That person staring back at him in the mirror smiled, grinning hard as yellowed teeth glinted dully in the fluorescent light. Nailing his smile just as he entered, well, whatever class he had now (he'd missed homeroom and first period on the first day, so he didn't exactly have a schedule or anything to go off of) was key to kicking off his reunion with the others.
The thought of seeing them again, after so long, made his insides lurch at the thought of seeing him like...this.
Of course, he'd done his best to fix the smeared makeup that ran counter to the already botched job he'd done that morning, he, in the midst of working on his face, tried thinking up some stories to tell.
Not just of what he'd done that summer (which was precisely nothing, but hey, they didn't have to know that), but how he'd gotten to be in that...state.
'Maybe I tried out with boxing or something and I was, I don't know, punched? Like in a match or...', Nope; there weren't even any boxing gyms in Amitypark, so that wouldn't work.
'A gang...at night? Like, a mugging or something...', No, the bruises were too old, and others, too young, to pull that off. Besides, what would a group of thugs want from him, anyway? He wasn't exactly the richest guy around.
'Ugh, I've gotta think of something. Anything is better than, well, nothing!' He tried smiling again, finding that his cheeks swelled up just a bit too much for it to look genuine. If anything, it looked like he was being held at gunpoint the way that he was doing it.
Then it fell, the boy shaking his head in agitation when it didn't sit just right.
'Come on, Dash. It has to be good, it has to be...be perfect.' Again, he chided, forcing his mouth into what could be more akin to a grimace as the bruises on his face squealed indignantly, bringing a tear to his eye, and just like the first time, it fell, angry throbs in his cheeks reminding of this morning, but he forced the memory down.
I'm fine.
I'm fine.
He had practiced this for so long, the cultivation someone that was him, but...not, you know? He could recall doing the same thing, affixing another smile on his face that made him look like another, someone much stronger then himself.
Better...than himself.
- (Flashback) -
Dash wasn't exactly liked.
Well, not liked in the conventional sense.
He was liked for different reasons then say, well, Kwan, was liked, see. The child could remember so clearly how others' eyes seemed to beam at the former, girls and boys alike practically dropping to their knees just to be near him. There was this attraction, this...confidence, that made even Dash bloom red when he walked by, though not in the same way another dark-haired youth made him feel.
But that wasn't important right now.
It was long ago, the fourth grade, when he had tried his hand with talking with him for the first time. He wasn't too big, nor too pretty either, Dash, at the time, still just a bit shorter than him, looking up at him as he handed him a slip of paper, practically tripping over himself to give it to him in such a way that none of the other kids would notice that he had done it. Many of the girls would do the same thing, passing notes in the midst of class when they weren't giggling a storm around him (or about him, the people in his head would often consider, but Dash swiftly tossed away, seeing no point in thinking something he couldn't prove), and so, if he couldn't find the time to talk to him to ask, than maybe this paper could, his handwriting small and scribbled inside.
It was a quiet moment at recess, when a rather rowdy game of tag (one that he usually wasn't invited to participate in but he was just fine watching, mind you) that he gave it his best shot, quietly tapping on Kwan's shoulder when he had just stopped to take a breath, easing beside him beneath the playground fixture whilst the others regrouped themselves, several students speaking amongst themselves in raised voices. Gripping his loose, old shirt, Dash could hear his own heart pounding as Kwan's dark eyes fell to him, quizzically searching him as Dash sat there, but once he had realized that he hadn't said anything, he scrambled to collect his thoughts, hiding his face as he shoved the note into his hands, crouching down and turning away, but not quite leaving, sneaking glances every so often as he watched the boy read the letters upon the page, with just a few words on it, written so poorly that Kwan seemed to have to read it several times before he could make sense of it.
want 2 b my Frend?
With a strange look, something that Dash sort of expected, Kwan looked back at him, opening his mouth to speak after several tense moments, but before he could have the chance to, another child, with darker skin gripped the note, snatching it from Kwan's hands with a burst of laughter, another student, one of chocolate hair and olive skin, ripped Dash from beneath the fixture and tossed him to the ground, Kwan rushing out behind them. The dark skin youth grinned at the note, throwing it to the ground and stomping it into the mulch despite Dash's own whine, looking longingly at the dirtied slip then back at the former, his doe-like eyes blazing with fury and sorrow as he went to speak, but shuddered violently as mulch was shoved into his mouth by the child with brown hair, much to the other students' amusement that gathered about them. Hurrying to spit it out, using his hands to clear the dirt and wood chunks from his mouth with frantic swipes at his tongue, the boy tried to hold back the tears that gathered in his eyes.
He couldn't let them see him cry.
"What are you doin', Mikey Wikey, huh? Weird to find you on the playground when we're the ones playing on it." He spoke, the same dark youth, spitting every other word at the boy as he stalked closer, a handful of mulch in his palm as he considered the boy, expression twisted with amusement as the former tried his best to form words, but didn't look up.
He was told to never look up at him, and so he didn't.
"D-Dale, I wasn't doing anything. I just...I just wanted to give Kwan something, but you guys...you weren't supposed to-," Another student pushed him over, this one he couldn't see as he was sent onto his side, the boy trying his hardest not to cry when he fell onto his still-healing wrist, though thankfully, the limb was hidden beneath a large sleeve, hiding the massive bruise that cradled his bent wrist, something that he'd rather not have to explain, so he did his best to hide it, and hide it he did, Dash making a point to slam his mouth shut, even when the voices grew unsettled, much more angry, though more towards him than anyone else. Futilely, he knew, but he looked discreetly behind him to see if he could find an adult, but just as he expected it, there was no one, most of them chatting amongst themselves and looking only mildly interested when they noticed the kids had since stopped playing, but from where they were, from where they had been sitting, they wouldn't be able to see them.
'Besides,' The boy reminded himself with a sort of resignation, stumbling back to his feet but still looking at the ground, '...it isn't as if they would help anyway.'
But it didn't hurt to check.
The other kids laughed as they watched him try to brush the mulch off of his shirt, little chunks of dirt and wood falling to the ground as they came closer, the other students, with Dash taken an uncertain step back.
Dale grinned harder.
"Aw, don't be like that. We just wanted to know what we were doing, but I read your note, and just to let you know, that would never happen." Just to nail his point home, the boy dug his heel into the dirt, further crunching the note into it before all that was left was a dirtied little slip, the words smudged and smeared where one would barely be able to read it, but some of the students came over to crouch near it, reading the scrawled words then looking at him incredulously.
Dash's face burned hot, red with shame.
"Oh my gosh, is he serious?!" A girl's voice yelled, her golden blonde locks shimmering like captured sunlight as she looked to her friends, checking that their expressions matched her own as a few more went to check the note, and looked the same way.
Others more disgusted, a few even angry, but they were further back in the crowd, the word spreading quickly between them.
"Yeah, right. Like Kwan would ever be friends with a stinky, ugly loser like him." Dale spat the other word with a much malice as he could, smiling as he could clearly see that his words had been cutting into Dash, the other boy seeming to shrink as they began to laugh, becoming louder and louder, their hands pointing, shouting at him, screaming at him, screaming at him until he felt himself huddle down below the playground fixture just as he had before, but this time, he wanted to become unseen, unheard, shrinking until just his head of matted, blonde hair could be spotted, his face turning even more red as they began to throw much, some hitting his face, his arms, his clothes, others kicking it onto him as they taunted him.
Using his good arm, Dash tried his best to shield himself from the glaring mob, feeling his eyes begin to water and his body began to tremble.
Kwan said nothing.
Dale, relishing the chaos that he had started, brightened at another idea, his expression darkening as he held up his hand, a clear cue for the others to give pause, hanging on his every word, and they listened as he leaned down, getting just low enough where he was eye level with Dash's face, the former too afraid to look up, too afraid to see how they were looking at him, to see them laughing at him, but he would have no choice to.
Dale grabbed his arm, thumbing a particularly large, new bruise that he had earned just morning, and he yelped in pain.
It was then that the teachers begun to shift, eying the group a bit more closely, but they were slow to act.
They usually were.
"You know what? I heard that you like boys. Right? That you're gay, aren't you? That you want to kiss boys, huh?" His tone was loud enough for others to hear, the other kids leaning in as they stared at Dash wonderingly, some becoming increasingly more disgusted, some visibly repulsed by the accusation, something that the tearful child couldn't ignore as he rushed to dispute this, feeling his face turn an impossible red at the thought, shame so deeply set in his mind that felt the urge to vomit from embarrassment.
Please stop it.
"No! No, I didn't mean it like that! No, stop saying that! I just wanted to be his...his-," The same tall boy with olive skin stood over him, pulling his bad arm despite his protests, Dash bursting into tears as he could feel it, the jostle of tender skin and bone screaming to be released.
My god did it hurt.
He was thrown to the ground again this time, but Kwan was there, standing there, watching from the background as the others looked at him, looked at Dash, with disdain, disgust, repulsion, a few others remarking with confused and fearful expressions, but no one came.
No one ever did.
"I bet you wanted to be his boyfriend. Is that right? You wanted to kiss and hug him, like the little fag you are, right? My dad says that kids like you touch people, is that true? Like, in a bad way, right? Hey guys!..." Turning around, ignoring the desperate cries of child at his feet, he regarded the crowd, not noticing the attention of the teachers had been turned to them, pointing to Dash that had since curled in on himself, trembling as he sobbed quietly, so quietly that no one seemed to notice...
...or care.
"I bet Michael touches other boys! Don't you, Mikey? That's what you wanted to do to Kwan! Faggot!" And then the others followed.
Chanting, singing, that mantra.
Faggot. Faggot. Faggot. Faggot. Faggot. Faggot. Faggot. Faggot.
He tried his best to cover himself as they yelled, and yelled, and YELLED, but it didn't stop him from becoming as small as he could, a tiny, pale dot in a sea of wrath.
But it was the voice of a young man, their teacher, he thought, but he couldn't hear it well over the sound of their laughter and their crying, but the crowd dispersed, but not before a few kicked more mulch at him, the young man curtly scolding them as they went back to playing, resuming their games as a new game of freeze tag began. As if none of that had just occurred.
Kneeling down beside him, Dash recoiled at the touch of his hand, crying harder as he tried to move him, feeling the man try to peel him from the ground but he didn't budge until about a minute or so of gentle words and a bit of effort, but eventually he was sobbing, sobbing as they pulled him off the playground and into the company of a few other teachers that had called recess to a swift end following his arrival, noticing that his skin, his hair, and clothes had been thoroughly caked in dirt and sweat, but the boy could hear their laughter.
And the name fagot on his tongue, in his mind, echoing like cruel wisps of memory.
The voices would keep that in his thoughts for a while.
It was a short while later, in the bathroom that teacher escorted him to but wouldn't enter in there with him that he looked at himself again.
The redness of his cheeks, his tossed hair, the way his eyes shimmered with tears; he hated it.
Every last bit of his face, his expression...his weakness. So he smiled, a mean, wide grin that seemed to mirror the one that he had seen on Dale's face just a few minutes before. He tried it again, and again, and again.
Over and over as he pulled his hair back from his eyes, glaring when he didn't pull it off just right. When he didn't look like him.
When he didn't feel afraid of himself just as he had felt scared then.
The young teacher, Mr. Wagner, he could remember acutely as he held his hand, guiding him the hallways and taking care to do his best to shield him from the mean looks, the poking tongues, the flaring eyes, until they arrived, and he felt his eyes water again in the isolation of the bathroom as he called out to him, checking on him.
"Hey, you okay in there, buddy? Just let me know when you're done so we can get you to the office, okay?" He had only been nice to him, only ever kind as he tried his best. Dash didn't hate him, despite what he would say next, replacing his tearful expression with a cold smile.
"Yeah, I'll be out when I'm r-ready, old man. Don't fuckin' rush me!" The boy wanted to shrink from the stunned silence that followed, and the strange look that came as he left the bathroom, but he couldn't back down now.
Dale wouldn't.
So neither would he.
He didn't hold his hand as they went to the office, and when Wagner brought it up again, his tone still patient, firm, yes, but patient, he ignored him, minding not a single word he had to say.
"Listen, I know that you're going through a lot right now, but you don't have the right to say things like that, okay? Now, if you want to talk about it-," Reaching to touch his shoulder, the boy smacked it away, but he didn't look at him.
He couldn't stand to do this if he had been.
"Talk about what?! You didn't say anything back then, you ass! You...you asshole!" A few students, stragglers from before and a few others in the fifth grade took notice and came to watch.
'Yeah,' The boy started as he clenched his hands at his sides, turning to face him, but didn't look up, '...I'll give them a show.'.
Wagner, however, was steadily growing redder, but he didn't raise his voice.
Instead, he breathed, breathed until his face returned to its typical color, and he opened up his hazel eyes, gazing at Dash with a hidden resolve as he went to kneel down at him, his face firm...but soft.
Too soft for him to want to yell.
Why couldn't he just get mad at him?
Why did he have to make this harder?!
"I know, and I'm sorry. If I had known what was happening before, then...then I would have come right away. I'm sorry that you had to go through that, but I'm hoping that, when we get in contact with your parents, then we can, you know, work to sort all of this out. What they did and said definitely wasn't okay." Smiling softly, he chanced touching the boy's shoulder, and the boy felt his resolve begin to break away.
Please, stop saying this, he wanted to tell the man, looking around with trembling eyes as the other students began to whisper amongst themselves.
Please, don't do that, he wanted to scream at the other kids, to let him stop, to stop him from doing this.
Really, he just wanted to hug him. He wanted to go back and smile with him, to talk about his favorite picture books and eat candy.
That's what he wanted to do.
But it couldn't be that way.
It just couldn't.
He tried his best to summon that anger, that rage, that rested deep inside of him, recalling the laughing, the shouting...the shame. The shame that made his face brighten to a nearly flourescent pink, flushed and pearly as he jerked away with a violent force, so harsh that he felt his arm hit something, closing his eyes as the world was strangled of its voice, the voices, the voices, biting and singing, biting and dancing, playing merrily between his ears as his eyes slowly fell upon the broken glasses on the ground, ones that had once been upon his teacher's face.
...
...
...
He went home early that day, or at least he was due to.
It was there, sitting in the office as he scowled, or at least tried to, that he saw him again, Kwan, looking at him from across the way, but Dash didn't linger, feeling a soft, odd bitterness that didn't leave even as his parents appeared beside him.
Before he got up, Kwan dropped something, or more like let it go, casting one last glance before retreating, leaving only a ghost of his presence burned where the tiny, dirty slip had fallen, the one from before.
Dash could have leapt from his chair right then and there, but managed to contain himself, bending down just as they had started out of the main doors of his elementary school, thankfully out of sight of his father.
On the way home, he peeked into the little slip of torn notebook paper.
He should have smiled, but he didn't when he read it, balling it up and throwing it out the window.
Kwan had said yes.
...
...
...
- (End of Flashback)-
'You can never do anything right.'
'You need to try harder!'
'Why do you even bother, huh? It's not as if you could really manage to do it, anyway, stupid.'
At his thigh, one of his hands scratched in annoyance on his pants leg.
He could recall that day, and many after it, going home to cultivate that persona, the one that he had made. Something of his own that, after Wagner had stopped being so friendly, something that still made him squirm with dismay to this day, he found it much easier to play the part, the part of "bully", the "mean one"..."the monster". It wasn't hard, he found, if he could tap into it, see, because, he reminded himself with an air of exhaustion, that it was, it is, a mindset. One that he had practiced, worked at, improved at putting on, and after awhile, he felt that it had become him.
Someone to fear.
Someone to respect.
He had since buried away that crying child, replacing with someone big and strong and powerful.
Someone..someone that couldn't be hurt by anything or anyone.
So why had it become so much harder to do?
Why?
WHY?
"For fuck's sake, why can't I do it right?!" In his anger, he hadn't noticed the incoming footsteps from the hallway, two male students entering the bathroom, Dash's head snapping back to look at them, furiously wiping at his face as he'd realized he'd been crying.
'No weakness, you little bitch. Man up.' His own voice reminded him, stilling his hand as he watched them enter.
Surely they heard him, the boy thought frantically as the others entered the bathroom, appearing to have only just taken notice of him as they were speaking amongst themselves. What they were talking about, Dash couldn't say, really, consumed with a singular detail that made his stomach turn in knots, a wave of sickened disgust washing over him at the sight of it.
They were holding hands.
The two froze at the realization that he was there, unlocking their hands and forcing them at their sides as they stood before the towering form of the former, occasionally looking to each other with wide eyes before going to back up, but Dash couldn't help it as words tumbled from his trembling lip.
No. That wasn't what he'd thought it was, was it?
"What the hell was that, huh? Were you guys just holding hands?" Turning away from the mirror, the boy walked toward them, never breaking his sight of them. The two stumbled back a bit further in time with his advances, the shorter of the two, his name unknown, stepped in front of the other, shielding him as he eased toward the door of the bathroom.
"What? No way! We...," Looking back at the taller student, there was single moment of...something between that Dash didn't catch, before the smaller student looked back at him, appearing to have changed his mind as a look of resolve settled in his eyes, exclaiming,
"...no. No, we...we were! We were holding hands." Brow furrowed with newly found courage as he stepped forward instead, setting out to close the distance between them. This time, it was Dash that stepped back, his heart lurching in panic as he watched him do so, not intending to look as scared as he felt when he shook his head at his own stupidity. Did they just...openly admit to that?
What the hell was wrong with them?
For a bit he was taken aback, staring at them incredulously as the air went still.
...
...
...
What was he doing?
He was...he was bigger than them, the boy reminded himself by looking at the small stature of the students before him, each at least a head lower than him in height.
What was he afraid of, right?
It was him that they should be afraid of for...for doing that.
Holding hands like they were a...a couple or something...
Disgusting.
'Just like you.'
'Aren't you the same way?'
'A dirty fag, just like them.'
'No...no, I'm nothing like them. They're the freaks, the-the...fucking gays!' Forcing himself to focus back at them, he tried to ignore the sudden flash of his father and mother's faces when he thought about it, turning his distaste on himself as he blinked it away.
"Oh, so what? You guys a couple or somethin'? Is that what you're gettin' at?" Dash walked forward until he stood flush over the two of them, looking down at the two with an expression so twisted in anger and repulsion that he'd momentarily forgotten himself. Neither of them answered but stood their ground, the taller student having an easier time looking into Dash's eyes, unwavering despite the jittering fear that rattled him, at least, as far as he could tell. Something in him swelled at the sight of it, that passive anger and disgust sat nestled along with something else, something...warmer and sticky that made that all-too-familiar grin twist along his face.
Amusement.
When they didn't answer, he stepped closer, noting their individual shifts in character as the two clasped hands again.
Disgust grew, and it showed in every turn of his lip into a grimace.
"Never took you for a faggot, Perce. I mean, like, you? You of all people, a queer? Somethin' wrong with ya or...?," Dash's mind couldn't fathom it, them doing that, just like him.
He definitely didn't like that sort of thing, remarking to himself that he had slept with plenty of women and girls to beat any interest in anything like that out of him, and his father had, too.
He had fucked plenty, some younger, some older.
So that meant he wasn't gay.
He wasn't a faggot, a queer, like them.
They should be ashamed, the fucking weirdos, the boy turned to thinking, his expression wrenched with even more disgust than he thought he could manage at the sight of them, pressing closer together, as if using their collective size to shield the other.
"What do you care? Why can't you guys just leave us alone; we're not hurting anyone, so why d-don't you mind your business?!" The two looked just about ready to leave the bathroom when Dash leaned over, using his large palm to hold the door closed, his grimace deepening into a frown.
Who did they think they were, talking to him like that, looking at him like that...
Like he was doing something...bad...
'But...', The boy started, feeling his desire to carry this on dwindle, considering their expressions, the way they backed away from him into the corner bordering the door.
',...aren't I? They...they haven't really done...anything...have they?' Thinking back, they had been laughing.
Happy.
Like he had been before, if just for a moment with Mr. Wagner.
That is, before he stepped in, ruining it. Were they really hurting him?
Honestly, were they?
Part of him wanted to back away, pretend it had never happened at all. Go back to the mirror and just...reset, and he would have, maybe...if he didn't feel it, still.
That disgust...that anger.
Something that resonated deeply, too deeply, with something personal within himself to let it go.
No, he couldn't let this go. Amusement had long since run down in him, leaving just self-loathing as something compelled him to continue, an emotion he couldn't name as it grew larger and larger in his chest.
It didn't matter that they'd been happy, laughing and simply loving the feeling of being with each other.
They were still wrong.
What they were, what they are, is wrong.
Disgusting.
Nasty.
And that bothered him, and maybe, just maybe, he needed someone to unleash that on, to make them feel that disgust, that anger, that rage...and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And he would expose them to everyone.
To make them see just how wrong they were.
"Of course you fuckin' queers wouldn't know any better! How could you when you guys are probably fuckin' each other in the ass, aren't ya?" A cruel grin, a snide remark as he looked the two of them up and down, but his words really only seemed to annoy them, mostly, with them watched him warily.
He had to dig deeper.
Deeper until he felt satisfied.
"So, Perce, which are you?" Leaning back on the wall, his hand still pressed upon the door, he waited, eying them carefully. The taller teen scoffed, inquiring what he'd meant, just as Dash had hoped he'd would have, and he clicked his tongue as he prepared to speak again.
And that he did, listening as foul words fell from his mouth.
"You're the bottom, aren't you? The bitch beneath, right? You like it? You like being fucked?" He had to dig, dig, dig; dig until they relented.
A crooked grin on his face felt...odd.
Wrong.
But he couldn't stop here...not yet.
Why would he?
"What the fuck is your problem, man?! Can't you, like, let up or somethin'?!" It was the moments following the smaller student shoving Dash that he recalled just much his body hurt. The blistering glare burned holes in him as he removed his hand from the door, pressing them, instead, to his chest where the impressions of the other's had been, that same, dull ache, matching those from this morning. Sucking in a breath, his mind flickered with agitation at the motion, but more pressing was the rush of distilled fear that made his bones weak as he braced himself for more, for...worse.
But it never came.
Instead, he'd just barely caught their forms dashing from the bathroom as Percy, shooting him a steely look beneath his auburn locks as they vanished from sight, still holding hands.
Part of him was compelled to run after them, to retaliate with equal, and maybe even excessive force, but he didn't.
He didn't know why, and he didn't care to think about it.
He didn't care at all.
Nope, not him.
Trekking back over to the mirror, he looked at himself again.
His makeup was smeared again.
