He woke up late in the morning, and felt his shoulders aching when he did. He takes awhile just staring on the walls and the ceilings of his room before slowly sitting up.
He is trying to recollection what happened, and sighs after remembering it.
Yesterday, he have stayed up all night cleaning everything in his house. He didn't manage to finish all of it, seeing everything is in a mess. There are many bugs within, there are rat holes anywhere. There are even some hardened pest droppings on the corners of each rooms of his house.
His cleaning utensils are old, and he even have to kill some insects like cockroaches using his broom, which snaps it in half. The electrical flyswatter is barely working and only manage to kill a few flying insects.
So he have to get the capital to buy some new replacements. He can't even do that because he have no money left.
And now it comes to this day, feeling tired despite having rested until late this morning.
"Right. I think I'll just sell all of these stuff." Hs said, his eyes pointed at the stack of books, old CDs, figurines, and other otaku collections.
He didn't need all of it. So he is going to sell it. It doesn't matter if it have sentimental values, or it's some limited version of the original owner's favorite series. It is dumb to hold onto it.
~~o~~
Carrying everything in a box is a hard thing for him. It took him several minutes before he can finally get to the rental shop where Nikki is working.
Everything have been put inside a box, and he is carrying it all the way here.
When he entered the shop, Nikki seems to have noticed him as she steps out of the counter with a surprise look.
"Woah! What is that?"
"Most... of my stuffs...." He said in-between breathes as he fell to his butt, taking some fresh air.
"Here, let me help you!"
It seems like Nikki understood what he is going to do with it as she takes the time to carry it. She takes a bit of an effort but she managed to carry it a lot easier than him.
"Wait....! Let me help you...!" He tries to stand up, embarrassed that he is letting the girl take care of it.
"It's fine. I know your wimpy, so just let me take care of this!"
Seeing her rejecting his offer our of concern makes him so guilty at her and angry for himself.
'Fuck! I should really take the time and turn this body fit!' He felt a bit reluctant with that thought.
Even if he is not a lazy bum like the original Klein in this world, he can't be called as a hardworking too. He is only doing this out of the sense of crisis for his life, but if given the chance, he would also want to lay on his bed and play games all day.
He just have a lot of awareness in his surroundings than the Klein of this world. Which is a really low bar to achieve.
"Wait, are you sure your going to sell these?"
He looks around and see that there are no customers right now, then he turned to her and confirmed her question.
"Oh." She seems surprise at his admittance.
She can't believe that the lazy NEET who love to drown himself in self-indulgence is willingly selling his own collections, which he proudly declared his treasure for life when his family is still alive.
Also, the way he stares at her is now different. In the past, he is a creep who seems to violate every girls he sets his eyes on with his mind. He is also tactless, saying whatever he wants just because he thinks he is special.
Now, he have an awareness of a normal person. His eyes seems unattracted to her, and seems to be more concerned about something than being busy ogling her body like a thirsty maniac.
"You've changed." She can't help but mutter that.
"What is it?" Not hearing it, he ask her with a raised eyebrow.
"Nothing."
With that, she started counting the things within the box and calculating the cost of each products within. It is a lot more than the group of books he carried yesterday, so it will cost at least more than a thousand dollars.
While she is busy taking care of that, Klein is looking around the shop. Not finding what he is looking for, he inquired her about that.
"So... where are the other workers?"
Still focused at the box of his collections, she responded. "I'm the only one who works here." She said.
"Wait.. what about the manager?"
"I'm the Branch Manager."
It seems like she noticed the silence that permeated on the surroundings, not hearing him talk with what she assumes as surprise cause she responded once again.
"Don't be surprised. People don't really want to work on a small retail shop like this. The last branch manager who works here passed it to me before he resigns, so I am the one who have to take care of everything."
He slowly nodded at that, slightly understanding her because he have work in a small shop on a bus stop in his past life.
He can guess that this includes taking care of the finances of this shop, looking through the figures, making reports on the main branch, restocking, and any of those things.
It is also obvious that this is just a minimum wage job just by hearing that people doesn't like to stay permanently on this type of work.
"By the way, what are you going to do with those things. I can't think of anything other than you reselling it."
She chuckles. "You seem to be knowledgeable about this. If I don't know any better, I'd say you have experience at working. As for what I am going to do with these?"
"You are right. I will be selling it, though it will be limited on the company's partners. This is a retail shop, so we only deal with retails like books. We have nothing to do with figurines and the likes."
He nodded at her words, understanding where she is coming from.
"By the way..." He perks up. "What are you going to do after selling these?"
"I'm finding work." Without hesitation, he said it.
He really needs it right now. He don't have any money, and even if he got a grand right now, it will take half a month before it lost all again. He still have taxes to pay for after all.
"Oh, then if it's not much trouble, would you like to work in this shop?"
"Sure."
She stops at her work and snap her attention at him with her eyes wide.
"Wait, seriously?"
"Yeah." He said with a shrug. "I mean, I'm already on the red, and end of the month is coming soon. I need to pay my taxes and put food on the table." He added.
She stares at her for awhile, shocked at what he is spouting. She felt like she is looking at a different person. After awhile, she managed to compose herself.
"Okay. I just need a resume, national ID, and police clearance. Then I'll take you."
He nodded, which causes her to be surprised once again. The way he looks is more serious, unlike the time when he is more unaware and is acting childish everywhere.
"You've really changed." She said with a gentle smile.
"... Huh?" He can only look at her curiously as he heard that.
"Right. Forget I said it."
After that, she continues taking care of the box.
~~o~~
After getting 1,260$, he goes on the local market to buy some cleaning tools. Along with that, he also takes care of his requirements.
He renewed his police clearance on the local police box just a single drive on the bus, then created a new resume on an internet cafe. After that, he goes back home and put every tools on the side.
After taking a meal, he started cleaning the remaining dirty areas on the house. He goes around his house cleaning everything just so he didn't have to see some insects and other creepy crawlies just suddenly dropping on top of his head.
Having recalled about the laundry, he also bags it up and goes out again to go to the market. It is the closest place for a laundromat.
After paying for it, he leaves his address before going back home and resuming his cleaning.
This took him until midnight. Along the way, he got the clothes cleaned up during his cleaning on the evening so he have something decent to wear on when going to the retail shop tomorrow.
After he is done taking care of everything in the house, he goes straight on the bed and lay on it.
Without thinking much about it, he slept as quickly with his tired body.