[New Booster: Instant Tears]
Maxie emerged from the groomers’ backroom like she had just come from a K-pop music video shoot. Her coat was bright and shiny, her ears were fluffed and rounded like clouds, and two bows decorated her ears.
She looked like a demon disguised as an angel. A hellhound from heaven.
Zeno felt a small doki-doki in his chest. However, he pushed it down.
“Let’s go,” he muttered as Maxie strutted out. He opened the door for her. She didn’t even look back. Absolute diva.
They walked a few blocks until Zeno stopped at the intersection, gaze lingering toward a familiar alley.
“There’s an ice cream place near Doha’s gym,” he said to Maxie. “You won’t like it, but I will. And I deserve this.”
Maxie looked up at him and yawned. That counted as approval.
So he turned left, walked a bit more, and spotted an ice cream truck painted in pastel. It was like a unicorn had vomited all over it.
The flavors were written on a whiteboard menu above the window. Names like Existential Melon, Cereal Killer, and Mint Conditioned Trauma made his eyebrows twitch. But the one that caught his eye was the one in the middle.
“Ube’s the one,” he mumbled.
But before he could point, he noticed a pink one next to it, its label scrawled in glitter ink.
June-ful Strawberries.
He stared at the flavor name and narrowed his eyes.
What does that even mean? Was that a pun? A person? A month? A concept?
Before he could mentally spiral, a small child poked their head out the ice cream truck window, balanced precariously on a step stool, and handed him a cone.
“Here.”
Was this child labor?
He wasn’t sure, but he still grabbed the purple ice cream.
Even if he hadn’t tasted it just yet, he already knew it would taste good.
If the children of the owner worked the stand, it was a stamp of approval. Everyone knew food hit differently when made by stressed-out family businesses. And indeed, it slapped.
He bit into the ube swirl, and immediately, his soul left his body. He could hear Maxie sigh contentedly beside him, sitting regally on the clean concrete. A few passersby cooed at her, and she, of course, soaked it all in like a sponge of vanity.
What a fiend.
“What’s that? Is she a Bichon/Golden Retriever mix?” a girl asked.
“No,” Zeno replied flatly, licking his cone. “She’s a cryptid.”
The girl gave him a weird look before backing away. She actually approached him because his silhouette looked handsome even when he was wearing a hood, but it seemed he was pretty strange.
A few more compliments here and there, and Zeno was about to finish his cone.
However, with the ice cream halfway shoved into his mouth, Maxie suddenly snapped her head around and let out a sharp bark.
She only barked AT him. And also when she didn’t feel right.
Zeno paused, lowering his cone. “What is it?”
She barked again, louder this time.
And then—
“AHHHHHH! BURGLAR!”
Screams echoed from across the street, sharp and sudden.
“Catch him! Catch him!”
Zeno’s gaze wandered toward the chaos, pausing mid-bite as his eyes landed on a blur of movement. A man was sprinting like a bat out of hell, face hidden behind a bright, deranged-looking clown mask with a knife in his hand. A large tote bag bounced against his side, appearing to be the one he stole.
Zeno stared for a couple of seconds.
Maxie barked furiously beside him, the hackles on her back rising. She was crouched low, her tail stiff and straight, and her bark echoing. People had started to scatter, parting like the sea as the masked man barreled down the sidewalk.
“… Wait,” Zeno muttered, squinting.
That mask.
It looked familiar.
Was that the same clown burglar from the laundry shop a few months ago? Goodness, he still hasn’t learned his lesson?
Zeno narrowed his eyes.
The masked man raced past a stunned hot dog vendor, nearly knocking the cart over. In the distance, a bent old woman hobbled after him, waving a tattered umbrella in the air.
“That’s my purse! I just got my pension, you demon!”
Others tried to help—one brave soul extended an arm to block him, but the man shoved him to the ground with a grunt and kept going. Most people were just shouting or filming, some even narrating the scene like they were seasoned news anchors. No one actually did anything. Not that he could blame them. It would be pretty scary for a human to go over to an armed man.
Zeno tilted his head and scanned the scene for signs of law enforcement. “There has to be police here. This is a neighborhood. A nice one, too,” he muttered, standing still as the street buzzed with frantic energy. He stared down at his ice cream.
It was melting.
He really just wanted to sit and eat his ice cream.
Maxie snarled and lunged forward, biting him square on the shin.
“OW! Maxie!”
She barked again and tugged on his pants. Her whole body screamed for Zeno to do something.
Zeno winced, wobbling on one foot as he tried to shake her off.
“Fine, fine! I get it!”
He looked up again. The burglar was gaining distance.
Zeno sighed deeply, like a man whose greatest dreams were crushed—namely, the dream of finishing his stupid cone in peace.
With one final mournful bite of his rapidly disintegrating ube cone, Zeno flung the paper wrapper into the nearby trash can.
He took off at a jog.
Then a run.
Maxie barked once in approval and darted beside him, small paws keeping pace, appearing to be enjoying the chase.
The man in the clown mask zigzagged through the crowd ahead.
Zeno’s eyes narrowed as the wind whipped past his face.
Yeah, it seemed rest was truly not in Zeno’s vocabulary.
“That young man is catching up on him!” they began to exclaim.
And, he’s got the attention of the bystanders, too.
Great! Just what Zeno needed.
