Starting a Night Shift Part-time Job at a Convenience Store - Chapter 4.1: Late-night Anime, Thin Book, and

“Nice to meet you. You probably have heard this from Aoyama. I am Hirai. My first name is ‘Kaname’! Sorry for the tardiness… Um, Hakamada? That’s your name, right?”

Was this what an inaudible shout meant? At the sight of Hirai coming out of the break room, I froze lightly. Hirai was grinning at me with an innocent, childish face unlike earlier.

That… That was strange.

“Hakamada?”

How strange. This girl earlier. Wasn’t she smoking a cigarette? Her eyes looked really scary and her tone of voice was like the leader of some biker gang.

Those wide, slanted eyes drooped. Her tone of voice was not as harsh as earlier. In front of me, she was wearing a smile of an innocent angel, whereas she had been intimidating in the beginning. On top of that, I should add that she had big tits.

The size of her tits must be at the level of “doin” beyond “boin”…[i]

No, that was not the point…! In short, what I wanted to emphasize was that she was a different person from the one I saw earlier.

No, no, no, there couldn’t be such a thing.

You see, I often heard that girls possessed multiple personalities and that their attitude would instantly shift when you turned on their switch… that was… probably the case.

“Is there something wrong? Do I have something on my face?”

Perhaps noticing my bewilderment, Hirai tilted her head and asked me, her smile unwavering.

“Hmm?”

“Oh, nothing.”

While confounded, I turned my face away from her at once. Her innocent expression struck my strike zone.

Wait a minute, Hakamada. Didn’t you see that earlier? What were you getting your heart pounding with that smile plastered on your face?

Settle down, settle down…

“Um… I am looking forward to working with you.”

“Yeah, nice to work with you from now on.”

While maintaining a calm demeanor, I greeted the enigmatic, loli, busty Hirai lightly for the time being. She did not speak to me in yankee language like when I first saw her, nor did she kick me in the butt.

When we chatted, she was unexpectedly gentle. Her occasional smile was rather adorable. I figured that this was a woman’s weapon and that I must have fallen squarely into her clutches.

What was that all about earlier, a dream? The first impression I had of her diminished dramatically that I wondered if I had dreamed it.

Even so, she looked so young. I wondered how old was she. Perhaps 20 years old or thereabouts. The gap between her face and her smoking was astonishing. But her face was adorable… I wondered if she had a boyfriend. With an appearance like this, I doubted if any man in this world would resist her charms. Anyway, let’s exchange contact information later.

“Hirai, you switched shifts with Takenaka today, correct?”

“Yes, that’s right. Oh, I’m sorry, I know you were surprised by the sudden change.”

“O-Oh. No, no, not really?”

“I couldn’t take off this Thursday, so I asked Takenaka to substitute for me on short notice, heh heh.”

Hah, I supposed a part-time jobiwith an adorable girl would be much preferable to a part-time job with a guy.

First of all, I tried to open up to her by discussing some subjects with her. Hirai responded to every word I made slowly. Though, Aoyama mentioned something peculiar the other day. What did he mean, she was more normal than I expected.

Although that thing earlier was bothering me, she was so girly, and each gesture she made was so soothing.

“Heh, what? Is that a date with your boyfriend?”

When I casually asked, Hirai was standing in front of the cash register on the opposite side with her hand over her mouth, giggling.

“Haha, not at all. There’s something I absolutely have to watch airing on-air.”

“Hmm, is it a drama show? Or a variety show?”

“No, it’s a late-night anime.”

Mmm?

“This week marks the last episode, so I couldn’t think of anything else but to watch it on-air.”

Late-night, anime…?

“…What’s wrong?”

“Ah, haha, heh, anime, huh?”

The unexpected turn of events momentarily threw me into a stupor. I heard that young people nowadays liked anime. So Hirai likedanime, huh? Or rather, to watch anime, she switched shifts with Takenaka. It was an extraordinary reason.

“It’s so amazing that you want to watch it on air, is it interesting? What’s the plot?”

Well, I should carry on with the conversation.

“It’s a pure love story, it’s incredibly throbbing and exciting, and it’s the greatest story of the season.”

“Ho―…”

A love story huh, that was cute. She was a girl after all.

Hirai, who seemed to be fairly hooked on the anime, joyfully introduced it to me for a while. Even though I didn’t understand the conversation at all, the fact that she was adorable was enough for forgiveness.

“When I watch it, I’m already high! I seriously have a crush on the protagonist’s blushing bald face.”

Hmm. Seriously? Bald?

Huh, what was going on?

Hirai seemed to be enjoying herself rather immensely, though. She was so engrossed in the subject that she kept uttering strange words. I had no clue what she meant, but her face was so vivacious.

Oh――It couldn’t be.

“I was feeling like ‘That’s impertinent, do more of it’.”

So this was what Aoyama was talking about―!