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You can’t really tell Amami to “go to hell”. He visits his grandma every Saturday anyway, and it’s actually not as bad as so many people make it out to be. His grandma makes good cookies. Perks of being a native citizen he supposes. Usually, people can’t just pop into the Underworld anytime he wants. Being an Imp could be complicated sometimes. It’s hard to get around the odd idiosyncrasies of imphood that other species of demons don’t have. Well, “demons” was more of a pop culture term. The technical term was “lesser hellions” and Imps fell under the subspecies of “Chaotic Sprites”. Not many people would know this of course. Unless you yourself were a hellion or a very dedicated scholar. Hell, even other hellions got it wrong all the time! In the underworld, the dead referred to the hellions as demons so often that it just kind of stuck. And another thing! The Underworld and the Overworld are so often misrepresented. The Underworld is always depicted as a hellish place where bad people go to be tortured for eternity while everyone else gets to party it up in the Overworld. Which is a total misconception made up by Midworld scholars who believed in magic but also somehow didn’t? Which is probably the biggest tragedy of them all. The Underworld handles all people after death. The Greeks had the right idea (even if they were terribly deluded about exactly what the Overworld is). Sure, baddies still get yeeted into torture chambers, and good people get to relax for the rest of eternity, but the Underworld (and consequently hellions) take care of all of the dead. The Overworld is just winged creatures, like “Angels” and Nephilim. Plus some very powerful immortals who were probably the closest thing to “gods” that exist. Hell, the eldritch “gods” are just self-important “Greater Hellions” classified as “Abysmal Terrors”. Midworld’s “Cthulu”? Yeah, his name is Trevor. Cthulu is a species name. And Trevor himself is a historical footnote. How he got so famous when he was both a meaningless nobody and a total jerkwad was a mystery. Plus, the Midworld stereotyped all hellions as evil. Sure, some demons could be real pieces of work, (a certain Trevor comes to mind), but they were just as varied as humans! And not all of them had long, unpronounceable demonic names. Yes, some people had strange, god-awful names but just as many demons had normal ones. He knew as many demons named Bob as he did humans! Anyways, all of this pent up frustration really weighed down on Amami. Why wouldn’t it? He was constantly met with stereotypical and frankly, insulting depictions of his entire species! And this came to a boiling point when someone who definitely should know better, a certain Angel with a very obvious obsession for her patron “god”, made an offhanded comment about his origins. So of course, he took the higher road. After all, in a fight, it’s usually way easier to knock someone’s teeth out if you’re above them. He didn’t really have any powers that helped with fighting. The closest thing he had to powers was being able to suck emotions out of people, and that was literally how he survived, so that wasn’t anything special. Luckily Maki was there to pull them apart. Angie is way stronger than she looks. Also, she bites. Needless to say, after Kirumi stepped in and talked to them both, they ended up with a solution. In order to prevent more misunderstandings about everyone’s species, they’d all meet the night before the next full moon to discuss these things. And until then, Amami was f̶o̶r̶c̶e̶d̶ convinced to be on his behavior less he f̶a̶c̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶r̶a̶t̶h̶ need to have another talk with Kirumi. That was how he ended up in the living room of his beach house, on a sweltering hot summer night. He wiped from his brow the sweat that collected on it. The moon outside shined a pale blue-ish white, and he relaxed a little. Maybe he should open a window? Almost every member of his class was present, barring the two humans, Kaito and Ouma. While technically, not a single magic society forbid humans from discovering their secret, it was generally heavily frowned upon to willingly disclose this information, unless you brought one of them into the family. So they had to wait till Kaito and Ouma went up to bed. They knew the two boys schedules like clockwork. Kaito went to bed at 10 pm every night without fail. Meanwhile, Ouma would stay awake all night unless someone nagged him. That someone was always either Kirumi, Shuichi, or Maki. Usually Kirumi. Ouma seemed to respect her a lot more than anyone else. He was startled by a tap on his shoulders. He turned to see the thin, mysterious enigma that was his ghoul friend, Korekiyo Shinguji. Those pea green eyes framed by flowing black hair had an eery beauty to them that you couldn’t find anywhere else. The familiar mask plastered to his lower face was an equally comforting sight. His mysterious friend who waxed poetics and was the poster child for looking like a serial killer while not actually being one was one of his best friends. He smiled up at him. “What’s up Shinguji?” he asked. “We’re about to start. The others have asked me to collect you. We’ve been calling your name for quite some time,” his mild-voiced companion said. Nodding, he stood up from his position, cross-legged on the wood floor, and followed his friend into the kitchen. Everyone was milling about, talking amongst themselves. Himiko looked up from the spellbook clutched in her hands and said, “Hey look, Amami and Shinguji are here.” Kirumi looked up from the cheese platter she was carrying. “Well then, let’s start,” she said, setting the platter gently down on the counter. It was immediately attacked by Miu and Tsumugi, who were insatiable beasts when it came to cheese. Shinguji gently closed the door behind them. The two of them took up spots in the room, Shinguji sitting on a stool. Normally, Amami would just take a seat on the counter if he had no options, but today he instead decided to plop himself on top of Shinguji. This garnered no reaction from his new chair, but he did catch the raised eyebrows that flashed across the room. “Who’s going first?” asked Himiko, who set her spellbook down on the counter. Kirumi thought for a moment, before saying, “I suppose I will go first. As you all are aware, I am an elf. Contrary to popular belief, we are not all magic-studying nature-loving hippies. That stereotype is frankly quite annoying. We’re just…normal. Most of us are empaths and a few of us are great mages, but other than that we’re pretty much just longer lasting humans.” Kaede rose from her seat, waving her arms. “I’m an elf as well! I don’t have anything else to add, just thought I’d mention it,” she said. Quiet murmurs rose from the audience around them as people discussed the new information. Someone, probably Angie, mumbled “Legolas” and was promptly smacked. Tenko stood next, causing Himiko to stand as well. Tenko awkwardly stared at her for a moment, before starting to speak. “I’m a mermaid. Yes, I am aware I have legs. Mermaids and Selkies, which are legally different by the way,” Tenko said, shooting a pointed look at a sheepish Tsumugi,“ can change between legs and whatever tail they have. We just need to get back to the water every so often to you know, live. Too long and we grow weak and basically die.” The redhead next to Tenko cleared her throat. “I’m a mage! I might be just a boring human, but I’m a boring human who can do magic! I’m still an apprentice though,” Himiko said proudly. Everyone nodded to themselves. It was quiet for a while as the two girls sat back down. Then Tsumugi stood, crossing her arms to her chest as if to protect herself. “Mine’s a little plain. I’m a type of Imp typically referred to as a Shapeshifter. I can change appearance at will, which is really, really useful for my talent. Also, hell is a nice place, as long as you avoid the lava pit. The lava pit is the worst bit in my area. It’s like…why just a random pit of lava? It serves no purpose, all it does is crumble the property value and occasionally kill small dogs!” the self-proclaimed “plain jane” rambled. Next stood the quietest of them all, shy Shuichi in all his pale glory. He had to be propped up by Kaede since otherwise he probably would have fainted from the pressure. “Well, as you all probably know, I’m a vampire. Honestly, the mainstream media has so many things wrong about vampires it’s kind of funny. Dracula was written by a crazy man who worked in theatre for a living. First of all, it’s considered incredibly barbaric to kill someone while feeding. We’re basically overgrown mosquitos anyways, we don’t need that much blood. Like, 2-3 pints of blood a month is still pushing it. We don’t die in sunlight, we don’t hate garlic, crosses and holy water kill us about as much as they kill humans, and we aren’t immortal! We live about as long as an elf does,” he said. His spiel was probably the firmest thing he’d ever heard come from his mouth. Everyone seemed content with his explanation. Himiko enquired about his blood intake, and he explained they paid people to donate blood. Standard blood drive procedures were used as well. All in all, vampires were a lot different than Amami had thought. He felt a little guilty for believing those stereotypes himself. He should know better. Maki stood up next and gave a careful and detailed explanation of her race. “I’m a reaper. Or well, half-reaper. No, I’m not going into the soul collecting business. Ok, next,” she said, her voice hollow and empty. She sat back down and the room stayed quiet for a bit. Shuichi looked like he had questions, as did everyone else, but they buttoned their lips and waited for the next person to speak. Kiibo stood next. “Basically…Pinocchio but a robot,” he said. His simple yet effective explanation did little to highlight the difference between, say, him and a Smart Toaster, but it was still interesting. It brought up quite a few questions about sentience, which they all happily discussed. Gonta was the next to stand. “Gonta is a werewolf! Media says Gonta dies only by a silver bullet. Gonta thinks that’s weird. A silver bullet will kill Gonta, yes, but so will regular bullet. Bullets hurt! Gonta also can control self during a full moon. Why would Gonta not be able too? Makes no sense to Gonta,” the bumbling, kind-hearted giant informed them. He could feel everyone's hearts melt. Literally, he could feel it. It’s an imp thing. Gonta sat down, nearly bodying poor Hoshi, who tried to stand at the same time. It was amusing to watch the small cat lover duck to avoid Gonta’s legs. “I’m a gnome. And actually, I’m short for a gnome. Like, very short. Most gnomes are around 4 foot five. I’m under 4 feet. Also, I can see in the dark,” he explained. He sat down without much further explanation. He admittedly spent Angie’s turn glaring at her. He already knew she was an Angel. A crazy, obsessive angel. Why did Tsumugi hang out with her? Sure, she had her moments. She wasn’t the worst person in the world. Still, he was still salty about what she’d said. Very, very salty.He was so wrapped up in his blind bitterness, he was caught off guard when Shinguji stood. He would definitely have slid right off onto the floor and probably died if Shinguji hadn’t grabbed his hips before he fell. He sighed with relief. “Thanks, man, but next time warn a guy before you stand,” he said, stepping away from the stool. “Your fault for sitting on me,” Shinguji responded. He then addressed the class. “I’m a ghoul. No, we don’t eat humans. We simply don’t have blood, so we need to consume raw meat to gain it. Animal meat to be precise,” he said. Amami nodded to himself. “Seems reasonable enough. Kinda like vampires, right?” asked Himiko. Shinguji nodded in confirmation before sitting back down. Amami quickly gave the group a rundown of what an Imp is. He glossed over some of the more contemporary politics. He could probably spend hours explaining everything, but he was sure the group would die of boredom first. Miu piped in halfway through. “By the way, you losers better be paying attention ‘cause all of this is super important if you want to be able to truly appreciate the genius that is Miu Iruma!” she shouted, cutting Amami off in his detailed explanation of Overworld/Underworld relations. Luckily Kaede kept her quiet for the rest of his talk. He hated being interrupted. Afterward, the group began to drift off into their own conversations. Himiko flagged down a very tired looking Kirumi to discuss elven politics, a topic Himiko was apparently incredibly dedicated to. They all relaxed a bit, Angie even letting her wings out for a bit. Tsumugi seemed particularly enthralled with their get together and was having fun shapeshifting on command. At one point she had shifted into a perfect copy of Ouma. She even managed to copy his voice, which was her one weakness. Shapeshifters can’t disguise their own voice magically, so most practiced mimicry as soon as they could speak. Just as she was in the throes of a rather passionate monologue about world domination, with the same flairs and flavor that made Ouma such an interesting character, the door to the kitchen was flung open. Amami turned around almost immediately, and the sudden noise startled Shinguji, who nearly dropped his glass of water. There stood the only two people they hadn’t invited. Kaito stood in his pjs, looking sleepy and a little confused. Behind him, Ouma stood, his face red and eyes bloodshot as if he had been crying. Judging by the wave of fear and sadness coming off of him, he definitely had. He always smelled like fear, but it was stronger than usual. He felt from behind multiple pangs of concern. He could tell they were coming from Shuichi, Kirumi, and surprisingly Maki. “What the hell? Why are you guys in the kitchen so late?” Kaito mumbled, rubbing his eyes. Ouma looked straight past all of them and zeroed in on his sudden clone. “Is it just me or am I standing on the kitchen table? Wait, are those wings?” Ouma said, eyes snapping to Angie. Shuichi stepped forward. “Okay so we can explain,” Shuichi began, but was cut off by Tsumugi promptly transforming back. Needless to say, it took quite a while to catch their two human friends up to speed. As they allowed their friends to join their little circle, Amami walked over to Shuichi. He could feel the (imaginary) little devil horns above his head. “So, looks like they know now. Guess someone has to marry them,” he whispered, fake sighing. This elicited a glare from Shuichi. “That’s not an actual rule, Amami,” he hissed under his breath. Amami just shrugged. “Not like you haven’t thought about it,” he whispered. He then promptly walked off, chuckling at the spike of surprise and embarrassment. This was going to open up so many wonderful opportunities for jokes, he could feel it.