No More Staples // Chan
Seventeen Short and Simple StoriesYou felt the weight of the leftover flyers sticking out of your messenger bag, your one hand steadying your bicycle and the other holding an empty staple gun. You stood still, staring blankly at the trunk of a tree in front of one of the houses at the edge of the town and sighed.
"Is there something wrong with our tree?" a voice asked.
You tore your eyes from the trunk and saw a boy about your age on his bike, looking back and forth from you and the tree.
"Oh. It's...I just..." you held up your stapler and smiled sheepishly, "I ran out of staples. I brought the wrong ones."
The boy furrowed his brows with a pout forming on his lips. "Well, we don't have staples for that kind of stapler," he started when his eyes lit up. "Wait here!"
He parked his bike at the side of the tree and ran back to his house. A few moments later, he came back waving a roll of tape in his hand before stopping in front of you, urging you to place a piece of flyer on the trunk. He snipped off fat pieces of tape, pressing them hard on the paper's corners and smoothed them out as best as he could.
"Thank," you said, stepping back to admire it with him. "I don't have to pay for it, do I?"
"No," he glanced at the flyers in your bag and smiled. "But you could let me come along and help. I've got nothing to do anyway. Hey. What's your name?" he asked and you told him, listening to him repeat it a few times. "Cool name. I'm Chan by the way," he said, ing out his hand.
You took his hand and shook it, a smile growing on your face mirroring his. "Nice to meet you, Chan."
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