11:30 A.M.
"Thank you, come again." the clerk said as the customer left. "Not even supposed to be here today," she sighed propping her elbows on the convenient store counter.
"Excuse me?" said another patron. "I'd like to make a complaint about the video store girl. The place was supposed to open half an hour ago."
"I already called her. She'll be here when she gets here. That's all I can say."
A thin raven haired woman with a backwards cap approached the video store next door on the strip; hands in her pocket and the tail of her unbuttoned flannel shirt trailing behind her.
"Don't bother." said a man leaning against the wall outside. "The guy still hasn't shown up yet."
"Really?" the woman replied.
"Yeah, I've been out waiting here for about thirty minutes now."
"Man, that sucks."
"Tell me about it. I've been wanting to rent that game there." he said pointing to the case displayed in the window.
"Seriously? I wanted that one too."
"No way. First in line, I call dibs."
"Yeah? 2000 yen says you don't get to rent it."
"You're on."
The woman smirked accepting the challenge, and walked over the convenient store next door on the strip. She walked through the door and wrangled her way inside.
"You're late, Kuroki." the clerk said to her.
"Oh, hey, Komiyama. What are you doing here?"
"Yohske's out sick, I'm covering for him."
"Well if I knew you were gonna be here, I'd show up later."
Kotomi Komiyama put a case on the counter. "Just open up." she ordered.
Tomoko returned to the video store and unlocked the door. She opened it up, held the door, and gave her customer a cocky grin. He gave her a nasty look and walked inside.
As the years went by, as each day passed, and every attempt at self-improvement blew up in her face Tomoko Kuroki slowly and steadily slipped away from the edge. By the time she graduated from high school, her capacity to give a damn finally exceeded and she decided to follow a very simple mantra: Fuck it. Over time she had grown into a beautiful, but very thorny rose. Physically, she had grown up to an average height and managed to fill out a B-cup. Mentally however, it was hard to say. A simple way of putting it; the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
For example, she was able to talk with her customers as they made their rents and purchases.
"There you go, thank you." she said passing a plastic bag with a couple of Blu-Ray cases, "Oh, and thanks for the 2000."
"Up yours, lady." the man said taking the bag.
But when confronted with a person of the opposite sex she found attractive...
"Excuse me, I'd like to check these out."
"Uh...Um..I...Uh..." She still clammed up.
"Are you okay?"
"Uh...Oh...Yeah, sure. Just let me..." She took the cases and looked through the storage box she kept under her counter for the corresponding discs.
"You know, I'm surprised to find cute girl like you working here."
"A-are..Really?" Her hands shook while she put the discs in their cases. "D-do you have your mem-membership card?"
"Uh, yes ma'am." He reached into his pocket and gave her his card. "But yeah, I heard that there was this real mean-spirited harpy that worked here."
"I—is that so?" she replied through her teeth while a vein popped. Another example: no matter who you were, if you insulted her then she would take it very personally. But her aggression... "Oh, whoops. I accidentally snapped your membership card in half. Clumsy me." ...was not as passive anymore.
"What the hell? That belonged to my friend!"
"Well, accidents happen. But without a membership card, you cannot rent from this store." she replied with a malicious smirk. "You'll have to make a purchase at full price,there are no refunds, and these particular titles are not for sale. Would you like to apply for card of your own? It's only a time-consuming process."
"I guess I found the harpy." he growled as he walked out the store.
"Guess you did." Right as he opened the door, she muttered, rather loudly, "Asshole."
1:25 P.M.
Every now and then, when business was slow, Tomoko would go next door to visit Kotomi until someone walked into her store. It was partly because she was bored and wanted company, but mostly because she knew it bothered the hell out of her old rival.
"Hey, buddy." Tomoko greeted entering the convenient store with a twirl.
"Tomoko Kuroki, ever diligent and an inspiration to video clerks everywhere."
"Well, I do my best." she answered walking to the soda fridge, "And to do my best I need a break once in a while."
"You get paid to sit on your ass and watch T.V."
"I know, and it's exhausting."
"Why haven't you been fired, yet?"
"Because I'm charismatic and people find me funny. That and I blow the boss out back." she answered throwing a soda bottle up and catching it, "How do you think I got that raise?"
"What raise?"
"And that's the joke." Tomoko pulled a bottle opener out of her pocket and hopped up on the counter.
"You know, you can at least pretend to take some pride in your job."
"Pride?" Tomoko laughed, "I'm a video store clerk. What pride is there to take?"
"Pride that someone like you managed to find employment at all. Or if you think you can do better, why don't you?"
"Because I get paid to sit on my ass and watch T.V. This job would be great if it weren't for the customers. That's why I'm kinda glad that GameStop opened up down the street."
"You're so ambitious." Kotomi snarked.
"Hey, once I find an artist for my manga things are gonna shape up for me."
"You know, taking one creative writing class doesn't make you some hotshot writer."
"I aced that creative writing class, and I think I'm a half decent writer at least." She struggled to pop the cap off her drink bottle. "C'mon, you bitch. Open for mama!"
Kotomi reached over and twisted the top off with her bare hand. "It's a twist off," she informed with a smirk.
"Oh. I knew that"
"I still don't get it. It's a story based on your life as a socially awkward outcast, and it's supposed to be funny?"
"Yes, I believe the term is black comedy."
"Who in their right mind is gonna read something like that?"
"Sadists, obviously." Tomoko answered taking a sip of her drink. "Maybe masochists who relate to my protagonist, but I doubt that."
"Hey, who knows? Maybe if it doesn't work out here in Japan, it'll garner a huge fandom overseas." Kotomi teased.
"That's a nice wish," Tomoko snapped back, "but until I get a chapter drawn, I'll stay within the realms of reality." She took another sip. "And if it doesn't work out at all, I've always the video store to fall back on."
"Well if you love the video store so much, maybe you should do your job and attend to your customer." Kotomi replied pointing out the window to someone entering the video place.
4:45 P.M.
She sat back with her feet propped up on the counter and her nose in a yaoi manga. She had anime playing while she focused on her book. This was probably the fifth time she re-watched this series, but this was the only decent show the store carried. It wasn't like she was really watching anyway, she just liked having the noise. "Oh god, I need to get laid." she yawned as she stretched out. She noticed there was a customer. "What do you want?"
"Ah...Um...uh..." It was a schoolgirl. She was rather small in stature, but her uniform suggested she was in high school. Her hands shook as she placed a game case on the counter. "I-I...I'd like to...to buy..."
It was hard to understand her soft-spoken stammering, but Tomoko was able to get that the girl wanted to buy the game. She reached under the counter to pick out the right disc while maintaining as little eye-contact as possible. Looking at that girl was like taking a painful look into the past; she reminded her so much of herself in those days, from the unkempt hair that covered one of her baggy eyes down to her nervous speech pattern. She put the disc in the case and rang up the price. The girl reached into her purse and rummaged through it. She became flustered as she searched it more frantically.
'Oh crap, don't tell me...' Tomoko thought. She could tell the girl was looking for her wallet, and it wasn't in there. This situation was all too familiar to her. It was hard enough watching her search for money she thought she had, but knowing the embarrassment of realizing she didn't was just too much. She pulled out a notepad and a pen, wrote something down, and told the girl to sign the paper.
"It's an I.O.U." Tomoko explained, "Let's make a deal, okay kid? Sign this, and you get to rent it and pay me when you bring it back."
"Um...O-okay...But...but I...I don't have a mem...membership c-card."
"And technically, I'm not supposed to do this," the clerk replied writing something else on another piece of paper. "So here's my schedule. Make sure you turn it in when I'm on staff. Keep this our little secret, okay?" she asked with a wink.
The girl signed the I.O.U., took the game, and bowed. "Th-thank you O-...Oneesama."
Tomoko kicked back again and watched the girl leave. "Cute kid," she mused. 'Oneesama, huh?' The thought hit her in three waves, pride: 'I think I just became that kid's role model,' self-awareness: 'I...think I just became that kid's role model...,' and then horrifying realization: 'Oh crap, I think I just became that kid's role model.'
5:58 A.M.
"So, you beat your record for how many people you can piss off in one day yet, dragon-lady?"
"Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk." Tomoko quipped. "Just make sure you lock up, okay?" she added handing the keys to the other clerk.
"Any plans for tonight?" he asked.
"What do you think?"
Tomoko exited the store and met up with Kotomi outside who handed her a cigarette while she pulled out a lighter. "I don't know," she said lighting her smoke, "this whole half-pack deal we got goin'. Just feels like one of us is getting screwed here." She passed the lighter to Kotomi.
"One of us buys a pack of smokes, and we split them. Technically we're paying for a whole pack. Eventually." She handed the lighter back after lighting her cigarette. "What are we doing with our lives?" she sighed.
"Living."
"Are we? Have you ever wondered why we're here?"
"Because after four years of college, the only place that'll take us is the same place we've been working to put ourselves through it."
"We're loitering outside the place we work at, right after we're done with work! Where did my life go wrong?"
"It went wrong the minute you crawled out the womb."
"You really have changed since high school, you know that?"
"Aw, thanks. Not everyday I get a compliment from you."
"Oh, I'm not complimenting you, Kuroki. You've been an awful person since the day I met you. Nowadays, you're just more open about it to strangers as you are with people you know."
"I feel it's best to be honest with yourself. I hate people and everything just seems stupid to me. As soon as I admitted that to myself, I wondered why I needed everyone's approval anyway. So now..."
"So now you're just a shsmrless mantis to anybody who makes eye-contact with you."
"Mantis?"
"Yeah, you know..."
"No, I get it. That's a new one is all. I've been called harpy, dragon-lady, witch,wolf-bitch, and whole lot of other things that can't be said in a T rated fic. I have a list and I keep track. I really like wolf-bitch, but for some reason the most people like to call me the Grudge. Can't imagine why."
"Does...Does it have anything to do with Yuu?"
"Hey, Danger Zone!" Tomoko snapped back.
"Okay, okay. You aren't the only one who was hurt, though. She was my friend too, you know."
"I...I just miss her a lot."
"Me too, Kuroki. Me too." They each took a puff from their cigarettes, then Kotomi added, "I still can't believe you got us kicked out of her wake, though."
"Are you still mad about that!?-
"I'm just wondering how the hell that even happened."
"It was an accident!"