City of Fire and Ink

Attention all Hippopotamuses, please vacate the area

I hated funerals. Obviously, I wasn't too perky about going to one for my beloved grandfather, but this was more than that. It was having to deal with everyone else for hours upon end until I was so bored I was tearing my hair out. Distant relatives, buisiness partners, everyone had something to say about how wonderful my Grandad was. Including pretending to know him better than they actually did. 

Thank God for Kayla though. They had taken it upon themselves to lighten the mood by methods of insulting funeral conductor's outfit and inventing absurd stories about the attending mourners. 

"Seok was the only man I knew who could out-eat me in a seafood-eating contest!" Miguel Fuentes was one of his closer colleagues and told stories that were very rarely true, but entertaining nonetheless. 

Kayla snorted. "That's bullshit. Harabeoji was allergic to shrimp. I wanted to go to this new Chilean restaurant for some shrimp ceviche a few months ago and Harabeoji said that if he stepped into the place, he would probably keel over on the sheer smell alone."

The story was one of many. Kayla and Harabeoji Seok weren't as close as he and I were. While my sibling preferred arts and crafts, our grandad was far more interested in talking about the finer points of financial law or whatever novel he was reading at the time. That didn't stop him from sending elaborate presents on Winter's Eve and our birthdays, or picking us up from school when Appa and Omma were busy.

I was actually surprised by how well Kayla was handling Harabeoji Seok's death. When Appa told them, they just sat on the couch and cried for a while. It took them less time then us to start feeling again, which was a relief because one of us had to start acting sane. I had cried myself to sleep every night for a week before I was just too tired to cry any more. I had even taken up pottery again, in desperate need of any form of distraction. 

Appa and Omma weren't handling it nearly as well. Appa cried a lot at the dinner table- at least that's what Omma said. I knew they both tried to be upbeat, for Kayla and me, despite the fact that we weren't children anymore. It was obvious they were taking it pretty hard though. 

 I know it helped Kayla to comfort our parents. They had been stopping by the house with anything that Omma needed, and though it didn't make her less sad, it gave my parents one less thing to worry about. Omma was less vocal about her pain, she never had been very upfront about it, and I had visited several times to see her sitting on the couch, totally numb to the world. 

One thing I was worried about was the art in Kayla's house. Harabeoji Seok had some friends who ran art galleries and when Kayla had moved in with Ryan, he had offered to get them some art so the place would feel more homey.  When I asked if they were going to keep the art, they just clammed up and started talking about faux-leather gloves. I didn't push the subject. Right now, the best I could do would be to distract them and if that required talking about fashion faux-paux, I could try. 

At least Kayla's funny. They have an unusual gift for making me laugh, and they don't even have to do anything particularly amusing. I'll take anything at this point that's not crying or apathy. We've been spending a lot of time together since his death two weeks ago, if only so that we can escape Appa's drowning grief and make each other laugh. It's been the one thing keeping me sane. 

"Did you see Aunt Sherri's outfit?" I pointed to a woman whom I'm marginally sure is my aunt three times removed. 

"Don't even bring that up. It's horrendous. Women in suits are a gift to the world, but not when she's paired them with those horrendous white blocks of concrete. I can't believe people call those shoes."

Kayla minored in fashion and currently worked as an curator for Miro, a high end fashion house. As such, they had an annoying but slightly amusing tendency to do a full breakdown of everyone's outfit whenever we were out in public together. They were currently hoping for a position at Giordano, which was the most exclusive fashion house in Pardahna.