Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A body writhed in the cold shadow of the hall, the sound of cracking joints rippling off the walls. The smell of ozone was so heavy it completely absorbed the odour of cooking flesh and disintegrating cotton. Now a mess of black and red, skin painted with thin branching patterns, the person on the floor was, to their misfortune, still alive.

The vintage window frames allowed a bit of lavender to crawl into the black, breaking the stark shade with cage-shaped gleams. From one of the large windowsills, a figure watched with disinterest. Kirio let out a slow, sultry sigh. 

"Bored, aren't ya', bastard?" said Baal, not even attempting to hide his discontent.

Kirio liked nukazuke, it was one of his favourite foods. Of course, he wasn’t jumping happily upon seeing the pickled goods, but he was always glad to have some. He might stop eating it for a while, but eventually, he would return to eating nukazuke. Rice bran pickles gave the demon a sense of stability.

To Kirio, electrocution was much like comfort food. He saw it many times, of course. Luckily he had a stable source. The first time, it was amazing. Eye-opening. The ease with which his ‘brother’ sent a person flying was the most memorable. Before teaching Kirio the ways of his movement, Baal made promises. He told the child that, if he so desired, in the world they’d build the suffering they craved would be mundane. That time was the first when Kirio had truly felt it, the first real taste of his fantasies taking shape. Of course, since then, the now-grown-up boy had seen it many times, to the point that it really did become mundane. He may not have been as excited, but the sight still made him warm inside, reminding him of that initial liberation he felt. It also reminded him of a very stable presence in his life: the man who took him in. Baal and Kirio knew that the history they shared couldn’t be easily swept under the rug. If one of them were to abandon the other, the consequences were sure to follow. The lifestyles they were both keeping hidden from most of the world made them inseparable. Kirio remains a child, so, whether he likes it or not, he never grew out of considering his brother close. Now that he's sixteen, Kirio doesn’t care what Baal thinks of that. Maybe because he wouldn't like the answer.

"You seem totally out of it," Baal kicked the still mass on the floor, "something's not to your liking?"

"Sorry, I am a little out of it. I've been busy lately," the boy fixed his glasses with an awfully long motion. "It's for the battler," Kirio added, seeing Baal's lower eyelid slightly twitch.

‘Big bro’ swiftly took out his cellphone, ran through the messages, made a "tch" sound and headed down the hall, his finger angrily beating words into the keyboard. He was now 'The Thunder Lord' of the thirteen crowns.

A shorter man in a tuxedo swam out of the shadow, plain-looking hands full of cleaning supplies. Kirio is used to this person appearing out of nowhere, might as well just assume he’s always somewhere around. The kid watched him sweep sticky pink mucus off the floor.

"I forgot to ask who that was."

He was only staying there to procrastinate.

"Atori said that guy had info to leak," the man placed a damp mop on the poor demon's face; the crippled body made sucking sounds.

"You think he really has something on us?

"Doesn't matter anymore, does it?"

The kid listened in on the wet sloppy sounds breaking the ringing silence. He wasn't sure if his after-school headache was getting better or worse. For a while, he seemingly wasn't able to get a full breath.

"Hey, um… Wett, was it? Are you gonna be free after this?"

"Well, I was planning to tidy up the kitchen. You need anything?"

"Are you good at math?"

"And here I go thinking not having kids after college would free me from this," the man chuckled light-heartedly, "I'll help you, but wasn't Mr Important over there bragging about your straight A's just a week ago..?"

"It's not really for me. I've… got a thing in school."

"Huh."

Wett gave the boy a surprisingly provocative glance as if the two of them were in on some sort of secret. Kirio may always forget his name or his face, but he remembers that hiding things from big bro's closest associate is a tricky task.

"I'll wait for you, uh. Do ya' thing, man.” 

Kirio was sure just a few seconds ago that he wasn't hiding anything.

***

Particles of dust shined like an array of dead stars in the dim sunlight. Sometimes, during the breaks in his work, Ami Kirio liked to stretch out his hand and stir up the soupy air, watching the tiny dots blur into a mess. The magical apparatus battler room sure needed cleaning. Previously, Kirio never put his mind to it; since it was just him, he was personally fine with the artistic havoc. Now that it was four of them, he was forced to come to terms with his own laziness. Placing books, organising cursed necklaces by colour… he really wasn’t interested in such ordinary things.

“I won again, Iruma-chi! Look, look! Bingoooo!” A small girl cheerily rolled around the tatami, hands raised in victory, green hair glistening in the painful midday sun.

Clara was a chaotic oddball, every step of hers followed by adventure. Kirio could tell how she ended up in the infamous misfits class, he could also tell how she found herself in the particular trio that joined his battler. She was fun… probably. Kirio was always alert in public, but Clara’s pattern of thought was a bit bizarre even for him; the time spent with her seemed to blend into a fury of colour in his memory. For that reason, Kirio might be the only demon who could find it in themself to consider the eldest Valac daughter a little dull. He never paid her much mind.

“That’s not a bingo, idiot, we’re playing deviludo!”
“You’re just mad because you lost!”

“This game’s broken, it’s not my fault that I lost. If I were to seriously lose to you, I would not take that so lightly.” 

“La-la-la, Azu-Azu lost!”

Asmodeus Alice, a demon that values good manners, hissed at the lady sitting across from him and gripped the tatami so hard smoke rose from under his fingers.

He was on a totally different level. Noble background, a bunch of zeros to his family name, perfect manners, stunning test scores, always a few words away from any recommendation he wanted. Of course, Kirio was of noble origin too, but it only worked to his detriment. And yet, here they were: the upperclassman was watching a particularly higher-ranked kouhai getting worked up about losing a game of deviludo to a village kid. The history of the unusual bond his underclassmen shared was no mystery - these three made the school newspaper’s headlines every week, - but the inner workings of Asmodeus’s brain in this situation were perplexing. Still, if it weren’t for that slight unusualness that made him join the magical apparatus battler, Kirio would never earn the grace of teasingly calling him “Azz-kun”.

Kirio furrowed his brows, “Looks like we hadn’t fixed it at all.”

The game was donated by the game battler, one of the members got it at a thrift store. It appeared as an old wooden box with a glorified deviludo field on top: with a little magic applied, the tokens and a die slide out of the box. It could even replace missing players, allowing it to be used completely alone. It appeared that the box’s mechanism was off though, as the enchanted dice only seemed to roll in favour of a particular player - and everyone agreed it was the box and not Clara’s amazing gaming skills since she, by her own admission, did not know the rules. Previously, the chosen winner was Kirio. The teal set of tokens he was playing wasn’t even complete, they had to add a few replicas in the middle of the round.

Kirio pressed a button, collecting all of the tokens and the dice back into their places in the mechanism. A long slurping sound came from the other end of the board. A thin boy placed yet another empty noodle cup into a stack next to him.

“What if it’s not broken, senpai?”

The boy gently nudged the box out of Kirio’s hands, Kirio passed him the screwdriver. The plastic handle clicked against a metal ring and he began unscrewing the bottom.

“Maybe it isn’t set for a fair game at all and last time we picked it apart we only changed the person winning? Then we just need to find a different setting…”
“Genius, Iruma-sama!”

Iruma was a storm in a teacup. Before bumping into him, Kirio only heard of him from the newspaper. He personally wasn’t paying attention, but the constant presence of the honour student on the headlines made him out to be a troublemaker. That boy respectfully calling Kirio “senpai” was another practical joke of fate. On the surface, the two were incredibly similar: timid, quiet, obviously doing everything in their power not to stand out. And yet, the boy seemed to attract oddities around himself. The honour student was one pair of fake enchanted glasses away from being Ami Kirio’s dopple. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Kirio moved behind Iruma’s back, head leaning over the boy’s shoulder, his gaze wandering around the perfect symmetry of the pipes, nails and hooks. Lever to lever, the four of them examined each piece of the machine.

“Shake it a lil’,” instructed the upperclassman. Iruma followed the order. Both of them noticed a few asymmetrical gears all of which were turned in slightly different directions. The only piece facing the centre was on the side of the board that stored Valac’s favoured green tokens. A few of the pieces were shifting in their respective places, slightly turning with the motions. “Try these.”

“What should I do?”

The other two were watching the process, Azz - highly concentrated, a drop of sweat glistening above his eyebrow, Clara - excited, murmuring something about “spinning and turning”. Kirio placed his hand on Iruma’s, guiding him as he carefully used the screwdriver to turn the gears into place. The entire composition now resembled a complicated version of an aiming device. Kirio’s ear accidentally touched Iruma’s hair, the upperclassman noticed he was holding his breath the entire procedure. The air around his kouhai smelled of perfume and sweet-and-sour spices.

“Looks about right. Screw the bolts so these wouldn’t move, we can try it on easy mode.”

Upon putting the box back together, Iruma moved a slider on one of the sides to put the game into the quickest mode possible. Something in the box clicked, changing the layout of the game board to decrease the number of steps required to reach ‘home’.

Alice and Kirio have been fiercely taking out each other’s tokens time and time again, dragging out the round of the easiest difficulty longer and longer. Iruma won three times: it appears that Azz-kun’s gears only started turning when it was time to protect his ‘master’. The remaining two rounds went to Kirio. Clara’s enthusiasm dwindled and she refused to play the last test run, opting to angrily pretend to be asleep instead. It was uncommon to see her so upset that she actually stopped moving for a while.

“Looks like it’s back in order! Amazing work, Iruma-sama!” Azz applauded.

“Stupid game…” Clara murmured from behind Iruma’s back. She was replaced by the machine’s mechanism during the last round.

“If you insist on being dramatic about it, we’ll just keep replacing you with magic items until we won’t have to deal with you anymore.”

“Me? Replace?! No-no-no, no way!” the girl sprung up from the tatami, “Gimme that rulebook!”

“It’s fine, it’s fine! We’re not replacing anyone!” Iruma was the trio’s peacemaker. It was clear that, without him, neither those two nor Kirio would have ever gotten along the way they did.

Kirio stared at the game. A mechanism that allowed one to play completely on their own… He’d kill for a thing like that when he was younger. Hell, he wouldn’t mind this very box just a few weeks ago. Now that he has it, he doesn’t even need it. Four is the exact number to play basically any game besides maybe mafia, but that’s beside the point.

The boy’s mind wandered to his kouhais.

Clara is strong, impressionable and perfectly chaotic. If he were to get under her skin, push a few buttons maybe, she’d be ideal. An ability like hers is one of a kind, but her demeanour… Baal would probably not be happy about it; in any case, she was sure to end up being Kirio’s responsibility.

Alice promised to be a pain too. Sure, there was some ground to explore: the Asmodeus heir was proud and hot-headed, these qualities were sure to make a proper demon both by conventional and Kirio’s standards. He’d undoubtedly be useful, even without his power; a loud family name could bring the world to the table. Despite all of that, Kirio was sure Alice had no real respect for him. They most likely would never even talk if it weren’t for…

“Kirio-senpai?”

Blue eyes glistened, looking at him expectantly. Clara and Azz were collecting their things. A slight cold breeze made it into the room - Iruma opened one of the windows.

“I’m really sorry, but I have to sign off for today,” Alice said, the flocky parts of his hair nearly touching the door frame, “my mother wanted me to attend a very important social gathering with her and it will, frankly, take ages to get her ready. Sorry for not warning you earlier, Ami-senpai.”

“Ah, it’s fine, really,” the upperclassman fixed his glasses. Iruma sat next to him, fiddling with the box.
“Urara is coming back today! I was so excited I completely forgot, I’m an hour late! Bye-bye, Kiriyan-senpai, Iruma-chi!”

Clara ran off into the hallway, Alice nodded goodbye and ran after her shutting the door behind them. Soon the remaining kids heard the sounds of screaming and something really heavy rolling down the stairs before presumably crashing into a wall.

“First-years sure are lively,” Kirio hummed into the empty air.

“I never played board games like this before. I only got to gamble in casinos. I’m really not good with poker…” Iruma’s lips crawled into a peaceful smile. He set the game to a medium difficulty level. “Wanna play another round?”

“Not really,” the upperclassman scratched the bottom of his larger horn. He enjoyed the feeling of many people around him, but all of the energy and fun were so alien to him personally that it made his head spin sometimes. Although he was glad to have their assistance in the battler, Kirio mostly valued the kouhais for his own perception of them. Pretending to be interested in Clara’s antics and playing nice with Alice was fun in its own right. Ami’s favourite emotional hide-and-seek. He knew no one would ever find him.

The fresh air let in through the window Iruma opened made breathing a little easier. With full lungs, the headache slowly passed.

Iruma was different. To Kirio, spending time with him felt like spending time with a better version of himself: a genuine one, one that was undoubtedly happier. His presence was soothing; just watching him do simple things like struggle with the rules of a board game or munch on junk food put Kirio’s mind at ease. The kid would probably never be able to truly understand his senpai, but they related in many mundane struggles: talking to people, dealing with the noisy duo, that one annoying family member, things like that. Through all of their conversations, Iruma was unapologetically sweet and attentive, always making sure everyone around him, Kirio included, was satisfied. Even if that’s how the boy treated everyone, few peers paid the frail senpai this much attention. Iruma made it impossible to focus, plan, track and scheme. His presence put Kirio’s brain into a slumber, forcing him to slip into a sense of normalcy he could only dream of mimicking otherwise.

The Devil knows how much Ami Kirio hated that feeling. And yet, as of that moment he couldn’t do anything about it.

“Senpai, are you not feeling well? You’re zoning out.”

“No, no, not at all. We can celebrate the victory over that machine later. How about we continue from where we left last time?”

Iruma placed a short foldable table on the tatami and took a bunch of supplies out of his bag: copybooks, loose sheets of paper, a pencil case, a few scattered pens, a thick textbook, a sheet of handwritten formulas covered in turquoise highlighter marks. Kirio sat right across from the underclassman, exactly the same way the head of The Six Fingers sat across from him just a few days ago. Under the third year’s gentle guidance, Iruma was cracking problem after problem. This has been going on for a while now. Due to the other half of the battler not joining them, both boys felt a little giddy, skipping out on bonding time with the others in favour of each other. It was their little secret, one of many to follow. 

Kirio’s knowledge of math was very intuitive, it was difficult to put his skills into words. Last time they ended upon stumbling into a problem Iruma wasn’t able to solve without Kirio downright doing it for him. That wasn’t the honour student’s way of doing things, though. The upperclassman found that so admirable it made his throat seethe from cold ringing anger.

“Say, Iruma,” Kirio placed his head on his palm, “why are you so afraid of asking Alice to help you with this? I’m sure he’s not against it.”

The boy raised his nose from the copybook, “Azz is doing a lot for me already. A bit too much, to be honest. I don’t want his grades to drop because of me.” His gaze shifted away to the window, the pen in his hand slightly twitched. Eyebrows slightly furrowed, the cute smile slightly pained. The older boy’s heartbeat took on some acceleration. Good. “Besides, I like the way you explain things! So simple.”

“I see. So I’m a second choice to you then?” Kirio chuckled, sending his kouhai into an apologetic frenzy.

“Please, don’t tell Azz! He’ll be so upset, I just-”

“It’s for yourself, I get it. Don’t worry, I’m not telling anyone. I’m glad you shared this with me.”

Iruma’s smile grew wider. Kirio noticed him fidgeting with the pen.

“So, to solve this equation, you need to find where to apply the double angle formulas. Try looking for similarities…” Ami-senpai pointed at a fraction, practically repeating the way Wett explained this to him word-by-word.

It’s so nice when it’s just the two of us, he thought.

Chapter Text

And cut.

The scissors made a steady metallic sound. Flocks of teal hair fell, scuttling everywhere, crawling to every dimly-lit corner of the cold bathroom, carpeting the demon’s shoulders, slowly falling down to the icy tiled floor. Kirio’s hands clutched the cold marble sink: that cut made nothing to fix his hair. He aimed the blades at another turquoise string. Just as he was about to make another cut the evening silence was broken by loud, demanding banging at the door.

“Kirio, you little bastard, open the fuck up!”

Kirio sighed heavily and turned down the lock, opening the door and letting in the thunder. Baal stormed in and painfully grabbed him by the wrist, sliding the sleeves of his shirt down to reveal the intertwining of bones and veins still encased in perfectly pale skin. Kirio was practically hanging in the air. The man’s expression shifted from anger to confusion. He repeated the procedure with the boy’s other hand, his gaze shifting from one arm to the other. Then he noticed the pair of scissors. Clean. Finally, the man sighed and silently sat down on the edge of the bathtub, arms crossed, right next to Kirio’s discarded gakuran top. A single thin white stripe adorned the blue fabric.

“How was your day?” Baal asked, absent-mindedly. His face indicated he needed a smoke. The thunder lord only grew this still when he needed time to re-visit his actions. Basically, he was embarrassed.

“Uh… Fine I guess? Nothin’ new,” Kirio rubbed his wrist. “Care to, uh, explain what’s going on?”

“Well, so, I got home from the stupid business meeting. And guess what?” Baal sounded exhausted, “Ocho told me you locked yourself in the bathroom.”

Kirio blinked.

“Yeah, um. So what?”

“I thought you’d been cutting yourself.”

For a few seconds, the silence settled back into the room.

“Huh?”

“Well, I was right about you making a mess,” Baal gestured towards the teal trims scattered on the floor, “what the hell are you doing?”

“Well, as you can see, I’m cutting my hair,” Kirio made a little circular motion with the scissors, his other hand showing off the already slightly shorter jade locks.

“Why?”

“Some bastard tugged on my ponytail in astrology class today,” Kirio grumbled. The pair of enchanted glasses Baal made rested on the sink.

“No, no, why by yourself? I mean, sure, we all saw what Wett did to his bangs, but you could’ve just asked me, I can afford a barber.”

The boy hesitated a little. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Ami, you live here,” the man groaned, “should’ve thought about not wanting to bother me a few years ago, dammit.”

“Sorry,” the kid shrugged.

“Tch, I bet you are.”

“So, why’d you think I was cutting myself?”

Baal’s expression turned somewhat helpless. “I mean, you’re a difficult kid, and… that’s what teens do when they lock themselves in the bathroom all of a sudden, right? Besides taking showers I guess.”

“You’re projecting,” Kirio chuckled. That was a good life lesson on trusting rats.

“Ah, shut u-u-up.”

Baal threw a towel at Kirio’s face, got up and opened the cabinet near the sink where Wett kept one of many parts of his cleaning supply collection. Retrieving an empty spray bottle, he filled it with water and, as soon as the boy got the towel off his face, he sprayed the air above Kirio’s head, forcing him to dodge. Strangely carefully, Baal adjusted Kirio’s position in the mirror, wrapping the towel around the boy’s shoulders.

“Lesson number one, young man: no one cuts dry hair. Now give me those scissors.”

***

There was no activity in the Netherworld Ami Kirio hated more than sports.

In his childhood, Kirio caught the flu every other week, so he skipped out on most of P.E. When he managed to get to that class, though, it was a nightmare: suffering through pointless exercises made him feel as if his lungs were turning to mush. And don't even get him started on the games. If there was anything that brought the boy the most despair in his formative years, it was dodgeball. Luckily, with Baal becoming a part of his life, so did regular visits to an actual doctor. When he was eleven, Kirio was diagnosed with asthma and never stepped foot in the middle school's gym again. It's been in remission since, but the numerous sicknesses and a static lifestyle had their toll on the boy so he does not attend sport-related activities even as a high schooler. Of course, that axed a lot of his rank-up opportunities: as a first-year, he didn't take part in either the cannonball execution exam or the Harvest Festival. Although: knowing him, the only things these events would result in were a heart attack and, perhaps, a few broken bones. Needless to say, the music festival did not help his case either; although one could say he had a knack for acting. Kirio wasn't so into watching other people play sports either: even just looking at others doing such things to their bodies made him dizzy. He found nothing entertaining in football, nothing beautiful in gymnastics and nothing worthwhile in… seriously, who invented curling?

Hence, there was no explanation as to why he, the boy that only ever wished to hang himself on a skipping rope, was now burning his time away in the dusty dark match dungeon, a part of the excited crowd watching the Babyls' cannon ball execution battler playing against another school's team. He had some time to spare: the fourth period was astrology - a subject he considered absolutely not worth his time, especially at three p.m. In situations like this, though, he'd usually put on a pair of extra-strong enchanted glasses - the kind that was so powerful you can legit crash into a person and they'd still brush it off somehow, - and wander his way through the school to one of many hidden rooms, listening in on the secrets of his peers, sticking his nose into the business of unsuspecting strangers. Today was one such day; he was planning to go drink some tea in the battler room - his kouhais only had three periods on Wednesdays.

That's when he remembered: Iruma told him he wasn’t going to show up today. See, his favoured underclassman was widely known for his complete inability to say 'no'. Legends about Iruma, the honour student to end all honour students, spread far and wide through the school's violet halls, and one of the more indie ones was that he's actually a total pushover. The poor kid got himself in a pinch once again when what Kirio affectionately called 'the jock club' begged him to replace one of theirs during a match, still remembering the scrawny boy's astonishing performance during one of the exams Kirio barely recalls taking. Now, any good senpai should have given Iruma a little lecture about 'the value of yourself' and 'respecting other people's time' and taken him by the hand to go talk to the interfering club's president and politely remind them that the club application season ended in April. The problem was: Iruma appeared to be expecting exactly that, just another awkward situation. While retelling Kirio the story, the boy was gesturing wildly, not daring to look the leader directly in the eyes, seemingly waiting for him to snap and bite him. Seeing someone so nervous about what he would say threw Kirio completely off guard, he couldn't find it in himself to say anything other than a weak "sure, sweetie." The upperclassman totally did not want to spend time with Clara and Alice alone. Besides, things had been changing for him lately. With Iruma coming around, Kirio felt something he never truly encountered: genuine comradery with his peers. Or, rather, Kirio's half-baked, half-faked way of imitating what the first-year trio called 'having friends'. The demon felt like he could use a change of pace. New experiences, fresh thoughts; he certainly needed time to process some of it.

The entire pitch was circled by an agitated crowd. Kirio was watching from under a little construction installed by the broadcast battler. The match was big enough for the school to install some temporary seats for once.

He kind of regretted coming. Upon arriving, one of the first things he noticed were the two demons with ridiculously large 'go, Iruma-chi!' signs in the crowd on the Babyls' side of the pitch. The other team was wearing blue and most of them looked vaguely fishy - Levialon academy, the sea pricks were mostly known for discipline and, well, academic achievements. The teams were going toe to toe, every time one lost a player the other made sure to follow up, the onlookers creating yet another wave of ear-splitting noise with each new loser leaving the field. Kirio hated every second of it: it was so loud he could feel every neuron in his head itching with agony. And yet, he leaned comfortably onto the metal bars, the trusty glasses keeping him unnoticed by the energized crowd. His eyes were glued to a short, slim boy from the Babyls team. The fragile-looking body was dodging one calculated shot after another, playfully returning the ball with coy, insulting throws. Unstoppable force going against an object that was definitely moving way too much.

He never saw the honour student with a ponytail before. Kirio smiled, his hand wiping a drop of sweat from the hot, hot skin of his pain-writhing cheeks. The players froze on the field - some sort of game complication. Kirio stretched, yawned and reached out his hand towards the blue-haired dandelion, pretending to hold Iruma in his palm. His grin grew a little wider. People-watching was, after all, his favourite form of entertainment, to an insane degree in some isolated cases. The satisfaction he got from this one pointless action was silly, but nobody could see him so it was fine. No one was there to judge hi-

The silhouette turned its head towards the broadcast battler tower. After a few seconds of what appeared like searching, the honour student turned exactly in Kirio's direction. They weren't even that far away from each other; Kirio’s brain sent waves of shock as it registered the feeling of meeting another person’s eyes.

Iruma waved at him, innocent as always.

It was amazing how well Kirio had adjusted to living the same lie as every other demon: his hand intuitively waved back. He felt dizzy. In an instant, the air around him got hotter, melting the smile into its usual fake-nice form. He could nearly feel tears coming up from under the useless glasses. The air in his throat blossomed into a clog of slimy thorns.

What the hell?

Kirio retreated further under the broadcast tower. It’s not like he had done anything - quite the opposite, he managed to get away with things far, far worse than watching a cute kouhai be cool during a sports event a little too intensely. And yet, something about this tiny incident made his heart convulse as if it was him running away from balls on that pitch. He tapped on the thin glass inside the delicate metal frame; these were certainly the right glasses. Looking around - it doesn’t seem like anyone else noticed him. If they did, the broadcast battler would have probably asked him to leave their poor tower alone and stop gripping it as if he’s trying to tip it over. The cover remained flawless to everyone but Iruma. It made Kirio feel exposed somehow. What else would that kid break through next? Kirio’s fake smile facade? The walls he built for himself, keeping him distant from his peers? As if the honour student was after him somehow. It angered Kirio and it made him ashamed - a feeling he’d been repressing for ages. It never quite left his side, burying itself in the back of his mind, and now it's as if some blue-haired brat took a thread out of the decade-old self-loathing tangle and gently pulled it out back into his sight. Ami Kirio has been doing everything in his power to stay hidden, and yet, nothing seemed to matter to this one overly kind stranger.

With his forefinger, the demon wiped away a tiny drip of saliva from the corner of his mouth. This was so exciting.

A sudden force bounced off the back of Kirio's head, making his face crash land into one of the "legs" of the broadcast tower, glasses plummeting onto the dry dirty ground. A thin stream of blood made its way onto the demon's face. The next second - those unassuming blue eyes staring right back at him once again. The stupid glasses in one hand, the other one on Kirio's shoulder, Iruma stood right in front of him, the cute face darkened with worry.

"Senpai, I'm so sorry! I really thought you'd catch it somehow…"

"Glad to inform you that I have never caught a ball in my life," the upperclassman sighed, pulling out a handkerchief from the uniform's pocket, wiping off the blood from above his lips. Iruma whimpered.

"I'm glad you came tho," he smiled apologetically, sliding the glasses into Kirio's hand, "really didn't think you would come."

The senpai was trying to regain his cool.

"...I honestly didn't know third-years were even allowed here. I just kinda… wandered in, I guess," Kirio put the glasses back on. "I'd never come if you weren't here."

Iruma's face, already red from all the running, suddenly lit up a little. The upperclassman, meanwhile, choked on air: that last remark came completely out of nowhere.

"So," he smiled, awkwardly, "weren't the other two somewhere here? I think I saw them. Bet Alice would never miss the opportunity to hype ya' up."

I'm talking nonsense.

"Well, yes, they're here. It's just…" the honour student's gaze dropped to his feet, "I was just wondering if you'd stop by by any chance. I was just looking for you and- well, there you were! I'm really happy to see you."

That smile struck Kirio's heart like a bullet. He wanted to dig his nails into the boy's soft cheeks and drag them from one ear to the other. How can you smile after exposing me like that?

"You were looking for me?" he touched the purple crystals wrapped around his earlobes; a standout habit he couldn't get rid of; Kirio had somewhat of a thing for earrings.

"Well, yes. That's what I said. Is that…weird, somehow?"

" No, it's just…" Kirio gave it a moment of consideration. "...I really didn't expect to hear this. If you wanted me here this bad, you could've just said so."

"I honestly forgot!" the boy chuckled. "Azz and Clara just came here. They never really question things like that," he added, seeing Kirio’s slight smirk.

The upperclassman noticed Iruma's gaze shift somewhere into the distance. Turning around - and here they were. An elegant figure dressed head to toe in eye-ripping white, trying to shake off a tiny frog-looking girl clinging to his arm. There were three of them today: right next to the infamous duo, Kirio could recognise the unmistakable stance of the student council president. Iruma was next to Kirio and it appears they couldn't notice them - yet another proof that, besides the honour student, the enchantment was strong as always.

"We're on break," Iruma said, "twenty minutes and I'm supposed to be back on the field."

"They must be looking for you, huh…" Kirio hummed. He wondered if the boy could hear the mocking in his tone.

Unlike Clara or Azz, there was no inherent use to be found in Iruma. He was fabled to be strong, and he sure was diligent, but on the surface, there was nothing out of the ordinary about him except his luck and appetite. And yet, every second that they spent together Kirio found himself captivated by this gentle level-headed demon. He wondered what it would feel like: if Iruma would be able to really understand him. How wonderful it would be to truly connect. If it were a reality, Kirio knew he could spend an eternity by this boy's side. Just chatting, watching him. Cutting the tender fabric of the underworld's inner workings with the same pair of scissors, ripping hearts out and gifting them to each other. If they weren't completely identical, that's okay too! Kirio was sure that, whatever mundane trouble he may be facing, Iruma would have always accepted him no matter how weak it rendered the upperclassman. There was no inherent value in Iruma, sure. Kirio just wanted him. For no reason in particular, just for himself. He relished in the selfish wish like a real demon does, getting drunk on the beautiful fantasy of them being one. If he could make Iruma understand him once… how truly amazing it would be.

It's always "Azz-kun this" and "Clara that".

Just as Iruma was about to leave, Kirio grabbed him by the wrist and gently pulled the boy in the opposite direction.

"Senpai? What are you-"

"Don't worry, I'll return you when it's time."

Kirio gently dragged him and they went away, leaving the noisy crowd and Iruma's friends behind on the field. As their walk became a jog, the boy quickly caught up, Kirio assumed this meant he didn't mind. They made their way through the forest of stone spikes, away from the crowd, and the pitch, and the noise, and the headache, and hid behind a tall stone claw. It wasn't so far away from the field, but the sounds were muffled into an echo; Kirio could finally hear his thoughts again.

Iruma was panting. "Geez, senpai, did we really have to?"

"Sorry," Kirio said half-heartedly. Iruma brushed a few drops of sweat from his red cheeks, heavy breathing cutting the chill air. The upperclassman took out the same handkerchief and used a corner free of his blood to pat away the shiny droplets from the boy's neck. "Clara would have probably given you a towel," he said, a little awkwardly.

"No, no, it's okay!" Iruma rushed to reassure him. "Though the others will be upset if they find out we ditched them like that."

"If you're worried, you can hold my hand."

"What?"

Kirio's head was in the stratosphere at this point.

He tapped on the glass a few centimetres away from his eyes, "these are enchanted. If you'll touch me, some of the spell will transfer onto you. They won't find us here anyway.”

“Why are you wearing a thing like that, even?” Iruma’s brows slightly furrowed.

“Um. Uh.. I’m…” Kirio scratched the back of his head, almost demonstratively, “Okay, promise you won’t tell the others. It’s just… I’m a graduate, I should really be giving a better example.”

“I’m as silent as a grave!” Iruma slapped himself on the forehead.

“I’m ditching class. Didn’t want anyone to see me,” a battle was lost, but not a war. Kirio’s glasses had a deeper purpose, of course, but there was nothing criminal in wearing them so it should be fine. “Which reminds me that, yeah, you absolutely should not be seen here with me. And also if the first year’s representative and the student council president will find me, I’m probably done for.”

The underclassman stared blankly at him for a few long moments. Then he giggled.

“You really are a demon, senpai!” Iruma twined his fingers with Kirio’s. The upperclassman’s innards spiralled.

“You think being a demon means breaking the rules?” the question was careful and coy, but to Kirio, that answer was everything.

“Well, maybe? I never really thought about it. Although we do sing a song about eating humans every Monday morning,” the boy undid the top button of his shirt, finally letting his back touch the cold stone. ”Ame- The student council president told me a demon is made up of ambitions… or something?”

“And what do you think of it?”

“Sorry, I’m-” the boy hesitated, “I really can’t give you that answer.”

Kirio sighed. This was slightly disappointing. Looking at it the other way, this didn’t necessarily prove him wrong. If there still was a blank page in the boy’s book, maybe a trusty upperclassman could fill it with text himself one day. Nothing was lost. The demon smiled, tracing the shape of Iruma’s knuckles with his nails.

“Holding hands with a truant, hiding from the student council president. There’s no honour in this honour student, is there?” he cooed.

“Senpai, please!” Iruma whimpered. “It’s alright to just… not spend twenty minutes with the others, right?”

“Sure,” Kirio said, mesmerized, savouring the slight unease of the younger boy’s expression.

Iruma was wearing his uniform without the jacket, ponytail turned messy, shirt somewhat undone, sticking to some parts of his body even. Kirio could feel him trembling from exhaustion and the sudden cold - the dungeon was pretty chilly; his breath just barely evened out from all the running.

Just looking at him, Iruma seemed like the type to have soft hands. The opposite was true: his palms were hard and covered in calluses and scratches, as if from a lifetime of working in a coal mine. It surprised Kirio slightly, but he knew his kouhai was a go-getter, the exact circumstances of getting all of these wounds didn’t matter to him all that much. Iruma held onto him completely statically while his senpai’s fingers were eagerly getting acquainted with the form of his hands.

And that’s when it finally hit Kirio: that smell. A sweet, musky aroma covering them like a chiffon blanket.

Iruma was a timid and well-mannered boy, but just like Kirio and Alice, he was also a member of the upper class. The only thing that gave away the aristocrat in him was the god-awful perfume he used. It smelled expensive, sure, but it didn’t suit his kouhai at all: lavender, citrus zest and nuts, all of it seemingly drenched in wine or whiskey. And it was heavy as if Iruma took baths in the aromatic solution. Something changed today though. The harrowing smell of cologne was mixed with something different: sugary and tangy, almost like burnt soy sauce. Something close, warm and alive . Something bodily .

Iruma’s sweat smelled really unusual.

The upperclassman cursed the boy for the weird affinity he had for that stupid perfume. Even from behind the intruding artificial aroma, that nectarous tangy essence was driving him up-the-wall mad. How was it even possible - for a demon to smell that way? Was this the honour student’s never-seen-before bloodline magic? This entire time, was he secretly an incubus? Was he even a demon? There were a lot of different species occupying the Netherworld, most of them eventually ended up on a demon’s plate. Iruma could be at least partially one of them. Although no food ever smelled this good to Kirio.

Kirio’s heart trembled like a wounded bird, his salivary glands were going wild, his gaze frantically scanning the exposed skin of Iruma’s neck. Just why did he smell so delicious?

“Senpai?”

When his mind returned to the Netherworld, Kirio found himself leaning against the stone, head bent down, practically burying his face in Iruma’s neck, drooling over him while still clutching the kouhai’s hand.

The upperclassman covered his mouth and practically jumped away from the boy. In situations like this, looking as sorry as possible usually worked for Kirio - luckily, his pride was already wounded enough today.

“Iruma-kun, I’m sor-”

“Are you alright?”

Iruma looked scared, his grip on Kirio’s hand was iron. The boy was trying to repress it, but Kirio knew the look of fear, he could pick it out from any expression; after all, it was his favourite treat. Kirio could tell his kouhai was masking it - not disgust, but fear. And yet, he was still trying to play it cool, to extend a helping hand to his hopeless senpai, wondering if he was okay. Kirio barely held down a pained laugh.

“Yes, yes, it’s alright! It’s just…” he smiled, wiping the thin drip of saliva away. “You never fail to impress me, Iruma-kun.”

“Huh?” the boy’s eyes grew wide. He was still so sweetly tense.

“I’m talking about the game,” that’s a lie, “I mean… I know nothing about sports but, I thought you looked pretty impressive! With the… ponytail and stuff."

“Thanks. Honestly, I don’t know much about sports too.”

“Well, that makes two of us! Again. Still.” Kirio was barely breathing. “Well, you should probably head back.”

“You’re not staying?” Iruma seemed a little upset.

“No, I… Think if I’m going to keep avoiding astrology I might as well do something useful. I’ll be in the battler room.”

They stood up and their fingers finally untangled. Kirio immediately felt a little colder. Iruma waved him goodbye when he was already a few yards away. Kirio felt like he swallowed a ringing alarm clock and now he couldn’t turn it off.

He got what he wanted and it still turned against him somehow. This did not feel like a victory at all.

Chapter Text

The machine was making steady metallic clinging noises. One by one, Kirio twisted bolts and nuts into places, installing the mismatched body parts of different mechanisms into Gabuko’s copper ribcage. Felt like good old times: just him and his gadgets. And yet, the silence that settled back into his battler room made him uneasy, now that he knew how it felt to be surrounded by chatter and life. Alice and Clara came around a few times. They talked about Iruma - he was doing fine, the Misfits had some kind of important test coming up that Friday. Neither of the underclassmen stayed for too long on their own, and their chatter wasn’t compensating for the fact that Iruma was not there. It was Monday, and Kirio hadn’t talked to him since the Cannonball execution match, resorting to watching from afar instead, hiding whenever the boy approached. Nothing really happened, it just felt like an incident.

Kirio never properly got rid of the shame he felt for his identity, of course. Sure, he knew he was in the right, but a sense of righteousness recognised only by you, your equally messed-up buddies and no one else is usually referred to as a delusion; Kirio wanted everyone to know what a proper demon looks like by his example. Hence, he kept the shame around deep within himself: it acted as a precaution, helped him fit in until he inevitably hatches out of his makeshift cocoon. It’s not like he could just get rid of it, right? Maybe, deep inside, he was still waiting for someone to prove him wrong, to save him. Kirio believed that to be impossible.

Kirio wasn’t able to properly talk to Iruma for the remainder of that week. Of course, he saw the boy around, but whenever they came close the upperclassman was petrified with embarrassment. A feeling he knew too well; apologising for what happened meant rejecting his entire identity - a battle he gladly lost many times before; he thought degrading himself in his own eyes like that was the only right way to go about his attraction. Kirio hasn’t been in this situation for ages. Baal gave him a lot of things, but the best gift he made was a sense of self-worth. And now, once again, he felt the need to run and hide. Kirio couldn’t quite put his finger on it; he guessed it was so distressing because he genuinely messed up. The bond he’d been building was muddied too soon because he just couldn’t keep himself at bay. The very fact that he cared so much that he was afraid to approach an underclassman was surprising, but… a lot of things about Iruma were. That unordinary boy infected Kirio with a truly unshakable sense of normalcy. Disgustingly, he couldn’t stop thinking of it as if it was a cure.

The built-up stress made the demon neurotic. All of it finally came back to Kirio when the machine he was so carefully constructing erupted with smoke, the nails and bolts popping out of the metal sheets when he tried to test its power. In his futile attempt to remove the malfunctioning part, he ended up causing a full-on explosion, painfully knocking himself on the head as he dropped to the floor. Someone ran into the room, yelling, letting the heavy dark smog escape outside, and disconnected the power. Then the person, already recognised by Kirio, ran up to the misfortunate demon, anxiously rambling something about the upperclassman’s well-being and carefully picked him up from the ground, getting his fingers wet with sticky crimson.

“Senpai! Senpai, wake up!”

“I’m awake! I’m awake! H- hey, don’t shake me like that!” Kirio coughed up a fresh bunch of blood, trying to get his face as far from the younger boy’s uniform. “Fancy seeing you here, Iruma-kun.”

“I was just standing outside, and then- Sorry, I should’ve come in earlier…” the boy did his best dragging the shaken senpai to the tatami.

“It’s alright, if I made a mistake I don’t think you could’ve fixed it. Although you do come up with incredible solutions sometimes…” Kirio thought of all of the repairs he would have to do later and shivered, once again coughing into a trusty handkerchief. It wasn’t the one from Wednesday - that one he left at home; for no particular reason. His thoughts lingered a little on the image of Iruma just standing outside the battler, waiting. Did he do that often? “So… Alice told me you guys were having exams last Friday. How did that go?”

“I got a B,” the boy scratched his head, closing the door. The smoke finally cleared and Kirio could now properly see him - school bag over one shoulder, cheeks slightly red. “Doesn’t matter now, right? You need to get some rest. Do you, um… Remember where that pillow was by any chance?”

Kirio leaned against the wall, his face finally free of blood. “No… No, not really.”

Iruma searched a little more while the upperclassman carefully watched him. The boy seemed tense. Not afraid… just uncomfortable. His gestures were jerky and he kept giving the other boy short, cautious looks. Kirio understood: after all, the last time they talked ended on a bit of a weird note. And yet, this treatment was new - Iruma was close to the only person that never looked at him with any form of hidden hatred. Something about that made Kirio’s eyes tingle; he finally came to terms with just how much he messed up.

“Iru, it’s fine, that’s just a pillow, we’ll look for it some other time.”

The boy jolted from the sound of the upperclassman’s voice. This felt weird. Finally giving up, Iruma joined Kirio on the tatami. “Lay down, senpai,” he said, still avoiding eye contact.

“It’s fine, don’t-” Kirio’s jaw dropped when he noticed Iruma’s position: perfect seiza, something they only teach in aristocratic households of the Ami family’s home region. The boy slightly tapped himself on the thigh. “D- Do you mean, there? ”

“I mean, there’s no pillow, so-” Iruma’s cheeks turned a bright, peachy colour. Kirio’s lungs shook. “Unless you want to! I’m not pressuring you into anything.”

The upperclassman blinked. This was certainly a bad idea. Iruma’s behaviour lost all sense to him. Carefully, as if approaching a rare butterfly, Kirio bent down and rested his head on the underclassman’s lap. Suddenly, he felt dizzy - somehow dizzier than he felt after falling to the floor because of an explosion. In the gaps between his own exhales, he could hear Iruma’s heartbeat: racing. Neither found it in them to move, Kirio practically froze in a straight line.

“How have you been?”

“You walked on me choking on smoke from a broken magic amplifier.”

“Is Gabuko-san still broken?”

“Well, she wasn’t… I just wanted to see if I could improve her further. Got a bit too inspired.”

“I see.”

“Why are the other two so late?”

“Clara is in detention. Azz went to retrieve her and… got stuck in detention too, texted me a while ago. I… don’t think they’re coming, sorry.”

“I could have guessed, really,” no one was going to save Ami-senpai today.

The familiar silence of his battler room, broken up by the unusual sounds of another person’s pulse: yet another new experience. Kirio wondered: if he were a better person, would he feel happy now? In another life, perhaps.

“I thought you were mad at me,” Iruma said, suddenly.

“Why di-” Kirio instinctively turned around and his face crashed right into Iruma’s stomach. He was too scared to turn back up, feeling a burning sensation on his skin. “Why’d you think I was mad at you?”

“Well, you were eyeing me so intensely in the corridors,” Iruma put a shaking hand on the upperclassman’s face, nudging him to turn around, “and you started avoiding me. Azz told me you were acting weird.”

“I thought you should be mad at me,” Kirio murmured, “ thought you might be sick of me .”

“Nonsense, senpai! I wouldn’t- Well. Maybe I would let you, but… It’s alright! It was alright!”

“This is silly though,” Kirio chuckled, curling up closer to the boy. The uniform’s fabric was harsh, but the body underneath radiated warmth. “We’d never actually grow this close, right?”

Iruma went quiet. “ No way, ” Kirio thought, finally looking up. The expression he saw was absolutely priceless: red cheeks, furrowed brows, trembling lips. It wasn’t a look of fear though, at least not one Kirio was used to. It somewhat resembled a hidden betrayal. Kirio never had something like that before. The demon had no idea how to feel about this; sure, it wasn’t his favourite, but the new flavour was intriguing. If Kirio were to see a face like that again, he was sure to get addicted.

“Hey,” Kirio’s hand moved on its own, patting the boy gently on the back, “I’m sorry, okay? Sure, it’s unexpected, but… I like you, Iruma-kun.”

I could never.

Iruma affectionately removed the glasses from Kirio's face.

"I like you too."

The upperclassman felt attacked: that smile was infuriating and that glisten in the lovely blue eyes was insulting. He wanted to clench the boy's uniform and scratch his back like an angry cat. He didn't feel like some amazing change had taken place in him: he still recognised that the situation made zero sense. And yet, he just stayed still, trembling and waiting.

"It really is silly," Iruma chuckled, tapping on Kirio's larger horn. Kirio had nothing to say for himself.

Iruma described something called a "firework" once. A celebratory tradition from his homeland: flowers made of fire blooming in the sky. Just like many other things the boy talked about, Kirio couldn't quite put his mind to the image. In an absolutely shining display of idiocy, Iruma bent down and linked their lips together. The position was uncomfortable and the action was awkward; Kirio thought he understood what a "firework" was now: a flower made of flames blossomed in his mind. It was painful .

Kisses were somewhat of a novelty in the Netherworld: legend has it that the now-gone Demon King adopted them from somewhere far, far away. A gross display of affection more suitable for soft, weak creatures; an original demon would never stoop that low. As soon as Iruma’s body hinted at trying to move away, the maddened demon wrapped his hand around the boy’s neck and carefully got up, turning the underclassman’s attack into defence. Kirio never even considered the possibility of kissing someone, and now he couldn’t hold himself back. He wasn’t sure this was exactly what he wanted, but it was certainly close; he wanted to bite, to taste blood on his tongue, to not let Iruma go until they both choked. He only got enough when he realised they were both about to drop - the position never really got more comfortable.

The upperclassman painfully slapped himself on the cheeks while Iruma gasped for air.

“Iruma-kun, you… You little… Do you understand what you just did? ” the demon clenched the boy’s shoulders, a part of him hoped it was painful.

Finally, Iruma looked at him in fear, his blue eyes shining as if he was about to cry. Kirio’s expression softened, he barely held back from pushing the boy further down that edge. His last working neuron decided that it was time to wrap up the stupidity for today.

“No, no… I’m sorry. I did nothing to prevent this and I took part in this too, I should take responsibility,” that’s a flat-out lie. Taking responsibility was the last of Ami Kirio’s concerns at that moment. “Listen, I’m not mad, don’t get me wrong, I’m just… Not sure what to do about it.”

“I did it because I wanted to prove to you that I can make decisions like that on my own,” Iruma said, the distress now replaced with determination.

Kirio nodded, exhaled, crossed his legs and leaned against the wall, somehow exhausted, heart beating as if he ran a marathon.

“I’m glad.”

“You are, senpai?”

“Of course. No one ever said they liked me, y’know,” the upperclassman giggled.  “I assume you’re not going to let me sweep this under the rug, are you?”

“You bet.”

“Geez. Just what am I going do with you?…” 

The boy sat down next to him. The battler president came to terms with the fact that no repairs would probably be getting done any time soon. He was honestly afraid to put his head on Iruma’s shoulder.

Among his numerous frantic thoughts, one sat comfortably in the back of Kirio’s mind. He would later return to it many, many times.

Why was Iruma’s taste so odd?