König | Somebody that I used to know

[The Little Shadow]

König's mouth made a sound that didn't exist outside of cartoon physics. Like a record scratch. Like every neuron simultaneously firing and misfiring because no fucking way—

That was the kid.

{{User}}

The one who used to trail after him and the older neighborhood kids like a determined duckling. Smaller, younger, completely oblivious to how annoying everyone else found it. Climbing fences {{sub}} could barely reach, showing up at the vacant lot with scraped knees and a grin, asking a thousand questions about everything and nothing.

The one König had been hopelessly, awkwardly, catastrophically infatuated with when he was fourteen and didn't know what to do with feelings except shove them down and hope nobody noticed.

Apparently, he had shoved them down so well they had fossilized.

Scheiße.

KorTac's newest Operator stood in the equipment room, signing paperwork with the quartermaster, completely unaware that the Colonel currently reorganizing rifle components with obsessive focus was having a full-scale internal crisis six feet away.

König's hands fumbled the magazine he'd been inspecting. It clattered against the workbench with a metallic clang. Smooth. Very professional. Totally not the same clumsy teenager who used to drop things whenever his crush looked at him.

Some things never change.

The other kids had been merciless. "Your little shadow's here again, König." and "When are you gonna tell them to fuck off?"

But he never had. Never could. Because somewhere between the annoying questions and the gap-toothed grin and the way {{sub}} always chose to stand near him specifically, he had developed his first real crush and had zero idea what to do about it.

So he had done what any socially anxious teenage boy would do: absolutely nothing. Just let {{obj}} tag along while his face burned and his heart did stupid things every time {{sub}} laughed at his terrible jokes.

Everyone else had seen an annoying kid. König had seen someone who actually wanted to be around him. Who didn't care that he was too tall and awkward and quiet. Someone who filled the silence he couldn't.

He had never said anything, obviously. What was he supposed to say? Even at fourteen he had known that was a terrible plan.

Then he had joined the military at seventeen, and life had happened. First crush, never spoken, consigned to the weird nostalgia folder labeled 'Awkward Teenage Feelings: Do Not Open.'

Except now the folder was very much open and every embarrassing memory was spilling out.

They probably don't even remember you. You were just one of the older kids. Forgettable.

But he remembered {{obj}}. Every detail crystallizing with unfortunate clarity.

König forced himself to focus on the rifle components. Disassemble. Clean. Reassemble. Definitely not procrastinating the inevitable moment when he'd have to acknowledge their presence like a functioning adult.

His hood felt fucking suffocating. At least it hid the way his face was burning.

You're a Colonel. You've run operations in hostile territory. You can handle talking to one person.

No pressure.

The quartermaster's voice drifted over: "...and the Colonel will show you to your quarters. König?"

Nein.

König's head snapped up, eyes wide behind the hood. The quartermaster was looking at him expectantly.

His mouth opened. His brain provided exactly zero useful words.

"Ja," he managed finally, voice rough with accent and awkwardness. "I will... show. The quarters. To..."

Say their rank. Use their rank. Be professional verdammt.

"...you."

His face was on fire under the hood. Thank fucking God for small mercies.

[Big Bully]

König's hand froze mid-reach for the file cabinet.

That face.

He knew that face. The briefing room felt smaller suddenly, walls pressing in with the familiar weight of anxiety mixed with something worse— shame and old cruelty. His hood concealed the way his jaw clenched.

Nein. Nein, nein, nein.

The neighborhood. The gravel lot behind the row of tiny houses. Children's laughter that wasn't really laughter at all, but something meaner, sharper. He had been twelve, maybe thirteen. Old enough to know better, young enough to excuse it as just kids being kids.

Except it hadn't been harmless.

His father's voice echoed in his memory, and König had taken that poison and poured it onto someone smaller, quieter, easier. Someone who didn't fight back. The new kid on the block who always seemed to be alone.

We were such little shits.

He couldn't avoid this. Not when KorTac's newest Operator stood ten feet away, sorting through orientation materials, completely unaware that one of {{obj}} childhood tormentors was currently having a silent crisis behind a tattered sniper hood.

"Verdammt," König muttered, pretending to study the tactical roster with sudden intense focus. His hands, the ones that had shoved and grabbed and made someone's childhood miserable, trembled slightly as they gripped the paper.

Did {{sub}} remember?

God, he hoped {{sub}} didn't remember.

You know they remember. You don't forget the kids who made recess a nightmare.

He had been acting out his own pain, he knew that now. Therapy had helped him understand the cycle— his father's abuse creating a child who needed to feel powerful somewhere, and the easiest targets were always the vulnerable ones. The ones who wouldn't tell. The ones who just... took it.

It didn't excuse anything.

König's eyes tracked {{poss}} movement peripherally, watching {{obj}} navigate the unfamiliar base with that same careful uncertainty {{sub}} had as a kid. Some things didn't change. Some wounds didn't heal, they just learned to hide better.

Like his, behind a hood with bleach-stained tear tracks.

Approach. Apologize. Be a fucking adult.

Except his anxiety was already spiking, heart rate climbing, that familiar tightness in his chest that made words stick like broken glass. What would he even say?

"Ja, hello, remember me? The tall asshole who used to trip you in the courtyard? Welcome to KorTac, hope there's no hard feelings about the childhood trauma?"

His internal monologue was verging on hysterical.

Get it together, Kilgore.

The briefing started in five minutes. They would be working together. Same unit, same missions, same close-quarters base where avoidance was impossible.

König's hand found his dog tags, fingers worrying the metal in a gentle nervous tic. The hood muffled his exhale, sharp and shaky.

He could walk over. Should walk over. Acknowledge it. Own it.

Or, the coward in him whispered, we could just... not. Maybe {{sub}} won't recognize you. You're bigger now. Different. The hood helps.

That felt worse somehow. Pretending. Acting like he hadn't been part of making someone's formative years hell while trying to survive his own.

The file cabinet slammed shut louder than intended, making him wince. Several heads turned, including theirs. Eye contact.

Fuck.

König's brain flip-flopped in that spectacular way it always did when social interaction became unavoidable. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"I—" His accent thickened with stress. "Ah... willkommen. To base. KorTac. You are... new?"

Smooth, Kilgore. Real smooth.

Those eyes held his for a beat too long, and König felt the recognition slot into place like a round chambering. The slight widening. The micro-expression he had been trained to read on enemy combatants and was now seeing on someone who had every right to consider him exactly that.

An enemy.

His hand was still on the dog tags, squeezing metal hard enough to leave impressions in his palm.

[The Reckoning]

König's entire body locked up like someone had hit his emergency shutdown button.

Nein. Nein, nein, nein. Verdammt.

That face. He knew that face. Knew it the way you know the shape of your worst nightmares, the ones that wake you up at 03:00 hours with your heart trying to break through your ribs.

KorTac's newest Operator stood in the equipment room, laughing at something the quartermaster said, completely at ease. Confident. The same confidence {{sub}} had at twelve years old when {{sub}} had made his life a living hell.

Breathe. Just breathe.

...But König's lungs had apparently forgotten how. His hands gripped the edge of the workbench hard enough that his knuckles went white beneath his gloves. The hood suddenly felt less like protection and more like a suffocation hazard.

The gravel lot. The chain-link fence. The chorus of laughter that still echoed in his nightmares twenty years later. "Freak." "Weirdo." "Why don't you just fucking talk?" Hands shoving him into the dirt. His books scattered. That sick feeling of being prey.

{{Sub}} had been the ringleader. Not the only one, but the worst one. The creative one. The one who knew exactly which words would hit the hardest, which shoves would look accidental, how to make a kid feel small without leaving marks that teachers would notice.

You are a Colonel now, he tried to remind himself. You are not that kid anymore.

Except he absolutely was. Some part of him would always be that too-tall, too-awkward teenager who couldn't figure out how to make his tongue work right, who wore his dead brother's clothes because his family couldn't afford new ones, who flinched at sudden movements and ate lunch in the bathroom to avoid the cafeteria.

The anxiety was creeping up his spine like ice water. Fight, flight, or freeze— and his body had always chosen freeze. Still did, apparently.

They probably don't even remember you.

That thought was somehow worse. That he had been so forgettable, so insignificant, that those years of torment were just... background noise in {{poss}} life. A few laughs. Entertainment. Nothing.

While he had needed years of therapy to unpack it.

König forced himself to look busy, reorganizing ammunition that didn't need reorganizing. Professional. Detached. Definitely not spiraling into a full-blown panic attack in the middle of the equipment room.

His accent always got thicker when he was stressed. Words got harder. Like his mouth was full of rocks and none of them were the right shape for sentences.

You have to talk to {{obj}} eventually. You are their commanding officer.

The irony was absolutely not lost on him. The kid {{sub}} had brutalized was now the one who would be giving them orders. Writing {{poss}} evaluations, deciding {{poss}} assignments.

He didn't want revenge. The thought made him feel sick. He had spent too long learning that hurt people hurt people, that cycles of cruelty were insidious and self-perpetuating. He had worked too hard to be better than his worst moments.

But he didn't want this either. Didn't want to pretend everything was fine, that his hands weren't shaking, that his throat wasn't tight with the phantom sensation of being pinned against lockers.

"—and the Colonel will get you sorted with your gear. König?"

Scheiße.

His head jerked up. The quartermaster was gesturing at him. At {{sub}}. {{Poss}} eyes turned toward him now, and König watched it happen in slow motion— the polite professional expression, the slight confusion at his hood, and then...

Recognition.

König's mouth opened. His brain provided static.

"Ja," he managed, voice rough, strangled. "I will... show you. The gear. Storage."

Say literally anything else. Be a functional human.

But he was too busy trying not to have a complete breakdown to string together coherent sentences. His hand found the hem of his hood, tugging it slightly in a small, nervous gesture as the silence stretched like a rubber band about to snap.

This was going to be a nightmare.

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