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Zanka has never had a good relationship with his family. Being born into a powerful family that already had two perfect heirs in every possible aspect meant that happiness and love were already taken. On top of that, his siblings were much older than him, so no one ever had time to play with him during his childhood. Growing up in the shadow of two unbelievably strong people is awful, and it explains the self-esteem issues he had to deal with for many years.
Besides having an emotionally absent childhood, Zanka also had to learn many things on his own. In other families (or at least what he considered “normal” families), parents or older siblings were usually the ones who taught the younger kids how to do things for the first time. Like riding a bike. Zanka had to learn that by himself. Sure, maybe it is not an incredible achievement, but at least he did it alone.
But then he met Enjin, and he took on the role of the older brother Zanka had always needed in his life.
Zanka already knew how to ride a bike, so now it was the older man’s turn to teach him everything a father could teach.
And when he says everything, he means EVERYTHING.
Maybe Zanka regrets having an authority figure a little when Enjin decides to explain absolutely everything about sexuality. I mean, he met him when he was around fifteen years old, so he already had a basic idea of what all of that meant because he went to school, but Enjin seemed determined to make him attend his free sex education class with (in Enjin’s exact words) the greatest sex guru alive.
At that moment, Zanka wished Enjin had never pulled him out of that damned pit.
The worst part of all those conversations was that they did not happen only once. Because when he confessed to Enjin that he did not only like girls, the older man forced him to sit down in his room for another painfully awkward talk about personal care and taking care of a future partner. He could not really blame Enjin this time—he only wanted to help, and Zanka had gotten himself into that mess on his own.
Aside from that, Enjin was an incredible person, willing to replace and fill every empty space his parents and older siblings had left behind.
And today was no exception.
After a party (Zanka did not even remember why there had been a party, only that there was one), where he was sitting together with the entire Akuta team and some assistants, Enjin looked strangely shocked when he discovered that Zanka did not know how to drive. Gris pointed out the obvious—he was barely seventeen years old—but Enjin saw it differently. No one had ever been willing to help Zanka before, but now he had him, and he would teach him everything he needed to know to master a car.
Zanka did not know what to say. He felt excited, because he had never sat in the driver’s seat of any vehicle before. On top of that, he also felt like it would give him more authority, since he would finally be able to go into the city by himself whenever he needed things for personal use or for Assistaff. He was much more excited than he thought he would be.
He seemed to forget who his driving instructor was going to be, because Enjin was well known around the hideout for driving in a violent and reckless way. Gris was apparently the only one worried about this, because the rest of the Akuta team only cheered the two boys on.
“Uhm, Enjin, can we talk in private?” Gris muttered, standing up from the table.
Enjin cleared his throat dramatically, telling the younger ones not to miss him too much while he was gone, and followed the older man into the hallway, far enough away from the table.
“Enjin, what the hell are you thinking?”
“Mhm? I’m going to teach little Zan-Zan how to drive. Isn’t that adorable? Exactly what a good older brother would do!” he replied innocently (or with complete stupidity, according to Gris).
“Enjin, you drive horribly,” the older man growled, while Enjin rolled his eyes at his usual excessive worrying. “I don’t think this is going to end well.”
“Ah, Gris, stop being such a nerd. I’ll teach him the basics, not how to run over pedestrians at every corner.”
Gris knew it was a joke, but it sounded exactly like something Enjin would do for fun.
Under Gris’s tense and anxious stare, Enjin sighed and placed his hands on his shoulders, applying a little pressure to calm him down.
“Hey, everything’s going to be fine. We’ll drive around the desert for a couple of hours and nothing will happen to us—or to your precious car, okay?” he said softly.
The blond still looked very unsure, but after a few seconds of thinking it over, he finally accepted under one condition: he would come with them. You know, just in case something went so terribly wrong that it became impossible to fix. Enjin had no choice but to agree.
With a sigh, both adults returned to the room, promising that tomorrow morning, bright and early, little Zanka’s driving lessons would begin.
.
.
.
“Alright, Zanka, if you want to drive, the first thing you need to do is stop being afraid of the car,” Enjin explained with his arms crossed in front of the truck they always used for missions. “A car is just a tool, but if you’re not careful, you could run someone over. And if you’re lucky, you won’t kill them.”
Zanka swallowed hard at his mentor’s words. He understood what he meant, but it was hard not to feel terrified at the idea of being responsible for taking an innocent life. He started trembling unconsciously, and when Gris noticed how nervous he was, he smacked Enjin on the back of the head for scaring his student.
“What Enjin is trying to say…” Gris began, placing both hands on the younger boy’s shoulders, “is that you need to be careful, but there’s nothing to be afraid of. Just drive responsibly and carefully, and everything will be fine.”
Zanka’s face slowly relaxed and color returned to it. He straightened up and nodded, determined to begin this journey of learning how to drive.
“Okay. Then let’s get in.”
As soon as he sat down, everything felt different. Mostly because this was usually Enjin’s position: sitting in the driver’s seat, holding the wheel and pressing the pedals with his feet. But now Zanka was the one doing it. Excitement ran down his spine when he realized that his idol was trusting him with something as incredible as driving this vehicle. From Zanka’s perspective, it was amazing. He felt like he was dreaming.
Enjin sat in the passenger seat while Gris climbed into the back, sitting in the middle so he could watch both of them from behind.
“Alright, first I’m going to explain how everything works while the car is still off. Then we’ll start it and you can begin driving, okay?” the tattooed blond proposed.
Zanka nodded, and the lesson began.
“Okay. So, this is the gear shift, and—”
“Enjin,” Gris interrupted.
Both of them turned to look at him with different expressions: Zanka looked confused and curious, while Enjin looked bored and offended at being interrupted.
“Aren’t you forgetting something important first?”
“Oh, right,” the other man said. “The first thing you need to do is check the mirrors to make sure no one’s behind you.”
“No,” Gris corrected. “Something else.”
With a blank expression, Enjin tried to think of something else he always did before driving.
“Uhm… make sure the seat is adjusted right and that you can reach the pedals and brakes?”
Gris huffed in annoyance.
“No, the seatbelt, Enjin! He needs to put on the seatbelt first!”
“Oh, right,” Enjin laughed, smacking his forehead at his own distraction.
Gris rolled his eyes and slumped back against the seat. The lesson had not even properly started yet, and he was already waiting for it to end.
Enjin corrected himself, and Zanka put on the seatbelt, ready for the explanation to continue.
Enjin showed him the gear shift and all of its functions. He spoke with a slow and careful voice Zanka had never heard him use before. He seemed genuinely focused, and that touched not only Zanka’s heart.
It had been a long time since Gris had seen him with such a protective attitude. A small smile formed on his face, softened by how naturally Enjin handled his role as an older brother.
“Alright, I think you’ve got it,” Enjin laughed proudly. “Do you want to start it and try?”
Zanka hesitated a little at the proposal, but then nodded enthusiastically. Excitement spread through every fiber of his body. What better experience than doing this with his idol and mentor beside him? Zanka felt like he was floating in a haze. He was definitely the luckiest person in the world.
After getting his approval, Enjin told him to turn the key. The engine roared to life, making the younger boy tense up immediately.
After some calming words from Gris telling him to breathe, and encouraging words from Enjin telling him to get moving, Zanka obeyed.
The car moved slowly at first—his nervousness was obvious from the speed—but little by little he started accelerating to a more acceptable pace. Enjin told him to drive toward an empty road so he could feel the difference between driving on sand and then on pavement.
“I’m doing it…” he murmured happily to himself, staring straight ahead every second.
It was not as difficult as he imagined, but it was definitely more exciting. He did not just feel independent in the way he used to, where independence meant doing things alone without someone watching over him to correct or guide him. Now he felt free and properly guided, ready to face these things like a man. In Enjin’s eyes, he was no longer a child, because Enjin always said children could not drive. His chest swelled with pride.
“Yes, you’re doing amazing!” Gris confirmed from the back seat. Once the car started moving, he had properly fastened his seatbelt and leaned back against the seat correctly. “Right, Enjin?”
“Yeah, perfect,” the older man agreed.
Those affectionate words made Zanka briefly take his eyes off the road to look at Enjin with shining eyes full of admiration.
Unfortunately, that single second was enough for the vehicle to run over something, jolting violently in a way that made it impossible for Zanka to control it.
Gris and Enjin reacted quickly. The first grabbed the steering wheel while the second handled the gear shift and brakes, stopping the car quickly and efficiently without anyone getting hurt.
Zanka stayed frozen in place, completely shocked by how fast everything had happened.
Once the situation settled and the emotions came rushing back, both adults turned toward Zanka, inspecting him for injuries. The younger boy could not answer. Shock was still lodged in his throat, and tears filled his eyes, terrified that he had almost killed both adults.
“Hey, don’t worry,” Enjin said, gently holding his cheeks so Zanka would look him in the eyes.
Slowly, Zanka calmed down at the sight of those calm eyes, completely free of anger.
“It was my fault. Breathe with me.”
Enjin inhaled deeply, and Zanka copied him. They exhaled together and repeated the action over and over until Zanka’s breathing returned to normal.
The three of them remained inside the car in complete silence, breathing slowly while their heartbeats settled down.
“Okay, is everyone alright?” Enjin asked, looking back at Gris, who nodded with a serious expression.
The situation was over, but it could have ended disastrously. Gris was not going to blame anyone specifically. The truth was that everyone shared responsibility: them for being the adults, and Zanka for taking his eyes off the road during his very first driving lesson. But he would not say that aloud. The younger boy already blamed himself enough, and he did not want to upset him again now that Enjin had finally calmed him down.
“I’m going to check what happened,” the younger boy murmured quietly.
Before either of the adults could stop him, Zanka got out of the car.
He expected to find a rock or a large branch in the road that he had failed to notice and that had caused the accident, but he definitely was not expecting what he found instead.
Lying in the middle of the road with a strange expression on his face, Jabber looked as though a car had not just run him over. Literally.
When Zanka stopped in front of him, the dark-haired man lifted a hand and wiggled his fingers in greeting.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Zanka asked rudely.
Jabber laughed like the psychopath Zanka knew he was.
“Oh, Mr. Bad Attitude. Am I dead? Because it looks like an angel came to see me,” he commented, running his tongue over his teeth.
Zanka shivered at the strange look the man was giving him, as if he wanted to devour him alive.
“Ugh, I should run you over properly next time,” he complained before walking away from the other man’s body and climbing into the back seat of the car. He had already had enough driving lessons for one day.
“Sounds like a date. Should I wait here on Wednesday? I’d love for you to do it again~”
Zanka ignored the weird joke and slammed the car door shut, crossing his arms while staring out the window.
“Can we go now?” he asked.
Both adults, now sitting in the front seats, looked at him through the rearview mirror.
Enjin ignored the bizarre situation and started the engine, ready to head back to headquarters after a strange—but productive, according to Enjin—first driving lesson.
When they returned, Gris quickly said goodbye and headed back to his room. The tension from the experience had settled deep into his muscles, and he needed a good nap before lunch to recover.
Enjin waved at him before turning toward a gloomy-looking Zanka. He hated seeing him like that, especially after such a disastrous day.
To cheer him up, he invited him to get ice cream at the bar. Yes, they only had popsicles, but it still counted.
To Enjin’s surprise, the ice cream did not instantly restore Zanka’s mood the way it usually worked with Rudo, but he still had other ways to make him feel better.
“You did really well today. Don’t worry, I ran over August when I drove my first car.”
Zanka scoffed, though the words did not seem to help much. Still, some of the tension left his shoulders.
“No, I messed up. I looked away after you told me not to,” he muttered, squeezing the popsicle stick between his fingers now that the ice cream had almost completely melted.
Enjin rolled his eyes and moved closer on the bench, draping an arm around the younger boy’s shoulders in an attempt to comfort him.
“Hey, it’s fine. Nobody got hurt. You’re okay, Gris and I are okay. Even that weird Raider looked fine,” he joked.
This time, it finally worked, because Zanka smiled faintly.
“You made a mistake, so what? Everyone does. Now you know you’ll be more careful next time.”
The younger boy sighed and genuinely thanked him for his words.
In response, Enjin ruffled Zanka’s hair with his right hand and straightened up, finishing his ice cream in one bite.
They stayed wrapped in a comfortable silence that not even August’s yelling from his room could disturb.
“Do you think you’re ready to try again tomorrow?” Enjin suggested.
Zanka looked down at the floor uncertainly, but after a moment, he nodded, pushing every doubt and worry out of his head.
“Only if Jabber crosses the street again.”
That earned him a loud laugh from Enjin, and for some reason, that made him feel prouder than the whole car thing ever had.