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Throughout the ages, people from all walks of life have tried to summon the devil to do their bidding, whether for power, for fortune, or profit in another package. Shoutarou tries not to judge their reasons, though the majority of them are not particularly pleasant.
Though many try, not all succeed. There are so many methods recorded to approach this, and only a vanishingly small number of them are authentic. Which is to say, not everyone has the means to schedule an audience with the devil. This is why Shoutarou is so surprised, to find the latest determiner.
“And how old are you again?” He asks.
“Sixteen.” says the child in front of him, head high, eyes hard as steel. What a strange child- clad in clothing that stretch just a bit too long, clips that Shoutarou’s pretty sure are stationary supplies positioned to hold his hair back. “You’re different from what I envisioned a devil to be like.” he notes, and vaguely mimes a hat, and Shoutarou can feel a twitch of irritation flare up. “What’s your name?” the child asks.
Shoutarou sighs. “Hidari Shoutarou.” he says. “And what’s yours, kid?”
“You can call me Philip, Shoutarou.” he answers, how quick of him to attempt to undermine a devil. “And I’m not a kid.”
“You’re sixteen.” says Shoutarou. “You’re a kid.” He doesn’t tell Philip that he could be ninety and he’d still be a kid to Shoutarou. “I’m not taking a soul from a kid.”
“You wouldn’t be taking a soul from a kid, because I’ll be grown when you eventually harvest it.” answers Philip. “Besides, you’re a devil. I don’t think your kind tends to care much about legality.”
Shoutarou laughs then. “Why wouldn’t we? We live under strict abidance to our contracts. You could say we’re made from legalities.”
Philip’s eyes narrow distrustingly. (That’s a good sign, at least.) “But surely not mortal legalities.” He challenges.
“No.” Shoutarou admits. “But my point still stands. I’m not going to make a contract with a child.”
“And why not?”
“Maybe I don’t want it on my conscience.” Shoutarou says. “Maybe I have my principles too.”
“Impossible.” Philip shuts it down immediately. “Devils don’t have consciences.” And it’s such a rude and reckless thing to say to something much more powerful that Shoutarou flicks him on the forehead.
Philip doesn’t cry out, but he rubs his forehead and glares at Shoutarou. This satisfies him in a slightly mean-spirited way, because Philip is finally letting his age show.
“What book did you read that from? Introduction to Devil-Summoning?”
Philip ignores that comment. “I don’t need you.” He concludes. “I’ll summon another devil.”
“You can’t.” Shoutarou tells him. “I’ll answer faster than anyone else. Devils are not particularly early risers, you’ll find.”
And this is definitely a win, because Philip’s eyebrows furrow discontentedly.
“That’s not-” He says, and frowns when it goes nowhere.
“Try, then.” Shoutarou invites graciously. “Catch me off guard. I know everything that happens in Fuuto.” Maybe the taunt veers on childishness, but Shoutarou likes embracing his victories.
A few more days patterned with countless summonings later, Philip gives.
“Do you really need to hijack my summoning every time?” He’s fuming after the umpteenth failed attempt, and Shoutarou is delighted.
“Told you I would.” He says, pleased. “You could say I am your personal customer service window.”
Philip looks remarkably less pleased. “Zero out of five.” He says humorlessly.
Shoutarou dips his hat modestly.
“I’ll get you to make a contract with me.” Philip says, in the manner of a threat, and Shoutarou has been at this for a very very long time, but not many people have the combined courage and ignorance to threaten a devil, much less a sixteen-year-old.
“Alright.” says Shoutarou. “Give me your best shot.”
Regularly, Philip rings him up. This is a figurative way of putting it, of course, because it’s a tedious process of chanting some ancient latin hymn and very specific orders in candle lighting.
“Don’t you get tired of setting all of that up?” Shoutarou asks, after his third visit of that week . He gestures to the assortment of scrolls and candle trays scattered around in what he assumed is Philip’s room: a spacious chamber, with expensive-looking wallpaper as decor and a bed in a very generous size. Shelves upon shelves of books eat away at the remaining space. This is what Shoutarou has gathered from these visits- that Philip is probably the son of some upper class big family.
“It’s alright.” Philip tells him. “I never put them away.”
“You probably should.” Shoutarou says. “There’s no place for you to walk. You’ve flooded your entire floor.”
“I’ll put them away if you sign a contract with me.” Philip replies, not a beat too late. “I promise. You can put that part in the contract if you want. And even without it, I would, because there’d be no point to keeping all the summoning circles out anymore, because you’d always be here with me.”
“Hmm.” Shoutarou rubs his chin. “Points for creativity and timing, but I have to say it’s not one of your better work.”
Philip shrugs. “Worth a shot.”
Everything is worth a shot to Philip. He is a real opportunist, grabbing every chance he gets to self-promote.
“I’m not going to enslave you with the contract, if that’s what you’re worried about. I won’t even mistreat you a little bit, so you should just sign the contract with me.” He’d say, and Shoutarou would scoff.
“Please. What makes you think I’d sign a contract that would turn me, who is by the way a devil, into a slave?”
“Well,” Philip would explain, “Shoutarou looks kind of easy to trick.”
See? He is the world’s least cute sixteen-year-old.
“If you sign this contract with me, I’d let you season my soul however you like before you devour it.” Or Philip would try to appeal.
“You have the weirdest ideas about devils.” Shoutarou would say to him.
Devils don’t eat souls, not really. They collect them, like an entomologist might collect insect specimens. Except they’re not for studying, or for any type of gallery. Souls are harvested as a price for striking a deal with the all powerful devil, because it is the type of power that should not fall into the hands of humans. By giving away their souls, people give away their humanity, and receive infinite power in return. Anything shorter than a soul lost would not be adequate to balance out the devil’s power.
Because the devil is not a wishing genie. Devils live by the contract. It’s a matter of give and take, of bargains. A deal with the devil is a vow that is bound to be carried out. That’s how the world works.
And Shoutarou would think that Philip knows all of this already, despite there being no proof of this. Maybe because Philip is scarily intelligent for a sixteen-year-old, and there’s no way someone like Philip would summon the devil without finding out everything he could possibly find out about them.
Philip smiles at him sometimes, but Shoutarou suspects none genuine. It’s a calculated smile, one that’s meant to endear adults at extravagant parties, perhaps. Precocious.
“You can drop the act, you know.” Shoutarou tells him. “I don’t judge.”
Philip smiles the same smile at him, the one where his eyes go wide. “What act?”
It’s none of his business, and he’s not going to pry. Shoutarou breathes out. “Nevermind.” He says.
Philip doesn’t do a lot of things, Shoutarou observed. Because of Philip’s more unique circumstances, Shoutarou tends to keep an eye on him just in case.
He doesn’t appear to go to school, or have any friends, being home-tutored. He plays with his cat and dodges his sisters’ fights down the hall, folding himself in the corner of his room, reading. He’s always reading. He calls up Shoutarou a lot, and asks Shoutarou to hang around. Shoutarou stays for a while more often than not, but even when Shoutarou is present, Philip ignores him and reads, because he’s an awful host, or he would bombard Shoutarou with some new thing he recently read about.
“Did you know?” He’d start, and he’d share, and it’s the only time that Philip really looks animated. Light in his eyes is hard to come by, it’s almost like he’s bragging.
“Nope. Never even heard of it.” And they are usually entirely uninteresting topics that Shoutarou has never had to use, or never will have to use in the future. Shoutarou learns a lot around Philip, whether by choice or otherwise.
Sometimes Shoutarou is under the impression that Philip doesn’t really want to make a contract with him, because a contract with a devil is a heavy heavy thing, not fit for sixteen-year-olds at all, or well, seventeen-year-olds, seeing as Philip’s birthday was just last week. He called upon Shoutarou and made him sing the birthday song for him.
Shoutarou has been around for months, but other than his oftentimes bizarre persuasions for Shoutarou to sign his contract, Philip doesn’t seem very bothered that it hasn’t happened yet.
“Maybe I enjoy your company.” He says, and Shoutarou laughs.
“You don’t have to flatter me, Philip.” He says. “I’m not going to sign your contract.”
Philip raises an eyebrow.
“And what if it has nothing to do with the contract?” He demands. “What if I just want to flatter you?”
And Shoutarou shakes his head a little. Philip is very strange.
“If you really wanted me to sign the contract, you would’ve given me your real name by now.” Shoutarou says. “You know it only works if you put your legal name.”
Philip doesn’t answer that one, only grins wider, and says, “Would you like to hear about a philosophical conversation about what makes a good courtier scripted in Europe in the sixteenth century?”
There are a few qualifications to a proper devil.
First and foremost, as Shoutarou heard from the chief, is that a devil must be impartial. A devil must not be swayed by their own emotions, no matter their partners' conditions.
“We don’t give out sentences, Shoutarou.” said the chief. “We only carry out others’ decisions.”
And because he was young and brash then, Shoutarou had wanted to argue. “But what if-”
“There are no what-ifs.” declared the chief. “That’s not our place to question. Remember well, Shoutarou, personal emotions make you vulnerable to manipulation, and if you fail to execute our duties, you will no longer be a devil. You know what happens then?”
Shoutarou shook his head. The chief grabbed him by the shoulders, his grip sinking into flesh. “You become a husk.” He said. “Just like all the soulless nonhumans who were foolish enough to barter with the devil.”
“What do you want to contract me for anyway.” Shoutarou wonders one day, the second year he’s been with Philip, when he realizes despite all they talk about, this particular topic, strangely, hasn’t come up even once.
“Oh?” Philip perks up immediately from where he is lying on his stomach on top of his bed, already reaching for a pre-scripted parchment he apparently keeps in his bedside drawer. “Finally convinced?”
“No.” Shoutarou says, and Philip rolls his eyes, putting back his unsigned contract and flopping back onto the sheets unhappily.
“I just thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask.” Shoutarou explains. Why? His mind is boggled, writhing with curiosity. What would spur a child to do such a thing? What could a spoiled rich son ask for that his parents wouldn’t grant him?
Philip looks at him and says, “I want knowledge.”
Almost instantly, Shoutarou shakes his head. “No, you don’t.” He says. “No one does.”
“How would you know what I want?” Philip shoots back.
“No one does.”
“Maybe you haven’t met enough people.” Philip suggests. “Or maybe I’m the first.” He says it with enough conviction, enough confidence that one might be led to believe that he could be the kind of person who becomes firsts.
Shoutarou decides to approach this in a different way. “Why would you ask for knowledge when you have all these books?” He waves his hand, at the room of books. “I’m sure you could get more if you wanted.”
Philip shakes his head. “That’s not the point.” He says. “I want them here.” He taps on the side of his head. “Somewhere no one can take them away.”
“Why?” the word flies out of his mouth faster than Shoutarou could filter his thoughts.
“Knowledge is power.” says Philip. “ ‘Scientia potentia est’. Sir Francis Bacon. I would like to be powerful. Is that a good enough incentive for you?” The edge of his mouth twitches, and fails to make a smile.
“Tell me about devils.” Philip requests.
“Really?” Shoutarou says. “Haven’t you read enough about devils? I’ve seen you take notes.”
“Yes.” Philip nods. “For future reference. But I don’t have any first hand material. Will you tell me about devils?”
There is magic in the way Philip speaks, or maybe he’s secretly the descendent of some long lost wizarding household. Of course, such a thing does not exist, but what if.
Right. Shoutarou figures. He wants knowledge. Power. Power is a much more common wish. Power is comprehensible. It doesn’t feel like Philip yet, but maybe it will.
“Devils are not as powerful as people would imagine they are.” He says, without really thinking it through. “Not initially.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that our power comes from the contracts.” Shoutarou says. “We can’t do much without them. We need to be granted the power first, before we can use them to fulfill our part of the deal. That’s where the whole servant image comes from.”
“The stronger the contract, the stronger the devil?”
“Yup.” Shoutarou confirms. “Some people actually do find their lawyers to write up the contract. The wording matters most, in the end.”
Philip scoffs. “Sounds like it’s just inviting loopholes.”
“Maybe.” Shoutarou says. “That’s why not just the humans, but the devils have to be incredibly careful when signing the contract. It is legal business.”
“Just like regular contracts.”
“See?” Shoutarou says. “That’s why kids shouldn’t be poking around devil contracts. Or any contracts really. What if you get scammed, idiot?”
“Huh.” Philip tilts his head and ponders. “From whichever angle you look at it, I think Shoutarou is the one more in risk of getting scammed.”
“Hey, aren’t you getting a bit too smug these days?”
The audacity!
Philip receives assortments of interesting gifts from time to time, all of them expensive. Designer clothes, an ancient katana dug up from one of his father’s digging sites, some sort of exotic fruit, and so on.
He doesn’t receive visitors, Shoutarou notices.
Philip himself doesn’t seem very interested in the things he gets other than from a purely informational standpoint. In fact, he seems far more enthusiastic about telling Shoutarou about their history.
“Aren’t you going to eat that?” He points at the odd-looking pink (!) skinned fruit on Philip’s nightstand.
“What? The dragon fruit?” Philip asks. “You can have it if you want. They’re from America, I’m pretty sure.”
Shoutarou doesn’t eat the dragon fruit, but he spends a little time feeling the texture of its peel. And that’s just how things are. Philip could be a teacher, probably. Or maybe not, because he gets too wrapped up in his own world, he probably won’t notice losing any of the students. He probably would not care even if he noticed. Shoutarou is the living example of that.
“Why me?” Shoutarou can’t help but protest sometimes, when the subject that day gets just way too dull.
“I don’t want to discuss it with the tutor.” Philip says, and he treats it like it’s the most obvious thing under the sun.
“No, I meant-” Shoutarou falters. It would be bad to prod at the lack of friends thing, wouldn’t it? He really should’ve learned how to handle things more delicately ten decades ago. The chief would surely be disappointed if he saw. Discouraged, Shoutarou lowers his head in shame.
And-
Philip nudges his hand with his own. Philip’s fingers are shockingly cool. Surprised, Shoutarou jumps.
“You can ask about it, you know?” Philip says calmly. “Why I don’t go to school like other kids.”
“Uh.” Shoutarou’s voice dies in his throat. He swallows uselessly, and tries again. “Why…?”
“It’s nothing bad.” Philip reassures him. “So you don’t have to be so cautious about it.”
“Alright.”
“When I was five years old, I almost fell into a well.”
“Excuse me?”
But Philip tells the story so objectively, like he’s just reciting a passage that has nothing to do with him from a textbook. “My father does a lot of archaeology, and he brought us to a lot of digging sites. I almost fell into a well at one of those sites when I was five. It completely freaked my parents out. They became paranoid and overprotective after that. I haven’t left the house so much since the incident.” There you go, that’s the story. Just a story. It doesn’t affect real life, does it? Shoutarou has to wonder what part of that is “nothing bad”. There’s so much to question, and not enough words.
“Doesn’t it get lonely?” he settles instead. Achingly so. A bottomless pit of isolation. Because Shoutarou spends a lot of time in this house. There’s a quietness that rings out, that splashes and soaks through the walls and floorboards, that stifles any noise that could be made. Shoutarou spends a lot of time in this house, and all the people he’s seen are Philip, the occasional maid, his tutor, and glimpses of his family down the hall.
“Not really.” says Philip, nonchalant as always, but this time, Shoutarou thinks he can start to make sense of the things hidden behind the cracks. “I have my sisters, and I have Mick.” He makes a grab for the cat curled up by his feet. He hisses in protest, but Philip takes all of him and wraps him in an embrace. The cat, Mick, meows and kicks his feet. Philip laughs, and rubs his head, then he looks at Shoutarou, the entire cosmos boiling in his retinas. “And now I have you.” He says.
Shoutarou feels the puzzles fall into place.
“We’re running away, Shoutarou.” Philip greets, the moment he flickers into the room.
“We are?” asks Shoutarou. Finally, he thinks.
“I am.” Philip lifts his bulging backpack, and wobbles as he tries to adjust the belts. “You should come carry my bag for me. I don’t think I’d walk very far with this.”
“Hey, you didn’t summon me just for me to be your bag carrier, did you?” Shoutarou complains, but takes the bag from him. It’s a bit heavy, but nothing he couldn’t handle. He’s still going to whine about it though. “Why is your bag so heavy? Did you put books inside or something?”
Philip smiles, and instead of answering, reaches for his shoes. “Come on. We don’t have all day!”
“I don’t leave Fuuto.” He warns ahead of time.
“That’s fine.” Philip says. “We’ll take a run through Fuuto. You’re my guide.” He assigns.
“Sure, sure.” Shoutarou says. “I’ll show you the best view of the city.”
They go out through the window, as your classic runaways demonstrated countless times before. It’s early in the morning. Early, the sun barely taking a peek from far off into the horizons. The house is still asleep. The city is still asleep. Philip is quick on his feet, and tugs on Shoutarou’s hand as he dashes through the yard. He must have given it some thought, because every move is full of intent.
Later, when they put a satisfactory amount of distance between themselves and the house, Philip lets go of Shoutarou’s hand and laughs, the loud kind that knocks the breath out of a person. “I called in sick today.” He grins so wide it’s as if his face is going to split open. “Isn’t that funny? I called in sick from my own house!”
It drives a laugh out of Shoutarou as well, at the ridiculousness of the situation. He just helped a boy kidnap himself! “Good on you!” He says. “Where would you like to go?”
Philip’s stomach rumbles loudly.
“Breakfast.” He says. And Shoutarou proceeds to go on with the day with absolutely no worries paid to the budget. Philip is rich, so it’s fine. He takes him around town and introduces Philip to the best spots of the city.
“And that’s Fuuto-kun, the city’s mascot.” He points to the poster on the wall as they sit and eat at the Fuumen cart. “He does meet-and-greets sometimes. I think every few months?”
“Shou-chan, showing a new arrival around town?” asks Watcherman as he sits down on his other side.
“I’m just visiting.” says Philip quickly.
“Yeah.” Shoutarou nods along.
When they finish up and start their way towards the next attraction, Shoutarou says, “You must be a really really well-kept secret, if Watcherman doesn’t know you.”
“I don’t leave the house.” Philip says. “That aside, this is what you’re up to behind my back, huh?
“Do you really have to put it like that?”
“It’s windy.” Philip says.
“That’s the windy city for you.”
In the evening, Shoutarou takes him up to Fuuto Tower. “ This is where you get to see all of Fuuto.” he brags, as if he personally drew the blueprint and built the establishment. “Stunning, right?”
And Philip presses his face to the window. “It’s so small.” He marvels.
“That’s ‘cause you’re high up, genius.” Shoutarou laughs, and steps in beside him.
Philip shakes his head. “Small.” he insists. “Shoutarou has never left Fuuto, right?”
“Neither have you.” Shoutarou replies.
“Thank you for coming with me today.” says Philip. “I had fun.”
“Are we going back now?” Shoutarou asks.
“I only took one day off.” Philip says.
“Then what’s this huge backpack for if not for overnight supplies?” Shoutarou asks, and sets it on the ground. He unzips it, and sees stacks of books. “Oh my god.” He says. “I was kidding, Philip.”
“It was a runaway make-belief.” Philip says. “I wanted it to be more realistic, and I really only own books.”
“I really can’t believe you.” Shoutarou is still gawking at the backpack full of books. “Your idea of realistic is having a devil carry all your bags?”
Really, isn’t Philip the true devil here? He laughs, and Shoutarou must be crazy to think that it’s worth the trouble to hear him happy.
Time passes slowly in the house. So slow it almost feels fast. Because day after day, there aren’t many new additions. Philip didn’t get caught sneaking out, because it’s Philip. He’s hard to catch. He’s like a gust of wind. He slips through fingertips.
“Your birthday’s coming up, isn’t it?” Shoutarou asks when he notices the date on Philip’s dresser top calendar.
“You remember.” Philip says, like he’s surprised about it.
Shoutarou gives him a hearty thwack on the head. “I was here last year too.” He reminds Philip. “What do you want for your birthday?”
“A devil wants to give me a birthday present!” He exclaims. “How interesting. But Shoutarou, you know what I’m going to ask for.”
“And you know what I’m going to answer.”
“I want you to sign this contract with me.” Philip says, because he likes to try anyway.
“No. Ask for something else.”
“Isn’t eighteen old enough?” Philip frowns, in the melodramatic way that makes his eyes glisten. “I’d be old enough to read porn.”
“The legal age is twenty, brat.” Shoutarou says, and, just in case, adds, “And don’t ask me for porn recommendations. Not for your birthday, not ever.”
“Well, there goes my plan.” Philip sighs loudly, and Shoutarou is a good seventy-five percent sure Philip is joking. But you never really know with Philip, so he’s going to allow himself the remaining twenty-five percent as a failsafe.
“So?” He prompts, hoping to catch an answer before Philip can come up with even more mortifying ideas.
“I want a hug.” Philip tells him.
Shoutarou blinks in confusion. “A hug?” He checks, in case he’s delusional.
“A hug.” Philip confirms. “You know, arms around each other, usually meant to convey comfort or intimacy. A hug.”
It’s such a harmless request that for a second Shoutarou suspects there must be a trick behind it. Philip must have some kind of ulterior motive, right? What does he have to gain from a hug?
But Philip is also lonely, and almost eighteen years old. And maybe he said it already. He had comfort to gain. Philip is the only almost-eighteen-year-old Shoutarou has seen that would wish to be comforted by a devil.
So Shoutarou adjusts his hat and says, “Sure. Do you accept early entries?” And then Philip is already wrapping his arms around him.
Shoutarou can count on one hand the times he’s been hugged in his life, despite it being a very very long life. He thinks Philip probably has even less experience than that, so even though it’s a little too tight where he’s clinging onto Shoutarou’s back, he doesn’t remark on it. Instead, he carefully upholds his part of the exchange and folds his hands over Philip’s back. He realizes late that Philip is bigger than he thought. He looks thin, and you’d think someone who stays indoors all the time would be frail, but Philip is surprisingly solid. With Philip this close, Shoutarou finally sees that the both of them are around the same height. Philip’s hair tickles Shoutarou’s cheek. Slowly, he moves his right hand to comb at the back of his head.
“Are you being adequately comforted now?” Shoutarou asks. Then he feels little tremors against his chest. “Hey, stop laughing.” He says.
“Would you ride with me to hell if I asked, Shoutarou?” Philip asks, still chortling quietly.
“Hell doesn’t really exist in the way humans think it does.” Shoutarou says. “It’s not a concrete place. Philip. You can’t send a package to location: hell.”
“I was asking it in a figurative sense, Shoutarou.”
“Huh? What does the question mean, then?” Shoutarou says.
“You would, though.” Philip says certainly.
“I would.” Shoutarou relents.
“It’s nice to hear it anyway.” says Philip. “Thank you, Shoutarou.”
A contract is a timer. Now truly, not many people know this.
Why do devils collect souls at all? Because the longer a soul goes unharvested, the tighter the squeeze on the devil’s life. It’s a funny imagery. Eventually, the devil will be squeezed dry, leaving behind an empty shell. It’s a slow, torturous process, because it is punishment as well as encouragement.
Devils are such lowly, sad lives. All this in exchange for eternity.
Philip’s eighteenth birthday comes and goes without a fuss. Shoutarou catches sight of his family. They give him a fancy cake and a fancy suitcase with Philip’s initials carved on the tag.
“You think they figured out the time you snuck out?” Shoutarou asks nervously.
“No way.” Philip replies calmly. “If they did, they would never give me this suitcase.”
And Shoutarou still hasn’t figured out what that means yet.
“Tell me some more about devils.” says Philip. “Or just tell me about Shoutarou. When’s your birthday?”
It’s a very surprising question. Most people just assume devils don’t have birthdays, and even when they don’t no one would think to ask. So Shoutarou has to think about it for the first time.
“I don’t have one in the traditional sense.” Shoutarou says. “Because we take form gradually, so it’s hard to tell exactly when we began.”
“Time works differently for you.”
“Exactly.”
“What am I in your time?”
“Philip?”
Philip shakes his head, and says, “Tell me about Shoutarou.”
So Shoutarou tells him parts and bits about the chief, and what the chief taught him.
“Devils are more fragile than I thought.” Philip comments.
“Hey!” Shoutarou argues. “We’re not fragile. Devils, Philip. We’re supposed to terrorize young children into good behavior or something. We are upholding the education of the next generation.”
“You’re outdated.” Philip tells him. “Parents just take away candy these days.”
“That’s besides the point, Philip. Devils are very dignified.” Shoutarou says, tipping his hat. “Hard-boiled.”
Philip does not look impressed, but that’s because Philip is hard to impress, not because Shoutarou isn’t impressive. “Looks more like half-boiled to me.” He mutters. “Won’t even sign a measly little contract.”
“Any smart devil would think twice before signing a contract with you, Philip.” Shoutarou tells him, and Philip grins, devilishly.
Devils aren’t supposed to hang around humans so much, really. But if anyone asks, Shoutarou can just say that a contract is in the drafts, which isn’t a lie, but not the whole truth either. He’s a devil, he can afford some misdeeds.
And Philip is-
Shoutarou can’t figure Philip out. At first, it was purely out of concern, of course, for someone so young to be taking such a risk. Then, it becomes something else entirely, because Philip is an odd case.
Philip is the kind of boy who hides a million things stitched beneath his tongue and blades up his sleeves that hurt himself more than he gets the chance to use them on others. He is the kind of boy who asks a devil when his birthday is, and it’s the first time Shoutarou has ever gotten the question.
Despite all his mysteries, everything wrapped under layers upon layers of guard, Philip can be terribly soft. He wants a lot of things, most out of his reach, and Shoutarou wants to see him make it anyway, he wants to help him , so that Philip wouldn’t have to carry so much burden on his shoulders.
Devils definitely aren’t supposed to be biased towards particular humans. What would the chief say if he saw Shoutarou now?
Shoutarou sighs, and fixes his hat. He’s getting too good at disappointing the chief.
But he thinks that it must not be a bad thing. When you have too much time on your hands, days start to muddle up, memories mean nothing. Time stretches on forever, and it is as much of a prison as it is a gift. As much as Shoutarou loves Fuuto, an unchanging existence is dull.
Meeting Philip was not dull. Philip is a cyclone, brewing storms that lurk behind his eyes, ones that draw you in, and Shoutarou thinks it might be inevitable that he’s drawn into his web. Jump first, regret later.
The bad part, or the good part, depending on how you look at it, would be that Shoutarou does not regret meeting Philip.
“Come to England with me.” This is the second time Philip greets him out right with a request.
“Excuse me?”
Philip sighs, and rubs his face. “Will you come to England with me?” He rephrases it into a question.
“You have to tell me why, Philip.”
And Philip’s new fancy suitcase lies open on his bed. Some clothes are folded inside.
“This is my chance.” He says. He sits on his bed and folds another shirt into his suitcase, just mindless action. “For the first time in thirteen years, I’m allowed out. Encouraged. To England.” Philip puts down the shirt and looks up at Shoutarou. “My parents want me to receive college education there, so I get to escape. Thirteen years, Shoutarou.”
“England?” Shoutarou says, still not entirely caught up with the situation. “England.” He repeats. “You speak English, Philip?”
“Is that the point right now?” Philip laughs, but it’s watery. “Shoutarou.”
Shoutarou sits on the bed with him, on the other side of the suitcase. He looks at Philip’s half-packed luggage. The shirts are not like his usual outfits at all. They are white, no doubt trimmed to fit him personally.
“Remember the time we ran away?” says Philip. “This is just like that.”
It’s not. Shoutarou thinks. That one was your choice, this one isn’t. He repeats it out loud, so Philip can hear.
“I’ll take every inch I can get.” Philip says. “And then I’ll chip some more off of it. This is my ticket.”
“This is why you wanted to make a contract.” Shoutarou realizes, “Not power.” And Philip must be too tired to argue otherwise.
“Will you come to England with me?” He repeats.
Because Philip doesn’t have anything. He doesn’t have friends, he doesn’t have freedom, he doesn’t have a life yet, and this is going to be his first shot at life. Who knows how much time he spent trying to convince his parents to even allow this? Did he convince them with Knowledge is power too? And even someone like Philip can be scared. Somehow, he wants Shoutarou with him. A devil.
Devils don’t have hearts, but Shoutarou feels his hastening anyway. But-
“I can’t leave Fuuto.” Shoutarou answers honestly. “It’s due to physical restrictions, Philip.”
“If you make a contract with me, you could do it. You could fly to England in a poof.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I’ll summon another devil in England. Make a contract with them.”
“You wouldn't.”
“I wouldn’t. I would never.” Philip closes his eyes and flops on the bed. “Make a contract with me, Shoutarou.” He pleads. “Please.”
And out of that one constant thing circling around the both of them for years, Shoutarou has a poor record of telling Philip no.
“Your name.” Shoutarou says. “Your birth name, Philip. Will you give me your birth name?”
Philip springs up, eyes flying wide. “Sonozaki…Raito.” He says. “Shoutarou-”
“I know you have a draft contract stashed somewhere.” Shoutarou says, removing his hat. A contract is a formal thing. “Or fifty drafts.”
“Here.” He is quick to act, already shoving the old school parchment into Shoutarou’s face. The words Sonozaki Raito has dried, but it must’ve looked violently red when it was freshly penned.
And Shoutarou takes it, to pour his own name into the scroll. The magic binds, locking itself tightly over Shoutarou’s body, a phantom vine fastening around his neck, and he puts the hat back on his head. “I’m going to have to tell you regretfully that I don’t speak English, Raito.” He says, handing back the scroll with a smile.
“Philip is fine. And I’ll teach you, Shoutarou.” Philip is still staring at him dumbfoundedly. “Are you not going to read through the contents first?”
“Hmm.” He wonders. “I trust you, Philip.” And it’s as easy as that. “You’re not going to do anything to hurt me.”
“I’m not.” Philip reaches over the suitcase and grabs firmly onto Shoutarou’s arms. “Never deliberately.” He vows.
“There you go.” Shoutarou answers, and Philip finally, finally breaks into a smile. Shoutarou thinks he’s never ever going to be able to take this soul.
It’s another year before the topic even comes up. “When does the whole soul-reaping thing start, Shoutarou?” Philip asks, as the both of them stroll down the snowy streets of London. Fairy lights decorate every tree by the pavements.
“When does it say on the contract?”
“Really?” Philip raises his eyebrows at him. “You still haven’t read it?”
“It’s just words! Lots of it!” Shoutarou complains. “I signed it anyway, what does it matter what’s on it!”
Philip elbows him on the side. “You’re not really a devil.” He says. “You can’t be. What kind of devil skips the contract? Arguably the most important part of the whole deal?”
“You will be shocked by how many of us do, I think.” Shoutarou says, elbowing him right back, because Philip has turned him childish. “So? What time does it say?”
“Oh. Right away, I wrote.”
Shoutarou brakes so suddenly he almost falls over. He yanks Philip by the scarf and drags him onto the side of the road where they won’t block any pedestrians.
“You wrote what?”
“I didn’t see a point in delaying the inevitable.” Philip shrugged. “And I don’t mind Shoutarou having my soul.”
“Yes, but you know that humans can’t live with their souls too far away from their bodies, right? That’s a thing you must’ve researched before, Philip, right?” Shoutarou feels like shaking him. Maybe that will shake some common sense into him. “I’m not taking your soul, Philip.”
Philip frowns. “I mean it when I said you can take it, you know.” He says. “If you don’t take it, you’ll disappear.”
“I’m not taking it.” Shoutarou hisses at him. “You still have a whole life ahead of you, Philip. I’m not going to take that away.”
And Philip stares at him.
“I did think this might happen.” He mutters. “But I thought there would’ve been more of a struggle.” He digs his fingers into Shoutarou’s shoulders. “Take it.” He orders.
“You can’t make me, Philip.” Shoutarou tells him.
“I can.” Philip says, and kisses him.
It’s cold, there’s snowflakes in his hair, and Shoutarou is short-circuiting. “You-” He starts, and loses that thought. “I-” He tries again, to no avail. “What?” He asks meekly, the only syllable he can manage.
“The Book of the Courtier, Shoutarou.” Philip smiles smugly. “A kiss is an opening for the entry of a soul. My soul is yours now.” He kisses him again. “Now back.” And again. “Now forth.” Shoutarou holds up a stop signal, because he really needs to get his brain to start working again, and kissing Philip is not helpful to that cause in the slightest.
“You tricked the contract.” He says, amazed. He feels at peace, nothing curling around his throat anymore.
“I just kissed you, and this is the part you’re deciding to focus on?”
“I am-” Shoutarou opens and closes his mouth uselessly. “Let me get back to that later.” he says, because he’s still processing that part. He falls back onto the topic that he knows he’s nailed. “You tricked the contract.”
Philip shakes his head, and his eyes look so dangerously fond. “You definitely knew I was going to.”
“I did, but-” Who’d anticipate this ? Well, whoever would, it definitely wasn’t Shoutarou.“ You ought to be the devil instead, Philip.”
Philip snorts, then bursts into full-on laughter, and Shoutarou doesn’t know what’s so funny, but Philip is laughing, real and genuine, and that must not be a bad thing. “To hell! Shoutarou!” Philip laughs so hard he bends over. “Ride with me!”
And Shoutarou takes his hand.