'This isn't going to work, I just know it in the bottom pit of my stomach, whissu~."
Prior to the floating cloud's words… things weren't looking to good nor bad in his opinion. Currently, Whisper is with Keita and Jibanyan waiting in front of a huge grocery store in the yokai world because they heard about special sales and watch upgrades.
His companion, looking for a shopping cart to put a butt ton of items into, looked up and down the outside of the store. The place wasn't like a business building tall and at the same time it was wide enough for many citizens to come in and out.
As a side-note to Keita, his mother told him to go out and buy some groceries she had forgotten to get, most of the essentials for household daily cleaning, some fruits, cereals, pastries and ice creams… 'I really should have written a list.' He thought to himself. He had to get many things but now he was confused as to what they needed in the first place.
"Let's hurry up with this nyan~! My butt is going to get a nyasty rash!" Jibanyan wakes him from his thinking state, digging through his yellow band pockets. The red cat fumbled around more due to being placed in a baby holder by Keita. He thought with Jibanyan's obsession with chocolate he might give the grocery bill a sky rocketing price.
He was put there for his own good, and Keita managed to convince him he'd find a chocobo sale inside the store. It worked, much to Whisper's surprise.
FWIP! Out came a card enveloped in a sheet of paper, and gives it to Keita.
"Ah! I almost lost mom's cash card! Thank you Jibanyan!" he says rubbing the others head. He purrs in return, thinking it wouldn't be this bad of an idea. The store has a huge sale where if you have a cute animal or child with you, you get a discount up to 40% off on your entire purchase visit!
Therefore, Whisper is feeling, rather, inadequate to the situation. Jibanyan was cute indeed, but on a child and just those three in the store? He wasn't sure if things were going to go right or not, but he did need to look at any sales on necessities back at home.
Finally finding the right cart, he shifts Jibanyan, walks passed the automatic doors with eyeballs that monitors the outside. Everyone, even Whisper was a tad hesitant about entering a Yokai grocery shop to begin with. It wouldn't be like the ones in the human world. They weren't sure if the cashiers and supervisors would be big yokai, or even have odd ingredients like newts' eye or frogs tongue for food.
The black and purple automatic doors swish open, a blast of cooling air slammed the three with light force and the inside wasn't quite what Keita expected. It almost looked like a regular grocery store.
Flying high near the ceiling were Buuhu's with baskets in their beaks, meramerion and nekidspeed racing each other to the medical aisle for protein bars, shakes and essential vitamins for their daily routines of inspiriting people.
Jibanyan gets Keita's attention again with a tug and pull on his shirt, getting him back to the plan at hand.
The overhead intercom comes on; a supervisor's voice invades the ears of the customers and Keita heads off into the produce section to pick out his needed fruit. Going through the endless numbers of said delicacies was a pleasure, but he struck himself to getting the banana's, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries.
"Like~, good afternoon fabulous customers welcome to Yo-Torious Grocery! We're having our special savings with cheese snacks, ice cream and potential store made smoothies! They're off the charts! As always, thank you for shopping with us!"
Man, could that woman put the spunk in everything she said.
"Great thinking Keita-kun! Your mother will be so proud of all the healthy choices you're making!" The blue lipped yokai swirled in the air to the decisions.
"Oh please nyan, this is only the beginning. His mom put the budget at no higher than $100 bucks. You never kny'oh how much this will rack up when we go through the whole store." The red cat liked his paws clean of potential anticipation to get them on chocolate.
They trekked through an endless aisle of ready to go lunch boxes, the deli-section seemed just about endless, with a long line of meats being displayed. Whisper's mouth absolutely dribbled in drool amongst his blue lips, exaggerating the many meals he could make with all the turkey and pork platters, and cuisines.
He was hauled away, leading into the dairy section. So much milk couldn't go to waste nowadays, but thankfully this market tried to sell what was available. Keita's mouth dropped, looking at the various flavors of milk. Besides strawberry and chocolate, they mixed many fruit in there. Peach, blueberry, cherry.
The yokai world must have more branched tastes. Without their organic stomachs, they could eat whatever they wanted, if they drank it all. Same goes for food but just like people, yokai have different tastes.
Jibanyan was picking at the sands in his eyes from his last nap, and the sparkles came into his eyes, kicking his legs to gain his companion's attention. But he needed to be quick. Besides the chocolate delicacies and the latter to come, he figured now would be as good as any to work his charms.
Curiosity and a twinge of irritation hit Keita as he looked down to his friend, hoping it wasn't something stupid like hiding items in his shirt.
His own eyes were riddled with little stars looking at Jibanyan's pleading eyes, including the way he was playing with his stub like paws. Oh, this better be good. "Ano, Keita-kun… I haven't had the refreshing taste of cream since I was a mortal cat with Amy. Is it possible…" He needn't finish his mouth, since the boy was already one step ahead.
"You only eat chocolate, but you do need something to wash it down with." He scratched the smaller one's chin receiving light purring.
"As usual, the cats have all the luck in getting what they want." Whisper gave a whatever shrug and shifted the kart to continue their trail for the other items. Various employees consisted of Happierre helping with stocking items on the shelves, Cadin slashing the prices for everyone to get the biggest savings, Signiton and Statiking were under pressed orders from their oden cousin about preparing the fish and meat.
They made their way into the cereal aisle, Whisper making sure the fruit they collected was on the top of the kart. Getting squished food would drive Nate's mother over the top, even if she wasn't possessed by Irewig.
"But papa, I want that one! With the marshmallows!" A tiny blond headed boy whined. From behind a big cardboard sign containing a large amount of plastic straws, Nate moved along to see… Hiraishin.
And by the looks of it, a mini version of himself. This brought a glint to all three of the friends eyes to how the child Hiraishin now has. Last Keita checked, he was in an argument with papa bolt back at his house many weeks ago, but to see that he's a father too?
"Son, listen. Nothing can come to you by whining all the time. I don't want to waste the food we buy. You remember the last time we had this kind of cereal?" he said sternly with a face warning the younger he was serious. Unhappy and put in his place, eyes beginning to water he crossed his arms, a tantrum stirring within his being.
Hiraishin took a deep breath before pushing the kart with Raizō in the front, he pats the little one's head and ruffles his hair. It is for his own good after all.
"Hiraishin! How have you been doing?" Keita piped as he scurried over to the yokai that possessed him to go against Papa Bolt. Tracing Raizō out of his pouting state that someone knew who his father was, and looked back at said boy and neko on his chest.
Hiraishin, flabbergasted that he saw the same person he inspirited, smiled at Keita putting down the cereal he needed for him and Raizō.
"Heh. I didn't think I'd see someone like you in the yokai market. I guess quality attracts more than just the regulars." He said praising the boy.
"Keita, I have someone I here I want you to meet. He's my son Raizō. Say hello." He enticed the lightning child to at least wave at the human. The attention went right to Jibanyan and he reached out to take hold of his paw.
"H…Hi." The child blushed, tracing his tiny thumbs on Jibanyan's paws. Hiraishin snickered, once again patting his son's head.
"Soft at first but he's a strong trooper if you ever get the chance to see him in action in the human world. Takes after me, even gave him his first spear. Hope you didn't lose my medal Keita. Never know if you're gonna need someone tough to help get you through trouble. It was a pleasure seeing you all again."
The brown-haired child scratched the back of his head, embarrassed that he hasn't even used Hiraishin's medal at least once to call him for anything, if not to say hello. They said their mere farewells, the tiny blond waving at them "Bye, bye!" with a hint of static within his fingers. They waved too, as their attention was returned to what cereal they needed to get.
"Raizō-kun looks just like Hiraishin! Hard to believe he became a dad so quickly!" Keita uttered, smiling and reaching for the fruit flavored hoop cereal.
"You'll see him in nyo time, just you wait." Jibanyan uttered, scratching cereal off the list. They walked off into the next aisle, involving the scrumptious pastries his mother told him to get. Lemon meringue pie, a couple of small boxes of cookies and a baguette. Aaron wanted to try a French breakfast, just to see how it went with his taste of morning meals.
But a wretched stench filled the air within the bakery aisle, and the trio grabbed their noses and pinched as hard as they could not to breathe the foul odor.
"Just great whissu~! We're halfway done with the list and then this happens. What could possibly be doing this?" As he finished his words, cuttincheez and his cousin cheeksqueak were talking around this kiosk full of croissants and sealed tight French horns.
"This is simp-bbbthly delicious! I can't ppththtlll-ossibly think of another plblthace to get these!"
"You're telsplslllling me! These will go grfrfrfrfr-reat with milk too!" The twin terrors of smell uttered to one another.
"Tell you what. Jibanyan and I will get the pies and cookies, you fly really fast into the storm and get the baguette before they spoil all of it!" Keita decided, telling Whisper of his plan. The white butler was annoyed that he would be the shield of such a stunt but he felt there was no other choice.
With a cat strapped to him, he wouldn't be much faster. Regardless, Keita pulled high tail into the mess and the two came out of the unbearable cloud with their goods in hand.
"Nyes! I got-, wh-what the heck nyan?" His paws held 3 cases of 6 chocolate eclairs within them. And about 5 dollars for each plastic wrapped cases. "I-It's ok Jibanyan! At least I got the- HUH?!" Keita started his little rendition, and looked at the pastries in his hands. 2 strawberry pies and about 6 bucks on both.
"EHHHH!? I CAN'T AFFORD THIS! JIBANYAN YOU BETTER BE RIGHT ABOUT THAT DISCOUNT AT THE END OF THIS!" Keita screamed at his friend, trying to sound rational about whether these sweets were worth buying.
"I got the baguettes Whissu~! I'm safe!" he said coming out of the smog with a gas mask.
Jibanyan and his human companion relinquished to the fact that the food left behind with Cheeksqueak and cousin is now spoiled, they stuck with the items they retrieved. Still a child, he figured his mother wouldn't be too mad, just give the boy some chores and be grounded.
The final obstacle: The Freezer Aisle.
Where everybody becomes a low life, to grab their frozen goodies without much attention to the other customers around them. Of course, no one got trampled, just the occasional stealing of one another's things and potential they saw it first.
The trio tip toed close and on the count of 3, they turned their heads to the right, cringing to see if the ice cream and frozen food was on the floor…
It was clean. They meant clean. Like the floor and see through glass doors were wax polished about 3 times in a row.
Keita pointed at the wet floor sign in the middle of the place, and face palmed his forehead. Whisper and Jibanyan shook their heads, not even realizing it was done by Brushogun and his brushido army that cleaned all of it, the keenest evidence by the wet floor sign and brushido icons.
They rushed in, trying not to make smudges on any of the doors or the floor and retrieved the fudge brownie, birthday cake and napoleon flavored pints and went their merry way to the cashier.
*30 Minutes Later*
"Well that didn't go too bad!" Keita remarked with the bill in his hands. Jibanyan, cradled in his arms of the boy and snuggling his 20 chocobars from the sale at the end of the cashier line.
"We got 50% off our total purchase! Not to mention Hiraishin and Raizō over there got 80% and they got a lot more, Whissu!" the blue lipped marshmallow remarked as they saw three karts full of various products of food and cleaning materials.
"Thank you papa!" the young yokai said, being bounced up and down by his fathers' toes, as he was drinking milk from his sippy cup. The elder smiled down, smooching his forehead. "What did I tell you? If you be good and behaved, you get rewards!" the other nodded and snuggled into Hiraishin's arms.
"Bye bye, Kei-sama! See you!" He waved at Keita, and the boy snickered and waved back to the toddler.
The white butler patted his masters head, Jibanyan now on the ground with bags full of their treats head home, wondering when Raizō will get his chance and visit Keita.