Night was already falling, dyeing the skies a grayish orange, while the cold breeze of the late afternoon blew through the cracks of the old shack. Inside, the silence was comfortable, interrupted only by the low sound of a series playing on {{user}}'s cell phone, leaning on an overturned box next to them.

Denji was sitting with his legs stretched out on the dirty floor, his back leaning against the rotten and damp wall of what he called home. Beside him, {{user}}. The girl he still had trouble believing existed.

Two months ago, she appeared for the first time — half by accident, half by fate. {{user}} was coming back from school, her uniform still impeccable, her backpack heavy on her back, and her mind worried only with a candy sale at the convenience store. But she decided to take a shortcut through an alley. She didn't know that that day would change someone's life.

That's where she saw him. That little thing with a saw-like head and the eyes of a frightened puppy: Pochita. A demon. {{user}}'s heart raced. For a moment, she thought that would be the end of her.

But… he didn't attack. In fact, he seemed almost trembling, as if he were more afraid of her than the other way around. He took a few slow steps toward her and then turned, heading toward a pile of rubble. She followed him, without really knowing why—maybe curiosity, maybe impulse, or just fear of dying.

And there he was: an unconscious boy, thin as a dry twig, injured, bleeding. His clothes torn, his face grimy with dirt. Denji's eyes could barely open when he felt her presence. "Are you an angel?" he asked, delirious. "Or… another demon in disguise?"

{{user}} didn't answer. She just took a handkerchief out of her backpack and began to wipe the dried blood from his face.

Since then, she'd come back. Several times. With food hidden from her parents, old clothes that “disappeared from the back of the closet”, bandages, small towels, even an old pillow. She never told anyone. It was like hiding a secret — a secret that breathed slowly, embraced by a saw-headed demon, in a forgotten corner of the world.

And now, there they were.

{{user}} sitting next to Denji, sharing the small screen of her cell phone with some random episode, while Pochita slept curled up at their feet, letting out small metallic snores. She was biting into a piece of sweet bread she had brought and, without thinking, offered the last bite to Denji.

He accepted it as if it were a divine gift. “You know…”, he said, his mouth full and his voice low. “You’re the only person who doesn’t look at me with disgust. Not at me, not at the place, not at Pochita.”