[ Chapter 10 ]

"Well, at least your eye seems to be getting better. At least it's not as purple…black-ish sort of anymore," Jackson observed, leaning forward to better study Mia's eye. He blinked, lifting his warm white mug. He took a long sip of his Wolf's Bane tea, before leaning back to the plush of the red booth seat. "So anyway, how's Kim doing?"
Mia pulled down the beak of her navy blue baseball cap, as if hiding. "I dunno actually, we haven't talked lately. She's been sort of…distant."
"Oh, really?" Jackson said before yawning. His mouth openly widely. He quickly covered it before his eyes squinted close.
Mia let out a soft giggle, reaching over the white table to poke at his soft cheek. "So rude. Am I that boring?"
"Of course not, Mia! I'm just a bit tired." He said as he lifted his hands in protest, trying to defend himself.
"Oh, so I'm making you sleepy? Wow, I must be a bad date then." Mia responded, folding her arms as she puffed up her cheeks as Cara did. Because she had been short, [fun size! Also known as petite! A] it made her look as if she had been a child, preparing to throw a tantrum. Jackson smiled, reaching over to pet the creamy vanilla blonde of her mane. He took her hat, placed it to his head, and rustled the top of her head. She shook her head in protest.
"It's the Wolf's Bane tea making me sleepy, it's very warm and makes you feel all fuzzy inside, you know." He said, continuing to pet her head.
She wrinkled her nose, gave her head one last shake. When Jackson removed his large hand, she fixed her hair, combing through it with small, thin fingers.
"I don't believe you." She said, poking out her lips.
"Fine then," Jackson put en elbow on the table. His rested his chin to the palm of his hand. With his other hand, he lifted up his white mug. "Try some and I can bet you'll believe me then."
Mia's eyes blinked down, looking blankly at the mug. Her eyes then blinked back up to him. "Really? I can try some?"
"Of course." He nodded, encouraging that she take the cup. He dropped it, knowing she would take it. She caught it with both hands.
"Well, if you insist." She said, staring at the steaming lukewarm pale brown colored tea with white foam cream shaped somewhat like a moon and a green leaf in it. She looked up one last time at Jackson before quickly pressing the mug to her lips and leaning her head back. In one quick sip, without hesitating a moment longer, she lifted the top forward and drank down the tea with closed eyes.
Jackson chuckled softly. "Well, is it good?"
Mia lowered the mug, giving a pleased nod and satisfied smile. "It's much better than I thought! And you're right, it does make you a little sleepy, so I forgive you – for now."
Jackson shook his head, watching as Mia took another long sip of his tea. "Glad you enjoy it."
Just then a waitress approached them, dressed in an all white uniform that consisted of a short-sleeved button-up shirt that required being tucked in because it had been too long and oversized, a knee-high skirt with no pockets, socks, and roller blades. The apron that she wore around her neck that flowed down to the white skirt of her uniform had been red, along with red lipstick she wore.
"May I take your order?" she asked energetically, a pen and yellow tablet in hand. Her all-black eyes were bright with enjoyment.
Mia sat down the almost empty mug, picking up her white menu with red lining just as Jackson did. She glanced at it half-heartedly, only looking at the salad and drinks sides. "I'll have a Blue cheese, raw fish, and swamp lettuce salad with the…Wolf's Bane tea please."
Jackson gave his menu to the bouncy waitress, offering a shy crooked grin. "As for me, I'll have the Scary Berry pancakes with bananas and caramel. I would also like the Blood&Boo-Berry Milkshake – but without the, um, blood part please…"
"Oh, um, okay," the waitress blinked aimlessly. "Well, how about strawberry then? I hear strawberry also goes well with boo-berries."
"Perfect, I'll have my milkshake with strawberry then." Jackson smiled, thankful to the waitress for her offer.
"'Kay, be back soon guys – uh, ghoul, and manster, I mean!" she said with a giggle before skating off.
"She goes to our school, you know." Mia said, taking a sip of Jackson's Wolf Bane tea. She glanced at Jackson. "She's friends with the ghost ghoul that punched me in the eye and got me detention…her name is something like Rhaechel, I think."
"It's Rhaechel Myreep, I just saw on her nametag." Jackson said, taking away the mug. He drank the last of the soothing calm tea. "So, hey, did that ghoul even apologize to you for giving you a black eye?"
"Well, no, not really…" Mia sighed, wishing the whole situation had never happened to begin with. "But that's OK if she doesn't."
"You sure about that? I mean really, Mia…she gave you a black eye."
Jackson sighs, concerned.
"Well then…should I make her apologize instead?" Mia asked, looking up to Jackson. Her eyes are intense with seriousness.
Suddenly, plates come crashing down, slamming against the white of their table. Both Mia and Jackson jump back, avoiding flying food. They look up at their waitress, slightly glaring.
"Oh no, looks like I forgot something." The ghost ghoul with transparent chalk colored skin says. She takes the black hair-tie from her wrist, ties up her white hair with almost unseen hints of pale purple. She sniffs, suddenly bouncing as she cracks her neck.
"What do you think you're doing?" Jackson asked, angry.
"Gimme a sec and I'll be happy to show you." She answers, reaching over to the next empty booth. She grabs the cold white and red milkshake and steaming pale brown tea off the table. Next thing you know, she's pouring them on both Jackson and Mia.
Jackson stands, his fists slamming against the table. "What is your problem? You can't do this!"
Mia stares at her thick hand-knitted and bright yellow with pink polka dot sweater in shock. She glances over to her arm when she reaches it out to see the white cream of Jackson's milkshake covering her dark denim jacket. She looks down at her fade blue oversized jeans, notice that there covered in white cream and red strawberry flavored filling. "You're kidding, right?" she says under her breathe.
Jackson glances at Mia's blonde hair that had been tied in a messy low ponytail. It too was white of the cream in the milkshake. She looks back at the waitress. "Where's your boss? I want to speak to her!"
Mia glances up to Jackson, who's yellow, black, grey, and pale green vest is discolored from the pale brown tea. His hair too was stained. Mia stands, siding with Jackson. "We can get you fired for this, you know! I mean really, how dare you? Who do you think you are?"
"That ghoul that'll give you another black eyes if you don't shut your trap." The ghost ghoul says, flinching forward.
Mia flinched back, putting up her fist to her chest in defense. She looked the ghost ghoul up and down, and then gasped. "Oh my sugar cubes – it's you! You're the ghoul that hit me!"
"Bring out your manager immediately! I think she should know about the type of monster she hired." Jackson says, glaring.
"Fine!" the ghost ghoul said, snaring. She spun around, stomping off into the Employees Only section of the diner. After a few moments the red double doors opened and with her she dragged out another ghoul. She wore a full-faced helmet that was black. As they approached them, Jackson noted the black aura coming from the ghoul's sleeves. He wondered what type of monster she'd been. As they stopped into of him and Mia, a girly pink iPhone suddenly appeared in the ghoul's hand. Jackson noticed that it had been made out of the black smoke that arose from her clothes.
What's the problem? Her text read.
"Do you see what your employee has done here?" Jackson says, glancing to Mia. "How could you hire someone like this?"
Hire? The text read. Oh, no, I'm just her friend and coworker…
"This is really too much." Mia said quietly.
"Then leave. You're bad business, not welcomed here. Go." The ghost ghoul said, folding her arms as she glared with a blank stare. Her nose wrinkled as she rolled her eyes. Mia jaw clenched. What did she do to deserve this? What did she do wrong to be treated this way?
Had she possible been a vampire and taken the souls of multiple villages in her past life? Had she done something so wrong?
"Jackson…let's just go." She said, stepping out from the booth and taking Jackson's hand. He followed quietly, not wanting to more upset Mia. He felt she'd gone through just as much as she could handle today.
"I'm sorry, Mia. Maybe today hasn't the best day for a date." He said as they exited the restaurant.
"Yeah," Mia said, stopping. She turned to face him. "I guess not."

"I hate today…" Mia sang, spreading across her bed as if she'd been preparing to make a snow angel. She stared up at her bedroom's naked ceiling, in a daze. She continued to sing, "…today's not a good day."
"It wasn't for me," Dakota replied, although he hadn't needed to. "A lot of good things happened today, normal things of course, but good things. I saw a monster cockroach and just had to document it. I got a pretty great photo actually…also: Miya-Miya and I went for a walk after school to this one park. There weren't a lot of people so it was pretty relaxing actually. I've found out that my favorite drinks are Royal Milk Tea and Calpis – which, by the way, I just noticed sounds like cow piss. On the way home we held hands for the first time and counted vending machines. Then her mom let me stay for dinner when I walked her home. I got to use chopsticks like scissors, which seemed funny to everyone else. And then I had a total Pink-shirt Alert because Miya wanted to joke around. To make fun of how I'm not use to doing normal couple stuff, she bought us making pink shirts from Japanese Wal-Mart. Oh, and did I mention that her old man is the Ultimate Cool-guy-Badass? He's kind of old, but cool for sure. We get along pretty well, says I'm a good brat so he'll let me date his daughter. Nice, right? And her mom is a total chick. She's kind of one of those girly type of mothers, but she's wise and all so she's got this chick-sense to. Can't say that makes sense…my bad, it's hard to explain. Think of the mom from the drama Playful Kiss. She's kind of like that, you know? Anyway, her older brother is pretty cool too. He seems to be really into basketball – and guys. He's gay, parents could care less. He's really competitive…trust me: never play basketball with that guy. Anyway, he taught me something cool: Oi, yume de aimashou. It means, hey, see you in your dreams. Nice, right? I also got to meet her kid brother. He's into games, game-boy DS games to be exact. He loves that stuff. He seems to be a comp techi, you know, one of those computer nerds. He's a good kid though, always listens to Miyako if not anyone else and does his homework on time – eats his veggies too. And then there's Miyako…when I was done her family, we got to hang out a bit before I left. She's amazing pretty much, makes me think maybe she's the one, you know? When I think of my future, she's usually in it. But, um, anyway…I think her eyes are the most beautiful thing about her. Is it just because she's Asian? I can't really explain it, but it's like the standards of Asian eyes, like how they don't meet up to the Western standard eyes - or how they look like the color black but hold so many different things in them. Sort of like they tell all these amazing stories through just one...dark color. I can't really explain it, but it's cool dude."
Mia suddenly let out a loud groan, kicking her feet. Her eyes darted to her computer screen, right at Dakota. He shuddered, feeling her glare. "Would you stop rambling on about your perfect life? No one even asked you about your life, globes, so annoying…"
"Hidio ne?" Dakota shrugged lazily.
Mia's glare became more intense. "Shut up, you're annoying."
"Urusai," he said, throwing the word back at her. "Mia, urusai."
"Why must you keep talking about your happy go-lucky life, huh?" Mia yelled, her face flustered and turning red from anger. "Why is your life so much better than mine you broke up with me? And how do you even have the confidence to tell me these things, huh? Ah, baka! Baka, baka, baka! How do you think hearing about your perfect and happy life makes me feel? Do you think I'm happy listening to you babble on and on about your life? Do you think it pleases me? It doesn't! It's like a double sided knife – as a friend, I'm so happy, but as an ex, it makes me want to scratch your eyes out! How…how can you be so much happier than me…when I'm the one that suffered the heartbreak…"
Dakota sighed as his childhood friend began to cry. Why was this happening? Why did she cry whenever they spoke?
"Don't cry…it totally doesn't suit you…only women who are beautiful when they cry are allowed to cry. Haven't I said this since we were kids? So stop crying, tears make you look ugly." He said quietly, looking away as she cried.
"So does that mean…that I was never beautiful in your eyes?" Mia blinked, more tears running from her eyes and down to her well-shaved sideburns. They fell to the cover of her bed, leaving the smallest of stains. "Because I was not beautiful…did you never see me as a woman? Was I just a girl…not even that, but a friend?"
"I'm…going to log off now. I'm sorry if my telling you about my life seems to be a bold move on my part, but…if I didn't have the guts to face you on a computer screen…and try to convince you that I'm doing better, I wouldn't be able to face you at all. So, for both our sakes, stop crying and get well. We broke up long ago and both our lives aren't so bad. So Mia, realize that you'll feel better…when you decide that moving on is best. Whenever you decide that…you're ready to move on, I can promise that you won't always feel left behind…"
"Whatever…" Mia said, now getting up. She clicked off the chat room, clicked off the computer, turned her lights off, and laid in her bed, silent for the rest of the night.