Chapter Text
Asriel climbed up and manned the checkout counter just before the newcomer turned his way. The customer was… a shiny gardevoir, dressed in a red cloak. The red of the cloak contrasted nicely with the light blue and white of her body and especially against the drab walls of the convenience store. He quietly observed the customer pace around all the sections of the store, gazing and showing interest in a variety of products.
Azzy was getting somewhat impatient, he really wanted her to leave so he could know the rest of Kris’s Linkedin page. The customer’s experience always comes first, Azzy remembered. It was a corporate quote on the 7-11 employee handbook that he had to skim before getting the keys to the store. Also she just had that aura… of being a really cool friend. Azzy straightened his posture and seemingly color-shifted his eyebags to a more presentable value.
The gardevoir was now at the end of the store that had the coffee machines, and seemed to be making herself a cup of hot cocoa. Good choice.
After securing the plastic lid on the steaming cup of cocoa, she made her way to the checkout counter. Azzy tapped on the screen, keying in the hot chocolate for $2.99. “Anything else you want?” Azzy asked.
“Tacquito.” she said, pointing at the fried snacks eternally turning in the roller machine.
“Which flavor?”
“Tacquito.”
“We also have a two for four dollar deal right now,” he added, complying with the employee handbook on how to upcharge prospective customers.
She nodded and pointed at two of them, orange and yellow ultraprocessed cylinders of dubious ingredient origin. Azzy immediately went to work, clicking the tongs twice before reaching into the heated confines of the machine and transferring two to a paper bag. Stowing away the tongs and plopping the dual taquito bag on the plexiglass counter, he keyed them into the cash register.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Spring.”
“Spring? Like spring water?”
“The thing that can bounce.”
“Sorry, but I think you’ll have to go to the Home Depot down the road… wait, it hasn't opened yet. Well in two hours it will.”
“I need a spring.”
“Well we don’t have that here? Why do you so badly want a spring?” Azzy was getting irritated as he knew that this was just the tip of the iceberg of substandard customer interactions.
“It’s really windy outside.” the garde replied, gesturing at the glass panels protecting the interior which were being pummeled by hard diagonal rain. The background noise could be described as either soothing or irritating, depending on one’s level of sleep deprivation.
“What does spring have to do with that?” Azzy confusingly added.
“It’s windy. I need the springs for smots.”
“What’s smots?”
“smots gaming.”
“Huh?”
“Spring is needed to jump into the smots wind.”
The taquito and the hot cocoa sat on the plexiglass counter, removed from their constant heat sources but left unpaid for. Did she prefer room temperature food and drink?
“You know what.” Azzy suddenly decided. “Pay for the food and drink right now, and I’ll inquire with my supervisor if we can acquire some springs to sell. Because even if you’re situationally misguided, you seem to be really determined, and I like determination.”
The garde nodded and tapped her credit card which she retrieved from her red cloak. “Thanks,” she said,
“What’s your name? Just for reference when I bring it up to my boss.”
“Lyra.”
Azzy pulled out a business card, for some admissions counselor from an obscure university destined for the recycling bin, from the bottom of his pocket and jotted her name down. “Any other requests?”
“Spring should be enough.”
He also jotted down “spring” and “smots?” on the card before stowing it away in the pocket that held his phone.
“Have a nice day.” he said as Lyra exited the convenience store. Several liters of ice cold precipitation penetrated into the convenience store in the two second window the front door was open, saturating displays of chocolate bars, MOSS energy and chips. Azzy observed that she seemed… completely unfazed by the torrential rainfall outside. Hopefully it clears out by the time my shift ends.
He was alone in the store yet again, and with this sheer downpour outside the chances of a new customer were optimistically low. Remembering to put in the bare minimum amount of workplace effort before slacking off by checking Kris’s LinkedIn page again, he went around the premises fixing product displays that weren’t stacked correctly and replaced the rain-drenched products at the entrance with drier and more visually appealing products. The two minutes of labor having depleted fifty percent of his critically low energy and fucks to give reserves, he immediately climbed back into the hiding spot and opened up LinkedIn.
About
hi im kris dreemurr now active on linkedin. i hope to do big things in the future and be part of something very important with big global impact. i play the piano and very much have a life totally.
Activity
kris dreemurr reposted this
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kris dreemurr liked this
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Experience
Prospective Cage
Royal Sciences LLC - Internship
Oct 202X-Present
will elaborate later. very big opportunity.
Moss Product Tester
MOSS Energy — Internship
Jan 202X-Present
worked as a product tester for moss energy, making sure that the products they produced were up to design qualifications. tested new formulas and flavors through the act of consumption.
Education
SCHOOL
Hometown, Massachusetts
IB Diploma
Sep 201X – Jun 202X
Grade K-12
i went to this school because it was the only school in my town. my mom also works there.
Planning, Empathy and 7 more
Projects
something important
202X-present
i can’t tell anyone about this yet but it’s really important
Biohacking, ProphecyMaxxing, Resurrection and 4 more skills
Honors and Awards
International Chopin Piano Competition First Place Winner
Issued by Fryderyk Chopin Institute • Oct 202X
competed in the international chopin piano competition. won first place.
Queer of the Year 202X
Issued by the CEO of Woke • Jun 202X
im just that good
Volunteering
Playing piano at the hospital
202X-present
Skills
Playing the Piano
Drawing Dragons
Flirting
Languages
English
Native or bilingual proficiency
American Sign Language
Native or bilingual proficiency
Flirting
Absolute proficiency
Interests
Companies:
Royal Sciences LLC
666,666 followers
MOSS Energy
121,225 followers
Peeking upwards to ensure that no prospective customers had arrived, he continued digging through Kris’s LinkedIn profile. Their credentials were solid; Azzy could vouch for everything they put on there minus the international championships but mom and dad were probably unaware of the whole biohacking thing they implied. The stuff with the Prophecy was unusual, he always thought they were indifferent to religion. But maybe they’ve changed in the months since he left.
Azzy then tapped on Kris’s post feed and got jumpscared by the sheer amount of content there was. Anxious curiosity kept his eyes glued to the screen as he began skimming Kris’s most recent blog post:
top five universities in new england — a kris dreemurr’s perspective
im gonna get straight to the point. no filler here. perfectly shortened for your attention span.
5: mit
seems intelligent, but lacking hygiene. i had my apple shampoo confiscated during a guided tour over there. reeks of normies too.
4: northeastern university
the university where the mythological “tricky tony” graduated from. i only know it because they have the most sought-after and cool ass delta rune club out of all of the unis. might ed there just for that alone.
Me and Frisk really want to get into that club, but their application process is so godamn tedious. A 4000 word analytical essay on the themes of Deltarune as an application requirement?
3: yale
no comment.
2: harvard
everyone knows this place. do i need to explain? not number one because my older brother (bless him) got rejected from here even though he should’ve totally gotten in.
I remember that day. They straight up mailed it to my front door. Not even an e-mail. Kris wasn't that empathetic.
honorable mention: balatro university
1: lord of the hammer college
do i need to say more? they literally have an official dragon blazers club. like i need to go there. please accept me.
Good on them for practicing writing. Wait. THREE THOUSAND LIKES??? FIVE HUNDRED COMMENTS?
Azzy tapped open the comments section.
It was a lot of students and university alumni, profile text labelling them as supposedly well-respected doctors, lawyers, engineers and techbros, arguing about who’s university was better with the same level of maturity as the average ship discourse. Particularly, Tufts, Boston College and Boston University alumni formed a coalition and were establishing a beachhead into the comments section, anger from having been put below Balatro University. Two new comments appeared every second Azzy scrolled and spectated this drama. Absolute cinema.
Darn, they know how to drive engagement. or ragebait. whatever works.
Having been both satisfied enough and having an ever growing sense of familial dissonance, Azzy climbed back out and realized that the sun was finally out. Rays of sunlight penetrated through the advertisements and “WE CHECK ID” stickers on the glass panes and gave him the most miniscule dosage of natural vitamin D. His shift was finally going to be over. His first shift. His first paycheck.
The guy that would man the morning shift and relieve Azzy walked into the store at eight on the spot. Azzy had never seen them beforehand but they seemed amiable enough. The humanoid had gray skin, a faded green 7-11 cap and apron worn over some nondescript white t-shirt and black shorts and most importantly dual katanas mounted on their back. That was somewhat alarming. Their eyes were devoid of pupils.
“You’re the new guy right? From that university?” They said, Azzy felt the aura they were emitting, they screamed experienced in operating a convenience store.
“Yeah. Asriel Dreemurr, but you can call me Azzy. What’s your name?” holding out his hand.
“I don’t have a name in the human/monster-defaultist convention perchance, but you can just refer to me as that ‘convenience store guy.’ they answered, grasping his hand and shaking firmly. “How was the first shift?”
“Relatively quiet. Only three customers, the first one was my friend but the rest were weird as hell.”
“You’ll get accustomed to the unusualness.”
“What’s with the katanas?”
“Personal memento. The boss is relatively liberal with how you express yourself or what you carry as long as you do your job. Also some of our customers at noon… can get rowdy sometimes.”
Azzy nodded to Conven guy’s infodump, but his eyes noticed the dozens of patched over bullet holes present across the counter, rear walls and the slurpee machine. A bead of sweat rolling down his forehead, he continued the conversation.
“You’re not the boss?”
“I excel at working at the convenience store. Managing one? Not so much. I suck at leadership.”
“You’re being a leader right now.”
“That doesn’t apply.” They lifted open the counter-door and slid into the employee-only area, which was relatively claustrophobic. “Anyways, I’ll take operations from here. Clock out on the computer so the boss knows, and your paycheck should come in within the hour.”
Azzy had a lecture in twenty-seven minutes. He should probably get running.