“STOP THAT!” I snapped.

Amanda jumped and spun around to face me. I quickly moved and pulled my backpack away from her. The flush of heat to my heat died down as quickly as it came, leaving me standing there awkwardly.

“Sorry, just- don’t look through my stuff, please.” I added, less harshly this time, and handed her my pack again.

“Um, yeah. Sure.” She rubbed the back of her neck, laughing strangely as she put it back on her shoulders.

I nodded and handed it back to her before continuing walking, her following behind shortly after, and my mind drifted off again as I relaxed. Honestly, that was really careless of me. To not get seperated be a random “trip” through reality, as she had from her own team, we had tied straps to each others’ backpacks, which we also kept on our persons all the time, even tying them to us in our sleep. Maybe to avoid this incident happening again, we should tie rope to eachother’s waists instead.

“—incent?”

“Hm? What was that?” Ah, she’d been talking.

“I asked, if it isn’t sensitive, could you tell me why you don’t want me to look through your bag?” Her voice was small, and if I had to guess- pensive? It didn’t suit her.

I shrugged. “I just don’t want you to. Not much to it.”

She had a strange expression on her face, but it passed quickly.

“Hehe, well don’t worry, I’ll let you keep your porn mags. I was just wondering if you had nail clippers in there. Yours are pretty long and mine aren’t much better.” She pointed out.

“I don’t have clippers, and I most certainly don’t have porn magazines.” I stated dryly.

She smirked. “Uh-huh. Whatever you say~”

I rolled my eyes. Even if this place did create porn mags, they probably would have looked too uncanny to use. As for the clippers, I’d had a bag of nail files before I ended up in that corridor again, but now the only way I could get by was by trying to rub them against wood, and I wasn’t very good at it. Amanda had taken to biting hers, but I didn’t know, either from nerves or practicality, and while I didn’t want to do it myself, it was certainly more efficient. There were a lot of items we lacked, clean clothes being one of them. The both of us were seriously considering taking a knife to the bedsheets and we were already using the cleaner corpses’ clothes when we found them.

“You know, while we don’t have clippers, I could probably use my multi-tool knife to cut your hair. Even if you don’t want it short, your dead ends could use a serious trim.”

I frowned, “Dead whats?”

Amanda just stared at me with horror, like I’d committed some horrible sin. “Yeah, no, we are chopping that off.”

And so at the very next bedroom we found, I was sat in a chair and told to hold very still lest she cut my neck. I tried to ignore how the hair danced against my neck, but at least it was more comfortable than a random barber trying to make conversation since Amanda had given me blanket permission long ago to just vaguely listen to her word vomit until she specifically called me. So I just told her to keep it long and zoned out.

“…You know Vincent, I’ve got to say I love the new look. Long black hair looks great on you!”

I blinked. What?

“What did you say?” I could barely hear my own words. My stomach… why does it feel like I’ve eaten a ball of lead?

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“I said, "I love your long black hair””

Long. Black. Hair.

The cutting stopped. My pulse thumped audibly in my neck, as I slowly turned to look—

“You know Vincent, I’ve got to say I love the new look. Long hair looks great on you!”

I shrugged, before she told me not to move again. I used to hate having it with the weight and how it got in my eyes, but after so long I just got used to it. It kept my neck warm whenever it got cold too. As I zoned out again, I lifted my hand and squeezed the strap of my backpack tight. It always eased the slight discomfort in my stomach, which had been happening more often lately due to the constant rocking of the ship.

Amanda began humming a song as she attempted to even out the cuts she’d made. It was a familiar tune, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Was it an anime song?

My mouth moved on its own, taking a guess. “Is that a Jujutsu Kaisen opening?”

She snorted, “Nah, haven’t heard of that one. I’m a normie, I only watch the popular or new stuff.”

Hearing that the show I’d liked is now casually considered “unpopular old stuff” just made me age ten years.

Potently ignoring that comment, I asked, “What is it then? I think I recognize it”

“It’s from an anime that was actually released the season after you disappeared. The anime is basically about what the world would look like if humans were the anomalies instead.” She paused. “Or, well, the only anomalies, because human anomalies do exist, but you know what I mean. The protagonists are a trio of anomalies in a special containment unit tasked with containing or dealing with other anomalies when they are too much for normal humans to handle.”

“Wow, that’s so smart, it’s almost like that already happens in real life” I deadpanned.

“Oh give me a break, I’m bad at explaining things!” She whined, “It’s like, a mystery shonen and all the anomalies are basically people with weird vaguely horror themed superpowers. And it’s not like they’re just using anomalies to deal with anomalous, it’s more like a whole class of people and it’s a job for them.”

“You’re really not doing this show any favors.”

“It just makes sense! And it’s really good, I promise! There’s a lot of good things about like, classism and police and stuff!”

“So, my hero academia, but with anomalies?” I smirked

“Noooooo!” She cried dramatically.

I silently basked in my victory as she put the finishing touches on the haircut and swept the hair on the floor into the trashcan in the corner with Mrs. Stick. I stood up and shook out my hair, making to walk to the shower before Amanda stopped me with one hand, rummaging in her bag with the other.

“Hold on first. Here, just listen to the OP before we go, and you’ll be instantly convinced that “Anomaly PD” is a modern masterpiece!”

She took out her phone, typed in the title and pressed play.

The chords of electric guitar, a rapid staccato melody, and almost annoyingly catchy lyrics filled the air, and Amanda immediately began whipping her head around, the streak of volumnous red threatening to fly into my face. But I didn’t notice any of that, eyes fixated on the innocuous device as music bounced against the cramped walls of their room.

“…Vincent? Are you okay?”

I touched my face, startling at finding tears on my cheeks. Shame flooded me like a dam broke loose, and I quickly turned away.

“It’s nothing.” I bit out sharply.

The music stopped, “Vincent, your feelings aren’t nothing-”

“Wait, no, keep it playing! Please…”

There was a beat of silence, before the melody resumed, the intro giving way to a rousing verse that seemed to synchronize with my heart.

It’s irrational. It’s nothing. It should be nothing… so why can’t I stop these tears? Why is my throat swelling so uncomfortably? I don’t understand. Why is my body reacting so much to just a random song I’ve never heard of? God, I’m so pathetic. Am I this broken just from taking a little time to myself for a few years? Get yourself togeth—

“You’re allowed.” A voice said.

I broke.