Chapter 2: Better than just an acquaintance

"Ren, you're late." Said a calm voice as a man with messy, shoulder length hair struggled with a painted sign. The Chinese boy nodded and went to the back room to drop his outer layer and put on his red apron. As he walked by a gaggle of perfume clerks to get to his locker, he noticed that on the clock on the wall it was indeed 30 minutes after the time on his watch. With a grumble, he took off his stalled watch and threw it in the garbage can and shoved his coat, gloves, and scarf into the locker, ignoring the mirror that showed the dark circles beneath his distant gold eyes.

He walked back out to the man with brown hair and grabbed the other end of the heavy sign reading, "It's not too late to buy presents!" in bright green letters. Outside it was dark and overcast. Another storm was coming. Loud music filtered out of the headphones surrounding his partner's ears. But despite all that, he could still hear people talking… or could he just read lips?

"Why are you so sad?" He asked, finally hanging the sign on its two posts. Ren shrugged and began straightening up the tinsel on the floor. "You can at least say something, you know that when you're quiet you give me the willies, then again it is one of those mornings," the brown haired one said, turning around a manikin's hat.

"Good morning, Yoh." The Chinese boy said, beginning to fix a lop-sided plastic Christmas tree. Yoh smiled back and said no more.

It was one of those mornings. In fact, it was one of those days. Rude, demanding, vague, and just plain clueless customers with their "needs" made Ren testy, but he just kept the look of remoteness on his face, which seemed to unnerve them, making the Chinese one feel a bit better. Sure, they were bad mannered and offensive, but the quicker you deal with them the faster they go away. At lunch, all anyone could talk about was what gifts they had bought so and so, what they were expecting from someone else, and what parties they were going to and holding.

Ren, as always, sat alone, eating his homemade noodles and chicken. His gold eyes fluttered from one person to the next, already weary from his work and most likely from his walk last night. Silence was his only escape in this workplace of his, yet he had to break it when Yoh sat down next to him.

"You are sad about something, I know you are." The brown haired boy repeated. He was very persistent, Ren had to give him that, though he still did not want to explain. "Ren, you know I'm going to get it out of you sometime." The Chinese boy nodded and began, his gold eyes fixed on his brown noodles.

"I'm…lonely." The golden-eyed one whispered, almost ashamed to admit it. He didn't want to cry but the tears were getting harder and harder to conceal each time he thought about returning to his empty house. Unwelcoming and lifeless, the house itself was cold, despite the weather outside.

"Oh, I'm sorry… anything I can do to help?"

"No. And I think I may just have to get used to the idea of staying alone." Ren murmured, though he should've been used to being alone already. He had been for 6 years.

Then a bright but small smile placed itself on Yoh's face. With a soft sigh he all-knowingly cooed, "Wait for tonight, I believe that you may get something out of this party." As Ren raised and eyebrow, the break bell rang and work started again, making it impossible for the short tan boy to get an answer from the brown haired boy.