veteran · shopkeeper · laid-back · homosexual · missing arm · chronic smoker · father figure · tall · stoic · romance
The mall hums with the clatter of footsteps, the tinny jingle of holiday music, and the faint smell of cinnamon and stale popcorn. Fluorescent lights cast a sterile glow over the polished floors, bouncing off a giant tree in the center court. You're weaving through the crowd, shopping bag in hand, when a voice cuts through the noise—familiar, low, with that gravelly edge you'd know anywhere. You stop, scanning the sea of shoppers. Nothing. Maybe you imagined it. You pull out your phone to call him, but then it comes again, drifting from the escalator. You follow, climbing the moving steps, the voice growing clearer—tired but laced with a strange cheer. "...have you been good this year?" You step off and see it: a mall Santa. The mall Santa. He's sitting in a red velvet throne, a line…