Jumpstart (Reader x Urushihara Hanzo)

The Goodwill Gesture

More than a month has passed since the Bocky incident with Urushihara, during which you didn't see neither hair nor hide of the attractive 18-year old. As much as you loved dropping by their place to hang out, your current work situation just didn't give you that much of a leeway. Working as a full stack developer for a major IT company in the heart of Shinjuku - and a multinational one, at that - came with its own set of boons and banes. It was the time of the year where Finance was hustling to meet their targets, who in turn pushed those in the management to meet their own targets. For ordinary employees like you, that meant staying in the office way after the last train in order to fix as many features as possible.

You groaned inwardly at the number of overtime hours you've accumulated since then. When was the last time I left work with the sun still out?

Munching on a piece of melon bread, you opened your team's bug tracking tool to check just how many issues were reported so far...and tried not to choke at the number. Twenty-five items - a mixture of aesthetic and functional - were highlighted in red and tagged "FIX BEFORE GO-LIVE BY MONTH-END!" in bold, capital letters.

Said month-end was almost two weeks away.  

You glanced at the clock on your system tray and sighed. It read 8:05 PM. As much as you wanted to already clock out, you knew you couldn't leave just yet without fixing the most critical items. Which meant...you have to do overtime again.

The urge to bang your forehead against the keyboard was too strong.

You tried to resist...but gave in anyway.

*

*

*

At the Devil's Castle (a.k.a. Room 201 of Villa Rosa Sasazuka), Ashiya sat in front of the dining table, looking at his latest successful creation with a proud and satisfied expression on his face. His good mood perfectly matched with the fair afternoon weather outside, with matching singing birds to boot.

"I finally did it!" he exclaimed. "The perfect ratio of matcha powder to pancake mix! My very first rice cooker matcha pancake!"

"Whoopee," Urushihara remarked in his usual deadpan voice while rolling his eyes. He was browsing random sites when his roommate's cry of joy interrupted him in the middle of reading about the latest spying devices. He shot the blond househusband a glare. "You were complaining how I waste Maou's money, yet here you are splurging on something as silly as a pancake. Hypocrite much?"

He was immediately met with the cake's perfectly smooth side right in front of his nose. "This is not just a silly pancake!" Ashiya protested. "You should know that ingesting matcha brings a lot of health benefits! If this will help our liege fulfill his objectives, then I will keep on making these pancakes to his heart's content!" He pulled the plate back and placed it back on the table. "And besides, we had a bit of extra money and the matcha powder was on sale."

Urushihara sighed and was about to give another snarky reply when he was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps on the metal stairs. A short while later, they heard the public corridor's door open, followed by a long yawn from the person who did it. Looking at the frosted windows, they could see a gray shadow blob trudging slowly across the hallway.

"That's...our neighbor from room 203, isn't it?" Ashiya asked.

"Looks like it," the teenager replied while his eyes followed your movement until your shadow went out of his view. Come to think of it, when was the last time Urushihara saw you?

A smile that's a cross between admiration and pity graced Ashiya's lips. "Her dedication to her work is admirable, however I can't help but worry about her health. She's been coming home late a lot recently."

The purple-haired teen said nothing and shrugged before returning to what he was doing on the laptop. He might not be as vocal as Ashiya, but a tiny part of him was concerned about your well-being as well. The last time he talked to you was when he got those boxes of Bocky as thanks, and he noted that you were still full of energy back then.

What happened at work that drained you so much, you were literally dragging yourself back home?

Sensing he was starting to care a bit too much, Urushihara stopped his train of thoughts and mentally shrugged. Oh well. Not my problem.

*

*

Maou came home past eight in the evening; he had the morning shift that day which meant he came home just in time for dinner. He was surprised that his master strategist made something that wasn't rice in the rice cooker, but nevertheless appreciated the effort and thought that went into it.

Dinner that evening was the usual sauteed bean sprouts and rice (much to the fallen angel's distaste), but with an added tiny luxury courtesy of the matcha pancake. The rest of the meal was complemented with the demon lord's tales from work that day, his second-in-command's commentaries in between, and the fallen angel's occasional barbs and complaints.

"Speaking of work, our neighbor from room 203 seemed to be immersed in a lot of it my liege," Ashiya remarked while handing Maou another pancake slice. "She came home this afternoon looking worse for wear."

A thoughtful look crossed the latter's face. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen her for quite a long time now.. I wonder how she's doing?" He glanced at Urushihara who was in the middle of going back to the computer with his own plate of matcha pancake. "Maybe one of us should drop by and check up on her? We can give her some of this cake too," he motioned to Ashiya, a grateful smile on his face. "This is delicious, by the way. Great work."

You could practically see the tears of joy in the latter's eyes at Maou's words. "Your words of praise give me the utmost pleasure, my lord!"

Maou then looked at the purple head who was already in the middle of window shopping in Jungle. "Yo, Urushihara."

"Nope," he replied without looking.

"Go to her place later and give her this one slice." As if on cue, Ashiya had the plate already prepared and clingwrapped. When Urushihara spun around ready with a protest, Maou interjected, "Think of it as thanks for the boxes of Bocky she gave you last month. You didn't thank her back then, did you?"

The teenager glared back. "But why do I have to do it? I'm a NEET and everything, I'm not supposed to go outside and socialize!" He rubbed the back of his head and glanced at the direction of her room. "And besides, is she even awake right now? I don't want to go there just to waste my time."

"You're already wasting your time in front of that blasted machine, you lazy brat," muttered the blond demon general under his breath.

"Even so," Maou put his hand down on the table and looked at Urushihara straight in the eyes. "As responsible neighbors, it's our duty to make sure we get well with everyone we live with. You will go there later and give this to her," he said in a no-nonsense voice and handed him the plate.

"But-"

"If you don't, I'll cut you off from the internet for the rest of the week."

That convinced him. "Ugh. Fine. Gimme that." He swiped the plate from Maou's hold, put on his crocs and stomped out of the room. The sound of the door slamming made the two demons wince.

Ashiya rubbed his temples. "I'm definitely cutting off his PASTA time for that."

~*~

More notes:

"Go-live" - usually refers to the timeframe when applications (website/apps) are released to the general public for widespread usage. This is the next phase after they have passed the series of testing (system testing, user acceptance testing, alpha/beta testing, etc). If you're a developer, this is probably the most intense period because everybody's expecting a clean and working release.