Truth Be Told

Some said that when someone is staring at you, within a few seconds your brain can detect it which causes you to turn to whoever that is staring at you. Victoria believed in that because when she turned around, she saw a guy – taller than her – and what attracted Victoria the most was his hairstyle.

It was so spiky Victoria wondered how the hell he did that. Did he use a lot of hair gel? But it looked so fluffy.

Victoria assumed that he was a worker because he was wearing a red shirt with the shop’s logo and a nametag that read ‘Jaime’ with a smiley face drawn beside it. Victoria looked up to him and Jaime was still smiling, showing Victoria his dimples.

“May I help you?”

“Uh…” Victoria didn’t know how to respond to that because normally, he would come up to the workers but it was different this time because the worker was the one who came to him (and Vic actually felt pretty good about it).

Jaime was waiting patiently for the girl in front of him to respond. Girls don’t usually enter the shop alone unless they look ‘punk’ with a lot of tattoos and dyed hairs (and most of the punk girls are taken anyway) but it’s rare to find a decent girl with floral skirt staring at limited edition of guitars.

“Are you searching for any specific guitar?”

“Well actually…” Victoria was loss at words. She wasn’t usually like this. Vic was an outgoing person and he talked a lot but Jaime, somehow, intimidated him. Maybe Victoria was an alter ego of Vic. A shyer and female version of Vic. “I was wondering how much you would buy customized drums set because I am planning to sell two.”

Jaime gave Victoria a smile and then began to walk towards the drums section which caused Victoria to follow him from behind because she was confused. “Miss,” Jaime began as he stopped at the drums section. Victoria only cringed but then she remembered that he was Victoria and not Victor.

“It depends. But we usually sell it half price because it has been used, right? But if it’s still looks good and you’ve been only using it for a short time, maybe we’ll increase the price. Say, if you were to agree to sell it to us, for you, I would give a higher price,” Jaime explained and ended it with a grin.

Which to Victoria, seemed like he was trying to flirt with her.

“Well, thank you,” Victoria said and she was already planning to go home and not tell his brother about this or he would laugh at Vic nonstop.

Jaime sensed that she was about to leave so he immediately did what he can to stop her from leaving. After all, Jaime had the urge to talk to the girl in front of her. He didn’t catch her name yet, and Jaime wanted to know her name so badly because god, she looked so pretty and delicate like a flower.

“Hold on,” Jaime called, making Victoria to stop in her track. “We offer the best price; I swear you won’t regret it.”

“Um, well....” Victoria actually planned on stopping by the shop again after he had finished with this sick bet but Jaime was trying to stop her from leaving.

“Just give me your number and you can send me the pictures of the drums you were talking about. I will try my best to sell it with a high price,” Jaime offered – when actually, his purpose was just to get her number.

Jaime took out a small notebook and pen from his pocket, which was actually a notebook given to the store manager and every employee need one in case of emergency. Jaime thought that it was stupid because who needed a notebook for emergency? Do you actually turn down a fire by using a notebook? But now Jaime understood the purpose of keeping the small notebook (that is, to write a girl’s phone number when she was about to leave.)

“Here, you can write it down.”

Victoria uncomfortably took the notebook and pen and scribbled her number. While she was writing down her number, Jaime was staring at her the whole time it actually made her squirmed. When she was about to finish writing the last number, Jaime quickly added, “and oh, your name too. You know, just in case I don’t remember.”

But how could Jaime actually forget a pretty girl like her?

After done writing, Victoria returned the book and pen to Jaime.

Jaime only analyzed her number and her name. “Victoria? A pretty name for a pretty girl,” he commented aloud. Hearing his compliment, Victoria blushed because here she was, with a dude with a dumb hair trying to flirt with her, when truth be told, Victoria was a man.

“Alright, I’ll ask my boss to text you and you just have to send him high quality pictures of the drum and we can discuss about the matter when my boss agrees,” Jaime said.

Victoria thanked him and immediately walked out of the shop, feeling her skin crawl because damn it, a good looking guy actually flirted with her! And Vic wasn’t sure to feel happy and satisfied or disgusted and worried.

Vic had totally forgotten what had happened at the store as soon as he sat in front of the TV to play video games. It was then a few hours later when Mike finally got home and went to living room and complained loudly how it was dumb and stupid and he shouldn’t have betted for his drums.

“How can no one actually realize that you’re a fucking man for fuck’s sake? How can no one actually see your balls through the soft material?! Wow, this is just shitty and dumb and stupid!! This is unfair!!” Mike whined, pacing around the room with his hands moving around, describing how annoyed he was feeling.

Vic smirked. With eyes glued to the TV and thumbs moving swiftly as he pressed on the controller, he said, “hah! Told you I could also be a girl!!”

Mike slouched on the couch, mumbling curse words. He was feeling unsatisfied with everything and Mike tend to destroy things when he felt discontented. And what was he trying to destroy? Vic’s source of joy.

With his long arms, he managed to grab the controller from Vic’s hand (by that time, Vic was too surprised and he was screaming for Mike to give it back to him but no, his little brother was way taller than him that he actually had to stand on the couch to take it back but Mike was also already standing on the couch) and purposely let the online challenger win.

“No, no, no, no,” Vic cried as he was losing a lot of points because of Mike. Mike only laughed at his brother’s misery while he stretched out his arm as far as possible so Vic couldn’t get the controller.

Within a few seconds, the game ended and the screen showed that Player HTHESLAYER had won by 5 points more which made Vic punched his brother abdomen furiously. Mike was laughing and he immediately fell to the ground with a loud wince when Vic punched him.

Vic took the controller out of Mike’s hand and sat in front of the TV, ignoring his brother’s cries of pain.

At every end of the game, the players were given time to communicate to each other before deciding to start a new game or went online.

VICTOR10: damn it, my fuckin brother took my controller
HTHESLAYER: I won becuz of him. thank him for me
VICTOR10: this is not fair. I demand a new game
HTHESLAYER: would love to, but I gtg. :)
VICTOR10: ok gdluck man

Vic had known HTHESLAYER for a few months. They were online friends and they’ve chatted a lot, as Vic thought that HTHESLAYER is a better friend than his own brother. Vic had other online friends that played the same game as him but HTHESLAYER would be the closes to him as they always challenged each other.

Annoyed by the noises his brother had made, Vic turned around to find Mike holding his stomach with his eyes closed, as if Vic’s punch would turn his intestines upside down. Vic rolled his eyes, remembering that it was also because of Mike he got interested in the game. If it wasn’t for Mike recommending him the game, he wouldn’t even want to sit in front of a TV and stayed up at night just to play some stupid game.