Ex-V: Hey there, it's such a pleasure to see you! I hope you like the story-

"I'm tired..." Emi yawned, putting her feet up, reclining on the couch in Maou's lair. She sighed, swallowing heavily, and covered her face with one hand. "I'm dead tired. Oh, God..."

The king of hell, uninterested, did his best to ignore her summarily, filling out a tax return form and checking off tiny boxes with sharp pencil lines. "That's nice, Emilia..."

Mildly aggravated, the Hero blinked at his back. She raised her head, and her eyes narrowed faintly. "What? It's not nice. How is that nice?"

He was briefly silent, clearly perplexed with the sheet of paper in front of him. Paying her no heed, he scribbled something in between some thick lines of text.

"Maou!" Emi snapped, tapping her fingers severely along the armrest.

Sadaou looked briefly over at her, bored. "Sorry?"

"You're ignoring me!" She hissed. "What did I just say?"

"You're tired."

The hero twitched, slightly. She turned her nose up, satisfied despite herself. "So, you were listening…"

"No, I was ignoring you." Maou grinned, wryly, before glaring back down at the tax return sheet in his hands, frustrated. "But you've been saying the same thing over and over since eight, so it turns out that I didn't miss much."

Highly affronted, Emilia growled lowly.

"It's like you don't even care, isn't it!" she muttered, beside herself. "Even though I was up all night, working to pay your rent!"

The king of Hell flipped his pencil once, before setting it down, abruptly, and taking a deep breath. A moment later, he rubbed his temples with both hands. "Our rent, surely? You meant to say our rent."

"That's not hardly what I meant. Not even a little bit, you..." Emi glowered, watching him with wide, subtly angry eyes; furious, she quickly caught herself admiring his profile, his strong jaw and breathtaking eyes...In fact, She could feel her breath being taken by them, and fumbled with her words for a moment. "You slacker! A Moocher, that's what you are-"

"I paid the rent last month, Emilia." Maou rubbed the bridge of his nose, coldly, coolly. "Or have you entirely forgotten?"

She lost her voice again, falling silent in the wake of his words; in the aftermath of his irritated tone, which always made strange feelings bubble up inside her, these days, and set butterflies loose in her stomach. She reddened, closing her mouth, silently defeated.

She hadn't forgotten, of course, but she wasn't about to admit that she was just fishing for reasons to fight with him, reasons to hear him snap back at her in that stiflingly captivating voice...

He was quiet, smoothly staring over at her with one eyebrow raised, patiently waiting for her to come up with some kind of snappy retort. She always did, somehow...

"No... I didn't..." She started, in something of a hollow, tiny voice, as the light blush on her face dusted her cheeks, briefly transfixed. He blinked, watching her, and she hastily snapped out of it; clearing her throat and finding herself again. "Actually, I'm surprised you remember. That was a whole thirty days ago, your memory must be improving..."

She said, and Emi was somewhat relieved to hear that she sounded poisonous and snippy once more. Maou nodded, wordless, before countering.

"Naturally, naturally... Although it does appear that you yourself can't seem to remember last night very well..." The king of Hell refused to look back over at the hero, focusing instead on the tax return sheet, lithely twirling his pencil, gracefully, between two fingers. Emi shivered, exhaling silently, as his icy voice washed over her. "You know? When I promised to kill you if you put your smelly feet back up on the coffee table-"

Emilia yelped, flushed, and sat straight up in the recliner. "My feet are not smelly, Jackass-!"

"No? Well, They are, however, on the coffee table." A vein throbbed in his forehead. She snorted, Unimpressed, wiggling her toes on the glass top of the small table between them.

"They aren't smelly. A Hero's feet don't smell-" she answered, sternly, haughty.

"But are they on the coffee table-?" Maou looked back up into her face, eyes flashing.

She felt her heart leap in her breast, and swallowed slowly.

"This... This is my coffee table too!" The half-angel hero was slowly becoming extremely concerned, about how much she was relishing his presence, and their conflicts, recently... "I can put my feet here, if I want!"

"If you want me to murder you-" He grinned, wickedly, meeting her eyes. The King of Hell saw a strange look flicker through her face, acutely aware of a faint blush coloring her cheeks as they glared each other down.

They didn't move, for a moment.

He mused, quietly, to himself, about whether or not it had been a bad idea to move In together. It certainly made parenting Alas = Rasmus much easier, but…

He was worried about their relationship, which had somehow changed drastically since their most recent return from Ente Isla.

Even as he thought this, he watched Emilia give in, silently, fuming, with the blush darkening on her face; she pulled her feet down off the coffee table, and Maou nodded, eyes drifting shut, vindicated.

"Only... Only because I don't want to wake Alas = Rasmus-!" She whispered, violently red.

"More like, because you don't want to die-" He answered, coolly, smug.

"Oh, stuff it-" She whipped her hair around, sniffing. He chuckled. "Don't act like I couldn't kill you right here-"

"You won't, though...Will you? " The Demon King snickered. "Somehow, taking a life over the right to put your feet up… Just doesn't seem like a heroic act-"

Emilia grumbled something to herself, incoherently; bright red and highly aggravated. She folded her legs, and he grinned again, glancing away.

"You're so lucky we have a child to raise together-" The hero muttered, darkly, at last.

"Is that right...?" He offered, dryly, turning back to his tax return, still slightly miffed. "I'm lucky, then. Now, if I've given you enough attention for the night, do you mind if I work on this?"

Emilia squeaked, fixing her eyes back on him, fidgeting; outraged, she choked on her words.

Ex-V: Did you like it? Did you have fun?

I've got so much work to do, but I'm getting to the home stretch of my novel contract, so to speak. I've got like JUST under one hundred more pages to write, and I also just had finals and whatnot, but somehow I managed to write out the first five chapters of this story in the meanwhile! Because I have many of the upcoming chapters for this one already written out, I'll be able to update it regularly, despite my busy schedule!

Also, please don't worry! I will be coming off my semi-hiatus as soon as I finish my contract, and I will be updating my other uncompleted stories as well!

Speaking of my other stories, I do have the next two chapters of "Mirror" practically done, and some of my other stories are getting updates soon as well, Including "Habit", one of my favorite stories that I've been dying to update for a long, long time!

In any case, I really hope I'm able to make you happy, even a little bit! Please, let me know what you think, and I'll be eternally grateful!