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ciaossu-imagines · 10 months ago

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mini event - Eyeshield 21 with Retail Workers AU. Thank you sooo much

Oh, this was such a fun AU! Thank you, anon dear, for sending it in and I hope you'll enjoy the headcanons and the AU I came up with, though they are late getting to you!

Okay, I'm going to really show my age here, but I definitely grew up with mall culture of a sort, with malls being a pretty big deal and somewhere you went to hang out with your friends. Add to that the fact that as a Canadian teen, the show 6teen was a pretty big thing (anyone else remember that one?) for me. Hell, to this day, I still go to the mall and hang out and shop or window-shop with friends.

So, when thinking about this AU, I knew how I had to take this all. I mean, I have wayyyy too much retail sales experience and it probably would have been easier to really just focus on everyone working in, say, a Wal-Mart or an IKEA and all that, but I wanted to add a sort of extra layer.

So basically, I set this AU in a mega-mall. Basically, all of the teams sort of work in the different shops within the mall. Because of that, they're all really used to seeing each other, day in and day out, because they all are in the mall at least four to five days out of the week, they probably all eat in the food court for the most part and they all frequent each other's stores because it's just easier to do your shopping after work than go out and run errands on your days off. So everyone is at least surface familiar with everyone else and there's kind of fun little rivalries between the staff in the different stores within the mall, made even more so by the fact that the corporation that owns the mall holds a year-long contest for the 'best store in the mall', where the staff in whatever store has the best sales and customer service reviews on those stupid receipt surveys wins this grand prize. Last year, every staff member of Charms Diamond Center got a paid weekend trip to be used within the year. So the competition really ramps up that existing friendly rivalry and can actually turn it a lot less friendly at times.

So, we'll begin, most naturally with the canonical team of the Deimon Devil Bats. In this particular AU setting, I kind of see everyone as the staff in a sporting goods store…I'm such a dork that I actually based this mall and it's various stores on a map I pulled up of one of the mall's in my original province's major city malls, so for me, I'm kind of imagining it as a Cabela's on steroids, haha.

Anyway, for some reason that nobody at all can figure out, Hiruma is actually the store's manager. He scares most of the employees, especially since he seems to be able to dig up blackmail on most of them (and definitely stalks their social media) that he definitely uses to his advantage to get them to do what he wants them to do - which is whatever amuses him most, not really what the store actually needs. Add to that that Hiruma always schedules himself in the hunting section of the store, particularly behind the gun counter. The amount of knowledge that boy has with not only guns, but hunting knives, bow and arrows, and crossbows, and the ease with which he handles them kind of makes him all the more terrifying to the staff members.

The store's assistant store manager is Mamori and she's actually the one who ends up doing almost all the work, to be honest. Hiruma hates paperwork and boring things like keeping track of everyone's availability, so while he does create the schedule and decides where in the store everyone will be working any particular day, he leaves the human resources type stuff to Mamori, who double-checks the schedule, who makes sure everyone is getting their breaks properly, who deals with the customers who need to talk to a manager because those are all parts of the job Hiruma just does not give a shit about and honestly, she handles it wonderfully and is the first person the staff go to if they have actual issues or even just need a listening shoulder because working retail fucking sucks at times.

Sena is the newest staff member, only a few weeks fresh into his new job, and he is honestly both enjoying his new job and equally exhausted and terrified. The customers can be absolutely horrendous or the nicest people and that's not even going into how weird (and sort of wonderful) his coworkers are. Sena becomes one of the main three cashiers for the store and he's on the front lines of dealing with the customers. His work days are always hectic, always long, and sometimes incredibly brutal, especially if he gets a customer who wants to be a dick to him. Thank god he actually quite gets along with the other cashiers, because good coworkers can really make a shift so much better.

His fellow cashiers? Monta and Taki. Monta becomes Sena's work bestie and the two of them can get in some trouble from both Mamori and Hiruma for goofing off a little up by the cashes, especially if there's not a lot of customers around, because they should be tidying up and facing products up by the cashes but instead they're normally talking or playing around. And while Taki seems an unlikely fit for cash, or for the other boys to get along with him as well as they do, the fact of the matter is that Taki gives absolutely superb customer service and for some reason, even the most pissy of customers can't seem to stay mad at him. He always seems to be able to talk down angry customers and swoops in to save both Sena and Monta from rude customers often enough that the other boys really appreciate having Natsuhiko around, even despite the boy being a little loud and eccentric.

There is one additional cashier. Kind of. Yukimitsu mans the store's customer service desk, where customers go to process returns, to escalate complaints, or just because they're too lazy and entitled to bear standing in line for more than one minute. Honestly, Yukimitsu should be anywhere else in the store. He really should. He's not the greatest at customer service and he's always a nervous wreck but he also works so incredibly hard and his nearly encyclopedic knowledge of the store's policies, procedures, return processes, layout, and stock actually means that, while the customer's might not always like his answers, he never gives them the wrong answer and offers them every possibility in place.

Kurita and Komusubi act as the store's main receiving and inventory team. Everything being ordered into the store, everything going in and out, it all goes through these two. Jolly and good-natured, Kurita tends to be a favourite of every staff member in the store. He's one of the few that never gets bullied by Hiruma, not really, and he's actually known to be really good friends with both Hiruma and Musashi outside of the store, often seen eating or hanging out with them.

Speaking of Musashi, he really only works part-time. Most of the time he's busy helping out his family's construction business and his job at the store is really only to help him earn some extra money so that he can save up for things he wants or needs. He gets a lot of leeway from the management with how picky he is about his schedule, especially because, when he is at work, Musashi works hard and always steps in to help any of the other departments with issues. He's also the staff member who really doesn't seem to care at all about any rivalries with the staff from the other stores and who doesn't seem to give two spits about any competition.

Getting those goods out onto the shelves and the floor? It's the responsibility of the Ha-Ha Bros, three best friends from childhood who all joined the staff around the same time. These guys really just focus on getting stuff out on the floor and Mamori has actually asked all three of them, several times over, to find a sales associate from one of the departments should a customer ever so much as speak to one of the bros, because all three of them deliver the worst customer service ever. Kuroki in particular has actually had a full on fist fight with a customer he thought was being rude to him.

Taki, the cashier? His younger sister also works at the store with him…and asks that she not be assigned the same area or shifts as him because boy, though they love each other, those two can bicker and they can't seem to concentrate on their jobs with the other around to distract them. Suzuna gets assigned as floor support and sale in the outdoor recreation section, especially with the bikes, roller skates, and such.

Satake, Yamaoka, and Omosadake all work as floor support and sale in the Home & Décor section. Satake specializes in outdoor toys and recreation…a little too much. He'll sometimes unbox stuff and set it up, playing it with coworkers and even sometimes with customers that seem cool, much to Mamori's displeasure and Hiruma's amusement (because Hiruma is definitely playing and rubbing Satake's face in it when Hiruma beats him, which he does, every time). Yamaoka seems to have to deal with outdoor home decor most often and he frequently complains about how tiresome, boring, and dumb that section is, especially when he has to build and accessorize floor displays of the products. Omosadake, meanwhile, loves the decor section. He'll go to the back to grab overstock, especially for bedding, and hours later someone will find him asleep with his head on a throw pillow or one of those bed in a bags. Nobody's quite sure why he hasn't been fired yet, but he hasn't.

Ishimaru exists. Literally, he is a staff member but almost everyone forgets him, including his own coworkers and his managers, so he just kind of chills over in the hunting section, where he helps a surprising amount of customers build their blinds and suggests camouflaging techniques.

I won't get as into the ins and outs of how each person functions in their workplace and all the little interconnected relationships for the other teams, but definitely want to kind of talk about how each of them fit into the mall, where they all work and such.

So, along with the fast-food places in the main food court, this mall has a couple sit-down restaurants as well. One's a sports bar that serves food, probably like a Don Cherry's or some shit like that. But the other one is one of those 'fun' themed restaurants, where the staff have to dress up like knights or in medieval style dress while serving the customers. If your guess as to who works there were the Ojo White Knights members, you're absolutely correct. Sakuraba is the most popular waiter they have because of his looks, because honestly, he's not the greatest at his job and gets flustered and stressed easily, though he does try hard. Takami really manages the floor, while also helping serve, man the hostess section and whatever else needs to be done. Shin, in contrast to Sakuraba, is the least popular waiter because he's really not great at being friendly, but is actually exceptional at his job - everyone gets their food in a speedy manner, everyone's orders are correct, everything is perfect as far as the order and speed of service goes…he just really sucks at dealing with people. Ootawara and Ikari are part of the kitchen staff, for those wondering.

Okay, I admit that this placement makes no fucking sense whatsoever and is done just because the very idea of it makes me so very, very amused. The Shinryuji Naga team from canon work at a Spencer's. Just full stop, they all do. It's hit or miss if Agon shows up for his shift and he really just uses his job as an excuse to hit on women, particularly hanging around the sex toy section of the store and pretending to need to stock stuff around there or provide customer service to someone in that area. Unsui is just horrified by almost everything the store sells, doesn't much care for the customers, and is miserable but he needs the money to save for a car and college so he does the job and does it so well that he gets promoted to supervisor. The Saiyuki brigade and Yamabushi really do most of the floor work and Ikkyu is the other cashier and sales person really, a kind of happy medium between Agon and Unsui in terms of work ethic and how good he actually is at the job.

The Seibu Wild Gunmen work in a western wear store inside the mall. Kid is technically the store's supervisor and don't get me wrong, he doesn't mind doing his job, but as soon as his job is done, he just kind of wants to take it easy for the rest of his shift. Given that between Tetsuma, Riku, and Ushijima, most of the work is really taken care of in a quick and efficient manner, it's not too much of a stretch for Kid to be able to sneak an afternoon nap here and there in back in the office. They're also not really an overly busy store, since it is really a very niche store and overall, Riku's really the only one who cares a lot about the competition so they're probably the most chill about the whole rivalry thing.

The Taiyo Sphinx all work at a tanning salon. Harao, the supervisor, works mostly shirtless and oiled up as a way to advertise how great the salon's products work and how good they can make you look, just a personal headcanon I had for this one.

The Nasa Aliens actually work in a major grocery store chain in the mall. Panther actually works both there part-time and in another chain in the mall part-time, on top of being a student because honestly, he's not from a real well-off family and needs to work hard to survive. It makes the whole competition between stores thing a little harder on him because he loves his coworkers and doesn't mind his job at either place so he can't really figure out which one to stay completely loyal to and he really does just try to do his best while working at either place. Apollo is the store manager, he's not super well-liked among the staff and he's the only one really super into the rivalries, like the one to be mean and nasty and cut-throat about it all. The Gonzales brothers are stock boys, Jeremy works back in the office handling inventory and receiving, while Homer is one of the cashiers.

Another choice done simply because it really amuses me but the Kyoshin Poseidon…they all work at a Wal-Mart. Every single one of them actually hate their day to day jobs, but they're all kind of competitive people and while they never make the rivalries into some mean or cut-throat like the grocery store's manager, they all start putting a lot more effort into their jobs when the competition between stores start in earnest.

Okay, it only makes sense that the Bando Spiders are working in a Sunrise Records, right? Kotaro and Akaba really spend a lot of their shifts together fighting amongst themselves (and Akaba can be more than a little judgey about what the customers are buying) and the supervisor, Juri, really ends up having to make those two shut up, do their work, and be nice to the customers while trying to do her own job. They're not really a huge contender for best store because they just cannot seem to get their own shit together, but it doesn't stop them all from believing they can win it.

The Hakushu Dinosaurs, for again, no reason than that it amuses me, all work in a movie theatre chain located in the mall. Marco and Maria met through work and started dating and she really wishes that he'd stop taking her to the movies for dates because they get enough of that at work. Kisaragi mans the ticket booths more times than not and really gets the major brunt of rude or upset customers, poor guy. Gaou does most of the cleaning, while Tengu is mainly on concession duty.

The Teikoku Alexanders? The all work at a major chain book store, something like a Chapters or along those lines. Yamato is the front store supervisor and he's excellent at both finding good recommendations for people and providing exceptional customer service. There's really not a part of that store that he doesn't know like the back of his hand. Honjo is good at his job, but honestly, he kind of gets distracted and sucked into reading whatever book catches his interest that day and can ignore customers until he finishes whatever page he's on. Karin's specialty is in the graphic novels and manga sections and she's always called whenever people have questions regarding those. Overall, the book store is always one of the most popular places in the mall, helped along by the fact that the Starbucks is located inside the bookstore and they always have fantastic monthly numbers and seem to be the front-runners for winning the competition.

The Pentagram, including Panther in his other part time job, work as tellers in a local banking chain located within the mall. All the staff, with the exception of Panther, really kind of consider themselves above the rest of the mall staff, as they're bank employees and not just lousy retail slaves or janitors or mall security. While the chain in the mall is very popular and has amazing numbers, they're too cocky about winning and it's really just all agreed upon by everyone else in the mall that it would suck to lose, yeah, but it would suck even more to lose to the douches at the bank so they have to at least beat them.

To finish it off with some just random headcanons - Hatsujou works at a Charms Diamond Centre, Rui and Megu work at a Harley Davidson outlet in the mall, Munakata and Aoyanagi work at a natural wellness store, Sasuke Kanagushi works at a Hot Topic, Onihei is supervisor at Bath and Body Works, Kamiya works at the Dairy Queen while Chuubou works at the Starbucks. Riku and Riko Kumabukuro and Machine Gun Sanada work at the Apple Store, Miracle Ito runs a small photography studio located in the mall, Torikichi works part time at Lush, while Rodchenko works security and Henrich Schultz works as a janitor in the mall.

#replies #eyeshield 21 #es21 #headcanons #au headcanons #retail au #deimon devil bats #hiruma youichi #mamori anezaki #sena kobayakawa #monta #natsuhiko taki #suzuna taki #manabu yukimitsu #the haha bros #gen takekura

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