Curiosity Caged the Bird

Funerals, Best Friends, and Midget Stylists

I sighed as I gazed upon my aunt's grave. Her funeral had just ended and everyone was filing out, except me of course. I was wearing a simple spaghetti strap black dress with orchestra style black pants underneath (I AM a tomboy after all) and black flats. My hair is down, a rare sight, and is being held back by a black headband. To complete my dreary ensemble, I had a black chocker with a silver charm of a swift (a type of bird) attached- given to me by my aunt herself.

My aunt was- is very important to me. Until I was thirteen, I was living with her here in Japan. My mom and dad couldn't afford me at the time, so they decided to dump me on my mom's sister. It sounds harsh, I know, but it was better for me at the time and I loved being with my aunt anyway.

My aunt was a free-spirited person who loved to have fun. She always joked around and was an optimist despite her sickness- oh ya, you don't know about her sickness. She had some type of cardiac disease that caused her to have internal bleeding. It was only a matter of time before she died.

She never let that get her down though, she wasn't that type of person. I didn't let how much it distressed me show, for her sake. She hated seeing people sad- especially for her sake, that was something I picked up from her. I never accepted pity from a person, and never will.

My childhood with her was happy and fun regardless. She was quite liberal with things and I felt like I had to be the parent half the time, but she made me smile regardless. We never had a problem with bills, she had a pretty good job. She was the leading advisor, or whatever you'd call it, of a famous fashion designer. Being a famous fashion designer, she was obviously rich. Though she wasn't the source of my dislike towards the rich, rather it was-

"Yuri honey, we have to get going, our flight will be here fairly soon and you have to go to your friend's house to get settled," I heard my mom's gentle voice calling.

I sighed and put the white lily I had been holding on my beloved aunt's grave. I then stood up and wiped my tears. I wasn't overly emotional, nor did I like to cry I public, but my heart wasn't stone and I felt it was quite appropriate to cry at a funeral. I didn't look exceedingly somber though- aunt wouldn't like that.

I began to walk away from her grave with the silent promise I'd visit her from time to time. I looked up and saw my mother's heart-wrenching face. I gave her a watery smile in an attempt to reassure her and said, "don't look so sad mom. You know aunt wouldn't like that."

Mom gave an equally sad, if not sadder smile and said, "Yeah, Trish was always happy and smiling."

Trish was my aunt's name, short for Trisha. She may have lived in Japan for almost half of her life, but she was quite proud of her name and refused to change it into something more Japanese-like.

I gave my mom a hug, which she happily returned and she began sobbing again. When she was finished, we broke apart and began walking to where my dad was watching. He had on a stony face so that no amount of the sadness he felt slipped by. I knew and he knew that keeping your emotions bottled up was a bad thing to do, but we both did it anyway. He just did it in a more extreme way than I did.

"We have to get going now Yuri," he informed me stoically.

I nodded and bid farewell to my parents. My mom tried to look somewhat happy, but failed miserably. I gave her another hug and gave one to my dad who told me to be careful. Then they were gone.

Almost as soon as they had walked away, another person walked up to me.

"Are you okay Yuri-chan?" she asked tentatively

I turned around and gave as much as a heartfelt smile I could to my best friend and said, "I'll be fine Kimi-chan."

Kimiko, nicknamed Kimi, smiled back. Yeah, my best friend is called Kimiko Kamura, were you expecting someone else? Anyway, Kimiko had short pitch black hair that was put into two pigtail stubs. She also had hot pink eyes and freckles sprinkled on her face. She was wearing a black gothic lolita dress that had ruffles and lace and black ballet flats . Kimiko was a girly-girl.

I'm sure a red flag was just razed in your head and the equation tomboy+girly-girl=enemies. Okay, maybe the equation didn't come, but hey, not everyone can be my level of awesomeness. Anyway, Kimiko and I actually met through aunt Trish's job. Kimiko wanted custom dresses for her birthday ball. Yes, Kimiko is in fact rich. In fact, she is so rich that she was having us make dresses for every one of her guests. She also had to be there when they were designed to make sure they were up to her taste level.

It's needless to say, when I first met her, I disliked her- a lot. I thought she was just some bratty rich kid that didn't have a clue what a world without daddy's money was like, and I was right. I came to every meeting she had with my aunt, miss boss lady decided to let her handle this one, and I considered her a giddy prep right away. But one day, she came and was uncharacteristically depressed. Seriously, I had never seen this girl without a smile.

I was naturally curious, so I decided to ask what was wrong. It was summer vacation at the time, so it couldn't have been anything to do with school. When I asked her what was wrong, I got more than what I bargained for, in fact, I basically got her life story. I found out Kimiko Kamura was a lonely person.

She didn't really think any of her friends were actually her friends, and she didn't trust anyone besides her family, and them just barely. But, she smiled and bared it, and no one could tell she was sad, because no one really knew her that well. That wasn't what made her so sad though. The thing was, she had a crush on someone and that person had crushed her. This person had rejected her ruthlessly and had crushed a little bit of her spirit. This person was a cold and cruel person as far as I was concerned.

The worst part was though, when Kimiko went to her friends with her broken heart, they were far from concerned. They told her that she shouldn't have crushed on him in the first place, he was to good for her and that maybe if she had been prettier she wouldn't have been rejected. This made me mad.

I knew and believed the rich were shallow and have a stick shoved up there.....butt, but really, that was just a cruel thing for them to do. I asked Kimiko what she did, and she said she just agreed with them.

I slapped her. I may have been overly dramatic, but that was just stupid. I then proceeded to tell her that she had to stand up for herself and not let people walk all over her. I was never good at preaching to people, but apparently it worked because she smiled and said I was right.

She then proceeded to tell me about her life every time I saw her, which was almost everyday, and I became her unwilling shrink. It would be a while before I admitted we were friends, though she claimed me as her best friend almost right away. My cynicism and sarcasm, contrasted her optimism and peppiness. I suppose we were kind of like yin and yang and evened each other out.

We were only eleven at the time, and I told her there was no need for a crush or boyfriend yet, which she replied to that there was always the need with hot guys in the world. Damn boy-crazy preps.

By the time her party had rolled around, a thought had cooked in my head, and I had began scheming. It is never a good thing when I begin scheming. I needed help though, and I wasn't about to tell Kimiko about it, she wasn't the vengeful type of person. So, I got the two most devious people I knew to help, it took a lot of persuasion on my part and a lot of mockery to me on their part, but they finally agreed to help. The plan was a go.

I arrived at the party disguised as a waiter, Kimiko had insisted that I come, but I told her that I had something I had to do and had to attend to it. Technically it was true, it just so happened to be at her party. Kimiko's party was very elegant and expensive for a eleven year old turning twelve(I still can't believe she's a year older than me), but it didn't matter, it actually was better for me. Her "friends" were all dressed elegantly and made up to look their prettiest, well, for now. At one point in her party, Kimiko had to leave for a period of one to two hours to go meet some unexpected relative at the airport. Wow, that was very convenient.

It was at that point in time that I ascended the stair case and made an announcement. I had my hair tucked inside a beret and sunglasses covering my eyes just in case any of the prissies decided to actually remember my face. I then announced that it was time for the make-overs and that they were to change into their pajamas ( I didn't have the heart to ruin the dresses my aunt worked hard on). The party was a sleepover after all. After they changed, they were lead by two boys that had their hair covered by caps and sunglasses over their eyes. The idiots didn't even question their attire.

They were lead into a huge room (and I mean huge) where there were vanities lined up in the whole room. They practically drooled. I caught back up to them after I changed out of my waiter cloths. We placed sleeping masks over their eyes "so that they'd be in awe of their beauty when they saw again" end ridiculous explanation quote.

The three of us then used the next hour and fifteen minutes to put the most ridiculous makeup on and put their hair in horrible styles, then we used the last fifteen minutes to take pictures of them. It was a lot of fun. When we told them they could take their blindfolds off, they did simultaneously (kind of creepy) took one look in the mirror and screamed. We ran off laughing. It was kind of weird how all the adults left the girls in the care of, "extremely short professional stylist that have the fear of people seeing their hair and face". People really are idiots.

Kimiko and company would be arriving in fifteen minutes, and I took full advantage of them. I quickly changed back into my waiter cloths and went back into the room full of freaking out girls. To my amusement, they did not notice I had on the same hat and sunglasses of the female stylist. I then announced that the three stylist were fakes that claimed to be sent by the guy that had broken Kimiko's heart to torture her, but the three unfortunately escaped.

The girls were furious and sympathized with Kimiko that the guy was simply horrible and out to get her. They were singing a different tune than they were before, just like the plastics they were. Me and my two partners in crime hightailed it out of there just as Kimiko came in only to be bombarded by the sympathies of girls who looked liked they had a make-up fight.

The next day just so happened to be the start of school (I actually went to the same school because I was, once again, persuaded by Kimiko) and the pictures were posted all around school. The friends that hurt Kimiko were made fun of and the boy that broke her heart had to deal with a bunch of screaming harpies. He did, unfortunately, work everything out though. The three stylist are still on the loose to this day, much to the disdain of the girls, and Kimiko still had no clue about who was behind the whole thing. Not to mention I had a great first day of school. Revenge accomplished.

I looked at Kimiko and grinned, "perhaps we'll be able to find those fake stylist while I'm here."

"I still don't know why anyone would bother to send them to embarrass me. They must not be any good anyway since I wasn't even there!"

I just laughed.

"Too true Kimi-chan!"