Becoming What You Hate [Fifi]

[Misato Hazukashi]

Moe was still technically off school.

Except now, joining his humiliation and disgust was self-loathing. He hadn't even spoken to Vincent about what happened, he was that angry with himself. He'd spent the last three nights not sleeping, and even then he'd pretty much put himself into a vegetative state of eating, then sitting around staring into nothing. He'd only said he'd done something horrible, that he could never forgive himself for.

So, when he'd come in to pick up a few more pieces of homework and some books, he'd resolved to go and talk to someone about it before he jumped off a cliff or something. He'd wandered aimlessly, hugging the books to his chest before reaching Fifi's dormitory. The fact he was near the dorms made him feel sick. Last time he'd been here he'd been this horrible person. Disgusting evil scummy person. He already felt like he was about to cry, but he didn't.

Knocking on Fifi's bedroom door, he waited outside. Moe sort of hoped she'd yell at him. He deserved it. But he couldn't wipe his eyes or he'd remove some of the concealer hiding the bags that had formed from lack of sleep.

"Fifi." He whispered, voice breaking. "It... it's Moe."

[Fifi Hart]

Fifi was freaking out.

First Zac had come to her looking about as ragged as a two-bit bubonic whore in Vegas, apparently the result of two fights. One a more vicious beating than the other. Frankly she wasn’t as concerned with the fact that Zac had been beat up (she’d warned him!) as she was with who the culprit was.

She hadn’t seen Moe in weeks. He wouldn’t answer his phone. Vincent didn’t know what was going on (no surprise), and then this? Moe was treading a thin line, and Fifi was about to be sick with worry.

Then came the knock at her door. She leapt upon it when she heard the crackling voice on the other side, throwing the door open and seizing her friend in her willowy arms, crushing him to her in a hug. “Fuck! Moe! I was so worried.” She whispered, dragging him into her room and kicking the door shut.

“Where have you been? Are you alright?” Fifi held Moe at arm’s length and looked him over, paling considerably. “You look like shit.” She whispered off hand. “I heard what happened to Zac.”

[Misato Hazukashi]

Moe wasn't even sure if his best friend would even open the door. He wouldn't be shocked if she ignored him. He was practically ignoring himself. He'd only made the effort because Fifi wouldn't want to see him in a hoodie dress with no makeup on.

"Don't be worried." Moe said softly, resting his cheek on Fifi's shoulder and squeezing her lightly. He was about to say he was fine, but anyone who knew him could see he wasn't. The teen usually made so much more of an effort in his outfits, and today he just looked... well... plain.

"I've been at home with Vin." He said quietly, setting his books down on the floor and flopping down on Fifi's bed, eyes staring down at the floor. "I feel worse than I look." He laughed weakly, offering a tiny shrug and picking at his skirt. "I think if I don't talk to someone I'm going to burst." He added, finally looking up into his friend's face, eyes welling up.

"I totally made things worse. I ... I lost it and I didn't want to lose it and it hurt because it was just proof that I'm some sort of disgusting violent bitch." It all poured out of him at once. "I'm no better than him or Mia. Using my status to throw weight around and..." He paused, mostly because his throat was getting tight.

"If me from half a year ago saw me right now, he'd hate me. I hate me." There was another silence. "... I'm thinking of transferring."

[Fifi Hart]

“Don’t be worried my ass.” Fifi grunted, crossing her arms over her chest, shaking her head at her friend. “You can’t pull that bull on me, Moe. I know you.” Fifi sat on the bed near Moe’s knees, rubbing her hand across his back.

“Talk away, hun. You know I’m here for you.” Fifi couldn’t decide what was worse; seeing Moe looking so haggard, or seeing him so…lackluster. It was unnerving, like everything had been suddenly vacuumed out of him.

Fifi listened silently, her hand pausing in it’s idle massage when he heard the story from Moe’s point of view. Hearing Moe talk down on himself made Fifi flinch. “Don’t talk about yourself that way, it’s not going to help.” She said quietly, obviously made uncomfortable hearing that.

Her stomach churned, as she remembered something her therapist had asked her early on in her time in juvie. What would you think of Fifi one year for now? Moe was using the same logic, but it was all wrong. All wrong. In a panicky tone, Fifi flopped down next to her friend. “Moe No!” She gasped. “You can’t just run away from everything. That’ll only make it worse! You have to work through it.”

She reached out and squeezed Moe’s hand. “And you don’t have to do it alone…but you have to confront it.” Fifi took a deep breath. “And I don’t mean by beating the shit out of it.” She let his hand go and propped herself up a bit. “I mean…you were mad. And there’s nothing you can do to change what you did.” Man, this was starting to become awfully introspective. Fifi felt a little uncomfortable. “I know how you feel.” She managed, which was probably simultaneously the smartest and dumbest thing to say.

[Misato Hazukashi]

To have someone comfort him and listen, who wasn't Vincent (his idea of fixing things was to punch things) was somewhat of a relief to Moe. He let the soothing nature of the backrub relax him before he managed to speak again, eyes wet with tears.

"The images were embarrassing, yes." He said quietly, scratching his arm. "I'm not... well endowed." His cheeks burnt up. "At all. And I know I dress like a girl but... I still have a little masculinity." He offered a small shy smile. "But it wasn't them that made me run out and be so mad in the first place." He let out a soft sigh, then shifted so he could rest his cheek against his friend's shoulder.

"It was that Zac was my friend, and he just let it happen. He didn't come after me. He's not sorry and he never will be." Moe breathed, sniffling a little bit. "I hoped that if he saw me he'd say sorry, but he just told me I was collateral damage." Pushing his palms to his eyes, he frowned at the mascara on the skin. "But then I just turned into him. Someone worse, if anything."

Another deep breath, and he glanced up at Fifi, before tangling his fingers with hers. "I hate that I became someone I'd look down on. I've had so much crap happen recently, but it's not an excuse to do that to Zac." He quickly sweeped his thumb under his eye to tidy up the makeup run, blinking his eyes. "It's so melodramatic, but I feel like some part of me died when I did that."

He took a big deep breath before he said what he did next. Mostly because the words were so bitter, and because every time he'd thought them in his head he'd practically howled them. "I don't believe there can be a good in people any more. Because the bad always wins, and it never learns from it's mistakes. It's just a constant replacement and eventually the good dies. It happens all the time on the news. Terrorists fight and the good guys come and kill them, but they get killed right back. And when all the terrorists are gone, another group come along and replace them." His face looked grim, bitter, if anything.

"In the end there's no point in believing in good because it's what gets you hurt."

[Fifi Hart]

Fifi quirked her eyebrow. Really she’d figure Moe was the last person to worry about that, but everyone had their quirks she supposed. “You’ve apparently got enough on you to keep Vincent around.” She pointed out lewdly. They were talking about everything else…why not Moe’s penis? Whatever attempts to lighten the mood failed and Fifi hugged Moe close to her when he laid his head on her shoulder.

Reaching over and snatching up a box of tissues, Fifi plunked them down between herself and the other teen on the bed. Drawing one out of the box, she dabbed at Moe’s face, careful not to smudge the bit of makeup he was wearing. “I hate to say it, but karma is going to deal Zac a huge kick in the dick one day.” Fifi sighed heavily. “He needs it.” The best Fifi could hope for, though she’d never admit it, was that someone upstairs would send Zac a guiding light and not a punishing fire.

Deep down in there somewhere, Fifi knew he wasn’t that much of an ass.

It was impossible, now, to keep from crying. The Moe that was sitting here, talking to her…it wasn’t her Moe. Her best friend, a constant light, was somewhere else. Lost in there under the tears. Her best friend would never cease to see the good in people. Fifi squeezed his hand tightly, her face cracking as she broke down.

The kind of people, the kind of things Moe was talking about: They were her. They were M.S.A.D. They were Levi.

“Moe, you’ve got to believe me when I tell you this.” She said shakily, her voice hoarse in the tears. “The bad does learn from its mistakes, it does. Not all of it but---but…” She clung to him desperately, fingers digging into his arm. “I did.”

She looked down to her desk, her processing papers stuffed away again. “I already told Zac this---I was hoping it would get him to realize what he was doing---“ She murmured, her lips trembling with effort. “Moe, the rumors are true. About me.” Fifi explained, looking up into her friends red-rimmed eyes. “I went to juvie. That’s why I was gone.”

Fifi released Moe and knotted her hands in her lap. “What people don’t know is that…I would have had a lot worse if I---“ She choked, looking up to the ceiling and pushing the tears off her cheeks. “If I hadn’t ratted out my---my parents. And myself. An—and our involvement with. With She looked back to Moe and steeled herself for the words that were about to come out of her mouth.

“With the t-terrorist group responsible for blinding Mister Tonaya. And attacking Mister Campbell and his husband.” Fifi hung her head in her hands. “Meta Supremacy and Domination. That was the name.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

“But Moe I…When I came back—Christ.” Fifi was shaking now, her shoulders wilted. “Moe, I promised myself I’d learn from my mistakes. That I’d learn to prove that people who get…caught up in the wrong things---that they can change.”

She paused, looking hopelessly to her friend. “I can change. And so can Zac. And so can others. Not everyone…Not everything. But things get better.”

[Misato Hazukashi]

Moe hiccuped a little with a tiny giggle when his best friend said he had something Vin liked. "Mn." He mumbled, pawing at his eyes and taking a deep breath. "Vin's not exactly picky." He added with a wet grin. "He'd have sex with anything if it lay still and had genitals." Which was very true, since his boyfriend's reputation ran before him in leaps and bounds. "All the same, tiny dick jokes kind of suck." He grumbled, glad he hadn't been around to hear any of them - that'd be just about the straw that broke the camel's back, as it were.

He nuzzled into Fifi's touch like an injured kitten, happy she was being so gentle with him even after all he'd done. He felt like a monster, and not the good kind from happier days, when Zac had taken care of him and called him his "Moenster." No. This was just a horrible crawling feeling that gnawed at his senses and made him feel changed. Changed in a bad way. "I doubt it." He said morosely, picking at his nails and sighing as a few chips of forgotten nail polish flaked off into his lap. "Zachary... is immune to mistakes because he has the money and power to ignore them." The pixie explained, lips pulled into a grimace. "But ... I get that now. Some people just never get their comeuppance."

When Fifi started crying, Moe began to sob harder, deeply hurt seeing his best friend crumble at his admission. "Please don't cry, Fifi." He begged, mopping at her face with another tissue, before burrowing up against her frame. "I just... I needed to realise this is all." He added hurriedly, through dry sobbing, nose going pink. "It's time I ... grew up and saw the world for how it really is. Lose the ... flower tinted glasses?" He'd not really mastered that phrase. It didn't make sense.

But then she began to speak and he listened tentatively, desperate to prove he was still a good person. "Fifi..." The tiny brunette breathed, snapping his head to look at her with his lips parted. He had heard the rumours. He'd simply snarled and told people that even if it was true, judging people on the past was never a good thing. Everyone had second chances in life, if they learnt from their mistakes. "I... I understand." He said quietly, gripping her hand tightly in his. "You're a good person." He added, nodding firmly. He wouldn't believe that the Fifi of the past was the same girl who was sitting here. Just like he wouldn't believe he could turn back time and be as... as naive as he was back then.

"The people hurt... other people?" He asked nervously, suddenly feeling afraid. That there was a group of people who would attack metas for differing ideals scared him, and he hugged his tiny arms around himself, looking down at the floor. "The difference..." Moe began, taking a deep breath. "Between you and Zac, is you had to learn. You had the time to take in what it was you had done, and realise it was wrong." He touched Fifi's cheek. "Zac doesn't want to learn. He wont learn and that's why I was so angry." His fist clenched, then released.

His eyes went large, and he managed a tiny smile up at the girl next to him. "I believe you've changed. I wont ever, ever let anything try and change you back." His voice was determined. "But Zac's changed the other way. He was on the verge of being a jerk, then he decided he might as well play the villain." He swallowed, then rested his small cheek on the crook of Fifi's neck. "You're like a butterfly." He mused quietly. "On the inside. You started off as an ugly caterpillar, then you cocooned yourself away from the world. It took a little time, but then you bloomed into a butterfly. A good person with a good heart." He tensed his jaw then, and silently wiped a tear from his cheek.

"I've changed too." Misato finally said, sitting up and staring at the wall. "I wont ever make the mistake of blind-siding the bad in the world ever again." He closed his eyes. "世界は蝶でいっぱいだった. 今、それは腐敗でいっぱいの庭である." He concluded, not wanting to upset Fifi more.

*The world was full of butterflies. Now it is a garden full of rot.

[Fifi Hart]

Fifi nodded her head slowly. “Yeah you’re probably right…if you strike the part about it needing to actually have gentials.” She was pretty sure Vincent would fuck any hole that held still long enough. Yeah, he was that guy. Fifi pulled an awkward face and squinted. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right though.” Then again, she’d never been the brunt of a tiny dick joke.

Fifi shook her head fervently. “That’s not true.” She whispered. Everyone got what they deserved eventually. Everyone. Some took longer than others, but everyone got it. Through her crying , her shoulders shook with laughter. Flower tinted? “R-rose tinted!” She corrected in her hysterics.

The tears had run mostly dry, their remnants still leaking out of her eyes and down her cheeks as Fifi steeled herself for Moe’s reaction to her confession. Staring hollowly at the floor, Fifi nodded slowly. “Yeah. They did. I didn’t know everything, it wasn’t my job. But they hurt people.” She closed her eyes and nuzzled Moe’s hair when he leaned his head on her shoulder. “Thanks Moe.” She whispered.

Leaning back, Fifi held her friend at arm’s length. She could tell that what she’d said had had some effect, just not maybe what she’d been hoping for. Fifi could only hope that soon Moe would see that it wasn’t worth being jaded. Really, it wasn’t. “Just promise me that you want close yourself off to let happy things happen?” Fifi asked tiredly.

[Misato Hazukashi]

Moe giggled a little at Fifi's accurate summary of Vincent's sexual habits. He wasn't even sure what sort of things he'd gotten into before they'd got together. "Hopefully he'll just want me now." He said with a little smile, pushing at his face to stop it from feeling so tight, so sore.

"I knew it didn't sound right!" Moe blushed a little, shaking his head. "It's such an odd phrase, I don't think we have an equivalent in Japan." He offered a little shrug, then curled his fingers around the tissue in his palms. He didn't want Fifi to cry, so for her to laugh, even if it was at him, was a small relief.

"I wont let you think I don't trust you. Everyone makes mistakes and takes a wrong turn." He said softly, holding onto Fifi's hand and tangling his fingers with hers. "It takes even more courage to realise you did turn wrong and try to make it right." He looked up at Fifi, then gently pressed his little fingers into the corners of his friend's mouth to try and tempt a smile. He moved up onto his knees and kissed the girl's forehead, before cuddling her tight. She had given him the chance to talk, and that was so important.

When she pulled him back, Moe blinked and tried to make sure he didn't look so mournful. "I'll try." He said honestly, taking a quick sniff and offering a forced smile. "It's okay for me to never trust Zachary again, isn't it?" He added hesitantly, knowing that relationship was fractured beyond repair. Still, he had Fifi, and Ann, and Dani. He just needed to convince himself he didn't need to be friends with everyone.

[Fifi Hart]

Under Moe’s kisses, Fifi couldn’t do anything but smile weakly. This whole thing had been meant to be about Moe, and she’d gone and flipped it around to be about herself. She hadn’t meant to, and frankly she felt a lot better, but she really hoped that Moe had felt the same catharsis. “I’m trying, that’s for sure.” Sighing, Fifi wilted slightly.

“It’s okay not to trust him again…and it’s okay to be mad at him.” Fifi agreed, shrugging. “There are always people that you won’t like, or that won’t like you…they’re not worth your time.” She scratched the back of her head. “We just have to focus on the good parts we’ve got left.”

[OoC: Aughgod. So tiny. T-T I AM SO SORRY.]