Note: This is OMAKE for the second chapter of What You Carry With You (taking place during the time-skip)... However you technically don't need to know the ongoing series to get the gist of it. You can take this at face value knowing that: A) Tifa needs to restock her bar and B)She is thrown off by the fact that Rufus Shinra visited the night previous. She's on edge and quite cranky. Shopping at the bulk market? Only makes things worse.
Aisle 43
Hastily scrawled letters stared back at Tifa Lockheart from the small novelty shopping list paper she held in her outstretched hand. Every trip to GilMart she hoped would be her last. But she knew... oh how she knew that continuing to furnish her bar with the best of the best would mean returning to the ritualistic hell of bulk shopping. Taking a deep breath, crunching the paper in one hand and showing her GilMart Business! membership card, she stepped forward.Oh, Tifa... this is going to be a bad day...
From the outside, the building appeared to be a warehouse with only the gigantic neon sign and the hectic parking structure to belie its true identity. From the inside it... still looked like a warehouse. A warehouse from hell, she thought wryly as she pushed her way past the token rude couple who mistook her movement toward the shopping cart area to mean a threat upon their spot in line. But Tifa was patient. Dealing with a bar where anyone, anyone could stop on by without a moment's notice gave Tifa a great deal of patience.
Anyone. Tifa snorted as she wrenched a cart out of the line with a squealing sound. Like a certain president with his immaculate white outfit, the degrading smirk, the perfectly combed hair and the cold blue eyes... the command he held over others...
"Watch it!"
"Sorry!" Tifa slinked away feeling suddenly altogether too aware of her surroundings, of the rage she had momentarily slipped into that clouded... everything. Nearly running over an elderly woman's foot would do that to a girl.
That and the fact that, of all the carts she could have picked, she had to grab the one with the rickety old front wheel.
Creak. Creak. Swerve.
Making her way through the abundant crowd, past the electronics area, the jewelry, the quaint photo-department, Tifa knew this was going to be a long outing.
Half an hour later she was still shopping, still trudging though crowds that flocked the second a new box of Choco-Puffs was opened for free samples, pushing past anyone in the near vicinity. She was getting tired, and cranky, and damned if that red sweater she was wearing didn't itch. She just wanted to get back home, change, and open the bar for the night.
If only she could find the vodka.
In her cart clanked various bottles. There was the bulk keg of Nibelheim lager she knew was a favorite at the Seventh Heaven. There were a few cases of Shiva Ice that didn't go quite so fast but she personally found to be of good use on slow, mind numbing days. Then there was the nauseatingly large and heavy bottle of green olives she had found for a low, low price that begged to be purchased. She'd just make sure to push martinis on customers for the next few weeks. But none of that was entirely important. It wasn't what she did have in the cart that bothered her, but what she didn't.
Circling through the aisles over and over again, eyes sweeping back and forth, up and down, she simply couldn't find the Canyon Premium Vodka. And this was, in fact a problem. On her duty, her honor as a bartender (a bartender extraordinaire! as Yuffie had put it one drunken evening), Tifa couldn't fathom not having it in stock. But the more she circled and weaved, the more lost she felt. Where could it be? It didn't make any sense. GilMart always stocked it. Always.
Creek. Creek. Swerve.
And she kept. Passing. By. That. Same. Brand of red wine. The red wine he had been laughing sardonically over that night. The one she had dumped out from one of her fancy fluted glasses after she had chased him out of her bar. Tifa felt halfway disgusted just thinking about restocking it. It was expensive and no one wanted it but him.
Part of her justified that if she looked away from the wine on display fast enough she would forget it was there. And if she didn't stock the wine anymore, Shinra might get the hint and never return.
Never.
That would be nice.
Still she continued her hunt, passing things she knew she had passed before and cursing everyone from the people who stocked the store for changing its location, the GilMart designers, Rufus Shinra, whoever had decided to have the last bit of vodka from her supply, and herself for waiting the last minute. This wasn't happening. She was in a hurry.
And then she saw that wine again. On proud display. Staring. Haughty. She gritted her teeth and felt like screaming.
"Miss... You seem rather confused. Can I help you with something?"
Turning as if struck by lightening, she glared momentarily at the uniform clad teenager before realizing there was a good chance she could set him on fire with that gaze. She blinked sheepishly. "Oh. You seem to be out of Canyon Premium..."
The boy bit the inside of his cheek, hiding something unreadable. "Um... We moved it to aisle 43..." He coughed, glancing up at the large sign above the aisle entrance. Aisle 43. Where they currently were standing. He continued, "It's actually right behind you." He motioned to the spot, hidden beside that infernal wine display.
Tifa could say nothing.
"The label has changed somewhat... Maybe you were in a hurry."
"...Something like that." She turned to grab the nearest two oversized bottles, feeling her cheeks become heated with embarrassment. "Thanks," she managed out distractedly, glancing sideways to see when the boy left.
At that moment, trapped amongst oversized bales of chocobo feed and huge boxes of GilMart brand digestive, Tifa Lockheart wanted to crawl in a hole and die.
And this was all even before she looked at the crowded mess the lines had become, appearing more like Gold Saucer attractions on some highly trafficked holiday than those that belonged in this highly glorified supermarket. This was even before she would find a stack of bills in her mailbox that she wouldn't open for at least a week in the hopes they would go away. And yes, this was before she would find that fine grained envelope with the shiny letterhead and the eloquent speech offering her quick money and well wishes at the price of her dignity; hugs and kisses, Rufus Shinra.
Indeed, forcing that creaky old shopping cart back to the front of the store, Tifa Lockheart was in for a phenomenally bad day.