Truce or Dare

The anime shop had been slow all morning, so Valentine had spent the last few hours in the back room, inventorying all of the new acquisitions they’d bought at the book sale last week. This was why he and Jonny made a good team. Jonny hated busy work. Valentine enjoyed every excuse he could find to hide out in the cave at the back of the store.

“Valentine!”

He jumped at Jonny’s shout, pushing to his feet to look around the door frame. There were no customers at the register, so he couldn’t figure out why Jonny had called him. His heart jumped into his throat when he spotted Lalo standing off to the side, a brown paper package clutched close to his chest. They had exchanged numbers after the book sale, and Valentine had promised to be in touch with any updates about Kitchen Boy Losange, but he hadn’t found a reason to message him yet. He’d been tempted to just try flirting, but got shy about it, second-guessing everything that had happened between them.

He took a deep breath, brushing the dust off of his clothes and checking his teeth and hair in his phone camera. He hesitated, wondering if he should be that kinda guy, and then unbuttoned one more button on his black silk blouse.

“Hello, Lalo,” he said, sauntering up to the counter as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Hi,” Lalo replied. He held the brown paper package out. Valentine stared down at it, then realized he was supposed to take it.

The brown paper felt rough under his fingers. “Am I supposed to open this now, or…?”

Lalo nodded.

Valentine tore the paper off, revealing a copy of Kitchen Boy Losange Volume 1. It was in mint condition. He couldn’t help himself. He flipped to the inner leaf. It was an original print. His entire body flushed warm. Lalo had managed to surprise him yet again.

“Why?” he asked, barely managing the one word.

“I damaged your other copy, remember?”

Valentine stared at him. “Yeah, but I didn’t actually expect you to replace it. Isn’t this your copy? How much did you spend?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to ask that about a gift,” Jonny said from over by the register, drawing the attention of a pair of customers, who began watching the exchange in curiosity.

Valentine didn’t like being someone else’s entertainment.

“Come on.” He motioned for Lalo to follow him.

Lalo hesitated.

“There’s a back room,” he said. “We can talk there.”

“Oooh, yeah, good idea,” Jonny said, straight-faced. “Much more privacy in the back room.”

Valentine resolved to kick him in the shins later.

“Um, sorry,” he said, as he and Lalo squeezed into the cave. “You take the chair.”

“That’s all right. I don’t need to sit.”

“Fine.” Valentine sat down, inspecting the book again. “Seriously, is this your copy? Or did you buy another one? I hope you didn’t get ripped off. Sometimes vendors will try to get more if they think they can.”

“First of all, it doesn’t matter. I know how to haggle.”

Valentine looked up at him, noting the frown on Lalo’s face. “Oh. Right.”

“My mom used to make me haggle for vegetables at the market when I was a little kid. Believe it or not, I’ve still got the knack.”

“All right. Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Second of all, it was a private sale through a friend of a friend, so it was fine.”

Valentine nodded. “I see.”

“And third of all, it doesn’t matter if it was my copy, it’s yours now. I damaged an item in your archive. I wanted to replace it.”

This was just too much. Why would Lalo care about his collection? The only reason Valentine was so particular about it was because he used to lend books out all the time, but they wouldn’t come back. Or they’d have coffee rings on them, which could be cute, but not when the book in question had been the holy grail of his teenage years.

“Thank you,” he said, sincerity blooming in his heart. “This means a lot to me.”

Lalo tilted his head in acknowledgment, his mouth curling into a pleased little smile. Valentine felt his heart go thu-thump, thu-thump. He got up to fetch a plastic sleeve for his new manga, tucking it in and then putting it aside.

“Have I given you a tour of the store yet?” he asked.

Lalo’s smile bloomed. “No. I didn’t know you gave tours.”

“Oh, yeah. Sometimes when it’s not too busy.”

They emerged from the back room, catching Jonny not-so-subtly eavesdropping nearby. Valentine hissed at him in displeasure, ignoring his smug little smirk as he dug underneath the counter, unearthing the Goodbye Cat and Frenemies notepad set that he’d stuffed back there months ago. Perfect.

Lalo’s eyes lit up when he handed it over. “Awww! This is adorable! What’s this for?”

“You’ll need to take notes,” Valentine said, tamping down on the giddy sensation swirling around in his chest. He came out from around the counter, purposefully brushing against Lalo as he went past. “Follow me.”

“I just started watching The Count of Monte Cristo: In Space! with my cousin and his boyfriend,” Lalo said, falling into step beside him.

“Oooh, that’s a good one.” Valentine motioned for him to enter the narrow space between stacks. “There’s also Xenon Creation Gospel. That’s a classic mecha anime. You know, robots. And Cowpoke Boogie is another sci-fi about bounty hunters. Sailor Noon, of course. Have you started reading anything?”

“Nothing other than Kitchen Boy Losange,” Lalo replied, scribbling away on the notepad, the little cat charm on the end of the pen bouncing merrily with his movements. “I think I may have seen some of that mecha anime when I was a kid. I remember some weird alien machines screaming and blowing stuff up.”

“That sounds about right,” Valentine said. He paused to pull season one of Single Slice off of the shelf. “Lots of people love this series. It’s an absurd anime about pirates, but there are 106 volumes of the manga and over a thousand episodes of the anime, so just keep that in mind if you decide to start reading or watching. Also, Tastyroll re-released it in new formatting that crops some of the picture, but this DVD is the original, if that matters to you at all.”

“Single Slice, lots of episodes, Tastyroll, cropped,” Lalo said out loud as he wrote. “Yeah, I tend to get obsessed with a story and want to finish it, so it’s good to know what I’m getting into ahead of time. I’m really glad Kitchen Boy Losange only has six volumes. I would have cried in desperation if I’d found out it had a hundred.”

Valentine thought about his collection, safe and sound in his quiet apartment, and he was surprised to find that he could imagine Lalo being there, sitting in the cozy armchair, reading. He imagined inviting Lalo over to watch Single Slice, pretending to yawn as they sat together on the futon, letting his arm drop around Lalo’s shoulders. Lalo seemed like the kind of guy who would think that kind of cheesy stuff was funny and maybe even charming.

He caught himself smiling again. He couldn’t help it. He was feeling less and less like the anime store guy giving a tour to a newbie and more and more like he was just a boy, standing in front of another boy...

He finally noticed Jonny waving at him from over by the counter, pointing to the Phoenix Orb X clock on the wall and miming eating something. Not that he’d ever admit it, but the kid had some good ideas sometimes.

“Do you want to have lunch with me?” he asked Lalo.

Lalo dropped the Goodbye Cat notebook, and their hands touched when they both crouched to pick it up. Lalo was just about to say something when a customer came around the corner, tripping over one of Valentine’s boots and dropping a giant Pikasnu plushie right on his head.

Lalo burst into laughter, the moment broken beyond reprieve. He scooped the plushie up and handed it back to the flustered customer, reassuring her that “No, it’s our fault for being in the way blah blah blah...” Valentine was too busy feeling annoyed to pay attention to what else Lalo was saying. He got back to his feet slowly, brushing at imaginary dirt on his black jeans even though he hadn’t actually knelt on the floor.

“I’m so sorry,” Lalo said, finally turning back to him. “I didn’t mean to laugh at you, but your expression…”

“Mmm-hmm.” Valentine crossed his arms. His heart was pounding away in his chest like the galloping hooves of a panicked horse leading a runaway carriage down a dark forest road in the middle of a midnight thunderstorm.

“Anyway, lunch sounds good,” Lalo said.

He looked so earnest and unassuming at the moment, but Valentine wasn’t fooled. He knew perfectly well how mischievous Lalo could be, and he liked it.