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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟭
Iruma"s first birthday is by far the dullest one. Nothing special or out of the ordinary. After all Iruma is still considered a baby, not yet even a toddler. Just a fragile human baby that can neither talk nor walk. Most days he is just left out in the open in the wilderness, wrapped up in ratty, tattered worn-out stolen baby blankets dug out from the trash dump his parents found.
He is fed milk from his mother on alternating days, his parents can"t afford their future obedient slave to starve to death due to lack of milk or anything. Nevertheless, it"s October fourth, his first birthday.
Nothing happens.
Absolutely nothing, nothing at all. His birthday doesn"t even fall on the day of being fed milk so he isn"t even awarded with a single drop of milk. He"s just left, swaddled up on the tree stump his parents usually left him on while they went and scavenged for food from trash cans or dumpsters like they were some sort of human-sized raccoons or something. Even stealing from people sometimes.
They even blamed him, when they returned and reluctantly fed him the scraps they found, they would complain and complain about how troublesome he was and how he should be grateful they never aborted him.
Iruma knew that his parents never aborted him so they could keep him as their slave anyway.
Instead of extravagant baby showers or first birthday parties or being gifted any toys or other materialistic items, Iruma"s parents instead pierce a fishing hook through the layers of his baby blankets, making sure he is secure and won"t fall off before throwing him into the sea to act as bait so his parents could catch fish for themselves and feast on it while he starved.
Just a typical day for one-year-old Suzuki Iruma.
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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟮
October fourth has rolled around again. But nobody seems to notice.
By now Iruma has learned how to crawl and walk, he can even run a little without falling halfway unlike the other kids. He has learned how to speak instead of just babbling incomprehensible words.
And like the greedy, selfish, opportunistic money-hungry people they were, his parents immediately took advantage of that.
His parents immediately started teaching him, coercing him, convincing him that everything he was doing was for his own good and that he owed them. So at just two years and only freshly being able to walk, Suzuki Iruma is being taught how to sweep floors, wash clothes, scrub toilets, wash the dishes and basically all of the household chores his parents had deemed simple enough.
Which was all of them.
Although there was one good thing that happened on his second birthday. As a reward for obeying their commands like the good obedient little slave he was to them, Iruma was rewarded for his efforts with a single piece of cheap candy that was nearing its expiry date. Nonetheless, at two years old, the human was overjoyed. Especially since that day, his parents had told him something.
The date of his birthday.
October fourth.
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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟯
Rinse, wash, lather repeat. It"s the same thing every year. His parents promise him lavish gifts and a birthday party in exchange for Iruma doing something way too difficult and dangerous for his age, ("You"re my son! Of course you"ll be able to do it!" his father claimed, laughing.) and then when they get what they want they just pretend they never said anything about his birthday.
But it"s fine, Iruma is a good child, the best child, that"s what his parents say whenever he does something for them. He can handle missing just one birthday, it doesn"t matter, it"s just one birthday.
It"s fine, he"s fine. It doesn"t matter that he is only three years old and shouldn"t be doing hard labour or watching the tent for any lurking animals wanting ti steal their food, it doesn"t matter that Iruma is always the one that has to face those big scary animals in the forest, it doesn"t matter that he"s the one fending them off even though he is only a mere toddler.
It doesn"t matter, Iruma is a good child after all.
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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟰
Iruma is four years old but he doesn"t attend kindergarten like all the other children.
He isn"t like all the other children, his kaa-san said so! He can do things like fold the clothes neatly, scrub the toilets, do the laundry, and wash the dishes all on his own! The other children could barely even carry juice to the table without falling and spilling everything. Kaa-san says that he doesn"t need to go to kindergarten, he"s too special for that kind of thing.
So he doesn"t wear the bright yellow bucket hat on his head, or the snug comfortable blue and white coat that Iruma was sure was warm. (He only wore tattered, torn clothes that had been trashed after all.)
He doesn"t bid his parents goodbye as he makes his way to the kindergarten building like all the other kids do, Iruma just watches them as their parents guide them in and leave reluctantly and tearfully as their kids start kindergarten.
Iruma doesn"t experience any of that, instead, his parents bring him around various forests and jungles across the country and set up camp in each of them for his own personal education or so they said. Instead of books and crayon drawings, Iruma is left on his own devices for extended periods of time, figuring out how to survive in each new environment.
He does a lot of things, start fires with sticks, learn to scare off animals, pick off abandoned electric appliances from the side of the road, and fix them so they become useful again, he sleeps on leaves.
He eats grass too, like the cows and sheep.
Somewhere during that time his parents temporarily abandoned him, and his birthday October 4 rolled around. Iruma has been hyperaware of this fact and has been waiting and smiling even before the date came for his parents to take him back and give him a piece of bread or a cookie if he was lucky. But nobody comes, not even the usual animals that try and steal his things.
So he just treats himself to more grass instead.
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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟱
It"s the same, it"s always the same.
But that"s okay, because Iruma is a good child who can handle anything, even being stuck in a seemingly never-ending desert full of sand and only sand without his parents anywhere in sight.
He"s a good child, right?
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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟲
Iruma enters elementary school, it"s compulsory after all.
Originally his parents didn"t want to send him to elementary school at all, they wanted to continue "home-schooling" him. But they didn"t have a choice in the matter so now Iruma is attending school for the first time in his life. The other children dismiss his slightly dirty clothes, happy that they got a new playmate, and just play games that he never played with him.
The teachers give him concerned looks though.
The other kids quickly find out that Iruma is extremely good at dodgeball, a popular game amongst them even if it was the more tame version than what the older kids play. He gets admired for his dodging capabilities.
The teachers are pretty astounded too, they just have a little more concern lacing their features.
And the other kids didn"t care that he was for some reason extremely good at housekeeping, they didn"t care that he for some reason knew how to do a certain chore a certain way, or how even though he was a child like them he still knew how to scrub the toilets clean. In fact, they all thought he was amazing for knowing all that because they didn"t know a thing about it.
The teachers cared though, the parents of the other kids did too. They were worried, very worried. Iruma didn"t like that all that much, he would bring his kaa-san and tou-san trouble if they worried.
And Iruma didn"t want that, he was a good child after all.
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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟳
Some of the boys don"t invite him to play dodgeball anymore, the rest of his classmates say that it"s only because Iruma is too good ar dodging so those boys are jealous. He notices the slight jealousy and envy in those boy"s eyes, one of them says it"s because of his dodging skill that they won"t play with him, Iruma is too good at dodging so he sucks the fun out of it.
So he plays on the swing instead, going back and forth as he watches the rest of the kids play dodgeball. Some want to invite him over to play anyway but Iruma turns them down, he wants to play on the swing.
Or so he says.
Iruma understands where they"re coming from he does, and because he understands and because he is a good child, Iruma gives them what they want and he stops playing dodgeball with them. His parents don"t seem to notice, which makes sense because they"ve left him in the middle of the jungle again, Iruma has to wake up early to get to school on time.
But that"s okay, he"ll endure, Ka-san and Tou-san just want to make him stronger, it doesn"t matter that he has to cross rushing rivers, avoid insects, and run away from the occasional hungry animal.
Iruma will endure it, because he is a good child.
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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟴
The boys have started leaving him out of things. At first, it was just dodgeball, but lately, the other boys have been very interested in colorful Pokemon cards, so they show each other their card collections, sometimes trading them all while laughing and chatting with each other. They look happy so Iruma is happy for them, but he still gets left out of it.
Iruma doesn"t have any toys, so he guesses he can understand why. Not even the clothes and shoes he wears are technically his, they are from the trash dump that he always frequents, and he gets most of his stuff from there.
It"s lonely though, Iruma is lonely.
The girls don"t really accept him either even though Iruma can tell that they feel bad for them, instead of robots and cards they"re interested in dolls and playing house, which the boys dub as "girly and lame".
He doesn"t want to isolate himself further from them by joining the girls, the girls won"t let him join either because he"s a boy. "We don"t play with boys!" one of them exclaimed, turning him down.
So Iruma sits alone in a corner draws with colored pencils and reads books.
There is a calendar in the corner and Iruma looks at it, it"s the first of October, three days until his birthday. Iruma gets an idea, he"s been working for a restaurant lately and he"s given his entire salary to his kaa-san and tou-san, they were really happy about it so they said they would give him anything he wanted for his eighth birthday on October fourth.
Surprisingly they agree, and he"s given a packet of Pokemon cards, they"re slightly old but Iruma doesn"t mind.
The boys don"t leave him out anymore, so he"s not lonely anymore, and that"s all that matters.
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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟵
The other boys change interests a lot.
From colorful Pokemon cards to cool metal toy robots and now video games. Iruma desperately tries to keep up with the other boy"s ever-changing interests and hobbies, they pick something new up for a while before eventually losing interest and then picking up another thing. The cycle repeats itself and Iruma sometimes struggles to keep up with the changes.
But he has to, or the boys will leave him alone again.
The girls don"t hang out with the boys anymore, they keep to within their own friend groups, talking, chatting, and doing "lame girl stuff" as the other boys put it. The only time they get together is in dodgeball.
Which Iruma still isn"t allowed in.
He watches at the side as his classmates relentlessly throw balls at each other, dodging and trying to hit each other with all their might. Lately, his parents have been making him miss more and more days of school for things like working at that shady company and earning more money for his parents. He"s missed a lot of things, and teachers are starting to get more annoyed than worried.
Iruma wishes that he could just go to school and attend class and play with the other kids like anyone else, but he"s a good kid who needs to help his parents work and earn money for all of them so he can"t. (e̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶n̶e̶y̶ ̶g̶o̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ )
Though on the night of his ninth birthday, when October fourth rolled around again and nobody else seemed to remember that it was his birthday, Iruma put his hands together and he prayed.
It"s selfish he knows, but he just wants to be like the other kids. (h̶e̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶n̶"̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶l̶o̶n̶e̶l̶y̶)
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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟭𝟬
They start leaving him out for other things. In the past, they didn"t care about his old tattered clothes or the fact he never had any money. But they"ve grown up and they have also changed.
They start noticing how old his clothes are, how they aren"t even his size, how his shoes are practically falling apart, and how his shirts seem to be unraveling at the seams. And they care about it, they sneer in his direction and keep away from him, ignoring him. They leave him out of things and purposefully exclude him. The girls aren"t any better, they don"t like unkempt boys.
The teachers would usually pay attention to the state of his clothes how his uniform doesn"t fit him and how it looks like it"s been dug out of the trash, but they"re more annoyed about him being frequently not being at school.
His parents rope him into more and more shady jobs and Iruma is less and less present at school.
His classmates don"t seem to care at all that much, they just pass him his slightly crumpled worksheets and roll their eyes at his apologies, waving them off sarcastically. His teachers very much mind though. Fortunately, Iruma always manages to complete his homework on time and his multiple jobs haven"t made him miss any important examinations so far so he"s fine.
Iruma"s parents wave off his concerns about school, saying that all he needs to do is work so he can get new clothes for his tenth birthday. "It"s a promise alright Iruma-kun~" his mother cooed.
t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶b̶r̶e̶a̶k̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶m̶i̶s̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶w̶a̶y̶
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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟭𝟭
By the time the summer holidays have come, almost all of his classmates have stopped talking to him. They"re all excitedly talking about what they"re going to do over the summer, especially the girls who are elated to go to the summer festivals in kimonos. Iruma sits alone at his table, watching as all of them chat and laugh without him. He"s alone, but it be selfish to try and join.
He doesn"t really have anything special for the summer holidays either. It"s just the usual for him, to camp out in the forest or jungle alone without his parents and work at the shady jobs he"s been working at.
Iruma just has to work as a delivery man, delivering packages to people"s doorsteps (n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶m̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ ̶s̶m̶e̶l̶l̶e̶d̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶b̶l̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶u̶i̶l̶d̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶l̶i̶v̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶c̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶d̶e̶a̶t̶h̶ ), and a cleaner boy at one of the local restaurants, and a cabin boy on a fishing boat that constantly went to sea, and a trash man, and a janitor, and a street cook, and a traffic guard.
That"s all, it"s not much.
Or well that"s what he thought, but his parents had other ideas. The advertisement bords and advertisements on TV have been raving about this one particular truffle that was extremely hard to get but also extremely tasty and healthy for the human body, it was also worth a lot of money. Which is why he should"ve probably seen something coming when his plans were canceled.
Instead of spending his summer working, Iruma would be allowed to go to the summer festival, yukata and all.
He was absolutely ecstatic.
So when his eleventh birthday rolled around in October and his parents had tossed him a cheap second-hand children"s mountain-climbing set and requested him to scale the treacherous mountains to retrieve the truffle for them, Iruma had thought back to the summer festival and had agreed. It was only fair to repay them for allowing him to go to the festival after all.
So he climbed the mountain, facing the harsh freezing winds that nearly toppled him over and the sea of snow and ice that rained down on him and blocked his vision. It was so cold his breath immediately turned to mist.
n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶m̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶l̶l̶a̶p̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶p̶o̶i̶n̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶n̶e̶a̶r̶l̶y̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶z̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶d̶e̶a̶t̶h̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶H̶y̶p̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶m̶i̶a̶
And just as his rope was falling apart at the seams and was inches apart from snapping for good and sending him spiralling down the mountain and into the icy seemingly never-ending abyss below, Iruma stretched his numb freezing hand out and grabbed the truffle, grabbing all of it in a big amount and gently shoving it into the pocket of his tattered winter coat
His parents are overjoyed as they hoard three-quarters of the stash to themselves and sell the rest of the truffles for a large amount of money. BUt he is still made to work, to repay them for the climbing set.
That"s fine.
It"s no big deal.
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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟭𝟮
For his twelfth birthday, Iruma"s parents don"t buy him a new video game or new books like any other parent would. No, instead, they pulled him into their make-shift shelter which they called home, and immediately pushed him into their sad excuse of a bathroom with a long blue wig that matched his hair as well as a nice pale blue kimono, with beautiful pink cherry blossoms spread across the fabric and some other girls clothes.
What?
Nevertheless, Iruma is a good child so he just quickly puts on the outfit, coming out of the bathroom dressed in the beautiful kimono, his hair disguised in a wig that was pulled into a bun with a gold hairpin holding it together.
He looked...just like a girl. In fact, if you had put him among all the other girls in his class during the summer festivals when they all dressed up in kimonos, you wouldn"t even spot the difference. You wouldn"t be able to tell that he was actually a boy.
Right after that a stranger, a short and stout man, balding with a beer belly and looking like your stereotypical old pervert showed up at their house. That"s when his parents had introduced him as Suzuki Itsuna, their daughter. The man looked him up and down with eyes that he could only describe as...𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 and then handed his parents a large sum of cash, declaring it as the first payment before pulling him into a car.
Was he being sold off to a slave driver?
Apparently not because instead of some dark, dank abandoned warehouse, Iruma or Itsuna was brought to a blinding red light district filled with different people. Iruma could smell the pungent scent of alcohol in the streets, and the bright red lights weren"t really helping his eyes with how blinding they were. Nobody paid them much mind, they were too busy with their own things. Eventually, they reached a large traditional-looking house.
Inside were a lot of other girls, all of them were older than him. They glanced at him as the man introduced him as Suzuki Itsuna and he swore he could see the looks of rage and pity in the eyes of all the older girls.
The man left him alone with the other girls, saying something about finding clients.
As soon as he left, all the other girls started bombarding him with questions. The oldest of them all, aged 21 was Nakayama Asuna-kun, who wore a sleek purple kimono, she had fury in her eyes and demanded what the man had done. Another girl, Hikama Yuki-kun who despite being the second shortest and wearing a soft pink kimono with yellow blossoms, was quite fierce and looked as if she was about to kill the man.
The third girl, Kurumi Emiko-kun wore a light green kimono as well as a hairpin with fabric flowers in her hair and stared at him while muttering under her breath, looking disturbed. Makoto Suzue-kun was the fourth girl, dressed in a muted red kimono with white lilies on it, she kept insisting that they would "get you out of this place". The fifth girl, Haruka Kimiko-kun who was dressed in a yellow kimono looked betrayed and devastated.
However, the last girl, Fuyume Sonomi-kun, dressed in a black kimono decorated with purple flowers just looked tired, and resigned. She just silently stared at him, then at the ceiling, before sighing and turning away.
Iruma wonders why. (h̶e̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶d̶s̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶w̶h̶y̶)
(O̶n̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶w̶e̶l̶f̶t̶h̶ ̶b̶i̶r̶t̶h̶d̶a̶y̶,̶ ̶I̶r̶u̶m̶a̶ ̶i̶s̶n̶"̶t̶ ̶g̶i̶f̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶g̶i̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶o̶h̶ ̶n̶o̶,̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶s̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶c̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ ̶r̶i̶p̶p̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶w̶a̶y̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶e̶a̶d̶.̶ ̶H̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶y̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶e̶n̶t̶i̶r̶e̶ ̶y̶e̶a̶r̶ )
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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟭𝟯
His gift for his thirteenth birthday isn"t another surprise visit to the red light district (And thank god because Hikama-kun may have just committed murder) instead it"s something similar but not really. It"s...
A kidnapping.
Iruma had started working for another shady suspicious delivery company that really didn"t care that he was still in middle school as long as he could deliver the packages that smelled vaguely of blood and guts. His classmates don"t know that he"s doing this, Iruma"s barely present at school anyways, and not even the principal who used to be annoyed and concerned about his frequent absences seems to notice he"s gone.
But working at these sorts of shady delivery companies meant attracting attention from certain people that Iruma really didn"t want to deal with. Like street gangsters, delinquents, or sometimes even the Yakuza.
Well if he were being honest, Iruma has delivered so many packages, letters, and parcels to the local Yakuza group that they even have a nickname for him. They call him a black-footed cat for some reason and whenever he has to deliver something new(usually brand new weapons or "equipment") to them, they greet him casually and sometimes even drag them into their estate for some tea and snacks, sometimes even giving him things.
They even offered to "deal with his parents, but Iruma has always been a pacifist(much to the dismay of his predator instincts) so he politely declines their offer and just passes them their delivery, which earns some grumbles.
So yeah he was kind of friends with the local Yakuza group.
Which is why he honestly kind of expected this. By this he meant being tied to a chair, his mouth gagged with a cloth, and two gangster guys talking gruffly in front of him, completely ignoring him like he wasn"t even there. Speaking of which, why was he here? Did his parents borrow money from loan shark gangsters again and fail to pay up so they just decided to kidnap their son and hold him hostage in hopes of getting the money?
It seemed like that was the case, but instead of just holding him hostage, their gang leader had decided to try something else. So their leader walked up to Iruma and pulled off his gag, trying...something. Too bad Iruma"s survival instincts kicked into overdrive.
And so did his predator instincts, actually. (H̶e̶"̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶r̶t̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶b̶l̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶h̶a̶n̶d̶s̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶"̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ )
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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟭𝟰
It all happened a bit too suddenly, it wasn"t even his birthday.
In fact, it wasn"t even October, it was September. Now Iruma pretty much only attended school so he could take the important examinations, he usually never showed up for regular class. Not that his teachers or classmates seemed to care anymore. His classmates used to be curious and always prodded him about the reason why he almost never went to school, but they stopped showing interest after a while.
Hard not to when Iruma was never even there.
His teachers were concerned and worried at first, then they were annoyed and finally, they became resigned and stopped caring about it. These days, Iruma spends most of his daily life working on the tuna fishing boat out at sea.
Yeah, he usually isn"t even on Japanese soil.
It started off as a normal day at work, nothing much was happening, it was just a mundane day on the fishing boat. This probably should"ve been the first red flag because Iruma"s life is ruled over Murphy"s Law "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong" and at least one thing goes wrong throughout the day. So he was rather suspicious and disbelieving when nothing happened until night fell and a freak storm hit.
It was nothing like the usual storms Iruma experienced, it was like a hurricane, tsunami, storm, and tornado combined into a hellish combination. The ship was barely holding it together and it was a miracle how they hadn"t sunk yet, Iruma was put on trying-to-keep-the-tuna-actually-inside-their-boxes duty along with one of his other colleagues but the storm got the better of him and all the tuna came flying out.
He was so busy trying to dodge all the falling tuna and avoid injuring himself, that Iruma hadn"t even noticed that the tuna were floating in the air. And then the surroundings changed and suddenly he was tied up.
A paper reading "sold" was stuck onto the ropes, the background had changed from the tuna compartment to an eerie red background and there was a tall man standing in front of him. The man was wearing glasses, a purple suit, had a mustache, and had...horns? There was a pair of yellow curved horns sitting atop his head. Unlike the people he saw at his cosplay gig, those horns seemed to actually be part if him.
And then he was whirled off to a whole other world where demons resided and he became the man, Sullivan"s grandson. If anyone found out his true human identity... then he would probably be eaten up right away.
Iruma just hopes he can survive a day here.
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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝟭𝟱
It seemed like Balam-sensei had spread the word of his birthday fast because the very next day Opera-san and Jii-chan dragged him off somewhere.
And by somewhere Iruma meant the biggest building he had ever been in, other than Babyls and his own house, sat on a throne for some reason. It wasn"t exaggeratedly big or shiny or gold like the throne in the royal one which he had actually sat in before. (Surprisingly Sabnock-kun hadn"t been the first one to sit in it even though it was the throne of the demon king) and he was dressed in some sort of costume.
All his friends were there as well, dressed in the same strange costumes, dancing around him joyfully like they were performing some sort of ritual. It turns out it was his "demonic rites", which was the netherworld version of his birthday.
Now Iruma hadn"t purposefully not told anyone about his birthday, it was just that he hadn"t celebrated his birthday in so long that even he barely acknowledged it when October fourth had rolled around again.
So he honestly hadn"t thought to tell anyone about his birthday, even when it was October 4, he just continued on with the day as usual, playing with Clara and talking with Azz-kun. Iruma had absent-mindedly answered Balam-sensei"s question about when his birthday was, he didn"t expect Balam-sensei to go ahead and ring everybody he knew just to tell all of them that they had actually missed his birthday.
Kalego-sensei swore that Opera-san had forced him to come but Iruma knew that if that were really the case, Opera-san would have slapped a summoning seal on his hand to summon Kalego-sensei as his familiar to be at his demonic rites. Kalego-sensei had even shoved a very carefully wrapped gift into his hands, which according to Balam-sensei, Kalego-sensei had very thoughtfully prepared.
To which Opera-san said "Tsundere"
Kalego-sensei had really wanted to deny that, but Opera-san...well they just stared at his homeroom teacher, as if daring him to even think about trying to deny the accusation. So Kalego-sensei scoffed and turned away, and Opera-san smiled like the cat who got the canary.
(Later Iruma found that Kalego had given him an enchanted pendent with powerful protective charms.)
And then one by one, all of his classmates, family, and friends (Even Ameri-san is there!) pour the lit water into the tub and kneel before him, and present him gifts as if he were an actual king. Every single one of them, from Clara to Sabnock-kun, to Jazz-kun, to Balam-sensei, to Elizabetta-kun, to Gaap-kun and Lied-kun. Every single person at his demonic rites kneeled in front of him, gave him and present, and thanked him.
But, it was Jii-chan"s turn, that really stuck with him. He didn"t convert into his so-called egg form and gush about him like Iruma thought he would. No instead, Jii-chain has a soft, gentle expression on his face as he crouches down on both legs in order to match the height of the throne, gently patting his head and spreading his wings, revealing his wing roots as jii-chan told him, "Thank you for being born. Iruma-kun."
He thanked Iruma for being born.
By the time it was Lied-kun"s turn to thank him and present him with a gift while gloating about being a month older, the emotions and feelings had already gotten to Iruma, overwhelming him and tears spilled from his eyes.
And for the very first time, Iruma was actually celebrating his birthday, even if it was an extremely belated one, with arms full of presents from all his classmates, family, and friends. Each and every one of them thanked him and celebrated his birthday. It was the very first time Iruma was celebrating his birthday properly, and in a world that wasn"t even his, nonetheless, he was celebrating his birthday, with people who cared about him.
As everyone told him their birthdays and Jii-chan slowly melted into a puddle on the ground and Iruma tried desperately to blow out the flames of the lit water in the large tub, Iruma was happy, he was actually happy.
It was the Netherworld after all, and the Netherworld was his home