Let Me Speak to Your Manager
A part-time summer job would have been perfectly tolerable for these two reasons: if it was somewhere in a heroes' agency where he could kick ass and two: if it was not imposed to him by that crazy woman who brought him to the world. The days where he could talk back to his parents and only get a smack in return were long since over. Turning sixteen had given his mother the audacity to kick Bakugo out of the house and tell him to "better start carrying his own fucking weight if you're gonna run your filthy mouth like that".
And so flash forward to a couple of weeks since that fateful argument and Bakugo Katsuki would be found standing by an aisle in a grocery store, wearing a garish red uniform and glancing at the large digital clock every now and then to go back to Kirishima's house and just sleep. Bakugo was by no means a lazy person but working in retail would have been perfectly tolerable too: if it weren't for the fucking customers.
"Hey. Do you have any more of these?"
Bakugo paused from stacking the canned goods shelf to see a short, stout middle-aged man with no visible neck gesture towards an empty shelf. A laminated, white sign saying "Out of stock" was tacked where the price tag would have been.
"It's out of stock." Bakugo deadpanned, not having much energy to sigh. On another day, he would have reacted with more bite than he just did (he did, on his first day) except he had heard that same question a thousand times today already and the exasperation was simply sucked out of him. Whoever said that retail was a soul sucking industry, they were certainly not exaggerating. He turned back to the shelf he was working on without waiting for a response.
"Just look at the backroom, will you?" He heard the man say, like everyone usually did. "I drove twenty minutes to get it and you're telling me it's out of stock."
Bakugo bristled at his tone and stood again to his full height, finally facing the customer. The man who was shorter than him by a foot straightened up too but it did not in any way make Bakugo want to keep himself from stepping on him until he's dead. But the man has a superpower – he is a customer and that seems to give him more courage than he otherwise could afford. "Check it…" Potato made a show of squinting and reading his damn, compulsory name tag. "…Katsuki."
Wearing this stupid, red uniform seemed to give these people some entitlement to act like they are paying him. He resisted the urge to activate his quirk. That did not go very well the last time.
"What? You think there's some magical portal back there? Can't you read? It's out of stock."
"How do you know there's none of it in the back?" The nerve.
He growled. "Because I goddamn work here."
A look of incredulity crossed the man's face. Bakugo heard the words that came next even before that ugly, sweaty potato opened his mouth. "Let me speak to your manager."
Right before the magic words could summon the barely restrained explosion machine, a sweet, feminine voice tapped him from behind. Bakugo froze, partly due to flowery fragrance he had come to know these past few days since she came. "May I help you?" the voice asked the human potato pleasantly. She stepped forward, giving Bakugo a full view of her back and her familiar ponytail. She was wearing the same uniform as him but somehow managed to not look as out of place as it felt. The sudden change in the man's demeanor suggested that he saw the "Manager" role plastered in her nametag.
Whatever complaints burst forth from the man, Bakugo tuned them out as he went back to arranging his stacks according to brand. Yaoyorozu Momo started the drill of telling the man exactly the same thing he just did, like she had in the past few days since she started working as a manager. How a highschooler like her snatched that gig was beyond him and why was she even working in this place? Wasn't she an heiress or something?
There was not much difference in the way she said it versus the way he did (she did not mention the portal at the back for one) but it must be the female charm or something because Mr. Potatohead happily just went to the other shelf to fetch himself another brand. Just like that.
He was able to finally arrange the canned goods by color when he heard the voice again. "Bakugo-san" she called, followed by another tap on his shoulder. He swiveled around to see Yaoyorozu Momo smiling at him, like she always did when she had to get called to speak to the difficult customers. Except this time, she seemed to have something more to say other than: "It's all good now, Bakugo-san."
Working in retail would have been much more tolerable if you weren't working for a classmate.
It would have been much, much, much more tolerable if he was not working for Yaoyorozu Momo, the one person he found out the hard way that he could just not argue with.
"Um… I kinda heard everything out there, Bakugo-san." She began, her smile now more of a pensive frown. That thoughtful look being directed at him made Bakugo uncomfortable and want to look away. "I don't think you should have been that harsh to him. He is a customer after all."
He responded with a noncommittal grunt as he finished up on the canned goods. As he started heading towards the sanitary products aisle, he heard Ponytail girl walking behind him. "My father trusted me with managing this branch, you know. Apparently, it was doing the worst out of all branches the previous quarter. He wanted me to check up on it since it is summer vacation and all…"
Bakugo froze, wheeling back to face a sheepish looking Yaoyorozu. Of course. It all made sense now. "You own this place?"
"Well, yeah… er… my father does." A blush. Humility did not suit her, not with her perfect hair and perfect… He was getting distracted. She plowed on. "He usually sends me to the branch that is struggling the most every summer vacation."
"I have only been here for two weeks." He found himself saying in defense, crossing his arms. "It's not my fault that this place is such a dump that no one's buying."
Surprisingly, Ponytail nodded in agreement. "Yes. I see that there are a lot of things that we need to change within the next two months." She glanced around thoughtfully, grey eyes scanning the aisles, the empty counters and the bland walls before finally settling to him again. "We can start off with you trying to be a bit nicer to the customers."
Bakugo scoffed, remembering the way she smiled at the human potato they have for a customer a while ago. "You seem to be doing a good enough job on that part already."
A shrug. "Well, I can't come to your rescue all the time, can't i?"
Bells started ringing in his head. "You're not…" He said indignantly before trailing off at the sight of her raised eyebrows. "That was not rescuing…"
"Well, my father was thinking of shutting this branch down." She continued, undeterred by his protests. "I am here to make sure that does not happen. And I know you would say that bosses always say that as business strategy…" She held up a hand before Bakugo could even open his mouth to say… exactly the same thing she did. "But I know him and he seemed pretty serious this time. Which is why I am here to see if there's anything to be improved. The important thing right now is to get people to buy something…" She casted a glance towards the group of hormonal teenagers idling around the food samples. "… and not just loiter around."
She looked at him again. "And I know for a fact that you can be quite persuasive when you wanted to, Bakugo-san. I am sure you have the potential to draw more customers instead of scaring them away."
"I don't care about customers. I only care about getting paid every week."
"Well, you won't get down if the store closes down, won't you?"
Bakugo should have known that arguing was pointless. The only place that was big enough to pay him a decent wage was this dump and he was running out of options short of fully freeloading at Kirishima's. And he would not give his mother the satisfaction of seeing him back in their doorstep after only two weeks. No, he was determined to see it through. Whatever it took.
He always ended agreeing with whatever Ponytail said anyway.
"What do you suggest I do then?"
Ponytail smiled even brighter than she did before and Bakugo started thinking that working in retail would not be too bad after all.
….
…
He clearly spoke too soon.
He should have known that the girl who scored miles above anyone else (even himself) in their class in intelligence would have some screws loose in her head somehow. He had always thought that she was different from the other airheaded girls in their class but no, she was just as crazy as the rest of them.
Her first lesson, as she called it, apparently involved him taking the role he had never tried before—a cashier.
It was a slow day (as usual) and the number of customer shopping around could only be counted by both hands. After being coerced (blackmailed) into helping Ponytail ensure that they would still have his paychecks by the end of the week, it was like the soft-spoken girl he sometimes forgot held the managerial role had vanished in favor of this person who suddenly decided that she could order him to man the till.
"First order of business…" She began, right after teaching him how to use the cash register. It was basic computer know how. No biggie. But there must be a reason other than discrepancies on the income being charged to your paycheck that his workmates are avoiding the till job like plague. Yaoyorozu Momo placed herself outside the counter, standing at the customer queue with her hands on her hips. "… first lesson is that you must start laughing at customer's jokes."
He did not expect that. He squinted at her skeptically. "Weren't you supposed to tell me how you managed to convince potatoman that there was nothing at the back."
"Bakugo-san!" She admonished, something that came close to a scowl scrunching her face. Nope, he decided, watching as a glint of amusement appear in her eyes for a second. Not guilty. "There are still a couple of things we need to work on before that. Baby steps, Bakugo-san. And with that, we start this class with a bit of customer service humor."
She continued, nonplussed at the realization slowly dawning on Bakugo's face. "Appreciating humor would take you very far. Laughing at your customer's jokes is a subtle way of getting their buy-in. Trust me, I know all about self-esteem. If you want a customer to feel validated and therefore come back to buy more, just look at them smile a lot and laugh at everything they say, even if it's not funny."
"That sounds really shallow and stupid."
To his horror, Yaoyorozu Momo only grinned. "Let's try it." Just then, she pulled an exact replica of the mayonnaise brand the customer from earlier had been looking for out of nowhere, the telltale pink glow disappearing from her bare arm almost instantly. It was the perfect facsimile, complete with a barcode and all. Bakugo raised an eyebrow, unsure how to proceed.
This girl better not be toying with him or else…
"Scan it."
"What the fuck?"
"Just scan it." She prodded more firmly. He sighed and put the jar under the scanner. The machine remained stubbornly silent despite Bakugo trying to put it under the light several times.
He growled.
"Oh it doesn't scan. That means, it must be free right? Ha ha!" If he weren't looking at her, Bakugo would have thought potatohead suddenly returned with whatever groceries he decided he needed. Yaoyorozu Momo fell into the role of a dumb customer so easily that she must have seen so many in her lifetime. Bakugo found himself not feeling sorry for her.
His brow creased. He did not like this. He felt like a fish out of water. "What?"
"Act like how you should act to a customer." Ponytail hissed. Bakugo never heard her make that tone before.
"Oh." He recovered his bearings, straightening up. "No. No, it does not mean that it's free."
To her credit, Yaoyorozu Momo's frustration did not lend itself into groaning in exasperation. She smiled patiently. "It is a joke, Bakugo-san. Lighten up. Laugh."
"But it's not funny."
"It's never funny." She agreed and it was the only thing she said to him today that vaguely made sense. "But feeling appreciated this way makes people more susceptible for patronage."
"What if I don't want them to come back, huh?" He challenged, still really confused. "What if I just want them to stay away?"
"You don't want that, Bakugo-san." And somehow, again for the nth time since they knew each other, he found himself not being left with any room for disagreement.
"Okay. Let's try it again. Let me try a different one this time." She fished a $1000 yen bill out of her pockets this time and said in a voice that reminded him of that soccer mom customer who insisted that the box of tampons was cheaper in another store. "I just printed that this morning."
He frowned. "That's illegal, you moron-"
Yaoyorozu cocked her head sideways, smirking suggestively. And he realized... Oh… "Ha-ha- HAHAHAHA!"
His laughter reverberated in the entire store, prompting the other workers to stop lazing around and look at their direction. Even Yaoyorozu's smile froze, looking at him with some wonder.
"Not exactly what I have in mind." She eventually said, still staring at him with those knowing, grey eyes. To his surprise, she concluded her sentence with not as much criticism as he expected. "But that'll do for now." She stepped sideways, revealing no other than Mr. Potatohead himself (why is he still here) walking towards the counter with a cart full of stuff. Yaoyorozu leaned towards him and he almost did not hear her whisper because he suddenly felt lightheaded. "You should try it on him. For practice."
The next thing he knew, she was gone and he found himself scanning what must be an entire month's worth of potato chips from the guy who looked like he ate nothing else in his couch but that. The guy looked like a bastard and probably was filled with it in the inside but he was too busy looking at his smartphone to say anything rude or unfunny to Bakugo. Ponytail probably did not think this out very much.
"It's 1500 yen." He announced as he put the last item in the plastic bag. Potato man looked at him for the first time since he came to pay and handed him a card. Before swiping it, Bakugo remembered the script Ponytail had told him to memorize. "Can I get you anything else?"
"How about a million dollars?"
Why… Just as Bakugo was about to scoff at the temerity of the man, he saw Yaoyorozu emerging from that stupid standee of Best Jeanist in the pants section and looking at him with the deviously knowing expression he had now come to be very much acquainted with in the past few minutes
He started laughing.
Potatohead brightened and started laughing with him too.
This is fucking weird.
When it was over, Ponytail strolled over to him, watching the man disappear from the exit with his seven bags of potatochips. She was smiling… proudly. Huh. "You did well, Bakugo-san." And Bakugo was not sure why his heart swelled up upon hearing that. "You can expect him to come again soon."
"How do you know he would?"
"Because I…" She paused, laughing. "…work here." And the way she smirked made him realize she was quoting him. Bakugo found himself rolling his eyes. "Keep that up and you will be the one telling customers those awful jokes too."
Before he even knew he was doing it, he was already chuckling.
He only heard himself when he found her blinking in confusion before immediately contorting to an omniscient smile. "You are learning, Bakugo-san." She remarked, perking up when she heard something smash and voice shouting for some cleanup in aisle thirteen. "That's some great customer service laugh." And she was running off again, ponytail swishing as she moved to help solve another problem again before he could even tell her that it was not a customer service laugh. At all. But she was now off in her merry way to save some poor guy being harassed by a villainous customer.
A retail superhero huh, he snickered. He groaned to himself at the thought.
Maybe Ponytail was right.
Maybe he would end up making his own jokes too.
"Guess, we'll find out in the next lesson huh." He muttered, not sure why he was looking forward to it.
(END)