Chapter 14: Chapter 13.

Chapter 13. Fitness test. (6/6)

I slept for a solid three and a half hours. As soon as the bell rang for the end of the day my eyes shot open. I immediately got up from my seat and robotically walked out the door before anyone else even had the chance to stand up.

I still felt like shit, but it was much better than before. My feeling of hunger had subsided a little, but I knew it would immediately flare up if I exerted myself too much again. I had to take it easy so I opted to walk directly to the convenience store I worked at while dragging my feet. Normally I’d drop my bag off at my apartment first and change, but I didn’t want to expend the extra energy to do so.

On my way to the convenience store, I stopped inside a public restroom and changed my clothes there. I didn’t want to show up in my school uniform after all. I always kept a spare change of casual clothes in my bag in case of emergencies. I also fixed up my hair and put in blue decorative colored contacts to make it more difficult for others to recognize me. Since I didn’t have any friends, rarely ever talked to people in school, and people hardly paid attention to me, this was enough to deceive anyone from my school who typically shopped here. At most, they’d just think I looked somewhat familiar or similar to someone they’d seen before.

With my school uniform stuffed into the bag on my back I entered the convenience store and put on the work attire I kept stored in the work locker at the back. I stuffed my bag inside and locked it to ensure no nosy coworker would snoop through my stuff.

I took up a position behind the counter beside my fellow coworker who similarly worked here part-time. She was in her first year of university studying literary arts. Despite my current age, I was six feet tall and I was actually half a head taller than her.

She was a girl with waist-length straight black hair and black eyes. Her bangs hung down covering her forehead. She wore glasses, but I had a feeling they were decorative, or maybe even used to make it harder for others who knew her to recognize her. 

I’d never bothered to ask whether they were real or not since I didn’t particularly care to know. 

Overall her appearance was actually quite pleasant to the eyes. She had a tranquil, calm, at ease aura about her.

The two of us didn’t really talk very much. We only ever exchanged a few words, the bare minimum expected of us to maintain a work relationship. That was how I personally preferred things. She didn’t strike me as a very sociable girl, but rather, a quiet intellectual type instead.

I took a seat on the stool directly beside her behind the counter and slumped forward while we waited for customers to approach the counter to pay for any goods they were purchasing. 

At the moment she had a book opened up in front of her propped up with her right hand on top of her lap.

Judging by the slight smile on her face she was enjoying the book she was reading. She appeared engrossed with it and hadn’t noticed my arrival.

Beside her, I took out my phone and similarly started reading something. The only difference being it was a story I’d written myself. I often used downtime at work when it was slow to edit and proofread my stories. It was a habit I’d developed for years. The phone was kept under the counter so customers wouldn’t take notice and make complaints.

Since my coworker was always engrossed in some book or another I didn’t worry too much about her finding out I was an author myself. If anything, she’d just think I was pretending to be one to get closer to her even if she found out anything. That was why I could let my guard down a bit more around her compared to my nosy neighbor in class.

After a little while, a customer approached the counter with a few items in hand. My coworker received the basket with their items and started scanning them. Noticing I was here she wordlessly handed them over to me to bag them up for the customer.

She handled the interaction with the customer skillfully with a smile while I kept my mouth shut and did only what was expected of me. It was best this way. The store got much more business with an attractive girl handling small over-the-counter interactions.

You’d find people coming in more to see and interact with the girl than for things they actually needed. The only real purpose for me being here was to act as a deterrent for customers who might do anything weird. Essentially, I acted as an insurance of sorts to prevent easy-to-avoid situations. You could even say I was just here for the convenience store’s convenience in a sense.

If a customer came only to talk to the girl without actually buying something I’d be there to hurry them along their way. 

In this manner, we cooperated as a team.

When she scanned all the items and the customer completed the payment I handed them their bags. 

She bid them a good day on their way out and the customer returned the gesture. I simply watched the exchange in silence and sat back down.

“It’s a bit slow right now so why don’t you make yourself useful and restock some of the items.”

“Sure.” I nodded and did a quick inventory of items on the shelves. I took a mental note of the shelves and items that were out of stock and headed to the area at the back filled with boxes of merchandise. Though I was unbearably tired I wouldn’t make any excuses to not do the job I was being paid to do.

I grabbed a large empty box and placed it on a cart. I rummaged through a bunch of smaller boxes filled with inventory in the room and tossed them into the empty box on the cart. Once I’d secured all the merchandise I needed, I returned to the storefront and stocked the shelves. The entire process took about an hour for me to finish.

My coworker had taken care of any customers who entered the store on her own while I busied myself with this tedious task.

When I returned behind the counter she opened her mouth and said, “Thanks for your hard work, Sean.”

I simply returned her thanks with a silent nod and sat back down. I let out an exhausted sigh and lamented over how much time was left in my shift. 

As for the name she’d addressed me by just now, that was a fake name the employees here knew me by and what was on my name tag. 

The only one who knew my real name was the owner who kept me employed under the condition that nobody discovered I was only 15 and in my first year of high school. I couldn’t legally be employed until I was 16 due to certain labor laws and how my situation was a bit sketchy, so I had to keep things on the down-low about it for the time being. This coworker of mine was under the impression that we were similar in age.

“You seem a lot more tired than usual.”

I hadn’t expected to interact with my coworker any more than that but she suddenly spoke up.

I raised my head, looked her in the eyes, and said, “Aren’t you just imagining things?”

“Are you saying my eyes are deceiving me and the sweat on your forehead is a lie then?”

“Isn’t it a natural occurrence to sweat a bit after exerting yourself physically?”

“You’ve never sweat before from stocking shelves.”

“Sure I have.”

“You haven’t. I’m quite attentive, you know. While you were stocking the shelves just now you were even occasionally sniffling. Are you sick? ”

“I’m not.”

Not believing me she nonchalantly raised her right hand and pressed the back of it against my forehead. The back of her hand was quite cool.

“You have a pretty high fever.”

“You’re mistaken, that’s just my normal body temperature.”

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“I see.” I knew she didn’t believe me and she knew I knew that as well, but she didn’t bother to try and force me to go home or anything. She just sat there with the back of her hand against my forehead.

“Uh… can you move your hand?”

“My right hand is a bit cold from holding my book, since there’s a heater here I can use to warm it up, I figured I'd take advantage of it.” While holding her book with her left hand and simultaneously reading she told me as such.

When the back of her hand warmed up she rotated her hand and covered my forehead with her palm to warm it up as well.

If I didn’t have a fever I’d have retreated, but because the coolness from her hand provided a bit of relief for me, I simply waited for her to remove her hand on her own.

When both sides of her hand were warmed up she removed it from my forehead. She then entered the staff toilet at the back and washed her hand for hygiene sake. I had been sweating after all. Even so, she didn’t seem particularly bothered by it. She simply remained cool and composed throughout the entire exchange.

This was the first time we’d ever had such an interaction. From what I recalled it certainly never happened my first time through high school either. I suppose this was the butterfly effect in play. A small change in the past could lead to a ripple effect down the line. The difference in the interaction between Rosa and I on the very first day of school was no doubt the root cause of all this.

I’d been careful to emulate life the way it had always been for me with the exception of matters related to Rosa, but today I came in exhausted in a little competition with her. That small change from the past was enough to trigger this sort of unexpected event.

The interaction with those boys earlier had also been a huge deviation which would make it hard to determine just how much my high school life from here on will be altered.

Such an inconvenience, this troublesome existence known as Rosa that is.

“You should take better care of your health, it would be bad if customers or other employees get sick because of you.”

“It’s just a fever from overexerting myself a bit too much. That’s all. It’s not a cold, so you don’t need to worry about that. You don’t need to worry, if I was down with a cold I’d call in sick. I don’t like inconveniencing others after all.”

“I know you don’t. But I’ll be inconvenienced if you don’t show up to work, so please do take better care of your health.” She stated cooly while reading the book in her hand.

Her unexpected line caught me a bit off guard. I couldn’t help but think she was a more sly woman than I’d been led to believe.

“You must be quite a hit with the guys.” I couldn’t help but compliment her.

“What makes you think that?”

“You’re quite good at handling customers but you seem rather calculating.”

“Calculating?” She closed her book for the first time, looked me in the eyes, and tilted her head to the side.

“Is there something wrong with what I said?”

“No… it’s just the first time someone said that I was calculating. What did you mean by that exactly? What you said got me a bit interested, that’s all.”

Me and my big mouth.

“It’s nothing, please forget I said anything.”

Seeing how I wasn’t willing to elaborate further, she let out a small sigh and returned to reading her book. She likely concluded it was something said at random and I had no basis for it, so she immediately lost interest in me.

We went on with the rest of our shift as usual without any significant event of note. The two of us worked the same hours so we finished at 9:00 PM when a single late-night employee took over. Since there was much less traffic at night, only one person was required. 

They had a decent amount of free time as well from what I overheard from my shift partner talking to them when transitioning between shifts. It was a guy in his third year of university studying business who had classes late into the evening. These two seemed to be on rather good terms.

While they chatted a bit at the front I left them alone and took my leave. I removed the work apparel I wore over my casual clothes, stuffed them in the locker, and headed out with my bag on my back. On the way out of the backroom, I bumped into my coworker who was about to change and leave as well.

When she saw me she opened her mouth and asked, “You don’t normally bring a bag with you to work, do you? Are you also attending university?”

I frowned when asked that question. If I said nothing, ignored her, and walked off without answering her question it might come back to bite me later on. She might just bring it back up later and if I keep avoiding the question it might look like I have something to hide. If she digs deeper she might come to the realization I’m in high school.

I didn’t have much of an excuse for why I would bring it with me today either. It’s not like I’m involved in a sports team unrelated to a school and say that. I never competed on any sports teams either so if questioned further on it I wouldn’t be able to keep up a lie like that. Based on what we conversed about earlier and my obvious exhaustion displayed today, one may draw the conclusion it was related to athletics though.

It might be best to just act like I really am a university student for the sake of not exposing my current age. As I previously attended one, I should be able to at least maintain that sort of lie as long as the university I went to wasn’t the university she’s attending right now.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong. I just didn’t want anyone to know I was attending university is all. I’m not particularly smart and people would just make fun of me because of how bad my grades are.”

“What faculty are you in?”

“Electrical engineering.” Ah. Shit, my answer autonomously slipped out because I’d grown so accustomed to the question.

Her eyebrows raised into crescents surprised by my unexpected response.

“Are you trying to be humble? There’s no way you’re dumb if you made it into one of the faculties with the steepest learning curve. Among the other branches of engineering, the average GPA for it is the lowest.”

“Haha… because it’s filled with idiots who don’t do well on the tests like me I guess.” I self-deprecatingly took a jab at myself.

“You shouldn’t call yourself-”

“Sorry, I’ve really got to go. Also, please keep this a secret and don’t tell anyone else anything I told you today. See you tomorrow.” I cut her off and quickly walked away. The less I talked to her, the better. Now that I’d concocted this sort of lie, I’d have to run with it from now on when we were together at work.

It’s just been one lie after another today. Just when will it end? Well, at least with this lie it cleared up why I might have been so exhausted today. Fatigue built up from studying excessively because I’m an idiot trying to just barely keep up in class.

After a long day, I finally made it home. I opened the freezer and tossed two frozen TV dinners into the microwave. After five minutes passed I wolfed it all down in a flash. I then collapsed on my bed and slept like a log until it was time for my next shift at work on Saturday.

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