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The training room smells very faintly of metal and dust, something stale that Zanka is familiar with. He blinks tiredly, Lovely Assistaff swinging in each direction he turns, practicing his speed. It had been too cold to train outside this morning as usual due to the oncoming colder months, so he opted for using the large training room inside the gym. It wasn’t ideal, as he much preferred being outside to train, but it would have to do for a while.
His grip tightens around Assistaff as he pivots, the end of it cutting clean through the air, indicated by the sharp whistle Assistaff makes, and the audible sound of his lungs compressing as he exhales. Each movement is precise and controlled; practiced in a way that he had been doing repetitively over and over again and again and again. He huffs out a breath before swinging back around again, the force of the movement making his head band in soreness.
That’s the goal, right?
He has to perfect it.
“There you are,” Zanka hears.
Zanka flinches, turning abruptly to the man at the entrance of the gym. Enjin looks like he just woke up—his hair down and still in the sweater he saw him in the night prior, but his voice isn’t groggy, so that indicates that he’s been up for at least a while.
“Enjin,” Zanka nods his head gently. When he had started bowing around the time they met, Enjin thought the amount of respect was uncomfortable for someone as “laid back” as himself, so they had compromised on this. Or, rather, Zanka had continued to do it, much to Enjin’s protest. The end of Assistaff taps lightly against the ground as he exhales through his nose, straightening up. “Good morning.”
“Looked everywhere for you, man.” Enjin yawns, so maybe Zanka’s previous judgment about him being up for a while was wrong. “You didn’t answer when I knocked on your door.”
“You could have called me,” Zanka frowns. The thought of sending Enjin on some hunt to figure out where he’d be made him feel guilty.
Enjin chuckles to himself. “Nah, I’d figured you’d be here. You eat yet?”
He pauses, the question catching him slightly off guard. “Um, not yet..couldn’t sleep,” he shrugs.
Zanka had trouble falling asleep for a while. It had gotten worse around the time Hyo had been enrolled, but it capped around when he had first met Enjin. Enjin was quite familiar with his insomnia, and it had gotten better since joining the Cleaners, but he’d still have nights where he’d toss and turn for hours. Sometimes his incense helped; the calming scent filling his lungs, but not the night prior.
“Alright, well, Riyo and I are going to eat now. I need a coffee. Coming?”
Zanka hesitates. Enjin’s smile falters just a tad, before Zanka nods briefly.
“Yeah—no yeah, I’m comin’.”
Assistaff weighs heavy in his grip as he follows Enjin out of the gym and to the mess hall. Riyo waits for them on the wall, pushing herself off once they come into view.
By the time noon rolls around, Zanka’s shirt sticks uncomfortably to his back. Sweat drips down the side of his neck and between his scapulas grossly as he adjusts his grip on Assistaff once again; his breathing harsh. Across from him, Riyo rolls her shoulders and huffs, fixing her grip on The Ripper. She was playing defensive today, but The Ripper was still decently heavy, so the both of them had noticeably broken a sweat.
“Again,” she says.
Zanka exhales. “Ain’t this enough? We’ve been going for so long.”
“Just one more time.”
He clicks his tongue. “Yeah—yeah, fine.”
He moves first once again. Assistaff swings toward her side, only for Riyo to step back just enough to avoid it, The Ripper being placed between them as a shield. Zanka doesn’t miss the way she almost missed it, though.
“You’re too slow,” she says flatly.
Zanka’s eye twitches. The fact she’s still giving him pointers even when he can tell she’s also at her limit is really starting to agitate him. The sweat and lack of sleep isn’t helping, either. He tries not to grit his teeth. “I’m not slow.”
“You hesitated, though.” Riyo pops on her hip.
“I did not—!”
Riyo moves before he can finish his rebuttal, closing the distance between them in a step and knocking Assistaff slightly off-course. It’s not enough to completely disarm him, but it’s just enough for Zanka to stumble back, proving her point. After all, Lovely Assistaff was just a stick, and The Ripper fully had the capacity to break her in half if Riyo willed it.
She didn’t, though.
Zanka stiffens, correcting his stance quickly. He really hates the way she looks at him like that. Riyo’s gaze is piercing and bright when she’s determined to win, and it’s a look that’s all too familiar to Zanka. The lightness of both of their eyes doesn’t help, either. A natural talent, like Hyo.
“You’re sloppy today,” she mumbles absently. “You didn’t get enough sleep?”
There it is. Zanka’s gaze tightens ever so slightly—not enough to indicate his anger, however.
“I’m done,” she says, and she turns around on her heel. The Ripper quickly transforms back into its regular form, and she twirls it around a few times before putting it back in her pocket.
Zanka lowers Assistaff, shoulders tight. “I can do more. I’m not sloppy.” he huffs out, his agitation clear in the tone of his voice.
“I don’t want to,” Riyo replies, making her way towards Enjin, who had been standing and watching the entire thing.
“What, Y’tired or somethin’?” Zanka doesn’t miss the way his voice comes out uneven and ragged, a self-report on how tired he was. He wasn’t in any position to comment on Riyo giving up in his state.
“No,” she replies, staring at him with lack of amusement. “It’s lunchtime, I'm hungry.”
Zanka blinks.
Right.
He hadn’t noticed.
From the corner of the room, Enjin pushes himself off the wall he’d been leaning against.
“Perfect timing!” he says, stretching his arms above his head. “You guys did a good job today. Riyo, don’t be so harsh on him, yeah? I’m starving.”
Zanka says nothing, focusing instead on wiping the sweat that had collected from the back of his neck. He swallows, thick and hot in his throat. He notices the shoulder pat Enjin gives to Riyo, seemingly waiting for Zanka to walk over for his share. He doesn’t.
“Zanka, you coming?” Enjin asks.
There’s a beat. Zanka doesn’t answer.
Enjin’s gaze, which was previously on Riyo, shifts to him. “Zanka?”
He pauses for a second, head dipping to stare at the floor. He feels as a bead of sweat rolls down from his scalp, down the bridge of his nose and onto the floor with a wet splatter. His head throbs within the confines of his skull.
“…I’ll eat later,” he says, plainly. “M’ gonna rest first.”
Riyo glances at him. Zanka doesn’t glance back, but instead focuses on both of his hands gripping onto Assistaff in front of him. He stares at every splinter and groove and crevice in her wood.
Enjin hums, slower this time. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Another pause. He looks up from Assistaff with the intention of giving Enjin a reassuring smile, but he doesn’t miss the way Riyo grips Enjin’s sleeve, an angry look on her face. Or at least, it looks angry as she turns to stare back at him.
“..Alright,” Enjin says eventually. There’s a look on his face mirroring Riyo’s. “Don’t take too long, alright?”
Zanka nods once, already turning away.
He doesn’t wait for them to leave first.
The hallway is quieter.
Zanka exhales as he walks, the tension in his shoulders not easing nearly as much as he expected. His grip tightens slightly around Assistaff as he plants each foot in front of the other–one, two, one, two–slowly making his way back to his room. The hallway makes an uncomfortable buzzing noise due to the fluorescent lights, and it makes Zanka’s head pound even harder. His feet are heavy and sluggish, and there’s an uncomfortable feeling deep in the middle of his stomach. He’ll try and rest it off.
Rest.
That’s what he had said.
He reaches his door, stepping inside and shutting it behind him with a soft click, locking it. The silence that follows is immediate; familiar. There’s no annoying buzz from the lights, or weird smells, or someone who wanted to talk to the “newbie” who had recently joined Akuta.
Zanka sets Assistaff down in its usual spot against the wall, his movements automatic, before sitting on the edge of his bed. He leans forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees, staring at nothing in particular.
He’s not tired. He’s not hungry, either. He just needs to rest his head for a while and ease off the dull ache in his muscles. He’d get up to shower, but he didn’t really have it in him to do that, either.
Zanka exhales slowly, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes and watching as he starts to see a myriad of colours and patterns due to the harshness of it. When he lets his hands drop back down, the walls sing with the same colours, albeit slightly.
He lies back instead, his back hitting the mattress and his arms flopping to the side. His eyes peer up at the dark ceiling. He doesn’t bother to close his mouth and feels how every exhale blows past his lips instead of his through his nose.
He blinks. And blinks again, longer this time. The darkness of his room is soothing to his eyes.
Eventually after staring at the ceiling for who knows how long, he feels how gross and sticky his uniform clings to his skin, and he sits up to change into some of his casual clothes from back home. He puts on a shirt and throws over a lighter haori that he tends to wear to bed.
He walks over to his dresser and lights a single stick of incense, hoping the smell will help him relax.
Flopping back onto the bed in the same position he was in previously, Zanka feels his eyelids heavy against his eyes, but he knows he won’t be able to sleep even if he tried to now.
So he just closes them.
You’re too slow.
You’re sloppy today.
Riyo’s words echo and rattle around in his head like the internal part of a bell, banging around relentlessly. His stomach feels tight and hollow, a sense of nausea tingling in the pit of it.
He exhales again.
Too slow. Too sloppy. Too slow. Too sloppy. Too—
Zanka presses his thumbs against his temples and presses hard. It doesn’t silence his thoughts in the slightest; it only makes his head throb more. The feeling lingers, crawling up his throat and leaving a burning feeling in the back of his mouth, as if he might throw up. He doesn’t.
He shifts on the bed, turning onto his side. The sheets are cool against the exposed parts of skin, but it doesn’t help. Nothing really does.
Sloppy. Really?
His fingers curl into the fabric.
He replays it. Their fight. Every misstep he made, every correction he made, every time Riyo’s voice cut in; flat and not impressed.
You hesitated.
“I didn’t,” he feels himself mutter under his breath, the words barely audible in his quiet bedroom.
But he did. He knows that he did.
Zanka squeezes his eyes shut tight, trying to force the memory out. It doesn’t really do anything.
She had proved her point clearly, catching him off guard enough to make him stumble on his feet. The only way she could have done that is if he had hesitated, anyway. The way she looked at him afterwards, expression blank. It wasn’t really a look of contempt, but it wasn’t satisfaction either. Just blank.
Almost as if she were bored.
His jaw tightens.
Of course he hesitated. Of course he was slow. It was nothing new.
Zanka exhales slowly, dragging a hand down his face. He feels his fingers dragging at the soft skin of his cheeks, tight and firm as it gets pulled.
He thinks of the academy back in the Kamuatari District. It was the only routine in his life, practicing over and over again until his failures were corrected. He heard the way that others talked about him.
He’s the youngest son of the Nijiku family, they’d say. Not like we can best him, they’d say. We’re just average, they’d say.
Average.
He had worked so hard, tirelessly day and night, just to be at the top of his class. Worked so hard just to end up where he is now.
At home, it was silent. Zanka likes silence, and the way it calms his nerves and makes him feel at ease. The silence whenever he went home, however, he did not enjoy. The silence was sharp and uneasy, and he could feel whenever his siblings would pass and his breath would hitch. How his father’s speeches had cut that silence clean through like a blade that had been sharpened for ages.
His throat tightens again. As if it could get any tighter.
It’s the same. It’s always the same. No matter where he goes, it follows him.
Zanka rolls onto his back again, staring up at the ceiling even though his eyes are closed now.
You’re sloppy.
He clicks his tongue under his breath, irritated at the way it sticks to the roof of his mouth; dry and heavy.
Why does it matter? Who cares?
It’s just Riyo.
It’s not like she likes you, anyway.
That thought should make it easier to stomach. It does make it easier, usually. It's easier to brush off someone's criticisms when you don’t give a shit about what they think about you.
So why?
His stomach twists again, sharper this time. It feels hot and uneasy.
Because she’s right.
And he hates that.
As much as he wants Riyo to like him, he has a lot of stuff he doesn’t really like about her. How observant she is. How she clings to Enjin’s side like some shark. How particular she is about her cosmetics. Her stature. Her creepy stare. How she reacts to important things; and overreacts to non-important things. Her indifference and her laid back personality, definitely stemming from Enjin’s own.
Enjin never says things like that. Enjin says he has potential.
The contrast makes his chest ache.
Which one of them is right?
Zanka swallows hard.
He doesn’t like the answer that comes to mind.
Time passes, he’s not sure how much time passes, really. His nausea only gets worse.
At some point, he opens his eyes again. The room is darker now; the light from his window being more faint than before. He continues to stare into the ceiling, and his eyes burn from the neglect of not blinking. He notices that the incense stick has almost fully burned down.
His thoughts feel weaker now, but his body doesn’t seem to share the same sentiment.
He briefly considers going back out, and meeting with Enjin to have a late lunch—early dinner—who knows. Any movement to break this cycle. Eating, showering, polishing Assistaff, walking around. Anything.
He doesn’t move.
Riyo’s voice is quieter now.
You’re slow.
“..Yeah,” he mutters.
The word barely leaves his lips. He starts to drift off, enough to feel the aches in his body ease up, and the dull ache in his head become less achy.
.
.
There’s a gentle knock on his bedroom door that doesn’t sound like Enjin’s. It startles Zanka out of his brief half-conscious daze, and he sits up, feeling the pang of pain return in his head.
There’s no dialogue that follows said knock, so Zanka does not respond. He hopes whoever is at the door will assume that he’s sleeping early or something, even though anyone would know that Zanka can’t sleep this early—or sleep well at all—if they paid any attention to him in the slightest. He hears a shuffle through the wood, watching the shadow of the shoes planted in front of the door shift around. Good, Zanka thinks.
“Zanka?”
It’s Riyo’s voice.
Zanka stays silent. As quiet as he can possibly be, really. His door is locked, so it’s not like she'll try to bust in or anything. She’s invasive, but she knows her limits and when they apply. Zanka really doesn’t want to talk to her, though.
He watches as the shadow of her boot moves up and down, tapping the floor. Impatience. Is she impatient with him? Is she more irritated than before? It’s not far-fetched to assume she’s coming in to finally berate him or something. Zanka always knew that she secretly despised him. Hell, Zanka would despise her too if their roles were reversed. She probably hates his guts and Enjin won’t say anything.
That’s fine, Zanka doesn’t mind. He just really wishes she’d go away. He’s starting to hate her, too.
He chooses not to acknowledge the way his throat stings at that thought.
There’s another knock—sharper this time, with more force. Her boot still taps incessantly, and Zanka realizes this whole time he wasn’t breathing. He sucks in a harsh gulp of air, the noise sounding ragged in his quiet room. The foot outside the door stops tapping, and the silence that follows is nauseating.
Just go away, damn it!
“Zanka, I know you’re up,” Riyo starts. Zanka. There’s something to her tone Zanka can’t pinpoint, but it sounds shaky. Is she worried? No, that can’t be right. There’s nothing important about him to worry about. “Open the door.”
Fuck off already!
He stands. “One moment,” he mumbles out, an attempt at mitigating the situation. He shuffles to the door and pauses over the lock, listening to hear any last-minute regret from the girl behind it. There’s nothing but silence. His fingers twist the lock and he curtly peeks through the crack of the door, sharp green eyes meeting puffy, dead blue. She doesn’t miss his squint at the bright hallway lights.
“Ah, Riyo,” Zanka smiles gently. They both know it’s strained. Zanka hopes she doesn’t know it’s fake, however. “I didn’t hear you. I was busy. Y’need something?”
It’s a poor attempt at damage control, and he knows it. As he looks down, he notices that Riyo looks sheepish. Her posture is overly stiff, and her eyes bore holes through his own and through the back of his head, or at least it feels that way. Why is she staring me down so hard? Yeesh.
“You didn’t show up for dinner,” She squints. It’s clear she meant it more of a general statement, but her tone and posture and everything about her hostility makes it sound like a spat-out accusation, which makes Zanka stand up even straighter than before. If that was even possible. He feels nauseous. He hopes he doesn’t throw up on her; that would surely make her despise him.
Had it been that long that he’d missed dinner? He’s so lame.
“Yeah, I—uh,” Zanka averts his gaze. Shit. “I..ain’t hungry.”
Riyo’s face goes sour at this, and she looks down at something she was holding—Zanka had failed to notice this before, damn him—and he finds himself peering down with her.
In her hands is a tray. It’s one of the shitty gross plastic ones that looked cheap and tacky, but resting on the tray was a bowl of soup and some rice, with some additional egg rolls to go with it. Riyo—or at least, Zanka was hoping assuming it was Riyo—had also packed them up in takeout containers to minimize the spill on the way here.
What the hell is this?
Riyo averts her gaze. “You haven’t eaten since this morning. You’ll starve.”
Zanka doesn’t respond. Not immediately, at least.
He stares at the tray a second too long before forcing his eyes away from it, opting to avert his gaze somewhere to the side of his room. Not that he was looking at anything in particular, but acknowledging the tray felt like a self-report of sorts. Riyo seems to notice.
“‘M not gonna starve,” he says, a little bit too quickly. “Don’t worry, I'm not hungry.”
Riyo’s gaze seems to lower slowly; the type of gaze you can tell is unfocused due to how slow and steady it moves. Her grip tightens around the edges of the tray. It’s subtle, but Zanka notices. He always notices stuff like that. The way her shoulders draw in just slightly, the way she clenches her jaw like she’s trying to hold herself from doing or saying something. He’s seen this many, many times before.
Finally, she speaks. “You didn’t eat lunch, either.”
Why the hell are you keeping track?!
The thought comes forth harsher than he had intended, and he almost flinches at the hostility. He presses his lips together, his grip tightening on the door. It squeaks just barely, and Riyo’s eyes bolt to the direction of the sound. They quickly flicker back, however.
Zanka squints. “That’s not your problem to worry about.”
He doesn’t miss the way she inhales. Zanka quickly realizes—shamefully—that this was the first time he had given her any verbal indication of resentment. He had tried so hard to pretend and act like everything was fine, that he was a mature and well put-together person who was worthy of joining the Cleaners. Sure, Riyo didn’t like him, but he had hoped that maybe if he’d continued his act, she would have come around.
Fat chance. What a loser.
Riyo doesn’t snap back. She doesn’t roll her eyes, or throw one of her usual biting remarks at him, or turn on her heel and strut away with her usual disdain. She just stands there, expression unmoving.
And somehow, that’s worse. The lack of reaction makes Zanka uneasy. He hesitates, eyes flickering back and forth from her face to whatever he can pin his eyes to like some dart board.
And then, on one flicker back, it changes. Her eyes aren’t sharp anymore, he notices. They’re tired, her eyebrows furrowing in a way that was slightly different than before. Frustrated, definitely, but not in the way that he’s used to. His family never looked at him like that.
It makes something in his chest twist in a way he doesn’t like.
Finally, her mouth opens and closes briefly, before exhaling and looking back up at him. Defeat. That’s what that is.
“Just take it,” she mumbles. It’s soft. Zanka would even say it sounded sad, under the circumstance that Riyo actually gave a shit about him. “You don’t have to eat all of it. Just.. something. Please.”
The “please” makes Zanka’s breath hitch. He doesn’t understand why that sounded the way that it did. It was so desperate. It almost has the undertone that Kyouka would use on him when he had done something she hadn’t approved of, but it was laced with something he didn’t recognize.
This is so stupid. It’s just food, why make such a big fuss about this? This doesn’t mean anything. It’s not that big of a deal.
Right?
His fingers twitch on the door, and Riyo darts back up to look at the movement before he reaches out—a little rougher than necessary—and takes the tray from her hands like he’s doing her a favor. Riyo seems genuinely startled by the abruptness, and flinches.
“Fine,” he mutters. “You can stop hoverin’ over me now.”
Riyo blinks at him, expression flat.
Then, before he can process it, she steps forward.
“Hey—!”
She brushes past him like it’s nothing, shoulder bumping his own as she slips through the door and into his bedroom. Zanka stumbles against his door, his weight pushing it flat against the wall and landing a decent dig into the spine of his back, where the handle is.
Zanka stiffens immediately, irritation flaring sharp and sudden. “What are you—?”
“I’m eating with you,” Riyo says, already a few steps in, like this was decided long before Zanka had any say in it. He turns, staring at her in disbelief as he nudges the door shut with his foot, a sore burn from the stabbing of the doorknob in the middle of his back.
“That wasn’t—“ He cuts himself off, and Riyo pays no mind. “No, you don’t just decide that. You brought the food, and I took it. You can get out now.”
Riyo doesn’t answer him. She looks around, taking in the surroundings of his room.
Zanka’s grip tightens on the tray.
There’s not much to look at, really.
Bare walls, some discoloration in spots and darker dirt in the corners of the room. His bed looks more like it’s for display than use; sheets barely disturbed and neatly tucked in like it was some hostel. There’s no decorations, no clutter, no signs that anyone actually lives here beyond his absolute necessities. The only thing that indicates that it’s lived in by Zanka specifically is the small spot on the dresser where his maintenance supplies for Assistaff rest, and a few boxes of incense sticks next to them.
Riyo’s nose wrinkles as she turns her head, “..Do you live like this on purpose?”
Zanka’s eye twitches. Her flat tone makes his blood boil.
“Yes,” he deadpans. “It’s called ‘not hoarding useless shit.’”
“It’s called depressing,” she shoots back at him, annunciating the last word’s syllables. She finally turns to look at him fully. “There’s literally nothing here, man.”
“Good,” Zanka replies. “There’s less stuff to deal with.”
Riyo stares at him for a second longer, like she’s trying to figure something out. It’s the same look she gave him from earlier, the one that feels like it’s trying to pry him open from the inside out. Her eyes have always made him uncomfortable, but now so more than ever as they bore holes into his soul.
And he hates it.
“Sit down,” she says suddenly. The demand makes Zanka stare at her incredulously. She had never cared enough to order anything from him other than giving him pointers on sparring or his form, so the demand catches him off guard.
Zanka blinks like an idiot. “‘Scuse me?”
She gestures vaguely towards the table on the floor—the chabudai, the only thing he had really requested for his bedroom. It wasn’t a big one like he had at home, but it was just big enough for him to sit at when needed to do maintenance on Assistaff. Zanka was now hoping more than ever that the table was only big enough for him.
“You’re holding the tray like an idiot.” She mumbles, sitting down on the floor.
This cannot be real.
“I am not—!”
“Zanka,” Riyo sighs. There’s a firmness to it this time, and it catches him off guard for the third time this night (probably more, this entire interaction is so out of left field, so he hasn’t been keeping track.)
Riyo hardly ever says his name. In fact, she’s said it more times in this situation than she ever has since they met. She usually just gets his attention by a ‘hey,’ or something along the lines. It’s fitting to be addressed that way, Zanka figures, but the fact that this implies that she intentionally withheld from using his name makes something sour boil up in his core.
He clicks his tongue under his breath, irritated, but eventually moves anyway, dropping down onto the floor with more force than necessary. The tray rattles faintly on the table, and his knees burn through the fabric of his pants.
Zanka exhales sharply through his nose, staring down at the food on the tray.
“..You’re really going to stay?” he mutters, and there’s an annoyance on his tongue that he doesn’t bother swallowing this time.
“Yeah.”
Zanka makes a face. It’s clear the face he’s making is something decently ugly, because Riyo exhales briefly out of her nose and does one of those frown-smiles to mask her amusement.
“..You don’t even have any food,” he grumbles under his breath, but he knows Riyo catches it. He had only now made the astute observation that she had barged into his room demanding to eat with him without actually having any food of her own to eat, allegedly. “So why?”
Riyo shrugs, reaching over to nudge the cup of rice slightly closer to him.
“Because,” she says, casual as ever, “If I leave, you won’t eat it.”
Zanka opens his mouth to argue, but quickly closes his mouth when he realizes that it’s futile since Riyo has been observing him silently for weeks now, evidently. It’s honestly a little creepy, and he doesn’t like being pried into like this so intently, but it’s not like he really had a choice now.
Still, his ego gets the best of him. “..You don’t know that,”
Riyo doesn’t respond to that, and her silence is telling. Instead, she fishes for something in her pocket, the item crinkling before she pulls out a protein bar—the ones Enjin always offers them as snacks. “And I do have food.”
Riyo had always refused them, but Zanka now has the epiphany that she was probably just trying to look cool.
Zanka scowls, glaring down at the food before finally—reluctantly—grabbing the wooden chopsticks and snapping them into two. She even paid enough attention to him to grab him chopsticks, too.
“..This better not be cold,” he grumbles, opening the lid gently as to make sure nothing spilled.
Riyo huffs, albeit just barely, stuffing her mouth with a hefty bite of her protein bar. “It’s not.”
He now notices that the food in the containers, which he had assumed was to minimize the mess during her commute from the mess hall, had foggy condensation on their lids.
It was still hot.
He doesn’t look at her when he takes the first sip of the soup. He can feel her eyes on him as he eats, and he now realizes just how sick he really felt. He was honestly really nauseous—the emptiness in his stomach was probably the reason he was so cranky in the first place. The way the soup settled in his stomach, warm and savory, instantly made the queasiness simmer down.
The silence stretches. Zanka takes a bite of his rice, and Riyo pushes the bar up in the package and it crinkles, but other than that it’s silent. It’s not empty silence, like usual when he’s alone, but this silence is awkward and heavy.
He doesn’t bother splitting the egg roll, since it’s not like he was going to share anyway, and takes a bite. He can practically feel Riyo’s unnerving stare burning his scalp, like a magnifying glass positioned just perfectly in the sun to start a fire. That’s what it feels like, anyway.
This is so uncharacteristic for Riyo. In fact, this is uncharacteristic for anyone he’s ever met in his entire life. His siblings were always distant, albeit Kyouka was gentler when he was younger, but it made sense given he was still a child. His parents had disregarded him most of the time, and nobody at the academy had ever bothered to get to know him on a personal level.
Enjin was the sole exception—the spark in his life. He had shown interest in his skills, his personality, and his potential. Zanka had preened at this, and he was so eager to join the Cleaners, and to prove to Enjin his potential he so clearly saw in him.
Riyo had been distant since they had first met, but it just seemed to get worse as time went on. It made him uncomfortable, how she would just observe. She hardly spoke to him, and often gave him curt one-word responses when prompted. Despite this, she always had something to say about his performance—or rather, his bad performance. She always commented on his form, his agility, his sharpness, his speed, and other nitpicky things he never cared about until after she had brought it up, like his hair.
Zanka had gone to Enjin about his concerns once, hesitantly voicing that he was worried Riyo hated him (not that he cared in the slightest, who gives a shit,) but Enjin had reassured him that it was just a phase. That she was actually quite sweet and generous, and had a decent sense of humour.
When Zanka first heard that, he almost wanted to laugh in Enjin’s face. In his defense, Riyo never gave him any indication of Enjin’s vouching to be true.
But this might have been what he’d meant.
Zanka clears his throat just barely enough to make it known her staring is incredibly uncomfortable, but Riyo doesn’t seem to take the hint. Or rather, she doesn’t want to.
“..You’re still staring,” he mutters.
“No I’m not.”
Zanka blinks. “Yes, you are.”
Riyo looks down at the last bite of her protein bar, shoving the rest into her mouth and shoving the now crumpled wrapper into her pocket. She responds with her mouth full. “M’ makin’ sure you don’ stop eatin’.”
Zanka exhales through his nose, something between a sigh and a quiet huff. “I said I’d eat it.”
“Yeah,” Riyo replies. “After I stood outside your door for like, five minutes.”
He clicks his tongue. “It was not five minutes.”
“It definitely was.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
Their back-and-forth banter seems to please Riyo, and a gentle smirk curves her lips that Zanka had just barely caught before it flattens out again. Zanka, however, has no desire to pointlessly argue about who said what and who was right.
Riyo doesn’t argue further. She just leans back slightly, eyes wandering to the weird paint splotches and sanded spackle and dirt nested in the crevices of where the walls and the ceiling met. Her eyes flick through each and every one, and he doesn’t bother inquiring as to her reason why. It would only make him more uncomfortable, he figures.
So Zanka takes another bite. And another. The silence lingers again, but it’s less heavy. It’s definitely still uncomfortable, but it’s not as nauseating as it had been previously. It’s not like it was at home. Maybe that was because he had finally put food in his stomach, and not the fact that he could get used to this. Eating together.
Riyo clears her throat.
“The mess hall was busy,” she mumbles, mostly filling the silence, it seems. “Loud.”
Zanka hums.
Riyo shifts slightly, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. Once she yanks it off, she flicks it and Zanka watches out of the corner of his eye as it falls to the floor on the carpet. It takes otherworldly strength for him not to acknowledge it.
“Y’know,” she continues, sounding like she was talking to herself, “Enjin was worried.”
Zanka glances up at that. “About me?”
She shrugs, not meeting his eyes. “He.. noticed you skipped lunch. Said you don’t really eat much.”
Zanka snorts quietly. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah, but, you said that last time too,” Riyo mutters, voice low. “And the time before that.”
Her prying makes him feel sick. He doesn’t like being investigated like this. He also doesn’t like how she visibly looks uncomfortable as well. Surely it can’t be concern, because Riyo would never be concerned for him, but it looks like something close adjacent. Probably.
“..I think he was right,” Riyo opens her mouth a few times, hesitating, as if the words aren’t forming right. “About how you keep things to yourself.”
Zanka freezes. He did not want to be lectured by her again. Before he can get any sort of protest out, she presses on.
“I used to as well—skip meals, I mean.” she mumbles.
This was not how he saw the conversation going.
Practically the first thing Zanka had noticed about Riyo when they had first met was that she was incredibly thin. At first, Zanka tried to give her the benefit of the doubt; it’s not like he had seen enough people with her body type to know what’s natural and what’s not, but as time went on it was glaringly obvious that Riyo was underweight.
Her hip bones poked out above her waist in a way that made Zanka a bit worried when they would spar. He also noticed that her thighs were so thin that there was a noticeable gap between them, and her collarbones were sharp against her skin. Again, he chose not to comment on that, either.
Riyo stating that she used to skip meals, past tense, had implications that Zanka would rather not envision. Just how thin was she?
“Enjin used to grill me for it, forced me to eat lots.” She mumbles, curling her fingers in to examine her nails. “I don’t gain weight very easily, so Enjin thought I was secretly purging behind his back or something. I wasn’t, but he didn’t believe me, so we fought a lot about it."
Zanka doesn’t really know what to say to this. He can’t tell if she’s relating, ranting, or venting with the tone she’s using. He’s assuming it’s the former of the three, since they’re not that close enough to be venting or ranting. Unless she doesn’t really care about that sort of thing.
“I got better at it though. I felt like I didn’t deserve the meals that were being put out, so I’d only eat when Enjin said I did a good job.” She now looks down, directly at her knees under the table, obviously contemplating what to say next. “Enjin’s solution, ironically, was to tell me I did a good job all the time. It got tiring real fast, so I just decided to suck it up and eat.”
Zanka blinked. He honestly didn’t have any comments on this, either. Comforting her didn’t feel appropriate, as her tone indicated that she was more or less indifferent about the memory, but asking her why she was telling him this felt insensitive.
Was she empathizing with him?
“Sorry,” He mumbles.
Riyo shakes her head.
He decides to keep silent. Silence was what he was good at, after all.
He does, however, split an egg roll. He pushes one half in Riyo’s general direction, subtle enough that she won’t catch it if she doesn’t care to share.
She eats the other half.
“Enjin noticed you didn’t have lunch, but he feels guilty about when we used to fight,” her next words seem to not want to come out, and she hesitates before speaking. “..he didn’t want to hover over you. He was worried you’d get mad.”
He wants to say he wouldn’t be mad—that Enjin’s concerns would weigh heavily on his heart with the knowledge that Enjin cares about his wellbeing, but he knows deep down he’d probably be upset.
“Enjin sees a lot of potential in you as a person, Zanka. I can tell,” Riyo seems to stare at the tray on the table now, looking at the food resting on top of it and the chopsticks in his hand—Zanka had realized he had stopped eating.
Riyo watches as he brings another bite of rice to his mouth. Her gaze is awkward and embarrassed, and Zanka can’t help but stare back to wait for her response.
“He really cares about you—I mean, we both do, so..”
Zanka almost chokes on his rice. “What?”
“I’m not good at this kind of thing,” Riyo, now after getting out what she wanted to say and realizing that she can’t take it back, straightens out her back so her posture is as stiff as a board. Zanka wants to laugh. “I think I was too harsh on you—or, well, I got too in my own head.”
She slumps after this, shoulders caving in with guilt. She looks away seemingly at Zanka’s bed, eyes trailing over each neat fold and wrinkle of his kakebuton sitting at the edge of his bed.
“That looks comfy,” she mumbles.
Zanka can’t help but laugh at that. A loud, genuine hearty laugh. Something he hadn’t done in a while.
“You’re so weird.” he chuckles out, peering over at the bed in unison.
“You’re weirder,” she spits out, although it doesn’t seem to have any malice, as he would have previously assumed. “Keep eating.”
Zanka realized that once again, he had stopped eating.
Silence follows once again, but it’s not heavy like it was before. After their brief conversation, the silence feels calm. Zanka doesn’t mind her presence or her eyes staring craters into his face, or her lack of conversation.
He finishes his meal in silence. And for the first time in a while after joining the Cleaners, he’s not filled with anxiety to be the best version of himself. Riyo doesn’t seem to care for that sort of thing anyway—she never really cared about the way he dressed or when he messed up, and that fact lets Zanka’s shoulders relax.
Riyo, still quiet as a mouse, just observes. Watches as Zanka puts his chopsticks neatly to the side, and closes each individual container to make them easier to throw away. She watches him sigh, and stretch his back out from the uncomfortable straightened position he had it in earlier.
Her eyes move up from the tray to his face, and up to his hair. Zanka makes an awkward noise at this, and Riyo’s eyebrow raises in a way that’s cartoonishly animated. Zanka wants to laugh at her muscle control.
“Have you ever thought about using gel?” She inquires.
The question is so obscure that Zanka doesn’t know how to respond other than “..like Enjin?”
Riyo exhales through her nose at that. “Sure, like Enjin.”
“Do ya think I need to?” He asks, his fingers trailing up to pick at the loose bangs over his forehead. He had always pinned them up when he was studying, so the fact that Riyo was mentioning it must mean it’s too long. His mood sours at the thought that something was wrong again.
“Nah, just thought you’d look good. I can do it for you one day.”
Do my hair for me, one day..
The thought of Riyo happily doing his hair for him, gelling the sides and styling it to her heart’s content leaves a warm feeling in Zanka’s chest as Riyo takes his tray and stands up; watching as she walks towards the bedroom door.
“If ya’d like to, then sure.” He turns around on his knees to face her as she opens the door. She pauses, turning back around to look at him again.
Her eyes glaze over his bedroom—empty and barely lived in, and turns on her heels to leave.
“You really need more decorations in here, dude. If you’re going to call this place home, you need to make it feel like it, Zanka.”
And with that, Zanka’s door shuts with a gentle click.