donaldmlogan-blog

[thal-ent]

The annoyance

(Kate is @yanasae 's character, a lot more from others are mentionned cw for unknowingly misgenring someone, internalized transphobia, unsafe binding mentionned for like a line, and because I can't stop myself there's background Basgil lol)

It's 2022, and the start of the year was comparable to hell on earth.

Virgil, quite honestly, didn't understand a thing about what happened. The people around him speak a language he doesn't understand, and even the... Help of a man who somehow spoke romanian didn't do much. He's been assigned classes to learn english and japanese, to be able to communicate with others in the school. Some speak romanian like him, but he doesn't approach them. He shouldnt even be here, hundred of thousands of kilometers away from his village, but the letters were very clear about the fact he didn't have a choice.

He tries to remember the faces of the people he'll have to share a year with. The small, angry boy with pinkish hair. The tall... Girl ? With a bag on her head. The guy that tries to avoid attention who he shares his room with. The girl with a fake leg and a cane, like the old hunters from his village, who tried to talk to him before leaving when he didn't respond. The boy with white hair who looks even more lost than Virgil. The girl all in pink that he already can't stand when she talks. Another boy with white hair, one he almost didn't notice until he saw how nobody could touch that boy. The chaotic brown haired girl that kept yelling and had to be stopped by a big guy with blonde hair, both covered in scars.

He didn't remember any of their names. Names weren't exactly his thing. Neither was learning theory, but he knew Marius would want to know, so he sits through words he barely recognize and a translator at the ready. He's not the only one who gets one, the girl with the bag and another with blonde and pink hair get ones as well.

There's also the weather. He refuses to take off the vest of the uniform they make them wear. He considers himself lucky to get pants, and not a skirt that would have been humiliating, but they dont do a lot to hide his silhouette. His coat is hung in the closet they gave them, but he's not allowed to wear it as long as it's still warm. But that's the problem, it's too warm. For the first time in his life, Virgil misses the fresh air of his village, the cold that lingers well into the spring. Here he only has the rain to help, always gone too fast.

He does wear something less covering sometimes. They let the students like him use the sports' equipment, the man with glasses and one blue eye who spoke romanian said but didn't elaborate on. There's always people here, and they stopped trying to talk to him after he stopped paying attention to them. Well, that's not true. He did speak with one of them, a very tall girl without hair. He didn't catch her name, but she pointed the cross on his chest and showed her own. They shared a few words in latin, despite her weird dialect. She didn't talk a lot, and went back to a weird girl with curly brown hair after, but Virgil liked that girl.

But he didn't have time to waste on that. The training was nice, when less people were here and he felt like he could drop the bandages on his chest. He hated their surprised gaze, but ultimately his fell on someone else. He was still a hunter, the "Ultimate vampire hunter" if you believed what that letter said. And he started to suspect a vampire was in the school, hidden in plain sight. A red head, green eyes constantly hidden by glasses. Virgil doesn't know his name, only that he's apparently from the year before him. He's tall, skinny and almost... Pathetic. But something is weird with this boy.

He's been following him, when the annoyance first made herself known.

She was a girl from his class, one of the shorter names. She has ginger and pink hair, but not a pink like the one of the girl with the tablet. A flashier one, and longer hair tied in a way Virgil knows is to avoid it being caught while moving. She's way shorter than him, tries to not look like the kid she obviously is.

She starts speaking, but he doesn't understand. He thinks he recognizes a word or two, but when he tries to walk past her and follow his prey, she puts herself on his path, stopping him. He tries to go to her other side, but she follows, making him loose the boy he was looking at. She pulls out her phone and types on it before showing the screen to him.

"Fight me" is written in romanian, next to what he guesses is probably french or english. He only looks more confused, so she types again. "I want to fight you, I want to know what a "vampire hunter" fights like"

He groans, really not wanting to. She's barely 16, obviously just trying to get a rise out of him. But what does he has to loose ? His prey is far by now, and he knows the look of someone who refuses "no" as an awnser, he was one like her once.

So he follows her, gets the sword she gives him. It's lighter than he's used to, less deadly as well, but he guess that's the point. They're not here to kill each other, they're here to spar. But he was told to always give his all, even against the kids that barely started training. Her stance is firm, she knows what she's doing.

They trade large swipes for a moment, test the waters. He's not used to the weapon, and knows he's less agile than he would, feels the bandages on his chest limit his hair intake. But it's all details, when she looks at him with the determination of someone who has a thing to prouve. She's weird.

It doesn't take very long until he's able to push her and puts his sword on her throat, pinning her hands under his knees. She grimaces, but lets her head fall to the ground with a thud. He goes back up, keeps his eye on her. The crowd that formed around them starts to clap, as if given a good spectacle. She gets back up and goes to her phone, showing it in his face once again.

"why did I loose ?" He makes a face, one he knows she can't read. So she puts the phone in his hand, and he starts to write slowly.

"you dont try to kill." And she doesn't respond, which Virgil takes as a promise to let him get away.

He hopes she wont bother him again.

**

Of course she kept bothering him.

One loss wasn't enough for Kate, no. She kept pestering Virgil, calling his name and yelling for his attention, even when he was trying to be calm.

It's 2023 now, a full year passed and he's still in this school. He speaks relatively good english now, so they left the phone on the side. Hers is miles better than his, but she corrects his mistakes when they happen, free of jugement. He started to get closer to some people in his class, his dormmate and Mika, notably. He also stopped treating the boy from the year before him like a prey. Turns out, Bastien is way nicer when you speak to him.

Kate tho ? She's unsufferable in a very weird way. She gave him a gift for his birthday, and he still doesn't know how she learned the date it was on. But now, he traded bandages for a binder, and his ribs feel better than they had in years. They still spared a lot, Kate an eternal looser.

She's weird, he thinks. She looks dejected everytime, but keeps coming back for more, especially when he's with someone. She doesn't ask for tips, learns on her own and sees how he steadies himself, how he holds his weapon. She just doesn't get she doesn't have to only use that, for fighting.

She's a self imposed loner, and he can respect that. So he never mentions how she always come find him when they're eating. Once she asked how he got his scars on his eye, and was genuinely surprised when he told her vampires are indeed real, and that he killed more of them than he knew actual humans.

He's surprised when Emerens doesn't joke about him liking Kate or the opposite, but he appreciate it, his relationship to the girl everything but romantic. Instead, the man whines about his own partners while teaching Virgil english when Mika isn't available, and Virgil shuts his mouth by teaching him latin.

He started running with the tall girl who spoke latin, Tomyris. She's nice, they understand each other despite their diverging faiths. He often ends up holding their running partner Subaru on his back for the latter parts of the way, and they always talk. It's nice.

He misses Marius and his parents, but he finds himself not missing his village as much.

**

It's 2024, and he knows that if she could, Kate would have pushed him into one of the hall's walls by now.

They're friends now, he thinks. She's still annoying in her own way, learned to bite her way through their fights, and that's how they ended up here. Her eyes are full of something akin to fury, making their gray look black. He knows why she's angry, she's the second person to notice it, in Hope's Peak. Or at least to mention it to him. He doesn't wear the jacket anymore, but still wears the long sleeved shirt of the uniform, white on white.

She tried to bite his arm but only found solid, cold silicone instead of the meat of flesh and blood.

"What the fuck happened."

"I'm a hunter, Kate, it comes with risks." he said the same to Bastien, to his shocked horror. He told him it was a necessary sacrifice and he'll say the same to Kate.

"You lost your fucking arm ! That's not a fucking "risk" !" he knows she wants to say other swears than "fucking", but she speaks in english out of respect for him and her vocabulary is limited in that language.

"But i'm alive, so it was a good one."

She looks at him with wild eyes, and he doesn't know if she's about to punch his face or headbutt it. He braces himself for it anyway, but she just lets go of his shirt.

"That better be the last of your "sacrifices". That's..." her voice trembles, and he puts his flesh hand on her head, pats it in a weird show of affection they never shared.

"I'll try." he said the same to Marius, when he woke up. She's not his brother, nor his sister, but he doesn't like seeing her annoyed by something that is not a petty lost game.