A Demon's Fate

Chapter 2: Matchmaker

Slowly, I came to on a soft couch and opened my eyes. "Soomaa..." After being literally kidnapped from the school, I'd finally begun to accept my new home.

It wasn't half bad, I remarked, the furniture was comfy, it was clean, I could get used to this! On the coffee table in front of me was a plate of pancakes and eggs and I dug in immediately. ".....That was my breakfast in case you didn't read the note." He pointed to a hot pink sticky note attached to the plate and sighed.

"Gyuh!! S-Soma! I-I-I didn't-"

"It's fine, I was just waiting until you got up to make breakfast since I didn't know what you wanted." He glanced over at the half eaten plate of food. "Just have the rest..."

I glanced over at a clock hanging on the wall over a fireplace. 4:00 AM?! "Why are we up so early, eh?"

"I may have um... withheld some information from you..." He looked down guiltily at his cooking eggs. "You see, I actually live 3 hours away from the school..."

"You mean you carried me for three hours all the way here?"

"Yeah, I probably should have told you."

"Why don't you move closer or buy a bike or something?"

"Not enough money. I'm getting by with the money from my job, but I can't really afford anything else." Soma looked around the living room. "I've been putting most of my money back into this house actually. It took me a few years to finally get everything fixed, but I did it. Now I can hopefully start saving up for my next project."

"Wait, fixing the house? What happened?"

"A long time ago, I... lost my parents in a fire here. I got out but... most of the house was burned to the ground."

"O-Oh... Sorry, about that..." I found my scarf on the floor in front of the table. "If it makes you feel any better, I lost my parents young as well. Actually... this scarf is all I have left of them. It was my mother's... I think..."

He cleared his throat suddenly, ".....We should hurry up so we make it on time." Soma grabbed his breakfast off the stove and quickly began tearing into it.

When he finished, the two of us shuffled out the door and onto the road. I took a look back at his house, which I was surprised he owned and fixed himself. It was weird, how these past 24 hours had gone. When I met Soma, he seemed mean, but I think he means well. I'm actually optimistic about the future now, though I still feel a bit uneasy.

"What are you thinking about?" Soma says, startling me out of my thoughts.

"I was just thinking about... how I'm going to be living with you now. It's just so... sudden, eh?"

"Yeah, I guess. It's a bit weird for me too, but I think it'll work in the end."

I smiled, hearing that. I think I smiled that way the whole walk to school.

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When we got there, the students were all talking about the eviscerated sheep corpse rotting in the store room in the gym. All sorts of rumors were floating around; insane serial killers, satanists, wild animals. "How does it feel? Knowing what you do?" Soma asked.

"I don't know. It isn't like I'm itching to tell anyone."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Are there any others here who know... well, what you do?"

"Not that I know of. Besides, those of us who have had our encounters with demons usually carry ourselves differently. Like if you were in a car accident," he explained.