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“Riyo?” he starts.
He's really concerned. It's not like her at all to ignore his Choker calls, especially this late in the evening when he knows for a fact she isn’t sleeping. He hasn't seen her all day, she's been out on a job, but she didn't come to find any of them when she returned. Zanka only knows that she went to her room because the door is locked.
He’s rattled the doorknob a few times, said her name even more, but he hasn’t heard a word from her. Even on the off chance that she was sleeping, she would have heard him by now. She’s the lightest sleeper on the planet.
“I've gotta make sure you're okay,” he says quietly. “So, I'm comin’ in.”
Thankfully, he's learned how to pick locks because of her. He has an unravel paperclip resting on the top of her door frame for situations like this, one that she doesn’t know about because she’s too short to see it, compared to Zanka. He has no reservations against doing this. He wakes up in the middle of the night to her sitting at his desk all the damn time.
He’s hoping that she’s just messing with him, but he knows that isn’t how this will go down. His breath is caught in his throat. His stomach hurts. He doesn’t know how he’s going to approach this, because he’s never found himself in this situation without backup.
And she hasn’t done it in so long.
When he manages to get the door open, it creeks eerily, the sound echoing out in the hollow halls and seeping into Riyo’s bedroom. The lights are off. The only thing illuminating her room is the far-away street lamps spilling in through her always open window.
She's lying on the floor, on her side. Breathing, at least, from what Zanka can tell. Still, even so, she's scaring the shit out of him. He’s trying with everything in him to keep himself calm, but he isn’t Riyo. He hasn’t figured out how she’s able to do that all the time.
He closes the door behind him and locks it, just in case someone gets the idea to come in after him and complicate things. He’s already invading her privacy by doing this, and involving others right now would be crossing a line.
He walks over, slowly, worried about scaring her. But there’s no way that she doesn’t know he’s there.
Her shiny, pristine scissors are on the floor, underneath her hand, and his eyes quickly trail up to the fresh, open wounds on the inside of her upper arm.
Zanka can't look too closely at the damage she's dealt to herself. He doesn't have a problem looking at most injuries or blood. He’s always sort of liked the first aid side of things, honestly. But something about this, something about it being Riyo, and knowing she’s done this to herself intentionally, over and over, makes it different.
She’s still bleeding. They’re all neat in a row, clean tears through layers of flesh. At least nine or ten, some a lot deeper than others. The blood has already seeped into the rug underneath her. She had only found that rug a month ago. He’ll have to find a way to help her get the blood stains out. Her scissors don’t really have any blood on them. He’s not sure if she just managed to avoid it, or if she’s already wiped the blood off of them on her shirt.
“I’m okay,” she murmurs. She doesn’t move. Zanka is half convinced he’s imagined her saying that, because her hardly even sees her part her lips. It’s some last ditch attempt to be left alone, he thinks. Zanka knows. He’s been there. But he would never, ever leave her like this.
He crouches down beside her, and slowly slides her scissors out of her reach. He doesn’t think she’s at the point where she would physically retaliate against him, but he wants to remove any weapons that could hurt anyone, herself included, even if it’s her Vital Instrument. He watches her eyes follow his hand, even as he pulls it back to himself.
Her eyes are totally empty. They have the look of someone who hasn’t slept in days, and since it’s her, it’s possible that’s entirely true.
Riyo hasn’t hurt herself like this in a long time. At least over a year, now. Zanka doesn’t have any idea what the root of it is, what starts those spirals for her, but the bits and pieces he knows about her past are enough reason for this to make sense. He doesn’t completely understand it. He’s never done this, not exactly, but according to the little information he’s gotten out of Riyo in the past about this, this isn’t too far off from things he’s done in the past. Training himself until he can’t breathe. Banging his head against the wall until it bleeds.
Things he can’t really explain the reason for either.
So, because of that, he can’t linger on why. He can’t try to pinpoint an exact cause, a catalyst, because there likely isn’t one. It doesn’t change what’s done, anyhow.
He needs to help the girl suffering in front of him.
“That looks like it hurts,” Zanka tells her gently. He has to be careful about what he says. Don't blame her. Don't reprimand her. She flinches when he touches her, even though she knows he’s there, and that's bad enough.
She doesn't say a word to him, which is the most painful part. It seems like she feels like she's been caught, maybe she feels like if she ignores Zanka, he'll leave. Another layer of a last-ditch effort. She has to know it would never work on him.
That can't be what she really wants here, though. That's what he hopes, anyway.
“Is it…okay if I help, Riyo?” Zanka asks her. He's not sure if there's another way to approach this. He's probably going to try whether she agrees to it or not, but maybe he just wants her to know his intentions here.
She doesn't move. No nod, but she doesn't reject it, either.
Zanka gently tries to move her. Riyo isn’t completely against that, because she manages to sit herself up, scoot against the bed and curl into herself. Hide the inside of her arm. Her eyes are glued to her Scissors, and Zanka’s eyes fall on them too. He wishes he knew what she was thinking.
“I’m not gonna take them away, Ri,” he tells her. He’s sitting across from her. “I’d never do that to you.”
No movement. No acknowledgement.
“But they have t’stay right there for now, ‘kay?”
She’s seemed to accept it. Her posture relaxes just a little bit, but not enough for him to think that anything is okay.
He tries to figure out an order of how to handle this. He thinks the first order of business should be to disinfect the wounds, because he can’t be certain that her scissors were clean before she started this. He can’t imagine it was planned out. He feels like he should take a closer look, but the idea of it is making his head spin. He’ll just try to clean her up to the best of his ability without looking too close.
“I think this needs some disinfectant,” Zanka says quietly.
He disappears for a few minutes, heading over to the girl’s laundry room down the hall where he knows they have medical grade disinfectant. There’s a supply of it in all of the laundry rooms, meant for any Cleaners to be able disinfect any wounds on jobs when they’re changing in the event that Eshia isn’t there. He takes the jar of soaked gauze, a non-adherent pad and a wrap to cover it up for a while after. Right before he leaves, he finds an antibiotic ointment that he takes for good measure, too.
He’s sort of surprised that the door isn’t locked again when he gets back, because he half expected her to lock him out given the opportunity, but she doesn’t. She’s still in the exact same position, legs pulled into her chest. Her hair is completely undone, he hadn’t even noticed. Her hair is covering her face, laying over her arms.
Zanka sits down on the floor in front of her, close enough to comfortably reach her arm, but he gives her a few moments before he jumps into it.
He expects her to be crying, but she isn’t. Her expression is completely blank. Empty.
“Can I see your arm?” he asks her quietly.
She nods. Finally, something from her.
Her arm shakes as she slowly shifts it away from the tight grip that she had around her legs. The blood has transferred to her leg, and it’s nearly at the point where Zanka has trouble discerning the cuts from the blood around her arms.
Zanka takes her hand, squeezing a bit of the disinfectant out of the wad of gauze he picks up out of the jar. He’s seen Eishia use tweezers for this, that would probably be better, but he would rather get this done now than tear the laundry room apart looking for tweezers.
“It's probably gonna sting, okay?” he tells her. She knows that, but he’d appreciate the warning if it were him. He watches her tense up as his hand hovers over the spot.
She winces when he presses the disinfectant against her wounds, and it seems like it's too much, all at once. He watches her body shake. He wishes he could comfort her in any other way, but all he can do is squeeze her hand. He hopes it’s something.
“I'm sorry,” he tells her gently. “Just a few more times.”
He repeats the process a few times, trying to clean up the blood around the area too, dropping each soiled piece into the bin by her desk. It’s looking a little better, but unfortunately, he isn’t able to avoid getting a closer look at it. It’s awful to see. He can feel his head spinning every time he looks for too long, and for a second, he thinks he might even throw up.
Thankfully, it doesn’t go on for too much longer. He’s able to get the area fairly clean and dab it dry, and his eyes can focus on other things. Her hair. Her eyes. There’s something there. He can’t tell what, but it’s different from before.
“We'll wrap it up. Just for the night,” he says. He’s not sure if that’s the right move, but he thinks it’s okay for now. Honestly, that’s his whole method for approaching this situation.
He’s careful not to wrap it too tight, but tight enough that it has enough pressure to help stop some of the bleeding. The non-adherent pad has a thin layer of the antibiotic ointment he found spread over it, and he’s hoping that’ll help heal these up faster. Eishia would be able to heal this, but only if Riyo lets her. Thankfully, she’s done it before. It’s not new to her. And Eishia handles it surprisingly well, for someone who can’t seem to handle anything well at all, mentally.
He sits beside her for a while. He has no clue how long. It’s long enough that Riyo gives into it, accepts that he’s there and isn’t going to leave any time soon.
She leans against him, after a while. Zanka knows he shouldn’t push it, but he takes the opportunity to hold her.
Riyo accepts that, too, more willingly than he would have expected her to. Maybe it’s because she’s gotten older. Maybe she’s learned to accept that whether she wants it or not, someone is going to help her. She used to thrash against him, scream, use her scissors to keep them away from her. He’ll take the opportunity to hold her this time.
“Please don't tell him,” she mumbles, muffled by his shirt. She’s so quiet. He’s just completely unaccustomed to this voice coming from her.
“I won't,” he promises.
He squeezes her a little tighter. She's kept secrets for him before. He knows Enjin would want to know, but he thinks as long as he has this handled, as long as Riyo is safe, it’s okay to keep it from him, as much as it hurts to have that thought.
“S'it okay if I stay here?” he asks her.
He feels her nod against him.
He doesn’t have any idea what time it could be, and he doesn’t bother to look. It doesn’t even cross his mind. All he cares about right now is her comfort, making sure she’s okay, making sure he isn’t doing anything to make it worse. He helps her up and gets her into her bed, but he’s probably an idiot for thinking she’ll be able to get any sleep. He does have an idea, though.
Riyo lays on her side and Zanka takes it and lays it over her carefully, but she doesn’t relax. She doesn’t look any more comfortable than she did laying on the floor. Zanka climbs into the bed with her, sitting with his legs crossed beside her head, and he starts to run his fingers through her hair.
She does that for him. He thinks his sister may have done that for him when he was really young when he couldn’t sleep, and it’s sort of conditioned him into falling asleep any time someone does it now. He doesn’t have any idea how Riyo figured that out about him. She definitely uses that against him when she can.
He’s learned though, that it works on her too. Maybe for the same reason. He knows Riyo has some really complicated family stuff too. He doesn’t know the details, Riyo will probably never tell him, but he doesn’t need to know. As long as he knows this is comforting for her, it’s okay.
“I’m stayin’,” Zanka tells her. He knows he asked already, but he needs her to know that he has no intention of leaving her.
“I know,” she says quietly.
He hopes that she’s able to get some sleep, but at least right now, her eyes have finally closed.
The Choker rings a few times. Zanka feels like he can’t breathe, even though he knows there has to be a perfectly rational explanation. It’s just how his brain works.
It rings again. Again.
And finally, he hears her voice.
“Showering. Not dead, I swear,” Riyo says as soon as she picks up. He even hears her turn the shower off in the background.
Zanka breathes a sigh of relief, even though he's not a huge fan of her wording. He woke up to her bed completely empty, and cold, and he knows for a fact she isn’t working today. He doesn’t even remember falling asleep. He didn’t even have any theories as to what she could be doing, but obviously she’s showering. She always gets up earlier to do that so she has the shower rooms to herself.
“Sorry. Keep showerin’,” Zanka says. He feels bad interrupting her. He probably sounds ridiculous.
“See you later?” Riyo asks after a pause.
He huffs, sitting on the edge of her bed. “Yeah. Duh.”
He doesn’t hang up, though. She doesn’t either.
“Zanka?” she says. He feels like he never hears her say his actual name anymore.
“Yeah?”
He feels his chest get tight again. He knows she’s going to say something about last night. He hopes that she doesn’t think she has to.
“I’m sorry,” Riyo says quietly, much quieter than before. “I know that stuff’s hard for you to see.”
Zanka wants to reassure her that it’s fine, because he doesn’t want her to feel guilty, but it’s like the words die on his tongue, because Riyo knows any it’s okay from him would be a lie. It's not okay. It's weighing on him so heavily that it's still hard to breathe. He thought it was just because he didn’t know where she was. His eyes peer over to the trash bin, filled with the now dried, bloodied gauze.
“Can you call me, next time?” he asks her, feeling like his voice is breaking. He tries to keep himself together. “Next time…you feel like you need to do this.”
Maybe it's an unrealistic wish.
“Can’t do that to you, Zan,” she tells him. Maybe the most honest thing she’s ever said.
Zanka’s eyes burn.
He’s supposed to be at the vehicle. He knows he’s late. It took him a lot longer to do his hair than he would have liked, because he didn’t have time to wash it. He spent a concerningly long time spacing out and staring at his reflection. Sitting on the edge of his bed and staring at the floor. He’s not even really thinking about anything in particular. Sometimes it’s just hard to keep his motivation going.
He trudges through the halls down to the garages, gripping Lovely Assistaff tightly. He knows he looks terrible. He knows someone is going to say something, and he doesn’t even know what he’s going to say, or how he’s going to react. He usually doesn’t handle it well. He considered maybe telling Enjin he’s going to skip today.
Enjin grins when he sees him. He’s always way too happy in the mornings. He doesn’t understand why Riyo and Enjin do so well in the mornings, and why Zanka feels like he’s dying every time he has to wake up.
“Sleeping beauty over here! What took you so long, Zan?”
His eyes pan over to the clock over the door, and it’s forty minutes past the time he agreed to be here. Zanka doesn't know what to say. He could just use this usual excuse - the truth, he has trouble getting up in the morning, but the words don't come out at all. He doesn’t know why he can’t even muster the energy to at least say that. His chest hurts.
Enjin obviously picks up on the fact that something is wrong. His smile falters, and his brow furrows.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he insists a little too quickly, but he still can’t manage to say anything else.
Everything feels off right now. Maybe he’ll feel better if he just gets to work, gets into the car and gets back into his routine, but Enjin’s concerned eyes on him are making it difficult. He has trouble even looking away from him when some of the Supporters approach him with some questions. The sound of them talking is completely drowned out by the white noise in his ears. He grips Lovely tight with both of his hands. Sometimes that’s enough to ground him, but it’s not working.
Eventually, he realizes he can’t do it.
Enjin has made it very clear to him that he’s never obligated to work. None of them are. Even if there’s no one at headquarters that can do the job, if he isn’t feeling well, if he doesn’t feel right, Enjin would rather he stay back. When he was back at the Academy, that was never an option. Here, Enjin wants him to stay home even if he has a mild fever, but at the Academy, he had gone to class so sick he couldn’t see. His anxiety was so bad that he was throwing up all the time, but he had gotten so skilled at hiding it that almost no one knew.
He wants to ignore this, but he doesn’t want to disappoint Enjin.
Maybe he should tell him.
“Enjin,” he starts after he walks over. The Supporters are still stocking up the vehicles. It looks like one of them is having issues with the oxygen tanks. At least that means he didn’t hold them up by being late. He feels a little better about that, but not good enough to stay here. He’s trying to force himself to breathe normally.
Why? Why always at the worst possible time? Why couldn’t this have happened when he was taking hours to get ready, alone?
“You came from the girl’s dorms,” Enjin notices, “is Riyo okay?”
He doesn’t know how he knew that. Maybe it’s because he came from the other side of the hallway.
She told him not to say anything. Dammit.
Zanka has no idea what's suddenly come over him. Maybe it's the pent up anxiety he felt seeing Riyo like that, trying to help her even though he felt completely unqualified, feelings he pushed away the moment he prioritized Riyo's well being. His eyes burn and well up with tears that he can't possibly will away if he tried, and Enjin looks horrified to see it.
Zanka just turns away, and walks back into the hall. He definitely can’t stay now.
He almost doesn't want Enjin to follow him. He wants a few minutes to sort things out with himself, but he can't expect Enjin to just move on and forget, let him do over that pathetic excuse for a conversation. Even though he'd really prefer a reality where he left him alone. He needs to make sure he doesn’t throw up, too, because he absolutely will if he can’t get himself in order.
Enjin is already beside him in the hallway, a hand on his shoulder, his eyes shining with concern. Zanka feels so guilty.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, thinking he at least deserves that, “I'm sorry.”
“Don't be. Take a second, okay?” Enjin tells him firmly. “Figured somethin’ was up.”
Zanka wishes this wasn't happening. He can't imagine what Riyo would feel if she saw him acting like this.
He sits down on the floor, his head in his hands, trying to imagine that he’s just by himself and that Enjin isn’t there. He’s breathing way too fast, he realizes that, and he can’t figure out how to regulate his breathing. He always seems to forget everything anyone has ever taught him about calming himself down during these attacks, but he tries to pay attention to Enjin’s breathing.
Enjin keeps a firm hand on his shoulder. He thinks Enjin’s probably breathing louder than he normally does so that Zanka has something to follow. It’s a pattern he’s noticed.
Some of the Supporters come out into the hallway, noticing commotion, but Enjin says something and waves them away.
He manages to calm himself down enough to where he doesn’t think he’s going to cry, or throw up, so he tries to relax his posture a little. He crosses his legs, stares at the floor, grips his staff tight in his lap.
Deep breath.
“Did something happen?” Enjin asks him eventually.
Zanka feels like all of the progress he just made has evaporated into thin air.
“I'm not s’posed to say,” Zanka mumbles.
Enjin nods. He accepts that answer instead of forcing more out of him. “She safe right now?”
“Yeah,” Zanka answers..
“Okay. It’s fine, you don’t have to tell me,” Enjin says, reassuring. “Long as she’s safe.”
Zanka feels like he’s only saying that because he knows he’s having a panic-attack inducing internal debate over whether to tell him or not. Well, if this isn’t already a panic attack.
He feels pathetic beyond belief. He could only imagine what his sister would say if she saw him like this. Her disappointed face the one time she did see it is burned into his eyelids forever. He made sure it never happened in front of her again.
Even if it meant almost dying in that well.
But, even if he still hates himself for this, he’s glad he doesn’t have to hide anymore. He’s glad someone supports him.
He buries his face in his hands.
“Zanka,” Enjin says quietly, rubbing his shoulder.
Apparently his attempt at trying to make himself seem like he’s fine didn’t work.
“You wanna stay back today?” Enjin asks, “stay with her?”
Zanka doesn't know. He doesn't know if he should, because he feels like he hasn't made any sort of a difference for Riyo. All he did was clean up her wounds, which she probably would have done herself. He feels completely useless, but then again, isn’t it enough to feel supported? To have someone she can lean on, even if he can’t fix it for her?
“I'll stay. If you feel like you can't,” Enjin insists.
“I feel like…a coward,” he mumbles out loud, probably saying things he shouldn’t bother Enjin with, but he can’t help it. Sometimes, it just slips out.
“Someone who goes to help even though they know it's gonna be hard isn't a coward, Zanka,” Enjin tells him, stern, as usual. “Being there for the people you care about is, like, the bravest trait you can have. Especially when you know it’s gonna be hard.”
Enjin is always impossible to argue with.
“Missed me that much?” Riyo jokes.
She’s standing in the doorway of her bedroom, looking up at Zanka with a smile that’s covering up a pensive expression. Maybe she’s suspicious about seeing him again, so soon after he left.
She sounds like her normal self, but that empty look in her eyes is still there. She looks exhausted.
“Let's go get lunch or somethin’,” he tells her. He thinks it’d be good. He himself hasn’t had a real, actual meal in several days, honestly, and Riyo loves going out to eat. It’d be good for both of them. Besides, they never really get opportunities to go without a whole brigade of other Cleaners.
“Lunch?” she repeats. She sounds excited, and her eyes honestly light up at the sound of that. Like everything else melts away, for a moment. “Hm…don't know if I wanna get in a car with you behind the wheel.”
“Better than you behind the wheel,” Zanka teases. Cleaners are allowed to start driving at sixteen. Zanka has at least a year of practice by now under Gris’s teaching, and Riyo is currently being taught by Enjin, which might be the worst idea anyone on the Ground has ever had.
“Don't you have a job today, Z?” she asks, leaning against the door frame. Zanka notices she’s re-bandaged her arm.
“Got canceled,” he answers. A lie, and she knows it. But she doesn’t pry.
She raises a brow. “And you don't wanna go train?”
“Nope.”
“You feeling okay?” she says, reaching forward toward his forehead to tease him. He swats her hand away. She always acts like he’s dying if he does anything out of his usual habits. “Zanka, I don’t want you to think you’ve gotta hang out with me just ‘cause…”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to,” he reminds her. She’s used those words on him before, and he means it too. Enjin offered to be the one to look after her today, but Zanka wanted to help. He knows he can. And he knows Riyo will look after him, too, like she always has.
“Theif,” she teases.
She ambushes him with a hug. That’s usually what she has to do to get him to agree with it, but this time, he’s not against it. He hugs her back. As close as he can. He feels better with her here. All of those awful, heavy feelings from before have been taken in by the tide.
“Maybe a nap first. You look like you could use it,” she tells him.
Zanka can’t really argue with that.