#harazaki

I think okazaki would be freaking out bc they hate not having their villainy clothes lmao. I wanted to make her better, but I'm lazy af.

—

Typically, the two hang out in game centres and street ball courts; occasionally, they visit malls, or simply amble around the streets, having laughs with each other one minute, and arguments the next. But, today, they’re headed somewhere different.

For the record, Yamazaki has no clue where they’re going until they arrive. When they arrive at his local train station, Hara covers his eyes with a blindfold before dragging him through the station, and shoving them both on a train. It’s the middle of Friday’s morning rush hour. You know what they say about “lose one sense and all others get heightened”? In Zaki’s case, his loss of sight makes the smell of sweaty salarymen all the more prevalent. That, and the feeling of strangers shoving past him. And the sound of the snickers of some teen girls.

“Take this thing off, Hara,” scowls Zaki, fighting against Hara’s hold on his wrists.

“Eh, why?” the worst thing about Hara, perhaps the best too, is how well he’s perfected a teasing tone - he’s even more skilled with the pitch than Hanamiya is. “This is one of the many trials you will face to become a man.”

Zaki makes an even more bitter comment about not wanting to be Hara’s bondage guinea pig, but, judging by how the silent train goes even quieter, he says it a little loud. At least, the benefit of being temporarily blinded means he doesn’t have to know how many people are staring at him.

Hara does take the blind off though, when they arrive at the station of their destination - probably because it’s a less entertaining game when Zaki stops too many people. And it’s only a fifteen minute walk till they arrive at their destination. Zaki spends all fifteen minutes saying that he curses the day he ever met Hara, Hara responds only with “you love me really”, making Zaki curse more, but a little quieter, for claiming that he hates Hara’s company would be a lie.

“Anyway, we’re here.” Hara brings out two tickets from his trouser pocket.

They’re at a sumo stadium.

For the first time in a while, Zaki is speechless.

They spend their whole morning watching lower ranked wrestlers fight one another. Hara makes it clear he’s enjoying the sport, cheering at particularly harsh blows, sniggering at weaker opponents. Whereas Zaki’s quiet. Something about the sheer strength of the wrestlers, the sound of their feet slamming against the ground of the dohyo, shakes him to his very core. In a trance as he watches, he starts to think about his basketball career, the cheating that he turns a blind eye to. Is that honourable?

And, if you’re not honourable, can you truly call yourself a man? Maybe this is why Hara brought him here - no, why the gods themselves inspired Hara to bring him here. He understands now. If he works hard and fights through the pain, only then will he become a basketball player to make his family proud, to make his own children proud one day.

That line of thinking doesn’t last very long though. As they leave the stadium, Hara shoves him - “go on, Zaki, what have you learnt?” - resulting in Zaki shoving Hara right back. They end up hurtling towards an old man who yells at them for five minutes about their rambunctious behaviour.

—

After the old man stops telling the two of them what a disappointment they are to all the soldiers that once fought for Japan, they buy some korokkes from a local street food vendor, and share it over discussions of where they want to go in life. Hara has it in his head that he’s going to travel the world: he’s going to ride an elephant in Thailand, befriend some Kenyan lions, make two French girls fall in love with him when he plays his drums under the Eiffel tower, make a French music scout fall in love with him at the same event, reject the scout’s marriage proposal, go swimming in a desert (he doesn’t expand on how this is going to happen), oh and steal something from a museum. But not replace it, or give it back to its original country. Just steal it.

“Then what’s the point,” questions Zaki with a mouthful of potato, “it’s not like you could sell it.”

“Anyone ever told you that art is done,” pausing for effect, Hara raises his hands to the sky, “for the sake of art itself?”

“Blah, blah, stealing's not art. It's like you're saying shits are done for the sake of shitting.”

“Sounds like something someone constipated would say.”

At that point, the conversation takes a severe detour away from worldly adventures to when Zaki blocked the ground floor toilet in Hara’s house after eating too much his stomach didn’t agree with; and then to how Hara’s first wet dream happened at a sleepover in Zaki’s bedroom. They agreed to tell his mother he had pissed himself instead of the truth.

It’s justice, thinks Zaki, Hara knows too much about him, but at least he could always expose that the fact that he dreaming about something over than the toilet seat being stuck shut with super glue. (Expose to whom, is another question, given that Zaki would be the one looking like an idiot if he brought it up now.)

They’re still talking about wet dreams as they make their way into the cinema - except literally wet dreams: how, for seven nights now, Zaki has dreamt he stepped into a paddling pool and then drowned it in.

“It means something,” he insists, holding his ticket between his teeth as he reties his shoe laces,” why a paddling pool? Why does it keep repeating?”

Looking up from how he’s been hoovering up, like a horse, the overpriced popcorn they just bought, Hara mumbles, “it means your youth’s going to swallow you up.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“Hey, it’s a hypothesis.”

“Big fucking word for someone who doesn’t even know what they’re talking about.”

“At least I know what I’m dreaming about - at least I’m not scared of paddling pools.”

“I’m not scared, I just-“

“Oh yeah? When was the last time you stepped in a paddling pool?”

Hara laughs triumphantly when he sees Zaki scowl.

“I’ll step in your ass in a minute-“

They get yelled at twice during the duration of the movie - it’s part of a shitty franchise neither of them have ever heard of, but, whatever it is, the fans are creepily devoted - and given angry stares a whole lot more. One guy looks at Hara like he’s about to shank him, after Hara makes a “wheee” effect when the main character’s car skids off a cliff.

Normally, Zaki would be glaring at Hara too. However, today, he’s having too much fun chortling along.

The movie ends. As the credits roll, they amuse themselves with throwing popcorn they found on the floor into each other’s mouths. Another movie starts. This time, the cinema’s mostly empty; Hara starts miming along with the film too and no one comes over to scold him. And there’s only a few glances when Zaki, attempting to mimic Hara’s athleticism, falls onto the row of seats below.

Credits start rolling again.

“One more?”

Zaki stares at his phone - it’s dead, and he’s not got a watch - before shrugging in agreement.

The next film’s laced with something. It’s not bad in a funny way, it’s not action packed either - it’s the epitome of nothing but mediocrity. Zaki finds his eyes starting to close before he even learns the romantic lead’s name. Even Hara, who would typically never miss a chance to wake his buddy up, is lulled into unconsciousness.

They wake up to the security guard throwing them out.

“What now?” grunts Zaki, who’s largely hoping that the answer is ‘home’ but who also knows Hara too well for that.

“The adventure continues! First, we- fuck. Where’s my wallet?”

For someone who can’t speak more than a sentence without smothering a yawn, Hara is remarkably energetic as he bangs on the cinema doors to no avail. Zaki watches him with his eyes half shut. He thinks of his pillow, the cool breeze from the window that never fails to sing him to sleep, and of how no one should have to be awake at this hour (though, considering how many people are still out on the streets, despite the night sky, it can’t be later than ten pm).

“I think everyone’s done for the day,” Hara glances back at the cinema once more, “you have any money on you?”

“I did until you made me pay for everything we ate today,” grumbles Zaki with a pointed tone and another yawn, “look, I’ll just call my parents. They’ll send us a taxi.”

“Your phone’s dead, idjit.”

"Yeah.”

“In that case…”

Hara steps even closer to Zaki and stands close enough that their noses are almost touching. He meets Zaki’s eyes. Then closes his own.

And slaps Zaki on both cheeks with all the force he can muster.

“Dickhead!”

“You can’t be falling asleep on me in the middle of our grand adventure!”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘grand adventure’. It’s at least an hour walk to either of our houses, and how are you planning on finding a hotel with-“

“Zaki. My brother. My side character companion.” Hara’s grinning - Zaki knows that grin well, it’s the “I thrive on being stupid, contrary, and did I mention contrary”. “Who needs a hotel? We’re on a journey to become men, we don’t need hotels, hell, we don’t need any creature comforts. Just our brotherhood. That’s all we need…”

“I wish I didn't have to listen to you.”

“…you see, modern society has made us think we need to really on material possessions to survive but did our ancestors do that? Did our monkey brethren long ago?”

“Monkeys use sticks, dumbass.”

“But is a stick a possession? Can anyone truly ‘own’ a stick or is it something greater than-?”

“I dunno, would you in possession of a stick if I shoved it up your ass?”

“For a virgin, you sure do think a lot about shoving things up asses. Anyway! As I was saying…”

When Hara’s tired, he rambles. A lot. He’s done so ever since he was a kid. How many times has Zaki heard his stupid, senseless, bullshitt-y chatter - between the times he carried Hara piggyback home after spending the afternoon at the playground, or the times they walked to a coffee shop after a day of exams, or the times they’ve made their way to the station together after basketball practice?

'Boys becoming men,' Hara had said earlier.

But, when Zaki’s with Hara, he can’t even fathom the idea of being a ‘man’.

When Zaki’s with Hara, time stops.