Starting a Night Shift Part-time Job at a Convenience Store.

“T-Then, please take care of the store later.”

The manager left the store after Nagase did so, with a somewhat worried expression.

Inside the store were four customers: an OL and a young woman in casual attire, both of whom had wallets in their hands and were pacing back and forth between the bread and sweets sections; two older office workers in worn-out suits browsing the magazine section.

Takenaka was standing beside the register on the left, close to the entrance, while I was positioned in front of the register on the right with a tissue shoved up both of my nostrils.

Nothing to be embarrassed about. Nothing at all was what I wanted to say but…

Needless to say, it was embarrassing after all.

Which convenience store in the world would have a staff working with tissues stuffed in both nostrils?

…That someone was actually here, though.

It was me.

When I was in the back room stopping the bleeding, somehow the blood ended up flowing out of the hole that was not bleeding, so I was forced to attend work with both holes stuffed with shredded tissues, an extremely foolish state to be in. Of course, I had my own circumstances, but what was embarrassing was that all the customers who showed up were peering at me.

A few minutes ago, a young man who was purchasing rice balls stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes widening at the sight of my face. He must have thought, “What’s going on with this guy?”

That would be a normal reaction. I didn’t like stuffing tissues up my nostrils either, nonetheless. Being bitterly smiled at bothered me. At times like this, please pass it off with the unique Japanese power of ignoring.

Oh, look. This time, the OL came this way with a sweetened bun.

That OL was clearly trying to head this way. However, the moment she reached the rice ball display shelf right in front of my cash register, she noticed something strange on my face. Perhaps noticing something unusual about my face, she changed direction at a right angle, without shifting her facial expression, but unnaturally.

The change in course brought her to Takenaka’s cash register.

Of course. That was what I expected.

The following woman in casual attire and the old men with magazines all amusingly avoided my cash register and lined up at Takenaka’s. People instinctively steered clear of suspicious-looking things, I supposed.

Although it was a blessing that it was late at night, I wondered what would have ensued had it been during the daytime. A scene of a store with an enormous disparity in line emerged in my mind.

What was this, the emptiness that surged up from the depths of my heart…

As anticipated, once Takenaka dealt with the four clients and sent them on their way, the number of customers ceased to flow. Following the customary cycle of setting out the products and tidying up, there came the usual excessive leisure time.

My nosebleed finally completely ceased when the customers stopped showing up and I took the tissues out of my nostrils. For now, this would not arouse any suspicion from the customers who came by. A sigh of relief escaped me.

“…Excuse me, is your nose alright?”

While observing this, Takenaka turned to face me and stated in a loud but not clear voice. His eyes were somewhat apologetic. It seemed that he was concerned about me at least.

“Yeah… I’m fine. See, it stopped right here like this.”

Indeed, I was startled by that, but I was not the type of person to hold a grudge like that. Besides…

“Thank you for cleaning up the mess I left behind too…”

When I lightly bowed to him, he followed suit too.

Oh, no, no, no.

What was this complicated exchange? Even if this was our initial meeting, it was too formal. Just laugh it off and remark something like, “nosebleed,” or “that’s very amusing,”!! Not good, this tense atmosphere was too severe simply due to the absence of customers. Late at night, in this quiet time, we should be filled with excitement from the bottom of our hearts!

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Um.”

“…Yes?”

“Um, you always come in early and clean the store, right Takenaka? I heard that from Nagase and the manager.” 

“…” 

“That’s amazing, I want to learn from that kind of thing too.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Where is your hometown, Takenaka? Is it near here?”

“…”

“…”

“…XX town, 20 minutes from here.”

“Oh, that’s rather close to my hometown.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

Huh?

“…”

Wait.

“…”

The conversation wasn’t progressing! What the hell? Catching up in conversation wasn’t going well. The ball that was supposed to be thrown was crashing into the grass.

“…”

It was really just as Aoyama said, he didn’t speak at all, and his facial expression didn’t change a bit. Did this imply that he was unwilling to converse with me? Despite my attempts to engage Takenaka in conversation, he remained silent throughout.

Nah… was this the rumored Takenaka? He turned out to be a calm individual, contrary to my expectations that he would assume some shady persona. Or rather, this ill-fitting atmosphere would linger until the morning. Give me a break, this feeling of awkwardness would be too much for me to handle. I tried to communicate with Takenaka and re-engaged in conversation with him to refrain from that.

“Well, no customers are stopping by, but this is natural for late at night, isn’t it?”

It was a well-used phrase. He struggled to find the right things to say, but he managed to squeeze out a few words.

“….Right.”

Like his earlier remark, Takenaka’s was succinct and left little room for the debate to continue. He never abruptly ended the conversation, which led me to question whether he wasn’t very good at communicating.

If so, that was fine with me, since I didn’t have to bother about it either. That being said, I was still not quite grasping the situation, so rather than just go on in silence, I decided to throw a direct question that would compel Takenaka to respond.

“By the way, you seem to be quite well-known here. I had heard a lot about you from Hirai and Aoyama before meeting you.”

“…”

“Right, Aoyama told me that Takenaka said, ‘There’s a boy playing in front of the door’.”

When I said this, Takenaka surprisingly had a reaction. Blinking quickly, he turned his head slightly toward me.

“Is that ‘boy’ a ghost? Do you see such things, Takenaka? I am actually fascinated by such stories and would like to hear about it if possible…”

A false smile accompanied my question. I wasn’t captivated by such things. Notwithstanding, I simply wanted to observe how he would answer my question and how he would react to it. I thought I was being obnoxious. Yet, I couldn’t stand by while this guy unnecessarily terrified other people by circulating untrue allegations. He might only be a wolf in sheep’s clothing at the moment but imagine how he would appear to others and how he would boastfully and pompously discuss such things.

I wanted to see it. Therefore, I figured that by feigning curiosity, Takenaka would share such a story with me.

Be it elementary school, junior high school or high school. Every now and then, people would brazenly claim that they experienced non-existent and invisible things as though they could see them.

They could be friends, superiors, or even students in the neighboring class. I couldn’t believe anyone who told me such stories. No matter how close or distant they were.

It lacked any realism and I found myself convinced that the story was nothing more than a fantasy made up out of imagination. Of course, a lot of people took the bait with stories about seeing specters or being able to see them. Whether those who spoke in a nonchalant manner or in a loud, desperate voice, I couldn’t help but suspect that they were all trying to attract other people’s attention.

If that was all, it was fine.

The only thing was that I detested those who spread rumors and tried to incite fear, even though not everyone could see them and there was no proof of their existence.

I detested it immensely. Takenaka must be one of those people. That was my thought.

When I was casting an expectant glance at him, thinking that he might take me up on my offer if I stirred him up properly, Takenaka looked at me without a word just as if he had come to a halt.

After a while, he said, “…I suggest you should stop this.”

“Huh?”

I was taken aback by the words that were completely irrelevant to the answer to my question.

I should stop this?

“What do you mean?”

When I asked this with a wry smile, Takenaka responded with his eyes, implying, “You know what I mean.”

“…I should stop… frankly speaking, you’re telling me to quit my job, isn’t it?”

“…”

“Why?”

“…”

Even if not told, I could roughly figure out what you were trying to say. But I didn’t want Takenaka or anyone else to tell me what to do.

Takenaka was still looking at me with eyes that seemed to be appealing to me. I guessed that he had always done this to scare off newcomers but I was not a coward to back down so easily.

“Can’t you tell me?”

“…Experience.”

“What?”

“…Before you experience it, it’s better to quit.”

What was this guy talking about? It was no good. I was getting more and more irritated. Whether it was intentional or not, the pace of the conversation was too sluggish.

This type of person wasn’t well-suited for me. He wouldn’t talk, his facial expression was poor and it wasn’t clear what he was thinking.

From now on, I was going to tell him, in a roundabout way, not to give me such advice or threats. I opted not to though. I didn’t want to complicate the relationship beyond repair on the first day. As long as I didn’t mind, it was fine. Unleashing hostility was not necessary.

If I didn’t speak to him, he probably wouldn’t speak to me. Even when I spoke to him, he wouldn’t speak to me either, though…

The distrust I harbored for Takenaka was silently tucked away inside my chest. After that, I decided not to speak as much as possible.

Once more I realized how hard it was to be there doing nothing but time passed even when I was doing nothing. Out of boredom, I went through the backyard and other places that didn’t look too dirty and cleaned them up, and finally the short hand of my watch started to tick the “3” mark.

I returned to the counter after taking out the trash and stretched out.

Ah, this was exhausting. Even though all week long I have been doing the same thing over and over again, I felt even more fatigued today. The cause of this was no doubt that I had been forcibly straining my mind for several hours straight.

Takenaka and I hadn’t had a conversation since then except for short replies and confirmation of shelf clearance and cleaning. Perhaps it was because I was giving off a disconcerting vibe but Takenaka didn’t talk to me either.

In the end, the atmosphere remained awkward and the situation continued until now. I stood idly in front of the cash register with nothing to do. Despite not talking to me, Takenaka seemed to look at me every now and then, and I felt his gaze on me a few times.

What the hell, if you didn’t like it, why didn’t you simply say so? I didn’t want to be intimidated in silence.

As a result, my shoulders were tense even if I didn’t do anything and I was quite irritated by the strange tightness of the situation.

“…”

I should smoke a cigarette. Usually, I would have taken a break and smoked a cigarette long ago. Takenaka showed no sign of retreating to the back room.

No way… he wasn’t going to take a break? How long did he expect he would stand there in his spare time? You’ve got to be joking. Carrying on like this until morning… Oi, oi, what kind of endurance contest was this?

Even Aoyama and Hirai were taking turns having a break, and it was the only precious time for me to take a breather during my late-night part-time job.

Nevertheless, Takenaka patiently maintained an upright posture in front of the cash register. I grew numb and called out to him, “…Takenaka, why don’t we take a break soon?” as I turned to him to say so.

?!―

“Ehhhhhhh.”