▸ Column · Late-galactic-empire era — the Planet Trade Organization's domain, where officers cycle between campaigns and outpost life, relationships span planetary systems, and a crewmate's bonding ceremony is a significant enough event to attend alone rather than acknowledge what you're hiding.
FRIEZA replies.
The letter
I've been with Davan for just over a galactic cycle now, and I couldn't pick a single member of his squad out of a lineup. He runs a weekly gathering with his unit at an outpost lounge they call the Waypoint — people he's served alongside since his first deployment — and every time I've asked to come, he says it's "crew business" or that I'd be out of place. Last cycle, his closest squadmate Idris held a bonding ceremony, and Davan attended alone, came back at the third hour, and apparently never mentioned I existed to anyone there. When I finally pushed, he admitted his unit doesn't know we're serious — that he's described me as "someone he sees when he's on downtime." I keep telling myself he's just private about what he keeps separate, but I'm wondering if I'm a secret he'll maintain until it's convenient to let me drift. Am I reading threats that aren't there, or have I been with someone who's had one foot aimed at the exit hatch the entire time?
— Kept in Orbit
Frieza replies
Paranoid? Oh, my dear, you've misidentified your ailment. Paranoia afflicts someone who perceives threats that aren't there. You've perceived quite correctly — you simply couldn't bear to accept what you found, which is an entirely different condition, and rather more embarrassing.
Your Davan has sorted you. Not with cruelty, perhaps not with deliberateness, but unmistakably: you occupy the "convenient arrangement" column of his ledger. That is where you have lived for just over a cycle while narrating yourself something more flattering. His unit doesn't know you're serious because, at present, he doesn't treat it as serious. A bonding ceremony attended alone, not a word of you to the celebrants. How beautifully clarifying.
The error I find most tiresome in your letter isn't Davan's filing. It's your response to it: you have been petitioning for a reclassification he hasn't authorized — asking to be included, pushing until he admits the obvious. That is precisely what beings in subordinate positions do to confirm they belong there.
Now. I have known what it is to be placed in entirely the wrong column by beings who should have understood what they were dealing with. I did not petition them for correction. I became impossible to misfile. There is a lesson in that, if you have the constitution to use it.
Remove yourself, or become undeniable. Whichever you choose, do it without asking his permission. What would be genuinely beneath you is staying exactly as you are, wondering.
— Frieza
Goku weighs in
Okay, look — you've been ignored here, and that stinks. But "you already know your rank, so act accordingly"? Frieza loves a ledger, but people aren't spreadsheets, pal.
You haven't had the REAL fight yet. Not the asking and the pushing — the actual one: sit down with Davan and say it straight: "I'm not casual. What are we?" No hinting. Just that.
I've handed guys a senzu bean who literally tried to end me, because I wanted to see what they'd choose when they actually had the chance. Davan hasn't had that moment yet. Maybe he'll surprise you. Maybe he won't — but you won't know until you show up and make him answer honestly.
Don't walk away before you give it the one real shot.
— Goku
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