Chapter 1: A Deal with the Devil

She stared at the paper apprehensively, as if she had expected it to suddenly catch aflame as she held it in her hands. She almost asked Kasai-san if there was some mistake, if the letter had been intended for someone else, but it was no use. The inn worker was tending to a large party that had suddenly shown up 20 minutes after their check-in time, so she couldn't spare a moment to answer any questions. Even if she did have time, Yukiko knew that asking the woman any more questions would be useless. After all, the name clearly written across the paper was her own.

In her years of living and working at the inn, Yukiko could recall most of the oddest requests her family and the workers had fulfilled for some rather eccentric customers. One guest in her forties had decked herself in gaudy fur coats and pearls and insisted that the staff address her as "Your Majesty" every time they were in her presence. Another guest was convinced that the inn was a front for some top secret government agency, so he had turned over the tatami mats in his room to find proof that it was bugged. One winter, they had a guest who believed that his ex-wife was determined to poison him through any means necessary, and one poor inn worker had to taste his food before he himself would take a bite.

Quirky as they were, none of those guests had ever referred to her by her name, let alone written a letter addressed directly to her.

"Maybe it's a joke," she told herself, "It might be someone from school." Her fingers still hesitated to open the letter, so she persisted, "I bet it's from Teddie." The image of the bear's blue fur and goofy smile lightened her heart a little. "Yes, I'm sure of it. He probably dragged poor Yosuke-kun and convinced him to rent a room here because he was bored."

On the other hand, if Teddie had written it the letter might have been addressed to "Yuki-chan", instead of the formal "Amagi Yukiko", with hearts and smiley faces adorning the corners, but she ignored the slight discrepancy. If Yosuke was with Teddie, he may have convinced the bear to address the letter in a respectful manner that wouldn't start rumors amongst any of the inn's staff. After all, only a few relatives and some of the older workers called her "Yuki-chan". What would her parents say if they suspected their daughter had a boyfriend, and if said boyfriend was actually bold enough to request Yukiko (by a nickname, too!) as he stayed at the inn?

She chided herself for being so nervous over nothing, and she opened the letter. In an instant, a lump formed in her throat once she read over the hastily scrawled words.

On second floor at end of hallway. Bring food.

P.S. When you were in the TV, you lived in a castle.

Any attempt to reassure herself failed miserably when she read the last sentence. The writer was undoubtedly not Teddie or Yosuke or even Kanji; none of them would give her such a cryptic letter. There was no hint of humor or warmth in the black ink that stared back at her from the paper.

Calling Chie was the first thing to come to her mind, but that wasn't possible. As much as she trusted her best friend, Chie was out of town visiting a sick family member. The aspiring martial artist had almost supernatural levels of physical strength, but she didn't possess the ability to fly. Yukiko then considered calling Yosuke or one of the others, but what good would it do her? Other than sounding a tad mysterious, the note didn't exactly threaten bodily harm. All she knew for sure was the writer had seen her Shadow in the TV world, so who did they leave? Just about everyone who had been watching the Midnight Channel had seen her other self, golden-eyed and dressed in a pink ballroom gown fit for a princess, declaring that she was going to find her "stud". Her cheeks burned at the memory, but she forced it aside as she mentally went down her list of suspects. She tried to recall any classmate who would go through with this, but none of them were staying at the inn to her knowledge.

After a short while her sense of curiosity overwhelmed the warning bells in her head; she resolved to face the visitor herself. Besides, what could this writer pull in a building almost completely packed with guests? If they meant to do her harm, they chose the worst possible time to try anything since it was the inn's busy season.

Before she headed to the kitchen, Yukiko made a beeline to her room. She crouched near the low desk positioned in front of the window and pulled one of the drawers open. Under the faint moonlight that shone through the glass pane, the dark blue steel of a folded metallic fan gleamed against the wooden base of the drawer. After the events of both the P-1 tournaments, the latter of which had enshrouded the town in blood red fog and hostile Shadows, Yukiko had purchased the fan from the local blacksmith's store. She felt that something with more weight to it than the usual paper fan she was accustomed to was a good cautionary measure. Keeping the fan folded, she slipped it in the front of her green obi and left with haste to the kitchen.

Surprisingly, she didn't pass anyone else on her way back upstairs after preparing the guest's food. The visitor had apparently requested one of the rooms in the most isolated part of the inn, which was usually reserved for guests who were willing to pay more for privacy and a better view of the outside scenery. Her list of suspects grew considerably shorter- very few Inaba residents, including her classmates, would spend such a large sum of money for a room at the local inn, no matter how great the amenities.

After reaching the room at the end of the second floor hallway, she lowered the tray on the floor beside her and knelt down in front of the door, placing her hands on the frame. "Please excuse me," she started in a cordial tone, as if she were welcoming any other guest. "I'm coming in."

The door slid open with one smooth motion. Yukiko bent her head towards the food as she reached for the tray beside her.

"Finally." A male voice commented without a hint of friendliness in it, which was oddly familiar.

When she turned toward her guest, her grip on the lacquer tray almost loosened immediately.

Sitting nonchalantly at the table in the center of the room, long legs crossed over one another and his head resting against the palm of his propped arm, was a pale young man with striking red hair. "I'm starving"

"YOU!" Was the only thing she could utter. If her kimono hadn't been so tight around her legs, the shock of seeing Sho Minazuki would have sent her falling back.

He only sneered at her, as if she were making a fool out of herself. "Yes. Me. Who exactly were you expecting?" His eyes, a vibrant shade of blue, peered at the tray laden with food in her hands. "Stop being so slow, Princess. It's gonna get cold."

Despite the absurdity of the situation, Yukiko willed herself to walk with the tray in hands, relying on years of hospitality training to get her across the floor to where he was sitting. Without looking at him, she carefully set the tray in front of him, feeling the weight of his eyes on her every move. The broth in the round soup bowl had barely settled by the time she walked quickly back to the door and slid it shut. Her hand went to the front of the obi where she had stashed the fan, but before she could take it out, the young man spoke again.

"I wouldn't do that." He said matter-of-factly over the soft click of the chopsticks he was using. "Besides, I'm a guest. It would be very...inn-considerate of you to attack me!"

He laughed at his own joke as her eyebrow twitched at the terrible pun, but she tried to recover herself and turned around to face him once more, her hand still settled across the obi around her waist. She had expected him to have a weapon at the ready, but she didn't see the twin katana that he favored during the P-1 Climax anywhere. Instead, he was simply drinking the soup from the bowl she brought as part of his dinner. While he ate, it took all of her wits to process that Sho Minazuki, the one who had manipulated her friends into a fighting tournament (twice!) and also used them as pawns of an elaborate plan to destroy the world, was eating dinner at her family's inn without so much as a knife nearby. He just...sat there, eating his dinner, like being under the roof of one of his supposed enemies was as insignificant as riding the train into the city.

After finishing the soup, he set the bowl down on the tray and was about to start on the rest of the meal when she finally blurted out, "Why are you here?!"

Looking at her like she had just asked the most stupid question in a classroom, he replied, "Eating."

"That's not what I meant!" She pointed an accusing finger at him. Her other hand was still on her obi, her fingers clutching the sleek outline of the fan she hid there. "You shouldn't be here!"

"Says who?" He responded, taking a big bite of the grilled fish. "The puppet? Or your high-and-mighty leader?"

It didn't take her long to know who he meant, but she continued, not knowing if she felt more confused or annoyed by the boy's casual attitude. "Why are you back in Inaba?"

He had finished the fish course and was now picking a bone out of his teeth, setting it back on the plate. "Man, you're annoying."

Her head was almost aching at this point. "People are after you, don't you know that-"

An exasperated groan interrupted her, accompanied with an irritated glare. "Just shut the hell up! If I knew this was going to be an interrogation, I wouldn't have bothered coming back to this shithole of a town."

Yukiko looked away from him, shuffling through her jumbled thoughts, trying to remember coming across a "Sho Minazuki" in the inn's records. No, I would've recognized the name if I saw it at all. There's no way I would've missed it.

"You look really stupid right now, you know that, Princess?" His menacing words pulled her from her thoughts in an instant, and her eyes locked with his.

She straightened her shoulders in an attempt to keep her composure. "I have a name, and you know it. You wrote it on this." She produced the letter from her sash as proof. He replied with a smirk and nothing else, so she pressed on. "What do you want from me?"

Sho rolled his eyes in response. "This really IS an interrogation. Isn't it bad manners for a host to ask so many questions?"

"How can I not have any questions?" She shot back, wanting nothing more than to arm herself with her fan. "You disappear for months after trying to destroy this town, and you show up at my family's inn."

"And now I'm regretting it, having to put up with your crap."

His attitude did nothing to help. "Stop playing around and answer my questions!"

"Then why don't you make it worth my while?" He retorted, a wide smile tugging the corners of his mouth. "Why should I answer all your dumbass questions? Why not give me some incentive?"

Taken aback by the rebuttal, she was silent. Rudeness aside, he had a point-why should he answer any of the questions she had posed him? During his last visit, he wasn't very forthcoming with his motives for luring them into the tournament, and now was no different. Everything she had learned about Sho Minazuki was from secondhand information she received from Yu, Labrys, and Mitsuru-san, the head of the Kirijo Group, and nothing she heard from them answered the one question that she kept circling back to.

Why, of all places, did he choose to stay here?

Sho had disappeared so abruptly in the aftermath of the tournament, leaving no trace of his presence. They all assumed that he wouldn't step another foot into Inaba again, and yet here he was in front of her. Yukiko recalled Mitsuru-san briefly voicing her concerns that the national Public Safety Department would want to interrogate her in an indirect attempt to get their hands on either Labrys or Sho, so it only made sense to her that the boy wouldn't return to her hometown. In fact, it would have been the last place she would have ever expected to find him again...

Her thoughts trailed off upon the realization, and then things were clearer.

"You're running from something."

As quickly as it appeared, the smirk left his face when he heard her question. "What did you say?"

She tried to ignore the increased hostility of his words as she approached the table once more and sat across from him, like she was preparing to make small talk. For the majority of the evening, he had thrown her off-why couldn't she put him on the defense?

"For every one of my questions that you answer, I'll answer one of yours." She presented the offer with the sense of professionalism that her mother used whenever she was cutting a bargain with vendors. After that Yukiko didn't elaborate any further, hoping that saying less would pique her guest's interest.

Fortunately, it worked. The boy was quiet only for a moment before shrugging his shoulders. "Whatever. You got a deal, Princess."

"That's not my name. Now, I'll start-why are you here?"

"Well, Princess," he added the emphasis to the nickname that she had already begun to hate from the few minutes of talking to him, "You're not entirely wrong, so good for you! I am on the run. After all the fun I started last time in these boonies, this stuffy hoity-toity inn would be the last place anyone would expect to find me."

She didn't appreciate how he described her family's inn, but she said nothing on the matter. "Fine. Your turn."

Upon realizing that she would be keeping true to their bargain, the boy didn't waste any time. "Where's your Leader? In fact, where's Scraps and Kirijo with all her cronies?"

Her temper flared slightly at the disrespectful way he had addressed her comrades, but she kept it in check. "They aren't here. Mitsuru-san and her people left as soon as everything went back to normal. Yu-kun left shortly after them."

"So, he left, huh?" Sho paused, eyeing something across the room. When she followed his line of sight, she spotted two sheaths jutting from a roll of cloth near his futon. She didn't have to ask to know what they were, or what he intended to do with them.

Her eyes left the bundle and she kept the conversation going."Why did you ask me to come see you, especially if you wanted to keep your head down?"

"Isn't it obvious? It's because you recognize me." His tone suggested that she was an idiot for even bothering to ask him that. "I didn't need one of your maids to gawk at me or try to figure out where I'm from. You barely registered on my radar the last time I was here, but even you know who I am. It would've been a pain in the ass to make stuff up for anyone else."

The practicality of his methods so far was almost surreal. From what she remembered about the the P-1 Climax, Sho didn't seem like the type of person to meticulously consider these kind of details. And he wasn't wrong about their lack of chance encounters during the tournament, either. Yukiko wasn't on the top of the tower that rose from Yasogami High that night. She had ran into Kanji and Rise, who was channeling everything that was happening to them from Yu-kun and the others. Had her heart not been beating a hundred miles per second, she may have been able to appreciate the irony of meeting one of the masterminds behind the P-1 tournaments, especially after never being formally introduced to him beforehand.

"So, you gonna call them?"

Her head snapped up, like someone had poured a bucket of ice cold water on her head. There was something predatory about his eyes this time, like he was preparing for an ambush on unsuspecting prey. "Them?"

"Yeah, them-Kirijo, your annoying friends, or whatever. You gonna tell them that I'm here?"

A twinge of dread pulled at her heart. She looked down at her hands, which were now folded across her lap, a habit she had developed from all the years of manager training. "I thought about calling my friends when I read your letter."

When she looked back up, she could tell that her admission had pleased him. "Aw, my letter scared you?"

"No, but it did put me on edge," she replied honestly. "I was trying to guess who would write something like that to me, and who would actually give it to me here, in my home."

His mocking grin widened. "And now that you know, you still going to call your friends?"

She was silent for a moment, her fingers slightly trembling on her lap, but she refused to look away this time. "I haven't decided yet."

His grin slackened a bit, and the predatory look to his eyes intensified. "I don't think you should. Things could get messy for them...maybe even for you." After the last sentence, a flash of white light caught her eye, and she saw the serrated edge of a combat knife under the soft glow of the ceiling lamp. Apparently, she was wrong about him not having a weapon nearby. He tossed the knife with a flick of his wrist, and with morbid curiosity, she watched the blade tumble in the air before he caught it effortlessly. "As much fun as it would be, I didn't come here to start anything with you morons. As long as you give me what I want, there won't be any trouble."

Seeing as it was technically her turn again, Yukiko spoke, already regretting her next question. "Well, what do you want, then?"

In a second, he straightened his arm out towards her and the point of the blade was inches away from her chin. The lightning-quick motion and the glint of the weapon caused her to flinch slightly, but her back remained straightened.

"For as long as I'm shacked up here, you're my personal servant." He declared in a tone similar to an emperor giving orders to his underlings. "You bring all my meals here, and anything I want or need, you get it for me. If anyone else tries to come in here, they'll get a knife to the face."

As much as she disliked being called a "servant", the insult wasn't far from what other patrons had expected of her in the past. "And your other demands?"

He continued, clearing enjoying himself. "You tell no one I'm here. You got that? No one-not any of your idiot friends, not your leader, not Scraps, not Kirijo and her lackeys, NO ONE. You try so much as send a text to anybody telling them that I'm staying at this crappy inn, you'll be sorry."

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the knife once more. The urge to wield her fan grew stronger each time the blade glinted in the light. "Anything else?"

"That's it!" He cheerfully remarked, his hand snatching the handle of the knife from the air.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her heartbeat drumming in her ears, cancelling all other noise. This couldn't be a person sitting across from her; it was a demon borrowing the skin of a human boy who she half-expected to present a contract that demanded a signature written in her blood. Nothing about this felt right, but Sho Minazuki had left her with few options. When she opened her eyes again, she saw him looking at her, expecting an answer.

"If I agree, do you promise?"

"Promise what?" he snapped impatiently, leaning back on the tatami mat, his hand throwing the knife upward again. For someone who was supposedly around her age, he had the attention span of a five-year-old.

"If I agree to be your...I mean, if I do everything you say, do you promise not to hurt my family and friends?"

The question must have been absurd to him because now he stopped playing with the knife and was sitting up on his elbows. After a short moment of tension, a full-bodied laugh erupted from his lips. The ceiling lamp cast a shadow on his pale face, making him look more like the demon she imagined in her mind. "You're shitting me, right? Here I am, with a knife in my hand and you sitting across from me, and you're worried about your family and friends?"

More annoyed than afraid by his belittling, she felt her patience and courage running thin. "Do you promise?"

He silently regarded her with those strange, wild eyes again. As nervous as she felt, she refused to squirm under his gaze and instead looked resolutely back at him. Seconds passed by like hours as she waited for him to laugh at her again before admitting that he never intended to make any kind of deal with her, but it never happened. With a dismissive scoff, he finally spoke. "All right, Princess. You do everything I say, and nothing will happen to your precious friends."

That was as good of a promise as she was like to get. Saying nothing else, she nodded and reached for the tray. Though it was lighter now with the empty dishes, it still felt like a boulder in her hands as she silently struggled to get back onto her feet. The sudden motion almost made her dizzy, but she turned on her heel towards the door before he could catch it.

Thankfully there was no more to be said between them, and she closed the screen door behind her without so much as casting one last look at her guest. It wasn't until she returned the tray to the kitchen and then to her room that she allowed herself to feel the entire gravity of the situation. She shut the door and went to her futon, where she immediately threw herself on the mattress. She breathed in the fresh cotton scent of her pillow, not caring that she was still dressed in her kimono. Her conversation with Sho had taken its toll on her, and it took every ounce of willpower to not crumble to pieces when she was in his room.

"How is this happening?" She asked, the pillow muffling her words. She stayed like that for a while, wanting to forget the ice cold sensation that the boy's eyes gave her, waiting for her blood to start flowing warm again. After a moment, she turned her head and looked to a nearby dresser. On it was a frame where her friends beamed at her from a photograph. She reached for it and took it into her hands. Her friends continued to smile at her under a blue sky as she shifted her back onto the mattress, holding the picture above her head.

"I had to. I've heard enough about him to know he's unpredictable." She reassured herself, or maybe it was for them. Her eyes roamed over her friends until they settled on the tall, grey-haired youth that stood behind her when the photo was taken. Even now when he was so far away, his kind smile comforted her. "You would've done the same thing, right, Yu-kun?"

She stayed like that for a while before the stress of the evening sapped her of what remaining strength she had. Her hands gently clutched the picture as she slept.

Despite a full schedule with attending school and fulfilling her duties at the inn, Yukiko kept her end of the bargain. Every morning for the next three days, she dropped off Sho's breakfast by placing the tray in front of his room and rapping gently on the door before rushing off to class. Luckily for her, Yosuke and Kanji were too distracted with other matters to ask her why she was running to the inn as soon as school let out. And although she missed her, Chie being out of town was a blessing in disguise. She would've been able to tell something was wrong, and Yukiko would have a difficult time convincing her otherwise.

As soon as she got home in the evening and changed into her kimono, she made the rounds at the inn to ensure everything was running smoothly. At precisely 7 o'clock, Yukiko personally delivered dinner to his room, where he would be sitting at the table. Going against how she thought he would act during his stay, Sho always looked like he was deep in thought when she entered the room, and he barely acknowledged her presence until after she set his dinner in front of him. Aside from the occasional biting remark, he was surprisingly quiet for the rest of the evening. She expected him to take any opportunity he could to dangle the well-being of her family and friends over her head to pressure her into keeping their deal, or arguably just as bad, she expected a barrage of his terrible puns.

But nothing really happened. He ate his meal, she sat there waiting until he was finished so she could take the tray, she left with a curt good-bye, and the cycle would repeat. Given the inn's history of problematic customers, Sho was actually a polite guest on most counts. His room was neat and intact, and he didn't make any loud noises to disturb the other guests. Even though she didn't know him very well, she assumed this behavior was part of whatever plan he had concocted. As hotheaded as he was, even Sho probably knew that any kind of disturbance would bring unwanted attention to himself. The staff had never seen him before, so he was already the subject of some light gossip in the kitchen.

Yukiko later found that Sho had registered under a fake name. She came across the name "Souji Seta" while examining the check-in book at the front desk on the first night he arrived. Knowing what he was capable of when he hacked into the Kirijo Group's secured data servers, assuming another person's identity was probably child's play for him.

But the sudden appearance of his name in the book wasn't what alarmed the staff-it was the fact that they never actually saw their new guest. No one could recall ever seeing him at the front desk; his name just happened to be there at the designated arrival time that was supposedly confirmed over the phone. The other detail that the staff found troubling was that he requested to be undisturbed most of the day, even if it meant skipping lunch. On top of all that, the demand that they found oddest was that he specifically wanted the manager's daughter to personally deliver his meals every day and every night he spent at the inn.

The guilt of hiding the truth from people she considered her own family was heavy, but Yukiko did her best to deflect the staff's questions. "Souji Seta" was a university student who needed to take some time off from the day-to-day grind of the hectic city life and an overbearing family who kept pressuring him to ace his classes and secure a career. He was studying for his exams and taking time for personal reflection, hence his reasons for wanting to be lodged in the most private part of the inn. In addition to being very studious, Seta-san was a particular person of particular habits and needed everything done in a very particular manner, which is why he wanted only the same person-this being Yukiko-to deliver his meals so he could eat without having to make small conversation with different inn workers. When Kasai-san asked why it had to be Yukiko to bring the meals, she stated that their guest wanted to make sure that his requests would be answered promptly, and so the manager's daughter would be best-suited for completing this task.

Whether it was because they were satisfied with Yukiko's answers or because the Amagi Inn instilled the "respect the guest's privacy at all times" philosophy in their workers, the staff didn't ask too many other questions. Their enigmatic guest may have been a burnt-out university student, but he had to have come from a wealthy family. He paid for everything up front before officially checking in, and Yukiko didn't give them any reason to believe that he was a horrible guest.

So after three uneventful nights passed, Yukiko thought she had adapted to the strange state of affairs she found herself in. Or rather, that Sho Minazuki had forced her to partake in. But then on the fourth night, she wasn't able to give his dinner to him.

Unlike the previous nights, she saw that the room was dark as she approached it. He usually had the light on, which was an easy way for her to tell that he was there. Not wanting to barge in, she knocked on the wooden frame of the screen door. "Seta-san?" It was the quietest part of the inn, but she was always careful to call him by his assumed name in case someone happened to pass by.

There was no answer from the other side of the room, so she knocked once more; maybe he had headphones on or he was sleeping? A few more minutes trickled by in silence, and he still gave no answer or any other sign that he was present. It was very tempting for her to believe that he really wasn't there, but had he left his room at any point of the day, she would have known about it. With his height, the bright red hair, the distinctive X-shaped scar that crossed over his forehead and down to his cheeks, the staff would have definitely spotted him. But when she came home from school, no one had mentioned a guest of Sho's description.

But if he hadn't left his room, why wasn't he there now?

She knocked on the door one last time, and again, there was nothing. Yukiko estimated that almost fifteen minutes had gone by. Unsure of where he was or if the persistent silence was his way of wanting to be alone, she left the tray of food at the door and left. Yukiko looked back once, but the food remained untouched at the foot of the door.

The next morning she got up a little earlier than usual and went to the kitchen to prepare Sho's breakfast. When she walked down to the end of the hallway, she saw the dinner still untouched next to his door.

He hasn't eaten a thing. The realization set off an alarm in her mind, and a sense of unease crept down her neck. She approached his door with trepidation, and years of balancing various things allowed her to easily shift the tray to one arm while her free hand rose to knock.

But just about as her hand was about to make contact with the frame, she suddenly heard footsteps from the other side and the screen door slid open to reveal the previously missing red-haired boy.

"Y-you're here," she stammered.

He didn't return the greeting, and his eyes darted from her to the tray on her arm. "Food."

"Oh, right." She shifted the tray so that both her hands were carrying it. "I guess you would be hungry-"

As soon as the tray was within reaching distance, he didn't bother to wait for her to step inside. He snatched the chopsticks up and began to wolf down the bowl of steamed rice. For a second she was unable to speak, but then quickly realized what was happening. Her hair whipped across her cheek as she turned her head to see if anyone was coming up from the hallway.

"Not here!" She thought she had heard someone, most likely a worker bringing up breakfast for another guest, coming up the stairs. Sho either didn't hear her or chose not to listen because his hands started moving towards the rolled omelet until Yukiko charged in with the rest of his breakfast. Not caring about decorum, especially in front of someone who had the gall to eat his meal before it was set on the table, she slammed the door behind by sliding it shut with her foot.

"Are you crazy?!" She exclaimed, the panic apparent in her voice. Sho didn't make an effort to respond; instead, he was able to reach the rolled omelet this time and continued to stuff his face. Frustrated by his apathy and the lack of manners, she angrily stormed past him and nearly slammed the rest of his breakfast on the table.

"What's with you?" He finally asked between bites of egg and rice.

"I thought the whole point of hiding is to stay hidden!" She snapped at him. He regarded her with the same nonchalant look before sitting down and beginning on the broiled mackerel.

He shrugged. "I was hungry, and you were slow."

"Maybe if you hadn't skipped dinner last night, you wouldn't have to scarf down your meal and risk getting seen!" She paused, her memory jogged by her last statement. As Sho began sipping the bowl of miso soup, she took a deep breath to calm herself before asking, "Where were you last night?"

The bowl hid the features of his mouth, but she saw one raised eyebrow in response to the question.

"I came by with your dinner, but you didn't open your door. The food was still there this morning."

He set the bowl down and placed the chopsticks across the rim. Without looking at her, he simply answered, "It's none of your business."

The curt response stung a little, but she wasn't entire surprised by it. This was the boy who threatened her family and friends in exchange for her silence. It was unlikely that he would be willing to share his evening plans with her.

Knowing it was useless, she continued. "The food isn't any good when it's cold. It spoils and it's best to throw it out when it does."

"Then throw it out. Just leave me alone." He was looking at her now, an agitated expression on his pallid face. For whatever reason, his irritation seemed to be more out of exhaustion and she suddenly noticed the slight dark bags under his eyes and the slight slump of his shoulders.

She was about to speak again, but her eyes caught the hands of the clock that hung on the wall behind him. It was almost half past six, and she still had to collect her homework for school. Taking the empty tray, just as she had done the past three nights, she left, albeit reluctantly.

It happened again when she returned later that evening. He wasn't there, or at least he wanted her to believe that he wasn't there, when she arrived with his dinner. And when she returned the next morning with freshly cooked food, he was inexplicably there to greet her with a scowl and a demand for his breakfast. Had she not rushed in again with the meal, he would have just eaten in the hallway again.

Like yesterday morning, the conversation was as one-sided as always. "Is there another time that you want your dinner dropped off?" She proposed cautiously as he ate with more urgency than the last day. "I could come by later if it's better."

To her growing frustration, he said nothing. She waited, fuming silently, her head filled with all the things she wanted to say to break the lapse of silence, when a sudden movement broke her thoughts. At some point, he had finished his meal and was now standing up, towering over her. It was then that she realized how much taller he was than her, and to add to her discomfort, she noticed the hint of toned muscle beneath the green button-down shirt he wore. Before she could even react, he abruptly turned away from her toward his futon and flopped down face-first.

Startled by his atypical behavior, she rose from the tatami mat. "Are you okay?"

Without even lifting his head, he uttered only one word. "Leave."

Her eyes lingered on his motionless form for a moment before she took the tray from the table. Whether or not he was putting up an act, she couldn't bring herself to argue with him.

When she was at the door, she looked over at him for the last time that night. "You really shouldn't skip your meals.". As she expected, he said nothing and she left. After sliding the screen door shut, she remembered the uneaten dinner from last night and picked it up. The sound of her own padded footsteps accompanied her as she walked away.

Really, it's like talking to a child.

The rain fell in torrents, pattering relentlessly against the roof of the inn. It was 7 on the dot, and she was kneeling outside of Sho's room with the heavy dinner tray next to her as she had done all week.

"Seta-san?" She called out. It was strange calling him that, but she couldn't afford to be careless. "Excuse me, but may I come in?"

As was the case the past two nights, he didn't seem to be there; only the rain answered her. She knocked gently on the door frame, repeating herself. "May I come in?"

Again, no answer. This would be the third time that he would go without dinner during his stay. She recalled him looking paler than usual the last time she had dropped his meal off, and this cold, rainy autumn night did nothing to make her less worried.

He may get sick if he's really out in this weather, she thought glumly, and Yukiko inexplicably felt guilty about this. Rude, antisocial, and temperamental as he was, Sho was a guest at her family's inn. Even if his "bargain" was colored with tones of extortion, she had been tasked with bringing his meals to him and was obviously doing a subpar job of it. Her guilt may have also stemmed from the indisputable fact that Sho was still human, even though he may have unnaturally strong. Knowing what she did about him from Yu-kun and Mitsuru-san, Yukiko doubted that there would be anyone who would care for him if he happened to fall ill.

A clap of thunder broke over her thoughts and made up her mind for her. Going against her better judgment, her hand gripped the side of the door. "Excuse me." She called out apologetically and slid the panel back.

Just as she expected, there was no one there. The raindrops streamed down the glass pane of the windows and the wind escalated to howls that wrapped around the building. She closed the door and made her way to the table in the center of the room. After placing the tray down on the surface, she stood up to observe her surroundings. His duffel bag remained in the corner where he always left it, and his futon laid on the floor unmade. A black laptop rested next to the pillow, its lid closed and its power cable running from the nearby outlet like a curved snake.

"Where could he be?" Her eyes roamed around the room, but it didn't give her any hints about the boy's whereabouts. Like it was trying to deliberately worsen her fears, another clap of thunder rang over the wind and rain.

"He can't be gone," she told herself, attempting to ignore the tightness forming in her chest. "His stuff is still here-"

It was then that a flash of lightning illuminated the room, and her shadow appeared on against the floor, stretching endlessly like some invisible entity was pulling it. But after the lightning faded, the room was now brighter with the soft glow of static. Not knowing what to make of this change, she looked over her shoulder to see the recently blank TV alive with rings of white and black. A crown of hair the color of red flame emerged from the TV, and then the rest of her missing guest followed. When he was on his feet, he didn't look pleased to find his hostess in the middle of his room.

"What the hell are you doing here?" For some reason, his eyes were a brighter shade of blue in contrast to the darkness around them and she suddenly noticed the outline of his trademark katana that he gripped in each hand.

Putting her uneasiness and bewilderment aside, she stood straight and folded her hands against the front of her kimono. "I came to bring you your dinner."

His mouth was set in an intimidating frown. "You could've just left it at the door. Hell, I even told you to let it rot if you wanted! I'm not paying you to snoop around my room."

"I'm not snooping." She insisted, feeling indignant at the accusation. "I'm sorry, but I let myself in because you've missed dinner the past two nights now."

"What's it to you?" He rounded on her, closing the distance between them in only a few strides of his long legs.

Yukiko tried not to notice how much sharper the katana looked up close."Our cook puts a lot of work into the food. You shouldn't waste it."

"Don't friggin' lecture me!" Another bolt of white light split the dark sky, highlighting the shape of his scar for an instant.

She wanted nothing more than to yell at him, but she did her best to keep what little calm remained to her. "When you didn't answer, I got worried and-"

His grimace twisted into a sneer, and his cruel laugh was accompanied with another rumble of thunder. "You got worried? Don't lie to me, Princess."

"I'm not lying-"

"Yeah, okay, liar," he continued to talk over her, his hands clutching the handles of his katana like he was preparing to use them. "I bet you wanted to go through my stuff just so you had a reason to call your friends over and-"

"That's not IT!"

She wasn't sure who was more surprised by her outburst, but Yukiko couldn't keep her temper in check any longer. Even though he was glaring at her with more intensity than the thunderstorm outside, she lost herself to a week's worth of pent-up frustration. "I really was worried, all right? It's not healthy that you're missing your meals! I mean, look at yourself! And stop calling me a liar!"

His eyes continued to bore a hole through her, but the adrenaline coursing through her veins refused to let her look away. In response to her stubbornness, that terrible mouth of his curled into a spiteful grin. "But you are one, aren't you?" The question felt like he was laying another one of the traps for the mind games that he loved to play.

"I can hear you when you tell your little stories." He went on, taunting her. "I know everything you've told your staff so that they wouldn't go digging around. I have to say, I was actually impressed that you could pull it off."

The tightness in her chest from earlier worsened, and her fingers began to clench. "Stop it."

"Have you told all those same lies to your friends, too? You know, the ones that you're so eager to protect from me?" When she said nothing, the thunder didn't drown out his laugh. "Oh man, what would they say, huh? How would they feel? Knowing that their perfect little princess is actually lying to them?"

She could feel herself shaking, and she desperately hoped that it was too dark for him to see. "That's enough."

"You pests are all the same, aren't you? Pretending to care about each other, but wouldn't think twice about lying to cover your asses! And after all your Leader said about bonds and all that cavity-inducing shit."

Her chest quickened at the mention of Yu-kun.

"I knew he was full of himself," he remarked contemptuously as his rant continued. "He was the biggest loser of you all, talking down to me from his damn high horse like he knew everything. And right here, I got proof that he's wrong! Hah, I wish he were here so I could shove it in his stupid face-"

"SHUT THE HELL UP!"

At this point her hands were fists against her sides, and her dark eyes glared defiantly up at him from under the fringe of her bangs.

The wind continued to howl outside, but she paid it no mind. She could tell that he didn't either since he was having far too much fun at the moment. "What's the matter, Princess? I hit a nerve?"

The fact that he was carrying two very sharp katana no longer concerned her; all she felt was an overwhelming desire to make him eat his words. "Say what you want about me, but I won't let you talk about Yu-kun like that! If you say another bad thing about him, I'll make you regret it!"

His white-toothed grin broadened in excitement, threatening to split his face open like the scar across his head. Seconds ago, he was satisfied with subjecting her to verbal insults. Now, it looked like he wanted nothing more than an actual fight. "That so? Why don't you prove it, then?" He challenged, pointing to the TV with the katana in his left hand. "After you."

There may have been a possibility that she would regret this later, but she walked towards the TV without missing a step. Not bothering to look back at the room or at him, her hand touched the screen and the portal opened at the touch of her fingers. She leaned in head-first, and she closed her eyes as she was pulled down into oblivion.

Writer's Note: Why did I write about a pairing that will never happen (like, never ever happen)? Mainly, it's because I like odd things (and I'm bored waiting for Persona Q and 5). After finishing the True Story of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, I thought about how Sho would try to adapt to a world that he tried really, really hard to destroy. Then I thought how funny it would be if he was a guest at the Amagi Inn. Then I thought it would be fun to see Sho and Yukiko play off one another! LOGIC.

So this is a weird little story, but I hope it ends up being an entertaining distraction at the very least. Thanks, and more to come!