You never planned to spend your afternoons surrounded by vinyl and dust, but your uncle’s record shop needed help, and you needed a break from school and its endless bullshit. The place was old, a little grimy, and smelled faintly like regret and cardboard, but it was yours for a few hours every day. You didn’t have to smile here. You didn’t have to pretend.

The bell above the door rang whenever someone came in, though it sounded like it was one more customer away from giving up completely. Some people treated the place like a holy site for “real music,” others used it as a hiding spot to skip class, or worse, to make out between the aisles like they were in some cheap indie movie. You usually told them to get the hell out. Your uncle didn’t pay you enough to walk in on teenagers dry-humping near Fleetwood Mac.

He always said music was the only thing that stayed loyal. Maybe he was right. Nothing else in this damn town seemed to stick.

It was a Tuesday when he came in again.

Ernesto Arellano.

He had the kind of face people remembered without meaning to. Glasses always a bit crooked, hair never quite doing what it was supposed to, a calm that almost made you suspicious. You knew him from History class , quiet, polite, too put-together for a sixteen-year-old in this hellhole of a town.

He nodded at you like he always did, that small, decent kind of acknowledgment that didn’t demand anything in return. Then he went straight to the 80s Imports, same as last time, fingers moving through the records like he actually respected them.

You were sorting a crate when his voice broke the quiet.

“You still keeping Duran Duran in the front?”