Life in the 1900s

Tsuzuki doesn't look it, but he was born in the year 1900. In fact, the only real reason that Tsuzuki looks like someone in his early to middle twenties is that people generally stop aging after they're dead, and Tsuzuki died at the ripe young age of twenty six.

Not much has ever been known about Tsuzuki's life when he was still alive, but it has been said that he was constantly tormented by other boys his age when he was considerably younger, due in part to his large purple eyes. While normally a pretty eye feature to have, it does have one setback: people with purple eyes are often associated to having demon blood running through their veins. It was never really confirmed whether Tsuzuki really did have demon blood, or if that particular superstition was nothing more than an old wives' tale, but most of the people in Tsuzuki's community back then did believe in demons with purple eyes, and Tsuzuki suffered much discrimination (and possibly a few beatings) because of it.

It was also known that he had a younger sister named "Ruka". It was she who taught him dancing and gardening (both skills that Tsuzuki eventually excels at) and cooking (in which Tsuzuki is horribly inept). Little is ever said regarding the rest of Tsuzuki's family, though Tsuzuki's behavior during the course of the manga implies that he in fact, dearly loves his sister despite all the hardships he had suffered in his life.

Around the time he turned eighteen, Tsuzuki went mad. Perhaps the alleged demon blood in him was true after all, and some hints that point towards Tsuzuki having murdered people at that time seem evident, though never really clarified. Whatever the case, poor Tsuzuki went mad, and was subsequently confined under the care of a doctor called Murataki. The notes the elder Muraki left behind tell of how Tsuzuki did not eat or drink for eight straight years, and how all his repeated attempts at killing himself (as a means to end his miserable existence) failed. Intrigued, the doctor kept meticulous notes of Tsuzuki for the last eight years of Tsuzuki's life, until one fateful day, when one of Tsuzuki's attempted suicides was finally successful.

Tsuzuki is, as he had hoped, dead. Unfortunately, his problems doesn't end there.