At a small bakery near the docks, Mila enjoyed a break from work reading a book behind the counter. After rush hour, when all the mothers and houseworkers came in to get their bread, she finally had the time to catch up with the latest part they'd released. She moved another page, filling her minds with the fantastical tales of worlds above the cloud and brave explorers facing against bizarre creatures. Every word reeled her in deeper and deeper, playing a theater where she could clearly see Captain Tiber draw her ray gun against the monster, pulling the trigger the second before its maws closed over the helmet.
Ding, ding.
"Wait, that can't be right", Mila thought for a second, bringing the action to a stop, "There ain't no bells in space".
She took her eyes from the book and found out that a pair had entered, catching her by surprise. Flustered, her blue skin turned red around her cheeks, and quickly went back to attend her mother's shop as if she hadn't just been lazing off, "Welcome, how can I help you?"
"Good day, mate!", the woman said energetically and with a wide smile, catching Mila by surprise again. She wore a simple dress with a jacket and a purple scarf, a must-have given the day's wind. On top of that, her wild curly hair was kept in place with a handkerchief, something the baker's daughter could sympathize with, given her own curly hair and how hard it was to tame it, "Two loafs of bread, please".
Behind her, a young man kept anxiously moving back and forth, hands stuck inside the pockets of his coat. His eyes were glued to his reflection on the window, a terrible habit, even if he wasn't too bad to look at.
"Give me a moment", Mila answered before moving for the loafs, eavesdropping meanwhile to get some distractions for her restless mind.
"Diego, stop looking at yourself!", the woman yelled.
"Yeah, yeah, it's just… Well, you know".
"I get it but try to relax. You're drawing a lot of attention".
"Sorry".
Now that she was without her book, Mila's curiosity lit up like a lighthouse. Those two looked like they were trying to hide something, but whatever could it be? Was it something illegal? Or maybe some kind of affair? Those were popping all the time in her detective stories.
She kept making up a thousand more tales, each wilder than the last one, while taking out the bread. As she handed them over, she hid all her twisted ideas behind the cordial smile her mother had made her practice hundreds of times, "Here you go".
"Great, they're still warm! I was afraid we were going end up with cold ones", the woman said triumphantly, devouring the bread with her eyes. After Mila took the money, she gave the couple one more look. They were an odd pair, but whatever they were hiding it probably wasn't even close to what she was imagining, even if the guy was awfully skittish. Reality tended to be boring more times than not.
When they finally left, she didn't waste a second to jump back to her book, eager to find out how Tiber would escape the monster.
"I can't believe I finally get to see my face without all those scars", Diego said, checking his clean features on Emma's pocket mirror, "Shame there wasn't enough pomade left for my hands".
"Yeah, it's hard to get our hands on it. We have to sneak it under Dirtha's nose from time to time", the boxer said before stuffing her mouth with bread, with another large piece waiting in her hand, "Thank God they have bread here, I don't know how I'd live without it".
"Amen, sister", her friend retorted, showing the bare minimum restraint while eating she was willfully ignoring, "What were the chances?".
"I don't even want to think about it, I'm just glad we get to enjoy it".
They sat together by the pier, feet hanging over the murky waters as a nearby crew was taking the cargo off the ship, and fishermen returned from their trips to the sea with their catches. Between the coming and goings of the sailors, accompanied by very colorful language, Emma notice a creature swimming towards them. From the water, it raised its tentacles wherever there where breadcrumbs.
"Hey, check this out", the woman tore a piece out of her loaf and threw it next to the creature. The tentacle coiled around it, and split open in half, revealing rows of sharp teeth. Without hesitation, it ripped its food apart and ate it down in a single gulp.
"That is so freaky", Diego was fixated on the thing in the water, which already put its tentacle up to beg for more scraps.
Between biting and tearing pieces of bread for the creature, they remained with the simple joy of each other's company, without the need for words. Simply having the other close by was good enough.
"Hey, could you lend me a hand?", Diego spoke, "I'm trying things out now that I have longer hair, and was thinking about braiding it".
"Didn't you learn how to do it during recess?"
"I'm a dude, at that age I was expected to spend my time at the playground running behind a ball".
"Just gimme a second", Emma opened her mouth wide and stuffed it with what remained from her bread, freeing her hands. Still chewing and with her cheeks full, she moved behind her friend and split his hair in three parts that she began to tie together, "By the way, tomorrow's the big day. How are you feeling?"
"Nervous. There's going to be all those people, watching how I have to hurt someone else for sport. I don't like it".
"I know, I get it. If it helps you, we're all trapped together in this awful deal, so the other guy knows it's not personal, despite what you'll be saying to each other".
"Can I ask you something?".
"Shoot", a shower of crumbs flew out of the woman's mouth.
"How are you so happy? Every time I see you, you're smiling, while I always feel about to freak out. Everything around us is crazy, and it looks like it just breezes you by".
Emma chewed the bread still in her mouth until she could finally talk without spewing part of it out, "Well, it's not easy. You should've seen me when I was in your place, I hated seeing my face. There was this one time where I got so mad that I punched my mirror and stomped on the bits. Dirtha got so mad she made me pay for it and didn't let me close to another one for a while. Funny enough, I hated my skin before, I wanted it to be whiter, and now most of it is but I look like a jigsaw puzzle. I still miss my old face".
She took a moment of silence, fingers still wrapping hair to take her mind away from what she'd lost.
"The thing is, I got a lot of help from the rest of people back at the promotion, people that held my hand while I was still struggling. I still think that a lot of the stuff around here is insane, even if I've gotten more used to them, but now that I can, I try to be happy whenever it's possible. It's one of the few things I have a say in".
"Why did you hate your skin? I'd never would have guessed it, looking at you".
"My parents are from Pakistan, but they moved to London before I was born. My skin wasn't really that dark, but it was enough to make me stand out and make people think I wasn't from there. Wherever I went, I felt like an outsider, even when I didn't have some jerk yelling at me, or people glancing at me. I wanted to blend in and get treated like the rest of the people of my city. Tough luck":
"I'm sorry you had to go through all of that", Diego said to her.
"Well, death has a weird way of changing the way you look at things, so its ok. Besides, I'm still a cutie".
The young revenant could barely hold a chuckle inside, "If you say so. I'm too nice to say otherwise".
"Way to ruin the moment. I'm going to yank your hair if you say more dumb stuff like that", the boxer took away the pocket mirror from Diego's hands and moved it in front of him to show her work, "What do you think?"
"It's nice, weird, but nice. I guess I'm just not used to it".
"Just give it a chance and see how you feel about it in a while. As long as you don't go with a ponytail".
"You think I can't pull it off?".
"It's the shape of your face dude, trust me on that one".
"By the way, there's something I wanted to tell you", Diego found the words hard to say, and he had to fight against the embarrassment, "I know it's not been that long, but thanks for being there for me".
"Don't worry about it, we've got to help each other out", Emma patted his shoulders and sat again next to him, her fist waiting in the air, "Bros?"
"Bros", Diego answered, bumping his fist into hers.