An angel and a surprise

A massive headache.

Not exactly the best welcome gift after being -forcefully- brought back from the dead.

She groaned.

She would kill those afterlife staff even if it was the last thing she did. Especially that madwoman in heels.

Martha, your [infinite] days were numbered.

"Alexa, how to make a headache disappear without aspirin ?" she whimpered, her arm shielding her vision and face twisting into various grimaces of pain.

"Who is Alexa ?" a voice drawled out.

The teen jumped away from the source of the voice and ended up sprawled out on the floor, having fallen from the sofa on which she had been previously laying.

"What? Who-who are you ?!" She pointed, in shock at the stranger that hadn't even bothered to look up at her, his nose still deeply buried in a thick book. He sat all lord like in a massive armchair that seemed to dwarf him in comparison.

The stranger- no boy- looked peculiar in his funnily high-class, if not a bit outdated clothing. No one from her generation or younger would be caught dead wearing an outfit that looked straight out of some very fancy 19th-century clothing line.

But why did she get an almost royalty-like impression from him?

Was it the gold streaks lining up his clothes, the lavishly decorated salon around them or the impressive 3 stories high library that seemed to stretch up to the heaven's ground behind him? Everything in that room, from floor to ceiling screamed out "MONEY" to her. In bold letters.

As if finally realizing her situation, she fumbled up with her uncooperative limbs and took a seat back on the awfully soft sofa.

[Was that satin?

It felt like satin.]

She coughed awkwardly as the boy kept on ignoring her presence. Now that she took a better look at him, he looked around ten or eleven years old, maybe ?

No reaction.

She coughed a bit louder this time, feeling just a tiny bit of frustration creeping up her gut.

[Did no one teach this kid to respect his elders ?]

Finally - finally !- the boy looked up and stared at her with possibly the most neutral and disinterested look anyone had ever set on her being.

But what truly unsettled her was the unfathomable beauty that said stranger was displaying. It left her gasping for air as she almost forgot how to breathe for a few seconds.

His hair was a perfectly tamed mane of silver locks -which, to her, looked even softer than satin!- and his eyes were such an impossible shade of strawberry pink, that she really started doubting her vision right there and then.

How could someone be so pretty?

No. Ethereal.

A cold-beauty was actually looking straight at her right now, probably wondering if she had any screw loose since she had completely frozen up and lost her voice at his sight.

He raised a perfectly proportionate eyebrow.

(Was that even a thing now? Proportionate eyebrows? He made it feel like it could be a thing. She would consider those eyebrows as the most perfectly crafted eyebrows ever starting that very moment.)

"You fainted in front of my door." he remarked, in a bored tone. Then after a few moments of silence, he added, as if in an afterthought: "Your parents must be looking for you at the party downstairs".

Was he hinting for her to go away or something?

It felt as if he was trying to chase her out, now that she was lucid enough to.

But she couldn't possibly tell him that she couldn't exactly go down to seek out her new parents, when she didn't even know what they looked like. Let alone how she herself fared in the looks department.

"Hum- yeah that's right. Haha, I uh...guess I did faint ?" she rubbed the back of her head awkwardly, trying to laugh it off.

The ice prince only stared.

She really couldn't deal with his type.

People described her as an annoyingly cheerful and chatty person. But how was she supposed to chat someone's ears off when said person seemed to have the emotional capacity of a brick wall?

Her priority was to gather information at the moment. Who knew where those traitors in the afterlife had sent her to, after all.

Her life could very much be at risk if she did or even said the wrong thing in front of the wrong crowd.

She needed concrete data in order to avoid raising any flag.

And that meant striking up a conversation with mister : I look at you, but actually see right through you.

"Uh.. hey! What are you reading? Is that some kind of story? It seems very tick !"

Silence. Again.

She was starting to feel her hands clenching and unclenching in annoyance. Was she being ignored again? Did she look like a mere piece of furniture to him?

Then his eyes went down to his precious book.

"Adventure." He whispered.

He closed the book and showed her the cover. A picture of a sailing boat in the middle of a thunderstorm adorned the leather-bound volume.

The title read: "Filipe's journey to the mystical land of Purth"

She caught a glimpse of adoration in his gaze as he looked at his book. Judging by the clearly used up pages and the utmost care with which he was handling the paper, the book must have been his favorite.

[Not so cold-faced anymore, huh?]

She marveled at the sight.

Here was the opportunity she was looking for.

Channeling all her chatter-box skills, she proceeded to ask as many questions as she could about the story. At first, the responses she got back from him felt lukewarm at best with mostly monosyllabic words, but as they dwelled deeper into the plot of the sailor who left family, home, and country to seek out a legendary medicinal flower on the other side of the world, the boy's face began to light up, clearly enjoying speaking about his favorite adventure book.

The way she was seeing it, the boy was probably an introvert at best and a recluse at worst.

He perpetually wore a blank face in front of others and only seemed to change expressions when on the topic of his favorite hobbies.

After a few minutes of chatting with him, she finally asked a question that rendered him shocked beyond belief (which in his books, only meant that his eyes widened a bit and his lips slightly parted).

"You…you don't know my name ?" he asked in surprise, his mouth falling open.

She froze up. She had been extra careful not to give anything away about her otherworldly situation. It had been like trying not to crush eggs in a room filled to the brim with them while wearing a blind-fold.

"No... Why? Should I be aware of it or something ?"

He looked down, his long golden eyelashes grazing up his cheeks softly.

Gosh, her elder sister's instincts screamed at her to "PROTECT !".

"No…I…had assumed you knew, and had been looking for my hiding place before fainting in front of my room".

Now he looked almost embarrassed, a slight pinkish hue dusting up his round cheeks. Was he feeling ashamed at his previous rude behavior?

Oh. Had he assumed she had come onto him with ulterior motives or something?

Dear God, please spare her heart. She was about to die of cuteness overload.

She decided she would throw her caution to the wind and just comfort this baby chick with a sad look on his face.

Her hand went down on his-very very soft- silver head and patted him while giggling (she never giggled, but this kid was just so adorable, it brought out a fluffy feeling out of her).

"What are you talking about ?" She laughed. "I probably got lost while trying to find the bathroom or something? Truthfully, I don't quite remember. I must have hit my head on something after fainting." She lied, almost effortlessly.

And here she went, playing out the amnesia card. Could she stretch this trick enough to cover up any loopholes to come in her future made-up story?

For now, the boy seemed to have bought it as he clearly remembered her groaning in obvious head-pain earlier.

"Anyway, what did you say your name was again ?" she threw the bait.

"I didn't," he said. "But I'm Marcus."

No last name, huh?

Interesting.

He stared at her expectedly. As if waiting for something.

Then she drew a blank. How was she supposed to respond now?

She didn't even know the name of the previous owner of her new body?

How could she have been this stupid? Too caught up in playing the "big sister" to get to know the adorable kid better, she forgot all about her priorities.

She quickly looked down at her attire to try to figure out anything that could give a clue about her new identity.

The outfit she wore was a two-piece, quite similar in shape to the one Marcus was wearing, but with a less flashy finish.

Her body was about the same size as Marcus'.

She appeared to be a kid too.

Putting her hands in her pockets, she fished out a golden pocket watch and an embroidered handkerchief. The watch displayed an inscription with the letters "K.L" while the handkerchief had a name on it: "Kieran L."

Was it safe to assume it was her name? Kieran?

The angelic ice prince was still looking at her with an expectant look, his head tilted in confusion at her panicked state.

"K-Kieran !" she almost shouted, startling the boy. "My name…is Kieran…" she added, this time with a bit of uncertainty in her voice.

Suddenly a miracle happened.

A smile was graced upon her unworthy being.

Marcus gave her a small grateful smile, his eyes slightly wrinkling at the edge.

She could quite distinctly hear Christmas carols playing in the background and a blinding light descending upon them as if invoked by the charm of his angelic expression.

[Scratch that, it was probably her wild imagination playing tricks on her.]

Wow, that kid was dangerous!

Her maternal instincts were literally tingling. A shocker since she couldn't ever remember fawning over a kid before.

"Thank you." He finally said. "I…usually don't talk with other kids my age. They think it's silly to like old adventure books. You…You don't."

"Well they don't know what they are missing !" she huffed. "You won't need those idiots when you have a friend like me now !"

His smile grew even wider, his gaze dropping down to his lap.

"Kieran." He called out to her softly. " It feels…weird here". He motioned to his heart. "Warm…I think I'm happy. I've never been friends with a boy my age before. I usually only talk with adults."

Her heart squeezed in sadness for the poor little adorable being as she felt herself swooning even more.

What a sweetheart !

It took a few seconds for his words to finally register in her bird brain which kept replaying a particularly shocking sentence :

I've never been friends with a boy my age before.

Friends with a boy my age.

A boy my age.

A BOY !

Her hand flew out under her midsection, tentatively grabbing anything (she hopped nothing) that could be hiding there.

Oh.

And there it was.

A foreign lump between her legs.

A very much existing one.

It was small but still…

HOW COULD SHE HAVE POSSIBLY OVERLOOKED THAT ?!

She let out a wail.

Meanwhile, Marcus' smile fell, replaced with a worried expression.

"Kieran? Is something wrong ?" he asked, genuine concern coating his words.

Her eyes started watering up in despair and barely concealed frustration.

She was sniffing hard, on the verge of bawling her eyes out.

Marcus sensed the change in his friend's mood and slowly approached the other kid who was still firmly gripping his groin as if trying hard not to empty out on the spot.

[Did he want to pee that badly?] He pondered.

It made sense. He had been looking for a bathroom before fainting in front of his door, right?

He placed a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Kieran..?"

"I…I…"

"Are you okay ?"

"I…I'm…"

"What ?"

"I'm gonna kill them…"

"…u-uh ?"

" I HAVE ONE DOWN THERE !"