Chapter Text
What was he doing again? oh, right it was a hashira meeting and… “Lied-kun!?”
“Iruma!??” Lied shouted,
“Tokito-san, do you know this demon?” Shinubo asked, glancing between Muchiro and Lied.
Muichiro sighed , just what he wanted: someone from his past, no future, no wait what was he doing again?
“Earth to Tokito-san, how do you know this demon?”
How did he know Lied? they went to school together, didn’t they? But muchiro had never gone to school, or had he?
“Maybe,”
“Iruma, what’s going on?!” Lied asked anxiously .
“I– Lied, how did we meet again?” he asked in his demonic language that he didn't remember learning but that was the story of Muichiro's life not remembering.
“We met at school.” Lied looked nervous. “Are you okay, Iruma?”
How is that possible, he thought to himself, but he for sure knew Lied.
Memories flashed through his mind, they were friends.
People were talking around him, but he didn’t understand it; neither did Lied It appeared the netherworld language was different after all . Wait, the netherworld? what’s that?
“We should just kill him, We already let that Tanjiro kid and demon girl live; we can’t let another demon.”
Muichiro's eyes widened. “I can’t let you do that.”
“Why?” the white haired man snarled
“Because he’s… different.”
“How do you know?” Shinbou questioned.
“I don’t remember, but I just know.”
“Iruma, what’s going on?” Lied asked again.
“So we're trusting your gut instinct?” Sameni, that’s what the white-haired guy's name was.
“I’ll keep him in check, and if you don’t trust me, have someone watch over me,” Muichiro said coldly, his eyes baring into Leid’s.
“Iruma, dude, you have to tell me what’s going on,” Lied sai,d even more urgency lacing his voice as he stepped out into the sunlight.
Many hashira gasped. Demons weren’t supposed to burn in the sun, so this demon either was very new or very stupid.
“Geez, why is it so bright?” Lied asked.
Muichiro sighed. While master laughed.
“Interesting,” Master said. “I'll grant Muichiro’s request if Shinbou acts as a supervisor.”
“Master, you can’t be serious!” Saenmi shouted.
“Seriously Iruma, I’m freaking out,”
“I just saved your life.”
“WHHHATT!”
___
“We need to work on your Japanese,” Muchiro sighed as they entered his mansion.
“Japanwhats?”
“It’s a human language.”
“What– human, so those people– and you– there all–”
“Stop salivating before I’m forced to kill you.”
Lied froze, “Ehhh”
“Don’t mistake my threats for bluffs.” Muichiro turned to stare at him, his eyes dead. “I can easily kill you in an instant.” Muichiro kinda felt bad about threatening one of his friends, but he was a demon, and he needed to understand that if he messed up, his life was on the line.
“Jeez, dude, you're scary. you won't actually kill me, right?” Muchiro looked away. “Right!?”
“I will, as that is my job.”
“Job?”
“Get some rest, Lied. Tomorrow, you must brace yourself for a storm.”
–
“Well that was ominous,” Lied said as he laid down on the bed Iruma gave him , he stared up at the ceiling.
“The human world huh,” It took him a while to wrap his head around it, but now laying in bed in the dead of night, “I have to say I’m surprised, Iruma being human would’ve never crossed my mind, but now that I know…” he sighed rolling over, “He must’ve been so scared, probably just as nervous as I was when was caught up in the middle of that fight,”
It was only beginning to sink in what could’ve happened if Iruma hadn’t been there. These humans would’ve most likely been killed. That made his blood boil. Why would they kill him, on what grounds!?
After tossing and turning, he sat up and got out of bed, he couldn’t sleep at a time like this. He crept down the stairs and almost made it to the door when–
“Where are you going?” Iruma asked, his voice as dead as before. His long hair flowed where he was standing like a monster stalking its prey.
“I was just going for a walk, I need to process what happened.”
“Then I’ll come with you.”
“When did you get so clingy?”
Iruma froze. “I don’t remember, but that’s like a lot of things nowadays.”
“What?”
“Let’s go on that walk.”
–
“What’s that?” Lied asked, pointing up at the sky.
“That’s called the moon.”
“The moon,” Lied asked, his eyes filled with amazement as the foreign syllables, though clunky, came off his tongue.
“It’s pretty.”
Muichiro smiled, “Yeah it is,”
“What was that?” Lied asked.
“Never mind,”
“Now you have some explaining to do!” Lied said, shaking him.
“Okay, okay! You can stop shaking me,” Muichiro sighed. “Thank you. Now, where should I begin?”
“At the beginning.”
“I don’t remember that far back.”
“WHAT?”
Muichiro sighed again; this was going to be a long conversation.
As the two of them walked, Muichiro told him everything- well, everything that he could remember, he told him what he thought happened, theories on how to get back, and, most importantly, about his failing memory.
“So if I got this correct, we got transported to the past in the human world, and now we're stuck here and your memory is unreliable now, which is why you asked where we met, and you're also a human that was specifically trained to kill demons and is at the highest rank and is called a hashria, after a battle with the demon lord, and then when you were about to die Mr. Sullivan adopted you, and then we met and now we got sent back in time,”
“That’s it, I think,”
“So those spider things, those were also demons?” Lied asked, unease filling his insides.
“The big one yes; the little ones, well,l they’re currently being transformed back into a human.”
Disgust overwhelmed Lied's body. “ Those things used to be human, and they were…”
“Some of them might’ve been demons, if that puts your mind at ease,” Muichiro said.
“That makes it worse!” the fact that humans and maybe even demons were turned into those creepy things.
“That’s just how demons are here, in the human world.”
“That’s horrible!” Lied yelled, “Doesn’t anyone do anything?”
“What do you think demon slayers do?” Muichiro deadpanned.
“Oh.”
They walked in silence for a bit before Muichiro said, “While you're in the human world, there’s going to be some rules you have to follow.”
“You sound like Kalego-sensei,” Lied groaned.
“First, when we go out in public, you must hide your horns and tail,”
“But Iruma–”
“Second you can’t call me Iruma here, for one no one will know who you are talking about two, in Japan we refer to each other by our family name which normally wouldn’t be a problem but you don’t actually know my family name, its Tokito by the way, since we are friends you can call me Tokito-kun if I’m allowed to refer to you as Lied-kun,”
“So that’s why they called you Tokito-san? Wait why do I refer to you as Ir- I mean Tokito-kun instead of Tokito-san?”
Muichiro sighed again. “There are many different honorifics.”
“Honorifics?”
“Yes, things you put after a word, for example, putting kun at the end of a name is used for mostly men and denotes friendship between two individuals.”
“You sounded like Asmodeus right there.”
“Huh!”
“Yeah, like you totally reminded me of him.”
“Anyways,” he continued his lesson on honorifics, which was a lot harder than he thought; he should really leave the teaching to Shinobu, which reminded him surprisingly, “ Tomorrow you start learning Japanese.”
“It’s that human language you were talking in, yeah?” Lied asked.
“Yeah, and I'll be your teacher as I’m currently the only one who can understand you.”