Freak ~Juuzou x Reader AU~

Chapter 27: Slipping Hope

~1 Week Later~

I...have only ever been to one funeral.

It was my grandmother's (just for the story). I was ten and dressed in a frilly dress with two big bows. It was itchy and ugly. I didn't like it, but I also didn't like that place.

The funeral home had been filled with relatives and friends of my grandma's that I never knew. They didn't see me. My mother had ordered me to sit in a corner, undetected. And I did. I sat on the carpeted floor, my knees pulled to my chest as I fiddled with a loose thread. All while people came and gave their condolences to my father.

But now, I'm not a ten-year-old child obeying her mother's snapping orders to sit and hide. Now, I am a grown woman, here on her own accord. Here to pay her own condolences.

The line continues to move, and I find myself face-to-face with an older couple – both in their fifties or so. Their eyes are glossed and their noses red. The woman's lips tremble as the man keeps an arm hooked around her.

I inhale and approach.

"I am so sorry for your loss, Mr. and Mrs. Reamer."

Janelle's parents. She's talked a few times about them at work. Based on what she said, I gathered they were close. Nightly phone calls. Sunday brunches. Yearly vacation trips.

Looking at the pair, I can't help but see all those things as nothing but true.

Broken and torn. That's how they look. Like a mother whose soul has been torn away, and a father whose pride beaten to a flat, flat pulp. Shells of themselves, I assume. And I...I can't even begin to put myself in their shoes.

"Thank you," Mrs. Reamer swallows. She scans me. "You must be Y/N. Janelle talked a lot about you. You were always one of her favorite girls to work with. She always said you were so sweet."

This takes me aback. Janelle and me...we weren't close. We were friendly, but not friends. Still, hearing this... A twinge pulls at me. Poor Janelle.

"She thought highly of you," she continues.

I shrink. "I...I thought highly of her, too. She was a wonderful person."

She was. Janelle really was an amazing person. Even though we weren't close, I still enjoyed working with her. She was always kind and friendly and approachable. And she was incredible at her job. She knew how to help each of us dress to enhance what we were most blessed with.

To my surprise, Mrs. Reamer pulls me into a warm hug, her perfume filling my nose. Stunned, I hug her back. We exchange a few more kind words and I make my way to something I never thought I'd find myself in front of.

Janelle's casket.

It's closed. I'm guessing there was no way they could fix her up enough to have an open-casket but to be honest, I prefer this. I don't think I would be able to stand here if I saw her, lying there in a frozen sleep, never to open her eyes again. And that's a bizarre concept to me.

But if it's weird for me, I can only imagine the twilight zone her parents are tossed in, both left spinning. I lost a coworker, but they lost their child. Janelle is...was their daughter. What I lost pales in comparison to what they lost.

Slowly, I reach up, resting a hand on the coffin, breathing deeply as my eyes drift to the enlarged picture of Janelle, happy and smiling. Alive and full of spirit.

It's a good picture of her. I've seen it before. She showed it to me one night when helping me get ready to go on. She had taken it earlier that day, right after she had gotten her hair done. She had just dyed it red and gotten a fresh cut and was definitely feeling herself. Her smile was so bright. So happy. So eager.