Ryosei awoke to a void of black.
He was dreaming; he knew that, but there was sense of sorrow and unease he could not properly discern, making his paranoia to rise up. The silence was hair-raising, and no matter what direction he glanced in, he couldn't seem to find anything of substance.
Then, the air changed, and a pervading sense of suffering flowed towards him, circling his still, white form.
It was cold, and in the void, there was a stifling sense of claustrophobia that suffocated him slowly. In the silence, a sound was heard, and like a light turning on, the surroundings around him became an actual, physical location.
It was still dark, and all around him save for two sections of the wall was black stone; one was a sliver of light that poured through the darkness, and the other was a large, equally dark door that held a window and tray slat.
It was a prison, or so it seemed with its dank, cold air and lack of hygiene. The smell finally reached his nose, and he nearly retched—there was a smell of rotting flesh, blood, feces, and body odor in the cell, a combination that brought tears to his eyes due to the intensity of it.
The sound of sniffles broke his disgust.
Turning quickly, he looked to see a small form in the corner of the cell, scrunched up against the wall as if it was the only thing that could protect it, as if it was its lifeline. The small form was covered in black hair, with gold and white interwoven in it, and a huge, filthy brown clothe.
Pale, malnourished arms peeked out of the hair and sleeves—the child's arms and ankles were covered in chains and shackles, as if they were a sinner paying the price of a heavy, terrible sin. The sniffles continued, quiet, but persistent, the child shaking as if they were in pain.
Ryosei, being a man who couldn't help but be sympathetic towards children with troubled pasts, slowly, and quietly approached the trembling creature.
"Hey... are you okay? Why're you locked up?"
The sniffles stopped, and through the web of black hair peeked a red eye that held a black slit of a pupil, and a pale crescent moon. The chains tinkled and suddenly the child was next to him, reaching for him as they—the girl—then begged with teared falling down her eyes, "Please..."
"Please? Please what?"
Sorrow engulfed her expression, and with a cracked and half-formed voice that revealed a weakness in speaking, she once again begged, "Please... kill... kill... k-kill me... I'm... bad...!"
The red of her eyes suddenly gleamed, and with a savage smile she knocked him down and started to tear him apart. Through his screams he heard her weak voice again:
"KILL ME!"
———————————————————————————
It was the fifth day since his return to college, and during this time, Eika had been even more insufferable than usual—and that was saying something, considering her already demanding and typically domineering personality.
The willfulness of her personality, in particular, was really shining through today.
"I want chicken nuggets..."
It was the eighth time she'd repeated the exact phrase, and Ryosei could sense his patience beginning to run thin.
"...Eika, you're a demon—chicken nuggets aren't even nutritious for either of us. That's what you yourself told me when I first asked about food, so why the frick are you acting like this??"
Eika, who was sulking at the large table in the dining room dressed in black pajama shorts and a huge purple t-shirt with a blue, fluffy blanket around her shoulders, simply made a incoherent sound before plopping her head onto the table and whined, "But I want theeeem..."
Ryosei stared at the small female demon incredulously, the thought that maybe demon woman had periods too coming to his mind before he remembered that 1) she was inhabiting a homunculi and it wasn't her own real body, and 2) this was Eika he was talking about; what did he expect, a well mannered woman who was genuinely considerate of others?
He shook his head, his expression clearly exhibiting a lack of any expectation or empathy in concerning her mood as he deadpanned, "Eika, the last time you went out to get chicken nuggets, I had to get you out of the slammer in SpongeBob SquarePants pajama pants during the middle of the night, because you decked a man across the face for staining your t-shirt; no."
It was then a weird sound that was a cross between a whale giving birth and a dying walrus came from the small female as she kicked the table repeatedly at being denied her desires.
Ryosei truly had to appreciate her taste in the table quality—it was holding up shockingly well against her assault.
However, if Eika's sudden increase in childishness wasn't enough of a headache for the tired and still recovering demon, that weird sound had woken up his little sister Fuyumi, if her mussed black hair and and sleepy ocean eyes in an extremely confused face were more than enough to tell him exactly how she'd woken up.
Of course, it wasn't a headache due to Fuyumi's presence, but rather because Ryosei wasn't entirely sure over whether or not he could still face her with the same attitude he once had exhibited near her person.
He wasn't a human anymore—he was a demon, and the way she'd learned that fact for herself had been... traumatizing, to say the least.
{"Ryosei-nii, what was that sound.... it was weird..."}
Some of the tension that Ryosei had been exhibiting was released in seeing her casual display of speaking, and with a similarly mirrored tired expression accompanied by an exasperated shrug, he replied calmly, {"It's just Eika again—you'll get used to it and her general oddness soon, don't worry."}
An odd expression overcame Fuyumi's face as she muttered in similar Japanese, {"I think that is something to worry about..."}
{"Shut up you insufferable siblings, and quit talking in Japanese when not everyone can understand you."}
{"That was the point, cause no one wants your useless input-"}
{"Shut up, you ducking tsundere, no one likes you!"}
{"On the contrary, if anything, everyone likes me too much..."}
Eika adjusted her head so that her chin rested on the table, her eyes practically spatting ridicule before her retort even left her lips.
{"I beg to differ—just because you're a pretty face doesn't mean that everyone likes you..."}
However, Ryosei, who had become all but immune to her jabs, swiftly deadpanned in a very Eika fashion, {"It's funny that a pretty face is telling me that. Are you perhaps projecting your past experiences onto me? While flattered, I assure you that such an event is unlikely, as I am lacking in a narcissistic personality."}
In a movement that caused Fuyumi to jolt in shock, Eika slammed her palms on the table as she yelled at the ever calm Ryosei, "Just because I'm inherently superior to literally everyone doesn't mean that I'm a narcissist!"
Ryosei leisurely led Fuyumi to the dining table, placing a breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast and bacon in front of her with an affectionate smile that was gleefully returned, before muttering in passing, "Aaaand, it strikes again. Wonderful Eika, simply wonderful."
Sulking, Eika fell back onto her chair and mumbled mutinously, "Who taught you how to speak like this, you fuxxer?"
"You."
"... Well damn. I teach better than I think..."
"Yes, you certainly do try other peoples patience—enough so that they tend to realize with 𝘶𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 clarity, that patience is indeed a virtue to have at one's disposal when concerning you."
"..."
Ryosei merely kept moving in response to Eika's unusual silence, the retort that was so common no longer found on her lips, and instead returned to the kitchen, to retrieve his... "lunch"—he preferred for Fuyumi to not yet realize that he literally ate his own kind.
While it had become natural to him somewhere along the way, his common sense which had been spared from his "Baptism" as a demon told him that cannibalism was not to be endorsed among humans.
"Ryosei~" came Eika's voice again, "make me breakfast too~"
He rolled his eyes as his patience ran thin—she was doing this on purpose, wasn't she. Yeah, she was definitely doing this on purpose, cause even usually she wasn't half this annoying.
Now, perhaps Ryosei was overreacting, but truly, it wasn't his fault; for a week now Eika had been acting like a petulant, needy child—and he was sick of it.
'Seriously!' he thought, anger rushing through his veins, 'She is literally older than several countries—why is she acting like this? She stays in her room for one day, and suddenly becomes a child...'
Then again, her staying in her room was weird in and of itself; the ever manic Eika, being calm? Such a thing was unheard of... unless...
"'I'd rather be hated than loved... at least then I can understand it...'"
Ryosei paused, and the dream from last night came to him again, of the begging, pleading, and murdering child that had the same, empty eye as Eika.
'This... damnit it..."