Gimai Seikatsu

The final day of October was upon us. Since I had no school today, I slept in a bit longer, enjoying a relaxing morning. Once 4 pm rolled around, it was time for me to steel my resolve and head to work. I decided against using my bike, considering the enormous crowd I’d have to fight against, and opted to make my way there on foot. I left the house a bit earlier than usual because of that. Ayase-san did as well, taking a different route to the bookstore than mine.

Once I reached the area around the train station, I was yet again fully reminded of just what day it was today. Tomorrow is the day we thank the saints—All Saints Day. And the day before it is the introduction—Halloween. The streets of Shibuya were crowded with people dressed up as monsters. I saw zombies, vampires, mummies, werewolves…From standard costumes to cosplays of anime characters, the number of people who were dressed up had increased tenfold over yesterday.

“I’m starting to feel dizzy…”

I tried my hardest to avoid the crowd as that mutter escaped my lips. The street was full to the point my shoulder would constantly bump into somebody else’s. I think we’ll be awfully busy at the bookstore today. After passing through these groups of people for a while, I finally made it to the store. Upon entering, I could already see the chaos unfolding. Around 30% of the people shopping here were wearing costumes. I snuck past all of them, entered the office, and greeted the others.

“Ah, Asamura-kun. You’ll be at the cash register today.”

The manager handed me the same jester cap as yesterday. He gave me a quick rundown of today’s procedure and told me to be mindful of the cash register in particular. I finished changing into my uniform and stepped out to the main store. I spotted a special corner next to the cash register. There were small discount goods there like costumes, candlelights, and even penlights.

They had probably set this up after the store closed yesterday. Basically, that discount section will be here only for today, and will be removed once tomorrow rolls around. Our main business revolved around books, of course, but the store manager’s mentality was that the more we sold, the better. This naturally would make handling the cash register a lot more troublesome. Even more so thanks to the wonderful jester cap I was wearing at this very moment.

It ended up being a lot worse than I had anticipated. Murphy’s Law was in full force today as well. We were so busy that there wasn’t any time for idle talk at the cash register. Shibuya is known as the crowded city that never sleeps, and because Halloween was on the weekend this year, it felt like every single person in Shibuya decided to go out today, which created an endless line in front of my checkout counter.

The flourishing of a business has its pros and cons, but I’d had no experience with the checkout line being this busy before, so I was completely exhausted by the time my shift ended. My legs were hurting from standing at the checkout counter the entire time. I can already tell they’ll be killing me tomorrow. For the first time ever, I was genuinely jealous of Maru and his trained body. Then again, I wouldn’t know how much training would be necessary to not get muscle pains like this, so I can imagine the world just being unreasonable again if I did.