Cat Phantom V |
“Hey, Hakamada.”
“Thanks for your hard work.”
“So it’s time for the shift change huh. By the way, Hakamada, you arrived early today.”
“Oh, yes, well, a little bit.”
After entering the store, I exchanged familiar greetings and bowed as I entered the back room, where I was met by Nagase, who glanced at his watch.
“It had been a while since my friends and I had gotten together but I figured if I stayed too long, I might get really drunk.”
“Haha, so you left early.”
“Something like that.”
I didn’t want to be the victim on that road’s curve.
This barcode manager was a bad omen. As if what he said was on point, Nagase started to laugh too. Ugh… even Nagase.
With their laughter behind me, I went to the back room and changed into my uniform.
Speaking of which, Takenaka was supposed to be here but I hadn’t spotted him yet today. I thought he might be rearranging the shelves again, so I peeked out from the back room and checked around the store, only to find no one who looked like Takenaka.
Oh, well…
“Takenaka is coming, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, he’s coming. I mean, he’s here.”
When I asked the manager about it, he responded with a meaningful phrase.
“Takenaka is in the toilet.”
“Oh.”
He was cleaning the toilet huh.
“He’s throwing up, though.”
“…What!?”
Why!?
At the same time I said that, Nagase suddenly burst out laughing excitedly without any warning. It astonished me and a few other customers who had accumulated in the store.
“Hyahahahahahaha! Hahahaha! Ahahahahaha!”
“Nagase…?!”
No good, Nagase was twisting his stomach while laughing as though he were on fire. What specifically transpired for him to be amused in this way?
“Buhahahaha! Hahahahi, ihihihihi!!”
Although the manager rubbed Nagase’s back and tried to calm him down, he kept laughing in an eerie manner, so much so that one of the customers fled to the exit.
“Nagase, it’s time to settle down, you’re leading the customers away…!”
“Ugh, uhi, phew… e-excuse buhaha!!”
Wow, Nagase was even more destructive than those guys who had an inseparable relationship with me when it came to pressure points.
I mean, Takenaka throwing up in the toilet… what did that mean?
“Um… manager.”
“Ah, actually, you see.”
When I asked him about it, this was what happened.
“In other words, Takenaka got grossed out when he saw the carcass of a cat that had been run over on the road.”
He was apparently puking in the toilet of the convenience store where he worked.
For real?
No, no, no, we were talking about that Takenaka.
That same Takenaka.
The Takenaka that was the guardian deity of this convenience store.
He drove away the malevolent spirits that flocked to the convenience store and single-handedly attempted to protect the newcomers who swept in here time and time again.
We were talking about Takenaka, with his stern guardian spirit in armor and helmet, you know. Such a cool, adversary-free, and seamless (in my image) Takenaka was… at the mere sight of a cat carcass…
As I was mulling this over, the door to the toilet in the back of the store opened. Takenaka staggered out of the door, his body swaying.
“Hakamada, hi… Good evening.”
Takenaka’s white face turned pallid immediately after meeting me and greeted me. He was evidently out of his element. Never before had I seen Takenaka looking so vulnerable.
“A-Are you alright?”
When I inadvertently rushed to him and said so, Takenaka showed me a look that said, “About what?”
“Oh, you see. The manager told me that you were in the back. He said that you got sick at the sight of the cat carcass on the road, but Takenaka, you would never…”
…do that, I added with a wry smile and at the moment I did so, Takenaka’s face tightened up.
“Ugh!!”
He put one hand over his mouth and leaned forward when I thought a strange voice was emitting from his throat.
His complexion was extremely poor. On top of that, both of his shoulders were quivering and the corners of his eyes were incredibly moist.
“Um…”
“…”
“Takenaka… the cat carcass on the road…”
“Ugh!!”
“…”
“…”
“Takenaka, did you perhaps… the cat.”
“Ugggghhhh!!”
Was this for real…!!
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