Two hours before the dealer’s hall opened, Elias rushed around with his best friend to set up their boss’ booth. Despite Menthol City’s rather high crime rate, their Comic Convention was one of the biggest, attracting attendees from all over—even other countries! Renting the space was a hefty price, but Blue Jay’s Comics made the most sales at the event every year, so it was well worth the sacrifice.

Probably also helped that the big Hero Corp. was located at the heart of the city, too.

“Are you sure that’s the last one?” Adino said in his smooth, silk-like voice. He was sitting on top of a cardboard box behind the fold-up party table Elias had just spread a black tablecloth across.

“Yes, I’m ‘sur—’” Elias put his hands on both hips and snapped at his bestie, head thrusted to the side. But the realization that Adino was sitting on a box came later than he would’ve liked to admit.

“Dino!” Elias groaned and dropped his hands to hang by his sides. “You’re literally sitting on the box I need! Get your ass up and use the stool we brought.”

“But it’s so smaaaall,” Adino whined and pouted. 

Elias rolled his eyes. “It’s wide enough for you to sit on, so stop complaining.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it’s comfortable,” Adino snickered and swatted at Elias when he pushed at his bestie’s back. “Okay, I’ll get up! No need to be aggressive.”

“The only thing aggressive right now is your attitude.”

Adino jumped up and stretched his arms as he crossed one leg over the other. Elias ignored the shit-eating grin his bestie turned to give him and scooped up the box he’d been perched on.

“You know there are also chairs the venue has for us to use,” Elias said as he hefted the box up onto the clothed table. “Why don’t you make yourself useful by grabbing a few for us instead of standing around and judging me, huh?”

“Wooooow,” Adino said with a few slow claps. “Sure thing, ‘boss!’”

If you actually put in some effort, maybe I wouldn’t have to play ‘boss,’ Elias thought with a frown. Adino would just play around on his phone and watch him do all the setup work if Elias didn’t press him. So, he planned to have Adino man the stand the most since he’d already done the brunt of the work bringing in all the hefty boxes from Jay’s store van.

“By the way,” Elias said with a playful smirk as Adino walked off. “Did I tell you your outfit looks like Halloween and the Ren Faire threw up on each other?”

“Oh no, I think not,” Adino about-faced and clicked his tongue, flipping his purple-dyed hair behind him. “I’m going to rip those shitty snake bites right from your lips!” he roared and stomped over to where Elias still stood, six-inch heels be damned, and his hands raised up like a bear coming in for the attack. Considering the length of Adino’s stiletto acrylics, they very well could be claws.

“Can’t catch this!” Elias zipped around the other side of the table and laughed when Adino stumbled.

“Boys,” came the gruff voice of their actual boss, Jay, from behind Elias. “Now is this any way to set up a booth? We’re gonna miss some sales if we’re still fumbling around when the doors open.”

“I’d argue this is a very effective method, boss,” Adino smirked, now leaning against the inner side of the table for their stand. “We get to exercise and blow off steam before sitting on our asses all day and night.”

Elias turned around to face their actual boss, lips pursed. The tall man was almost directly behind the twenty-two-year-old, his thick arms crossed over a Blue Jay’s Comics T-shirt. Elias sucked on the inside of one of his snake bite piercings and stared at the concrete flooring of the venue’s dealer hall. There were a couple cracks in the floor, but that came as no surprise to Elias considering where they lived.

“Mmn,” Jay hummed, eyes hidden behind the shine of his glasses. “And unboxing the merchandise will give you a better exercise. So get to it.”

“Yes, sir!” Adino knocked his knees together and saluted the boss. 

The joy already felt like it’d been sucked from the air, so Elias muttered a small apology and went straight for the box labeled “booth frame.” Adino followed suit and they worked together to set up the store’s signpost in relative silence.

Another hour went by before they were finished putting up the best comics on display and laying out the boxes in alphabetical order along the left side table. They also had smaller merchandise hung up along the sides of the signpost frame. The right side table was covered with an array of trading cards that ranged from Magic the Gathering to Weiß Schwarz, Elias’ personal favorite to collect and play. There was also a back part of their booth that they separated with a black curtain hung along poles, much like a frame for a tent. Behind those curtains were boxes of Jay’s mature comics. Elias and Adino had to ID the customers that wished to see those comics, but the boss was the one who was in charge of the section as a whole.

There was still a half hour until the dealer’s hall opened up, so the boys took Jay's order and went over to the convention center’s food station to pick up a late lunch. Jay wanted them to eat now since they would have to focus on selling the merchandise through nine p.m.

“D’you think this year will be busier than last?” Adino said as the two waited in line. He broke their unspoken silence, and Elias felt eternally grateful for it.

“I’m hoping so,” Elias sighed. “As cool as Jay is, I don’t think I can take his awkward staring today.”

“Oh, I hate it when he does that,” Adino groaned, shifting his feet. They were almost to the front of the line, thankfully. “And he’s wearing those stupid anime glasses. Again.”

Elias laughed and shook his head. “Ever since we shared the ad with him last year, he’s been wearing them to every event.”

And around the store when he doesn’t want us to know what he’s doing, Elias thought, thinking back to the time he found Jay sitting at the backroom table, ASUS ROG in front of him and his special anime shine-over glasses donned. At the time, Elias thought he’d walked right into a horror befitting a Junji Ito story with how the ambient light flickered and swung around above, the faucet leaked, and the way his boss sat behind his laptop, lunch-meat sandwich squished in one hand and lips pursed. The atmosphere was too on-point for Elias, so he returned to the front desk in a hurry.

“Yeah, and they’re fucking creepy,” Adino shivered, rubbing at his arms and all despite having long bell sleeves. “As long as there’s no lag time today, it’ll be fine, but I swear I’m going to yank them off his face myself if there is and he stares too long. I always know when he’s staring.”

The time to order had come and, ten minutes later, they were walking back to their booth with a basket of mild wings and onion rings for Jay. Adino had purchased a large caesar salad for himself, and Elias picked out a carton of two chicken fajitas. Their boss brought a cooler of various pop cans, and both flavored water and plain, so there was no need for them to buy drinks.

They spent the remaining twenty minutes eating their meals in turns and placing bets on how fast the most expensive comics were going to sell. Jay sat inside the “smut room,” as Elias and Adino expected him to do. He paid the boys to play the nice customer service role for a reason.

“Big Jay’s already in the booth,” Elias said after wiping his mouth with a napkin.

“Good!” Adino clapped his hands. “He’s better off back in his hidey-hole, anyway. Let’s hope he stays there until closing time.”

“You’re terrible,” Elias cackled and Adino flipped his long hair behind him with a cheeky grin.

The hour-early VIP pass crowd started to trickle in, so Elias scooped up Adino’s empty salad bowl and walked to the trash bin. The first half of attendees gathered around the booths closer to the door, leaving Adino sitting in bliss for the whopping two minutes it took Elias to leave and come back. He readjusted his chair to face the other side of the booth and sat down. Adino had already pulled out the Square card reader, so all they had to do was wait for the convention attendees to come their way.

“This is going to be such a drag,” Adino sighed, orange iPhone 20 Pro Max already in his hands.

Five minutes was all it took for the first batch of potential customers to come over to their stand, eyes wide and mouths agape. And the first few hours flew by in a jiffy with how crowded their stand quickly became. Quite a few people ogled Jay’s mint condition, signed copy of the first “Flash Comics” issue, but not one of them dared to place a bid. The starting amount was set for $400,000, which was $50,000 less than the comic’s usual sticker price, but Elias still didn’t blame them.

And yet no attendee was weirder than the old man in a Disney villain-themed Christmas sweater, who had stopped by their stand during a brief lull in the first general admission wave.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧