Chapter Text
Only a few hours were enough for Zanka to understand how terrible rooming was with this Jabber guy; he was annoyingly loud.
Loud when talking with another guy that was himself insanely loud, so much that he could hear him through his earphones, not understanding words but only yelling that sounded like strangled screams.
Loud when he was playing some game on it, full noise blasting from the device.
Even after Zanka cleaned up his side of the room—his bed was now tidied up with new sheets and a desk with his belongings, and only his—everything Jabber owned was now lying on the ground or on his own bed. It quickly became ridiculous how all this mess started looking like a mountain, Jabber being annoyed each time Zanka handled something he owned and put it away, on the other side of the room.
And it was to a ridiculous extent that the stuff accumulated—let’s call it the Danger Zone for now—was so grouped around Jabber’s bed there was literally no place to step.
Zanka also discovered that they were even stuffed under his bed when he was about to put his baggage in there. It was a miracle that there weren't cockroaches roaming yet.
“How about ya clean?” He finally glanced in the other direction, done with all this shit while Jabber was still with his smartphone in his hand, linked to some charger and always seeming to be charging, as if the dark-skinned man didn't plan to leave his bed at all.
“Yeah, later,” he answered without conviction, not caring in the slightest.
At least he wasn't smoking anymore.
He understood from whatever happened earlier that Jabber hadn't planned for him to come back this soon, and so he had started smoking some weed, hoping that nobody would find him while doing that because Zanka was the only one to have the key anyway.
Because it was obviously not allowed.
Amid all the things Jabber owned, there was also an air purifier, one he used to not let his stuff take the odor of the drug, but he wasn't sure it worked perfectly. Zanka was starting to worry about his own clothes; he hoped they wouldn't smell either. The fucking dude had told him if the cat were out of the bag it would be his fault, so he had to protect his secret no matter what!
But Jabber wasn't really making it easy.
Zanka took an experimental sniff of his clothes; he was shocked to smell weed on them after all. If all of this continued, the whole campus would soon know the truth about him, yet he hadn't even started classes yet!
The looks people sent him before… he never wanted to experience them again. The isolation, the glare. Just because he refused to marry the girl his parents wanted him to marry, he had to tell them he didn't like girls, and his family didn't appreciate it, trying to make him understand that it wasn't normal.
He must have used all his luck the day he chose to flee his house and Enjin had found him on the streets alone, shocked to see some thirteen-year-old moping in some children's park in the middle of the night.
But anyway, all of that to say his clothes couldn't smell like shit. So he cracked a few sticks of incense; it always relaxed him. Bringing them here was a good call, it seemed. Zanka also guessed that his roommate must have broken the smoke detector; if it were working, it would have gone crazy by now, with all the smoke in the room coming from different sources.
The intrigued look that Jabber sent him bothered him, so much that he couldn't exactly ignore him any longer. “What?” he said with hostility, because that guy was such an asshole that he didn't want to use any form of sympathy with him.
At least, he didn't seem bothered by the fact he liked men; it was already something. Zanka was pretty sure that guy would be creeped out by now, but there wasn't any difference from before, only Jabber being insufferable, no more, no less.
“These things aren't exactly lung-friendly, y'know~” He smirked, pointing to the incense and letting out a few giggles.
You're the one to talk!
“Still better than the shit you're smokin’. How come people don’t notice? Ya reek of it.”
“I don't go outside.” Jabber's amused smile quickly disappeared, a dangerous glare appearing in his eyes.
“What…?” he asked, incredulously. “What are ya even doin’ here?”
“Look man, it doesn't concern you.” The voice Jabber took was angrier than he thought, as if the man was ready to bite him if he asked too many questions about him.
“Good, because I don't give a damn.”
“Then we're good.”
He saw him take another joint from nowhere before lighting it under his shocked eyes. How many of them was he planning to smoke per day?! There was a small dresser inside the room where he had put his clothes; he hoped that it would be enough to block the smell from getting on them. He definitely should buy some strong stuff to cover it, some kind of textile perfume.
It was starting to be a pain.
As he was starting to put on a vest and go outside—he didn't need to put on his shoes because he never took them off even if it bothered him to walk inside with them; there was no way he would step in the Danger Zone without them—a cold voice stopped him.
“I hope you remember our agreement.”
“Yeah, yeah, shut up, man,” he grumbled while slamming the door. The door hadn't done anything, yes. But still.
Somehow, holding even the tiniest conversation with his roommate was enough to make him angry. He always thought he had a lot of patience, dealing with his family; Enjin getting drunk, controlling Rudo’s rage, dealing with Riyo’s nightmares…
He regretted having bad-mouthed them back then.
Zanka flinched when he saw some people cross his path, not bothering to say hello to him, only glancing curiously at him. Right, there were other people in there; maybe he should refrain from talking too loud in his room. Zanka definitely couldn’t afford for the stuff they were talking about to get out of the room. For both of them.
But especially for him.
Because he didn't have enough sympathy to care for a rude guy like Jabber; if it wasn't for their bargain, Zanka started to believe that he would snitch on him, just because he's an asshole.
Well, he had other matters to attend to anyway; it's not like he had planned to stay with his damned roommate all day.
Earlier, he had sent a few SMS to Eishia, to make sure they could meet again by noon. Because of Enjin's work, they had to move regularly, but the blonde girl was Riyo's best friend and he himself considered her a good friend as well. The blond felt really lucky that Eishia went to the same university as him; it was always so hard to get to know a new person.
And it would be nice to hang out with his childhood friend again after they hadn't seen each other for a while; they had spent middle school together with Riyo. She was younger than them by one year, but it didn't bother her to treat Eishia all the same. Originally, both of them had been in the same class; being the quiet kids of the class, they came to do assignments together. One day she came to Enjin's place and she instantly became rather friendly with Riyo.
Zanka smiled at his memories; he had been so lucky to meet the people whom he considered like his big brother and his younger sister. Life had been so much easier since…
If he was right, the blonde girl should be waiting for him in the hall, where he couldn't miss her after what she said, because she would wait for him in an obvious space.
From what he remembered—it had been about four years since they last saw each other—Eishia had always been a rather timid and small girl; he wondered if that had changed.
So he walked inside the establishment, a little surprised to see so many people around there, buzzing with life; it was very different from where he came from; everything was big. It reminded him of his house in a sense. His real house, the one where he wasn't welcome anymore.
He didn't have a clue where the girl was, though.
“Zanka?” A timid voice reached him before his eyes fell on a petite girl in front of him, surrounded by other people—classmates, maybe?
She wore her blonde hair in a short cut, a feminine white shirt with a long skirt—the kind of elegant clothes that he didn't expect to see on her. She looked so different from his memories that he couldn't help but drop his jaw; his childhood friend had grown up gorgeous.
And it surprised him even more when the girl reached him before hugging him. The same hug he was once used to when she was scared, the one that could crush your bones, which you couldn't guess from how slender the girl looked.
“Ouch, what—”
“Please, play along,” Eishia asked him quietly, her face against his torso; he was surprised to see how small she was.
His gaze went in front of him; glances of pure jealousy came toward him. It occurred to him that the guys she was hanging around may not be her friends. It had surprised him, too; Eishia had never been the kind of person to have a lot of people around her, even less so guys.
So he slowly reciprocated her embrace, placing his arms over her shoulders as a protective shield. He almost smirked at those people who were looking at them, now leaving, though not without muttering one or two insults.
He felt the blonde girl squirm inside his arms before he instantly let her go, taking a step back. Even if they were friends, that didn't mean someone as shy as Eishia would be at ease with hugging a man she hadn't seen in a while all of a sudden.
“I'm sorry,” she muttered, visibly stressed by what happened.
He himself felt a little uncomfortable with how many eyes were on them. Guess a boy and a girl sharing a hug was too much for bored students like them, huh?
“Let's go somewhere else.” He was saying that, but he really didn't have a clue where; he didn't know the university.
“W-we can go to the infirmary…” Zanka nodded before following her, minding his footsteps because he was walking way faster than her now because of their size difference.
Maybe it wasn't Eishia who was small, but him who had grown rather tall. It was hard to notice these kinds of things when the guys around him were giants; talking to Enjin or even his friend Gris always required the effort of lifting his head so much that his neck would start to get sore. Maybe that is why his growth spurt hit all of a sudden?
“What’s with these people?” he asked quietly, somewhat afraid to say something wrong about the situation. He only hoped they weren't bullying her; Eishia was way too sweet for that. To think the first interaction they had in four years was him helping her escape some rude guys.
“They’ve been trying to ask me to go for a drink with them for a while now…” The girl, who didn't really have her head straight, only lowered it even more, looking at the ground while they walked.
It seemed like even like that, she seemed to know perfectly where she was going because they were soon reaching the infirmary. Zanka wondered how many times she came here.
“...Do ya injure yerself often?” he finally asked, bothered.
The way Eishia was behaving didn't especially look like she was hurt, but her long skirt and sleeves made him wonder. He was, after all, well aware of self-destruction.
“Oh, no, no!” The big pink eyes widened, while she made a movement of her hands to tell him that nothing of the sort happened. “I just like this place; I find it relaxing.”
She smiled slightly while a small blush settled on her cheeks; she always flushed easily, even back then. If he remembered well from the group chat convo they had, Eishia's field of study was medicine. Logical, given her family of doctors.
“The nurse here is a friend of my grandma,” she said while pushing the door before stepping in rather confidently, even if there was nobody inside.
“Ya can stay here as much as ya want?”
“Yes!” Well, Eishia certainly looked thrilled to isolate herself in the infirmary, but if it worked well for her, it was just as good.
Zanka put his bag on the floor before sitting in one of the waiting chairs; the girl was starting to prepare coffee after asking him if he wanted some, like she owned the place.
Which was hella funny if you asked him.
“So, what’s up with these guys? They're actually tryin’ to hit on ya?”
“I-I don't know, but I keep telling them I'm not interested, that I already have someone I like, but they don't believe me and keep asking me who. But they don't even study here…”
So they were just some group of stupid guys who were hoping for some action…
Wait.
“They?” he asked, now intrigued; he wasn't aware that the girl liked someone.
“Hum…” She blushed deeply before playing with her fingers.
Eishia was one of the few people that knew his preference, so she knew he wouldn't judge, but Zanka hadn't thought of that for her before; was she the same as him? The girl was a little tomboyish back then, so much so that he was shocked to see her in such a feminine form today.
“It's… Riyo,” she said almost inaudibly while he was gaping wide.
For real? He never noticed.
Eishia had feelings for Riyo, her found sister in the family Enjin created, a traumatized girl that had become and kept becoming more and more liked and popular with people around her, so much so that she was easygoing.
“Does she know?” he asked before the girl almost grabbed him by his vest, visibly panicked and surprising him while doing so; that girl was sometimes very forceful.
“Don't tell her!” she whispered hastily, as she was afraid that her secret would come out, even if the red-haired girl was way too far away to hear.
“Of course I won't.” Zanka smiled at her reassuringly.
His mind wandered about the two girls, who were very friendly around each other, wondering if they had seen each other again since they moved out. It wouldn't surprise him, given how close they were.
“Let's hang around each other then. They won't bother ya if I'm close.” And staying with a girl would cancel any rumors about him that might spread because of his bad luck and his bad roommate.
Rumors that would start because of Jabber, who already had a bad reputation, or rumors starting about him and Eishia who would always hang around each other and were witnessed sharing a hug?
Zanka was pretty sure his roommate didn't stand a chance if he tried to start something.
He smirked, happy to have the upper hand on him.