Irene tried to slip past Saija. The succubus spread her wings out, blocking entrance as she had said she would. While Irene could go all the way around to a side entrance, now that she had mentioned it to Saija, the succubus would probably just move to block her there.
“Those kinds of people–”
Saija glanced down at her own chest, up at Irene’s chest, then up at Irene’s face.
With a smirk.
“Ugh.”
“Don’t worry. You’re still growing, right? Humans keep developing for most of their life. Especially if you eat more,” she said, poking at Irene.
Slapping her hand away, Irene said, “I don’t care about that. Just go… play with your fake friends.” Again, she pushed past the succubus. This time, when Saija spread her wings out, Irene pressed into the leathery material until it gave way and let her into the building.
Though it took a lot more force than she had anticipated. The wings gave way not because Irene pushed more than they could handle but because Saija let her past. Without the resistance of the wing, Irene stumbled forwards. She almost fell to the ground.
A tail wrapping around her waist kept her upright.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” Irene said with a sigh.
“If you really wanted past that badly, you need have only asked.”
“I’m sorry. I just…” She trailed off with another sigh, dropping her head as she did so.
The diablery class, barring a certain specific incident, had been somewhat enjoyable. With Eva there to watch and keep an eye on the more rowdy elements of the class, it had been a safe environment to learn in. At least, as safe as such a volatile subject could be.
Interacting with demons—even Eva on occasion—was not something she envisioned herself doing more than strictly necessary. They didn’t act like humans. They didn’t react like humans. They didn’t think like humans.
Without Eva around to act as a buffer, Irene just didn’t know what to do.
Irene idly thumbed at the leather cord around her waist.
Maybe the problem wasn’t in the demons. Maybe it was her.
Saija was easily the most personable demon of the bunch. Almost everyone got along with her just fine. But other demons had been opening up in the recent weeks. Each had their own cadre of friends, though none had as large of a group as Saija. They all, people and demons, seemed to handle themselves fine.
It was just her.
Of course, some days had Irene thinking that she was the only student in school who got bullied. Jordan never got bullied. Juliana never got bullied. Even Shalise never got bullied. Her own twin sister never got bullied.
Eva did get bullied for a short time last year just after her appearance had been revealed to everybody, but that had died off quick enough. Irene wasn’t sure if it was Eva’s menacing appearance or something else, but it wasn’t a thing that had lasted very long.
So maybe it wasn’t the demons that were the problem.
It was that Irene couldn’t properly interact with other sentient beings.
Shaking her head, Irene pulled her hand back from the leathery tail as if it had been shocked. Saija was a succubus and Irene didn’t want a scatter-brained idle action while she had been lost in thought to give the demon any ideas.
“Are you going to let me go any time soon,” Irene asked, glancing towards Saija.
But the demon wasn’t even paying attention to her.
Saija’s eyes were narrowed, glowing bright red as she gazed outside the dorm building.
Following her gaze, Irene peered out into the courtyard.
At absolutely nothing. A handful of students were meandering about. None doing anything suspicious. It was only a half-hour after school. Given the only mild cold, it wasn’t too odd to see her peers outside enjoying themselves. Two of the demons were out there as well, speaking with humans.
Interacting with people. And people were interacting with demons. Casually.
It was enough to make Irene sigh.
Though they had been warned about the sky laser beam thing—they and most of the school thanks to Vektul—apparently they felt safe enough to be outside around people.
Irene watched the two of them for a moment before deciding that nothing worthy of alarm was going on with them. They were just chatting. No rampant murders or demon hunters attack.
“Is something the matter?”
When Saija failed to respond, Irene pushed a wing out of the way to place a hand on the demon’s shoulder.
“Saija?”
The demon jumped at the contact. Her tail tightened around Irene’s waist. Not painfully. Just reflexively as part of her startled jump.
“Sorry. I thought I– It’s probably nothing.”
That made the hairs on Irene’s neck stand on end. “What was nothing?”
“Nothing,” Saija said with a smile and a shrug.
