Chapter 20 - To Fix Something Broken
October, 1984
"You're being sloppy. Fix it," Dinand says, lowering the boxing paddles that Sephiroth has been focusing on.
Sephiroth blinks and steps back, trying to catch his breath. His fingers are sweaty in the gloves and edges of his vision are fuzzy with exertion. It's only been a few months of training but he can't help his frustration. Mistakes after mistakes come out of him. He's better than this. Dinand's brown eyes see all of it. The trainer is a live wire, every soft place on him seared away with fighting.
Sephiroth blinks away the sweat on his forehead and tries to concentrate. His throat tightens as he checks the wall of mirrors in the training room looking at his posture. A skinny kid looks back at him. He used to see himself. Now things are different. Now he only sees everything that is wrong with him. It sticks out blatant and obvious.
Before school started, he didn't think about his hair. Now, a couple months in, he feels different. Nobody in R&D said anything about the way he looks. Now he can't see anything else. His hair is alien in the fluorescent lights. It's pale and yellow. The constant teases turn hard and sharp in on himself. Why does he have to be different? Can't he rebuild himself quietly? Why can't he understand this unknown subtext that the kids speak in?
"I didn't say admire yourself in the mirror." Dinand taps his leg. "Feet apart, weight forward. Head out of the clouds. Come on now."
Right. He shifts himself and tenses the muscles in his back. Back straight, chin down, hands forward. He takes a breath. The paddles come up. He drums out the combination that they are working on. His boxing gloves brush against the red center of the cushion.
He's a freak. That comment is tattooed on his back now. Look at him.
Mariella told him that he doesn't have to be friendly but to try his best. None of his efforts to talk get out of his mouth. They clam up in his throat, locked behind hesitation. Then they look away and laugh at him. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to be around people his own age.
It's fine, he tells himself over and over, he doesn't need friends here. High school is one more step on his way to being a SOLDIER. Mariella has said that the program is the next logical step for him. High school is to help his mind for his future training. That's also the reason that Dinand has come into his life.
The first thing that his new trainer told him when they met was that "weakness doesn't belong here. Leave that at the door. I am here to make you a SOLDIER and that's my only job."
His trainer's face is always sour but it goes stormy now. Sephiroth runs the combination again but as he throws the cross, Dinand steps back. Sephiroth's hand moves automatically, pulling the rest of him along. He stumbles forward. The paddle pushes against his shoulder. Sephiroth twists, tries to correct but hits the mat instead. The plastic tastes terrible and sticks to his skin.
Dinand squats down next to him. "It's been weeks of silent excuses. Get up and focus. Enough. We've got enough work to do."
Look how he stands there. Who stands that straight?
Sephiroth stays on the mat. He's not good enough for anybody. It's been three months of unrelenting adjustment. Everyone has been trying to crush the emptiness in the back of his mind. Everyone has tried to be "helpful". Even his teacher gives him extensions without him asking. It hurts. His forehead presses against the ground. Every breath burns in him.
"Get up," Dinand says. A hand hovers near the side of his face, waiting.
He presses his head further against the mat. The thoughts don't drive back. A few weeks ago, he picked a different table in the lunchroom to sit at. The students there are always smiling and he hoped to look someone in the eyes. One girl looked up at him as he got close. He couldn't tell if her smile was genuine. Was it more pity? He turned and went to his spot away from everyone. Someone had thrown fries at his head. The teachers don't seem to notice anything.
A finger pokes his back. "That was an order. Get up."
He doesn't talk either. Only answers the teacher's questions. Is he part mute or something?
He can't. He's so tired. Every day he gets up and goes to school and sees all of them. He walks back and comes to this. Dinand enters his life Monday through Saturday, 7 p.m. to whenever he feels like letting him go. Sephiroth struggles afterward to get his homework done. The work itself isn't hard but his mind fogs late at night, stuck in a dark place with little clarity.
When he walks around, he looks at everyone. He expects every stranger to recognize him, to tell him about his life before or, worse, to be a Wutai spy. The fear of being kidnapped again is so familiar to him that he cannot recognize his life without it. The only place that he doesn't feel that anxiety is at HQ. If he remembered his life before, he wouldn't have to deal with all this. He would know why they did this to him.
He would remember their faces.
The ones that ruined everything.
"And they decided to assign me a child." A sigh rattles next to him. "I said, get up."
A hand grasps his wet shirt. It pulls hard. Sephiroth is knocked out of his thoughts. He scrambles to push himself up. The shirt collar pulls on him anyways. Dinand has height on him and the muscle strength to lift him to his toes. Sephiroth pulls back, struggling to stand.
"What's a matter? Are you angry? Sad?" A tense annoyance undertone is in his voice. Dinand doesn't want a true answer.
"No," Sephiroth lies and looks away. He stares at the seam in the mirror, ignoring the rest of the surface.
The snort sprays against his cheek. Sephiroth gut drops. It would have been best to say nothing. He shouldn't push back at all. Dinand doesn't believe him. His trainer steps back and spins the paddle in his hand and eyes him. Sephiroth waits. He won't instigate it. Instead he forces air into his lungs, trying to cool the burn in his eyes and face.
"Hit it." The paddle comes up.
Sephiroth slides into his stance and punches it carefully. It connects without a sound.
"Hit it like you mean it."
He throws the punch again. It's the same. The foam doesn't move with the impact.
"Hit it like it is the bullies at school," He says matter-of-factly. Coldness dumps down Sephiroth's back. He knows. He knows that people his age are after him at school and that he can do nothing about it. The embarrassment flashes into anger.
Sephiroth knows his face contorts as he hits the paddle. The glove smacks against the foam. It's a hard enough hit that Dinand takes a step back.
Oh. This is good. Sephiroth stutters on a breath. Something releases a spark of relief in the tension in his body. Something stirs in the back of his mind. It's different, almost alien to him. All those feelings drain. They aren't hurting inside him. They are transported out and into the foam of the paddle.
"Again. Jab. Go." Dinand says without any change.
Light on his feet, Sephiroth raises his gloves, bobs and slams the target. His fingers connect through to the solid surface before it gives way. Another heavy smack echoes off the walls. Dinand slides back another foot. He actually shakes out his hand before raising the paddle back up.
Again, he feels better. It's a relief. The faces in his mind, the way that they make him feel, it is dissipating. The claws retract from his anxiety.
"Jab."
Sephiroth attacks. Heaviness slides off his shoulders. He makes an impact in his world. Dinand's body has to move to take the hit because of him. Something happens because he wants it to. Sephiroth's stomach goes solid. He wants those awful faces to mean nothing to him. He keeps going. He wants to punish the target put in front of him and to fix everything wrong with him.
"Again."
When Sephiroth remembers this later, he sees the smile on Dinand's face.
In the moment, he's gone in the fury. He bounces back and then engages all his weight into the punch.
His arm extends fully before he sees what has happened in front of him. There is no target. The paddle is two feet to the side as Dinand waves it away. His hand yanks him forward. The skin prickles under his shirt as if it knows what is going to happen to him before he does. Sephiroth's exposed side thumps as the trainer topples him over with a push. The side of his right ankle rolls. There is no helping it. He sprawls out on the ground again.
Dinand looks down at him with annoyance.
"And there is your problem. You are four miles in your own head. Get out of it." He blinks and tosses the paddles aside. "Don't bother with tomorrow's training. See you Monday when you've straightened yourself out."
Sephiroth groans into the mat after the door closes.
At this rate, he'll never be a SOLDIER.
We get a new character. Oh boy. Dinand is a fun one. While the plot is going to move forward, we are laying off the accelerator for the second or two. We've got a lot to process. Enjoy.
Thank you for reading as always. -Quin