"Dreams are a fickle thing, yet HE was so close to achieving his... Only for BRATS to stop him... I will not let his dreams fade. I will make them a reality, and make him proud of me!" 

****

"WOAH THIS ROOM IS SO BIG!"

That was the first thing Hinata Shouyou noticed when he woke up. The volleyball idiot may be dense to most things, but even he knew to appreciate a good room. 

He was hopping around excitedly when out of nowhere, he tripped on his own feet, and fell to the ground. Hard. 

"Owie..." he mumbled as he rubbed his head. "It hurts so much." 

His pain was forgotten once Shouyou looked into the mirror. 

Bright blue hair, with a protruding ahoge bending downward. Aquamarine eyes shone under the weak light of the room. A purple sleeping gown, which Shouyou thought was a myth when his mom had told him of the old style of sleeping clothes. ["That sounds so girly!!! BWAHAHHAHAH!" "It's true, Shou-chan. It was actually a thing back in the old days."] Pale skin. 

Shouyou's mouth went open, but soon his eyes sparkled even more, "I'm in an ISEKAI!! I'm so happy!! Wait till Bakaya-" 

Suddenly, his head hurt. Why was everything so blurry? What was going on? He didn't like it. 

He whimpered as he held his head. It hurt so much!!!! He hated this! He hated this! Please, make it stop! Make it stop!!!!

****

"A-Are...?" Suzuki Iruma stared at the room he was in, perplexed by this new look. It definitely wasn't his room. It didn't have the usual purple wallpaper he had gotten used to. There wasn't the tingle of magic humming at the back of his head as it usually did in the Makai. 

Was he...

Was he back in the human world?

But how? He had just finished a HUGE pile of homework, a-and he was pretty sure Ali-san wouldn't do anything to him! R-Right?

Then again... he had been a bit of an idiot recently and Ali-san hadn't approved. Was this his way of retaliation? 

No way, that wasn't Ali-san! 

But if it wasn't Ali-san...

Who HAD done this? 

For a minute he worried that it was Kirio, with who he definitely didn't have good blood, but then he realized that Kirio didn't have a lot of magic, and the last time had been due to years of saving up magic.

So Kirio was a no. 

But that didn't solve anything. 

WHO could be this powerful to the point that they could do something like this?...

****

"Iruma-kun, are you okay!? You're not hurt anywhere are you!?" 

"E-Eh?" was all Shouyou could say as he saw a bald man with a pair of bright yellow horns and small glasses panicking overtly while a red-haired male with cat ears and a deadpan look watching them both. 

"I was so worried! Jiichan is sorry he didn't notice, Iruma-kuuuuuuuuunnnn!" 

Huh... He was weird. A real doting parent to this Iruma. 

It was cute though. 

"S-Sorry, Ojiichan," he quickly apologized. "I was just careless and slammed into the door."

That happened fairly often, especially during big games. Plus, it wasn't like he could tell them. After that painful sting, he had a feeling that if he mentioned it again, the headache would happen, and that would only complicate things. 

He wasn't all that dumb, HA! Take that Bakayama and Tsukishima!

"Oh! But you usually avoid those because of your reflexes right?" the other one asked. 

Reflexes? He had no such thing! Only for and with volleyball!

"I-I guess today's just not my day, haha..." he smiled sheepishly. 

He would soon learn that he had just handed over the reins of the conversation to the grandfather. 

"DO YOU HAVE A FEVER?! OJIICHAN WILL MAKE IT ALL BETTER! DON'T YOU WORRY IRUMA-KUN!!!"

Gosh, how did Iruma deal with this?! 

****

"Oniichan, look at this drawing!" Natsu excitedly told Iruma as the two sat outside their house in their parlor. She was holding up a crayon drawing of the three Hinatas to him, and Iruma couldn't help but touch his cheeks slightly upon seeing it. 

Was this actually happening? How had it even happened? It made no sense to him...

"Oniichan?" Natsu called out to him, snapping him out of his thoughts. 

He sweatdropped and said, "G-Gomen Natsu! It's a really good drawing!" 

Her eyes sparkled and she hugged Iruma, "Arigatou Oniichan!" before she ran off, probably to find another piece of paper. 

Iruma then lay down and smiled. He honestly didn't have fond memories of the human world, considering what he had always been forced to do for his parents. 

He had always thought that it was normal, that being asked to do so much was a normal thing. 

But when he met Ojiichan, Opera-san, and the others, he slowly came to realize that no, it wasn't right. It wasn't normal. It was bad. 

It had been eating at him for a while now, honestly. With this new revelation, he had started to see those he shared blood with in a whole new light. 

To the point that they sold him...

It was wrong, he decided. He hated the fact that they didn't care for their child, that they would sell him off just for money... 

He covered his eyes, and finally, he let the tears fall. 

Will he ever be okay?

He felt so lost... Where did he belong?

"Oniichan...?" 

"E-Eh, N-Natsu?" he blinked, and through the tears, he could see a worried Natsu looking at him. 

"Don't cry," Natsu hugged him tightly. "I-If you do, N-Natsu will too..."

Iruma's eyes widened, but he slowly, surely hugged her back, "T-Thank you Natsu... Oniichan will be okay..." 

Maybe... Maybe he could be okay someday.

A slow but sure process. 

 But he wasn't going to give up on keeping his friends safe. 

He was a dream catcher after all. 

Catching what others wanted and throwing it back to them completed. 

****

Today was tiring but fun, Shouyou decided quietly. 

While it had taken time to convince Sullivan-san/Ojiichan and Opera-san that no, he wasn't sick, and yes, he was fine, he had gotten to play video games with them. It was honestly really fun, and he even got to show them how to play volleyball. (Shouyou was devastated to find that they didn't know how to play volleyball; they didn't even know actual human sports!!) They adapted to it quickly, though, and soon they were playing 1 on 1 matches. 

Shouyou's mom and sister never truly got why he loved volleyball so much, although Natsu was starting to catch on as well, so he never actually played volleyball at home. 

But here, he was playing against superpowered demons and he couldn't be more excited. Sure he lost a lot, but volleyball was meant to be fun, and Shouyou was definitely having that. 

He was a dreamcatcher; aiming to play volleyball as much as he could, no matter how hard the obstacle was. 

He wouldn't falter, for sure.

I wonder if Iruma is having fun, he offhandedly thought. He seems like a good person... I hope Natsu isn't giving him trouble...

He chuckled, Oh who am I kidding? I love Natsu and her troublemaker self. 

I really want to go home, though... I miss everyone... he closed his eyes, and soon he was out like a light, snoring quietly after a fulfilling day.

****

"I really need to do something about my reflexes," Iruma mumbled as he looked up to the ceiling.

He had nearly burned down the entire kitchen because of them, after all.

"Ehehehehe," he sheepishly sweatdropped. 

"But... that was genuinely fun," he smiled. "Getting to spend time with nice people... really reminds me that humans aren't all that bad." 

"And it helped me... realise that... I'm... not... alone...." Iruma's eyes slowly flickered close, and he was out like a light, with his final thought being Thank you...

****

Iruma was definitely confused the next morning, when his Ojiichan and Opera-san wanted to play volleyball. He didn't know what that was, but it sounded fun, so he just went along with it. He did end up having fun, of course, and he decided that volleyball could be a hobby of his from now on. 

Shouyou was told that he needed to learn the basics of cooking again, which perplexed him a good deal, but he just took it and reviewed it with his family, smiling and laughing the entire way. 

Both did eventually find the website while looking it up, though, and Iruma quickly added speculations about it being magic-related. He was then chatted by the others, and he explained his situation. 

Shouyou's only comment? 

"WAIT, I WAS IN THE NETHERWORLD?! SO COOL!!!!!" 

****

"Heh, that was the fourth day... so much magic is flowing through me... Who will be next?~"