Zeno Act 2. Chapter 12 Focus on the Now

I checked the time. It was eleven forty eight. Not a single customer had came in the past hour. At any case, the floors have been mopped and some of the inventory have been taken accounted for. There was still plenty of chores that need to be taken care off, but the time to end my shift was coming soon, and I had no intention of working a second of overtime.

Eventually the welcoming bell chimed again as the doors opened. A familiar lady walked through the opening door. Catching my attention I glanced over my shoulders to see her figure.

She was panting slightly as sweat crowded her face. It trickled down to her neck and licked the collar area of her clothes. There was enough sweat to make her upper lip of the white shirt become transparent under the store lights. Any lower and the world would know what color bra she wore. Her purple hair was in a mess and even her legs buckled a bit. This pretty girl must have been running for some time.

However it wasn't her physique or attire that really caught my attention. Her actions instead speak a different story. After waving to some of her co-workers, she glanced back behind her. Her expressions seemed slightly worried about something.

She left the doorway and rushed towards the nearby glass panes and peered through in both directions.

It was around then did I catch some more familiar goosebumps. It was that intense gaze I felt from the street earlier. Is it possible that.....?

My sudden thought was interupted by somebody.

Alan looked towards the front to see her. "Wiz! Your twenty minutes late!"------"Sorry! Sorry.....haha." She was breathing so hard she couleld barely finish her sentence let alone chuckle afterwards.

That chuckle...hmm....

Eventually she managed to regain her composure and looked towards me. I immediately went back to my minding my own business, reading a book.

"Hey there Zeno." I lightly threw a glance to her. "I was wondering where you was. Thought you took the day off."----"Day off? And get my check docked? Funny....haha" Wiz smiled warmly back at me before chuckling.....again. I just stared back at her with the same "poker face". Was there really something funny?

"Anyways get changed. You look like a dog in summer." She pulled away from the windows and looked at me with utmost confusion. Her right brow raised as her left eye narrowed. Her lips tightened, twitching  slightly before responding.

"You trying to ridicule me or something?"----"No? I was making a simple metaphor that explained your figure." Her left extended outward towards my face. If she was going to slap, I woule have easily blo.....!??

Her left hand did indeed reached for my face, but not for a slap like I assumed. Instead while some of my focus shifted to her outreaching hand, I didn't even notice her right hand coming in as well. By the time I even realized it both of her hands was pulling my cheeks in opposite directions.

"Choose better words next time okay?" She replied with words that were clear and precise. Usually if a woman really was offended by that they would have a more angered expression, but hers came off as a mixture between tiredness and slight annoyance. Hmm....maybe next time I should say "You look like a bitch in heat.", and see what type of expression I'll get from her then. At any case she walked towards the back end of the store to go get changed. By the time left elsewhere I already went back to my duties.

While doing that I got lost in thought of what the hell just happened with me. Under normal circumstances I should have been able to see both hands come my way, and more importantly have the reflex speed to react and counter accordingly.

This is what a majority of my basic training consisted of. Sure I may not have been no master of that aspect like Mom or Prim, but back then I had even seasoned men respecting the talent I had for it.

So what the fuck was this? From what I know Wiz isn't some super fighter. Even if I do take into consideration of the possiblity she trains and excersice daily, at the end of the day she is just an average girl right?....right??

Right.....so the problem obviously must lied with me. Was I feeling too uptight? No thats not right. If I was then only out of instinct would my guard been raised even more so.

.....I know I am tired as hell right now...but I shouldn't be getting sluggish....

Am I just getting rusty?

~~~

Wiz was seventeen years old, turning eighteen in a few months. She had long violet hair that reached to her upper half of her back. Her eye color was black with a sliver of purple underneath the pupil. She worked at this convience store for about two maybe three years. Probably since the paycheck was one of the best a student could grind for without having to deal with extreme labor, or unnatural hours.

With her busty figure, well shaped hips and her somewhat small size she was practically an inch or two above the qualification of being labelled a 'shortstack'. Paired alongside with her upbeat yet caring personality her presence has become an unintentional mascot that has attracted many of the male customers.

Though I really didn't appreciate the old geezers, and fat NEETs that would come by and "window shop" her body while getting their items. Can't tell you how many times me and Alan had to save her from uncomfortable situations. And it didn't help when the figure of her bosom was greatly shown off whenever she came out with the company's attire. Hell I caught even some of my co-workers glancing at her now as she made her way to the cashiers.

"Aight. Now what should I do?" She looked towards Alan. Seeing as how he was our  employer and the only actual adult here, he was the most experienced behind the counter. "Eh. The snack bar could use a bit of a cleaning. Zeno should already be there getting stuff ready." He replied, sounding stiff and serious like a manager.

I was indeed here with some dishrags and some pails of soapy water. However I was merely hanging about by some counter reading a magazine of various topics. Your goddamn right I going to slack off on my final hour. "Alright." She said in a monotone voice before walking towards me.

"I already replaced the ice." I said, referring to the drink bar machine. "Seems like all the customers from earlier today been grabbing an extra bit of ice then usual." No surprise since summer would be around the corner after a month or two. However my words seem to fall upon deaf ears. "Ah cool." Wiz was pretty zoned out as she began cleaning out the cabinets and marble counters. The sounds of cloth wringing, and water splashing filled the silence between the two of us.

Odd.....I mean I get it. Its late and we are forced to finish out this work so we don't risk our pay being put into question...however she looked to be in a bit of a daze. Since I was cleaning with half assed effort, probably due to tiredness and/or restlessness(?), I was able to focus a bit on her and noticed a rather misplaced emotion.

From her movements alone I could that underneath her usual happy face that I had gotten accustomed for two years, there was a slight expression of unease that I was able to perceive.

"How your holding up?" I eventually asked. I was expecting no response and wondered if things would get more 'awkward' but she actually replied with something. "Huh?" Wiz slowed her pace and looked closer towards, but not exactly, my direction. "You seemed pretty out of it when you arrived."----"I was just running hard.....haha." There was that laugh again.

In just this night alone I could tell that chuckle is a little niche of hers. She would oddly chuckle softly at things that didn't seem remotely hilarious. It would be one thing if that happened every so often with few in between but she was different. Instead she would chuckle at moments of converstations as if to hide and/or gloss over something. And judging from her looking back through the windows earlier ago, 'hiding something' seemed to fit the bill better.

"Running hard and repeatily glancing over your shoulders is two different things." Any sounds related to her cleaning ceased. Seems like she paused for a second to glance over to me. Her stare seemed to have an orthordox mixture of both confusion and surprise.

Her glance lasted for some seconds, but I didn't pay too much attention to her before going about my business. I could be mistaken, but for some reason in that moment she seemed like there was something she wanted to tell me. Though it wasn't long until she pulled what we like to call a "Ohgi moment". In the corner of my right eye I saw her mouth slowly forming into somewhat that resemblemed a smirk.

"Was you perhaps worried about me?" She teased. "Huh?" I didn't give her the reaction she was looking for. "You was paying sooo much attention to notice that much huh?"

"It wasn't anything like that." I responded, my face still blank with emotion, though I scratched the side of my cheek for some odd reason. Was it out of reflex or slight embrassment? Only God would know.

Either way Wiz chuckled softly, but this time it felt more geniuine and less forced. I did another quick full body scan of her. Seems like a majority of her unease dissolved, but I could tell that her guard wasn't lowered by much. Guess she just wanted somebody to talk to and distract her from her problems.

Unfortunately for you, I don't make for a good converstation partner.

This was when I decided to connect some dots. A cute girl like her walking to work in the middle of the night....."Your not being stalked are you?" This question compeletly caught her off guard. Her reaction told me I may have hit somewhere around the mark. With that I glanced back to the window panes out in the front.

Even with trained vision, without any tools like binoculars, its pretty hard to see much through the eyes of far placed windows, especially when its in the dead of night.

I couldn't see much farther then the glow of the traffic lights and street lanturns that lit the streets. Besides some cars whizzing by, the outside seemed pretty dead in terms of life. Looking back to Wiz, it seemed she too was glancing towards the windows once or twice. Her unease returned slowly but surely.

She slipped under the counter with her back towards the drawers. "Well thats a problem..."

"Heh. You going to protect me or something?" She nudged her elbow on my forearm in a teasing manner. "Sorry, but I'm no hero looking to save some damsel in distress.....On my own.....I'm not that guy... "

For a split second she was slightly surprised by my response. It wasn't clichéd or edgy. It was just painfully reallistic, and it was what it was. After looking into my eyes and pondering on thoughts of her own, she chuckled again before responding.

"Well it doesn't matter anyways. This world was never a place for heroes to thrive is it? So lets just forget about it. Just focus on the now and enjoy the present while we still can shall we?" She extended her hand towards me. Focus on the now...and enjoy the present? Huh... I lose myself in my own thoughts.

"Or we can just get back to work."-----"Buzzkill."

For the first time in a long while.....I was unable to respond to a sentence....