From that day on, Barbatos and I — the two of us continued our strange cohabitation.
Barbatos had often come to visit my Demon Lord's Castle and stayed for a week or even a fortnight. But this was the first time we'd spent this long together. To put it neutrally, we were living together... to put it more bluntly,
"Here you go, Dantalion. I made chicken soup today."
"..."
Newlywed life.
That was almost exactly what it felt like.
"It looks incredibly delicious, even to me. It's practically a work of art, no exaggeration. If you die eating it, I'm not disposing of the body, so take your time."
Barbatos puffed out her flat chest with pride. Sometimes it seemed like she was actually proud of having such a flat chest. As someone who appreciated a voluptuous figure, I couldn't understand it and didn't want to.
"...You knew how to cook?"
"Well. I had a personal chef once who said cooking was all about emotion. If you pour your heart into it and take it step by step, any dish will turn out delicious. I poured a whole lot of heart into this, so naturally it must taste wonderful."
I looked down at the chicken soup in the bowl.
For some reason, it had a purplish tint. Bubbles — small bubbles burst on the surface of the broth. A grotesque aroma rose up, so pungent with spices that I couldn't even fathom how much she'd put in.
Honestly, I was scared.
This was the first time in my life I'd been frightened by food.
"It looks less like you poured in your heart and more like you poured in murderous intent..."
"Oh? Are you saying your tongue is so damn refined that you can't bring yourself to eat something I made with my own hands?"
Unfortunately, there was a woman far more terrifying than chicken soup standing right in front of me. The cheerful smile vanished from Barbatos's face in an instant. Even a professional assassin would soil themselves if they saw Barbatos like this.
"Of course I'll eat it gratefully since you went through the trouble. Just one question — did you taste it for seasoning?"
"What are you talking about? I told you I cooked it with my heart."
Here she was, presenting her very first dish without ever having tasted it for seasoning.
My trembling hand gripped the silver spoon. The spoon scooped up the soup. The slimy texture was conveyed with disturbing realism. A chill ran through me.
It was less a soup and more like pudding — sticky, viscous pudding. Did Barbatos genuinely perceive this as edible food for humans? Her corneas must have been damaged. Thoroughly damaged. Or her brain was fried. The latter seemed more likely.
"Don't just sit there looking unlucky, eat up."
"Guh!?"
Barbatos forcibly moved my spoon toward me. I didn't even think to resist, and before I knew it, she'd pushed me into tasting the purple soup. I squeezed my eyes shut and touched the soup with my tongue.
For a moment, an incredibly wretched, squelchy sensation bathed my tongue.
"...It's surprisingly tasty?"
"See? I told you — when you cook with genuine feeling, it shows."
"The texture is absolutely horrific, but the taste itself is actually decent..."
I felt as though I'd glimpsed one of the world's unfathomable mysteries.
Barbatos prepared a meal once a day. She was clearly bored too, because sometimes she'd just slap a lump of cheese on some pita bread and call it done. Since I had no need to eat, I tried to ignore it, but she threw a massive fit when I dismissed her efforts. Even placing a lump of cheese on a plate counted as sincerity, if sincerity it was.
Before long, I realized what Barbatos was after.
"Today's special is lamb skewers. Took a lot of effort, so eat up gratefully."
"What kind of magic turns lamb skewers green, honestly."
Having a meal once a day gave my routine some semblance of regularity. Before, I would lose consciousness for a day or two at the drop of a hat. Since I had no need to sleep and no need to eat, I'd simply sit in a corner doing nothing.
"At the very least, let's keep the place clean, you filthy burn-marked slob. The mansion has been utterly conquered by dust. It's a miracle your nostrils haven't suffocated on their own boogers."
"You don't mean to say I'm the one who has to clean?"
"Well, I'm handling all the cooking — am I supposed to clean too? Give it a few more days and you'll be calling me 'Mommy' and asking me to breastfeed you, huh?"
From the day Barbatos showed up, everything changed.
Even if I lost consciousness, I absolutely had to wake up at least once. To that, washing dishes, cleaning, and laundry were added. A daily routine had been established. Time, which used to flow freely and chaotically beyond all control, had shifted into days stacking neatly one upon the other.
Time passed.
But Barbatos was there.
Even while I was painting.
"Dantalion. Are you not going to paint me today?"
"...Jerk. I asked you not to bother me when I'm painting."
"You paint other women's portraits all day every day — that's why I'm saying something. Last time it was your national affairs minister. The time before that, Laura. And before that, those twin bitches. When exactly are you going to paint me?"
"I'm sorry, but this establishment does not service living people, madam."
"You necrophilic scum."
Barbatos clicked her tongue.
Then, as if a brilliant idea had struck her, her lips curved upward. She stood slightly to the left of the canvas and, with one finger, lifted the shoulder strap of her dress. Her shoulders looked soft and delicate, as though the slightest force would snap them.
"What about this?"
Her dress slid smoothly off.
A pale, bare body was revealed.
Barbatos simply didn't wear underwear, finding it cumbersome. Sunlight streamed in from the window, illuminating roughly half of her body. The other half lay in the shadows of the unlit mansion. In the blue-gray darkness, Barbatos gleamed with reflected light.
"..."
The overwhelming contrast of shadow and light knocked the breath out of me for an instant.
I felt my heartbeat quicken. I wanted to scold Barbatos for this trick of hers, but I couldn't bring myself to form the words. Frustratingly, she had captured my gaze completely. It wouldn't be wrong to say I was toyed with.
Barbatos smiled smugly.
"Fool. Even so, you'd still paint someone other than me?"
Truly. Against this kind of tactic, I had no choice but to throw up both hands in surrender.
Barbatos gradually — using means I couldn't refuse — adjusted my daily routine bit by bit. By the time I came to my senses, a steady rhythm from morning to dawn had already been laid out.
We woke at the same early hour, sat at the same table, and ate together. While I painted, Barbatos played violin or cello. And once the mundane household chores were done, we lay in the same bed. Barbatos insisted, even being a bit unreasonable about it, that I get some sleep.
"Dantalion!"
Of course, sleep was hostile toward me.
As my consciousness blurred, I would almost invariably harm myself. If there was something sharp nearby — a dagger or a pencil — I'd grab it and stab the back of my hand. If there was nothing sharp around, I'd tear into my own flesh with my fingernails.
Every time, Barbatos would hold my body tight in a fierce embrace.
"It's okay. It's okay now. I'm here. I'll never disappear. Okay."
"..."
"Dantalion. Everything will be okay..."
The seizures never stopped until my body was completely spent and collapsed.
Falling asleep was far more agonizing than staying awake. The fact that I was finished as a human being. Nothing stung more than knowing I was already fully decayed. Without a shadow of a doubt, I was broken.
Despite Barbatos's devoted efforts, recovery was impossible.
It wasn't just me. Barbatos was the same. Two hundred years of agonizing wandering had left deep scars on her too. Barbatos would break into cold sweats while doing nothing. Sometimes she'd lose consciousness and have episodes of her own. If my seizures manifested as self-harm, Barbatos's came as heaving breaths or agonized moans.
"..."
In those moments, I held Barbatos tight.
Just as she had done for me, I whispered that everything would be alright, over and over. After about an hour, Barbatos would exhaust her strength and collapse. Every night, for six to seven hours, we held each other until we were both drained and could no longer hold on...
We were already far too broken.
For Barbatos and for me, every day was a tightrope walk at the edge. Mind. Body. There wasn't a single corner that didn't creak with discomfort.
"Ah. The flowers are beautiful today."
And yet we desperately acted normal.
We manipulated our daily lives in order to last one more day. We ate, we walked, we laughed, and chatted as if we were living an ordinary life. We spoke to each other. We intertwined our bodies. We blushed, we cursed, we sulked, and we smiled bitterly when there was nothing else to be done.
In the blink of an eye, a year had passed.
Neither of us brought it up. We'd promised to stay here for just one year and then leave. We'd clearly made that agreement. But by now, that promise meant nothing. Neither Barbatos nor I would have been surprised if we collapsed the very next day.
I did feel, to some extent, that Barbatos had tricked me.
My goal — to survive even one more day in this world — was now barely being held up thanks to Barbatos. If Barbatos disappeared, I wouldn't last even three days before taking my own life.
We were slowly crumbling.
But because we were crumbling toward each other, for just a brief moment, we could lean on the other's body and hold on.
A brief reprieve.
"Dantalion. When the cherry blossoms bloom, let's go see them."
"Roll up with a cart full of barrels?"
"I knew we spoke the same language."
To fill that reprieve, we struggled in silence.
When the cherry blossoms on the mountain behind bloomed in full splendor, we always went out. It quickly became an annual tradition.
We brought entire barrels of alcohol and behaved atrociously. We'd snicker, asking if she remembered the stupid things we'd done two hundred years ago. The two of us would strip off our clothes and roll around like children under the cherry trees. Everything was a desperate stroke of luck.
We managed to hold on for two hard years.
In summer, we jumped into the creek and engaged in an all-out water fight. Barbatos, hilariously, was absolutely terrible at swimming. If I grabbed her ankles and dragged her underwater, she would genuinely panic — Barbatos was rarely scared of anything, so I tried it many times. Until the day she kicked me square in the groin.
In autumn, we lay on a bed of fallen leaves and enjoyed the languid warmth. With a temperature-regulating blanket over us, it wasn't particularly cold. We lay with our heads together, staring up at the sky endlessly. Words came less often and conversations grew sparse, but we always burst out laughing.
In winter, we stayed quietly in the mansion, waiting for the cherry blossoms. It was also the season we each dove deepest into our hobbies. Barbatos's eyesight had grown poor, so she wore glasses — but for some reason, she hated showing me her bespectacled face. She remained an inscrutable woman.
Time passed.
Spring to summer, summer to autumn, autumn to winter.
I'd thought we wouldn't last five years, but we lasted a full ten.
New memories were born in proportion to the time.
Leaning on those, we decided to hold on a little longer.
We suffered a great deal.
We cried more than we knew.
But we managed to laugh even more than that.
Seventeen years.
That was the length of time the two of us had miraculously endured.
"Barbatos."
"Yeah, Dantalion."
In silence, we clasped each other's hand tightly.
Neither of us spoke, but we both knew.
That the end had come to stand right at our backs.