padam - a jan peteh pov story

3

Half-empty takeaway boxes littered the kitchen side, along with countless beer bottles and cans. We had almost run out of places to put the waste; almost every space was covered now, including the table in the communal area which we were gathered around. I watched as Kris drunkenly slung a final slice of pizza into his mouth, missing completely the first time and smattering sauce all the way up one side of his face. He proceeded to panic internally, taking a few seconds to process what he had done, before making a dart towards the bathroom and slamming the door behind him in haste.

The stereo in the corner of the room blasted out random songs; there was not even the slightest trace of order to the tunes that played. Hearing the fade out of the last instruments in whatever song was on, Carpe Diem started playing.

'Why is this on here?' Bojan laughed, stumbling towards the machine to skip it. He nearly fell over a stool that was inconveniently placed in the middle of the room, yet miraculously managed to catch his foot before he was too far gone. I was grateful for his efforts, given that Jure was now pulling out some awful dance moves in an attempt to mimic his performance, something he did a lot; he also liked to make fun of his singing exercises, along with the rest of us.

'You can skip the song, but you can't skip this.' he exclaimed, now picking up one of the cans and singing deeply into it, advancing towards Bojan as he did so. He stared back in mock-fear, edging around the side of the room before making a run for it down the empty side of the apartment. Jure tried to chase him, however gave up after only a second, having to regain composure.

'Jure, your speaker is shit. Where's the music gone?' he shouted across, before quickly being hit by a blast of sound as the next song began to play. It took him by surprise; had I not known prior, that would have been the moment where I realised that he was gone - he was used enough to loud immediate sounds to not be shocked by it anymore, given the sheer amount of gigs we'd played.

'Can we play that game we got at the airport?' Nace asked; I looked down to find him lay down completely across the sofa, one arm draping down towards the floor.

'If he can find it in this shit-tip.' Kris joked. I hadn't even realised he had re-entered the room, and so I jumped a little when I discovered him stood behind me.

'Jure, where is it?' I asked, watching as he ran over to a cabinet in the corner of the room and began to root through one of the drawers. Before long, he pulled out a small, long box of cards, and held it up in the air with a huge, prideful grin on his face.

The game was essentially Cards Against Humanity, yet so much worse. We had picked it up on the way back over here, in Frankfurt, yet just hadn't realised it wasn't the official version until we'd opened it up later, only to find that the cards were much more tame. Jure took the initiative, setting them down on the table and sorting them into the correct piles, before dealing us each a small stack to start off with. Nace rubbed his hands together in anticipation; he had managed to win most of the rounds last time, and was not ready to give up the subtle amount of bragging rights that came with.

'I'll flip the first one.' Jure declared, dramatically turning it over with a great degree of meaning.

Got broken up with? Shame, let's fix it with...

'I've got such a shit hand.' he commented irritatedly, shuffling through his cards repeatedly like a decent answer might crop up.

Looking down at my own, I realised that I didn't exactly have the best options, either.

BATMAN!!!

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