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“Does anyone have a pound coin for the shopping cart?”
“What sort of weird shop makes you pay for a shopping cart?” Bojan narrowed his eyes.
Kris shrugged, gaze swooping down to the cart again. “I don’t know,” he replied, “but we are just going to have to do what it says if we want it-“ Jure’s hand was suddenly on the handle of the cart and pulled it back and forth with so much force that his body rocked with it. The cart clamoured with the force as it collided repeatedly with the cart that was chained behind it. “Jure! What the hell?”
“If we use enough brute force, we can probably dislodge it.”
“Firstly,” Kris said sternly, “That won’t work because the carts are chained in. And secondly, it’s just easier to put in a pound that we are going to get back in half an hour!”
“I have one.” Jan said, fishing around in his pocket and dropping the coin in Kris’ hand.
“Oh, Jan!” Bojan scoffed, “Why didn’t you tell us before?”
“I didn’t have one before.” Jan said, wearing his normal blank expression, “I just found it now.”
“And,” Kris said as he pushed the coin into the slot, causing the chain to fall from the trolley so he could pull it out, “At least we have a shopping cart now.”
As the group followed Kris through the entrance of Tesco and down through the aisles, Bojan placed his hand on the front edge, pulling and pushing the trolley in different directions. Kris’ grip tightened on the handle, trying to resist Bojan’s guidance, but Bojan’s hand also stayed firmly on the edge.
“Bojan,” Kris seethed as Bojan pulled the trolley to the left, dragging him towards the berries display, “I can push a shopping cart by myself, so can you stop it?”
“Stop what?” Bojan blinked before turning back to the berries, “Okay, we should get two boxes of strawberries-“
“Stop pulling the shopping cart because it’s annoying as fuck!”
“Can I ride it instead then?”
The corners of Jan’s mouth twitched upwards. “That’s what he said.” He murmured to Nace, who snorted.
Bojan whipped around to look at them, his eyebrows raised. “That’s what you said to Nace last night!” He shot back, prompting Kris to burst into laughter and lean over the trolley handle to contain himself.
“Th-That’s what Jere said to you in Tavastia.” Nace looped an arm around Jan’s neck, pulled him close, and pressed a kiss to Jan’s burning-red cheek.
Bojan cocked his head to the side. “Fair enough. Anyway,” He turned back to Kris, “I want to ride on the shopping cart, like I want to sit on it.”
“Guys, guys, guys - look!” Jure crashed into the shoulder of a woman as he came bounding, “Sorry!” He exclaimed before approaching them, his arms overflowing with snacks that he dropped into the trolley, splaying them everywhere. “I found the snacks aisle and you know that England has really cool snacks.”
“Do we need all of those snacks though?” Nace asked.
Jure shrugged. “Yes, we do.”
“Jure, we don’t.” The vein was popping out of Kris’ forehead.
“We do!”
“We don’t.”
“Jure, please.” Kris said before he turned back to Bojan and his eyebrows shot up, “So, you’re telling me that you, a grown man, want to ride in the kid’s seat?”
“Yeah! It’ll be fun!”
“You could barely fit one foot in there!” Kris shot back. Bojan rolled his eyes and Kris had to duck as Bojan launched a foot over him. “What the hell, Bojan? Get off!” He yelled.
Bojan shoved his foot in the seat of the trolley, hopping on his other leg for balance as he held onto the edge of the trolley. “I’m going to get in the seat!”
“No - get out!” Kris grabbed Bojan around the waist and pulled Bojan, who screeched as his ankle smacked against the metal frame of the trolley.
Nace was peering at the snacks in the trolley. He kept picking up the packets and inspecting them. “None of these are gluten-free-“
“It’s fine - it won’t kill you to eat a KitKat-“
“Jure - I can’t eat a KitKat-“
“Don’t eat it then.”
Nace sighed. “I’ll just eat the strawberries then, I guess.”
Jure snatched the packet of strawberries from the trolley, eyes roaming the label. “Are strawberries gluten-free?” He asked, looking up at Nace.
Nace blinked at him. “Um-“
“Bojan, I swear- “ Kris growled as Bojan held onto the edge of the trolley for dear life, making it rock back and forth and even making it hit the products on the shelves.
Jure dropped the packet of strawberries into the trolley and picked up the raspberries. He shoved the packet into Nace’s face. “Are raspberries gluten-free?”
“I-“ Nace stepped away, colliding with Kris, who was still scrimmaging on the trolley with Bojan.
With one last pull, Kris dragged Bojan as hard as he could from the trolley. Bojan’s shoe clipped on the edge, making him stumble and fall onto Kris. Together, both of them tumbled to the floor in front of the small number of non-Jokers that had gathered to watch two grown Slovenian men brawling in the middle of the fruit and vegetable aisle. Kris let out a low noise of anguish and released Bojan, who was nursing his ankle, and got up.
“I’m so done with you.” Kris huffed. “Okay, although we have only made it ten feet inside the shop, we need to do a quick headcount to make sure no one has gotten lost already.” Kris turned around to the other guys. “We have me,” He announced, pointing at each person, “Bojan, Jure and Nace - that’s everyone, right? Okay, let’s go and-“
“Jan isn’t here.” Nace cut him off, looking around the aisle, being met with a distinct lack of Jan.
Kris sucked in a sharp breath and let out a long sigh. “Where is he?”
Nace shrugged. “I don’t know. He was here a second ago.”
“Let’s,” Kris rolled his eyes, “Let’s go and look for him then.” Bojan instinctively curled his hand around the edge of the trolley. “Bojan, if you dare touch the shopping cart, you won’t have a hand for much longer.” Bojan let go of the trolley and shot a scowl at Kris’ direction.
“Where could he be?” Jure asked, turning to Nace.
“I would say the magazine and books section, just in case he was looking at the music stuff there.” Nace replied and Kris nodded.
“Let’s go there then.”
They walked speedily down to the aisle of books. magazines, DVDs and CDs. There was a man, tall and black-haired, who was scanning the rows of books, around half-way down the aisle.
Breaking away from the group, Jure ran up to tbe man and flung his arms around him. “Janči! We thought we’d lost you!” He exclaimed, holding on tightly. The man let out a yelp and turned around, pushing Jufe away so roughly that Jure staggered back a few steps. “H-Huh?” Jure looked up at the man’s scared face and his smile dropped.
“That’s not even Jan!” Kris yelled down the aisle as he pushed the trolley towards them. The man’s eyes darted between Jure and the group and without a word, made his way hastily out of the aisle.
“Well, how was I supposed to know it wasn’t Jan?” Jure asked.
“By looking at his face before you attacked him?” Nace raised an eyebrow.
“I didn’t think about that.” Jure shrugged. He placed his hand on the edge of the trolley and steam almost burst out of Kris’ ears. “We have snacks so now we can go!” He beamed.
“We still need to find Jan…” Nace murmured, looking up and down the aisle.
There was the twinkling of an arpeggio on the tannoy and a woman’s voice, flat and huffing, rang across the shop.
“Is there a Kris Guštin in store? Kris Guštin in the store? Please come and collect your lost friend- what’s your name? Jan? Please come and collect Jan from the customer services desk. Thank you.”