My father owns a small shop in London's East End. It's an…odd…little shop, but it does alright. His customers are almost always taken to the back room, but sometimes, he leaves them out in the front room. I don't want to see that. He talks about his more…interesting…customers at dinner. I don't want to hear that. Lately, most of his customers have been…incomplete. They're all missing organs, and I don't want to go into detail about which ones.
(A/N: Has anyone guessed who her dad is yet? NO? WELL THEN STUDY YOUR KUROSHITSUJI.)
Did I mention that all of his customers are dead? No? Well, they are.
I'm not a huge fan of my father's line of work, at least not the dead bodies' part. All I do is paint the coffins.
Today is no different from every other day of my life. I try to stay upstairs for a few hours in the morning, because that's when the customers usually arrive. I make my way down the stairs, black braid trailing behind me, and immediately wish I hadn't. Because there it is, another gruesomely murdered woman, spread out on a cart at the door, covered in blood. It's just there for all to see. I go straight to the door to the back room without looking at it too much and open the door. Sure enough, there's Dad, working on ANOTHER gruesomely dismembered corpse. "How many times do I have to tell you to MOVE THEM TO THE BACK AS SOON AS YOU GET THEM?" I say, irritated. One would think that, being the Undertaker's kid, I would be used to this. But I don't think anyone except Dad can get used to the fact that there is a DISEMBOWELED BODY in the front room. Not even me, and I've tried to for nearly all of the sixteen years I've been alive.
"I'll get her in a few minutes~~!" he says in a singsong voice. I roll my eyes and go out to the backyard shed, where MY part of the work is. But before I can even get my hands on a paintbrush, I hear someone knocking on the door. Yes, it's that quiet around here—even when you're outside, you can hear someone knocking on your door.
"Alexis, can you get the door?" Dad calls from his "office" and I grudgingly obey. The only person that I know that ever comes here is William T. Spears, a supervisor from the London Dispatch Society and one of the coldest, most apathetic excuses for a person I have ever met. But it's not him at the door. Instead, it's…a crazy person. I can't even tell if it's male or female. He/She/It skips in and knocks on the door to the back room, brandishing a…well, I don't even know what that is. (A/N: There were probably no chainsaws in the 1800s.)
"Dad, there's an escaped mental hospital patient in the house, what do I do?" I yell over the sound of the weapon (at least I think it's a weapon) roaring. The back door opens and Dad steps out, takes the weapon and stops it from making that terrible sound. But he/she/it is too busy to notice. He/She/It is hovering over the disemboweled corpse.
"It's so beautiful, covered in pretty, pretty red…" he/she/it muses. His/Her/Its long red hair is draping over the dead body, some of it dipping into the blood.
"I told you there was a crazy person in the house," I say, feeling like I've made myself pretty clear. But Dad doesn't seem to hear me. I watch, dumbfounded, as he walks over to the body and starts having a conversation with the crazy person.
"Yes, she is rather interesting~! But that's not the reason you are here, is it, Grell?" he says, making my jaw drop.
"YOU KNOW THIS PERSON?" I yell, surprised. My glasses, huge, circular-lensed, black-framed things, slide down my nose a little and I have to push them up. I'm glad they didn't fall, then I'd have to look for them, and that would take a while. I could very well be the closest person in the world to being blind without actually being blind.
"Of course~! Alexis, this is Grell Sutcliff, he's another Reaper~!" Dad introduces the person, who I now assume to be male.
Dad never seemed to see a point in keeping things from me, so I've always know about the Grim Reapers, the Dispatch Society, and the whole "retired Reaper" thing. He's made it very clear to me that when the Society comes calling for me, I have a choice whether I want to stay in the human world or work for them. I kind of already know what I want to do, and it doesn't involve painting coffins and making dead bodies look as good as they did when they were alive.
"And you must be little Alex~~!" Grell squeals like a girl my age meeting her idol. "I've heard so much about you!" He flings himself at me and before I know it all the air is being squeezed out of me in a bone-crushing hug. My feet aren't even touching the ground anymore; the man's lifted me about a foot.
"Put—me—down!" I choke and he drops me, leaving me gasping for air. It's been…what, five minutes? And he's already invaded my personal space. I'm not sure I want to be around him for more than a few minutes, he might blow up anything in a twenty-foot radius with that personality. "Well I've heard absolutely nothing about you…" I say under my breath. It goes unnoticed and I think I'm free from having to have a conversation with those two. I start to sneak towards the back door, not listening in the slightest to what they were saying until I hear my name.
"Well then maybe little Alex can," Grell volunteered me for something I have no idea about. How kind.
"Can what?" I whirl around, my four-foot-long rope of a braid almost jumping over my shoulder. I've considered cutting it, but I can't find a pair of scissors that haven't been in contact with a customer.
"Work with ME at the Dispatch Society! We're desperately shorthanded," he explains.
"With you? No," I say. I don't want to be in the same ROOM as Grell Sutcliff. Anyone else, I would.
"Aw, why not?" he whines. "Anyone would want to work with an attractive lady such as myself! We could do each other's hair, talk about boys…" I can't believe him. Does he not know the meaning of work?
"I don't want to be strangled to death whenever I walk into a room you're occupying," I say. It's true. "You seem to have no respect for personal space, and I can't be around someone that can't control their desire to squeeze the air out of a person."
Grell looks offended. And I must be a terrible person, because I truly don't give a crap. "You wound me," he whines. A loud laugh rings out and we both look at Dad. He's laughing like a crazy person and swaying back and forth on the coffin he's been occupying for the past few minutes.
"What's so funny?" I ask, irritated.
"You and Grell~!" is the response. I shrug.
"Won't you two please think about coming to the Dispatch Society? We're sadly understaffed and you two are first on the list of Reapers living in the human world," Grell pleads. "And Will is going to kill me if I can't get at least a few people to come. Or drown me in overtime- a truly tragic way to die!"
"Not me. I'm fine with Alexis and the customers. Speaking of which," Dad (finally) takes the new customer into the back. I breathe a sigh of relief now that that terrible sight is gone. "Now Alexis…you can make whatever decision you want," he calls from the back room.
"And you pick NOW to leave me alone with him/her/it?" I whine.
"Hey! I'm not an IT! I am a LADY~~!" Grell yells indignantly.
"Whatever you say…" I smile and head out to the back shed, thinking that he will finally just…go annoy some other person.
"Will is going to be so angry with me…" he sighs, but I'm thinking that he might not be so disappointed after all.
