Rrrrrrragequit

Fernando's #1 Fan had been absent for roughly a month, which suited him just fine. He had a business to run and could do with fewer distractions eating up a great deal of his time.

So she stopped showing up for a while, and life was good.

Then one evening, out of the blue, she reappears at the store as Fernando is in a conversation with Ronaldo, one of his D&D players. He finds out from Ronaldo later that she slumped upon the floor out of Fernando's sight in a dejected heap. Soon Ronaldo departs, and she bounds up to the counter and proceeds to give Fernando a quick run-down of the things going on in her life.

Some of these topics are of an illegal nature, and to complicate matters further other customers are browsing the store while she relates this gossip. This makes things a mite awkward for Fernando. Then, compounding this awkwardness, she proceeds to invite Fernando to a bonfire she is hosting the upcoming week; when Fernando politely declines and is about to suggest that she leave, she comments that he would look much cuter without glasses. She waltzes out before Fernando can say anything in response.

Fernando decides later that evening (roughly a minute or two after her departure) that this shit needs to stop.

The following day, she returns to the store and immediately begins talking to Fernando about sushi. As the store is completely empty at this point, he cuts her off so he can say what needs to be said with minimal embarrassment to her.

“I think we need to have a discussion about the sort of relationship that ought to exist between the two of us.”

“Um...ok?”

“Point one: The stuff you were telling me about getting high and drunk with your friends last weekend? I don't need to know that. I especially don't need to hear that when there are other people in the store. I have a business reputation to uphold and I don't need people overhearing things like that. That's how rumors get started, and I won't tolerate my reputation being tarnished by them.”

“I'm sorry. I guess I need to have some more restraint, I guess....” she says, looking pouty and apologetic. Fernando does not let this sway him.

“Second: You seem to have the idea that there exists a non-business relationship between us. That isn't the case. That cannot and will not be the case. I'm like a decade older than you, we have zero life-interests in common, and I, again, have a business to maintain. Based on the comments about being hotter without glasses you made to me yesterday, it seems like you have some weird crush on me for some reason. That won't work out because, like I said, I'm a decade older than you and we have nothing really in common aside from the fact that I own a video store and you sometimes rent and watch movies.”

“Well, you know what?” she yells in a sudden fit of anger, “I hate to burst your bubble, but I'm not even into you! Deuces!” And she flips Fernando off British-style, storms out of the store, gets into her car, and tears out of the parking lot at about forty miles an hour.

Job well done.