C2
"Now, I know that you only applied as the position as cashier, but along with cashier comes a lot of work too." Her supervisor, who's name written on the name tag read "Tobi", was a cheerful enough man that was undoubtedly also another Uchiha despite his friendly disposition. Still though, Hinata felt unease roll off her around this man who although did nothing to give this thought any reason to be backed up.
"Like this," He waved his hand at a long list of words and numbers placed at the till in front of them. "This is a list of all the produce codes you will be expected to remember."
Hinata's eyes widened in disbelief as she stared at all the names of so many different types of fruits and vegetables, each corresponding with their own four digit number. "How…how much time do I get to memorise them?"
"Don't worry too much about it right now. Most produce items now have stickers on them with the code, so you can just look at them. Otherwise, for the first couple of weeks, you'll be stationed at a till next to someone else more experienced." He glanced down at her slightly worried and exceedingly nervous form. "But tonight and perhaps tomorrow, you'll have someone working with you at the same till helping you along." He flashed her a reassuring grin. "Sasuke's been here for a while, he'll help you tonight."
As if on cue, Sasuke turned down one of the aisles and began walking towards her, his steady gait teemed with an air of confidence that always managed to get himself in trouble at school with teachers. It was ridiculously unfair that he had all of that confidence that attracted people with ease and he didn't even want to be around people most of the time, whereas she, Hinata, who had a backbone of a slug would've killed to be able to have the ability to attract all those people.
"Be nice to the new girl, Sasuke." Tobi said as he departed to the front desk to help a particularly unpleasant looking customer.
Sasuke merely scowled at his form before turning his face to Hinata. "I'm just going to set four ground rules down right now. One: Don't touch me. Two: I'm only here to supervise, nothing else. Three: Don't whine to me about the difficulties of you job, life, or anything like that. I. Don't. Care. Four: Just because I'm forced to be civil to you at work, don't think we're going to become best friends at school." He glared down at her. "Understand?"
"I…I didn't p-presume anything of the sort!" Hinata said defensively.
"Good." He leaned against the side of one of her counters. "Here comes your first customer."
--
Hinata wished that she did not agree to have her first shift on a Saturday evening from seven until the closing hour of eleven o'clock. Even without long lineups of people waiting for their grocery orders to be put through, the stress of having Sasuke Uchiha watch her every move and slowly drawl out a reluctant answer to whatever question she had was enough to make her old stutter come back in brief intervals.
But mostly, she waited nervously for customers to come through; something that was a slow and surprisingly rare process. Even if nothing was said between the two of them, the awkwardness of just standing together alone in the relatively empty grocery store was enough to make her shift uncomfortably next to him.
By nine, Tobi bid them good night and left for the evening, along with rest of the cashiers, leaving behind only her and Sasuke at the lonely check stand with the dimmed light indicating that it was open.
It was going to be a long two hours.
--
"Have a good evening." Hinata smiled demurely and placed the last bagged item on the conveyor belt.
"You too, darling." The woman smiled broadly and heaved the last few bags in her meaty hands. "And you did a lovely job for your first day on the job." She pointed to the sign on the sign on the side of Hinata's till that said, "New employee, please be patient!" She looked over at Sasuke and smiled, "And what a gentleman you are for helping her our so kindly."
Sasuke merely grunted and gave her a shallow nod in recognition.
The woman leaned across the counter to whisper loudly to Hinata, "How lucky you are to be working alone with this young man." She winked at Hinata and grinned. "He is quite the dashing specimen, isn't he?"
She could see out of the corner of her eyes Sasuke's hands curling into fists and his eyebrows furrow in what seemed to be self control. Well, if this hadn't gone from awkward to worse to terrible already.
"I--uh--" Hinata blushed a dark hue of red and squeaked, "Enjoy your evening!"
"I will." The woman flashed another toothy smile before making her way to the exit.
Once the automatic doors slid shut once more, Sasuke leaned more of his weight against the counter and growled, "I hate old ladies." He glared at her as if daring her to contradict.
"It's not normally your job to work up front, is it?" Hinata asked and quickly covered her mouth in horrified embarrassment.
He raised an eyebrow at her before shrugging. "I used to. When I first actually started working here, Itachi put me up front…but that didn't last too long." His lips curled up in a smirk that resembled an amused smile. "So now I just do odd jobs that need to be done, like stock, or clean up, occasionally front desk, and bakery."
"Oh," Hinata murmured, relieved that he wasn't offended.
Sasuke glanced at the clock behind them and said, "It's time to close now."
--
The sky was dark and cloudy, showing no hint of starlight or the bright moon by the time Hinata stepped outside of The Fan into the chilly autumn air. She watched the busy highway across from her that normally was teeming with cars change at the stop light from red to green in order to let a single car cross the road. Wrapping her coat closer around her, Hinata shoved her frozen hands into her pockets and began trudging across the parking lot.
"Hey!"
Quickly, she turned to see Sasuke locking the door to the store and call towards her, "Where's your ride?"
"I…I don't have one." Hinata admitted.
"What? You always drive your car to school."
Fidgeting uncomfortably, she gave no answer to this. It was hard enough knowing that in order for her family to get by, her father had to sell her car, let alone having to tell Sasuke.
"Whatever." Sasuke grunted. "Who's picking you up?"
"No one."
"Then how…you…aw, fuck." He ruffled his hair agitatedly. "You weren't planning on walking home by yourself this late, were you?"
She merely blushed and dipped her head to look at her feet.
After a moment of what seemed to be painful internal debate, Sasuke scowled and walked over to her. "I'll give you a ride." He said gruffly and shoved his hands into his pockets.
"No, it's really o-okay--"
"Don't be stupid." He snarled. "Do you want to be assaulted?"
Hinata blinked in surprise before shaking her head slowly. "I…I don't want to trouble you…"
"Just get into the car." He had already began his walk towards his car, waving expectantly. "You coming or not?" Not waiting for an answer, he opened his own car door and climbed in.
Biting her lip Hinata trotted up to his car and bent over to ask through the window. "Wh-why are you offering?" Her eyebrows creased together as she said this, hoping he wouldn't take offence in her question. She had no doubts that Sasuke would keep his hands to himself and remain relatively appropriate through the ride…but the fact he was taking the route a gentleman would take had her curious.
Scowling, he buckled his seat belt and replied, "Because Itachi would kill me for letting a girl walk home alone in the dark at eleven o'clock at night."
Smiling a little, Hinata crossed to the other side of the car and got in, murmuring, "Thank you."
"Just put on your seat belt." He muttered and pressed down on the gas.
--
"So, get yelled at today?" Hanabi greeted as her sister trudged in through the door.
Hinata kicked off her shoes, remembering her initial meeting with Sasuke in which he had barked at her his expectations with her and said, "Yes."
"Cool," Hanabi grinned and looked away from the TV she was watching. "Did you cry?"
"O-of course not!" Though she had certainly felt like it.
"Was it Sasuke?" By now, the TV was left forgotten as Hanabi lay on her stomach, her legs waving in the air and her head resting in her hands.
"Yes, Hanabi." Hinata sighed and began making her way upstairs to her room.
"Was he mean to you?" Hanabi hollered and peered around the corner to watch as her sister stopped for a moment on the stair case, her hand resting lightly on the railing and her expression lost in deep thought.
"No." She finally answered and resumed walking the rest of the way up the stairs.
Nyahahahaaa…so, since I have up to chapter…six or something already written…I shall be uploading every SECOND day. At least…until I run out of juice or finish the story. The first seems more likely.
Oh, and someone seemed to be confused about Hinata's job. No, she's not a secretary, the paperwork she was doing was for the hiring and such, like filling in your banking and address info and signing papers saying she agreed to company policy and such. As it is quite apparent in this chapter…
She is a cashier at a grocery store.
