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“You brought Amaimon.”
Father Fujimoto didn’t look too pleased with whoever was at the door, scowling irritably and only holding it halfway open so that Rin and Yukio couldn’t see. Rin caught a flash of pink.
“He’s not going to cause trouble. I thought he could keep an eye on the little ones while we talk.”
“He acts like a ‘little one’ himself, Pheles.”
An extravagant sigh.
“And anyway, no matter how well he behaves... Was it you who told him it was ok to bring Behemoth?”
“...”
“I’m too old for this.”
“Nonsense. You’re barely forty.”
“And I’ve already got a full grey head of hair. Whose fault was that? He can’t have Behemoth in the house. And I’m not letting you leave Amaimon without supervision. And I’m not letting you leave Behemoth without supervision either.”
“So you want this meeting in the rain.”
“It’s not raining.”
A long, tactful pause from the man at the door. Rin waited. As if the man had planned it, suddenly there came the sound of rain starting up against the overhang and the cold chill of it made its way inside.
“Aniue, I’m getting wet.”
Father Fujimoto opened the door a little wider. “Fine,” he said, “but that thing better behave itself.”
Beside Rin, Yukio gave a gasp of surprise and started tearing up as the two men came through the door. One of them – the first one – was dressed in a strange mix of pink with a top hat and a cloak, and had long, pointed ears and sharp teeth. The other had weird green hair with a spike in it and long black fingernails which he was chewing on. He was holding an empty pet harness.
When they saw Rin and Yukio, the pink man looked mildly amused, his mouth quirking up at the side, but turned back to Father Fujimoto without saying anything.
The green man grinned at them. “Hi,” he said in a sing-song voice. (He had sharp teeth too.)
Yukio hid behind Rin.
“Who are you?” asked Rin, because he had to be brave for the both of them.
“Amaimon,” said the green man. “And this is Behemoth.” He lifted the arm holding the harness a little higher and Yukio started shaking. Yukio was scared of everything, even weird men with pet harnesses.
“Ok, run along now, children,” said the pink man, throwing his hat across the room to where it caught on the knob of a hat-stand and twirled once before settling.
Father Fujimoto sighed. “Rin, Yukio, do as he says.”
Rin scowled. “Why would we want to listen to your boring conversations anyway? Come on, Yukio!” And he grabbed his brother’s arm and dragged him along to the kitchen, ignoring the green man following them carrying the empty pet harness.
They got to the kitchen and Rin span round. “Why are you still carrying that thing?! It’s weird!”
“Ah,” said the green man, surprised. He looked down at the harness. “It’s Behemoth,” he said.
Rin scrunched up his face. “You’re weird.”
The man took a step forward and Yukio was suddenly in front of Rin, arms out, trembling all over. “Don’t come closer!”
“Yukio?”
“Rin, you can’t see it! You can’t see what he’s holding! It’s a monster!”
“What?”
The man, far from looking bewildered, just came further into the kitchen with them and sat down on the floor with a blank expression. “Do you want to pet it?” he asked.
“What?”
“We don’t want to pet a monster! Go away!”
“He likes people petting him.”
“Go away!”
The man pulled a lollipop out of his pocket, unwrapped it, and put it in his mouth.
“Yukio?” asked Rin, looking over Yukio’s shoulder at the still empty harness (he wanted to see the monster, damnit!). “Where’s the monster? Why can’t I see it?”
“Hold out your arm,” said the man.
“What?”
“If I scratch you, you’ll be able to see it, I think. I don’t know where they’re keeping what stops you seeing demons, but, if it works for humans... You’re half human, so maybe it’ll work for you.”
Rin stared. “I’m half human?”
Yukio started crying, grabbing Rin’s arm and backing them both up against the table. “I’ll get Daddy if you come closer!”
“Yep,” said the man. “You want to see him?”
Rin pushed past Yukio. His wimpy brother was not going to stop him seeing a cool monster, no matter how well-intentioned. He held out his arm. “I want to see the monster,” he said.
The man took hold of his arm and dragged a careful fingernail down it, drawing a small bead of blood. It was only belatedly that Rin realized the man had been chewing on that nail earlier! Urgh! But it didn’t matter because, wavering in front of his sight and then solidifying, was the most awesome thing he had ever seen. It was green and red and panting and had huge eyes and too many arms.
“He’s a hobgoblin,” said the man.
Rin held out a hand and carefully patted the thing on the head.
“Ah! Behemoth!” The man grabbed the harness and held the thing still as, like an excited dog, it tried to jump up and lick Rin’s face.
Yukio wandered closer and then flinched back in terror as the monster turned in his direction and started bouncing up and down.
“He likes new people,” said the man. “Mostly he just sees me and Aniue. He gets really bored.” He tickled the thing behind an ear and gave it a small, fond smile around his lollipop.
Rin sat down next to the man and rubbed the thing’s stomach, giggling as it flopped over and kicked its legs. “Is it like a dog?” he asked.
The man shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never had a dog. It’s not like a ghoul dog. My brother’s got lots of ghoul dogs.”
“Can I have a lollipop?” asked Rin.
The man pulled another lollipop out of his pocket and, after a moment, pulled a second out too. He handed them to Rin who threw one at Yukio.
“Thank you,” said Yukio, who had partially hidden under the table.
Rin’s was grape flavored.
“Is my other half demon?” he asked, after thinking it over with the lollipop in his mouth (it was a good lollipop). “Does that mean Yukio’s half demon as well? Will I get special powers?”
“You can control Satan’s blue flames,” said the man, looking unconcerned. “But they’re sealed. Aniue said.”
Rin perked up. “I can make fire? Can Yukio make fire?”
“No,” said the man.
Rin turned. “Sorry, Yukio,” he said. “But anyway, you want to be a doctor, so why would you want to burn people? That would be stupid. I bet you’ve got other cool powers.”
Yukio burst into tears. “I don’t want cool powers!”
Rin sat up, affronted. “What’s wrong with you?” He turned back to the man and the pet monster, stroking the monster’s weird, scaly back; leaning over the man’s knee to do so and putting up with the monster licking his face with its tickly tongue.
“I want to be normal!” wailed Yukio.
“You could be a normal demon!”
“I don’t want to be a normal demon! I want to be a normal human!”
“You can’t be normal and have cool powers!”
“But that sounds scary!”
Rin scratched behind the monster’s ear, like he’d seen the man do, and watched as the monster melted in happiness under his hands. “Do you have any cool powers, Mr Amimo?”
“Amaimon,” said Mr Amaimon.
“Sorry,” said Rin. “Do you have any powers, Mr Amaimon?”
One moment the pot plant in the corner was a dying, brown weed; the next, it sprouted nearly to the ceiling, bursting pink petals everywhere and turning a vibrant green. So did a pot plant next to the microwave. And one Rin hadn’t known was there sitting near the bags of trash about to be taken outside.
“Wow,” said Yukio, coming out from under the table. “Can you do that for all plants?”
“Even dead ones,” said Mr Amaimon. “I can make earthquakes too, and break tree trunks with my hands.”
Both boys stared at him, mouths wide.
“Wow,” said Rin.
Yukio scrambled to his feet, rushing past the man in the doorway and round into the corridor. Thumping feet could be heard going up the stairs.
Well, since Yukio was gone... “Arm wrestle!” shouted Rin. “I’m really strong too and I want to know who’s stronger!”
Mr Amaimon started giggling.
“I am!” said Rin.
Yukio came running back into the room clutching the tiny plant he kept next to his bed.
“Aren’t I, Yukio? Aren’t I strong?”
Yukio ignored him. Held the plant out. “Can you make this plant better?” he asked. “It has blackfly.”
Mr Amaimon took it and brushed some dust off the leaves. The plant stiffened. Suddenly, with a pop, hundreds of tiny dead black insects showered off it. Yukio took the pot from him and made to stroke the leaves but Mr Amaimon stopped him.
“Don’t touch it,” he said. “I made it poisonous.”
“What?” said Yukio in dismay.
“You wanted the insects to die, so I made the sap they were sucking poisonous.”
“But that means I can’t stroke it! Turn it back! Please turn it back!”
“Then the insects will come back.”
“I don’t care. I want to stroke my plant.”
With a sigh, Mr Amaimon poked the plant with one of his fingers so that it went greener then drooped.
Yukio hugged the plant to his chest. “Thanks for making the blackfly go away,” he said, stiffly, and carried it out of the kitchen.
“When I’m a proper demon,” said Rin, “will I get sharp teeth like you?”
“And a tail,” said Mr Amaimon. “And your ears will go pointier.”
Rin’s eyes widened. “Do you have a tail?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it long like a cat, or short like a rabbit?”
“It’s like a lizard tail.”
“Coool!”
“Where do demons come from?” asked Yukio from the doorway, minus plant. He settled himself gingerly next to Behemoth and shyly patted its head. Behemoth rumbled.
“Gehenna,” said Mr Amaimon, giving his lollipop one final crunch and taking the stick out of his mouth. The stick went back in a pocket and another lollipop came out, was unwrapped, and was stuck in place. Rin wished he could eat so many lollipops.
“Where’s Gehenna?”
“It’s near Africa!” said Rin, saying the most far-off place he could think of. He was pretty sure he was right, since he hadn’t come across demons before today, and that meant they lived somewhere far, far away.
“Africa’s in Assiah,” said Mr Amaimon. “That’s not Gehenna. Assiah’s where the humans live. Gehenna’s a mirror of Assiah.”
“So this is Assiah?” asked Yukio.
Mr Amaimon patted him on the head. “That’s right.”
“Ow,” muttered Yukio.
“Mr Amaimon? Mr Amaimon? Do you live in Gehenna?”
“I’m not Mr Amaimon. I’m just Amaimon.”
“Oh, ok. Do you live in Gehenna?”
A nod.
“Is it like Africa?”
“It’s got lots of different bits.”
“But are there some like Africa?”
“Yeah.”
“What about some like Japan?” asked Yukio.
“There are some bits like Japan.”
“Like China?” asked Rin.
“Like Australia?”
“Like America?”
“Like France?”
“Like Russia?”
“Like Vietnam?”
“Like New Zealand?”
“There are bits like lots of different countries,” said Mr Amaimon who was actually just Amaimon and not Mr Amaimon, “but it’s not got as many colors, and the air’s heavier, and people fight more.”
“Fighting’s bad,” said Rin, sagely. He knew this intimately from all the times in his life it had been said to him by various authority figures. In fact, it had been said so many times, he was probably an expert on it by now.
“Why?” asked Mr Amaimon who was actually just Amaimon.
Rin’s arguments crumbled to dust. “Yukio,” he asked, “why’s fighting bad?”
“Because people get hurt,” said Yukio.
“I like fighting,” said Amaimon. “It’s fun.”
“That’s bad!” cried Yukio. Then, realizing he’d shouted at an adult, curled up into his shoulders and stopped petting Behemoth.
“It’s only playing,” said Amaimon. “Behemoth likes it too, don’t you, Behemoth?”
Behemoth rumbled as his belly was scratched.
“See.”
“But Rin fights, and he gets hurt!”
“But that’s when people are mean to you! I’m trying to protect you!”
“But then you get in trouble!”
“But then you don’t get hurt!”
“Demons heal fast,” said Amaimon. “It doesn’t matter if we get hurt unless it’s bad.”
"It matters if Rin gets hurt!” wailed Yukio. “I hate it because I can’t do anything and he goes and fights and fighting’s bad and then everyone yells at him and he’s just trying to protect me and I can’t do anything!” He pitched forward into Amaimon’s side, tucking himself under an arm and sobbing until his glasses fogged up. His nose dripped onto Amaimon’s jacket.
Rin made a face. Then, as the older brother, he manned up and shuffled over to Yukio’s side. “It’s ok, Yukio,” he said. Then he picked the lollipop Yukio hadn’t eaten off the floor of the kitchen, unwrapped it, and shoved it into Yukio’s mouth. “There there.”
Amaimon was looking lost. Rin helped him by tugging his hand down from its position of ‘mid-air-surprise’ to ‘wrapped round crying brother’ and then patted it to show Amaimon that that was where it was meant to be. Yukio, from his new position under Amaimon’s arm, wiped his eyes under smudgy glasses, sniffled, and sucked contentedly on the lollipop. He patted Behemoth on the leg.
Rin, just to be different, climbed up Amaimon’s back and clung on like a baby monkey. “Can you take us to Gehenna?” he asked. Amaimon smelt like orange candy and earthworms. He had really pointy ears too.
“Aniue would say no.”
“Whyeeee?”
A shrug which nearly dislodged Rin.
“Aniue says Father wants to possess you – that means live in your body – and come and burn Assiah to the ground with the blue flames.”
Rin took a minute to process this. In that minute he also had time to finish his lollipop and take the stick to the bin, then come back and climb on Amaimon again.
“Can I have another lollipop?” he asked.
Amaimon gave him another lollipop. (Amaimon was cool.)
“Is your dad mean, then?” asked Rin around the lollipop (strawberry this time).
No answer.
“If your dad’s mean, you can come and live with our dad. He’s not mean except when I fight with Yukio and he tells us off but that’s it. He’s also really cool sometimes and he plays with us lots.”
“I don’t live with Father anymore,” said Amaimon. “I live where I want to. I’m staying with Aniue at the moment.”
Rin was shocked. “You must be really grown up!”
Amaimon giggled.
“Do you go to big school?”
“He’s older than big school,” mumbled Yukio from under an arm.
“Wow!” Amaimon was even cooler than Rin had thought. “Do you even not go to church?” In Rin’s eyes, being able to choose not to go to church was the ultimate privilege of adulthood.
Amaimon’s shoulders shook and he started cackling, laughing helplessly. He fell backwards, nearly squashing Rin and pulling Yukio with him to Yukio’s surprise; Behemoth scrambling out of the fallen-apart leg cocoon as his owner continued to laugh, chest heaving, until tears rolled out of his eyes.
Yukio started giggling. “Demons don’t go to church,” he said, pushing the arm off him and sitting up. Speaking around the lollipop gave him a lisp.
“I’m half demon and I have to go to church.”
“You only go to church half the time anyway, so it makes sense.”
“But you’re half demon, and you go to church all the time!”
Amaimon’s giggles were dying down by this point.
“Well we’ve not got any demon powers.”
“You’ve not got demon powers. I’ve got cool flames.”
“You set the oven on fire yesterday. That’s not cool. That’s just stupid.”
“I meant cool blue flames, Yukio! Don’t you ever listen?”
There was a crash as several cake tins were knocked out of a cupboard by Behemoth, who had made his way over to the other side of the kitchen and had nosed several doors open. Flour was spilled across the floor.
Rin’s eyes widened. “Ah! Bad monster!” He scrambled to his feet in alarm. Daddy would be so mad. He ran over and grabbed the thing around the waist (difficult because it was so big) and started trying to pull it away from the cupboards.
“Amaimon, Amaimon! The monster’s making a mess in the kitchen!” Yukio pulled Amaimon up by the arm and pointed.
Amaimon stood up. He didn’t seem concerned. “Behemoth. Sit.”
Behemoth didn’t seem to realize anything was happening. He was having too much fun making a mess. Oven trays clattered across the floor.
Rin grabbed the monster by its back legs and, with a huge effort, pulled it from the cupboard. The force of it sent them both crashing into the cupboard doors on the other side of the room and sent Behemoth scampering back to Amaimon who picked him up and started petting him again.
Rin sat up, rubbing the back of his head. “I am not tidying that up,” he said, surveying the mess made just from one single cupboard.
“Well I’m not!” Yukio exclaimed, eyes filling with tears. “The monster did it! I told you monsters were bad! Now there’s a big mess and Daddy’s going to blame it on us and make us clear it all up, but it wasn’t us, it was-” his voice wavers “it was the monster!”
Amaimon sat back down again, still holding Behemoth. Rin gravitated over to him (he was still the cool adult, even if his monster had made a mess) and tugged Yukio back into his own lap, pulling Amaimon’s left arm around both of them and leaning into his side again. Amaimon was really warm and smelt nice and, even though leaning in meant Behemoth was panting in their faces, Rin, settled, found he didn’t want to move.
“You’re really comfy,” he said.
Underneath him, Amaimon stiffened and didn’t reply.
“You’re like, a, a big pillow with candy.”
“And a monster,” said Yukio, quietly.
“And you don’t go to church.”
“Pillows don’t go to church,” said Yukio, turning round in his lap and frowning at him.
“Yes they do! They’re on the pews!”
“That’s because people put them there!”
“That means they went to church!”
Yukio huffed. “It doesn’t mean that, does it?” he asked Amaimon. “Rin’s wrong.”
“I’m NOT wrong! You’re wrong, stupid-head!”
“That’s a bad word! Mr Amaimon, Rin said a bad word! That’s a bad word, isn’t it?”
“It’s not that bad,” said Amaimon, who was actually just Amaimon, not Mr Amaimon. “Aniue says there are some that are really bad, like c-”
“Like what?” came a bemused voice from behind them, and Yukio jumped up in excitement.
“Daddy!”
He was picked up by two large arms and set on a hip. “Now- what the fuck happened here?”
Rin looked around at the mess from the cupboard and the giant plants. “Mr Amaimon did it,” he said, snuggling into his dad’s leg. “And Behemoth did the cupboard.”
“Mr Amaimon gave us lollipops,” whispered Yukio. Rin could hear him, but that was ok. Yukio was a baby so he didn’t know things like how loud to whisper.
“…Mr… Amaimon. Gave you. Lollipops.” His dad sounded choked, like he’d swallowed something weird. Dads were weird, sometimes.
“Yeah! And we’re monster demons with special powers! And Mr Amaimon scratched me but it was ok because it was so I could see Behemoth and now I can see Behemoth and Behemoth’s like a dog. I want a dog too! And Mr Amaimon is from Gehenna and he has huge special powers and he fixed Yukio’s plant with all the bugs on it and he doesn’t even go to church and can I not go to church, and pillows go to church, don’t they? Gehenna’s even more further than Africa!”
His dad, for whatever reason, put his head in his free hand and groaned, and the other man in the weird pink hat burst out laughing so hard he doubled over.
Rin moved his lollipop into his other cheek and kept sucking on it. Grown-ups were weird.
“I am never inviting you in again,” said his Dad to the pink man, but the pink man just kept laughing like he couldn’t stop.