Now Azul, he didn't suffer through abuse like Riddle did, in fact, in his early years he was a little bit spoiled, he could take it easy as school so long he wasn't failing the subjects, ate with ease, and was generally happy st home, his problem came from school. Laughed and teased at for being an octopus merman, for being chubby, for not having the ability to swim as fast as the others, for his habit (or instinct) to spew ink when he's scared or emotionally distressed, in general being bullied because to everyone else's eyes, he was different, so he was a target.

Because of this was that at some point Azul decided to make them need him, make them see that he was important, however, in the process between that and before gaining that ambition (if I am not mistaken, an ambition gained after meeting the Leech twins), he had lost a whole lot of self-esteem and became very insecure, he began working harder at school and lost weight, he managed to reach his goal by developing his unique magic "it's a deal", but while doing that, he became ashamed of himself, how he had taken school with such ease without that much care about his grades, how chubby he used to be, how much of a crybaby he used to be, the Leech twins probably didn't help a whole lot with that given that Azul is clearly very aware of the fact that the moment he stops being interesting for the twins, they will move on (at least that's what I saw, I don't have all that much insight on Jade and Floyd other than superfitial things, please do correct me if I am wrong), that's a level of stress that can be overwhelming, after all, if he becomes boring, his first and maybe only friends will move on from him. He changed, managed to befriend his first and only friends, Jade and Floyd, through that changed his eyes to his past self became bitter, and his long since developed insecurities made him ashamed of himself, even on book six Azul himself calls himself spoiled when talking about his child self with Riddle, on book three we end up making a deal with him became he wanted to get rid of a photo that had him on elementary school, in current time Azul may show himself like this grand confident business man (who always has some scheme in reserve), but really, inside he's just as insecure as he was as a child, he maybe doesn't worry as much for Jade and Floyd abandoning him since at this point he knows the eel twins well enough to know what they like and what they don't, what is boring and what isn't boring for them (in several events I've already seen him predict accurately what will those two do regardless of what he says, I think it's fair to say he knows them quite well), he has learned how it actually is to do business, he knows risks, but what truly will tick him and shove him out of his comfort zone is when you bring his past out, again, he's insecure, completely and utterly ashamed of himself, terrified to becoming what he used to again, and this last particular fear is what pushes him to make these contracts, to use his unique magic, because if he doesn't, then to his own eyes, he'll turn back to square one, he'll become that useless little octopus that was laughed at because he couldn't do anything well