Based on his covert observations from up on the second floor of the dorm looking out over the grassy acres it belonged to, Manjoume had concluded that it was clearly Karen’s playtime but he wasn’t actually sure what game was being played. If it was a game at all. It involved a ball but it didn’t look like an actual ball game. Maybe drills? Some kind of practice?
Bah, it didn’t matter. He had much better things to do with his time than to watch Jim and his dumb crocodile punt a ball between each other. Surely. Yup, surely, he had something better to do. Like rearrange the dust on his windowpane or something. He was on top of his studies, his deck was as peak as it was going to get, he was certain…
And, yet, there was not much else to occupy Manjoume in his eight by eight room that he would love to claim that he had all to himself but very much didn’t thanks to the three Ojama Brother spirits who cohabited with him. So, mostly against his will, his brain bricked with boredom, Manjoume kept hovering by the windowsill.
“If ya wanna play, why don’t ya jus’ go down there an’ play, boss?” Ojama Yellow asked.
“I don’t want to play some dumb game with Jim.” Manjoume huffed, cheeks going red and his body very much going a different direction to what he had said.
Ojama Yellow snickered with his brethren as they farewelled Manjoume as he marched himself down the wooden steps and right over to where Jim and Karen were situated. He looked down his nose at the pair as they passed the pointed egg shaped ball between each other, Jim using his hand and Karen batting it back with her tail. Manjoume held himself to make himself look intimidating but based on the blank stare that Jim was giving from underneath his Akubra, it wasn’t working.
“What’s up?” Jim asked.
“Not much.” Manjoume replied stiffly.
The breeze swirled between them and the silence.
“Did you… need something?”Jim asked.
“Grawr.” Karen piped up, seemingly annoyed that Jim had halted her very important playtime.
“Er, just wanted to know what you were up to, I guess.” Manjoume admitted but he sounded like he was pulling teeth.
“Just… passin’ the footy ‘round. You want in?” Jim asked.
“The footy?” Manjoume echoed.
“Yeah, the footy.” Jim replied and he held up the ball a little higher.
It was branded to a sports team that Manjoume didn’t recognise but even if he was familiar with the intricacies of Australia’s big teams, it was faded as all hell, too. He could barely make out anything beyond vague lettering and what was probably a diamond shape once.
“You ever played footy before?” Jim asked and he started to get keen a bit, shook out his shoulders and if Manjoume didn’t know any better, he would describe his eyes as having a gleam of national pride.
“Do Australians call it football or soccer?” Manjoume said.
“We call it soccer but footy’s different to soccer and different again to football, if you're imagining the American one, anyway, we call that gridiron and don’t play it much. And it's different again to rugby, if that’s what you're familiar with, but we do like a bit of rugby but I like footy best. Or, y’know, Aussie rules, if you know it by that name.”
“You are not speaking any language I know.” Manjoume replied after Jim’s little spiel on the intricacies of sport down under and elsewhere.
“It's easy, promise.” Jim said. “Just don’t let the ball hit the ground, pass from the side, and since it's your first time playing, we won’t be playing tackle. We’ll play touch, instead, its non-contact, instead, you gotta grab at, uh… gimme a second, I’ve got some hankies we can use.”
Manjoume watched, puzzled, as Jim made the absolute bare minimum and honestly confusing attempt to explain the rules - and prepare him for the game. He tore in half a pair of handkerchiefs that he was carrying around and gave two strips to Manjoume, who accepted very limply, and the other. He hooked them around his belt hooks, not too tight, Manjoume noticed. All he knew was that his ears pricked up at “touch” and “non-contact” for some reason - and good reason, too, as Jim had a bit more to say on the topic.
“You're a bit… delicate so this’ll work well for ya.” Jim said.
“Hey.” Manjoume growled. “I’m not delicate. We can play tackle.”
“Nah, let’s start with tag, I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt, is all.” Jim said.
Manjoume’s brow furrowed further, “No, I’m tough, I can totally play tackle.”
“Alright then big guy, bowl me over. Knock me down. Do it.” Jim coaxed Manjoume, cockily tilting his chin up.
“I will.” Manjoume replied and without warning, he was straight at Jim.
Jim, however, was practically yawning. He played with a crocodile for Christ’s sake, no way was the living toothpick which was Manjoume going to knock him over but good on him for trying and he was trying hard. He was grunting and groaning, pushing into Jim’s breast as hard as he could, kicking up dirt clouds behind as all he moved was just his breath. Jim, meanwhile, was rock hard and standing still as a statue.
“Point proven yet or do you need some more time?” Jim asked.
“Argh, fine.” Manjoume gave up.
His hackles went up and he folded his arms crossly. He stared intently as he waited for Jim to explain more of the rules to this touch-tag Aussie rules footy thing.
“So, the goal is to get the footy across the line to score a point and the other goal is to get me out by taking my tags.” Jim said and he placed the ball on the ground. “When you get my tags, or if I get yours, we pause, we go back to where it happened and do one of these ones.”
Jim demonstrated what he meant by “one of these ones”. He put his foot on top of the ball, very softly kicked it maybe half an inch behind him and then picked it up. He tapped it against his foot, as well. It seemed like a very odd ritual but Manjoume shrugged.
“Normally, when you have a team, you pass it back and someone’s behind you to pick it up but for us, this’ll do to slow down the pace of the game. Oh, and if it happens three times, ball switches hands.”
“Right, got it.” Manjoume replied, chewing on it.
“Clear as mud, yeah?” Jim laughed. “Let’s get into it then, you’ll pick it up better playing.”
“Okay.” Manjoume replied, still chewing on all his vowels.
He glanced at Karen who opened her maw at him then closed it noiselessly. She seemed okay with watching them play rather than participating. But Manjoume felt very awkward about playing a sport he’d never played before.
Still, he and Jim lined each other up and Jim tossed the ball in the air. Whoever got it, got it. It went up, up, up, and Manjoume scrambled to catch it but with his taller stature and longer limbs, and his experience playing the game as well, Jim managed to catch the ball.
He hooked it under his arm and he took off. It was only then that Manjoume realised he had no idea where the boundaries or how long the field they were playing in was but Jim was booking it - and so he was, too. He scrambled after Jim but it was too late.
At just the edge of the schoolyard, Jim dunked the ball down and proclaimed he’d scored a point. It pissed Manjoume off, of course, but at the same time. The red in his cheeks wasn’t just from running full pelt for basically no reason out of nowhere and same for how his heart raced. Jim just looked so effortless playing this sport, how he grinned, it was absolutely cheeky. The tags hanging off his belt flapped victoriously as he showboated.
“Let’s try again.” Jim beamed.
“Yeah.” Manjoume huffed.
They both circled back to where they had started the game. Karen, at the sidelines, thrashed her tail around and growled, happy that her friend was in the lead but her guttural cries inspired Manjoume. He had to do better this time. He just had to. And so, he absolutely had a fire in his belly for what follows.
Jim punted the football upwards into the air again and Manjoume tried his hardest to get it. He brought all his weight down and jumped up as high as he could - and he felt like he could touch the sky. The sun blinding in his eyes, the salty sweat on his brow. His fingers just brushed the texture of the football but Manjoume didn’t bring it home. He just missed.
“Unlucky.” Jim taunted him as he once again won the one-on-one scrum.
He was laughing as Manjoume turned around, skidding on his heel. He full-on bolted. All he could see was the white, dangling fabrics of the tags flying off Jim’s belt loops. And so, he went for it.
Hard.
Even though they had established before playing that Manjoume was a twig and Jim was basically a brick wall, he went for it. He smashed into Jim from behind, grabbing the tags, practically frothing at the mouth for them as he tried to pull them off.
It was a glorious few seconds for Manjoume. Blood pounded in his head. He felt the spirit of sportsmanship deep in the bowels of his soul. He was going to win. Or, bare minimum, he was going to make the point score one all.
Manjoume’s arms swung wide. He made his stance low and as powerful as he could. He felt like a raging bull, tail swishing and horns glinting all the same as if they had been real. He crash-tackled into Jim and Jim crumpled. Manjoume hugged him tight around his waist, his head butted Jim’s chest and knocked the wind out of him.
At impact, Jim twisted the wrong way. His eyes opened wide and frantic. He lost footing and went down so, so slowly it felt. Manjoume grappled him wildly. Hands went everywhere in the effort to find the tags which were attached to Jim’s belt loops. Victoriously, at the end of such a crash, Manjoume did it.
He ripped free the torn in half hankies and it was glorious.
For all the couple seconds where it mattered before both landed with a thud.
Karen lifted her head briefly and blinked. The noise disturbed the grass and caused a dust cloud to bloom up around them. Jim and Manjoume both groaned as dizziness descended upon them, heavy like a cloak.
Manjoume had Jim pinned underneath him. The position was compromising. Manjoume had one leg in between Jim’s and the other over Jim’s left leg. He’d taken all the fall on his knees and wrists, the jarring sensation wracked all of him, competing - and winning - over the brewing embarrassment as Jim looked up at him. Surprised. Fully aware of everything with a slackened jaw.
“What the hell…?” Jim exclaimed in disbelief. “Where the devil were you keeping that, boy?”
Manjoume’s stare turned intense as his eleventh hour determination began to dawn on him. Jim looked so spindly and vulnerable underneath him, long and lanky body with outdoorsy musculature which strained his grass-stain proofed clothes. He swallowed thickly and felt Jim’s eyes watched, a little too carefully, as his larynx bobbed up and down in his throat.
Manjoume raked his fingers through the dirt. This was… This was a bit much for someone who wasn’t hugged enough as a kid, Manjoume realised.
“Oh, uh, sorry.” Manjoume stammered and he scrambled off the top of Jim. Heart racing.
Manjoume was awkward and gawky, trying too hard to be fast and that slowed him down. He got there in the end but pummelled Jim first as Manjoume reefed himself back and sat in the grass. His coat flounced as he stopped.
“Er, good game, I guess?” Jim offered as he peeled himself off the ground. He didn’t look at Manjoume as he smacked dirt and grass off himself. “You seemed tuckered out.”
“Yeah, that took everything out of me.” Manjoume replied.
Jim smirked and then faced Manjoume forward. He offered his hand to shake.
“Draw?” Jim suggested. “Not a total wooden spooner if we’re evens-Stephens.”
“Yeah, sure.” Manjoume agreed.
He resolved to return Jim’s handshake upon the invitation. If a little reluctantly as he had all sorts of feelings about the climax of their match. Endorphins made his teenage angst fuzzy as he took his sweet time to shake Jim’s hand.
His blood droned in his ears as he realised, he was back to the start. Watching Jim a little too carefully for it to be platonic interest. Manjoume hurried up. To get it over and done with even though before he even slid his hand against Jim’s palm, he knew he wouldn’t want to let go afterwards.
Jim didn’t say a word waiting on Manjoume to hurry up before he finally did. Jim’s hand was firm and calloused. Manjoume’s was flimsy by comparison but he did his best to match the energy of well meaning sportsmanship that Jim was offering him.
They shook on it but both took a little bit too long to let go.
Eddie and Buck were walking down and we kept on bumping each other's shoulders. [...] For seasons he's done that and I think it was 2 or 3 seasons ago, we were doing a scene as we're walking towards the same way and he's doing it again and I had to actively work against his little push that he does. (x)
