Starting a Night Shift Part-time Job at a Convenience Store.

W-While standing… He was sleeping while standing…

What an extraordinary sight. Can this be called dexterity? He was standing vertically and sleeping without nodding right before the cash register.

What the heck was this guy? Wasn’t it beyond the point of having excellent stability? Should I wake him up just in case?

“Um.”

I gave his shoulder a light shake.

“He… he wouldn’t wake up. He wasn’t feigning to be sleeping but was seriously sleeping while standing up!?

Oh, forget it, since it was amusing, let’s leave him be.

Although I felt slightly awkward, I decided to have a cigarette ahead after staring at Takenaka. Should a customer drop by, he would probably wake up. Besides, how could he fall asleep during his part-time job, no matter how much spare time he had? Then again, I was the one who let him stay asleep.

I could go smoke a cigarette and then return and rouse him awake. This was compensation for what he did at the door earlier.

After stealthily walking into the back room, I sat down on a slightly dirty round chair in the back room and picked up a pack of “SevenStars” from my belongings, took out one cigarette, and held it in my mouth.

I lit it and inhaled slowly… Hah, that soothed me. Not that I wanted to overindulge, but I couldn’t bear it if I didn’t have at least one satisfying cigarette.

Stretching my neck out through the open door, I looked toward the counter. As before, Takenaka was standing and sleeping unwaveringly stable. Under normal circumstances, he would have fallen forward and struck his face against the cash register. The sight of Takenaka was somehow unnerving, yet even while sleeping, he maintained an unwavering stance without any change in his well-defined facial features. Had he made a snot bubble or such, it would have been a great work of art.

“What’s really the deal with him…”

He wouldn’t speak, he said strange things, and he fell asleep while standing up.

I set down my cigarette in an ashtray in front of the TV projecting the security camera footage and exhaled the smoke.

Having had a smoke, my irritation had faded a little.

All of a sudden―something flickered out of the corner of my eye.

I cocked my head up and peered at the adjacent TV.

That… What was it…

Wide-eyed, I leaned forward directly. Something was being reflected. At the top diagonal of the TV monitor, something resembling a shadow was vaguely reflected there. It was precisely in the center of the display shelf.

Oh, a customer…? How odd, I didn’t hear the chime at all when I entered the back room, even though it should have sounded throughout the entire store.

Again, I stretched my neck out to peer over at the cash register. Unsurprisingly, Takenaka was still standing there, sleeping like a log. Given that there was a customer inside the store, this was appalling. I hurriedly squashed the cigarette I was about to smoke into the ashtray and walked out to the counter to reach the cash register.

However…

Astonishment gripped me the instant I set my eyes on the store. Or rather, my overall body stiffened.

Everywhere I looked in the store, not a single person was there. Not even near the display shelves in the middle of the store that had been projected earlier, nor anywhere else, was there anyone who looked like a customer. Only two people were present: Takenaka, who was sleeping, and myself, who had just emerged from the back room.

Observing the vacant store, all I could do was ask myself.

I saw that, right? It wasn’t an error of vision, was it? A person was definitely reflected on the screen. If so, then why?

Whenever something struck me as inexplicable or unconvincing, I would touch the back of my head. How odd, how odd, my thoughts kept looping back and forth in my brain as I returned to the back room to take a second look at the TV. I was halfway convinced that it was some kind of shadow that appeared to be a person which turned out not to be the case when I glanced at the monitor.

It was being reflected. This time, it shifted from diagonally up to the middle of the room, and a distinctly dark figure was standing there, facing the shelves.

The chime did not ring. Nor was the automatic door open… What the hell, what the hell was this…?

Gulping down my spit, I stepped out of the back room, half my body outside, and scanned the store.

No customers.

That was when goosebumps erupted all over my body.

How was this even conceivable? Wasn’t this strange? Even though it was supposed to be there, it was not there. Was the camera playing a trick on me or was I playing a trick on myself?

Even if I was wrong and didn’t understand, I didn’t want to check the TV monitor any longer. What should I do? In the meantime, I had already smoked a cigarette, so should I wake Takenaka up?

Right as I was mulling this over, the sound of something falling resonated from nearby. While the sound wasn’t particularly thunderous, it was enough to stimulate my nerves and cause me to jump up and down, even if I didn’t shout out.