悪魔は僕の部屋の中に
[Akuma wa Boku no Heya no Naka ni]
By Bayou
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Part 3
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Kyou was too busy working his illustration in his computer to realize that someone was approaching him and peeked over his shoulder.
"The anatomy is a bit wrong, you know?" the other person said, close to his ear.
"GUWAAAAH!!" Kyou surprised and shouted so loud that made everyone in the room was glancing irritatingly at him.
The boy turned and found another man's face was so close; their noses were almost touching one another. He yanked his head back and bumped it to the desk partition on his left.
"Mo—Mochidzuki-san!!" he yelped in pain and surprise, rubbing his sour head. "When did you—? How could—? Why—?" Kyou stuttered, failing to finish each of his sentences, and sighed, "Not again..."
Even though Kyou was very proud of his overly sensitive hearing that he could even tell who was coming, just by listening at their footsteps; he could never hear Mochidzuki's nor sensed his presence until he was very close or giving his existence away by started talking. As if the young man was hiding his presence while gliding—instead of walking normally.
Mochidzuki also seemed to love to tease him. After repeating the same thing each time he visited the company, Kyou specifically asked the receptionist to call him as soon as Mochidzuki stepped—or glided—into the building. But the receptionist was always forgotten to inform him because of her business receiving calls or answering questions of the non-stop-coming guests.
Mochidzuki chuckled, "It's always refreshing to see that kind of reaction from you."
"Please don't surprise me like that, Mochidzuki-san. My heart can't take it anymore, it reduced my lifespan by a year each time you did that.
"Good, I can take your soul sooner than it should, to make you my slave," he said jokingly.
"You demon..." Kyou grunted; partly joking, partly serious.
Mochidzuki Maou was one of the big bosses' colleagues and a very capable businessman. The boss had entrusted him to handle the company's subsidiary. He was only 27 and already owned his own a small company aside the one that he was told to take care of. Not enough of that, he was also a very talented illustrator. Unfortunately, he was more of a businessman than an artist, so he only drew occasionally and put more attention to his business. Kyou thought that it was a waste of a talent, if he had that kind of talent, he’d never wish for anything in this world anymore.
"So... how's the life in the underworld, o' lord of demon?"
"Hot and noisy as usual," Mochidzuki gave his usual mysterious smile, "And I told you that I'm not the demon lord, I'm just his accountant."
Kyou laughed over the joke, "So, if I'm going to be sent to hell for my sins, can I have the best accommodation there, since I'm your friend?"
"No worries, I've already booked the one-way VIP trip for you."
"Great," Kyou said cheerfully, then realizing something, "Heey, waidaminit! Does that mean I don't have any chance to go to heaven and will be directly sent to hell if I died?!"
Both of them broke into laughter. They often made jokes like this, since Mochidzuki's presence was exactly like some mysterious spirit from the underworld.
And it was Kyou who started to call him like that...
* * * * *
Less than a year ago, Kyou met Mochidzuki when was just started to work as a freelance illustrator in the company. Though he often saw him wandering around in the company before, he never had a chance to talk to him. Kyou couldn't help to notice what a beautiful person he was; with a pair of big solemn eyes, tall and slim nose, thin lips, and a slender body. And the thing that was very noticeable was, he always dressed in a pair of black semi-formal suit over his white t-shirt, as if he had his whole wardrobe filled with it (and later Kyou learned that Mochidzuki did have it).
When Kyou came into the illustration division office that day, he saw Mochidzuki was talking to Shinjo Eiki—one of the company's illustrators—about the illustration he ordered for his company's advertising brochure. Mochidzuki was revising Shinjo's work and Kyou was unconsciously approaching them and overhearing the whole conversation. He was interested to learn something new from it because he’s still a junior and lacking of skill and experience, so he practically needed everything to improve his skill.
He didn't notice that he was doing impolite thing until Shinjo called his name.
"Learn anything from it, Ooguma-kun?" Shinjo said in a teasing friendly tone.
"Wah! Sorry!" Kyou snapped back from dazing, and apologized, "It was just too interesting that I can't help overhearing it! And I do learn something from it!"
Mochidzuki chuckled; he looked gorgeous when he smiled and made Kyou blushed.
"What an energetic rookie," Mochidzuki said.
Shinjo laughed and agreed, "He sure is."
"Erm... thanks?" Kyou wasn’t sure whether they were complimenting, or teasing him.
"Oh yeah, Mochidzuki-san, this is Ooguma Kyou-kun," Shinjo started introducing them, "Ooguma-kun, this is Mochidzuki Maou-san, the president of our company's subsidiary.
Taken aback by the word, 'President', Kyou bowed politely at him. Mochidzuki nodded and took out his business card from his jacket and gave it to Kyou. Kyou read the kanji of Mochidzuki's name; his sure name, 'Mochidzuki' was taken from the kanji of 'Full moon', and his given name, 'Maou', was taken from the kanji 'Kai' meaning 'Rotation' and 'Oku' meaning 'Inner part'.
Kyou thought that it was unusual that someone had 'Maou' as their given name.
"Oh, umm... I don't have business card, so..."
Mochidzuki smiled and shook his head, "That's ok, just keep it."
"Ok... thanks," Kyou replied, grinning sheepishly at the other man.
The three of them were discussing about the illustration until Mochidzuki was taking his leave. And after that, each time Mochidzuki came into the building, he always took his time visiting the illustration division's office.
And then, because he always came in silent and giving his presence only when he's already near Kyou; he always succeeded making the boy jumped in surprised and doing something silly. Mochidzuki started his ritual in surprising Kyou each time he came, just to see the boy's reaction. Kyou had always yelled in surprise, bumped his head onto the partition, felling off the chair, knocked something off his desk, or dropping anything he was holding. Made the young man found that those actions were somewhat refreshing and kept teasing Kyou to see his random reactions.
Mochidzuki knew Kyou was specially gave the building's receptionist an order to call him whenever he came. So he always made a silencing gesture by putting his forefinger over his mouth to stop the girl from calling Kyou. Later, the girl had always asked him about 'today's reaction' because she felt that it was amusing also. Kyou never knew this and thought that the girl had always been busy and kept forgetting to call him.
Pissed off by being teased too much, Kyou started to call Mochidzuki "The Demon Lord"; because of his black outfit, his unnoticeable presence, his mysterious aura, and also his name could have that meaning in different kanji, but same reading.
This demon never absent visiting him and chatted with him for over an hour each time he came. Kyou found that this was rather strange, since Mochidzuki never attached to anyone in the office like that, and everybody seemed venerated at him; so even though he's very attractive, they only watched and admired him from afar.
He talked to Kyou too often that made the boy knew almost everything about him, his likeness and dislikeness, his business, his family, his boss, his colleague, his subordinates, his friends, well... practically everything. Mochidzuki even often invited Kyou for dinner, which was accepted delightfully by the boy because it's a free meal. First, there were 6 of them who were invited in Mochidzuki's birthday treat, and more occasionally treats without celebrating anything. And then the number of the invitee decreased one by one until there were only the two of them.
At first, Mochidzuki always took Kyou to a fancy restaurant with table manner, full course meal of small foods, and ridiculously high price. Until Kyou protested by saying that his stomach was far from being satisfied by eating there, but he had no heart to ask for second helping because of the price. Though Mochidzuki had no problem paying Kyou's second or third plate, Kyou stubbornly refused and said that taste doesn't matter as long as it was acceptable to his tongue, and the amount of the food that could satisfy his bottomless pit stomach was much more important. Of course, in a tolerable price too.
"You can feed me 10 times in an all-you-can-eat restaurant instead of one full course meal in that fancy ones," Kyou said in one time.
In the other time, he protested again, "I'll be more appreciated it rather than feeling guilty for making you pay that much of money, while with that amount, you can feed children in orphanage."
This modesty touched Mochidzuki and made him took a liking of the boy.
* * * * *
"So, are you free this evening?" Mochidzuki asked.
"Yeah, why?"
"Wanna have dinner with me?"
"Of course!" Kyou answered without hesitating.
In Mochidzuki's eyes, he seemed like a super happy big dog that wagging his tail.
"How about 7 p.m., in your favorite all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant?" he offered.
Kyou was grinning ear to ear hearing this, "Sounds great!" he replied, but then hesitated. "Err... are you sure you want to go there? It barely fit your taste, isn't it?"
Even though Kyou loved that restaurant—because it was cheap and the taste was fitting to his taste, Mochidzuki thought that it was only rated, "barely acceptable" for his high class taste. But of course, Kyou would absolutely refuse if Mochidzuki suggested on going to some fancy restaurant again.
Mochidzuki smiled, "I don't mind, it's still edible anyway. And the sake is quite nice."
Kyou didn't drink sake or beer or any other liquor, he had very low tolerance toward alcohols, so he couldn't measure how "quite nice" taste compared to the good ones.
"But you're treating me, so if you don't like it, we can go someplace else you like," Kyou said.
"The place I like is the one you always refuse to go to," Mochidzuki chuckled, "In the end; I have to follow your liking anyway."
Kyou rubbed the back of his head, feeling guilty, "Yeah, that's true. It just doesn't feel right for me, eating those expensive food."
Mochidzuki patted Kyou’s head, "Don't worry about it, I'm the one who's inviting you. So it's my decision to choose the place, and I want to go wherever you want to."
Kyou blushed pretty hard hearing this, he felt like he was being spoiled by Mochidzuki too much. Usually, he was the one who always succumbed by other people's wish, but only with Mochidzuki he could do whatever he wanted to do.
"Thank you, Mochidzuki-san," he said, "I can't thank you enough for being too kind to me."
Mochidzuki smiled, "No worries," he glanced at his wristwatch, "It's still 4 p.m., and I still have something to do. I'll just meet you there at 7, ok?"
"Yes!" Kyou happily replied.
As seeing Mochidzuki's back who walked away from his office, Kyou felt rather envious at him; for being gorgeous, rich, and very kind.
But even though Kyou was indeed known almost everything about Mochidzuki Maou, but it was only almost...
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