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Zanka goes through his closet, hunting for that specific cloth that has a drawstring and isn't susceptible to water damage.
Zanka hadn't meant to volunteer back there. But when he saw how uncomfortable Rudo got with the continued attention, he found he couldn't keep still. He sighs through his nose, quiet. What's an Average Joe doing, playing hero?
-
It's so fucking hot.
Rudo grimaces. The heat is numbing his senses, causing his eyes to slip closed for a minute. He tries to breathe through the high temperature, and gets offered no reprieve. He doesn't remember ever feeling this hot in the slums. They had bad summers throughout the years, but never like this.
The humidity makes his gloves itch and become warmer than what Rudo's used to, tempted to take them off just to give his hands some air. But he wasn't in his room, and they were just about to go out, so Rudo stops the urge. Speaking of—
Rudo stands awkwardly in Zanka's room. He takes in the familiar incense smell and the ever-present sense of... peace in the space; his eyes dart over the details he knows hasn't changed since he was last here, yet curiously hungry for any type of difference in his memory. His gaze takes in the plain neatness of the room, before it lands on the sculpture he made that may have started this whole mess.
It stands proudly at the desk beside Zanka's bed, where it looks out of place in the sparse room. It seems like the only possession Zanka has and while Rudo knows the teen values his staff more than anything, he can't help but relish the flush of pride at the little thing for being part of the— more specifically Zanka's— space.
After his mind wanders, he turns to look at the man in question. Zanka's back is turned to him, the dark draping clothing he favors quietly rustles as he searches around. But Rudo feels the weird, ridiculous need to close the distance and touch the hidden muscles on his back as he moves.
The impulse is a shock to his dazed system, as heat crawls to his cheeks, and he hastily looks away, focusing on a particular speck of dust floating around by the light drifting through the window. The air doesn't help, suffocating in its intensity.
These... new, and foolish thoughts keep creeping into Rudo's mind, at random moments, and it always pricks at his ears. Like something blasting heat directly into them, worse than the atmosphere in the room.
He frantically wonders if Zanka has them too, glancing at the back of his head and if he's just better at hiding it with his damn white-knuckled grip on his self-control.
Rudo shakes his head, away from— that to looking back towards the bottom of the closet. A few more clothes are laid on the floor neatly, all in muted colors, before a grunt broke through the silence of the room, and Zanka finally turns around to show what he has found. Held up in his hands were some wrinkled black swim shorts, which, Rudo can see might be a little big on him, with a pair of nondescript white strings at the front.
Zanka wrinkles his nose before giving it a cautionary sniff. He shrugs, apparently satisfied with its odor enough to push his hand out towards Rudo.
"Good en'ugh. If it's a 'lil too loose, I'll help ya with tyin' it properly."
Zanka throws it on the bed, and gestures for Rudo to wear it while he turns back to his closet to find his own pair of shorts.
Rudo gingerly touches the clothing, hesitant in a way he couldn't have known the reason to. It's just a piece of cloth, he thinks to himself. Nothing big. Hovering over the shorts, he almost doesn't want to know why he wants to avoid the thing. It locks his muscles up and makes his fingers twitch inside the glove.
"Don' worry, it ain't gunna bite ya." Zanka murmurs from the closet, apparently having taken a sneak at Rudo, who jumps at the quip, mentally wrangling with some flimsy shorts.
Rudo bristles at the jab, "I know that! Is just... weird."
He clutches at the fabric tightly, before turning around and getting work on taking his own shorts off; embarrassment radiating from him like waves.
-
Zanka pauses. His earrings sway with the motion, making a subtle clicking sound in the silence, accompanied by Rudo's rustling. He can feel a bead of sweat sliding from his neck, disgusting on his heated skin. Unbeknownst to the younger, Zanka drags an arm up and rubs a stiff hand behind his neck, clicking his tongue.
"Look, if ya don't feel comfortable with my clothes, ya should've said so bef—"
Zanka spins around, just to choke at the sight he's faced with. Rudo's already pulled it up his legs, and it was a little big on him, as expected, with his gloved hands tugging on the strings in growing agitation, growling when it wouldn't hold.
Zanka swallows, itching to lay his hands on his Lovely Assisstaff to fight the urge to... to do what, he doesn't know. Sweat continues to bead down his back the longer they stay in his room, and, almost deliriously, he thinks he can understand what Rudo was trying to say earlier; the clothes on him are weird. Making Zanka feel like a fool.
Of course, logically, it's just practical, and efficient instead of looking high and low for a size fitting for Rudo's malnourished body, especially with August busy. But in addition to the shock of actually seeing him in his clothes, Rudo's apparently taken that as a chance to be rid of his tanktop too, which Zanka hadn't anticipated.
In this heat, Zanka can't blame him— he can see how the white tanktop was already soaked with sweat, but the sudden exposed skin, in Zanka's room, no less, flares his cheeks into a combusted fire.
Shit! A warning would'a been nice, Rudo! Zanka nearly shouts before turning around, and gripping the front of his chest.
It beats in an unnatural rhythm, and he focuses on breathing in once, twice, before letting out a deep exhale. His hair is plastered to his forehead, and causing him to sneer at the stickiness.
Fuckin' hell.
Although, it's not like Zanka's never seen Rudo shirtless; they go straight to the showers after missions, and that means they've bumped into each other once or twice in there, but Zanka's never had a reaction like this. More sweat beads down his temple as he breathes in and out, and like a light-bulb flashes in his head—
He reasons it's the heat. The stifling, feverish heat that's getting into his head, and making perfectly normal events into heart-inducing catastrophes. That must be it.
"Oi, Turdface. How do you tie this thing?"
He whirls around in a flurry of movement to avoid putting much attention to the fact he's been frowning at the wall for the past or so minutes, but when he actually gets a good look on Rudo, he couldn't stop the snort that came gracelessly out of his mouth, heart still in his throat.
Rudo's standing there, sweat on every exposed skin, with furrowed brows and his typical scowl, as he bore holes into the string in his hands. The string he has apparently tugged straight out of the shorts.
"Ya ain't s'pposed to take it out, idiot."
He walks over calmly, yanking the string out of Rudo's gloves and rolling his eyes when Rudo held on tighter in defiance. "What? Never learned haw'ta tie a knot?"
"I know how to!" Rudo snaps, glaring up at Zanka, tugging the string, "I tried, but it just slipped out!"
"Yeah, yeah, cut the excuses, Mr. Genius." Zanka bites back, slipping the string out of Rudo's gloves with a practiced jerk of his arm.
Rudo squawks in surprise before glowering at him, as Zanka kneels down on eye level to get to the shorts better. He opens his mouth again, tempted to say the words that first popped into his head: Isn't bad to let me help sometimes, brat.
But something in the way his eye catches on Rudo's clenched fists shuts him up faster. Guilt builds in his chest, replacing the earlier high with sudden worry; if he said anything wrong again, or if Rudo is just nervous about this new experience with the "pool" and is taking it out on Zanka, who's really one of the few people who can take Rudo's sharp-edged fire just to throw it back at him. He forces his face to remain passive, though, and keeps Rudo's clenched hands in the corner of his eye, slowly watching it relax.
-
For a minute, the closeness doesn't register in Zanka's brain, too focused on the task and hiding his own reaction to notice the hitch in Rudo's breathing.
His arms stay tensed, before his gaze zeroes in on the top of Zanka's head, eyes wide. Zanka knelt right where the subdued sunlight lit the floorboards, and it's now bouncing off the light ash brown of Zanka's head.
For some reason or the other, Rudo blinks multiple times at the scene in front of him, wondering how this even happened. The shorts feels light on his skin, brushing the top of his knees as Zanka fixes the string on them. Then, something else wretches Rudo's attention.
The urge to poke at that zigzag on Zanka's head where all the hair is coming from emerges, stronger than the previous impulse. He wants to smooth it down, and feel the strands in his hands, beyond the gloves and the bandages, where damaged skin can meet fine, thin hair. He wonders how it would feel, he wonders if he could even feel something so small with his nerves all busted.
He wonders why Zanka's hair always looks like that, and he wants to find out if he can mess it up.
Rudo tilts his head. Zanka and "mess" were two words that didn't feel right associated with each other. But before he can reign in any more odd thoughts, one of his gloves rise up, just to brush against the top of Zanka's head and... misplace the zigzag. Rudo freezes at the same time Zanka does.
It was too late to pretend Zanka didn't feel it. And it was too late to pretend it was accidental.
Rudo's hand flew away, as if burned. Zanka blinks, hands still holding the string and facing Rudo's chest.
Heat continues to blast from the crevices, making the frozen moment feel all the more uncomfortable, as Zanka lets go of the string to wipe at his own sweat dripping from his chin. The heat must be frying Rudo's brain too, he pointedly thinks.
Projects it, really, to the room and the invisible being that he feels is judging them for acting like complete idiots. He explicitly ignores the heat that seems to generate by itself in the skin of his neck.
"Isn't my fault your clothes are all weird." Rudo bitterly whispers, a reply to what feels like an age-old conversation, grappling at their bickering for some normalcy after an odd second of... whatever that was.
It doesn't, not really. The fabric is nice. Isn't itchy. So, Rudo really doesn't know why the temperature feels like it goes up every time he thinks about the fact it's Zanka's.
Zanka, on the other hand, forces out a sigh, but while he'd love to knock some sense of gratitude into the brat's skull, the lump in his throat and the burn of his face stops him from making a scene. So, he allows the quiet to blanket them once more. Rudo just stands still, arms tense where they hang to his sides.
"Thanks."
Rudo finally grits out when Zanka stands to his feet. He looks down, and the knot is secured around Rudo's hips, cinched snugly and neat in its symmetrical strings.
Of course, he ties it perfectly...
"Ya sure don't sound happy 'bout it."
Rudo drags his gaze away from the shorts just to narrow his eyes at him and Zanka just rolls his. Then he turns swiftly, before reaching over something draped on a chair and throwing it at Rudo's face.
He yelps before tugging it out of his face and opening his mouth to shout an aggravated, "what gives, asshole?!"
Zanka looks down from his nose to reply, eyes lazy.
"That's August's. Since ya hate my clothes so much."
Rudo's eyes widen at the words, before his brows furrow. "That's not—" He bites off the rest of the sentence, hesitant.
Zanka just raises an eye brow, but stands still with his hands in crossed over his chest. Waiting and patient.
"I didn't mean that," Rudo scatters in his brain to find the words, unwilling to leave the matter as it is.
His posture straightens, clutching the t-shirt to his body, "I— I like it. Yours, I mean. It just," his lips thin in confusion. He looks down and scuffs his feet on the floor, features coiled and unsure. It feels nice? To know it was your clothes on Rudo's skin, and he might want to do it more often? Not his jinbai in this heat though. He doesn't mind August's shirt, but he thinks he does have a preference over Zanka's. It must've retained his unique smell— the shirts, though he didn't really think about it until Zanka threw the fabric to his face and smelled the subtle tang of paint sprays and iron. Now, he is though.
"I don't have any other clean shirt that could fit ya." Zanka sighs, gesturing to himself, "this is the last of 'em. I was plannin' on washin' it after the pool." Along with the rest of his laundry, actually.
Rudo tries not to show the disappointment that pangs through him, but he thinks he failed when Zanka's blank face softens at the edges. He clicks his tongue, before running an erratic hand through his sweat-slick hair, looking away.
"We can— fit... the rest of my clothes on ya next time. Just come find me afta' I do the washin'."
Rudo nods, and when he realizes Zanka can't see it, he just mumbles a quiet, "okay."
Zanka huffs into his fist, pressing it onto lips.
And that's that.
But then, Rudo blinks. "Didn't think you knew how to wash your own clothes, Turdface."
"Ha?! The fuck's that s'pposed to mean, brat?!" Zanka suddenly comes at him, and Rudo side-stepped the teen just to dart towards the door, finally feeling some type of wind breeze through his chest, even as he briskly puts on the shirt.
"Get back 'ere, ya brat!"
"Come catch me then!" Rudo sticks his tongue out, even as he feels the looming presence of Zanka's staff closing in on him.
(Would it be the same as the incense he lights? Or the wood oil he applies to Lovely Assistaff when she needs cleaning? Rudo didn't get a chance to check before they left the room together, fighting in the hallway.)