French Kiss!

A FAMILIAR smell of disinfectant welcomed Ruru’s distorted face when she opened the second to the last compartment and saw it empty. She’s not in a good mood today, and seeing their empty corpse storage just added to her bad mood. She sighed. The stainless steel compartment is clean, with no signs of blood droplets on the edges, indicating that nothing came in their funeral for the whole evening.

She pushed the door closed and slopped her shoulders. If this continues, her funeral services will get bankrupt. And, it’s not part of her goals.

“No…” she said and reached to touch the last compartment’s stainless steel door. “I need corpse…” She took a deep breath before she slowly pulled it opened. And when she saw the head of the corpse, she released her sigh of relief. “Thank God—”

“Ma’am Ruru!”

“Ah!” Ruru screamed out loud. But when she found out that it was Meri, her janitress, she quickly covered her mouth and glared at her. “Do you want me to die?! You startled me!”

Meri scratched her head. “I’m sorry, Ma’am. I didn’t mean to scare you,” she apologized and laughed awkwardly. “I didn’t know that you can be startled easily.”

“What do you need?” she snarled. “Make sure that it’s worth my time, Meri, or else I will fire you!”

Meri laughed. “I know you can’t fire me, Ma’am Ruru. I’m one of the best janitresses in town,” she said and winked at her. “Anyway, somebody is looking for you.”

Ruru knotted her forehead. “Who? If it’s the loan shark personnel, tell him that I will make it up to him tomorrow. I don’t have cash now.”

“No, Ma’am, it’s not the loan shark man,” she said and clung to her arm. “He said that he was part of your past.” She nudged her in the waist. “Ma’am Ruru, why you didn’t tell us that you had a boyfriend before?”

“What?” Ruru scowled and pulled her arm free from her employee. “I never had a boyfriend!”

When Meri just laughed at her, Ruru marched towards their funeral waiting lobby. She was still a few meters away from the entrance, but she can already hear the familiar unpleasant tone of voice of a man. And, when she saw the man’s back features, Ruru confirmed who he was.

“Who’s your hero?” the man asked her lazy receptionist, Emong. “I preferred to use the marksman heroes—”

“Hey, Juancho!” Ruru shouted angrily. “Who told you that you can enter my funeral without my permission?”

Juancho turned around and smiled automatically upon seeing her. “Hey, Ruru, baby—”

“Don’t call me ‘baby’, you stupid moron!” she said and grabbed her indoor plant on the table, but Emong stopped her.

“Ma’am, this potted Money Tree plant is expensive. You might not want to break it just because of your ex,” Emong said slowly to her as if hypnotizing her.

“He’s right, Ruru. And, besides, an eighty-dollar potted plant is not worth my handsome face,” Juancho said and winked at her. He even showed her his set of white teeth.

But Ruru is not affected, even a bit. She let go of the potted plant and grabbed the logbook. When she was about to throw it to Juancho, she held her hand to stop her. “Let me go, you idiot!”

“Ruru, calm down!” Juancho told him as he tried to tame her. “Why are you always mad at me? Didn’t you miss me?”

Ruru swept his hand away from her. “Get out of here, Juancho! Or, else I will tie you in my embalming table and cut you into pieces!” she said and called her security guard. “Miko, drag him out and never let him enter again!”

Juancho scratched the back of his head. “Ruru, time will come that you will need my help—”

“That will never happen!” When the man walked out of her funeral parlor, she looked at her employees. “Why did you let that man enter our building? He’s a piece of bad luck! He’s the reason why our funeral is losing its clients!”

Miko approached her. “I’m sorry, Ma’am Ruru. I didn’t know that you haven’t moved on with your ex—”

“That is not the issue here! My gosh!” she caught her head and blew her breath. “Why do I hired employees like all of you?”

“Because we reflect you, Ma’am?” Emong said and laughed. “Just kidding, Ma’am.”

“And you! Who told you that you can play online mobile games while on duty?” she asked and attempted to hit him.

Emong didn’t even try to avoid her hand. All of her employees were used to her temper, but they also knew that she can’t really hurt them. “Miko told me that he played online games all night, Ma’am Ruru.”

Ruru scowled and turned to Miko, who ran back to his post. “I will cut the Wi-Fi soon. I’m running out of budget.”

“Please, don’t do that, Ma’am Ruru!” Emong protested. “Let’s just think of another way to market our funeral services,” he suggested.

She arched her brow. “And what do you suggest?”

“Let’s get an endorser,” he said and pointed at the new funeral parlor owned by the moron, Juancho. “Juan’s Funeral has a celebrity endorser. That’s why all our clients are transferring to them. And they also used social media in marketing their services.”

Ruru looked at Juan’s Funeral with furrowed brows. When the construction site was just starting on building the place, Ruru and her team thought it was an Ice Cream parlor in the making because of its full glass facility. That’s why she was shocked to find out that it was a funeral service and owned by her ex-boyfriend! Ruru can’t believe that Juancho is serious on his threat to her that he’ll do everything to make the Minase Funeral Homes fall.

She shook her head, and it’s happening now. Ruru Minase is the owner and an embalmer of her father’s funeral business, Minase Funeral Homes. Before her father died, he made Ruru promise that she’ll never give up on Minase. But how will she do that if their rival is a much better and modern funeral home?

“I don’t have enough budget for the endorser,” she said with a sigh. “I guess I just have to give up—”

“No, Ma’am, please…” Meri begged. “We need this job, we need Minase, we need you…”

Ruru scowled at Meri. “But you’re not doing your job well,” she snarled and looked outside again. “We need a larger market—”

“Ma’am Ruru, why don’t we give flyers in crowded places?” Meri suggested. “It will be easy to introduce our services to people with our flyers. Compared to getting a celebrity endorser, giving flyers is much budget-friendly.”

Ruru thought about it. Her employees are right. She has to do more than everything to save Minase. And she will do it tomorrow!

***