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There is something vile about the name Shingetsu.
Some vile sickish feeling that makes Vector feel nauseated now.
He had thought it to a perfect allusion, a little play with words to fit his alias when he first came to the human world, to tell them outright he's a black sheep without one of these idiots ever catching on a hit. He thought it made it even more funny to watch Yuma-kun fall for each and every of his pranks. Made it enjoyable and wicked to sew the dandylion costume or glue the Barian police ID at night…He touches his fingers to his lips and snorts. That's not it. Anymore. It is like this fake persona was glued to him with no way to ever get rid of it again.
...
"Shingetsu, wanna go swimming later?" Yuma calls over the hallway.
"It's Vector." He snaps it back. But the all too innocent boy only scratches the back of his head, and he says 'sorry', asks him if he wants to come swimming anyway and oh they could go to the sweets store together after school, wasn't that a great idea? and doesn't say his name right again.
"Yeah, like that disgusting Math thing," Mizael sneers and lifts his nose. - "Shut up!" Vector shoots back. - "Without your teeth now as human?"
Mizael smirks in triumph, and in this moment...in this moment Vector nearly wished he had kept track of a points list for Mizael...
"Stop it, both of you!"
Vector watches Durbe close his eyes and push his glasses back up his nose. Durbe sighs. "We all having our difficulties adapting to this human life. Mizael. Let's go."
Mizael. Let's go.
Vector doesn't know what he has done wrong….in fact, no, he knows everything...and it is exactly this knowledge that leaves a vile, disgusting taste on his tongue. He remembers the ships and what it had felt like to hold Merag's chin in his hands before the dark abyss which had been the bottom of the Barian world.
The thing is…he had enjoyed it.
He had enjoyed to inflict hurt and pain, and he wanted to to hurt, to kill Nasch all over, to exact revenge for...for…..for what?!
And here he stands, after the rebuild of the world. In a school uniform while people pass him by laughing and calling him Shingetsu.
He hates it.
"Shingetsu, are you fine?" Yuma prods again, sticking his face in his direction and looking at him with these big red annoying eyes as if everything were fine. Curious. Just curious. "Shingetsu, are you fine?"
Of course I am...if you're there, Yuma-kun!
Did he expect V e c t o r to say it?! To say it as if nothing fucking happened?
He grinds his fists and runs away. Stomps away. Whatever.
"Shingetsu, can you pass me the worksheet?" Tetsuo calls over the hallway.
"Shingetsu-kun, can you water the flowers?" Kotori asked.
" Ehhh….wanna take a shortcut, Shingetsu? It'll be super rad!"
...
Occasionally, more often than not, Vector wishes for it.
Sometimes he wishes he hadn't come back.
He wants someone to say it. Vector wants someone to say it. To acknowledge his...existence. To acknowledge what he'd done! It is like he watches them...watches them being stupidly cheerful about the saved world, but something...somethingdidn't belong to this picture. It is...as if he's still vile and disgusting, and they got along because all-too-forgiving Yuma had been erasing his evil deeds and what-not. When he thinks about it, it is like a second persona -the one of fake cheerfulness and pretense- had been laid upon him. Make the images overlap and merge and forget about that….that someone that is hiding behind it….all alone?
No. Fuck.
This is getting to his head.
Vector wishes he could tear down this class photo of his Shingetsu persona being stitched back with tape to it.
Can we survive?
Can we go on like that?
"Nasch!" he calls out in the hallway, and runs after him. He grabs his sleeve and turns around. He...doesn't really know what to say.
Nasch would be….angry at him?
Acknowledge...his existence?
"It's you." He says and shrugs, "Let go of my wrist, I wanna be out here before the next class starts."
It's you.
"Nasch...aren't you, aren't you angry at me?! Aren't you mad or furious or...or or...I...your sister…………" He runs up to Nasch, and he grabs his wrist and tries to make him turn around, scrambles, screams, begs...he, he is losing ground! Nasch he...there had to be something. Something...something! Something!
"Nasch….Nasch, stop! Answer me! ANSWER ME!!!"
The purple haired past king and enemy...the person Vector had been chasing after….to kill…..his entire first human life…
Ryoga turns around, and he shakes him off. Chin lifted.
"No."
Ryoga grasps his hair and presses Vector against the lockers, turning close with a daring smirk...and it's then that Vector feels….fear.
"I'd rather not spend another lifetime being consumed by hate," he hisses.
Ryoga pushes him back and puts his hands into his pockets and disappears through the front doors to skip.
"Nasch! Nasch…Nasch, where the fuck are you...going….?"
"The name's Ryoga." Vector watches him look back and then blick and he's gone.
Vector leaves the school building, too, after a while. His shoulder slump and he tells himself it's rage, infuriation, anger...but actually...he doesn't know. For one million points attached to Nasch, it didn't make him...happier. Happier.
It is a dumb stupid disgusting human word that he...yearns to apply to himself.
…
"Vector...sama…?"
She stares at him with big eyes when he looks up, still so small and old-fashioned looking and looking too much like Merag for her own good. There's flowers in her hair, and she carries some box, and she's barefooted like...like a thousand years ago. Pff, how stupid.
"What?" He must've snarled at her, or he couldn't else explain how she crouches her shoulders together, and steps back…"Uhmm...Vector-sama...you f-forgot your lunch box at home….and I uhmm….I'm sorry!"
But then he blinks again, and she looks up at him in confusion. Had she said….? "Repeat it," he demands. "Uhh...Vector….sama?" He yanks her on one arm, and she falls forward, deeply scared of him. Vector snickers and points one finger to the ground.
"Glass. I didn't know The Great Emperor Nasch couldn't afford you some shoes." He lifts his chin. "What a jerk."
Iris squeals 'faster, Vector-sama!' and kicks her feet when he carries her back, and he smirks at her in this aggravating smirking way of his.
And maybe, secretly, -in a non-image ruining way- Vector likes it a bit, too.