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Likho was pushing his half-full shopping cart through the housewares department of the shop, looking for Kian.
They had finally moved in together the week before, and were now buying various things they would need in their new flat. Because they were only getting some essentials today, nothing they would both have to agree on, they had decided to split up and both get part of what they needed.
Likho had finished his part of the shopping, so now he was trying to find Kian and see how far he had gotten with his.
After a couple of minutes he found him next to the shelf with the brooms, intensely looking at the ones that were on display, as if he had trouble deciding which one to get.
Likho was about to say something, to let him know that he was there, when he noticed that Kian's cart was still empty. Despite them both having been in the store for a while.
"Have you been here the entire time?" Likho asked, disbelief heavy in his voice. How long could one take to grab a broom off a shelf?
"Yes, I just can't decide which one would be best," Kian replied, not even looking at Likho but keeping his eyes fixed on the selection of brooms.
Seriously? Likho raised an eyebrow. "We're just going to be using it on our balcony, because you said we can't use the same one we use inside."
"Exactly. The balcony is going to be a lot more dirty than the floors inside." Kian still wasn't looking at him, but he had his eyes on a different set of brooms now.
Likho let out a sigh. "Look, let's just take this one and be done with it." Likho reached for a simple looking broom, that seemed to mostly consist of straw being neatly tied around a pole, but before he could reach it, Kian grabbed his wrist and stopped him from taking the broom off the shelf. He was finally looking at him, and his face now showed the same kind of disbelief Likho felt about the whole situation, but as it seemed, for an entirely different reason.
"That's a besom!" Kian sounded honestly shocked that Likho would even suggest something like it.
"So?" The whole situation was getting more and more bizarre for Likho. Why were they having this kind of conversation over a broom of all things? "It's just for the balcony, it'll do."
Kian didn't reply to it, but the look he sent Likho said enough.
Likho sighed. "Fine. Which brooms couldn't you decide over?"
Apparently that had been the right thing to ask, because Kian's expression turned back to normal, and turning back towards the shelf, pointed out a couple of brooms. "This one has some steel wire bristles in the middle that might be great for persistent dirt, but I'm not sure if they're going to leave scratches on the floor. But it also has this metal scraper that might be useful in winter in case the balcony freezes over. Then this one is quite normal and also a bit smaller, which might be enough, but I'd hate to leave something behind that we might need. And then there's..."
"Look," Likho finally said, stopping Kian in his explanations, and also in the middle of his sentence.
He didn't know anything about brooms, and his way to deal with it would be to just take one at random and be done with it, but Kian cared about this, for whatever reason, so he suggested a different solution: "Why don't you ask a salesperson? They should know more about their brooms than w- I do."
He had almost said 'we', but Kian clearly knew something about brooms, and definitely more than Likho himself.
Kian hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, I suppose you're right."
He left to look for someone right away, and a few moments later returned with a young man, who seemed to not be entirely sure either, but eager to help, and the two of them engaged into a discussion about which broom would really be the best to use for cleaning a balcony.
Likho had a feeling that the conversation might go on for a while, and in a moment of niceness decided to go collect Kian's half of the shopping as well. No, not niceness, he decided. He just had enough of talks about brooms, and doing that would both get him away from them and make sure the two of them would be finished earlier than they would be if they had to go collect the rest of the items after Kian finally made a decision. So it was all just a rational decision.
When he returned later with a full cart, Kian was waiting for him, an entirely different broom in hand than the ones he had looked at earlier, a simple looking wooden one, but Likho was sure there was more to it than he would ever see in it, and Kian seemed happy with it, and that was what counted. And if he was happy with it, they wouldn't have to get a new one in a long time.
"You shouldn't have gotten my part of the shopping," Kian protested, when he saw the full cart, but he gave Likho a smile, showing that the protest was just out of principle, and Likho shrugged.
"You were taking too long."
"Sorry.” Kian looked a bit sheepish while loading the broom into the cart. “I'm really usually not that broom obsessed, but...” the rest of Kian's sentence ended in a mumble, and with Kian turning his back to him while starting to push the cart in the direction of the checkout, he couldn't really hear him, but it sounded as if Kian had just said that there was something pure and beautiful about a broom but... surely he had heard that wrong. Or had he? Likho stopped to shoot a confused frown at Kian's back, before heading after him. No, he surely had heard that wrong.