Chapter Text
The water laps softly at the shore. One. Two. Three. The water recedes and pulls back just as quickly as it had kissed the sand. One. Two. Three. Zanka thinks if he looks closely enough, he would be able to see the salt that’s intertwined within the water. One. Two. Three.
He breaks the surface, lungs burning and aching with misuse, and he’s glad that when he gasps, it’s not water that fills his mouth. There’s an empty chasm underneath him, but the waves continue to rhythmically push itself towards land. One. Two. Three.
He somehow calms himself down enough to not flail his tired limbs. One. Two. Three. He looks below him, eyeing the dark and murky water. But unlike the past, he isn’t scared. Not anymore.
One. Two. Three.
The water beside him distorts with ripples and bubbles, and shortly after, emerges his companion.
“Pwah!” Jabber gasps, laying back to float on the water. He trusts that it would keep him up. He always trusts too much in all the wrong things. “You baby! You didn’t even reach three minutes!”
Zanka shakes his head, tearing his eyes away from the boy and over to the horizon, just where the sun is about to kiss the sealine. “I told you I don’t wanna do this today…”
“Bah, you big baby!” He draws out the “y,” exaggerating his expression so that Zanka knows without a doubt that he’s mocking him. “Pouty little baby can’t hold his breath! Boo!”
Frustrated that he won’t listen to him, Zanka makes a move to swim back to shore, “Whatever! I’m leaving!”
“Hey!” Jabber uses his big boy voice, screaming throatily and as if he put all of his air into that single word. That’s how Zanka knows he won’t be able to get home early today. “I didn’t say you could leave!”
One. Two. Three.
Jabber’s missing tooth is a funny sight, but not so much when he’s looking up at it from under the sea, eyes burning from the salt. Maybe he really could see the miniscule things, if he tries hard enough. If Jabber moves his hand from away his eyes.
His mouth opens to gasp for air from the sudden attack, but water fills it instead. Maybe he spoke too soon, earlier. He feels his fingers scratch at Jabber’s forearm, his other hand swiftly hitting the other’s head.
Because Zanka is experienced with attempted drownings, he moves his legs so that they’re on the boy’s shoulders, and then pushes.
Jabber gives in easily enough, trusting that the sea won’t swallow him. That Zanka wouldn’t let it.
He sits on top of the boy for a few seconds, before he lets Jabber surface for a breath.
“My sister is coming home today!” Is the first thing Zanka says to the gasping boy, hitting him on the head once again. “I didn’t wanna swim!”
Jabber coughs, but he’s holding onto Zanka’s arm like he doesn’t want the other to go. Not yet.
“Why did you follow me, then,” The boy says, not a question. A statement. Why did you follow me.
Zanka’s taken aback, as he starts paddling to shore. The waves are getting taller. The sun is getting too close. “I didn’t follow you! Liar!”
“Yes, you did! Double liar!” Jabber sticks his tongue out, but follows.
“You dragged me with you!” He argues, but he knows it’s futile. They reach the part of the sea where it’s neither shore nor ocean. Water sticking to their knees, the current asking them to jump into the depths again.
“You can fight back. Liar, liar!” The other boy starts singing an obnoxious tune. It grates on Zanka’s ear.
Just as they near the safety of the sand, he trips. Jabber laughs behind him, and runs ahead of him to splash water onto his face. The waves leave the shore just in time for him to run towards it.
Zanka looks up, eyes the slightest bit blurry from the salt water, still on his knees. The water pushes on his back as it crashes onto Jabber’s feet, and the wind blows on his face, and he’s caught in the middle. Not quite sea, not quite land. Not quite water, not quite wind.
Not quite a friend, not quite a stranger.
Jabber’s laughing, smiling. Saying something. The water still slipping from the tight coils of his hair, the sunlight illuminating a gold sheen on his skin, the wind pulling at his soaked clothes.
One. Two. Three.
—
Zanka’s following Jabber.
He hasn’t seen the other in a week. His parents didn’t let him leave when he came home last time. He isn’t supposed to be here, either—isn’t supposed to see Jabber anymore.
But—and he doesn’t know why—it doesn’t feel right to be outside without the other.
So, he’s following him.
He knows Jabber knows he’s there. He knows the boy can feel his presence. He knows that he’s been loud enough, close enough, that the other can sense him.
Jabber was always better than him at sensing people’s presence.
The boy leans down, and begins picking at the dirt. They somehow ended up near the entrance of the woods, a little ways away from the sea, and enough ways away from their suffocating town. He thinks Jabber’s looking for those beetles that he loves to collect. He wonders if he’d throw them at Zanka again, just to hear him scream.
He hopes he does.
Picking at his leather bracelet, he stays just a few feet away, beside a tree. He knows he isn’t hidden well enough. He hopes the other knows that too. Maybe then, he’d pay attention to Zanka again. Even if it’s only to tease him, pick at him, tell him he isn’t good at hiding.
The afternoon passed them by like that, Zanka progressively getting sweatier underneath his clothes, the sun unforgiving. He knows that when he gets home, he’ll be tanned. He knows his sister will notice. He knows he’ll get scolded. He knows it won’t be okay.
But he thinks it’ll be fine if only Jabber would look at him again.
Still, the day is ending, and the sun is almost touching the sealine again—and Jabber still hasn’t acknowledged him. He’s still only trailing behind the other.
Looking at the sun, Zanka considers his options.
Pressing fingers onto the bruises on his wrist, just underneath his leather bracelet, he decides that making up with Jabber can wait another day.
He turns around.
—
The next day comes, and this time, Zanka’s limping through the outskirts of town in search of Jabber.
He thinks he should start going home before the sun’s rays can even begin to touch the sealine.
Before he can really decide on this, he spots Jabber attempting to climb the tall tree that they’ve been planning to climb for a while now.
When we go alone, we can’t climb it, Jabber had said, frustrated but honest. We gotta boost each other up!
But now, he’s going alone, struggling to even reach the first branch. He’s wrangling and clawing himself up there, all force and no plan.
Zanka feels an irrational anger bubble up inside of him. Because how dare he? How dare he do something he said they would do together?
Zanka bites his lips, and presses his fingers to his wrists. It’s undignified to act on his temper. He should cool his head off. Walk on the shore. Turn around. Feel the breeze in his hair, the sand in between his fingers. Turn around. Listen to his siblings. Turn around.
One. Two. Three.
“You bastard!” He bellows, instead. He doesn’t wince when he accidentally leans too much weight on his bad foot. He moves forward instead, and pulls Jabber off of the tree. “Stop ignoring me!”
Jabber lands on the dirt, and he looks up at Zanka with so much contempt in his eyes that he falters, just a bit.
“Don’t— don’t look at me like that!” He exclaims, a new emotion—desparation—taking seat beside his anger.
Jabber’s fingers dig into the soil. He’s still glaring up at Zanka like he’s nothing but dirt, “Like what?”
Like you agree with my siblings. Like you think I’m not worthy. Like you don’t need me to be happy.
“Like you want to beat me up!” He yells instead, and makes a move to slam his fist onto Jabber’s head like he always does.
However, in an instant, the other boy is on his feet, and he’s pushing Zanka away. He growls, “You don’t get to be mad at me!”
“You don’t get to have a say in what I feel! Control freak!” Zanka yells back, as he grabs a fistful of the other’s hair.
“Ow!” Jabber hisses, tenderheaded as he is. He retaliates and begins pulling on Zanka’s own hair. “I’m not a control freak!”
“You are! Bastard!” He answers back, and he pushes on the boy’s cheek, all while pulling his head away from him.
“Is that the only insult you know?! Ha!” He has the audacity to laugh. They push and pull at each other more. “Be more creative if you want to hurt me!”
“I don’t want to hurt you!”
“You do! You’re just another rich kid trying to pass time in this stinking town!”
“I’m not! Why do you never listen to me?!”
“And why do you always lie to me?!”
Zanka’s back is on the ground, right hand still hell bent on pulling Jabber’s curls clean off of his scalp, left one pushing and scratching at his face. The other, in turn, is pushing him into the soil, grasping at his wrists to try and wrestle them off.
The momentum of the fight momentarily makes Zanka forget about prior injuries.
And because Jabber never seems to want to listen, he circles back to the first point of argument, “You’re the one hurting me right now!”
“You’re the one that started this! Who pulled me off of the tree?!”
“Because it’s OUR tree!” It takes Zanka a horrifying moment to realize that he’s crying.
Maybe it’s from his bruises from last week still aching. Maybe it’s his foot, the one he landed on badly when his sister disciplined him. Maybe it’s the way Jabber’s wrangling his wrist, still violet. Maybe it’s because it’s been a week since he’s tasted true freedom and he’s arguing with the source of it.
Jabber stops pulling, and Zanka’s grip grows limp enough that he isn’t really tugging on the boy’s hair anymore. He can’t handle the look on the boy’s face. The shock. Like he didn’t realize Zanka has feelings.
He manages out, “It’s our tree… Ya bastard…”
He pulls his hand away from Jabber’s hold, and begins wiping at his eyes, frustrated that he’s still crying. He shouldn’t be crying. Doesn’t matter if he has reasons, doesn’t matter if it’s only Jabber in front of him.
The wind blows softly, enough so that it cools the heat in Zanka’s face. It carries with it the song of the sea and the shore. He thinks if he really listens, he could even hear the small scurrying of insects underneath him.
“You didn’t show up after last week.” Jabber whispers. “You said you hated me, turned around, and ran to your stupid mansion. Then you didn’t show up after last week.”
It took Zanka peeling off his hands from his eyes to realize that the other’s were watery, too.
(He still looks angry, though. He thinks Jabber will always be a little angry at him.)
“I didn’t mean that…” He croaks out. He knows it’s a weak excuse.
“Yesterday. You didn’t talk to me. You just watched me.”
“I didn’t know how to talk to you…”
“You pulled on my hair today.”
“You were ignoring me on purpose…!”
“Stop talking!” Jabber actually slaps his mouth, a light little thing, but enough to shut him up. “You don’t get to leave when I don't tell you that you can. You don’t get to not show up when I tell you that we’ll see each other tomorrow.”
He holds Zanka’s shoulders, grip tight. “You don’t get to turn around and not be friends with me anymore. You don’t get to leave me.”
He’s a bit taken aback, but it’s not something he’s never seen before. A year of companionship with Jabber had already taught him exactly what he wants at his core—control. He places his hands on top of Jabber’s, shoulders hurting from the boy’s grip on them.
“I didn’t want to leave. I had to.” He manages a grimace.
The boy tacks on, an afterthought, “You don’t get to say that and not explain.”
He takes a breath, expanding his chest and releasing it in a smooth sigh. One. Two. Three. He pushes Jabber off of him so that he could sit up. The other allows it.
“My sister. She came here from the city.” He starts, and he pulls on his leather bracelet once again. “She’s my parent’s favorite.”
He doesn’t think that’s true. He thinks it’s more so that she lives by their parent’s rules the best. He doesn’t think Jabber would understand that.
“She do that to you?” Jabber asks, jutting his chin to point to his wrist.
Zanka covers it with his other hand, suddenly feeling shameful.
“I didn’t follow the rules. I came home late and sweaty. Dirty. It’s undignified.” He stumbles on the last word. Familiar because he’s heard it many times now, unfamiliar because he hasn’t really said it before.
Jabber scoffs beside him. He thinks the other is holding back from making a rich boy comment.
“So you’re leaving early ‘cause your sister doesn’t like it when you hang out with the local mutt.” He spits out instead, the phrasing all too familiar to how the townsfolk talked about him.
He can’t answer, because he doesn’t want to agree.
“Whatever.” Jabber stands up, huffing. His dismissive tone makes Zanka’s heart drop.
Will he go back to ignoring him now? Did he decide Zanka’s too much work to keep around? He doesn’t want to be left behind. He doesn’t want Jabber to leave him behind.
Instinctively, he grasps onto Jabber’s hand. A tear or two rolls down his cheek, as if to remind him he isn’t done crying, and he doesn’t know what expression is painted on his face but—there’s a glint in Jabber’s eyes. The same look he’d get when he finds a beetle that he’ll keep in a matchbox and carry around for the rest of its short-lived life.
“Hey… I ain’t leaving.” He says, and his reassuring words should be dampened by the sharp smile on his face, but Zanka’s relieved. He’s not leaving.
One. Two. Three.
The boy pulls him up, and smushes his face to wipe away the stubborn tears. He knows there’s dirt underneath Jabber’s fingernails. He knows they’d just finished fighting. He knows the action is the most comforting thing he’s ever come to know.
Jabber is still smiling, grinning. He looks a little crazed while he dries Zanka’s face. He claims, “You really need me, don’t you, Zan-Zan?”
—
Zanka was nine years old when his parents decided they wanted to move to a seaside town, in the middle of nowhere.
It’ll be good for Zanka, they’d told his siblings. Help him clear his head. Be more grounded. Draw out his full potential.
He remembered the look of anger on his brother’s face. The pure look of hatred he’d directed to Zanka. He remembered his words, echoing in his head. He doesn’t need to clear his head if he’d already lost it!
Goka! Was always his sister’s favorite warning. Then, she turned, and she’d looked at her brother with nothing in her eyes. Like it didn’t matter that she won’t be seeing him for who knows how long. They’d parted with only two words: Be better.
The seaside house Zanka and his parents moved to was smaller than the one in the city. It was wooden, with huge windows and doors, an open field on all sides. The one in the city always felt more like it was closed. Closed blinds, closed doors, closed gates.
Here, it was open. The smell of salt was perpetual, as was the wind that would howl at night. What once was cars honking and beeping became children’s laughter and townsfolk’s menial chatter.
Zanka thought he would have hated it here. He thought it was just another place to remind him that he doesn’t belong anywhere. Instead, the sea beckoned him, and the wind embraced him.
Do you see the sealine, Zanka? His mother would whisper on the rare nights that she would visit his room. One day, even that will belong to us. The Nijiku family.
She always loved talking about owning everything. Taking, conquering. Because that was what the Nijiku family stands for. Because that’s what Zanka needs to learn.
Possession.
He wondered if he would ever look at something and wish with all his might to possess it. He wondered if that greed flowed through his veins, if it was only a matter of time.
He thought owning the sealine might not be too bad.
—
The town wasn’t as vast as Zanka had first thought. He noted this down after the wonder of having left behind the city noise faded away.
There was the town itself, which wasn’t too big. A single school stood near the center, where everybody studied. There weren’t many people like them—rich, privileged—but the people were capable enough. They liked to farm, fish, do menial tasks. Meaningless little nothings.
Zanka liked to walk through the streets. Look at the houses, think about what kind of people lived in them. Sometimes he’d pass a street vendor, and they always gave him a taste of whatever they were selling. Fruit, candy, knicknacks.
It’s during these little excursions that he met Jabber.
“Hey! Stop that thief!” The auntie from the corner store ran outside, after a small blur of purple and brown. She tried to catch the runner, but she was all too slow. “Tsk! Little bastard… Always so slimy…”
“What did she steal?” He asked, causing her to jump.
“Oh! The Nijiku kid!” She’d exclaimed, wrapping her cardigan tighter around her body.
He hated it when he’d be referred to as the Nijiku kid, “My name is Zanka.”
“Right, Zanka,” She laughed, like he was a wonder for knowing his own name.
“What did she steal?” He repeated the question.
“Just some medicine… And he’s a he,” The auntie pats his head. “Although he is pretty, hm? Got it from his mother.”
He ended up paying for the medicine, and leaving the place with the story of the kid named Jabber.
Grew up in the town, mothered by a crazily beautiful woman—prostitute, the auntie spat out in venom—and fathered by a man that never came back. Always outside in the sun, never in the house. Always stealing from her store.
Zanka thought he’d want to see what kind of house Jabber lives in for Jabber to be like that.
—
Their proper first meeting didn’t happen until Zanka was walking through the streets a few weeks later, though.
He was licking at a lollipop that was given to him at random by some corner store that he passed by. This time, he was more on the outskirts of the town. He wasn’t really doing anything in particular. Just didn’t want to stay cooped up in their large house and listen to the echoes of work that his parents discussed.
It was more peaceful here. He remembers the pleasant wind clearly, a nice reprieve from the soft touch of sunlight. He remembers that a bee flew above him.
That bee wasn’t what made him stumble, though. It was the boy, Jabber.
“Ow…” He hissed under his breath, looking at the lollipop that lay on the pavement. He looked up.
Jabber had tight curls in his hair, the same purple jacket from when he stole from the auntie, and jeans that look like he’d outgrown them by a few inches. Beside him, a few bottles of medicine clattered.
He couldn’t resist the temptation to ask, “Did you steal those again?”
The boy got defensive. He remembers the wariness in Jabber’s eyes, the defense in his voice, “No…! I just… It’s not— it’s mine.”
“Right…” Zanka mumbles. Jabber scoffed, and clamoured to grab the medicine and stuff them into his jacket pockets.
“What do you even mean, again? Stalker.” He sneered.
“I’m not a stalker.” Zanka remembers frowning, perplexed that he, of all people, would be considered a stalker.
“Then don’t follow me.” Jabber says, and turns around to leave.
Zanka didn’t listen. It was this decision that led to all of the things that were to follow between the two of them.
—
The water laps at their feet, and it cools the bruise on Zanka’s ankle. Jabber is fiddling with an empty matchbox, having just buried the beetle that died inside it.
The sun is high in the sky. Jabber’s purple jacket sits underneath Zanka, so that he doesn’t get sand on him.
They didn’t talk on the way here. Jabber only held his hand. Jabber’s dirty, dry, calloused hands. It felt comforting.
To be honest, he doesn’t know what to make of his and Jabber’s companionship. Back in the city, their manor’s walls were too tall, too intimidating for him to even think about letting people in. All those years alive, and Zanka only thought about pleasing his sister, about living up to his parents’ standards. All those years alive, and it’s only when he’s nine years old that he ever really bonded with another his age.
He’s eleven now, and he still doesn’t know what to make of them.
And he’s pretty sure Jabber isn’t a fair comparison. He’s pretty sure that, had it been anybody else, Zanka wouldn’t hesitate to call them a friend.
He drags his eyes away from the sealine, and directs it to the boy beside him. His round cheeks and piercing eyes, his curly hair and his hardened fingertips. Always so contradictory, always so unpredictable.
Looking back at the sealine, he thinks that he can’t deny Jabber’s impact on him. The dried trails of tears on his cheeks are a testament to how important he became in the short span of a year or two.
He breaks the silence, “Did you name it?”
Jabber looks up from the matchbox, and even without trying, his gaze is intense on Zanka’s cheek, “What?”
“The beetle. Did you name it?” He grabs a fistful of sand.
The other boy hums, placing the matchbox down. “I don’t think they need names. Do they?”
“Don’t they deserve that much?” He pulls his fist up, full of the miniscule grains. They slip all too quickly, no matter how hard he curls his fingers. “Their entire life became your matchbox.” Became you.
“But I don’t like naming them,” Jabber blows on a curl that spills over his forehead. “It makes me feel bad when they leave.”
“They don’t leave,” Zanka points out. “They die.”
“That’s the same thing, isn’t it?” He wonders out loud, the question an innocent little thing. “Either way, they leave. Doesn’t matter how or why.”
When Jabber says this, he looks at the tight ball that became of his fist, and realizes that there’s no longer any sand in them.
“I think that’s why you’re so soft, Zan-Zan,” He stands up, the matchbox back in hand, stuffed into his pocket. “You keep doing things that’ll hurt you.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Zanka shakes his head. Jabber’s always going on and on about how soft he is.
He laughs, pulling Zanka up. “Sure you don’t.”
He doesn’t realize until he’s near his house that Jabber made sure to stand by his left—his bad foot—while walking home. Jabber is already halfway down the street, on the way back to his own home, so he couldn’t even think too deeply about it.
It’s only when his sister looks mildly pleased that he realizes he came home with no trace of sand, and evidently less ruffled than he usually would.
Zanka doesn’t know if Jabber made sure of that on purpose. After all, they didn’t really talk more about his situation.
He doesn’t want to think about it too deeply.
—
Zanka remembered Jabber’s house as… unfortunate.
He remembered that it looked more like a hut, than anything else. His mother was regularly bedridden, and he remembers that she was always on the line between crying and laughing.
Some days that he would visit (rather, follow) Jabber there, and she would be laughing, smiling. She’d hold Jabber on her lap, and beckon Zanka to her knees, and show them the rings that Jabber’s father gave her. She’d make them cookies, sometimes. They weren’t as sweet and moist as the ones Zanka eats at his house, but they were warm. Soft.
However, there would be days that the two would near the house and just hear wailing. Crying, deep from the crevices of what felt like her hollowed out heart. She’d be surrounded by bottles those days. A strange stink in the air. Jabber would be softer when the house was in this state. He’d offer the medicine he stole.
Zanka remembered sitting outside, drawing lines on the dirt between their house and the pavement. He’d hear Jabber’s mother crying through the windows, and Jabber’s childish attempts at sounding older than he actually is.
Zanka remembered the crying quieting down, signifying to him that Jabber’s mom had finally fallen asleep.
Zanka remembered entering to help Jabber clear the bottles from the floor. He’d follow the boy around the small house, try to help clean, even if he’d never really done that before.
And when the two were finished, Jabber would go into his room, and Zanka would follow, and they’ll sit down with their backs on the wall and neck tilted upwards, to the ceiling with peeling glow in the dark stars.
“It’s okay,” Jabber would always say. He always comforted Zanka during these times. Like he’s the one that needs it. “I’m okay.”
He couldn’t complain, though. He thinks he needed the reassurance that Jabber was okay.
Especially since there wasn’t exactly anything he could do, if he wasn’t.
—
The summer that the two have been spending together, soaked under the radiating sun, is reaching the high that comes before it inevitably ends.
They’re sitting on the bottom of the huge tree, a month after their fight and subsequent reconciliation. Zanka thinks that it led them to be closer to each other. Jabber, on the other hand, is only babbling about the upcoming school year.
“You don’t get it, Zan-Zan!” He talks, big hand gestures. There’s a glint on his wrist—a bangle that he’d snagged from his mother, and was told to keep. “Sixth grade is going to be a blast! And then, seventh too!”
Zanka shakes his head, “I don’t think I’m really all that excited about that…”
“What, scared you can’t beat me in class?” His companion jerks his head to the side, a cocky grin on his lips.
He scoffs in retaliation, “As if! You know I got the best essay in Language last year.”
Jabber only sticks his tongue out, “Only because I was sick that time!”
Their back and forth continues for a bit longer, before Jabber got bored and started clawing his way up the tree again. Zanka, still walking around with a slight limp, doesn’t bother.
Just yesterday, his parents had been discussing his foot, talking about how it doesn’t seem to be getting better. They even reached a point in discussion where they were thinking about limiting Zanka’s time outside. Of course, his sister was sent back to the city, too.
He doesn’t want to be kept inside his house for longer than he has to. So, he keeps himself sitting, avoiding anything that might hinder his foot.
Obviously, Jabber notices this.
“Yo, you going to help me?” He tilts his head, mid-claw. He looks ridiculous, a cross between a koala and a black panther. Although this was Jabber that he was interacting with, so he couldn’t express his worry without a backhanded comment. “You were so mad that I was climbing this tree without you.”
Zanka flushes at the mention of the fight, jerking upwards to glare at the boy, “Shut up!”
“Bastard!” The other sing-songs, an obvious recreation of his own words.
“I get it!” Zanka shoots up to stand, wrestling Jabber off of the tree. The boy lands on his butt with a soft oof. Using the boy’s shoulder as a boost, he jumps up higher onto the tree. The branches were still a little too far for his liking, but he still tries to clamber up, wary of his bad foot.
However, Jabber must’ve thought that was a challenge, because the next second, he’s tugging at Zanka, trying to use him as a human ladder.
Ticklish and boyish as he is, he bursts out in laughter. Jabber does too.
He doesn’t think this day would’ve ended in him screaming.
—
“Why is your mom so sad all the time…?” Zanka remembered whispering to Jabber, while he wiped down their dishes. He was helping with cleaning again, after she had fallen asleep.
Jabber remained quiet beside him.
He wondered then, if it was wrong to ask. What if Jabber didn’t know either, and now was forced to try to think of something, anything, to satisfy Zanka’s curiosity?
He knew the feeling, and knew it well. Having to answer a question even though you didn’t really know the answer, just to make sure the other person would feel satisfied. Having to think quickly about what to answer—to lie about.
He decided he didn’t really want Jabber to be familiar with that feeling, even if it was only with him.
“You don’t have to answer,” Zanka decided, before he even took a look at the other’s face. “Sometimes I guess we just get sad. Maybe your mom is just more sad than others.”
Noting Jabber’s unnerving quiet, he tacks on, remembering how most of the things she talks about were from a man. “Maybe he got it from your dad, too.”
That seemed to jostle the other. He laughed, although the sound was less bouncy than it usually was.
“I guess.” Jabber finally whispers. “We really did get a lot of things from dad.”
They were quiet for the rest of the time they spent, cleaning up his rundown house.
—
There was a time—many, in fact—that Zanka had wanted to give up on climbing the huge tree.
“I don’t think it’s worth it!” If asked, he wouldn’t say he’s whining. He’s just complaining a bit. “We won’t even see anything new up there that we haven’t already seen down here!”
This conversation—this specific instance of him giving up—is the most notable, however. Perhaps it’s because of this sentiment.
Jabber was still tactically scoping the tree out, even though they probably already knew as much as they could about it. He turned to look at Zanka, curly hair bouncing with the movement.
“What do you mean?” He tilted his head.
Zanka had sighed then, looking up at the tall expanse of the log. “We already know what the town looks like. We already know the forest, the sea, the sky. Why do we have to go up there to see it?”
It’s true. This town is all that they’ve known—Jabber longer than Zanka, even—so it’s only true that they know the nooks and crannies of the places in its vicinity. They’ve seen the worms that scurry under the big rock by the west of the forest; the corals that are tucked away in the deep end of the sea, just before the tides become too unforgiving for their small bodies to navigate; the clouds that would sometimes dip down to kiss the tops of the town’s hills. What’s the point in looking at all of that from afar? They’d miss all those things, if they went up into that tree.
“But isn’t it more fun to see everything from far away?” Jabber answers, honesty lacing his voice.
Zanka didn’t—still doesn’t, if he’s honest—understand the appeal.
“You’ll miss all the important things,” He frowns.
“I think you miss the important things more, Zan-Zan,” His companion sing-songed, an obvious dismissal in his voice. “You get too caught up in the small things.”
Jabber turns back to circling the tree.
Zanka thinks that the small things are the important things.
—
Zanka has never felt more pain in his life before than in this current moment.
For a second, it’s almost like it’s not even real. The pain in his leg, Jabber’s body standing above him, the tree a forgotten background, and his ceaseless screaming.
He didn’t feel this when his sister disciplined him. Didn’t feel this when his brother would throw him around, when nobody was looking. Didn’t feel this when his mother would grip onto his wrist whenever he isn’t behaving well in front of people. Didn’t feel this whenever his father would crush his shoulder during family photos.
He didn’t feel this when he first learned how to swim in the ocean, lungs burning. Didn’t feel it when he had his first real, physical fight with Jabber.
This pain was unique, a white hot thing that zapped through his leg. He thinks he’s crying. He thinks he’s screaming.
Above him, he grasped for Jabber’s hand, seeking comfort. Relief. Anything.
Jabber jerks, like he’d been burned by his fingers.
“Zanka…?” The other never stutters, but at this moment, that’s what he does.
He wants to beg for help, but all that stumbles out of his lips were— “Hurts! It hurts!”
He thinks his vision is getting foggy. And who’s that, breathing so loudly?
Looking at Jabber, whose shoulders are barely moving, he realizes it’s himself.
He goes cross-eyed at that realization, and maybe he isn’t getting enough air. For a moment, his hands are conflicted on whether it should grasp onto his leg or his neck—he begins coughing.
Everything burns now. Nothing feels safe.
He wants to cry out some more, wants to ask Jabber to carry him to town, because there’s so much blood. But the words are stuck in his throat, a thick lump of desperation that’s heavy and wet, something he can’t breathe around.
Just then, Jabber’s arms wrap around him, pulling him up. He begins to cry out some more—the boy was smaller than him, so he was forced to stand on the leg—but Jabber’s shushing him.
He thinks Jabber’s using the same tone he uses when his mom is sad, but he’s too out of it to think about it.
“Zanka—breathe.” There’s so much emotion in that one word that he’s forced to fight back against the darkness that lines the edges of his vision. “Dude, you have to breathe!”
There’s more rustling, shuffling, before Jabber sits him below the tree, so that his back is on the bark. Just then, he pulls up a fist in Zanka’s line of sight.
“One.” He puts one finger up, taking a deep, loud inhale. Then, another finger, and another. “Two. Three.”
At the third, he releases the breath.
He keeps repeating it, until Zanka feels less faint. The pain is still searing hot on his leg, but he isn’t actively hyperventilating anymore.
At that, he tries to look at his leg, just as Jabber throws his purple hoodie over it. He hisses, “Don’t look at it.”
Zanka hiccups, “Why?”
“It’ll hurt more.” The other answers, adjusting the hoodie so that it’s covering the bloodied mess. He picks up three rocks from the ground, arranges them in front of Zanka, “Keep counting.”
Zanka does as he’s told.
“Stay here. I’ll get… help.” He stands up, worrying on his lip. He ruffles Zanka’s hair, then.
He whispers back, “Okay.”
—
Later, Zanka was picked up by some townsfolk.
They’re hissing about how much trouble the dirty mutt was, harming the Nijiku kid.
When they neared Zanka, he’d made sure to do his best to make Jabber seem as innocent as possible. He’d just passed me by, he lied. I was lucky that he was here. He isn’t sure they fully believe him.
Zanka’s parents were less than enthused, of course. There wasn’t much that their money could do but pay for the best medical care they could get their hands on in this seaside town, but even then, he’d had to be put in a cast, and was told to walk around with crutches.
Broken bone, he overheard, through the haze of sleep. May be permanently damaged.
He didn’t want to think too deeply about the implications of it.
Instead, he spends most of his time sitting beside the large window in his room. It overlooks the sealine, but the room is large and empty. It doesn’t carry much of his soul.
A wind blows from the outside, and it reminds him why—because his soul is elsewhere. Not here, never here.
You need to rest well, Zanka. He recalls his mother’s stern voice. He thinks she tried to sound caring. It ended up feeling more like a warning. So be a good boy and stay inside. You cannot let yourself become a cripple.
He doesn’t know how long he has to stay here.
He hopes Jabber won’t be mad at him again, when they meet.
—
Zanka remembers a few weeks after the fight, when he and Jabber were still trying to feel their way through companionship with each other, the other had brought up a sensitive topic for him.
“The leather bracelet,” The other juts his chin towards his hand. “You keep fiddling with it.”
The question was unspoken, but remained a question all the same.
He thought if he turned a blind eye to it, there would be a 50-50 chance that Jabber would just let it slide. “What do you mean?”
“You keep playing around with it,” He repeated his sentence slowly, like Zanka’s five. Unfortunately, it seemed he couldn’t dodge the question today. “Who gave it to you?”
Zanka thought back on all the times his sister and his parents fought, because of her harsh discipline. Thought about how the bruises—purple first, yellow once it’s healing—were a sort of bracelet on their own. Thought about how this bracelet was given to him after a back and forth, a way for him to hide the shame of having not been enough.
He thought about how the bracelet felt like love, almost. The closest imitation of it that he could get his hands on, at the very least.
“My sister.” He whispers, twisting it around his wrist again. It’s become a sort of habit, to play with it whenever he’s worried or anxious.
After all, even though it hurt, his sister only wanted the best for him.
This bracelet was a testament to that—the world wouldn’t have to know of his incompetence because she’d given it to him. Surely, his sister loves him. Zanka’s just too young to understand.
Of course, Jabber wouldn’t let him wallow in that difficult thought in peace. “The same one who gave you the bruises under it?”
Zanka turned to level him with a glare. The other put his hands up in mock surrender.
“She was only helping me.” He muttered, turning away from the boy. He began to play with the sand again, doing his best to keep them in his grasp.
“So you’re saying you deserve it?” Jabber asked.
No, Zanka wanted to answer, resolutely. He was old enough to know that nobody deserved to get hurt, at least. He was close with Jabber, for God’s sake—that alone shows that he knew better than anyone that nobody deserved pain.
But he couldn’t answer. Because his situation was more than just that. It couldn’t be answered by a mere yes or no. And he couldn’t just say he didn’t deserve it, knowing well that he made mistakes to lead to it. But…
“I don’t think it’s that simple.” He concludes, letting go of the sand.
Out of the corner of his eye, he notes that Jabber considers him for a short moment. It felt more than just observation—it was as if Jabber was looking at the entirety of Zanka’s person. Like a beetle, turned up on its back, stuck and pinned by the boy’s gaze.
Then, he turns away, as if he didn’t just undress Zanka’s psyche, “I think being hurt is simple.”
He doesn’t have anything to say back to that.
—
Zanka remembers the time he wasn’t able to meet with Jabber because of his sister’s discipline. How, because of it, they’d fought seriously, for the first time.
They weren’t strangers to being rough. Jabber would shove him onto the sand, pull him down into the depths of the sea to drown him, throw bugs at him. He would knock his fist against Jabber’s skull, shove at his shoulder, and step on the other when climbing the tree. Being rough was second nature to them. At some point, it’s even become a sort of unspoken language. In stranger circumstances, like the quiet days in Jabber’s home, it’s a comfort.
The fight was anything but those, though. It hurt, and his heart was a swollen membrane that lugged in between his lungs. Like fungi, it felt like it threatened to expand throughout his entire body. A consuming, awful feeling.
So he doesn’t think of that time fondly, even if he thinks they’re closer for it.
He thinks he wouldn’t want a repeat of that, as he hears the distant crashing of waves against the shore. The moon was waxing right above him, a hollow presence right outside the large window in his bedroom. He feels the cool breeze rather than actually see it, the curtains heavy.
He has half the mind to close his windows and curtains, before glancing down at his beaten and bruised leg. He pulls the blanket up to his waist.
That’s why you’re so soft—you keep doing things that will hurt yourself.
In the biased confines of his mind, Jabber’s voice takes a jagged, mocking tone. He doesn’t remember if that was how the other boy really said it—accusingly, as if being soft is a fault, as if attempting to climb the tree was beyond Zanka’s capabilities, and thus led to him hurting himself.
He wonders if that might be true. If he should’ve listened to his sister, his brother. If he should’ve turned around. Cooled off his mind. He wonders if, because he’s so sheltered, he’s dragging Jabber down. If maybe, Jabber would’ve long climbed the tree if he weren’t there.
Zanka thinks he isn’t soft, per se. Just a bit naive, maybe.
(He keeps doing things that hurt himself.)
—
Jabber really loved the depths of the ocean.
At least, that’s what Zanka observed from the other. When they go to the shore, Jabber was always quick to peel off his shoes and wade into the cold waters, with no care for how wet his clothes would be once they inevitably resurface.
He would swim far from the shore, into where the color turns a dubious, murky blue, before he’s even remotely satisfied. And even then, he would not be content with just floating on top of the salty surface. He would always take a greedy gulp of air, as much as his tiny body would allow, and dive into the depths.
Jabber was in love with the suffocation, the unknown, the uncertainty.
He was so different from Zanka, who (had it not been for his companion) wouldn’t even think of going further than waist-deep waters.
Zanka likes it more on the shallow end, where he could spend his time with the sand in between his toes, the water placing pleasant kisses on his skin, the sun shining on his eyes. He likes it more where he can sit down, and feel the ocean’s waves both tugging and pushing at him. He likes it more where he can’t quite call it the shore, but wasn’t wholly the ocean, either.
He was in love with the familiarity, the reassurance, the comfort.
He supposes he should feel apprehension from the difference between him and his closest companion.
(Knowing he should doesn’t necessarily mean he does.)
—
Zanka shouldn’t have been scared of Jabber’s reaction to his disappearance.
If he couldn’t go to him, then the other would.
This is proven to him when he sees a rock get thrown into his room, before hearing clanking from the rain chains, and then seeing the boy climb into his room.
“I didn’t think your window would be open!” The boy laughs, picking up the rock that he’d thrown, and playing around with it. He’s not wearing his well-loved purple jacket, and Zanka doesn’t have to wonder—it was being washed by the house’s workers, after all.
“Jabber?” He whispers, incredulously. Just because he isn’t shocked doesn’t mean he wasn’t surprised. While it was very Jabber-esque to climb into his room at night, it wasn’t something he’d expected today. “Why are you here?”
Jabber saunters onto his bed, sitting down by his foot and tossing the rock up and down. “I didn’t wanna wait a month again.”
“It was just a week!” He instinctively hisses, still defensive over the incident.
“Just?” Jabber raises a brow. “Looks like someone isn’t guilty at all.”
“Whatever,” He scoffs, throwing a pillow at the other. “If you’re just going to pick on me, then go back home.”
The other quiets down at that, gaze drifting to his beat-up sneakers. He plays with the rock in between his two thumbs, and Zanka can’t see his face from this angle. He worries if the other’s actually mad, and he really was here to pick another fight.
He wonders if he can talk Jabber down from having it here, where his parents could see him.
The thought doesn’t develop further, though. The other had taken a deep breath before scooting towards where Zanka was sitting. Unceremoniously, he shoved his head under his chin, arms wrapping around him in a tight hug.
Greeted by a face full of tight, curly hair, Zanka hesitates, his hands hovering above the other.
There’s the waxing moon, the heavy curtains, the open windows; and there’s Jabber, his arms wrapped around Zanka’s middle, hands tightly coiling into his shirt (and is he still holding the rock? That hurts, damn it), looking smaller than he’d ever seen the other before. That’s the funny thing with heights—and why he thinks it doesn’t matter all that much—because Jabber always felt bigger, more imposing than him, even if he’d always been taller.
Now, though? He looks like he’d shrunk, with his head under Zanka’s chin. The other buries himself toward his warmth, as if he didn’t want to ever part with him.
One. Two. Three.
Hesitantly, he eases his hands from the air and down on the other’s curled up frame, and begins patting him.
He thinks he feels his shirt get wet with tears. He doesn’t mention it.
“It’s okay,” He whispers, hoping that his voice is as comforting as Jabber’s. “I’m okay.”
They spend a while longer, just holding each other.
—
That summer, full of harsh fights and gentle knowing, of hot sun and cold waters, of broken bones and strengthened companionship… The incidents were endless, and so naturally, time had felt so too.
A summer spent bathing not in the sun nor the sea, but in the raw togetherness that only really came to them because they were eleven. Youth had drawn them together, but their sharp, jagged edges kept them closer.
Jabber had always felt sharp. Sharp nails, sharp thinking. Zanka only found out about how sharp he, too, could feel when he was with the other. Sharp punches, sharp words.
He wishes he’d had the other’s seemingly omniscient thinking, though. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so blindsided, then.
After all, he couldn’t imagine what his parents would tell him only a day after he’d cradled Jabber’s malleable, vulnerable body. It certainly wasn’t this.
“When you finish sixth grade, we’ll be going back into the city.”
There’s ringing in his ears as his mother continues to speak.
Looking out the window, the curtains don’t billow in the wind, discouraged by the heavy material.
One. Two. Three.