Chapter 327: Chapter 326.

Chapter 326. Troubling Developments: My New Responsibility at Work is… (3/4)

It’s just a coincidence that she popped a U-turn and came back this way. That’s all. There’s absolutely no way she’s recognized me, right?

Though her head faced straight forward and I couldn’t see her eyes through her tinted helmet, I instinctively felt that her gaze behind the visor over her face was directed toward me. It made me uncomfortable.

When the light turned green, just like last time she drove right past me, hopefully, for the last time.

Five minutes later.

Why?

Why is she back again!

Is she messing with me?

What the hell does she want?

I slowly turned my head to the side, upon which her head shot back to the front. She was definitely staring at me.

I turned away for a moment only to check again and the same clumsy pattern to repeat itself. After three repetitions, the light changed to green and she drove off.

Five minutes later she was across the intersection again.

Of course, she returned to my side five minutes later. By that point, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I approached her side, tapped on her shoulder, and confronted her. 

“Huh? W-What is it?” She questioned in a flustered fashion.

I flipped my whiteboard around and wrote out a message to her.

‘Are you interested in the sale we have going on? The store is right behind me. The sale ends in twenty minutes, you should act quickly if you don’t want to miss out. The exclusive specialty drink we sell is a big hit among girls your age. You should try it if you haven’t yet.’

“S-Specialty drink?”

I nodded.

“I-Is it really that good?”

I gave her a casual thumbs up.

“I see.”

I pointed at the light which had just turned green.

“Ah, the light.”

‘You should go and not hold up traffic.’

“Uh… right…”

She put her hand on the handlebars as if ready to depart, but suddenly spoke up, “Actually… not yet.”

She rolled her motorcycle over the curb, dropped the kickstand to keep it upright on the grass, and dismounted it. She removed her helmet and let it hang from the handle as her maroon hair fluttered about freely behind her in the light breeze generated by the cars as they passed by our side.

What the hell is with this? Is my cover blown? How though? How could she recognize me inside this? There’s no way, it shouldn’t be possible.

She locked eyes with me, then opened her mouth with a dead serious look in her eyes and asked coolly with her arms tucked into her jacket pockets, “Can I hug you?”

Huh? … excuse me? But… what?

In a panic, I jotted something down and spun the whiteboard around to face her.

‘Sorry, I think I misheard you just now. What’d you say?’

“Can I hug you?” The resolution in her eyes was pretty intense.

‘Hell no!’

“Ugh. Absolute refusal. Right… The only natural response. Of course it’d be a no. A weird creepy girl on a motorcycle wearing a face mask approached out of nowhere and asks ya that outta nowhere.”

It looked like she’d taken a heavy blow.

‘Uh… why would you want to hug me out of nowhere exactly?’

She removed her hands from her pocket and touched her index fingers together tilted her head to the side embarrassedly and explained, “The mascot costume is really cute. So cute I had an urge to hug it. I’m a bit weak to cute stuff…”

Is this the same girl who dared claim she was a gang leader? What the hell is with this unexpected side? I was genuinely shocked.

“You... really won’t let me hug you?”

‘Hugs aren’t free.’

“They aren’t free? You mean if I pay…”

Huh? Was she seriously willing to pay for a hug? No way, right? But… maybe I could make a quick buck.

‘$5 per hug.’ It was the same price I quoted her the first time we met when she wanted her face mask back.

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“F-Five dollars a hug? Isn’t that price a bit steep?”

Is it? I didn’t know the market value of a hug. Did I shoot too high here?

“H-How long do I get?” What the hell, you’re seriously considering it still? Just how weak to cute things are you? This girl called herself a street rat, would a street rat be willing to pay for something stupid like this? Did she lie to me? No, she’s probably just not as bad off compared to when she was younger. Yeah… that’s probably it.

Still... I was starting to feel a bit guilty about it now. My heart would be bleeding if I ever paid someone $5 for a pointless hug. Even imagining setting a standard of $5 to hug a stupid mascot greatly hurt my conscience. I couldn’t seriously go through with that.

“What’s wrong?”

‘Uh… that is… you’d get 1 second.’ If I gave such a crappy deal there’s no way she’d pay.

“Only… a second?” She looked heartbroken like she wanted to cry. But it still looked like she was still considering whether or not she should pay. Her hand inched ever closer to her pocket as she tried to fight back her urge to cough up the money.

The guilt was unreal. Why the hell does she want to hug someone in a stupid mascot costume so badly!

‘Just this one time, I’ll offer a special limited-time offer. If you buy something from our store, you can get a one-minute long hug for the low price of $1.’

Her eyes lit up as she nodded, more than happy to take me up on my offer.

“I’ll be right back. Don’t you dare move. If you run away, my gang will hunt you down to the far ends of the city until I get my hug. You got that?”

I nodded.

‘Seriously, heh, where do you expect me to run anyway? I work for this store.’

“Oh, right. Well, I’ll be right back.”

She tapped the kickstand with the back of her heel, raised her leg up and over as she straddled her motorcycle. With the light red, she accelerated and hopped over the curb back onto the road. She drove into the store’s parking lot and stopped in front of the building.

I could tell even from here there was a line inside the store and figured it’d be a while before she got back. Contrary to my belief, two minutes later I heard a motorcycle engine rev. By the time I turned to look, she was popping a wheelie jumping up over the curb beside me.

She had a bottle of that cursed drink in one hand.

‘Hey, I said you had to buy something, not shoplift?’

“I did buy it. Here’s the receipt as proof.” She pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket and casually held it out to me while still on her bike. It was a legitimate receipt.

‘How’d you get it so fast? Wasn’t there a line?’

“I told em to get outta my way and they all stepped aside. But that cashier was really pretty and nice, a cool beauty. No wonder she was turned into a cute mascot character for the store.”

‘You’ve got to wait your turn like everyone else. You can’t go cutting in line.’

“Huh? Why not? If they let me go first, what’s the problem?”

She definitely had the attitude of a thug.

It seemed it would prove useless to try and explain manners or etiquette inside a store to her, but I figured I’d still give it a shot.

‘It will negatively impact our store if new customers have a negative experience on their first visit. They may not want to come back again because they’ll associate that first visit with something bad.’

“Oh. I see. But what’s that got to do with me?”

‘You’re the bad experience they’ll associate with their visit.’

“And?”

‘I could get fired or lose my job if I don’t show results as the mascot character for the store. They might scrap the idea altogether, you know.”

“What! They’d get rid of such a cute mascot?” Her eyes widened in shock at the sudden revelation.

I nodded seriously.

“That’s awful! What do I do? Should I go threaten the owner of the store to make sure you keep your job and that they don’t get rid of their mascot character?”

‘No, you fool! That would have the opposite effect.’

“But I have a gang behind me. There’s no way she’d take the threat lightly.”

‘This store’s owner is not one who cowers back in fear from a bit of intimidation.’

“I see. Then what should I do?”

‘Hurry up and go back inside to apologize for your rude behavior. If you do that, that should fix things.”

“I understand. I’ll be right back. Don’t move, I haven’t forgotten about my hug.”

It seems I’d unknowingly stumbled across this girl’s greatest weakness. Cute things. So long as something cute was involved, this wild girl could be reined in. It was good to know for future reference on the off chance I ever bumped into her again.

Since it happened three times already, there would surely be a fourth.

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