There was a bright side to being poor. Generally being an optimistic kind of guy, John Egbert found a bright side in almost anything. But being poor was different; it was a simple life. With the store getting him a few extra bucks, and his part-time job as a waitor, John figured he had all the money he needed. Of course, he had some help.
Dave Strider, John's best bro in the entire universe, was part of the reason John wasn't broke. As roomates in a tiny appartment, Dave and John went dutch with the bills and always pooled their cash together. A working DJ at a night club, Dave was practically nocturnal, and was either asleep or studying whenever John was home. They didn't speak as much as typical roomates should have, but they texted eachother non-stop, and that made up for it.
The movie store had been Dave's idea. John could easily rent out copies of his vast collection, and he could also talk about movies until someone's ear fell off. It was the perfect job. Too bad Netflix had come around and half the movie stores were going out of buisness.
"We're screwed," John stated one morning, getting ready to go downstairs and not sell any movies. A tradition of a sort.
Dave rolled his eyes, he never wore his shades around John, "Egbert, since when were you a pessimist?"
"I'm not!" John whined, "I'm being realistic, Dave!"
"Uh huh," Dave yawned. John frowned and bustled his bro back to his room, telling him off about pulling another all-nighter. After some delicous poptart breakfast, John all but skipped downstairs; poptarts just made him happy.
The store was small, but very well stacked. It had many movies that some people wouldn't be able to find anywhere else. It even had troll movies, though John preffered human classics, trolls came up with...original ideas. Needless to say, the store had a wide variety of products, and no customers. Every now and again some one would stop by, but buisness wasn't that good. It was John's only source of extra money, for activities that didn't involve shopping, paying rent, and internet bills, so, in a sense, he was broke.
That's why took John completely off guard, that afternoon, when a young male troll all but kicked down the door.
Startled, John sat up in his seat. Customers were rare to come by, after all. He made quick effort to seem official, but it was to no avail, due to his giant glasses sliding right off his nose and onto the floor.
The troll glanced at him, his lips twitching upwards for a small moment. Reaching his clawed hand down, he delicately picked up John glasses and put them on the counter. "You dropped these, fuckass."
"Uh, thanks. No need to be rude, though..." John mumbled, fiddling to get the glasses on his face. The troll watched him, his glowing eyes were squinted.
"How the fuck was noting your clumsy actions rude?" he growled.
John chuckled, "Saying the word 'fuck' a lot is rude."
"You just said it," the troll pointed out, "Does that make you rude?"
"It's the way that you're saying it!" John said, smiling a little.
The troll went quiet for a few minutes, then he stuck out his hand. "I'm Karkat."
"John Egbert!" chirped John.
For a moment, Karkat's eyes seemed to bore into John, making him wonder if trolls had x-ray vision, but then those eyes were trailing across the store. Evidentally shocked with what he saw, Karkat ran up to John's romantic comedy shelf. John watched as the mesmerised troll ran his hands over a DVD case, glancing all over the place to find another movie.
"You have all the good ones!" Karkat exclaimed, clearly in awe.
"Really?" John knew he did, but it was still nice to hear.
"Yes!" Karkat confirmed, nodding a little bit too much. He continued his search for other films, not noticing John's eyes on his back. John hardly ever got customers, let alone trolls, so he was dying to chat with the guy- but he was so grumpy!
"So, you're into Romantic Comedies?" John asked, shyly.
"I fucking breathe these things," Karkat said, scooping up three more DVDs. "So, how's this rental thing work? We do things differently back home, I'm guessing."
"Uh, all you need to do is sign this sheet. Then you pay for it!" John said, fumbling to get his hands on the sign-out sheet. It was burried in one of the drawers, so he had to crouch down to get it. When he stood up, he was face to face with the troll. "Uh, here you go." John held out the piece of paper, staring into those giant, yellow eyes.
Karkat messily scribbled his name, then reached into his back pocket to get out his money. "How much?" he grunted, pulling out a few bills.
"Uh, each movie is five dollars, so...that'll be twenty-five." John nodded, readying the cash register. Karkat slammed a twenty dollar bill on the countertop, sprinkling a bunch of quarters to follow it. After a lot of counting, John found everything in place. "Okay, all you have to do is return those in a week."
"Right," Karkat said, dismissively waving his clawed hand around. "See you then, Egbert."
"Bye!" John called, watching the troll waltz out the door. He found himself wishing he could time travel ahead one week, but tried hard not to acknowledge why he wanted to.