I Just Wanted A Soft Life, Not A Demon Husband

Chapter 291: Arguments, Apologies, and the Child Who Chose the Next Dress

Elyn’s POV

Well, where was the lie in that?

Zorathys wasn’t wrong. Azerion had no money. He had never had money. He would probably never have money, at least not in any quantity that mattered when it came to five hundred gabin dresses in high-end fox demon establishments.

"I thought I could pay for it," Azerion argued, his voice carrying that particular note of defiance that only children who knew they were losing an argument could produce.

"And you cannot," Zorathys told him, his tone as lazy as ever. "You have no money."

"I have about ten gabin."

Zorathys’s eyebrows rose slightly. It was a small movement, barely noticeable, but I caught it.

"Ten gabin," he repeated slowly.

Azerion nodded, looking almost proud.

"And that is not even enough to buy you the snacks you eat in a single day," Zorathys continued. "It’s no wonder you actually steal them."

"I don’t steal," Azerion said immediately, his voice rising. "I only take..."

"...what doesn’t belong to you," Zorathys finished for him.

I pressed my fingers against my temple.

A headache was beginning to form there, right behind my eyes, the kind that pulsed gently and promised to get worse if the arguing continued. How this demon — this demon who was so extremely lazy that he refused to do paperwork, refused to attend meetings, refused to exist in the same room as anything that required effort — could argue with a child for hours would always be baffling to me.

"Both of you," I said as calmly as I could manage, which was not very calm at all. "Shut up."

They both went quiet immediately.

Azerion adjusted his position on his cushion, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away like he had been unfairly targeted. Zorathys, meanwhile, gave me a lazy smile that made my traitorous heart skip a beat.

If I were to ever die in this realm, it would be from how blinding Zorathys’s beauty was. And the fact that I was noticing it more and more was becoming a problem. Every time I looked at him, there seemed to be a halo behind him that just enhanced his features — the sharp line of his jaw, the soft fall of his black hair, the way his ruby eyes caught the light and held it like they had made an agreement with the universe to always look devastating.

And honestly, why was I even noticing his beauty?

I shook my head, trying to gather my scattered thoughts and forget the fact that this demon was beautiful. Extremely so. And with the amount of times I had said it to myself in the past few minutes, there was clearly something wrong with me.

I exhaled, then turned to Zorathys.

"Zor..."

"I didn’t do anything wrong, Firefly," he said immediately.

I blinked in shock.

"What?"

"You always call me with that name when you are annoyed with me," he explained, "and I did nothing wrong. It was all the snake’s fault." He pointed at Azerion as he said it.

Seeing him like this — one hand gesturing vaguely toward a child, the other resting on his cushion, his shadows curled around him like a protective blanket — one would think he wasn’t the most powerful demon in the realm, the one who could kill with just a blink.

I rolled my eyes.

"You didn’t even let me finish speaking," I told him.

"And that’s because I feared you would be annoyed with me when I did nothing wrong."

"And who said you did nothing wrong?" I asked. "You instigated everything."

"But how?" he asked, his voice carrying genuine confusion. "The pest was the one who thought he could pay for the dress, and even before then he had been arguing with me about —"

"Do you still want to see me dressed up in the clothes you pick out for me?" I asked him.

Zorathys paused.

He stared at me, those ruby eyes of his locked onto mine, and the room seemed to hold its breath around us.

"You would stop wearing the dresses because of the pest?" he asked.

"I will stop wearing them because you are wasting my time on conversations we should not be having," I told him.

I noticed Azerion chuckling from his cushion. He had a smug smile on his face as he watched me speak with Zorathys, clearly enjoying the fact that someone else was being scolded for once.

I almost chuckled at that.

He had a scolding coming too.

Zorathys stared at me for a long moment. Then he nodded, a yawn slipping through his carefully maintained composure.

I wondered just how much time we had before he found a corner to sleep in. The yawns were always a warning sign. Once they started, the countdown had begun.

I turned to Azerion.

"And you," I said.

His smug smile vanished immediately.

"Do you not know who you’re arguing with?" I continued. "Do you not fear him at all? And though you have pocket money, where do you think you are going to get five hundred gabin from?"

The smug smile that had been on his face slipped off completely, and now it was Zorathys’s turn to laugh. It was a low, quiet sound, barely more than a breath, but it carried enough satisfaction to fill the entire room.

"I..." Azerion began, then stopped. His shoulders slumped. His arms uncrossed. He looked down at his hands, then back up at me. "I’m sorry."

A shocked sound slipped out of Velira.

"You know how to apologise?" she asked, her voice carrying genuine disbelief.

"Quite shocking," Retheris said with a nod.

"I can apologise," Azerion said, his voice defensive.

"Only when you feel like it," Velira countered. "How many times have you apologised to me?"

"Well, you hardly do things that deserve an apology from me," Azerion argued.

"Really?" Velira asked, her wings flaring slightly. "Even right now, you have to apologise to me because you are being unnecessarily rude."

"Says the one who butted her nose into a business that didn’t concern her," Azerion shot back.

"It concerned everyone," Velira said firmly. "You were embarrassing yourself in front of the Queen and the King and the fox demons and everyone."

Azerion opened his mouth to argue, but I could see the hesitation in his eyes. He knew she was right. He just didn’t want to admit it.

That headache I was trying to avoid — yes, it was coming back. I could feel it pulsing behind my eyes, a steady thrum of irritation that promised to settle in for the long haul. I doubted I could avoid it, especially with how these children were arguing.

Meanwhile, as they continued their back and forth, I noticed something happening across the room.

Aziren and Zorathys were speaking in hushed tones.

The fire demon child was perched on Zorathys’s lap, his small body leaning forward, his amber eyes bright with excitement. He was pointing at something across the room — one of the clothing racks, I realized — and nodding vigorously as he spoke. A wide smile stretched across his face, and his flames danced with enthusiasm.

Zorathys looked irritated and tired.

His ruby eyes were half-lidded, his expression carrying that particular brand of exhausted patience that only appeared when he was dealing with something he could not simply destroy and be done with. His jaw was tight, his shoulders tense, but he was listening. He was actually listening to Aziren speak.

I watched as Aziren pointed again, more emphatically this time, and said something that made Zorathys’s earrings sway as he turned his head to look in that direction.

Then Zorathys sighed.

It was a long, defeated sound, the kind that suggested he had lost an argument he didn’t even know he was having.

His shadows moved.