Satoshi's POV

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We were all gathered around the screen. Yoko was the best co-worker we had.

And the second one we lost in two months.

Yasu, needless to say, was absolutely devastated. Poor guy. He had claimed that he had no favorite, but it was pretty obvious he liked Tamotsu and Yoko best. After all, he praised them the most and gave them the easiest jobs. Well, he tried to, at least. Tamotsu never took a job that was easy, and Yoko liked interacting with the customers, so you could always count on her to be on the legendary Checkout 2. She had basically claimed it. She even decorated it, with a poster under the desk and one of those little bobbing solar-powered flowers from, like, 2015. It was pretty cool, actually. She made conversation with the customers, asked them questions, pretty much got on the most personal level. She was Worker of the Month almost every month, besides those when either Tamotsu or Tsuneo were, and pretty much the pride of everyone who worked at Yasu's. None of us could believe she was dead.

None of us could believe Tamotsu was dead, either.

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It started soon after we all found out Yoko was dead. Tsuneo started acting... well, weird is kind of the only way to describe it. He misplaced things, wouldn't answer when you called him, would talk into the phone instead of the store microphone, forget to scan something, scan something twice, all the typical mistakes a new guy makes. The thing was, he had been working here as long as, if not longer than, me. He was nineteen, so it was perfectly possible. So it made no sense that he would suddenly be making all these mistakes as though he had just started working there.

I was reshelving things with him and noticed he was doing a worse job than most of the customers who misplace things.

"Tsuneo?" He jumped when I said his name. "That's... not where that goes."

"O-Oh." He looked at the shirt he was holding, a black, red, and white striped shirt he was holding. "Really?"

I pointed at the sign above the display. "These are jeans... you're holding a shirt."

His face went red. "Oh. S-Sorry..."

"Don't be sorry, just fix it." I tried to smile and sound, well, not upset, since he was the elder one here, and the more experienced, but it came out all wrong and I sounded rude as hell and I hated it.

"S-Sorry! I'll fix it right away." And he walked off, hunched over, towards the shoes. I sighed. I guess Zenji, the guy who had "claimed the shoes" would correct him again.

---

So apparently Tamotsu left a lot of people who worked at Yasu's unnamed, so I'll list them here, I guess.

Yasu was the founder of Yasu's (duh), and the general manager--well basically every spot of power because no one wanted to take that from him. Tamotsu was, well, kind of everything. He'd take the spot of someone was gone that day, or do something no one else wanted to do. He was a hard worker, and a lot of us respected him. Yoko worked at the register--said it was her dream job or something, interacting with people all day. She was the most social person I had ever met. Tsuneo did pretty much whatever Yasu (or anyone) told him to do. Another hard worker, another one a lot of us respected. I usually put new stuff on the shelves and took old stuff down, to state it loosely. Zenji- well, he loved shoes, pretty much. He refused to do anything else but manage the shoe section. So we let him. No one dared touch it after the incident. Hiro was our newest "addition," if you will. He was young, only thirteen, and I'm pretty sure he was intimidated by all of us, even though he talked back a ton. He didn't do much work, had to ask how to do basically everything, and was pretty much the worst person on the team. That's all we had left. A bunch of people who were there while Tamotsu was quit after Yoko died, were afraid that we were being "targeted" or something. Which, after they did, left only Yasu, Tsuneo, Zenji, Hiro, and me.

---

The next day, I walked in on a total mess. Yasu hadn't arrived yet, which, seeing as how he'd been acting for the past month with Tamotsu dead and all, wasn't all that surprising. We had all been given a set of keys, but I was usually the first there. Today, though... it was...

There were clothes all over the floor, and various other non-wearable items that we also sold there strewn about. The shoes remained untouched, however. When I saw that, I sighed instinctively. I sure as hell was not going to touch the shoes.

Then I heard one of the back doors creak closed.

My head whipped around to face them, and I saw something move away from the window. It must be a burglar.

I inched to the counter, grabbing the gun from behind it slowly and quietly. Armed and ready to kill, I slipped through the back doors and into the storage area. There wasn't much lighting back there, so turning on the lights did next to nothing. I did it anyway. Better something than nothing.

"Who's there?" I called out. No answer.

What were you expecting? "Oh, I'm just over here by the lamps!" Idiot.

"I-I have a gun!" Something moved in the corner.

I cocked the gun and pointed it at the silhouette. It froze.

"I never meant any harm..." it spoke quietly. My eyes narrowed.

"Clearly. You didn't touch the shoes." The silhouette flinched.

And it stood.

I pulled the trigger.

---

...it did nothing.

Shit shit shit shit shit! The silhouette walked closer to me. I considered using shadows to stop him, but in a place so full of it, it wouldn't do much.

Then the silhouette walked into light.

"Tsuneo...?"

His face was streaked with... tears?

"Satoshi, I'm so sorry..." He rubbed his eyes.

"Wh... what for? At least you didn't do anything to the shoes..."

"That's not it. I lost..." He trailed off as though he remembered something. He shook his head.

"I shouldn't tell you."

I dropped the gun after realizing it was still in my hand. "Why not?"

"WELL, FUCK THAT!" I jumped at his sudden scream. He sank to his knees.

"Tsuneo?" I approached him.

"I lost it..." he mumbled.

"You... lost it?" I thought about it for a minute. "What did you do...?"

"No, I mean- I lost it. Don't you know what I mean?"

I shook my head.

"Of course you don't." He sighed. "Then I'll explain it to you."

Then, still sitting on the ground, he proceeded to tell me everything.

---

"Wow..." By now, I was sitting, too. "Shouldn't Yasu know?"

"N-No. Not yet. This... this is huge. Beyond just the two of us, or Tamotsu, or Yoko."

"How do you... How do you know all of this?"

"They raised me there. Then I saw how she dealt with things. I tried to protest, but she said that's how everyone did things. So I ran away."

I was silent. "By her, you mean..." He nodded before I could say her name.

The jingle that played when the front door open echoed eerily around the warehouse. Tsuneo stood up.

Someone screamed from the front. It was clearly Yasu.

"Come on, let's go help clean up." Tsuneo helped me up.

"Alright." I followed him out, his story still burning in my mind.

---

A/N: WOOH

THERE WE GO, ANOTHER CHAPTER

I MADE IT LONGER, TOO

HOW YU LIIIEK :D

but yeah, sorry I was gone for so long. things were weird for a while. i didn't have any ideas for knx.

oh hey, i have a couple of things to announce.

sooooo i have a little thing coming up...

ITS CALLED TOKYO IN TULSA

y'all who read my Random Crazy Stuff know what that is. and guess who's cosplaying this yeaaarr

ME

and ya wanna know who i'm doin?

KOICHIIIIII

ye, me and some other close peeps of mine got together and we're all gonna do a knx cosplay. Rin_chan32 is gonna be tamotsu, TheErr0r is gonna be sayuri, i'm gonna me koichi (duh), letoastninja is gonna be takumi, mysterydoodle is gonna be ryuu, and FangirlMockingjay12 is gonna be yasu. i'll hopefully have some pictures to share for y'all.

tnt goes from july 15 to july 17. we're doing the knx cosplay on july 17.

ANYWAY SEE Y'ALL NEXT CHAPTER

-Parker