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“Claustrum Dominus.” Iruma whispers at the door behind him. A dark fog spreads across the edges of his room, covering every layer of the walls, windows, and door in a swirling black barrier. He sighs, letting himself drop against it.
“Again?” Ali asks, appearing next to Iruma’s face. “You did this a week ago.”
Iruma sighs again and walks over to the closet. He takes out a dark purple towel with a couple of demon cat outlines.
“Are you even listening to me?” Iruma walks over to the center of the room. “That was ifrit mode-“
“Don’t worry.” Iruma says as he spreads out the towel on the floor. “I’m sure grandpa won’t mind giving you more mana.”
“That’s not-“ Ali cuts himself off with a huff. “Are you seriously doing this again?”
Instead of answering him, Iruma smooths out the edges of the towel. It’s big enough for him to sit in the middle of it and stretch his legs out to either side.
It’s important to leave enough towel-space around himself, just in case. Once he’s settled, he grabs his school bag and-
Ali appears in front of his face. “You know what it’s like to watch you do this?” He waves his arms around harshly. “It’s infuriating. How would you feel-“
“You don’t have to watch.” Iruma says, tapping the ring on his finger. Before Ali can protest again, Iruma adds. “I’m sorry,” He knows he doesn’t sound truly sorry, but he doesn’t understand Ali’s melodrama. “But you can’t stop me.”
And that’s that. Iruma opens his bag, removing the knife he keeps in its lowest inner pocket. It’s the one he got from grandpa months ago. He asked for it a few weeks after he’d arrived to the netherworld, going beet red when his grandpa looked confused, “Something… sharp and small.” Iruma explained. “Just in case my mana runs out.’ His grandpa gave in easily, thinking it was a human comfort item.
And it is, really.
Iruma’s heart speeds up as he picks up the pocketknife. The blade is thin, but not enough to bend easily. It isn’t like the cheap razor blades he bought once at the local drug store, reusing them for years to come.
No, this blade is sturdy, sharp and thin. It’s perfect. And clean.
He removes two disinfectant wipes from his first aid kit — one for the blade and one for the skin.
(It’s wasteful, but Ali wouldn’t shut up about infection risk the first time he caught him doing this.)
As soon as the smell of the disinfectant hits his nose, his heart rate rises further. He chose his outer thigh today. The right leg, too, because it has much more space than the other.
Iruma takes a deep breath after pressing the blade against his skin. He leaves it there, unmoving, and closes his eyes.
He remembers what Kalego said today. His teacher was in a bad mood, and Lied and Jazz made it worse by making a competition out of misplacing his class notes. The rest of the misfit class either cheered them on or muffled the occasional chuckle at Kalego’s reactions. That could’ve been funny, some other time, maybe. But not today.
The tension was unbearable as Iruma waited for Kalego to explode.
There’s always a tipping point. Even if you try your best, there is one, and sometimes you don’t notice until it’s too late. By then, no amount of damage control will help. Some of these tipping points leave behind stains that reappear again and again, even if you yourself ignore them. Even if you work as hard as you can, earn as much money as you can, some of these stains will never go away. Others will see them your whole life-
He moves the blade, eyes still closed. When he opens them, he sees that his skin opened just enough to reveal a thin line of white before the blood slowly starts to fill it. The dermis, he recognizes, thanks to his research at a library in the human world.
(Iruma doesn’t know much, especially not anything school-related, but he knows where all the important arteries are, knows how to recognize the layers of his skin.
Not enough.
He feels a pang of frustration, pressing the blade against his skin closer to his knee. Iruma pushes it down harder, thinking black on the day again.
He wonders why no one else seemed to care.
And then it happened.
Kalego used one of his usual ‘silence’ commands. And although it has become less effective on the misfit class, this time it worked like a charm.
Tipping points have people zero in on past stains, have them appear clear as day even if they happened years ago. That time you got yourself fired because you broke a plate while washing dishes at a restaurant. That time they had a business opportunity, and you didn’t clean the blood on the bathroom wall. They didn’t keep you with them after that, even when they were staying in just a few roads away from your tent. That other time you all had to move away because you ended up in a hospital while fishing. The list is numerous. Iruma knows not to cause tipping points, but Lied and Jazz clearly don’t, he should’ve warned them-
He swipes the blade, harder and quicker this time.
When he looks down, his skin parted further than before. Orange, veiny bubbles show for a moment before slowly filling up the blood from the edges as well.
Subcutaneous tissue, but the cut itself is small in size.
He moves the blade further down.
‘This behavior is unacceptable.’ Kalego said. ‘From all of you. You’re all too cocky for children who have coasted by on sheer luck all this time. All you really do is ruin people’s days with your antics. I’ve never had such an inconsiderate, obnoxious…’ The stains…their shared stains. ‘If you don’t learn to behave, you don’t belong in this school.’
You don’t belong in this school.
Iruma moves the blade, hard and long. He exhales when he sees a wider and longer cut with enough fat tissue showing that there is a clear dip in the middle.
His shoulders slump as he watches it fill with blood as well. It’s wider than last time, he thinks with a kind of excitement he’d never admit to, possibly longer too. It might even be as long as his longest one.
The cut overflows soon enough, moving down in a trail on his outer thigh. That’s when he’s drawn out of his stupor.
Shit.
He quickly grabs one of the vials he prepared, scrambling to collect as much of the blood as possible. It isn’t too late for his last cut, but the other trails have long since reached the towel. Iruma still collects as much from the wounds as possible, putting pressure on the skin around the wounds instead of on them. After several minutes of this, he manages to fill three small vials of blood.
It’s impossible to collect everything, and his skin is smeared with the sticky, drying red fluid by the time he’s done, but it’s more than ever before.
He allows himself a small smile as he lies down for a moment.
Despite everything else, he did well here today.
That’s of course when he hears someone clear their throat. He stiffens, sitting back up quickly and looking around the room.
“Are you done?” Ali asks, sounding very unimpressed. When Iruma looks in his direction, a bit further down on his left, he looks unimpressed too — eye narrowed and arms crossed.
Before, it was easy to ignore Ali. Now, Iruma feels sheepish.
“Y-yes.”
“And I’m guessing you won’t heal them?”
“We haven’t learned any healing spells yet.” Iruma says, falling back into the well-worn rhythm of the same conversation they’ve had after his blood-collection sessions.
“It’s not hard, not with the amount of mana we have.” Ali says back, as always.
“Didn’t you just complain about the locking spell?” Iruma points out.
“That wasn’t –“ Ali cuts himself off with a shake of his head. “Never mind. How long are you going to keep doing this?”
“What do you mean?”
“This,” He gestures at Iruma’s leg while keeping his eyes locked firmly on his face. “This self-destruction.”
“It isn’t.” Ali gives him an incredulous look. Iruma waves a hand at the vials of blood arranged in a neat row on the edge of the towel. “I’m helping.”
“Then heal them.”
“No.” Iruma says, more firm than he’s ever said that word before.
Ali throws up his hands. “It is self-destruction then. There are a million less dangerous ways to draw blood, if you insist on this! And I’ve listed at least 100 of them.”
“And I said I’m fine with this.”
“This isn’t about your judgement — which after all I’ve seen is very questionable.” Iruma bristles, opening his mouth to list a few of the times his ‘questionable judgment’ saved him, but Ali beats him to it. “This is about the very real health risks of not healing your wounds! Of not even bandaging them. Of reopening them-“
“I didn’t-“
“Of injuring yourself when the ones on your other leg aren’t even past the serious infection risk yet.” This time, he gestures at Iruma’s other leg, at the two subcutaneous cuts covered in a crusty, patchy layer of greenish black tissue. There’s an uneven circle of red skin around both of them. It’s warm to the touch and darker than it was, but the red area isn’t as vast as it was a few days ago.
“I know how to assess risks.” Iruma says.
Ali lets out a humorless laugh. “Sure, lil’ Iru.” He says. “That’s you. The risk assessor.”
Ali might be making fun of him here, but if anything, Iruma knows how to deal with that.
He starts on the cleaning instead, casting a devil mode stain-remover on the towel. When he walks over to the closet to put it away, every step pulls at his barely dried cuts. By the time he disinfects the knife and packs up his bag, blood trails down his legs from the edges of the wounds.
He quickly wipes them away with the toilet paper he brought, worried about dirtying grandpa’s floor.
(The towel is different — he doesn’t think grandpa will ever want it back. He told Iruma he doesn’t like it when he shoved the extra towel at Iruma on that first day, after multiple attempted polite refusals. )
He takes his time showering, until all traces of light brown water are long gone, and he cleaned every possible surface, steadfastly ignoring the somewhat unpredictable stinging in his thighs.
When the bleeding starts up again, Iruma reluctantly puts a makeshift bandage of toilet paper around them to keep his clothes from staining too much.
He uses an extra load of the smell-masking perfume on both his clothes and the vials — they’re ready to send, already in anonymized packaging.
It isn’t until he’s lied down in bed, exhausted, that he thinks about Ali again.
The demon usually comes out right before Iruma goes to sleep, giving out valuable information and even advice at times.
Iruma’s been a little cross with Ali after he appeared when Iruma was having a quiet tea with grandpa a few days ago. No matter how hard he tried, Iruma couldn’t pull the little demon back inside the ring. Iruma watched, horrified as Ali got closer and closer to grandpa, yelling the man’s name and moving all over the place, even going as far as to touch him. It didn’t work, fortunately, and the demon was quiet for a whole day after.
He never gave Iruma a reason behind his actions.
So what? Iruma thinks now, It wasn’t a big deal in the end, was it? And it’s no excuse for Iruma to act like a spoiled, greedy brat. After all Ali’s done for him, he doesn’t deserve that.
The demon always comes out at night. His stomach twists with guilt. He wonders if they’re on the verge of a tipping point.
“Ali?” Iruma says quietly to the ring. There’s no reaction. “Ali?” He tries again. He swallows the sudden lump in his throat when he still doesn’t appear. “I’m sorry.” He squeezes his eyes shut, even though Ali isn’t visible, knowing that apologies often lead to more stains. “You- I shouldn’t have been treating you this way.” His voice cracks. He hates it. He doesn’t want to make this about himself. “I’ve been selfish. So- so selfish for not -not considering how you felt with no one else to talk to. I should’ve helped you with grandpa – and then I ignored-“ He takes a deep breath to keep the building sob in check. Warmth is collecting behind his eyes, so he keeps them shut. “I ig-ignored you..” He exhales shakily, letting out an involuntary sound. He bites his lip. “I’m so sorry.” He forces out before hiccuping through his closed mouth.
Pathetic.
He feels a small hand on his face, which makes the bobbing of his throat even more insistent. He covers his mouth. “Lil’ Iru,” Ali says, softer than he’s been all night. “I’m not angry at you.” A sob bursts through his hands, disgusting and loud. Still, Ali doesn’t pull away. Instead, he brushes a hand over Iruma’s forehead. “I just-“ He cuts himself off. “I just worry.”
After a few semi-successful attempts at deep calming breaths, Iruma speaks up again, “About-“ He finally opens his eyes and looks up at Ali after wiping the tears away. “About the future?”
Ali looks right back at Iruma. Iruma can’t read the look on his face. It has his stomach in knots again.
“Yes.” Ali says eventually. “The future.”
Iruma lets out a long shuddering breath. “Thank you.” He whispers.
Strangely, he feels sleepy, even though the pressure behind his eyes after crying usually keeps him up for hours. His eyelids feel so heavy…
“For what?”
“For…” Iruma blinks slowly. “For your forgiveness.”
“There’s nothing –“ Ali starts but seems to change his mind at the last second. “Sure, lil’ Iru.”
“Hmm.” Iruma says as his eyes slip shut.
“Just rest a little bit.” Ali says, lightly brushing over Iruma’s forehead again. “It’s all good.”
It’s the last thing Iruma hears before slipping away.