Chapter Text
Jabber stops sprinting just outside of reach from the windows to Books HQ quickly checking if his hair got messed up and to make sure he didn’t stumble on his words when he walked in,
Taking a deep breath in he walked in and let out a simple
“Yo!”
And raised his hand up to do a slight wave at the clerk
He was talking with a taller guy, he had spikey blonde hair with shaved sides and little zigzags cut into it, and an insane tattoo sleeve on both of his arms which were exposed. And when he had shouted as he walked in both of their eyes where on him.
Oh gosh this is so scary, Jabber hadn’t been out of his house in forever! Why do he think he could still do this he should’ve just tried the next day so he didn’t look he just ran a 5k marathon
The Zento-san clerk started talking after the tall blonde guy waved goodbye and walked into the back room
“Hey! We do close soon so keep that in mind, Can I help you with anything? A specific book your looking for?” He said with a fake looking smile on his face like one that came with a year+ of customer service work
“Yo!” He responded with again “Remember me?” He said well pointing at himself with a grin
“Sorry, who r ya’?”
Phew okay, that means he didn’t remember that embarrassing moment
“Aw you don’t remember me? came in yesterday, messy hair, graphic black hoodie and the large ita bag?”
That was probably the best way to explain it without going on a entire rant about all of his merch
The clerk stood there for a good minute just looking at jabber, then his mouth dropped down almost all the way to the floor.
“no way… it can’t be,,” looking Jabber up and down like he was a confusing puzzle
“You look totally different! Are ya’ sure that was you?”
“Yup! It’s ya boy Jabber in the flesh!” flexing his arm trying to look cool
Oh god why did he do that, talk about embarrassing
Apparently it was funny enough for the clerk and earned Jabber a genuine smile and small chuckle
Oh ok never mind it actually worked!
—————
After more of jabbers awkward jokes and talking to the clerk he eventually learns that his name is..
Zanka
It was crazy it was like Jabber hit the gold mine in this store, found the newest volume of SOTF, met a beautiful guy who looks exactly like Zento-San they could practically be twins! And to make it better there names were even similar only a couple of letter switched around
and to make it better well they were talking he got to talk a little bit about SOTF and nerd out, and in the process Zanka had asked for his number, it was like a dream come true! Maybe they could even meet up later!
after they were done exchanging info the tall blonde guy came back from the back room and started to talk to Zanka
“Hey Zanka! Hope I’m not interrupting your time with this guest but have ya looked at the time since he came in here?”
Uh oh they totally lost track of time’
“Huh..? No sorry Enjin I haven’t. OH! its almost 7:00!! Why didn’t ya’ tell me sooner?” Zanka replied
“Looked like you were having fun with ur new friend, didn’t wanna interrupt anything”
This Enjin guy is alright i guess,, he did call Zanka his friend! So that’s a super plus
Breaking jabber out of his thought Zanka said
“Haha sorry guess we lost track of time! I’ll see ya later jabber?”
That was basically confirming that they were going to meet again which gave jabber a giddy feeling
“Yeah I’ll catch ya’ later Zento-uh waitsorry, Zanka!”
God why did he have to fumble on that last part he was doing so good!- sort of ish
———— (switched pov Zanka) ————
After his new friend Jabber left the store he was feeling pretty good it had been quite awhile since he made an actual new friend. He didn’t have any clue who this ‘Zento’ guy was though?
Zanka went to start performing closing duties he flipped the sign that said they were open to closed, locked the door, and also pick up any trash or coffee cups laying around.
Once he finished getting everything reset he went into the back room and then went up the stairs to the second floor which was were he lived with Enjin and Riyo
He quickly went to his awfully plain room and changed into pj’s and flopped on the couch right next to Riyo who was watching some random drama channel and seemed pretty into it. After sitting there in silence for a few minute watching with her he broke the silence
“Ya’ know that weeb guy I was talking about the other day? The one that called me ‘Zento’ and than ran off with the manga he bought.”
“Mhmm, yeah I think so, did he show up again?” She responded still focused on the tv
He turned his body face her and start going on a rant abt Jabber
“YES! And it was so weird! He looked like a loser, like Decked out head to toe in this random anime guy. And then when he showed up today it was less than 5 minutes to closing I was talking with enjin and-“
“Did ya kick him out?”
Riyo had cut him off on accident
“Uh no- anyway, he walked in shouting ‘yo!’ And I couldn’t even recognize him! He looked like he walked out of a fashion magazine of the most popular models! It was a complete opposite of what he looked like yesterday, I probably wouldn’t have even believed it was the same guy if he didn’t accidently call me Zento again.”
“Hang on, do you rember what manga he bought the first time you saw him?” Riyo asked
“Uh I think it was called ‘Stars of the ‘——‘ I forget what the last word for the title was”
“That kid enjin picked up a while ago was saying Remlin showed ‘im something called ‘Spirit of the fallen’ is that maybe it?”
“Wait now you said it out loud I’m pretty sure that’s what it was.. is there maybe a character named Zento in that series?”
“I’ll look it up” Riyo took out her phone searching it up and the froze
“You okay Riyo?”
———
A long pause happened before riyo start to shout like someone was about to die
“ENJIN COME HERE NOW”
Enjin came rushing out the bathroom with only some grey sweats on and with his hair still wet from coming out of the shower
“WHATS WRONG WHAT HAPPENED”
Riyo start snickering as she showed Enjin the image on her phone and held it up to Zankas face right outta his view so he couldn’t see
Enjin bursted out laughing, holding his stomach from how much it hurt and Riyo joined him laughing
“HAHAHA THEIR PRACTICALLY TWINS” Enjin yelled as he was laughing
Zanka was SO confused why were they laughing so hard and who was he twins with??
“Guys what’s going on, why ya’ laughing so hard?” he said beginning to worry for the worst
Riyo held up her phone that was on the image tab of google m, the search bar said ‘Spirit of the fallen, Zento character’ still laughing Riyo scrolled down showing him what they saw, every. single. image looked like him as a samurai-guy even the more ‘weirder ones’ but like it was a scary how similar they looked a-like
It was sorta funny but not clutching your stomach almost rolling on the ground funny
Zanka just sat there. Processing. Why’d he look so much like a character? Wait no why did that character look so much like him
As Zankas having this internal conflict, his elbows on his knees and hands on his head in deep thought, the other too are still just scrolling on all the images laughing there asses off, even moving to tumblr where the fan-arts of this ‘Zento’ guy got even worse!
Breaking zanka outta his trance he heard a ding come from his phone
-heya! This is zanka right?
Attached to the message was a little gif of a chibi Zento waving