The New Book
The truth was, ever since Omniscient Donkey Perspective, the Demon King had been applying a quiet, relentless sort of deadline pressure.
"Wanna play word chain?"
"Sure. You go first."
"Fortune!"
"Exercise."
"Fairy tale!"
"I've pretty much finished writing it. Can you wait a little longer?"
"Ah, yeah yeah! Take your time. Even if it's been a week past the day you promised, it's fine!"
"It's really fine, right?"
"Of course. Wanna play word chain again?"
"Okay. You first."
"Storybook."
I had nothing to say to that.
Not that the nagging was her fault. Not even a little. On the day Nephilim came to the Demon King's Castle and burned every last one of her fairy tale books, I was the one who'd put on that whole serious, cool-guy act and declared, I'll write them for you again. From now on, forever. If anyone was guilty, it was me — the guy who'd blown past the deadline by a mile.
Anyway, the new work was finally done. I held out I Became a Demon King Obsessed Over by a Donkey to the Demon King. Her face was a fifty-fifty split of flushed excitement and dread.
"Thanks! …But… I-I'm a little nervous."
The terror of the previous book still hadn't left her. The Demon King's fingertips trembled faintly as she took the fairy tale in her hands.
"U-uuh."
Half thrilled, half terrified, she opened the cover — and began slowly carving the printed words into those ruby-red eyes.
Last time, when she'd read Omniscient Donkey Perspective, she had said:
"This is bad! This isn't even a book! I'm sorry, trees!"
I hoped, very sincerely, that I wouldn't get the same reaction this time.
And yet her expression was not looking good. A bead of cold sweat rolled down the curve of her soft cheek. When she'd first started the opening page, her whole body had been wound tight with fighting spirit — but now the flame of life in the Demon King's eyes seemed to be going out.
In the end, with a dead gaze like clumps of grass on drought-scorched earth, she skimmed through the letters, and then—
Thump. She closed the cover.
Squeeze. She came over to me, wrapped her arms around my back, and hugged me tight. She patted me weakly — tap, tap — then lifted her face.
"…What? What's with that look, like you're staring at some poor dying animal?"
"It's okay. It's okay."
The Demon King stroked my back as if she understood everything.
"No, just tell me. What's wrong with it?"
"…It's nothing. I read the book really well. Thank you…"
Her expression was exactly like a mother whose son, after years of failing the college entrance exam, finally announces he's giving up on the whole thing — smiling a lonely little smile as she tells him that's all right, dear.
"If something's weird, just say it."
"It's okay. It's okay. Just stay healthy like you are now."
"Why!? What's the problem?"
"Uuum. Never mind. Never mind. I'm sorry. I guess I was being too greedy. I don't need fairy tale books or anything. I just need you."
"Give it here."
I'd rather she trash-talked the book like last time. This felt like she'd given up on a piece of me.
I snatched the fairy tale she'd left closed on the table and flipped it open in a hurry.
"Hey. Demon King."
"Yeah?"
"You're pretty."
"So?"
"Live with me."
…
What was wrong with this?
"Which part's bad?"
"No, no, it's fine. You're good at so, so many other things, right? Let's do something else. I don't have to read books for the rest of my life. And the one you wrote now is fun too. Please just stop writing."
She asked me to stop writing — as a favor.
Was I just making grand promises and tormenting her? The thought crept in that maybe, when it came to telling stories, I was a bit of a dunce compared to other people.
Still. I couldn't throw away a promise I'd made to her. And pulling out of a field you'd only just stepped into, without any real effort, just because the first results weren't great — that didn't look cool at all.
One more try.
"Oh, since I finished the fairy tale book today! Yeah! This is the last volume, so let's throw a party to celebrate! I'll make jerky kimchi stew…"
"Just one more."
"…Huh?"
"I'll try writing just one more volume."
At my bombshell declaration, the Demon King's face went deathly pale.
"No. No. No. You don't have to. Really."
"It's fine. I'm not struggling. I promised you…"
"Nnnngh… A-actually, I'm the one struggling…! Are you trying to kill me!? You've done enough already! Stop!"
Unable to hold it in, the Demon King spilled what she actually felt and refused with everything she had. Watching her shake her head in terror, I saw my childhood self overlapping with her — throwing a tantrum because I didn't want to go to the dentist.
"Just until sunset."
"Huh…?"
"Give me until sunset. I'll have it written by then."
"…U-uuh. But…"
"You trust me, right?"
"…Yeah."
This was the one question she always said yes to. She believed in me.
"While you wait, you can reread Donkey King or whatever."
"I-I don't wanna."
A few hours passed after that bold declaration.
Inspiration refused to come, no matter what I did.
James, you bastard…
To think he'd actually satisfied the Demon King's picky needs — the man was a legendary literary giant, a god-tier author. I regretted ever calling him a plagiarist. I'd clearly misjudged him.
The closer the promised hour drew, the more a wicked little thought kept bubbling up.
What if I just… plagiarized too?
It wasn't as if I didn't know plenty of fairy tales myself. Hansel and Gretel. The Ugly Duckling. Swan Lake. The Nutcracker. The Sun and the Moon. Sinbad. Kongjwi and Patjwi. The Fox and the Crane. And on and on.
If I just shut my eyes and mashed a few of those together… I could make her happy, the same way James had.
When I'd told her I would write her fairy tale books, she had brushed the ashes of the burned ones from her hands and said to me:
"What's a word that's way better than 'like'?"
"Then I like you."
Right. Even if I took a shortcut.
Scratch, scratch. The pen that had been sitting idle for so long began to dance across the paper.
I frantically cast a spell on the version of myself that was lying once again.
This isn't a lie. And it isn't plagiarism either. It's just… for her, who would go on living lonely in this tower for the rest of her life, handing over a little of what people on the outside had made.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Uhohoho! This is so much fun! I knew my friend was the best!
The moment I pictured her smiling face, the corners of my mouth lifted on their own. As if the pen had been oiled, it only picked up more speed. Had I ever failed to make her laugh when I really set my mind to it? This time would be a huge success too. Definitely.
Yeah. This was a lie. I knew that perfectly well.
But — but you see. It's not like she'd ever go to Earth and look up the originals anyway.
Scratch…
The pen stopped. In that instant I pressed down too hard, and a blob of ink splattered out.
Riiip. I yanked the pages I'd been writing from the stack. Riiip, riiip. I tore them so the Demon King would never see — fine, to shreds, so not a single letter could be pieced back to another.
I opened the window and scattered every last scrap of the plagiarized work I'd been writing. This was the second time I'd thrown paper out the window…
No. Back then I threw two paper airplanes.
Then this was the third.
I'd wasted precious paper.
Haa.
I trudged back to the desk and slumped over it. If I'd given her what I'd just written, the Demon King would have been happy for a little while. She'd have bounced around the castle in delight, then let me hug her.
But somehow, showing her that felt like admitting she could never come to Earth with me, and I recoiled from it.
Not that I could deny it, either. But maybe a miracle would happen. If — just if — I really went to Earth together with the Demon King… I wanted her to see those masterpiece fairy tales with her own eyes, then.
If we go back.
Yeah. I'd take the Demon King's hand and go to the library. The most books she'd ever owned at once was five, so her eyes would go round and she'd dart all over the place with zero library manners — I'd definitely have to warn her in advance.
The moment I started imagining a library trip with the Demon King, hilarious scenes flooded in. Telling that greedy girl to go borrow some books, only for her to hoist an entire bookshelf and bring the whole thing back. Wrangling with the librarian over getting a library card. And once she got the card, she might treasure it so much she'd wear it around her neck like the Paper Crane.
And just like that, even though time was running out, I found myself lost in the daydream for a long while.
Oops.
Now I really had no time. If I didn't hurry, I'd disappoint her—
Huh?
Suddenly the idea struck me. What if I wrote down the daydream I'd just had? Even just imagining it for a moment had been this much fun.
This is it.
The reason adventure stories like Peter Pan or Sinbad move our hearts is that we can find, inside them, an extraordinary world far from everyday life. Then, conversely — couldn't I give the Demon King, who had no ordinary life of her own, the feeling of receiving an ordinary Earthling's everyday as a gift?
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Once I'd thought that far, the pen started moving again. The guilty feeling from writing the plagiarized pages earlier was gone without a trace. It actually felt like I was at the library with her.
And then, suddenly, I realized that I — the one doing the writing — was smiling with genuine joy.
"How is it?"
The Demon King didn't take her eyes off the book. She read it all the way through.
Whew. I'm kind of nervous.
Maybe it was still boring on a cosmic scale, and she was just putting on a clumsy act because I'd said this was the last book.
If she says this one's no good too, I'll really quit.
Yeah. Nobody's perfect. Even if you're good at everything, there's always one or two things you can't do…
She shouted all of a sudden. She hadn't even read half the fairy tale yet.
"I love it! I love it! I love it so much! It's as fun as a six-second gale!!"
She said it with tears welling at the corners of her eyes. She'd probably been tense, bracing herself to suffer through another terrifying story. Now, far from that, she looked ready to get sucked right into the book at any second.
"W-what's all this!? A library? A library card? Loan periods? It really feels like I'm in the library with you!"
Whoa. I finally did it. After two failures — my first real success. The bar for success was beautifully simple. If she smiled this brightly, that was enough.
Her eyes sparkling, she asked:
"H-hey, is this me?"
"Huh?"
"This girl here, the one trying to get a library card — is that me?"
"…No?"
Hmm. I didn't know why, but I was mortified. The fact that I'd written it thinking of her… cut me some slack for a lie this small.
"…O-oh, really? Well… I guess I don't smile that dumbly…"
No. That part is the most you thing ever.
She looked just a tiny bit disappointed, but quickly shook it off and focused on the fairy tale again. Holding Library in both hands, she carried it to the bed and lay on her stomach to read. Her white feet bouncing, she flipped through the pages busily, beaming just like I had while writing it.
"Heeheeheet."
To think she'd love it this much — a clumsily bound paper booklet, written by an amateur. I was even happier. With this, the guilt that had sat on me every time I fell asleep might ease a little. I lay down beside her and asked:
"Which part's so fun?"
"…Huh? What'd you say?"
She was so absorbed she couldn't even hear the person lying right next to her.
"I said, which part's so fun?"
"Hehe. There's a kid in here who looks just like you!"