An absolutely fine day. Beautiful. Perfect. Just peachy. Of course I'm being sarcastic. Every morning I awoke and dressed myself. Every morning I sat at the table and projected the foods I didn't like across the room, those I did on the floor for the maid. I was perpetually frustrated, even more so than I had been before, because now I lived everyday without the one thing I desired most of all. My heart would sink every morning when I realized once again that I was alive again without him, and I would reluctantly rise to the day. It seemed like I was always angry. Nothing was ever good enough for me, and I knew I scared my employees. No, not knew. Not quite. I hoped I did. I wanted to instill the sort of terror in them that a Human feels when cornered by Death itself. For allowing myself to feel these petty emotions, some other Demons may have called me weak, but I didn't care. I wanted something, and I wanted it bad enough to throw a fit because I wasn't getting my own way. I was still the same as I had been fifty years ago... but with a more powerful, brooding aura, and a depression so deep it rivalled the ocean. And I had no inhibitions about showing it off alongside a gloriously demonic temper.

I was showing it off now. I stood from the table, pushing my chair back, and taking the plate infront of me into one thin hand. With one fell thrust of my arm, the glass plate hit the floor and shattered into millions of tiny white pieces, scattering themselves across the polished surface as if they wished to escape my wrath. Just as well. I stood there breathing hard for a moment, my eyes flicking up to the double doors every now and again, still hoping that he would sense my distress and return to me. He would come through those doors any second and order the mess cleaned up. Then he would take my face and wipe away the hot tears that were streaming down my cheeks and press his eyebrows together as if scrutinizing every detail of my new face — the one I had stolen. Then he would smile, just as he had that day; the same night I had fled for Ciel Phantomhive's manor. But this time, instead of running away from it, I'd lean into him and he'd hold me close to his body... and everything would go back to the way it was.

I ran a hand through my newly blackened hair. This body was dark-haired and pale-skinned, with honey brown eyes; around the same age as I had been at my death — fourteen — I had been comfortable just slipping into this body, like a second skin. He had once been a common boy, but I had decided that I wanted him because of a fair resemblance to myself from fifty years earlier. Now, I despised myself, because everytime I looked in the mirror at the ghostly pale face framed by thick obsidian hair and tawny eyes, I remembered Claude. It drove me even more mad. I bordered on insanity, and so, the mirrors in the house were ordered to be covered over or removed altogether. I couldn't stand to look at myself anymore. My face was sickening now.

A knock on the front door roused my interest, and I picked up my teacup and saucer, only to drop it in the entrance hall on my way out. I brought myself to the front door and heaved it open, my heart thumping in my chest. Who could be there? Claude? It had to be. And if it were... now that we were both Demons, and equals....

But my heart sank, and I frowned hard at the uninvited guest. "Oh. Ginger. What do you want?" I scowled, remembering him as he sat across from me, mocking my real name, Jim McCain. As if he'd actually come here for whatever reason. The brightness of his red colour scheme made me squint at him, and it occured to me that he might not recognize me as I was before. Or maybe he would. He seemed like he might be that kind of an all-knowing, I-watch-you-as-you-sleep kind of guy, and it made me shudder. But, to disguise this, I turned a little bit and ran my fingers through my hair, brushing it back out of my face, unconciously in a way similar to how Claude had done. Maybe it was because I had spent so much time idolizing him that things like that had become private habits, and eventually I couldn't stop myself from doing it at all, especially with the haircut I wore now. Pieces kept falling into my line of vision, and I couldn't stand it. My hair of all things annoyed me, probably just about as much as the redhead at the door did at this very moment.