âThatâs what Ma says. That I can do it, but I just hafta work harder than a human has to," he murmured, absently fiddling with the hem of his shorts. He honestly had no idea why he spoke demon instead of human as his main languageâ heâd mostly heard human, not demon, as a baby, after all. Rin was sure it was probably another sign that he wasnât normal even by half-demon standards, that his body was closer to a full demonâs than other halfbreedsâ bodies. "But as far as I know, me anâ Yuki arenât like other half demons⌠Instead of both of us beinâ half and half, itâs more like heâs a full human and Iâm a full demon," Rin said, bringing his knees up to his chin and wrapping his arms around them. "Nobody knows why weâre like that, though.â
ââŚBoring?" Rin asked, glancing up and blinking at Petruchio for a moment before giving a small shrug. "I guess itâs boring sometimes, when Ma and Yukio arenât here and when all the other demons are too busy to play with me. I still like it here a lot, though. I get to climb lots of trees and run around, and I can have my flames out and be myself without beinâ scared and without people beinâ scared of me," he said, a small smile on his face appearing and growing as he said more and more. The question about big cities, however, stopped Rin in his tracks, staring up at the older demon with a look of utter confusion; heâd always assumed that everywhere outside of where heâd been was just like where he lived, but Petruchio talked of âbig citiesâ like they were vastly different from his forest. Not for the first time, he wondered how completely different life outside his forest was from life inside. "âŚBig cities? What are those? What are they like? Where are they?" Rin asked, tail flicking back and forth curiously.
"Eh? But you're not a full demon," Petruchio said, frowning lightly. "I mean... you're closer to being demon-like than human-like, yeah, but... you don't feel like a full demon." Whether that was a good thing or a bad one, that was for Rin to decide, though.
Petruchio flopped down into a sitting position next to the boy, and stuffed his hands into his pockets, a thoughtful expression on his face. It shifted into one of surprise, when he realized he had a small bag of biscuits in one of his pockets; he pulled it out happily, and stuck one into his mouth.
"'M not sure I can explain, if you've never seen one," he said with a small shrug, his mouth still half full while he was talking. "Cities are the places where lots and lots of humans live together. Well, not together, like everyone knows each other, they just live next to each other in a huge group... There's a village at the foot of this mountain, have you never been there?" he asked curiously. "Cities are like that. Except way bigger."














