Give Me a Present Too
"...Why?"
I asked, looking at the hand the Demon King held out in the middle of our meal.
"...You want this?"
I picked up the salt shaker from my side of the table and set it in her palm.
Confusion washed over her face.
"...!"
What's she throwing a fit about now. The look she gave me said that's not it, and she seemed thoroughly at a loss.
"...No. Today we're eating, then playing chess."
The Demon King, killing my appetite before I'd even picked up a spoon. That face, though... no mistake. The twitch in her brow, the way she was holding the corners of her mouth up by force so they wouldn't droop...
She wants something from me.
As a certified reader of Demon King expressions, my observation was almost certainly on the money.
What does she want, though?
Even as we ate, her gaze darted around like a startled bird. Under the table, then whipping around the room. Anyone could tell she was looking for something... it was so distracting I couldn't even taste my food.
...Just ignore it.
I tuned out the Demon King's restless scanning and tried to focus on the meal. Grilled fish. A dish I happened to love.
Grilled fish, huh...
A fucked-up memory came crawling up from somewhere deep.
"Dongha. Here, I deboned it for you. Now, say aah~."
"You fucking bitch... wait, Dorothy? What you just gave me is a pile of fish bones."
"Yes. I took them out and gave them to you, didn't I?"
"Kyahahaha!"
Grrrk! That dogshit mage bitch!!
Crunch. Crunch.
"W-what's wrong!?"
Ah, crap.
My chopsticks had pulverized the fish in a fit of rage. What a waste...
"Can't you debone a fish?"
"No, that's not—"
"Forget it. Give it here."
The Demon King carefully, almost reverently, transferred the fish I'd just beaten into submission onto her own plate. Then, in a blink, she picked out every last shattered bone and set the meat back on my spoon.
"Eat. Now."
Well. Beats Dorothy, that piece of shit.
It had been a very long time since anyone had deboned a fish for me. I felt a little grateful to the Demon King. A tiny, tiny bit.
Sorry I hoped you'd choke on a fishbone and die.
"Hey. You."
"Huh?"
The Demon King, who had been sniffing around like a puppy let loose in a meadow, spoke up.
"Those clothes look good on you."
She pointed at the hoodie she'd given me yesterday.
"...Oh. Yeah."
So... what was I supposed to do with that? Was it a compliment? I couldn't read her angle at all.
The Demon King shot me a dissatisfied look, then picked up her fork and went back to eating.
"...Checkmate."
I ended the game, sneaking a glance at her face. That made four losses in a row for her. I'd expected her to claw at her hair, foam at the mouth, and throw a full-blown tantrum... but luckily, she didn't seem all that upset.
"Ah, seriously..."
It ended with a sigh of that magnitude. I'd been on a winning streak, sure, but the back-and-forth, the little performances I'd staged along the way, must have cleared her bar for a satisfying match.
But still...
What had she been looking around for this whole time?
"You looking for something?"
I decided to just ask her outright. It didn't seem like anything serious...
"Huh? What?"
"I said, are you looking for something."
Her mouth, which had been hanging open in a daze, snapped shut. Those crimson eyes narrowed to slits.
...!
What's she flipping out about now!
"Hey. You know."
"...Yeah."
"Those clothes. They look good on you."
...?
Why did she keep repeating the same thing?
Wait. Come to think of it, she did this at our first meal too, didn't she?
Is it tasty?
The Demon King had asked if it was tasty about a hundred times. The moment I piled on the compliments about the food, she'd grinned so wide I thought her face would split.
So that's it... meaning what this girl with the answer already picked out wants is...
"The clothes are pretty, sure, but I like how they fit perfectly since you measured me and made them yourself. I really love them."
A textbook, paint-by-numbers answer, but she was simple enough in her own way that she wouldn't pick it apart.
Sure enough, color bloomed across her face like a dog scampering over the second you pop open a can of treats.
"R-really?"
"Of course."
I felt my shoulders swell a little. Maybe I was actually a man who understood women's hearts pretty damn well. Then again, get beaten up by those bitches day in and day out and anyone would grow a sixth sense.
The Demon King stretched out a pale hand, just like she had at dinner.
"..."
"..."
"...Ah."
I placed her king — the one I'd captured a moment ago — into her palm.
Winning didn't change the fact that the king was a player's pride. Sitting there fidgeting with it in your hand was a breach of respect toward your opponent.
The Demon King took the king in her outstretched hand. She pursed her lips, then unpursed them, as if something were stuck in her throat. Eventually she started chewing on a fingernail, lost in thought.
No doubt about it.
There was something. She definitely wanted something from me.
I don't know what it is, but... I'm not asking.
Say a friend is sitting there sighing, face full of worry, and you ask out of courtesy what's wrong, and they come back with, I don't have enough for my dog's surgery. Know anyone who could lend me some money? If they know you've got money on you, a moral obligation to lend it follows whether you like it or not. All the hang in there platitudes become hollow hypocrisy, and in practice you become a cold-blooded bastard who left a dying animal to rot.
In other words, as long as I didn't know her exact needs, playing dumb was the correct move.
Ignore it. Ignore.
I handed over the rest of her fallen chess pieces, and instead of setting up another game she fetched the bag and swept every piece into it.
"Huh? We're stopping?"
"...Let's go play Bubble Bobble."
...Doing whatever she wants, as usual.
Looking like she had a lot on her mind, she tucked the folded chessboard under her arm and walked out of the room.
Boing, boing, boing.
Uh... uh..?
They say traffic accidents happen more often to seasoned drivers than to white-knuckled beginners. I'd gotten reasonably comfortable with Bubble Bobble, my focus had slackened — and I went and caused a disaster.
CRUNCH.
The Demon King's pink dinosaur was flattened into a pancake by an enemy my character had shoved into it. A moment later the pink dinosaur let out a pitiful shriek and went flying off the far side of the screen.
Eek!
I was fucked.
I was so fucked.
The bonus map had been coming up next...
One of the things the Demon King loved most in the world was the Golden Candies in Bubble Bobble.
A high-score item that played a delightful little chime when you ate it. She had never, not once, yielded a Golden Candy to me. If I so much as glanced at one, she'd bounce over on the spot, snatch it up, gobble it down, and beam. She'd even bounce in her seat next to me, that's how happy it made her.
And now... thanks to my trolling, she'd done all the grunt work, and my green dinosaur was about to hog every last Golden Candy. Talk about cooking the porridge and feeding it to a dog.
"I-I'm sorry! Fuck! I'm so fucking sorry! Just spare my life!"
Sweat poured off my hands until the gamepad went slippery. I clapped my palms together and apologized at the speed of light. I was already prepared to strip naked and press my forehead to the floor if that's what she wanted.
"...You."
The Demon King, eyes bloodshot, opened the mouth she'd been holding shut. I was fairly certain those teeth were about to chew me into paste.
I swallowed.
"...Yeah..."
"Those clothes. They look good on you."
My soul left my body.
"....... Thanks. Uh. I'll figure something out about the Golden Candies."
"...Mm."
As if she'd given up on something, the Demon King let out a long sigh and turned her eyes back to the screen. Her revived pink dinosaur started over from zero points.
What on earth.
Why is she acting like this?
The Demon King was nothing like her usual self. Maybe she was dying. Honestly, if that were the case, it would have been incredible news.
I can't even focus on the game...
If I kept going like this I was going to pull another idiot move and sink her character again. I needed a breather. In the gentlest, least irritating voice I could manage, I floated the question.
"Mind if I go grab some water?"
Asking a favor right after committing a felony of trolling — I figured she'd shut it down.
"...Mm."
She let me go, surprisingly without a fuss.
Shit... I genuinely have no idea what's going on.
I didn't head back. I stood at the table for a long while, turning it over in my head.
Should I just ask if she needs something?
No. Why would I walk into the lion's den of my own free will. I didn't know what she needed, but the fact that she wasn't saying it to my face the way she usually did meant it wouldn't be something I could hand over easily. Best to keep my mouth shut until her attention wandered somewhere else.
I'm so done...
These days I walked on eggshells twenty times harder than I ever had as a private. This wasn't living. This was whatever the fuck the opposite of living was.
...I should go back. If I took any longer she might actually snap.
Thud.
As I stood up, my elbow caught the pamphlets the Demon King had been reading, and they went fluttering to the floor.
The iron rule was that I didn't touch her things, so I reached to put them back before anyone could see.
...What's this. ...Gift Exchange with Someone Close?
My eyes caught on the contents of a battered pamphlet that looked like a children's book.
Giving and receiving gifts brings people closer together, and fills both hearts with warmth.
When someone gives you a present, it is good manners to give one in return.
Things you must never do:
Do not openly demand something in return for a gift you have given. A true present is given from the heart, without asking for payment.
...!
I finally understood why she'd spent the entire day bringing up the hoodie she'd given me.
It was actually because of this?
And yet, looking at the Demon King's strangely innocent track record, it also made a painful amount of sense. The gift she'd given hadn't been answered with one in return. That was why she'd been in a mood.
This godforsaken scrap of a magazine had been pumping kids who hadn't even formed a worldview yet full of the cozy idea that if you give a present, a present comes back...
Knowing the cause didn't make me happy so much as it made the world go dark in front of my eyes. I was a max-level beggar from the beggar-town underground dungeon. The odds that I had a gift lying around for her were approximately zero.
I'm going to lose my mind. I have to give her something, though.
If I tried to skate past this, there was no telling what petty revenge plot she'd start cooking. Fuck... for a Demon King, she sure wanted a lot of little things.
I wrung my brain out with the desperation of a penniless father who couldn't afford his daughter's birthday, but nothing came easily.
...Forget it. I'll just do this my way.
The Demon King was tracking the pink dinosaur across the screen with the vacant eyes of a dead fish. She didn't even glance over when I opened the door.
...Looks like her soul left her body.
The reason she hadn't torn into me was probably because the pamphlet said not to openly demand something in return for a gift. The idea that a girl who could twist an allosaurus's head off with one hand would actually listen to that was nonsense. Where was the part that said you shouldn't imprison people against their will.
"...Here. Take this."
Her empty eyes drifted to my fingertips.
"...Hm? ...... What is it?"
"A present."
At the word present, those hollow eyes blew wide open.
"This is... a paper crane... and it's got an alchemy spell on it that turns it into an insanely fun game pack in one year. It's a present. Just don't tear it or set it on fire, or it won't work."
Obviously a load of crap. A normal person wouldn't even snort at a lie that stupid, but I didn't have a choice. All I owned was paper and a set of teeth that were good at lying.
"W-what kind of game?"
Color rushed back into her pale face at high speed. A bite. Just as expected.
"I don't know either. We'll find out when the time comes."
A present calibrated for just the right amount of anticipation, a dash of randomness, and her particular love of games. If she swallowed the story, she could just take it and we could move on.
"Thank youuu!!"
Watching her bounce up and down, I knew the lie had landed. She accepted the Paper Crane with exquisite care, terrified it might tear, and held it up in both hands like a sacred offering. What a gullible girl.
"I'll take really good care of this until a year from now. I promise."
"...Yeah. Maybe put it in a box or some—"
"Protection of Demeter, Gaia's Touch, Titan's Head, Pitch-Black Veil..."
Protection of Demeter — preservation of all living and crafted things
Gaia's Touch — the earth's own hand, unbreaking
Titan's Head — a giant's aegis against all harm
Pitch-Black Veil — a shroud no flame or blade may pierce
A low hum, then another, then another. Every time she spoke a name, disaster-grade buffs of every color sank into the Paper Crane.
...She was preserving it with a vengeance.
Apparently she intended to turn the Paper Crane into a phoenix.
...Anyway. It had worked out. That was enough.
One year later?
No magic that turned a paper crane into anything was going to happen.
It didn't matter.
There was no way I'd still be stuck here by then.
And if I was still a prisoner a year from now, I'd just make a parachute out of a tablecloth and jump.
"Let's definitely play that game together in a year!"
Definitely. Let's jump.