The male clerk smiled softly.
“Thank you as always,” he said to one customer. “Ah, there’s something different about you today, isn’t there?”
“Oh, Mr. Shiba, you noticed, didn’t you! I changed my lipstick.”
“Yes, of course. You look cuter than ever thanks to those cherry-colored lips, I have to say.”
“Mr. Shiba, look at me, too! I changed my nails today. Look, look! What do you think?”
“Ah, Miss Yūko. It’s true, they look like jelly beans. Good enough to eat!”
He smiled sweetly. The clamor echoing through the store was loud enough that I wanted to cover my ears. Were they mobbing a pop star? What had I stumbled into, and why?
All I remembered was stepping into a regular convenience store. I was starting to wonder if my mind was playing tricks on me.
“Uh, miss? I can help you over here.”
I heard a flat voice and came to my senses. Was the alien abduction over, then? I picked up the plastic bottle, which was lying by my feet, and when I looked up, there was a man at the other register looking my way. It must have been him calling me. He looked around the same age as me, so he was probably a college student, working part time. I don’t want to be rude, but compared to the other man, his face was dull and ordinary. If he were on a TV show, he’d be an extra.
In a sort of trance, I stepped up to the register so the clerk—his name tag read “Hirose”—could ring me up. But all the while, this wild scene was playing out right next to us. It was insane. I had to know what was going on. I turned to Hirose, who was working his register expressionlessly, and asked in a low voice, “Um, is that a photo shoot or something?” He started to laugh. Then his face got sort of philosophical, as if he had resigned himself to something.
“Nope, it’s nothing like that. It happens every day here.”
“Every day…?”
Hirose gave a small nod, put a “paid” sticker on the bottle, and handed me my change. Bottle in hand, I took another look at the scene next to us. The women had seemed friendly enough at first, but now the atmosphere had started to turn hostile. The woman with the jelly bean fingernails had held them to the manager’s mouth, saying, “Go ahead, taste them!” and someone else had told her—sharply—that she was behaving shamelessly.
“Please, don’t fight! I want to see you all smiling.”
The man looked troubled, and the women tried to smile. But the more they tried to compose themselves and out-smile each other, the stiffer they looked. Of course, I’d seen this kind of standoff between classmates, but was this the norm here? I looked at Hirose, questioningly, and he silently nodded. Seriously?
I felt like I wanted to hang out a little longer as a spectator, but it was getting late. If I didn’t head for Kumamoto soon, it would be midnight by the time I got home. Reluctantly, I pulled myself away from the checkout, toward the automatic doors at the front of the shop.
“Thank you for coming!”
As I stepped outside, a voice that wasn’t Hirose’s came floating from behind after me, and I glanced back. That male clerk was looking my way and smiling. His gaze seemed to caress nerves hidden deep under the skin of my back, and a shiver ran down my spine. I dropped the plastic bottle again, and it started to roll. Flustered, I chased it to the middle of the car park and hurriedly gathered it up. When I looked up, he was still watching me, his full lips curving in a gentle arc. My heart skipped a beat.
“Please come again!”
Just as the quiet but assured voice reached me, the automatic doors closed again, as if to separate us.
I stood motionless in the middle of the car park. Should I go back inside? Somehow I had the feeling that to enter again would be like falling into a bottomless pit. What should I do?
The automatic doors slid open again, startling me.
“Hey now, if you’re going to fight, it’s time to go home!”
Exiting the shop were the same ladies from before, shooed along by a fierce, muscular old man who looked sort of like a Daruma doll. He was dressed strangely, in a white tank top and bright red overalls. All in all, it was a pretty bizarre look.
“Buy what you’re buying, then it’s time to go! Got it?” said the old man loudly. He looked at the women menacingly, as if he might just gobble each of them up, and they screamed, scattered, and ran off. He snickered as he watched them go, and then our eyes met. “And you?” he said, eyebrows raised, apparently thinking I was one of the ladies. “Go home!” he growled.
“I—I’m going!”
What sort of place was this convenience store?! First I was lured in by a gorgeous clerk, then chased away by that demon of an old man—I was totally lost. I turned tail and ran for it with all my might, toward the car park where Pipienne was parked. But as I ran, I found myself already thinking about when I would come back.
“Please come again!” he had said. I wanted to see that smiling face again. I wanted to get to the bottom of that smile.
As I sped through Mojikō Port, I worried about the sea of love that seemed to have washed over me.