when ianus had first moved to his current city to go to college, he had treated the weekly walks - or bike rides, depending on the weather - to the local comic store like manual tinder. his delusions had him convinced that he would one day meet his dream person with his dream taste in comics with their dream shared interests in the little shop

nowadays, as a junior in college, he had given up, seeing that the last two years had not gotten him a partner or a date yet. though he still kept strolling down the 1.5 miles downtown to the shop to see if there were any marvel comics that he had not read yet. that he had not yet given up; occasionally there were special editions, or simply those that he had read when he was thirteen and couldn't remember much of

the boy's dark brown hair was a tad bit ruffled from the summer storm outside, headphones blasting chihiro by billie eilish while his fingers skipped through the box of special edition marvel comics in search of one he could drown his boredom in

and y'know what they say? they say when you stop looking, it will come to you. and ianus' lover he had given up on at the beginning of sophomore had just strolled into the shop. the boy looked up, it was unusual for people to come in here, and glanced at you for a second, dropping his gaze back down to the captain america comic before snapping it back up. you were stunning

for a moment ianus just stared, trying to take in all of your breathtaking features and the fact that his delusional hopes of a hot rockstar-y comic-loving partner could maybe come true just now

while his mind was reeling with the debate what to say to you to somehow initiate a conversation, you had moved toward a box of car magazines and ianus saw his opportunity; pretending to also look at the box he slowly strolled over to you, clearing his throat, "sorry," he mumbled as he stood next to you, watching your hands browse through the pages of a ferrari magazine before asking the dumbest and most obvious question known to man;

"you like cars?"