Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The convenience store lights flickered uncannily, the artificial brightness causing Yoongi's head to ache and his eyes to stream. He could feel the cashier's eyes boring into his back and watching intently despite him coming here all the time.
"Yah, kid! You steal anything and I'll beat you senseless," Yoongi jumped with a gasp, nearly dropping the can of cat food gripped tightly in his shaking hand. The cashier's threat made him turn around to face him with big eyes.
"M'not a thief," Yoongi mumbled, his quietness being heard loud and clear due to the fact that he was the only customer in the shop. He had waited out his schoolmates and the younger children from the school across from theirs, because they always came here to buy sweets and junk food. Last time he got caught in that, it was chaotic and he left with a split lip.
"That's what they all say," replied the cashier with an eye roll as an elderly woman entered with her own little trolley. "Just hurry up and get the hell out of here, kid. The school rush ended nearly two hours ago, I don't need nor want anymore brats handling my stock with greedy eyes."
The elderly woman seemed to agree with the cashier at one look at Yoongi's tattered clothes and school emblem on his backpack, glaring and turning her nose up at him like he was a piece of dirt on the ground.
"Terrible, aren't they? Last Halloween a couple of them schoolboys attacked my house with eggs," said the woman, snapping her beady eyes back to the teenager. "Wasn't you, was it?" Her question was demanding, threatening.
Yoongi stuttered over his words at the sudden accusation. "I, no, it-it wasn't m-me," he managed weakly. "I t-took my little s-sister Trick or Treating," he added the lie. He didn't even have a sister, or even a brother, though he did take his old neighbour's six year old daughter Jisu out for a few hours.
The woman hummed, sounding as though she didn't believe him, but to Yoongi's relief she and the cashier began talking as she requested a packet of cigarettes. Yoongi placed the cat food tin in his basket along with the chicken curry ramen cup and bottle of water, smiling to himself when he realised he had enough to get a chocolate bar.
He waited patiently for the rude elderly to leave before placing the items on the desk and then the borrowed basket back neatly. The cashier wordlessly scanned them and bagged them, handing him a 5 cents change which he happily plopped into the donation box for dogs in need.
"T-Thank you," he said shyly, leaving the shop with his items, but halted outside the doorway.
It was raining.
How he hadn't heard the loud pelting of the harsh rain hitting the glass windows of the shop, or seen the watery umbrella of the old woman's was beyond him, but there was no way he would be able to walk home in it without catching some illness and ruining his and Dolly's meal.
He slumped on the bench by the window, fortunately sheltered by the store's awning, yet it didn't do much to protect the frail boy from the chilly wind that splashed drops of stray rain on him. Yoongi cuddled the bag of cheap items close, wishing and hoping for the saddening weather to stop.
