Irashaimassen ! (Cromartie Convenience Store)
Chapter 1: Cup noodles are hard to differentiate with fruits
Jackson pushed the door open, a small tinkle greeting him into the air-conditioned convenience store. He immediately set eyes on the canned foods section, and made his way through the aisles.
As he reached the cup noodles, he felt something troubling him. Raising his head and parting his thick dirty blond hair aside, he stared at the shopkeeper.
He was a slightly rough looking man; his large hairy arms crossed prominently on his chest gave off the impression that he could easily have been a cowboy in another time.
Near his fifties, most likely. Definitely balding.
What really bugged him was the small straw sticking out of his mouth, with the little bubble at the end. Well, not a bubble. Maybe more like a small little blue flame. Or a gelatinous blob.
I wonder what the hell that thing could be? Is it the latest fashion? I'll need to get one if it is…Yes; I'll have to ask him.
Wait!
I can't do that!
Jackson's brow furrowed as his dilemma unfolded.
I can't ask him, He reasoned to himself. That would be the same as not having one at all. If I ask him where to get one, then I'll seem like an idiot! I'll lose my style and reputation as a preppy boy! That cannot happen.
The shopkeeper raised his head and locked his gaze with Jackson's.
Oh shit! He's staring back at me! That means I'll have to say or do something so that he doesn't think I'm just the type of person who stares at others for no reason…I'll need to think of a cover up.
The shopkeeper continued to stare, but started to suck on the small strawlike thing he had in his mouth.
Jackson dropped his gaze and valiantly strode to the shopkeepers' counter, holding a cup noodle he had grabbed earlier on.
"Excuse me sir! I was wondering how much this cup noodle is?"
The shopkeeper stopped sucking on the alien thing sticking out of his mouth, and grinned.
"Excuse me?" he retaliated in a grizzly voice.
Damn! He blew my cover! Now he knows I'm not here to buy a cup noodle. I'll have to play it straight…
"Uh, what seems to be the problem?" Jackson ventured.
"Customer…that's not a cup noodle you're holding. It's a banana. Cup noodles are one aisle further."
Jackson looked to his hands and gave an involuntary yelp, realising that he had been indeed holding a banana. And it wasn't even ripe!
Yet.
"Oh, I'm sorry, this is all just a misunderstanding." stuttered Jackson, his heart yammering like a hammer attached to a contraption enabling it to pound nails into the wall at a faster rate.
"It happens to everyone. Tell you what, you stay here and work for me five days a week, and I'll forget this ever happened."
What a fair deal! I'm in luck!
Jackson beamed and shook the shopkeeper's hand.
"Shopkeeper, you've got a deal! I'll give this job my one hundred per cent effort! Or should I say, 'boss'?"
The shopkeeper's face darkened and an aura of melancholy started to surround him, as he delved into nostalgia.
"Don't ever call me 'boss', boy. It brings back painful memories…ever since that incident…it was eight years ago…"
-To be continued, in another productive and heart-warming chapter of Irashaimassen! Cromartie Convenience Store.-