An Unlikely Pair

IV: An Unlikely Visit

There is a particular store in Liverpool that hardly anyone knows. It's a store that tends to sell inventions and products already made, but in a reimagined way. Rubbish cans that are glorified boxes with four wheels; radios the size of a television; cars that took away their backseat for a toilet, bookshelf, and tea maker.

This tiny store in Liverpool was owned by Kris' brother, Wilson Hendrik.

It wasn't a family business, but another person in her family who ran away to fall horribly.

Though Wilson didn't think of it like that.

Mostly because most of the products in the store weren't completely made by him, but by struggling "visionaries" who Wilson loved to help through his business. Because of them, he had been able to gain enough money yearly to stay open, but not enough to make it big.

This resulted in Wilson hiring Kris for her first job and making Kris his first employee.

This resulted in Kris hating Wilson and regretting her first job.

Not that Wilson treated her badly, but Kris couldn't stand the business. To her, it was filled with jealous old farts who couldn't handle people coming through their ideas much earlier than they did, with actual self-confidence in their ideas.↳

The pay was pretty pathetic too.

A measly £5 pounds per week.

Annoying her even more was how Wilson justified it to her.

"It takes a lot of money to maintain this store. Since I don't have enough sales, I have to dock your money that badly. Hey, at least you can buy a Dream chocolate bar!" Which he suggested in 2008, when they had been long disconnected.

That, however, was something she liked about him.
The very fact, his brain could not handle the future.

For some odd reason, he was always five years behind everyone else. Apparently, her parents had shown him too much of the past growing up, resulting in that mindset. The explanation never made any sense to her, but that was all there was to justify her brother's condition.

If the year was 2009 and everyone was talking about the new Avatar film, he was still talking about The Lord of the Kings; Return of the King, thinking it had just come out.

It didn't matter if you showed him a calendar or any proof of the real time. He would simply ignore it. Not of any spite or malice, but it was simply how his brain worked.

All of that led to Kris hopeful but dreading her visit to him.

She thought it would be a suitable job for Steph to get experience in, at least for the meantime, while Kris looks for a real job for herself.

She was thinking of asking the owner of her flat, but she had decided against bothering him with this sort of thing after everything that had happened.

It was better for her to go to someone she knew quite well and wouldn't know of her recent self.

'Though I wish he would pick a better spot for his store.'

Kris thought that because her older brother's store location was right next to a church and across a graveyard.

By his logic, customers would come running to his shop after church, or if they were grieving and needed something to cheer themselves up.

However, there were two problems with that.
Minus the obvious issue, Kris didn't think that people in mourning would come running to a building with flashing lights and signs trying to get customers to enter.

Kris started to regret her decision, but he was their only choice for Steph's potential job.

At least, she would hope he'll hire her.

Passing by the row of signs, she stepped up to the door and knocked three times.

Immediately the door flew open like a wave knocked on the door to reveal a tiny boy with huge googles on his forehead, messy and overly long brown long and very dirty overalls.