Archive of Our Own ^beta

Being the third child to inherit a name means being valued for one-third the cost of an heir, with three times the expectation. It was back-breaking, mind-addling work, and Zanka Nijiku doesn’t know what to do with herself now that she is no longer the third child to an empire. Zanka had crawled out of the well on her own depleted strengths and the support of the staff, looking up into the artificial sun and searching for the foreign voice. She gingerly crawls over the stone lip of the well, collapsing into the dirt. When Zanka opens her eyes once more, she sees a pack of leaf-shaped manju on the ground near her.

She doesn’t have the courage to go home. Zanka knows her family talks to the teachers, and vice versa. Perks of being so involved in the family business—drawbacks too. Everyone’s in your business. She wanders in alleyways, never straying too far to the edge of town. But keeping a safe distance from the normal haunts belonging to the hell guard trainees. Zanka stoops and takes a drink from a water hose. Her ponytail is matted, she needs a shower. She needs more food, her body makes it known, but she doesn’t feel deserving of these luxuries, ones she had never had to live without. Zanka wanders like a ghost with nothing but her staff. Luckily the foreign voice, a tall man with loud tattoos, returns a few hours later. Zanka had returned to the site of her wallowing, leaned up against the well when Enjin finds her again. She’d been clutching the wooden staff the entire time, her hands blistered from the well walls and wooden splinters.

“Glad to see you out.”

There’s a short girl next to him, she says nothing. Zanka feels her blood saturating the wood grain of the staff.

Zanka finally takes a shower, after meeting the Cleaners. It’s late at night, the communal showers are empty. She peers out, noting that her staff is inert on the counter where she’d left it. Zanka is so absorbed combing through the knots in her hair that she doesn’t notice the other party until a voice startles her.

“Hi.” A short girl with large eyes peers up at her. Her shocking red hair is wrapped in a bun and Zanka tries not to feel a pang of homesickness. This is the girl that was with Enjin, her name is Riyo. She hadn’t said much.

“... Hello.” Zanka turns back to the mirror, hairbrush snagging on a large knot. She pulls futilely.

“What do you think about Enjin?”

“He’s nice. Seems like a good guy.”

“Mm, he is.” Riyo seemed conversational, but something felt stilted, and Zanka looked straight on in the mirror, wondering what to expect from the girl with scissors in her pocket. Whatever she’d expected, it hadn’t been what she did say. “Do you have a crush on him?”

“Hah?!” The hairbrush clatters against the sink, rendered free with a clump of Zanka’s matted hair. “No!” Zanka avoids Riyo’s blank gaze, furious blush reaching up her neck.

“Okay, okay. Just wondering.” Riyo picks the battered brush up, inspecting the clump of hair. She looks from the clump to the silver hair trailing down Zanka’s back, ending at the dip of her spine. “Your hair is nice.”

“Thank you. I’d shave it all off if I could.”

“Well why can’t you? The Cleaners don’t have a dress code. If they did I’d be screwed, hah.”

Zanka pauses, thinking.

“That’s a good point.”

“Y’know, I always wanted to be a hairdresser. I still want to, I even practice on myself and other Cleaners all the time. How short would you go?”

Zanka thinks for a moment, and raises one hand up to her jawline. Riyo smirks, shaking the new Cleaner’s hand.

Zanka thinks Riyo has a good chance of becoming a well-liked and accomplished hairdresser. She’s gentle with her scissors and thoughtful. She doesn’t impose what she believes would look best, like a lot of the older women in Zanka’s family home used to. They’d never allow her more than a trim, saying boys like long hair.

To be honest, Zanka had never thought about men for any stretch of time. They way her classmates had, anyway. Sure, she understood the concept of dating, of romance, of marriage. Sure, she’d have nightmares, waking up tangled in her sheets to a racing heart, already adjusting against the false memories of a marriage that did not exist. It’s outdated, Zanka’s grandmother was the last woman she knew to have lived that specific experience—she was fifteen and her prospective groom, Zanka’s grandfather, was thirty-two at the time. Zanka’s father was born a year later. No one expected anyone to marry so young anymore. And she was the third child, they wouldn’t think about prospects with her for a long while. Kyouka, sad as it is to admit, would be the first of their parents to cast off and find a suitable husband for. Zanka had time. So sure, she didn’t malinger on it.

To say she has no interest in it, now, as a disinherited average joe Cleaner would be closer to the truth. Riyo tries to talk about boys with her, but it feels painfully forced on both ends. So they don’t, really. If Zanka were pressed, she’d have to describe her ideal lover as powerful, and someone who respects her. She isn’t glamorous and elegant like Semiu, doesn’t have style or a girlish personality like Riyo, and the Cleaners never make her feel lesser for it. She doesn’t stand out, in good or bad. If Zanka were seen as a Cleaner first and a girl second, that would be alright with her.

Jabber Wonger is the opposite of everything Zanka feels should be right with the world. She’s loud, she’s faster than light, she plays dirty, she’s crazy, like horny, masochistic, drug-addled crazy. Zanka hadn’t even known what hit her, panic coursing through her system until her limbs worked again. She’d hidden in the shade of a pillar, observing Rudo’s shiny new Jinki in battle. Zanka felt gobsmacked by this new, feral addition to the equation. A tall, slender Raider with dark locs and long nails for a Jinki. She jumped off the walls, in efforts to launch herself at Rudo, smiling like a freak, nearly moaning at the punches. The more Zanka watched, the more infuriated she became. The woman was covered in jewelry, on her fingers, her wrists, in her hair, how did she navigate quietly with all of that? And the way the Raider could go on pointe so smoothly like it was automatic, balancing on pristine, white ballet shoes laced up past the hem of her baggy pants, what a sack of shit. Zanka jumped into the fray when she’d had enough of this mad genius.

Zanka lays in the damp basement, shaking with a drugged rage while Rudo is carried away. She can hear the Raider skipping away gleefully, satin slippers gliding across rubble. It stings like friction from a cheese grater on Zanka’s ribs. She promises herself to beat that smiling face into the ground next chance she has, a quiet declaration locked within her heart to be better than prodigies like Jabber. Prodigies like Jabber Wonger, who think all of this is just a game. Zanka already thinks of how Enjin will react when he finds Rudo has been taken, and bile paints the roof of her mouth in sick fear. What Jabber could do to a kid like Rudo, she does not know. Enjin might, in his wisdom of years and experience, and that thought does not settle her.

Enjin makes sure to emphasize how proud he is that Zanka had dealt with two Raiders and protected the entire team. Fighting people is not their job, nor is it a virtue, as Enjin himself insists regularly, but he thanks Zanka for what she’s done anyway. She feels dissatisfied in the praise, sees it through tinted sunglasses as hollow appeasements. Something like this would usually have her over the moon, but something’s missing. As Enjin turns the corner, disappearing down some other hallway, Zanka notices Rudo perched at the other end.

“What?”

“Hey, Zanka.” Rudo comes closer, eyes casting around. It’s almost time for their lesson, so Zanka motions the boy to walk with her to one of the conference rooms. Somehow, Zanka had been saddled with teaching Rudo general knowledge about the ground beyond the Cleaners’ work.

“Is that normal? The Raiders, I mean.”

“Ehhh… not really. Human interference isn’t common as it is, and what happened yesterday is even rarer.” Rudo looks down at the tile as they walk, pensive. “Wasn’t your fault.”

“... Thanks.”

“Are ya makin’ fun of me?!” Rudo gets flustered, and then angry, which in turn also sets Zanka off.

Enjin praises her often. It doesn’t get easier, and she bites her cheeks to keep from smiling whenever it happens. She’s waiting outside a convenience store, assistaff clutched to her chest. The after-clean warmth she feels emanating from her staff is surely imagined, but it feels like the sweat of a lover and so she hangs on tighter, standing at attention from when Enjin returns like a good soldier. Laughter sounds as the convenience door slides open, Enjin’s wide frame flanked by a tall, shapely woman. She giggles, high and keening and Zanka’s back straightens up. She tries to ignore the flare of annoyance in his gut. Who is this woman, throwing herself all over Enjin, and who is he to play into this scene, and who is Zanka to care with such voyeuristic intent? It disturbs her greatly, and when Enjin parts ways with the woman, he tilts his head at Zanka’s rigidity for the rest of the day.

That night Zanka lay in bed, staring at the dark ceiling until colors swam across her vision. Riyo’s words from their first conversation that night in the showers play over and over like the rhythmic pitter-patter of acid rain on her brain. Does she like Enjin? Her reaction, embarrassment at the image of Enjin with a woman leaves a bad taste in her mouth, but she wouldn’t call it envy. It feels more like a betrayal—which maybe isn’t so different to most people. Nonetheless, Enjin was never someone she worried about, he’d never indicated perceiving her, or Riyo, even, as women. At least Zanka thought so. Who knows, anymore, if Enjin really is sleeping around with women like- like it’s his job or something. She gets up and logs eight miles on a treadmill before feeling exhaustion take her body. Zanka resolves to never think about this again, and reinstates her faith in Enjin as a Cleaner and as a person. Any indications of his love life are none of her business.

｡ ꫂ❁ ｡

Zanka can’t stop thinking about the Raiders. About that one fucking Raider that knocked her on her ass, right after she had beaten two Raiders singlehandedly. That cheating, poisonous bitch. She had treated fighting and poisoning and kidnapping like a child’s game, skipping along in her pointe shoes and waving hands. When she’d laid there, watching Rudo’s mop of hair disappear beyond her shoulder, the meagre sound of Jabber’s feet hitting the wooden blocks wedged in her pointe shoes sounded painful, jagged. She’s almost itching for another chance despite knowing that isn’t normal or right to want. There’s a worm in her brain that replays those moments, how that freak with a light foot and heavy nails had literally danced around her.

Zanka feels her hair standing on end, pulled into a wormhole and once more  facing off against the irritating woman in an irritating bunch. Purple lanterns reflect off of the planes of Jabber’s face, and even from a distance it’s obvious how wide her grin is. Jabber waves, long acrylic nails and rings catching the minimal light. Zanka scowls, already on edge as she feels her fingertips from digging into the gauze wrapped around assistaff.

Jabber is an infuriating person. She trails around, jumping into backflips and dipping her hands into boiling chemicals. She unsheathes her claws and a tidal wave of frustration almost bowls Zanka over. The insistence that Zanka is holding back, hiding something of a similar caliber stings like trying to jump high enough and falling short, of that stomach drop when you miss the last step, surprise and bitter failure. Failure is something Zanka has experience with, so she isn’t fazed. She rushes in headlong with her lovely staff by her side, dodging and dodging and dodging and Jabber seems to be annoyed, pushing further until she’s in Zanka’s space, twirling those new, large claws on one foot on pointe. She gets closer, pushes the hard, wooden block under her toes downward and it sinks like a hot coal in Zanka’s midsection as she flies backwards and onto the ground. The larger claws encase her like an insect pinned to a corkboard, and Jabber leans over. She tilts her head.

“Aw, is this game over?” Her hand surges downward, smaller, sharper pinpoints aiming to kill. Zanka, angry, righteous, pissed-the-fuck-off, grabs at her last efforts. Her teeth grind on the claws, and Zanka can taste more than see the rounder acrylic nails underneath the Jinki as they softly poke her lips. Spittle coats those slender fingers as she locks her jaw like a dog with a bone that won’t let go. Zanka’s fingers reach for her assistaff while Jabber is caught, reeling as the move processes in her mind. She pulls and pushes and gets a cheap shot in because Zanka refuses to die here, to die in the manicured hands of a pervert with wide eyes playing a child’s game. Assistaff connects and bones crack and that second wind dies immediately, because of course, geniuses like Jabber can change direction mid-jump, have articulated control of giant Jinkis like hers, can win with only the barest of nicks. She gets Zanka in the leg and it feels like all of the blood in her body leaks out at once. She’s so lightheaded she staggers to her side, curling up to stem the bloodflow like displaced water leaving a flooding bathtub.

“Aughhh… My ribs hurt, man! You’re a real sadist, you know that?” Jabber looks up, cracking her neck. Her gaze travels across the rocky ceiling, following some unknown, manic path back down to Zanka as she curls up on the ground, trying to preserve whatever’s left of her dignity. Jabber is muttering something about bubbles and poisons while Zanka shakes, cold sweats overtaking her body. Jabber, looking bored, pulls her right claws closer and slots one neatly in what feels like Zanka’s soul, resting right underneath her ribs. Her nail passes through like a knife in butter, a cleaver through a bad cut of meat, a hammer through a flower’s stem. Everything goes dark. Spots fill her vision, and Zanka does not know how much time she’s losing in the black interims. She’s passed out before, knows the disorienting feel of being knocked away from your body. She feels energized, angry, afraid, and stands on stringy legs. Everything is colorful and bright and her lovely, supportive assistaff comes to her and she runs in with a renewed vigor despite the injuries. She feels so good, grimacing, stretching her cheeks out farther than what feels humanely possible. Zanka laughs, and Jabber becomes prey, is a siren caught in her fisherman’s net. When the ground meets Zanka’s feet it feels like bouncing on a trampoline and she feels activated purely in spite. Her hands glide through with her staff, an extension of her reach as they fly through the clouds and zero in on the pesky butterfly trying to evade her, twirling around her staff, around her hands.

“Ahhh. Zanka, my friend, are you having fun?” The butterfly asks, just barely dodging the hits as they clip her shining wings. She wants to answer, wants to say Yes, I am. I’m having so much fun it hurts but her mouth doesn’t work and her tongue feels dry and weighted like a cyst that needs to be excised. Maybe the butterfly can use her proboscis, can suck on her lips and clean her out.

Zanka laughs. She hears ringing laughter echoing off of her joy like haptic feedback before black emptiness fills in her memory like cement in a deep hole.

｡ ꫂ❁ ｡

“-r…”

Cool brick digs into her neck. She lifts her head up slightly, and winds it back hard onto the brick. Again and again and again. Maybe she can get lucky and crack her skull open, maybe then she’d finally die and her body would decompose into trash at the bottom of a dark hole like she deserves, curled up like an animal waiting for the rot to take her. She hears mumbling at the edges of awareness, as if deep underwater. The noise doesn’t go away. If anything, it grates more incessantly like sandpaper on her ego. She gets up, sees assistaff taller than a building and reaching to the sky (maybe all the way to the Sphere) and she climbs. As she ascends, the voice becomes clearer, melodic, enticing. The lip of the stone well gives way to a deep twilight. The purple sunset reflects off of every surface, giving the impression of a brush fire consuming the entire horizon. Jabber is sitting a few feet away, facing that purple inferno, whispering to herself. She looks beautiful, elegant, powerful in a way you cannot train or fake. Zanka pulls herself out of the well with great effort, but assistaff holds her back. It’s branches wrap around her like a vice, and she relaxes into the hold.

“Maybe I could’ve had more fun if I fought a different cleaner.”

Zanka screams.

Eisha has a bucket prepared by the time she’s fully awake, already ringed with stomach bile.

It takes Zanka a while to be able to keep any food down. Eisha had said it was a miracle the cocktail of toxins hadn’t killed her. Like it was synthesized special, just for Zanka to barely scrape through. She’s cleared for field work a week later.

Zanka traces her hand on the grooves of a brick wall. Her nails dig into where the chipped, grey mortar sits. Eyes closed, her calloused, splintered fingers follow some predetermined path until they’re stopped by resistance. Zanka opens her eyes and spots a flyer nailed to the wall, the corner jammed under her fingernails. The collaged, punk aesthetic of the poster lends itself to the idea that this is a lesser-known music artist advertising a lesser-known concert. Trash Beatz. 

“Hm? What’s this?” Enjin leans in over her shoulder, and Zanka notes the cigarette smoke wafting into her hair.

“Some band flyer. Looks stupi-”

“Hmmmm. Looks fun, you should go!”

The name pisses her off, and out of spite she rips the flyer down, tucking it into her pocket with intentions to recycle the piece of paper so it’ll have some use.

She stares at the flyer, sitting on Riyo’s bed. She’d dressed differently just in case. She’d put a nice shirt on just in case. She asked Riyo if her hair was too short to do anything with, just in case. Riyo lets a curling iron melt her own red hair off, Zanka watching the steam trail up as Riyo rattles off her hopes for the night. Something about fruition and boys, she isn’t paying too much attention, to be honest. Riyo had given her some eyeliner, let Zanka play with the makeup a little and nods her validation when Zanka emerges with a smokey waterline and a wing.

Zanka only realizes much later that Riyo had no intention of hooking up with boys, that she only says stuff like that because she knows it makes Zanka uncomfortable. That Riyo had planted the thought of hooking up with a stranger with no intention for Zanka to actually run off.

“What’s wrong, Zanka?” Riyo sounds serious. It’s rare for her voice to lose that happy-go-lucky facade she likes to wear, means something must be seriously wrong. Except Zanka’s the only thing that could be messed up, here.

“Nothin.’ It’s loud, I don’t know.” The openers for Trash Beatz just finished their set, so the pair of Cleaners are loitering outside on an overhang that overlooks a bar outside the venue. Zanka, underage, has no intention of trying to sneak a drink. Riyo, underage-er, is halfway through her second cocktail. Something bubbling and green with sugar and a slice of fake fruit on the rim. The smell burns Zanka’s nostrils worse than Enjin’s cigarette smoke, and she turns her nose to the ceiling pipes customary of grunge, warehouse-type venues that many bands operate out of.

“I mean, recently. I’m glad we could do something cool like this together, but it feels like you’re… I don’t know. Distant?” Riyo pauses, casting her gaze about. “Is it about what happened with the Raiders?”

“No!” Zanka’s hands grip the railing of the balcony. Assistaff leans on her forearm, shaking slightly at the disturbance. “Why is everything always about that? Y’all keep saying, ‘Zanka, it’s fine, it’s okay. No one could’ve beat that. Don’t feel too bad.’ Well I do! Because everyone keeps fuckin’ bringin’ it up.”

“Well, do you blame us? Your sleep is getting worse, somehow! You’re even more serious, never in a good mood! Always out on clean-ups, burning yourself out on work to- to prove something?” Riyo takes a breath, left hand clenching in her pocket. Zanka recognizes her fingers running over the grooves of her Jinki. They've spent enough time together for her to learn the many ways Riyo fidgets with her scissors, running her thumb over the blade with a light touch, never enough to cut. “I’m sorry. This wasn’t how I wanted to say any of that. I just worry. We all do, especially Enjin.”

“... Whatever.” Zanka puts her chin in her palm, looking off.

Riyo shoots the rest of her drink, setting the glass down on the floor next to their feet. “Thanks for inviting me, Zanka. Didn’t think this would be your scene.”

“It’s not.”

“Pfft. I’ll leave you to it, princess. I’m gonna get a spot in the pit, you wanna come?”

“Nah. Too stuffy. I’ll wait here, if that’s all right.”

“Sure! Don’t go home with any weird types, okay?” Zanka shoves the shorter girl, laughing.

Zanka loses her jovial mood, settling down to idly observe the filling bar and it’s patrons. Among them, a tall bronze figure that sends a pit of acid bubbling in the soles of her feet. A girl, dreadlocks pinned half-up with butterfly clips and hands swinging back and forth, a flowing skirt and a long, purple scarf wrapped around her waist. She’s sparkling under the lowlight with all that jewelry, with all those rings on her fingers, nails long and sharp like a predator animal. There’s a man, tall like Enjin, with a lot of tattoos. He’s leaning in close and it sets Zanka on edge. She wouldn’t be surprised if her jawbone snapped with how hard she was clenching her teeth. The man wraps an arm around the slender girl while ordering two drinks. They’re laughing, they’re getting in close, and Zanka’s hands are glued to the railing as she becomes an unwilling voyeur to the scene below her. How no one else sees a problem with that man all over a sparkling, dangerous girl that’s probably a fraction of his age, she can not fathom. Jabber looks away, called by some other fancy for a minute. Zanka almost breathes a sigh of relief (for who, she does not know) when the man looks over, throwing something into the drink farther from him. He pulls Jabber back, laughing all the while, and Zanka feels something in her spine curling up, readying itself like a spring.

Jabber takes the glass offered, and looks up, making eye contact with Zanka before drinking it quickly. One thought races through Zanka’s mind on repeat: She saw me.

Before Zanka has time to make a decision based on this new information, of being made an active participant, the man clutches his head and stumbles. Jabber looks on worriedly, rubbing his back. She guides him away from the bar and Zanka’s feet unstick, kicking the fake fruit off of the cocktail glass in her haste to move.

The night air is cool, the sound of people immediately cut down to bits when Zanka gets to the back door, a couple of minutes after seeing Jabber pull the man through here. She casts about, Lovely assistaff loosely pulled up to her flank when she spots the man in front of her. He’s knocked out, drool trailing out of the corner of his mouth as he’s laid out among piss puddles and broken beer bottles. Jabber is crouched over him, and looks over her shoulder, smiling brightly at Zanka’s entrance.

“Zanka, my friend. Nice of you to join.”

She takes a step back, and another. Her back hits the door.

“Is he alive?”

“Jeez, no hello? He’s fine, just gonna be knocked out for a couple of hours.” She stands, looking down at the man sadly. “Or days. He’s kinda handsome, don’t you think?”

The man continues drooling onto himself. The crow’s feet, greying beard, and toned arms make him look more like a misshapen trash beast. And the drugging, of course. Zanka says as much, and Jabber giggles. Her long nails shine in the moonlight, white and cherry red like Mankira in it’s full form. Jabber stumbles, and Zanka reaches forward to catch her, instinct she should really learn to ignore when it comes to the girl.

“Ahh… he must’ve hit me with something hard, hehe.” Jabber leans into Zanka’s side, eyes fluttering. Zanka feels intense pity, though she does not know where it originates from and who it’s supposed to be for. Maybe it’s for herself, for putting herself in this situation when she could’ve had a nice night with Riyo, or better yet, stayed in and used her time to train. Jabber is warm and her breast presses into Zanka, both of which she tries to ignore as Zanka rationalizes leaving the concert venue entirely. Of course, Zanka does not move.

Though Jabber is still conscious, her dead weight pushes the both of them into the cool brick wall. Up close, Zanka can see the faint spots of glitter on Jabber’s cheeks, her arms, her chest. There’s so much information piled up in Zanka’s awareness, she doesn’t know what to focus on. “Hey, Zanka… who’d you dress up pretty for?”

Before Zanka is able to come up with an answer with her lagging mouth, there’s a chorus of cheers and music starts to play. It’s something full of bass and muffled with this bubble Zanka seems to be stuck inside of, but she doesn’t mind. It further jumbles up her thoughts, which seem to feel like a purple brush fire overtaking a forest. 

“The concert’s starting.”

“You should go back inside and watch it, then.” Jabber smiles as she says this, and her face is so close it’s suffocating. Like all the air in the world is being sucked into Jabber and Zanka is stuck watching her take it all. Her tone is coy, and it irritates Zanka to no end that she sounds so sure, that Zanka will not go back inside as things stand now. Even more frustrating that she’s right. A long-nailed hand touches Zanka’s side, and she flinches. It’s just Jabber’s acrylics, and it is almost a disappointment that Jabber is not trying to fight her right now. It would make all of this so much more simple.

“Are you here on Raider business?”

Jabber tilts her head, inquisitive. “Nope.” Her nails drag across Zanka’s rib cage and she shivers. “I’m being a good girl today, just having fun.” The man behind them spasms and it startles Zanka out of whatever miasma she seems to be caught in. Zanka steps away, running her hand down to smooth her clothes. Zanka can’t parse out what she’s feeling right now, but the suspicion sends ice picks of fear down her back. Zanka looks down, spying the unconscious man behind Jabber’s feet. She isn’t wearing those pristine ballet shoes tonight, just a simple pair of flats. Their respective lack of uniform only adds to the confusion, that Zanka is not a Cleaner and Jabber is not a Raider in this moment.

“Y’know. You really fucked me up last time.” Zanka, overcome with a fury meant for everyone and no one, looks Jabber in her large eyes. She takes notice of her eyebags, of the smudged eyeshadow on her lids, and feels like Narcissus staring into an imperfect reflection in the water—a reflection disturbed by the ripples in water. But still, Jabber is the better, faster, smarter, the stronger version of her. She feels sick with envy, stomach bile fighting to climb up and stain that pretty face.

“I’m sorry, baby.” Jabber’s eyes light up, her tired expression tinged with unrepentant smugness. She wants it wiped off. She wants to wipe it off.

Maybe Zanka leans in, asks for it first, but Jabber takes to her like the latch of a venomous animal’s bite. Their lips collide, a microcosmic trash storm and it feels so good that Zanka forgets who it is she’s kissing for a second. A sharp pain in her side drags Zanka unwillingly into a fog, and she sticks her tongue in Jabber’s mouth, looking for purchase as she sinks deeper.

｡ ꫂ❁ ｡

She wakes up in increments, slowly coming to her body and senses. The waves of realization hit Zanka as she reorients her senses to the bedspread under her.

Zanka takes stock:

• Her lovely assistaff is lain next to her.
• Face sticky, presumably from residual makeup and sweat.
• Stiff limbs. Could be any number of reasons. Could be the normal reactions to her daily routine.
• Stained clothes, a pretty purple scarf wrapped around her neck tight. Almost constricting.

Zanka sits up, rubbing her head to banish the pin pricks travelling behind her eyes. She looks at the clock on the wall, noting that it’s midday. Embarrassingly late of a time for her to wake up, and she files it away for later. Zanka unwinds the scarf and her airway opens up marginally. Her hands feel an indent from the fabric digging into her skin.

• Memories of last night.
• Memories of last night. She feels gaps and impressions
• Trash Beatz. Melting hair talking to Riyo fake fruit slice bubbling green cocktail Tall man at the bar Jabber
• Jabber
• A microcosmic trash storm and it feels so good that Zanka forgets who it is she’s kissing a sharp pain in her side it feels so good that Zanka forgets who it is so she’s
• Dancing, Trash Beatz stupid ass name the pit was too crowded but she wants to stay and let them get pressed in the fields of sweaty bodies and each other and Zanka can’t say no with those hands around her waist nails digging into her
• .

Zanka remembers.

A sharp pain in her side that tastes like Rohypnol on her tongue and Jabber’s teeth in her mouth.

“Ahh… I’m too bad……. I couldn’t resist.”

“You- Fucker-”

“Heeheeheheee…” Jabber twirls the pair of them, and Zanka can feel her long skirt billowing around them in the awkward rehearsal of a waltz. Their feet bump into the Tall Old man and Jabber looks down in surprise, as if she’d forgotten why she had been out here at all. Zanka wouldn’t be surprised if she really did forget, mercurial girl she is. “Wanna go back in?”

Zanka does not reply, her hands fisted in the thin sleeves of Jabber’s low-cut shirt. She feels like an asteroid caught between two pulls of gravity.

First pull—the Cleaners, her pride, her dignity, her purity. Cleaner first girl second. Enjin says we help people, we train hard and we do what we can and if it’s not enough then that’s okay. They have to stop the Raiders from hurting people and further destroying the biome of this world, the only thing they have left, layered with centuries of trash.

Second pull—A distorted reflection, sick with envy that Hyo beat her, the new girl with no training no name just up and beat all of them and Zanka’s going to put on a brave face but it skins her alive to concede to a natural genius when she was supposed to be the born and bred queen on the golden throne. Jabber wears a cheshire smile with her natural intuit and talents playing that cat and mouse game like it doesn’t matter but it does fucking matter. People’s lives are at stake and Zanka would rather chase her own pride than focus on the goal at hand, to let this world and the Sphere crumble to nothing if it means she gets to gaze down at a clear picture for once in her life, chasing perfection that she knows is impossible.

Jabber leans back in and presses the softest, open mouthed kiss to Zanka’s neck.

“Wow… your pulse is so fast-”

Zanka gets up, using assistaff to support her as she gathers a towel, a change of clothes, and her remaining thoughts into a manageable pile.

She peels last night’s vestiges off of her in the communal showers. The water runs black when she gets to her face. Zank brushes her wet hair out in the mirror and can’t stop staring at the spots of glitter stuck to her skin. Zanka puts her dayclothes on and makes for the cafeteria. She avoids most people, making quick pleasantries when she has to. She eats the flavorless stew quickly and takes her pudding cup and juice to the gym.

Jabber licks up her diaphragm while Zanka stumbles.

“Again. Wanna go in? The music’s not gonna play forever.” Jabber’s right. The music will end, eventually. They go in, they do something together that could be called dancing, but Zanka likes to hope it came across as wrestling. The pit is hot, it’s sweaty, and it feels like everything she should hate. She doesn’t even think she’d care about the genre of music normally, but the sounds beat a rhythm that cuts through her brain fog like a bone saw through her humerus. Jabber cackles and laughs and at some points Zanka notices her pulling Mankira out, and pricking herself in the inner elbow when Jabber’s steps become too steady. They crash and wane together as a solid wave, and Zanka feels impressions of their faces connecting. It would be charitable to call what they do kissing, and it is a comfort that she can keep some distance from an act so intimate. Jabber’s nails, not Mankira, dig into her waist and crawl under her shirt at one point and it’s almost scary but Jabber’s fingers are curiously uncurious, and stay in the general acceptable area from which they started. Even if Zanka hopes that the crowd pushes her hands out of bounds, beyond the acceptable, platonic touching of two… of two… somethings. Of two not-girls in a treaty zone doing something akin to dancing. Of two reflections in a rain puddle filled with gasoline and microbial parasites.

At some point between being drugged and the last song, Zanka’s hands find themselves crushed in the hollows between Jabber’s shoulders, running her fingers over whatever she can, looking for purchase in a storm of music and feelings and bright lights.

Jabber, laughing all the while, pulls them out of the venue and into crisp night air once the band is truly well and done. The air burns up Zanka’s nose and almost gags, kneeling down and supported by Jabber’s arm.

Zanka runs twelve miles before someone she knows finds her. She stops remembering, pulling her Cleaner mask back on when Semiu hands her a paper with coordinates and an estimated number of trash beasts.

｡ ꫂ❁ ｡