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Zanka can't get back inside his dorm. He is crouching on the common balcony with a cup in his hand, holding a piece of paper under it. And he cannot stop shaking. In the cup, the biggest fucking grasshopper that he has ever seen is making plans to jump on his face as soon as he tries to dump it out. He already cried a bit before coming out, thinking it would give him a boost of courage. Now he has been sitting outside for ten minutes, his hands are getting tired, and he is no closer to finishing the job. The cup is from the thinnest plastic, almost transparent, and he can see the grasshopper's long legs holding on to the sides. Every time the grasshopper moves, the cup shakes, and Zanka gets the urge to throw up.
"Are you okay?"
He almost jumped over the railing together with the bug. The worst that could happen, happened. Jabber is leaning near his own door, a joint hanging from his lips. His hair is up, revealing even more of his naked chest. He kneels down, cocking his head to the side, and looks at the cup in Zanka's hand.
"Wow, it's big as hell! Did you catch it?" Jabber looks genuinely amazed.
Zanka has to bite his tongue down so he doesn't start scream -beg him to take the fucking thing and burn it with the lighter. Just last week, he was finally able to ask Jabber for his number, saying it was to send him some of his notes. That was a stupid excuse, considering they are in the same course, but it still worked, so it doesn't matter. Zanka never found it in himself to actually ask him out, though, as he found it weird to do that after taking his number for university-related stuff. Asking him out in person was out of the question. Zanka found Jabber too attractive not to stumble when talking to him. He inhales deeply, holds it for a few seconds, and gets ready to act.
"Yea, I was wondering if I should let it go or keep it."
Jabber lifts an eyebrow, and Zanka curses in his head. Keep it? The grasshopper?
"I don't know about a pet, but they make a great snack."
Zanka's soul almost leaves his body. Is it really worth it to have a crush? Jabber might be the most beautiful man Zanka has ever seen, but even his face can't make him forget. The thought of squashing a bug under his hand is maybe the worst thing Zanka can imagine, the crunch could send him into cardiac arrest. Crushing one between his teeth? Death.
"S-snack?"
"Yea, with salt."
Zanka is holding back tears by this point. The most disturbing images are going through his mind. Jabber laughs beside him. He grabs the cup out of Zanka's hand and pulls the grasshopper out, pinched between his thumb and pointer finger. Its legs are moving in the air, disgustingly slow, and Zanka can swear that it's looking straight at him with its ugly, small eyes. Zanka hopes to die right in this moment.
"Sorry, sorry, I was joking. My bearded dragon likes them. You good at catching them?" He is moving the bug around and looking at it like it's a rare specimen.
"I'm very fast."
Zanka just keeps on lying. He might be fast, but he never uses that speed to challenge the bugs. When they are not in his home, he uses it to run as far away as possible. Jabber smiles at him, and Zanka is definitely okay with lying a bit more.
"Maybe we could catch some together, and you can show me?"
For the first time in his life, Zanka prays that Riyo would come out from one of the doors and humiliate him. She would point at him, laugh, and say something like "the only bug he can ever catch is the stomach one". Then Zanka would be forced to tell the truth, and they would laugh together, maybe he would even ask Jabber out on a real date. But after all, he did manage to catch the grasshopper, right?
"Let's do it."
When he tells Riyo, she laughs so hard that she chokes, running out of breath.
"Our boy who cried over a stinkbug last week has a bug date!"
Zanka is covering his face with his hands, while she is slapping him on his back. He can't even look her in the eye. Maybe he can act stupid tomorrow and say he thought they were catching bugs on Animal Crossing instead.
"And you will be teaching him to catch bugs? Maybe you should buy some dead ones, scatter them around, and pretend to catch them. It will be like a little treasure hunt." She has actual tears in her eyes.
"Will you help me or not?"
"With what? Make you tolerant to bugs?" She stops laughing, seeing how serious his face is. "Wait, for real?"
Rudo has a bag of... Something in his hand. A bag of something that moves and shakes. Riyo wanted to do the unboxing in his room, so Zanka has no choice but to fight his fear. There's no way he willingly lets a bug in his dorm, in a bag or not.
"So... Is there any bug that you might not piss yourself if you touch it?" Riyo asks, her hand in the bag.
A butterfly is his first thought, but then he remembers that it's not made of only colorful wings, and they are connected to a quite nasty, worm-like body. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The same issue goes with moths.
"Maybe a ladybug? Or a bee."
Rudo and Riyo sigh in perfect sync.
"The concept of being scared of any other bug, but not bees."
"A ladybug?" Rudo takes the bag from Riyo and sticks his hand inside. "How about a beetle? They are harmless."
He takes out a beetle with the color of petrol spill, and Zanka reaches up to pull his soul back in his body. Just now, he realised that when he tells people that he is scared of bugs, they have no idea what the fuck he is talking about. "It's harmless", "It can't do anything to you", "It's scared too". Zanka has never thought that a bug could whop his ass, stab him, or something like that. First, it's the legs. Too many and for what? When he can hear a roach walk, no matter how far, it gives him the creeps. Why should a human be able to hear a bug walk around if it isn't a scare tactic? It's working anyway. Second, the fucking stinkbugs, the sound of their hard bodies hitting furniture makes him shiver. It's not as much pure fear as it is such a deep disgust that it makes him physically sick. The worst of all, the thought of squishing a bug under something and feeling it's body under can actually kill him. It doesn't matter if he is squishing it with a napkin, a book, or a hydraulic press. He has the irrational fear that he will feel its small, disgusting carcass.
And yet, Zanka wants to go on a date with Jabber. He turns his head to look away as Rudo keeps on marching towards him with the beast twitching between his fingers. Zanka closes his eyes, too, because if he even catches a glimpse of those legs moving, it's over. He pulls the sleeve of his hoodie over his palm and outstretches his arm.
"Just make sure it doesn't touch my skin. Please."
"Okay. It's not moving, just chill."
Riyo is looking at him, then at where the bug should be, and then back at him. They stay like this for a minute, she gives him a thumbs up and he actually feels confident he might sruvive this. Yes, Zanka can't feel it sitting on him, but knowing it's there and being calm? A big win. He takes a deep breath and decides that he should try to look at the thing. Zanka likes beetles in theory, they tend to mind their business and are even pretty sometimes. He turns his head quick, before he has the time to back out, and then he remembers. One more thing that makes his head throb when he sees a bug. They fucking fly. As soon as he locks eyes with antenas, the thing unfolds it's ridiculously big wings and charges straight at him.
With the instincts of a seasoned veteran, Zanka screeches from the bottom of his lungs and falls to the ground, hands around his head to protect himself from further attacks. His brain short-circuits. The sound of that giant alien flying towards him, the sight of its underbelly. It's loud, almost as if a whole drone is buzzing in his ear.
"Maybe we should work on your acting skills instead, you know. To convince him that you're not scared." Riyo scratches the back of her neck, kicking at the ground.
Rudo gasps somewhere behind him.
"I left the bag open!"
Zanka pulls at his hair, trying not to cry.
"You ready?"
Jabber comes to get him the next day. He has his hair up again and Zanka almost forgets what he had lived through just yesterday. It was worth it, he thinks. And now that he has a different plan, he does feel confident in his slim chances of success. Talking to Jabber was easy and enjoyable as always, that was what attracted Zanka in the first place. He had no issue with filling in the silence by himself when Zanka has nothing to say, as he has a lot of hobbies and interests. Their walk to the park is short, but he manages to explain the plot of the manga he is reading. Something about twins who can't decide who should wear a clown costume and get schizophrenic powers, and they make it everybody's problem. Zanka can't connect most of the points, but Jabber is so exited and beautiful while he talks that he tries his best.
"The main character reminds me of you, to be honest. He wants to live a life true to himself." Jabber smiles at him.
Zanka can feel the temperature of his face rise, and if someone gave him a bug right now, he might even be able to eat it. The thought of Jabber observing him enough to be able to match him to a character from a manga he is reading is tickling his brain. Him thinking about Zanka in his free time, when he isn't doing anything that relates to him in any way? End him now.
They did manage to catch a few bugs, well, Jabber caught a few bugs while Zanka was pretending to know what he was talking about. Riyo had him read 'cool facts' the whole night. If you ask Zanka, there was nothing that could be considered 'cool' in the matter of bugs. So their bug catching looked something like this:
"A dung beetle! I feel bad, look what a huge turd he has." Jabber would say and show him the thing he caught before putting it in his box.
Zanka would swallow his barf and walk around him like a professor, so he can't see that he is shaking like a leaf.
"Did you know that it can drag more than a hundred times its own weight?"
"That's crazy!"
They didn't succeed in making Zanka tolerant to any bug. He was so spent from being scared the whole time that he fell asleep as soon as he came back to his dorm. The action plan that Riyo came up with was to pretend to be so advanced in bug-ology that he would give Jabber 'instructions' and let him do the actual job by himself. To 'practice', whatever that meant. The thing is that there's not much advice you can give when you're scared shitless all the time and have never caught a bug by yourself.
Even the grasshopper that he had yesterday was a complete accident. Zanka was standing on his chair and dropping heavy stuff on the floor to try to squish it without touching. He was on his last shot, an old L'europeo magazine, when he seemingly hit the grasshopper. It was lying on its side, unmoving, and Zanka didn't pass up his chance to put a cup on top of it with shaking hands. Then it went crazy, buzzing and hitting the walls of the cup. It scared him so bad that he almost passed out, but caught himself because there was no one else to save him. He talked courage into himself, only cried for two minutes, and locked in. So, no real previous experience, and no balls. His 'advice' looked like this:
"Wait! It's looking at you." He would hide behind Jabber and put his hand on his shoulder.
"You can tell where it's looking at? You're amazing!"
Zanka would fumble with the strings of his hoodie, acting like the compliments didn't affect him. Yea, he could definitely tell where the little, black, evil dots where looking at. Not because he always felt like the bugs were locked in on him. Everything was going relatively smoothly, if he could say so himself. Jabber was having fun, talking to Zanka while shoving the bugs in the box. They gossiped about their lecturers, about their last lab partners, and the results from them. Jabber told him that they should be lab partners next time and Zanka was on top of the world. Jolly, merry, and whatever other word you could think of. Until the fucking cricket.
"They are Mankira's favorites!"
Zanka's face went pale. A cricket was one of the worst things after cockroaches and grasshoppers, because to him, it looked like their lovechild. A grasshopper was the most truly evil-looking bug Zanka had ever encountered. The shade of green looked even worse when it's flying towards your face with its ugly, long legs outstretched. What's worse than a bug this big having the ability to jump a whole meter? One with the same skill, but has stolen its drip from a cockroach. Zanka can hear Jabber talking about something, but his eyes are zeroed in on the bug. He has a theory that they can smell fear and actually feed on it. He swears that the cricket snickered under its little bug nose before jumping over Jabber's hands and landing right at the front of Zanka's hoodie.
Zanka and the bug lock eyes, and he can't even scream with how startled he actually is. The air leaves his lungs, his arms flail around to knock the cricket away, while his lower body is trying to book it. The result is him stumbling back, hitting his head on a tree, blacking out for a second, and falling on his ass with his back against the tree. But the cricket is nowhere to be seen when he opens his eyes. As close to a win as one can get in these conditions.
Jabber is turned towards him, with his little bug box in his hand and a confused expression on his face. Zanka is so humiliated that he doesn't even try to get up, choosing to hide his face between his knees instead until he can work up a plan for retreat. He can see Jabber's shoes when he croches near him.
"What happened? It seemed like you hit your head quite hard."
He puts the bug box on the ground next to them, and Zanka has to suppress his self-preservation instincts to kick it as far as he can. He lied to Jabber the whole day, the least he could do is let him feed the fuck ass bugs to Mankira. Jabber's hands are in his hair and Zanka's eyes open wide.
"I can't see blood, but you have a bump." He says, picking out bits of tree bark from his hair.
His hands are so careful and soft in his hair that Zanka's eyes fill up with tears. The adrenaline he has accumilated from the fight or flight situation with the cricket gets the best of him and he is confessing.
"I lied, I'm sorry." He mumbles.
Jabber's hands stop, and Zanka tries to not let it bother him. He should say the truth now, or he might never do it.
"I can't catch bugs. I can't even look at them. The grasshopper was playing with my feelings and let me catch it so it could terrorize me. I lied because I was too scared to ask you out." He pushes everything out in one breath.
Jabber starts laughing, but takes the bug box and moves it away from Zanka. He is grateful.
"I have a confession, too."
Zanka looks up and Jabber is smiling at him with all of his teeth, and life is good again. They are close, their knees are touching.
"I can't feed Mankira those bugs. She can only eat ones I have purchased or bred myself. It's like giving a child a candy from the trash."
Zanka's mouth hangs open, but Jabber has picked up speed and doesn't stop.
"I also wanted to take you out, but didn't know if you would like me like that." He solidifies his words by tucking a stray piece of hair behind Zanka's ear.
Who is even more confused now.
"I don't look like I like men?"
Jabber laughs again, and Zanka has no other option but to follow.
"Oh, no. You look like you don't like people in general."
Zanka thinks for a moment. He has been told this before. It was in his desinterested, resting bitch face and the way he would go on ten-minute-long rants when something upset him. Jabber himself has been a victim of more than one of those. They would stumble upon each other during their night smoking sessions, and Jabber would listen and do ad-libs to his long string of curses. That was another time that Zanka realised he had fallen for Jabber.
"I like you." Zanka says and leans forward, just a centimeter.
Jabber takes the invitation and eats up the rest of the distance between them. Their lips collide, and Zanka whimper-yells in the kiss when his already tender skull hits the bark again. Jabber giggles and whispers a little 'sorry', but doesn't move back. His hand sneaks between Zanka and the three to cradle the back of his head and uses that as an excuse to make the kiss even deeper. Here, under a tree that is probably full of them, Zanka gets his first win against the bugs, as he doesn't let them ruin his almost-first-date.