(Lazy Alpha Stamen Student) seeks meaning and mating.

Pop.

Smack.

Vrrrrrr.

Between the overburdened air conditioning system, which was needed constantly in the shop due to the boiling heat of one of the hottest summers on record, and the overburdened, yet crushingly-bored stamen high-schooler working the counter, she was doing her best with bubble gum to emulate certain other smacking noises she was familiar with…

Endless racks of clothing, sections for every need, extensive selections to meet even discerning eyes… An empty clothing store, even one of this size, could positively thrum with noise and fake-life and energy with enough noise.

It helped at least a tiny bit, okay? When she was on shift alone, as Aiko Serizawa often was these days thanks to goddamn management, had to make her own fun. At least the hours couldn’t be too bad, on account of her primary employment being, you know, the high school thing.

Not to worry. As with every corner of Autumn nowadays, ‘high school’ didn’t actually start until you were eighteen, or whatever eighteen-equivalent was. For your race.

Usually pretty close. Despite what people might expect, kitsune who lived a thousand years didn’t take, like, a hundred to reach maturity. That would be a stupid way to evolve, having your 'superior race' be helpless for a full century of life… and she'd know, given her own prominent pointy ears.

“Goddess damnit.”

Aiko was tall, like most born stamen, and otherwise had a normal appearance. Deceptively so. Her long, black hair was downright muted and stoic for high elves. She had a flat hime-cut above her forehead, but a braid in back, giving her a look that was exotic without being too exotic. The perfect mix for suburban hell. Her skin was pale, though it was hard to maintain a ghostly-white skin tone in this tropical climate.

Her actual outfit, black polo shirt and white slacks, was ‘every company too cheap to give actual uniforms’ chic.

Which was odd, given that Extra Plus Outfitters was a big-time enterprise. A huge corporation, whose huge shop featured huge sizes across the entire absurd range that Autumn and her Ten Tribes could produce. Even now had a burgeoning section for those fancy new robot girls.

Everything even had a vaguely smooth, sci-fi glass-and-ceramics appearance, though that veneer was most certainly only skin-deep. They had a scanner to measure sizes, but it often broke down.

Not that Aiko minded, for she had a tape measure, working fingers, and an abundance of experience with abundant women and their dimensions.

One of the reasons she’d weathered an incident where the cash register came up five hundred moni short was because she got such high customer reviews. Management wasn't much interested in the reason. She stuck around, she produced numbers, and besides, not many were **** enough to work retail here.

Neighborhood was too upscale.

Aiko herself lived elsewhere, commuting here via the train for work, school, and play. Often, it all went together.

“Come on, you bastards… just come buy something…”

Aiko’s store got good ratings from customers on SomePeopleSay, it had good internal metrics and always met, or exceeded, the targets corporate set. Of course, only by the tiniest margins, so the expectations next month weren't higher.

Yeah, much as Aiko might wish she was doing something that engaged her brain, as long as she had magazines, manga, the occasional confiscated, scandalous thin book from her main job as Morals Officer of her school, a work computer she’d managed to get onto Frontpage with... and of course as with every girl of her generation, she was always on her phone…

Then the time between customers got bearable. As long as she kept getting paid.

The time with customers coming by to this high-grade clothing shop to get something? That was when things got interesting. Aiko was never sure just who, or what, was going to walk through those sliding, motion-sensor glass front doors. Except that, this being Autumn and all, there was an extremely fair chance it was a bewilderingly-hot girl.

Extra Plus Outfitters did cater primarily to the female demographic, that being the most common by far, so hey.

It didn’t hurt her choice to work here, rather than across the mall at The Divide.

Sitting at the front desk, she had plenty of time to check her phone, text a few cute girls she’d disciplined for immoral conduct recently, and find out when they’d be up to get disciplined again.

“By my dick. Yeah, baby.”

In truth, Aiko was doing alright for herself.

Grades-wise, after enough nagging from that girl on the student council. Aiko was even on the council, giving them detailed and sordid reports of how hard she had to punish sinfully-sexy classmates. Of course, that, plus her normal magnetism, dominant dynamo power, and **** personal charisma and humility all combined to ensure her address book was always overstuffed with eager girls trying to call and text her back.

In her off time, while voraciously flirting with girls, she worked here, storing up money for her future.

Where she planned to…

Well, honestly, she hadn’t figured that yet. Hadn’t even given it a moment’s thought. It kind of felt like the future either didn’t exist, or was never gonna get here, and everything would just stay exactly like this forever.

That was the general sensibility in those times.

Everything was the same, but slightly worse.

Aiko’s uncool bitching and attitude, which she indulged in only when girls weren’t around to hear it, was just her way of exerting control over the kind of modern life that was increasingly complex, and out of the control of any ordinary person. Never being surprised by bad things, but always pleasantly surprised when something broke her way, meant she was always on top.

Where she liked to be.

“If I have to be here so many hours, at least send me a cute girl or ten…”

Pop.

Smack.

Vrrrr.