Night had already swallowed Tokyo whole by the time the door finally unlocked.

  The sound alone made all three of us straighten instinctively—chains clinking, furniture protesting softly. The apartment lights flickered on, revealing Mira standing there in her work clothes, shoulders slumped, tie loosened, eyes half-dead in the way only exhausted adults could master.

  She didn’t greet us.

  She didn’t sigh dramatically either.

  She just… walked in, kicked her shoes off with surgical precision, and stood there for a solid three seconds, staring at nothing.

  “She’s scary,” Charmie whispered.

  “She’s tired,” Grando corrected quietly. “That is a different kind of danger.”

  I swallowed.

  Mira finally moved, dropping her bag to the floor and rubbing her temples like she was trying to physically squeeze her soul back into her skull—then she marched into the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and shot us an annoyed gre for reasons known only to her exhausted mind.

  Grando gasped. “S-She grabbed a knife!”

  Charmie immediately fake-cried. “Please let us live!”

  I csped my hands dramatically. “I’m too young to die!”

  “I’m teaching you cooking,” she said ftly.

  “…Oh,” we replied in unison.

  There was no enthusiasm. No threat. No expnation. Just a statement—like a court sentence.

  By 'teaching,' I quickly realized, Mira meant existing in the kitchen while expining things in a monotone voice.

  She stood at the counter.

  We were still cuffed—to separate pieces of furniture—watching from the living room like prisoners observing a documentary.

  “This is onion,” Mira said, chopping aggressively. “You cut it. It makes humans cry.”

  Charmie gasped. “A vegetable that attacks the eyes?!”

  I nodded solemnly. “I respect this onion.”

  Grando leaned forward. “Miss Mira… could you move slightly to the left? Your body is blocking the important part.”

  Charmie immediately snapped, “No, you move, Grando! Your horn is blocking my line of sight!”

  “I cannot move,” Grando replied calmly. “I am physically restrained.”

  Mira didn’t react.

  She just kept chopping.

  “This is carrot. Hard. Orange. Good for human eyes,” she continued.

  Charmie raised her hand enthusiastically. “Is it reted to the eye-attacking onion?”

  I sighed, resting my chin against my hand. “She’s expining vegetables like she’s reading patch notes.”

  Mira shot me a look sharp enough to slice steel.

  I smiled innocently.

  ---

  Eventually, without ceremony, Mira pced ptes in front of us. “Curry rice,” she said, dropping them like evidence.

  Charmie’s eyes sparkled. “Something that’s not rice pretending to be rice!” she cried.

  I examined it cautiously. “Curry…?”

  Charmie poked the sauce with her spoon, squinting suspiciously. “I don’t like this… it looks like dirt, and I feel personally offended by it.”

  Grando inhaled deeply. “It smells… powerful.”

  Charmie scooped a massive spoonful and shoved it into her mouth.

  She froze.

  Her eyes widened.

  “HOT BUT NOT HOT BUT ALSO SWEET BUT ALSO ANGRY...!” She smmed her hands on the floor dramatically. “THIS FOOD IS CONFUSED!”

  Grando tasted hers carefully. “It is spicy. But not hostile.”

  I tried mine.

  My world expanded.

  [Announcement: The Demon Lord has successfully consumed a Human Cultural Dish: Curry Rice.]

  “This is... dangerous,” I muttered. “Why does it make me want more?”

  “That’s called seasoning,” Mira said coldly.

  Charmie pointed at the pte. “Was it a spell?”

  Mira stared at her.

  Charmie squeak.

  ---

  Charmie and Grando colpsed almost immediately after eating, knocked out like demons powered down by carbohydrates.

  The room fell quiet.

  Mira turned away, heading toward her room, but stopped and crouched in front of me.

  “Let’s make a deal.” Her voice was low. Tired. Not angry—just worn thin.

  “Huh? What kind of deal?” I asked.

  She exhaled slowly. “I can’t keep you here forever.”

  I nodded, "I agree."

  “I’ll give you two weeks,” she continued. “I’ll teach you what you need... How humans do basic living. After that… you go back.”

  “Okay... But how do we return?” I asked.

  “I already contacted someone,” Mira said.

  “Who?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Not telling my enemy.”

  “Well, then… thanks, I guess?” I said with a small smile.

  “Deal,” she replied, extending her hand toward me without hesitation.

  I gnced down at my wrist, then at the sofa leg it was still cruelly attached to.

  “I’d love to shake hands, really—but as you can see, I’m currently in a committed retionship with this furniture. You might want to release me first.” I grinned shamelessly.

  Mira stared at me for a long second, then calmly pulled her hand back. “Forget it.”

  [Announcement: The Demon Lord has once again failed to maintain dignity while bound to Human Furniture.]

  I shrieked internally.

  She turned away and stood up, leaving me cuffed, rejected, and sad...

  “Mira...” I called softly.

  She stopped.

  I hesitated, but the thought refused to die.

  “I always believed the portal between our realms simply existed,” I said slowly. “But now I learn it wasn’t natural at all—it was created by a human. That lines up a little too well with the piles of human trash scattered in Zone Three.”

  Mira stiffened.

  “Also Grando and Charmie told me something else,” I continued, watching her carefully. “They... Demons... Never cross into the Human Realm. They can't open portals. Ever.”

  I paused, my gaze locking onto hers. “So if a war broke out between demons and humans… then wouldn’t that mean humans were the ones who came and—”

  I never finished the sentence.

  Her hand shot out and cmped around my throat. “Shut up,” Mira hissed.

  Her eyes burned with fury, sharp enough to raise goosebumps across my skin. “It was demons who attacked us.”

  “I—” I gasped, cwing uselessly at her wrist, my vision starting to blur. I genuinely thought this was it—that I, the Demon Lord, was about to die on a human sofa like an idiot.

  “Achooo!”

  The sneeze erupted violently, catastrophically, and with perfect comedic timing. Something warm and humiliating unched straight from my nose onto her face.

  Mira froze.

  Slowly, she released her grip. Her eyes widened.

  “GYAAAAH!”

  She staggered back like she’d been struck by divine punishment, screaming as if I’d just committed an unforgivable war crime.

  I coughed, wheezing, utterly shocked.

  “I-I’m sorry…” was all I could manage, somewhere between shame and the faint realization that karma had an excellent sense of humor.

  She stared at me with pure horror and disgust, like I was no longer a Demon Lord, but a biological weapon. She fled to the bathroom at once, spshing water on her face with far more violence than necessary.

  I leaned back against the sofa, breathing again, and—if I were being honest—felt a small, shameful spark of victory. For a Demon Lord, a well-timed sneeze was apparently still a valid counterattack.

  When she returned, her hair was slightly damp and her expression looked like it wanted to erase me from existence.

  “You’re evil,” she snapped, pointing at me like I’d committed a war crime. “You timed that, didn’t you?”

  “Huh? No! How could I?” I protested, genuinely offended.

  “Don’t lie, demon!” she barked back.

  I tilted my head. “Did you time when I was allowed to breathe just now?”

  That stopped her. Her mouth opened, then closed. For once, she had no comeback.

  With a sharp click of her tongue, she turned away, clearly done with the conversation—and with us. She marched toward her room without sparing a gnce, exhaustion dragging at her shoulders.

  Just before the door shut, I raised my voice. “Don’t forget our deal! You better not be lying!”

  There was a pause. Then a tired sigh slipped through the narrowing gap before the door closed completely.