Wh-what?!”
    Emi, for her part, was shocked to the point where she thought her heart would stop and she would remain a statuesque figure on the bathtub forever. But across the phone line, it was clear that this coming-out party was sending Rika’s internal temperature off the charts.
    “Is there something with you and Alc…and Ashiya?”
    If there
wasn’t
something, Rika wouldn’t be asking any of this.
    She
did
notice, when they had both run into Ashiya in front of the Hatagaya Sentucky Fried Chicken, that Rika acted a bit odd around him. Not quite herself, somehow. Did they have a chance to interact with each other after that?
    “N-no! Nothing! Nothing, I swear! But, it’s just that…um…”
    Emi could picture Rika flailing her hands in the air.
    But her voice trailed off as it continued on, down to a barely audible whisper as it proceeded to bring Emi’s body down to absolute zero.
    “Ashiya…invited me…to go shopping with him…”
    Emi’s vision went black.



THE DEVIL EXPLAINS HUMAN RELATIONS
    “Dude, I should’ve known you were still in Japan. What’re you here for? If it’s Maou, he’s out right now.”
    Urushihara didn’t bother removing his eyes from the PC screen.
    The floor that Chiho took the time to clean up for him was already littered with empty plastic bottles and snack wrappers, forming a kind of magical barrier that seemed to naturally spring from the ground wherever Urushihara decided to lurk.
    The summer sky was blue as blue could be, the sun’s rays pounding mercilessly upon the town of Sasazuka as Urushihara took a sip of barley tea from a nearby cup.
    “Oh, I
know
. I was watching. I’m here ’cause I wanted to talk to
you
! The Devil King’s confidant and his next-door neighbor were nice enough to go away for me, too, so…now or never, y’see?”
    “For what.”
    Urushihara kept his back to the voice.
    “My word, though, this room is
hot
! How can your computer operate, or you move around? As I recall, it’s bad for computers to run in such heat.”
    “Not really. It’s not like I’m overclocking it or anything.”
    “Oh no? Well, that explains why your desk is right by the window, I s’pose. Guess you got the barest excuse for a breeze that way, mmmm?”
    “Dude…”
    “In any event, it sure is hot. This chocolate mint from Len and Mary’s is deee-lish!”
    This, finally, was enough to make Urushihara stir. He turned around, the annoyance writ clear on his face.
    “Can you just say what you want? Otherwise, I’m gonna call Maou on SkyPhone and tell him you stormed in, raided the fridge, and ran off, Gabriel.”
    Facing him was a large angel who was, as he spoke, about to bite into an ice cream bar he had just casually helped himself to from the Devil’s Castle refrigerator.
    “Ooh. Sheesh. He’s got you
that
tight on a budget, mmm?”
    “Dude, just stop it.
I’m
the one he’s gonna get pissed off at.”
    “Oh, don’t be such a grouch! What’s so bad about a loaf of ice cream, a jug of barley tea, and
moi
?”
    “Nobody asked for you, dude. Just tell me what you want and get outta here. Don’t blame me if they burst in and whine at you to pay for the wall you knocked down.”
    “Hey! That’s not exactly how
I
remember it. It wasn’t me who knocked it down, exactly. It was that Alas Ramus girl who punched me through it, remember?”
    “Yeah, and who made her do that?”
    Urushihara was impervious to this game.
    Gabriel couldn’t have known that their landlord covered the entire wall repair, but he did appear to feel at least slightly at fault for the unplanned Devil’s Castle home renovation.
    “Wow, though…
You’re
the one he’s gonna get ‘pissed off at’? Reeeeeally?”
    Gabriel grinned a smarmy grin as he greedily licked at the bare wooden stick that once held