As May came to a close, so too was school. Dead week had been the last week of May, and now that it was June, all that was left was to take finals. Liona dreaded finals week all throughout dead week. Her studies had gone poorly, just as her listless mood had reached a peak. Depressed and not looking forward to just how badly she was doing on those tests.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, in early June, someone else was suffering just as badly. Erik missed Liona greatly, and his dreams were haunted by the images of her beauty. Not just her physical appearance haunted him at night, but by the day, the aura of rose he always associated with her seemed to linger in places she had touched.
It was one such day that he was struggling to not think of her while he worked. It had started out as a bad day, but at least at his jobs in the morning and afternoon were a little forgiving of his distracted nature, since they knew he could not see his lovely mate. However, it was a different story at his evening job. This was one place he could not afford to be distracted.
As the evening of the first week of June in the latter part of the week wore on, Erik tried his best to attend to his job as a cashier, but his boss was making it difficult for him. At first, he was on the tills before one of his coworkers ended up sick and was begrudgingly sent home. It was then his boss ended up with his sights set on him. No matter what he did, it was scrutinized and criticized. Just as he was setting to a new task assigned to him, one not in his usual repertoire of checking out grocery items, he heard his boss stomp by behind him. He had just started to put stock from the pallet carts on the shelves when Mr. Deus criticized his speed at the task.
"Boy! You call that stocking?! Put a move on! We don't have all day! Chop! Chop!" Asmo Deus sneered down at the scrawny, gaunt faced kid that was beneath him. The kid never did anything right, and it was his job to put the fear in him to shape him up to be a proper man like himself.
"Sorry, sir. I'll do better, sir!" Erik tucked his head down and grabbed two cans, one in each hand, from the cart to place on the shelves. But that apparently wasn't good enough for him, for Mr. Deus grabbed up four cans, two in each hand, at once and shoved them onto the shelf with such speed and force they clanged against the ones he had already placed.
"There! You see?! That's how it's done! Now hurry before the damn customers see your sloppy work and think less of this store!"
"Yes sir. Right away, sir!" Erik tried to imitate what Mr. Deus had done, but his hands were too small and they trembled with the attempt to even hold two in one hand, let alone four at once with both his hands. As he was attempting this maneuver, his hands gave way, and he ended up dropping all the cans, where they clattered to the floor, denting them.
"You stupid idiot! How dare you drop store merchandise! Look there! You've damaged store property! That's coming out of your wages! Pick them up immediately!" Asmo had no patience for idiots that needed coddling. It was so hard to find good help. As he was turning away to let the incompetent fool clean up the mess he made, there was another clatter. He whipped around and witnessed the dropping of two more cans that had somehow split open.
"You fucking nitwad! Look at what you've done! How dare you treat this store's property with such disregard!" With that, he picked up the broken cans and threw them at the boy to teach him a lesson he wouldn't forget about knowing his place and causing damage to his reputation as the store's general manager.
Erik didn't have time to react to his boss's actions. He didn't cover his face, nor did he duck. The can that was thrown hit him square in the face. All that he could see was the furious red he associated with rage, but it wasn't his rage. He wasn't mad, nor upset, he was just listless as his face dripped with creamed corn and a mixture of his blood. It barely registered that he had been hit honestly. He felt lost; adrift in the sea of life without his precious Lia. Even when his boss grabbed him by his wrist, and felt close to breaking, he couldn't muster enough strength to even protest, much less cry much more than a slight, "Ow!"
"You there, sir! Halt! Unhand that boy!" Leon, who had been an aisle over and heard the entire exchange and had looked up in time to see the store's general manager, in the bubble mirror, berating and throwing a canned good at a young man who had been diligently stocking shelves just a moment ago.
"Butt out of this! This is between me and my criminal employee!" Asmo was seeing red. He couldn't stand weaponized incompetence and when it was shoved in his face such as with this shithead of a kid. He dared to break store property, which counted as theft; and by golly, was he going to pay for every kernel of that corn dripping over his head!
"I think not, sir. By my reckoning that's a young alpha you've got your hands on and you sir, as an older alpha, are overstepping your authority, even as his boss…" Before Leon could identify himself, the man had the gumption to put his hands on him too!
Asmo attempted to shove the nosy customer out of his way just as he was about to haul the kid off to the front of the store to call the police for his theft of company property. But the lean man's build belied the muscular structure hidden well by a fancy vest and shiny gold chain that was attached to one buttonhole. Before he could react, the man had pried his hand loose from the boy's and was twisting it behind his back as he was shoved face first into the shelf. No matter how he struggled to free himself, the iron grip was firm, yet not damaging any bones.
"What is this?! Unhand me, you buffoon! What right do you have to interfere with the punishment of this thieving little runt?!"
"Every right, when it involves the abuse of a minor, an alpha, and that of a superior in not only age, but the workplace! I am the head of the Epsilon Enforcement Agency and you, sir, are the only one I see breaking the law!" Leon was firm in his hold with many years of practice under his belt, dealing with unruly alphas.
Restraining the grocery manager with one hand, he took his phone from his pocket and tapped out a message requesting for a couple of officers to show up to aid him. While he was doing this, he turned to the young boy who hadn't moved an inch from where he had sunk to the floor after being released from the grip of the man in custody.
"Are you alright, young man?"
Erik barely heard the man. The numbness he felt made it difficult to really pay attention to what was going on at the moment. He was, however, fixating on the faint rose aura coming from the fancily dressed man that was holding onto his boss. Barely mumbling an apology, thinking that yet another rich man was berating him for existing in their space, he tried to get up off the floor to move out of sight for fear of offending the man further. As he put weight on his hand to push himself up, he cried out quietly and sank back down.
His wrist was painful, so much so that he couldn't put weight on it. He then attempted to crawl away from the two men, but again was impeded by his wrist's pain. When he finally figured out how to lift himself using his other hand on the shelf, he limped away, not realizing that he was doing so. Getting away from the two men was his priority. The clashing colors of champagne and the red of rage mixed with a sickly yellow color that was almost a green that always emanated from his boss made him physically ill and he could not afford another workplace demerit by getting sick all over the store's floor.