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< Third-Person POV >
“Okay, do you got all that, Nanacchi? I’m counting on you to get all these ingredients before dinner tonight.”
“Roger, roger, Nana! I’ll be sure to get everything on the list lickety-split! Don't you worry about a thing, have fun at school!”
The happy-go-lucky Nanacchi watched the original Nana head on out the front door… before she immediately ran back in.
“Oh no, I forgot my textbook! Ahh, I’m gonna be late!”
Nanacchi giggled at the sight as she looked over the list again, reading off all the items needed for tonight’s supper.
“Rice, carrots, beef, cumin, chili powder! Yay, can’t wait for the curry tonight!”
“Mm… curry?”
Nanakko yawns as she enters the kitchen, clutching her Billy the fish plushie in her arms.
“Good morning, Nanakko! Yeah, Nana’s making curry tonight and she told me to bring the ingredients she needs.” Nanacchi waved to the sleepy girl and showed her the list.
“Oh wow… Well, good luck with getting all of these. I wish I could help too, but I feel too sleepy. Might need another four or five hours in bed…”
Nanacchi placed her hands on her hips and shook her head.
“Oh, come on! We can get this done quicker if we do it together! I want to see if the amount of money Nana gave me can be used to buy extra snacks too, come with me!”
Nanakko gave Billy another squeeze as she gave it some thought… well, a bit more than just some thought. After five minutes of thinking, she finally answered.
“Hmm… Extra snacks sound nice, and I wanna make sure that curry tastes good too… I guess I can go.”
Nanacchi’s eyes lit up and she jumped for joy, “Hooray! Thanks so much! That’ll make things much easier, but I’m thinking we need one more person to help.”
“Yeah, but who else would be willing to go? I saw Nanapon take Nanappe somewhere so we can’t ask them…”
Nanacchi put her finger on her chin and pondered aloud, “I wish we can ask Nanasama for help, she’d be great at finding the exact stuff we need. She’s off writing her silly-willy though…”
“SO-LIL-O-QUY!” The four-eyes chimed in from upstairs.
“Alrighty!” Nanacchi answers back and gives her the “okay” hand gesture, “But I wonder who else can help us then…”
We get our answer as Nanarin gloomily walks into the room as the other two Nanas share a knowing look on their faces.
“... What?” Nanarin lets out sheepishly.
Nanacchi pats the sad girl on the back, “Oh, nothing… just that you’re coming with us on errands today!”
“W-What? B-But I’m still looking for the missing left sock of my absolutely favorite pair…”
Nanakko tilted her head at Nanarin’s excuse, “You still haven’t found it yet? It’s been months, so it’s probably gone forever…”
Nanarin begins to tear up at what she says, “Gone forever…?”
“Nanakko, don’t say that! It’s okay, it’s okay…” Nanacchi softly stroked Nanarin’s head as the latter silently sobbed.
“Sorry… but maybe we can buy you a new pair? There should be a clothes store near the grocery store, does that sound good?” Nanakko suggests as the sad Nana hiccuped.
“I… I guess… c-can I also get a new video game?”
“Of course! Anything you want, we have plenty of money to spare!” Nanacchi beams as she pats her on the head.
Nanakko counts the amount of yen they have before retorting that.
“Actually, we don’t.”
“Oh, then we’ll buy you a game next time!” Nanacchi corrected herself.
Nanrin wiped away any remaining tears as she managed to give them a small smile.
“Okay… thank you…”
Nanacchi hugs the other two tightly as that grin on her face grows bigger.
“Yay! Yay! Let’s have a blast, girls! Time to go shopping!”
“Yay, I can’t wait to get more snacks. Right, Billy?” Nanakko asks the fish plushie.
Nanarin’s expression falters as she realizes what she got herself into.
“Y-Yay? Oh no…”
_________________________________________________
“Whooooaaaa! There’s so many people today, there must be some kind of special sale going on!”
Nanacchi has her hands on her cheeks in surprise as Nanarin watches the crowd hesitantly.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to get through all of them, we might get squished or they’ll end up buying everything before we even get in there…”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine if we just take our time there. After all, all the good stuff is usually placed in the back and the things in the front of the aisle have usually been touched or damaged. Slow and steady, right?” Nanakko says as she watches every customer enter and exit at a rapid pace.
“No, we should hurry and try to see if we can grab the stuff we need before they clear everything out! Okay, I’m heading in now! Ready or not, here I come, whoopee!”
Nanacchi grabs a cart and rushes into the store before the other two could even react.
“W-Wait! If we go in now then… huh?!”
Nanarin then looked to her side and Nanakko was gone. She sighs before entering too, getting stuck behind a single mother and an impatient businessman.
“Ugh… Nana’s gonna be so mad if we don’t get everything we need…” The gloomy girl uttered as she finally got past the automatic doors.
We cut back to Nanakko who’s over in the meat section, browsing the type of cuts available.
“Hm… on the list it says beef, but what kind of beef do we actually use for curry? I just eat it so I dunno what it looks like uncooked, what do you think, Billy?”
She looked over to where he was facing: the seafood section, with some fresh fish included. She covers the fish plush’s eyes and turns away.
“Don’t worry, they’re just sleeping, Billy. Let’s try getting something else first…”
Nanacchi was in the spice section and she just now found the spices they needed.
“The cumin and chili powder, I got them! But hm… maybe there’s a bunch of stuff we can put into the curry to make it ultra delicious!”
She then continued to look through the spice section and began tossing stuff into the cart indiscriminately with an unwavering grin on her face.
“Paprika, coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg, oregano, thyme, parsley… oh what the heck, we can use them for other stuff too! Might as well grab all of it!”
Meanwhile with Nanarin, she’s trying to find the best brand of rice to get.
“Um… uh… which one is the brand we usually get? Oh, not good… if I get the wrong one the taste might be off and it’ll be my fault…”
She worriedly looked at all the options available, from standard white rice to brown rice. That’s when her eyes widened when she spotted the last bag of good quality rice. She slowly goes to pick it up but then…
“Ah, good. I’ve found the last one!” A burly man manages to grab it first and lifts it into his arms.
“E-Excuse me… I-I actually saw it first so…”
The man turned around and raised an eyebrow, “I’m sorry what was that, young lady? You need to speak up.”
Nanarin fidgets awkwardly before she answers again.
“I-I-I was here first, so can I please have that bag of rice…?”
The man shakes his head and places the bag in his cart, “No can do! My wife is planning to make her signature onigiri and she needs the best kind of rice to do it! I can’t just let anyone have this…”
“B-B-B-But… I need it…”
That’s when the tears began to well up in Nanarin’s eyes, her breaths getting shaky and her body starting to tremble. The man was taken aback by this and prepared to push his cart away, but then he spots other customers glaring at him. Making a young girl cry in the middle of a grocery store? How cruel…
“O-Oh, my mistake! This is the brand of rice I need for the onigiri, ah ha ha… silly me.”
The burly man immediately grabbed a different bag of rice and took the other one out of his cart.
“Here you go, miss, sorry for the inconvenience.”
Nanrin wiped her tears and held her arms out to accept the bag.
“It’s okay… I shouldn’t have been so sensitive about this…”
She sniffles again before she takes the bag…. And then the weight turns out to be too much, the bag falling on top of her as she lay on the store floor.
“.... Do you need help?” The burly man asks her.
“Y-Yes… I do. Thank you…” She answers back weakly.
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“Look at all the candy and cookies here, Billy. I can’t choose when they all look and sound so good… look at all these different flavors of chocolate wafer bars, mmm…”
Nanakko’s mouth watered as she placed one of each flavor into her cart. As she moves onto the next aisle, she overhears a discussion amongst other customers. A glasses-wearing high schooler and his long-haired girlfriend were talking to another high school guy with short-hair.
“I swear, we saw it just outside my house!”
“It’s true, there was a black & white teddy bear that was walking around. It looked so creepy…”
The young couple was telling their friend about some weird thing they encountered at night, their story coming across as nothing more than ridiculous to him.
“Oh, please. You two need to lay off the late night tv and movie rentals, that sounds like some b-movie horror flick.”
“We’re telling you, it’s real! Its goofy laugh sounded so creepy, and it had one glowing red eye…” The glasses boy denied this,
The other man shook his head in disbelief, “Jeez, I’ve had enough. Catch you two later when you’re not being delusional.”
The young woman clutched her boyfriend close and quivered.
“Agh… that thing is still on my mind. I swear if I see another stuffed animal now, I’m gonna—”
“Hello!” Nanakko smiles while lifting Billy’s fin to wave at them.
“EYAAAAAAAAHHHH! PROTECT ME, DARLING!”
“I WON’T LET THE DEMON FISH HURT YOU, SWEETHEART!”
The girl picked up her boyfriend and rushed out of the grocery store, much to Nanakko’s confusion.
“Huh… I wonder if that black & white teddy bear is real… maybe I’ll ask Nanapon if it’s some kind of ghost. Hm?”
That’s when she noticed that the young couple had left behind a perfectly good piece of ribeye in their shopping cart, alone and unprotected.
“Oh, is this the kind of beef we use for curry? Well, I guess if they’re not gonna buy it, lucky me!”
She takes the steak and sets off towards the vegetable section, stopping right by an employee to get some help.
“Hiya, do you know where the carrots are?”
The young man sighs and points with his thumb, “To the right of the cabbage, you can’t miss them.”
“Thank you!” Nanakko tells him as he returns to checking for rotten produce.
That’s when Nanacchi and her cart full of spices rolls up next.
“Hi! I’m looking for some carrots, do you know where I can find them?”
The worker looks up and sees the same girl he saw before, asking the same question but in a different tone.
“I just told you, over by the cabbages. Did you forget?” He says in a more stern tone.
“Okey-dokey artichokey!”
Nanacchi joked by holding an artichoke from the pile next to her, which the worker swipes back as she moves on her merry way.
A bashful Nanarin shows up next.
“E-Excuse me sir, do you happen to know where I can find the—”
“THEY’RE RIGHT NEXT TO THE CABBAGES, ARE YOU DEAF?!”
That outburst by the employee managed to trigger the waterworks for the poor girl, wiping her tears with her sleeve as she apologized to him.
“I’m sorry… you’ve probably had a rough day and don’t make much money anyways… I should have been more considerate…”
Upon seeing her begin to sob, the employee was struck with immense guilt and his fists clenched.
“I… I’m sorry too! I shouldn’t have taken my anger out on you, you’re just a kid! I need to be more friendly to customers!”
The two of them began to bawl their eyes out, much to the confusion of those around them. Thankfully the other two Nanas showed up to take Nanarin with them, which then made the employee stop crying and his eyes go wide at the sight.
“Great job, Nanarin! You got the rice! Let’s go to the register now, thanks Mr. Grocery Man!”
The employee began to stutter at the completely identical triplets.
“Gah, um… y-y-yeah… Agh, I need a vacation. Or several of them, preferably in a row.”
As soon as Nanrin stopped crying she then took notice of how filled the other Nanas carts were compared to hers only having the big bag of rice. Nanakko with her cart full of snacks with the steak on top, and Nanacchi with the pile of spices in hers.
“H-Hey, that’s way too much stuff! We can’t get all of it…”
Nanakko tilted her head, “Aww, why not?”
Nanarin pointed directly to both of their piles and sweat drops from their faces. The three of them worked to put everything back where it exactly was, albeit reluctantly. Noticing the two of them pouting, Nanarin sighs.
“I… guess it won’t hurt if you get a few things…”
The other Nanas’ eyes lit up and they quickly reclaimed some of what they put back. Soon enough they made it back home on time before Nana started dinner. Nana greeted them as she was taking out some of the pots she needed for the curry.
“Welcome back! Did you get everything on the list, Nanacchi?” Nana asked.
Nanacchi gave her a thumbs up, “Yuppers! We got everything, and even got a few treats with what was left of the money!”
Nana smiled gratefully at the trio, “I’m glad, I guess I can count on you three to go grocery shopping for us. I’ll be sure to give you a good helping of curry as a reward!”
“Thank you, thank you! I can’t wait until the next time we go, right girls?” Nanacchi turns to the two who came with her.
“I hope we can buy more snacks next time. With seven of us around, the pantry empties out fast…” Nanakko squeezes Billy close to her chest.
Nanarin smiles awkwardly, “Um… no thanks… I kind of went on an emotional rollercoaster today.”
Nana looked puzzled at her answer, but brushed it off.
“Okaaay then… well I hope this curry can put you in a better mood, Nanarin. Now let’s see here, we got the carrots, rice, chili powder and… huh?”
Nana took all the groceries out of the bags and laid them out on the counter, but noticed something’s off.
“This isn’t chili powder, this is paprika!”
The other three girls looked at Nanacchi and the usually gleeful girl was getting a bit nervous.
“Ah ha ha… oopsie.”
Despite her clear annoyance, Nana relaxes and crosses her arms.
“Okay, it looks like you’ll have to go back and exchange the two spices. Nanakko, Nanarin, can you go with her to make sure she—”
And in the blink of an eye, Nanarin was out of there.
“Well, I guess you’re going with us then, Nana.” Nanakko tells her.
Nana groans as she unties her cooking apron defeatedly.
“Agh, thanks a lot guys…”
