Chapter Text
Jabber was just walking around his town since Cthoni had called him the day before and told him he needed to “actually live his life instead of being cooped up in his room watching Spirit of the fallen (SOTF) all day long.” She just doesn’t understand that he needs to finish the new season that came out.
But then a new bookstore called “books HQ” caught his eye
might as well see what’s it’s all about..
Once going inside he immediately goes to the section labeled “manga” and his face immediately lights up, sporting a grin because of finding the newest volume of SOTF! And to make even better this new volume had new character art of Zento, What a lucky day he wasn’t able to find the new volume anywhere!
Jabber then feels eyes on him, forgetting that during his struggle of not want to leave house he was sporting all of Zentos merch to his hood, ita bag, and even his pants had zentos sword printed on the sides
how embarrassing
He was never one to get embarrassed normally but since he was living in his majestic Zento cave of a room for the past month barely leaving,, he didn’t look the greatest. Worried he would run into someone he knew he kept his head pointed down and walked up to the cashier and wanted to get out asap.
Setting his newly collected manga on the counter he start to fumble around with his wallet trying to not meet the cashiers eyes
“Your total’ gonna be 500¥”
Jabber was taking out his money and just about to hand it to him but then he slowly looked up examining the clerk, he had two golden rings on each of his middle fingers, a tightly fitted black long sleeve shirt, baggy sweat pants… an-and..
Omg.
It’s Zento-San.
He just stands there gawking at this Zento-San irl for who know how long could’ve been minutes hours even… he got broken from this trance when the clerk began to talk
“Sir, are you okay?” This Zento-San look-a-like was actully talking and there voice were so similar an-and just holy moly..
Jabber accidentally let it slip and quietly muttered “Ze-Zento-San?” And unfourtunelby for him this Zento-San had horribly good hearing and responded back
“who..?”
Jabbers face went flush, quickly throwing his money on the counter not counting how much he actually gave the clerk, grabbed the SOTF manga and ran for the hills.
———————————-
Running way to fast to point jabber was light-headed in his mind he panicked..
Omg that was a almost direct copy of Zento-San..
And he had to see me like THIS?! In his nerdy outfit, bad hair that was horribly frizzy and was tied into a ponytail.. he was totally screwed
The clerk probably thought he was some weird otaku that was too obsessed with a character I mean he kinda was but the clerk didn’t need to know that!
He reached his buildings door panting heavily from running, when was the last he actually exercised it had been way to long that’s for sure.
Going up the stairs to the second floor felt like hell his legs were tired from all the running, and his arms were tired to from gripping the manga to make sure it didn’t slip when he ran. Finding his door number he stuck his key in and unlocked the door to his studio apartment, everywhere you look had zentos merch, there was some people who had smaller shrines to their favorite characters, but jabber had his whole apartment as the shrine to Zento. all of his Beding themed toward Zento even had a body pillow with 2 side, he even had a pot holder with Zento on it. His obsession ran deep for Zento.
He set down his newly collected manga on one of his shelves that wasn’t being overran with merch, he jumped and almost flew to his bed. Flopping down and hugging his body pillow. The meeting kept flashing into his mind giving him even more embarrassment. He started to tossing around before shooting up
Even if he might hate me I have to try again, For Zento-San..
He started to plan in his head, maybe he could be romantic and bring the Zento look-a-like some flowers?! No… he would be way too scared to do that and he would trip over his words, he doesn’t even know the clerks actual name! It would be so weird to bring him flowers,,
Aha! He just needs a cool outfit so the clerk can forget about what he wore the previous day! He spent an hour or 2 picking out the perfect outfit setting out near his bed to change into the next day, looked up the time the bookstore opened/closed (10am-6pm) and also setting his alarm for bright and early to get ready to meet the clerk again.
——-
Jabber woke up around 5am, a whole 5 hours to get ready. He had plenty of time to do everything he needed to do!
He first started his morning with some light stretching and playing music, then took a shower, got dressed and put his hair up ((and it looked 100% better the it did yesterday)), rehearsed what he was going to say to the clerk when he got there in the mirror, and then he finally grabbed his phone and headed out…
*Ringgg….. Ringg…. Ring…
Huh
Jabber woke up to the sound of his alarm rigging again? That’s weird… wait no it can’t be, it can’t!
He sprung up and grabbed his phone, it was 4:30pm. He had dreamt about getting ready this whole time.
How can someone sleep for that long!? He only had hour to get everything he needed ready, he tossed his phone onto the floor and prayed it didn’t break as he ran to go take a shower, 4:45, drys off and styled his hair (not as good as he imagined), 5:10, rushed to get his outfit he thankfully picked out the night before only for when he actually took a good look at it, it looked horrible just hanging up. in his tiredness from running he must’ve not actually saw what he was grabbing, he still put in on it looked like crap, he knew it. He just stared in the mirror for a good few minutes staring with his jaw to the ground with how bad he looked, he sped up his pace and looked through his dresser and picked out a new outfit which looked a tad bit better then before it was now 5:45.
He only had 15 minutes to make it there and he still had to gather some his smaller items, which took another 5 minutes.
He had 10 minutes to get there before closing which was more like 5 minutes if he wanted to actually talk to the clerk.
He patted him self down made sure he everything and it was zipped up in his pockets and the sprinted as fast as he could, which, not shockingly, wasn't that fast. He got there around 4 minutes before closing. He made it
Jabber then opened up the door, and walked up to the clerk as he was packing up, and with as much composure he could muster up without looking like he just ran a marathon
he let out a simple
“Yo”