A Bin for the Dragon 🗑️🐉

Rocky First Time Meeting.

It had been quite a slow day for poor Vincent, as he wandered around the local shopping mall in search for a new job. He sighed hopelessly as he clutched the strap of his satchel and looked at different store windows for available openings, but to no avail. As he was ready to sit at a nearby bench and sulk, he noticed one particular store on his right. He then went closer to it and saw that there was an opening for a new employee to handle restocking. Vincent's eyes lit up with excitement as he was getting ready to walk through the doorway, being completely oblivious as to what kind of store it actually was. However, he stopped in his tracks as his nerves began to hit him like a fast running train. Many thoughts passed through his mind, causing him to overthink the worst possibilities if he walked into the store.

"Maybe...I should just cut my loses here and now. Someone's probably already in there for the job. They probably have lots of work experience too, while I'm an absolute noob. What if....what if...."

Before his inner voice could torment him any longer, a vivid sound of heavy footsteps approached from just behind his back. As the steps stopped, a deep raspy voice soon followed, making the boy quake in his knees.

"Hey um, ya don't plan on standing in front of the door all day, do ya?"

Vincent jolted as he frantically moved to the side to let whoever the person was, inside the store. He then apologized profusely as the stranger proceeded to walk in, not really paying any sort of attention to him or his words at all. However, as he got a good glance at the person, Vincent noticed that the stranger was a man who was much taller than his own stature. He also noticed his ears that were pierced with silver, and a black neck collar along with silver chains. And his clothing were quite rugged, with them being a white t-shirt with ripped off sleeves, black ripped jeans and leather boots. Lastly, was the man's hairstyle. He seemed to have very long black hair with an undercut, whilst having it in a ponytail and a single silver hairpin to keep his bangs away from his eyes.
After Vincent was done observing the man he let get past, he quickly regained focus and mustered the courage to walk inside the store for himself. As he took the first few steps in, his face was in awe at the sight of the qualities of the store. Some of the items that were sold were very gothic and grunge in nature, while others were gory and dark. This fascinated the job hunter as he curiously looked at the different shelves of accessories and clothing. Although dark themed things had never been in his interest range, he still found it so amazing how expressive and open the theme was to some individuals.
He had never been fully exposed to many differences in style before other than his own, which was a completely big contrast. Vincent was so deeply invested in the style, it was almost as if he had forgotten about his original goal when he walked into the store. As he kept on observing, the stranger from before, came up to him and lightly tapped the boy on his shoulder.

"Hey, do ya need any help in finding something specific or...?"

Vincent's focus soon shifted to the stranger who stood beside him as his intimidating height towered over him.

"O-oh, no. I was just...observing."

"Ob...serving?"

"Y-yeah. I've never seen things quite like these before in a store."

"Heh, you must be new to the area then. They have them a lot here."

Vincent gave the man a nod as he glanced at the shining name tag pinned to his clothes. It turned out that he actually worked at the store and was a front desk cashier. Upon getting a closer inspection, the man seemed to be quite buff, with a lingering scent of amber cologne coming off of his clothing. His hands were also an interesting sight with their size being enormous compared to Vincent's, his nails long, almost claw like while being polished in all black and some of his fingers wearing silver rings on them.

"You're...staring awfully hard there. See something you like, little man?"

The man chuckled as he looked down at Vincent with a clear smirk across his face, causing him to be a bit flustered on the spot. His body trembled as he tried to make a proper response.

"I-I...well...I just noticed your n-name tag."

"Ah, I see. Yeah, the name's Maven. And I'm the cashier for this small place. What do people call you?"

"Vincent...Vincent Adkins.."

"Heh, I figured it would be something posh like that. You look like the type too."

Vincent furrowed his brow at that comment, not really sure of how to feel or what to make of it. He then brushed it off and quickly regained his focus on the real reason he came into the store in the first place. He opened his satchel and pulled out some neat stapled sheets of paper with his writing on them, being his résumé, and hesitantly showed them to the cashier.

"I...saw the sign in the window...and thought that I...could apply for the spot here.."

Vincent shyly hid his face behind the paper as Maven leaned over to take a read at it carefully. He then gently snatched the sheets out of the man's hands and took a step closer towards him as he held another smirk.

"Now, I'm not any manager, but do you really think you're able to handle a place like this, little man?"

"I-I think I'm plenty qualified-"

"No, no, I don't mean that. Sure, you've got good stuff written down, but what I mean is that, maybe you're a bit too...cutesy and uptight for a store that's all emo and shit, you know."

A hint of red appeared on Vincent's cheeks as his lips pouted at this man's pure audacity and judgment. He then snatched his résumé back and carefully put it into his satchel. Maven held his chuckles back as he witnessed Vincent's somewhat adorable display of annoyance.

"Starting to think...I should have kept blocking the entrance for you..."

"Hehe, is that so? And yet, you didn't, little man~"

Maven's lips leaned close and whispered with snark into Vincent's ear, making him yelp and flinch with both his palms covering his reddened ears. To get out of the embarrassment, he promptly walked away from the smug cashier and tried to find his way to the store's manager. Even though he knew he had to deal with Maven's arrogance in the long run, he was still determined to at least get that open spot for the restock job.

End of 1. 🥰