MARTY'S MART IS STOCKED AS usual on vapid Saturday afternoons, like this one; with human and material resources ardently stepping up the charts of sale managers and sweat glands of other employees like a G-5 fueled on semen.
Dorian's sweating non-stop despite the ACs whispering invisible frost across the wide expanse of people and goods. He's been stacking cartons of new goods into their respective shelves that his shoulders are begging him to take a break that has been long overdue since two hours ago, where he wasted it on purging the stale bacon he had for breakfast.
Now he's before one of the many cash registers, his fingers throbbing from slamming the hard keys for straight forty minutes without stopping. He's sure there's a train of smoke oozing from his ears now from his brain hitting yield point.
"Welcome to Marty's," Dorian whispers, almost lifeless if he's being less dramatic about his physical ordeal.
He snatches the cart from the customer in front of him without regarding them up to looking them in the eye. Dorian picks the content one by one, swiping them over the scanner with less care in the world. Maybe too much carelessness because this Darigold milk crate missed the scanner by an inch.
"Hey you missed that": Safe for the customer, who's noble enough to call his attention to it.
That voice.
Dorian perks up. Slowly, his eyes scan them--him from the beltline. Furry Balenciaga vest, arms up to the exposed, sunken neckline.
"Giovanni?"
"Dory!"
"What are you doing here?"
Just then, Dorian's co-worker, this emo girl with a permanent smile that completely ironizes the black and evil radiating from her spiky boots and death leather overalls steps into the scene.
"Dee." She blows a balloon with her bubblegum before popping it in a way it skillfully splatters just direct inside her mouth.
"Yes. Onee-chan?"
"What's onee-chan?" Gio asks immediately.
Rachel ignores Gio. "Boss says I should take over the counter for a while. There are boxes outside for you to stack."
"Ah," Dorian breathes but he doesn't make a face before he trudges away from the counter and from the queue to the backyard of the mart.
The autumn wind smacks his face and rids it of some sweat and he's thankful. But it's mixed with stuffiness, camphor and that old cardboard smell. His joints are aching so he tries to wiggle his discomfort out but ends taking in a whiff of his drenched armpits.
"Ha," he voices, with a smile on his face.
The moment he lifts the cartons, he doesn't realize how exhausted he's been before his arms give out and the package as a whole falls free.
Thanks to Giovanni who Dorian is just acknowledging his existence beside him. The blonde had extended his arms in that split second to cushion the fall.
"Woah," Dorian says, blinking the tiredness out of his eyes. "It's you."
"Yes, it's me." Gio rolls his eyes and scoops more than half of the stacked boxes from the other boy's hands.
"When did you come here?"
"Ugh." Gio deadpans. "I hope you're doing alright though. You look like a mess."
"Thanks," Dorian huffs as the camphor stench grows stronger.
"Well, you're a hot mess, not gonna lie."
Dorian's face heats up and he totally forgets about being physically and mentally spent. "No-no homo, b-bro."
"Right. No. I'm serious."
The big mart is noisy to an extent and for some reason, there are more children than adults and they're giggling and running around like this is Disneyland. One of them crashes into Gio and it's a miracle the fragile goods he's been holding didn't topple over.
Dorian is now silent, setting the products in their respective shelves with prim caution despite how droopy his eyelids are. The sight alone is pleasing to Gio. The dark-skinned boy's muscles rippling with just the right magnitude.
Giovanni bites his lips. This, Dorian notices almost immediately.
"Like what you see?" he says, with a small smirk.
"Actually, yes I do."
Dorian is shocked. How is Gio so confident and comfortable being this...out? He makes homosexuality so normal and convenient. Which is gross.
"Well, too bad I don't suck dick."
Gio doesn't look affected by his comment and barely raises his brow at the boy sneering.
"Tell that to the dick itself."
Dorian suddenly drops the box he's about to sort. "Okay, Okay. Enough." He grabs Gio by the shirt and slams him against the adjacent shelf. "Enough with the mind games you're playing. I see you bleeding your life out in the toilet then try to do what a sane human being is supposed to do just for you to what? Pressure me into having gay sec with you? What the hell do you want from me?"
The atmosphere freezes that the perplexed Gio can see the anger radiating from the boy. His brow twitches, the sides of his mouth too and his eyes tell of desperation.
Gio raises a finger. "I don't think you're supposed to be strangling--"
Dorian removes his hand that instant.
"Thought so." Gio dusts his top. Something catches his attention and he narrows his eyes into the distance then his brows jump in realization. "Hey, is that not your fellow bracket-open brainless bracket-close jock from the team?"
"Huh?" Dorian still somehow shaken by the feeling of Gio's breath on his face some seconds ago follows the boy's finger.
Dorian sees a redhead first. Lucille McDonald: Bruce's girlfriend since middle school. Just by a dark corner around the aisles, she's mushed face-first and mouth-front into Khalid.
Khalid!
Dorian's eyes widen, heart slamming aggressively against his ribcage and he turns his face away from them. The image of dripping and wanking Khalid echoes inside his mind like a Billie Eilish chorus and his skull pulses also like a Billie Eilish beat.
"Hey. Um, Dory, you okay?"
"I need to get out of here," Dorian mumbles to himself--but Gio still catches it--and shuffles the unpacked boxes into a cart as fast as he can. As long as he's not looking in Khalid's direction.
Too late.
"Dorian, is that you?" Did he forget to mention Lucille was a close childhood friend for a while before their naive bond guy wasted away inside highschool fresherdom for the sake of social hierarchy?
Fuck!
"It is you. Long time, Dory!"
"Lucy." Dorian deadpans. "We literally go to the same school."
"I know right," she whines, giggling to a non-existent joke. Khalid has joined her now and is now giving the two boys a shy smile. That's when Lucille realizes Gio and the unusual proximity between them. "And who's this? Your boyfriend?"
Dorian breaks into a fit of coughs. Something about what Lucille said jars his mouth open to clog his trachea and choke him.
"N-no," he manages to say, "the fuck do you mean my boyfriend?"
Lucille wears denim overalls with net leggings that accentuate her slim legs. Her ginger hair is bound in twin ponytails and her signature cherry lipstick keeps gleaming. Meanwhile, Khalid is in oversized retro jerseys.
She giggles again, slapping Gio's shoulders. The blonde makes a face.
There's something about the way Lucille laughed. Like she knows something nobody does. Dorian doesn't like that lingering omniscience.
When Dorian summons enough courage and dignity to look Khalid in the eye, he sees discomfort, desperation. That's when it also dawns on him he just caught Bruce's childhood best friend and girlfriend eating their faces off in front of CCTV.
"So you like, work here?" Khalid eyes his uniform with a smug smirk.
The hell? Is Khalid checking me out?
Dorian shrugs with indifference but deep inside, he's screaming at his libido for flashing images of nude Khalid behind his eyeballs.
"You've always been the responsible one. Khalid, can you believe Dory used to volunteer to babysit my twin brothers when we were like seven years old?"
Dorian blushes and looks away but Lucille playfully pinches his cheek to face the group.
Khalid snorts. "This guy? You kidding me."
"Dory loved feeding them most of all then rocking them in his arms to sleep. And when no one was around, he'd feed them his nipple like a mommy."
"No way!" Gio grins.
"Stop!" Dorian blushes.
"My mom used to compare me to him alot and I remember it made me jealous enough to lie about not being at home whenever it's time for a playdate."
"Damn, you still remember all that shit?" Dorian groans, staring the floor in bashfulness. He can't help the smile breaking out of his face.
"I'd be damned if I forget those times." She beams at Dorian for a while and the latter does the same.
All thr platonic body language is now getting to Gio who keeps tapping his feet and checking his watch ever so often. Soon enough, he speaks up. "Um, I guess this is my cue to scram."
"Huh?" Dorian has almost forgotten the blonde beside him. "Oh. Okay, thanks for the help."
Gio just shrugs and walks away. Well, he almost did when he slips on the wet tiles. Nobody paid attention to the "caution: wet floor" warning just few metres to them. Gio is almost about to land on the floor with his elbows taut and eyes closed upon impact to cushion his fall.
But he doesn't touch the ground.
Dorian's hands are wrapped around his waist. He's saved but his butt is pressing against the other boy's crotch.
"Woah," Khalid breathes. Lucille whistles.
The most cliché staring contest happens between the two boys. The world seems to stop around them and it's just Dorian, lost in the blue aurora borealis inside Giovanni Price's eyes and the strange, dreadfully sweet feeling of their bodies rubbing.
By the time he's lifting Gio back on his feet, the latter's face is red as jalapeño.
"Oh um. Thanks," he stammers, fiddling with his shopping bags before moving away from the group with his back to the front. He bumps into an old lady on the way out, though but this time, he doesn't trip.
The old lady, however, wasn't so lucky.
"He's cute, isn't he?"
Dorian doesn't notice himself slowly nodding to what Lucille just said. He just stares. He stares and doves chirp and heart emojis gander around his head.
"Yes," he replies before he can think it through. "Damn, he is."
+++++
The door closes behind Dorian who immediately clicks its lock. By this time of the evening, your house has got to be shut or else, you're coming home to a sitting room short of a television.
It's dark, quiet and Dorian wonders why his mom left it this way when it's barely lights out. The sitting room smells of old cotton but it's the best thing Dorian can do. It's way better than pot, marijuana and expired alcohol.
Just then, a shrill meow pierces into the darkness. Dorian just rolls his eyes and clicks the lights on. The source of the sound, a black furball spotted white scurries between his legs and nudges itself against him.
"Aww, Scooby-Doo," Dorian coos as he lifts it up to his face to smooch it with his nose. The feline licks his face in reply. "Ha, shit. I totally forgot your breakfast."
Two weeks ago, he found the kitty in his backyard without a tag so he automatically claimed it as his own, despite his mom nagging about how expensive it is to get a collar, vaccine and a litter box because she can't imagine poop all over her house. As if her existence isn't poop enough.
Dorian almost doesn't notice his mom sprawled on the floor, before the worn-out TV. His smile turns upside down and he raises the cat to his shoulders.
He presses the bridge of his nose in frustration and disappointment. Even though his heart has been set in stone a long time, the fact still stands that he hates his life more than Squidward Tentacles.
"What have you gotten yourself into, woman?" he mumbles as he retrieves a blanket and pillow from her room. Dorian then tucks her in and pats her head in a smug way, lacking the affection overdue long ago.
Mercy Ayuba's shrunken eyes open just slightly to see her son and she breaks into a weak smile. "Andre's green really is the best. Fuck, I struck gold this time."
"Mama, not you doing that shit again. I fucking warned--"
That's before she drifts back into unconsciousness.
Whereas, the Siamese gazes at the two humans. Brilliant green eyes trying to decipher why the boy's story is so cliché.
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Hey its me, your loyal inconsistent but favorite. I've given up on nano due to some insignificant circumstances but the show must go on, and steady so vote, comment blah blah pretty not-please?
P.s. I'm back with my outrageous similes and metaphors skksksks