Welcome to Gatori Cafe

The three angels just came home. They stopped at their tracks as soon as I they saw me. Standing beside the dining table and in front of a smoking hot food, and a reddened forehead on top of that.

"What a sight to see." Liam exclaimed.

I could say the same. The three of them look sweaty with little black dust on them. Similar to the dust I saw that Damon has last night.

"I made dinner so after you've clean up, sit down."

~~

We are now at the dining table. Liam looks amused, Johan looks worried while Damon's eyebrows are more furrowed than before.

"It's my first time cooking so I think I actually did a great job."

"You did actually. Unlike someone I know who almost burnt the house down." Liam patted Damon's shoulders.

To distract us from the conversation, Damon stabbed one of the steaks and tried biting it. Instead of a soft juicy steak, I heard a crunch in every bite he takes.

" You don't have to eat it if its not edible. I'm sorry Liam for wasting your ingredients."

Johan tucked my hair to the back of my ears. "You don't have to be sorry, as a matter of fact this is completely edible for us. This is what a normal food in the purgatory looks like. Crunchy. Burnt. Fiery spicy." I can feel a jab at every words. I am not sure if he's comforting me or making fun of my cooking. "Instead of apologizing, why don't you tell us what happend to your forehead."

"Ah... this. I just bumped it on one of the drawer doors."

"Lies." Damon claimed. Liam then looked closely at my forehead. I closed my eyes because its embarrasing to look at him. His face is really close to mine.

"Look. Now his whole face is red" Liam said in amusement. He poked my forehead. " This is a familiar's contract. I guess someone needs to be punished."

" Wait! Don't punish TanTan."

"So you did meet. Why did you lie before?"

"Because he said you'll punish him. I like TanTan. He's cute. He can come here whenever he wants."

Damon snapped his fingers and a little fire was formed. He then made a gun sign on his left hand and pointed at the hallway where the dummy elevator is at. He then shot.

"What was that for? Is TanTan really going to be punished."

ding~

That was the sound of the elevator.

"Damon summoned TanTan because you said you like him." Johan explained.

"Lady Mistress! Lady mistress, you called for me? " TanTan came running while having his hands on top of his head with a burnt part of his hair.

"Lady mistress?" Damon asked.

"Bah! I am talking about the lady mistress over here." TanTan pointed at me. "Sir Liam ..Bah! "

Liam hurriedly covered TanTan's mouth. "Shhh..... TanTan. We both don't want to get in trouble. "

"Whatever. Starting from now, aside from doing household chores, you'll be Eugene's personal pet. "

"Pet?! TanTan is not a pet! I am a familiar."

"It's just the same, Human's call it pet." Damon smirked.

TanTan became teary eyed. "Will Lady Mistress treat me as a pet?"

Confused on what's going on, I looked at the three of them for explanations. Tan Tan just keep on sniffling in front of me, waiting for my answer.

"Do you not want to be my pet?" TanTan eagerly shook his head.

"I can be your familiar but not pet."

"You see, pets are considered slave here. Collars, Leash and in all fours" Johan explained. "They are not allowed to roam around. If possible, they're not allowed to step outside their cage."

"In the human world, pets are considered best friend and I've really wanted to have one. So TanTan, how about being my best friend?"

"Really? No leash? No cage?"

"I promise none of those."

"Okay then. To commemorate our friendship, Let me stay over. I've never slept on a soft bed before. Bah!" Damon picked up TanTan by his nape.

"There's no way a smelly capra kid like you will sleep on a bed. Bring your own brand new bed. "

"Bah! You just don't wan't me to sleep next to the Lady mistress. "

"Um.... Tan Tan, since we're friends now. How about calling me by name?"

"I could never. Bah! This and that are different things."

It's time to go to bed. TanTan did came back freshly out of the shower and with his tiny own bed. He put his bed inside my room.

Tan Tan explained to me what it means to be a pet and why he eagerly doesn't want to be one. Pet is one of the most degrading thing you can say to another soul. As explained earlier, pets are equivalent to slaves but there are more who were treated lower than slaves. Some gets battered and some gets sold. And those sold pets are mostly used for sexual needs.

Most pets are from the population of lost souls. Since the lost souls doesn't really belong to any of the levels, they are treated as strays before being captured. Those who wants to earn money, collect these souls so they can sell them. The higher the level they are at, the more expensive they get. And if they are sold to lower levels, the lower you go, the higher the price is. The lower levels are hungrier for higher lost souls.

"Lady mistress there's rumor going around the purgatory. It even reached the Limbus."

"What kind of rumor?"

"There is a lost soul in the Paradis."

"What's Paradis?"

"Paradis is where we're at, the top level of the purgatory while Limbus is at the very bottom."

Must be one of the reasons why the three of them went out. Were they in search of the lost soul also? It must've been very valuable for the highest rankings to personally search for them. Or, They must have want the lost soul as their own pet.

"Actually, the lost soul is...."

knock ~ knock ~

The knock came from the bathroom door so it must be Damon.

"It's already late at night. We need to open the cafe tomorrow. So get some sleep now."

We did as instructed and tucked ourselves in.