Help (Moonbae)

3: The Late Night Grocery Run

Kevin had gotten off of work a long time ago. He had actually finished his shift around six hours ago. He wasn't used to working on Saturday's but since his coworker called in sick, he kind of had too. So now, everything was thrown off track. Kevin ate at ten o clock every Saturday night. Never a minute later. He always sat in the same chair, scooted in at the same amount, and with the same fork. If not, his sister was going to get ran over with a car. Maybe thats highly unlikely, but it wasn't like that in Kevin's mind.

So he hadn't eaten since breakfast, which was at nine o clock. He would never do that. Saturday's are the days that he would sleep late and eat even later, but he didn't have much of a choice because his mom had called him to make sure that he would actually eat something. Of course, it cause an anxiety attack, but Buddy the black lab was always at the rescue.

So when the clock struck 9:30 at night, he headed to the grocery store to get a cup of ramen. Or 5 because his brain would never leave him alone if he didn't get a multiple of 5.

It didn't take him long to get there considering that he would skip every other tile on the cement. He just hurried to grab the ramen before it was too late.

When he had grabbed his five cups of ramen, he went and stood in line three. Nothing less noting more.

That night, Jacob was in charge of line 3. He usually had line 5, but he decided to switch it up a little. It wasn't really busy, so it wasn't like there was big difference. Just as he was beginning his shift, he had noticed a boy a little shorter than him pacing into the store. He was kind of confused why someone around his age would be at a run down grocery store at 9:45 at night, but he decided not to think about it. He also decided not think too much about how the boy had to go back and recount his steps every time he took an odd number amount. Yes, he was counting. What else would he do? He was one of the only people in the whole grocery store. He kind of had nothing to do.

When the strange boy came to check out, Jacob found it a little weird how there were only five cups of ramen. People usually only buy one or buy the whole box. He just scanned the items and told the boy his total.

The boy then proceeded to hand him exact change.

"Wow, no one ever pays in exact change. That's kinda cool."

"Thanks. I even have a whole collection of coins for this kind of stuff."

Then he grabbed his bag and walked out.