This tiny man really is a ghost, isn't he?

Scar prefers not to dwell on it.

"Provided nothing else accosts me between here and checkout," he says, picking through a stack of fresh ginger root. He's had a day. More than a day, at this point.

"If you're certain..." Scar looks down at the deposited stock with mild surprise. He offers a singular nod of thanks.

He's fairly confident that's everything. His list has been long lost in the shuffle between home and here, and God only knows what time it will be when he's finally home. He makes his way back toward the front of the store, soup ingredients, kitty ice cream and all.

"Does that reset tomorrow, or do you have other plans while incorporeal?"

Scar makes a face as if he's just smelled something rancid. He isn't sure if he's imagining it, but he doesn't care at this point.

He makes his way toward the automatic checkout, and Beetlejuice gets to experience the mortifying ordeal of watching Scar try to operate a touch screen. He already has to crouch a comedic amount to see the screen at all. He's fat-fingering every other key he presses. He's hunting and pecking. The Works.

Slowly, surely, Scar has made his way through his entire basket. The scanned items are neatly bagged to the side. Scar holds in his hand one (1) fresh ginger root, and he's trying so very hard to look it up.

hinhrr

gingter

gungre

gninge

He doesn't even seem to be losing patience. He's still trucking along. Unstoppable force.

Scar is unflinching. He doesn't even notice The Presence floating beside him.

gingety

gimger

ginger

Beep! The steady determination on his face is unmoving. Scar prods at the screen to confirm the selection, and in the process, bumps the Add Quantity button in addition to the confirmation. He drops the offending root in his bag, and the automatic checkout... is not satisfied.

"Missing item in bagging area."

Scar stands up to his full height, and as straight as an arrow, speaks to the machine as if it can hear him.

"No, there isn't."

There is, once again, impressively little reaction from Scar. His firmly set brow twitches up at the reaction, and while Beetlejuice is shifting into maximum overdrive, he calmly shuffles to the kiosk directly next to the one being rent asunder, and he

he starts over.

omniom

inoin

pnion

on--

Scar has just completed an immaculate typographic representation of the word onion when The Juice grabs his arm, it's bumped just enough that he adds an extra "l" before hitting enter.

Not found.

He frowns and re-enters the search page, setting the onion down on the bagging platform.

"I can't? I wouldn't need to restart if not for..." Scar eyes the destroyed kiosk, then the tiny man beside him, then the kiosk once again. The only reason he isn't reacting with more disapproval is that it's the Weird Time. Nothing is really against the rules during the Weird Time.

"Unexpected item in the bagging area."

Scar's face actually reflects incredulity at the invasion of his personal space. His surprise is quick to fade into familiar determination. Scar is tired. Like, that tired you can feel in your bone marrow after a panic attack.

He looks Beetlejuice dead in the eye.

"I have been chased out of a corner store by a stampede," he said, "I was deposited onto an airbase where I was forced into a flying machine of unknowable origin and sent hurtling across the sky. The underpass back into the city gave way to a system of tunnels rivaling the bottom of Central's sewers. In those tunnels was a bestial worm wider than you are tall with human teeth larger than dinner plates and a determination to eat me."

Scar lifts the singular piece of ginger between them. The eye contact he is maintaining with Juice, dangling upside down in front of him, is intense on a level one would struggle to put into words.

"I am not jeopardizing this soup for a lapse of patience. Yours, or mine."

...

"Unexpected item in the bagging area."

Scar's eyes track Beetlejuice's trajectory until he lands on the shambling ruins of the first kiosk. His eyes pin him there, and for a beat, he holds.

He approaches the operational display.

He withdraws the unexpected item from the bagging area.

G

I

N

G

E

R

A single bead of sweat slips down Scar's temple. The remaining items go in without a hitch. Scar draws his Skitty coin purse from his pocket, pressing the bills flat and slotting the change into the machine.

The deed is done, and Scar basks in it, a broken man, staring into his humble haul of soup ingredience and novelty ice cream. The receipt prints.

Scar's eyes turn briefly to Beetlejuice and his throne of smouldering wreckage. He nods. The bag goes into his personal cart, and he pockets the receipt.

As he's heading toward the sliding doors of the entrance, he briefly pauses to turn back to his companion of the afternoon, deathly serious.

"I'm going home. No more antics."