"You really gonna come in on that line, Vi?" The kind, albeit crass voice shocked the young woman who lay resting her head on the counter to an almost alert stature.
Her dark lens glasses shielded the blue haired girl's eyes from the pudgy man behind the counter, but he felt confident enough to assume she was paying attention. "I mean... Yeah, relationships and that jazz work good with a little light humor... Least I think so," Maybe he wasn't the right guy to be talking about relationships, but he digressed, "But for Octavia and you? No offence, but she don't seem like the kind of girl that likes off-the-cuff jokes."
Vinyl Scratch, a regular to Joe's shop and who had only recently been spinning her ideas to the owner, shrugged her slim shoulders and took a small relieving spin on her stool. "It's not about the joke, Joe. The joke is just a part of the arpeggio I'll be building up," Glancing at Joe, she knew she lost him, judging by the confused expression he gave her. "It means it's just a piece of the pie I'll be givin' her."
"Ah..." After Joe nodded, he bustled out a small basket of rolls and placed them before the woman still twirling on her stool.
Vinyl slowed herself down as her hidden eyes caught sight of her order. Slowing to a halt, she began to pick at the rolls, looking for the ones at the bottom. Finally, she found the gold, the one roll pressed against the the base of the crinkled wrapping which lined the interior of the basket. "Vi, why don't you ever eat the ones at the top?"
"Because the bread on the bottom is always the warmest and fluffiest of course," Vinyl remarked as she took a large chunk of the roll in her mouth and gobbled it down. "Sure I gotta pay for the dozen when I only eat the two good ones at the bottom, but why screw up a good system?" Though wet crumbs sprayed across the counter, Joe only smiled and chuckled to himself.
"You're one of a kind, Vinyl Scratch. One of a kind..." Joe took in a breath, taking in the sweet and warm air of his bakery before he leaned over the counter and smiled at his only costumer at the moment. "Mind if I be nosey?"
Vinyl chewed down what remained of her roll and gulped it down audibly before leaning in herself. "How nosey are we talking?"
In that moment, Joe uttered a question that Vinyl should have expected, she just wasn't sure if she wanted to. "You think she's ready?"
Read?. Vinyl's fingers rolled against the counter, crumbs from the rolls clinging to the fabric of her finger-less gloves. Ready? Normally she would have twiddled her crystal necklace, cursing now that she left it at home. Ready... "Ready, huh? Well... Yeah, I'm ready."
"I didn't ask if you were ready..." Joe's smile grew.
"Heh, oh, right," She knew; they both knew she knew. "Ready or not..." Joe was a bit surprised by Vinyl's next action. He watched as one of her fingers went up to her glasses and lowered them ever-so slightly, letting her odd-colored eyes show for a rare time in public. "After today, the two of us will still be living like yesterday..." Vinyl's glasses popped back up to the bridge of her nose as she shot a cocky smirk.
The two returned to their previous statures, only now Joe looked befuddled by the last statement he heard. "After today..."
"We'll be like yesterday," Vinyl finished with a flat paraphrase, popping another bite of a warm roll between her lips.
"What's that mean?" Vinyl had been walking into Joe's shop for almost two years now, ordering the same thing every time and spouting off the same topics. Usually these visits ending with an odd saying that Joe just had to know the meaning of.
"It's kinda simple, kinda not," Vinyl's muffled words came out as she mulled down her bite. "Answer this first: can you change yesterday?"
"I can't... But I can name a few people who could give you a run for your money on that." Vinyl nodded at the comment with a snickering gulp.
"Bet you could. But normally, no, you can't change yesterday. So what 'We'll be like yesterday' means is pretty much 'we'll be bound forever in history and time'... Sounds pretty creepy like that though, so I don't say it like that. You follow?"
"I follow," It was best to say that rather than have Vinyl try to explain it more. Joe had grown to at least figure that out. "If she isn't ready, you can always talk your way out of it, right?"
"Talk my way out of anything with Octavia?" Vinyl nearly fell over with a coming laugh before she suppressed it. "Talking your way around Octavia is like breakdancing through a minefield... Sure it'll get the blood flowing and be awesome if you get through, but you'll live longer if you go around it or build a bridge. Probably take almost three years to finish that bridge, but at least you didn't blow your legs off, right?" Joe just nodded. Why question the logic or lack-there-of?
"Do you have that bridge plan worked out as a back up plan?"
"Back up plans are for saps who don't plan out their moves!" The final clump of roll rolled between Vinyl's lips after saying those 'words of insight'.
"...So you got one?"
"Not this time," Vinyl was confident with such a statement, evident by the pride in her crumb-covered smile. "I've thought this one through. I'm not charging in this time, guns blazing, pants down, half-baked; I've spent years planning this one... Two years, but that's still years, Joe. That's still a hell of a lot more time then I usually pour into anything," Vinyl loosened her shoulders, knocking the headphones she had graced against the back of her neck. "But she's worth it..."
With her two rolls done, her mind cleared, and confidence in place. Vinyl hoisted up a knapsack beside her stool to around her bare shoulder and got to her feet. Her fingers, still laced with crumbs, searched inside her tight pants and pulled out a few bits to be placed on the counter. "Well Joe... Be seein' ya'." The two exchanged a nod of thanks and welcoming between one another before Vinyl turned to depart.
On her way out, no more than halfway across the room, Joe called to her and sparked a note of hurt in her. "Stupid question, Vi... But you do have 'it' right?"
Vinyl sneered to herself before shooting around and giving the strong owner a raised middle finger and flat expression. Joe looked a bit startled by such a quick and harsh reaction, but he could understand why. Seeing and hearing all the work Vinyl had put into this plan and then just outright dismiss her on the most important note; it seemed a bit off-putting. The two looked at one another in a cold silence for some time, the warm air of the baking breads unable to temper Vinyl's cold aura.
But, just as suddenly as Vinyl's harsh expression and gesture came, it snapped away to be replaced by her body dropping a bit as if her muscles had given up on her. A deep, depressing moan escaped her as she shook her head. Joe, who had been feeling bad about his comment, felt a warming laugh build up inside him. He held it in but smiled none the less. "So..."
"I'll go get it..." Vinyl groaned in defeat.
Her feet were unable to shoulder her folly and just slid lazily against the store floor to the exit. The one person she confided in watched leave in defeat, momentarily crushed by such a massive misstep. Nonetheless, with a rag normally tucked under his workstation, he cleaned up the mess Vinyl had left behind, chuckling as he did so. "Vinyl Scratch... Gonna be a rough one to take care of... Makes me wonder why--and how--Octavia puts up with it? I mean, heh, really? 'If I could rearrange the alphabet--'?"