Convenience and Candour

/r/quest: >A conversation between the cashiers at the convenience store as they see different Yamaku students coming and going throughout the course of an afternoon.

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The sun hadn't quite managed to rise over the horizon yet, but Taro could still make out the distinctive shapes of small, expired cigarettes right outside of the store's front door.

Sighing to himself, he opened the locks and let himself inside. Letting out another (smaller) sigh, he took the broom standing by the cash register and swept the offending butts into the tiny metal dustpan.

"Helloooo."

With what he considered a superhuman force of will, Taro didn't jump at the sudden noise. Standing on the other side of the road was a girl with short red hair. The night was still receding, but he could make out that she was wearing the Yamaku uniform.

He spoke up, feeling faintly ridiculous at shouting across the street to be heard. "Hi there. Were you looking to come inside? I was just opening up."

The girl looked at him and, with a pause a few seconds too long, answered his question with another question. "Do you have paint?"

Taro shifted the dustpan to the same hand holding the broom and replied. "No, I don't think we do miss."

Another long pause.

"Thank you." While her tone hadn't changed, her walking off before she had opened her mouth to give her thanks suggested the conversation was at an end. Taro made to wave before turning back to the open door of the convenience store. Hand halfway held up, he paused, feeling foolish for not noticing. Poor light or not, he should have recognized her as 'that girl with no arms'.

A few hours later, having served the morning crowd, the bell above the store door rang again. The store's second employee for the day, Keiko, walked up to the counter. Her headphones were around her neck, but her voice was still a little too loud as she greeted him. It echoed in the now empty store. "Hey. Busy morning?"

Taro shrugged. "Not really. Cigarettes on the doorstep again."

Keiko sighed, her exclamation a mirror image of Taro's earlier that morning. "Any of the students come in today?"

"The Yamaku kids?"

"Do we have any other students?"

Taro smiled at that. "Fair enough." He started to shake his head, but then remembered his run-in that morning."Actually, there was one girl, but she didn't come inside." He briefly explained his morning's event to Keiko, who chuckled.

"Oh yeah, I know the one. 'The girl with no arms', right?" She said this last part softly, almost to herself.

Taro glared at her. "I wish you wouldn't."

"Wouldn't what?"

"Wouldn't name them like that. Refer to them only by their... physical deformities."

Keiko let out her second sigh of the day. "Taro, really man, I don't mean anything by it. We all do it. How many of our customers do you know by name? You call the old guy who buys a litre of milk a day 'the milk man', don't you? You've called him that for three years running."

Taro started to reply, then paused. Keiko went on, "I'm not trying to sound like an asshole. It isn't like I'm calling them these names to their faces or trying to offend anyone. Its just easy, you know? Natural. Would you be offended if I referred to that lady who left when I came in as 'that girl with green bangs'?"

Taro conceded the point. "Yeah, okay, I get that. Sorry for biting your head off."

"I mean, I think that it is only a problem if you think of it as a problem." Keiko finishes with this titbit of wisdom and started walking towards the rear of the store.

"Hey Keiko," Taro began, "Really though, sorry."

Keiko replied over her shoulder as she went into the back room. "Don't worry about it, 'guy with no sense of humour'."

Taro shouted in the general direction of the door leading to the back. "Whatever you say, ...'girl with...bad...posture?'

Keiko popped her head back in the room and merrily sang out. "It doesn't count if its phrased as a questionnnnnn!"

Taro was racking his brains for a decent comeback when the door opened. He turned to eye the new arrivals. A group of students in Yamaku uniforms paused at the threshold, almost but not quite standing in the store.

"Excuse me, mister?" This was apparently their spokesperson, a young raven haired woman walking with a cane. Absently, Taro noticed the cane was the exact colour and shade of the girl's hair.

Grinning, Taro replied, "I'm not old enough to be a 'mister', young lady, but what can I help you with?"

She favoured him with a shy smile and asked, "We were all walking over to the cafe down the road, but we can't find one of our friends. Have you seen her? Shes rather tall, umm, blond hair? She shops here. The blind girl?"

Taro thought that hearing a Yamaku student refer to another student by their disability certainly would have seemed a lot stranger just 5 minutes ago. He shook his head. "No, I'm afraid she hasn't been in today."

The girl with the cane (and Taro knew that was how he was going to be referring to her from now on) gave a quick "Thank you" and the entire group darted off onto the side walk and walked out of sight.

Keiko walked back to the counter and began wiping it clean. She winked at Taro. "Told you so."