WEEDEN stopped in front of a building painted with different neon colors. If the big signage on the front saying that it’s the Minase Funeral Services, Weeden would have mistaken it as a Daycare Center instead of a funeral parlor.

He was still busy judging the odd choices of the building’s colors when a woman in white dress marched out from one of its doors, looking fierce and mad as if she’s up to kill somebody. Weeden moved the car forward to block her way. The woman stopped as he got off the car.

Their eyes met for a second, and the woman walked past him as if she didn’t see him standing in front of her. Weeden followed her crossed the road without looking side-ways.

“Is she sleepwalking?” Weeden asked with furrowed brows.

When he saw her stopped in front of the much taller funeral building, Weeden anticipated what’s coming next. The woman will have an argument with the owner because of the competition.

He shook his head. “With this kind of architecture and exterior design? I doubted that people find it impressive. The choice of colors and designs is far from the standard design of a funeral building—” He stopped when he heard the woman’s loud voice. He looked in her direction and confirmed that she’s up to a war. “That explains her attitude towards me yesterday. She was indeed a war freak.”

_______________

“JUANCHO!” Ruru shouted from the outside of Juan’s Funeral Services. “Juancho, get out and face me, you bastard cadaver stealer!”

She doesn’t care if she’s disturbing the dead’s celebration of living the earth. What she wanted to do now is to rip all of the man’s internal organs out in his body. All the people inside the funeral chapels came out and looked at her with the same expression of disgust on their faces.

When the man didn’t come out, Ruru took a deep breath and readied herself for a much louder shout. “Juancho—!”

“What’s your problem?!” Juancho walked out in his funeral lobby with haste. He looked at her angrily and disgustingly as if he’s going to choke her to death. “You’re disturbing my clients!”

“Why did you steal the cadaver that was supposed to bring at the Minase?!” she shouted back. “How could you stole what’s mine originally, you idiot!”

Juancho paused as if he didn’t expect that she already knew about what he did. But, instead of apologizing, he raised his brow at her. “Hey, Ruru, it’s not my fault if the pickup driver doesn’t recognize your building as a funeral. Look at your place? It doesn’t look any peaceful or divine. Is that playground?”

Ruru attempted to slap him, but Juancho was fast. He avoided her hand with one swift move. “You can’t fool me, Juancho! You planned for it. You plagiarized our waiver and used them on your pickup options at night!”

The man laughed as if she has said something absurd. “Why would I plagiarized your waivers if I have my own waivers and pickup notes that are much, much better than yours?”

Ruru pursed her lips, this guy is getting on her nerves, and she’s starting to feel the intense urge to rip his flesh in pieces. “How dare you criticize my father’s works, you ungrateful bastard!” she said and angrily and threw her slippers at him. “Darn you!”

“Stop it, Ruru! I will file a legal case against you—”

“Really? Ha! I will kill you before you do that!” she said and took a step forward to attack him, but her somebody caught her hand. “What the hell?!

She was about to check who stopped her hand when a tall and slender woman in a skimpy red dress stepped out from the lobby and glared at her.

“Babe, what’s this fuss all about? I can hear the woman’s unpleasant screams from the receiving area, and it’s kinda disgusting—”

“Hey, woman-who-looked-like-an-incienso-stick, your bastard babe stole my cadaver!” she shouted and tried to break free from the police holding her. “You’re so greedy that it reflects in your face—”

“Hey, can you please stop this nonsense?” A familiar voice of a man interrupted her. “If it gets out of hand, the two might end up in jail together.”

Ruru’s brows furrowed. She looked back and got shocked to see that the man holding her arm was actually the man she avoided seeing.

“Oh, my gosh, is this real?” Juancho’s woman asked. Her eyes were wide while staring at the man on her back—who was still holding her hand. “Are you… Walter? Walter Chandonne?!”

“Huh?” Ruru looked at them side-ways. “You know each other…?”

But the woman seemed to can’t hear her. She walked towards them and swept her away. “Walter Chandonne? OMG, it’s really you!”

The woman let out a loud squeal then threw herself to him. But unfortunately, the man avoided her, and she almost fell to the ground. Juancho quickly went to support her stand.

“I’m sorry, Miss…” The man said and pulled her. He held her shoulders and position her in front of him as if using her as a human shield. “I’m not Walter.”

Ruru knotted her forehead. She looked up at the man and studied his almost perfect face. “Who’s Walter?”

“Walter Chandonne is the country’s famous actor!” Juancho’s woman screamed again. In just a matter of seconds, the people from each of the chapel went out and looked at them. When they saw the man behind her, they all started to run towards them.

“Fuck!” the man hissed and dragged her away from the funeral.

“Hey, where are we going?!” Ruru shouted and tried to break from him, but he held on even tighter.

“We need to get away from the zombies!” he said and ran towards her funeral building. The security guard, Miko, was standing in the entrance, holding his phone horizontally and shaking his head. He wouldn’t notice them entered the door if the man didn’t shout at him. “Monsieur, close the door, quick!”

***