*** NEW AND IMPROVED ***
With her father missing, Shay will do anything to get him back, even if that means teaming up with a cruel gang leader and his band of psychotic men.
CHARACTER VIEWS DO NOT REPRESENT MY OWN.
***WARNING*** OFFENSIVE CON...
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SO COLD
The marketplace was run-down. There were stalls with hand-drawn signs and baskets of fruits with flies and old women in stained aprons slicing up slabs of fleshy pink meat for customers who shuffled about aimlessly. I thumbed through an old crossword with half the pages scrawled and filled in before placing it back on the bookshelf. I made eye contact with the bookkeeper – an old man with thinning grey hair and a lime green tie – and smiled awkwardly. I wasn't going to buy anything and I could tell he knew it. Walking to where Irvin was nose-deep into a set of dusty books with marked down prices, I asked him for the fifteenth time. "Found it yet?"
His forehead creased in annoyance. "You sampled the same shade of red lipsticks on your wrist for over an hour and ended up buying an eyeshadow palette. Wait outside on a bench or read a newspaper from the 1800's and shut the fuck up."
"You're real cranky when you can't find your Hentai magazine," I met his dirty look. "What? Can't you order it from eBay?"
"I don't read comic books with perverse childlike drawings," he pulled out a brown leather-bound book, flipping the front and swiping a spider from the author's foreword, "I'll leave that to the Weeaboos."
"The what? Actually, I'm good without knowing. Do you remember Bryson? He used to love manga comics and that Piccolo and Goki shit."
"It's Goku, you disrespectful dumbass."
"Whatever. I didn't grow up watching anime."
"That's because you watched Totally Spies and Kim Possible instead."
"That was my shit." I smiled. "I watched every episode of Totally Spies during one summer. That was before my dad sent me to work as a child miner, I spent the rest of childhood sooty and dusty."
"Clearly some habits don't change."
"And neither do yours," I frowned as he slipped the book inside his coat. "It's seven pounds. Are you really that poor?"
"Not everyone has a boyfriend who'll throw endless amounts of money at them,"
"But you do have a friend who has a boyfriend who'll throw endless amounts of money at her," I pulled out a crumpled note from my pocket. "Pay for it."
"No," he batted my hand away. "Stop making a spectacle. You're drawing attention to us."
"There's cameras here. Are you really risking jail for a stupid book?"
"I don't need your fucking money or your unnecessary comments. Do you ever shut the fuck up?" he knocked shoulders with me, moving to a tabletop of books being sold in pairs, flicking through the titles.
I looked at him. He wore a grey hoodie and black jeans. His bruises were yet to fade completely. His right eye was slanted, red and mean. There was a permanent scar on his forehead that edged into his hairline. He looked rough like he scuffled on the street for a bottle of cheap beer and a kiss from a ginger girl. "You look like shit."
