whatthefuckever

Listen — Mike has never claimed to be the most polished, but he’s usually more coordinated than this. Especially because, well, he’s supposed to be making a good impression on his professor after he totally botched his short film pitch last week and accidentally handed in a paper with I Hate Godard as the placeholder title. Showing up late to class will only cement his status as Professor Montinoff’s least favourite pupil. Which is exactly why stopping by the tiny, overpopulated Blockbuster off campus to retrieve some last-minute watches before class seems like a terrible idea in retrospect. 

“My son just loves these movies,” the woman in front of him drawls, akin to reciting ingredients for a stew. She watches intently as Jerry The Cashier swipes a due date sticker onto Return of the Jedi. “Oh — here, I have a photo of him right —” 

“That’s — that’s alright,” the cashier cuts in, tight-lipped, ushering the tapes into her handbag. “You’ve got — um. A pretty hefty line behind you.” 

He gestures weakly to the crowd accumulated by the register. Mike offers an impatient, two-fingered wave. 

The woman falters. “Oh. Sorry.” 

Jerry shoots her an apologetic smile. His gaze tracks up, briefly, extending his sympathies to the ever tolerant Mike. It’s at this that Mike’s stomach does something weird — this nerve-wracking, backbend loop — so he quickly breaks the stare right as the woman begins dawdling away.   

The empty VHS boxes give way under his arm and land onto the counter in a graceless thwump. “Please tell me you still have A Christmas Story,” Mike huffs. 

Jerry’s plastic smile softens at Mike’s presence. “Odd request.”

“Do you?” 

“Let’s see,” Jerry drones, turning around to the wall of VHS tapes in chunky plastic cases. “We do, actually.” He pulls a white-rimmed case out from the wall and places it onto the counter before inspecting the rest of Mike’s selection. “Christmas movie in October,” he says dryly. “Right on schedule.” 

A red flush creeps up Mike’s collarbone. “Shut up.”

“Never.”

The red-haired cashier beside Jerry snorts. Mike takes one look at her, mentally shoots an ominous glare in her direction, and immediately clears his throat, straightening out. 

Okay. Maybe he’s getting a little carried away here. Especially considering the fact that the time is broaching 7:55 — 7:55!? — and if he doesn’t haul his ass to campus right after he’s paid, he can kiss his film degree goodbye. 

But Mike is not privy to the fact that a cute boy is flirting with him and has since last month, very obviously so. There is a reason why Mike maps out his walk to Tisch around the Blockbuster across the street, there is a reason why Mike chooses to wait in Jerry’s endless line instead of his female companion’s much less lengthy one, and there is a reason why Mike is gawking at him, right now — because Mike wants to flirt with him, too.

His eyes slip to the watch on his wrist. 7:56.

Well — okay. He supposes Professor Montinoff won’t mind if he’s gone a few, measly minutes.

So, correction: Mike is going to be late to his eight AM class, for no other reason than Mike himself, and his completely instinctive, homosexual nature.   

The sound of packaged tapes landing against the counter brusquely jerks Mike back to reality. “A Christmas Story, Breathless, and Aliens,” Jerry pipes as he scans the VHS. “No offence, but uh — what the hell is this movie lineup?”

“That’s for my little sister,” Mike hastily explains, pointing to Ralph’s impish face swathed in rabbit attire. “She’s coming to visit this weekend and we have this weird tradition of watching Christmas movies when it’s not actually Christmas. And that’s for my film studies class.” Mike glares coldly at Breathless. Contrary to his latest essay title, he doesn’t actually hate Godard, just hates that all they ever learn is Godard, hates that his whole class practically kisses the ground Godard walks on, hates the fact that Montinoff acts like Godard is the pinnacle of French new wave cinema, instead of, like, Truffaut, or something. “And Aliens,” — Mike considers embarking on another spiel, but Jerry is peering up at him through his lashes, and Mike has promptly forgotten every facet to the English language — “that one’s just — for, uh — me.” 

Jerry squints, scrutinizing. “Huh.”

The strap of Mike’s backpack digs into his sleeve. “What?” 

“Nothing.” Jerry cards Mike’s membership identification into the register, and Mike tries not to get embarrassingly red at the fact that he’s been here so often that Jerry knows it by heart. “It’s just — I think you have to be egregiously uncultured to prefer it to the first.” 

And — Mike would seriously consider asking Jerry out to a movie sometime, because he’s never once heard anyone else use the word egregiously in a conversation before — if it weren’t for the fact that his name is Jerry, and that he’s officially lost all his charm in just one sentence.

“Excuse me,” Mike scoffs, “everyone knows Aliens is light years better than Alien.”

“Well, clearly you haven’t —” 

“Jesus,” the redhead beside Jerry sneers, with a nametag that Mike has begrudgingly observed to read Max, “are you guys going to do this all day?”

A knot burrows elusively in Mike’s stomach. He flushes, very visibly.

It’s a tortuous affair, this thing between him and Jerry. This blatant tension, under the guise of film-buff banter. It’s almost as addictive as the concept of Blockbuster itself: a plethora of shiny, freshly manufactured tapes that feel as though they should be admired from a distance rather than handled and used. Mike feels himself entranced by the heady wood-dust atmosphere, and, likewise, the offbeat charm of Jerry’s lopsided fringe. Moments like these bring Mike back to the crushing certainty of reality. That, unlike in the fantasy Mike has painted himself in, there are other people in the world who are not oblivious to their flirting, and that he is hopelessly, ridiculously, far gone.

“Ignore her,” Jerry sneers, smoothing a hand over his uniformed polo with his name embroidered on the front. “That’s nine dollars.”

“Perfect,” Mike exclaims, except it isn’t, because he’s pretty sure he’s only got, like, eight dollars and fifty five cents, and sweat is beginning to trickle down his forehead at the prospect of embarrassing himself in front of the very handsome Blockbuster clerk and the very impatient queue strewn out behind him. 

In an alleviating turn of events, Mike fishes out a lone dollar wedged deep inside his pocket, balancing his half empty cup of coffee in the same hand. “Ah,” Mike says awkwardly, sliding it across the counter. “It was, uh. Hiding.” 

“Cool,” Jerry says.

Mike cringes.

Blessedly, Jerry doesn’t seem to notice Mike’s incompetence, and only presses a yellow sticker onto each tape with October 23 printed in bold, black letters. He stows them into a sleek brown paper-wrapped parcel and slides it into Mike’s eager hands. “Be kind and rewind,” he says flatly. 

“Thanks,” Mike murmurs back, willing himself not to rip the parcel open, “uh — Jerry.” 

The sharp wit that Jerry usually carries is drowned out by the static of confusion. His gaze stretches to his nametag sewn neatly in white. 

“Oh, that’s — my name is Will,” Jerry — Will — says, offering Mike a closemouthed smile. “This is just an old uniform.”

“Oh.” 

And — this is totally, one hundred percent fine, and Mike is relieved to learn that his name is actually Will and not Jerry — except he’s a little embarrassed to know that he’s spent the past month ranting to Lucas about their shoulder brushes and too-long glances and he’s had his name wrong this whole time.

“Mike,” Mike says blankly, because, well, he is Mike. 

“See you later, Mike,” Will smiles.

Even if Will has committed the biggest crime in cinema history that is preferring Alien to Aliens, he is still cute, bafflingly so. 

The bright red numbers on Mike’s Casio watch blink up at him. 8:02.

“Shit,” Mike is saying, hightailing out of the video store before Will’s brown-green eyes keep him rooted in place and on the way to college dropout status.