I forgot to mention that this story is a Slight!AU. It's still within the Kuroshitsuji universe but I don't plan to write everything according to Canon- that tends to make for tedious reading in a fanfic. I'm leaning toward basing this closer to the manga than the anime though. This story will probably not be very long either.
Yana-sensei is awesome. Much love to the creator of Undertaker!
There was no getting around it.
She had wandered all night searching for this shop, carrying a dead body on her back. For some reason, the mortician found it hysterical. He had laughed pretty heartily after she first spoke, then he invited her to sit for tea and bone-shaped biscuits. He didn't answer her question and instead asked her to recount the past night to him. He was apparently amused by what she had to say–evidence being his booming laughter that shook the building so harshly she was pretty sure she heard the sign outside fall from its place.
At present, he was draped over his desk, drooling and shivering in delight with his arms around himself and panting for breath. She didn't understand what the big joke was but decided to take small sips of tea from her beaker as she waited for him to calm himself.
"Haah~ Hee~hee~! I've seen paradise~! Hee~!"
She studied him as she waited. His wide grin and laughter seemed genuine. She'd never seen anyone smile so widely or laugh so boisterously before. She couldn't see his eyes though, so she wasn't sure if he was laughing at the way she worded something or because he was mocking her. His dark nails were ridiculously long and she wondered if he constantly had to clean dirt from them (or maybe something like blood, given his profession). Her own nails were kept short.
"Ah~ Well then, little lady," he swiped a finger under his bangs as if wiping a tear from his eye. "You've earned qui~te a bit for that laugh jus~t no~w!"
She set her beaker beside her on the coffin she was sitting on, fingers beginning to tap on her thighs. There really was no getting around it. Mortician or not, he was certainly unlike anyone she'd met before. How to proceed…
Well, she had heard a couple of ladies whispering behind their fans; something about their friend being made to look more beautiful at her funeral than she had been in life. Then something about how such work was unexpected from someone so eccentric. She was immediately curious and fascinated. (What high praise! To think there was someone with such a skill! …was what she thought at the time.)
"Mister Mortician, I've heard that you're the best at making a corpse beautiful!"
As she opened her mouth to say more she suddenly found said eccentric man's face closer to her own than what was socially acceptable of a stranger. Her next words died in her throat with a small squeak but she didn't move away. The man was all smiles and snickers as he tapped a long black nail on her nose.
"My~ what flattering lips~ Call me 'Un~der~taker', my dear."
"Ah…okay, Undertaker."
He giggled at her slightly awkward pronunciation and she next found a heavy hand on her head and her hair being ruffled between his long fingers.
"Mister Undertaker! That is…"
He began loudly humming an unfamiliar tune over her half-hearted protests as those fingers continued to comb through her hair. His nails lightly scraped over her scalp as he parted her hair this way and that. Most surprising to her was that he seemed to be able to maneuver through it without catching a tangle too painfully.
Was it because he was used to dealing with his own hair? Now that she thought about it, hair as long as his must be hard to maintain. It was a bit scruffy but looked well taken care of for the most part. He also had a braid in his hair. Did he make it himself? Would a barber know how to do such a thing? Such nimble fingers…
She didn't know it but her whole posture turned docile as she got lost in her thoughts. Her head turned to an angle better suited for him to work with and her eyes lowered into a relaxed gaze. She was quite easily getting swept away in his pace. She was either used to someone invading her personal space or she was dangerously easy-going for a young English lady. Though, the girl in question didn't look to fit the bill of the typical English Lady in the first place.
Just as he was finishing up, the girl suddenly flinched harshly and turned wide eyes to him.
"Mister Undertaker! While that feels really nice, please remember that I came here on business!"
"Hee-hee~! Aren't yooou the one who for~got?"
The truth of that statement hit her with crushing force.
"Y-yes-but-!"
He seemed to ignore her sputtering as he brought a sleeved hand to his mouth in a poor attempt to contain his growing snickers, swiftly moving away from her all the while. Her eyes glanced to the bundle of stained sheets behind her and she sighed.
"You've heard me out, Mister Undertaker. Please give me an answer now."
Once again he began humming an unfamiliar tune with the occasional giggle, twirling about and slinking around the cluttered parlor. He moved a few things about-tools, maybe- and she was sure he was ignoring her existence. Next, his heavy hands were clamped down on her shoulders. She was unceremoniously yanked from her sitting spot and guided to the door.
"EH? What's-"
"Come again in two days~"
"What about payment? I haven't-"
The sunlight hurt her eyes more than she expected when he threw the door open.
"Fufufu~ I'll make her all~ pretty! Bye, bye now!"
She was thrown out and the door was slammed shut behind her. The street was busier now that it was about mid-morning but no one seemed to spare more than a startled glance her way at the loud noise. It took a moment for her process what had just happened. She took a great intake of breath, slowly released it, stood, straightened herself out, and began to head to her next destination.
Two days, he said.
Maybe he wanted to be paid after he was done? She would be sure to collect some money before then, in that case. Did he even say how much he charged? No, she was sure he never said a word about it. Well, she would know for sure in two days' time. Meanwhile, she had somewhere to be…
That Undertaker sure is strange.
EXTRA:
Her employer and co-workers didn't seem to act out of the ordinary for the most part. In all honesty, they were all rather busy –her especially so since she arrived late. (She was glad her boss didn't scold her too harshly; instead, saying something like "Having your head in the clouds is one of your charm points, after all!" Maybe her boss assumed she was late because she got lost in thought and not because she actually had something to do? She didn't bother to try and clear the misunderstanding.)
It wasn't until the evening when she happened to catch a glimpse of her reflection in a window she passed that she sensed something amiss. When she looked, she realized that her hair was a mess. Not the usual kind of mess it was at the end of a long day either.
Atop her head sat two stacks of knotted hair, shaped to look like devil horns. Knots. Knots that would take forever to take out. Didn't this mean that she spent the whole day with her hair like this? How did her hair even…?
-UNDERTAKER?!
