wander [ hyunlix ]

02

Shoving it into his hoodie pocket?

'Oh,' Felix thought immediately.
A shoplifter. That explained the whole faceless situation going on, at the very least.

He tried his best to act blissfully unaware of what was happening next to him. It wasn't his business, and with his recent realization of how hard it was to make cash last, he almost somewhat respected the guy's bravery.

The man seemed to pick items at random, taking whatever looked the easiest to steal. Not the worst strategy, Felix thought. Yet the more items taken, the higher the risk was of getting caught...

Then there was that.
Getting caught.

"Wait, hey!" the shopkeep shouted from the counter, having looked up just in time to see the strange man slipping a bar of candy into his side pocket.

"Ah, fuck—" Felix heard the man swear under his breath, now dealing with the fact that he'd been seen.

"You gonna pay for that? Or are we gonna have a problem here?" the cashier said, cocking his head as he stared the man down. Most notably, the cashier had his hand on the store's phone, as a type of wordless threat to call for assistance.

Felix stared at the scene unfolding before him, a sort of morbid curiosity making him wonder how this would play out.

The stranger, despite his rather tall and imposing form, seemed to freeze on the spot.

"Haha, yeah," the man laughed nervously, his voice low, but not as deep as Felix would have expected. "Of course... just gimme a second."

The stranger made quite a show of digging through his pockets for his wallet,
apologizing sheepishly every once and a while for taking so long to find his money.

It was then that Felix quickly understood: this guy clearly had no money on him at all. He was just buying time, likely hoping an escape route would pop up.

The cashier didn't seem to be believing this bullshit excuse, and as his face grew angrier, Felix felt an odd feeling swell up in his chest... one that almost stung like guilt.

"I'm paying for it,"
Felix announced without thinking.
"He's with me, I brought the money."

God dammit.
Felix knew his stupid sympathy was really going to be the end of him this time. He'd always had a problem with being too giving towards people, but this?
This really took the cake.

The stranger stared at him, wide eyed as Felix timidly padded over to the cashier, slapping his last $5 bill on the counter.
The price tag on the bar had read $3.99, so he basically was handing over everything he had left to the cashier.

"Tch, okay then," the cashier accepted the offer, taking the bill and punching a few things into the cash register's screen.
"Plus tax totals out to $4.15. Here's your change," the man went through the regular motions, placing a smattering of coins into Felix's small outreaching hand.

All he could do was shyly thank the cashier.
As he turned away, he let out a deep breath, knowing there was no point in staying in the store now that he officially had no money left.

Thus he hurried over to the store's exit, swinging open the door and stepping out into the chilling night air.
Maybe this was some sort of sign, that it was better to go back home and ruin everything, instead of run away. Or, if he stayed outside and starved, maybe it would bring him some good karma in the afterlife, at least?

Felix could only manage to sigh at his own behavior, walking across the empty parking lot. His mind was clouded with questions, mainly that of where to camp out and sleep that night.

The sound of running footsteps behind him didn't even register in his mind, too busy contemplating the idea of checking into a shelter.

Similarly, a shouted, "Stop! Wait!" from behind wasn't even noticed.

"Hey! Hold on, stop!"
came a yell at a much louder volume.

Felix whipped around at the sound of someone shouting from almost right next to him, more frightened than he'd been all week.

"Shit!" Felix cursed as he took in the view of the mysterious broke stranger from the store, who had apparently decided to take up a new job of scaring Felix straight into the grave.

"What...?" Felix questioned, glancing over the man's fully covered form, suspicious.
"What do you want?"

"You should take this," the man insisted, holding out the snack bar that Felix had paid for.

"No, no," Felix argued back. "It's fine, you probably need it more than me."

"I really don't. Thanks for saving my ass back there, but it's fine," the stranger pleaded. "I actually have a lot of money."

Felix stared at the man for a moment.
Though he could only see his eyes, his expression seemed way too sincere to be lying.

"You have money but you're shoplifting?" Felix questioned, his tone laced with disbelief.

"Yeah, I do. You looked tight on cash so I feel bad, I can't take this," the stranger handed the bar out once more, sort of pushing it into Felix's personal space.

"Well, yeah, that kinda was my last five dollars I just spent," Felix mumbled, a slight bitterness coming off in his tone.
"It's fine though. I'll live."

"Your last five? Fuck, dude, at least let me pay you back or something—"

"It's really okay."

"I'll give you $100 and some french fries," the man offered, making Felix pause for a second.
This... weird, broke, suspicious, unidentifiable man was offering him a stupid amount of money and food, just for buying him a snack bar? The offer was admittedly tempting, but...

Felix wasn't stupid. He knew that accepting things from random strangers was dangerous, and not something anyone who values their life is supposed to do...

Which is exactly why he responded with a resounding: "Really? Okay, deal."

The man nodded, and beckoned for Felix to follow him down the street.
"My car is parked at the end of this block, I have spare cash in there," the stranger said, raising yet another red flag high in Felix's mind.

Getting into a stranger's car? That was practically the first rule of "stranger danger;" that one should never, ever get into a random person's vehicle.

Thus, Felix responded with:
"Sure. Cool."

The boy had abandoned all suspicion at this point, and all his worries were long gone. He felt as if he might as well do this, even if all he got out of it was a couple of snack items.

The mysterious man nodded, before turning and strolling in silence, guiding the tired boy either to a great reward or to his inevitable torture and death.

By now, Felix knew he had nothing to lose.