'Finally managed to reach my shop... Good thing it only takes a 20-minute bus ride from the repair shop. Now, let's hope my spare keys are untouched.' Soren stated inwardly, as he just arrived in front of the Resting Ground, before pulling one of the fake plants out of the plant holder and then grabbing a pair of keys from beneath the dirt pile. After putting back the fake plant in the pot, Soren unlocked the shop and went to the back of the counter to grab a piece of paper. Once he wrote the phrase "Temporarily closed until further notice" and placed it on the back of the door, he sat down on one of the chairs and decided to check on his laptop.

After turning it on and doing a preliminary check on its systems, Soren immediately closed it, since he didn't have to worry about it breaking anymore and decided to turn on the TV to check on the news channels, while making himself a cup of coffee, since he hadn't drunk any and could almost feel like falling asleep on top of the counter. After making some for himself, Soren spent a bit of time thinking about his decision, but still couldn't come to a conclusion, since none of the two choices were appealing to him in the first place. Both options led to closing down his shop, since he was required to move near the company and he knew the property in the center of the city was beyond expensive and the only difference between the two choices was the amount of time and freedom he had in his free time.

He did consider trying to keep it open, but that created a new problem for him, mainly a lack of time to keep it open since both the shop, the amount of time it would take to commute and the part-time job would barely leave him with any time rest, let alone do anything else. In the end, he decided to postpone his decision until he got to meet up with his friends and ask for their opinion on the matter. In the meantime, he spent his time going through the different news channels, but aside from the usual gossip, there wasn't anything noteworthy, aside from a small news report about a potential string of murders happening near his shop, since they found a second corpse in the same alley, but with a crushed head instead.

Eventually, the clocked turned 7 PM and a knock was heard behind the door. The moment Soren heard it, he quickly went to open the door and welcomed his friends into his shop.

"Hey there Soren. So what's up with the message on the door? Did you finally manage to find a good location for your shop?" Logan asked casually, as he took a seat on one of the tables, before being followed by Pan and Roland to take their seats as well.

"I wish... Mostly... It's just something to consider for my future... It's nothing to worry about. So, how are you guys doing?"

"Mostly ok... I hope my old man didn't cause you much trouble. You know how much of a... you know..." Pan responded somewhat embarrassed, as all of them knew how overprotective her father could be.

"Not at all. Things went pretty smoothly. I got my laptop back and nothing else happened."

"Sp long as my old man didn't give you any trouble, then it's fine. So Logan, think you can give us an update?" Everyone's attention then turned to Logan, who in turn spoke in an uncaring manner.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"It's been like what, three days? Don't expect me to be done in just three days. It takes a week, just to list everything and then another one to move everything around and selling to the appropriate buyers. Aside from that movie, we did find an entire collection of this "Shrek" franchise, or that's what I'm assuming. Seriously, what kind of movie franchise has four movies? Weren't three enough for it?"

"I don't know much about pre-war movies, but even I know that there was a pre-war franchise that had over ten different movies. I think it was something about space battles and light swords? I can't remember." Roland responded thoughtfully, as he was trying to remember the name of the movies.

"I don't think we need to remember, since it has no bearing to our conversation. Anyways, did you find anything else Logan? I doubt you only found a few movies there. You must have found something else as well, otherwise you'd be looking more depressed than apathetic." Pan stated inquisitively, as she moved her face closer to Logan.

"Urgh... Fine, but I can't say if I've actually found anything good, until my guys have gone through the entire thing."

"What did you find?" Roland asked curiously as well.

"A bunch of unlabeled DVDs. I'm currently having my guys go through all of them and marking them, but they're still not done from what I've heard of. It'll probably take like a couple more days or so."

"I see... Speaking of which... Soren."

"Huh!? What? What happened?" Soren asked nervously, as he was broken out of his daze.

"What happened? What happened with you Soren? You're not the kind of person to just space out like this." Roland asked in a serious manner, as his gaze was making Soren even more nervous by the second, until he eventually relented.

*sigh* "Fine.. To be honest, I couldn't think of a good way to bring this up, but I guess this will do. Say you were given two job offers and were forced to choose only one of them. One of the two is a full time job with shelter and food being handled by the company, while the other is a part time job-"

"Pick the full time job you moron!" All three of them yelled out simultaneously, as they didn't need to hear anything else to hear.

"Wait guys, I didn't even finish explaining my two options."

"Soren, you'd be an idiot if you didn't pick the full time job. Hell, it even comes with with free shelter and food, which takes care of the two biggest money sinks. You don't need to pay for rent, bills or any kind of food. You get to save up your entire salary without having to spend a single credit. The only thing I could consider as a potential caveat is that the full time job might be dangerous and even then, if you got injured, the Civil Worker's Protection Law would help and reimburse you, if you were to be crippled." Roland explained with a serious and agitated expression.

"But I haven't... Nevermind, I'll consider it guys." Soren could only give up, as he would have been unable to fully explain his circumstances and any other explanations might make the situation even worse.

"Don't consider it, take it. Seriously, take the job Soren. So what if you have to close down the coffee house? You can always open it up in the future." Pan added in a similar manner.

"I agree with the other Soren. We all know the shop won't last long, since you've told us before, but do you seriously want to try and take a gamble with a part-time job, which may or may not allow you to keep the shop open for a little longer, or do you want the safe option of closing it down for now, but slowly building up the capital and reopening it in the future?" Logan followed afterwards, as he pushed his finger on Soren's forehead.

"Oh, that's rich coming from the guy who lost 200.000 credits on illegal street racing." Soren stated in an uncaring manner, as he knew that Logan wasn't a good gambler.

"I'll have you know that Baltier Bozon lost because someone sabotaged his breaks, otherwise he would have won!"

"That's just your wishful thinking. Anything's fair on that kind of game, heck it was probably rigged man."

"Rigged my *ss. I know that of place and..."

As Logan and Soren were arguing with each other, Pan and Roland couldn't help but enjoy and laugh with the duo's arguing antics, as it was also their way of blowing off steam.