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He’s gone by AJ as far as he can remember.
It all started when he was just a child, he remembered exactly how Datz would say it, so casually, AJ, AJ, and it just sounded so… right at the time. The first time he was called by that name, it was supposed to be a little joke nickname, but to him it was so much more. He was so excited then, that all day that he kept repeating it over and over, shouting it at the top of his lungs, with the deepest, strongest voice he could use like Dhurke had taught him, hearing the two letters echo in the valley until it enventually faded and then he would scream again and again.
And eventually, he simply became AJ. That’s what everyone back in Khura’in called him anyways. And when he first arrived in Japanifornia, age 9, it was so comforting. It felt like home. And he waited and waited for Dhurke to come back one day, just like he had promised.
But that day never happened.
Then quickly he hit puberty and it all became so, so much worse. He had never thought of the differences between him and Nahyuta. After all, they were only kids back then. Everyone simply knew that AJ was Nahyuta’s brother and nobody questioned that. Plus, he had the chords of steel to express himself. Now it all seemed so ridiculous and childish and pointless as his body over the years felt more and more like a trap, and the loud, intense fights he had with his foster parents were more and more frequent. With time passing AJ had felt foolish, more of a placeholder name than anything else really, and even worse it reminded him of Dhurke’s treason.
Then he had met Clay and everything had changed. He couldn’t explain it at all, but with Clay, everything seemed so… easy, so clear. In his presence, he felt a confort he never felt since that fateful day when he left Khura’in. Clay never called him AJ, with him, he was simply Justice. And those times they spent laughing together, dreaming about the shiny stars until they twinkled in their eyes, Justice forgot everything else, his stupid name, his stupid body, his stupid fights, and, yes, even stupid Dhurke. Just for a moment, Justice and Terran could just allow themselves to be normal teenagers, who had dreams and hopes and love.
That’s why the space center quickly became their second home. When they weren’t sleeping or eating or going to school, you could be sure they were, for the millionth time, gazing at the big rocket ships in the museum or at the fancy constellations in the observatory.
Eventually, Mr Starbuck noticed the young boys and, seeing their interest, began teaching them. Clay was fascinated by almost everything the astronaut in training told them, he kept asking questions about the intricate mechanisms of the flying engines, he was fascinated about the planets and asteroids and stars and galaxies. Most of the time Justice listened with a half an hear, smiling at seeing is friend so genuinely happy. But then, and Mr Starbuck knew it by now, when they would start talking about the moon, that’s when his face would light up.
He never really understood why, but he felt a kind of strange connexion with the shiny celestial body. Almost every night, he’d fall asleep staring at it from his open window, listening to dreamy music, wishing he was a stranded astronaut just like in Space Oddity and could somehow reach the moon, even if only for a fraction of a second, by the tips of his fingers, letting himself out of the space capsule…
He was also amazed to learn about it from an astronaut’s point of view: for so many years it was only this goal, this ideal that seemed so far away, impossible to reach, but still, somehow, with so many efforts and perseverence they were finally able, in 1969, to reach it. At the time, it was such a crazy accomplishment.
So then, maybe to escape everything that was happening around him, he began submerging himself in studies. At the space station’s library, he read every single book pertaining to the Apollo missions.
He can’t say he remembers exactly when it clicked. Maybe it was one AJ too many, another rude comment at school, another one of those nights spent dreaming about the far away moon…
Weirdly enough, it was not with Clay, but with Mr Starbuck that he tried it first. Maybe it was because he’d heard it so much from him, while he was telling him yet another time the story of the race to the moon even though he knew it by heart at that point. All he knew is that it didn’t just feel right, it was so… natural.
Hearing Clay say it felt even better. Like he had embarked in the spaceship to Earth’s natural satellite. He knew he had still far to go but the journey had now started.
Soon after, he restarted his chords of steel training routine.And somehow, though he couldn’t really explain why, he felt his bracelet loosen for the the first time in a long, long period when he screamed with all his strenght : I’M APOLLO JUSTICE AND I’M FINE!