Chapter Text
You don’t think it started for him that day, but you know it started for you.
Your name is John Egbert, and you can’t help but wonder if this is gonna be worth it. You just want to get your dad a nice gift for Father’s Day. You stand in front of the old CD shop. It shouldn’t be as intimidating as it feels, with a neon sign sign flashing “OPEN” like it’s late at night instead of almost lunchtime and windows plastered with sun-bleached concert promotion posters and cheesy images of the Beatles and Led Zeppelin. You’ve never been there before, you never felt the need to. Most of your music is downloaded, but you get the feeling your father would appreciate his gift more if you actually paid for it instead of burning some pirated songs onto a CD. You guess mixtapes-or, uh, in this case discs- should be reserved for girls who swoon at cheesy gestures. And your friends. After a moment’s hesitation, you step in the shop and the ringing of a small bell tied to the door announces your entrance.
The shop is cleaner than you expected by the admittedly grubby exterior, but it seems to have a vintage feel to the decoration. You see some guy sporting hugeass aviators that would look stupid on anyone else but just looks mildly dorky on him working the register.
At least, that’s what you presume that’s what he’s supposed to be doing. He’s kind of in his own world, his expression is impersonal and indifferent, his red and black headphones blasting tinny music you can hear from where you stand. That can’t be healthy. He doesn’t notice you walking in, and you disregard him for the time being. Instead, you mentally list the artists your father likes.
Only Frank Sinatra comes to mind. Going by that, you peruse the shelves that stretch across the floor, scanning the S section. The cashier’s song has changed, and it’s louder than the first. The fact it sounds vaguely like Ke$ha should interest you more than it does. You catch a generic collection album and grin, your interest shifting back to the task at hand.
The album’s on sale, and costs less than six bucks. You can’t help but pump your fist in triumph, and apparently the uncoolness of that motion is enough to grab the cashier’s attention. His head turns in your direction, and the small crease that’s formed between his dark eyebrows conveys more emotion than any other feature on his face. you can’t help roll your eyes. “Your music is really loud,” you inform him, and he slides his headphones off and they hang around his neck. They look like they belong there.
“What?” he asks, and suddenly his eyes widen. “Shit, wait.”
He pulls out a mp3 player from his pocket and he realizes it the same time you do.
His headphones weren’t even plugged in!
His eyebrows raise so high it looks like they’re trying to push into his hairline and you shoot a shit-eating grin at him. He clears his throat and swings his feet off the counter, ever-so-smoothly plugging his headphones in, only to cry in pain at the volume.
You watch this all feeling faintly bemused until he pauses the player and clears his throat, nodding at the CD in your hand. “You gonna buy that?” You guess you kinda forgot you were holding it until he pointed it out.
“Oh! Yeah.” You guess you can’t make fun of his stupid mess up when you forgot you were about to buy a CD. “Y-yeah, buying it would be cool.”
He nods and presses something on the cash register, and you can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t on or something. He stares at you expectantly and you hand his the case, which he scans, though he looks at the cover before he slips it in a tiny plastic bag. He glances up at you, and for one second it feels like his gaze just cut through the shades on his face and scanned you. You suddenly feel self-conscious for not brushing your hair this morning (not like it would really help tame the mop on your head). He opens his mouth deliberately, like he’s about to say something really smart or witty but instead he asks “That’ll be six eighty-nine. Cash or credit?”.
You blink and fumble to grab your wallet. “O-oh! Cash. Yeah. Paying with cash,” you rattle out as You open your wallet. Your fingers shake when trying to file through your bills and slap a ten in in front of him. “There!” you exclaim, as if it’s a present or something. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
“Thanks,” he says conversationally, and hands you the bag. You’re about to snatch it out of his hands and run out and disappear off the face of the earth forever when suddenly the corner of his mouth lifts up in a smirk and he withdraws his arm and the bag with it. Your mouth drops open, scandalized. “So, Sinatra?” he asks and you snatch it back anyways.
“Well, yeah!”
“It seems like he’d be the thing you’d jam to,” he says snidely, and you don’t know why it feels like that was a snarky comment on your appearance but it does! What, is he calling you old or something??
“It’s for my dad!” you exclaim a bit more defensively and he nods once.
“S’alright.”
You glare at him, but it doesn’t look like he’s about to say anything else, so instead you head to the door and shoot a huffy “have a nice day!” over your shoulder. You think you’ve gotten the last word but just as you’ve passed the threshold and the door’s drifting closed, you hear him say something that sounds suspiciously like “be seein’ ya.”
You spend that night thinking about him more than what’s acceptable. Such an encounter is one that someone would forget an hour or so later, but instead you end up going to the same CD shop the next day.
Go frickin’ figure.