Konbini Ossan Volume 2 Chapter 26 — A Man Named Yuichi Otsugi
After Shuri-kun deliciously took my virginity, the two of us returned to the shop and completed various contracts in writing.
Arisa looked curiously at Shuri-kun, who seemed a bit worn out. But she likely didn’t suspect that Shuri-kun and I had done the deed.
Surely, we hadn’t been found out. Or rather, we must not be found out. If Arisa knew, she might genuinely start to hate me.
Living together while being looked at like filth by my own niece… That kind of hell is unbearable even to imagine.
And yet—
Thinking about it more, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad in the short term?
(E/N: You masochist freak Unc! 🤣)
Well, let's set irrelevant thoughts aside for now.
After signing the contracts with me and promising to formalize them later with official documents from the royal palace, Shuri-kun and Marceline went home.
Then the peak business hours came, which Arisa and I handled together, and night eventually fell.
There was no one left in the shop. At this time, we rarely get customers. Occasionally, non-adventurers drop by, interested in light magic stones, but they don’t always buy.
Naturally, it gets quiet. Since I can handle things on my own, Arisa now had her free time.
Normally, she’d take some silver coins and head out for dinner, but for some reason, she didn’t go today.
Instead, she sat next to me, like she had something she wanted to say.
“Hey, old man.”
And then she finally spoke.
“Why were you working as a convenience store clerk, anyway?”
“Why do you ask?”
I couldn’t quite grasp Arisa’s intent, so I asked her back.
“Well, you’re Yuichi-onii-chan , right?”
“I mean… I still am.”
“No no no! I know that! It’s just… you used to be this super smart big brother who knew everything, and I just wondered why someone like that ended up as a convenience store clerk. You seemed really like Onii-chan today.”
She said this with a red face. Apparently, it was embarrassing for her to compliment an old man like me.
To go so far as to ask such a question, even through her embarrassment — it must mean she’s genuinely curious.
As Yuichi-onii-chan, I must answer properly.
But... how should I explain it?
It’s not an easy thing to sum up.
Hmm. Alright. Let’s go through her doubts one by one and explain them in order.
“Well, first of all, the reason I was working at a convenience store… is because there aren’t many jobs for someone like me, who dropped out after repeating years in college.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. There are jobs like cheap food chain workers, caregivers, temp labor, or security guards… but the treatment isn’t that different. I just happened to pass the interview at a convenience store first.”
I explained while recalling those times.
For someone like me, with no social credibility, passing interviews is tough.
I don’t have great communication skills, and I’m not that young anymore.
There’s tons of competition: young student part-timers, high school graduates with good people skills, or experienced retirees.
Someone like me — neither young, sociable, nor experienced — could only get hired where there’s a serious labor shortage.
In other words, only low-paying, harsh jobs with bad work environments where employees quickly quit are left for people like me.
This is what came of spending all my college years buried in books, chasing only personal intellectual satisfaction.
No decent job offers remained for me.
I explained all this to Arisa in simple terms.
“If you loved reading so much, couldn’t you have become a librarian or something?”
“Being a librarian isn’t a job you can do just because you like reading. You need specific qualifications. It’s not something someone with my background can easily enter.”
When I was younger, I had the same naive idea as her. I quickly gave up once I looked into the qualifications.
“Then why did you repeat years and drop out of college? Couldn’t you have just graduated properly?”
“That’s because graduating became impossible. To graduate, you need to earn a certain number of credits. But I barely earned any in six years.
…
The maximum enrollment period was eight years. To get all the credits I needed, I would’ve needed at least three more years.
…
It was a dead end. Besides, I had almost no reason left to attend. Dropping out was the natural choice.”
When I said this, Arisa frowned.
“Why didn’t you just earn the credits then?”
Completely fair question.
But at the time, I had no intention of listening to such logic. In a way, I was a massive idiot back then.
“To explain that, I’ll need to talk about what drove me when I was younger.”
“What drove you?”
She followed up, and I nodded, deciding to be honest.
“When I was younger, I was driven by two things:
…
One, satisfying my thirst for knowledge.
…
Two, getting girls to like me.”
After I said that truthfully, Arisa looked completely exasperated.
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E/N:
Hmm, Ossan was delulu, huh? Maybe narcissistic too… We're to find out Ossan's past! Stay tuned.
P.S. I apologise for the late upload, I slept off last night after coming from a party. I'll upload two chappys as an apology. Enjoy!
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