Canon: Remove if not applicable.Sometimes, some very rare times, they can get along well enough.
Sometimes.
***
Which they overheard some of the teachers talk about, and Judal snorted because that's stupid and Ja'far muttered "not likely," and they hurried to hide, because the teachers had heard Judal laugh.
"Hey Freckles," the nine year old boy intertwined his fingers behind his head as they walked down the hall toward the shoe cubbies. "Why do you live with Sinbad?"
Ja'far looked at Judal with a surprised scowl. "Why're you asking that, suddenly?"
"Well I was thinking, the main part why we don't get along - besides the fact that you're annoying as hell and stuff - is because of Sinbad. There's not really anything wrong with Masrur so it's gotta be that fishy old man."
"Sinbad is not fishy," Ja'far commented, voice rising a little, which caused some of the students still in school that they passed to look at them weirdly. "Yes he is," Judal insisted. "He's super fishy and if you weren't so much in love with him or something, you'd totally see that."
"I'm not in lo--" Ja'far was cut off by Judal, before he could fly into a real rage. "So why do you live with him?"
Ja'far fell silent, focusing his gaze on the shoes he pulled out of his cubby, and the shoes he were to put into it. Judal scowled at his silence, then hurriedly changed shoes as Ja'far left the building, bag slung over a shoulder. "Ja'far?" he leaned forward a bit once he caught up, hands stuffed in his pockets and his bag dangling from his wrist. "Ja'faaar?"
"Because," Ja'far finally said, his tone cutting short any further repetitions of his name passing Judal's lips, as they turned right at the school gate. "To not have to live on the street," he spoke slowly, which at first made Judal thing that he was being treated like a child, but then he figured that it must be because he was deliberating what words to use. "I joined a group of organized crime, and Sinbad helped me get out of it despite the fact that I tried to kill him."
"You were yakuza?" Judal said, leaning further forward as if it would help him figure out why a fishy man like Sinbad would help a criminal. The guy was a philanthropist or whatever, apparently, but that didn't really mean anything in Judal's book. "That's what you take out of that?" Ja'far asked him, scowl deepening. "No, not really, I wasn't."
"I also got caught on the part where you didn't manage to kill him, actually." Judal said with a shrug, then he pulled out his wallet from a pocket and dug out a few coins. "I was." The look he was given by Ja'far was one of confusion. "You were what?"
Judal stopped at a vending machine, and as he pressed a button he said, "Yakuza."
"You used to be part of the yakuza?" Ja'far looked at him with a dubious expression. Judal nodded and picked up the soda can from the slot. "Yeah, I was. But Kouen and Mu helped me to go straight." He popped open the can. "I was pretty big in the gang, you know. But I like it better-" he fell silent. "Your fishy love is over there," he said and pointed.
Sinbad was indeed over there, leaning against a car talking on his phone with someone. Once he spotted the two boys, he waved cheerfully. Ja'far hurried over, hissing at Judal as he went, while Judal took a bit longer. So Sinbad had done for Ja'far what his older brothers - or dads or whatever they might be called or legally signed as - had done for him. That was a revelation. How long had Ja'far been with Sinbad? Judal had been readily adopted into the Alexius-Ren family when he was 7, and he had met Ja'far around that time, too.
"Judal-kun, would you like a ride?" Sinbad asked once Judal reached them. The boy looked between Sinbad and Ja'far, still processing the new information, and wondering about the new questions. "No," he said. He caught sight of something red moving towards them through the corner of his eye. "I can walk home by myself just fine, unlike you who apparently need both Masrur and Freckles to babysit you." he said, as Masrur entered his vision. "I'm nine, not ninety like you." Judal said.
Sinbad's face went red and pale at the same time, and Judal could imagine Sinbad cursing why this little---!! and he grinned sweetly as Sinbad sputtered. "I'm not ninety! I'm 28! I'm still young!"
"You're super old." Older than Kouen but younger than Mu. And to someone Judal's age, 28 was totally old. Super old because it upset Sinbad so much, and upsetting him was fun.
"Masrur! I don't look ninety, right!?" Masrur shook his head, putting a comforting hand on Sinbad's shoulder. Ja'far looked displeased with the situation, both because of Judal's words, and Sinbad's reaction to them. "Cut it out!" he snapped, kicking Sinbad in the shin and glaring at Judal. Judal just widened his smile, which dripped of false innocence. "Obviously a crooked phoney bogus booger like you is gonna age a ton faster than other people, or you wouldn't look eons older than Mu."
Ja'far growled, and Sinbad seemingly shrank and mumbled to himself, while Masrur only silently supported him, so he didn't topple over from the insult to his appearance. "And to top it off," Judal continued, "you act super old too. But isn't that great, Sinbad?" His voice dripped with the same fake innocence as his smile. "Your mental age match your apparent age!" Which was actually something he had heard some of his adoptive siblings say, but that didn't matter. He learned a lot from listening to their bickering anyway. "So be happy, Sinbad! You'll die of old age soon!"
That was when Ja'far pounced on him.
***
But those times doesn't tend to last very long, despite what anyone else might wish.