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“I swear this guy is the real deal!” Roier proclaimed, jogging over to where his friends stood waiting for him. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder towards the patterned maroon tent he had just come out of. “Best forty dollars I’ve ever spent!”
Next to him, Quackity snorted. “I can’t believe you spent forty bucks to have some guy look at your palm.”
“Chinga tu madre!” He shoved Quackity’s shoulder. “It wasn’t a scam, the things he said were crazy!”
“Oh yeah? Like what?” Quackity asked, crossing his arms over his chest and cocking an eyebrow at the other man, challenging him.
Over the heads of their two bickering friends, Willy and Vegetta met each other’s eyes. The latter rolled his eyes playfully as Roier gushed over all the things the palm reader had shared, enthusing over how accurate it was.
“Isn’t that crazy, Vegetta?” Roier turned to him, snapping the two's attention back to the conversation at hand.
Vegetta sighed. “I think you’re just a little too gullible.”
Suddenly, a wicked grin crossed Willy’s face. “How about we put this guy to the test, eh?” he said. “Let’s send in Vegetta and see what he thinks.”
If looks could kill, the other man would be dead as Vegetta shot daggers at him. But between them, Roier nodded vigorously.
“If you walk out of that tent as a doubter, Quackity will personally reimburse you the forty,” Roier said with a grin.
“No I won’t!” Quackity began to argue but Willy was already dragging Vegetta towards the tent.
“I am so gonna kill you,” Vegetta whispered to Willy, who just laughed in response, pushing him through the opening of the tent.
Inside, warm light from the draped string lights bathed the maroon and gold fabric walls in a soft glow. In the center sat a single table, one of those cheap plastic folding ones, with a polyester tablecloth, an hourglass, and about half a dozen candles littered along its edges, filling the tent with the scent of sandalwood.
Across the table sat a man, his broad back facing Vegetta as he rummaged through a backpack.
Vegetta cleared his throat. A startled jump sent the other man’s knees into the table, making the candles teeter as images of a candle falling over and sending the tent up in flames flashed in Vegetta's mind.
“Oh, hello!” the other man greeted, voice higher and more cheerful than what Vegetta expected of a clairvoyant. He rushed to fix his dark hair, pushing back long strands that had fallen from the braid that rested against his spine as he grinned at Vegetta.
“Please, take a seat!” the clairvoyant said with a bright smile, gesturing towards the flimsy plastic chair across the table and causing the golden bracelets that adorned his wrists to jingle with the movement.
He hovered near the chair for a moment, eyeing the other man as he briefly considered apologizing to him and showing himself out, but his pride kept him rooted.
“Hello,” he said stiffly as he pulled out the chair and sat down. The hard plastic dug into the backs of his thighs and he knew his back would be protesting if he sat here for more than 20 minutes.
The long haired man plunked his elbows on the table, perching his head on his clasped hands as he grinned at Vegetta excitedly. “And how may I help you today?”
“I’m here for a palm reading?” Vegetta replied, voice teeming with uncertainty. He felt on edge, and the eager gleam in the other man’s eyes was not putting him at ease in the slightest.
The other giggled, high and light. “I’d sure hope so, it’s the only thing I offer,” he said. “I meant, do you have any specific questions or insights you’re looking for?” He tilted his head in question.
He flushed pink. “Oh, no, nothing specific, just, uh…” He lifted his palm. “Tell me what my palm says.”
At this, the other’s smile softened, as though taking pity on how flustered Vegetta was getting. “Let’s start with an easier question then maybe?” he suggested and relaxed back in his chair a bit. “What’s your name?”
“Vegetta,” he replied, offering a hand out across the table, “and you are…?”
“Foolish,” the other man said, shaking Vegetta’s hand with one of his own and gesturing above his head with his other hand to where a large cardboard sign hung. The words “The Fantastical Foolish’s Palmistry“ were painted across it in bold, thick strokes, and Vegetta felt the growing urge to bury himself in a hole, wondering just how many more times he could possibly embarrass himself during this.
“Question number three,” Foolish said, turning Vegetta’s hand in his grasp and resting it palm-up on the table. “What’s your dominant hand?”
“Right,” he said, nodding down to the hand on the table.
“See, I already guessed it correctly!” Foolish cheered, beaming at Vegetta, and the act shouldn’t have been as cute as Vegetta found it.
With practiced movements, Foolish flipped the small hourglass on the table between two of his fingers, setting it back down as the sand began to slowly drain down before lifting Vegetta’s hand from the table. He cradled it softly in his hands and Vegetta had to suppress a shiver at the other’s cold touch.
“Well, the first thing I notice is your palm shape,” Foolish said. He ran a delicate finger along the outside of Vegetta’s hand, tracing around the edge of it as he spoke. “You have what we call an air hand, square palm,” he dragged his finger up the edge of Vegetta’s palm, “long fingers,” he trailed upward along the length of Vegetta’s fingers.
Foolish’s hand returned to holding Vegetta’s as he analyzed his palm. “Usually, this generally means you’re curious and intellectually driven, but you may also be prone to worrying,” he said, glancing back up to look at Vegetta’s face through long dark eyelashes.
Vegetta kept his lips pressed in a tight line as the other spoke. He knew how these things worked. They said enough vague and generic things to get you to buy into this whole charade, warming you up so that you’d let down your guard and start giving away reactions to point them in the right direction. So instead, Vegetta schooled his face into a carefully blank mask, not wanting to give anything away about the accuracy of what the clairvoyant said, instead daring the clairvoyant to keep guessing in the face of his silence. However, Foolish seemed to see right through him and let out an amused huff, though he didn’t comment on it.
“See this line?” Foolish asked, dragging his finger along a deep line in Vegetta’s palm that stretched horizontally from below his index finger. “This is the head line, one of the three major lines. It indicates your intelligence and mentality.”
Foolish tilted Vegetta’s hand towards his face, leaning in to look at it closely. Absentmindedly, Vegetta thought about how cute the little crease between his eyebrows when he’s focused is.
Foolish tapped the line before pulling back and snapping Vegetta out of his thoughts. “It’s quite deep and straight. This means that you tend to be analytical and have good attention to detail. You might consider yourself a bit of a perfectionist.”
Watching Vegetta’s face, he continued, “You might also find yourself focusing too much on the details though and become tunnel-visioned.”
“That’s a lot to get from one line on my palm,” Vegetta noted, shifting in his chair as he tried to get comfortable.
Foolish merely shrugged with a lopsided grin, as though he was in on a secret that Vegetta wasn’t privy to. “A bit of a skeptic, eh?”
Vegetta mulled over how he should respond. He could lie and say no in hopes of throwing Foolish off his game and proving that none of this is real. Then again, looking at the man across from him, he had a feeling Foolish already knew for a fact he wasn’t a believer.
“You could say that.” Vegetta shrugged.
Foolish chuckled. “It’s alright, I like a challenge,” he said with a glint in his eyes.
Then he moved his attention back to the palm in front of him. “This is your life line,” Foolish said, tracing a line right below the last one on Vegetta’s palm, curving down towards his wrist. He met Vegetta’s eyes. “It’s long which means you’ll have good health and vitality. You probably value living a healthy life. Eating healthy, visiting the gym.” The other’s eyes quickly flicked down his chest.
Vegetta cocked up an eyebrow. “Are you reading my palm, or my body?”
“What is your body if not just an extension of your palm?” Foolish said, wiggling his eyebrows.
Vegetta didn’t know where to begin to reply to that, choosing instead to just sit back quietly and watch what unfolded.
“You have many upward branches. You’ll likely be very successful in life, but there’s a fork here,” he explained, finger grazing over the center of Vegetta’s palm. “This means you’ll face some sort of life change, a career change or a big move maybe, but it will all work out in the end for you.”
Foolish looked back at Vegetta’s face and squinted at him before asking, “How old are you?”
Vegetta adverted his gaze, suddenly finding the tent walls oddly fascinating. “27,” he replied, his voice lifting higher slightly.
Vegetta dared to glance back at Foolish. The man across from him raised an eyebrow, a slight grin pulling at the corners of his mouth as his eyes flicked up to the grey that had begun to pepper his black hair.
“35,” Vegetta said with a defeated sigh. His free hand reached up to run through his hair as he continued, “I’ve been meaning to get it dyed or something.”
Foolish hummed thoughtfully, his piercing green eyes glowing in the candlelight as he analyzed Vegetta and suddenly he felt a certain kinship with the animals he had dissected back in high school.
“Don’t,” Foolish said finally, to which Vegetta froze, worried he had somehow done something wrong. “Dye your hair, I mean,” Foolish explained with a light laugh. “The salt and pepper look suits you. You look good.”
Foolish said it so nonchalantly, Vegetta couldn’t tell if he was merely being nice, or if it was something more. But as Foolish quickly ducked his head back down and continued with his palm reading, Vegetta spotted his pink-tinted ears peaking out from his hair.
“If you’re 35, then that means this big change is coming up soon,” Foolish told him. “You should trust your heart instead of your head when making your decision. Sometimes your logical thinking gets in the way of your happiness.”
Vegetta squirmed, the air in the tent suddenly thicker because he was right .
Vegetta had recently received a job offer at a start-up architecture firm, but it would mean leaving behind his safe and comfortable office job. He has been rolling around the two options for the past few weeks, laying in bed at night and wondering if the risk to his career was worth it, and now it felt like Foolish was peering right into his brain.
The palm reader watched him closely for a moment, letting his words sink in and permeate. For a moment, Vegetta thought he was waiting for him to chime in with something, but as the silence stretched on, he let his gaze slide back down to his palm and continue with the reading.
“The last of the three major lines is the heart line,” Foolish began. He brushed over the line across the top of Vegetta’s palm and glanced up at Vegetta. “This line is about your love life and how you feel about love,” he said with a soft smile as Vegetta shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“The line is deep and high on your palm. You love deeply and wholeheartedly, but this also means when you get hurt, you get hurt badly. You may be cautious to open up to new love, but see here?” Foolish thumbed over where the line broke off and began to curve upwards. “This indicates that someone will come into your life unexpectedly, possibly sooner than you expect.” The two locked eyes over Vegetta’s palm. “You should give him a chance,” Foolish said, before suddenly flushing a deep, flaming red.
“Them! Give them a chance,” Foolish corrected as he jerked his hand away, as though shocked by electricity, as he stumbled over his words frantically, “I didn’t mean to assume anything, sorry!”
And just like that, something between them tilted—thick tension giving way to a new, different kind of weight.”
Vegetta smiled despite himself and relished in finally seeing the other floundering, rather than the other way around for once. The blush creeping up Foolish’s neck like a reward he hadn’t known he wanted.
Spurred on by the other’s nervousness, he reached across the table and placed a hand over Foolish’s, his thumb brushing Foolish's wrist, slow and deliberate. “You’re fine,” he said with a chuckle, “and him is fine with me,” he added, watching Foolish’s reaction closely.
If possible, the other man flushed even deeper, his eyes widening slightly. “Cool!” he said, clearly aiming for casual and missing by about a mile as his voice cracked and pitched upwards. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I mean, same, me too.”
“Cool,” Vegetta echoed the other’s words back to him with a smile. He rested his head on his free hand and flipped his right hand palm-up once more. “So what else does my hand say?”
The other gladly took the change in topic. “So much for being a skeptic, I guess,” he joked, cheeks dimming to a soft pink rather than a fiery tomato.
Vegetta considered telling the other man that he was still skeptical, that he simply wanted to hear what Foolish would say next and that he was enjoying his time in this tent with him, but ultimately decided against it, choosing instead to let Foolish believe what he wished for now.
He looked down at Vegetta’s palm uncertainly, as though unsure of what his next move should be. He slowly moved to cup Vegetta’s hand before thumbing delicately at the spongy flesh beneath Vegetta’s thumb.
“This is called the Mount of Venus,” he said, pressing his thumb harder into the surface and beginning to knead at the flesh. “It’s about attraction, not only your attractions, but also how you attract others.”
At this, Vegetta cocked up an eyebrow. “Oh?” he asked, tilting his head, intrigued.
Foolish nodded surely, and Vegetta had to bite back the urge to point out how Foolish’s thumb had drifted away from kneading at his mount of Venus and was now idly working into the center of his palm.
“In palmistry, the colour, size and firmness of your hands’ mounts are all part of how to read their meaning. For you, you have a magnetic presence. You command the room when you enter,” Foolish explained, looking up at the other through dark lashes.
Vegetta laughed. “I don’t feel like I really commanded this room when I entered, stuttering over my words and everything.”
Foolish bit back a smile and shrugged. “No, maybe not,” he admitted, leaning back in his chair and Vegetta instantly missed his touch as the other released his hand, “but it doesn’t feel too fair to judge someone when they’re super uncomfortable.”
“I was not that uncomfortable!” Vegetta argued light-heartedly, making Foolish laugh from across the table. His eyes pinched into crescents as he grinned brightly at Vegetta.
“Your eyes looked like they were gonna pop out of your head, I was so sure you were gonna bolt at first!”
“It was just,” Vegetta shook his head fondly, “it was just a lot, you know?”
At that, Foolish chuckled. “I get that a lot.”
I get that a lot.
Foolish’s face held an easy smile, not a hint of offense painted his features and yet the very suggestion that he had taken Vegetta’s words personally made his stomach lurch.
Shaking his head, Vegetta clarified, “No, not you, just,” he waved his hand around the tent, “all of this. But not you, you’re lovely.”
Colour bloomed across his cheeks and his smile grew shy. “I don’t mind being strange, or ‘a lot’, I’d take it any day over being boring.” He paused, eyes darting off to the side. “But thank you, you’re sweet.”
“Did my palm tell you that?” Vegetta asked cheekily, leaning forward towards his palm as if to analyze it himself.
The other’s squeaky giggle forced a smile to stretch across Vegetta’s face and a wave of contentedness washed over him. The other’s laugh felt like the sweetest reward and Vegetta found himself quickly becoming addicted to it. Although a sideways glance at the hourglass on the table signalled their time was up.
Foolish bit the inside of his cheek as he eyed the hourglass. His gaze slid back to Vegetta with a hint of uncertainty.
“Would you say you got what you came in here for?” he asked, although Vegetta heard it for what it really was, an invitation.
“I don’t know, I may still have some doubts,” Vegetta said, causing a smile to pull at the corner of the other’s lips.
“Well, we can’t have that, now can we?” Foolish said in mock indignation, leaning over to grab something from the bag at his side.
“How about this,” he began as he pulled out a marker, pulling the cap off and gesturing for Vegetta’s hand back. The glide of the marker was rough against his skin as Foolish began writing numbers across his hand. “You call that number, and maybe we can plan a second reading if you want.”
His heart skipped a beat as the numbers inked onto his skin dried, staring at them as though to commit every line and stroke to memory.
Emboldened, Vegetta said, “Maybe somewhere a little less flammable next time?” as he side-eyed the candles.
Foolish hummed. “I don’t know, what’s a palm reading without candles though, I wouldn’t want to ruin the mystique,” he joked, sighing in defeat as he slumped back in his chair.
“Well,” Vegetta said, drawing out the syllable, “I know this great steakhouse, lots of candlelight.”
Green eyes widened and lips parted for a beat of silence, and for a moment Vegetta was worried he had overstepped before a bashful smile found itself on Foolish’s face. “I could probably make that work,” he said.
“Then I guess it’s a date?”
With reddened cheeks, Foolish nodded. “It’s a date.”
Vegetta walked out of the tent feeling oddly giddy. He pulled out his phone and quickly put in the number written across his palm as he returned to his waiting friends.
“And?” Roier prompted. “You gonna be wanting that forty bucks from Quackity?”
Vegetta closed his fist, hiding the marker from them as he fought back a smile. “You can keep your money, Quackity.”
“No way,” Willy said with a laugh as Roier shouted, “I told you guys!”
As the others began bickering and pestering Vegetta about what exactly happened in that tent to change his mind, the man just smiled.
“I don’t know, I guess that guy was just pretty magical.”