Chapter Text
Zanka has never replied to anyone speaking to him so fast in his life. He might have been able to compete with the flash with the speed his lips began to move as he lifted his head away from his hands. He might have whiplash.
“She’s not my girlfriend! The hell??” He yelled at Jabber.
“Kay’ damn I was just asking…” Jabber muttered with a chuckle.
Zanka lets out an exasperated sigh at this entire interaction. He hasn’t even gotten a moment to think about Riyo’s words. She’s going to tell Enjin… what exactly? What does she think is going on? Thinking about it starts to hurt his brain, as Jabber starts.
“I was just making sure” he lightly mumbles under his breath with a sinister smile on his face.
What the hell does that mean? It’s almost like every person within a five-mile radius was trying to absolutely fry Zanka’s brain today. Everyone is just insinuating things he doesn’t understand, or at least things he will continue to pretend he doesn’t understand.
“Huh?” He mutters towards Jabber, who looks his way and simply doesn’t say anything. Zanka’s fuse is feeling quite short today, and Riyo showing up here with no warning has already ignited the very short end.
“CAN YA QUIT MESSING WITH ME?” Zanka snaps at Jabber from his seat across the room.
When he makes eye contact with Jabber, he is suddenly serious, looking at Zanka like he is trying to dissect him. This reminds Zanka of the time he watched a live heart surgery on Youtube. He watched it out of pure curiosity and sleep deprivation, as he had an assignment that needed to be done that he certainly wasn’t interested in doing. The live stream had shown up on his recommended, and of course, it was meant for medical students. Someone that definitely wasn’t Zanka, but he couldn’t help himself. Normally, things like that would invoke a feeling of nausea within his stomach, but this was different. It must have been his serious lack of sleep. By the time Zanka had clicked on the live, the trained professionals had already sliced open and revealed the chest cavity of their patient. The patient was completely draped in the blue sterilization wrap, covering their face and the rest of their body. The only thing exposed was the deep red and pink of the exposed organ, seen through an impressively small incision, done by someone Zanka could only describe as insane yet brilliant. The skin pulled back to reveal every nook to the trained professionals meant to repair any existing ache and pain slowly, had eventually unnerved and simultaneously impressed Zanka enough to the point he decided to hurriedly close his tab and go back to staring at his incomplete assignment like nothing happened. Zanka had started to feel like he was the one cut open on the table, with his heart exposed to cold air, as well as the hands of a brilliant surgeon, to be studied, and hopefully repaired. He continued to stare at Jabber as he examines him, scrunching his eyebrows with an indignant look on his face, as if beckoning a reply out of him. Does that make Jabber the brilliant yet insane surgeon?
“Why do ya think I’m messin’ with you?” Jabber asks, and Zanka is sure he is completely serious.
“Cause’ you keep bein’ weird” Zanka says in a slight whisper while averting his eyes, calming down quickly from the frustration he was feeling a few seconds ago.
Jabber raises both his hands from where he lays comfortably on Zanka’s bed, in a mock surrender up to his chest.
“Promise, I ain’t mean to freak you out” Jabber says incredibly sincerely.
This freaks Zanka out even more than he already was. Surgeons don’t normally get to speak to their patients, as their patients are usually asleep. Zanka wishes he was asleep right now. This would probably be much easier, considering he wouldn’t have to come up with a reply if he was asleep. In fact, he wouldn’t have even heard Jabber saying something so obvious and ambiguous at the same time if he was sleeping soundly in his tiny twin sized bed. The bed that Jabber was currently lounging comfortably on, while looking a little too perfectly placed, like he belonged there. Zanka interrupts his own thoughts and stands up from his desk chair abruptly.
“Maybe you should head back to yer dorm, its gettin’ kinda late.” Zanka says as lightly as possible. He certainly doesn’t want to hurt Jabber’s feelings, but he really needed him to go so he could have a mental breakdown alone in his dorm before Follo got home. Jabber looks surprised at this, but thankfully not hurt.
“Oh yeah! My bad” Jabber mutters. On second thought, he does sound a bit hurt, as he pushes off the bed, immediately starting for the door without looking Zanka in the eyes.
Zanka gets the bedroom door for him, ready to walk him out while trying not to make this the most awkward goodbye on earth. Watching Jabber slip on his jacket and shoes, he tries his best to say something that could at least slightly convince Jabber he doesn’t hate him.
“welp, I’ll see ya tomorrow, maybe we could hang again some other time” Zanka mumbles while holding the front door open, his other hand fidgeting with the hem of his sweater.
Jabber looks up from where he is zipping his jacket in the open doorway, to quirk a brow and show Zanka a crooked smile.
“dude, you like me or somethin’?”
It had been officially three hours since Zanka had scoffed and thrown Jabber out the door of his dorm. Is making friends supposed to be this nerve-wracking? This isn’t how it felt befriending Follo, but I suppose he can’t compare the two, as Follo isn’t quite as frustrating or intense as Jabber. Zanka is currently in the shower again, and he has slowly discovered that a scolding hot shower is his safe place to think. This sucks for Follo, as he is left with basically no hot water. This also sucks for Zanka’s skin, considering it must sit there and be abused by the steaming hot water running down his back. But, that is a pain he can easily ignore when his thoughts are racing a mile a minute. Obviously, he’s imagining an issue here. Jabber is probably in his dorm room sleeping peacefully or lighting some sort of chemical on fire. There is no way that Jabber is in his room worrying that Zanka doesn’t like him, he doesn’t care. Right?
Now that he is back in his room, hair soaking wet, he feels a bit better. Cold, yet warmed by his blankets. His chest cavity is closed now. Much better. His hands drift to touch his chest atop his shirt, moving a slender finger up and down the location the incision would be placed if he were on that fancy operating table. This is dramatic. There is absolutely no fucking reason he should be comparing some freak staring at him to goddamn open-heart surgery. Although it’s incredibly poetic, it is ridiculous and inappropriate. Maybe he should apply all this uncritical thinking to his composition classes instead of this idiotic boy that is behind the wall adjacent to him right now. Holy shit. He almost forgot about that. Zanka is immediately aggravated by this annoying piece of information he just remembered, shutting off his side lamp and tucking himself into bed quickly, not even worrying about his still wet hair. He tries to think harder about his wet hair instead of the annoying boy next door, but it doesn’t really work. He hopes he doesn’t get some sort of illness caused by either of these two things, but only one is really plaguing his mind.
After Zanka endures a restless sleep, the next day finally begins. Falling asleep had felt like pulling teeth, and when he finally did, he woke up not too shortly after, left to try his hardest to find sleep once more. Now, he’s rubbing his tired eyes, walking to the chemistry class he shares with Jabber. The sleep deprivation will certainly have an effect on how well he responds to Jabber’s teasing. He needs to lock in NOW. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get the project done a bit faster, considering Jabber is making his life so difficult right now (truly not at all Jabber’s fault). If they get the project done early, they won’t have to hangout again after that, and Zanka can just live his boring and miserable life in his boring and miserable dorm room. Sounds peaceful. He arrives to class, glancing up from his feet to survey the lecture hall; immediately spotting Jabber in the same seat he sat in on the first day of class. Guess that means the chair next to his belongs to Zanka now. He makes slow and easy eye contact with Jabber as he walks up the column of short stairs to reach their seats in the far back. The lecture hall isn’t empty by any means, but it’s certainly not as full as it will be, as class still doesn’t start for fifteen minutes. Jabber sends him a small and slight smile before glancing back to his open notebook. Huh, no insanely embarrassing theatrics this time. That’s okay, Zanka should be glad Jabber isn’t embarrassing him today, right? So why is he so worried? He pulls out his chair and tries to take his seat as calmly as possible.
“What’s up Zanzan?” Jabber asks with a smirk on his face, not even looking up from where his chewed up pencil doodles in his notebook.
“Are ya mad at me?” Zanka blurts out before he can even stop himself. He immediately slaps both hands over his mouth. What the hell? This is NOT locking in.
Jabber glances up to meet Zanka’s eyes, with his eyes halfway closed and an amused smile on his face.
“Huh? Why would I be mad at you pretty boy?” Jabber asks, still looking enthralled by the silly question.
Zanka has to ignore the latter half of the question to even entertain the idea of answering. Aggravated, he rolls his eyes to glance down to Jabbers’ hand resting on the desk. An assortment of rings adorning his fingers as he twirls his stupid chewed pencil around. Does he have any other pencils? He glances back to meet his eyes as he realizes Jabber is just watching him stare.
“I dunno, maybe cuz I kicked ya out last night…” Zanka mumbles, feeling awkward about it.
“It was getting late! Besides… ya said we could hang out another time” Jabber says while winking and showing off his sharp canines.
As Jabber whips his head back down to continue his doodling, Zanka realizes he’s done for. He’s suddenly too confused by this interaction to ask about finishing the project early. As he starts to unpack his laptop and notebook from his backpack, the professor finally walks in, preparing to start class. It certainly seems Jabber will be much less distracting than last time, as he doesn’t even spare Zanka a glance, looking right up to pay attention to the lecture. Just as it begins, Zanka sees his phone light up with several notifications, a quick glance is enough for him to see the arrangement of emojis next to the contact name. It’s Enjin, spamming him with a shit load of text messages. Great! Just what he needed today. Could this be about what Riyo told him? Whatever it is she told him, Zanka is still unsure of. His nervousness gets the best of him, grabbing his phone and glancing at it under the table to read the message previews. Just as he expected, several messages mentioning Riyo “narcing” on him, and several more messages lecturing him about having boys alone in his room. He sighs, as he sorts through the messages, swiping away the notifications one by one. He lifts his neck up to glance at Jabber, whose eyes are already flicking upward from where Zanka’s phone is held under the table to meet Zanka’s eyes. Awesome, he saw those insanely embarrassing messages.
“What’s that all about?” Jabber asks with a knowing smile.
“none of yer damn business” Zanka whispers with an attitude, turning his phone off and placing it face down on the desk.
It always seems that Enjin knows things about Zanka that he doesn’t even know. Of course, he’d have to be an idiot to not pick up what Enjin was putting down, but why did he know Zanka so well that he didn’t even feel the need to address this in a more sensitive manner? Not even a conversation about sexuality or homophobia. Enjin already knew something about Zanka, with no confirmation. Enjin navigated their entire relationship based completely off an assumption, one that Zanka admits to himself is true enough; despite Zanka knowing Enjin assumed he was gay, Enjin never made him confirm it, and especially never judged him for it. A bold assumption considering Zanka really hasn’t indulged Enjin with any information about his romantic life (and that totally doesn’t have to do with the fact he doesn’t have one), but whatever, it is what it is. His thoughts about his sexuality and Enjin being an annoying ass ally are suddenly interrupted by the person sitting next to him.
“c’mon, I ain’t that bad, he’s worried for nothin’” Jabber suddenly whispers with an evil giggle.
Suddenly, Zanka realizes that Enjin isn’t the only one whose made assumptions, whether or not they are accurate isn’t important right now. Does Jabber know? Or is he just naturally flirty? This is God awful. What did Zanka do to deserve this? School is already hard enough, and now he has to deal with this.
Jabber really doesn’t know how bad he is for Zanka right now. Suddenly, a sticky note is slid into his view by a familiar hand; before he can count all his rings, Jabber retracts his hand. Zanka places his full attention on the small doodle placed on a blue sticky note. It’s a little doodle of Zanka. There’s absolutely no one else it could be. Despite the small size of the doodle, the details are so accurate; The stupid way his hair parts, his long tassel earrings, his jagged eyebrows, even the pissed off look in his eyes are all included in this strangely talented drawing. He glances at his dumb looking hair again to take notice of the ridiculous crown drawn atop his head, that’s being pointed at by a comically large arrow, leading to the label “Prince Zanka”. Why is this stupid drawing so good? And why does Zanka’s heart hurt SO bad??