"I'm so sorry. Please forgive me..."

He wasn't an idiot. He knew his pleas were falling on deaf ears. He had heard what they said, knew what was at stake… knew this time was beyond forgiveness.

"I gotta say, letting your guard down and falling out is pretty pathetic."

"So. He fell out of the ring. No matter, it won't affect our plan."

'I didn't fall out! I was tripped! I took out two other fighters!' He wanted to scream it, to protest it. In other circumstances, regardless of the stakes, he may have. But instead, all that spirit, all his frustration, was gone with the angry shout of his wife.

"And you call yourself my husband?!"

The moment he'd heard those words, he felt his heart snap in two. She was angry. Embarrassed. Embarrassed of him. Because he'd once again failed her.

Before, he'd managed to convince himself her harsh words were just her way of showing concern; she'd been so harsh with him those months ago because she cared, he thought. Because she'd wanted to motivate him.

But now it seemed so much clearer. Now… he knew. He had let them all down.

Just as they'd said he would, all those years ago…

"You'll be nothing but a disappointment, shrimp."

A little boy in an orange robe cowered beneath two older students, quaking. "Th-that's n-not true!"

The shorter, more portly of the two smacked the back of his head. "Sure it ain't, kid. You're gonna be sooo amazin'. People'll come from all over to see you fight, and you're gonna make a ton of friends 'n; marry some beautiful woman, yada yada. Ha! Probably just gonna embarrass them too."

The boy ran to his room tears streaming down his face. "You'll see! I'll show you! You'll all see!"

"OI! Krinplin!"

Krillin was brought back to reality and turned to see the angry face of Beerus, god of Destruction, teeth firmly clenched in a snarl that made him gulp with fear.

"I thought I told you to cheer on your team! Can you do anything right?"

"S-sorry. I was just thinking abou-

"On, now you wish to think?" Beerus snapped his teeth and narrowed his eyes. "Why the hell couldn't you have done that there, in the arena, when it mattered? Eh?!"

"Come now, Lord Beerus," Whis said, never once taking his eyes off the arena in front of him. "You'll miss seeing how your fighters perform. Besides, I'm sure this one's been more than sufficiently embarrassed by what we just saw."

Whis tittered. Beerus growled something about being an embarrassment. Shin just continued shooting him that side-eyed glare, despite his strained insistence he wasn't angry He didn't hear. He couldn't focus. All he could hear was those words ringing in his head.

'Pathetic.'

'No loss.'

'You call yourself my husband?!"

He hung his head, fighting to hold back a flood of tears.'The y were right… they were right about me all along…'

His shuddering sobs intensified, but only for a moment, before he was suddenly calmed. Tears still fell, silent, unbidden, but now on his face was that familiar old smile. The smile he'd worn time after time when he'd failed. When he'd learned he hadn't progressed, but that Goku'd merely toyed with him. When he realized the gap between himself and the man he'd called brother was insurmountable.
"C'mon guys, you can do it!" he cheered, as the stream of tears finally began to wane. He smiled brightly, that same over-sized, closed-eye grin.

But inside, he was hollow. Inside, the smoldering pain and humiliation had choked out the last remaining embers of his hope.

The others at Orin Temple had been right. He'd become the embarrassment they had foretold him to be. Even his wife, the only angel of a woman patient enough to deal with him and his shortcomings, had snapped and had enough.

The warmth in his soul was now gone. And all that was left was the Jester's Mask he'd learned to wear so well.