Chapter 4 – The Sketch

It was now a few weeks after the fainting incident (which was never spoke of again after Leo brought it up and laughed at her about it, which resulted in a black eye from Keiko.), Keiko had almost forgotten about the mansion completely as she distracted herself with work in the flower shop, parties, and more parties.

Keiko's eyes kept flicking up to the clock on the wall in the shop, hoping the time would hurry up, waiting for the last half hour of work to be over so she could leave. She didn't see why she couldn't leave, nobody ever came in in the last hour anyway. She stared at her chipped nail polish on her fingernails, contemplating what colour to paint them for the party tonight. A party of which she had no idea whose it was anyway. The boys were not invited. As she thought about the boys, her mind drifted to Redd, then Redd topless, then Redd naked.
Yummy
She cringed at herself, not believing that she'd even thought this. She tried to think of something else; she looked back at her nails and decided to think about colours she could paint them again.
Then that familiar, dreaded little tinkle of a bell rang, meaning someone had entered the shop. The sort of people that came last off, were people who had no idea what they even wanted to buy, and were probably coming to kill an hour and waste Keiko and her bosses time. Her boss was a short, plump, middle aged, woman with a tough attitude, Keiko liked her, and she could imagine herself being the same when she got to that age. She glanced at her boss who hadn't even bothered looking at the customer, and her boss stayed rolling her eyes as she arranged some white roses.
She looked up at the customer; it was a man with pink hair. Well it looked like a man, it could've been a woman if it wasn't for the fact he had a flat chest. He was handsome, but too girly for Keiko's liking. He was dressed strangely, like he wasn't from round here. He didn't seem to have any sense of fashion at all. He stared at Keiko and grinned weirdly.
"Can I help you?" She asked lazily, avoiding eye contact.
"Yes, I would like some pink roses please. To match my hair." He replied, still smiling that sleazy smile.
Cringe for youuuuuuuu. she thought as she walked to the front of the shop to gather some roses.
"How many?" She asked without looking at him, she didn't like this man. He seemed odd, and reminded her of that man in the black cloak with his weirdo attitude.
"11, please"
11?! What a stupid number for flowers, it isn't even an even number."
She grabbed 11 roses and wrapped the stems in some paper, still without looking at him.
"That'll be 500 munny please." She said hastily, looking outside the front window.
He placed the munny on the counter, she looked up at him. He stared into her eyes for a while and she gave him a 'drop dead' stare.
"Right young man, we're closing now so you best head out!" and her boss ushered him out of the shop.
"Bloody freaks, I've seen his sort before, they're no good!" she said, shaking her head and looking at Keiko concerned.
Keiko walked home in a warm summer's afternoon. She was hoping it was going to cool down for tonight; she didn't want to get too sweaty.
"Miya you actually make me wanna vom." Keiko said as she looked away from Miya.
"What?! It's just my toes." Replied Miya.
Miya and Keiko were in Keiko's room trying on clothes for going out tonight, and Miya was inspecting her toe as she sat on Keiko's bed saying it looked 'deformed'. Keiko hated toes; she thought that everybody should wear socks so they didn't have to be seen. Her own feet were okay, just looking at others made her shudder.
"I can't find the that stupid red nail varnish that will match my dress."
"That one that you forced your brother to buy you when you had no money?" Laughed Miya.
"Yeah." Keiko laughed weakly.
Miya looked down as she realised that she'd brought up a touchy subject. Keiko threw empty wrappers of food and whatnot off of her dressing table and onto the floor, looking for the red nail polish. She then looked in every drawer, apart from one. There was one drawer at the bottom, that she left untouched, it contains memories of her brother, photographs of him and her, his journal of the heartless, his leather braided bracelet and other various things. She never opened that drawer because she knew she would cry - and she hated to cry.
I guess I've got to face it sometime...
She hastily opened the drawer, scanning quickly for a flash of red and trying to avoid anything that would make her choke up. But her eyes were drawn to a folded piece of paper under some photographs, she lifted the paper out of the drawer and opened it. It was a sketch, and from what she could tell from the lollipop like trees, it was most definitely drawn by her. It was a sketch of the mansion. That damn weird ass mansion that she hated but couldn't stop thinking about. She searched her memory to remember when she drew it, and then it came to her. She'd drawn it on the day of the death of her brother, the day which made her heart wrench and made her feel sick. She'd sat crying in the small kitchen on the floor, feeling half empty, and found a piece of paper laying on the floor, and she sketched a random house to take her mind off things... but back then she'd never seen the mansion before. So how did she know what it looked like? Miya then popped her head over Keiko's shoulder and surprised her.
"Jeez, you made me jump you cock." Keiko said, startled.
"What's that?" ignoring her.
"It's a picture I drew a while ago… hey, if I tell you something, promise you won't find it weird?"
It was all getting a bit too much and Keiko decided to tell Miya everything, right down to the last detail about her 'siren' abilities.
"What the fuck. That is the craziest thing you have ever said." Was Miya's response.
"You think it's crazy right?"
"No… a little weird, but not crazy."
Miya gave Keiko a reassuring smile, the same reassuring smile that she gave her when something bad happened.
"Do you think… you know… you're one of those?" she added.
By 'one of those' she meant one of the very peculiar group of people who fought against the 'darkness'. Her brother was one of those; he didn't wield any powers or abilities, just fought like a man. Keiko felt sick, and that half empty feeling that had always lingered in the background came flooding back. She didn't want to be one of 'those'. She wasn't a coward; she just knew she wasn't strong enough. She was only 5'4" and petite. She couldn't even lift her own body weight. She knew all about Sora and his animal friends, he visited the town a lot, occasionally fighting off a few deadly heartless. She felt a shiver down her spine and shoved the sketch back into the drawer and shut it hastily.
"I don't think I want to use the red nail varnish anyway." She laughed, acting like nothing had happened.
Keiko was attempting to dry her now pink nails by blowing on them and wafting them around as Miya jujjed her hair, trying to make it look a little ruffled and sexy, but at the same time trying to make it not seem like she'd been dragged through a bush backwards. A few minutes later Keiko was ready. She was in a little short black dress with black patent 5.5 inch heels. She loved wearing heels, mainly because they made her taller, and how they made her more sexy and attractive. Miya was wearing a similar green coloured dress, which sort of clashed with the pink streaks in her hair but also looked great at the same time. Miya loved colours, especially wearing lots of them at once.
"Let's get partying!" whooped Miya as they both carefully walked down the steps from Keiko's room. Then the front door was slammed shut and locked, and they headed off out. To get very, very, shit faced.