Max turned off his phone and put it back into his pocket and then walked towards the edge of the shop. As he got closer to the edge, he turned towards Jason and motioned at him with his right arm
Words didn’t need to be said. Jason already knew he was calling for him and he walked over towards him, no questions asked
Not like he could ask any even if he wanted to
As Jason got to the edge, they squared up beside each other side by side for a couple of seconds.
Max first pulled out his phone and then wrapped his arm around Jason’s neck from the side and pulled him in closer to him
"Boy." Max turned the phone around so Jason could see his own note glowing back at him.
"You begged me for twelve dollars."
"I didn’t beg."
"You said ’be gentle.’"
"That’s not begging. That’s asking...in a nice tone."
"That’s begging with extra steps." Max was fully grinning now, delighted with himself.
"I’ve never had a customer plead with me in the memo line before. You’ve set a new standard."
"I’m happy to be a pioneer."
Max laughed, shaking his head, and something in Jason’s chest finally cracked loose, the tension he’d been hauling around since the door swung shut behind Sarah.
He’d survived technically. Phone fixed, $168 gone, twelve dollars still owed, and Max didn’t look remotely bothered by any of it.
"You’re not gonna hold my phone hostage over twelve bucks, are you?"
Max gave him a look. "Why would I do that?"
"Seems like a reasonable business strategy."
"Get out of my shop."
"Fair." Jason didn’t want to push the conversation any further
Jason turned away from Max and headed back toward Sarah, still half-buzzing with disbelief.
I actually pulled that off
Sarah was standing a little farther off, tilting her head at a wall display of gadgets like it was the most important decision she’d make all week.
Of course she’s the type who gets genuinely invested in phone case displays
He filed that observation away in the growing folder labeled things this girl does that I find unreasonably charming, a folder that was getting embarrassingly full for one afternoon. If she sneezed three times in a row right now, he had a suspicion he’d find that adorable too.
He needed to get a grip.
"Sarah."
No response.
"Sarah!"
She turned, blinking like she was surfacing from somewhere else entirely
"Oh. Are we done?"
"Yeah. Let’s go."
Her whole face brightened. "Finally."
She fell into step beside him, already curious
"So? What’d you and Max talk about?"
"Nothing."
She gave him a look.
"Okay, not nothing. Just finalizing the payment."
"For that long?"
There is no version of this where I explain that I emptied my bank account and begged your phone repairman to let me owe him twelve dollars in the memo line
"Just some remark talk"
"Remark talk?" She squinted like he’d started speaking a second language.
"Remark-type remarks."
"That’s not a thing."
"Sure it is."
"No, it’s not."
"It is now."
She laughed under her breath and shook her head. "You are so weird."
"Thank you."
"That wasn’t a compliment."
"I’ll take it anyway."
He got to the door first this time and held it open. "After you."
She slipped past him, and just before he followed, he turned back to find Max already watching, wearing the exact expression of a man who suspected he was about to be quoted.
"You’re a good man," Jason told him, with just enough of a smile to make clear he meant it.
"Get out of here, you little chump."
The door swung shut on Max’s laughter. Jason caught up to Sarah outside, grinning in a way he didn’t bother hiding.
The walk back went easier than the one out. They talked the whole way, nothing important, the conversation wandering without either of them tracking where it went.
At some point she said something that got a real laugh out of him, not the polite obligatory kind, an actual one and she pointed at him triumphantly.
"See! You do laugh."
"I’ve never denied laughing."
"You barely did it today."
"I’ve been busy."
"Busy doing what?"
"Surviving."
"You’re so dramatic."
"I’m realistic."
"There’s a difference."
"Not in my experience."
He was still smiling when her building came into view, the same entrance she’d stepped out of hours ago, back when this had technically started as a favor and somehow turned into an entire evening.
We’re already here
He checked his phone
8:47 PM, nearly nine.
The whole day had disappeared somewhere between a workout, cracked screen, a repair shop, a café, one deeply questionable financial decision, and a conversation he hadn’t expected to have.
The phone repair date, if that’s even what this had been, had officially reached its natural end. Weirdly, he didn’t hate the thought.
That was when the panel appeared.
[SPECIAL REQUEST]
He stopped walking. The system had never dressed anything up as a special request
Every previous message had shown up looking like a chore list. This one arrived with something closer to ceremony, which immediately made him suspicious.
The panel expanded.
[Hug Sarah before you part ways]
[Reward: $500]
Jason stared at it until the number stopped reading as a number and just became a shape.
Five hundred dollars for a hug.
A standard, two-arms, brief-squeeze hug. The kind people gave cousins at family gatherings.
Okay, first of all rude of you to make this sound easy
He glanced at Sarah.
That was the actual problem, not the hug itself, but the fact that it was her turned a two-second gesture into what felt suspiciously like defeating Superman framed by the universe as a casual errand.
"Seriously?" he muttered.
Sarah glanced over. "Hm?"
"Nothing." He looked away fast, back to the panel, which had not moved, softened, or developed any sympathy for his situation in the intervening three seconds.
For the first time all evening, Jason found himself facing a problem that money couldn’t solve. Somehow, that made the five hundred dollars floating in front of him feel even more impossible than the daily workout quest he had to face tomorrow.
"Well..." Sarah said, her voice pulling him back to the surface before he’d finished a single complete thought
"...guess this is where the phone repair ends."
Already?
He could’ve sworn the walk had left him more time than that, apparently his brain had budgeted for a leisurely existential crisis and gotten interrupted halfway through the first paragraph
"Yeah. I guess it does."
"For what it’s worth..." She rocked slightly on her heels, hands finding their way behind her back.
"....I was a little worried you weren’t having fun. But I actually saw you laugh. Like, a real one. Just the once, but it counts." She said it like she’d been keeping score all evening and was pleased to report a final tally.
"So. Mission accomplished, I guess."
"Glad I could perform adequately."
"That’s not what I meant."
"I know. I’m deflecting. It’s a skill."
That got a small laugh out of her, and then her hand came out from behind her back in a short, easy wave
"Bye, Jason."
She turned to go.
That was when the panel flared back to life in front of him, insistent, refusing to be ignored this time.
[Hug Sarah]
[Reward: $500]
And beneath it, his balance flashing, unprompted, like the system had decided he needed the full weight of the number to actually understand the stakes.
Account Balance: $0.43
Forty-three cents. He had forty-three cents to his name and a girl currently walking away from him worth five hundred dollars in hug form, and something about seeing that number in stark, humiliating detail did what three separate pep talks from his own brain hadn’t managed. It made the decision for him.
"Sarah."
She turned back fast, quicker than the moment strictly called for, like some part of her had already been waiting for him to say it.
Jason crossed the distance before he could think better of it, closing his hands gently around her shoulders.
"I had a really good time today," he said, and meant every word of it more than he’d expected to
"I want to do this again. More days like this one. Even with all the... " he tipped his head back toward the direction of Max’s shop, toward the whole disaster of an afternoon
"....everything. It was good. You made it good."
Then, before either of them could turn it into something more awkward than it needed to be, he pulled her into a hug.
She went still for half a second. Surprise, maybe, or something else before her arms came up slowly and settled around him, her hands finding the back of his jacket. He could feel her breathing change, quick and then deliberately slower, like she was working to steady it.
The evening air had gone cool around them, but she was warm, and for a few seconds neither of them moved, the whole street reduced to the small distance between his shoulder and her cheek.
He held on maybe a beat longer than a friendly hug required. Neither of them seemed to be counting.
Then he stepped back, hands sliding off her shoulders, and cleared his throat like that might disguise how long it had lasted.
"Night, Sarah."
She didn’t say anything right away. She just stood there arms still faintly curved from where they’d been around him, like her body hadn’t caught up with the fact that the hug was over and it took a second before she managed a small wave and an equally small,
"...Night."
Jason turned and started walking, hands sliding into his sweater pocket, doing an admirable job of not looking back even once.
Behind him, Sarah remained on the sidewalk a moment longer than the goodbye required, watching him go, still not entirely sure her legs had gotten the message that it was time to move.
"Ah. I can’t believe that just happened" she gasped