Call Me Baby (Kodi)

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The bookstore was a nice place to be. It was quiet, usually, though still filled with it's fair share of annoyances. Like that person who slurped their coffee over a self-help book. Gene eyed the title. 'How to argue and win every time'. What? Were some people really so stupid that they needed to read up on arguments? It sounded stupid to him. Arguments were stupid in general, they were just people screaming at each other, seeing who could be the loudest. There was another book like that. As in, it was stupid too. What was it called? 'How to stop worrying and start living'? Weren't people already living? If someone wasn't living, then they were just dead.

That brought up an amusing image. A bunch of dead zombies wandering around reading self-help books to help the 'live again'. He snorted to himself. Someone should make a comic about that someday.

Gene leaned against the bookshelf, his black slacks making his long legs seem even longer, with one bent at the knee to settle the sole of his shoe up against the woodwork. He wore a blazer, dark blue, and a white shirt. Someone stole his clip-on tie, so he wasn't wearing that anymore. That was fine, Gene would just get another one. His fingers slid over the smooth pages of the Avengers comic he was reading until they reached the edge and fiddled with separating the page a moment before turning it. He smirked at the full page drawing of Black Widow. That tight black suit sure looked good on her....

Looking over the page, Gene quickly became distracted, allowing his aura to glimmer a slight swirl of pink and turquoise underneath the incandescent lighting.

It might also be pointed out that the quiet boy had a strip of toilet paper stuck to his shoe. It'd been there since he left the school only 30 minutes earlier. He was unaware of it's presence.

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Kodi was, as usual these days, feeling pretty hungover at work. He’d spent another night alone cradling a bottle of… he didn’t even remember what now… until he fell asleep. It was amazing that he always managed to wake up and get ready in time to go to work, although it was probably only possible because he started his shift in the afternoons. Classes were another matter – he was fortunate if he made it to any of those on a regular basis.

But at least he liked his job. It was the only thing he really had going for him, now that he wasn’t seeing Gryph anymore and his mother didn’t want him around in his state of mind. Kodi didn’t blame her, but it still sucked. Whatever. He was just going to keep burying himself in organizing books and restocking shelves until he was forced to do something else (with the occasional break to read a page or two if a book looked particularly interesting).

He was passing by the comic books section when he saw a familiar face – or rather, a familiar head of hair, considering the owner’s face was hidden behind an Avengers comic. Kodi scowled slightly. He didn’t know the kid’s name, but he’d seen him a time or two at Hammel too, and something about him just… got on his nerves. Well, a lot of things got on his nerves lately these days, to be honest. “Hey, you gonna buy that or what?” he asked gruffly. “We’re a store, not a library. You’re supposed t’pay before you read.”

Kodi really didn’t care that much, even if it was sort of store policy. He just felt like picking on someone, and the scrawny kid was unfortunate enough to be his chosen target. Hopefully his boss wouldn’t hear a complaint about him harassing a customer.

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Gene can’t say he remembered the store attendant from school. He didn’t bother remembering the faces of people he didn’t interact with regularly(he didn’t have a whole lot of those type anyway). He vaguely knew the person speaking to him as being a worker at this bookstore, but that was about it. Outside of that, he was just another body with a mouth that made noise that he didn’t want to hear.

He scowled, sending the pierced-punk a detesting glare. “I guess not,” he said coldly, closing the thin comic book and setting it aside on the stack behind him, sliding it into the space between the a line of books and the shelf above it. “I was going to,” he continued, arching his chin up slightly in a haughty manner. “But then you had to open your ugly face.” Gene smirked and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I guess you just lost yourself a customer for that.” He huffed in mild amusement and stood there, staring at the shorter person, as if he was expecting him to bow on his knees and beg for forgiveness for treating a customer so rudely.

Gene vaguely wondered if he could get this guy fired. That might be fun.

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Kodi only knew the kid because he’d seen him doing this before. Coming into the shop, heading directly for the comics, and reading them without paying first. He’d never really paid attention to whether or not he bought them after, but considering the dentokinetic had seen other people doing the same thing, he figured that’s what this guy was doing too. People were cheap, and all.

Kodi just continued to give the guy a deadpanned look as he was glared at. Well, he hadn’t expected a courteous response, so that was unsurprising. His brow did furrow when the customer slid the comic back into the wrong place – something he would have to deal with later – but then he snorted in derision at the twerp’s comment. “Like I ain’t been called that before,” he replied in a low, unamused voice. His pride stung just a little, mostly because he knew he looked like shit these days since he couldn’t find the effort to try anymore. “Whatever. I’m sure you’ll find somethin’ else t’masturbate to besides the cartoon whores in those comics,” Kodi said, rolling his eyes. Yes, he’d seen the way teenage boys stared at those ridiculously unrealistic depictions of the opposite gender. They, of course, did nothing for him (although he wasn’t turned on by the men in them either).

It was then that Kodi noticed the strange… cloud?... surrounding the younger boy, and his brow furrowed even more. “The fuck is this shit?” he asked, waving a hand through it. Maybe he was still drunk. Or high. He’d done some of that lately too.

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Gene didn’t always buy the comics. That’s why he read them first. He wasn’t going to buy a comic that sucked, after all, he only wanted the good stuff! How was he supposed to know if it was any good if he didn’t read it first?

“Well, guess that’s your new nickname, Ugly.” If he’d been called it before, then it shouldn’t bother him to hear it regularly. It was true in any case. This guy looked like a dweeb(look who’s talking!). Gene bet those piercings were just some lame attempt to look ‘cool’ for a nerd. What a conformist… “Was that supposed to be an insult? You really are stupid, aren’t you? I feel lame even giving that a response.” Gene slid his eyes to the side in apparent boredom, back to the rack of comics he was browsing through before he picked up the Avengers one.

He wasn’t necessarily unaffected by the accusation though. The pink 'cloud' darkened slightly at it. However, when the store attendant pointed out the ‘cloud’ – and dared to put his hand through it – Gene snapped his head forward and glared fiercely at the other boy. A deep, dark red flashed and then faded to almost nothing, sinking inwards, appearing to cling to the younger boy. He didn’t respond outside of the look of absolute disdain, though if he looked closely, Kodi might be able to see his cheeks tinged the slightest pink.

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Kodi wasn’t a comic book fan, so he supposed he didn’t understand why someone would want to read one before they bought it – it seemed liked a waste of money to him, why would you buy one of those overly expensive, thin little things when you already knew what it was about? And wouldn’t you want to buy the whole series of a comic, rather than picking and choosing? But whatever…

“Great. If we’re goin’ with accurate, I guess I’ll just call you Brat,” he replied, bored. His voice didn’t raise, and his expression remained mostly neutral, but Kodi was fairly annoyed. And a little turned on, if he was being honest with himself – he wanted to put the kid in his place. Something about aggressiveness just sparked something inside him, now that he was back to being vulgar and impulsive and mean. Kodi gave the kid a disbelieving stare. Was he really going to be this infantile? How old was he, thirteen? “Yeah, I’m really stupid, you have no idea,” he replied dully. “Almost as stupid as you are childish and puerile. In fact, I don’t know why I dare talk t’someone as perspicacious as yourself, I really should do the world a favor and abscond from the premises.” Kodi snorted and shook his head. Brat. Why was he even bothering? He supposed it gave him something to do…

Kodi was intrigued by the shifting colors around the guy. It was really tripping him out, especially when it changed and pulsed different colors. His eyes met the glare of the younger boy, and his brow rose. “Whoa,” he grunted at the red flash. “Trippy.” Kodi assumed it was his meta-power, since he had seen the guy at Hammel. He smirked a little. “It’s pretty,” he sneered. “Too pretty for an impudent child like you.”

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Gene was the sort of person who didn’t like surprises. He didn’t like change. He liked knowing what was going to happen next, what to expect. He was the sort who would read the first and last chapter of a book just to make sure the ending was worth reading the remaining 500 pages. After all, if it ended up being a dumb book, then why would he waste his time?

Brat? “Fine, if that’s the best you can come up with.” Because Ugly was so original. Gene had been called that before too, but he didn’t let it bother him none. They were just jealous because he was better than them. People came up with the stupidest insults when they were jealous. Speaking of stupid…

Gene blinked, staring blankly at the punk across from him, his lips parted slightly as he was dumbfounded by Kodi’s response. He didn’t know what any of those words meant, but he had a feeling they weren’t very nice in context. “You sound like you consulted google thesaurus to piece together that sentence,” he said with an equal amount of lackluster in his voice. Trying to sound smart actually made him sound even stupider. What an idiot.

And annoying too. Gene continued to scowl at the short boy, completely unappreciative of how he was inspecting his ‘cloud’, which was only growing a deeper, muddier red the longer it went on. “Did I ask you for your opinion?” he grumbled, clearly annoyed and quickly losing patience. “Leave me alone,” he asserted, turning away from the boy attendant and grabbing another comic from the rack to flip through. He wasn’t going to read it….just check to see if it had any interesting pictures.

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Kodi and Eugene were very different in those respects. He liked plot twists, and being surprised and intrigued and anticipating what might happen next in a book. Reading the end was a big no-no. Seriously, only completely and utter morons did that.

“Trust me, I could come up with worse, but I doubt you’d know what they meant,” he replied with a wry smile. “Ignoramus, imbecile, schlemiel… Asshole.” Whoops, that last one just slipped out. Kodi often got a kick out of surprising people with his very large, unexpected vocabulary. He knew he looked like an illiterate punk, with his snakebite piercings and dull eyes and mussy hair, so it was always amusing to see the look on people’s faces when he spouted out something like he was an English expert.

Like the look on this twerp’s face. Heh, Kodi got a laugh out of that one. He wasn’t surprised, though, because it seemed like a lot of people that only read comic books (he didn’t know Gene read anything else) seemed to have a rather limited vocabulary. “Well, I didn’t, and I ain’t even extra-smart because of a meta-power,” he replied smugly. “So you can call me ugly all ya want, but I ain’t stupid.” It was usually something that Kodi didn’t advertise – that he was a lot smarter than he let on – but it seemed appropriate in this situation.

This whole color-changing cloud thing was reallllly intriguing to his hungover brain, though. “Does that color mean you’re angry?” he asked with a smirk as it continued to get red. “I’m so sorry if I hurt your feelings.” Kodi really was going to get in trouble with his boss if he kept this up, but he couldn’t help it, the kid was asking for it. “Fine, whatever, I’ll leave you t’your kid-porn. I’m at your service if y’need any help with anything… Y’know, like big words.” He chuckled and started heading away, although he noticed a nearby shelf with a bunch of books out of order, so he ended up pausing there and, with a big, frustrated sigh, began putting them back in place. Why couldn’t anybody put these back in the right place?

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“Sorry, you’re gonna have to do better than just synonyms for the same blasted thing.” Gene knew he wasn’t the best in English, but he at least knew what those words meant. Granted, he wouldn’t have been able to pick them out of the sky like Kodi did, but he did know them.

Gene rolled his eyes at the boy’s smug boast. Yeah, if he was smart, he wasn’t exactly proving it by bragging about it. “Uh-huh….and…are you trying to show off? Did your mommy not give you enough praise for it when you were growing up?” That might explain why he sought it in others. “How sad. I suppose I should pity you for that.” Gene’s grandmother said the less fortunate always deserved pity, because they would never reach their level no matter how hard they tried to crawl up that wall. This ignorant dope just proved her point.

Not just angry…but a multitude of other things as well, none of which Gene would advertise. This guy wasn’t good enough to know about them. “If you’re so smart,” he started with a sneer, “why don’t you read a book on colorology and figure it out yourself.” This guy was annoying, which was unsettling the thin boy, making it harder for him to keep his aura hidden. This stupid power. More like a curse, he thought.

At least the boy stopped talking. Gene took the moments of silence to calm himself, or at least get a better handle on his irritation. It was unfortunate that the guy didn’t just leave, but he supposed as long as he wasn’t talking to him, that was just fine. A few minute of flipping through the pages of the comic and Gene decided on his purchase. Well…almost. He ducked back into the stacks to retrieve another book he’d had his eye on for the past while, but was just too preoccupied with other things to get. Maybe he also wanted to get it to prove to the other guy he wasn’t an ‘ignoramus’. When he emerged, Gene glanced to the attendant. “I’m ready to check out now. If that’s not too, too hard for you, of course.” Gene wouldn’t wait for a response and simply stride up to the counter and wait, expectantly. He was a customer, after all. It was this guy’s job to serve him.

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Kodi bit back a retort, but his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. This was why he didn’t usually talk like he was as smart as he was, because it always seemed to backfire in his face. The quip about his mom was especially touchy, and his glare probably made that obvious. “I don’t want your pity, you fucking twerp,” he snapped. “How old’re you, anyway? Twelve?” He was tall, so Kodi doubted it, but the guy talked like he was barely a teenager. Fuck… If Kodi wasn’t working, he would really knock the attitude out of this kid. Violently.

The comment about reading up about this ‘colorology’ stuff made Kodi’s eyebrow raise in interest. “Y’know what? I will. So next time I see your scrawny ass in here, I’ll know exactly what your cloud-shit means.” That oughta wipe the smug grin off of the guy’s face. Kodi would use his intelligence to his advantage for once – maybe it would actually pay off. He’d never even heard of this colorology, though, so he might have to do some library searching to find some books on the subject.

He supposed he could just ask google, but Kodi was a traditionalist – he liked having paper between his fingers, not just a screen in front of him.

But whatever, he needed to work, not let this twiggy excuse for a human being get on his nerves. Kodi ignored whatever he was doing now for the most part, instead focusing his attention on getting the books put back in alphabetical order by the authors’ last name. He barely glanced over when the kid disappeared in the shelves, only hoping that he wasn’t going to make a big mess or something out of spite. Kodi began to wonder if he’d just left, when the twerp reappeared from the shelves, and he groaned internally. “Of course, sir, that’s my job,” he replied with false cheer and a false smile. Ugh. Kodi shuffled behind the counter and started scanning the items he’d picked. His brow rose when he saw the book, and the dentokinetic glanced up in mild surprise. “An imbecile like you can really comprehend somethin’ like this?” he commented dryly as he rang up the guy’s purchase and told him what he owed. “Wow, color me impressed.” Not really. He was just being moody. “Anythin’ else I can do for you today, sir?”

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“I’m not telling you,” he countered, not at all like a child. It wasn’t that Gene had any shame or embarrassment for being only seventeen, simply that he didn’t like this person and wanted to make things difficult for him as much as possible.

Gene was almost afraid that the guy would actually do what he suggested and look up a book on colorology and auras. That would be inconvenient for Gene if he learned what it was he was looking at on the younger boy, but Gene also wasn’t going to take back his challenge. Because at the same time, it was interesting to him to see if the guy could/would actually do it. Gene doubted it. Only loopy new agey people bothered looking at those sort of books, and Gene assumed this guy had too much pride to invest any time in something as abstract and ridiculous as aura reading. “Good,” he said with an interested smirk. “I hate having to explain things that someone could just as easily look up on google on their iphone. Then again, you probably don’t have an iphone.” Too poor. Sad sad.

Gene both didn’t want to have to deal with this guy anymore and wanted to see him humbled into the station he deserved. A bookstore attendant. Great whoop. This was probably the best this guy would ever achieve, especially with that attitude, not to mention his style of dress. Gene wanted this guy to know just how much better the taller, younger, more sophisticated (richer!) boy was than him. Hence why he insisted that he check him out on his purchase. “Then do your job, hurry it up,” he said boredly. “Better not keep me waiting.” Gene kept the smirk on his lips as he watched as the punk looked down in awe at Gene’s choice of reading. “Of course I can,” he replied smugly. “It’s just a book. Words on a page. It isn’t that hard.” As in, it wasn’t some great accomplishment one needed to boast over, like he suspected this punk would. Gene didn’t like the guy’s tone though, still obviously patronizing him. Whatever.

Gene frowned and pulled out his wallet. “No, I think that’ll be all…sir,” he said in response to Kodi’s ‘pleasantries’. He pulled out a bill and set it on the counter. “This should cover it,” he said dully. Then he leaned it, giving Kodi yet one more smirk of victory. “Keep the change. You’ll probably need it.”

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Maybe this guy was a young teenager and just went through puberty early. Fuck…. Nah, Kodi couldn’t believe that. Some people were really just that childish and impudent, he supposed (look who’s talking). But he was very well intending on doing some deep research into this shit, just to spite the guy (see, he wasn’t always all that mature either). Kodi was already pretty wary and skeptical about aura-reading stuff, but since it was right there in front of him, it was pretty hard to dismiss. “Why would I need a shitty, overpriced piece of plastic anyway?” he replied dryly, unintentionally admitting that, no, he didn’t have a smartphone. “Unlike most people these days, I know how to fuckin’ remove myself from a screen.” He did get pretty irritated at all the people he passed by on a regular basis that seemed to be glued to their personal devices. He hoped he was never that dependent on technology.

On the contrary, Kodi was about two seconds away from saying to hell with his job and beating the shit out of this kid for all of his stupid, childish nonsense. His head pounded; fuck, he was still so hungover, no wonder he was so on edge. He sucked in a deep, quiet breath through his nose in an attempt to calm himself as he checked out the items. “What’re you gonna do, snap a whip at me if I make you late for your mani-pedi appointment?” Kodi snorted, eyeing the guy up and down disdainfully. Fucking pretty boys. He hated them (mostly because they did things to his loins that he didn’t want to admit). “’Course it ain’t, anyone with two eyes an’ a brain can read a fuckin’ book,” he replied scornfully. “Wasn’t sure if you had the latter of those things.” He still wasn’t convinced, really.

“Good, then I’ll let you get on your way an’ outta the store,” he grunted, taking the money with a dull glare. As in, leave now or else. He was about to start getting the necessary change when the kid leaned in and spoke again, and Kodi glowered at him, unimpressed. “You’re right, I prob’ly will, t’get my eyes bleached an’ ears cleaned out from your being here,” he sniffed.  He tried to hide how his eyes had widened in astonishment at how large the bill was - of course the kid was a rich prick.  No wonder he was such an asshole.  Kodi picked up the books and shoved them harshly into the boy’s chest. “Please do come again,” he finished sarcastically, with a shark-toothed smile.

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“If you think it’s just a piece of plastic, then you really are stupider than I thought,” he said with a bored sigh. Gene had a smartphone, and he wasn’t constantly attached to its screen, unlike most people. That was just outright uncivilized. That wasn’t to say he wouldn’t rather play games on the touchscreen than talk to people like this fail of a customer service rep here, but Gene had the sense to leave those sorts of activities for when he was at home. If he was always lost in his phone, then it was too easy for him to be surprised. Gene hated surprises.

“That’s none of your business,” he pointed out, rolling his eyes. His appointment was on Thursday, in any case. “It’s the principle of the thing,” he explained with a sour glare. I’m the customer, and you’ve been nothing but rude to me from the moment we started speaking. If you’re not going to do your job, then you may as well not have one.” That was a threat, in case you missed it. It would give Gene a great amount of amusement to know that this guy was fired over a justified complaint from Gene. He was still trying to decide if that’s what he wanted to do. Meh, he could call later, it didn’t have to be done right now. “Sorry to disappoint you,” he said. After all, if he didn’t have a brain, he’d be dead. Just like those zombies who needed self-help ‘how to live’ books. Remembering that brought up a smirk to Gene’s lips.

Gene shook his head, scoffing at the other boy’s continued rudeness. “If that’s what you need to do to feel worth something, then so be it.” Gene took his books, stepping backwards slightly at how hostilely they’d been pushed at him. “You can count on it,” he replied, returning the smile with a slim one of his own. “Goodbye~” Gene turned and stepped out of the establishment, satisfied with his purchase. He wasn’t so sure about his overall experience, however. It had been interesting, at least. Gene was definitely going to come by again.

It should also be noted that the strip of toilet paper was still stuck to and dragging from the sole of his shoe.