The convinience store in which Kyouko works is located in the busy downtown section of Mitakihara. It's not on the main drag, but rather down one of the smaller, well-kept side-streets which are so prevalent within Tokyo- the main street is dominated by the big chain stores, but this one seems to do just fine in its alleyway, despite being a mom-and-pop type establishment. The AM/PM Mini Market, or the PM-Mart as people call it for short.
It's a closet-sized store, barely fitting the counter up front, three or four short aisles of goods, and a row of glass-doored fridges in the back filled with drinks and other perishable items. It's clean and modern though, with big automatic sliding-glass doors to let customers in. While it's never packed with people, there's a steady stream that goes in and out throughout the day, though there are quiet moments when the store is empty as well.
Kyouko is behind the counter. Most of the time when she's working she's the only employee in the store, and such is the case now. She's wearing a plain black t-shirt and jeans, and overtop of that her AM/PM Mini Market apron, which is bright orange and has the store's logo in white on the front. At the moment, she appears to be re-arranging the displays of knick-nacks and impulse items next to the register, frowning as she fiddles with some sort of cardboard display.
Chibiusa's been doing just fine for herself these past few days, thank you very much. She's been doing more than fine, actually. She's been great. Thriving. The inside of King Penguin has enough room for her entire Luna-P sleeping bag, and it hasn't even been cold or rainy, so she's basically had an indoor bedroom this whole time.
Yeah, she might understand why people would be concerned about a five-year-old wandering around -- alone -- in a city she doesn't know, without a home to go home to every night, without a single person to run to if things went sour. But she isn't a five-year-old. She's a nine-hundred-year-old, and she can take care of herself. Hmph.
Unrelated to her totally adult ability to take care of herself, though: food has been getting pretty tight. She didn't know why she didn't think to bring any along with her. Maybe because she thought she'd be in and out of this weird place in a few minutes, Silver Crystal in hand. Maybe, in the rush to escape Crystal Tokyo, she'd just forgotten that food would be a thing she'd need.
Either way, turning Luna-P into cash and having it poof back to ball form after she left hasn't really worked out -- more than a few angry shopkeepers have come chasing after her for theft, and with a single meal or so a day from that strategy, her tummy gotten a bit rumbly. Only a tiny bit, of course. She can take care of herself.
Right now, taking care of herself means doing something a little mean to this shopkeeper.
The doors slide open, there's a padding of tiny feet against tile, and then two pink odangos peeks over the edge of the counter. The barrel of a pistol, held up by two hands, stares the clerk down in between those bunny ears.
"This is a real gun," comes a high-pitched voice from the girl not tall enough to see over the counter. "I'm holding you up."
(The idiom doesn't make a lot of sense to her, but she'd seen it in movies, so she figures it's as good a line as any.)
As the doors slide open, Kyouko calls out, "Welcome to the AM/PM Minimart~" in a sing-song tone that is both required by her employer and obviously so rote as to be a pavlovian response to the sound of the doors opening.
She looks up.. and sees no one. Then she looks down.. to see the barrel of a pistol pointing at her. This does indeed cause her to freeze for a moment, because magical girl or no, a gun in your face is still bad news. It only takes a moment for her to register that the person holding the gun is a tiny child, though.. and not just any tiny child, either.
She had been notified by Mamoru, of course- she was on the Shitennou mailing list. Smol pink child, odangos.. yep, this seems to be the one. However, 'the one' or not, the girl is still pointing a gun at her, and Kyouko can't be one-hundred precent sure it isn't real.
"Well, shit." Is her response, as she slowly shifts her position behind the counter, leaning one elbow on it and peering over the edge at the tiny girl, with one brow arched and an almost laconically impressed expression on her face. "So you are. Right then, what can I get ya? Since you're holdin' me up an' all."
'Shit'? Chibiusa may not be able to remember most of those nine hundred years of hers, but she knows a swear when she hears one. Her eyes widen, fixed to the red-haired clerk in slightly terrified awe. Didn't she know you could get in *trouble* for swearing?
Thinks the child who is currently robbing a mini-mart at gunpoint.
Well, at least this one's not yelling at her or anything, or trying to call the police. Luna-P could make a good distraction if she asked it to, so she wasn't afraid of getting arrested, but it would mean a lot less food. And then she'd have to go to another mini-mart and make another fake gun and start this whole thing over again. Way less convenient than this -- although usually people don't offer to help you out when you're holding a gun in their face and threatening to take their stuff by force. Suspicious.
Oh well. She's too hungry to do anything more than twist her mouth to one side. What's that saying about gift horses, again?
"I'm gonna take as much food as I want, and you're not gonna stop me. Got it?" she says, thrusting the gun forward a tiny bit. "We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way."
Those gangster movies her parents told her not to watch are really coming in handy. How else would she have so many snappy lines for this clerk?
Kyouko seems to care very little about getting in trouble. One might even say that doing so is her pastime. That's neither here nor there, however, as she currently has a gun-toting tot to deal with- preferably before any real customers come into the store and do something inconvinient like try to call the cops.
"Food, huh? You sure you don't want the money from the cash-register?" Kyouko asks, a tiny smile tugging at one corner of her mouth, threatening to bare fang but not quite managing to do so. "Ah well, I guess food is pretty important, I ain't gonna argue that."
She pushes herself back off the counter, staying behind it but moving a bit back towards the racks of hot foods and such aligned next to the cash register. "Can I recommend one o' our meat and cheese burritos? They're really good. The hot dogs are pretty good too."
She opens the case from behind, pulling out one of each unless the pink-haired girl makes a preference known. "Want me to heat 'em up for ya? Oh, and you can go grab a drink from the back, if you want. I mean, s'hardly a robbery if you don't get a drink or somethin' right? I recommend the chocolate milk."
Well, all the money from the cash register *would* be nice, come to think of it, and there's really no reason why she shouldn't include that in her robbery shopping list, along with enough mini-mart junk food to last a week or two. She even opens her mouth to demand it -- only to find that she can't force the words out, exhaling empty air instead. Food is one thing. She needs food, or she'll go hungry in her little King Penguin hut. But that much money? From someone she's probably already scared with this (totally very real) gun of hers?
She's already stolen too much. She's only here, in this weird past world, because she stole something very important. It's not a good feeling, to steal like that.
Meat and cheese burritos and hot dogs are much better feelings.
Chibiusa's tummy rumbles the second she sees the rack of hot food on the counter, the savory smell of cooking meat only reaching her nose now. After three days of gas station sushi and cheap ramen, wherever she could get it, she'd have gladly eaten even a lukewarm hot dog -- those on the rack right now, glistening and fresh, nearly a foot long, are worth this entire robbery spiel on their own. Add a burrito or two to the mix, and chocolate milk, one of the best drinks ever...
Her arms drop, nearly forgetting the gun she's supposed to be holding, all tension melted away.
"Gimme two hot dogs and a burrito. And I also wanna take some snacks, ok?" Chibiusa says, turning on her heel and running to the back to claim her drink and the dozens on dozens of packaged treats she'll need if she wants to have enough food for the coming week.
One perk of being on your own? No vegetables required.
Kyouko is totally scared. Like, for real, guys. She looks terrified. That sort of patient smirk on her face? That's terror, right there. "Two hot dogs and one burrito, comin' right up." She comments in a tone that is quite obvious the normal 'dealing with customers' voice and not the 'oh god, being robbed' voice. Hopefully the little bandit can't tell the difference.
The hot dogs are already hot, but Kyouko transfers the burrito into the store's industrial microwave behind the counter while the girl goes to fetch her chocolate milk. Meanwhile, beneath the counter, she's pulled out her cellphone and is snapping off a quick text- it'll be done before Chibs even reaches the back of the store.
By the time she returns, there are two hot dogs in neat little paper trays, and a steaming burrito wrapped in paper all lined up on the counter to go. Kyouko takes a quick survey of whatever else Chibs has managed to gather together for her 'supplies'. "You want a bag for that?" She helpfully asks of her robber.
There's lots of noisy rummaging throughout the store as the tiny pink gremlin makes her way up and down the aisles, pausing only for seconds at a time before yanking crinkly plastic off counters and slamming refrigerator doors. When she finally resurfaces, she's carrying what appears to be a third of her body weight in junk food, colorful chips and gummies and cookie packages stacked so high they nearly cover her face. The gun is nowhere in sight.
"I had to put my gun down back there so I could hold all of this," she explains. "But it's still back there, and I'm really really fast, so don't get cocky!" Despite her direst of warnings, though, Chibiusa nods when Kyouko asks her about needing a bag -- she even moves to put all the junk food on the counter, like she's paying for it, until she remembers just what situation she's in. And how weird it is for a mini-mart clerk to be acting this way when she came into her store with a gun.
She withdraws the food to her chest again, red eyes peering up at Kyouko with suddenly cooled enthusiasm.
"Wait a minute. Why are you being so nice to me?" she says. "You know I don't have any money, right? It's not like this is some kind of joke." Unless Kyouko chose to make it one, and she's just waiting to take back all this food she's gathered up before turning her over to the cops. Which would be pretty typical for her, honestly. Grown-ups are the worst, more often than not, and her luck's pretty rotten to start with.
Kyouko nods her understanding to this information about the gun being 'back there' but still being in easy reach. "Oh, don't worry, I'll cooperate. The last thing I want is to force you ta shoot up the place." She says in a mildly-amused tone as she starts to reach for the food items to bag them up..
But then the girl gets suspicious of Kyouko's helpfulness and pulls back slightly. Her brows arch a bit. Well, guess this kid ain't as dumb as most (Kyouko doesn't have a very high opinion of small children). She tilts her heads lightly as she regards Chibiusa over the top of the huge pile of snacks and cookies in her arms.
"Well, it's cause you got a gun, ain't it?" She finally decides to go with. "I mean, when somebody's got a gun pointed at ya," or laying on the floor somewhere in the back of the store, as the case may be, "You gotta be nice to 'em, right? That's just common sense. Else why'd you bring it in the first place?"
Explanation delivered, she impatiently holds out her hands. "Now c'mon and put that stuff up here, I'll bag it up for you. Your burrito's gonna get cold."
And with Chibiusa's arms full of food and the 'gun' nowhere in sight, the conbenie's door chime rings as it opens to admit a familiar tall black-haired boy. "Hey," he calls over to Kyouko, taking his wallet out, "Neph wanted some Ho-Hos and I figured I'd get a burri--"
He's a little better at acting than some people. That's why his words trail off when he sees Chibiusa with her arms full of snackycakes and stuff. There's a pause. "Yo. The sky doesn't have any cash, I'm pretty sure. You want me to get that for you?" A glance up at Kyouko again. "And maybe some non-junk-food for her too. Like stuff with protein and vitamins."
He looks down at Chibiusa, and there's nothing condescending or jokey or supercilious about his expression or his tone. Not even a twitch at the corner of his mouth, no sparkling humor in his eyes. Just serious business. "Do you like apples and peanut butter? It's a pretty good go-to and doesn't instantly kill your teeth. Also, super tasty."
He walks over and puts his card on the counter. Notably, over on Kyouko's side of the counter, where even without her arms full, Chibiusa can't reach.
Oh, right! That's why she brought a gun to the store in the first place. People have to be nice to you when you have a gun! And they have to let you take as much junk food and hot dogs as you want. It's just how things work. With that lightbulb going off in her head, Chibiusa brightens again, pushing her ludicrous pile of food across the counter.
"Yeah, that's right! I have a gun, and don't you forget --"
The conbenie doors open and she jumps nearly a foot in the air, doing her namesake proud. She's expecting the police, or an errant customer, or some other last minute wrench in this otherwise perfect plan. Instead, she sees the black-haired boy from the other day -- the day she arrived -- and the fear and trauma he'd passed along with his touch flare to life in her head.
Identity stripped away, piece by piece. The energy of his soul, stolen, leaving behind something that is him but not him.
Suddenly, Chibiusa is less the adorable bandit and more the lost girl who fell from the sky, wary and alone.
"What are you doing here?" she asks, taking a step back. "I'm not hunting Sailor Moon or anything right now, so you don't have to do that thing to me again. I'm just getting some food from this store, promise."
But then he's sliding that credit card across the counter and talking about apples and peanut butter -- and first of all, this is *her* robbery, she should decide what food she gets -- and hey, she never pulled the gun on him at all, so why is he being nice all of a sudden? Her eyes dart from him, to Kyouko and her food, and back again, defensiveness turned to confusion.
"H-Hey! I'm trying to rob this store! You don't pay for things a robber's stealing!" she says, picking up an indignant whine. "What gives?"
Kyouko glances over as the door opens, chiming out "Welcome to the AM/PM Minimart!~" before she even realizes it's Mamoru, and then blinking when she does. She looks mildly relieved, not because she's actually scared or uncomfortable but because she knows that Mamoru has some kind of stake in this little girl and she was hoping he'd show before she managed to take off with her ill-gotten gains.
'Neph wants some Ho-Hos', there's probably a crass joke in there somewhere but there's a child in the store, so instead Kyouko defends herself with, "Burritos aren't junk food!" Look, she has really low standards for what makes a complete meal- 'edible and not-rotten' are just about it. She glances to the credit card, then mutters, "I was gonna pay for it, dude.."
But she takes it anyway, having stealthily scanned what needed scanning while Chibs was distracted by Mamoru's entrance.
The kid starts to freak out a little bit, and Kyouko sighs. "Well he's right you know. Apples are really good, peanut butter or not. We don't carry fresh produce, though." She asides to Mamoru. "Peanut butter is in aisle 3 but I think we only have dried apple chips."
As she's talking she's almost automatically bagging up all the snacks, and soon a neat little sack is sitting on the counter.
Then she frowns at Chibiusa. "Hey, your burrito is getting cold." She taps it with a finger. "I'm gonna be pissed if you made me heat it up and then you don't eat it. Wasting food is the worst. C'mon, this guy ain't so bad, just take your food and stop worryin' so much about it. Sometimes people are just nice."
Mamoru chrugs cheerfully at Kyouko's muttered complaint. He looks down at Chibiusa again while Kyouko's running his card. "Someone always has to pay when robbery happens," he points out. "Sometimes it's the shop owner, sometimes it's the employee who was on duty when it happens, sometimes it's insurance and then the shop owner has to pay more insurance-- but it's always someone." He takes the card back when Kyouko's done and puts it in his wallet.
"If you want to keep the idea that you're stealing things, you can think of it as stealing from me instead of from my sister. I mean, I'd rather you didn't; I'm worried about you and I want to make sure you're okay, and part of being okay is having enough food to eat, minding that at least some of it's good for you, and a place to stay in out of the weather where you can sleep and wash up and everything," he explains, getting down on one knee in front of her so she doesn't have to crane her neck quite so hard. He's still out of his own arms' reach of her, for her sense of security.
Looking up at Kyouko, he makes a little bit of a face. "Burritos aren't entirely junk food, no. I'm not gonna get into it. I'll figure out where she can get apples, if she lets me."
Then he loosely crosses his arms over the knee that's not on the floor, regarding Chibiusa seriously. "I'm not going to make you do anything. That's not my job. I also didn't mean to do anything to you; I'm sorry about what you saw. It shouldn't have happened, but you startled me somehow, and I was still kind of a mess from the thing that happened to me that you saw. Whatever's going on with you, I want to help. That is my job, helping people in trouble." A faint smile tugs at one corner of his mouth. "And in order to keep yourself from getting in more trouble, I suggest you eat your burrito so Kyouko doesn't get mad."
Kyouko, seen by Chibiusa over Mamoru's shoulder above the counter, rolls her eyes exaggeratedly as he goes full-on Mr. Rogers. She then mouths to the little girl, 'he means well, honest'.
Oh no, her burrito!
Any other day, Chibiusa might not be quite so easily distracted by food, but her tummy is e m p t y, and that burrito had smelled so good when she was heating it up. Wariness cast aside for a moment, she lets out a tiny gasp, wheels around, grabs the still-warm meat and cheese goodness, and stuffs it in her mouth with a muttered 'nomf.'
It's so good. It's *so good.* So good that she keeps eating it even when she turns back to Mamoru and listens to everything he has to say, whether or not he thinks it's rude. She may have had some decorum lesson about that at home, but then, she isn't home anymore, is she?
She finishes the burrito in record time, a bit of cheese on the tip of her nose from shoving it in her mouth so fast.
"I'm not gonna be here very long, you know," she says, turning up her nose and putting her hands on her hips. "Once I find the Sailor Moon and the Silver Crystal, I'm gonna go back home, and everyone makes me eat healthy there anyway. So if you really wanna help me, tell me where she is. I can find apples by myself."
She tilts her head down so she can see him properly again.
"And stop worrying about me so much. I'm not a kid, you know. I'm nine hundred years and fifty-seven days old," she says. "I know what I'm doing."
"But you have a gun," Mamoru points out reasonably, "and I love her very much. I have to protect her. I can't just tell you where she is if you're going to shoot her and take the silver crystal. I mean, assuming you managed to get yourself a gun that doesn't shoot flower petals."
This comes with a glance sidelong at Kyouko, way up there.
But then he looks back to Chibiusa and smiles a little lopsidedly. "You look pretty good for your age. Listen," he says, standing up, finally, then snagging a pen and Chibiusa's receipt from the counter. He scribbles down numbers. "If you do end up needing help for some reason, this is my phone number. Almost anyone would let a lost person who looks like a little kid call home to get picked up, so you can just tell them that's what's going on, I wouldn't mind." He holds the paper out to Chibiusa.
Kyouko can't help but grin in a self-satisfied way as the little girl devours the burrito. Damn right, the PM-Mart has the best burritos this side of Tokyo! Also anyone who eats like that just warms her heart, regardless of what's being eaten. She feels a pang of solidarity. She's been there!
A brow quirks slightly at the speech about Sailor Moon and the Silver Crystal. Mamoru had included something about that in his e-mail, but it still makes her wonder exactly what the deal here is, though. She keeps quiet, regardless. Just let Mamoru do the talking- that's in his wheelhouse, not hers.
She meets Mamoru's gaze for a moment and shrugs. Do what you think is best, dude, is the obvious message, and she just leans back and doesn't comment as he scribbles down the numbers and holds them out to her.
Afterwards though, she adds, "And look, kid- do what he says, right? He's a nice guy, he'll help you out. But failing that.. we turnover our fresh food stock every morning at 7. If you happen to come by around then, there might be some good stuff in a bag by the door. Anybody can take it, know what I mean? No guns required." She winks. Hey, she's been there.
If it's possible for a five-year-old to look aghast, that is Chibiusa when Mamoru brings up Sailor Moon and her gun.
"I don't wanna shoot Sailor Moon! I need her help!" she says, distinctly not using her inside voice. "Besides, even if I *was* gonna shoot her, it's not like that would do anything. Sailor Moon's invincible. Bullets can't hurt her -- nothing can." She's almost more offended that he thinks a gun could kill Sailor Moon than by the idea that she'd want to kill her with one.
But that's the last she's saying on the subject. With a 'hmph,' Chibiusa turns around and picks up the sack of snacks, having to wrap both arms around it to keep it from falling to the floor. At the sight of the scribbled on receipt, she hesitates a moment, eyeing it with trepidation, before she tilts the bag forward for him to put it in. Not enough hand space, at the moment.
"I'm only gonna call you if I want to know where Sailor Moon is," she says. "I already have somewhere to stay, and I'm not dirty enough to need a bath yet. So I don't need any help except for that."
She turns her head towards Kyouko when she speaks, then hastily adds, "a-and that, I mean. Just in case I'm here for a few more days. But you still shouldn't worry about me. Either of you. I'm doing fine."
Mamoru drops the paper in the bag and then leans against the counter, loosely crossing his arms again. He's not going to stop her, and he's going to keep feeling guilty about it, because she's five, and he seriously doubts she has someplace to stay that's safe and dry. "You're right about her being invincible. But you know how it is when you love someone who's really strong, and you'd do anything to protect them, even when most of the time they're actually the one protecting you...? That's how it is. I can't help it."
There's a pause as he regards the smol pink girl.
"I'll tell her you asked for her help, not just to get the crystal. So sure, give me a call soon and I'll get her to talk to you." He does not address not worrying about her.
Kyouko offers a grin to Chibiusa when the girl seems to accept her offer of the daily food-leavings- they, it's good stuff, even if it is a day old. She and Momo have eaten those leftovers plenty of times.
She nods along with Mamoru's assessment of the situation, about loving someone and wanting to protect them even if you know they don't need it. This is a feeling she can very strongly comisserate with.
And at the end, as Chibiusa picks up her sack of food, she adds, "Sailor Moon is really nice, kid. Like, really. Nicern' this dude here," She jerks a thumb at Mamoru. "And that's sayin' somethin' cause that ain't hard to do. You should call- I know she'll help you. She's helped me plenty of times." She offers a lopsided, one-fanged grin.
"And, thanks for your business!~" This is the standard customer farewell, delivered in that same sing-song tone.
Chibiusa doesn't have much to say to that. She's never gotten the chance to protect anyone before, so she doesn't really know how it feels. That's part of why she's here in the first place. If she had power -- if she could have protected Mama and Papa -- but it's better not to think about that right now. She has yummy food waiting for her, she doesn't want to ruin it by getting all sad.
"Luna-P?"
There's a poof as her gun turns back into a little ball head, which then comes bounding her way from across the store. She puts the bag of food on the ground for a moment, reaches up to the counter on her tippy toes, then puts one of the hot dogs in between Luna-P's kitty ears. Somehow, it doesn't fall off.
"I'm gonna go now," she announces, gathering her things together and walking past Mamoru towards the store exit. "You better talk to Sailor Moon soon, or else." She punctuates the oh-so-intimidating threat by stuffing the second hot dog in her mouth, walking with it half-uneaten out the door. After years of politeness conditioning, she can't stop herself from giving Kyouko a muffled 'thank you!' as she goes.
A strange way for a robbery to end, but all in all, Chibiusa can't say she left unhappy.