The house, what to say, it was an elegant house borrowing elements of Japanese culture; high ceilings, sliding wooden doors and floor covered in tatami mat. Though Sona used to act a bit childish at times, she never flaunted her wealth.
Sona assigned a room each for Tsubaki and Hiro, whereas Momo and Sona already had their own room. Hiro wanted to deny first since most of his time would be spent in Sona's room but accepted her offer in the end.
The four of them circled around the low table in the living room and rested for a full thirty minutes. The clock ticking on the wall showed 9 PM. His stomach also rumbled at that time, requesting some delicious food.
Sona got up with an unusually bright face. "Hiro, shall I cook?"
He sprang to his feet and squeezed her shoulder to make her sit again. "Let me do it today. You should talk with Tsubaki and Momo."
"If you say so."
Hiro moved toward the kitchen and wiped the cold sweat from his face.
'I managed to stop her this time. Sona's food…'
He shuddered imagining the food that looked amazing on the outside but tasted really bad…
"Fuck, I forgot about them."
He cursed, remembering the hungry Valkyrie and Minokawa duo.
No time to cook, I'll just buy something…
He took out his Sumatofon, opened the map, and searched for famous restaurants. This high tech smartphone even worked in the human world.
He threw all caution to the wind and rushed out of the nearest restaurant.
It's not like there are any strong beings here…
It only took him four minutes to arrive at his destination. He lined up behind the little white-haired girl dressed in a Kuoh academy's uniform. She turned her head, revealing a cute face and very familiar golden eyes.
He immediately activated demonic perception. Surprise almost crept on his face before he took a deep breath and smiled.
"Hello."
The girl simply ignored him and shifted her gaze to the front and advanced when the person in front moved.
He activated demonic perception again and the results were the same. He really wasn't mistaken, her aura was identical to Kuroka.
A Nekomata and devil.
Only two Devil Clans could enter Kuoh, Gremory, and Sitri. He already met Sona's peerage which left Rias's peerage.
His inner discussion ended when the guy behind urged him. The nekomata girl received her bag of snacks and glanced his way before she scurried away.
He shrugged and ordered random ramen for ten people since Hilde and Tsuki ate a lot more than any normal person. He paid with the money he received from Sona earlier and received his order.
I'm not a bad husband leeching off his wife's money, right?
[Calculating data from Host's memories… The answer is Negative.]
His eyes stared blankly for a moment, then released a dejected sigh, even Aux-san betrayed him.
Depressed, he returned home and served the food.
Tsubaki hesitated for a bit before she grabbed the chopsticks and slurped the hot and delicious ramen. Despite being cheap ramen, this tasted far better than any meal she ever had in her former house.
'How long has it been since I ate with someone?'
Something warm gradually pooled around her eyes, turning her vision blurry. She hung her head to hide her crying face. The warm gazes of others only increased the intensity of her tears.
For a long time, she had been getting a cold shoulder from her clan and even her own birth parents. This all started five years ago…
On a normal sunny day, she was practicing the purification art of 'Shinra Clan'. The art was a series of hand gestures used to gather spiritual power, when added with the natural heat and her miko outfit, she was left sweating.
When she took the mirror to clean her face, she found one-eyed onii lurking in the mirror. Its pink body and small horn looked a bit too adorable. She wanted to touch it and play with it. Then something out of her imagination happened. The onii's hands clenched the edge of the mirror and its head peeked out of the mirror.
Her eyes opened wide in horror, the mirror slipped from her trembling hands and fell on the ground, shattering into pieces.
And all of this was witnessed by one of the Onmyōjis of her Clan.
She was called to meet the head of the Shinra Clan, Eiko Shinra. A burly old man who appeared to be in his late forties except he was more than a hundred years old.
Her parents convinced her to repeat the same phenomena again. Her naive self did it without any second thought.
After she was done calling the Onibi, a fire spirit wandering at night, she noticed a weird look in everyone's eyes which were still gresh in her memories.
Thus began the hardest trial of her life. At first she thought it was a game by everyone and she also ignored everyone. But it didn't get any better, even her parents disregarded her presence. She even tried blocking their ways, only to receive a gaze so cold, it made her entire body shiver.
She cried at night but during the day, she tried to make anyone notice her.
A month passed like this, she couldn't take it anymore and confronted her parents, asked them, begged them for the reason. The reason left her breathless, it was her own ability to summon the weird monsters. As a member of one of the most honorable clans, they couldn't afford to be related to someone like her.
'Is your honor higher than your own daughter!?'
She wanted to scream at their faces, but their eyes gave away the answer. The eyes once filled with affection and care, were now tinged with disinterest.
Now, she had a choice to live like this or run away. Although she was close to 11, her knowledge outside the shrine was basically close to zero. And with her own beauty, her chances of surviving on her own pretty much amounted to nothing.
She had no one to talk about her, even people near her Shrine pretty much ignored her, calling her cursed behind her back.
The unreasonable treatment even broke a strong girl like her.
In the end, she came to a decision.
Stay here until she becomes an adult…
She thought her life would keep going like this until she accidentally met Sona in the cafe where she wanted to do some part-time work. She was skeptical at first, but having no choice, she chose to accept the devil's offer even if it meant leaving her humanity behind and turning into a devil.
'But becoming a devil isn't bad…'
Today was like a dream come true for her. If this was truly a dream then she wanted to keep sleeping for a long time...
A heavy touch on her shoulder made her pause. Momo silently patted her shoulder with a smile.
"Sitri household is also famous for treating their servants like family," Sona said with a smile.
"Yeah, I grew up there so I can vouch for it."
Momo said nothing but her action spoke louder than words. Tsubaki's throat tightened when she wanted to speak, so she just nodded to express her gratitude.
Hiro continued eating the delicious ramen and glanced at Sona, who harrumphed in response. Tsubaki wiped her tears and picked up the chopsticks again and slowly ate the ramen.