His oppression

Let You Fall

Chapter Seven: LET YOU FALL

As much to my dismay, I still have work on the weekdays. I thought helping Clifford, Radwick whatever his name was again, I was going to be freed from my responsibilities. But of course that's too good to be true, I have my job to worry about and now this cursed man that wanted help which is nearly impossible for me to give. He could have approached a wealthy person who can provide his needs and that actually believes in the made up story he's so trying to convince me with. We wouldn't have to go through this problem. I wouldn't have to deal with his lying arse.

"You're going to work now?" Radwick came out of nowhere as I was fixing my hair in front of the mirror. "Can I come? I'll try to help."

"Can you talk to people? You can't." I groaned, too early to be dealing and being annoyed. "I'm at the front today."

"What do you mean by that?" his head tilted to the side like a confused puppy.

I looked at him before crossing my arms against my chest. "I'm going to be dealing with customers."

"Should you know I'm great with talking to people—"

"But you can't talk to people, that's the problem." I cut him off. "No matter how good you are at negotiating or just overall a good salestalker whatever, you still can't communicate with them."

"Yes, that is a major complication."

"Besides that, I'm not really going to talk to them. I'm just going to take their money, give them their change if needed and wrap whatever thing they bought." I looked back at the mirror, slapping my cheeks to wake myself up. "I'm not in the aisles to accommodate them."

"When are you?"

"When my boss tells me too? Or when my coworkers ask nicely if I could exchange positions with them." A small sigh escaped my lips before putting on the cap. "Fortunately for me, customers are scarce these days."

"Why?"

I brought out my phone to hint at it. "Kids are too caught up with these. We really can't do anything about it."

"That can make you, what, addicted?" his eyebrow rose up in curiosity. 

"Not only do you hold in your hand information about every single thing in the world, you can talk to other people across the globe." I said nonchalantly. "And play games with them. Anything is possible with a phone."

"Wow," he breathtakingly commented. "I have to get one of those."

"Sure." I took my bag and slinged it over my shoulder. "We'll go to a pawnshop for the ring you have on the weekend."

"Can I still come with you at your work?"

"Sure, just don't scare me like you did before." I said, getting out of the apartment, opening the door for him. "By the way, how do you do that?"

He followed suit. "How did I do what?"

"Your stupid doll, how do you move that?" I asked, looking at him. "The police think I'm the one doing that."

"But they have no evidence that you were the one moving the doll."

"No s**t, sherlock. Of course they don't." I sarcastically remarked. "They probably thought I was pulling some kind of scheme, decided I was wrong in the head and let me be.”

“Like you’re insane?”

“Duh.”

He nodded his head. He didn’t seem to mind my attitude towards him. My only guess was that he was just playing along since I’m going to lend him a hand or in that case. 

"People are scared of phenomenons they can't explain. In my time, people were scared of witches so whoever was accused of one was burnt at the stake."

That was a rather brutal thing to say. "And? How do you classify as a witch?"

"I guess most of the time it was just women who men bedded whilst having a wife. They say that the temptation those very women gave was almost unearthly and seen as sinful."

"That's not fair! Your justice system sucked!" it was an immediate answer. "Women are still judged by society to this day."

"Even so many centuries had passed?" he asked me.

I nodded my head. "How about the men that slept with other women? They should have their little friends chopped off. It's not always the women's fault."

I opened the passenger seat for him before closing it once he got inside. When I got comfortable in my seat, I drove off to work.

"I'd like to know more about your time, Aria."

"This era?" I chuckled sarcastically. "Same as the ones you know from history. People are still being oppressed, people with money are still at the top and it's still disgusting. I don't think there'd even come a time that we'd all live peacefully. Where we're all equal."

"I think your perspective on this kind of thing is very significant. You keep an open mind." he smiled at me.

I rolled my eyes at that. "I just want to get by, you know. Life is really unfair but what can I do if I want to live?"

Silence took over for the rest of the ride before I got out of the car. "Just get out from here." I directed before slamming the door shut when he slipped out of the driver's seat despite his large build.

"I don't know what you can make do for the whole day. Just don't bother me too much." I advised him, taking my bag from the backseat before beginning my journey towards another boring day at the toy store.

He had been walking by my side and I couldn't help but notice him staring so I looked at him with my eyes squinted. "What are you looking at, Radwick?"

"Radwick? That's close enough." he chuckled before beaming at me. "It's Radcliff."

"The same thing." I replied with a matter of fact tone. "Radwick and Radcliff, the same thing."

"It's fairly offending, don't you think?"

"Offending?"

"I told you my name and I expected you to call me by that." he replied.

"Look, old man, I'm not good with names. Be thankful I somewhat got it right."

"Alright, thank you." he said, still with the same annoying smile plastered on his face.

I didn't expect him to take what had been said literally but whatever. Going at the back door, I went inside and glanced around to see if anyone was there already. I was always a bit early for work, the remaining time that my co-workers haven't arrived yet, I use that time to mentally prepare myself for the day ahead.

Once I got out of the bathroom, changed into my work uniform, I looked at the memo on the bulletin board that was pinned. 

'The first employee to come to work will check the inventory as new supplies have recently been delivered. Check the inventory first before opening the store. Compensation will be acquired.'

"Nice!" I cheered to myself, taking the paper from the bulletin and folding it so no other person could take the compensation.

Sometimes, being early has its perks. And this is really unexpected.

"Let's go check the back." I told Radcliff, who was taking in his surrounding.

I started to walk in my leisure, appreciating the silence that surrounded the building. Each step I took echoed throughout the entirety of the empty halls. I loved every second of it!

"What are we going to do there?"

"Check inventory. It's kind of useless by now, really. This store had not sold out anything for a few years now. Sales aren't hectic anymore and it's kind of depressing."

He nodded his head. "Does that mean this store is closing down?"

I sighed sadly. "Unfortunately, it will come to that time where the store will close down permanently."

"That does sound kind of depressing. Where will you go?"

I shrugged my shoulders, eyebrows meeting in the middle. "I haven't really thought of that yet, honestly."

When we got around the back, I was amazed that the lights were finally fixed. There was no flickering and the environment wasn't so dim and dull anymore. 

"If you want to help, I need you to count the stocks we have right now." I told him, taking the clipboard and scanning over it to see what the toys were that needed a run through. "Will that be too much?"

"Not at all! I've seen you do it before. Counting is not hard unless you're illiterate." he tried to make a joke but it sounded so offensive so I managed to keep a straight face and went towards the first one on the list.

"Here," I pointed at the pile of boxes for lego trucks that haven't been put on the shelves. "They need to be stacked so can you also do that?" I asked, turning my head to look at him. To see his reaction too.

"No problem, Aria."

"I mean will that be a problem? You can move things, right?" I asked as I looked at the list once more. 

"Yes, I can move things."

"Great, now chop-chop! Get to work!"

I walked away to the other side just so I could start inventory with the other items on the clipboard. Help is always appreciated especially when one work is too much for me. I pretend I don't need it sometimes so I couldn't interact with the others, especially when they suddenly make plans out of the blue then I have to come up with reasons not to come.

I hear Radwick pulling on some muscles, carrying the boxes one by one to their designated shelves. Whilst I, on the other hand, occupied myself with counting the boxes for barbie dolls. 

I can't believe kids still play with barbie dolls these days.

I climbed up the stool to see if there were boxes on the shelves that weren't eye-level. It took a few minutes for me to get all the stocks there sorted and once I attempted to get down, one of the ladders broke and it left quite the noise that lingered throughout the warehouse.

"Are you okay up there, Aria?" Radwick asked from down there, a medium-sized box was in his arms.

"Y-yeah. I think I can get down." I told, looking at how high I was up the stool. 

And it made me quite nervous seeing as though I really hate high places. I'm probably just a few feet from the ground and I'm overexaggerating the trauma I was dealing with right now, I just don't like to be in this kind of situation.

Makes me really vulnerable. Let me tell you, feeling vulnerable is absolutely the worst feeling you can experience.

"Okay, I'm going down now." I announced, facing my back as the same direction as the ladder so I can climb back down.

"Ahh!!"

My foot slipped the minute I stepped on the ladder and I felt myself fall. This caused me to close my eyes tightly, just wanting the impact to be done already.

But the hard ground never made contact with my back and all I felt was something soft that broke my fall. A grunt was also heard from under me so when I finally had the courage to open my eyes once more, I saw Radwick wincing in pain.

Am I that heavy?

Swiftly, I got off of him when I've gotten back to my senses and pulled him up. 

"Hey, thanks."

"Anytime, Aria."

"You didn't have to do that."

"I'll catch you whenever you fall. That was high up too."

That—  I understood something else and before I knew it, my face was bright red.

"O-okay, thank you."