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Chapter 3: Preperations

Chapter 3: Opening

There are many journeys you partake in alone, but there are few journeys you finish alone. If I truly want to have a successful store while enjoying my high school life I will need a partner in running the store.

I decided to take a day off from making products in order to brainstorm who to invite as my partner. I have a few ideas in my class, but those are more of backups than anything.

The person can't be as active in their class or as social as someone like Ichinose, but I would still like them to be as kind and passionate as her.

I was reading a book in the library while brainstorming, that's when in the corner of my eye I saw a girl reaching for a book on the highest shelf. I don't like to get involved in things like this, but it should only take a moment.

I walked over to the non-fiction isle and grabbed the top book and as I was handing it to her the title caught my eye.

Cicero by Anthony Everitt

(A/N: this is my favorite book and anyone who likes political philosophy or history should definetly read it)

"Do you read about the Roman Republic often?"

"No, but I figured it was about time I educated myself on the western ancient classics."

"I see, this is a great place to start."

"My name is Shiina Hiyori, what's yours?"

"Ayanokoji Kiyotaka"

"Its nice to meet you, Ayanokoji-kun"

"Likewise"

We chatted for a while about the various books that we like. Mystery novels, classics, romance, fantasy, history, all sorts of different genres. It was clear to me that she loved books maybe more than I do.

After chatting for a day, I got her phone number and made plans to meet at the library tomorrow.

As I closed my eyes, it dawned upon me that I found the best partner I could imagine.

I woke up to a Sunday which would prove very fruitful. It was 5 o'clock when I woke up and I immediately into my work clothes, grabbed an apron, and head off to my store.

The store was just as peaceful as always, aside from the part where I left my youtube on autoplay for over a day and my classical music turned into live squid mukbang, this was interesting,

After shutting off the foul audio, I got to work on today's project.

Cologne

Everybody needs it at some point, but quality differs very heavily on products with very similar ingredients.

I start by grabbing a large bowl and mixing all the basic ingredients together, which is the easy part aside from research.

The hard part is getting just the temperature for mixing just right. The alcohol and glycerine were the easy parts. Before heating everything up I pour into 4 different burners for the different scents I'm working on. And the hard part comes now in maintaining the perfect temperature as I slowly add the ingredients.

I start with cedarwood, it's a classic with the perfect feel to it. When you come in for a hug, it fills your nose with a comforting scent, like you are in a secluded cabin with your loved ones. After pouring the perfect amount of my distilled resin, I pulled it off the burner and onto the cooling rack.

The next one is a smaller batch due to being less popular, and that's the whiskey and oak. This is a favorite of the overly masculine and I can't blame them. You can fit many aesthetics with this scent and all of them exude the Teddy Roosevelt or Ernest Hemmingway level of macho. I even hear from people who wear this that smelling that scent before taking a risk helps their confidence.

This third scent is much more neutral than the other two, but still equally nice. Riverside as the name suggests, is the scent of a river. It isn't as macho as the other two, but rather is an inviting scent that you feel warmly welcomed to. This relaxing scent would be popular with guys like Hirata who wish to be kind and welcoming to all.

The last scent is my fireplace scent. It's still a masculine scent, but it's closer to the river on the masculinity spectrum than the whisky and oak. It's a simple scent, but not one to be taken likely. For people who grew up spending free time reading by a fire, this would be a heavenly scent for them. This is what you want to pick up introverted bookworms.

I placed the last large bowl onto the cooling rack, turned the burners off, covered the bowls with lids, and took one last whiff of each scent.

The results....

SUCESS

I let out a gentle smile after my hard work. I was covered in sweat after spending the last hour next to a gas burner, but in the end my hard work paid off and I was successful.

I needed to let them rest for the rest of the day and I put in 5 hours of work even before the taxing cologne project. It was time to call it a day, so I went to get some hamburgers before meeting Shiina at the library again.

I changed out of my work clothes and put on deodorant. Then went off to get hamburgers.

I didn't know anyone I saw at the burger place at first, but after sitting down and eating a certain Ichinose found me.

It was awkward at first, there were a bunch of Class B girls and I only knew one of them. Yet, as time passed I got more and more comfortable in the conversation. Normally this should be impossible, especially when it comes to gloomy loners. But something was different about this conversation, it must be Ichinose's special ability "introvert inclusion."

We spoke for a while and I genuinely enjoyed it. Eventually, I needed to leave so that I wouldn't miss my meet-up with Shiina.

When I got there we spoke about books for a while until we got to the conversation I really met up with her for.

"Shiina, would you like to work at my store with me?"

"I will have to look at what I'm doing, but I'm sure working with you would be great!"

After talking over the details and having her check out my store she agreed to it.

"Thank you very much for the offer Ayanokoji-kun, I look forward to it!"

"Likewise, Shiina"

With the job of finding a partner over I got back to work finishing all my products. Time passed quickly and before I knew it opening day was tomorrow.

*Bzzzt*

My phone went off at 11:00

"Hello?" I answered

"Its Hiyori, do you have a moment?"

"Of course."

"Im just anxious, we've been working so hard over the past few days. How do we know it won't go really bad?"

"We can't know, nobody can see into the future. But if things go horribly tomorrow then that is tomorrow's problem. All we can just do now is to prepare for tomorrow."

"What should I do?"

"Sleep, I can't have a tired Hiyori when I'm trying to focus. You might fall asleep and snore."

"I don't snore!"

"Then prove it, go to sleep."

"You can't hear me, that wouldn't prove anything."

"Exactly, so I'll pick on you a bunch tomorrow about your snoring habit."

"No fair!"

"Goodnight, snore monster"

"Goodnight, meanie!"

I hung up my phone.

Somehow after talking to her, I was able to close my eyes peacefully.