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At Joja, nothing ever feels forced: the JojaMart is a true oasis, shielding customers and workers alike from the mundane problems of living in the present. Frustrations about not finding that perfect sauce taste anywhere, or feeling like your goal in life, whatever may it be, slips further each day with each passing day, or the overwhelming sounds of the world, rumbling around the place like you were the poor subject of an orchestra conductor’s futile attempt to rewrite the Harvest Moon OST - the crazy flow of time. Here, you can just… breathe out, free from the rich, sweet, too sweet smells of the valley, close your tired eyes, hiding away from the wild chroma of the outside world, stop running for a second and just relax. The only place where nothing can be on your mind, no matter how much stress you are under. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Under no circumstance. Ever.
Life’s better with Joja. Thrive.
And no moment is quieter in the Pelican Town JojaMart than the closing time. Shane clocks out at 5, after dusting off the shelves and washing the floors under the hawk eyes of his manager, but the store stays open; Claire empties out the unfresh items from the Fresh! corner and any other dead-dead merchandise of the store into the restocking truck and leaves for the night at eleven, leaving Morris to close down the doors to the establishment.
There is no quieter moment in all of existence: just the full, electric hum of the white LED lights, the slow whump of the ventilation, they all lose themselves into the beats of the man’s heart, the sound of his blood rushing through his vessels, his tinnitus, the sweet rustle of his thick, shiny, polyester suit… Morris glides through the aisles, observing the differences: what got sold, what was not dusted off properly by either Shane or Claire or that Goku kid (he notes it down meticulously, every 3 deviations from the rule granting a small deduction from the monthly pay), what promotions are up to disappear and to appear as to comply to the national Joja Guidelines, what would make a good snack for the next night… This is his only moment of true bliss: being able to truly be the manager of his local kingdom, with the care and precision it deserves, after a full day of making calls, reading new laws (of the Joja kind, of course), making decisions not related to the store, conversing with the people over the mountains, over the seas, over anywhere but this annoying place. This is the moment Morris stops and remembers about the end goal: becoming the Joja, being CEO of the company that he has given his whole life to. This truly is the only moment of human dreaming the ambitious manager allows himself to.
But tonight, something is weird. Sure, the floors aren't as slidable as usual, but that was to be expected, as Shane had thrown a tantrum about not receiving Feast of the Winter Star bonuses. (“It could be today, and I would not do such a thing without merit. I do not care about a whole week! Also, weren’t you a decided denier of anything miracle related?”)
But that's not it. Something is about to happen, and not just the winter holidays shopping spree.
Something unpleasant saturates the air.
Morris exits the store, keys clinking against the front door as he forces the broken lock to close. The air is cold and sharp and full of tension, and every movement of the midnight reverberates through the misty atmosphere like sudden waves in still water. With a wishful look, the man looks back, inside the safe and monotone store: the valley can be so unpleasant, if it wants to...
As he looks through the crystal-clean glass panels, shivers run down his spine. There, behind him, down by the grove fence, all hunched back and ready to jump, is a creature; he can see its dark eyes, no, not see them, feel them , that has been the metallic tension in the air all this time. The thing has been watching him walk through the aisles, take the money box out of the checkout and deposit it in his “office”, close the lights, and generally wander aimlessly through his store, his personal kingdom, each gaze breaching its rat gray safety and intimacy.
Wait, no; the thing shifts around, revealing members, arms, legs, is that a head? Oh, sure, it's human alright. But what on earth would a sane human being do, crawling around in the light snow, steadily turning into a full-blown storm, as if nothing can bother them? And why, in Yoba’s holy, golden name, would they be doing here ?!
The sifted snow seems to stop in place, freezing still in the air, as the stranger rises from the shadow of the fence, seeming more statue-like with each slow, dragged move; he spectacle of this awkward, uncanny detangling of members from their sitting position is enough to send a shiver down anyone’s spine. The crescendo of the snowstorm surely helps: the air seems to get heavier with each passing second, slowly, but surely, pulling the air out of Morris’ lungs, discreetly enough he doesn’t even notice.
“Hey there!”
Screaming, the stranger has a very fitting voice: as unreadable as the very silhouette trying to move towards the store, muffled and quiet through the white night…
But none of this bothers Morris even a bit. If anything, the man is a little angry. After a whole 17 open hours , this… unathletic weirdo decides to bother Morris just after he’s struggled with that damned broken door. It’s not even about the schedule, as the manager actually enjoys finding people to talk about his work to, it’s about the attitude itself. Being out here, in the snow, waiting for him to exit the building instead of coming inside? Sure, he can appreciate not having a brand new pubble in the middle of his (almost) spotless floors, but… that may be too much for his image.
“May I help you with anything?”
His jovial, customer-service tone of voice booms through the storm as the stranger approaches him. Strange.
“Fix your mistakes, Morris.”
That last part wouldn’t sound that threatening, considering the stranger’s calm and familiar tone. But this person is surely no stranger to Morris: although his face is completely unfamiliar, the man would recognize the weird, ghillie suit-adjacent cloak the old man approaching him is wearing. The manager is not sure if that helps with the chills running down his spine…
“So it’s you!” The manager’s polite joy, the Joja kind, is obviously fake at this point - pointy and sharp in all the wrong places. “You’ve remembered your old, permanent ban from the store, haven’t you, Linus? Is this why you were waiting out here in the cold? Oh, please, but I’m not that kind of monster, let us go inside while we talk about whatever you want! If there is any way in which I can make Joja a better place for people to thrive in, I’d do anything, even take the suggestions of a customer that, let me cite you, would never enter Joja in goodwill !”
The strange man has stopped advancing through the thin layer of snow, hasn’t he? He’s covered in a faint glaze of powder, too thick to be just from the growing storm, and he slowly disappears in the whitening air, his leaf cloth blending him with the grove behind him. Only his eyes, no, again, his gaze prevails through the frozen misty curtain, colder than the air itself.
“Had I wanted to come in, Morris, I would have, both me and you know that. Your people have miscalculated the amount of explosives needed, and have blown off a whole versant over by the mountain. People are now stuck by the mines, people are now stuck by the railway. I am not going to question the legality of their actions, of your actions, but I must ask you one last time to fix your mistakes.”
“How could you have so much auda-”
But Morris’ voice gets lost over the sudden howls of the wind. If he says anything else, only the Joja gods would know at this point. It isn’t his turn to talk- the valley makes him listen.
“We’ve come to you numerous times.We’ve filed Joja complaints: as natural people, as an institution, you know them, some other territorial Joja entities have given us useless feedback as well.”
“Joja has done everything the-”
“Apart from the day-old excuse that the end of the year is the end of the work cycle, which, by the way, I know to be fake, as every Joja project is divided into 2- season periods, not 4-seasos ones, you, as well as the upper Joja managers, have been as quiet as an 1 AM stroll.”
“I didn’t-”
“We’ve tried reaching you through the County Committee, they said they can’t do anything as everything upwards this mountain is registered under the territory’s Environment Department. We called them, and they said the Corneal Mountains are actually administered by the Magic Department because of their monster populations, in that endless relay race you surely know. So we can’t really go legal with this without a lawsuit, which you surely know we can’t afford, as Lewis is always one membership away from selling you that mound of bricks the old Community Center is.”
“Linus, please, let me intervene.”
“Go ahead, Morris, talk. Present your plea. But stop pretending you do not know what is going on. Please.”
Morris shifts uncomfortably from one foot to another: he’s already been told all this, and more, by all the mayor, this guy, the carpenter, his employees . He is now cornered in the cold, out of his store, on his way home, in his free time, all tired after a full day of work (because, surprise, the landslide is actually really bothering the mining operations over the railway, and he really has to work it out!). This is straight-up physiological warfare, striking him when he’s down, stretching his nerves thinner than a Joja sweater!
Something else is really bothering him, because, oh, Morris is always down for some dirty games. No, there is something very different about Linus now: he looks like he thinks he knows what he’s talking about. And, most annoyingly, he’s not going to go away until he gets a reaction out of Morris . It’s not like he is going to get it. As much as Morris actively hates this guy, he has made a whole career out of customer service and support; if anything, he can withstand the groundless accusations of a thousand crusty man, this one is no exception.Say, if, Yoba forbid, Linus jumps him, the Joja security cameras will catch it all. Does Linus have a recording device? Not likely, small batteries are only available at this very Joja Mart, and no one ever gets them.
( Does Linus never move? He’s been standing still in that place for minutes now, snow actively building up over his leaf ghillie, slowly disappearing from sight as a true figure. Had he not Known Linus was watching him, had he not felt his gaze, he would have thought he has gone mad himself and was talking to the wind. )
So… Why is Morris’s heart beating so damned fast?
It could be the wind, whipping his eardrum at incredible speeds, because the storm is quickly picking up. He is slowly creeping back, towards the wall of the dirty baby blue Joja Mart, hoping for a brief shield from the sharp bite of the winter, without realizing he’s heading straight to the surge of the storm.
Or it could be that he is intrigued . It’s not about what he says, those are things anyone with a vague idea of the outside world could muster, and it’s not about his knowledge, which is more vague than clear. But he’s got the gist of the game. It’s his tone, his easiness in summarizing the convoluted interactions with the territorial government (because, trust his word, it is not that easy, a call and done, Lewis must have worked his relations to the max to get to the Magic Department information, hell, Morris didn’t know that), and his weird involvement in this whole business: he is, after all, a “living out here by choice” type of person, someone who has decided at all costs to isolate themselves from the struggles of modern life and just… exist, as Morris has no actual clue what Linus is doing all day except try not to die. (The manager of the Joja Mart branch is also the representative of all the Joja actions happening in the area, or so is Morris at least, damned be this corner of the country forgotten by all but nature! Thus, he cannot physically imagine a life where he doesn’t run all day doing something over his powers - be his ignorance excused.) He didn’t even know of the old man’s existence until Lewis came with him in his office, asking about the landslide for the first time a week ago.
Should he just go home or should he actually engage in conversation with Linus?
“Linus, look, we are doing our best. I don’t really understand what you think you know about the work cycle: every project has a due limit and this one's is closing in at a rapid pace, with lots of work still to do. And do not get me wrong, our number one interest is the well being of our community. But the team actually got stuck themselves there, over the mountain, they have blocked the passage to here and currently have no way of reaching Pelican town in due time. Right now we are looking for a totally different team to come and fix the landslide, ensuring your friends’? safety and access to the town. Again, we are extremely sorry for this whole debacle, a series of very unfortunate events have caused both this blockade of all the usable access ways outside of the dying bus, and our delay, as well as the temporary blockage of the railway eastwards, towards Grampletown. We are trying to get to the destroyed versant as quick as possible, but that implies finding contractors in this period of celebration and free time, things that cannot be done immediately, you know? Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
This was it. Linus was still… still, never moving, as if not breathing, but his gaze as sharp as the cold night air, cutting your lungs open from the inside.
“So these explosions that keep happening are just to repair the passageways?”
His laugh is hard, its coldness emanating through the storm itself, like a ray of irony Morris can’t respond to. How could he know the explosions would be heard? The pyrotechnician has assured him the weather would muffle out the sounds completely, how…?
“Do not get me wrong,” howls Linus, his laugh turning into an almost genuine one in a sudden swing of fate, a strange warmth blending into his pointy coldness in a strangely familiar way; “I kinda like you. You are always ready to come forth, taking on the blame and dissipating it to anything else in a masterful way that is almost certainly never recognized. You kind of remind me of myself when I was younger, although I was never good at everything. You really have worked your way up through sheer wits alone, haven’t you?”
“But you can’t keep on just defending the company’s interests forever. I really think you know what I’m talking about when I say they are ready to bury you as soon as it would increase their profits. Weren’t you buying store appliances out of your own money at some point? They made you, a store manager with a history in the community, a really big regional manager just to give you a very difficult operation to oversee, in a very improper work period, as if ready for accidents to happen and ready for a local moderator to calm down the spirits. I don’t know if you think that’s fair or not, and honestly, I don’t think you wanna think about it. If you succeed, they will likely make you a territorial chief of the branch, will they not? You would finally be able to actually get home through other means than the supply truck, and the pay would finally reflect your implication. But if you fail, this corporation the size of a country will be ready to throw you down in a much further away ditch than this one, and you know it extremely well, don’t you?”
“Wait a minute, do I know you? From before I got to the valley? Because I think I really do!”
“No, I am sure you have no way of knowing me in any way, shape or form. But you need to listen to me: Joja may not be forever. What will be, though, is the hate of these people if, Yoba forbid, you cut them off completely. I know no one appreciates what you do for the community, but sometimes, a good doesn’t fix all that’s bad. And unfortunately for you, the bads outshine the goods in here. I say that as someone who had to step over his base principles to come here begging for help. Again, this one is extremely important to fix. People could die, Morris. Marlon is a supplier in the adventurer business, he has run out of supplies of his own for a long time now. And Susan has to travel to Grampleton by train to get basic utilities now- money will soon get tight! What will she do? Not to mention how the whole course of the rainwater has changed, and from now on we will probably be flooded every fall- and your shop is in a prone area, Morris…”
“Do what you must. Fix your mistakes. Do not let Joja take all of this away from us. Don’t be the worst guy out there.”
Well, Linus is not exactly wrong. It would bring up his reputation in the valley. Morris could make a phone… But the railway would surely remain blocked until summer. “Timely limitations”, or something like that.
You know what, he’s so done with having homeless people at his door. Morris would call a guy from the mine dig to open up the mine ways, it should be ready anywhere between spring and fall.
Anything to make the community grow up. To Thrive. Life is better with Joja anyways.