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Too marked
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Hermann had already too many marks to believe that anyone could voluntarily want more.
The first time that Hermann Gottlieb saw his new lab partner's tattoos, he frowned. The fondness for kaiju entrails and organs and the disorder was enough itself but then those arms appeared, tattoed from the wrist to beyond the shirt sleeves and his frown deepened when he discovered that they continued for the chest and back of Newton Geiszler. When they met, these didn't yet occupied his entire torso. They had begun on the forearms and their number increased with each kaiju attack, as if he wanted turn his body into a diary of the war. A journal that nobody in their right mind would want.
Hermann could understand the unfortunate stereotype of the messy genius but could not understand those arms.
His leg had been wounded too long, no matters that his cane helps him to stay on his feet. Hermann knew what everyone thought when they stopped to look at him. How many years would he have? And he was already disabled. Hermann could feel their eyes on him as soon as he arrived, no matter where. That's why he always walked with his back straight -as straight that he could, having to support his weight in the cane- and the chin raised. He was marked for life because his leg would never recover and only that cane allowed him to walk three steps straight but it also yelled his condition even he pulled the lips and did not repair on barking to anyone who keep the glaze too obvious -to anyone who fall into insolence. Bad manners had no excuse-.
"It's a form of expression, Hermann" said Newton, carelessly, while they were in the lab. As usual he didn't have to lose sight of the chalkboard to be able to see him flutter from one side to other. Worst of all was when he did it while dragging some kaiju guts and messing the ground completely.
Newton's voice raised in the same way his movements did. It went out and down with the air that coming in and out of his lungs as he ran. The size of the space was irrelevant. But moving and talking at the same time made it difficult for him to breathe. But Newton Geiszler preferred speaking to breathe. Not even his running around had an orderly fashion.
"They are art, Herman don't you understand it?" He also said. But Hermann couldn't find anything artistic about the tattoos. They were just one more mark, throwing a message. How many lost jobs would they have meant for Newton if he hadn't been recruited for this project nearly from its inception as it was the case? He growled. He knew perfectly the kind of comments that those marks caused.
He couldn't believe that Newton was, on top of everything, proud of them.
Yes, they were a sign of his passion, of how fascinating that kaiju were, an attempt to learn more... This was what Newton Geiszley said if y you gave him the chance to talk about his beloved tattoos. Proud as only an idiot might be.
They were only a call for attention to him, to shout when nobody cared. What would he do when they finally defeated the kaijus?
Hermann only pressed his lips and isolated himself on the chalkboard, as if he could ignore it in this way. While he leaned on the cane and stretched to write with his free hand, accumulating formulas and more formulas. Finding the unknown and then looking for how to clear them. -The unknowns had to been found, no one who wasn't a mathematician understood that. It wasn't enough to pick the first question you stumbled upon- That was how he had achieved the equation that could predict when a kaiju appeared though the Breach.
That was the way to understand the kaijus and the danger that they represented. And not a mountain of marks.
Everyone had marks. Hermann Gottlieb dragged his along, baerly able to stand with a cane.
No, he could not accept that Newton Geiszley speak lightly, without acknowledging, and decided to create some more marks for himself at will.
A/N: I originally wrote this in spanish but I am too proud of it. So I try to translate it. Thanks so much to KuraiG for being my beta. I hope you liked the result.