Hard choice (Dark clouds before sunny weather - Book 2)

Chapter 16

Mo Xuanyu stood inside the supermarket and was holding his breath. He was truly impressed by it, he thought that he had perhaps never seen so many people and so many things in one place. This was actually the first time he was inside a supermarket. Not he had not seen it from the outside before or had not peeked through the glass windows when he would walk around, but he had never visited it.

Shopping was the only house chose that his family liked to do themselves. They often went outside to buy things, especially a lot of food, and they never took Mo Xuanyu with them. He supposed it was because they wanted to choose what they would be eating and using and not just give him a shopping list. And now, when seeing all the different kinds of merchandise and everyday useful items, he was overwhelmed.

All the more because A-Yi had already run off somewhere and his teacher was now frantically telling him and A-Yuan to stay where they were and went off in search of the youngest child. When they had picked up A-Yi at preschool and told him about the plans for the dinner, he was immediately all for it. And of course he had also wanted to go to the supermarket with them and choose his own preferred ingredients for the fried rice.

Together with a lot of other stuff it would seem. Mo Xuanyu watched with wide eyes how his teacher finally appeared from behind a tall shelf, he was holding A-Yi's hand and looking a little stressed. Mo Xuanyu wondered what could have happened. But the he quickly understood. A-Yi was struggling against the hold and pointing in all directions, begging, demanding and whining about all the candies and sweets he wanted his dad to buy for him.

This only added to Mo Xuanyu's level of stress caused by having so many people around him. It had already happened twice while he and A-Yuan had been waiting for his teacher that a lady run into him and pushed him aside with their shopping cart. They apologized each time, however this kind of occurrence only intensified Mo Xuanyu's feeling that he was in the middle of a wild river and could do nothing in order not to be swept away by the currents of the omnipresent people.

Luckily, he managed not to overreact too much when he suddenly could not see no one he knew. By some strange luck, he had apparently managed to get himself lost. He looked around frantically, searching for any familiar faces.

What if his teacher left him here? It was an irrational fear, Mo Xuanyu knew that much himself. How could he doubt his intentions after his teacher had been so worried for him just for getting a scraped knee? But the fear was still there, raw and growing in intensity with his every heartbeat.

It could not have taken more than half a minute, but to Mo Xuanyu, it felt like a whole eternity. And then, there was his teacher, kneeling before him and talking to him. Mo Xuanyu was so relieved that he did not even think twice and threw himself at his teacher, hiding his face in the front of his T-shirt, his hands grabbing the fabric for dear life.

He did not even realize what was happening and he was being picked up from the ground.

"Oh, A-Yu, sorry for this," his teacher was talking right next to his ear, he must have been the one holding him. Perhaps this simple fact should not have made Mo Xuanyu as happy and relieved as it did, but he could simply not help it. He felt safe immediately, all his previous fear and stressed disappeared from one second to another.

"It is a little overwhelming right," his teacher continued and Mo Xuanyu finally calmed down enough to look up at his face. The adult was smiling at him and patting his head like so many times before. "What do you say, can I hold you like this while we are here? You can think of it as of a horse ride. It would be terrible if we lost you. So, just tell me where you want to go look, and I will take you there."

Mo Xuanyu suddenly wanted to cry out of sheer relief. The fear which had crossed his mind while he had not been able to see anyone he knew was completely forgotten. How could he had even thought that his teacher could abandon him to his own devices in the middle of the supermarket? He was kind and smiling, the best teacher ever. He would of course never do such a thing.

Reassured, he was finally once again looking forward to exploring this unusual and exciting place. He nodded shyly to let his teacher know that he was fine with being carried around and relaxed slightly his grip and the adult's T-shirt. He did not let go completely, still a little too anxious about possibly getting lost again, but his curiosity had won over him now and he was looking excitedly all around. Shopping really was fun from up where he was.

There were many things he had seen for the first time in his life as his family had never bought them for him to cook and he had only seen the already prepared versions at school. His head was spinning again, this time because everything seemed to be too colourful, especially all the packaging. He wondered what was inside most of those boxes and bags. His eyes were darting from left to right and he did not spend any time in reading the descriptions on the price tags.

Suddenly, his teacher tapped on his hand gently to catch his attention. When Mo Xuanyu looked up, the adult was smiling kindly and reassuringly: "A-Yu, what would you prefer to have in your fried rice?"

Until this moment, Mo Xuanyu had all but forgotten that they had come here with a clear purpose. However, being so overwhelmed and asked for what he would like to eat, he just could not come up with anything. He did not really have any favourite foods, most of the times, he was just glad he had gotten anything to eat at all and would not even think about if he liked it or not. He was completely at a loss about how to answer such a tricky question.

His teacher, bless him for always understanding, only smiled at him all that more widely: "Is it hard to choose? Do not worry, we can take our time. Would you perhaps like to know what me, Lan Zhan, A-Yuan and A-Yi like? Perhaps something will pick your interest. Let us have a look..."

As his teacher talked, he turned around to face one of the shelves inside of a huge refrigerator and started pointing at the products displayed there, commenting on a few between them and explaining how exactly they would go or not with the fried rice.