My boyfriend is sweet and handsome. He is a guy who has fair skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. He works out regularly and loves me for my flaws and personality! Ah, but he is not my only boyfriend, oh no. I have a relationship with multiple boyfriends! One has red hair and orange eyes, he’s quite slender and so wishy-washy with his emotions. Then there is the guy with purple hair and grey eyes who acts so shy that it is adorable!

I could go on and on about how wonderful they treat me, or rather how cool they are. To brag about them being wizards, ninjas and swordsman is an utter joy in my life. I am their damsel in distress as we live together while solving mysteries. We have so much fun together, every single day! It is always a blast when they’re around, they make me feel like the luckiest girl in the world!

SMACK!

I fall from a very hard collision. Moaning from the pain that I feel as my head is the first thing to bump into something hard enough to knock me down. I blink and look up from the ground, seeing a double door made of green boarding and glass. Suddenly, I freak out and frantically look around, trying to make sure the phone I have in my hand in still in-tact. Sighing in relief of its safety, I pick myself up and shove my phone into my pocket, then wipe off the dirt from my plaid skirt and dark red shirt.

To go along with it, I have long white stalking’s, red bow slip-ons and a red beret hat to match as my short-spiked hair hung underneath. I quickly move it, making sure it’s secure on my head. I have a ridiculous hairstyle that I want to keep hidden as much as possible. I walk inside, hearing the doorbell ring in the process. Instantly, I’m greeted by a familiar tall man dressed in drag clothing, along with ruby-red lipstick and a purple wig.

“Oh~! Little miss, you arrived right on time,” he says as he grins and clasps his hands, all while putting up a kicked back leg in the air. I stand tall, giving a small smile. “Great to be here Mr. Clover! Thank you so much for hiring me.” I say as I hold out my hand. “The pleasure is all mine dear! Come, meet your new co-worker.” He walks into the back, showing an unknown face. Behind the cash counter was a tall guy with black spikey punk hair with spikey white streaks to match.

He wore a red T-shirt with a black bloody heart picture on it, along with black ripped skinny jeans and black shoes. He had a silver earring and a slender figure. His skin was very pale compared to my dark toned chocolate skin. “This young man is Kiro Ikkyu,” says Mr. Clover in a bold statement. I hold out a hand to the taller guy. “Nice to meet you, I’m Xenobi.” I say with a smile. He gives me a bored expression, as a moment of silence surrounded us. I felt a little nervous and start to put my hand down, until I felt his hand shake mine. “Sure,” he says, his purple eyes staring into my orange eyes.

Huh, I guess he’s kind of cute, my friend Miru’s type! That’s what I think after our handshake. Mr. Clover claps his hands, making us look in his direction. “Excellent! Kiro, please show Miss Xeno around and what she will be doing. I have to attend a material delivery meeting.” He walks toward the glass-bell ringing door.

“Arewvawa~!” He says as he waves while leaving. I huff then turn back to Kiro. “So, what do I-gah!” He frightens me as he has an angry glare on his face. He walks from out of the cash register and up to me. I slowly back up, he now has me cornered. I can feel my heart-beat quickening, sending me into an anxiety attack. “Listen well, this isn’t some place you can goof around in or expect things to just flow naturally if you don’t know something.

“This is a serious business. A clothing boutique that represents many designs from around the world, got it,” he asks sternly. Feeling heavy, I gasp and take my inhaler out, breathing into it. After saving myself from shortened breath, my heart slows down and I can feel comfort. Kiro huffs and backs up, continuing to glare at me. “Don’t think that just because you have asthma I’m going to go easy on you.”

He says harshly. God, he’s so mean and scary! Regardless, I nod as I put my inhaler back into my skirt pocket. “Alright, I’ll be going over what you have to do. I’m only doing this once so pay close attention.” I stand tall as a shiver runs down my spine. “Y-Yes!” I say, practically saluting. He holds up a hand and starts pointing. “To your left is the clothes department, to your right is the shoe rack. You will be making sure that new clothes and shoes are placed on and making sure that everything is in order after a customer is done browsing and or shopping.”

I nod in response as he talks. “I’m basically cleaning and setting up, got it.” I whisper to myself in agreement. “Glad you understand.” Kiro made me twitch as I realize that he heard me. “So, uh…what do you do?” He walks back behind the cash register. “I take the customers’ orders.” He slaps the counter and points toward the door.

“Change that sign to open and get started.” Without hesitation, I rush to the door and did so. After that, I get started by hanging up the clothes on the racks, finally having a quick time to think. I’m a 15-year-old preppy girl who’s working in a tiny clothing boutique store. I have to deal with a strict supervisor but the boss is nice. I guess the first question that comes to mind is, why would a nicely dressed, snobbish looking kid like me, have a job?

Well, while Kiro isn’t looking, I take out my phone to glance at my boyfriends on my phone’s wallpaper, making me smile contently. OK, my boyfriend’s aren’t real. They’re virtual and from Otome games-which are dating apps, but they’re the reason I’m working! With them in mind, I can feel perky doing anything! Or so I think as customers start to flow into the small boutique.

***

“Ow, ow, ow…” Moans Xenobi as she takes one step after another on the side walk. Her arms were dangling while her back was hunched over. She felt over worked from her first day of stacking shoe-boxes and putting back clothes. She didn’t have to lock up the shop, as Kiro was showing her how. Once that was over, he leaves in a hurry and causes her to re-think why she took such a job. She sighs deeply as she finally arrives home.

In front of her lies a tall building made of bricks and many windows. She struggles to open the door as her arms wobble around like jelly. Luckily, the door begins to creek open. Appearing from the door is a young man with vanilla skin, white hair and yellow eyes. He wears a kimono and flip-flops to match. “So, how was this new job of yours,” he asks as he holds a fan while flipping it.

She slowly looks at him and slightly smiles. “It was horrible…” Are her last words as she passes out, dropping in front of him. The white-haired guy sighs as he places his fan in his sleeves and crouches down to pick her up, placing her over his shoulder like a rag doll. “Great, you are going to have a fun time training tomorrow,” he says as he closes the door behind him.

“Umarau! Who is it?” Shouts a loud woman’s voice. It came from the kitchen of the building. The white-haired man named Umaru walks forward with Xenobi in arm’s length. “It’s Xenobi. She has returned, bone-tired and out cold. Training is going to kill her if she can barely handle a job,”

He says coldly. The woman is dark-skinned, quite round and healthy. She wears pants, a yellow shirt and a head rag, all wrapped up on her and over her attire is an apron. She hovers over a stove, cooking away with a pot. “She’ll be fine. You know how teenagers are, she’ll be having a lot of dramatic moments anyway,” she says with a smile and tastes the soup cooking in the pot. “That’s exactly why she is not ready to train. She should not be training at all.”

“It doesn’t matter if she’s ready to train or not, you know and I know that it was an agreement to train her on the turning of 15yrs in age. Once you put her to bed, help me with the cake and tell the others it’s dinner time.” Umaru huffs and walks out of the kitchen, going up the stairs and knocking on each door as he heads to the end of the hall. He finally arrives at Xenobi’s room, opening the door into a room with one bed next to one window ceil, having boyband wallpaper and a flowery décor wallpaper and closet with a dresser lamp.

He lays her down on her flower-like bed, then looks out the window to catch a glimpse of the sunset. He grunts to himself. Xenobi groans and turns over. “I hope you decide to sleep-in for once.” With that, he leaves the room, locking the door in the process. Once he was out of her room, a group of children can be heard and seen walking the hallway’s.

The children are diverse of many nationalities. Most of them goofing off while jumping around in the halls. “Hey,” shouts Umaru loudly and stern. The children quickly grow silent, having shivers run down their spines. “Aunt Kath made dinner, instead of running around like little gremlins, get downstairs and eat.” As if Umaru’s voice gave many shivers, the children file one-by-one down the stairs. Right behind them is Umaru, making sure they are going to the dinner tables and not goofing around anywhere else.

As the kids talk and eat, the bigger kid’s-preteens start to gossip. “Where’s Xenobi,” asks one. “I heard she’s having it really bad,” says another. “Yeah, she’s starting a new ‘underground’ job,” says the third. Little do they know about the truth of Xenobi. As the night goes on, the kids finish their meals and head to bed, unaware of the creatures that they live with. Umaru helps auntie Kath clean up everything. “I didn’t see Xenobi at the dinner table.” She comments as she took up the eaten plates from the table. “Tonight’s going to be a full moon, so I’ll just make her a plate.” Says Umaru. “Alright then…” With that, Umaru makes a plate of food in hand and walks upstairs to Xenobi’s room.

He knocks on the door first. “Hey, I brought you dinner,” he says, but there was no answer. He slowly opens the door, seeing an open window and an empty room. Umaru sighs deeply. “Another steak-out I suppose.” He stretches and hops out the window, his body morphing into a tiny white fox with gorgeous eyes.

With a small sniffle of the ground, he runs on, following a fresh trail. Into the night, throughout the city, the fox follows in pursuit of the creature that was now Xenobi. He could hear the screams and see people running in terror in his opposite direction. He was close and knows he isn’t too far behind.

Kiro, the imaginer

I walk through the streets, taking in the moonlight. I fiddle with my earring as I keep my other hand tightly on my side-pack. It was mainly a smaller version of a back-pack. I carried my phone, sketchbook and pencil’s inside. The night was quiet, not a soul in site as I walk down the streets, thinking to myself. Reflecting on everything.

I’m an 18yr old art college student who works part-time at a fashion boutique. Having one sibling and a girlfriend that make my life all the more interesting. I even have a friend who also gives good advice, though he may be goofy at times. To top it off, I’m studying into my passion of designing different fashions in the world. Not a bad life so far, if I do say so myself.

Yet, I feel so unsatisfied and empty at times. I should have the perfect life, at least nothing much to complain about. I take my touch phone out of my pocket and scroll through, finding my sisters number to see if I missed any messages. I chuckled as I saw the cute smiley with jaws that she left me. It was then that heard screaming under the moonlight.

I glanced around, seeing that people began to run in the opposite direction. “It’s horrible!” Shouted one lady. My eyes widened and I knew all too well what was happening. Another attack in the city. I dash towards the commotion, feeling the beating in my heart pump. I take out my sketch-book as I arrive at the scene.

There, in the middle of the street was the creature that I dedicated my whole life to drawing. The creature that shook fear in people’s hearts on the nights of the full moon. It stood on four paws and had wild orange eyes. Bat wings came out of its back while its head had a swirl-like cow-lick and a mixture of orange and black streaked fur. I tried as quickly as possible to draw every feature and detail.

It stood in front of a candy shop, staring intently. Slowly but surely, it opened its mouth. It’s paws digging into the concrete. Breathing deeply, I watched as a high-pitched sound started voicing out of the creature.

“Meeeeeeeoooooooooowwwww!” The meowing sound echoed loudly and surrounded the candy shop. The glass re-vibrated and broke upon impact. The creature then licked its paws and flew inside, licking the candies in on display. I slowly got closer, wanting to capture the tiniest tidbit of the creatures eating habits. As I slowly crawled up to the broken-in shop, I try to avoid the glass on the ground while looking inside.

It licked away continuously at the candy bars. I quickly drew what I could see, constantly looking up and back down at my sketchpad. I took a moment to look at my drawing, making sure it appeared correctly. I then looked up at the candy store. To my surprise, the creature was not there anymore.

I sigh out of sadness until I quickly notice a large amount of fur flying off over the moonlight. “Meow!” Squeaks the creature as its bat wings shined while it flew into the sky. I stare as I see it fly into the distance. “Someday, I’ll catch you and say it properly. Kitten of the moon.” The words escaped my mouth with ease.

RING! RING! I jolt out of my trans as I feel a vibration in my pocket.

It’s my phone; my sister is calling. “Hey Hana, what’s up?” I say to her on the other line. “It’s late, you’re late and I’m hungry.” I clank my head and quickly pack up my note-book, then dash out of the broken candy shop scene. “Sorry, I was-”

“Let me guess, the moons out tonight, right?” I huffed, feeling dumbfounded and keep silent.

“Of course, why would I even ask about your obsession.” I roll my eyes at her statement. Every full moon a cat with super powers comes out and terrorizes people in the city. At least that’s what the rumors are, but I know the truth, the truth that the moon kitten does not terrorize people and on every full moon I always try to find evidence of that.

Lately, it’s just been on a food hunt. Breaking into food shops, eating and flying off from the scene. Nothing special but I admit to being drawn in by the simple things the creature does. “I mean, is it bad?” I ask on the phone. “For me, yes. For you it’s 50/50.” “And what would that 50/50 be exactly?”