Chapter 163. An Assassin’s and Friend’s First Day of Work (9/9)

“It comes with the job. Working isn’t easy, you know. Though… this was definitely a first for me. This is probably an extreme case, you typically won’t ever get such outrageous cases. I mean, if it wasn’t a celebrity I’d have definitely retaliated in an adult-like fashion, of course. The same way I did for the guy that was harassing you that one time.”

“But… you need to know your limits and understand who it is you’re facing off against. He is a celebrity. A celebrity with enough money and power to crush me underfoot no matter what I do. Even if he does nothing, he has a giant fanbase that could do so in his place at a snap of a finger. I have no such support. He also has a scary father with a lot of influence. I don’t have such a person with connections to higher-ups in the police force either. Even if I tried to take the guy to court, I’d have lost one-sidedly just from all his lawyers spitting at me. I’d quite literally drown in their spit. They could just doctor security footage from the store as well. I might end up being the one in financial ruin.”

“I see. Ran…”

“What is it?”

“I’ve decided what I want to be in the future.”

“What is that?”

“A police officer.”

“Hah? Are you crazy? Do you have any idea how dangerous that would be? You could lose your life at any moment.”

“Then I won’t be on the frontline where there are gunfights. I’ll do investigative work on the back end to uncover criminals just like that bastard and bring them to light.”

“That still comes with a lot of risks, Alicia. Your safety wouldn’t be guaranteed even then.”

“I don’t care. It’s not right. What you went through today isn’t right at all! Peasants? Who does he think he is! Just because he has money! Just because he’s a celebrity! Because he’s famous! Because he has a powerful father! It’s not right, Ran!” Tears filled with frustration flowed down Alicia’s cheeks.

“I’m going to go to university to study criminal law and criminology.”

“Haaaaah. You sound pretty determined. Honestly, I never even considered the possibility that this would be what you picked in the end. I’m honestly pretty shocked. If you tell your mother I think she’s going to freak out.”

“I’m going to keep quiet about it until I finish my first year in university. Please don’t tell my mother, I want to tell her myself at the right time.”

“Haaaaah. You’re really making me sigh too much today. Fine, I get it. I won’t tell her anything. It will be our little secret for now. I won’t even tell Rosa.”

“Thank you, Ran. For everything you do for me. I will definitely protect you in the future. I won’t let what happened just now ever happen again.”

“Relax, as I said before, this was a freak case. An actual anomaly in the matrix. This stuff doesn’t happen to normal plebs like me on a daily basis.”

Alicia raised her hand and wiped the tears away from her cheeks and sniffled a bit.

“You're not a normal pleb. You’re my most important person.”

“Lip service doesn’t work on me you know.”

“It’s not lip service,” Alicia grumbled discontentedly.

“Right, sure it isn’t. Anyway, we’ve got to clean this mess up first. I’ll be right back.”

“Leave it to me, you should change first.”

“It’s fine, I’ll change after. I’m thinking maybe that celebrity luck he spoke of might kick in or something.”

“Hah? Screw his celebrity luck, you don’t need anything from that disgusting creep.”

“You’re wrong, I need all the luck I can get. My luck is so shitty that I actually encountered him. Thus, maybe if I had some more luck, I won’t run into any dicks like him again.” Truly, what were the odds of the target appearing here of all places? I definitely had dog shit luck.

I grabbed a mop and from the staff washroom supply closet and returned to the counter and started mopping up. While I was doing so the front door opened up.

When I looked up I died a little on the inside.

“Hey guys~ how’s your shift going~ Woah! What happened here?”

“Owner… can you please leave? We just had a difficult customer come in and cause a bit of a scene.”

“A difficult customer you say~”

“Yeah. A real pain in the ass.”

“More difficult than me?”

“Yes, far more difficult than anything you were planning. So can you let us off for today and not cause us more problems? If this poor girl experiences any more than this on her first day of work, she might seriously quit.”

“Wow~ so it was that bad?”

“Do you see my appearance right now?”

“Certainly, your clothes are soaked.”

“Please leave.”

“Well… I was planning to be a difficult customer~ but… seeing how this has happened I guess I’ll let you off for today.” The first part of her sentence was playful, but it turned frosty toward the end. Her eyes had gradually shifted mid-sentence as well. They now radiated an intense desire to kill someone by the end.

“The only one allowed to bully my employees is me. Who did this?”

“Just a random nobody. He’s not worth your time, Owner.”

“Not worth my time you say? Meaning they’re someone I can’t do anything about?”

“Haaaaaah. Well, he’s already been arrested. Even if you wanted to do anything, you can’t. Also, even if they weren’t arrested you still wouldn’t be able to do anything to them. So please just forget about what you saw today. It’s really not a big deal.”

“Forget? When someone touches my favorite toy? Absolutely not.”

“It’s really better to forget. Little workers like us will be the ones to suffer if you try to do anything.”

“They’re that troublesome?”

“Yes. Very much so.”

“Hmmm… if you’re that adamant… I guess I’ll have to take your word for it. You can’t at least tell me the details?”

“The less people know about what happened here, the better. Please refrain from watching the security footage. The police will probably ask you for it later.”

“I see. This is truly… unpleasant.” She turned around and immediately left in a foul mood.

“Phew. Thank god for the celebrity luck, right?” I joked.

“You expected the Owner to show up to cause trouble for us today?”

“Of course. I’m glad she came at a good time before I changed clothes and finished mopping up this mess.”

“Haaaaah. What’s with you, Ran? You’re always so nonchalant about everything. Do you never get mad?”

“Of course I do. If someone touched you, Rosa, or your family I’d lose my shit.” Well, probably not to the point of flying into a rage and losing my senses, but I’d definitely find the bastard and make them eat shit.

“Really?”

“Yeah. There would be a steep price to pay if that happened.”

“Even if it was that jerk?”

“... even if it was go… no, a hobo on the street.”

“What the heck? Just a hobo? Where’d your backbone go?”

“I don’t want to go and foreshadow a fight with something ridiculous, so sorry about that.”

“Ah, that’s true. Good call, that would be pretty bad. You just want a peaceful, quiet life after all.”

“Exactly. But something always comes to ruin that peace and quiet, I wonder why.” I shot her a look.

She bowed deeply, “I’m sincerely sorry for that!”

“So you’re self-aware.”

“I’m especially sorry for the trouble!”

“Haaaaaah. Well, whatever. Just promise me you will keep smiling even if you see what the other side of the world is, okay?”

“Keep smiling?”

“Yeah. I don’t dislike seeing you smiling all the time. It’s the only thing that makes the trouble I go through because of you worth it. You got that?”

“Heheheh, I’ll try my best.” She had a slightly embarrassed smile on her face when she said that.

“Your smile is probably one of the very few things that makes this world not so shitty in my eyes.”

“Mmm.” She meekly nodded.

When I finally cleaned everything up I stored the mop and bucket back into the supply closet in the staff washroom and finally took my well-deserved fifteen-minute break after I changed into some spare emergency clothes I kept inside my locker at work. You never knew when you’d need a spare set of change. There was one time a customer bought a drink and cracked it open right at the counter. It exploded and sprayed all over my clothes. Since then, I always keep a spare change of clothes in my locker at work should such misfortune befall me.

It was best to be prepared for any situation.

I took a seat beside Alicia and enjoyed my break as I watched her handle the customers that trickled in late into our shift.

After my break was over, I left everything to Alicia but still kept an eye on her. The mistakes she made that I had to correct became fewer and fewer the more customers she dealt with. Somehow, we made it to the end of our shift without any further incidents and finally called it a day when the clock struck nine.