38. Funeral.

I didn't like this part of the job. No, actually I hated it. Sitting with the deceased's family, going over coffin choices, what you would like them to wear and what you would like the tombstone to say. Where you wanted to bury them. The fights over who would speak at the funeral were bad enough. It was messy and gross. I preferred the dead to the living most days. I currently had a woman and her teenage son sitting across from me, the woman crying uncontrollably. I suppressed a sigh and offered her the box of tissues; she took them muttering thank you. Her son looked to me for help, but before I could say anything my phone started to ring. It was just my brother but it gave me an excuse to leave the room for a bit. The woman was slowly driving me insane.
"If you would excuse me for a moment, its business," I murmured, heading to the back room as fast as I could.
"Hi, this is the house of the dead. You kill em' we grill em'," I said second the door was closed, if the clients ever heard me say that I'd be the next body on the slab, turning the kettle on pulling out mugs and biscuits to make tea.
"Is that really how ya great yer potential clients Ichi-bitch?"
"Nope just you, what the fuck do want Shiro? I'm in the middle of a meeting with clients," I said, pulling out a tray wondering where I had left the tea bags. The back room wasn't particularly clean.
"I'm sending someone yer way, he should stop in before closing today."
"Great, bye," I said, finally locating the tea bags as I hung up. I rolled my eyes annoyed, Shiro's particular brand of help often ended up with someone getting hurt. The last guy he sent over here had to be escorted out of the building by police. By the time the tea was ready I managed to wipe the look of anger off my face, my clients didn't need to think I was mad at them. Even though I kind of was. That would just make things worse. I placed the tray before them, the mother instantly grabbing a mug.
"Sorry about that, now as I was about to say before we have several nice coffin choices in your price range, I have the catalogue here or you can browse the show room," I said placing a catalogue before the son, not sure his mother could handle it. And I was right; she took one glance at it and burst into tears. I suppressed my snort standing to comfort her.
"Mother if it's to much for you I can make all the arrangements," the son said holding her hand. She looked at him for a second before nodding, throwing herself into his arms.
"If it's not a problem could I reschedule this appointment for tomorrow afternoon?" He asked looking rather annoyed by his mothers antics.
"Of course, I'll contact you later in the evening with a new time," I said offering condolences as I helped him escort his crying mother from the building. Once we got her in the car he muttered an apology, I waved it off. This wasn't the worse thing that had happened because of this job.
I glanced up as the door open, holding a finger to my lips I shushed the man before he could ask his question pointing to one of the many empty chairs.
"Of course I can arrange that it's not a problem at all sir, yes. Thank you for your patronage and condolences for your loss." I hung up with a sigh, arranging for a dead man to have a fake beard was not a problem at all; I'd done weirder things. Now to deal with this man. It was obvious this was the guy Shiro had sent. He looked somewhat normal and he seemed normal considering he was just sitting there waiting for me to speak to him instead of demanding my attention. It was odd considering all of Shiro's friends were insane.
"How's my brother doing?" I asked. He snapped his head up, looking at me.
"Almost broke an arm the other night jumping off a bridge into a river cause he wanted to go swimming, Gin ended up dragging him from the river by force to go to the hospital."
"So he'd doing great then," I muttered, stepping out from behind the desk. I waved him over, heading towards the embalming room without a second glance. He didn't even flinch at the sight of the corpse.
"This is Mr Saitama; he arrived a little over an hour ago. Here's what they want him to look like. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, I'll be back in a couple of hours. Oh and don't worry too much if you can't finish, this is about skills not speed," I said handing over the photo, empty handing dipping into his jacket pocket and liberating the man of his wallet.
Grimmjow Jaegerjaques. 29 yr's old with an embalmers licence and a driver's licence. Bonus! Both were still valid. Double bonus! The best thing about it was that he actually had no criminal record and that was a remarkable thing considering the guy was friends with Shiro. Triple bonus! All I had to do know was see how good his embalmers skills were, Mr Saitama did not arrive in the best of conditions. Even if he messed up anything would be an improvement.
"Yo Grimmjow times up I brought you some coffee!" I called awkwardly opening the door with an elbow. Grimmjow was collapsed on the floor, he looked dead tired but he was grinning. I raised a brow passing over the coffee before going over to the table, Mr Saitama looked perfect just like the photo I had passed over.
"Good Job Grimm," I said, sitting down next to him. He sighed leaning against my shoulder.
"So have I got the job? Was there even a job opening? Shiro just kept ranting on about how his baby sister needed help actually and then said you were expecting me to show up today for a trial," he muttered, sounding really confused by it all. I snorted, my laughter soon echoing around the room with little restraint on my end.
"Yeah I was looking for another embalmer. It's just me working here, I'm not fussed but Shi hated the fact that I was always surrounded by death without another living soul in the building. It didn't help that I refused to let him work here, he can't handle dead bodies very always puking at the sight of them." Grimmjow started laughing this time. He probably hadn't known about Shiro's irrational fear of dead bodies.
"He'd mentioned, very briefly mind ya, that he had tried to become an embalmer once so that he could work in the funeral home with ya but Shiro said he didn't have the brains to pass the theory side of the course." I snorted in amusement, that lying bastard.
"That idiot has the brains, he puked on the body during our first practical lesson," I said, Grimm lost it at this, coffee spilling on the floor as his body shook from laughter. It made me smile, maybe Shiro had been right.
"Wanna go fer a drink, it'd be nice to spend sometime with ya away from death."
"Sure."