Chapter Text
RINNNGGGGGGGG.
His phone rings loudly in the stillness of his bedroom, clouded by smoke and too much incense. The obnoxious noise of Tiktok’s being played, one after another, a mukbanger chomping down on random foods, a lady narrating a tutorial on barrel twists, the loud, annoying sound of the skyrim skeleton, reverberates in Zanka’s tired ears. He would complain, but the one responsible for both the smoke and the noise pollution, was sprawled across his chest, cheek smushed against his peck and reddish brown eyes reflecting a rare state of relaxation. The satin of Jabber’s bonnet rubs pleasantly against his nipple, as he snickers at presumably another meme appearing across his screen, this one louder and somehow more annoying than the previous ones. This was about as silent as it ever got with Jabber, their post-fuck bliss still evident on the both of them, from the sweat that was still drying on the back of his neck, and the errant glint of Jabber’s loc jewelry scattered across the pillows, that at this point, had been accumulating in Zanka’s room for the past year.
He shouldn’t complain. A word out his mouth and Jabber would begin speaking, a terrible terrible concept, that manifested itself repeatedly and daily, in proximity to Zanka’s ears. It pissed off Zanka most of the time, but by now he had gotten used to it. Jabber couldn’t go anywhere without making noise. At this point Zanka could hear a bomb go off from his bedroom and he probably wouldn’t go to check on him. Immediately. The phone rang again. And again. Zanka sighed when he felt Jabber stir. So much for silence.
“Answer the fucking phone Z, the sounds driving me up the wall,” he begins complaining, never looking up from his phone.
RINGGGGGGGGGGG.
Zanka grits his teeth. “That sound is driving you up the wall? Imagine what my life has been like ever since you lost your airpods!”
“That’s cause you wasn’t tryna let me use yours--”
RIINNNGGGGG
“Why the fuck would I-,” he begins, before the sound of his phone interrupts him interrupting his stupid fucking--whatever they were. He shifts towards the night stand and Jabber's head is smushed in his arm pit, his bonnet causing him to slip and slide across the expanse of his chest. A blunt is still smoking in a disastrously handmade ashtray, a gift from Rudo after he attempted to take an arts and craft class with some convincing from Guita.
Jabber makes grabby hands at the joint, and Zanka picks it up from the ashtray and presses it to his lips at the same time he picks it up. If his voice comes out rough on the other line it has nothing to do with the feeling he gets watching Jabber suck at what’s left of the joint, his eyes lidded and a small smirk unfolding over his full lips after he blows a cloud into Zanka’s face. A nuisance. He doesn’t understand why he keeps him around.
“Hello,” he asks, not bothering to check for caller ID.
“Zankannnnn,” Enjin singsongs from the other end, very obviously drunk and in a crowded place by the sounds of it. He thinks if he strains his ears hard enough, he can see Seimu and a few others laughing loudly.
“Enjin,” he perks up a smile unfolding across his face. “Good to hear from you.”
“gOoD tO hEaR fRoM yOu,” Jabber mocks from the spot on his chest and Zanka mouths several expletives while Enjin begins chatting him up about stopping by the co-op and teaching some of the kids martial arts and self defense. Jabber mocks that too, scrunching up his face in an imitation of Zanka, his elegant and controlled expressions of frustrations now morphed into goofy frowns on Jabber’s face. He hates him.
“When are you coming around to the house? We haven’t seen you in like…,” Enjin trails off, obviously distracted by whoever else is there before continuing, “...like two months at this point! Are classes kicking your ass that bad?”
“That and then some,” he replied, drumming his fingers where they rested a little below Jabber’s shoulders. “Life in general has been kicking my ass.”
It was true. Jabber’s jealousy aside, Zanka hadn’t had much time to pick up phone calls from Enjin, who loved going on and on regarding long updates about the working of his community co-opt, a project Enjin had spoke about on multiple occasions when Zanka had first gotten to know him, now brought to reality in his post-grad life. In his freshman year, Zanka hadn’t expected to become friends with so many seniors, but after being homesick from a whopping three years spent on American soil and then transitioning into American college, he had taken the risk of taking a Japanese art class and had wound up befriending Enjin there. It wasn’t everyday you met an fashionable, art and graffiti obsessed, white, eco-activist studying Japanese, but Zanka supposes that it was relatively normal compared to the entirety of his experiences with living in America.
Plus, he thinks, watching Jabber hyperfixate on a video of a lady making a bomb, his canines peeking out as he chewed on his lip in interest, becoming a member of an undercover eco-terroist group is probably the least crazy thing.
Zanka switches to Japanese just to see the way Jabber’s brow furrows when he has deprived him of another way to access him. He was so obvious. Zanka even laughs a little on the end of the phone line, just to play it up, and he can see the way Jabber’s hands are moving quickly away from Tiktok and towards Google Translate. Sneaky fucker.
“I’ll be over in a few days to help, so don’t miss me too bad. I’m busy right now but I’ll call you later. Sounds like you’ll be occupied this whole night too.”
“Okay,” Enjin responds, joyfully, his attention probably already grabbed by the people Zanka hears over the line. Jabber has the translator app open. Too late. “See you laterrrrrr!” The line goes dead.
Zanka isn’t even granted a moment of silence.
“You forgot to ask him if he wanted to try my homemade rat poison that’s been a hit in our chemistry teacher’s classroom. I’m sure he would love the taste!”
Zanka ignores the obvious ragebait. He won’t fall for it.
“Why would our chemistry teacher risk the safety of everyone in the classroom by using the shit you’ve made when you were on acid?”
“You wouldn’t get how locked in we are! You ain’t even score as high as me on our last exam, or the one before that, so she doesn’t talk to you after class like she does with me.”
He falls for it.
If you asked Zanka he couldn’t tell you how it started.
Okay, maybe that was a lie. Maybe it was from the very second that he decided to leave the chicken coop that had been his country's boring and rather lavish lifestyle in Kanto, right in the middle of high school after one too many fights with his father. That was a big one. Zanka had thought himself pretty smart at the time, playing good hands with his grandmother about the benefits of living abroad in the West, where their disappointing son could finally learn some work ethic. It had been a bit self-deprecating, almost entirely humiliating, but it was the least of Zanka’s distress at the time; his dropping grades in school and roaring anxiety from the pressure of his family was pushing him to bad places. Really bad places. The kind of places that have you standing on the edge of a rooftop building and becoming a statistic that Americans like to quote when they’re confronted with the edge of East Asian culture that is not cute drinks and adorable figurines.
Zanka hated to admit that it was too much for him, that he was not like his siblings or even his star classmates, the geniuses who could fight, train, and fly through school with little to no effort. It had been hard for him and even worse, the culture of it, the normalcy of that soul-draining grind to succeed, he thought, at the time, were unique to his desolate situation, so he set sail to new horizons. He had good English, enough money, and decent enough grades, and so in his head, the transition would be seamless, providing everything his previous life lacked.
He was right in some ways. A Japanese failure made him an American super-student. His grandmother had hired someone to do the research for him and he was placed in New York, with a respectable, rich branch of his family he hadn’t been privy to, despite their lack of fondness for him. He flew through homework easily, got home early from every class to sit down with his extended family, who hammered in the very same expectations over dinner that he had hoped to escape from.
But it was hard in every other way and those at times felt even more overwhelming than before. His English education, while precise, wholly underprepared him for the fucking avalanche that was American high school. Everyone had accents. There were four different words for the same thing and those words also weren't English. There were social cues and facial expressions, and correct ways of doing that were not his way of living. Zanka had to clean his ass every day with just tissue paper and shuddered in revulsion at how far he had fallen from grace.
And most importantly, there was a divide, a clear divide that Zanka hadn’t even begun to think of until he came to America. Back home, Zanka didn’t think he was that Japanese or that it held that much relevance. Rich, yes? Spoiled, true. Disappointing and mediocre, unfailingly. In America, everything and everyone else never failed to remind him of the oddity his culture made him.
If he hadn’t met Riyo, a bright, scruffy force who had ridden in on a scholarship to the bullshit preppy academy they both attended, Zanka was sure he would’ve succumbed to that petrifying loneliness. The situation would have been even more dire if they hadn’t both made a pact to graduate a year early and attend the same college, both agreeing that they would be staying in state to keep their cash in their pockets. Riyo, more than Zanka, but still, he too wanted to be liberated finally from the financial constraints of his family, and college was the first step.
So that might’ve been an option. Zanka loves blaming everything on one thing when it’s entirely convenient for him, whether that be himself, Riyo, Jabber, or America. But more accurately, he probably had been doomed the moment he had signed up to attend Brighter University, its attendants colloquially referred to by the local population as The Cleaners, people who typically graduated and dedicated their lives to correcting the ongoing issues that seemed to relevant to the urban landscape. Many politicians also passed through the University, a good and bad mix, who sometimes used their reputation as a way to cover up their moral degeneracy. Riyo had explained to him the multitude of controversial figures who were Cleaners, and Zanka had done his own research.
What many years back home and abroad had taught him was that an institution was an institution. Good and bad. Him and Riyo had made the choice long ago on the kind of people they wanted to be, and Brighter University, plopped in the center of the city, seemed like their best bet. Both Riyo and Zanka secured scholarships, him for his academic prowess and sharp scoring paired with community service and Riyo for her brilliant talent for craftsmanship and collaging, which had landed her in quite a few flattering articles and connected her with some stunning artists in the city.
Zanka, though naive, felt like he had his future set out for him. #RedemptionArc, he had thought embarrassingly. The new start made him feel super secure, insanely woke and intensely rebellious for rejecting the sounds of his grandmother over the phone screaming for him to go to an Ivy League or be shunned for generations. He even got his ears pierced. Riyo called him a dork, but then admitted later they made him look super cool and sophisticated. He felt cool and sophisticated, and them both being a hair too young in an environment of eighteen and twenty-somethings made him feel enlightened. That must’ve been how it started. With his head up his fucking ass.
But as rebellious as Zanka was, he fundamentally hadn’t changed or understood how change worked. It was ongoing. It was endless. And his need to be the best, to be the only, to be number one had only been intensified despite it being redirected towards nobler goals of helping others. Not as woke or as confident as he made himself out to be. Jabber was a collision to all that bravado he had been falsely putting on.
Zanka had first met him in his biochemistry class.
His head had already been four sizes big by the fact that he had accrued enough credits throughout high school to be a sophomore standing as a freshman. His scores on both the ACT and SAT, put him in math and biology classes that actually counted towards his major, something most freshman couldn’t say stuck with completing their prerequisites. Zanka had no need for prerequisites.
These thoughts filled his brain up until the moment the lecture started and Zanka realized that he did, in fact, need those prerequisites. Why shitty American college didn’t prepare him for really fucking hard American university was beyond him, but he quickly learned that it did not, and this reward of assumed superiority was quickly becoming a punishment.
It was about fifteen minutes of frantic scribbling from him and the mousy girl next to him who looked equally sick at the thought of polyprotic acids, when Jabber walked into the classroom and let the door slam behind him.
“Name,” his professor paused in his lecture/torture session, raking his eyes down the painfully late student.
Zanka’s eyes immediately glued himself onto the newcomer and was shocked and a bit disturbed with the strength of attraction that moved through him that he almost didn’t hear his name.
“Jabber Wonger,” Zanka’s now consistent headache, but then mysterious student, had named himself.
Zanka watched him walk to his seat so closely and for so long, that even many minutes after the teacher wrapped up the lecture and outlined the next discussion, he was still turning over the sight of Jabber in his head.
He was tall and striking, a captivating form made up of fawn brown skin accessorized in layers of stylish clothing that made Zanka feel overdressed and snooty. A cropped leather jacket somehow put over top of a tank top that clung to all his best bits--and god there were so many good bits of him-- his lean form and trim waist, and unfairly, thought horrified to himself at his own shamelessness, a bit of his collarbone, his muscled chest, and long neck was revealed for everyone to see. Every bit of skin showing seemed to possess some flash of gold, a thick gold necklace resting itself between his pecks and at where the skin of his wrists were revealed decked out in bronze bangles. And his hair, long locs he had placed in an almost artful half up and down, trailed all the way down to his chest and was possessed jewelry as well, gold and glinting in the light even as he gave a sly smile to the teacher and headed to his seat. Flashes of light caught the long line of his lashes, his dark wide eyes, and terribly attractive and vaguely androgynous profile adorned with piercings through his nose, lips and eyebrow.
He felt like a Victorian man encountering an exposed ankle. A boisterous church lady confronted with the sight of a pornagraphic magazine. A teenage girl reading her first yaoi novel. It was that much of a revelation, Jabber’s side profile haunting him throughout class, making him feel warm, even in the flowy sleeves of a shirt he put on this morning. If he had given it more thought he would’ve known that this attraction was not one of foreign curiosity, something more than slight intrigue over a person who had looked different than every single person Zanka had grown up with. There was just one small, little, miniscule problem in Zanka’s freshman year of college: he had never dated anyone. Or more accurately, he hadn’t given it much of a thought while he had been navigating the hellscape of highschool. Embarrassing makeouts and a few awkward sessions of groping and touching made up the majority of his experiences, and none of them had stuck with him long enough to make an impression. Up until first Jabber interrupted his mental breakdown over polytropic acids, Zanka thought those things would come eventually, and maybe naturally like all things he would fall for some eclectic woman with dyed hair, who had a niche in something vaguely popular but underground enough. Girls liked that lined the streets of New York and Zanka assumed like every slightly woke muscular guy with pierced ears and a budding interest in activism, the standards would be low enough that he would get snagged.
That was not happening.
But Zanka could not possibly think about possibly having a crush on someone, navigating his college life, cutting ties with his family and having to pass his biochemistry class.
So he buried it in the back of the mind and pretended on Mondays and Wednesdays when he had lectures that he didn’t have a staring problem.
Whoever lived down the hall from them was an evil, evil person with little to no regard for human life and the needs of sleep-deprived college students. Zanka stirred from his mattress immediately, throwing aside his covers and ripping off his sheets in a pure move of deranged anger. He had just been about to go to sleep!
“We can’t say their music taste is terrible,” Riyo laughs, peaking down at his fuming form from the top bunk, her eyes bags looking like they were attempting to rival him, as Nola bounce could be heard in the hallway. How no one else had complained about this was a mystery. “I prefer a little more punk rock in the playlist though, for late nights.”
“How the fuck has no one reported this? It’s almost every day at this point. I haven’t gone a single night without hearing music shake through the hallways!”
“It’s Thursday, probably so everyone’s out drinking. We could be too y’know? There’s a house show three blocks away from our dorm and my friend in my geopolitics class told me that the moshpit and the artists there are the best.”
“Not my scene,” Zanka replied curtly, a rare attempt for him to curb his blatant dislike of all the house shows Riyo had taken him to. Really, it wasn’t her fault.
Riyo loved punk and techno, and the opposite of all the slow R&B and jazz Zanka liked to play in his headphones while studying or working out in the gym. The house that Riyo took him to was not like that at all. Too many sweaty people and everyone pushing each other and not wearing enough deodorant. The first time Zanka had gone to one and had sweat smeared across his face from a tall guy’s armpit he almost threw up in his mouth. After that, he limited the number of parties he agreed to accompany Riyo to and told her to turn on her location and text him when she was coming back. He could tell she was slightly disappointed about it, but could already see her being pulled in the direction of the new friends she was making, equally as eager and uncaring as her, and in all the ways Zanka was beginning to realize he wasn’t.
Same old, wasn’t it? Leaving home just to realize he carried it all inside of him, every single thing he was trying to run away from living inside of him. Traditional. Boring. Restrained.
Three 6 Mafia, interrupts his thoughts, the staccato and bass of the music like needles to his skull. Three fucking AM. Zanka was going to annihilate whoever had decided to disrupt his sleep schedule.
“You still have your eye mask and headband on, Zanka,” Riyo warned as she watched him put on his slippers and grab a robe from his closet. A gag gift from Riyo consisting of floppy bunny ears on the hood and a short, poofy tale in the back. He looked absurd in it, his biceps stretching the fabric taught and the robe cutting right above his knee, obviously designed for a slimmer feminine form than Zanka’s stocky physique. Fucking great.
“Doesn’t matter at this point,” he murmurs, too sleep-deprived to think of the implications and embarrassment of someone seeing him in his most vulnerable state, skincare products stuck to his skin with Riyo’s stupid robe on him. As long as his nipples weren't out he was fine.
Zanka stomps across the hallway, the mind numbingly bright lights of the dorm hallway adding to his sleep-derived delirium. At the end of the hallway, a group of five girls, obviously drunk and barely standing up, sing along to the next verse that’s emanating from the room responsible for his ire.
“We g-gotta stay f-lyyyyyyyy,” they begin to sing before one girl slumps against the wall. Zanka snorts, but too loudly, so one of them affixes their eyes on him, and Zanka now realizes that he will not only have to neutralize the threat of an increasingly vibey playlist, but drunk women as well.
“Heyyyy,” she begins, smiling dopily in his direction, her appearance plain and non-descript. “I like this headband thing, it's super cute.”
Zanka nods absently, a fake smile plastered across his face, hoping to avoid all conversation and continue his way to the offending dorm with little interruption. When Zanka figures out who his RA is, he will be skinning them alive!
Finally at the door of the room, Zanka knocks aggressively not expecting the music-demon to hear him over the sound of their hellish speaker.
A wet dream opens the door.
Or more accurately, his worst nightmare, and threat to maintenance of his manufactured heterosexuality, and the absolute worst thing he could encounter on no sleep and little to no thoughts in his head.
Jabber is barely wearing any clothing. His hair that had been toppled on his head when Zanka had first seen him now hangs a little past his shoulders. There’s a sheen of sweat covering the entirety of him, his chest and neck dripping with condensation that seems to bead down his body and drop to the ground. And he has piercings. Everywhere. Both his dark nipples have gold bars through them, their general existence threatening whatever Zanka shred of sanity he thought he had remaining in his body. His belly button is also pierced, the stretch of muscle unfairly flat and hairy in a way that turns Zanka’s stomach with a heat that he is entirely unfamiliar with. There is no way he is wearing underwear, Zanka thinks, seeing the outline of Jabber’s privates pressed against his thigh.
Someone whistles in the hallway, and Zanka's head immediately turns accusingly towards the gaggle of girls who are now giggling behind their hands. The same girl who had heckled him earlier was now raining a finger to point and laugh at him. Bitch, he thinks childishly, don’t you see me internally battling my social awkwardness and horniness right now.
“He’s talking to youuuuuu,” she shouts at him, and it takes Zanka a minute to process what she’s saying, horniness making his head cloudy. His head whips immediately back to Jabber who is indeed talking to him, his wide lips stretched over a smile that shows the unfortunately, charming crookedness of his incisors.
Right. When people are talking to you, look at their face and not their dick. Face not dick. His eyes meet dark brown ones. It’s almost worse what he finds there. Pure amusement and glee, and a tad bit of knowingness bounce around in Jabber’s unwavering gaze.
“I can’t hear you,” Zanka says horrifyingly, out of his body and completely embarrassed at his blatant perusal of his half-naked hallmate, who is fucking Jabber from biochemistry! “The music is too loud.”
He pats himself on the back for the save and for the sight of Jabber’s elegant back and ass turning from him, and presumably turning down a speaker that Satan himself had to have produced. Zanka can see his armpit hair as he reaches far for where it must be. Jabber must never shave anything ever. Zanka finds himself horrified at how excited the thought makes him and tries to remember the disgust he felt when confronted with sweaty armpits at the mosh pit. It doesn’t work. There is nothing but pure want in him. It’s terrible.
The girls are still giggling in the hallway calling out to him. He flips them the bird out of sheer angered embarrassment and they peel into another round of laughter that leaves one girl gasping on the floor. Zanka is super glad that his suffering is making everyone’s night. He’s probably gonna kill himself graphically after this and dedicate his suicude letter to them. And Jabber. Maybe especially Jabber.
He’s made his way back to the doorway, which is great because his Zanka can end this embarrassing interaction and schedule a cold shower in the morning that will freeze him to death. He opens his mouth to speak—
“Hey, I know it’s late but I’m here to ask that you—“
“You’re in my biochemistry class! Man, you’re intense as hell! Last class, I saw you staring at me from across the room and wanted to talk to you but our professor was on my ass. We should sit next to each other next time!”
Zanka currently cannot form thoughts. The idea that Jabber was aware of his shameless staring might actually kill him. He’ll never recover.
To his own surprise, he declines, “Well, I’m not sure if that’s the best idea. I already have a hard time focusing-”
Jabber does not seem to be impacted by any of his words. “Nah, it's cool! I need to go over some stuff in there too so we can both lock in together! Plus I like your vibe,” he comments, motioning towards Zanka’s form. He looks down at the bunny robe and knows that his headband is pushing back his forehead.
“Oh,” he hears himself say. “Alright then.”
“I stalked your Instagram right after class, but you had all your shit on private, Zanka,” Jabber says, his name rolling off his tongue as if he owns it. Like what Jabber just said to him was perfectly normal and they’re familiar with one another. “Guess it’s not a big deal though now that I know we live in the same hall. You can just give it to me now,” he finishes, making unflinching eye contact with Zanka, brown eyes pinpointed onto him like he’s some kind’ve museum painting.
This is our first meeting, he reminds himself. I don’t know this asshole. I do not have to be nice to him. He is an evil sleep-disruptor. He is late to every single class.
“I-”
“Do you have a lab partner yet?” Jabber does not wait for him to answer. “We should link up and study together. Hold up, lemme get my phone,” he says, disappearing from the doorway and grabbing his phone.
“Phone,” he asks Jabber as he returns to the door.
“Yeah put your phone number in and I’ll text you after class so we can study.”
“Study,” Zanka asks as he takes Jabber’s phone, because apparently he cannot process anything and is just repeating Jabber’s words back to him.
“Or,” Jabber takes a step closer, till he’s so near Zanka that he can feel his body heat attempting to melt all of Zanka’s inhibitions away, “I could get to know you better know…we could do other things besides studying…”
He watches the way Jabber tongue goes over the sharp points of his teeth and then over his lips while he looks at Zanka and has to take a step back from Jabber just so he’s able to think through his next sentence.
“We will just be studying,” he clarifies, feigning a confidence that he’s lacked this entire interaction. “And show up to class on time! I always have to get there early so I can get all the notes. And,” he adds, taking a step closer, refusing to be intimidated by Jabber’s teasing, “Turn your music down on weekdays! None of us can sleep with it playing that loud.”
Jabber doesn’t even flinch at the harshness of Zanka’s tone, instead taking it as an invitation to drag his eyes up and down his robe-clad form, their path stopping directly at his neck where Zanka knew his collarbones were visible.
Jabber’s eyes on him felt like hands. Like he was sliding a finger in the divots where his pupils rested, and Zanka realized that he needed distance between the two of them quickly or he would do something stupid. Zanka didn’t realize someone could look at him like that, clever and curious but also slightly hungry. It makes him feel like he’s hungry too. Like if he doesn’t devour every flash of skin that Jabber reveals in this moment, and burn it into his brain he’ll be left wanting and wondering.
Terrible, he thinks. Terrible, terrible, indeed.
He takes two steps back and a tiny third step just to feel secure.
Jabber just smiles strangely at him, like his grin is more akin to showing teeth rather than friendliness. Zanka notes the uniqueness of his teeth, the incisors poking and crowding at the front of his mouth, making him a bit feline-like. He leans his lithe body against the door, and Zanka can see the way his armpit hair sneaks out of the crevices and presses against his pecs. Every part of Jabber is probably rough against the skin, he thinks.
“Aye aye, captain. Anything else? Can I offer you a foot massage? Essential oils? Sometimes I do a little hair on the side when--”
“Goodnight, Jabber,” he says, abruptly, turning away and walking all the way back to his room.
He does not turn his back to see if Jabber is watching him. He can feel it all the way until he is back in the darkness of his room, the lights still dim, and Riyo blinking sleepily at him.
“How’d it’d go,” she asks, already yawning and snuggling into her sheets.
“Great,” he says, weakly and then clears his throat again. “Great.” He takes his dumbass bunny robe off and places it back on its hook.
“Guess you can finally go to sleep now.”
Zanka thinks of Jabber's eyes glued to his exposed neck and shudders. All of his body hair, making every line invisible, harsher and real.
“I’m not sure if I’ll be getting much sleep.”
Jabber is surprisingly on time. Better than on time, actually, since he is seated in their class laboratory and in full gear before Zanka, who hightails his ass out of bed every morning just to get there fifteen minutes early. He stares in shock at the sight of Jabber, notes out, and lab coat crisply buttoned to the top, with his hair in a tight bun, the shorter locs that hang as bangs clipped back by large and colorful hair clips. The sparkly pink one glitters in the light when Jabber tilts his head in Zanka’s direction, but he doesn’t look up from what must be their lab notes, writing in a seemingly steady pace in his notebook.
“Didn’t realize you’d be beating me to the lab this morning,” Zanka says awkwardly, sliding in the seat next to Jabber. “I usually come early to go over my notes a few times, and review the prelab,” he says, feeling slightly ashamed as he peeks over at the set of notes that Jabber has.
His handwriting sprawls across the page like it tries to run away from his hand, dense and organized with some set of rules that Zanka can’t catch. He can see long equations are layered atop the page with sticky notes.
The sheer density of notes in Jabber’s notebook makes his stomach drop. Zanka’s own notes are filled with question marks and streaks from his eraser wearing holes into the page, his scrawl half Japanese and English, as confusing to look at as Zanka had felt, rereading the procedure.
“Most of that shit is jargon and science word vomit,” Jabber says, pausing his writing to face his body towards Zanka. There are rings across each one of his fingers, bronze and expensive-looking, like they were crafted exactly to be worn by him. Like he senses a line of tension through Zanka, his affect changes to one of amusement.
“I prefer to let chemical bonds and the sound of the Bunsen burners seduce me into a new creation,” Jabber sighs, like he's talking about a class crush rather than an inanimate object.
“Please pause your lust for the scientific process for now. I hardly understand the lab as is,” Zanka groans, already irritated at Jabber.
“Why are you already irritated? I turned my music down last night and everything. Super considerate of me to let you get your beauty sleep.”
“I don’t-I don’t even know what beauty sleep is,” Zanka said honestly, turning over the phrase in his head before giving up. English was a lost battle. “And you still were up all night. I heard you laughing on the phone from like three doors down.”
Zanka is only half-lying. The echoes of Jabber’s enthusiastic phone conversation combined with the cycles of drunk students stumbling down the hallway had kept Zanka up all night as he went back and forth between doing his homework and solving the equations, all the while the noise continued outside. But a part of him enjoyed the way Jabber’s face moved into an expression between awe, mischievousness, and anticipation, like every time Zanka talked, he was already thinking on how to answer him.
“Beauty sleep is when you put on that cute little robe and those eye patches on so you can look pretty for me in the lab the next day.”
“The robe was a gag gift and is not a true reflection of my personality at all,” Zanka hisses, refusing to engage with Jabber’s…flirtations.
“Obviously not. It’d probably make more sense if you showed up in plague doctor fit or somethin. Or something boringer. You look like you would eat up a matching PJ set. Maybe even a little button up to bed,” Jabber pauses between writing like he’s actually imagining it before he resumes writing. How many fucking notes is he taking?
“It’s amazing how much thought you’ve put into what I wear to bed and not actually doing anything to help me with actually sleeping.”
Zanka regrets his wording before he even finishes his sentence. He can see Jabber already forming a response, most likely incredibly flirtatious and witty but is saved by the loud noise of the door cracking open and their classes teaching assistant unlocking the door. Jabber just wiggles his eyebrows at Zanka, and to preserve his dignity Zanka ignores him, trying to reel his traitorous heart back in, that is beating like he ran a marathon.
It only gets more embarrassing from there as more of his classmates funnel in and their lab groups are cemented. Zanka and Jabber are placed in the same group, and Jabber grins at his side, satisfied that his initial proposition was coming to fruition. A large, burly, blond boy named Evan gets placed in their group, and a booger of epic proportions hangs out of his nose. Him and a mousy haired girl, Jamie whisper quietly back and forth to one another, giggling about one thing or the other. He pays them no mind. Next to him, the heat of Jabber’s body is more prevalent than it was before, and Zanka wonders if he had moved his chair closer during their short conversation just to drive him insane. He tries to ignore it.
Zanka gets so immersed in trying to not notice Jabber, that in the first few minutes of their class, the TA firing off instructions, he misses all of the hints she had graciously provided to their sullen class. He ends up having to recheck his math twice before the entire ordeal and by the time he’s certain he has the correct answer, or as close to a correct answer as a hypothesis can be, Jabber has already brought their tools out from the classes cabinet; pipettes laid out neatly, the refractometer placed off to the side, and the beakers they need. Evan and Jamie do not bother helping him at all; instead, their chatter rises from its quiet tone to something conversational and amused.
“I could’ve gotten that myself,” Zanka finds himself saying, instead of thank you and you didn’t have to do that.
Jabber doesn’t even pretend to act as if he cares about Zanka’s obvious rising panic and terrible attitude with his own math, and smiles. “You also could’ve said thank you but I’m not one to start making demands.”
“I was checking over my math to make sure--”
Jabber moves closer to Zanka, the full height of him curling inwards towards his notebook, his arm braced over the table as he reads over Zanka’s shoulders.
“Well this math is wrong,” he says, and his pencil, an archaic, chewed gross looking thing, taps over the harsh lines of Zanka’s own handwriting, circling where he saw fault. There were lots, apparently. “You rounded the intermediate values way too early so half of your numbers are probably not in the range you want them to be. Also you only needed two significant figures for your, but there’s three here, cause you mixed it up with concentration.”
Zanka can immediately feel himself flush in humiliation, going quiet and very still. Jabber is standing beside him, his body creating a shadow over where he leans besides Zanka, lower half bent and arms braced beside him on the table. Whatever fragrance he uses is wiggling its way into Zanka’s lungs, and he breathes one shaky breath in before exhaling. Annoying.
Jabber’s help is unwarranted, annoying, and makes him feel like he should re-enroll in AP Chemistry, but he is right. Zanka erases the equation, beginning to rewrite the equation, mummering loud enough for Jabber to hear and begrudgingly allowing himself to be interrupted anytime Jabber chewed up pen to correct his stream of consciousness.
Jamie chimes in like Jabber’s corrections had roused her from her conversation. She has a certain glint in her eye that Zanka is not sure what to do with, but for the most part chalks it up to her desire to show him some friendly comfort.
“Actually, Zanka I got something similar to you as well, so I wouldn’t sweat about it. The pre-lab is a hypothetical that doesn’t really matter, since it’s not really related to what we’re doing today,” she says, eyes fixed on Zanka, like Jabber is invisible beside him.
“Well then you’re wrong as well,” Jabber comments with a shrug, the same smile on his face but different now, sharper, lacking all of his amusement. His voice is different as well when he talks to Jamie Zanka notices, the bitten off edges of how he usually speaks now harsh and defined, like every word makes air cut through his teeth. “Rounding imprecisely is going to create the wrong calculation, and even if it’s close it won’t be at the level of preciseness needed for a lab report. And the pre-lab is preparation for the procedures we’re actually about to do, so if you get that wrong then you’ll get the actual lab wrong too.”
Jamie rolls her eyes but at the frankness of Jabber’s tone backs off. But even without her speaking the tension between the two of them continues. No matter what Jabber says in terms of carrying out the procedure, yelling out the numbers, and switching out the beakers, Jamie doesn’t seem to take anything he says seriously until she does it herself. It could be chalked up to a simple personality difference, Jabber’s brash and upfront nature with Zanka irritating the sensibilities of this girl who might’ve thought herself to be more well mannered or polite.
But then there was this thing.
This tension in the shoulders of Jabber when she would ignore him or the subtle way Jamie would carry back the numbers and double check them with Evan and Zanka before she felt comfortable writing them down on her own paper. Or the way that Jabber’s usual twang settled into something stiffer and entirely foreign to how Zanka knew his voice to sound so far, smooth, rolling and meloiodic. It was off but Zanka didn’t have the language for what it might’ve meant or even what Jabber felt about the entire thing and instead focused on what he knew he could accomplish. Eventually, Zanka knew that to just say the numbers himself after Jabber
“It should be 00.00975 ml and then we can finish up this last chart and finish class," Zanka told Jamie, who was now frantically writing across their lab sheet, eager to get out as the rest of them. Zanka saved his snarky comments. They could’ve probably been out by now if she hadn’t been intent on bickering with Jabber. He stood beside her watching her frantically finish out her notes.
“Yeah I’m going to be leaving soon. I, unfortunately, have an event for another organization to head to after this so I’ll be leaving a few minutes early,” directing the comment mostly at Jamie, his back turned towards him. Zanka wants to dispel whatever has happened in this two hour class to make Jabber so curt. He doesn’t say anything. He avoids his eyes and watches Jamie write.
“Did you already talk to Professor Samuel about it,” Jamie questions, and before Zanka can speak in his defense, their TA, Janae, sweeps over, her destination clear as she steps into the space next to Jabber.
“Yes he did! He’ll actually be doing a project for our department’s yearly Toxicology Research Olympics! If you guys are interested you should definitely look into it! We fund a couple of scholars to create their own antidotes to sample venoms the university is still studying!”
“Isn’t that program usually for juniors,” Evan asks, sniffling and refusing to grab a tissue.
“Usually yes, but there are always exceptions. You can ask Jabber! He’s the youngest person to have ever done it in the time of the program’s history,” she says beaming down at the lot of them.
Zanka can’t conceal his surprise, thinking of the little he knows of Jabber being the fact that he lives on the same floor as Zanka and somehow maintains a schedule of pure nocturnal behavior, despite his seemingly heightened understanding of the material.
“Really,” Jamie questions rather rudely, aloud.
“Yes,” answers Janae with a wide smile. “Considering some of your hypotheses in your last essay about your findings with Professor Lincoln’s venom samples were weakly supported Jamie, I think it would be a great opportunity for you to build up your lab and research skills! But it’s just a suggestion!”
Behind her Jabber was wearing a grin of increasing smugness, his lab coat now off but the pink and glittery hair pieces still attached to his bangs. He was wearing another one of those outfits that was disastrously put together and still somehow made him seem as if he’s just walked off of a streetwear magazine.
Jamie looks stuck between doing something absolutely horrifying like crying and blurting out something at him as he sticks out his tongue at her from behind their TA’s head. Zanka takes the initiative to begin packing his stuff, already annoyed at the idea of what his hair is gonna look like once he takes the goggles off and heads back to his dorm. Jabber is by his side before he can even blink, leaning in close enough that his voice is a vibrating murmur in Zanka’s ear.
“I’ll stop by your room to study in a few and you can explain to me why you’re so shitty at doing basic math and chemistry.”
Zanka can feel his face flush hot with anger and something else that he absolutely does not have the energy to address.
“What- Wait, I don’t even need-”
“Should I bring the speaker or are you one of those psychos that actually study in complete silence? Snacks too? My homie made Rice Krispies-”
“Just,” he starts, but realizes he has no idea where the sentence is going. “Just knock, okay. And try not to come around too late, my roommate is kind of strict,” Zanka lies easily. Riyo is actually the opposite of strict. He’s entirely sure the only thing preventing her from turning their room into a party is the sheer respect she has for Zanka and his bottom bunk.
“Got you, Z,” he says and does this odd little salute that makes Zanka shake his head in irritation. “Imma head to this thing and by the time I’m finished, you better be ready!”
“How are people so perfect,” groans Riyo, her body sweaty and heavy against his as they share a booth in their crowded dining hall, picking away at the dry vegetables and chicken with too much sauce.
They had both just come from the gym, Zanka arms and legs aching from the pressure of the weights. His body had changed drastically in his time living in America, everything containing more calories and preservatives than any meal that Zanka had consumed in his entire time living in Japan.
The constant lull that had been sports in high school and now in the first few months of college a rigorous gym routine kept the depressive fog away for short moments and forced him to tone down the extra weight he had picked up. He had been feeling heavy for awhile, though. He knew at this point it wasn’t just the weight.
“What do you mean,” Zanka asks, shoving another bite of veggie and chicken into his mouth.
“I mean it’s like there are people who go to class and get good grades and eat healthy and dress like insanely fucking fashinably and wake up and then like paint a thousand things and have a regular fucking job that they do and get along with all their coworkers on the job and then still manage to clean their asses twice a day and smell nice.”
“You don’t clean your ass twice a day?”
“Oh my god stop being judgemental,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “I cleaned it enough! But it’s just crazy cause it’s like everyone in the art department is having a fucking niche-off all the time and of top of that all of them are insanely talented and rich and--”
“Is this about your new group of friends,” Zanka questions, turning over food that felt like much in his mouth.
Riyo had been hanging out with a gaggle of what Zanka could only describe to be the exact kind’ve people he always knew she would be around when they went to college: headstrong, eclectic and insanely talented. One of the girls, Noerde, had come to pick Riyo up from their dorm one night, and she was unbelievably beautiful, tall, and impeccably dressed. He could tell Riyo had been trying to impress her, cutting her usual curse filled quips, with a fragile feminine tone that Zanka believed didn’t suit her. He kept quiet though.
Zanka had already become aware of the gap growing between them. The longer they stayed in college, the larger Riyo’s circle grew, her weekends spent almost entirely outside the dorm, surfing on peoples couches and laughing with friends she had met this week, carpooling to parties. She had invited Zanka a couple of times but the outcome was always the same and Zanka didn’t want to continue holding her back from being with people who made her happy just because he could hardly hold a conversation. He wanted her to be happy.
He wishes his brain knew that as well.
Jealousy was becoming a common, ugly thing within him and instead of reaching out it made him want to retreat farther away from Riyo, build the distance wider between them. It was unfair towards her and it was hurting him. He knew this.
But he always liked to press the wound.
“No my friends are cool! I mean I do think it can get kinda complicated because I’m not always sure if I can match their sheer level of coolness and artistic talent, but that’s how being an artist is sometimes! And I think college is the first time I’ve been around so many different people like me, so it’s been super fun…it’s just like sometimes, I don’t even know who I am.”
Zanka wonders. Is that how college is supposed to be? A place teeming with loads of people like you, who you got along well with and tried out new things together?
Zanka had found none of that so far and most of the blame lay entirely on his shoulders. Even with his college having lesser diversity to some of the local universities there were plenty of people who looked like him in his department, some even being foreign exchange students from Japan here to participate in the fierce STEM programs. It was a stark contrast to high school and yet Zanka could not take advantage of it, to be lost in grinding out assignment after assignment in hopes that could correct whatever despair had been clinging to him since the second week of school ended. I’ll make friends after I submit this essay, he had told himself. Friends would come after he completed his project. After he finished the pre-lab. After he submitted those equations. After after after after after. He had been realizing lately that there was no after. Just his own insecurity eating away at every opportunity.
“I’m not sure I know who I am either,” he tells Riyo, shoveling another mouthful of food into himself, ignoring how hard it was to swallow. “This semester’s been a bit disappointing.”
Riyo instantly refocuses her attention onto him and he can see her scrutinizing his face, probably already aware of the loneliness that Zanka had been feeling.
“Have you met anyone yet?”
“No,” he says grumpily, slurping from his drink, a mix of too many sodas.
“You go to the gym like every fucking day and have a million boring biology classes, how have you not met someone?”
“Well actually,” he says then hesitates before continuing. “There is this guy in one of my classes and he happens to be the super fucking annoying guy next door who blasts music on weekends and talks to a million people on the phone per day.”
“Oh Mr. 360 Mafia on Thursdays, Paramore on Fridays, and Brownstone on Saturdays? I love that guy! Banger playlist,” she says between bites of food, spittle flying out of her mouth.
“You would like him,” he murmurs underneath his breath, tossing a napkin at her and hopes the Riyo gets the hint. She only wipes half of her face while the other is still covered in barbecue sauce.
“What about him,” she asks.
“Well he’s actually coming over to study today…maybe. I don’t know he just- invited himself over to our room to study,” he groans in frustration, trying to not let his nervousness peak through at the prospect of having alone time with Jabber.
Riyo squints her eyes at him which somehow makes her look, impressively, more stupid than she usually does when she’s trying to get on Zanka’s nerves.
“Are you like…blushing at the idea of this guy coming over to our dorm study?”
“Literally no, I’m not blushing, it is one hundred percent impossible for me to blush, and it's going to be a normal, completely boring studious session between prospective chemistry students!”
She squints again.
“Is studying like a new code for fucking? Cause if you need me to leave the room so you guys can go at it I can. We don’t have to do the code stuff- I mean unless you want to like we could try some stuff out like -”
“Riyo, I would literally pay good money for a sniper to blow your head off right now, stop talking. We will just be studying!”
“Okay cool. No more questions about the study sesh,” she puts study sesh in air quotes and Zanka wants to wring her fucking neck. “But can I at least get their IG? Tiny sneak peak. A little morsel for mama to chew on in art class when the fucking emos in the corners are plotting how to outdo me.”
“Fine,” he responds back in irritation, overwhelmed once again at her pure talent of misusing the English language. “It’s jab underscore dontblab and he has a profile pic of a capybara holding up a peace sign. It’s the dumbest shit ever.”
“Oh my god, you memorized his handle, Zanka! Literally, tell me right now when the wedding is right now. I swear to god I won’t wear anything you’ll hate but I can’t promise you anything if there’s an afterparty!”
“I sincerely despise you from my very core.”
“Oh my god, he’s hot! Zanka. I could cry real tears for you and they would come out of my vagina because of how smoking this guy is. Wow. Look at that. Oh my god, I’m taking notes right now, this Instagram is artfully obscure and mysterious.”
Zanka is entirely sure she’s going on for the next few minutes just to see how many veins in his forehead she can get to pulse in anger. Riyo has very little interest in men, nonexistent actually considering that Zanka had assumed her to be a lesbian since they met in high school, so he’s entirely sure she’s just bugging him for the sport. By the time they finish their dinner, Riyo has put every topic related to studying in air quotes and Zanka genuinely feels like he might vomit at the prospect of Jabber knocking on his door.
To make matters worse, Riyo ditches him right after dinner to hang out with some people for an art project she’s doing so Zanka has no choice but to drag himself to his dorm and gruel through his soul-sucking STEM homework waiting on the knock. It’s around when 10PM when he guesses that Jabber entirely forgot about his promise and Zanka decides that he needs to get a grip on his fucking life and make some friends since he’s worked up over getting a knock from someone he obviously way too interested in. He takes a shower, cleans the floor of their cluttered room,
And of course, at the ridiculous time of 1AM, Zanka rolls out of bed, grabs his stupid fucking robe, and opens the door to pause the incessant knocking of Jabber Wonger, decked out in a full fit and holding a pan of Rice Krsispie treats.
“Studying time,” he singsongs, pushing past Zanka’s half awake form, and flicking on the lights on his way to Riyo and Zanka’s combined desk. “What should we cover first? Your weak ass understanding of polytropic acids or your weak ass understanding of rounding? We can cover both but I’m really considering a pay-by-hour kind’ve situation.”
“What. The. Fuck”