Tyler and I were having yet another slow day at the store. With slow days came a barrage of questions between the two of us. He'd only started working here a few months ago, so he hadn't opened up to me until recently. Rather good of him as well, it was getting rather boring until he started working.

"So…" He dragged out the word, as if trying to think of a good question.

"Yes?" I dragged out the word, mockingly. My eyes flit from him to the door, keeping an eye out for any customers or thieves.

"Have you ever… um," Tyler's dark eyes darted around, as if trying to avoid eye contact. Awkward question? I assumed mentally.

"Spit it out, Ty." I demanded softly. It was a Tuesday morning.

"Have you ever, like, done it?" He asked in almost a whisper.

"What, you mean sex?" I asked. He flinched a bit. "How old are you again?"

"Fifteen."

"Ah." I nodded. I decided to answer his question truthfully. "I have had sex, a few times."

"Is… is it fun?" He asked.

"The fuck you mean by that?" I immediately realized my instinctual reaction. "Sorry, language."

"It's fine, I've heard worse." Tyler waved it off. "What I mean is… is it worth it?"

"I mean…" How do I answer that? "I mean, it feels good, but…" I decided to be a bit of a lecturer here. "If I were you, I'd wait to be of age first before thinking of trying to get with someone."

"Yeah, ok thanks Dad." He rolled his eyes. "But like, how do you get some—"

A tap on the center of my back sent a sudden jolt made me jump, and Tyler's eyes widened in slight panic at the sight of me. I turned, and looked down a bit, to see the ice cream themed girl standing on the other side of my station with a smug smirk, as if she had been there the entire time.

"Oh hello," I greeted her calmly, keeping the true annoyed feeling an internal one. "You're rather early, you know."

She responded with a much kinder smile, before pulling out her Scroll to show me something: a tub of Neapolitan ice cream. She then pointed to the freezer aisle and gestured in a way that I understood as: I couldn't find any over there, do you know where I can find it?

In response, I nodded and bent down under my station's register where my personnel-assigned mini-fridge was. In pushed aside my water bottles and energy drinks to pull out the last remaining pint of Neapolitan ice cream. When she went for her wallet, I shook my head and thrust the pint to her with a smile. She picked out some Lien from her wallet, but shook my head again and gave the pint to her. She looked to me with confusion, until I brought I my own wallet and put 8 Lien into my register.

"Lucky flirting bastard…" I heard Tyler grumble. I decided to pretend not to have heard him.

The girl's eyes seemed to sparkle, as if she had an idea. She then gave me her Scroll, which displayed an empty contact screen, with the Name section simply labelled, "Favorite Store Clerk." I smiled at that, and went on to put in my real name and my Scroll number. I returned it to her, and she started typing with a fervor. Then, my own Scroll beeped, and I read the message she had sent me.

"Well, it's nice to officially meet you, Neo." I held in a laugh at the appropriate name. "And I will definitely keep reserving the Neapolitan ice cream for you. We were just dealt a short stock of it this week." With that, and a smile from the short girl, Tyler and I were left alone in the store again. The former was dumbstruck.

"Did she just—"

"Yup."

"And you—"

"Yup."

"HOW DO YOU DO THAT." Tyler jumped over his station and tugged on my collar pleadingly. "TEACH ME YOUR WAYS."

. . . . .

I was dressed nicely today. I had a meeting with the shop owner/my boss today and I didn't want to look like a slob on my off day. If I wanted my plea to go through, I had to impress him by letting him see that I was willing to sacrifice my free time to ask for it. I had gone through quite a bit of stress recently and I felt like I deserved some compensation.

I had spent all night trying to argue with "BlackBell" that I will not read the rest of the Ninjas of Love series because I valued what good writing was, which launched her into a tirade about how erotica didn't get respect as literary art anymore. I held in my argument that I've read smutty fanfiction that would win awards over that trashy series.

So, I walked back to the store, and inside, I saw Tyler and another worker, a young woman by the name of Tania, having a go at the questions exchange. Tania flinched, and I saw that Tyler was acting nervous again. Probably asking her about sex or something else that caught her off guard. I walked in, waved at the two other employees, and made my way to the far back of the store, where there was a dark hallway with two doors, one leading to the back alley, and one into the boss's office. I knocked on the office door, and waited a few seconds before letting myself in. Sitting at his desk was an old man, with spiky grey hair still hanging on in his old age. His faded green shirt was a trademark look of his.

"Uh, sir?" I called out to him. He waved for me to go on with whatever I had to say. I was inwardly ecstatic to see a slightly surprised smile on his normally angry visage. "Well, I just wanted to ask you to look over the last quarter's gain, how I've been performing in the last few weeks. Despite the Ice Dust incident and the sudden decline of Neapolitan ice cream sales for some odd reason, I just wanted to let you know that I would like a raise."

His left eyebrow raised slightly; he wasn't convinced.

"I've been spending extra hours for stocking at night shifts, cleaning when the janitorial staff doesn't call in, and even had my life in danger at some points when doing both of those, so I think it would be appropriate for me to ask for a raise, sir."

He nodded sagely, as if contemplating. He rose, and suddenly the door to the office opened and… another man looking exactly like my boss walked in a started speaking in his trademark tired old man voice.

"Thank you, Ernest, for watching the office for me, you can go!" He said grandly, gesturing to the door behind me, and then finally noticed me. "Ah, yes, you said you wanted to meet with me today. Everything alright?"

At this, the man who I thought was my boss walked up to his doppelganger, and whispered into his ear. My boss nodded and nodded, glancing at me a few times.

"Yes, of course." He said, letting "Ernest" leave. "Well, I shall see you at the next reunion!"

"Um, sir?" I asked tentatively.

"Yes, yes, my brother said that you spoke to him and that you wanted a raise." He said. "So you shall get one. You've been good this last quarter, even if you happened to almost die about 6 times this year.

"Right…" I felt sweat trailing down my spine. "So, who…?"

"Ah, right." My boss said. "That's my brother, Ernest. We're two of octuplets in my family."

"Eight identical brothers?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes, and we all own certain stores around town." He confirmed. "One had his Dust Shop robbed recently, and another is being invited to serve his ramen at the upcoming Vytal Festival!"

"That's… nice." I said, now awkwardly standing in his office. He went over to his desk and sat down.

"Anything else on your mind, boy? Besides the raise?" He asked.

"Uh… no, sir." I said, leaving the office. "Have a nice day." I slipped that in before closing the door. "Ernest" was waiting for me outside. He winked and walked out through the alley. I walked through the front door, don't know why I put so much effort into something that ended up so casual and awkward. My Scroll beeped with two text notifications. I read the first one, from the boss reading:

Next time, my boy, just ring me up! No need to dress up for me at all!

I sighed, looking down at my slacks and dress shirt. It was starting to get hot, so I decided to roll up the sleeves on my dress shirt before reading the next text.

Down at Junior's. Join me for a few drinks?

Oh, well thanks for the invitation, Neo. I smiled. I could use a good night after todays. Hell, I could definitely chill with her.

"See ya, Ty!" I called to the younger employee, who turned to me with curious eyes. With a wink, I departed the store with, "I'm gonna go redeem that pint of ice cream."

Hey, BleachCadelina here. Have any requests for any characters you'd like to see from the show? Want some actual lemon/fluff? Let me know in the reviews/comments, and I'll see what I can do.