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“Zaaanka. Has anyone ever told you that the little cloth thing you have going on looks like a skirt? It’s cute.” Riyo laid back against the back seats of the car, head against the window. Her legs shot past Zanka’s lap, crossed over each other and propped up against his door. He doesn’t mind it, truly, he’s grown used to her lack of regard for personal space.
His arms remained crossed over his chest, though the fidgeting foot that’s been tapping against the floor of the car stills.
“I mean… I guess.” He begins to pick at the pilling blue fabric wrapped around his waist. Was it that noticeable? Its entire purpose was to be rather innocuous while still vaguely resembling something feminine. Not exactly a skirt, but nothing less. Riyo sits up, slotting up against his side, hands reaching into Zanka’s lap.
God, is it embarrassing to be caught.
“If you put your legs together it looks like a pencil skirt. Ya know what I’m talking about?” He does, though, he’d never attempt wearing one. “They’re kind of tight looking. It tapers down just like your thing.” Riyo begins to play with the hem, rubbing it between her fingers.The fabric feels like a cheap, costume satin under Riyo’s gaze. He’d rather it burst into flames right now than have her hyperfocus on it any further. He knows it’s with no ill intent, but coming from an actual girl?
He feels like a fraud. Of course, he is one, but all this attention to it forces him to acknowledge it, which he really doesn’t like to do. In an ideal world he’d be repressing this the whole time, and he wouldn’t let any of this sneak into his daily life.
It happened when August was designing his uniform. He’s not proud of the moment. August had taken the reins for the design, something Zanka didn’t mind, and yet, inexplicably, she felt upset when he had shown her the first design. It wasn’t much different from the final uniform he had on now, but the silhouette was different. The aforementioned ‘cloth thing’ was nowhere to be seen. August designed the jacket with a blocky figure—straight down, straight up— emphasizing the shoulders of it—presumably with shoulder pads. Shoulder pads? Really?
Zanka explicitly remembers the air draining from his lungs, not in a loud, beleaguered exhale, but through a soft sigh. August didn’t hear it over the loud music. He felt nauseous at the thought of wearing such a performatively masculine garment. He’d given August a small amount of feedback, taking the sketchbook from him after it was offered up and shakily altering the parts he wanted changed. He tapered the midsection down so the jacket took on a more triangular shape, and after a couple seconds of deliberation, outlined a skirt. After realizing what he was doing, his hand started to drift back, sketching something that looked more like a loincloth.
“Ya want it like… around the back too?”
Zanka paused and looked down at the paper. No, it’d look too much like a skirt. “No thanks. If it makes sense, could you design it like an apron in the back?”
“I gotchu, I gotchu!” August’s hand moves with precision. It’s not what Zanka wanted, but it’s also exactly what Zanka told him to make. It’s euphoria-inducing enough, which is good for him.
“And… could you make the pants more loose?” Like culottes. He wants to say that exact thing so bad, and yet he holds his tongue. Culottes are designed so loose in order to look like a skirt. If he couldn’t have a skirt, he wanted something adjacent, but the fear of August suspecting anything shut him up quickly.
Zanka hadn’t given him much input past that, leading to the creation of the uniform he’s wearing right now. He doesn’t mind it, really, but he doesn’t love it. August put hard work and effort into it, listened to exactly what Zanka had told him, and he still didn’t like it. He felt horrible when he didn’t love it—a complete piece of shit.
“Aw, you don’t like it? You got quiet all of a sudden.” Riyo chuckles, lighthearted sounds rising up from her chest. “Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t have expected you to have been into it.” She sets one leg down on Zanka’s lap, leaning back into her original position.
“I don’t mind it. I just never considered it looked like…” He lies, trailing off, murmuring to no one in particular.
“Don’t go and change it now just because of me, silly. I like how it looks.” She smiles at him, closing her eyes shortly after. Zanka begins to tap his finger against his knee anxiously. She’s got him all figured out, he can feel it. She knows. She’s probably just indulging him because they’re friends. His mind races, finger rubbing circles into the lightweight fabric of his pants.
If he’d ever explicitly expressed what he wanted, he wouldn’t know what anyone would do. How humiliating would that be in front of a real girl? Riyo would probably look down on him immediately. He can’t just stay happy, can he?
He’d assumed Rudo was asleep, but he’s been quietly observing the two from the backseat. Gloved hands reach up for the headrest so he can leverage himself to a higher position in the car.
“What’s a pencil skirt look like?”
Great. Now he knows too. Though, Zanka has less faith in Rudo actually figuring out the kind of fraudulent mimic he actually is. If anything, Rudo would probably just think that he’s embarrassed over his uniform looking like it has a skirt.
“Sort of what like Zanka’s got on. Not exactly. So, imagine, like, the little piece of cloth but if it went aaaaall around.” Riyo opens an eye lazily. She swings her scissors around her fingers as she says ‘all around’. “But imagine if it- no.” She brings a finger up to her chin.
“...What? That just sounds like a normal skirt.” Rudo grumbles.
“I’ll draw it for you when we get back.”
Then Enjin spoke.
“We’ll be back soon. Ten minutes.”
Zanka’s chest tightened. Not because Enjin had said anything pointed—he hadn’t even looked back—but because he was there to witness his pathetic, slow unraveling. Zanka had spent so long making sure Enjin saw someone steady, someone reliable. A man. And here he was, picked apart by a friend’s offhand comment, his entire composure crumbling over fabric.
He pressed his thumb into the seam of his pants and held it there.
To anyone else, Zanka just looks neurotic and pale.
“Quit driving like a maniac just to get us home!” Rudo’s voice cut through the cabin, sharp and familiar. “We can wait, asshole.”
The imaginary tension was cut cleanly through with a knife, sliced through by Rudo. Zanka’s mood lightens considerably, though everyone else was already in this headspace. Zanka let his thumb come up off his pants. Enjin lets out a chuckle, a cloud of smoke exiting from his mouth through the window into the cool night air.
“Alright, alright, kid. Just for you.”
Riyo stretched her legs back out across his lap, settling in like nothing had happened. To her, nothing had. Just a conversation. Just passing time. Her ankle knocked against his thigh, casual, unthinking.
He wondered what it cost her, that ease. Or if it cost anything at all.