They had been standing around for quite some time.
It was quiet, the only thing breaking the silence was Kaminari humming.
He was about to fall asleep on the chair when they filled out their applications earlier.
Rye just kept biting his nails, and Yamikuro stared at the clock.
But that's when the bell jingled.
A man stepped in.
He seemed to be in his mid-20s, wearing a hoodie with some obscure logo on it.
His eyes scanned the three of them, and it looked like he regretted walking in.
Kaminari, with butterflies in his stomach, stepped near the man.
"Need any recommendations?" He asked, unable to keep his smile down.
The man shook his head.
"Uh, no, thank you."
But he then said in a hushed voice, "Didn't know this place hired kids."
Kaminari shrugged it off, following the man around.
Rye now pretended to organize some videotapes.
Yamikuro, watching from behind the counter, felt a nervous flutter in his chest. He didn't know what to do.
Standing around made him feel useless, and be a bad example to the man searching around the place.
But that's when his eyes locked onto the basket sitting near the wall. It was full of videotapes waiting to be shelved.
Finally. Something to do. It was simple, but useful.
He knelt, took a handful of them, and walked to the nearest shelf.
The titles were weird, like Sharknami 3, Romance Apocalypse, and Documentary of Dirt.
But at least they had clear genre tags.
Rye glanced over at Yamikuro while pretending to organize the "Classics" aisle, and he noticed Yamikuro grabbing videotapes and putting them on shelves.
He was actually doing something.
Rye appeared in front of the basket, from the other side of the place.
He grabbed a bunch of them, pushing them onto his chest.
From his point of view, Yamikuro just took them, looked at the titles, and placed them on random shelves.
Movies like Horrors of the Day, with the tag "Comedy" on it, were placed in the horror shelf.
And so happened with the other movies, being placed into random spots, a sci-fi next to a documentary on forest life, a romance next to a thriller, and so on.
Rye just put them randomly on the shelves without thinking twice.
While the two of them rushed around, and Kaminari kept a close eye on the customer, the bell jingled again.
Caelum entered.
The moment he stepped inside, the air shifted. Rye stiffened, feeling the cold Caelum brought.
But when Caelum smiled and greeted Yamikuro, everything returned to normal.
Was it the coldness from the outside that rushed in?
"Hello there, uhh..." Caelum said, his eyes dropping to the name tag, "Yamikuro."
Yamikuro nodded slightly, putting on a smile.
He didn't feel anything off, not even the cold Rye felt.
"Welcome to the movie rental store. If you need anything, feel free to ask."
Caelum chuckled, scratching the back of his head. His eyes scanned the store, being way taller than the shelves around.
But that's when his eyes met Rye.
Rye narrowed his eyes, a cold look staring back at Caelum.
Caelum raised an eyebrow.
"Have we met before? I swear, you look familiar."
Rye's seriousness quickly turned into something playful. He relaxed his eyes, raised his eyebrows and the edges of his lips.
"Don't think so. Did you need any help?"
The three of them stood in a three-way position for a second too long.
Then, as if there wasn't even a silence between them, Caelum looked at the shelf next to Yamikuro. "I'm looking for something thought-provoking."
The genre next to Yamikuro was "Drama."
"Uh, I got just the right thing," Yamikuro said, feeling the weirdness of the situation. He tried to ignore it, feeling the woman standing near the back door that led to her office.
Caelum stepped next to him, grabbing the tape Yamikuro handed him.
"Death is inevitable two?" He said, inspecting it.
"I don't think we have the first one, but you can watch it without knowing anything about the first one. Trust me." Yamikuro lied through his teeth. He barely even watched movies.
Caelum raised an eyebrow. "Hm."
As the awkward triangle slowly dissolved, more customers began entering.
And it got out of hand quickly.
An elderly woman who looked like she might've walked out without paying. A teenager who was there to kill time. A couple began sorting through the tapes. The store became alive.
There was some quietness, before...
"Hell, like I care. Your taste is mid... something!" Kaminari suddenly yelled at the customer with the hoodie.
They started cursing each other out, the entire store hearing it.
Then, a woman started complaining about the movies on the shelves.
"Why is Murder High in the comedy section?!"
Rye, who stood nearby, snorted.
A woman walked out disappointed.
When she asked Yamikuro for a movie recommendation for her five-year-old, he gave her an awkward smile.
Yamikuro handed her a horror movie about clowns because it had bright colors, and the cover wasn't horror-like.
The woman didn't return a smile.
Within just half an hour, the store was in a disaster.
The woman at the register, who was the owner, walked out of her office again, seeing all of it unfold.
Suddenly, when Kaminari tried to squeeze through people, he stumbled and pushed over a shelf.
The tapes flew everywhere, some even possibly got crushed.
The woman had had enough.
"What is going on in here?!" She yelled.
Yamikuro and Kaminari stared at each other.
Rye was gone already.
She felt her blood boil. An angry expression appeared.
"GET. OUT. NOW."
The entire store froze.
"I will report this to the police!"
The two of them didn't need to be told twice, and they left, along with the rest of the people.
Outside, the air was much colder than before.
"Great. Just great." He said. "What the hell was that?!"
Yamikuro was out of breath from shock. His heart beat out of his chest.
"How did it go so wrong so fast?"
Kaminari's voice quavered. "I don't know, man. But we didn't even get paid!"
"And where the hell is Rye?!"
But that's when they spotted him standing further away from the building.
"Any second now," Rye said, as the two of them approached him.
"Any second until what?" Yamikuro asked, staring at the building.
Just as he asked, the store owner, the woman who hired them, walked out hands cuffed.
"W-what the hell?!" Kaminari was startled.
"That woman never planned on paying us. Didn't you think it was weird she hired us so fast?"
Yamikuro and Kaminari both shook their head.
"She, in fact, planned on making us stay in there until we became her puppets. That's her power." Rye bit his lip. "It was obvious when all of us immediately got to work when we could've just slacked off and gotten paid. We were puppets as soon as we signed the applications, but by making her want us gone for ruining her business... Which she in fact uses as money laundering, we escaped."
Kaminari's mind was stuck. He squinted one of his eyes.
"Uh... What now?"
Yamikuro clapped his hands together. "I see, so her power was creating puppets that she could control. And we fell for it."
Rye nodded in response. "Yeah."
But as they were standing around, drops of rain fell from the clouds above them.
"Whateverjustexplainittomelater, we need to get inside." Kaminari rushed his words, and started running.
Yamikuro had no choice but to follow, while Rye disappeared and reappeared inside the dorm.
Kaminari bemoaned as he rushed into the dorm, dripping water.
Yamikuro was quiet, but quickly took off his clothes, leaving only a t-shirt and pants on.
"Damn it! We spent all this time for nothing!" Kaminari felt frustrated.
Both of them walked upstairs without saying another word.
What a failure.
After some time, they returned.
Kaminari threw himself on the couch after changing clothes in his room.
He leaned towards the TV, but that's when he spotted something.
"T-t-that's... The console...!?"
Yamikuro rushed to him, and sure enough, it was there.
The console they worked so hard to get lay beneath the TV.
"Angel must've bought it," Rye said, appearing on the couch next to Kaminari's.
"Where are you getting that from?" Yamikuro was confused.
"Cedar would never buy something like that."
"Awesome!!" Kaminari jumped from excitement, turning on the console.
Four controllers were attached to it, and Kaminari threw one to Yamikuro and another to Rye.
They spent the evening playing together, without knowing this event would play out similarly again, on a bigger scale.