3

The shop suddenly fell silent.

All that could be heard were the loud, complaining customer and Pinea’s meek voice.

“You sold me this crap and now you say there’s no refund!? Does that make any sense!? Are you crazy?”

“B-But…!”

If even one grape had been left, we could have tasted it and judged, but with nothing left it was hard to give a refund on our own unless it was the branch manager.

“Making a fuss over nothing. You’re killing my mood. I don’t have time, refund me now!”

In situations like this, a senior needs to step in quickly to handle it.

‘Where’s the senior?’

I looked around and saw the senior hiding among the trainees just watching.

‘Guess I shouldn’t expect anything.’

I thought I was the worst here, but there was someone almost as bad.

She’s a boss you should never get close to. I added her to my mental list of workplace villains.

Look: Pinea spotted the senior and sent her a pleading look, but she blatantly ignored her. As the complaint dragged on, customers in the shop started frowning and either left or stopped browsing and turned their attention this way.

“This isn’t good.”

I remembered my student days working part-time at a cinema. Coworkers who quietly cried in the back because of a few terrible customers. Managers who didn’t hesitate to kneel to placate them. Many friends ended up quitting after enduring it.

This situation wasn’t much different, only the setting had changed. The problem is that if this keeps happening, not only the current customers but future ones will drift away.

‘No one wants to shop in a bad mood.’

I’m still not adapted to this world, so finding another job right away would be difficult. I couldn’t even afford my meals; if sales wobbled because of this and I got fired, that would be bad. Especially since I’m the worst performer here, I’d be first on the chopping block.

‘Being unnoticeable and quiet is a workplace virtue.’

Still, I had to survive for now.

‘Send them out quickly and efficiently.’

I asked the customer I was dealing with for permission. Their face was obscured by a black robe pulled over them, so it was hard to read their intentions, but they soon nodded silently.

I took a deep breath, fixed a smile, and went next to Pinea.

“Hello, customer.”

“Who are you?”

You must never show emotion here. It’s the key point in customer service.

“If there’s anything bothering you, I’ll help resolve it. Please tell me freely.”

I felt Pinea’s wide-eyed gaze beside me.

The troublemaker glanced me up and down for a moment, then started repeating the same tedious story.

“So that wench says she can’t give me a refund, to me! Huh? What nerve!”

I had to smile.

“Is that so?”

Be friendly but not servile; project an air that you won’t be shaken no matter what nonsense they spew.

“You say the grapes tasted bad, so of course we’ll refund you.”

“…Huh?”

Pinea’s eyes wavered toward me in surprise. It was a silent worry asking if this was okay.

‘Instead of wasting energy on a rude customer, it’s more efficient to think of it as if I bought and ate the grape myself.’

Of course I had no intention of paying for it myself.

The troublemaker hesitated at that and then suddenly raised her voice.

“Ah, earlier you said no! Aha, so this employee just didn’t want to refund me!”

‘Why does this bitch complain even when we do it.’

My smile deepened. But inwardly I kept chanting patience.

“That’s not the case. We’ve never had someone bring an empty item and ask for a refund, this is the fi-, um, rst time; perhaps our response was clumsy.”

“…!”

So what I meant was you’re the first customer to request a refund this absurd way.

I lowered my lashes apologetically and said.

“Until now, when there was an issue with a product, customers brought the item to us to be inspected, so we didn’t anticipate this situation.”

“Wait, so I…!”

The troublemaker’s face flushed red as she realized what I meant. She tried to say more, but I beat her to it.

“I’m sorry for the confusion. From now on we’ll write our refund policy more clearly so there’s no misunderstanding. We’ll make an exception this time and help you with the refund, would that be okay?”

That meant there would be no second time.

“Ah… well…”

Perhaps suddenly conscious of the surrounding eyes, the troublemaker’s combative mood rapidly cooled.

“May I process the customer’s refund, senior?”

Everyone’s gaze followed me to the senior hiding nearby. Startled, she quickly nodded.

“Do that.”

Everyone heard it, so she couldn’t later tell me to cough it up out of my salary.

Pinea wrote the refund reason on paper and handed the money back. The troublemaker’s brow was deeply furrowed, but she accepted the money without further comment.

‘It must be different from the refund process she imagined.’

She probably imagined abasing everyone, screaming abusive words, having them apologize in front of her, and getting back the price of the grapes. Now that reason came back and she realized everyone saw her as the problem, unless she had a heart of steel she’d want to leave quickly. At the very least, she probably won’t return here.

“Goodbye, madam.”

I finished without losing my smile. The jingle of the small bell on the door confirmed she had left the shop.

After a brief silence, exclamations burst out here and there.

“Wow!”

“My heart felt like it was going to stop.”

“Cornelia, you had this side?”

“Did you see the look she had when she left?”

“She’ll be too embarrassed to ever come back.”

I heard she’s a customer who regularly comes and causes trouble. Each time she came, the senior who handled the register was out, leaving the trainees to struggle with her.

“Today’s grape incident was historic, and you resolved it…!”

A few of the customers watching even clapped. The customer in the black robe, who I’d asked for understanding because of the troublemaker, was also still there.

“I’m a regular here, every time she came, it put me in a bad mood. Now I can come in feeling good.”

“You look young but handled it composedly, I’m surprised. I don’t think I could’ve done that.”

I couldn’t admit I stepped in because losing customers might endanger my paycheck, so I answered with an embarrassed laugh.

“Haha….”

Then my eyes met Pinea’s beside me. She glanced away briefly, then turned back to meet mine.

“Th…ank…you.”

Her freckled cheeks had flushed so red they nearly blended with her orange hair.

“Oh. You’re welcome.”

I was surprised by the unexpected thanks, but it wasn’t a bad outcome since I seemed to have redeemed my image with a colleague who’d been hostile toward me.

‘Maybe it’ll be a bit easier to come to work now.’

As expected, work became easier after that day. When I went to work, I could exchange greetings with coworkers like any office worker and comfortably ask questions. Other duties like sales were assigned normally besides stock organizing.

Pinea didn’t pick fights like before. Nicola teased that getting sick once had made me mature.

‘It was not wrong, I nearly broke out in a cold sweat though.’

I couldn’t say the soul inside me was someone else, so I just laughed it off.

I had no idea how I had come here or why I was possessed. It had only been about a week, but one thing I felt clearly was that if I kept living like this, I’d end up living the same life here as before.

I hated it. I wanted to stop living just to get by each day.

‘People live here too, so there’s surely somewhere that needs my ability.’

My eye fell on a small mansion model on the display I was cleaning absentmindedly. A pristine tall house that looked like a noblewoman might live there. It was surely spacious enough to run around in shoes, with servants to keep the house in order.

‘Not a studio, I’d like to live in a place like this once.’

Dreams are meant to be dreamed. I tightened my grip on the model.

‘First, cover my meals and move out.’

I’ll quietly work like this, get my paycheck, pay my living expenses, and save some money. Then I’ll use the experience I gain to change jobs and plan the next step.

“Coco. What are you doing after work today?”

Thirty minutes before quitting time, Nicola asked while preparing to close the shop.

“Me? I’ll just go home, eat dinner, relax, and sleep.”

“Again? Go out sometimes. How can you live like that every day?”

That’s how most salary workers live.

Still, I used to play YouTube and do home workouts for health. It wasn’t easy to keep up, but thanks to it I stayed relatively healthy.

Looking at my scrawny arms again, I suddenly felt the need to exercise.

“Hey, Cornelia! Wait a moment.”

The senior called me over with a gesture. She’s the one I added to my workplace villain list last time. I wasn’t thrilled, I’d seen her worst side, but I wasn’t in a position to refuse, so I obediently followed.

We arrived at the storeroom. New stock had arrived and filled the space.

“Organize the inventory quantities for each item and finish it before you go.”

“Sorry?”

Trainees aren’t supposed to handle the incoming stock counts yet…?

“You know how to read and write, right? It’s not hard, so finish it today before you leave.”

Then she gave me a shove on the shoulder and left.

Being frail, I was shoved back like a sheet of paper and landed on my butt.

“Ugh….”

Looking at the high stacks of boxes, I could only give a disbelieving snort.

“Assigning this right before quitting time, that’s crossing the line, huh?”