"W-wha…What?" Laying in a dried pool of blood, I could feel a sharp pain shooting through my skull. "Wh-what happened?"
Struggling to rise to my feet, I looked around the room trying to figure out why I was lying on the ground in such a dire condition. Unable to remember anything that had led to the bleeding and sudden fall to unconsciousness, I quickly darted my gaze to the clock striking way past my work time.
'Shit! I was supposed to be there early today too!' Picking myself up, I hurried to the restroom to wash up the blood and pick off the pieces of glass sticking to my skin. 'I really need to see a doctor about these instances.'
Had it been my first time suddenly falling unconscious, I would've been a lot more worried, but since it had turned into a regular occurrence I simply chalked it up to me overstressing my brain. Even still, the glass stuck to my skin had me guessing what had happened, but with no memory of the incident, I pushed myself to leave for work as quickly as possible.
By the time I was done patching myself up it had been half an hour more, leaving me with very little time to get to the store before the owner of the shop definitely fires me from the job. Rushing out the front door, I keep on dashing until I finally arrive at the street with the convenience store right around the corner.
From a distance itself, I could see the owner standing outside the front door furious at the mere glance of me arriving late. Thankfully, given my track record, he only gave me an earful before leaving me to attend to the store. Setting in quickly, I began restocking all the shelves and cleaned the place up so I could sit down at the register and study a bit while customers browsed the store.
Every so often when someone did bring things to check out, I simply moved off the chair and rang them before returning to my revisions. The shop was huddled in a quaint spot with not much foot traffic so the customers were few, but being open throughout the night when no other stores remained open, helped the place stay open without running a loss.
The store itself was quite small with only four to five shelves to load up with necessities. Amongst the items, only a handful of items had a tall margin, and they were all stacked on the shelf opposing the register. At night there have been times when someone tried to steal from the place, but thankfully with the help of a few cameras scattered at each corner, such crimes were easily reported to the police station nearby.
With my head buried in a book, I treated tonight like any other, however, deep into the night, a group of rowdy drunk girls stumbled into the store. Although I heard them chatting and blabbering, I made sure not to look at them just yet and instead kept an eye on them through the cameras.
"That bitch…" I heard one of them complain to her friends. "What does she think she is? As if a bit of jogging makes her better than us!"
Surprisingly the voice sounded familiar. Squinting my eyes, I focused my eyes on the girl talking.
'Shit, it's those girls from the cheerleading squad.' Realizing that they were the same group of girls accosting Akane today, I felt my heartbeat soaring sky-high. 'If they see me here, that'd be yet another reason for them to make fun of me.'
Keeping my head buried in the book, as well as being on the lookout through the cameras, I made sure to blend into the background without letting them out of sight. Walking around the corner to the back of a shelf, I noticed them picking off and stuffing them into their cleavage and purses. I could even hear them giggling about their drunken attempt at shoplifting from where I was, but even though I'd witnessed the crime firsthand, I wasn't allowed to confront such criminals.
'Sakura, Hakumi, and Matsuri, why the fuck are they here and that too this late?' Being the girlfriend of the male bullies, they could easily get me in trouble if I gave them any trouble. 'Just call the police station once they leave like always.'
Being really close, the policemen often caught the thieves not long after they left the store. This way, not only the employees remain safe, but any false accusation of sexual misconduct by employees on female customers can be avoided.
"Well at least we got her to get in line at least, even if wouldn't try the goods herself," Sakura, the blonde gyaru let out a devious laugh as the group came to the register.
"She'll cave in as soon as she loses to the roided gal," added Matsuri, joining Sukara in her laughs.
"Oi oi if you two are done gossiping, I have my sugar daddy to meet up with," Hakumi complained, setting a handful of chocolates to buy on the counter.
Despite knowing that they took much more than that, I simply lowered my cap to hide my upper face and began ringing everything up.
'What were they talking about?' Although I've heard that some of the girls from our school provided part-time girlfriend-for-hire services, I never would've thought it was Sato's girlfriend. 'I guess it's legal, but what about the other girl they keep talking about?'
Keeping my head lowered, I bagged their items in a small bag and quickly handed it to them. For a moment, Hakumi stared at me for a moment almost as if she'd recognized who I was. Thankfully, getting snatched away by Sakura to leave in a hurry, she didn't manage to get a good look at my face. The alcohol in their system probably helped me stay anonymous as well.
"Akane, they must've been talking about her," it was as clear as day that they were talking about Akane and her refusing to shoot the drugs they were peddling with their boyfriends. "Sounds like she's not using it for now at least."
Picking my phone out of my pocket, I was about to call the cops as usual. But then, realizing that they'll know that I called the police, and potentially come back here another time for revenge, I began having doubts about going through with the idea. Once they come back here, they'll definitely realize who I am and then everything at school will get even more hellish.
'Should I just pretend that I didn't notice; my head was buried in the book anyway. Besides, I feel like calling Akane is more important than retrieving the few items they took from the shop. If anything I can afford to get the amount cut off from my pay. That'd still be better than getting the bullies riled up by this at school.' The amount of mess these girls had left me in made my head grow dizzy.
"Why me? Every time…" Blaming my luck, I tried calling Akane instead of the police.
The call went through but she didn't pick up. Looking at the clock it was already past two in the night, however, I still decided to ring her once again. To my disappointment, she just wouldn't pick up.
"She could be asleep, I'll talk to her tomorrow," glaring at my flip phone with the voices of the girls replaying what they'd said in my head. I knew something sinister was going on, something that I needed to stop before it's too late. "It's about time Hero's mom learns about his behavior anyway. I can also try to get Akane to accompany me to the teacher's lounge."
With everything planned in my head, I was ready to finally burst the bubble for at least one of the bullies. After that, if everything goes as planned, everything should at least settle for a bit or maybe even till I pass out onto college.
'Things will get better, you know they will Daichi…' And like I kept myself going, fueled on hope that may never come to be.