Finally arriving in class, Ranma gratefully slipped into the seat in front of his desk for possibly the first time in his life. Sure he had to spend the next eight or so hours, not counting lunch, bored as hell as the teachers droned on about this or that. But even sheer boredom was preferable to the countless hours Ranma had just spent selling perverted things to perverted people.
That wasn’t counting meals, breaks, or even the nap Ranma had to take to keep on going he’d been working so long. Ranma had just lived through the worst definition of ‘as needed’ he could have ever imagined possible. Literally every time the store needed Ranma to do his job, he would be there, sitting in the store, boredly waiting for them by the time they actually got there. It also appeared that if Ranma’s customers came in close enough together, he never got to leave the store at all unless it was for a break or a meal.
Although Ranma never actually saw the man until almost closing time. It seemed that Ranma’s boss, Mr. Fetish, insisted that every customer got the one-on-one experience every time they visited. The only exception to that rule included groups that intentionally arrived together.
Ranma also learned, much to his personal irritation, that customers could now leave the store without being forced to buys something during their visit. All they had to do was honestly intend to come back later to buy something, the ‘window shopping’ clause his boss had called it.
There had been at least a dozen of those throughout the day, with only three people getting stuck by same spell that had trapped Ranma there that one day. Of course, all they did was buy some nearly harmless trinket from the miscellaneous section and they were on their way, swearing never to come back.
What had alternately disturbed and bothered Ranma the most during his work day, above all else, where the shoppers who wanted their chosen products demonstrated for them. Ranma had literally lost count of the number of times he’d narrowly escaped having to personally demonstrate how this game or that costume really worked. Most of those customers had grudgingly accepted the alternative option to test the items out themselves, right there in the store. Then, most of the time, happily buying their chosen items right after their trial runs.
Then there was the handful of times Ranma simply hadn’t been able to talk his customers into trying out the items themselves first. Those items so far included a set of exotic body modification cards out of a playing deck, a dice version of the same game, a couple of the ‘Sweet Temptations’ candies, and the ‘Gender Switch’.
Ranma had spent at least three hours albino skinned and whip-cream flavored, plus another two with a supper dark tan and tasting like chocolate. And between six or eight different demonstrations, Ranma had been switched back and forth between male and female form by the ‘Gender Switch’ nearly a hundred times. That was almost half the stupid thing’s listed 200 uses.
Ranma didn’t even want to think about how badly his luck with the card and dice games he’d had to demonstrate had gone. Which, according to normal time, wouldn’t be happening to the version of himself still at the store for another three hours or so. “Weird”, was about the nicest word Ranma could think of to describe those particular experiences.
So considering all of that, Ranma had never been happier to just sit at his desk and listen to his nice boring teachers ramble on about safe, boring topics like math and English. Well, up until Ukyo noticed him at least.
“Hey, Ran-chan! How’s it going?” the spatula wielding girl greeted him happily.
“Don’t ask, you don’t wanna know,” Ranma returned, silently hoping that Ukyo would actually listen and not insist on an answer this time.
“That bad huh? I take it you’ve already worked today then? So where’s Akane at? Nothing too bad has happened to her I hope,” Ukyo replied, hardly missing a beat. It was hard to tell if Ukyo’s concern for Akane was genuine or not, but Ranma chose to take it at face value anyway instead of questioning her on it. It was just safer that way.
“Like I said, you don’t wanna know. The least embarrassing thing I had to do today left me looking like an albino and tasting like whip-cream for a few hours, or looking and tasting like I was made out of chocolate for a few more. Then there was this gag item called the ‘Gender Switch’, it’s got 200 hundred uses and by the time I could finally close up almost half of one was used up on me for demonstrations. The rest of it I don’t even want to think about, much less repeat,” Ranma told her, only summing up part of his day to that point. A day that was turning out to be a lot longer than it had any right to be.
“As for Akane? She flew off the handle again last night when my boss decided to drop by for a quick visit. The last time I saw her, Kasumi and the rest were still waiting for her to thaw out after she got frozen solid for attacking the guy. I’d already told her that he’s a wizard and all, you’d have thought she’d know better or something,” Ranma groused, obviously annoyed with his tomboy fiancée.
Ukyo shrugged helplessly in response to Ranma’s complaint. “Well, you know how Akane is, Ranma honey, bullheaded and stubborn,” Ukyo retorted with amused sympathy. Which of the two emotions were aimed at who, Ranma couldn’t really tell, not that he probably wanted to either.
“That’s not even the worst of it. The boss told me he finally got around to figuring out how he was going to punish her for it just before I was finally allowed to close up shop for the night. Only he wouldn’t say what is was he’d done to her, just that it was an ‘improvement’ of some sort,” Ranma told her dejectedly. The fact that Ranma had been told that it’d happened in the past tense, yet knew that it hadn’t actually happened just yet just a little bit confusing.
“Well, just look at it this way, Ran-chan; it could always be worse,” Ukyo countered, obviously trying to cheer him up a bit. Unfortunately it wasn’t working, because after his own mother’s visit to the store, things probably would get worse, and soon.
“Worse than my mom deciding to start a weekly game night at the dojo? Starting with a game that she bought herself from the same store that I’m forced to work at? Never mind all of the gift items I know she bought but can’t remember what they were or who they’re for. All because of some stupid privacy spell the boss set up for anyone I know wanting to surprise either me or someone I know with whatever they’re buying. Honestly, how fair is that? I mean, one of my rivals could go in there, buy something perverted to use on me later, and I wouldn’t even be allowed to remember they’d been there if that’s what they wanted!” Ranma countered, fuming toward the end.
“You don’t say . . . how terrible for you, Ranma honey,” Ukyo replied sympathetically. But with a mischievously sly glint forming in her eyes as something seemed to occur to her. Too bad Ranma wasn’t paying her enough attention to notice. Otherwise he might have known just why his sense of foreboding suddenly just stepped up a couple of notches.
“Now, now, Class. Pay attention everyone, it’s time for us to begin today’s lesson,” their first period teacher ordered, calling them all to attention. The teacher, who was just another face in a lone line of substitute teachers, putting an abbrupt halt to the discussion going on between Ranma and Ukyo. The later of whom had to make a quick dash for her seat as the lesson started to avoid being assigned any detention.
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(Posted Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:47)
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