"Okay Hinata-chan, the first thing you haveta know is how to sell the merchandise."
The shy girl bits her lip, blood slowly trickling out onto her pale face, her lilac eyes puzzled.
"But I'm the cashier, Boss-sama…"
"Just call me Ino-chan, dahhling. And cashiers here do their fair share of the sale as well. After all, Forehead was a cashier in her first days here…. Now, let's see…."The blonde, her hair up in a loose ponytail, blue eyes shining, twists her body this way and that to take in the shy brunette, measuring tape caressing her bare arms.
Hinata doesn't really know why she's here, exactly. It wasn't her first choice for a job, in fact, she tried several applications, each less favorable than the next, until she saw the help wanted sign.
Of course, she'd been too hungry and desperate at that point to realize that the help was needed by "Kawaii-Desu Special Occasion Theme Lingerie Garden", run by Miss Yamanaka Ino, a high-school graduate of two years with….slightly unrealistic work-dress, largely consisting of rose-pink bandage lingerie and sparkling hair ornaments.
"OOooooh! Forehead, come over here! I think we found Mount Fuji, and it has a twin!"
The surly-looking pinkette strides over from the counter, dressed in a simple red tank top and jeans, looking out of place, ordinary in the glittering fantasy of the store.
The shop itself is a pervert's fantasy. Every maid-uniform style known to man, in varying shades, is housed in one section, and in another, faux mermaid scales and feathers weigh down loose pieces of silk. The walls, pink and purple, sting the eyes, and dressing-room mirrors light up in every corner.
Hinata never saw herself in a place like this.
Even as a customer (well, unless her future husband had some kind of fetish).
She had expected to finish college, what she wanted she hadn't been sure of at the time, but she would have found out, sooner or later.
She would have graduated.
She would have been….something.
"Awww, don't cry." The nearly-naked blonde swings her arms around her. "If you're shy about the twins' size, you don't haveta be. These babies are what hold up our industry, after all!"
"Pig, she's not crying about her breast size." A comforting hand on Hinata's shoulder, proving to her that maybe the pinkette was just in a perpetually bad mood, instead of being a grown high-school mean-girl as her surly expression had led Hinata to believe.
"Well, you should be, Forehead! Your A-cups are barely even noticeable!" The blonde blows her side-bangs into the air with a simple huff. "It's a wonder all the boys chase you, when they could have something more substantial. Speaking of which, when are you gonna get hitched to Naruto? I got a wedding gift I was saving for ya…"
"I have no desire to marry Naruto, now or ever." Sakura turned to the shelves of lacy undergarments, suddenly absorbed in their delicacy, fiddling with them. "He's just a friend."
"And all our male friends send us flowers on a weekly basis ? Sakura, you gotta stop toying around. This is the real deal!"
The pinkette turned, her emerald eyes feverishly bright, staring daggers into Ino, who gulped and stepped back.
"Toying around?" Sakura stepped forward. "Just how the hell was I ever toying around…" Her voice is the cold anticipation of a spark about to burst into flame, and Hinata shivers, feeling tears of misplaced self-guilt begin to form.
Whenever people are angry, I cry.
It's funny.
I always manage to think it's my fault.
In the space of an instant, the whole scene changes.
The pinkette has her head in her hands, weeping openly, silently as if afraid to showcase her tattered self-control. Ino holds her in her barely-clothed arms, comforting her with soft words:
"Sakura…it's alright. Sasuke doesn't know what he threw away. You're doing great, babe, going to medical school, top of the class….Sasuke won't be so lucky, now, will he?"
Hinata steps forward uneasily, her own conflicted eyes darting back and forth.
"Should I leave you two?"
As if someone paused the scene on a DVD, they stop. Ino lets go of Sakura, who, rubbing plaintively at red eyes, smiles a patent bright smile, the epitome of fake.
"It's okay, Hinata." She sniffs, rubbing now at her nose. "I just got out of a bad relationship and need some time, you know?"
"Yeah."
She lies.
She never had a boyfriend, and she's never been kissed.
She's so inexperienced and shy it angers her, somewhere deep in the core of her soul.
"So….." she breaks the awkward tension of a few seconds with her own voice. "When do I start?"
The bubbliness comes back into Ino's face, blue eyes lighting up with some strange happiness as she races over and glomps Hinata to herself.
"TODAY!"