Chapter Text
Komatsu thrashed in the middle of the summoning circle, but he was bound too tightly, hand and foot, to disrupt any of the lines. And even that—it had a chance, depending on what part of the pattern he interrupted, to let loose a demon into the world, instead of interrupting the summoning.
Instead, he shook, sprawled gracelessly, painfully, with his arms twisted back and behind him, and he gasped and choked on his own tears. It had been an hour since he'd been grabbed off the street. His jacket still had the smell of sauteed garlic sticking to it. They'd thrown him into the circle, unwilling to risk stepping inside the unbroken lines of a demon-circle even when it was inactive. It had left a gritty scrape down his cheek—no need to worry about infection, there just wasn't enough time—but except for that, there wasn't a scratch on him. They hadn't spilled his blood. It had been left for the demon to eat, along with the rest of him, right down to his soul.
The chanting stopped, leaving sudden silence except for the wild pounding of his pulse. And the rush of wind as the demon took form, mystical energy weaving physicality out of nothing. Komatsu could just barely see, out of the corner of his eye—maybe his death would be quick. He'd heard it was fast—almost merciful—but he'd also heard it could drag on and on, the bread and butter of gory tabloid stories, cautionary stories about straying from the path of goodness, the straight-to-DVD horror movies he had no stomach for.
Maybe this demon would be hungry. And eat him fast.
All he could see was red skin, black hair, an impression of awful size, until the rumbling voice made him flinch, eyes closing reflexively.
“Is this all? This tiny thing isn't even a snack!”
There was an uneasy stirring outside the circle—through the glare of the spell's glow, Komatsu could barely make out shifting boots, the motions of people trying to keep from backing away.
“My lord,” someone began, their voice cracking—they stopped.
“Lord Demon,” another took up, excitement and terror inseparable in his voice, just as eager as he was afraid. “If you accept our offering, meager though it is, I promise you will feast—”
With a whisper of air, the demon was looming over Komatsu, claws cutting neatly through the steel handcuffs they'd used, flipping Komatsu over with little nudges, effortless and efficient, no cruelty and no sympathy.
Komatsu opened his eyes to look straight up at the monster, not able to see much in the weird half-light, terror threatening to swamp him, tears still blurring his vision and stinging along the scrape, turning the dirt on him to mud, but it still made his breath catch. It was—a monster, a demon, a demon, but still—
Something in his chest beat painfully.
“You'd feed me enough? You think you'd be able to get me a meal worth eating before I was tracked down and banished, when you couldn't even manage a real sacrifice?”
The demon slid easily to his feet, lunging into a quick pace, and the line of black wizards flinched back, breaking rank. Komatsu panted out a panicked breath, and tried to pick himself up. He couldn't bring himself to stand, knew his legs would just go out from under him again, but he felt so small, kneeling helplessly in the demon's shadow.
“Lord Toriko,” another said, falling silent, apparently not sure what to do.
“I,” Komatsu said, voice rough and broken with disuse. Nobody heard him, he knew. He wasn't sure why he was speaking up at all.
“I won't serve you if you won't even bring me a meal!”
Komatsu knew only the most powerful demons had the strength to keep from devouring the sacrifice provided them. He'd never heard of one bargaining before. He wondered how long it would hold out before it ate him.
Everyone read about teenagers, stupid and sure of their invincibility, summoning fist-sized demons with offerings of sandwiches, house plants, the sicker ones with squirrels or cats.
“I could cook for you,” Komatsu said. There was no one paying attention to him—he was already so much meat—and a confusion of voices and a thick miasma of fear. He was sure nobody had heard.
And then the demon was crouching over him again.
“Cook for me?” he said, disbelieving, dark amusement in his voice. Cooking for a demon—a demon of his kind of power. It was ridiculous. But there was still that—something, in his expression, that Komatsu was doubtlessly imagining.
“If you're hungry,” Komatsu said, faintly. Of course the demon was hungry! Of course.
Behind them, the volume of the nervous summoners was increasing, alarmed shouts that failed to grab Toriko's attention. Komatsu couldn't focus on them, with the demon so close. He was going to be eaten—
“Always,” the demon purred. Of course. The demon blinked once, smiled with too many teeth—Komatsu flinched, and was at least glad that he was able to, that the demon had taken off his chains, that he wouldn't die trussed like a suckling pig. “What are your terms?”
“Terms?” Komatsu parroted, blankly.
“If you feed me, you hold the contract,” Toriko said, matter-of-fact. “What are your terms?”
“I won't be able to feed you enough,” Komatsu blurted out, stupid even though it was the truth. “I—I'm a chef, I can cook a lot, but you're a powerful demon, and—”
“I want to try something new,” the demon said, as if that was a reasonable response.
“Don't—you won't kill me?”
“Not if you're cooking for me,” Toriko said. “Afterward—not if you cook me enough.”
Komatsu flinched. He knew he wouldn't be able to cook enough. Demons were never really sated, their appetites so much more than natural. But what other choice did he have?
“Will you eat—anyone else?”
“Not if you cook enough,” Toriko repeated. If he was still hungry, then, anyone could be collateral damage, and—
“No,” Komatsu said immediately, shaking his head, only adding to the dizziness of his fear. He'd die here, in this circle, before he let that happen.
Toriko frowned. It was terrifying. “Alright. If you don't cook enough, I'll eat you, and that will end the summoning and banish me back to hell.”
“I cook for you,” Komatsu said, trying to make sure it was clear. He knew it wasn't a good bargain, nothing like the ones that summoners were supposed to draw up, but Komatsu wasn't a corrupted magic-user, the closest he came to the supernatural was buying small protective charms, and he was going to die. Just a little bit later. “If it's not enough, you—you eat me, and that's it. Nobody else.”
“No!” somebody was yelling, part of the cluttered background. Komatsu couldn't focus on it. “No no no!” The summoners were like a kicked anthill, or beetles revealed under a rotting log, an incomprehensible swarm of driven, apparently purposeless movement. The barrier that was keeping Toriko in was also keeping them out—they could cross the line, but it would mark them as a demon's meal, too.
“Deal,” Toriko said, like a cat that had gotten the cream and the canary, sticking out one huge clawed hand. His red skin looked even more inhuman in the unnatural light of the spell circle.
Komatsu stared at it, dry-mouthed. “Deal,” he said, and reached out to take the giant hand.
The world exploded around him.
Some of the summoners were starting to run when Komatsu could convince himself to look. Toriko had been a deadly presence before, and now he was a wildfire compared to a bonfire—both fierce, both could kill, but a difference of magnitude between them.
But he'd known Toriko was an immensely powerful demon. And he'd known that it took an agreement with a human for a demon on Earth to tap into its true power.
“Break the circle,” Toriko demanded. Komatsu somehow staggered to his feet, and over to the lines delineating the circle, painted onto rough concrete. He scraped at it, first with his fingernails—short for hygiene and practicality, the roughness tearing at his fingertips—and then with a rock, not sure what it would take—how thorough a break a demon could escape through. It was—it was wrong, to be freeing a demon, to have made a deal with one in the first place—
Komatsu kept on scratching at the rock, even after Toriko appeared on the other side of the line, stretching with hedonistic pleasure. It took a second for it to register in his brain, and he finally dropped the rock and staggered over—not sure why or how.
“Can't eat you,” Toriko said regretfully, looking with want at the horrified cluster of summoners—and Komatsu shuddered, remembering how helpless he'd been, at their mercy, but now they were the ones looking small as him, just as helpless.
But he'd made a bargain with Toriko. No eating anyone—except Komatsu. When he failed. When Toriko's hunger couldn't wait any longer.
“I need to cook for you,” Komatsu managed, trying to focus on that—trying to focus on details like what to cook for a demon, how much he could manage and still have it turn out good. Did 'good' matter? Demons ate people whole, bones and blood and hair and skin and all, not wasting anything. It wasn't like—like you could ask a demon what his favorite kind of sandwich was, if he wanted French or Korean, if he was in the mood for a casual dining experience or a formal one.
Well. Komatsu could hardly ask for the staff he'd need for a formal meal. Even if Toriko really wouldn't eat anyone, anyone at all except Komatsu, it still would be—there was no way he could ask anyone to serve a demon.
Toriko sniffed at the air, clearly scenting it. “There's food that way,” he added, pointing. Komatsu blinked.
And followed in the demon's wake, because what else was there to do?
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Komatsu cooked until he was too exhausted to move. Each time he slowed down, fear spurred him onward—even if he was pretty sure he had no chance of ever cooking enough, it was still something like possibility. A faint hope. Something to do.
Finally, running out of ingredients, a while since he'd ferried the last things he'd cooked out to the feasting demon in the dining room, he set a final dish on the counter, and sat down, and fell asleep.
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Komatsu woke up in a strange bed, the light on the walls all wrong, the pillow unfamiliar. For a second, it was like waking up from a nightmare. But he still ached—scraped knee, muscles exhausted and sore, head throbbing. He whimpered as he rolled over, extricating himself from blankets, trying to figure out where he was, what the hell was going on.
There was a stranger staring at him, huge and blue-haired, gaze not unfriendly but utterly alien, like he was watching a bug—something inconsequential, not worth caring about—panic.
Komatsu yelped and almost threw himself off the edge of the bed, just barely catching himself and banging his head hard on the headboard. It took him a second to catch up, but—ignore the coloring, account for a lighter jaw, a less furrowed brow—
“Toriko?” Komatsu squeaked, because it hadn't been a nightmare, he was—somewhere, he remembered falling asleep in the corner of the demon summoners' kitchen, because of course the most overdramatic, sordid literature had been right about demon-summoning cults with nefarious plans and giant hidden mansions devoted to their dark deeds. Did they have beds too? How had he ended up—
“Yeah,” the stranger said with a light chuckle—the stranger but no, the demon, and Komatsu had heard that, technically, demons could disguise themselves, but he'd never thought he'd see it. He'd never thought he'd see a demon at all. “Thank you for the meal.”
“...I'm still alive?”
“It was good,” Toriko said, with a spark of honest enthusiasm that Komatsu could recognize—it resonated with him. “I found you passed out in the kitchen, so I found a place for you to sleep after I ate everything left in the kitchen.”
“But—but, I know I didn't cook enough, I can't cook enough, right? So why didn't you e-eat me—”
“It was good! I'd just get sent back to hell if I ate you, and I want to eat more first. You're just a little mouthful,” Toriko added, with a sharp-toothed grin.
“I'm out of ingredients,” Komatsu said, fighting what felt like either hysterical laughter or maybe a scream, rising in the pit of his stomach.
“We can get more,” Toriko said, brightly.
“...and, and how long until the demon police get here? They have to have felt the shockwave from your summoning.”
“I could fight them off, but not without breaking the contract, probably,” Toriko said, bright grin going a little more thoughtful, calculating. “We should probably leave. Find a new kitchen, new ingredients.”
'Find,' just like that, Komatsu thought, yes, distinctly hysterical. “Toriko—I can't do nothing but cook until I collapse from exhaustion, I'm going to need to eat myself, and—sleep, and—”
“Okay,” Toriko said, still cheerful. “You are pretty weak,” he added, poking curiously at Komatsu's ribs with one finger—mostly human, except for a nail that was a little too pointed. Komatsu yelped and flinched. A mostly human hand, but it was far far too big, he thought faintly. Toriko was smaller in his human disguise, but that didn't mean much. It wasn't a very good disguise. Certainly he couldn't show up to a restaurant like this. At least not without everyone staring. Asking questions Komatsu couldn't really answer.
He still couldn’t ask someone to cook for a demon.
“Where are we going?” Toriko asked. “I could find us some place. Sniff it out,” he added with a shrug.
Toriko probably wouldn't have trouble kicking someone human out of their kitchen without hurting them. They'd be helpless in the face of his strength. But Komatsu couldn't do that, even if there was a way to keep the secret Komatsu was suddenly a part of. It made the decision easy.
“Alright,” Komatsu said, swallowing his fear. His head still ached, his tongue was clumsy in his dry mouth, but all he could do was keep moving forward. “We'll go to my apartment. I—don't have much to cook. I could...”
“I'll bring you ingredients,” Toriko said, gleeful, his smile wider than Komatsu was really comfortable with.
“Without hurting anyone!” Komatsu blurted out, suddenly worried.
“Our agreement was just not killing anyone but you,” Toriko said, the bright intelligence in his eyes so much more than what an animal would possess, but still totally inhuman. “Technically, just not eating anyone but you.”
Komatsu's breath was frozen in his lungs, and tears were pricking his eyes, but he squared his shoulders anyway, mustering his strength and steeling himself for death. “No,” he said, voice shaking and high-pitched with fear but no less certain.
“Alright,” Toriko said, with a sigh. “No hurting anyone. No theft?” Komatsu shook his head, mutely. “I'll just hunt, then.”
“I'll—I'll cook what you bring me,” Komatsu managed, not sure he actually could, but trying to be certain about it anyway. Hopefully—hopefully his agreement with Toriko was binding enough that his death would be enough to send Toriko back. He knew that the language was essential, that the intent behind the words would be meaningless to a determined demon. Hopefully (but even Komatsu's optimism wasn't enough to pull through to any real belief here) there wouldn't be any collateral in Komatsu's stupid, insane last-minute decision. Collateral damage he would be implicit in causing, with his deal with a demon, when he should have accepted his death, Toriko's trail of destruction leading the supernatural control authorities to him sooner rather than later. This was, as far as he knew, unprecedented.
There was a long pause.
“You can eat what you hunt faster than you can when I cook it,” Komatsu said carefully. Demons weren't known for being gourmands. “And there's less waste—blood, organs—”
“I can eat that stuff anyway, after you're done,” Toriko said cheerfully, even though Komatsu couldn't ignore the underlying menace. There was no hint of a threat; the potential for violence was more of a fact, an inevitability. “If I just wanted more to eat, I would have taken their deal.” He nodded casually in a direction that Komatsu assumed pointed in the direction of the summoners. Still alive? Imprisoned in the summoning room maybe? If they were dead, then Komatsu would—something—it would mean that Toriko was far more loosely bound. If that was the case, the moral thing to do would be to kill himself, before the demon could do worse damage.
“So—you want—”
“Dinner was so delicious!” Toriko enthused, his eyes alight with uncomplicated joy, the most incredibly human expression. Before, Komatsu wouldn't have been able to imagine it on his face, not because he was expressionless, but because he was so alien. This—it could have been any of Komatsu's closest friends, his family, open and honest and enthusiastic. “It tastes so much better like that!”
“You're—you're still hungry,” Komatsu said, still baffled, trying to establish what he understood.
“I always am! But if I'm going to be hungry anyway, I'll wait for more tasty food,” Toriko said, like that was sensible and reasonable. “It's been years since I was summoned, anyway. And then they just kept me chained up. I got to eat the losers of the fights I won. None of it was cooked, most of it didn't even taste any good—you know that thing last night? The fish that was all crunchy on one side?”
“...pan-seared salmon?” Komatsu asked, trying to filter through the incredibly foggy memories from the night before, actual decision-making hidden beneath a haze of fear and confusion and, increasingly, exhaustion.
“How do you do that?”
“A very hot pan to start, patting the fish dry before putting it in, lowering the heat immediately, and unilateral cooking,” Komatsu said promptly, half out of remembered instinctual response to his teaching chefs, half because of the chefs he'd started mentoring, in and out of his own kitchen.
“Will you show me?” Toriko asked, curious.
“Y-yes?” Komatsu managed, swallowing around a suddenly dry throat. This was surreal, unbelievable. “Um—do you want to learn how to cook?”
“No,” Toriko said, with another shrug. “I'm just curious. It looked complicated when I found you last night. I've never seen it done before.”
“Oh,” Komatsu said carefully, trying not to imagine what Toriko had been eating in the past: everything raw, some of it—most of it—human. It also meant—probably—that there really was nothing human about Toriko; so much for the theory that demons were gluttonous humans warped in hell. Or maybe so warped that they lost everything that they'd had, memories and all.
No spices, Komatsu thought. No cooked food at all. Not even raw food like, like steak tartare or sushi. No aesthetic appeal, none of the color or scent or contrast of a carefully-balanced dish or meal. Nothing sweet, probably, Toriko far too powerful a demon to be summoned with a plate of donuts.
“If we—we need to leave,” Komatsu said. “The demon cops will get here eventually, and—I'll call it in? As we leave? So they can do something about the summoners—”
“I left them locked in that room,” Toriko said with a shrug. “You can just leave them there, they might starve before anyone finds them.”
“No!” Komatsu blurted out, horrified. “No, that's—no. I'll call it in.”
“They tried to feed you to me,” Toriko said slowly, and he was normally easy to read, but Komatsu had no idea what his expression meant now.
“So they'll put them on trial and, and—figure out what was going on. I'm not going to leave them to starve to death or eat each other!”
“Okay,” Toriko said, slowly. “They might catch us faster.”
“Is—is that a problem?”
“You'll be jailed too, for making a contract with a demon,” Toriko said, but more like he was curious than like he objected.
“You'll be eating me anyway,” Komatsu pointed out—reasonably, he thought. “If—if that's okay? Calling in someone?”
“Sure,” Toriko said, expression oddly blank as he watched Komatsu again.
“So—so then I'd like to stop by my apartment for spices and maybe some other ingredients?”
“You won't be leaving without me,” Toriko said, suddenly an edge of menace in the room that hadn't been there. “If I can't eat anyone else, I won't let you escape me.”
“No!” Komatsu yelped, aware again that he was prey sharing a room with a predator. “Not like that—to escape you! I just—I wanted to pick up spices so I can cook better meals. Because we should probably leave the city? If—that's where we still are? But the wilderness, we'll be able to hide there, and you can hunt—”
“Okay!” Toriko said, cheerful again. He looked at Komatsu, expectantly. Komatsu couldn't help but be suspicious of the way the demon seemed to be following his lead—following his rules, even, even though he had no power, less than no power, to control him, especially not outside the bounds of their agreement. Some of his own chefs had given Komatsu more problems, especially the more masculine ones.
Komatsu looked around, dazedly, ignoring the way his stomach growled. He'd need to eat something soon, but—
“You ate everything else? Does that mean—just the prepared dishes or--”
“Everything,” Toriko said promptly.
“I can't cook breakfast, then,” Komatsu said, and winced. He didn't know how much Toriko would be able to take, how much his appetite would need to be tempted before it overcame the base desire to simply devour Komatsu, how hungry he'd need to get. He looked around, suddenly feeling unbearably disoriented. “I guess—I guess I can try to find a car? Even demon summoners had to get here somewhere—I don't even know where we are! And a phone, I think my cell might still be at home. I—you're looking more—human?”
“It's to blend in,” Toriko said, a little smug, and Komatsu had to choke back a hysterical laugh. The demon's human guise—he hadn't even known they could do that, most people had thought it was an old wives' tale that only appeared in the most sordid, base schlock—was more subtle than his twelve-foot-tall bright red horned-and-fanged form, but by almost every other measure did not look very human. He was huge, eyes flicking around like he was sizing everything up to eat (he was, of course), his teeth a little too pointed, fingernails a little too sharp, clawlike, and his hair was bright sky blue. Like someone over—god, over 7 feet it looked!--with biceps thicker than Komatsu's waist could ever really be surreptitious at all. Toriko wasn't going to blend in.
“You might not be noticed in the car,” Komatsu said, feeling distinctly hysterical again. “So—so I can't run away. But I don't think I'm going to have any chairs that will fit you.”
“That's okay too,” Toriko told him, magnanimously.
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It turned out that covens of dark sorcerers looking to summon demons by human sacrifice worked out of slightly run-down motels with highly modified basements. Or at least this one did. But if that was the case—
“Why didn't they turn the sign to unoccupied and take someone who drove in?” Komatsu asked, baffled and, yes, absolutely upset. “You even said I was too small to make a good sacrifice!”
“And just one of you,” Toriko said, sounding slightly miffed—it was enough to make Komatsu shiver even in the bright mid-morning sun. “But I'm strong. You need a sacrifice with a strong spirit to summon me.”
“I have a strong spirit?” Komatsu asked him, baffled, but Toriko didn't give him any response, just looked at him for a moment, inscrutable.
He hoped not too many people had died before him. That they hadn't summoned other demons more successfully. He thought not—it was only a matter of time after a summoning before the demon cops tracked them down.
Dark sorcerers also shared a slightly banged-up secondhand car, an economic model with good gas mileage. The keys were hung on a hook behind the front desk. Komatsu could just barely see over the dash, and had to readjust the seat significantly forward. Toriko had to shove his seat back as far as it could go, and still didn't really fit.
It turned out people wouldn't notice a demon a few feet away from them, even when they gave him second looks. Komatsu felt like he had the truth tattooed on him, a blazing signal. What he was doing was, by any sane person's count, evil. There was nothing to do with a demon except banish it. He would be facing a lifetime imprisonment if they found him and he lived—which was unlikely. A lifetime imprisonment, and countless interviews to determine how he'd done the impossible thing he did.
Toriko would have—maybe—fit in the elevator, but Komatsu took the stairs. He'd been gone just over a full day, not long enough for any of his neighbors to know he'd been gone, with his workaholic tendencies, but Komatsu didn't know if he could fake normalcy at all. He was exhausted, starving, and accompanied by a demon that would eventually eat him.
“Tadaima,” he mumbled as he took his shoes off at the door, automatic. Toriko was watching him, silently. He took a moment to breath in the familiar smell of his house, ground and center himself, before he shook himself awake and headed to the kitchen.
...Food should probably be his first priority, but he started a pot of coffee first instead. At least the caffeine would help. And then he started in on the eggs, and all the meat in his fridge and freezer, and pancakes and toast and salad and—
He drank several cups of coffee, automatically pouring a second mug for Toriko, but it wasn't until he found himself getting a little dizzy that he realized his stomach was hollow, and he still hadn't eaten.
“I need to eat,” he muttered, mostly to himself. Toriko had been a—not silent, he was eating enthusiastically, but an unobtrusive presence, and he jumped when he spoke.
Toriko swallowed his mouthful, then gestured at an overflowing platter with a hand still holding a half-piece of toast. “I know,” he said, sounding pleased with himself. “You said.”
“That's for me?” Komatsu blurted out.
“You said you needed to eat.”
“How can you hold yourself back?” Komatsu blurted out, baffled. This was against—everything, every rule that was supposed to apply to demon summoning. The most powerful demons never resisted more than half an hour.
“I'm very powerful,” Toriko said, with a grin that was more than half-feral, terrifying. “And I know I'll get more. If we evade capture, I'll get to eat more new things! But nobody else would cook for me. So you need to eat.”
“...thank you?” Komatsu hazarded, feeling like the world was a rug ripped out from under his feet.
He found a clean plate by washing one of the giant pile that Toriko had produced, and helped himself to a generous breakfast—a fraction of what had been left. When he looked up, the demon was staring at him, a deep frown marking his face, reminiscent of the deep shadows of his face in fully demonic form. Komatsu yelped, almost dropped his full plate out of nerveless fingers, only long instinct saving him.
“Careful!” Toriko laughed, stabilizing him with one huge hand at his elbow, expression evening out again. “Is that all you're eating?”
Komatsu looked down at his heaped plate, over at the serving platter still covered in food. “Yes?” he said. “This is a lot, Toriko! For a human, at least.”
Toriko shrugged, but something about his expression was fascinated. “You are kind of shrimpy.”
“Hardly more than a mouthful,” Komatsu said, terrified all over again. Toriko sniffed at the air, expression going darker for a second. “I—but Toriko, you're huge by anyone's standards, I've never seen a human as big as you even right now!”
“Really?” He sounded kind of fascinated, like he couldn't quite believe that he wasn't a normal size.
“Really!”
“More for me, then.” Toriko snagged the rest of the serving platter, and the remains disappeared long before Komatsu was even halfway done with his own, much smaller, plate.
Komatsu washed the dishes, Toriko watching in what might be fascination, what was probably—and Komatsu hoped it wasn't, but he knew just how faint that hope was—hunger. He packed quickly, then re-packed, needing to pare down what he brought. One pan, one skillet, nothing like enough for Toriko's appetite—he'd have to improvise. Spit-roasting, fish baked in clay, the kind of food he'd learned to cook camping with a handful of other chefs one summer, during a rare break from culinary classes. He didn't know what else. It would probably be harder to keep up with Toriko's appetite in the woods, or at least to produce enough food that was still interesting to the demon, whatever that meant, without the benefits of a kitchen with an oven and full range—but he didn't know what else to do.
Finally, he called his manager. “This is Komatsu—I'm so so sorry, I'm sorry, but there's been a family emergency, I have to go—I'll be gone at least a few weeks before I can return. I'm so sorry for the disruption!”
Leaving a message left him feeling like a coward, that he couldn't say it directly. There was no family emergency, of course, but if he just up and disappeared from the Hotel Gourmet, his staff would know something was wrong. Running away to the middle of nowhere to deal with a vague, undefined emergency or event, for a couple of weeks with no defined end date or forewarning, was also incredibly out of character for him, he knew, but at least it would keep them from calling the police. Hopefully. At least not first thing. There shouldn't be anything to connect him to demons, dark magic summoning, and homicidal cults running out of the basements of roadside motels.
He really wanted to take a nap. But that would leave a bored, hungry demon alone and unwatched in a residential neighborhood, a fairly quiet one but still part of a major city. And Komatsu couldn't trust that he'd done a good enough job with the contract he'd agreed to—one scrabbled together out of desperation and insanity, nothing at all like the careful documents an actual sorcerer would piece together.
Most of his spice cabinet was packed up, his knives carefully cleaned and put away, with just the slightest hint of fear about how they could be perceived as a weapon—but he was not and could never be a danger to Toriko.
Komatsu got started on the dishes. Toriko was still watching him, still apparently fascinated, although Komatsu didn't know what the appeal was, watching him elbow-deep in suds, perched on a stool to make up for his height. Was it watching a human—somewhat—relaxed around him? Just something about the whole experience of food preparation, clearly alien to him and just as clearly something he was fascinated by? It was—strange, and a little terrifying, to have someone watching him, and to have that someone so obviously be a predator considering prey. Which he was. Just—prey with a temporary stay of execution. One that could, really, be repealed at any time.
Despite the warmth of the late morning, the hot water his hands were buried in, Komatsu shivered, suddenly cold.
He wiped down the counters, swept the floor, emptied the garbage and recycle. Sugar, rice, soy sauce, fish sauce, and olive oil went into a bag—the things that, he thought, would be hard to replace in the wilderness. Some butter, even if it wouldn't last indefinitely—nothing would, really, with Toriko’s appetite the way it was. Maybe he could find small stores to stop by? They'd—Komatsu should probably avoid farms, because the temptation might exist for Toriko to eat cows or other livestock when humans were forbidden to him. At least eating a herd of deer or elk wouldn't destroy a family's livelihood.
At least his great-uncle had shown him how to butcher game, years and years ago. Komatsu had always been terrible at hunting, but—Toriko wouldn't be. Even if he startled the deer, there was very little that could stand up to a hunting demon. Nothing, really, short of—maybe—an army.
(“I'm very powerful,” Toriko had said. He had willpower that went above and beyond that shown by even the strongest demons Komatsu had ever heard about.)
...His great-uncle, who had spent every summer for years and years in a rural mountain cabin, rustic—no electricity, a water pump that his great-uncle had considered a modern luxury—and isolated. But he was old, now, his health too weak for him to be hours from a hospital, too weak to cook for himself over a wood fire, to be so entirely self-sufficient. The cabin was empty.
There would be beds—simple ones, with ancient mattresses, and Komatsu was pretty sure that there was no way that Toriko would fit onto a twin bed, or even two pushed together, but he also wasn't at all sure that demons slept—and shelves, rough counters, a sink, a wood stove for chill early mornings and for cooking. It wouldn't be a modern kitchen, full of conveniences, and it wouldn't be familiar to Komatsu the way his own apartment kitchen was, or the Hotel Gourmet kitchen, but it would be easier than trying to camp, and Komatsu had no idea what else he could do.
Komatsu added a few changes of clothes, a jacket, his hiking boots, and a spare apron into his backpack, no idea at all how long he should pack for. Days? Weeks? How long would he last? How long was he going to have left to live?
“I'm ready to go,” Komatsu told Toriko, a little nervously. The demon brightened a bit, maybe, but he was already almost—cheerful, had maintained an easy good nature, or at least a vague impression of it. It was terrifying, Komatsu thought, really. Not as terrifying as anger or a more-obvious hunger would have been, but...
But a demon would never really be anything but terrifying.
“I'm hungry,” Toriko said, but without much bite to it. Komatsu winced, thinking--
His stash of snack foods, for when he was working too hard for a proper meal, and unexpected visitors, and for movie nights, went into a bag, almost overflowing, which he handed to Toriko. “Bring this down to the car?” he found himself asking, automatically. “Or, um, er—”
“Sure,” Toriko said easily, sniffing at the snacks with interest—but not immediately digging in, which was still strange. He was a demon. It was unnatural.
Not that anything about this was normal or natural, at all. Starting with the circumstances, ending with Toriko himself. Komatsu hadn't, of course, ever met a demon—he was a good citizen, a painfully ordinary citizen, not a violent murderer. And he knew better than to assume that the books and movies and lurid dramas were accurate. But he still couldn't help but think that Toriko wasn't anything like he should have been, anyway.
With just another moment's hesitation, Komatsu grabbed some bottles of water and juice for the drive, well aware that he was, bizarrely, preparing for a road trip of sorts. A road trip to an isolated area where the volatile creature of devouring evil with him would be, hopefully, less dangerous.
“Okay,” he said, shouldering his backpack, a few bags on his deceptively strong arms—he was, after all, a chef, used to wrestling with bread dough and mincing vegetables and creaming butter. And Toriko had his snacks, so—
“Let's go,” he said finally, and Toriko grinned, making the discomfort in the pit of Komatsu's stomach flare stronger for a second. Was he walking into some kind of trap? He wasn't a sorcerer. He had no experience with this, any of this.
Toriko followed him into the hallway, looming at his heels, and if he was any smaller or more harmless, it would have been almost charming, maybe—like a curious, over-sized puppy. A hungry one, waiting for dinner.
Komatsu locked his door automatically, grateful that he didn't have any pets or even plants to worry about. No real need to track down a house sitter. No spouse or children to worry about, just his parents, and they talked irregularly, almost never visited. Key in his pocket, an extra pat down for his wallet, and there were the car keys for the demon summoners' car.
Toriko still looked ridiculous, squished into the front seat, and it still felt like he was looming over Komatsu. He was already digging through bags and packages of nuts, chips, and jerky; it wasn't going to last long.
Komatsu tried to push that thought out of his mind, and turned on the car, and turned his attention to the road, and pointed himself out of the city, headed towards the mountains.
-End Chapter 1-