The Demon slowly turned around. Her facial expressions were completely cold as usual... ’Nothing’.
Seeing this, Himanshu froze on the spot for a second.
’Did I make a mistake again? Idiot, I shouldn’t have yelled so loud!’ Himanshu thought to himself in panic.
Hiding his shaking hands behind his back and forcing a weak smile on his terrified face, he stammered,
"M-maybe you should try this."
But the Demon stood completely silent.
’Oh my God, why isn’t she saying anything? Bring some expression to your face at least... please don’t look at me like that. I’m seriously shitting myself here.’ Poor Himanshu kept rambling in his mind.
"If... if you want to, that is," Himanshu choked out.
The Demon slowly started taking steps toward Himanshu. In that terrifying walk, Himanshu could clearly see what she was about to do next. The moment he realized this, his heartbeat sped up like a racing engine. He started remembering the horrific pain of his dislocated bones and body parts all over again.
"N-no... if you don’t want to, leave it. We... we’ll go look at other clothes."
But the Demon came straight up to him and stopped right in his face. And then... she slowly started raising her hand.
Seeing this, a cold wave of fear ran through Himanshu’s entire body. He could totally feel that a tight slap was about to land on his left cheek, probably knocking his jaw right out. Before the slap could land, he squeezed his eyes shut in pure fear and turned his face to the right.
But then... he heard the Demon’s cold voice.
"Where are you looking?"
Himanshu jerked his eyes open and looked straight ahead. The Demon’s hand was in the air, but not to hit him. Instead, she was pointing her finger at that red dress.
"I... I was just looking..." Himanshu was about to say something.
Cutting him off mid-sentence, the Demon said in a completely flat tone,
"That’s 1000 dollars."
Himanshu’s brain completely short-circuited. He slowly looked at the price tag hanging below the dress. Honestly, for all this time, he was only focused on what the Demon liked or disliked. He hadn’t even paid a single second of attention to the price tags on any of the clothes.
This was the first time in his life that he hadn’t checked a price tag while shopping! He was just thinking the whole time if this Queen would even like anything or not.
’So was she rejecting all those dresses this whole time because they were too expensive? And wait a minute... how does she even know about the numbers and money of this world? But the very next second, he ignored this thought with some logic—"After all, a writer wouldn’t invent entirely new numbers just for a manga!" Anyway, leave all that, what should I say next?’
Himanshu stammered, "I... I didn’t notice."
"Not only are you Khechad, but you’re blind to"
the Demon muttered softly. She folded her arms over her chest again and started walking ahead without showing any emotion.
Slumping his shoulders, dragging his exhausted body, Himanshu mumbled softly, ""At least don’t call me blind.
Walking a few steps ahead, the Demon picked out some cheap clothes. It was obvious she didn’t like these clothes much. But looking at Himanshu’s crying face and his status, she had understood enough that this was the only cheap stuff he could afford. ’And anyway, you can’t survive every single day wearing one expensive dress.’
Seeing this, Himanshu took a long sigh of relief, put his hands on his knees out of sheer exhaustion, and said,
"I’m going to go straight to sleep once we get home."
Carrying the shopping bags in both hands, he started walking out of the store.
The Demon walked out and was still walking ahead of Himanshu in her same Queen-like attitude, acting like she knew the entire route. Seeing this, Himanshu stayed quiet and just kept following behind her. You could clearly see on his face that he was just waiting for the Demon to take a wrong turn so he could prove her wrong.
But slowly he started realizing that she was taking all the correct turns! And seeing this, all of Himanshu’s intentions of satisfying his ego shattered into pieces.
After this, the Demon bought a few other things too—like sunglasses to hide her red eyes, and a women’s cap to hide her horns. And a perfume to get rid of Himanshu’s ’stink’. These were the little things silently telling Himanshu exactly how hard and irritating it was for the Demon to stay with this loser.
After walking for a while, Himanshu’s eyes fell on a medical store. Remembering the horrific pain in his body, Himanshu asked the Demon to wait there for a bit and turned straight toward the medical store.
The strong smell of medicines coming from the store was bothering Himanshu as usual. Scared of making the Demon wait too long, he quickly asked the shop assistant for painkillers and bandages. And he kept glancing back nervously at the Demon to make sure her eyes weren’t turning red with anger again.
But right as the shop assistant was doing his job... the Demon suddenly came and stood right behind Himanshu.
"Shall we go?"
Himanshu flinched in his spot. "Y-yeah... yeah."
"Here you go, sir, your medicine and bandages," the shop assistant said while making the bill.
"How much is it?" Himanshu asked.
"30 dollars."
Himanshu was sadly taking the money out of his pants pocket...
When suddenly a heavy, drunk voice came from behind.
"Give me a packet of regular condoms."
Hearing this, Himanshu jerked his head back. There was a guy standing right there with his arm around his GF’s shoulder, twirling her hair in his fingers, pressed completely against her. The moment they walked in, the rotten smell of beer spread everywhere, completely overpowering the medical store’s smell.
Just then, the girl’s whiny voice came, "Baby, we don’t need this anymore."
The guy smiled and said, "No baby, we need to stay a little apart right now."
Just then, the shop assistant’s voice broke Himanshu’s focus. Handing the packet to the guy, he said, "Here you go, sir, 10 dollars."
The Demon kept staring at the two of them very deeply without even blinking. Her eyes were fixed on that tiny packet like it was some incredibly magical and powerful weapon or a survival potion of this world. After all, the guy and girl were talking about staying away from each other without that little packet! She kept staring at them until both of them finally left the store.
To break this incredibly awkward situation, Himanshu forced a fake cough to clear his throat and said,
"Shall we?"
Himanshu quickly turned and started walking ahead.
But just then, the Demon’s completely calm, yet dead-serious voice echoed in the medical store...
"Give one to me too."