A new hire at Prift-Mart, one that he’s gotta train.

“… and without further ado, let’s welcome Mara Satou to the team! Come on, give her a round of applause!” Ms. Print laughed, as she started clapping in the clear hope that everyone else would join in. A few did, Lenny and Erica included, though that was mostly for fear of getting on their boss’ bad side.

Mara frowned constantly. It was the first thing anyone would’ve noticed about her. The second was that her body was thin in a way that made you think she could easily punch your lights out in no seconds flat. Low fat percentage paired with lean muscle, that type of body. Probably had solid abs under her tank top. Her blue dyed hair was styled in an undercut that reminded Lenny of that version of Gwen Stacy that the internet went gaga over, the one from the recent animated Spider-man movies. He also noticed that she was at least a little taller than him based on the way she kept ever-so-slightly looking down on him.

Either that, or it was just low-key disgust. But that didn’t make too much sense to him, considering how little they had actually interacted up till now.

“So. We just sit here?” she simmered, from a seat next to her immediate supervisor’s.

Leonard gulped “Y-Yeah, it’s kinda… quiet…” to answer her question. He wasn’t used to anyone being this intense with him. Unfortunately, he was supposed to train her in the ways of his particular job. The finer details of that arrangement were something he didn’t want to examine closely.

Mara slunk back into her chair, sighing “… do we at least get to punch anyone?”

“N-No… that’d probably get us either sued or fired… M-Most we can do is ask people to stop, or show them how to operate the m-machine.” he explained. It was unclear why she was working here instead of a gym, but it wasn’t his place to fish for sensitive information anyways.

She glared at him. “There’s one more option though, right? You know what I’m talking about.” Mara insisted, in a way that made Lenny think it wouldn’t be odd for large “ゴ ゴ ゴ…!” signs to float around in the frame of his vision.

“W-What…?”

With gritted teeth, the new hire whispered “We intimidate the thieves…! We sit here and look so scary that no one would dream of trying to shoplift…!” Mara asked “You can tell I’m good at it, right? I made sure to put on my meanest face before starting my shift, and I haven’t let up a bit…!” as a vein on her forehead throbbed. “See that? Took hours for me to do it on purpose.”

At once, a weight was lifted from Leonard’s shoulders. “… I don’t think that’s necessary. Honestly, the most action I’ve seen here was the other day, when an old guy forgot to scan some things. After I told him he just went back and bought the stuff, no fighting or mean looks needed.” He left out that it preceded a probable HR violation, figuring that it wouldn’t be relevant to his ostensible protégé’s circumstances.

She was crushed. Her face began to drain of any notable expression as she started to mumble, her eyes not particularly focusing on anything.

“Wow, she’s a natural.” he thought, amazed at how quickly Mara learned to disassociate the same way he did to get through a particularly boring shift.