The first time she meets the woman, it's when she's on a shift for Mukuro's general store.
Well. They call it a store. Certainly its wares are very general, in the broadest possible definition of the term. Chrome almost isn't entirely sure if it counts as any kind of store, instead being a more board sort of dumping ground for the varied and occasionally strange. She thinks it actually might be a pawnshop instead, only she can't really prove it. She just has no idea where Mukuro picks up half the things that he does for "Kokuyo Land", a deceptive store that looks small from the outside but which she thinks might actually take over a few of the neighboring buildings and possibly even go underground. A part of her kind of wants to call them a thrift store, honestly. Some of the things they carry in the neon-lit gloom seem second-hand, if not third-hand, or twelfth-hand. At the same time, there's no denying the fact that they carry what seems to be... literally anything.
In one corner of Kokuyo Land, Ken has set up what is basically a gas station pitstop but without the gas, or the cars, but with plenty of pre-packed or prepared foods that are mostly unhealthy save for the sparse amounts of fruits and water bottles Chikusa insisted he carry on hand for selling. If she can be certain about nothing else, Chrome is pretty sure that Ken eats most of the snacks he's actually supposed to sell. Maybe that's why there's an insistence on some actual healthy foods, which he never even bothers to sniff at.
Chikusa has claimed just about most of the basement- or the first level of the basement? Even after a year of working at the place, Chrome is sometimes a little unsure of how big it is or how many floors it actually has, a fact which isn't helped by the constantly changing inventory. At least Chikusa's section of the shop is perhaps the most stable section of the whole building, if perhaps the darkest and most bizarrely lit. Neon signs are a regular sight within Kokuyo Land. In fact, they're the primary source of light for most of its interior, with even the front windows having been blacked out with thick paint that Mukuro has decorated with grim skull and owl imagery. However, the light is still fairly manageable on her floor all things considered, and Chrome rarely has a problem there. Downstairs? Is different. Downstairs is even darker, with the glare of neon being almost blinding in some ways, but placed in a few select spots. The rest of the light actually tends to be blacklight, which doesn't help with how many mirrored surfaces are down that, compromising even shelves or CD racks, while a low throbbing dubstep pounds up from the ground. It's horrendously easy to get lost down there, which she thinks might be on purpose so that Chikusa doesn't have to sell some of his DJ equipment. Or, really, interact with people at all. The only reason he even goes upstairs or sees the sunlight is because Ken occasionally dives down into the depths to drag him out again. Unlike literally any other human being, Ken never gets lost. Mukuro tells her he relies on following Chikusa's scent trail like a dog. It's hard to tell if he's joking when he says that.
That just leaves the entire rest of the store, stocked at Mukuro's discretion and interest. A lot of it is almost bizarrely mundane, the kind of things which could be found at any quick grocery store like baking soda, canned pasta sauce, noodles, or even things found at dollar stores, such as bags of glitter, cheap plastic cups, and painkillers she's not entirely sure they can legally sell. Somehow, that only makes all the weird objects stand out even more. The first thing she ever was introduced to when she began working at the place was a glass coffee table, curved in an unusual shape, with two skeletons holding it up while one skeleton tried to choke the other with one hand. These days, she's not sure if it's still in the store. If it is, she's not been able to stumble onto it again. Another notable example was a giant T-Rex made out of dozens of specifically colored balloons that Ken had adored before it had inevitably been bought for what Chrome thinks might have been a children's birthday party. In a surprising twist, when he bothers to be dragged out of his EDM music hellhole, Chikusa seems to have a fondness for the homeware they've collected such as a vast collection of mugs that can be both simple or strangely complicated, or a soft green pillow with plush mushrooms "growing" out of it. As for Chrome? The longer she's worked there, the more things she's found interesting, but one of her favorite things would be the collection of strange transparent Christmas ornaments that tend to be filled with things such as snake skins or the skulls of small animals.
It's hard to say if there's any item in particular that Mukuro likes. Presumably it's literally everything in the store.
A normal person would wonder if such a... peculiar business model could really succeed in any way, let alone thrive, yet Mukuro has somehow made it work through a combination of factors. First of all is the impeccable and bizarre social media presence him and Chikusa maintain together, with the latter patiently maintaining all the essential housekeeping while the former oozes out his unique brand of charm and humor that somehow seems to attract people. (Chrome can't really judge. After all, she's here.) That's enough to get regular tourists wandering through the store on any given day, and even occasional people who live in the city sometimes visit for a unique gift. Secondly would be that there seems to actually be some sort of method to all the strangeness, because there are actually fairly regular customers who drop in for their more mundane items or a quick grab of food. Mukuro has somehow managed to find just the right location where they're nearer to some people than any of the grocery stores, filling in all the little niche areas that local delis don't usually stock. And finally, well... Chrome has to admit that Mukuro certainly sniffs out any and every chance to twist his way, such as the multiple times when he's lied to various ghost hunting shows.
...Well. She supposes she can't really says it's a lie. If there's any one modern place in the entire country that could be haunted, it would be Kokuyo Land. Chrome can't say she's ever personally experienced a haunting but she'd also be the first person to admit that she's desensitized to all sorts of bizarre sights, sounds, and smells that can be found in the entire building from top to bottom. Is it a ghost? Ken scuttling among the shelves and furniture on all fours with an umaibo stick held in his teeth? Is it Chikusa lurking like a long dead Victorian era ghost looking for their murderer, when really all he wants to know is what time it is because his watch broke? Is it Mukuro hanging up what may or may not be a real skeleton right behind regular and unaware visitors so that they scream when they turn around and see it, because he finds it funny?
It's a mystery.
Regardless of the exact methods, everything seems to have somehow worked, and, not only is there a fairly regular stream of customers, but Chrome has found that it's been the most diverse group of patrons- or people in general- that she's ever had to deal with. There are the average tourist types, looking for a neat story or a fun memento of the time they went into whatever one could reasonably call Kokuyo Land, and then there are the people who are just there to gawk and giggle in ways Chrome is all too familiar with from her time in middle school. A lot of the time there are the gothic types, or the punk types, various niche groups who find what they're looking for in the wild darkness the shop seems to embody and who all often seem to offer Chrome their phone numbers. There are even some collectors of varying types who drop by, hoping to stumble across a rare or interesting find. Some people even become collectors after spending some time there. And then there are the regulars who are just there to pick up some salt, grumbling all the while about Mukuro's bad taste in.... everything.
So it's nothing new when she hears the small computer ding go off, letting her and everyone else know that someone has come through the front door. Chrome doesn't even bother to look at the security cameras. All she does is stay curled up in the extremely comfortable chair which functions as the cashier's station, fiddling with Love Nikki on her phone. Sometimes people end up wandering into her view, or actually purposefully seek her out, and other times they end up wandering, lost, throughout Kokuyo Land. On rare occasions, they end up at Ken's register to get slobbered on by Bon. Chrome is content to stay within her Schrodinger's Expectations. If someone shows up, then they show up. If they don't, they don't. Yet even with that work philosophy in mind... She still doesn't expect what ends up swanning past the shelf full of knit toys that all looks like vivisected small animals.
It's a woman, much taller than Chrome, and she realizes most of the reason for that would be the mile high platform boots that are on her feet with every centimeter covered in a deep amount of glitter. They match the visor on her face, worn even indoors, and the fingerless gloves coating most of her arm. There are leggings underneath what look like a pair of transparent shorts, also covered in glitter, and a scale-patterned bikini top. All of this would... definitely be some sort of look all on its own. What it's literally topped off with, however, is the woman's hair style: everything completely shaved clean save for a extremely short and straight set of bangs, and what looks like an 'S'... tattooed on?
For the first time in a long while, Chrome has some questions.
As she does with most of the customers that come in through the store and in direct conflict with normal retail sense, Chrome doesn't interact right away. Instead, she watches with a wide eye partially from behind the cash register as the woman stops in front of a small rack of hanging necklaces. One in particular is a round pendant filled with glitter, small plastic pink pearls, and a rodent's skull. With a sort of reverent delight, the woman delicately hooks her finger through the chain and pulls it up to admire in the neon light. It's only whens he looks over her shoulder that Chrome realizes there's a man following right behind the woman, holding up a camera and dressed in fairly normal hipster fandom. Yes, including the fedora. Or trilby. Chrome has never learned the difference and doesn't care enough to.
It's the man that actually speaks. "Oh, we are not putting that in the house."
"We should put it in our house."
"Hell no."
"You wouldn't let me buy the barbie doll face rings, and now not even this?"
"So, can we not say anything on what I will and won't let you do, because we both know that you do whatever you want anyway, because I don't have the power of mind control? I'm just reminding you of the budget we have, which is a thing that exists. If you want to spend it on weird bone glitter jewelry, by all means, be my guest, but you're going to have to make some sacrifices here."
There's a certain tilt to the woman's head that hints she's enjoying the entire spiel, and Chrome can't help but wonder if she's a little like Mukuro in that aspect: purposefully asking about things she knows she's not supposed to do if only to get a rise out of the people around her. There doesn't seem to be any particular broken heart evident in the way she lets the pendant swing back into place, although she does at least... blow a kiss from her pinkie towards it. "So later, then."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Slowly, he casts his lens over the rest of the shops, taking it all in, before it pauses a little above Chrome's head. "Oh, yeah, wait, someone works here?"
Now that she's been spotted, Chrome straightens up from her position as, indeed, someone who works here. "Someone has to," she answers bluntly. She guesses that's a little bit of a fudge. No one has to work here. Mukuro doesn't have to do a lot of the things that he does, for example. This could just be an empty building full of ordinary empty building things, like dust and rats. There might still be rats. However, in order for it to exist as Kokuyo Land, there do indeed have to be workers here. At the very bare minimum, there has to be electricity and workers. She thinks. Sometimes she worries about the legality of just how Mukuro keeps everything running, but she thinks it's better no to ask. It's definitely better to not start on all of it with some random hipster.
"I mean, I guess...?" Before he has a chance to really say anything else on that, the woman is already coming forward. Chrome isn't entirely certain what she does, or why she does it, but the pose she ends up in is with one leg crossed with part of it balanced against the edge of the counter. Her arms wind together, almost snakelike, and she flicks one finger in Chrome's direction.
"Composite, octagonal, pentagonal pyramidal-" She unwinds her arms and pulls them back, snapping one set of fingers. "All things that describe the essence of me perfectly. My name is Shitt P., but please call me Shittopi-chan."
Chrome blinks up at her. "Okay, Shittoppi-chan," she says simply, because it's not the weirdest thing she's had to say in her life. From the corner of her eye, she can see where the cameraman has turned the camera to make a face at it before he pauses to look at her. Shitt P. herself doesn't seem to emote beyond a simply raise of her chin. It might be in approval. "You said you were on a budget for something in particular...?"
"We need a relic from the time when Batsquatch was first born," Shitt P. says airily, and her cameraman sighs.
"A disco ball," he tells her. "We need a disco ball."
"To skin."
"Why do you have to phrase shit like that?"
"We have that," Chrome says, vaguely reminded of the way Chikusa and Ken bicker. The subject matter is different, but the feeling is still the same. Just dumb bickering to fill the silence. "They're a little hard to find, however." Most things are. "Hold on..." Stepping to the side, she hefts herself up onto the counter surface and scoots over to the other side. In a show of politeness, Shitt P. moves out of the way with a graceful spin that ends with one heel clacking against the floor. That means there's more than enough room for Chrome to plop down on the opposite side, and she dusts her skirt off. "Follow me."
Kokuyo Land might be a bizarre maze for most people. Actually, Chrome is pretty sure the only people who can reliably navigate the space are Mukuro and Ken, the latter which she suspects cheats. Chikusa is smart and probably knows their finances, but he also rarely ventures in this area. It could be 50/50. Still, Chrome likes to think she has a fairly decent grasp on the intricate ins and outs of the store. If nothing else, she has a few notable landmarks of things that have yet to sell for a while now, and a rough idea of what kinds of things are stored where. So she leads the pair through the winding store, only pausing occasionally.
"Are you sure you know where you're going?" the cameraman asks, looking awkwardly at one of many taxidermy creatures that are scattered around the shop no matter the location.
"Mhm," she says, pausing to reorient herself by a small basket of tiny crystal penises. They never seem to run out. She supposes she should be worried about where Mukuro gets these kinds of things. "Who are you?" "I didn't introduce myself? Yeesh." He shakes his head, but she doesn't really blame him. A lot of people are thrown off by Kokuyo Land, for a variety of reasons. "Just call me Julie."
A pause follows after his words where he's clearly expecting her to do the polite thing of introducing herself, but Chrome doesn't. Instead, she keeps moving on through the Kokuyo labyrinth. With a place like this, it generally needs at least 80% of her attention, and that doesn't lend itself well to casual small talk. The good news is that Julie doesn't really seem to bother broaching it, instead letting the awkward moment pass as he instead films the various strange things they pass. To Chrome's surprise, it's actually Shitt P. that speaks up to fill the silence. "The pastel is super cute."
Chrome doesn't answer that for a second, because it almost doesn't seem like it really needs to be answered... except then she realizes that they're wandering through junkyard hallways composed mostly of brilliantly glaring red neon, punctured occasionally by sharp blues or ill greens. In this kind of eerie haunted Vegas strip club lighting, it's hard to tell the colors of almost anything. The soft pastels of her bomber jacket, the pink of her skirt inlaid with various card suites and skulls on the bottom border- those should be impossible to discern. Surprise hits her, belated, and she looks suddenly up at the other woman. Unlike Julie, however, Shitt P. hasn't bothered to let any sort of silence stretch out, or to wait for anything. She seems to have already moved on through the moment, looking straight ahead and running her fingers along the surface of a guitar whose body is Pacman with his mouth wide open. Befuddled but sort of used to it, Chrome turns her attention back towards her path as well.
Finding the disco ball section ends up being pretty easy, considering how the reflective shards interact with the nonstop neon signs. The refracted colors can be seen shimmering strangely over some of the shelves, and their pace speeds up a little after that, with Chrome allowing the two to forge ahead after a little bit. It's not just disco balls, of course. There are other strange hanging things, placed along the shelves or dangling from certain places, but all the disco balls that Mukuro thought would have made the biggest impression are dangling low from the ceiling where they would just barely avoid brushing against Chikusa's head if he ever dared to stand up to his full height. Some are just regular, circular, and the kind anyone would imagine.
Then there are other kinds.
Faster than a commandment from God, Shitt P. shoots out her arm to point up at one that is shapes liked the dismembered upper torso of a person with perky breasts. "That one."
Julie groans. "That's not even for the project, you just want that because, don't you?"
"It's perfect," Shitt P. says, not denying the accusation. With disregard for safety in any way, she hefts herself up onto the shelves and reaches up to try and find what's hooking it to the ceiling. Chrome should probably stop her. She doesn't. "How much is it?"
"It's perfect," Shitt P. says, not denying the accusation. With disregard for safety in any way, she hefts herself up onto the shelves and reaches up to try and find what's hooking it to the ceiling. Chrome should probably stop her. She doesn't. "How much is it? Maybe we could get it with our budget."
"We almost definitely can't."
Chrome finally shuffles in closer. Usually she doesn't really get too involved with visitors, or even potential customers. However, for this, she can't help but be fascinated. "What's your budget?" she asks, and Julie blinks at her from behind his glasses.
"It's- hold on, I have it written down in my phone-" Finding a spot to put down his camera is a little difficult in glitter fuck hell, but somehow he manages to nudge it securely between a bedazzled football and an empty whiskey bottle full of lit Christmas lights. He seems to fiddle with it for a second, constantly glancing back at her, before he stops, satisfied. "Alright, here-"
The shopping list they have prepared is... definitely a shopping list. A lot of it has to do with constructing something, although Chrome can't entirely figure out what. Besides each entry of the things they need, a rough estimate of how much they could spend is placed, from probably the cheapest things they could find on the internet to how much they could spend if they really needed to. After a few seconds of wondering and reading, Chrome finally looks up from the screen. If nothing else, she has some good news. "You could buy two disco balls here if you really wanted."
When Shitt P. clicks her lips twice and whistles, it somehow sounds like a foreign language. Julie stares at her for a second, brows crumpled together. "That's, like... at least half off for each of them."
"Mhm."
"And you're serious."
"Mm."
"...How does this place stay running?"
"I don't know," she says. Chrome has never bothered to ask Mukuro or Chikusa about the finer business workings of Kokuyo Land, and she never plans to. In case this all ends up highly illegal somehow, she'd like the ability to plead ignorance to the whole thing. At least there might be a Patreon involved, she thinks. That would be nice if true.
Apparently, that works out just fine for Shitt P. too, because she gently hands over the torso disco ball to Chrome for holding. "I'm getting another," she informs Julie before turning around back towards the shelves. Julie grabs her and, with some doing, convinces her for them to find a ladder. It takes around fifteen minutes for them to find one, and then another ten minutes to not get lost on the way back to the register. There aren't really any bags in the store for her to put the disco balls in. Not only Chrome unsure of how one would even pack a disco ball, they just don't have them in general. People either have to bring their own, carry things in their hands, or buy one of the many regular and not regular bags that are in the store.
Fortunately, Shitt P. seems perfectly happy to carry her strange haul, and Julie only pauses long enough to run out the store to get things he apparently prepared ahead of time for some additional things that they happen to carry. Just the strange little things, like hammers, vegetable peelers, and even some basic groceries. "We're running out of food," he informs Shitt P. casually. Chrome isn't expecting him to speak to her any further, but, surprisingly, he does. "Hey, so I tried to avoid filming your face too much, or anything like that, but there are probably some shots in there anyway. Do you have a problem with us if it stays in there, or would you want us to blur it...? We do videos on Youtube."
Somehow, that really explains a lot. It feels like it could also explain things about Shitt P., maybe, possibly, only that doesn't feel entirely right. Chrome has seen people be overly dramatic or ostentatious before; she knows Mukuro after all. This feels a little more... genuine. Either way, Chrome shrugs and finishes putting some of the nails into the rough canvas tote that Julie brought in. "I don't care," she says, handing over the totebag, before she realizes she might have to be a little more clear. "I mean, I'm fine with it. If I'm in a shot... I'm in a shot." She's almost definitely been in people's pictures of Kokuyo Land before, most often by accident. (Sometimes not by accident, in ways that are very creepily not by accident, but it's amazing how quickly those types delete the pictures when M.M. is twisting their arm or Ken is breathing down their neck.)
"Perfect." This time, Shitt P. kisses her ring finger and flicks it towards Chrome. "Then we'll see you later."
And they actually do.
One day, Chikusa actually slinks out from his hole in the ground, a fact Chrome only realizes when she looks up from her lunch to find him standing on the opposite side of the counter. She can't even bring it in her to be shocked or surprised. Instead, she blinks and slurps up some more leftover noodles. "Hi," she says.
Chikusa blinks at her. "Hey," he deadpans.
"...Did Ken steal your phone again?"
Sometimes Chikusa doesn't verbally answer things. Instead, he makes minute facial expressions or gestures that take a whole other language degree to understand. With how rarely he comes to see most other people, there haven't been a lot of chances for her to pick up on most of his tells. Fortunately, she's still learned one or two, and one of those she's learned is for times like this when his mouth twitches downwards just a little bit and he reaches up to adjust glasses that don't really need adjusting. It's the same thing he does everytime Ken bugs him like this, or steals one of his things. Chrome is pretty sure that the blond only does it to get Chikusa's attention out from dubstep hell, because he never learned how to get that attention of people he likes beyond grade school. "Do you follow any Youtubers?" he asks instead of answering her question, which is sometimes normal with Chikusa.
She shrugs. "Not really. I just listen to music and watch cat videos." Something about the whole youtube famous thing bewilders her to some degree. "The people who follow those types...." For a brief second, she considers being delicate in her speech, and then immediately decides not to bother. It's only her and Chikusa besides. "They're weird and obsessive."
Chikusa doesn't disagree or dispute her claims, which isn't surprising to her in the slightest. They can't imagine feeling like someone's friend and being devoted to them just because it's a friendly personality put in front of a camera. "Either way," he says, "look up S.P.C Boost's recent video." That's all he says before turning around to slink back into the miasma of weird objects that is Kokuyo Land. Chrome quietly notes that he's heading in the direction of Ken's food hoarding corner before she goes to pull out her laptop.
The channel name is a dead giveaway, of course, and yet Chrome is somehow still surprised when she clicks on the latest video and finds, some five minutes in, a few flashes of her own face. To her surprise, considering Julie's overall glasses-wearing goatee hipster look, he really did seem to do his best not to drag her too much into frame. There's only occasional scenes with her, such as when Shitt P. handed over the disco torso. As for the rest?
Well. It would never have occurred to Chrome on how one "skins" a disco ball, or to use that reflective "skin" to put onto a ceiling fan, but now she supposes she'll never forget.
The entire time, she watches the video entranced, and even almost finds herself giggling at the various jokes, memes, or peculiar tangents that Shitt P. tosses out as if they're nothing. Some way through, Chrome still has to admit that she's wondering a little on just... Why go through all the trouble? It feels as though there are a lot of easier ways to do this, including buying something herself. Yet as she watches, a little after the halfway mark, Julie speaks up again, voicing the exact same thing. "This is such a huge waste of time."
"Why?" Despite the absurdity of everything- the workshop covered in all sorts of strange carvings or artwork, Shitt P.'s own graffiti covered 'work' coveralls, everything covered in dust and bit of glue and god knows what else- Shitt P. asks the question with a kind of simpleness.
"I'm just- I mean, there's easier ways to do this, and we don't even have to do this at all."
"Isn't that only life?" Finishing off one fan blade, Shitt P. casually reclines to the side where the empty husk of a disco ball now lays with her arms crossing over the top loosely. "As time passes and things change, human kind only makes life for itself more and more complex, for all that we may call it 'simple'. Yet acts that are called simple are still new acts, adding in ever more to the equation of our life. That's far from a bad thing. However, in turn, we cannot all use the exact same equations that every other person is using at the exact same time. Why get to 2 if you only ever do 1 plus 1, when you can do six minus four, at the absolute very least, and get into cube roots and square roots and depressed cubics? Why experience only the same things as other people?" Lazily, she stretches out one leg, crossing it over where the fan is. "No action in a person's life is meaningless, even if there is no true goal. Just like your decision on wearing outdated fashion-"
"Okay, first of all-"
At that point, the video cuts with Julie trying to lunge out at Shitt P., who only keeps him back with both her enormously long legs and the equally long pumps attached, and continues on as normal.
...But Chrome can't say that she's wrong with that kind of thinking.
Shitt P. soon becomes a regular of Kokuyo Land after her initial visit, in a way that's very different from most of the other regulars who bother to deal with their nightmare scenario of a Wonderland. After all, people like Kyoko only drop by to get some quick mundane things, such as bandaids or bags of rice. The only other outlier she can think of would be Tsuna, who braves a place that gives him heart attacks every five minutes almost solely to check on Chrome and pass her leftovers along from his house or snacks his mom passes through to him. All Shitt P. brings to the metaphorical table would be actual money, whether it's on a credit card or strictly in money she already has on her person, along with a new individual every other time. Chrome doesn't ask how she makes any money, with such an eclectic lifestyle, but she does end up learning how the various people who help Shitt P. film for her channel are in fact actually her family members. This even includes Julie, to her surprise. While no one is quite as unique as Shitt P. is, they all seem to be quite different from one another.
Chrome doesn't wonder how they could all get along together in the same house. Just, after every visit, she goes to share snacks with Ken as they lounge against Bon, or sits in silence with Chikusa down in the blacklight haunted house. Neither of them ever ask about the register, instead just making room for her, even if Ken sometimes complains at the same time he tosses candy onto her lap, or Chikusa stays utterly silent for the whole time.
Inbetween Shitt P.'s visits to gather materials for her videos, whether she's trying something out, making something, or just looking for new and interesting items, Chrome actually finds herself patiently going through the videos on S.P.C. Boost. Despite that first impression and Shitt P.'s general everything, there are actually a good deal of more calm videos, although they still carry that sort of humor and interesting view of the world. It's not really surprising that she's into things like cryptids, ghosts, and aliens, and so there are plenty of videos that just have her facecamming as she goes through all sorts of other videos, essays, and even forum boards on the darkest corners of the internet all dedicated to such subjects. What's more interesting are the meditation videos, the art videos were all she does are choose random colors instead of following along with a tutorial. They're all strange, in the way Shitt P. often is, but there's also a sense of peace and fun to them that Chrome isn't familiar with.
With most of her hobbies or things that catch her attention, Chrome tends to stay quiet about them. Not in this case. Instead, whenever Shitt P. drops by, she ends up speaking to her about the different videos she's gone through last, always referring to her as Shittoppi-chan. It sounds so comfortable and intimate, too much so at first, but, the more she says it, the more Chrome finds her relaxing with the name until it's second language. In turn, Shittoppi-chan seems glad to give her cutesy nicknames as well- something of a first in her whole life. The most popular one seems to be 'Crow-chan', but, as with so much of her life, Shittoppi-chan changes it up every now and then. Still, Crow-chan seems to be the name the internet takes to as Chrome starts to appear in more and more videos every time a new video is made. She's never a starring role, and the rest of the Shimon family seems to cut anything she says in casual conversation with Shittoppi-chan for their own privacy... But she still shows up occasionally in the background, a silent specter with an eyepatch that the comment section seems to love.
"Zirconium," Chrome says one day as Shittoppi-chan practices balancing on her hands in front of the cash register while she sits on the edge, watching. Seated besides her are three whole bags of lipstick and chapstick, along with the ever present video camera. Enma has been the one to accompany her today, and he's gone to get some other basic mundane needs.
Almost immediately, Shittoppi-chan heaves herself up and flips herself onto her feet. Her smile is brilliant, hotter than neon and warmer than summer. "Exactly," she says.
Chrome's smile is a little smaller, a little more subtle, but doesn't belay the heat glowing in the core of it. Instead of saying anything else, because there's nothing else to really say on that, she looks down at the bags. "So what are you going to use these for?" she asks, pulling out makeup that is a deep black that almost seems to absorb the usual bright lights of Kokuyo Land.
Clicking over in her heels, Shittoppi-chan rests one hand on the side of the counter that's actually free, which is on Chrome's other side. "Fun," she says simply, which is always true. "Also, I want to see if I can construct shoes entirely out of the tubes of these."
"Are you going to use any of them on your lips?"
"Absolutely. It's only a matter of how. I'm still debating on whether or not to see how many layers of different lipsticks I can apply to my lips, or if I should melt them all together and see how they turn out." Shittoppi-chan tilts her head to the side curiously. "Do you want to try that one?"
There's no point in dancing around the subject. Chrome knows that she wouldn't have given the offer if she wasn't sure, so she nods and immediately unpops the cap. Straight up black isn't something she's ever really tried on her face before. Without a mirror immediately on hand, with light that isn't some sort of neon, she's not even sure how it looks. Once she purses her lips together and pops them, Shittoppi-chan grins either way. "You look cute to the 96th degree."
"Thanks," she says, because she doesn't really know what else to say. Instead, she glances down between them: Shittoppi-chan's hand right next to her thigh, legs brushing, their heads only some inches apart. "Do you want to try it too?"
"Hit me with it."
So Chrome does. With the tube of lipstick held inbetween the gap of her thumb and pointer finger, she braces herself against the counter and leans forward. Her lips don't make exactly perfect one-on-one contact with Shittoppi-chan's, instead sort of overlaid to one side of her mouth. When Chrome pulls away, she can see a perfect lipstick mark on one half of Shittoppi-chan's, black over the brilliant pale lavender.
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rain : social media au
1
Well. They call it a store. Certainly its wares are very general, in the broadest possible definition of the term. Chrome almost isn't entirely sure if it counts as any kind of store, instead being a more board sort of dumping ground for the varied and occasionally strange. She thinks it actually might be a pawnshop instead, only she can't really prove it. She just has no idea where Mukuro picks up half the things that he does for "Kokuyo Land", a deceptive store that looks small from the outside but which she thinks might actually take over a few of the neighboring buildings and possibly even go underground. A part of her kind of wants to call them a thrift store, honestly. Some of the things they carry in the neon-lit gloom seem second-hand, if not third-hand, or twelfth-hand. At the same time, there's no denying the fact that they carry what seems to be... literally anything.
In one corner of Kokuyo Land, Ken has set up what is basically a gas station pitstop but without the gas, or the cars, but with plenty of pre-packed or prepared foods that are mostly unhealthy save for the sparse amounts of fruits and water bottles Chikusa insisted he carry on hand for selling. If she can be certain about nothing else, Chrome is pretty sure that Ken eats most of the snacks he's actually supposed to sell. Maybe that's why there's an insistence on some actual healthy foods, which he never even bothers to sniff at.
Chikusa has claimed just about most of the basement- or the first level of the basement? Even after a year of working at the place, Chrome is sometimes a little unsure of how big it is or how many floors it actually has, a fact which isn't helped by the constantly changing inventory. At least Chikusa's section of the shop is perhaps the most stable section of the whole building, if perhaps the darkest and most bizarrely lit. Neon signs are a regular sight within Kokuyo Land. In fact, they're the primary source of light for most of its interior, with even the front windows having been blacked out with thick paint that Mukuro has decorated with grim skull and owl imagery. However, the light is still fairly manageable on her floor all things considered, and Chrome rarely has a problem there. Downstairs? Is different. Downstairs is even darker, with the glare of neon being almost blinding in some ways, but placed in a few select spots. The rest of the light actually tends to be blacklight, which doesn't help with how many mirrored surfaces are down that, compromising even shelves or CD racks, while a low throbbing dubstep pounds up from the ground. It's horrendously easy to get lost down there, which she thinks might be on purpose so that Chikusa doesn't have to sell some of his DJ equipment. Or, really, interact with people at all. The only reason he even goes upstairs or sees the sunlight is because Ken occasionally dives down into the depths to drag him out again. Unlike literally any other human being, Ken never gets lost. Mukuro tells her he relies on following Chikusa's scent trail like a dog. It's hard to tell if he's joking when he says that.
That just leaves the entire rest of the store, stocked at Mukuro's discretion and interest. A lot of it is almost bizarrely mundane, the kind of things which could be found at any quick grocery store like baking soda, canned pasta sauce, noodles, or even things found at dollar stores, such as bags of glitter, cheap plastic cups, and painkillers she's not entirely sure they can legally sell. Somehow, that only makes all the weird objects stand out even more. The first thing she ever was introduced to when she began working at the place was a glass coffee table, curved in an unusual shape, with two skeletons holding it up while one skeleton tried to choke the other with one hand. These days, she's not sure if it's still in the store. If it is, she's not been able to stumble onto it again. Another notable example was a giant T-Rex made out of dozens of specifically colored balloons that Ken had adored before it had inevitably been bought for what Chrome thinks might have been a children's birthday party. In a surprising twist, when he bothers to be dragged out of his EDM music hellhole, Chikusa seems to have a fondness for the homeware they've collected such as a vast collection of mugs that can be both simple or strangely complicated, or a soft green pillow with plush mushrooms "growing" out of it. As for Chrome? The longer she's worked there, the more things she's found interesting, but one of her favorite things would be the collection of strange transparent Christmas ornaments that tend to be filled with things such as snake skins or the skulls of small animals.
It's hard to say if there's any item in particular that Mukuro likes. Presumably it's literally everything in the store.
A normal person would wonder if such a... peculiar business model could really succeed in any way, let alone thrive, yet Mukuro has somehow made it work through a combination of factors. First of all is the impeccable and bizarre social media presence him and Chikusa maintain together, with the latter patiently maintaining all the essential housekeeping while the former oozes out his unique brand of charm and humor that somehow seems to attract people. (Chrome can't really judge. After all, she's here.) That's enough to get regular tourists wandering through the store on any given day, and even occasional people who live in the city sometimes visit for a unique gift. Secondly would be that there seems to actually be some sort of method to all the strangeness, because there are actually fairly regular customers who drop in for their more mundane items or a quick grab of food. Mukuro has somehow managed to find just the right location where they're nearer to some people than any of the grocery stores, filling in all the little niche areas that local delis don't usually stock. And finally, well... Chrome has to admit that Mukuro certainly sniffs out any and every chance to twist his way, such as the multiple times when he's lied to various ghost hunting shows.
...Well. She supposes she can't really says it's a lie. If there's any one modern place in the entire country that could be haunted, it would be Kokuyo Land. Chrome can't say she's ever personally experienced a haunting but she'd also be the first person to admit that she's desensitized to all sorts of bizarre sights, sounds, and smells that can be found in the entire building from top to bottom. Is it a ghost? Ken scuttling among the shelves and furniture on all fours with an umaibo stick held in his teeth? Is it Chikusa lurking like a long dead Victorian era ghost looking for their murderer, when really all he wants to know is what time it is because his watch broke? Is it Mukuro hanging up what may or may not be a real skeleton right behind regular and unaware visitors so that they scream when they turn around and see it, because he finds it funny?
It's a mystery.
Regardless of the exact methods, everything seems to have somehow worked, and, not only is there a fairly regular stream of customers, but Chrome has found that it's been the most diverse group of patrons- or people in general- that she's ever had to deal with. There are the average tourist types, looking for a neat story or a fun memento of the time they went into whatever one could reasonably call Kokuyo Land, and then there are the people who are just there to gawk and giggle in ways Chrome is all too familiar with from her time in middle school. A lot of the time there are the gothic types, or the punk types, various niche groups who find what they're looking for in the wild darkness the shop seems to embody and who all often seem to offer Chrome their phone numbers. There are even some collectors of varying types who drop by, hoping to stumble across a rare or interesting find. Some people even become collectors after spending some time there. And then there are the regulars who are just there to pick up some salt, grumbling all the while about Mukuro's bad taste in.... everything.
So it's nothing new when she hears the small computer ding go off, letting her and everyone else know that someone has come through the front door. Chrome doesn't even bother to look at the security cameras. All she does is stay curled up in the extremely comfortable chair which functions as the cashier's station, fiddling with Love Nikki on her phone. Sometimes people end up wandering into her view, or actually purposefully seek her out, and other times they end up wandering, lost, throughout Kokuyo Land. On rare occasions, they end up at Ken's register to get slobbered on by Bon. Chrome is content to stay within her Schrodinger's Expectations. If someone shows up, then they show up. If they don't, they don't. Yet even with that work philosophy in mind... She still doesn't expect what ends up swanning past the shelf full of knit toys that all looks like vivisected small animals.
It's a woman, much taller than Chrome, and she realizes most of the reason for that would be the mile high platform boots that are on her feet with every centimeter covered in a deep amount of glitter. They match the visor on her face, worn even indoors, and the fingerless gloves coating most of her arm. There are leggings underneath what look like a pair of transparent shorts, also covered in glitter, and a scale-patterned bikini top. All of this would... definitely be some sort of look all on its own. What it's literally topped off with, however, is the woman's hair style: everything completely shaved clean save for a extremely short and straight set of bangs, and what looks like an 'S'... tattooed on?
For the first time in a long while, Chrome has some questions.
As she does with most of the customers that come in through the store and in direct conflict with normal retail sense, Chrome doesn't interact right away. Instead, she watches with a wide eye partially from behind the cash register as the woman stops in front of a small rack of hanging necklaces. One in particular is a round pendant filled with glitter, small plastic pink pearls, and a rodent's skull. With a sort of reverent delight, the woman delicately hooks her finger through the chain and pulls it up to admire in the neon light. It's only whens he looks over her shoulder that Chrome realizes there's a man following right behind the woman, holding up a camera and dressed in fairly normal hipster fandom. Yes, including the fedora. Or trilby. Chrome has never learned the difference and doesn't care enough to.
2
"We should put it in our house."
"Hell no."
"You wouldn't let me buy the barbie doll face rings, and now not even this?"
"So, can we not say anything on what I will and won't let you do, because we both know that you do whatever you want anyway, because I don't have the power of mind control? I'm just reminding you of the budget we have, which is a thing that exists. If you want to spend it on weird bone glitter jewelry, by all means, be my guest, but you're going to have to make some sacrifices here."
There's a certain tilt to the woman's head that hints she's enjoying the entire spiel, and Chrome can't help but wonder if she's a little like Mukuro in that aspect: purposefully asking about things she knows she's not supposed to do if only to get a rise out of the people around her. There doesn't seem to be any particular broken heart evident in the way she lets the pendant swing back into place, although she does at least... blow a kiss from her pinkie towards it. "So later, then."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Slowly, he casts his lens over the rest of the shops, taking it all in, before it pauses a little above Chrome's head. "Oh, yeah, wait, someone works here?"
Now that she's been spotted, Chrome straightens up from her position as, indeed, someone who works here. "Someone has to," she answers bluntly. She guesses that's a little bit of a fudge. No one has to work here. Mukuro doesn't have to do a lot of the things that he does, for example. This could just be an empty building full of ordinary empty building things, like dust and rats. There might still be rats. However, in order for it to exist as Kokuyo Land, there do indeed have to be workers here. At the very bare minimum, there has to be electricity and workers. She thinks. Sometimes she worries about the legality of just how Mukuro keeps everything running, but she thinks it's better no to ask. It's definitely better to not start on all of it with some random hipster.
"I mean, I guess...?" Before he has a chance to really say anything else on that, the woman is already coming forward. Chrome isn't entirely certain what she does, or why she does it, but the pose she ends up in is with one leg crossed with part of it balanced against the edge of the counter. Her arms wind together, almost snakelike, and she flicks one finger in Chrome's direction.
"Composite, octagonal, pentagonal pyramidal-" She unwinds her arms and pulls them back, snapping one set of fingers. "All things that describe the essence of me perfectly. My name is Shitt P., but please call me Shittopi-chan."
Chrome blinks up at her. "Okay, Shittoppi-chan," she says simply, because it's not the weirdest thing she's had to say in her life. From the corner of her eye, she can see where the cameraman has turned the camera to make a face at it before he pauses to look at her. Shitt P. herself doesn't seem to emote beyond a simply raise of her chin. It might be in approval. "You said you were on a budget for something in particular...?"
"We need a relic from the time when Batsquatch was first born," Shitt P. says airily, and her cameraman sighs.
"A disco ball," he tells her. "We need a disco ball."
"To skin."
"Why do you have to phrase shit like that?"
"We have that," Chrome says, vaguely reminded of the way Chikusa and Ken bicker. The subject matter is different, but the feeling is still the same. Just dumb bickering to fill the silence. "They're a little hard to find, however." Most things are. "Hold on..." Stepping to the side, she hefts herself up onto the counter surface and scoots over to the other side. In a show of politeness, Shitt P. moves out of the way with a graceful spin that ends with one heel clacking against the floor. That means there's more than enough room for Chrome to plop down on the opposite side, and she dusts her skirt off. "Follow me."
Kokuyo Land might be a bizarre maze for most people. Actually, Chrome is pretty sure the only people who can reliably navigate the space are Mukuro and Ken, the latter which she suspects cheats. Chikusa is smart and probably knows their finances, but he also rarely ventures in this area. It could be 50/50. Still, Chrome likes to think she has a fairly decent grasp on the intricate ins and outs of the store. If nothing else, she has a few notable landmarks of things that have yet to sell for a while now, and a rough idea of what kinds of things are stored where. So she leads the pair through the winding store, only pausing occasionally.
"Are you sure you know where you're going?" the cameraman asks, looking awkwardly at one of many taxidermy creatures that are scattered around the shop no matter the location.
"Mhm," she says, pausing to reorient herself by a small basket of tiny crystal penises. They never seem to run out. She supposes she should be worried about where Mukuro gets these kinds of things. "Who are you?"
"I didn't introduce myself? Yeesh." He shakes his head, but she doesn't really blame him. A lot of people are thrown off by Kokuyo Land, for a variety of reasons. "Just call me Julie."
A pause follows after his words where he's clearly expecting her to do the polite thing of introducing herself, but Chrome doesn't. Instead, she keeps moving on through the Kokuyo labyrinth. With a place like this, it generally needs at least 80% of her attention, and that doesn't lend itself well to casual small talk. The good news is that Julie doesn't really seem to bother broaching it, instead letting the awkward moment pass as he instead films the various strange things they pass. To Chrome's surprise, it's actually Shitt P. that speaks up to fill the silence. "The pastel is super cute."
Chrome doesn't answer that for a second, because it almost doesn't seem like it really needs to be answered... except then she realizes that they're wandering through junkyard hallways composed mostly of brilliantly glaring red neon, punctured occasionally by sharp blues or ill greens. In this kind of eerie haunted Vegas strip club lighting, it's hard to tell the colors of almost anything. The soft pastels of her bomber jacket, the pink of her skirt inlaid with various card suites and skulls on the bottom border- those should be impossible to discern. Surprise hits her, belated, and she looks suddenly up at the other woman. Unlike Julie, however, Shitt P. hasn't bothered to let any sort of silence stretch out, or to wait for anything. She seems to have already moved on through the moment, looking straight ahead and running her fingers along the surface of a guitar whose body is Pacman with his mouth wide open. Befuddled but sort of used to it, Chrome turns her attention back towards her path as well.
Finding the disco ball section ends up being pretty easy, considering how the reflective shards interact with the nonstop neon signs. The refracted colors can be seen shimmering strangely over some of the shelves, and their pace speeds up a little after that, with Chrome allowing the two to forge ahead after a little bit. It's not just disco balls, of course. There are other strange hanging things, placed along the shelves or dangling from certain places, but all the disco balls that Mukuro thought would have made the biggest impression are dangling low from the ceiling where they would just barely avoid brushing against Chikusa's head if he ever dared to stand up to his full height. Some are just regular, circular, and the kind anyone would imagine.
Then there are other kinds.
Faster than a commandment from God, Shitt P. shoots out her arm to point up at one that is shapes liked the dismembered upper torso of a person with perky breasts. "That one."
Julie groans. "That's not even for the project, you just want that because, don't you?"
"It's perfect," Shitt P. says, not denying the accusation. With disregard for safety in any way, she hefts herself up onto the shelves and reaches up to try and find what's hooking it to the ceiling. Chrome should probably stop her. She doesn't. "How much is it?"
"It's perfect," Shitt P. says, not denying the accusation. With disregard for safety in any way, she hefts herself up onto the shelves and reaches up to try and find what's hooking it to the ceiling. Chrome should probably stop her. She doesn't. "How much is it? Maybe we could get it with our budget."
"We almost definitely can't."
Chrome finally shuffles in closer. Usually she doesn't really get too involved with visitors, or even potential customers. However, for this, she can't help but be fascinated. "What's your budget?" she asks, and Julie blinks at her from behind his glasses.
"It's- hold on, I have it written down in my phone-" Finding a spot to put down his camera is a little difficult in glitter fuck hell, but somehow he manages to nudge it securely between a bedazzled football and an empty whiskey bottle full of lit Christmas lights. He seems to fiddle with it for a second, constantly glancing back at her, before he stops, satisfied. "Alright, here-"
The shopping list they have prepared is... definitely a shopping list. A lot of it has to do with constructing something, although Chrome can't entirely figure out what. Besides each entry of the things they need, a rough estimate of how much they could spend is placed, from probably the cheapest things they could find on the internet to how much they could spend if they really needed to. After a few seconds of wondering and reading, Chrome finally looks up from the screen. If nothing else, she has some good news. "You could buy two disco balls here if you really wanted."
When Shitt P. clicks her lips twice and whistles, it somehow sounds like a foreign language. Julie stares at her for a second, brows crumpled together. "That's, like... at least half off for each of them."
"Mhm."
"And you're serious."
"Mm."
"...How does this place stay running?"
"I don't know," she says. Chrome has never bothered to ask Mukuro or Chikusa about the finer business workings of Kokuyo Land, and she never plans to. In case this all ends up highly illegal somehow, she'd like the ability to plead ignorance to the whole thing. At least there might be a Patreon involved, she thinks. That would be nice if true.
Apparently, that works out just fine for Shitt P. too, because she gently hands over the torso disco ball to Chrome for holding. "I'm getting another," she informs Julie before turning around back towards the shelves. Julie grabs her and, with some doing, convinces her for them to find a ladder. It takes around fifteen minutes for them to find one, and then another ten minutes to not get lost on the way back to the register. There aren't really any bags in the store for her to put the disco balls in. Not only Chrome unsure of how one would even pack a disco ball, they just don't have them in general. People either have to bring their own, carry things in their hands, or buy one of the many regular and not regular bags that are in the store.
Fortunately, Shitt P. seems perfectly happy to carry her strange haul, and Julie only pauses long enough to run out the store to get things he apparently prepared ahead of time for some additional things that they happen to carry. Just the strange little things, like hammers, vegetable peelers, and even some basic groceries. "We're running out of food," he informs Shitt P. casually. Chrome isn't expecting him to speak to her any further, but, surprisingly, he does. "Hey, so I tried to avoid filming your face too much, or anything like that, but there are probably some shots in there anyway. Do you have a problem with us if it stays in there, or would you want us to blur it...? We do videos on Youtube."
Somehow, that really explains a lot. It feels like it could also explain things about Shitt P., maybe, possibly, only that doesn't feel entirely right. Chrome has seen people be overly dramatic or ostentatious before; she knows Mukuro after all. This feels a little more... genuine. Either way, Chrome shrugs and finishes putting some of the nails into the rough canvas tote that Julie brought in. "I don't care," she says, handing over the totebag, before she realizes she might have to be a little more clear. "I mean, I'm fine with it. If I'm in a shot... I'm in a shot." She's almost definitely been in people's pictures of Kokuyo Land before, most often by accident. (Sometimes not by accident, in ways that are very creepily not by accident, but it's amazing how quickly those types delete the pictures when M.M. is twisting their arm or Ken is breathing down their neck.)
"Perfect." This time, Shitt P. kisses her ring finger and flicks it towards Chrome. "Then we'll see you later."
And they actually do.
One day, Chikusa actually slinks out from his hole in the ground, a fact Chrome only realizes when she looks up from her lunch to find him standing on the opposite side of the counter. She can't even bring it in her to be shocked or surprised. Instead, she blinks and slurps up some more leftover noodles. "Hi," she says.
Chikusa blinks at her. "Hey," he deadpans.
"...Did Ken steal your phone again?"
Sometimes Chikusa doesn't verbally answer things. Instead, he makes minute facial expressions or gestures that take a whole other language degree to understand. With how rarely he comes to see most other people, there haven't been a lot of chances for her to pick up on most of his tells. Fortunately, she's still learned one or two, and one of those she's learned is for times like this when his mouth twitches downwards just a little bit and he reaches up to adjust glasses that don't really need adjusting. It's the same thing he does everytime Ken bugs him like this, or steals one of his things. Chrome is pretty sure that the blond only does it to get Chikusa's attention out from dubstep hell, because he never learned how to get that attention of people he likes beyond grade school. "Do you follow any Youtubers?" he asks instead of answering her question, which is sometimes normal with Chikusa.
She shrugs. "Not really. I just listen to music and watch cat videos." Something about the whole youtube famous thing bewilders her to some degree. "The people who follow those types...." For a brief second, she considers being delicate in her speech, and then immediately decides not to bother. It's only her and Chikusa besides. "They're weird and obsessive."
Chikusa doesn't disagree or dispute her claims, which isn't surprising to her in the slightest. They can't imagine feeling like someone's friend and being devoted to them just because it's a friendly personality put in front of a camera. "Either way," he says, "look up S.P.C Boost's recent video." That's all he says before turning around to slink back into the miasma of weird objects that is Kokuyo Land. Chrome quietly notes that he's heading in the direction of Ken's food hoarding corner before she goes to pull out her laptop.
3
Well. It would never have occurred to Chrome on how one "skins" a disco ball, or to use that reflective "skin" to put onto a ceiling fan, but now she supposes she'll never forget.
The entire time, she watches the video entranced, and even almost finds herself giggling at the various jokes, memes, or peculiar tangents that Shitt P. tosses out as if they're nothing. Some way through, Chrome still has to admit that she's wondering a little on just... Why go through all the trouble? It feels as though there are a lot of easier ways to do this, including buying something herself. Yet as she watches, a little after the halfway mark, Julie speaks up again, voicing the exact same thing. "This is such a huge waste of time."
"Why?" Despite the absurdity of everything- the workshop covered in all sorts of strange carvings or artwork, Shitt P.'s own graffiti covered 'work' coveralls, everything covered in dust and bit of glue and god knows what else- Shitt P. asks the question with a kind of simpleness.
"I'm just- I mean, there's easier ways to do this, and we don't even have to do this at all."
"Isn't that only life?" Finishing off one fan blade, Shitt P. casually reclines to the side where the empty husk of a disco ball now lays with her arms crossing over the top loosely. "As time passes and things change, human kind only makes life for itself more and more complex, for all that we may call it 'simple'. Yet acts that are called simple are still new acts, adding in ever more to the equation of our life. That's far from a bad thing. However, in turn, we cannot all use the exact same equations that every other person is using at the exact same time. Why get to 2 if you only ever do 1 plus 1, when you can do six minus four, at the absolute very least, and get into cube roots and square roots and depressed cubics? Why experience only the same things as other people?" Lazily, she stretches out one leg, crossing it over where the fan is. "No action in a person's life is meaningless, even if there is no true goal. Just like your decision on wearing outdated fashion-"
"Okay, first of all-"
At that point, the video cuts with Julie trying to lunge out at Shitt P., who only keeps him back with both her enormously long legs and the equally long pumps attached, and continues on as normal.
...But Chrome can't say that she's wrong with that kind of thinking.
Shitt P. soon becomes a regular of Kokuyo Land after her initial visit, in a way that's very different from most of the other regulars who bother to deal with their nightmare scenario of a Wonderland. After all, people like Kyoko only drop by to get some quick mundane things, such as bandaids or bags of rice. The only other outlier she can think of would be Tsuna, who braves a place that gives him heart attacks every five minutes almost solely to check on Chrome and pass her leftovers along from his house or snacks his mom passes through to him. All Shitt P. brings to the metaphorical table would be actual money, whether it's on a credit card or strictly in money she already has on her person, along with a new individual every other time. Chrome doesn't ask how she makes any money, with such an eclectic lifestyle, but she does end up learning how the various people who help Shitt P. film for her channel are in fact actually her family members. This even includes Julie, to her surprise. While no one is quite as unique as Shitt P. is, they all seem to be quite different from one another.
Chrome doesn't wonder how they could all get along together in the same house. Just, after every visit, she goes to share snacks with Ken as they lounge against Bon, or sits in silence with Chikusa down in the blacklight haunted house. Neither of them ever ask about the register, instead just making room for her, even if Ken sometimes complains at the same time he tosses candy onto her lap, or Chikusa stays utterly silent for the whole time.
Inbetween Shitt P.'s visits to gather materials for her videos, whether she's trying something out, making something, or just looking for new and interesting items, Chrome actually finds herself patiently going through the videos on S.P.C. Boost. Despite that first impression and Shitt P.'s general everything, there are actually a good deal of more calm videos, although they still carry that sort of humor and interesting view of the world. It's not really surprising that she's into things like cryptids, ghosts, and aliens, and so there are plenty of videos that just have her facecamming as she goes through all sorts of other videos, essays, and even forum boards on the darkest corners of the internet all dedicated to such subjects. What's more interesting are the meditation videos, the art videos were all she does are choose random colors instead of following along with a tutorial. They're all strange, in the way Shitt P. often is, but there's also a sense of peace and fun to them that Chrome isn't familiar with.
With most of her hobbies or things that catch her attention, Chrome tends to stay quiet about them. Not in this case. Instead, whenever Shitt P. drops by, she ends up speaking to her about the different videos she's gone through last, always referring to her as Shittoppi-chan. It sounds so comfortable and intimate, too much so at first, but, the more she says it, the more Chrome finds her relaxing with the name until it's second language. In turn, Shittoppi-chan seems glad to give her cutesy nicknames as well- something of a first in her whole life. The most popular one seems to be 'Crow-chan', but, as with so much of her life, Shittoppi-chan changes it up every now and then. Still, Crow-chan seems to be the name the internet takes to as Chrome starts to appear in more and more videos every time a new video is made. She's never a starring role, and the rest of the Shimon family seems to cut anything she says in casual conversation with Shittoppi-chan for their own privacy... But she still shows up occasionally in the background, a silent specter with an eyepatch that the comment section seems to love.
"Zirconium," Chrome says one day as Shittoppi-chan practices balancing on her hands in front of the cash register while she sits on the edge, watching. Seated besides her are three whole bags of lipstick and chapstick, along with the ever present video camera. Enma has been the one to accompany her today, and he's gone to get some other basic mundane needs.
Almost immediately, Shittoppi-chan heaves herself up and flips herself onto her feet. Her smile is brilliant, hotter than neon and warmer than summer. "Exactly," she says.
Chrome's smile is a little smaller, a little more subtle, but doesn't belay the heat glowing in the core of it. Instead of saying anything else, because there's nothing else to really say on that, she looks down at the bags. "So what are you going to use these for?" she asks, pulling out makeup that is a deep black that almost seems to absorb the usual bright lights of Kokuyo Land.
Clicking over in her heels, Shittoppi-chan rests one hand on the side of the counter that's actually free, which is on Chrome's other side. "Fun," she says simply, which is always true. "Also, I want to see if I can construct shoes entirely out of the tubes of these."
"Are you going to use any of them on your lips?"
"Absolutely. It's only a matter of how. I'm still debating on whether or not to see how many layers of different lipsticks I can apply to my lips, or if I should melt them all together and see how they turn out." Shittoppi-chan tilts her head to the side curiously. "Do you want to try that one?"
There's no point in dancing around the subject. Chrome knows that she wouldn't have given the offer if she wasn't sure, so she nods and immediately unpops the cap. Straight up black isn't something she's ever really tried on her face before. Without a mirror immediately on hand, with light that isn't some sort of neon, she's not even sure how it looks. Once she purses her lips together and pops them, Shittoppi-chan grins either way. "You look cute to the 96th degree."
"Thanks," she says, because she doesn't really know what else to say. Instead, she glances down between them: Shittoppi-chan's hand right next to her thigh, legs brushing, their heads only some inches apart. "Do you want to try it too?"
"Hit me with it."
So Chrome does. With the tube of lipstick held inbetween the gap of her thumb and pointer finger, she braces herself against the counter and leans forward. Her lips don't make exactly perfect one-on-one contact with Shittoppi-chan's, instead sort of overlaid to one side of her mouth. When Chrome pulls away, she can see a perfect lipstick mark on one half of Shittoppi-chan's, black over the brilliant pale lavender.
When her lips curl, it forms a double smile.