The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 2 (20 page)

It was the cheapest possible order on the entire MgRonald menu. Emi, free of Ashiya’s prying eyes, was no longer interested in currying favor with demons. Maou’s temple throbbed.

“We work on a self-service ordering system over there at the counter…
ma’am
!”

“Okay, will you be nice enough to bring it over if I add an apple pie?”

Emi steadfastly refused to stand up. Barely capable of maintaining his customer-service smile, Maou turned toward Rika instead, sitting across from Emi.

“Ma’am, would…”

“Wow, so you’re Maou, huh? Y’know, considering how loyal Ashiya is to you, I can’t say you’re exactly brimming with charisma. The shift you’re supervising looks pretty darn dead to me, too.”

“…Would you tell me who the hell you freaks think you are?”

The punishing evaluation of his looks and work ethic, coming from someone he’d never exchanged words with in his life, finally pushed Maou over the cliff.

“Ooh, you better watch your words, huh? The headquarters wouldn’t want to get letters about this, would they?”

Rika grinned from ear to ear as she deliberately watched Maou, utterly unfazed.

“Shut up. Even customers have rules they have to follow in here. Who
are
you, anyway?”

One of Emi’s friends, no doubt. Which meant this girl was Maou’s mortal enemy.

“I’m Rika Suzuki. Emi’s coworker. You’re Sadao Maou, right? Emi and Suzuno and Ashiya told me about you.”

“…I don’t know what Ashiya and Suzuno said, but
she
couldn’t have said anything good about me.”

“Well, Ashiya and Emi had a kinda one-sided view of you, so I thought I’d go and check you out for myself.”

“Huh. Great. You must love butting in on people’s lives, don’t you?”

Maou glared at Emi, who was lazily resting her head on a propped elbow.

“Ugh… I’m getting no customers. I got
Emi
in here… I’m gonna be flat broke by the end of the night.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t say things like that, Maou…”

Chiho chose that moment to arrive, tray in hand. “My! You certainly seem full of vigor, Chiho.”

Suzuno was first to greet her.

“Thanks, Suzuno. Busy day?”

Giving Suzuno a smile, Chiho sidled next to Maou, looking a little peeved.

“Yusa is a valuable customer of ours, you know. What did you say to me earlier? ‘As long as they’re paying us, a customer’s a customer’?”

With that, Chiho placed the tray on the table.

“One iced coffee, and one piping-hot apple pie!”

“Oh! Chiho!”

She must have eavesdropped on Emi’s order. Hurriedly, Emi stood up to grab her wallet.

“I’m sorry! You know how I get with Maou, so…”

“Oh, that’s all right. I understand. I’m really not allowed to prepare orders until we put it through the register, but we aren’t going to be crowded for a little while yet. That’ll be three hundred yen.”

Sheepishly, Emi handed the coins to Chiho.

“Pah. So
that’s
how you treat Chi, huh?”

“Of course that’s how I treat her. You think I put you and her on the same level? That’s being really rude to Chiho.”

“Ooh, zing.”

Rika giggled at the exchange.

“So is this your friend, Yusa?”

“Sure am! Rika Suzuki. I work with Emi all day.”

“My name is Chiho Sasaki. Yusa’s been a big help to me in a lot of ways!”

Chiho bowed politely. Rika studied her face, pondering over something, then beckoned her over with a finger.

“Yes?”

“Chiho, right?”

“Yes… Ahh!”

Without warning, Rika grabbed Chiho, hugging her tightly.

“You’re so cuuuuuute! Isn’t she? She is just the cutest! I mean, this must be some kind of modern Japanese miracle!”

“Agh, agh, agh!”

Chiho waggled her arms around in a futile effort to escape the sudden attention.

“I can’t believe all these amazing people you hang out with, Emi! She’s so polite, she has this superserious work ethic, and she’s cute, too! It’s gotta be against the law to be this cute! She’s a national treasure! They should make her a World Heritage Site!”

“S-Suzuki?!”

“Hey, Rika, you’re scaring Chiho…”

“Yeah, and it’s so
cuuute
!”

“Come on, Rika, you’re acting like some drunk at two
AM
!”

“Ohhh, all riiiiight. Sorry I got so excited, Chiho.”

“Gah… It, it’s okay…I think…”

Released from her grasp, Chiho panted for air as she tried to gain a bead on her surroundings.

“So, did you find any good work leads?”

Watching Chiho squirm in Rika’s presence to the side, Maou turned the topic toward the silent Suzuno. She hesitated for a moment, surprised at being spoken to.

“Not yet, no…”

“Oh? Well, looks like you enjoyed the trip around town, at least. That’s good.”

Between the kimono and the balloon still floating above her bag, she looked like someone out on vacation.

“It, it was a social-study excursion!”

Suzuno pleaded her case helplessly, her cheeks turning a tinge pink.

“Social study? Yeah, great, great. Just make sure you keep your purse strings tight, okay? I know it’s easy to get excited out there, but you’re gonna go belly-up if you keep spending money like that.”

Maou turned his attention to Emi next.

“And since she hasn’t found any work yet, try not to turn her into some shopaholic secretary, all right?”

He tried to act as jaded as possible as he spoke.

This struck Emi as an incredibly unfair accusation out of the blue, but she was in no position to reveal Suzuno’s true identity to Maou and his cohorts.
Why
, she whined to herself,
am I the only one forced to keep any secrets here while everyone else is running roughshod over me?

“The way Ashiya put it, it sounds like you had some kind of trouble?”

“Like
you
need to know. There’s no trouble at all, as long as you don’t do anything to mess up her tranquil,
private
life.”

Emi attempted to spike the point home upon Maou and Suzuno simultaneously, albeit in two different ways. Maou shrugged and laughed.

“See? I told you. Don’t blame me if you wind up paying for it later.”

The portent behind the simple observation struck a chord.

“Wait, what are you…?”

Emi felt a strange sense of disquiet at the advice. Rika cut her off before she could question him further.

“Hey, by the way, what are you gonna do about all this? Sure doesn’t look like business is booming in here. Emi’s surrounded by all these talented people, so I’m sure you aren’t the lunkhead you’re starting to look like.”

“Oh, so now you’re saying I look like a lunkhead? I don’t really appreciate that kind of feedback from customers, thanks. Bring it up with the regional manager if you care that much.”

“Hey, just think of it as some friendly sales advice.”

There was no stopping Rika now.

“But, here, lemme just come out with it—I’m here because I want to see how you work.”

“Whadaya mean, how I work? Who
are
you, anyway?”

“Oh, Emi’s friend, Suzuno’s friend, and the daughter of a company president.”

“That doesn’t exactly help me, miss! If you aren’t here to eat something, then get out of here, okay? I may not look like it, but I’m pretty busy right now.”

“You talked about ‘hitting back at them’ just a second ago. What’re you gonna do, huh?”

“You aren’t too gifted at listening to people, are you, lady?” Maou sighed sullenly.

Suddenly, another voice rang out from the entrance.

“You there, Maou?”

An elderly customer entered, carrying something large and green with him. Rika, Suzuno, and the exhausted Emi turned their eyes toward him.

Once he recognized the man, Maou left Emi’s table behind and hurriedly walked over.

“Nabe! You didn’t have to run all the way over here!”

“Didn’t want to let you down, Maou! I figured the quicker, the better anyway.”

The man called Nabe laughed a hearty laugh.

“Well, thanks, though. You know I could’ve picked it up. Would you mind propping that up against the wall over there?”

“Ooh, right. Shouldn’t have brought this huge tree into the dining area, huh?”

“Nabe” slapped himself on the forehead before placing the green mass outside by the door.

“I spent the day clearing off all the small bits and the branches low enough to poke kids’ eyes out. It’s all ready to go! I got you the best one I could find, so have fun decorating it! And now that that’s done, I better get going.”

“What, already? You want anything to eat first? My treat.”

Nabe shook his head in response.

“Thanks for the thought, but I got my wife cooking dinner tonight. Next cleaning run, maybe, eh? Say yello to Ms. Kisaki for me.”

With a quick wave, Nabe turned around and strode confidently out the door.

As if on cue, the free staff on the MgRonald crew began to stream out the back, rolls of colored paper in their hands.

“Wow, look at the size of that thing!”

“We better get this all decorated before we hit rush hour!”

“Hey, I think we still have some of those tiny plastic cones with the tops missing back in the storehouse. You think we could tape ’em on the branches?”

They gathered in the dining area, excitedly talking among themselves.

“So…what’s that big thing out there?”

Noticing Rika’s voice, Maou let the crew do their work on the tree as he returned to Emi’s table.

“What do you think it is? It’s a
sasa
bamboo plant.”

“Sasa?”

“It’s almost time for the Sasahata Star Festival.”

As she said this, Chiho took out several sheets of colored paper cut into thin strips, along with a black marker.

“Sasahata…Star Festival?”

Chiho continued as Emi tilted her head in curiosity. “Well, every year, the Sasazuka and Hatagaya neighborhoods work together to hold a summer festival. That’s where
Sasahata
comes from—it’s just the two names put together. We’re actually a little late on decorating, but what goes better with a Sasahata festival than a real
sasa
plant?”

“I asked the store manager to put in a request with the regional office as a special favor. Kids aged twelve or younger can write their wishes on these colored strips of paper and tie them to the tree to decorate it, and we’ll give them a free small drink in exchange.”

“The Star Festival gets into gear at the end of next week and we’ll
have a ton of customers that weekend, so Maou thought this would be a good way to get a leg up on Sentucky Fried Chicken.”

Chiho held her chest out high, justifiably proud.

“Huh.
You
did that?”

Rika sounded impressed.

“We usually have a plastic bamboo plant we bring out each year, but I figured that doesn’t have the kind of natural attraction to people that something like a Christmas tree does.”

“Maou gave us all these ideas for decorations to make, too!”

The strips of paper had been made into all sorts of decorations, from streamers and origami cranes to little pouches and nets. Considering they were all handmade, the staff had done a remarkably thorough job. Rika carefully scrutinized the example Chiho gave her.

“Wow, this is pretty. But wouldn’t a real-life
sasa
bamboo plant be expensive? No way they’d spend that much on a part-timer’s request. Or is that your own?”

Now it was Maou’s turn to puff his chest up.

“Heh-heh! You’d think so, right? But these are the kinda things an assistant manager has to charm his way through, you know? That guy earlier… Mr. Watanabe’s his full name… He’s a guy I came to know while I was volunteering with the city’s urban cleanup campaign, and he’s got a ton of those in his garden.”

“You…volunteer with the antilitter guys?”

“Heavens! Donating one’s time for the sake of the community? Sadao, you actually perform such deeds?”

“Huh. So you actually care about the neighborhood you live in.”

The surprise exhibited by Emi and Suzuno was quite a different beast from what Rika exhibited.

“Yeah. Our last cleanup day was yesterday morning, actually. He said yes immediately when I asked, and I was supposed to come over to pick it up, too… I feel kinda bad about making him come here instead, though. He stops by sometimes for a bite with his grandson.”

Now Emi understood why Maou was up so early and out the door yesterday morning. It saved her from a trip to the hospital, that
was true, but the idea of the Devil King becoming a model citizen around the neighborhood was not something she found particularly pleasing, especially when faced with this reality in public with all her acquaintances watching.

“So anyway, we can’t keep this tree around until next year, of course, so on the day of the Star Festival itself, I figured we could cut it up into little saplings and give them out to kids. Kind of a mini festival tree, you know?”

“Hmm! You think that’ll pay off, though? I dunno if kids these days would care about something like that.”

Maou waved his finger at Rika’s criticism.

“Well, the sort of kids who’d write their wishes and tie them on the tree would dig it, wouldn’t they? Adults like us, we tend to buy into this idea that all kids care about these days are video games. But, you know, every one of those Star Festival wishes has meaning to it, just like every ornament on a Christmas tree. And it’s having all of that together in one common place that makes it so pretty. It’s a living bamboo plant, so they can decorate their rooms with it and stuff, and if they get sick of it or it dies, the tree and the paper decorations are all burnable, so they can just toss it in the recycle bin.”

In the Shibuya ward of Tokyo, you were allowed to put out small amounts of yard waste with the trash as long as you cut the branches into thirty-centimeter segments first.

“There’s no guarantee this’ll attract customers, of course, but I figured that, instead of the same old generic decorations whenever the season came around, it’d be better to have something that helped connect us to our customers and the area around us.”