"Well, that couldn't have been good for the milk." Tetsu commented idly, crossing one ankle over the other as he leans against the building behind him. If he isn't careful he'll fall asleep right here, standing up, hands stuffed in the pockets of his (or Renji's, or Ikkaku's, ownership is unimportant) pants. He doubts this would help to make a good impression on his boss (and it's very hard to think of this small kid as his superior, but that's the way things are). Best way to keep from falling asleep is to take off his sunglasses, which he does, propping them on the top of his head.
"Round about what time does the milk truck usually get here?"
Hanatarou purses his lips, brows knitting slowly over blue eyes. "It wasn't," he agrees to the milk comment. "Usually they deliver just a little after six-thirty... I don't know why they haven't..." He stops himself with a firm shake of his head, smiles fretfully at Tetsu. His hands rub absently over each other, a nervous habit that he barely notices any more.
"Well, we'll hear the truck if they arrive," he decides. "The newsagency's already delivered, so let's get those out, first."
Hanatarou turns to face the three newspaper bundles and a box of colourful magazines that he always feels slightly uncomfortable putting through the register. He hefts a newspaper bundle into his arms, staggering slightly with the weight.
He hadn't noticed the bundles of papers and magazines to the side until Hanatarou points them out. After a pause he pushes himself away from the wall, allowing himself a brief moment to stretch his back and arms before hefting the two remaining piles and following after Hanatarou. He carries the weight easily, watching as the smaller boy staggers a bit with the hefty weight of the piles of papers.
"This the kind of thing you do every day, right? Stock days are different from this?" Tetsu learns fast, though he learns faster from experience rather than being talked through something. Still, hearing what to expect might help him prepare and then hopefully not screw up too much.
"Um," Hanatarou says, a little breathlessly, as the weight of the newspapers isn't doing anything miraculous to his diaphram. "The milk and the papers come in every day before we... before we open." The last word comes out in a relieved rush as he dumps the bundle with a loud thud, right in front of the magazine rack
( ... )
Taking the knife and slicing off the thick binding, Tetsu mentally stores away the information Hanatarou is giving him. There no doubt in his mind that he's probably going to forget this, but being told it will mean that there's a memory to jog when the time comes for the information to be remembered. Folding the knife he hands it back to Hanatarou, peering over the magazine rack before starting to put the articles in the proper place, not at all perturbed by the weight of the combined pages. Alcohol weighs more than this, and he's helped Ikkaku unload the truck often enough to know that crates of beer bottles? Weigh way too damn much. This is almost a relief to his legs.
"Cold pallet? What time does that get here?" He doesn't look at Hanatarou as he asks, too intent on putting the newspapers in the rack to look up.
The store manager gives a chuckle that is just this side of mirthless. "It, um, tends to vary," he admits as he slots a few comics into their appropriate sections. "Quite a lot. But hopefully, we'll hear that truck, too."
He glances at his watch again, hands continuing their nervous motion. The milk really should be here by now...
He looks down into the magazine box and comes eye to eye with a lustily smirking cover girl, favourably inclined. He turns a vaguely uncomfortable shade of pink, and decides he has other things to be getting on with.
"A-ah... Tetsu-san, can you finish putting these up? I'll go take care of that till float."
Tetsu blinks at that, straightening and stretching his back again. It seems odd that the delivery wouldn't make a point of arriving at relatively the same time each day. It certainly doesn't make a very good impression on those they're selling their merchandise to, though Tetsu gets the impression that Hanatarou wouldn't raise a fuss about much. Still, if the company gets the impression that they can walk all over the small manager, then they'll continue to do so.
Of course, it's not his place to judge the way Hanatarou does business.
The fidgety man's sudden departure surprises Tetsu, until he looks down at the magazines that have yet to be unloaded.
Leaving his new employee to the magazines, Hanatarou takes a quick, hopeful glance at the loading bay as he passes. He had hoped the milk would be there. It isn't. He deflates a little, small shoulders sagging. It's very strange for city milk to be so late.
He presses the buttons on the office door's code-lock carefully. The thing is older, Hanatarou thinks, than the building itself, and seems to resent anyone attempting to access the office. It takes a number of tricky manoeuvres and half-presses before the mechanism will admit him, but it's a movement he knows well.
The office itself is an almost suffocating space, filled almost to bursting with a computer desk, a filing cabinet, and a safe that looks unarguably to be the most expensive thing in the room. Its high price is usually rendered moot by the fact that Hanatarou often forgets to lock it, though it doesn't matter very much. The lock on the door serves its purpose - too well, some days
( ... )
The magazines are all in place by the time Hanatarou comes back, and Tetsu is perusing through the headlines in today's newspaper (he's not stupid enough to try and read a dirty magazine at work). A story about a businessman's death and the post-mortem discovery of his connection to the Arrancar draws Tetsu's attention, eyes skimming through the article to see if anything stands out as odd. When Hanatarou finally manages to catch his attention he gives the guy a sheepish smile, straightening and moving behind the counter to watch him work.
"So, this is something you're going to be doing every morning, or am I gonna need to learn how to do it?"
Hanatarou hits a button on the touch screen and the drawer pops open again. He pulls out the slip of paper and holds it out to Tetsu. "Eventually, I'd like you to be able to open on your own," he explains, wondering if it's too early to push this on Tetsu. "Just count the till, write it all down and sign it... then put it here." He lifts the coin tray again and replaces the piece of paper.
"The register locks up after, um, a minute or two, I think, but you should always hit 'lock' when you walk away from it, just in case. The code to get back in is my birthday... zero, four, zero, one." He offers a sheepish sort of smile to Tetsu. It had been all he could think of at the time.
"The office is, ah, a little more complicated... for now, just unlock the door," he points to the tiny lock embedded in a pillar near the glass shopfront, and dangles the keys into Tetsu's much larger hand. "And set up the signs outside. You can keep an eye on the register while I call someone about the milk."
It all kind of makes sense. The words jumble a bit in Tetsu's head and he's beginning to think that maybe this job will require more brain cells than he had originally thought (and that he himself possesses) but he's determined. He's learned over 100 different drinks during the course of his time at the Brigand--he can learn how to operate this electronic nightmare called a cash register.
What's that his mom always used to tell him? You only have to be 10% smarter than the shit you're trying to work?
Taking the keys--and still not QUITE sure what to do with them--Tetsu moves toward the front door where Hanatarou had pointed, looking around in the vain hope that there's a neon sign blinking and indicating the location of these signs he apparently should be seeing. At the absence of his needed neon signs, he turns back to give Hanatarou a sheepish grin.
Hanatarou, already halfway through the door, grabs onto the frame to steady himself, blinking. The signs? The signs are right there, of course, right--
--right behind the news stand, which of course Tetsu cannot see from where he is standing. Hanatarou's sheepish expression returns. "Um, sorry. The signs are just behind the stand, there, leaning against the wall."
He waits until Tetsu has at least spotted the sandwich-board tucked carefully into the crevice, and then adds, "The lock's on the opposite side of the door - between the pillar and the first shelf, right next to the toffees." The toffees he should move; they fall off their hook every time he has to work his hand into the space beside them.
As he watches the other man, he smiles slightly and ducks forward to pull a bell out from under the register and set it on the counter. "Just ring this if you have any trouble, and I'll come out right away," he promises. He wouldn't want to be all alone on his first day, either, but that milk problem isn't going to solve itself.
Meanwhile, Hanatarou is biting his lip as he dials the number of the company that delivers milk to the entire city. He braces himself in the doorframe, receiver wedged between chin and shoulder as he grapples with the unweildy lock. He needs the door open if he's going to hear that bell.
The phone on the other end is ringing, at least, so he knows the company hasn't just closed for the day. They usually let him know if there's going to be a problem. He just can't understand it. He knows that he's paid all the bills; he's impeccably scrupulous about them. He doesn't want to cause anyone else any trouble, after all
( ... )
By some grace of God the place is still intact, and relatively in order. Tetsu has managed to get the shelf back in order, and has settled himself behind the register for lack of anything else to do. Having completed the tasks Hanatarou had laid out for him, he leans against the counter and eyes the overly-complicated register. The one they have at the Brigand is a nice one--the only buttons on it are the numbers, enter, addition, subtraction, and other basic functions along the same vein. He likes that one. He can WORK that one without it spazzing on him
( ... )
The tiny manager shrugs his shoulders a little helplessly as he approaches. "Answering service," he says by way of explanation, and smiles when he sees the signs exactly where he usually puts them, almost to the inch. Tetsu doesn't seem to be having any problems so far. He wonders if he's the only person in the world capable of destroying entire aisles with the careless brush of a finger.
Clasping his hands at the small of his back, Hanatarou searches for something to say to the taller man. What did you talk about with a man who went to college and worked in a bar?
He thinks about punched any drunks lately? and decides against it. "What are you studying, Tetsu-san?"
"Round about what time does the milk truck usually get here?"
(ZOMG RUSHED)
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"Well, we'll hear the truck if they arrive," he decides. "The newsagency's already delivered, so let's get those out, first."
Hanatarou turns to face the three newspaper bundles and a box of colourful magazines that he always feels slightly uncomfortable putting through the register. He hefts a newspaper bundle into his arms, staggering slightly with the weight.
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"This the kind of thing you do every day, right? Stock days are different from this?" Tetsu learns fast, though he learns faster from experience rather than being talked through something. Still, hearing what to expect might help him prepare and then hopefully not screw up too much.
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"Cold pallet? What time does that get here?" He doesn't look at Hanatarou as he asks, too intent on putting the newspapers in the rack to look up.
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He glances at his watch again, hands continuing their nervous motion. The milk really should be here by now...
He looks down into the magazine box and comes eye to eye with a lustily smirking cover girl, favourably inclined. He turns a vaguely uncomfortable shade of pink, and decides he has other things to be getting on with.
"A-ah... Tetsu-san, can you finish putting these up? I'll go take care of that till float."
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Of course, it's not his place to judge the way Hanatarou does business.
The fidgety man's sudden departure surprises Tetsu, until he looks down at the magazines that have yet to be unloaded.
Oooh, the new Hustler is out.
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He presses the buttons on the office door's code-lock carefully. The thing is older, Hanatarou thinks, than the building itself, and seems to resent anyone attempting to access the office. It takes a number of tricky manoeuvres and half-presses before the mechanism will admit him, but it's a movement he knows well.
The office itself is an almost suffocating space, filled almost to bursting with a computer desk, a filing cabinet, and a safe that looks unarguably to be the most expensive thing in the room. Its high price is usually rendered moot by the fact that Hanatarou often forgets to lock it, though it doesn't matter very much. The lock on the door serves its purpose - too well, some days ( ... )
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"So, this is something you're going to be doing every morning, or am I gonna need to learn how to do it?"
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"The register locks up after, um, a minute or two, I think, but you should always hit 'lock' when you walk away from it, just in case. The code to get back in is my birthday... zero, four, zero, one." He offers a sheepish sort of smile to Tetsu. It had been all he could think of at the time.
"The office is, ah, a little more complicated... for now, just unlock the door," he points to the tiny lock embedded in a pillar near the glass shopfront, and dangles the keys into Tetsu's much larger hand. "And set up the signs outside. You can keep an eye on the register while I call someone about the milk."
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What's that his mom always used to tell him? You only have to be 10% smarter than the shit you're trying to work?
Taking the keys--and still not QUITE sure what to do with them--Tetsu moves toward the front door where Hanatarou had pointed, looking around in the vain hope that there's a neon sign blinking and indicating the location of these signs he apparently should be seeing. At the absence of his needed neon signs, he turns back to give Hanatarou a sheepish grin.
"Uh…what signs?"
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--right behind the news stand, which of course Tetsu cannot see from where he is standing. Hanatarou's sheepish expression returns. "Um, sorry. The signs are just behind the stand, there, leaning against the wall."
He waits until Tetsu has at least spotted the sandwich-board tucked carefully into the crevice, and then adds, "The lock's on the opposite side of the door - between the pillar and the first shelf, right next to the toffees." The toffees he should move; they fall off their hook every time he has to work his hand into the space beside them.
As he watches the other man, he smiles slightly and ducks forward to pull a bell out from under the register and set it on the counter. "Just ring this if you have any trouble, and I'll come out right away," he promises. He wouldn't want to be all alone on his first day, either, but that milk problem isn't going to solve itself.
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The phone on the other end is ringing, at least, so he knows the company hasn't just closed for the day. They usually let him know if there's going to be a problem. He just can't understand it. He knows that he's paid all the bills; he's impeccably scrupulous about them. He doesn't want to cause anyone else any trouble, after all ( ... )
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Clasping his hands at the small of his back, Hanatarou searches for something to say to the taller man. What did you talk about with a man who went to college and worked in a bar?
He thinks about punched any drunks lately? and decides against it. "What are you studying, Tetsu-san?"
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