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“Rob! Are you finished restocking yet?”
Startled by the sudden noise, the cyclops jumps, accidentally dropping the small crystal ball in his hand. It lands on the floor with a thud, a swirling black and purple cloud rising from the newly formed crack in its glass and disappearing into the air.
Welp, I hope that wasn’t some evil spirit, he thinks to himself.
“Almost!” he calls back, placing the broken crystal ball back into the cardboard box it came from and haphazardly shoving it under the shelf. “I just have one more box to go!”
“Let me know when you’re finished! We have to hit the road soon.”
“Will do!”
He returns his attention to his work, grabbing the last of the cardboard boxes he’d been spending the past couple hours emptying out. He’s had this job for a while now, and though he knows he’s still a bit messy- dropping products, tripping over everything, unable to memorize the store’s vast map- it’s nothing compared to his first couple weeks. Luckily, he’s able to laugh at those moments, now settled into the flow of a normal day at work.
Although, how normal can a day really be if you work at the Awesome Store?
Not that he’s complaining.
He doesn’t really know how long it’s been since he started working here. How long it’s been since that day, the day that had changed his life. Though, for once, it had actually been changed for the better.
Never before had he really had a real home, a real friend, or a real family. Thanks to this van’s shopkeeper, lifting him from the crack that exposed Elmore to the Void and saving him from being sent back to that horrible place yet again, now he does have somewhere to live. Something to do. And a purpose, a purpose beyond just “being the villain”.
He’ll forever be grateful for it. He just doesn’t know how to show his gratitude.
Suddenly, the voice of the very man he was thinking about interrupts his thoughts once more. But luckily, this time the cyclops has nothing in his hands to drop. “You need any help? Just sold my last item of the night, so I figured I’d ask. Another necklace. We’ve been selling a lot of those recently, I’ve noticed. Must be a huge anniversary season or something.”
Rob looks to his side before securing the cardboard box in his hands and standing, crossing over to a shelf a few feet away. “No, I think I’m good, Dad. Thanks, thou-”
It takes a moment, for the both of them, to register what Rob had said.
But once it does register, the box in the cyclops’ hands suddenly lands on the ground, its contents spilling all over the floor, as he covers his mouth in shock. Nothing fragile in that one luckily, but Rob doesn’t even notice, his eye wide and his stupid anxiety making his heart beat faster than normal.
“I mean, I think I’m good, Boss, thanks! I said Boss! Nothing else!” Unfreezing himself, he frantically begins to pick up the box and all of its spilled contents, trying to focus on that task and not the heavy, awkward, and uncomfortable silence the van had just fallen into. Working quickly so that he can leave and avoid an equally awkward conversation, he only slows down and pauses once he feels a hand on his shoulder.
“Rob,” the shopkeeper says, in a tone the cyclops knows he’s never heard from him before. Quiet, calm, almost comforting, yet something else in it that hints at the smile on his face.
And it’s enough to make Rob lift his head, stand back up, and turn around to face him.
He sighs. Of course his stupid self had to go and make a stupid, embarrassing mistake like that. He would've preferred shattering another product over this any day. “I’m sorry-”
“Kid, you have nothing to be sorry for.”
“But I do…” he responds in a defeated tone, placing his head in his hand. “That was weird… and awkward… and embarrassing… I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, it just slipped out and I-”
“It’s okay, son. Really.”
Rob looks up into his eyes, and the shopkeeper looks right back down into his. And behind it, he can see so much emotion. So many things that want to be said, but so many things that are afraid to be.
“You can talk to me, you know,” he decides to say, “About… anything. We’ve spent enough time together, don’t you think?”
Rob swallows. “...Yeah. Yeah, I just…”
He sinks down onto the table near him, sitting on its surface and fidgeting with his hands. Something about this man’s presence, it makes Rob… calmer. And it makes him, for once, really want to talk about the things that have been on his mind ever since he first escaped the Void.
And once he starts, he’ll find himself unable to stop.
“I’ve just… never really had a family, you know? Or a home.”
The shopkeeper takes a seat next to him, staying silent but prompting him to continue.
“Before the Void first took me, I guess it… was kind of hard for Elmore to feel like my home. I was always… alone. I didn't have any friends, you know? And the ones I thought I had, well, turned out they didn't even know my name. And then Elmore ended up not even wanting me anyway, so… guess that made sense. And the Void itself, well… I mean, obviously I can’t think of that as a home. And even when I escaped, I lived in the freaking junkyard…”
The shopkeeper frowns. “...I didn’t know that. How did you manage?”
Rob chuckles slightly, though there’s not really anything humorous behind it. “I don’t know, honestly.”
He goes silent for a few moments, feeling too vulnerable for his own liking. As he sits and thinks, an image of someone, of something from what feels like so long ago suddenly pops into his head. He himself doesn’t realize it when his mouth turns up in a tiny smile, but the shopkeeper does.
“But then there was…” he begins. However, he falters, his smile fading as he falls silent again.
“...There was…?” the shopkeeper repeats. “...There was what? Or… who?”
Rob briefly meets his eyes, but just a second later he reverts his gaze to the floor. He answers his question, but he answers it quietly, close to wishing he hadn’t even started this sentence in the first place.
“...Gumball.”
The shopkeeper raises his eyebrows.
“There, uh…” Rob continues upon hearing the silence, trying to figure out how to say his next bit of information without going into too much. Partly because he doesn’t feel like telling the full story at the moment, but also because it hurts for him to recount. “There was… a time. Where… where we were friends. But it… couldn’t last.”
He feels a tear spring up in his eye. He quickly wipes it away before he speaks again.
“It’s just… for the longest time I was… friendless, homeless, alone, a nobody. But then you… you saved me, and not only just saved me but saved me from going back to the Void of all places. And you took me in. A-And you gave me a home. A… A purpose. A-A-And here I can just… be my own self and-”
All of a sudden, the tears come back, and they come back as a waterfall. The cyclops becomes unable to speak much more, and so the shopkeeper wraps his arms around him and brings him close.
And for a few moments, hugging him back tightly, all Rob does is cry. He lets all of his tears out, the ones that he knows he’d been harboring inside for way too long.
The shopkeeper lets this happen, staying silent until Rob begins to quiet back down. “Rob, listen…”
“No, I…” The cyclops sniffs, taking a deep breath and trying to steady his voice. “I-I’m almost done.”
The shopkeeper stays silent.
“You’ve just…” He sighs. “...You’ve done so much for me that I don't feel like I deserve, and-”
“Alright, nevermind, I’m cutting you off right there. I know the Void deemed you a mistake and all, but I also know that you do deserve this. No one, so-called ‘mistake’ or not, should ever have to be alone.”
Rob blinks. “...I…”
He sighs again, pulling away from the hug and wiping his face dry.
“I’m just… grateful. Really, really grateful… for all you've done for me. And now you… you feel like the first real family I’ve ever had. So… yeah. That’s why that… slipped out.”
“Oh, Rob,” the shopkeeper says, never before having felt so touched in his life. That three letter word the cyclops had called him, it had stirred up so many new emotions, bringing him close to tears. His face and his voice soften. “I’d do the same thing a million times if I had to. I’ve… grown so proud of you and the person you’re becoming. So… feel free to… call me whatever you want.”
Taking in his words, Rob smiles. The two then fall into silence again, but it’s no longer uncomfortable.
“...I’m still getting used to having a family,” he says, “But… I’m… glad that it’s… you. I mean, it definitely helps that you’re the only one I can talk to about the Void. It’s… been nice. To know that someone else out there understands the same things I do.”
The shopkeeper smiles at him. And then, for a moment, he stays sitting by Rob’s side in their comfortable silence, before he eventually stands.
“Well,” he says, “We should hit the road before it gets too late. Don’t worry about that last box, you can finish restocking in the morning.”
He turns to head back to the driver’s seat, but Rob calls out for him before he gets too far.
“Wait, uh…”
The shopkeeper pauses, turning back around to face the cyclops, who had too stood up from his seat and taken a few steps towards him. “Yeah?”
He takes a deep breath. “...Thanks. For, uh… getting me to talk. And… for listening. It felt... good, to finally get all that off my chest, you know?”
The shopkeeper smiles once more. “Any time, Rob.”
And then finally, as he turns and heads away out of Rob’s sight, the cyclops sits back down and exhales. He relaxes his shoulders, the tight anxiety in his chest completely gone. And he smiles to himself.
Sure, he’s got a lot to worry about. Sure, the Void is still out there. Sure, he still has to save Elmore, to save Gumball.
But now, he has something he’s never had before: Help.
For once, he is not alone.
For the first time since he can remember, he has a family.
And for the first time ever, he’s thinking that maybe his life isn’t so bad after all.