- Pete -

'Life is pain,' he thinks numbly, as he continues stuffing product on to the shelves.

He works third shift in south park at the largest grocery store in town. It's not awful, pays the bills. Affords him some extra cash to spend how he likes. He's still friends with Michael, Henrietta, and Firckle, about a year ago, they had pooled their money and rented themselves a house. A very nice, spacious four bedroom, three bath. They're on the path to ownership as their credit is building to get the loan they need.

The black and red haired goth loves his friends, don't get him wrong, but at times he wonders if all their bravado is just that. But then he wonders if he's just turning into a bitter emo pussy. He doesn't think that's it, at least not entirely. He's just losing what little faith he had in Cthulu. Sure, the lore is interesting and it was "cool" as a kid to think about those things. But life isn't like that.

He doesn't dare to bring these things up to the others, but he also doesn't have any "close" friends outside of them. There's Craig Tucker, but that guy's like a brick wall.

Sitting on the floor, bored as ever, stocking the items, bringing them forward and making it all look nice. He sighs as he stands, his stomach chub bumping the items on the shelves above that he had finished fixing before sat down. He glared at the items before fixing them again and returning to the pallet of stock, separating out the smaller items for a different aisle that he wasn't ready for yet. He placed those items in an empty cart and pushed it to the side so he could use the pallet jack to lift the pallet and drag it down the aisle with him. He parked it to the right about halfway down and set about gently tossing the items to their rough locations. Once the pallet was empty, he returned it to its previous position and lowered it before yet again returning to the start of the aisle and beginning to stock more items.

As the mind-numbing task begins again, Pete's thoughts drift once more.
Even though he does work thirds, he thinks he's sleeping excessively. He's gained a significant amount of weight, if he's honest about it. He hates the way he looks anymore, but he can't bring himself to change anything he's doing. He's wondered if he's depressed, but how can he broach that subject with his friends? If he's honest with himself, he feels trapped. It feels like he's on an island, drifting further and further from his friends as time wears on.

They've always been there for each other though, since pre-school.
He wonders, vaguely, if his friends have noticed any changes. He wonders if they would actually leave him, if he talked about these things with them.

His schedule is pretty set, only changes for holidays or days he's offered to pick up and accepts them. So he could compare his schedule with the others and plan the day he's going to talk to them. Probably on their trip to Benny's, a tradition that hasn't died, but doesn't occur as often anymore.
He acknowledges that he could do that, but he doubts he will. He doesn't want to bother them or rather, make them think he's an emo pussy.

Pete sighs as he finishes stocking the current aisle finally. He goes to the next one, setting up as before, and then beginning the same monotonous task of stocking that one too. Thankfully, there's only one pallet for that aisle, lunch is relatively soon. If he hurries, he can probably finish before lunch, or at the very least, be close to being finished with it.

He's almost done when it reaches lunch time. He glances down the aisle, maybe ten minutes worth left. He shrugs and decides to stay over those ten minutes so the aisle is finished and he'll only have the last cart of items to stock when he gets back.
Lunch is only thirty minutes, but it's long enough. He has a spicy slim jim, some cookies he got for a dollar, and a monster to wash it all down. He sits in his customary spot, the corner of the building, and sits down to enjoy his lunch. He looks at his phone as he eats, nothing terribly interesting going on.

His food is gone by the time his break is half over. He contemplates going to the bathroom now or just waiting until he clocks back in. He's got maybe thirty minutes of actual work, so he figures he'll just wait until he clocks back in, the bathroom is literally right there anyway.
He continues to scroll through his social media apps, finding nothing interesting.

At last, it was time for him to go back to work. He trudged to the back, waiting at the clock for it to be the exact time he needed. He clocked back in and went to the bathroom. He chose a stall and did his business before washing his hands and returning to the aisle he had left. It took about as long as he expected to finish it and after taking care of his trash and empty pallets, he went on the hunt for the manager of the night to see if he was needed in another department. Eventually, he found her, and she had him walk with her to the other departments to see who, if anyone, needed assistance. She left him in Health, beauty, and cosmetics, that department was always swamped.
He was proficient in the area, having been stuck there numerous times. He asked what needed doing and then got his own aisle complete with two full carts of product that needed stocked.
They had two hours to finish, he had doubts.
However, it reached 630a and they were still cleaning up to prepare for day shift.
He clocked out at 705, and exhaustedly went to his car. He drove home, tired as fuck. Pete was the only one up when he unlocked the door to the house. Quietly, he made his breakfast of frozen chimichangas before taking them and a soda up to his room. He turned on his xbox one and set it to Hulu. He put on some mindless comedy to fill the silence of having his breakfast. He sat the plate on his dresser and threw away his empty can in his trashcan before peeling off his work clothes and laying in only his boxers to sleep. He twisted around to grab his phone from his pants pocket and plugged it in before closing his eyes and trying to get some sleep.

He never decided whether he would talk to his friends.