Book Sale

Valentine was running late to pick up Jonny. Traffic was horrible, of course, and his old hatchback didn’t have air conditioning. At the next red light, he leaned across the passenger seat to crank open the window further, ignoring the beeping behind him as the light turned green. It’s not like he could go anywhere.

It was book sale day, his favorite day of the entire year. Instead of dealing with customers, he’d get to spend all day haggling with vendors who were just as passionate and exacting as he was. Even better, the owner had given them a larger budget than usual to work with. All in all, it was looking to be a pretty good day.

As he pulled up to the curb by Jonny’s place, he nearly stalled out when he spotted two extra people standing on the sidewalk. He shifted into neutral and pulled up the emergency brake a tad bit too hard.

“Hi!” Jonny said through the open window. “I hope you don’t mind, but I invited Cal. And this is Lalo. You remember him from the shop?”

Valentine frowned. He could tolerate Cal’s existence since he was Jonny’s boyfriend. Lalo, though? Why invite the rando who had returned his book in damaged condition? How did they even get in contact? Lalo hadn’t been to the shop again since that day.

“This is a work trip,” he said.

“I know, but the more muscle we have, the more books we can carry!”

Valentine finally deigned to look directly at Jonny’s tag-alongs, who were indeed rather muscle-y in comparison. And fine, it’s not like he hadn’t noticed that Lalo was good-looking, but that didn’t mean anything. He didn’t get attracted to people based solely on their looks. As a matter of fact, the hottest person in the world would mean nothing to him if they weren’t compatible in other ways.

“You both need to throw in gas money,” he said. “Cash up front or you’re not getting in the car.”

The shocked look on Lalo’s face was priceless. Valentine almost laughed about it, but managed to restrain himself at the last minute. Cal, for his part, was grinning like a loon.

“Fix your face, Cal. I’m serious.”

Cal sighed heavily and fished some bills out of his wallet, feeding them through the crack in the window one at a time like he was loading up his credit at a vending machine.

“I...I don’t have any cash,” Lalo said.

Cal slapped his shoulder. “Don’t worry, bro. I covered for all of us.”

After foisting another glare at Jonny for being so meddlesome, Valentine leaned across the passenger seat and unlocked the door.

The book sale was in the gymnasium of a high school. Not the one that Valentine had been cursed with attending, but nevertheless he felt the echo of every suffering goth who had been forced to walk the mile the moment he passed through the double doors.

He stole a look over at Lalo, noting that he seemed overwhelmed. It reminded him of how amazing it had felt his first time walking through these doors. It was like being in the merch hall at a convention, but just for books and comics.

“You wanna scope out Forgotten Planet and I take House of Stories?” Jonny asked.

“Yes,” Valentine said, making a beeline for one of the largest vendor areas. Forgotten Planet was a big-time distributor of American comics, but they were also experts in the Japanese market, so there were always treasures to be found. Much to his irritation, Lalo followed him.

“Jonny said they would be the most likely to have copies of Kitchen Boy Losange,” Lalo said. “I’m looking for volume three and beyond.”

Valentine sighed deeply. His phone buzzed and he glanced at the screen to see a winky face from his annoying coworker. He texted back a dagger.

“He was lying,” he said, without looking over.

Lalo stopped walking. Valentine kept moving. Lalo caught up to him a moment later.

“Why would he lie?”

“He wants us to spend time together.”

“Oh.” It didn’t seem like Lalo knew what to make of that. “So where should I go look?”

“I doubt you’d find any volumes here. You’re wasting your time.”

“Seriously?”

Valentine didn’t bother to answer. Lalo actually had the nerve to grab his arm.

“Don’t grab me,” Valentine said, shaking him off. “Don’t you know that’s rude?”

“You’re the one who’s being rude, Valentine. You never even thanked me for returning your book.”

“You damaged it, Lalo. You’re lucky I didn’t ask you to reimburse me.”

Lalo sputtered, his eyes sparking with anger. “And how much would it be? I’ll pay you for it right now. If you agree to finally tell me how I might find more copies.”

His persistence was surprising. Valentine had figured him to be a casual when he’d first walked into the shop. Not that he was judging, but the revolving door of friends and acquaintances who had “outgrown” anime had gotten tiring over the years. And it was annoying to watch people drop money on whatever random stuff they could find, seeking instant gratification instead of cultivating the patience necessary to spend months, even years, tracking down a rare item.

“I thought you didn’t have any cash,” he said.

“I’ll write you a check,” Lalo shot back.

Valentine scoffed. “Just take my advice, okay? Skip the whole spending money on manga thing and move right along to your next interest. It’ll save us all a lot of trouble.”

Lalo’s mouth dropped open. “Really? That’s what you want to say to me right now?”

“Yep.” Valentine started to turn away, but Lalo got in his face.

“Screw you! You act all jaded, writing me off from the first moment we met, but you don’t know anything about me! So what if I’m not a real fan like you? I want to know what happens to Losange and Maximilian!—”

Valentine could feel the blood rushing to his face. People were starting to stare. Lalo kept right on yelling.

“—It’s not like I’m asking you to lend me your own precious copies of the manga, all right? I’m asking you to help me find my own copies to read.”

It was obvious that Lalo actually cared, which meant that Valentine was starting to care, too. Maybe it was weird, but he particularly liked when someone pushed back. Lalo standing his ground, yelling at him, making a huge scene at the book sale about some rare manga? That was hot. Even his wildest fantasies hadn’t accounted for such a mundane yet appealing occurrence.

“Sorry,” Lalo said, finally noticing that he’d been causing a commotion. He lowered his voice. “I didn’t mean to yell. You’re just so...never mind.”

Valentine knew exactly what he was. Closed off. Annoying. Rude. Even mean, sometimes. He’d heard it all before. It was a defense mechanism, cultivated after years of being the freak in every situation. Anyone who hoped to get to know him would have to survive the gauntlet of his public persona before he’d even consider taking them seriously.

“Why are you even here?” he asked. “How did Jonny find you?”

“He came into the 24/7 where I work to get a slushie. And you know how he’s so friendly—”

Valentine certainly knew. It was a liability.

“—so we got to talking and he invited me to the book sale, and he said you’d help me find more copies of Kitchen Boy Losange if I asked.”

“He did, did he?”

“Yes,” Lalo said. “So how about it? Will you help me?”

“What flavor did he get?” Valentine asked.

“What? Why does it matter?”

“I need to know if he’s a monster who likes the blue flavor.”

Lalo looked him up and down, frowning. Valentine tucked his hair behind his ear, caught himself doing it, then tried to play it off as a natural gesture, rather than the nervous fidget that it really was. Lalo’s eyes followed the movement, and a beat later, his shoulders dropped. He squeezed his eyes shut, breaking into laughter.

“You’re such a ridiculous person, Valentine. There’s nothing wrong with the blue flavor. That’s my favorite, too. A lot of people like it, actually.”

“Well, that’s an unfortunate opinion.” Valentine turned away, bats fluttering in the dark cavern of his stomach, a delicious, dizzying swoop of sensation. He could feel his mouth stretching into a bit of a smile, very much against the rules of his public persona, and Lalo was smiling, too, reaching out to him again, but this time stopping a hair’s breadth away from touching his arm.

“Valentine, please,” he said. “Don’t make me beg.”

Valentine’s heart skipped a beat.

“You care that much?” he asked. “You’d actually beg?”

Lalo dropped to one knee without hesitation, raising his hands in supplication, all traces of amusement gone from his face. He could have been a fervent knight kneeling to his king.

“Okay, okay!” Valentine felt giddy and embarrassed and pleased all at once. “And I thought I was a drama queen! I’ll help you, all right? Stop making a scene.”

“Thank you, Valentine,” Lalo said gravely, pressing his hands to his chest.

Valentine couldn’t help it. He started laughing.

Lalo scrambled to his feet, his expression morphing into the closest approximation of Sailor Noon heart eyes that Valentine had ever witnessed in real life. He would have been prepared to see arrogance, or triumph, or whatever a gambler’s expression would normally be when delivering on a bluff, but he was not prepared for this. Oh no. Oh No. OH NO.