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“He wants me.” Jabber says, ecstatic, showing Cthoni his cell phone. The poor woman looks tired and exhausted, but she still glances at what he's showing her. “I told ya’, it's just a matter of time.”
“Is that the boy you told me you liked?” She says, a dead look reflecting in her eyes. “The guy you harassed half the campus for to get his number instead of asking him like a normal person?”
“Exactly!” Although she might be exaggerating a bit, he didn't hound half the campus for his number, it was... persuasion, and Cthoni has no idea all the trouble he went through to try and convince that redhead to give it to him. It was a little scary, but, hey, sacrifices. “You just had to see him, he's stunning. That frown, those hateful eyes, that sullen expression—”
“I think he just hates you.” She says, and she may not be entirely wrong this time.
“That just makes me special.” He says.
“No, that just makes you a mildly infuriating person to deal with.” She says.
He huffs, feigning pain and clutching his chest dramatically. "You're always so hard on me, Cthoni... Can't you support your friend here? I just found my soulmate and this is how you treat me? How mean.”
She shrugs, ignoring his complaints as she carefully arranges the lab equipment and puts everything back in its place. "I'd take you more seriously if you hadn't ruined everything on the first day. I still can't believe you insulted his eyebrows and called his hair color weird.”
He grimaces, because she wasn't exactly wrong... again. It hadn't been his intention! Strange is good, right? His eyebrows were unusual, in a good way; they made him look unique, and his hair was gorgeous, even though he'd never seen anyone with that color choice before. He might not have used the right words, but he thought his intentions were clear.
"But I apologized!" he explains. "I even brought him coffee.”
“Black coffee? without sugar? The same one he choked on before you started laughing?”
"His expression was hilarious, you should have seen it." He smiles at the memory, chuckling. "Besides, he looks like a serious guy, I thought he'd like it.”
And she looks at him, slightly disturbed, as if there were something wrong with him, and, again, probably, perhaps, she isn't exactly wrong. "You gave Zanka Nijiku a Black Coffee and expected him to like it? Who even likes that crap?”
He blinks. “Zodyl.”
Cthoni makes a gagging sound. "He's a creep; if you take him as an example of normality, I'm afraid you're a lost cause.”
Okay. True.
"Anyway," he sighs, moving closer to her. "I've been writing to him—nothin’ weird, just greetings." He quickly clarifies, seeing the doubtful expression on Cthoni's face. "He's a little... stubborn, but, uh, little by little, right?”
She simply nods slowly, her eyes squinting as she glances at his phone. A multitude of emotions flash across her face: confusion, worry, and finally, resignation. She looks at him, weary, he simply returns a radiant smile.
"He hasn't answered any of your messages," she says, and she looks so close to strangling him that he has to stifle a laugh. "He—he has ignored you, and you come here all excited telling me you've made progress...”
He keeps smiling.
"Well, technically I never said I made progress—wait, wait, don't go, I'm just jokin.” He exclaims, grabbing Cthoni by her lab robe to prevent her from getting up; she just glares at him as she sits back down.
“Speak.”
“Okay, okay! Geez, Momoa would never treat me like that.”
“You're right. She would straight up ignore you, now speak.”
He sighs again, shaking his head as he settles back in his seat. "So, you know about my philosophy classes, right?”
She raises an eyebrow. "Yes, the one you chose as a required part of your humanities course, right? The one you met him as well, what's new?”
He smiles. "Well, it turns out that the other day he approached me at the end of class, after the teacher had already left and everything.”
Cthoni's shoulders tense in anticipation, and, for once, she seems genuinely excited, although her face remains as serious as ever.
“...and?”
“And then he called me a weirdo and earnestly asked me to stop texting him.”
She noticeably deflates, looking at him with a mixture of disappointment and pity.
“But, but, I told him that I wanted to genuinely apologize for what I said to him, and that I wanted to mean that his style is so unique that it makes him look stunning, and, uh, he accepted it… the apologies, I mean.”
He doesn't mention the slight blush that spread across Zanka's face when he complimented him, nor his surprised and embarrassed expression upon hearing it, nor the frown that followed moments later, and he also doesn't mention his strange habit of biting his lip when he's nervous, which he noticed. It doesn't seem... appropriate, and he doesn't quite know how to describe it without sounding... weird, or embarrassing, or something like that.
Zanka had looked downright beautiful at that moment, and a strange urge to devour him from head to toe had taken hold of him.
For whatever reason, he doesn't say that one either.
“That's… that's actually really nice?” she says after a beat, and he tries not to be offended by the surprised tone in her voice.
“And that ain't even the best part.” He blurts out, excited. “I asked him if he'd like to meet at the cafeteria near campus to talk and, uh, make up for my little slip-up, and he accepted. I mean, he hesitated at first, but he accepted.
She stares at him, astonished, and he can't help but rejoice a little.
“You… you had a date with him?”
“Yup.”
“And you didn't tell me?”
Oh, oops.
“I forgot?”
Cthoni stares at him for a while, but finally accepts it with a grunt and asks him to explain in detail everything that happened.
He obeys gladly.
And he talks and talks and talks, at length. He tells her how he discovered that Zanka is studying psychology. How, apparently, he hates everything related to those people he defines as "academic geniuses." How he has a group of friends that the eccentric redhead is part of, and how he tutors the youngest member, whom they all practically adopted.
He also tells her how Zanka has great admiration for a guy named Engine, Enjin? and that part of his tuition—the part not already covered by his scholarship—is paid for by him.
Although there are some things he doesn't tell her, things he selfishly, capriciously, keeps to himself. He doesn't tell her his birthday—February 3rd—nor does he mention his favorite food. He also doesn't tell her how he discovered he has a little Siamese cat named Coco, or his apparent fascination with a staff he adorably calls 'Lovely Asistaff'. He also doesn't mention how he's a very clean guy, detesting any kind of dirt or filth, and how, at that, he couldn't help but think about his reaction to learning about all the chemicals he works with.
How Zanka told him, in a low voice, and almost with shame, how he doesn't have a home to return to during the holidays, how his family rejects him, how Enjin was a ray of light in his life when he saw no point in going on.
How sometimes he wishes he could go back home, beg his brothers for forgiveness, beg for a hug.
Beg for a, we're sorry, Zanka.
Nor does he mention the indifferent tone with which he said those things, almost as if they meant nothing, almost as if the idea were a joke in itself.
The dry, self-critical laugh that Zanka let out moments later.
Everyone has the right to keep their secrets, right? And even if they weren't, he doesn't feel comfortable saying it out loud, as if it were nothing.
“It seems you had a rather pleasant evening.” She says, and for once, a genuine smile settles on her face. “You really like him, huh?”
And he returns her smile, not a radiant one, nor an excited one, but a gentle one. He nods, and doesn't tell her how beautiful Zanka looked, how his clothes matched the color of his hair, or how his dull blue eyes shone in the flickering light of the café, how the afternoon rays that filtered through the window seemed to softly frame his face.
How, as a whole, they were the most beautiful sight he had ever had the pleasure of beholding.
“You could say that, yeah.”
And Cthoni just looks at him with a knowing gleam in her eyes, before shaking her head, and proceeding to try to get up.
A soft ding interrupts her attempt to leave, and makes her turn her head toward the blinking screen of his cell phone.
She looks at him, and he hopes his furious blush isn't noticeable, but obviously his efforts are useless when he hears laughter echoing beside him.
“Oh Jabber.”