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“Come on, Jodio! Please do me a favor just this once! We’d lose some money today if I wasn’t there!” Dragona pleaded to the disinterested younger brother that sat on the edge of her bed.
“There’s just no way, big bro.”He responded. “If it was just some mission you needed me to handle for you I’d take it over, but I dunno how to work your day job.”
Truly, Jodio was unwilling to spend one of his two precious days away from school learning how to work in some boutique. He knew his sibling was interested in fashion regardless of the true identity of the tycoon, but it was way out of his league skill wise.
“…Maybe I can get someone else to fill in for you?” He spoke up, interrupting the onslaught of begging that had been going on far too long. “I’ll just text Usagi and tell him to do it. You know he’d help you.”
As the words came out, they seemed like a solid plan. After all, Jodio could go back to lousing around all day after shooting a few quick texts to his acquaintance.
However, things were never that simple. He should have known he wouldn’t have been getting off the hook that easily.
Then; the terrible idea was born. “I guess if you can’t handle it yourself you should just bring Usagi along with you, hm?~ You can take Paco too. The more the merrier as they say. All you have to do is work the counter, okay? It’ll be good for you. I’ll handle myself just fine while you’re out.”
That unfortunate conversation is how Jodio found himself in this terrible predicament.
Working in a store he knew hardly anything about while having the worst coworkers in history alongside him. He loved Dragona (albeit in his own way), but this was ridiculous. These two were only useful when they had to fight and go on stealth missions. He didn’t think they’d be much help at all. The familiar setting suddenly made him feel extremely out of place when he was the one standing behind the counter.
He really wished he could trade places with his sibling, being the one wrapped in a large mountain of blankets and pillows instead of here.
Usagi was quick the accept the offer as expected. If Jodio had to guess, he probably wasn’t doing anything of importance, and jumped to do whatever was asked the moment his beloved Dragona’s name was mentioned over the phone.
Paco took more convincing, as he had a bad reputation when it came to being in Iko Iko. Particularly, he attempted to steal some quick cash off of customers regularly. However, despite him and Dragona not being particularly close, he still agreed to help as long as he wasn’t expected to do much more than serve as a body guard in the event something happened. Usagi was trying to speak with him at the moment, but he was being ignored by the other boy. It was hard to watch.
Currently, the store was occupied by a small group of girls who all looked around the same age, if not slightly older than Jodio himself, he observed. They were to be avoiding Paco and Usagi, it seemed, standing in the opposite side of the store from them. That didn’t bother him though, and he didn’t pay much attention to their conversation. Instead, he occupied his mind with a terrible quality idle tycoon game on his phone. You couldn’t blame him though. His switch was dead when he had to leave the house, so no Animal Crossing, unfortunately.
“You there at the counter? Excuse me?” One of the girls addressed him while waving a hand to get him to look up from his screen. Right, he actually had a job to do. “You work here right? You look like you know how to dress well, I totally love your outfit! Ah, but I gotta know, where’s the changing room in this place? I’d like to try this on.”
Changing room? Well, simple enough. The question does make him realize that this building didn’t particularly have one available, though. The only room he knew about that was open to the general public was the restroom. Was it proper to tell someone to go change in the bathroom, though? He wouldn’t want to, but he doesn’t go to stores in person to buy his clothes often. Crap, he probably should have asked about this stuff or at least Googled proper etiquette before trying to play employee.
“Uh… Hm. I don’t think the store has one. I think you’ll just have to find your size and purchase it. If it doesn’t fit you can just bring it back here. Money back guaranteed,” he said with no knowledge on the store’s return policy. He hoped he was right so that this lady wouldn’t come back another day and give his big bro a hard time if she wasn’t happy with her purchase. Again, knowledge and experience is truly a useful thing.
“Really? Well I guess that’s fine. I only hear good things about this place so I guess the employees know best. I have to ask, do your sizes run small or large? Also if you could check to see if they sell the matching skirt that completes this set? I’ve heard the clothes here are one of a kind and I’d love to purchase the whole thing but I can’t find it so—”
Oh great… He hardly understood any of what she was talking about, and definitely didn’t know the way things in the store were organized. Before he could figure out a way to respond, the woman was cut off by a voice that had snuck up behind him without his notice.
“Heeey, don’t mind me barging in the conversation but I can help ya!”
Apparently, Usagi had given up on bothering Paco (for now) and decided upon joining Jodio behind the counter, which earned a furrowed brow from him.
“Oh? Well, whatever then. I want the skirt that goes along with this boho top, see? I guess i’ll just get a small. Do you have one that matches or not?”
A smirk enveloped his features at the request. “Well of course!~ Right here, miss. One skirt coming up!”After that, he lifted up the exact skirt and handed it over despite not having it in his grasp a moment ago. “Tah-dah!”
“Woah?!” Exclaimed the blonde. Her friends who had been conversing had gone quiet to look at the spectacle. Everything after that went smoothly. In the end, all of the girls left happily while muttering on about how ‘that skirt they wanted just appeared out of thin air’.
Once they left and the store was void of customers, Jodio turned to face Usagi who was still in a good mood because of the interaction.
Admittedly, that trick may have been impressive to the naked eye, but he himself knew that it had to do with his stand. MATTEKUDESAI was able to mimic any item as long as someone besides its user asked for it.
“What did ya thank about that? That girl paid a whole lot for that skirt and once she’s far enough away from the store I’ll just recall my stand. It’s basically free money! You gotta admit that’s pretty cool hm?”
‘Cool?’ He supposed it stopped him from having to navigate another pointless interaction, so he couldn’t be too mad at the other’s help. He shrugged. “I guess so. We could make a side hustle out of that now that I think about it. People would probably catch on quick but it would work for a little while.”
“Back it up, WE? You can’t take credit for my work without even thanking me! All you’re thinking about is money! How cruel, I thought we were bonding! Give me a ‘thank you’, man!” He started complained with a now pouting face.
Jeez. Did guy always had to be so dramatic all the time? He was thankful, in a way. Not sentimentally or anything, but it saved him some time. However, he reminds himself could have navigated through that by alone regardless. No way he was going to fuel the very desperate fire that was his ego.
“Nevermind, you can just carry out that money scheme on your own then.”
“Seriously, something is gonna end up getting torn—”
“Stop being such a bore, just try it on! I’m sure this’ll look great on you!”
“Didn’t I say stop it?! I’ve already got your dumb outfit on!”
“Arrgh! Paco! Let me go!”
Once Paco had overheard the money scheme, he became interested and joined Usagi quickly — both agreeing to split whatever money they made. However, Jodio noticed that once the initial wave of customers came through a little after noon, the store was pretty empty. Of course, that just meant that those two had to do something to fill up the dull silence.
Now, Usagi was near the backside of the store trying to convince Paco to try out some outfits he put together. Reluctantly, he agreed, until he started suggesting feminine clothing that clearly wouldn’t fit the boy’s muscular body. They were bickering as Jodio waited near the front, looking out just in case someone decided to enter. Strangely, his role didn’t differ that much from his usual job of ‘lookout’ he took on during the missions he went on. He preferred the familiar responsibility.
“Jodio! Help— tell him to let me go! He’s gonna squeeze me to death!” Usagi squealed from the other side of the store.
When he turned around, he was met with a very interesting sight. The ginger was being restrained with the help of Paco’s stand, The Hustle. He was trying to wiggle out despite being enveloped within a cage of muscles, both his arms rendered useless.
More endearing than that, Paco’s usual harness was placed on the floor, and instead he was dressed in a pair of marmalade cargo pants and a poofy, navy blue fur jacket on. Honestly, it didn’t look bad. It was hard to imagine Usagi of all people having a keen eye for fashion. The color complimented his hair, he thought.
“Jodio! Please!—” He begged once again, snapping his thoughts back into reality.
“You got yourself into this mess, what does that have to do with me?” Was all he answered with, as he shrugged. As long as he wasn’t out of commission before their next real assignment he didn’t really care all too much. He turned and walked off, already starting to get annoyed again.
The rejection caused for Usagi to squirm even more. “Seriously?— Hey, lay off me man!!”
With one big jerk of his body, the shorter man sent both of them flying backwards. Paco couldn’t stabilize his footing before the two of them crashed into one of the clothing racks. The rack fell over and crashed into one of the mirrors installed in the wall, instantly shattering the bottom half of it to pieces.
Since Paco was the one holding onto Usagi, he was the one who cushioned the fall. His back violently crashing down onto the floor.
“Ugh… My back...”
“Shoot.. are you okay?” Usagi asked after quickly sitting up. He’d finally gotten his wish of being freed, but that seemed to not concern him anymore. A look of guilt bloomed on his face at the idea he’d caused for Paco to get hurt. “Ah… I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean that, I was just messing around. Did you get cut or anything?”
The older boy took a moment to regain his composure. He sat up and reached to feel his back, the tense expression on his face relaxing after a moment. “No, it’s fine. Your stupid Jacket… I guess it actually shielded my back from the glass, though I hate to admit it.”
“Really? Well that’s a relief.”Was what came out after a sigh of relief. “Looks like I saved the day so you can’t really be mad or anything right?”
“You’re not off the hook yet.” He quickly corrected, standing up. “We’ve still gotta clean this up quick. Maryl Mei will find out someone destroyed her mirror if we didn’t cover it up quick. She’d kill us.”
“Wishful thinking.” Jodio returned with a broom and dust pan. “There’s no way that’s getting fixed by the time we have to leave. We’re just going to have to apologize and someone’s pay is definitely getting docked for this,” he continued, staring directly at Usagi who frowned back at him.
“Whatever! It’s probably not worth that much! Just a dumb mirror!” He said, walking over and grabbing the broom from Jodio’s grasp. “Let’s just clean all this up, Jodio, come on!”
He was about to protest, as he had nothing to do with what had just happened, but he decided against it. He held the dust pan as Usagi swept all the fallen glass shards into it.
Paco went over and picked up the fallen clothing rack. Some of the clothes hangers had snapped on impact, so he opted to folding them and neatly sitting them on the front counter next to the register. Once they had finished cleaning up, only the shattered mirror remained. (Along with a torn up jacket that would also, have to be paid for eventually. That was swiftly hidden on the rack in between all the rest of the items.)
Before they knew it, it was nearly 4 pm.
Jodio knew from experience that around this time Dragona would be clocking out from work. Their responsibilities were finally coming to an end, and he was looking forward to finally returning home.
When the others had first broken the mirror, Jodio had already flipped the sign to “Closed” so there only one last thing to do since everything had been cleaned up.
Somewhere along the way, the three had the great idea to slide the clothing rack in front of the broken part of the mirror to cover it up. Best case scenario, it looked like a customer did it.
The pleasant jingle of the boutique’s doors opening caused for all three of them to stop in their tracks. A very confused Meryl Mei Qi was standing in the doorway, scanning the store.
“Odd to see you all hanging out here, boys. What seems to be going on in here? For that matter, where’s Dragona?” She asked. They were busted, but who knew Maryl Mei liked to do random wellness checks throughout the day? He knew the woman was careful, but he couldn’t have planned for that, right?
When the only responses to the question were tensed shoulders and guilty looking expressions, her expression hardened and she put her hands oh her hips. “I asked what’s going on. I can tell when you’re hiding something, especially you two, Jodio. Paco. Tell me before I find out myself.”
Usagi shook his head regretfully and stepped forward, hands raised in the air like it would save him from having to pay for the damage caused. “We apologize, but we accidentally totaled your standing mirror. I mean, it’s not all broken but… you know.”
“I had nothing to do with anything, that was all Paco and Usagi messing around.” Jodio interrupted, not wanting to have to take the fall for something so dumb. “Also, big bro isn’t here. He’s sick so we stepped in for him.”
“Is that so? Well, very honorable of you, but this wouldn’t slide if anyone else owned this store. You do understand that, yes? You can consider yourselves lucky.” She stepped over to asses the damage, and after a moment she turned and announced her verdict. “I’ll just have to get the whole thing replaced. This’ll be around two-thousand bucks. I’ll be deducting an equal amount from each of your paychecks to cover this, understood?”
“Hold on, please wait! It was my fault, I was the one who broke it. Just take all of it from mine, I insist! Matter-a-fact, here, just take this for now.” He handed over 480 dollars. Jodio noticed it was his half of what him and Paco had scammed off of the customers throughout the day. He’d almost compliment his honesty, if only he wasn’t paying with money he practically stole from her.
“You sure? Well alright. All is forgiven then. While I shouldn’t be praising you all, I appreciate the help despite the mess you caused. You’re all free to go whenever you like, but Jodio, let your sister know she needs to notify me if she gets sick again, yes?”
He nodded and politely thanked her. Now that Meryl Mei showed up, the three of them quickly fled the building before she found evidence of anything else they destroyed.
Now they were freed from the shackles of retail work, it was finally time to part ways. There was still a while left in the day, and he wanted nothing more than to go home. Before leaving, he quickly stopped checked his pockets to ensure nothing of his was left behind accidentally.
As he was about to head off, Paco walked over to him. “Say, is Dragona’s sickness bad? I’m just curious since you didn’t specify. You didn’t leave her alone at home right?”
“Good question! Hey Jodio, you better not have! I was thinking of the same thing all day! I really hope she’s doing better,”the other butted in with a concerned expression, thought it didn’t stay long as he suddenly got an idea. “Wait— Guuys! Let’s detour to Jodio’s house and pay Pink-chan a visit! We could even get her a gift!”
“Relax, big bro said he’d be fine alone. You’re over exaggerating. Besides, what money do you have anyway, Usagi? I’m fairly certain whatever you had on you just got taken.” He commented. The idea of getting something nice for Dragona was something to think about, though, even though he didn’t say it.
“You may be right, but- ahem- that’s what friends are for!” He turned to face Paco, who’d already been expecting the request, not looking amused. “…wait wait wait! Don’t say no just yet! I’ll pay you back I promise! We can get something cheap too! And I’m the one who helped you earn a few hundred bucks today, remember? Please?”
All the begging earned a well deserved eyeroll. Paco pulled out and counted five 20 dollar bills and held them out toward the other. “I expect a hundred-fifty back by tomorrow. And some advice for your own good, you really need to start carrying your wallet with you when you leave the house, idiot!”
“Stop calling me that! I’m not dumb like you think I am! But thanks! You’re so generous when you’re not trying to act all tough!”
“Hmph.”
A loud knock echoed through the hallway of the Joestar’s estate.
“Big bro? I’m home now. Can I come inside?”
“Ah, Jodio!~ Yes, come inside!”
With that, Usagi took the initiative to nearly throw the door open. “Pink-chan!! Are you alright?!” He exclaimed, and the sight of the additional people surprised her.
Dragona doubted that Jodio would’ve actually chosen to work with these two, let alone bring them back here like she suggested, but it made her happy. She was proud her little brother was starting to be able to tolerate other people in sacred places like their home.
The ginger almost ran over to her but Jodio grabbed his wrist nearly immediately. Too far. He’d use his stand to teach him a lesson but he considered the fact his siblings room would also get soaked. “Ugh, what’s your deal? Back up!”
“Okay, okay, fine!”
“Hey,” Paco addressed Dragona. “We got you a little something.” He slightly shook the bag he’d been silently holding for emphasis.
“Really? You did that for me?” Her smile grew even wider at the thought.
“It was my idea though, don’t you dare try and take all the credit!”
‘It wasn’t your money you spent, though. you hardly deserve the credit.’ Jodio thought.
Paco reached in the bag and pulled out a small box and handed it over to her. She opened it, and uncovered a pair of earrings inside. They were silver hoop earrings that were carefully designed like large ocean waves.
“Ah! These are so adorable! Jodio must have told you that I wanted to start collecting earrings!~ How sweet! Thank you so much! This made my whole day!~”
“It’s not really that big of a deal. They insisted on buying something, so I just told them what I thought you’d like…”
Her smile dimmed a bit when she bother her brother start to look a bit uncomfortable with the sentimental topic, but she reassured him. That’s what she’s here for. “Well, I still appreciate it. Thank you. All of you.”
She closed the box and sat it on the edge of the bed. “Well, you’ve probably got placed to be, but I’ve gotta ask, how was your day at work everyone?”
“…” A moment of silence.
Everyone spoke up at once;
“We uh- we had a lot of fun! It was great!”
“…It could have gone a whole lot worse?”
“Terrible.”