DW DXD Intermission: Yuuka’s Private Thoughts on Tamamo (Patreon)

There are people you dislike because they’re cruel and then there are people you dislike because they make you feel small. Tamamo-no-Mae is the second kind. She walks around like she owns the air in the room, like the whole world is a stage and everyone else is just lucky to be in the audience. She’s beautiful in a way that feels unfair, like someone took every impossible standard a boy could dream up and molded it into one perfect, smug, smiling vixen. Not to mention, she’s confident in a way I’ll never be allowed to be. 

When Tamamo entered our lives, a part of me panicked. Because she’s not human. Because she can look at Issei and see things I can’t. Because she belongs in his world of monsters and magic and legends, and I’m just Yuuka. A high school girl who’s barely holding it together most days.

I’ve caught Issei staring. Not just in that disgusting way some men do but I secretly like when I know it's him looking at me. But more confused, like his brain is trying to process how someone like her is showing actual affection to him. And I hate that part. I hate it because it makes my chest tight in the ugliest way. 

My insecurity comes and it comes loud. It whispers that she’s more suited for him. That she can protect him better. That she can understand him better. That she can keep up and the jealousy sinks its claws in and says “If you don’t fight for him, you’ll lose him.”

Then my thoughts get ugly. ‘Of course he’s staring. Why wouldn’t he?’ And then the worst one: ‘Why would he choose me if he had her?’ That thought makes me hate myself so much I can barely breathe. Because Issei did choose me.

He chose me in the simplest way possible, by staying, by protecting mom and me. By letting me call him my boyfriend and not laughing, not dismissing it, not treating it like a joke. He chose me even when it would’ve been easier to walk away.

Jealousy is humiliating as it’s this petty, hot thing that crawls under your skin and makes you want to pull someone’s hair just because they smiled at the person you love. And Tamamo smiles at Issei a lot. She calls him things that should make me want to throw a chair. She leans close as if she has no shame. She laughs when he flusters, like she gets entertainment from watching him squirm. And every time it happens, I feel something twisted in me, snarl awake, making me possessive of him and I hate that thought because I’m not his owner.

But the truth is when you’ve lived the way I have, when your entire life is built around not letting anyone take what little you have left. You start holding tightly without realizing it. Tamamo knows that. That’s what makes it worse. She’s not just pretty. She’s sharp and intelligent. She watches me like she’s reading a page out of a book she’s already finished. And sometimes she smiles at me like she’s amused.

I want to hate her. I want to scream at her. I want to tell her to stop looking at him like she’s entitled to him. But then she does something that ruins my anger. She makes tea for my mom without being asked. She fixes something in the house without being asked. She stands between us and danger without complaining, without flinching. And worst of all, she protects Issei in moments when I know I can’t. She loves him just as strongly as I do, and she can show her love easily while I struggle to be confident.

It made me realize something important. Tamamo could’ve fought me. She could’ve crushed me without effort, if she wanted. She could’ve done what people like my father did, take what she wanted and leave the damage behind like it was nothing. But she didn’t. Instead, she chose something harder, she showed restraint and became a better person by offering friendship. Because we both wanted Issei to be happy and didn’t want him to be hurt. 

And now we are friends. The word still feels strange when I apply it to her.

Mostly because Tamamo is still infuriating, dramatic, and annoying. And yet she’s also the kind of woman who can look at you, see your ugly jealousy and your insecurity, and not use it against you.

I still get jealous when she leans too close. I still get insecure when Issei’s eyes flick her way. I still want to glare when she calls him darling.

But now?

Now I glare and she smiles like she’s satisfied. And then she nudges me and steps forward with me when it matters. Because we made a decision. Not to fight over Issei. Not to make him choose between people who care about him.

We can both love him in our own ways. We can both protect him in our own ways.