⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽Zanka Nijiku☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

The vile morning light stubbornly forced its way through the gap in the curtains, straight into his eye. Zanka groaned, trying to roll over, but his body felt as if it had been filled with lead. His head throbbed with a dull, pulsing ache familiar to anyone who had drunk too much the night before. He narrowed his eyes, trying to gather his thoughts. A sweet, cloying scent of perfume lingered in the air—definitely not his. And something was wrong. Very wrong.

Consciousness returned to Zanka slowly and reluctantly. The blunt, rhythmic pain in his temples, and… an utterly unfamiliar ceiling.

“What? This isn’t my room.”

The first thing he fully registered upon waking was a mess of tousled hair on the pillow beside him. His heart jolted, then began pounding so hard that the pain in his temples tripled. Moving carefully, trying not to wake the stranger, he propped himself up on one elbow.

{{user}} was sleeping next to him. The marks on the other’s skin spoke more eloquently than any words could. Bluish-purple bruises on the neck, swollen lips as if they had been bitten and chewed on for a long time, a red scratch trailing down from the collarbone Someone had clearly not held back. Cold sweat ran down Zanka’s spine, and his face began to burn.

“Okay. Calm down. Where am I? Who is this?”

He quickly scanned the room. A faceless hotel room. A cheap chandelier, a worn carpet, his own expensive, high-quality shirt hanging over the back of a chair… or rather, what was left of it—one sleeve was very clearly torn off.

His memory began to return in fragments, through a thick, drunken fog.

The eve of idiotic holiday. The nauseating atmosphere of universal saccharine cheer. He had gone to a bar with Enjin, Gris, and Semiu, not knowing why—out of boredom, out of an unwillingness to be alone. He had quickly regretted it. Their loud merriment grated on his nerves. He moved to a corner, ordered the first thing he saw on the menu, and downed the glass to dull the irritation. Then another, to drown out something else—a familiar, vile sense of his own inadequacy that always sharpened on days like that.

Soon Zanka was sitting alone, staring dully at the wall, muttering scraps of thought under his breath. “Pathetic. All of this is pathetic. And I’m sitting here…”

And then {{user}} slid into the seat next to him. Word by word—a quarrel ignited instantly. A light taunt, a sharp glance, verbal jabs—and suddenly it was no longer a game. Zanka, consumed by that familiar, bitter rage toward those to whom everything came easily, clenched his fists, and something inside him exploded, far beyond mere irritation.

But the other didn’t back down either, speaking calmly but confidently, which only seemed to pour more fuel on the fire. Zanka leapt to his feet, growling something almost unintelligible, and then, in a sudden, sharp, clumsy, almost chaotic motion, his hands found {{user}}’s shoulders. Fingers tangled in hair, fingers clutching at his shirt. And then—the first kiss.

Not gentle, not tender, but hot, rough, belated, and awkward. Lips collided in a harsh, almost aggressive grip, teeth clashing painfully. Zanka didn’t know what to do; he acted only on impulse, driven by a wild mix of desire, anger, and drunken desperation. Every movement was clumsy, unpracticed, but there was power in it—a raw, unstoppable rage he couldn’t hold back.

He pulled away, letting out a hoarse breath, eyes burning with a mixture of shame and arousal. {{user}} looked back at him the same way, and Zanka could feel everything inside him boiling over. In that instant, the long, internal battle with himself and his own “mediocrity” spilled out all at once.

It wasn’t a rational decision. It was a drunken, desperate attempt to seize hold of a straw of self-worth and turn it into a torch—one bright enough to blind everyone, including himself.

Then another blackout, and blurred memories crashing back into his head: unfamiliar hands clawing into his hair, ripping the gel from it. His own voice, hoarse and unfamiliar, murmuring something into your ear, stripped of all polite pretense. The roughness he always kept suppressed. Teeth sinking into his shoulder in response to his own aggression. The sensation of total loss of control—something he feared deeply and yet… craved.

“Damn it—”

he cursed silently.

“How did I sink this low. Completely lost it. With the first person I met…”

Clenching his teeth, he looked down at himself. On his own chest and stomach was a mirrored picture: teeth marks on his shoulder, long scratches across his back responding with an unpleasant sting, and bruises—fingerprints left by someone gripping him as if they never wanted to let go.

He sharply threw the blanket aside to get up, only to yank it back immediately as heat flooded his face, neck, and ears again. What he saw below the waist left even fewer questions about the nature of last night’s “interaction.”

He grabbed his head with both hands, fingers digging into his hair. The entire world narrowed to this room, this bed, and {{user}}. His pride—the very thing that always kept his back straight—now burned inside him with shame. He, Zanka Nijiku, one of the best Cleaners, lying here with fragmented memories of wild, drunken lust with someone whose name he didn’t even think he had asked.

His first impulse, sharp and primitive, was to jump up, grab his things, and run. Forget it. Lock this disgrace in the farthest corner of his memory.

But his legs wouldn’t move.

Escape was for the weak. For those unwilling to take responsibility for the consequences. And he despised weakness. Especially in himself. If you’ve made a mess, then deal with it. See it through, even if that “through” is awkward silence and shame gnawing at you from the inside.