Konbini Ossan Volume 1 Chapter 1 – Single, 35-years Old and Living Alone

My name is Yuichi Otsugi. My hair’s a mess — unkempt and wild.

Dark circles under my eyes from lack of sleep, sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, slouched back — a withered 35-year old man who doesn’t even try to fix his pathetic appearance.

I work at a convenience store.

As usual, I shovel down some plain rice and miso soup before heading out for my night shift.

I leave my rundown apartment, which only costs ¥30,000 a month. My room’s on the second floor, and it’s so old that the entire building creaks noisily with every step down the stairs.

Still, I’m grateful to the landlord for keeping such a beat-up place available—for ¥30,000 with a bath, that’s practically a miracle.

It’s 6 p.m.

I hop on my bike and head to work. The store is only ten minutes away, so commuting is a breeze.

The early evening air feels refreshing as it fills my lungs, and I pedal with a light rhythm.

I soon arrive at the store, park my bicycle in a corner of the lot, and head inside through the entrance.

“Good evening,” I say.

A housewife working the evening shift responds half-heartedly,

“Good eveni~ng.”

I catch her lazy reply behind me as I walk straight to the back office.

You can't afford small talk near the register—not unless you want to get complaints from customers. It’s better to avoid unnecessary risks.

If I need to talk, the office is always an option.

Without clocking in, I start working on the shift schedule.

Today is the submission deadline for next month’s shifts. Since I’ve been working here a long time, I’m in charge of organizing everyone’s schedules.

There’s no time to do it during the shift, so I always come in early and get started before clocking in.

But building the schedule is no simple task.

Everyone tends to want the same days off. Even when that’s not the case, it’s not uncommon for several days to overlap in terms of time-off requests.

And of course, the store’s owner insists on hiring the bare minimum number of employees. That means we can't afford to be understaffed—no matter the day.

On top of that, many people don’t even submit their shift requests on time.

New part-time students often forget, sure. But even older staff sometimes fail to turn theirs in.

Some just assume, “If I don’t submit anything, they’ll schedule me like always”, and leave it at that. Others genuinely forget.

So I have to call each of them individually to confirm — Even if they get mad and bark, “Isn’t it obvious? Just make it the usual!”

At this point, I’m used to it.

———

By the time I’ve finished organizing half the schedule, I look at the clock—it’s already 8 p.m.

And wouldn’t you know it—today’s one of those days with a gap in the shift.

Originally, my night shift starts at 10 p.m. but there’s no one to cover those missing two hours. And I’m the only one who can step in.

I stop the scheduling work mid-way, tidy the desk, change into my uniform, and head out to the floor.

“Switching in.”

“Thanks for your hard work~”

(E/N: Otsukare~)

The evening shift student steps into the back office.

Until 10 p.m., there’ll be two of us handling the store—me and the remaining student worker.

This time of night, we get a lot of salarymen heading home from work, so the register gets super busy.

That means we can’t really take care of other tasks like we should.

Cleaning, stocking shelves, front-facing the products — these are things we’re supposed to handle during this shift, but it just isn’t possible right now.

——————

E/N: Hello to the readers and thanks for reading the 1st episode of the first volume of Konbini Ossan. Funnily enough, it's my first time translating and editing so… please be gentle… orz.

Even though this is machine translation, I'm the one editing so please forgive the (annoying) Editor Notes in between. Let's get along and get to know each other as chapters pass by.

Also, if the readers find any problems while reading or any changes you want me to make, feel free to rectify me. And, if you have any WN suggestions, please drop the name in the comments, yo!

——————