Fujiyori Ōno's Costco Adventure

The doors to the Costco slide open with a soft hiss and a rush of cold air. Emil’s knuckles are white, fingers curled so tightly that the stubs of his nails dig into his palms, and his brow is furrowed in concentration. He’s a man on a mission. A mission to conquer the horrors of Costco.

The sharp clicking of heels against the tile floor grows louder and louder as Carmen rushes to catch up. Emil slows his stride, and Carmen grabs hold of his arm to slow him down further. 

“Jeez, you walk fast,” she whines, tugging at the sleeve of his hoodie, “What crawled up your ass and died?”

“CC, you know how Felix is. Do you trust him not to make a mess in a place like this?”

“Well, yeah, he’s an adult, isn’t he?”

“That’s debatable.”

“What, don’t you trust him? Isn’t that what relationships are supposed to be built on? Mutual trust?”

“It’s Felix and Allie in a huge big-box store, with anything they could possibly want, and they’ve been here for almost three hours. Doesn’t that seem suspicious to you? I don’t want to add ‘visiting the county jail’ to the list of things that happen on this trip.”

“Emil, why the fuck would they go to jail? The worst that’s gonna happen is them getting banned from the Costco, and I’m sure that getting banned from a Texas Costco won’t affect them much.”

They’re in the food section, massive shelves of bulk goods stretching farther than Emil could believe. He’d never been in a store that was so large, yet so tightly packed in his entire life, and it made his head spin. It wasn’t a very good feeling. 

Emil decides that he hates Costco. 

Swarms of busy shoppers weave up and down the aisles, giving Emil and Carmen dirty looks for blocking the center of the aisle. Emil blinks, not quite there, as Carmen shoves him into one of the side aisles. Emil leans up against the shelves, breath heavy. Carmen crosses her arms.

“Hey, what’s going on?” she asks, with a concerned expression. Emil just shakes his head and covers his ears with both hands. Carmen looks as if she’s about to say something, but —

“Heeeeeeellll yeeaaaaaaaah!”

Felix’s unmistakable whoops echo down the aisle, and the sound of a quickly-wheeling, squeaky cart being pushed across slightly uneven tiles grows louder and louder. Emil can only put his head in his hands. 

Carmen looks around wildly. “Is that him?” Her suspicions are confirmed the second the words leave her mouth.

“Heyyyyyaaaaaa, baaaaaaabyyyyy!” Felix yells. Emil whips around.

Felix is sitting in the basket of the cart, atop a massive pile of what looks to be random garbage. Resting in his lap are two rotisserie chickens. Allie hops up onto the speeding cart as they ride past, yelling something unintelligible. Felix reaches out his free, non-chicken-filled hand— and slaps Emil’s ass. The two high-five before rounding the corner and disappearing from sight. Emil sighs, curling up to minimize himself as much as possible. To say that Carmen was shocked would be an understatement.

“Okay, now I see what you were worried about.” She shakes her head. “Are we gonna follow them, or what?”

“Hold on a second, I think I’m going to have a child-sized handprint on my left arse-cheek for a couple hours, because this stings.” 

Emil shakes out his legs with a grimace, before sighing heavily and putting his hands into his hoodie pocket. “Alright, let’s go catch ourselves some idiots.”

To their credit, they’re pretty hard to track down for a screaming convoy of chicken and skunky weed smell. Either that, or Costco is just a confusing mess. Or both. Emil had an inkling of where they would be; the electronics section, or some equivalent, but he had absolutely no idea where the hell that could be. Carmen hasn’t a clue either.

“Do I look like I shop at Costco?”

“Well, do I? There isn’t even a Costco on my continent, CC! There are five in your area, I was just assuming that you’d maybe know the layout of stores like this!”

Emil looks up with a sigh, but notices something hanging from the ceiling. A sign.

“Uh, hey, apparently we already passed it,” he says, pointing up. Carmen looks at the sign.

“Shit!”

They both turn around and quickly walk back a few aisles, to where the big TVs are clearly visible over the store shelves. Emil shakes his head. 

“Hold on, how did we walk past this?”

Carmen laughs. “Well, you know how it is when you’re trying to find something…”

Emil pauses. Something about what she’d said sparked a memory from long ago. Was it something his mother said?

 “God, when did we start acting so old?”

“Emil, you’re too young to be having a midlife crisis.”

“Carmen, I’ve been having a midlife crisis for years, you can’t tell me what to do.”

As they round the corner, the first thing Emil notices is the half-eaten brownie in Felix’s hand. His eyes widen. Felix couldn’t be this blasé, could he? Carmen seems to see the same thing, but doesn’t get the meaning. 

“Did he steal that from the store or something?”

Emil whispers into her ear, bending down too far to be comfortable. Was she always this short? He didn’t remember her being so tiny. 

“No, he ‘brought them from home,’ if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do?”

Emil squints. He knew Felix didn’t tell his ex-girlfriend shit, but how could she not know that he was constantly high? It was so painfully obvious in high school, and during their weekly Dungeons and Dragons, and… good lord, this wasn’t what he was like when he was an oblivious asshat, was he?

He shakes his head, not really believing that this was something he needed to say out loud. “Carmen, it’s pot.”

“Ohhhhhh!” She laughs, but after a second her face screws up in what Emil believes to be concern. “Oh. Isn’t that illegal?”

“Yes, yes it is illegal, Carmen. I thought that was obvious by now.”

Felix, hearing their bickering, turns away from the large TV he was watching intently and waves.

“Lover’s quarrel?” He lets out a barking laugh, throwing his head back like he’s just told the world’s funniest joke. He shoves the rest of the brownie into his mouth, crumbs flying from his lips as he speaks. 

“So, do you think that this,” he says, holding up a container of crackers larger than his head, “is a good idea? I mean, I could eat all of these before we get back on the plane, right?”

Emil lifts him out of the cart amid vehement protests, slinging him over his shoulder.

“Alright, sorry, party’s over,” he says.

“Son of a bitch! Put me doooowwwn, I’m having fuuuuuuun!”

Emil pats his boyfriend’s back with the softest touch he can manage, and he sinks into Emil’s shoulder with an audible sigh. Felix twirls a strand of Emil’s hair around his forefinger.

“Can I take a nap?”

“Uhh… not… in a Costco…” Emil stutters. He turns to Allie. “You’re not high, right?”

“Just high on life,” she shrugs. 

“Ditch the cart. Let’s go.”

Allie gets a running start, and pushes the cart as hard as she can down the empty aisle. She turns to Emil with a shit-eating grin.

“Ditched the cart,” she says.

Emil sighs, shaking his head. Soft breathing down his neck signals that Felix is already asleep. Somehow. The Costco was loud, bustling, and incredibly stressful. Emil sort of envy Felix, but weed didn’t agree with him and he’d be even more stressed than he was now. Felix’s feet dangle around his knees as they walk towards the exit to the Costco.

A sign above a kiosk near the entrance catches his eye, and he stops dead. Carmen and Allie follow suit.

“Weren’t you the one who wanted to get out of here as fast as possible?” Allie asks, but Emil shushes her. He stares up at the sign in confusion.

“Hey, do... any of us actually have a Costco membership?”