Chapter 27:

the girl and the demon compete to see who's worse at existing

if the moon forgets to smile

Once upon a time lived a girl who wanted more. More of what? She never found out. Then she grew up, and now she was nothing.

On a day like any other, a demon lord kidnapped her. They drank tea. She felt bad for him. An hour later, she took a bullet for him. It hurt. But she survived.

During her pathetic attempts at traveling the world, Reem had once taken a bullet for someone else. A group of bandits raided the train she was taking at the time. Lots of stray shots. Lots of screaming. There was some guy trying to act tough, but when his elementary school spell failed, one of the bandits made fun of him before trying to shoot his face off.

No one else did anything to help. Some of the passengers had been mercenaries, but they might as well have been the audience in a play. Since Reem had been close to the failed hero and he was probably better than her, she tackled him, just in time. She still considered it an accident since she'd kind of hoped she'd be fast enough to avoid the bullet, but alas...

Reem lived on the second floor of a bookstore-turned-apartment-complex. The owner had once wanted to have a bookstore coffee shop where artists could gather to create, but no one here cared about art unless it involved shooting things. After failing to gather interest, the owner became a villain (a landlord, to be specific).

These things happened all the time. Dreams destroyed if they weren't destroyed first. People failed all the time. Some of them adapted better than others; they tried again, or found other dreams, or pretended like it didn't hurt. Reem had just given up.

Ignoring all context, to be held felt pretty nice. When was the last time she'd hugged anyone? A decade ago? More? Was her family still angry?

A moment before Sionn opened the door, one of Reem's roommates stumbled outside. She screamed. He was superficially indifferent.

"What—who—"

"Escort," Reem said. "Hi, Aziza. Are you alright? This is, um. Fred. Fred, this is—"

She ran past them.

"—Aziza. Sorry about that. The others are working right now I think I hope. She's also supposed to work in the mornings but maybe she forgot I dunno I'm glad she's fine."

Sionn dropped her. Reem stumbled a bit, holding onto his cloak. "See you..." He sighed. "...sometime. I don't know."

"Just follow me."

"No."

"No. Pfft." They said it at the same time, with the exact same intonation. Reem tugged at his cloak. "Come in."

Sionn did so only when he'd made sure that there was no one else around, using his cataclysmic demon senses. As he did, he held onto Reem's shoulder. "What a shithole. Why would you live here instead of the castle?"

He was putting on a show again. Great. "My bed is the one at the corner next to the window. Go sit there while I look for first aid stuff."

Thankfully, someone had left instructions for the kit at the bathroom. Somebody else added a note begging people to try their custom spells, list any side effects, and sign a liability contract.

When Reem returned to the room, she found him lying on her bed... kind of? He had to tuck his arms under the cloak so they wouldn't dangle off the edges, and his legs... well. Without looking at her, Sionn said, "The castle beds are larger."

"Aight."

"More comfortable."

"Comfyness is relative."

"Less smelly."

"That's—listen, it was stinky when I came here. And it's not that bad compared to the others. Shut up. You're making it stinkier. Shut up."

"So it began to stink when you came on it?"

"Yeah... wait. I didn't—Sionn!"

"Yes?"

She kicked his shins upon reaching him. "Sit up, you... ugh, I can't even come up with an insult right now. I'm telling HR."

Sionn sat up. "HR is..." He held the side of his head. "...not..." He let out a breath. "...I'm fine. I'm fine."

There was blood on her bed now. Reem sat next to him, placed the kit on her lap, then opened it. Anticipating the worst, she'd brought the whole thing along. Good for her. She was dumb, not stupid. "I'm assuming going to the hospital is a no."

"No."

"Then what is a yes?"

"Castle."

"Going back to the castle while hurt? Under the sun? Mhm, aight. It's not like trains are even running right now, with everything that just... uh... sorry."

"You can say it."

Reem shook her head. "Take off your cloak. Let's patch you up."

Without looking at her, Sionn held out a claw.

"Paw."

His mouth twitched. "Just hand it over."

"Paw?"

"Paw? Knew it."

It wasn't funny when he was the one predicting her words. Exact same intonation, too...

Reem gave paw.

Sionn took paw. "The healing kit, not your hand. You've... done too much already."

Reem slapped paw.

"I don't know what that means."

"It means 'you silly man, let me help you' but in Sionn language so it's cryptic and needlessly violent."

Sionn retreated paw. "I'm f—"

"You're not."

"I am. You are not. You're unhinged. You saw what happened, yet you still..."

"Still..."

"Why are you always so kind to me?"

It would've been so, so easy to do as she ought to—lie, joke, distract. It was easy, and it hurt. It hurt less than the alternative.

It was Reem's turn to retreat. She pretended not to notice the smile. He pretended not to notice when she flinched as he took the kit, gently, as though she'd break. "This might surprise you," he said, "but I am quite adept at healing spells. For a price, I might heal your bruises as well. Let's see... how about a song?"

Considering his talent for endangering his life, she wasn't really that— "Huh?"

Sionn hummed one of Reem's cleaning songs.

Hypergravity could not hold a candle to the sheer embarrassment crushing her. All of her.

Of course.

Of course he heard.

Demon hearing.

Of course he'd remember because he was smart just acted stupid but he was smart of course. And of course he'd weaponize this out of spite. And— "Oh, come on!"

"On what?"

"Come... stop..." She covered her face.

"Come on what?"

"Sionn, shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. Fuck you."

"What."

"I can't even sing anymore."

"Wait, why not?"

She sang when cleaning precisely to avoid this. Since she lived with so many strangers, to be alone was a luxury. So what if the other maids ignored her? That was fine. It was kind of nice honestly. To be invisible meant that she could do whatever and no one would bother her, and a disastrous, enchanted demon's castle was great for that, actually, but no... even that was too much now.

"Reem?"

She could never have anything for long, could she?

"Um. I won't bring it up again."

"Good."

Worse things had happened and worse things would happen sooner than later. She'd just have to find another place to sing. Or nowhere? She wasn't even that good really. If she were good, then she wouldn't be performing from an audience's seat.

...oh, no.

Bad.

Bad bad bad—

Tears bad.

Why was she so useless and bad at everything? Was it that hard to help somebody else? Or to... exist? Why was she even crying? Sionn hadn't been mean and he was probably wondering what he did wrong and the answer was nothing. "S... fff..."

"I know," he said.

"Nn..."

"I won't bring it up again."

Reluctantly, she nodded.

"I promise."

Regretfully, she nodded.

"I'm sorry."

She shook her head.

He wiped the blood off his face while she cried like the dumb bitch she was.

Because that was what a man and a woman did when using the same bed....

To be fair, it wouldn't be the first or last time she cried when—

She had to STOP.