3 The girl behind the counter.

And it was, in fact, easy. I just took the phone in my hands. Pushed the power button. Enter the right PIN. No new messages. Not going to lie and say I wasn't disappointed, but, eh, not like I really thought it would be any different.

"Life's a neverending story of disappointment. Who would've guessed, huh?" I sighed and put the smartphone into the hoodie's pocket.

Hm, should I look for my wallet? My intuition told me it must be lying somewhere in the hallway, right beside the keys. My guess was right on point, of course. Well, not really a surprise, since it was a habit that I wasn't able to change even twenty years later.

It was an old-fashioned black leather wallet, well worn-out by now. I used it since I was thirteen? Fourteen, maybe? So, if my math didn't fail me, for around five years now. I checked the insides. ID, train card, gym membership card, few visit cards from various bars. Two useless pieces of plastic, that I was pretty sure should've had quite a bit of money on them, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember a PIN to either of them. Should I contact the bank and reset it?

I had a feeling that there was something important, but it just kept eluding me. After some deliberation, I decided to leave this problem to my future self. Heavens above sees, the current-me plate was already full as it is.

Throwing the wallet into the second pocket of the hoodie, it was the time to put my shoes on and be gone. Oh, hell yes, this was the moment I missed all these years.

Off-brand, once-upon-a-time white sneakers. Worn enough to be comfortably soft, and long since in the exact shape of my foot. Ideal finishing touch to my current 'lazy bum' getup. Wearing them once again was pure bliss! Especially so after years of being forced to wear either 'status appropriate' leather shoes, or some branded trash.

Smiling wryly at my own rant, I grabbed the keys, closed the apartment's door behind myself, and went out into the late evening.

***

The weather was surprisingly warm for this time of the year. Maybe I should've checked the weather app before going out? As it was now, my hoodie felt a bit too warm to have it zipped all the way, but since I didn't bother to wear a t-shirt, I couldn't just unzip it all the way. Damn, what a predicament.

In the end, I compromised, unzipping it half-way, not enough for some stray overly dutiful police officer to find an excuse and pull me for 'public indecency', but just enough to actually cool myself to a comfortable level. After some more thinking, I rolled my sleeves up as well. Oh no, my 'lazy bum' get-up got changed into 'lazy bum who looks for trouble'. The fact I kept my hood pulled down almost to my eye-level made it even worse. Well, local hoodlums should know good enough who I was by now not to find unnecessary problems.

I lazily strolled through the late evening. Twenty-some years into the past, the city looked, sounded and felt quite different. Not every building around me shone like a lightbulb with advertisements. The sound of traffic also was almost non-existent, though, possibly, it was because of how far this block was from the main streets. The most drastic difference was the air itself. You could smell the difference of twenty years less pollution. It almost made me feel lightheaded. Or maybe I was hungrier than I thought, haha.

***

Local convenience store, open twenty-four/seven, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Here you can buy anything, from contraceptives to clothes to toys for the kids. Wide variety of junk food and cheap alcohol and vice versa.

The girl behind the counter was a bit on the cute side and also looked bored enough, so I paid a bit of mind to the idea of chatting her up for a quickie in the storeroom. But decided not to, since I would need to visit this place on the regular, and she didn't seem like the type that would settle for a one-night stand. As such, I just smiled at her and nodded a bit at her customary greeting, and went to what I came here for – groceries.

If I still had some inkling of hope that this was some elaborate prank, this place shot it down without mercy. Dates, packaging. Old brands that long since went under, bought out by their rivals and rebranded.

I honestly felt myself in a foreign country right now – trying to guess what was cheap but quality goods, what was overpriced junk. Quickly giving up on this hopeless endeavor, I just took whatever brand was familiar to me from the future. If it's still on the market, it couldn't be that bad, right?

Two kilos of basmati rice, frozen green beans, a pack of eggs, a carton of milk, and a pack of bread. Some bacon that looked good enough from a first glance. Few cup noodles as an emergency rations. To my despair, the coffee section lacked any actual coffee, so I settled on green tea instead. I really need to search for some online coffee traders and get a hold of good stuff.

Another glance over the content of my basket, nodding to myself as if I bought all what was on the list. Though, well, my list said 'whatever' in the first place, ain't it? And I went to the counter.

The counter girl, I quickly read the name on her badge - Claire, was busy reading something from her phone. Whatever it was, it was enough to make her invested and a bit upset even. My polite cough took her out of her trance.

"Ah! Um, I'm sorry," I heard her flustered apology. "I, um, didn't think that you would pay."

Now, that was a surprise, indeed.

"I bet people frequently tell you that you have no filter between brain and mouth, yes?" I said to her, chuckling a bit to show that I took her words in a good tone. She lowered her head and got a bit more flustered. "But I can somewhat understand where you are coming from, so no offense taken."

I indeed looked like someone looking for trouble.

The counter girl proceeded to check the things in my basket. From up close, she actually looked cuter by quite a bit. I took another appraising look at Claire, calling her counter girl was burdensome, in front of me.

A bit older than my current self, in her early-to-mid twenties, I would say between twenty-one and twenty-three. Shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes. She was on the lower average height side. Her head came up to around my shoulder. I wasn't sure what kind of shoes she was wearing, so it could differ. Hm, my current height was around 183-186 cm(6'0"-6'1") so it puts her around 160-163 cm (5'3"-5'4"). It was hard to accurately judge her actual figure under that disaster of a uniform, but neither her hands nor her face looked either overweight or underweight. If anything, she looked quite fit overall. The idea of chatting her up once again resurfaced in my mind, but the old reasoning still stood strong.

The silence was a bit awkward, so I decided to joke with this girl a little to relieve my boredom.

"Well. I planned to do exactly that at first, but pleasant surprise at the fact of how cute counter girl was, made me reconsider," I said in the most cheesy tone possible and even added an exaggerated wink. "So I decided on becoming a regular customer here instead."

Either she was unused to the attention, or I wasn't as obvious as intended, but she froze for a moment and even dropped the pack of bread that she was about to check out.

"I'm sorry. There is someone I like already," she said in a loud tone.

"And ain't it one lucky guy. Or maybe a gal?" I teased her with another smile.

She smiled back, but after a few moments her smile dimmed.

"It's that guy from my study group, name's Daniel. If only he could notice my signals!" Now she sounded quite annoyed. Oh, there was a story, how interesting. I leaned on a counter, showing her that I'm ready to listen, and she can proceed with her rant. Which she did. "Not the most handsome guy around, but he is a very kind person. Always so polite and ready to help. And we have so many things in common! We like the same books, movies, and poetry authors. Even our music tastes are very similar. When I am with him, I feel like I can talk about anything and everything freely. It's like we are best friends, or maybe even soulmates already."

Wow, hearing a cute girl telling me about her feelings for another guy was really annoying. Even if I weren't really interested in her past few nights of passion at the moment. At the same time, this monologue of hers made me think if someone could ever talk about me like this. Yeah, as if. I would be lucky if people weren't cursing me outright.

"He just can't take a hint. I tried everything that came up to my head already, short of throwing myself naked at him. Hell, last time we had a group outing to the beach, I put on that racy black bikini my friend lent me. You know how much reaction that got out of him?" Claire was all but fuming by now. "Zero. I dare to say in the negatives even. For the whole outing. That idiot ignored me and played in the water with other guys."

I took another look at her. In the heat of the moment, she leaned towards me, so it gave me a better angle to judge her figure. I pencil marked her attractiveness half a point extra. Dude must be either gay or dead not to react to someone like that.

"Are you sure he ain't gay?" I voiced my concern.

"I asked a friend to ask him. And no, he likes girls. And before you ask, he is single as well" was the answer I got.

"Then he must be blind, or dead, to ignore someone as attractive," was my conclusion.

She looked at me for a long moment and just laughed it off. Another quarter of a point. Just a point more, and my earlier words about cute counter girl will become the truth.

"At this point, I'm almost desperate," Claire finished her story with an exasperated expression.

Then, as if just remembering what her actual job was, she hastily finished checking the remaining products. Right, I was there to shop for food and not to hook up with girls. Well, nothing wrong with having a cake and eating it as well, right?

"Well, for what it's worth, I'll cheer for you," I chuckled. "And if it doesn't work out, I won't mind lending you my shoulder."

She told me the total and I paid with cash, then she packed my things into a plastic bag.

"Eh, it's my gift to my future regular customer. And also a thank you for listening to my rant," was her answer, when I mentioned that I didn't ask nor pay for the bag.

Waving my hand at her customary farewell, I left the convenience store.