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Shinigami, as a general rule, are not born. They exist. They have always existed. Even when a new face appears, the universe rewrites itself so they were there from the beginning; and so even though every Shinigami needs humans to live, there are some who can tell you stories of times before them, before Pangaea, before anything at all.
Beyond Birthday, who was born on a Tuesday, does not know any of this. All he knows is death.
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It's not as dramatic as he would like it to be. There's no scare chord, no dark aura, no sharp ozone. The names and lifespans are just — there, as ordinary a part of his field of vision as the sky. The numbers don't make sense, or at least they shouldn't, but he looks and he knows what they mean. He's known since the day he was born. Wammy selects for prodigies, after all.
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He keeps it a secret the way he keeps all secrets: by flaunting it everywhere he goes. He ties a green ribbon around his neck and tells everyone who will listen that his head is already detached from his body and soon theirs will be too. He sends cheerfully threatening letters to people who will die soon enough for him to bear waiting, a supply that never runs out. He makes a game out of guessing the names of his father's coworkers.
He's nine when his parents finally kick it, just like he knew they would. He's nine when they bring him to Wammy's House.
"There's potential in you," Wammy tells him on the way. "We've been informed of the… missives… you've sent to car accident victims before. Not to mention the tips you've delivered to the police…"
Oh, this one is good. He'd actually put effort in anonymizing his attempts to help identify the criminals he saw on TV.
"You have a true talent for deduction," Wammy concludes.
This assessment is absolutely and completely untrue, but Beyond Birthday is an actor to his bones. "Thank you, sir!" He gives him the glowing smile of a grateful Victorian orphan, rolling his head back to show off the ribbon, looped like a noose. "Or should I call you Quillsh?"
Wammy mutters something sounding like the information breach is worse than I thought. "Mr Wammy, please."
"Roger wilco!"
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And that is how Beyond Birthday finds himself in his newest gilded cage. He doesn't mind. The whole world is a gilded cage, anyway; he's used to suffocating.
Sometimes he looks up and imagines a realm of people like him — people who live aimless existences, who he can't play pretend with, who treat death like the inevitability these humans will never wrap their heads around.
The fantasy is outdated. He likes acting, these days.
Still.
The sky is always gray in England. It's hard, sometimes, to forget the feeling that has dogged him since before he was born: that he is caught between worlds. That he should never have been here at all.