Two Weeks or Walk Out? | Social - Closed |

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Another day another dollar. Another customer, another hour spent in that hot and stuff room, another bit of information written into that binder. Everything was playing out like it normally did. Everything was normal. And Luke loved it. He found himself sitting in his little office yet again, filling out store related information in that precious little binder than management stressed was the Bible of the store. With a groan he found himself rubbing his eyes again, the uncomfortable combination of heat and sleepiness taking a bit of an annoying toll on him. The only form of air conditioning, the one rotating fan in the room, was now broken. The store administrator had warned that if you kept the fan at its highest setting for too long you ran the risk of burning it out, and Luke had a sneaking suspicion of just who it was that broke the damn thing.

Regardless, it wasn't worth complaining over. What was worth it though was the level of stupidity Luke was dealing with today. The customers he was dealing with were....a special breed of stupid today. The last one he had was a woman who just wanted to brag about the eighty damn lottery tickets she had, and how she had no doubt won the big prize. All Luke was able to do was stand there and smile after all, and not say a damn thing. But that certainly didn't stop the old bitch from losing her shit, and accusing Luke of theft, when she won literally nothing. It was funny, almost, seeing her go from all optimistic and annoying to ball bustlingly mad.

You know what would have been fun?

Your idea of fun isn't something I subscribe to.

Oh come on. Just hear me out. You send me out, I follow that old lady home. She takes a sponge bath, gives herself some sort of oatmeal dinner and takes her pills...and when she's snuggling up in bed thinking about her dead husband and grandkids that don't call her...BOO!

Luke sighed. This was the other thing that was giving him his headache. That would give her a damn heart attack. Luke mentally responded, sitting back in his chair and bouncing his pen on his thigh. You're boring. You're annoying. You're fat.. And with that the entity inside him was blocked out. He didn't actually have anything to do right now, and decided it might be a fun idea to use the office computer to browse the web a bit, see if there was any sort of breaking news related to Karakura. Though, Luke could already guess what sort of things he would find. "Mysterious deaths and property damage."

Karakura Town wasn't exactly the safe and spunky tourist location and loving family city that it was cracked up to be. Sure, normal human "drunk man flashes himself" crime wasn't exactly a thing in Karakura, but what you instead had to worry about was "super powered man goes nuclear and destroys seventeen blocks". It was a town of freaks. Super powered freaks, invisible monsters and ghost samurai. For the longest while Luke had been able to convince himself he wasn't one of those freaks, despite his ability to see ghosts, however with recent events having caused some sort of...mutation...to occur for him he wasn't able to keep himself from lumping in with the rest of the weirdoes. Well, at least Luke didn't have glowing mood ring skin like someone else he knew.

"Customer service." Luke suddenly heard over the intercom, causing him to pull his fingers down over his eyes with a groan. It was time to put on his best "let me eat your shit" face and service the costumer with his award winning customer service skills. Pushing himself up from his chair and out into the nice and cool store front Luke made his way over to the customer service counters general direction. As he approached he saw the individual in question who decided to pull him away from his nothing doings was a woman. He didn't really focus on her features or try to memorize her, she'd just be another costumer he'd have a three minute session with before either thanking him, or insulting him, and then leave. Though the fact that she wasn't an Asian stood out a little, but oddly enough Karakura had people from all over the globe living in it so he didn't focus on it too much.

Maybe, though, if Luke had been paying attention and focused his sixth sense on her he could have felt the minuscule amounts of spiritual energy inside of the woman. But because A) Luke really didn't give much of a shit at the moment and B) her spiritual energies were below the average he didn't notice. Luke had grown accustomed to the crazy shit only happening at night, not during midday. It wasn't busy today though, only about two other customers at checkout spread out between the four open lanes. He might have to send someone home if it kept like this. Hopefully he could send himself home. Stepping behind the counter and making his way to the terminal where he worked, and the woman was waiting, Luke put on his best customer service smile and greeted her with, "Hi. How can I help you today?"

[Irina Davayte]

Ah, Sunday. Sunday was grocery day, and Irina was delighted. She loved to shop in her new neighborhood, which had all kinds of new and familiar vegetables to choose from. Feeling nostalgic, she hoped to make a borscht reminiscent of her babushka's that week, but she wasn't convinced that she would be able to find all of the ingredients that she needed here. She reminded herself to focus: her primary goal today was to find and recruit a particular person named Luke for Uzaki Enterprises' spiritual department. But that didn't mean she couldn't still gather some ingredients for her favorite dinner.

Beef bones, carrots, parsley. Red potato, an onion, and babushka's secret ingredient: green apples. Check, check, check. Check, check, and check. "But where are the beets?" she pondered. Well, the gentleman she was sent to find worked here, so she could kill two birds with one stone by asking him. "Excuse me," she said to the closest employee. "I need some assistance. Is Luke available?" The lady led her to the customer service counter, and paged him for customer service. A good looking man met her there, but being quite in love with her childhood best friend from home, she didn't notice his looks.

"Excuse me, do you have any beets? Or beet sours? I prefer to ferment the beets myself, but beet sours will work in a pinch. Even canned beets would suffice." He didn't answer quite quickly enough for her. "I mean, I guess it has been done without beets. But the only people I have ever heard of doing that are Polish. And," she shuttered, "That would take out almost all of the nutritional value." She barely paused. "Not that I have a problem with Poles. I'm not racist."

Realizing she hadn't explained what dish she was making and therefore why beets were critical, she backtracked, and again, interrupted before he could speak. "I really want to make a nice, hearty borscht this week." "I sound so Russian," she thought. "I am never going to blend in here in Japan if I keep talking about borscht." She smiled politely, hoping to make up for talking the young man's ears off. Being a pretty and sweet young lady, she was accustomed to being treated kindly, but she tried not to take being treated respectfully for granted.

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The level of mental eye rolling Luke was doing could only be described in the language of memes; over nine thousand times. Luke was on the verge of answering her first question, but had to stop when Irine began to just verbally vomit dialogue all over him. "For some reason I think she likes beets." Jäger chuckled. Luke remained smiling however, his Customer Service training paying off and allowing him to keep his cool and not do or say anything rude quite yet. The hell's beet sour? Luke wondered, not actually quite sure what it was. Did they sell anything like that here? He was certain she could have found beets in the vegetable aisle, or canned versions in the canned veggies aisle. Was it really that hard to find a simple vegetable and oh my god she was actually still talking. Luke kept that smile going, but couldn't stop from fidgeting with his fingers under the counter.

Would be nice if she'd shut up for just a second. Luke sneered, mentally, simply nodding as Irina just kept talking. "I hope she doesn't! It's pretty fuckin funny watching you right now." Jäger laughed, which only served to increase the growing irritation inside of Luke. He really didn't care about why she wanted beets, or if she thought she was racist for hating other Europeans, what Luke cared about was getting this chick out of here. "Come on Lukykins, smile and be a good wage slave." I swear to god Jäger. Finally she stopped talking. "...well ma'am I've never had borscht, but I'll be happy to help you find what you need." Luke replied, flashing a smile at Irina as he rounded the corner.

After having said a few more lines of dialogue to her, the woman might have come to realize that Luke wasn't native to this continent. Not only was he taller than most Japanese but his skin color, hair, eyes, body structure and even his accent screamed foreigner. In fact it shouldn't have been hard to realize that Luke was obviously an American. "Here, let's head over to the produce section and see about finding you some fresh beets." Luke said, that "I need the work" grade A professionalism shown on his face with a smile. Just get it over with and you can hide in the office. As he headed towards the produce, Luke decided to start some small talk to make the customer more comfortable, so they would want to come back to the store after they were done. "So are you visiting or a local? Hard to tell in this town, you know? We may be in Japan but you'd think this town was the center of the world with as many people from around the world that live here." He said as he began to scan through the vegetables, looking for any beets if they happened to have any.

[Irina Davayte]

”I already looked in the produce section,” Irina thought somewhat indignantly. As a female engineering student, and a foreign one at that, she was used to people underestimating her, and it was one of the things that bothered her most in world…Apparently even in the grocery store. She knew that Luke almost definitely was required to at least check, so she decided to assume that he was just being polite. ”I’m here for school. I’m working on an engineering degree,” she said, not sure whether that fit into the category of “visiting”. She hadn’t decided where she wanted to live after college, but she was content to save this decision until she graduated in almost four years.

”How about you? How long have you lived here?” She knew she would be walking a fine line while trying to determine whether Luke would be able and willing to work with Uzaki Enterprises, while trying to not take an inappropriate amount of his time while he was at work. Her grandfather’s biggest problem at his machine repair shop was often balancing doing his work and talking with his customers, most of whom had been his neighbors and friends for many years.

”How long have you worked here?” she asked after he answered, knowing that this was a dumb question, but wanting to gauge how attached he was to his current position and whether he would be willing to leave. She guessed so; she knew that in retail, the owners were generally the only ones who were truly passionate about their business. The others tended to just think of it as a way to get a paycheck. And anyway, nothing would stop Luke from maintaining his job here at the grocery store at least part-time if he wanted. She was a full-time student herself, after all.

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"Engineering huh? Good field to make money in." Luke commented, almost in a way "I'm half listening to you to make you feel as though I'm interested in what you're saying but really just trying to find your god damned beets" sort of way. He had planned to go to college once, but instead moved to this damned city in search of someone. Luke was sure they had them. It wasn't exactly a popular thing that was bought, but a beet was still a damn beet. Listen; if this store sold both star fruit and damned prickly pears every now and then they must have had beets hidden somewhere. "Wait ya'll sell cactus?" Jäger asked with a hint of incredulousness in his voice. Yeah, the fruit. Tastes like bubblegum. Or so I've heard. Luke had been so distracted with his task and his small conversation with the entity that he almost missed Irinas question. "Huh? Oh...about a year, year and a half, at this point I think." Luke replied, his gaze going from both the aisle and to the costumer as he responded.

"Maybe about four or five months." Luke answered, moving some cabbages out of the way when he noticed they were spilling into a different section. And that's why there were no beets. The cabbages had fallen onto their portion of the shelf, so the grocery boys most likely missed stocking them back up because they didn't see the name tag and empty shelf space. Luke wasn't entirely sure how long he had worked at this job. He knew that it had been longer than his others, his temper usually flaring up and causing him to do something to get fired, but this one he had sort of lucked out on. And if by lucked out you mean having survived the random gas explosion (Hollow attack) that had cost two employees their lives, been in the middle of an assault by a store employee and his "I can turn myself into a cloud" friend (Tyrone and Alister), and being offered the job so Luke didn't sue the company then...yeah...luck.

"Let me go check the back real fast." Luke said, heading towards the sliding doors that led towards the produce backroom. Pushing the doors open Luke stepped into the cooled room, looking around in search for unstocked beets. There were crates of "Ready to go" vegetables and fruits, cutting stations, and a big fridge. Luke looked around for a few minutes, going from crate to crate and looking in the fridge. "There we go." Luke said with a smile when he finally found the damn crate of unstocked beets. They looked perfect, and so he grabbed a handful of them and brought them right back out to Irina. "Here you go. Our stockers just forgot to put them up." He explained as he placed them in a produce bag for her. "Here you go...anything else I can help you with?"

[Irina Davayte]

Irina shrugged. She hadn't considered how much money she would make in her career as a factor in her decision; her dad had always told her to find a job she loved, and then figure out how to make her lifestyle work within that salary. She would be happiest, he had advised her, if she chose a career that made her happy, since she would be spending so much time at work. Her father was a military man, so Irina was from a middle-class family. They always had everything they needed, but rarely had extra. She was happy this way, and, being eighteen years old, didn’t know what she would do with extra money if she had it, anyway. ”I guess I hadn’t really thought about that,” she said honestly. "My father always told me to figure out what I love to do, and then make a career out of that. He told me I'd be happier with a career I was passionate about than with a lot of money."

Luke disappeared and came back with a few bright, perfect beets. ”Looks great, thank you,” Irina said as she took the produce, her memory filling her mouth with the taste of Babushka’s delicious cold soup. Now that she had what she needed, she could re-focus on her primary task. She was reasonably sure she had located the right person, but just to make sure, she decided to test his reaction to spiritual forces.

She took a calculated risk. Luke was not paying particularly close attention, so if he was not, in fact, the person she had been sent to find, he would probably dismiss what she did as his mind playing tricks on him. So, she casually used Soul Manipulation to take the produce bag from him, rather than taking them with her hand. ”How attached are you to your current position?” she asked directly. ”I’ve come with a job offer for you. It comes with competitive pay and benefits. Quite a bit of hazards, though.”

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Luke had heard that saying before, just with different words. Everyone heard it, actually. Pick a job you love over a job that makes you money. Well, unfortunately, Luke had yet to find something like that. He worked terrible jobs that gave him just as terrible pay. So, hey, all the power to this chick to find something she loved. Even better was that it was a field that actually paid good. Anyways, Luke did his job like a good little minimum wage slave. He helped the nice customer find what she needed and left a good impression on her about the store. His managers would be so proud. Luke was going to go back to his office now, work permitting, and probably laze about until there was actually something for him to do when his plans were changed by some very interesting actions performed by the woman in front of him.

Luke had been handing the bag of beets to her when suddenly he felt something. His sixth sense finally decided to kick its own butt and start working, reacting to Irinas sudden use of Soul Command to take the bag from Luke without touching it. The young man blinked. He blinked at her, he blinked at what had just happened, and he blinked when he realized that being so close to this woman finally clued his damn sixth sense into the fact that she had spirit energy. Luke stared at Irina for a moment, wide eyed and silent, as Irina began to ask him her question. How attached was he to this job? ”I’ve come with a job offer for you. It comes with competitive pay and benefits. Quite a bit of hazards, though.” She was offering him a job?

"She didn't even buy you dinner first." Luke actually didn't hear what Jäger said, instead he was focused on what was going on. Someone had sent her to seek him out, to find him and give him this offer, but who it was Luke had no clue. Was it the same person responsible for Tyrone and Alister? Luke found his eyes narrowing, frowning at Irina before with his rather typical grumpy face. "No. Go the hell away and leave me alone." Was all Luke said before stomping past Irina before she could respond. It really didn't need explaining, but Luke was not the sort of person who had good experiences with matters, or people, related to the spiritual side of the world. He had been attacked by Hollows and super powered freaks, nearly been killed by a zombie bus driving homeless person, and a few other incidents that had resulted in his rather foul disposition.

"You couldn't bother asking a bit about the job? I thought she was pretty cute. Go ask her out I want to know what her beets smell like." Jäger was still being ignored for the most part, but that first part Luke felt like responding to. No. I'm not dealing with anymore of this ghost, spirit, shit unless I have to. Whoever sent her knew about me somehow and is only looking to fuckin' hire me because I'm turning into some kind of god damned freak. For all I know she could be working for the same jackass who sent Tyrone and his buddy to come after me. "Oh Luke you've been a freak loooooong before you started talking to me."

[Irina Davayte]

Irina shrugged. Frankly, she wasn't used to being told "no". Nor was she accustomed to people swearing at her. "Fine, that's his loss," she thought, somewhat puzzled. What did she do to him, anyway? She couldn't think of anything she had said that would provoke his reaction and fleeing. Sure, she had talked about beets a lot, but the man had been polite up through that part of their conversation. She considered pursuing him further, just so she could report back to Kazura that she tried. But frankly, she wasn't particularly excited about working with someone who would turn on her so unpredictably like that, so she gathered her groceries and went to the checkout.

She'd at least get one of her errands done today.