#woe! silly mall au be upon ye

[phantasmagoric-acquaintance]

On slow days, Lup’s lunch breaks are typically spent in the sketchy fragrance boutique, distracting Taako from his oh-so-important job of watching people warily sample perfumes and colognes and hoping nobody breaks a bottle because if I have to sweep up glass today, so help me God…

Lately, it seems Lup’s been using this time as an opportunity to ogle the dork who runs the phone accessory kiosk in the middle of the hall from another angle.

She lets out a long, dramatic sigh, and leans back on the counter.

“Jesus, you sound like a tired old dog.” Taako digs his spoon into the cup of Dippin’ Dots she’d brought for him.

“He’s just so cute,” she insists, like a teenaged schoolgirl. “Don’t you think he’s cute? Look at him.”

Taako looks at him. He looks like a regular dude. “I think you can find five of those at Home Depot.”

“You’re an ass. I think he’s special.”

“Maybe FYE? You could find a man like that at FYE, I bet.”

“No! He’s perfect and there’s only one of him.” Lup turns and dips her own spoon into Taako’s cup.

“Heyyy, get your own!” Taako whines.

“I just wanted to try the cookie dough. And I paid for it, so technically it is mine.” She slides her own cup across the counter. “Here, you can have a taste of mine.”

Taako pouts. “It’s got your fucking spittle all over it and now mine does, too.”

“Eh, you’ll live.” She turns back, looking across the threshold at the phone accessory man again. “I’m gonna talk to him.”

“And say what? ‘My phone screen is cracked, do you think you can fix it?’”

---

“Do you think you can fix it?”

“Um.” The pretty lady from the Hot Topic levels a strange, intense stare at Barry. The tips of his ears start to burn, and he hopes he’s not flushing. He tries to focus all his energy on her phone, and not on the fact that he’s been crushing on its owner from afar and now she’s looking at him and talking to him and oh, God, don’t fuck this up, Barry.

The screen doesn’t have cracks, so much as it has a few severe scratches. Barry’s certainly used phones in worse condition. “I don’t, um, really do repairs? I mean, I can— I’ve fixed my own phone and stuff, but uh. I’m not really confident enough to, to try to fix someone else’s. Wouldn’t wanna risk making it worse, y’know?”

“…Oh.” Customers are usually disappointed when Barry refuses to do repairs, but something about the lady’s demeanor is different. Barry hands her phone back to her, and she shifts her feet nervously. “Um… so, what kind of cases do you have?”

They’re phone cases. Not much to say. “We have, uh, some that are functional. And others that are pretty. Not many that are both,” he says, and immediately regrets it. It’s not exactly the tightest money-making strategy, downplaying your product, and he’s getting all flustered now and, fuck, he’s not doing a fantastic job of selling himself, either.

But still, the woman walks away with a new phone case, some tacky monstrosity painted with sparkling flames that had made her laugh, and a wink, leaving Barry behind to replay the interaction over-and-over-again in his mind for, at the very least, the rest of the day.