Another half month down, four and a half months of school left.
Gawwwwd, I miss my free time. D;
Eventually I'll pick up the plot for for now, meeeh, watch Eve awkwardly navigate a conversation. Damn, she's inconsistent when trying to be social, I don't know whether or not it makes it easier or harder to write. If you cringe while reading this, I did my job right.
Once upon a time, a long long ways ago, back when Eve had been a child like any other, innocent and blissful in ignorance before the world takes it upon itself to change (decimate/destroy/desecrate) everything, her mother and father had taken her to see a play. It had been a simple piece of entertainment, about a boy who puts on a mask so he can blend in and dance with the fairies at night, escaping from his controlling parents who rule his life in the day. About a boy who had shared a forbidden love with one of the magical beings, but is never found out, thank goodness for that as he would had been killed, because eventually the covering and enchanted wings he had used to disguise himself moulds into his own face via a magic spell. About a boy who became the very facade he had been wearing through sheer will and use, and thus took for himself a happily ever after, living as a fairy until the end of his days.
It had been a breathtaking sight for her as a child, albeit a peculiar one, and the idea of becoming something else by acting like it, becoming so much like it that one simply has to turn into what they impersonate, had stuck with her. Reach the a level of imitation beyond what any mask can do, and you can change into an entirely different person.
Change into an entirely different person, and you are safe from the monsters of your old life.
It is this logic Eve applies to her own behaviour today, when settling down at a table for a quick spot of tea (not as good as Undertaker's, but it is Earl Grey and sweet enough, she supposes) before the time comes for her to clock in and officially start her work day, namely, starting when a certain red-headed reaper in training catches her eye on Eve and bounces over to her empty table, breaking from a much larger herd of her peers to visit the lonely girl sitting all by herself.
"Hey!" She smiles, bright as a crimson sun. "How's it going?"
Eve tries to mirror the look on Felicia's face, but for some reason her expression feels stiff. Despite this, she manages a smile too. "Fine. Better. I have tea." Without noticing, something obvious slips out her mouth and she immediately feels stupid for saying it. Thankfully, though, Felicia does not seem to mind, so she goes with the track the conversation eventually digs out.
"Really?"
"Yes. Tea is nice."
A giggle. So saying such strange things is funny to her? "Sure is. Especially with sugar. And milk. At night. And in the morning. How was your morning?"
"Good." She says, for lack of a better word. To add a bit more to her response, Eve tacks on, "I was just doing a bit of training, is all."
"Really? How was it?"
By this point of the conversation, Eve usually turns away and duly ignores whoever is talking, not wanting any more contact with other people, but this times she struggles to answer and so says, a little quieter than usual, "Fine. Well, I suppose; I was beaten pretty quickly."
"How fast?"
A quick estimate in her head. "Five minutes."
"Ouch, really?" Getting more and more casual, Felicia leans in and offers, "You know, if you want... You can practice with me and the others sometimes too."
The proposition startles Eve, who is about to take a sip of tea but stops, eye brows raised. "Really?" After the literal curb-stomp battle she had dominated against her former classmates, she had not expected to get any kind of invitation to do such a thing anytime soon.
"Sure!" Oblivious to this, the Lolita girl grins excitedly. "We've learned a lot of stuff since you graduated, you know. And even if you're our Sempai, or maybe we're yours 'cos we've been here longer and I never really figured that stuff out, we were still classmates, right? Not everyone thinks so I guess, but let's help each other out, okay?"
"...okay." Eve responds, nodding her head eagerly.
More sunshiny smiles as Felicia turns to leave. "Great! I'll tell the rest of the class, they'll give you a chance, I promise! Anyways, I'm gonna go, so see you later! It was nice talking to you!"
Taken aback by the warmth the girl exuded, (how could she had not noticed it before?) Eve sits there, a little dazed, until she snaps out of her stupor and manages a crackly-feeling smile. "You as well- um, you too."
And with that and an enthusiastic wave, Felicia departs, and Eve is left wondering what had happened. Did I just carry a whole conversation just now?
Apparently the answer is yes.
Apparently, according to the poorly stifled giggles drifting from underneath the tabletop, the answer is a very hilarious 'yes'.
Upon being reminded of Undertaker's existence, the girl draws her head backward as raises an eyebrow at the reaper crouched at her feet, practically lounging on her lap like a cat. "You can come out from there, you know." She says to the man who had dived under the table for unexplained reasons just before Felicia had caught sight of him, or anyone else for that matter.
"I knooow." He muffles a laugh into a sleeve, tilting his head up as far as he can without disturbing his top hat to stare up at Eve. "But I'm rather comfortable down here."
"Why do that anyways?" She inquires in suspicion. Undertaker is regarded in high respects, but he does not have the kind of popularity that makes throngs of people flock around him, his personality can more than assure that. (And just as well; Eve and she assumes Undertaker both enjoy the company of few to many.) "I could have used some help just now." She verbally pouts.
"Did you really? Or perhaps you were just nervous." Comes the sniggering reply.
The girl mutters. "Would have been nice to have someone else here to draw the attention to."
Another laugh bubbles from the silveret, significantly louder this time. "Feeling bashful, Eve?" He teases, hands drawing up her legs as he peeks out from under the counter edge with a huge grin in his face that he chooses that exact moment to practically stuff into hers. "You were shy! How darling! you know, it's when you act so out of sorts that you really are at your cuuutest!" Little floating hearts appear as Undertaker puts his hand together in a pose of (mocking) adoration, grinning profusely at the flustered state he know Eve will be in.
"!" The girl, having the poor timing to be drinking from her cup just as he says this, just barely avoids choking and jumps, or at least lurches, backwards as far as she can, face reddening slightly. "I'm going to go to work now." She says, talking a little faster than usual, tearing herself away from Undertaker's reaching hands and standing up from her seat, leaving an awkward conversation and a giggling funeral director behind. As she turns away, she hangs her head low, lest anyone see that her cheeks have bloomed a pale pink on her white face.
...
It wasn't supposed to end this way! Henry Webster shrieks internally as he runs for his life through the halls of the brothel, trying his damn hardest not to trip on any dead bodies. Of all the ways in the world to die, he had never imagined he would ever be shot to death in the crossfire of two feuding mafia families. The risk of such a thing happening is nearly absurd when he thinks about it; he works as a tailor with absolutely no black market connections. He gets by on a meagre profit and has never once borrowed money from a loan shark. He never gets involved with trafficking or assassination or anything remotely illegal. Anything! Yes, he does occasionally cheat on his wife (And even then he is not sure that even counts, since both of them know they share an arranged, loveless marriage and he is rather sure Elena is having an affair with the butcher across the street anyways), but aside from that, he is an innocent man.
He had never imagined to die this way. But then again, he had never thought he would ever happen to be visiting a brothel while a scuffle happened just inside the doors, or that the scuffle would involve mass trafficking and two goddamn MAFIA FAMILES or that those two MAFIA FAMILIES would ever start a gunfight (They are the mafia! They have revolvers and knives and everything!) right inside the building, effectively turning it into their own battleground.
No, the thought had not once ever occurred to him that such a thing had even been possible, for normal, average, sometimes-unfaithful Henry- until he had heard the initial gunshots and seen a man burst through a door and shoot a couple more rounds and he finally snapped out of his stupor and tried finding the way out in the steadily growing confusion. He had never thought such a thing possible, and even now, with proof of its very unignorable possibleness he still is not thinking, having no space in his head for words, except It wasn't supposed to end this way! and Run! Run! Run!
He is still sprinting, over warm bodies still twitching and spurting blood from bullet wounds and away from as many corners as he can where he hears yelling, some in foreign languages he cannot comprehend, and down stairs and through halls, when he bumps into her, or more specifically crashes, and is blown backwards by the resulting impact.
The first thing to pop into his head as he raises it to look up at her is Strange. It is most definitely a female he had just crashed into; the figure and long hair and face allude to that, but women do not wear pants and certainly cannot stay standing after a grown man literally runs into them at full speed. At least, not normal, self-respecting women who expect not to be alienized by the public. Nor do they carry scythes, especially black wicked-looking ones that do not appear to cast any reflection whatsoever, despite the ample sunlight streaming in through the many (mostly broken by now) windows.
Short-circuiting temporarily, Henry's mind draws a blank as it struggles to register the odd sight, and when it does come online, all he can do for a few seconds is slowly pull himself onto his feet, limbs shaking and unsure of themselves, eyes still stuck of the girl (?) while the one word "...wh... Whore...?" (Which had originally been intended to come out as "who're", as in, "Who're you?" but became rather muddled while traveling from Henry's brain to his mouth, though what with the current setting of this encounter, what he had thought and said could had both been valid questions either way) Drags itself out of his mouth.
With a nonchalant push of a finger, the strange girl adjusts a pair of green (why green?) spectacles sitting atop her nose, which Henry had just noticed were even there. From a book held in one gloved hand, she looks at Henry, before saying, as if the fact that she had just been in a collision had come to her attention, and that it was not a particularly serious matter to her, and maybe it is not, considering that she seems to be in perfect condition anyways, "Oh."
Then she makes the book vaporize into thin air, which immediately raises another alarm of many ringing in Henry's head, (such as the 'female wearing trousers- DOES NOT COMPUTE' one, for a single example) and hurtles herself headlong into him, sending Henry's eyes shooting wide open but not her bouncing off the man, instead sliding him across the floor to the subsequent wall.
With a swoosh and a yell and a bang, the ringing in Henry's ears intensify as a stray bullet hits his neck, and then cut off in silence as he loses his hearing, sight, and eventually consciousness completely, the last thing he sees being the girl, approaching him from above like the grim reaper, curved blade and handle in hand...
...
"Henry Webster, died of suffocation."
"Sylvia, no last name known, died of blood loss."
"Samuelson Azzuro, died of head trauma."
Her scythe is brought down on the fading lives, their records flashing, and one by one, Eve catalogues them all and ferries their soul to their final destination, as she had been trained and practiced to do. The number of lost lives are many; such is always the outcome when a scuffle is instigated between two large antagonistic groups, each equipped with weapons like guns and muscles that are trained to kill, but eventually she collects them all, finishing the last of them on the roof.
"Whelp, that's the last of them." Ronald, having been paired with her for the assignment given her green status (and the fact that, while mostly kept under wraps, the attack of a certain female trainee had left the entire association on its toes for the time being when it comes to safety), strolls into view, stretching several kinks out of his arms. "How's your side doing?" He asks Eve with a nonchalant attempt to start a conversation.
"Good." The girl responds, before adding, "I'll be done when I mark these last ones here."
"Good." Ronald repeats the word, agreeing about the matter of hand, but quickly goes off on a tangent concerning one of his many going-outs. "By the way, when your shift is done, and feel free to say no since knowing you you're probably already busy, but a couple of the girls from general affairs and SMS guys from collections and I were planning to on a group date in London. I never really showed you around properly-"
"Okay."
It takes the blond-brunette a while to catch wind of what Eve had just said. "Really? Oh, that's fine, I was just wondering if by any chance you said what now?"
"I said okay." Eve shrugs verbally. "Haven't got anything else to do, I think. Besides, I could use a tour of the city on my own time without someone constantly yelling at me for my attire and being outside of a building without an escort. It's annoying."
It had been probably the longest and most opinionated thing Eve had ever said to Ronald, and the effect is somewhat profound on him, starting with a frozen, slightly bewildered smile that eventually thaws as he laughs to himself and goes "Wow. Okay." Obviously picking up the drastic changed in personality in his co-worker but not doing anything to look the gift horse in the mouth, Ronald accepts it right off the bat. "I'll pick you up at six."
Pace picking up in... I dunno. A few chapters. Say, does anyone want to request a one-shot?