Chapter Text
Chapter 2 : first day
Minato Aqua arrived at the mansion twenty seven minutes early, before the sun even peeked completely above the horizon in a trickle of lavender sky carrying the fresh morning dew.
She then proceeded to pace around the courtyard for fifteen minutes, occasionally kicking the gravel, until Towa made the decision to take pity on her.
Behind the devil, Suisei stirred with a groan, throwing the blankets over her face to avoid the ray of sun piercing through the opening in the curtain where Towa observed the maid through the window. The singer went still only a few seconds later, breathing calming into a regular rhythm.
Towa rolled her eyes, heading for the exit. She had given up on trying to awake her master at a decent hour years ago.
The maid startled abruptly with the opening of the main doors, almost tripping on her own feet where she stood and it took Towa immense self control to not appear in her shadow and catch her. The only human she was used to spending time around was Suisei and she was contract bound to protect her life. She would need time to adjust to a new presence.
Feet firmly planted atop the pavilion, the devil hence merely watched Aqua flail, catching herself in extremis and then jogging to the foot of the stairs. Keeping emotions out of her face, Towa gave the woman a singular, professional nod. Aqua waved back with a small smile before dropping her gaze to the floor.
“Miss M— Aqua, welcome. As mentioned in the voicemail I left you, you are now to start your employment at the manor for a trial period of three months. Do you still have no questions?”
Wordlessly, Aqua merely shook her head.
Giving up on trying to get a conversation out of the maid, Towa motioned her to follow inside. She gave Aqua a tour of the manor, pointing at various rooms in different states of disuse, keeping a watchful eye over the maid’s every reaction. If further background research on the woman came out clear and pristine, Towa would still not let her guard down. Not with her master’s life on the line.
But Aqua simply followed the devil, silent, always three feet behind and never showed any sign of interest bar insignificant nods and hums.
When they reached the west wing, a sharp tension invaded Towa’s body. The hallway, plunged in half-darkness by old blinds not covering the windows entirely, stretched into an intentional obscurity that sent a pang of pleasant familiarity through Towa’s system.
After acquiring the mansion, Suisei had decided to nest in that particular wing and insisted on removing most sources of light, despite Towa’s protest that she was not a spider and did not require a cocoon of darkness to feel at ease. Suisei ignored her and went on with her whims.
Towa threw a glance over her shoulder, assessing Aqua’s expression. Hidden behind her hair, the woman’s face was hard to catch, and she merely continued following without a word of surprise or protest.
Stopping abruptly in her steps, the devil whipped around so fast Aqua almost ran into her.
“This is Sui— Miss Hoshimachi’s room. You will only be required to come in to deposit her clean clothes. If she’s asleep when you arrive, which is more than likely… Just put them on the floor, I guess.”
With a sigh, Towa passed her hand on her face. A slow realization was starting to creep up on her, beyond the danger of having a stranger in the house, beyond the potential threat to her master’s life, and their carefully crafted, bloody domestic routine.
A person, other than her, not bound by a hellish contract of the souls, would have to accommodate Suisei's antics, and she was scarcely prepared to be the catalyst of it.
Maybe this ordeal was a terrible idea….
She considered the maid for an instant, her profile carved out of the darkness by a ray of light piercing through a cracked blind behind her. From her slouched posture, shoulders bending around her like a weary cat, to her pastel eyes ever covered by her fringe, everything about her screamed unassuming. And yet, something about her made Towa tick. Something in the back of her mind, lingering like a half forgotten thought, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
“The rest of the wing is off limits.” she continued, with an intentional hardness in her tone.
Aqua’s eyes snapped to her for the split for a second before she averted her gaze, giving a firm nod of understanding.
An intrusive thought flashed in Towa’s mind. Aqua, finding Suisei’s murder room, finding her axe, wooden handle stained by all the crimson red weighting on her master’s soul, finding instruments that have been used to dismember the people now decomposing in the backyard to feed the garden’s flowers.
And then the thought of having to use them on Aqua, to keep her silent.
Towa had had to dispose of many humans throughout her partnership with Suisei. She had never particularly cared for their lives, some were simply more repulsive beings than others. Nevertheless, the image of the light leaving a soft fuschia sky was a displeasing one.
She hoped, feeling like a fool, that Aqua would never cross the boundaries.
She cleared her throat and her mind, glancing at Suisei’s closed door.
“Well then, let’s get you started.”
Towa left the new maid with the simple task of vacuuming the parlor and cleaning the shelves. The room, extending into a smaller secondary alcove where an old pool table gathered dust, was large enough that the butler estimated she had enough time to get started on cooking lunch.
As she left, barely acknowledged by the maid who kept her head down, it took Towa a moment to identify the tension stirring at her muscle and in her stomach. Akin to when her master was out of sight, she was nervous , she realized. It took her even longer to try and recall if she had ever felt like that before she made her contract with Suisei.
With a twirl on herself, Towa threw a pinch of spice in the boiling water where thin fumes of aromas tickled her nose pleasantly. If it had taken her a long time to adjust her palate to human food that still tasted most days like dry ash, the scents had always been a small joy for her. She leaned over the pot where the broth of vegetables and marinated meat was softly simmering, humming to herself as she glanced at the clock.
Half past one. Suisei should be awake by now.
Then suddenly, an uncomfortable, writhing sensation in the back of her neck. Like she had missed something, or forgotten about something important. She scanned the ingredients on the counter, making a mental note of everything she had used. She didn’t forget the seasoning, the meat, nor the noodles slowly cooking amidst a ridiculous small amount of vegetables she would have to defend against Suisei’s childish disdain. And also the new maid who—
Aqua!
With a flash of panic, Towa dropped the ladle into the pot, causing a scorching hot spray of broth to splash against her pristine black shirt, sleeves rolled up at the elbows.
She had forgotten to check on the maid.
Heart racing, she sprinted out of the kitchen faster than humanly possible, rushing to the drawing room’s door. She stopped right before the heavy oak panels, calming her breath to give herself the illusion of countenance.
Her facade crumbled in ruins at the spectacle awaiting her.
The vacuum was resting against the couch, on top of a very much unclean carpet, and Towa’s eyes tracked the dust around the entire room to end up in the pool room where Suisei was leaning, holding a clue in her hands, a sight she had not once bear witnessed to in the five years since she was first summoned.
Her master was frowning with concentration, beads of sweat pearling on her forehead that shone with the bright white light of the chandelier above. Deep blue eyes stared at a ball of green painted resin, gauging distance and trajectory until she hit it with the tip of her cue in a sharp move of the elbow. The ball clacked loudly against another before bouncing against the side of the table.
At her side, Aqua clapped her hand softly.
Words escaped Towa before she could think to hold them back.
“What the hell is this?”
Both women looked up in unison. Next to an unfazed Suisei, Aqua straightened up reflexively, gathering her tiny frame into a straight line.
“Towa!” Her master exclaimed, flashing her a bright grin. “We’re playing pool!” Uselessly, she gestured to the table before her like it was all the explanations needed.
“I can see that, yes.” The devil groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. Irritation flared up, red on the skin of her neck like she had just gulped an entire bowl of chili. “First of all, she is supposed to be cleaning—” Towa pointed at Aqua who startled on her feet, looking like an imp caught red handed in mischief. “ — and you are playing wrong.”
Suisei gasped, ignoring the accusatory reproach in the devil’s tone. “I’m hitting the balls with the balls and trying to get them in the hole, I’m pretty sure I’m playing it right. You have a stain on your shirt.”
“You’re supposed to hit the white ball with the cue, not the others.” The retort shot out of Towa as the urge to get the last word overcame the will to admonish her master for interfering with the maid’s work — maid that Suisei had specifically requested. Absentmindedly, she also brushed against the damp stain, as if it would magically disappear.
“Why does it matter, the color of the balls?” Suisei shrugged dismissively, bending over the table once more. She placed the cue between the knuckles of her left hand, tentatively sliding the polished wood on the skin.
Towa clicked her tongue, approaching the room with a frustrated step. “It matters because there are rules. You have to— Not this one!” She yelled as Suisei hit a random numbered ball that collided against black number 8, sending it flying into a corner hole.
Suisei let out a satisfied hum of victory. “What do you mean not this one? It’s a ball, and now it’s in the hole. I’m playing pool!”
It took a strong, hard earned patience, forged by fire at enduring Suisei’s existence, for Towa to not snap and break the cue in her master’s hand. She took a deep breath, biting her tongue.
“Here, your turn, Aqua.”
As Suisei handed her the cue, the maid froze, suddenly under the intent attention of two people. With a trembling hand, she took the cue while looking at Towa with a teary eyed expression that reminded the devil of a wet kitty crying in the rain.
“Suisei, I think Towa is right, I should—”
At the casual use of their names, Towa’s head snapped to Suisei’s so fast she almost felt a muscle being pulled. She raised an inquisitive eyebrow in a silent, furious inquiry.
Suisei, in her characteristic nonchalant attitude, rolled her eyes and placed hand on Aqua’s shoulder. The woman flinched, but did not step away.
“It’s fine. I’ve always hated the formalness. I think we all could stand to relax a little bit.” The jab, aimed unsubtly at Towa, was accompanied with a sarcastic smirk that held a dare.
The only sign that Aqua, still frozen like a stone gargoyle on the roof, was alive were her eyes bouncing back between the two.
Towa stared Suisei down for a whole two seconds before she knew the war was lost already, and continuing fighting it would be a useless battle. The most important survival skill she had acquired at Suisei’s employ was knowing which hill to die on.
Before the devil even reacted, Suisei’s grin widened with a smug pride.
“Let’s just all get along, shall we?” She nudged Aqua’s side and Towa swore the maid was an inch away from dissolving and joining the dust on the floor. “What have you prepared for us today, Chef Towa?”
And with a flash of panic, Towa realized she had forgotten the broth on the stove.
“You’re mad at me.”
The sentence, casually stated between the ruffling of clothes, made Towa scoff ungracefully. The devil adjusted the cuffs on her wrists, blatantly ignoring her master’s childish whining.
“You don’t like having the maid in your hair.” Suisei insisted, staring at Towa from her leaning position against the desk. Not bothering to make herself presentable, Suisei left her shirt hanging open over her naked chest.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve dealt with worse than the help.” Towa contradicted. Something about making Aqua responsible gritted at her nerves. If anything, the problem was Suisei.
“Then why are you sulking like that?” Suisei tilted her head, the mess of her ruffled hair falling free on her shoulder, brushing against the bruises left by Towa’s fangs on her neck.
“I am not—” Towa started, interrupting herself with a sharp intake of breath. “I am not sulking . But I do think you’re being careless for no reason.”
Taking a step forward, her master approached, tying her eyebrow into a concerned knot. “I thought you could use the help.” Towa barked a sarcastic laugh, prompting Suisei to nuance herself with the truth. “Okay fine, I thought we could use some company.”
At that, the devil finally met Suisei’s eyes, celestial blue ever clouded with a guarded veil where honesty was but a shapeless ghost.
“I don’t want us to become complacent.” She eventually continued with a distant look, a storm of hurt brewing inside a galaxy of ire. “It’s been years and we’ve only gotten one of them . And even then… well, you remember.”
A flash of night sky blue eyes, dimming in darkening ocean blue, and a muffled scream coming out of a sinking body in a burst of fading bubbles.
Towa clenched her jaw at the memory, failure burning the back of throat.
“We have a strong lead now, and things are only going to get more dangerous. We need to be ready.”
“And having a maid is going to help us because…?” Towa prompted, unconvinced.
“Because we need to stay sharp and alert. If we can keep going under her nose, then we can get away with anything. She’s a strong alibi in case things go south, and she’ll force us to make no mistakes.” Absentmindedly, Suisei’s hand found the back of her neck, nails grazing the ink of Towa’s mark beneath the skin. Then a coy smile twisted her mouth. “And she’s sort of like a pet, in a stray kitten kind of way.”
The intensity of the moment broke and Towa chuckled involuntarily at the image, unable to deny it. The memory of Aqua’s eyes, staring at her big and wide, crossed her mind, pulling at the corner of her lips.
Still, ever the contrarian, Towa mumbled, “I still think this is a terrible idea.”
“You think all my ideas are terrible.” Suisei countered, placing a hand on the devil’s cheek in an infuriating display of familiarity Towa had no will to protest against. “Add it to the pile. And speaking of, can you get the car ready? We are going out tonight.”
And with that, Suisei disappeared behind the door frame, open shirt flailing behind her, leaving a confused and frustrated devil to wonder that shenanigans her master would drag her into this time.
Suisei was nervous.
Towa studied her master’s frame carefully, recognizing the tension in the grip she had on the car wheel, jaw locked and eyes focused ahead on the road. If the evident stiffness of her body was not enough, she had been silent the whole ride, and a silent Suisei never bode well.
But it wasn’t an excited nervosity, there was no light of anticipation behind her eyes, or a restless energy permeating from her that night. Suisei was uncharacteristically somber, and Towa could only guess at the reason. Suisei had not bothered telling where they were going, and Towa knew better than to try and get a straight answer from her master.
Her confusion grew when Suisei pulled up in front of a restaurant. Not particularly big nor fancy, a modest terrace welcomed a few customers chatting idly. Catching a glimpse of the room inside through the front’s window, it looked like a mere small, cozy restaurant, a stark contrast with the Michelin starred kitchens Suisei had the habit of frequenting.
Keeping her senses in sharp alert, Towa scanned the few patrons, trying to discern if maybe there was some side business or backroom dealings attached to this place. It’s only when, following Suisei’s steps, Towa crossed the threshold that she caught the name of the restaurant.
Realization crashed on her like the plate of glasses the waitress dropped when she saw Suisei.
Shiraken’s Potato.
The waitress, frozen in place, made no move to help Suisei when the woman bent down to gather the broken glass with her bare hands.
Instead, Miko scowled and groaned with hostility.
“What the hell are you doing here, Suisei?”
The latter raised her hands in the universal motion of ‘I come in peace’ that was ignored by the feisty waitress who pointed at her with an accusatory finger.
“Flare told you to get lost and never come back.”
“It was years ago, surely there’s prescription.” Suisei tried with a soothing tone, met by Miko crossing her arms aggressively.
“Hey, is everything oka— oh, shit.”
Polka appeared behind the bar, eyes widening with panic at the sight. Reflexively, she took a step back, calling behind her. “Erm, boss. We may have a problem.”
And in the span of the two minutes Suisei had stepped foot in the restaurant, she was surrounded by four pairs of angry eyes, staring daggers at her.
Towa sighed, suddenly flooded with waves of memories, not all pleasant.
Noel placed a gentle hand on Miko’s shoulder, attempting to calm the aura of flame surrounding the small waitress. Behind her, Flare took a careful step forward, a warning in her tone.
“Suisei, you should not have come here.”
For the first time in a while, Towa watched Suisei’s walls bristle, an echo of the girl she once was. The woman swallowed hard, casting her eyes down, her usual expression of confident smugness giving way to something more somber, tinted in guilt.
“Look, I know that last time went a bit sour.” Miko cleared her throat loudly. “Okay, it was a shit show and… I fucked up. I fucked up bad, and I know it.” The admission left Suisei grimacing as if the words clawed at her throat. “But this time—”
“You have got to be kidding me.” Flare interrupted, exhaustion clashing against Miko’s cry of indignation.
“Wait, hear me out.” Suisei tried to protest before getting interrupted.
“ This time ? Oh so you got another fucked up island where we can all almost die again, for reason you didn’t even bother to tell us, at the hands of— of…” Miko's words died, strangled on her tongue. “Of whatever that… thing was.”
And in a slow, agonizing unison, all angered faces turned to Towa, eyeing her in a guarded terror. The devil shifted awkwardly on her feet, mouth screwed shut as she glared at Suisei in return.
“I’m sorry.” Suisei exhaled, shoulder slacking. “I truly, truly am sorry for what happened. I was not prepared, I was naive and foolish. And I am so grateful for the help you provided me, genuinely. But I still need your help.”
A moment of silence fell heavy like a wingless angel, rotten and decaying.
Suisei shook her head, chasing a memory behind her eyes before straightening her back, regaining her regal composure.
“This time, it will be different.” She insisted, giving a pointed, if somewhat pleading look at Miko. “This time, it’s just—”
“No, Suisei.” There was no aggression behind Flare's whispered tone, but Suisei flinched like she took a knife to the gut. “And I am sorry too. Whatever you’ve been through, whatever reason you’re doing whatever you’re doing… whoever, whatever she is—” Towa held Flare’s gaze before it returned to Suisei. “ — this is too much for us. I do wish you the best, for what it’s worth.”
There was a finality that rang in the woman’s voice, tolling the gavel of a judge which defused the charged tension in the air.
Miko deflated, exhaling her anger in a tired sigh and shot a pitiful look at Suisei, opening her mouth to say something before deciding against and turning her heels, soon followed by Noel. Polka dropped her gaze, mindlessly grabbed a glass and started wiping it with a cloth. Flare stood still for a moment, gauging Suisei’s reaction that did not come.
The singer nodded, jaw clenched and stepped on the broken glass on the floor as she exited.
Feeling like a ragdoll strung along, Towa shot an apologetic look at the group before following suit.
As Suisei opened her car, the sound of a door opening was followed by hurried footsteps until Polka rushed at their side, breathless, pupils spinning widely in her amethyst irises.
“Suisei, wait. I’ll do it. I’ll help you.”