The amount of déjà vu Miku was experiencing was unsettling. This whole situation had been familiar, but when Deku had given her instructions she was sure that she'd heard them word for word before. But when? And why? Miku sat, kneeling behind a bush for a few more seconds, hearing workers welcoming Deku back.
Deku. The name tasted sour in her mouth, not wrong, per say, but not quite right. Miku was certain now that she knew, loved, this boy, but with a different name. It didn't matter now, though. She needed to find this boiler room and get a job. She stood up and slipped through the gate, facing the narrow stairs leading down the side of the building. She gulped involuntarily, eyeing the steep fall. 'I have nothing to lose.' She thought to herself before laughing quietly. 'Yeah, except my life.'
Miku began to carefully creep down the stairs, pausing at every single noise that suggested someone would find her. At one point a frog, not unlike the small blue one from earlier, stuck his head out and started smoking a cigarette. Miku pressed herself against the wall, praying he wouldn't look down and see her. She wrinkled her nose when she smelt the smoke. 'Do people seriously smoke in the spirit world? I guess lung cancer isn't a concern...' Deciding that waiting for the frog to finish his smoke wasn't a great idea, she slowly began walking down the stairs, careful to make the least amount of sound possible. She eventually made it to a large, olive green door. She knew from Deku's images that this was the boiler room, but she was again struck with a sense of déjà vu. Miku shook it off and pushed open the door.
She entered the room hesitantly, immediately noticing the difference in heat. It was burning. The temperature didn't help the ominous atmosphere in the room, only adding to the heavy weight suddenly on her chest. It was clear that here, more than anywhere else she'd been so far, she was not welcome. Miku stepped into the well, which was full of coal moving into the oven. Upon closer inspection, she found the coal was not floating, but being carried by small, enchanted balls of soot. She was glad they moved around her feet, keeping her shoes clean, but she still jumped out of the well as soon as possible.
"Are you the boiler man?" She asked tentatively, not because she thought there was another option, since he was clearly the one in charge, but because there was something deeply wrong about this. Her heart sank even further when the boiler man turned to face her. He was old and bald, with a unkept mustache that was so large it looked more like a beard. His face was wrinkled into a permanent frown. He wore fogged goggles that hid his eyes, and Miku was glad she couldn't see them. He had six arms, each one of them as thin and bony as the rest of his scraggly features. He looked more like a skeleton with skin stretched over it than a person.
"Yes." He hissed. "I'm Kamaji, the boiler man." Miku flinched, leaning away from the man. There was that feeling again, the deep-set wrongness. This was definitely not the boiler man.
But he was the only boiler man around, so Miku simply gulped and said, "I'm looking for a job." She decided not to tell him about Deku's help. "I... I was told to come here."
"Why would I need a human?" Kamaji asked, snarling the word human as if it was an insult. "I have all the help I need with this soot." He had a point. Plus, Miku wasn't sure if she even wanted to work for this strange, cruel man.
If you don't get a job here, you'll be killed.
Deku's words echoed in her mind, and she gulped again. 'Right. Working for this jerk is better than death.' As she stood there, trying to figure out how to convince him to hire her, one of the balls of soot dropped its coal, being squished. Miku immediately picked it up, surprised to find the soot staring up at her with wide eyes. "Uh, what am I supposed to do with this?" She asked it. Obviously, it couldn't talk, but instead of being helpful, it scurried back to a hole in the wall.
