The water scalded your hands, but you dunked the cloth into the hot soapy bucket again and again, making sure the gravestones were kept in perfect condition. You respected every single grave and took care of them lovingly. Making up heroic stories in your mind using the names engraved into the heavy stones, hours easily passed by.
Here and there you'd have a chat with a visitor. Be their shoulder when they cried or smile with them when stories were shared. Life was simple the way you lived it, and you liked it. You were a simple girl from a simple home earning some money with an after-school job at the church. It wasn't a real big job, just some chores. Cleaning, helping putting benches and chairs ready for weddings and masses, just being there for the priests. You didn't mind. Today the chore was giving the gravestones a scrub. Luckily the graveyard wasn't a big one and there weren't a lot of big gravestones that took a lot of time to clean. Humming songs you worked with the sun on your back and a smile on your face.
One grave in particular was your favorite; a tall stone that looked like a cross, standing on a square block. It was a fairly new grave considering some in the graveyard were hundreds of years old. On it stood clearly "Shiro Fujimoto" in a bold, white font. This was your favorite, because on occasion, this particular grave was visited. Which doesn't seem weird, but it was visited by a small, two-tailed cat.
It would cry at times. Take naps on the soil. Wind, rain, thunder, nothing stopped the cat from visiting the grave more often than any human did. It seemed to be so protective of the stone.
You enjoyed giving it snacks and it seemed to appreciate you taking care of, what you thought, was its previous owner's gravestone. The small animal seemed so knowledgeable. On its collar shone the same pendant Shiro had embedded in his gravestone.
You had considered taking the cat in, but the priests of the church the graveyard belonged to specifically told you to leave it be, without any other reason given. You didn't mind at all. The occasional playtime you and the feline shared was enough for you.
You dropped the wet and dirty cloth into the cooled down water and stood up, sliding your arm across your forehead to wipe away the sweat. Putting a hand on your hip you looked proudly at the almost reflecting surfaces of the marble, granite and other polished stones. Next week they'd be treated to another scrub, you decided, and picked up the bucket.
Taking the bucket and cloth with you, you entered the church, welcoming the chatter of the priests and the smell of candle wax and polished wood. The dirty, muddy water found its way down the drain as you poured it out and placed the metal container on its proper place with a satisfying empty "clang". Walking to the kitchen to clean and put away the cloth you happily hummed a song.
"I've heard Yukio and Rin will be visiting for the anniversary of Shiro's death,"
you heard a familiar voice say softly.
"Will they be staying in the church overnight?"
a deeper voice asked in reply.
"I do believe so. We should prepare the proper safety measures.."
You slowly knocked and pushed open the door. It had been slightly ajar, allowing the voices through, and echo into the high ceiling of the church. The priests looked at you and instantly lit up.
"_, have you finished already? You're such a hard worker."
the short, black-clad man complimented you. Blushing slightly, taken aback by the sweet words, you held up the dirty cloth.
"Just came here to clean and dry this, sirs, I'll be gone in just a minute."
You smirked embarrassed. The three men looked at you and smiled widely. You knew they were very grateful to you for doing chores around the church for the small pay they offered you. You didn't really mind doing them anyway and the pay might have been little, it was spending money for you and it funded your hobby of collecting occult and alchemistic books. For a young girl you sure had a weird hobby.
You were quite curious though. Shiro's gravestone had not said he was a loving husband or father. The names Rin and Yukio sounded unfamiliar to you, too, even though you'd been tending to the previous head priests' grave for a couple of years now and heard tons of stories about him. The safety measures they were talking about, however, seemed over the top though. They were just visitors like both the church and the graveyard got plenty enough, right? Not a rampaging army. ..right?
Deep in thought you rinsed and cleaned the cloth before draping it over the rack close to the heater.
A tap on your shoulder made you jump.
"_?"
The tall priest had been calling your name for a while already.
"Would you like to help us clean the church's interior the day after tomorrow? I know it's on short notice, but we could use an extra hand. We did not expect any visitors. You're more than welcome to join us at the anniversary dinner. We see how you treat Shiro's grave and how kindly you handle Kuro. And the twins are about a year older than you, you might make friends!"
He smiled at you widely. You loved how they treated you as much as family as they would they own flesh and blood. Your alcoholic mom never did. She wasn't much of a bother, just not exactly there for you. If dad had never chosen to go to war for you and her, he'd probably still be alive. They told you he'd been killed by a demon, hence your decision to work for the church, even if just cleaning and maintaining. You believed their word for it. You knew demons existed, how to handle, summon and treat them and what their names were. You've read your fair share of literature.
You nodded.
"Sure! I'd love to join for dinner too. To be honest I did not know Shiro had kids and I would love to meet them."
you replied.
The short priest smiled at you and sighed deeply.
"Shiro didn't have any kids."
The man exited the small kitchen, leaving you behind feeling confused and full of questions, but considering the sun was already going down, you put on your coat and hurried out into the streets, quickly making your way home before nightfall.
The next day after school you returned to help. Humming to yourself you slammed two small, rough cotton pillows together that lay scattered on the church benches. Dust formed in a fog around you. It made you sneeze violently and you laughed. Your wide smile seemed to motivate the short priest outside to even more as he raked the pebbles. The sound of them scraping together sounded almost melodious together with your humming and it made the day seem much more brighter. Clouds packed in the sky, however, and you were sure that rain was going to fall in a matter of hours. You had to hurry to make the outside look proper enough for the visitors. Picking up a broomstick with a puffy end that looked like a pom-pom, you decided to give the spiders that made the church their home a scare and woosh their webs away. Can't have proper gravestones and an improper church.
A couple of dusty hours passed before the church looked as if it could start sparkling at any given moment. It smelled fresh and clean. Unlike you, who were covered in dust, string, cobwebs and other signs of places long not seen or cleaned.
"_! You can fresh yourself up here if you'd like. We don't live here, but we keep the place Shiro slept and lived clean for the twins, so if you'd like, you can take a shower there. Have you brought clean clothes?" one of the priests yelled through the church from the little kitchen.
Surprised, you smiled and nodded. Quickly realizing he wouldn't be able to see you from that distance, you yelled back "I'd appreciate that. I've brought a set of clean clothes, yes, I'm not fond of cleaning in my regular clothes!" and you laughed, making your way towards the priest to collect the key to the little living space.
Entering the small room you saw everything you'd expect in a house, just a tad bit smaller. A couch, a radio, several chairs. A weirdly out-of-place box of children's toys, considering Shiro didn't have any kids like the priests told you. You wondered if Shiro perhaps had adopted them.
Opening a door you found a small bedroom with a single bed and a nightstand. A big cross adorned a wall. It was simple but it was all a bedroom needed to be. Another door. A slightly larger bedroom with a bunk bed. The bottom bunk had drawings on the wall. Two small desks stood against the wall facing a big window. The curtains were closed. The third door was the bathroom. It was larger than you expected it to be, with a toilet, a shower and a bathtub. The shower and bathtub weren't big, but trying the faucets you found there was hot water and you started undressing as the water reached a nice temperature. It was cold, just standing there in your undies, but since nobody lived there anymore, you shook it off as normal. Nobody had put a heater on in a while anyway.
The water was warm and pleasant on your skin. A bar of peach-scented soap lay ready to be used in a small container hung on the wall. While lathering yourself in bubbles you sang softly to yourself. The dirt that had gathered on your skin easily came off as you scrubbed yourself vigorously.
In the meantime, rain started falling on the freshly raked pebbles and the clean gravestones. The somber feeling the rain brought along didn't bother you at all in the silent bathroom that did not have any windows. The shower was loud enough for you to not be able to hear nature wash herself off, nor did you hear the church doors slam closed and rapid footsteps making their way towards the warm kitchen.