"That’ll be 14.95." I said monotonously as like a man who’d given up all hope for something better.
The customer in front of me who looked too young and too unlike the ID he just showed me (not that I particularly cared) slid a three five dollar bills onto the table and replied, "Keep the change." With an oddly suspicious wink.
"Gee. Thank you." As if the five extra cents would add up to complete my overdue rent.
I tried my best at a forced smile not to draw out this interaction longer than needed.
This is what I had become, after transmigrating into this world after slaying the Demon King I was transmigrated back, and this is what waited the me back in my real life.
I didn’t ideally love selling beers to underage teens but when the manager fires someone for not taking the customer’s money, the rest of us just fell in line.
Plus, it was late, my shift was nearly over and I didn’t have the bandwidth for the back and forth.
"Next," I called out, dismissing the teen before feeling a pang of guilt in my chest. Turning to him, I yelled out. "At least don’t drive."
He stopped dead in his tracks, turned back and offered me the most bullshit thumbs up I’d ever seen in my life.
I groaned. Shouldn’t have involved myself anyway.
"Excuse me?!" The next customer—a middle aged white lady tapped on the counter for my attention.
"Uhmm..." She squinted her eyes at my vest, probably trying to get my name. "Grey..."
"That’s what it says on the tag," I answered half-annoyed, half-exhausted. "What can I help you with today, Ma’am?" Another fake smile that made my soul bleed.
"You’ve run out of toilet paper." She said with her hands on her waist with an expression like I took away one of life’s basic necessities.
"I’m sure we haven’t," I dragged back hair—too long, but it’d have to make do as I was too broke. "Did you ask one of the other employees?"
"Of course I did." She said exasperated. "Do you think I’m an idiot—" I don’t think I should answer that. "—they all keep ignoring me."
I sighed. Honestly, not surprising. I mean it was near closing and no one was looking for extra work to do no matter how much the manager tried to convince us that we were family and in this together.
Yeah, right. A trillion dollar business and their ’family’ can’t afford to pay rent and eat his shitty noodles in the same month.
"Hello." She snapped her fingers at me. "Seems you’re not useful, can I speak to your manager?"
And there it was. She was well within her rights, I was being an ass but still.
But just like the phrase speak of the devil and he shall appear, my manager popped into my peripheral vision with the enthusiasm of someone getting paid much more for much less.
He placed a hand on her shoulder with a warm fake smile he’d practised forever and perfected. "I’ll handle this, ma’am."
He turned his head to me. "Grey, go get the toilet paper from the high shelves."
"I’m manning the register and the others are there—"
"Grey." He called my name again, not even raising his voice but a decibel but his eyes were screaming: I could fire you tonight. "Please go get the toilet paper."
I dragged the ladder behind me as I padded down the aisle towards the shelf with the paper, setting it against the wall, I climbed.
The fluorescent light caught my eye but it was no different from my phone screen at this point.
Reaching the toilet paper, but unfortunately it was a few inches away from where I’d set the ladder, too lazy to restart the process, I stretched for the paper.
Fingers grazing the pack, just out of reach I felt a wobble that dropped my stomach and gave me a bad feeling.
Suddenly, the entire shelf gave in to the combined weight of me and the ladder, and I crashed down.
On the way down I only thought of two possibilities, (1) getting Isekai’d again and beating the shit out of a new demon king. (2) Just dying and getting this over with. (Sad, I know).
But I guess I couldn’t afford hell’s rent either.
I crashed down to the ground with a sharp pain in my ankle and a throb in my head where it bounced off the tile.
As if the universe mocked me the goods on that shelf came down after, raining down on me like a shower.
To no one’s surprise, "You’re fired." The manager said a few days after the injury, of course I’d been kicked out of my trash of a building too. And now I had a medical bill without insurance as a cherry on top.
As I walked out of the store, I checked my pockets for everything I had left to my name: fifteen bucks, an old condom and... the teenager’s five cents.
It’d be enough for a cheeseburger at a diner before I go kill myself.
As I sat in the diner scarfing down the burger like it was my final meal—which it was, if you see what I did there—I also for some reason also started yapping about the accident to the man behind the counter.
Why? I have no idea. I was unemployed, broke, uneducated and pretty. The last one wasn’t important but it was basically all I had going for me left.
"Why not go to a lawyer?" A man dressed in an off-the-rack suit said to me. "You just injured on the job due to a defective shelf and you were fired." He moved closer with consent and took the stool beside me. "Why not sue? I mean you have a cast on your leg, stitches on your left eye and you look like shit anyway."
"Gee. Thanks, man." I continued with my burger. "Because I’m broke?" Turned to him. "Plus, Amazen’s probably got a whole roster of lawyers for this type of thing."
"Then how bout you hire me." He smiled. "Pro bono. I don’t get shit if it doesn’t work out." He wiped his hand on his sleeve and outstretched. "I’m Samuel Smith, public defender."
I eyed the hand suspiciously, "and what happens if we do win?"
Placing his hands on the table, he smiled. "You get rich. Never have to work a day in your life again. Amazen is taken down by a margin so small it doesn’t even exist—"
"You know that’s not what I’m talking about."
A smile crept across his features that chilled my spine. "Legal fees."