Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was finally near closing time and Derrick was happy that he could soon go home, or at least he could see what the heck had been going on outside. Currently he was fixing the wall shelves that contained the cards and putting them back in their correct places and making notes of what they did and didn't have in stock between the cards and envelopes. Most of the other shelves in the store were almost empty, which usually happened during this season. For some reason, people wanted to buy ornaments and other small gift-items while they weren't on sale, which was fine with the owners of the store.

There were only about 4 large aisles in the store, after all, it was a mom and pop shop and while they were popular enough to make a profit, they weren't popular enough to justify buying a bigger space and more employees. Derrick was happy about it though, it meant that he didn't have to worry about coworkers most of the time and could read if he wanted. Though he hadn't been able to yet during the holiday season, but that was fine with him. It just showed that people wanted to keep this store open.

Speaking of opening, Derrick was wanting to see what the heck people were oohing and aahing about outside the store. It had happened a couple of hours ago when the snow finally decided to take a break and stop for a bit. He had customers since then, but he had been too busy to make conversation, and most of them wanted to get in and then get back out.

He sighed, putting the last card in it's place, and walked over to the register with the pen and notepad he had in hand to take notes with. Only 10 more minutes until the store closed, and he was hoping he could go home quickly.

Derrick was looking at the computer, quietly putting in the supplies that were needed and other things that he needed to do before closing the store. Suddenly though, he heard the door open loudly, and he had barely gotten out the standard greeting of, "Welcome! How can I he-" when he was surprised at how fast the girl that had just come in was going. Well at least I shouldn't have to wait on her long. He thought as he watched her quickly scan the shelves for some cards.

Eventually she settled though and raced over to the register and put her purchase down, adding some mints to it. He wanted to laugh at her, since she seemed to be extremely worried that she had made him angry in some way, but he kept a straight face. "You are fine, it still isn't yet closing time. We have 2 minutes, see?" Though even if she had gone a bit over, he would wait on her as long as she didn't take too long.

That was the nice thing about this store, or at least the owners. If he asked for a day off, he usually got it, so he tried to make up for it and work as hard as he could. Also he thought it helped with his, unfriendliness, a bit, though he wasn't too sure. He rung her purchase through the register, and performed the steps required of him, before looking at her again. "All right, now you can put your card through." He had a sudden thought. "I saw a lot of people outside the store before, you have any idea what they were looking at?" Maybe some small talk would calm her down, or at least diffuse the situation if she thought she had inconvenienced him terribly.

Derrick smiled at her, but whether he wanted to or not, he was too excited to want to stay in the store too much longer, so he appreciated that she was so quick checking out. Though she seemed to be thinking deeply about something, as she did jump when he mentioned that she needed to user her card. But he really shouldn't complain, he didn't have to open early the next day at least, so he could sleep in for a bit.

She still seemed to be a bit distracted though, even when she was telling him about the aurora. He furrowed his brow. An aurora here was... weird. Something had to be up, and he instantly became suspicious of it. "Seen it? No, unfortunately not. I haven't been near the front of the store and when I have, I haven't been able to see past anyone." They were practically blocking all of the windows and the door. He was surprised that she had been able to make it in here in the first place.

He smiled at her though. "Hopefully it will be out there after I've closed. I don't need to clean up since I've already done that, so all I need to do is complete your transaction and count the drawer and I'll be on my way. Besides, it looks like it would be hard to see it through the crowd of people out there, but maybe they'll go away in a bit." Why they had decided to crowd in front of the store in the first place was a mystery to him. There were probably a lot of other, better places to actually look at some strange aurora in the sky that people probably should be more worried about.

The girl seemed to accept the idea, and it didn't take long for him to close the store. Luckily, it seemed that the girl could easily navigate through crowds, so when she took his hand, he just let her guide them until she found the planter and got onto it. He decided not to do so, just in case he broke something, but at least there was some space here to actually look at the aurora. "I see it!" And yeah, it was weird. Pretty, but weird. "I mean, I would be kind of worried about it, but mostly in a global climate change sense more than anything." He couldn't imagine that the Negaverse would be able to do something like this... could they? Didn't they like darkness better though? Why would they be up for making pretty lights?

"It's... interesting, though I would like to know why it's here more than anything." He would have to go back to his apartment and look it up to see if anyone could explain it, though he would have to make sure to ignore any of the conspiracy theory websites. "Thanks for navigating the crowd for me. It would have taken me a while just to get out of my store let alone get a spot like this."

Derrick wished she had heard the rest of it, but understood that she only had a limited amount of time. He admired how optimistic she was though. Stuff like this only made him worry nowadays. Being awakened as a senshi seemed to be both a blessing and a curse. He could now see what was behind the scenes but... he could also now see behind the scenes, and none of it was necessarily that awesome.

He nodded to her. "Sounds like you're going to be busy for a bit. Good luck with your cards!" He said, but blushed slightly at her wink. He sighed, and decided to make his way home, but not before snapping a picture with his phone. He felt like he should get some sort of memento of this, or at least evidence, and quickly made his way back to his apartment, glad that the crowd had started to dissipate as he was leaving.