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The sky above the circus shimmered in pastel grids, and the ground bounced slightly with every step as the six of them approached a towering neon building shaped like a smiling shopping cart.
Above the automatic doors, a flashing sign blinked in impossible colors:
WELCOME TO MARKET-O-MANIA! BUY OR BE BOUGHT!
“Remember!” Caine’s voice echoed from absolutely nowhere and everywhere. “You are shopping for ingredients for tonight’s Surprise Banquet of Mild Peril! Do not question the list! The list questions you!”
A receipt long enough to function as a scarf printed itself midair and smacked Pomni in the face.
Jax snorted, adjusting his posture like he hadn’t just almost been smothered by paper.
Pomni peeled it off slowly. I hate this place already, she thought.
“Teams!” Caine continued gleefully. “Because separation builds character and lawsuits!”
Assignments were quickly made:
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Pomni & Jax: Aisles A through H
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Zooble & Gangle: Frozen and dairy
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Ragatha & Kinger: Ethically sourced glitter root
“Splendid!” Ragatha said, gently steering Kinger away from a display of screaming oranges.
“They’re whispering about taxes,” Kinger murmured.
Zooble grabbed a cart with one violently squeaky wheel. “If this place has a loyalty program, I’m abstracting.”
Pomni pushed the cart.
Jax immediately leaned on it.
“Can you not?” she asked.
“I’m conserving energy.”
“You don’t do anything.”
“Exactly.”
She stopped abruptly, nearly launching him forward.
“We need Crunch Prism Flakes,” she read from the list.
Jax scanned the shelf. “Generic is cheaper.”
“There is no money.”
“It’s about principles.”
“This is not the time to unpack capitalism.”
“It’s always the time.”
Pomni grabbed the brightly colored box. Jax smoothly replaced it with a nearly identical one labeled CRNCH PR1SM FLAKS.
“This one has more personality,” he said.
“It’s missing vowels.”
“It’s efficient.”
“We’re getting the correct one.”
“We are not supporting Big Cereal.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“You’re controlling.”
“I am organized!”
“You reorganized my room once!”
“It was chaos!”
“It was curated chaos!”
They were now arguing at full volume in front of a pyramid of sentient granola.
At the end of the aisle, Zooble slowly rolled past with their cart, watching the scene.
“You two know you sound like a married couple, right?”
Silence.
Pomni froze mid-reach.
Jax stopped mid-smirk.
“We do not,” Pomni said immediately.
“I would never survive that kind of commitment,” Jax added.
Zooble blinked. “Uh-huh.”
Pomni turned pink.
“You’re fighting about cereal like it’s a mortgage,” Zooble continued.
Gangle peeked around the cart, visibly stressed.
Ragatha, across the store, perked up in mild horror.
Something shifted in Jax’s expression.
Pomni saw it happen.
“No,” she warned.
“Oh,” Jax said slowly, grin spreading. “If that’s what we sound like…”
“Don’t you dare.”
He slung an arm around her shoulders dramatically.
“Honey,” he said loudly, “we’ve talked about this. The generic flakes just don’t have the same crunch profile.”
Pomni stared at him in betrayal. He just grinned nudging her.
Fine. If he was committing to the bit…
Pomni plastered on the sweetest smile she could manage and leaned into him.
“Oh, pumpkin,” she cooed, “you said that about the pasta sauce too, and we both know how that turned out.”
Jax blinked once — impressed.
“Oh, you’re right, snugglebug. That sauce nearly destroyed our vows.”
Gangle made a distressed squeak.
Ragatha clasped her hands. “Oh my.”
Kinger whispered, “The ritual has begun.”
Pomni grabbed his face, squishing his cheeks.
“Sweetie, what did the therapist say about compromise?” She said in a singsong voice.
“There is no therapist,” Zooble muttered.
“There could be,” Jax shot back smoothly, “if someone would stop spending all our fake money on name-brand cereal.” He gave a pointed look at pomni.
Pomni gasped. “Don’t bring finances into this in public!”
“We agreed not to fight in front of the produce!”
“There is no produce in this aisle!”
“Exactly!”
They were fully committed now. Pomni looped her arm through his. “We’ll get the brand name.”
Jax sighed dramatically. “Fine. But I’m choosing the pasta.”
“Compromise,” she said sweetly. “See? Growth.”
“I’m proud of us.”
Zooble physically turned their cart around. “You are both the worst.”
Pomni beamed. “We know.”
Jax squeezed her shoulder lightly. “That’s why it works.”
The act continued down aisles B, C, and D. They perfected cringey nicknames, exaggerated sighs, and suggestive comments about “who gets the last spoon of pudding” and “how to really fold napkins.”
Pomni rolled her eyes at a jar of neon pickles. “Sweetheart, you know these are inferior. They’re acidic to the touch.”
“They’re only acidic if you don’t appreciate them,” Jax replied, smirking. “Kind of like me.”
She groaned dramatically. “Oh, darling, your ego is showing again. Should I fetch the lint roller?”
Behind them, Ragatha whispered to Kinger, “I think they’re enjoying this too much.”
Zooble muttered, “I need therapy after this aisle.”
Then, halfway through aisle F, something shifted.
Pomni leaned against Jax, not exaggerating, just… tired.
He glanced down at her, expecting the act to continue. But the slight slump in her posture, the tiny hitch in her breath, the way her eyes softened — it wasn’t performance anymore.
“You’re too stubborn,” she muttered quietly.
“I know,” he admitted softly, lowering his voice.
A beat of silence stretched between them, and suddenly the married-couple act felt fragile and absurd. The absurdity didn’t vanish, but the humor paused just long enough for real feelings to almost slip through.
Pomni looked away. “I—don’t…”
“It’s fine,” Jax said, voice low. “You don’t have to act. I’m not asking you to.”
Her fingers twitched slightly on the cart handle. “We’ve been… pretending so long.”
“Yeah,” he said, almost a whisper. “But pretending with you is… better than pretending alone.”
Pomni swallowed. “You’re impossible.”
“I know,” he smiled faintly.
The moment broke when Zooble’s voice cut across the aisle. “You two are still doing this? I hate everything.”
Pomni and Jax blinked, then quickly resumed their exaggerated gestures, this time with a little softer undertone. The act remained — obnoxious, over-the-top, cringey — but the edge had softened. Both of them felt it, even if no one else did.
They finished the shopping list, arguing about pasta brands and cereal crunch, bickering and laughing all the way to the checkout, still performing… but now with a subtle, unspoken honesty beneath the act.
The circus had never seen anything like it.
And somehow, that was perfect.
The End