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“A… Second… Date?” He parrots the words back to her like it’s the first time he’s ever heard them. Considering his test scores, it really could be.
“Yeah. Since I, you know… Fucked the first one.” Asa bows her head to the floor out of shame. She can recall the voice of the not-so-friendly Devil cohabiting her body – “Fucked it?! I mean you really fucked it! Where on Earth did you get your dating advice, a National Geographic book?!” – she winces at the recollection. “Maybe we do something you like. Maybe… Ice cream?”
She takes the opportunity to catch Denji’s eye – “Way to go, you look less like a creep now!” – feeling awfully small in the moment. She had quickly learnt Denji often took long pauses in the middle of conversation, like he was processing the words in real time on a computer. It didn’t make her feel less insecure though. Especially with the other students beginning to catch on and stare at the small commotion happening between human-chair and chicken-killer.
His words are barely a rasp. “Yeah. Ice cream sounds good.”
*
“I mean, Fami and Toshida wouldn’t be half as interested in him if he wasn’t Chainsaw Man. Even if you’re too chickenshit to turn him into a weapon, I like your strategy,”
“There is no strategy,”
“It’s war, of course there’s strategy. You know, ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’. I see you, smartie.” Asa sighed. It shouldn’t be as hard as it was to convince the Devil of War that maybe teenagers just do things for the sake of fun. But if quoting Sun Tzu was what it took to keep the Devil off her back, then she was fine. She had enough stress as is simply getting to the ice cream store. Why did he pick one all the way out here, anyway?
“Look. He’s there. Now.” Asa glanced up. Sure enough, there was Denji, meandering down from the bus stop further along the road. Seeming to hardly notice Asa stationed against the exterior wall of the ice cream store. She could feel the invisible push of the War Devil to get her to act before Denji continued to just walk right by.
“—Hey,” her breath hitched in her attempt to regain her footing. Fuck you, Yoru.
“Oh. Hey,” Denji responded. His words were muffled around a mouth of food. His gaze still wasn’t trained on Asa, like he had just stumbled upon an awkward acquaintance rather than the girl who was taking him on a date. “Er. What’s with the food?”
“Oh, this? Made it at home. Got hungry on the bus,” he mumbled around another mouthful. Asa could feel the instinctive rage of the Devil inside her flare. “Eating while walking’s rude, let’s sit down.”
He nodded silently. Asa’s first impression of Denji had been that he was a dog – what, with the whole seat-for-cash and general stupidity that made her think the most intelligent trick he knew was sit. But as she had gotten to know Denji, she had reassessed her judgement. He was a wolf. She hadn’t discussed her observation with Toshida yet, but if anyone was to be the analogy for the first human to tame the wolf, she had already placed him in that position. Whatever Asa was in the scenario was way cooler than wolf or wolf-tamer. A daring proto human. Or maybe a cat. She should consult the War Devil for a personality test.
“Well, you know I love the superlatives, but what about your stomach? You’ve been staring at him licking his fingers for half a minute now.” Fortunately, Denji hadn’t seemed to have noticed it, neither the begging growls of her stomach. “I assume you’re good for lunch then?”
“Oh no, no. I staved off my breakfast for this ice cream, y’know!” He wiped his hands thoughtlessly on his trousers and began shuffling out of his seat. Asa beat him to it. “Cool. I can pay. What do you want?”
“Whatever an ice cream store sells,” code for I have no clue. Denji didn’t seem to be a picky eater, so Asa didn’t bother to press further. “And thanks, I owe you,”
“Owing your date money. How cruel,” The War Devil snivelled in the back of her head. He doesn’t. That’s just Denji Asa answered back to her head defensively. She had noticed earlier, near the bus stop, how Denji was wearing his school uniform button up. She had had reasonable suspicions before, but all signs seemed to point to it now. Chainsaw Man was broke.
The old attendant lethargically plugged in Asa’s order at the counter. The smell of fried goods from the back of the store wafted to the open front, where packaged ice creams lined display cases alongside tubs. The eating area around the ice cream store was shaded by a veranda, the cool breeze of the nearby shore helping in the fight against the climbing heat of the midday sun. It was warmer than usual for spring; Asa couldn’t be luckier on a day for ice cream.
“Here,” Asa set their food down, already gnawing on a chip as she shuffled back into her seat. “I thought there was no eating while walking,” Asa shot Denji a pointed look. But his expression wasn’t snarky, he was amused. “We’ll eat our ice creams and walk anyway. A lot to see around here,”
“No penguins,”
“No penguins... And no facts about penguins. Or anything. I promise,” her words were stilted. Even when the apology was unspoken, she had a hard time forming it in her mouth. It was a godsend that Denji reacted the same no matter what she said. Even the smartest wolf could not pick out such subtleties in speech. “There’s definitely something I want to see here,”
“Oh?”
“Your date did more research than you.” He had also suggested this place, she snapped back in record time. A crude blend of expressions had stretched over Denji’s face in the brief silence. Like he had tasted something sour instead of the fries he had drenched in tomato sauce. “Yeah. You’ll see,”
“Sounds… exciting,” Asa offered for enthusiasm. “Do you come here often or something?”
“Hell no. Bus trip’s too long.” She could agree with that. She had to leave right after breakfast on a Saturday. “Today just feels like a special day,”
“Maybe it’s because we’re… on a date…?” She could instantly feel her face shrivel with a cringe, similarly to Denji moments ago. I’m trying, Yoru. Trying really hard! she offered meekly to the devil who was certainly laughing back at her somewhere in her head. There was no use trying to convince a Devil of War. “Mhm… I don’t know.” She chanced looking at him with a glance. Denji seemed particularly invested in his fries now. But his cover was blown – A complimentary dust of pink worn on his ears. Asa smiled in her private win. Her goal obviously wasn’t to woo him – it wasn’t on their first date either – she was simply here to rectify her fuck-up. But she couldn’t deny she was tickled by the way he so plainly gave himself away in moments like now. Like a wolf trying to suppress the wag of its tail.
“I’ll buy us ice cream. What do you want?” Asa offered to end the growing awkward silence between them. Denji had wolfed down the ordered fried food as expected, Asa whittling down her much humbler sandwich in the meantime. He hummed. “I don’t know what I like. Is there an ‘everything’ flavour?” She frowned.
“Uh. We’ll see.”
*
In the end, Asa had selected three flavours for Denji. One being of course rainbow, which had thoroughly convinced him of the existence of an ‘everything’ flavour, even though it was just sugar with food colouring. The others were just tests for whether he liked cookies and berries. In case, you know, she wanted to cook him something for home economics. “Setting yourself up for victory. I like it.” It took her entire will not to tell the Devil to shut the fuck up out loud. His ice cream towered above its waffle cone, already melting in the strong daylight and wind and melding into one tower of colour. Asa’s ice cream was a dwarf in comparison – she only liked chocolate and vanilla flavours. “So, where’re you leading us?”
“’s down the boardwalk,” Denji scanned the expanding coast with squinted eyes, “I’m pretty sure.” She didn’t take the time to incredulously mention that nothing appeared to be down the coast this way. She had to have been taken out this far for some reason. Maybe there was something out here that couldn’t just be found in everyday Tokyo. Maybe he knew a special place. Maybe Chainsaw Man was finally taking his next victim to his child-eating dungeon, like that fringe news site had mentioned the other day.
“Thanks for the food, again.” Asa looked back up again from the rock she had been kicking down the boardwalk. Denji always appeared to eat like it was his first meal in months – ice cream was currently dripping down his chin right now, and she was beginning to regret not packing napkins in her bag – which more than made up for his spotty showcase of manners. Toshida had mentioned briefly to her his growth since before entering the 11th grade. All the calories were powering him upwards. “Don’t mention it. Your parents don’t give you an allowance, huh?”
“Parents?” He smiled, then frowned. “Don’t got ‘em.” Ah. “You think any respectable parent would let someone as foul-mouthed as you run around Tokyo? Be serious.”
“Me neither,” Asa opted in place of the War Devil’s insult. “Guess that’s a commonplace thing. Sucks,”
“Yeah. Sucks harder when you’re only living off a pension.”
“You’re living off a pension?!” It was like she was paralysed by the word. The shock itself made her forget she was kicking a rock for a small moment.
And in that moment she had also conceded her defeat to the rock, beginning to plummet towards the ground. I’m not really trying, by the way, Yoru. So don’t laugh right now. What she didn’t account for was for Denji to also swiftly hoist her back upright. — "Hup!" — She was falling, then she wasn’t. Now she was just sweating profusely from the sudden jolt of adrenaline.
“—Er. Yeah. ’s a temporary thing though. I think.” He seemed hardly phased at this point by her near-constant trip-ups; Asa thanked the Devil of Ignorance. He gave a big bite of his ice cream. “Until I graduate and get accepted back into the Public Safety Devil Hunter Division,”
“You’re not graduating anytime soon. Enjoy the pension,”
“Hey! We’re in the same year, asshole!” She revelled in a laugh now. The ice creamed cooled her heated cheeks and made her brain ache. The taste itself was warped by the salty smell of the sea, but she relished in it regardless. “’s not enough to live off, is all. I’m studying hard to graduate,” Asa noticed how all of his it’s were slurred into ‘s; Denji couldn’t even pronounce his words properly. Maybe it’s best she didn’t mention it.
“Is Toshida helping you? His heart seems set on you graduating as well,”
“Not really. But he doesn’t order me around much either. So, I like it,” Denji shrugged, beginning to gnaw mindlessly on the waffle cone. Asa made sure to wipe her hands discreetly on her skirt, noticing the rivulets of melted rainbow, brown and red trickling further down her date’s arm. “You don’t like the orders thing,” she observed out loud. “No,” he shook his head thoroughly, “and I know what you think. That I’m dumb. That I’m a dog. ‘N so I should get ordered around, or whatever. But… fuck no. Nobody gets to do that anymore.”
Asa nodded slowly. The way the emotion in his voice seemed to spike – nearly crack – at the mention of dog and orders gave her the strong nod to avoid it. She wasn’t a genius with social cues (so much so her parents at one point had insisted she would see a psychiatrist) but Denji complimented it with how easy he was to read. There were only spoken rules with a wolf. “Like pissing on your territory. Now you can claim Denji as your own!”
That’s not what I was getting at, weirdo. It was a miracle how the War Devil hadn’t taken the wheel and derailed the good moment yet. “Well. I’m sorry for being pushy the other day,”
“Don’t mention‘t,” he parroted back. Both light-hearted and filled with hidden emotion, that was Denji as a whole. You could pass off anything he did as idiotic or blind-sided, dismiss his existence as a spineless hedonist. But every desire and action were buried in something deeper. Something Denji knew existed, even though he probably hadn’t even learnt the words for yet.
“We’re here,” he said at the mention of his name in Asa’s head. She looked up from her rock.
The boardwalk had peeled slowly away from the seawall gating the shore, rolling gently uphill on the vibrant greens that indicated imminent countryside. The whole place was situated on the coastal fringe of Tokyo, sloping into hills beyond Tokyo Bay. Up the hill, something had come into view. She had not been able to make it out from the earlier distance, but the little white specks once attributed to a flower field had come into clarity.
In a perfect array stood tens, possibly hundreds of grave markers.
Asa held back a noise of surprise in her throat. The calmness in which her date approached the graves assured her though; Denji meant to go here. He seemed to be led through the field by muscle memory, picking his way through dozens of engraved names towards a certain corner of the field, where the rows of graves were unfinished. The freshest burials. He scanned down the rows. Asa was merely a ghost following him at this point. His shadow as he climbed through the slightly overgrown grass, uncut around the places of rest. She felt like holding her breath, but her mouth opened for words.
“Your parents?”
Denji offered back an amused huff. He had finally rounded on a particular section of graves. “No.” Asa fought back the desire to insist with another question of who. It helped that she was struggling to vocalise her words in the first place. The look on his face was hard to decipher. Maybe the term was it was bitter sweet, or emotionally constipated, or physically constipated. Hard to tell. She creaked her head to finally look at the grave he was staring at. Then the reason for the expression clicked.
Hayakawa Aki. May 23rd, 1974 - September 12th, 1997.
“… Hayakawa’s your name on the attendance list. Your…”
“He wasn’t my brother. But… He felt like one.” She stared at her shoes, feeling an invisible trickle of guilt slide down her neck. Yoru surprisingly offered no comment.
“Was he your friend? In the Public Safety Devil Hunter Division?”
“Yeah,” the words were almost a sigh, “my best friend.” It was like he had released a deep exhale. His whole body invisibly untensed next to her even though he had corrected his slouch.
“There’s no graves for my other friends. But ‘t feels like this one speaks for all of ‘em, you know?” Asa’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “He’s saying it for self-assurance. Don’t argue.” Sometimes the War Devil gave good battle advice. Denji himself had likely fought in some of the greatest battles of this century, when he was in the Public Safety Devil Hunter Division with Aki and his other friends. The wolf and his other packmates, lost to time. Only represented with the words on a grave. She imagined Aki was an amazing person, highly valued and important in the heat of such battles.
“I think he would’ve preferred being buried with his real family. But everyone in the Division lies here.” Thousands of bodies, spanning into another horizon further away from them in this nameless graveyard, not marked on any GPS system. “Only co-workers and family can ever see ‘em. There’s no funeral.” The bright sun had been muted by a passing cloud, casting a dappled grey shadow on the field. The wind tugged and beckoned at Asa’s hair and skirt, but she knew to stay still. Until whatever that was processing behind his eyes had concluded. Eventually, Denji dropped into a crouch and fished something out of his bag. Crumpled between his tentative fingers were a smushed bunch of flowers. Camellias, white. Maybe he had picked them at some point on their walk without her noticing. Maybe he had picked them up before his bus ride, explaining their crumpled state. But no matter their state of disrepair and the petals that tugged loose as he placed them before the grave, the intent was pure. The gesture stirred some deep sense of endearment within her. The intent was all that would have mattered to Aki, Asa was sure of it.
"Hey."
I can’t make him into a weapon, Yoru. Not when his heart so clearly belongs with the people that kept him alive. I know you think I’m chickenshit. But it’s not just because I don’t want to. I can’t.
“He’s still our enemy.”
Your enemy.
*
The walk back to the ice cream place was long and quiet. A comfortable silence, giving Denji a lot of room to let the gears whir in his head. Giving the War Devil a lot of time to hound on how Asa let herself get soft. “It was the prime time to kill Chainsaw Man! Did you see him, he real-life blue-screened for a solid 5 minutes!” But even then, she didn’t take hold of their shared body to try and take advantage of her enemy – Asa’s date’s – extended solemness. It was a timid truce.
Their silence continued until they realised they had to take the same bus home. It was to be expected, since their date had extended well into the afternoon.
“Just ‘s well. I ran out of bus money,”
“Where did you spend the money?” She was more confused than annoyed. “I don’t know. Put some on Aki’s grave. He would’ve liked a pension too, y’know.” Ok. That was enough to let Yoru facepalm telepathically for her. She pondered for a moment if sentimentality like this was a feature in wolves. She was going to pick up another National Geographic book.
She placed a few coins in his hand. “Don’t mention it,”
“… Why?”
“You just mentioned it, idiot.” Denji had definitely returned to his usual self now. It came as a relief, though. His whole ‘mature and grieving’ stint had made her worry if Chainsaw Man was going to start writing tonnes of emotional poetry now. That would be unbearable with his current vocabulary. “It’s because it was my idea for the date. The person who takes someone out on a date usually pays,” Asa fidgetily twirled a lock of her hair between her fingers as she spoke, checking again to see whether the bus was in sight yet. “Besides, you’d be trapped here begging random strangers otherwise. It’s bad for the school rep,”
“Oh. Right,” he responded breathlessly, hand unconsciously coming up to touch the embroidered logo on his breast pocket. “Well, thanks again,”
“Don’t mention it.” The whole profusely thanking thing was also getting tiring. Likely something that Aki friend had sparked in the kid. Asa had certainly already passed her well-behaved-Denji quota for the day. No matter how much she enjoyed quietly laughing with Yoru when he blushed unknown to himself, or sighing when he didn’t realise social cues even she could pick up, there was definitely a hard limit to interacting to someone as wild as him.
It was fortunate that he began to doze the instant the bus arrived.
“… You know, it was that Hayakawa guy’s birthday today. On the grave,” she murmured quietly as the bus shuddered into action. She checked to see if Denji was still awake next to her. His face was blank, but his eyes still had focus.
“… Huh. Happy birthday, Aki.”