02/09/2009 21:44:00

I know I wasn't going to upload this until next week… But I don't want to keep people waiting too long without really knowing what this story is about. The first chapter is really vague, and I think this one is more… I don't know what word to use. This one is longer, obviously, and it's got more stuff. Plus, Ciaran and Sebastian actually meet. :O

Disclaimer: I'm not the creator of Kuroshitsuji, and I most certainly do not have the copyright papers to Sebastian, or any of the other characters in the show. I only own Ciaran Aisling Kelly. :3

9 September 1888

He came again to the market today. I saw him enter the teashop from my bedroom window. He always went to the teashop first. I watched him exit with a bag and then enter the dairy shop. He left with nothing but his bag of teas. I assumed he made an appointment for a delivery.

He then looked towards my father's butcher shop, right below where I had been sitting. He walked towards the front door, and I decided I should help father downstairs.

I carefully went down the stairs, not wanting to trip in front of the beautiful stranger I had seen twice now from my window. As if on queue, as soon as I hit the last stair, I stepped on the hem and fell forward. I braced myself for the fall, ready to hit the floor, but the impact never came. Instead, a felt an arm wrap around my waist, and my face was suddenly pressed into something hard and warm, that smelled suspiciously of summer rain.

Then it was gone, and I was left standing there, a bewildered look on my face. He must have thought me a fool. I looked up at him and he smiled at me. The same smile as last week. The one that made my face red and my knees shake beneath my dress. I'd have fainted back into his arms if my father hadn't started speaking to me.

"Ciaran, you little whore. Go make yourself useful," he all but yelled at me. I should have known he'd have seen my spill on the stairs, and how the nameless butler caught me, then seemed to push me away. At least, it may have seemed like he pushed me away, but he was rather gentle in standing back on my feet.

"Sorry, Father," I quietly said in an almost whisper. I backed away, back towards the stairs. As I began preparing my father's knives for the butler's orders, I made a point to pay attention so as not to make even more of a fool of myself to avoid my father's insults and criticism and not to cut myself accidentally. I struggled. My father spoke to him as if he was familiar with him. How could that have been? I'd never seen him come into the shop before.

"Sebastian, my boy. How have you been?" my father asked him almost giddily.

So his name is Sebastian. I smiled to myself, glad to finally know his name. Though I was slightly irritated at my father's "my boy," I pushed it aside and waited for Sebastian to speak. I prepared myself for a soft, higher pitched voice to match his elegant features. What I hadn't been prepared for, however, was his lilting, velvety voice.

"I'm doing fine, Mr. Kelly," he said as he smiled at my father. There was something different about this smile, though. It was different than the one he showed me not even five minutes prior. There was something malicious about it despite its innocent façade.

"Please, please, Sebastian, call me Humphrey," my father laughed, patting Sebastian on the shoulder. I swear I saw his perfect smile falter as my father touched him. The man most likely disgusted him.

It was true. My father was a dirty man. He rarely combed his greasy hair, he wore the same clothes for several days in a row, he hardly bathed himself, and he was missing several teeth. He was definitely not a man who a person would want to be touched by. His language was just as dirty as his skin.

Perhaps that's why Mother tried to leave him.

I smirked to myself before turning back to cleaning the sharp instruments in my hands. It was common knowledge that he had stabbed my mother as she ran for the front door, wanting to be free of him and his habitual drunkenness. He stabbed her in the chest. Five times. I watched it happen at the grand age of seventeen years old. That was when I started this diary.

It was also when I first saw him. When I first saw Sebastian.

"I require the usual amount of beef, pork, and lamb," Sebastian tenderly swayed my father from the previous topic of conversation by telling him what he needed, smiling all the while.

"Of course, of course. How silly of me to forget," he laughed a bit before turning to me, an angry look on his face. "Ciaran! You're slow just like your mother. How do you expect to get a respectable job when you're as useless as a sack of potatoes?"

"Actually, Mr. Kelly," Sebastian intercepted, "Potatoes are far from useless. There are many meals that can be made from only potatoes." He was still smiling, and he was defending me.

I blinked, not really sure of what had happened, and looked at my father, expecting him to go into a rage and verbally tear Sebastian to pieces.

"You are right, they aren't useless," he mumbled thoughtfully as he visibly slumped and grabbed the now clean knives from my hands. He went into the back, undoubtedly to cut up the meats that Sebastian had ordered.

I finished drying my hands on my apron and walked to the counter, preparing to write out the amount owed by the handsome butler. Before I could write out anything, or even grab the pen and ink, he placed £20 in front of me.

I stared dumbly at the amount of money before me. He smiled gently and said "Keep the extra for yourself" before walking back towards the door. "Tell your father I'll be back in an hour to pick up my order. I have some more shopping to attend to."

I nodded and watched him leave before quickly doing the math in my head, and taking the rather generous tip he had left solely for me, smiling warmly as I headed to the back room to relay Sebastian's message to my father.

Once I had told my father Sebastian would return for his order, I went back to my room to hide the money away. I knew if my father found it, he'd think I'd taken up on prostitution like he always told me I would. "That's all you'd be good for" he'd say. "You're a whore just like your mother."

I always got that… "You're a ____ just like your mother." "Your mother was a _____. That must be where you got it from." "No man will ever want a disgusting tramp like you. I don't see why I ever loved your mother." "You sleep with men for money, and Jack The Ripper's coming to come get you." He used Jack The Ripper lines far too often on me to be scared anymore. All to which I respond with "Jack doesn't stalk his victims. He randomly mutilates the first woman who asks him to bed for a little bit of money. If you'd pay any attention to the newspapers, you'd know that. So unless you are the Ripper, you'd have no way I am on his 'list of targets.' But seeing as I'm not a prostitute, and that I'm a nineteen year old virgin, I wouldn't be on that list in the first place."

I supposed it was because I looked like my mother. I had her dark hair, her blue eyes, her fair skin, her high cheekbones, her rose petal lips, her long fingers, everything.

About an hour after hiding my money and lying on my small bed, thinking of Sebastian, I heard the shop's door open and close. I suspected it was he. I heard him casually talking to my father. I silently crept down the stairs and listened to what they were saying.

"Was that your daughter, Mr. Kelly?" I heard Sebastian's soft tenor say. Immediately I blushed, smiling to myself. He's asking about me. I could have squealed in girlish delight, but in order to not give away my position, I kept silent.

My joy died when my father spoke. "She's useless. She can't clean, she can't cook, she trips ever everything including herself, she's weak and she's just plain useless." He really should change his name to Humphrey Buzzkillington. "A hopeless cause and a waste of space." He was not one to speak about being a waste of space.

"She didn't seem so." He was so polite. I made a decision then that I would strive for politeness. To be proper is what I had always desired. "She seemed to fit well in the kitchen." I could hear his smile in his speech, and felt myself smile as well. "If I would be allowed, perhaps I should take her to the Phantomhive estate and relieve you of any inconvenience?"

I felt my breath leave my body, and I believe I fainted, though miraculously, I didn't fall. I was slumped against the wall, still holding myself up. He wanted me to go away with him! I recovered quickly when I heard my father speak, once again ripping away my happiness.

"No. She will do nothing but cause you trouble." I could hear the movement of packages, and guessed my father was putting them in a bag for Sebastian. "I told you she is useless. There is no need for her in your place of work." For someone who seemed to hate me, he sure seemed to not want to let me leave. Was it this way when my mother wanted to leave? He seemed hell bent on keeping me his prisoner.

"I see. Well, if you change your mind, you may simply send a letter," he was still smiling despite my father's rejection to let him save me.

But I could not talk to him. No. Horrible with words as I am, I could never speak to him. Everything would come out wrong as it always does. I choose to keep quiet so my lack of social skill is not obvious. One of the few reasons I mostly keep to my room and watch people.

Okay… If you like it, PLEASE review so I know whether to continue it, or delete it. :D THANKS GUYS!