The Smart Guy: The Hero isn't back yet!

The Chick: We have to launch in five minutes! He told us to go without him!

The Lancer: ... I'll be back in four minutes...

The Smart Guy: What!? Are you insane?

The Lancer: He owes me money!

(The Lancer runs off to save The Hero)

The most archetypical example of this trope.

Characters A and B do not get along. At all. In fact, they may make a habit of beating each other half to death just because they met eyes. Yet, for some reason, when Character A finds himself in mortal danger, you can almost guarantee Character B is going to pull a Big Damn Heroes and save his ass at the last second. But being the proud SOB that B is, if other characters ask what motivated him to do this, he'll simply respond with, "A owes me five bucks," or something else as seemingly inane and petty. Of course, at least one other character - if not everyone else - knows what they really mean.

To put it simply, this is when a (usually selfish and/or proud) character gives a short, unchanging, half-assed excuse as to why they'd go out of their way for, or travel/etc. with, another character whom they openly say they dislike. It's still obvious, though, that the true motivation is that the defending character doesn't hate the other character as much as they say they do. Expect the excuse to be said very matter-of-factly, as to keep up the appearance of being The Stoic, though this isn't required.

Note that this is not just when one character helps another character they supposedly hate. In order to qualify for this trope, a character must:

The invocation of this trope often leads to the partial revelation of a character's Tsundere nature, and/or that the character may consider the one they're saving a part of their Nakama.

A standard subversion of this trope tends to be that the savior character really did help the other only because they wanted something from that character.

Motivations behind the invocation of this trope may be related to The Only One Allowed To Defeat You, among others - the most obvious being Jerk With A Heart Of Gold.

Awful awful, absolutely awful title. So is He Owes Me Money. Really Needs A Better Example. No Launching Please