Chapter Two
Rowena
"Just roll with it," became our motto. We approached the first store with HELP WANTED in the window.
"Hello? Miss?" asked Nikki as politely as possible. She was the delegated speaker until we found a clothing store and I got proper pants because it was so weird talking to middle-aged people while in booty shorts.
"Nope."
And that was that.
Apparently, two barefoot girls with bedhead were not the type of employees she was looking for.
Nikki looked like she was just slapped before walking away, softly singing, "Shot through the heart, and you're to blame. You give lo-o-ove, a bad name."
She insisted that I tried next, after she got me the best pants the clearance pile could give.
"Hey, mister," I opened, approaching some old guy watering flowers in front of the next hiring store we saw. "My friend and I were looking for jobs, and we were wondering if you-"
"I'm sorry, but I can't talk right now. I'm waiting for someone to come to me for a job!" he told us, grinning his toothless old-person grin. "I put an ad out!"
"Yes, we saw," I nodded, showing him the swiped newspaper we'd gotten. "I was asking if we could-"
"Oh, that's my ad!" he said ecstatically. "You saw it? Sorry, I can't talk now, though. I'm waiting for someone to come in to ask-"
I sighed and put my head in my hands before remembering manners, Rowena, manners. You want this job, don't you?
"We're here about the ad, sir," I tried again.
"What? I put it in there legally! Now, what are you accusing me of?" The sweet old man turned sour.
"What? I'm not accusing you of anything, I'm just-"
"I'm not going back to jail! You'll never take me back! Never!" he spat, before dropping his watering can and trotting away, surprisingly speedy for an old guy.
I held my hands out to the retreating figure in the universal, "whoa, Nelly," sign. "What… What the fuck just happened?" I asked.
"I think you just got turned down, mate," Nicole snickered. "Harsh."
"Mmm, watcha sa-ay," I sang lowly.
Nikki cackled like a hyena.
This… has been an off day for me.
"Just roll with it," she choked out. "Just roll with it."
I checked the newspaper Nikki and I had Ezio'd out of the local grocer's. "It looks like the next job is…"
And the next few hours ran on like that.
"Well, fourth job's the charm."
"Sixth job's the charm."
"Tenth?"
"Damn it, by the time we're done with this the Doctor's gonna be ginger."
At least all the running around the city gave us a good feel for the streets.
It was nearly four or so, and we'd woken up around… seven-ish? Eight-ish? So we'd been running for about eight hours on ice cream and fear.
"This will be our dozen-th job venture. The next one on the list is… blue eyes white dragon i summon you in attack position and synchro summon the THREE HEADED HYDRA HAIL HYDRA Daiki's Arcade."
"Sounds like a Game Stop for weebs. Just for us," I giggled weakly. In truth, I was hungry as hell and my feet hurt and I was wondering how the heck Nikki was lasting this long. The only reason I held up this long was marching band. Band camp hasn't failed me yet.
"Last one, and then we can take a break," she told me. That's when I noticed she hadn't stopped smiling. I vaguely thought, Some people go so long without sleep they no longer have a grasp of reality. They don't even notice their physical limits, they just plow right through them. Feeling like it was my duty as a human being to document this phenomenon, I nodded along, even though she had said we could take a break five jobs ago.
Each interview was short, thankfully, but… Wait, no. Not thankfully. It meant we went through eleven different store owners and each one of them shot us down within minutes.
I imagined I was typing on tumblr and thought, *tips fedora hat in shame* shot down yet again by a succubus. and i was so polite. nice guys finish last. oh, heart, how you hurt me so.
I missed technology.
My phone, my computer, my tablet, all gone. Then I remembered my sister and house and shit.
The realization smacked me in the face. "Shit," I said aloud. "How the hell are we gonna get back?"
Nikki froze, then slowly turned to me. "I'm… not sure. I was honestly hoping to avoid the question in hopes you would have the answer by the time I asked."
I sucked in air through my teeth and forced away the panic. "Shit," I said again.
She nodded. "Yeah."
Then we kept walking so as not to clog up the street.
Shit.
The arcade (Daiki's Arcade, the loud signs reminded me) was impressive. Or at least the outside was. The sign was in Japanese with English in notably smaller print at the bottom (which most of the store signs were in, which was strange because we're in Nevada, dammit!). Neon lights carefully outlined the katakana (or was it hiragana?).
"... Seems legit," I said after a while.
It was surprising how colorless this town was. Sure, there were the natural colors of paint and flowers and people, but there weren't many billboards or ads painted everywhere or chain food stores, like in most cities. In fact, we still had yet to see a McDonald's, and we were kinda counting on its dollar menu for dinner. I suppose we could always go to WacDonald's, which I think is the anime equivalent, but after being turned down way too harshly by the manager, I don't think we're going back there until we're millionaires and can rub that fact in his face. But this place seemed to be the brightest artificial thing we'd seen all day (save for the infamous Chupacabra's that we actually got to see but did not ask for a job from).
The interior was even more impressive. "Bigger on the inside," Nikki marvelled. Old arcade systems littered the back walls, and the newer ones were up front. The whole place was like a better-funded Chuck E. Cheese, with surprisingly not-creepy animatronics and a prize counter with some of the most high-tech cheap plastic toys imported from China. The lights weren't really blinding, but the place wasn't too terribly dark. My eyes adjusted within seconds. Perfect gaming light.
"I think I've died and gone to heaven," Nicole and I said together. Then we looked at each other and high-fived because holy shit we are each other's spirit animals yesss spirit buddies hell yeah!
"Where is everybody?" I asked.
"Yeah," Nikki agreed. "A place this hella fine should be crawling with fellow weebs. I mean, I saw a freaking dating sim back there, and there's two of them for each gender! No matter how you swing, this place is, like, the shit!"
"So I see someone here is a friend," came a voice. We turned to see a guy behind the prize counter, carefully Windex-ing the glass.
"Who are you?" I asked. I could've sworn zen music began playing from the speakers the moment Nikki said that.
"I am Mark, the manager. But you may call me Daiki. All my friends do," he told us with a sloppy grin that brightened up the room and ruined the perfect gaming light. "And you, my fellow weeaboos, are totally my friends. Definitely welcome here."
Nikki gasped through the didgeridoo. I mentally rolled my eyes. Was she seriously going along with this?
"You run this place?" she asked, seemingly astounded.
"Yes. I also am a proud owner of this fine establishment," he informed her.
She went starry-eyed. "You spend your days here? In this haven for weebs?" Was she really-? "Teach me your ways, Daiki-senpai!" Oh my God, she really was.
This was a fucking riot. I cackled and folded over, falling to the floor but not really sure of what I was laughing about. This has to be the best place on freakin' earth.
"Rowena, Ro, dude, c'mon," Nicole nagged, trying to bring me back to the ground. "Dude, you okay?" she asked as soon as my chortles levelled down into muffled snorts.
"High as a friggin' kite, Nikki," I giggled.
She giggled with me, though I'm not sure what at.
She nudged me back into reality, though, slowly but surely. "Dude, we came here for a reason," she reminded.
"Oh, yeah." We were here for jobs. And I just cackled like a mental patient all over the floor. I swear to this day I heard Nikki in the back of my mind, sending me telepathic signals of, "Wow, 10/10, nice job, #perf, #firsttry, #nailedit."
I told it to shut the fuck up and decided that I hated the Nikki voice in my head.
"Um…" I started intelligently.
"Nikki to the rescue!" Nicole whispered excitedly, before beginning for me. "We're here about the advertisement in the newspaper. About the job?"
"Ah, yes." Daiki(-senpai?) nodded sagely. "Could you fill out these forms?" he asked. He handed us some papers and a pen, and we took a seat in a booth and took turns with the pen.
I blinked. This was actually the farthest we've gotten in an interview. Most of the time they just insulted us and I and Nikki went off on them or they were senile and didn't want to go back to jail or something.
The forms were all pretty basic.
Name: Rowena Dae
Age: 16
Gender: Female.
Stuff like that.
I hesitated when it began to ask about schooling, so I just decided "screw it" and filled in the name of my old school. Adress? the paper asked me. This time I froze. How was I going to apply to a job while saying I lived in another state? I leaned over to see what Nikki had put before me. "N/A," she'd written. I bit my tongue and filled the same thing into the blank.
After I filled in all that I could, I glanced over it and felt myself growing nervous. Lots of spaces were left blank or filled with Not Available. I wasn't sure what to do with the spaces, though, so I just clicked the pen closed and went up with Nikki back to the counter.
Daiki hemmed and hawed a bit at the papers, nodding along a bit and going, "Oh, that's nice," every once in a while. I was dying to see what he meant, but forced my self to be quiet and stand there with my aching legs in front of the counter.
"Do you have anything to prove you're you?" he asked.
"I do," Nikki told him, raising her hand like she was in class. She presented her military ID, and he nodded twice, his index finger and thumb holding his chin.
"And you?" He gestured to me.
Shit, how do I respond to this? "Uh… Unfortunately, no," I managed to say before I fried my brain.
"Really?" he asked. "Nothing? Birth certificate, driver's permit, anything?"
"Um… No?"
"Not even a DWMA student ID?"
"What?" I asked. "Why would we go to the DWMA?" Play it cool, don't panic, play it cool, Rowena, be cool, don't panic-
Nikki fake yawned. Did her tell have to be so obvious?
"Because you're a weapon," he said, pointing one of his calloused hands at Nikki, "and you're a meister," he ended, jabbing his other finger at me.
Nikki forced a loud laugh. "Pfft, naw, why would you think that?" she asked, flapping her hand in what was supposed to have been a dismissing matter. "Also, who the hell told you? Was it Frank the pigeon? Goddammit, Frank couldn't keep his damn beak shut!"
"Nikki, don't blame the hypothetical Chinese-Canadian baby man," I chided, though I knew she was just trying to make him laugh and distract him long enough to change the subject. I was as nervous as she was.
Daiki blinked slowly. "Actually, I know, not because an odd baby-man pigeon told me, but because I was once a meister, myself."
I gawked for half a moment before remembering that manners were a thing. Nikki, however, did not get the memo.
"Daiki-senpai, you were a meister? Didja graduate? Were you kicked out? Were you ever held back? Who was your partner? Is the DWMA a good school, or is it like one of those ones that have sixth graders doing drugs and stuff?" she asked, shooting off questions like an automatic machine gun.
He laughed quietly and slowly, which, strange as it sounds, was apparently possible. "Calm down, kohai," he said lackadaisically. "And to answer your question, I did graduate."
Nikki stopped. "But I asked you more than tha-"
I cut her off by pinching her neck. She squeaked like a mouse and her shoulders jumped up to cover her neck.
"Don't be rude," I scolded like I hadn't just pinched a pressure point.
"Dang, that hurt," Nikki hissed, inching away from me and rubbing her neck.
"Anyways, Daiki, we just found out today that we're a meister and weapon, so…" I trailed off, not really knowing how to phrase the question. "D'you think you could keep that sort of hush-hush? Just between us?"
"On the down-low?" Daiki asked. "Sure, I can keep a secret."
"So do we have the job?" Nikki butted in. I raised my hand to pinch her again and she flinched away. Haha, yes, point one for Ro.
Daiki smiled (well, smiled a more noticeable smile, he had been smiling the whole freaking time) nodded. "Yes, and you start now."
After handing both of us two work polos each (saying he would just take it out of our future paychecks) and having us change into the neon uniforms, Daiki set us to work with a couple menial tasks, like restocking the claw machines and ticket dispensers and scraping the gum off the bottoms of the tables. We were also allowed to keep any quarters we found on the ground, so Nikki and I made an easy three dollars and twenty-five cents that way.
Several teens and kids came in after school clubs ended, around five or six-ish, because apparently Anime and Manga Club is a thing inside an anime or manga. This was around the time when Daiki showed us how to fix the machines because these fucktards kept breaking the Street Fighter machine in their pissy, pubescent fits of rage.
Nikki decided she would ultimately stick to being a janitor, since she pretty much sucked at dealing with anything electronic and more advanced than Google Docs. I, on the other hand, having an engineer for a dad, actually know how that stuff works, and took on the position of technical support.
At the end of the day, around eight-ish, Daiki pulled us over.
"Your forms and the many blank spaces you left make it hard for you to legally work here," he told us, point-blank.
Nikki's chapped lips turned into what may have been an attempt at a snarl. "You could've told us this before we worked our asses off!" she whisper-yelled, too scared of alerting the customers of a fight between employees to actually yell. The cuss words, however, kinda tripped across her lips and fell on the floor. She was too short and her voice was too high and the way she angrily pushed the bridge of her nose in search of glasses to straighten was just too cute for her to effectively cuss. I, however, had no such issue.
Just as I opened my mouth to either ask what he meant or turn into an angry rage-monkey (I hadn't quite decided yet), he held up a hand in the world-wide signal for, "calm yo tits."
"I said it was hard to work here, not that it was impossible," he soothed. Nikki puffed up in embarrassment like a miffed bird.
"So how are we going to work here if it's barely legal?" I asked.
"Simple!" he smiled. "You work here for me, I give you money every once in a while, and we have no official contract or business ties!"
Nikki and I blinked at him like he was stupid. Which he was, in case you hadn't noticed.
"I don't think that's really… allowed," Nicole began slowly. Then she turned to me questioningly. "Is it?"
I just shrugged. I was a fandom-consumed high school student before this, I had no time for a job on top of that.
"No previous work experience," I told her, shrugging. "I don't know how all this legal stuff works. Plus, it might be different in Nevada." I almost stumbled on "Nevada." I'd nearly said "this world," but thankfully my brain could catch up to my mouth. I inwardly patted myself on the back for my smooth save.
"It's not exactly legal, per say," he began, and Nikki groaned before dropping her head into her hands.
"Oh, God, I should've known the only one to give us a job would do it illegally, of course, after all, how has this whole freaking day gone?" she muttered, before the rest of her monologue went incoherent.
"More like toeing the line," Daiki continued, apparently oblivious to Nikki's distressed muttering. "So long as nobody comes up and asks us straight out, we're good. For now we can just say we're doing what we're doing, and if inspectors or anything come knocking, you hide or say I'm letting you lend a hand while your folks are out, m'kay?"
The way he said it, so… relaxed, like there was nothing to worry about, nearly made my mind before I even thought about it.
Nikki looked at me for an answer. "I mean, I guess it's okay, I dunno…" she began, still looking for my response.
I sighed. "So long as nobody comes looking."
Daiki grinned and flashed me two thumbs up. "Sweet! You'll be paid every Sunday, twenty-five cents over minimum wage, make sure you be here by seven, and if anyone asks, you don't live here!"
And with that, he shoved us out the door.
"Wait a minute…," I began, all the info he just threw at me finally processing. "Minimum wage?"
"Twenty-five cents over minimum wage!" he corrected from somewhere inside.
Nikki grabbed my arm and started pulling me away. "Just roll with it," she repeated for the ump-teenth time that day.
Of course, though, while looking for somewhere to eat the discount veggies we bought/stole for dinner, shit hit the fan.