Peoplephobia

Chapter Three

I looked around the fiction section for a little longer and started losing hope until I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I whipped my head around, and Bree was staring at me with an eyebrow raised and a face that was saying, "What? You look like an idiot right now."
"BREE! Where were you?! I've been looking for you all over the place!"
"Excuse me? I've been in the same place this whole time."
She pointed to the girl's bathroom.
Oh.
"Um...anyway, did you get the book you want yet? I wanna go look at their manga."
"Yeah, whatever. I have everything, can we check out?" Bree started looking at her imaginary watch.
"Hey, you're the one who dragged me out here. You might as well stay here for a bit longer since you just couldn't wait another hour or two. I'm gonna look at the manga, and you're gonna come with me."
Bree whined. "I don't wanna go look at that weird stuff! It's not even in English," she said as I snatched her hand and dragged her upstairs.
"First of all Bree, don't call manga weird. It could offend someone, especially because it's part of Japanese culture. Second of all, you do know that there's a thing called a translation, right?"
Bree didn't respond.
"Ah, we're here!"
There were five double-sided bookshelves in the room. All filled with manga. Any otaku's dream.
I browsed for a while (while steering Bree away from the adult stuff) and found a few new mangas to read.
"Can we go now? I wanna read my book." Bree said, tugging on my hoodie.
"Alright fine, wait for me on the couches near the checkout aisle. Do you know how to get there? While you're at it, grab two bags of chips."
"Yay!" Bree skipped down the stairs.
I gotta hurry, I said to myself. I didn't have much time to look for more manga, but a new manga came out and it looked really interesting, so I wanted to try to find it.
I made my way to the second section and found the book I wanted.
However. I'm 5'5. And this book was way out of my reach. There weren't any stools around, which was very inconvenient.
I stood on my tiptoes and reached out as far as possible.
Suddenly a shadow grew over me, and I looked up.
Someone was right behind me, grabbing the book, almost trapping me.
I turned around.
It was the boy.
The boy who grabbed my papers.
We were almost nose to nose, except more like my head was against his chest because he was a lot taller than me.
"Uh...thanks."
"No problem. They should really get some stools out, huh?"
"Are you mocking my height?"
"Possibly."
The boy backed up a little and handed me the book.
"So, you're into like, anime and manga and stuff?"
"Oh...uh...yeah...don't tell anyone, please. Not looking to relive sixth grade."
He laughed.
"No, I get it. I like that kind of stuff too. I mean, that's the whole reason I'm here. Getting more manga. To be honest, I was hoping no one I know would be here, but that's okay, because it's you, and you like the same stuff I like."
Was that a backhanded compliment?
"Oh. Thanks?"
"Sure."
I fiddled with the pages.
We sat in silence for a little bit, until we both opened our mouths to say something.
"You can go," I mumbled, blushing a bit.
"Oh, no, that's okay, you can go!"
"Erm...could you tell me your name? So, you know, the next time I see you I have a name for the face."
"Oh, sure! My name is Kai," He said, handing me a card.
It looked like a business card.
All it had was a phone number.
"Thanks...my name is Tilly. If you didn't notice by now, I'm a girl."
"I noticed." Kai's eyes slid down from my eyes, to my neck, to my chest.
"Wait-"
Kai turned red.
"N-No that's not what I meant-"
"U-um...Thanks for grabbing my book, I gotta go drive my sister home-"
"Wait," Kai grabbed my hand.
He looked me dead in the eyes, and asked, "Will you text me later?" His face was a bit red.
Something about this felt familiar.
Ah yes. The old "Will I ever see you again?" trope. I see it in fanfictions, manga, anime, even TV shows.
I was not going to submit to the trope.
I slipped my hand out of his and forced a smile.
"I mean, yeah. Not immediately, but I'll text you later."
"Oh...okay. See you later, Tilly."
"See you."
I watched him walk downstairs until he was out of sight, I wasn't hoping to conversate with him again. Then I walked downstairs. Bree was reading her book on the couch.
"Yay, you're back!"
"Are you actually reading that book or are you just looking at the words?"
"Um..."
"Come on, I need to check out."

I'll save you the boredom of explaining the ride home.