Chapter 219.

The cashier walked away from the register and opened up a door behind the counter.

The goth girl holding my hand gulped anxiously.

“You must really like that student council president a lot to be willing to spend so much.”

“I do. A lot. I’ve been with him for the last three years. We’ve always been in the same class. We’re… always together every day… but he doesn’t ever look my way. I’m not his ideal type… even though I try so hard to be his ideal.”

“Oh. His ideal? Didn't you say something about some other girl? Is she a goth girl like you?”

“Huh? Oh, you mean that Alicia girl I complained about before? No way, no way. She’s the exact o- Ah…”

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Please forget I said anything just now. Don’t ask me about this again.”

Too late for that. You already slipped up. So that’s how it is. I see. I see. She must try to imitate Alicia at school despite her gothic appearance. It sounds like it would be a huge pain in the ass to live like that.

“You sound like quite the pitiful girl.”

“Who are you calling pitiful? I’m not pitiful.”

“Living your life mimicking someone else’s personality to get the guy you like to like you back. If that’s not pitiful, what is?”

“Shut up. What would a guy like you know what it’s like to be me?”

“Nothing. Why would I know what it’s like to be such a pitiful lonely goth girl I only met today?”

“What does your girlfriend even see in you when you're this unpleasant to be around?”

“How would I know? I’m not my girlfriend, asking me what she sees in me is useless.” I raised my hands to shrug.

“By the way, do you mind letting go of my hand now?”

“No, I need to make sure you don’t run away at least until you pay.”

“Assuming the cashier finds it in the back room, that is.”

“... yeah…”

After five minutes the cashier returned with a helpless look on her face. She was empty-handed.

“I’m very sorry, but I didn’t find it. It’s possible it might have been sold and there was a glitch in the system that didn’t update the inventory when it was sold.”

“No way… a glitch…”

“Yes, I’m very sorry. If you like, I can suggest another comparable model… though it would be at full price.”

“No… it’s… fine.”

“I’m really sorry, Miss.”

The cashier had a pained expression on her face, it was clear she felt remorseful seeing how dejected her customer appeared. 

“It’s really alright. I’ll figure something out. Haaaaah.”

She turned around and pulled me along. Just as we were about to exit the store she abruptly stopped in place and I bumped into her shoulder from behind. 

“What are you suddenly stopping for?”

“Before… you said a customer could have picked it up and randomly dropped it somewhere in the store after having a change of heart, didn’t you?”

“Haaaaaah. You’re not willing to give up until the bitter end, are you?”

“I’m unwilling to after coming this far.”

“I see. Then do what you want.”

She dragged me up and down each aisle one at a time, bending down onto her knees for the low shelves and tiptoeing to check the shelves higher up. She was quite thorough and checked behind every item on the shelves from top to bottom.

After she meticulously examined three aisles in such a manner, I suddenly noticed something from the corner of my eye. I spotted the exact item we were looking for. The corner of the muscle massager gun box was poked out of an open brown box on the top shelf in the aisle we were currently in.

I could point it out to her… but… it meant I’d have to pay and go through the effort of collecting the money afterward. I definitely didn’t want to follow her to her place after all of this was over. Which meant we’d have to make arrangements to meet up at a later date. The easiest place to meet would be school, but I absolutely didn’t want to bump into this crazy goth girl there. This entire situation was a major inconvenience.

Also… if I returned her thong before I received my payment… would she really pay me back? But bringing her thong home with me… that was asking for trouble. I’m not dumb enough to go and do that.

I’d really miscalculated. I should have selected something cheaper and not gotten her so stuck on getting this stupid item. 

The only other option available to me was to have her return home on her own, then get her to meet me somewhere else. But it couldn’t be too far from her place either, she said she didn’t want to waste extra money on bus fare so she might outright refuse. Ahhhhh! Every option was annoying.

Screw it, I’m not telling her about it. If she doesn’t notice it, too bad for her.

She continued her search through the rest of the aisles but came up with nothing to show for her efforts. She’d searched high and low, but she hadn’t searched inside the brown boxes on the topmost shelf. Only the ones where merchandise was visible. Well, that was natural, who would expect someone to place it inside one of those boxes up there?

“Was it really a glitch after all…” Her grip on my hand weakened. When I tried to take advantage of the opportunity to slip my hand out of hers, her grip immediately tightened up again.

“You’re trying to run the second you get a chance? Don’t forget what you have in your pocket right now. Your life is quite literally in the palm of my hand. The second your hand leaves mine is the second I scream. Why do you think I’ve been so adamant about holding onto your hand this entire time?”

“Hahaha… right.” I shouldn’t get any funny ideas. She sounded pretty serious. 

“Don’t even think about touching it.”

Ohhhh. It suddenly made sense why she was holding my hand now. I hadn’t realized it, but the hand she was holding was on the same side as the pocket she stuffed her thong into. So holding my hand served to prevent me from sticking my hand in my pocket and touching it. Not that I’d do that anyway. She really had very low faith in me.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t touch it even if you paid me to.”

Hmm… this changed things a bit though. If she had found the item she wanted, she would have never allowed me to go off somewhere alone with her thong still in my pocket. She’d force me to go to her place with her if I refused to hand it over until she paid me back.

Thus, the only option I had was to take the item itself hostage. The only problem with that was she’d be the one who paid for the majority of the item. Sure, I could still hold onto it, but she might make a fuss and bring up this fact. From what I’d learned of this woman, she was unreasonable to the extreme. If that was the case… she’d probably put me into a headlock again until I handed it over.

Honestly… I’d like to turn the tables on this irritating woman for dragging me around all day. I was a petty person after all. The best way to get her to concede to my demands and put her in her place was pretty simple.

Her greatest weakness right now for me to exploit was the item she wanted to buy. I knew where it was while she didn’t.

Should I really do this and sacrifice more of my day to her because of my pettiness? There was only an hour left until the store closed. What to do.

“I… can’t give up yet. I must have missed it. It must be in here somewhere.”

Out of nowhere she suddenly said that while I contemplated our current situation.

“You want to go through the store again? You already spent almost an hour searching everywhere. You really think you missed it?”

“Uh… that is…” Even she didn’t believe she missed anywhere.

“You’re free to do what you want. If you want to waste your time searching, go right ahead.” I’ll just enjoy watching you suffer while you’re unable to find it and count this as a form of petty payback.

“Thanks…” she mumbled in low spirits as she moved through the aisles lethargically searching through all the same places she’d previously scoured.