Chapter Text
It’s autumn but the oppressive summer heat is still trapped inside Damian’s sleeping bag. “That thing is too hot. How am I supposed to sleep?” Damian gripes.
Jon smiles. “It’s simple! Here, stand up.” Damian does. Jon zips up the sleeping bag and throws his extra blanket on top of it “Ta-da.”
“Well done, you made it warmer.”
“No, you sleep on top of the bag! It’s cozy.” Jon says, sitting down on the makeshift bed, back brushing against his desk. “I wanna show you something.”
Damian gives him a dubious look. “It’s not going to be something gross, is it?”
Jon laughs. “No! Look, when I was 10, I was really into Naruto, it’s an anime and a manga series, it’s great. But you like art! So I wanted to show you my Manga collection.” Jon crawls over to the foot of his loft bed and pulls out a plastic tub full of manga from underneath a shelf. He opens the lid and it smells like ink. Damian picks up one of the copies. “Hm… Very simple composition, but good use of perspective. The emphasis the art style places on the eyes is interesting.” He opens the book and flips through the pages.
“Oh, you’re reading them backwards, they read right to left.”
Damian nods. He adjusts to this easily as he often reads languages that are written right to left. He starts to read them aloud but trails off as he becomes more invested. Jon smiles fondly and picks up another volume to read for himself. Damian takes his time looking at all the art, appreciating the technically proficient panels and huffing a laugh at the hastily drawn portions. He grabs another Manga.
“Oh, you might not like that one. It’s Shoujo, not Shounen. The genres basically mean ‘little girl’ and ‘little boy’ because of the target audience, but shounen is action and shoujo is slice of life or romance.”
“What’s ‘slice of life’?”
“Something without much plot that’s about everyday life; chores, school, groceries, going to the park. That sort of thing.”
“Hm.” Damian decides to read it anyway. He smiles faintly, unaware of what his face is doing, and Jon stares at him dreamily. Damian looks up. “Do you have more of these? I want to know what happens next.”
“No, sorry. My mom bought that one for me not realizing I prefer a different genre.”
“Very well, I will order the rest.”
“Okay. Well, hey, if you like slice of life, I think I know an anime that you might like! And I really wanna show you anime, too. Can I?” Jon asks excitedly.
“Alright.”
“Great!” Jon says, quickly pulling Damian up by his elbow and dragging him to the living room. Damian drops the manga he was reading onto the sleeping bag before he’s pulled out of the room. “Pull up Jetflix, I’ll make popcorn.” Jon says after dragging Damian to the couch and handing him the remote.
“Don’t make it with your eyes this time, you’ll burn it.”
“I won’t!” Jon says. He puts the kernels in the whirlipop pot with olive oil and salt and puts it on the stovetop, waiting for it to start popping so he can turn the handle to make it heat evenly. He bounces on the toes of his feet, excited and happy.
Damian logs into Jon’s Jetflix profile and pulls up the search menu. “What should I search?” he asks.
“My Neighbor Isekai! Isekai means ‘another world’. It’s this show about a Demon and a Demonslayer from a fantasy land who show up in japan and have to live normal lives and interact with regular people. The Demon works at Big Belly Burger but It’s called Dig Deli Burger instead. He becomes very obsessed with being the best employee and getting promoted all the way to the top! It’s pretty funny. He has human coworkers and there’s a love triangle between him, his coworker, and his neighbor the demonslayer.”
Damian pulls up the show. The colors in the preview are very vibrant and the characters look very cute. Despite this they all have relatively realistic adult proportions as typical of media aimed at adults. Damian decides to keep his art critiquing thoughts to himself as they watch it.
Jon comes over with a huge bowl of popcorn. “I made too much… But I think I can eat it all! You’ll eat some too, right?” Damian nods. Jon sits close to Damian and puts the bowl between them so that it rests on both of their thighs. Damian presses play. They binge watch the first four episodes as they finish the popcorn.
“So, What did you think?” Jon asks him.
“The Demon character acclimating to everyday life reminded me a lot of when I came to gotham. It was a very scary time but I relate to his determination and the little things he finds joy in that people don’t expect him to.”
“Like Anime? Do you like anime now? Will you watch it and talk about it with me? I would be so happy if you did! I have nobody to talk to about it, mom and dad won’t watch it either.”
“Yes, I enjoyed it. I suppose I’ll watch more if I have the time. I make no promises.”
“Yay!” Jon hugs damian, spilling the old maids from the bowl onto his lap.
“Tt. Clean that up.”
“Sorry!” Jon sweeps them off his lap and into his hand and puts it back into the bowl, setting the bowl on the coffee table and moving into the gap he created with the popcorn. “What did you think of the romance plot? Who do you think he should go for?”
“He clearly has the most chemistry with his coworker. The hunter overcoming her differences and falling in love with the demon is an interesting dynamic. You’ve watched the show before, who does he end up with?”
“I’m not telling~ You’ll just have to watch it and find out!”
“You’re insufferable.”
Lois comes into the room. “Boys, it’s time for bed.”
“Yes, mom.” Jon replies with a whiny breath. “C’mon, Damian.” He says, leading Damian by the arm. He climbs up the ladder and gets under his covers, grabbing his stuffed animal from the foot of the bed and hauling him into his arms. Jon peers over the side of his bed. “You alright down there Damian?”
“I’m fine. I could use a pillow.”
“Here, I have an extra one you can use!” Jon says, throwing his extra pillow at Damian, eliciting a grunt from the smaller boy. “Sorry!”
“Go to sleep, hayseed.”
“‘Night!”