Overworked
This is a birthday gift for @beginnerwizard and bonus too for @sleep4rrei (her birthday is incoming, and I've prepared one specifically for her)
Eclair belongs to @sleep4rrei and Mawar belongs to @beginnerwizard
It was dark, and raining. Ten o'clocks. And the garage was still opened, if not for the boss to decide, they should added. "Who knows an unfortunate person's car breaks down in the middle of the night. You can't expect a ghost to appear and fix everything, right?" The Boss said that night.
"Anything," Eclair muttered, "but a ghost."
Anthony Claire, that night, was sitting on his boss's garage. The coffee beside him was still hot. Eclair was more than lonely. He was occasionally trembling in fear whenever he looked into the dark streets outside of his garage. He had to make sure to himself that there was no anomaly watching him from afar every second. He sighed. "I guess watching some Mawar's videos will help.." He muttered, his cheeks were red a little bit.
It was something he barely shared. Not the fact that he was single. But the fact that he had a crush on the famous Indonesian actress. Since she was recently visited his hometown. It was just a crush to him. And he was not serious about those daydreams. Well, maybe someday he would find a girl. Someday. Night.
Two o'clocks. It was raining. The garage's field was still opened wide. Well, Eclair was just dancing under his dreams, until he wasn't. Oh no, he hated this moment. He hated the fact that his body decided to be awake at midnight. Two o'clocks, raining, and alone. He could curse himself at that moment, but he wouldn't. He preferred to convince his brain to let him sleep peacefully. Thankfully, his brain was starting to cooperate.
Now, Eclair was just replaying every positive thoughts before he went to sleep again. Shivering cold, a little, he realized he didn't wear the blanket that he saved in his office. But the realization came to the worst. Something suddenly appeared in his mind. Though blurry memories, Eclair was certain with this fact.
He was asleep outside of his office, some minutes after his call with Louis ended. The garage door was not yet locked.
Oh, what a burden. He could only hope no one entered the garage to steal something valuable. He wanted to go home when the night shift ended, without hearing his boss shouting at him.
Just as Eclair was initiating to make his way to the door, while still laying down the couch, and was slowly opening his eyes..
A lady. Long-haired, wavy. It was covering her face. She dressed in a white gown.
Beautiful, Eclair must admitted. Yet it was no longer beautiful when he remembered the legendary tale that had been roaming around the world. At this point, Eclair quickly shut his eyes back. He stopped breathing. His heart was beating so fast. His body went rigid. He forced himself to not move at all, silently hoping that the ghost would assume he didn't exist--which was quite a stupid reason to leave.
It was almost a minute, but it felt like an eternity to him. Eclair really wanted to breath, but he was too scared to do so. And as if this was not terrifying enough, he could hear the faint words coming out of the ghost's mouth,
"Mas..Mas.."
Such language he did not learn in university. And why would he be? Was this ghost had her own language in the afterlife? This was new. Louis was going to laugh to die after hearing this.
The moment suddenly came to a climax for him. He could sense the moving hand odmf the ghost, reaching out, and aiming at his body. Was she going to touch him?! Eclair peeked a little and..
"AAAGGGHHH BATARD!!!" "MAY GOD PUNISH YOU EVIL SPIRIT!!!"
He breathed heavily, shaky, and looked at her sharply. The startled ghost was silent for a moment, before she stepped up, much to Eclair's wary. "I'm not a ghost." Eclair blinked. "Wha.." "I'm not a ghost." Eclair blinked again, twice. "Do you hear me?!" She raised her voice. "What-WHY WOULD I-Who are you?!" Eclair said in return. The woman sighed. "My car stopped." "Stopped?!" Eclair was confused, and the woman seemed to be more confused than him. After a second he finally realized. "Your car's broken." "Yes." Eclair facepalmed.
And quickly, he woke himself up from the couch, then started walking towards her car. "So what happened?" He asked, picking up his tools. "I don't know. I was from the studio, I was about to go home. And then, the car didn't want to start. So I had to call for help." The woman explained. "..at this hour, Ma'am?" "Yes, an hour ago." "This late, Ma'am?" Eclair kept asking her questions, much to her annoyance. "What's the problem with it?!" She asked back. "Why are you still outside during this hour?" "Because I had a work to do?!" She raised her voice. "Then I should ask you too, sir, why are you still working at this hour?" Ultimately, Eclair was speechless enough, so that he focused a lot more to fix her car.
"..I think I forgot something." "What?!" Eclair turned at her. "My wrench," "Wrench?" She sounded confused. "Yes, wrench.." Eclair sensed her confusion. "..Indonesian?" "What?!" Eclair was taken aback a bit. "What is..wrench..in Indonesian?" She asked. "Huh-I don't know?!" Eclair replied. The woman sighed at his answer. "Alright, why don't you just bring me that basket beside the door-..can you..?" Eclair asked before he opened the car's hood, as she walked approaching the pointed door. "..which one?! There are two baskets! Red or Blue?"The woman shouted from afar. "Um..BLUE!" Eclair replied. The woman picked up the blue basket and brought it towards him. Eclair examined the blue basket. "Oh, my bad, I mean the red basket." He said, before fixating himself back to the car's engine. His response made the woman grunted as she turned back to pick up the red basket. "Jancuk." "Thank you,"
Time had passed. Eclair had asked the woman to sit down inside the garage's office, cleaning and calming herself after the raining night. Eclair entered the car to see if it finally worked. Gradually, it was. He sighed in relief. He laid his back on the car's couch. Trying to process the fact that the woman was not a ghost, she worked at a studio, go home in the middle of the night, and had her car's broken. Judging by all of those, she must have been an actress. Oh..and she was also Indonesian. However, he had never seen her before in media. No wait, there were like few Indonesian celebrities that visiting his country this month. But who was she? Did he forget someone?
Eclair pulled out the key and walked back to the office, only to found out the woman had not yet cleaned her make up--she was even worse now, due to crying. "Miss..?" His voice made her flinched in surprise. "Um, pardon me. Your car has been repaired. You can try it now." Eclair said. "Um..yeah thanks.." she sobbed. "..pardon me.." She muttered, covering her face. However, Eclair didn't respond, and instead went inside of the office.
Soon, he came back with two glasses of waters. "Ah, thank you.." the woman said. Her voice was now softer than before. Eclair assumed that whatever happened last night was very stressful to her. He wouldn't judge what was it. "I apologize for sleeping when I have to work, Ma'am. And for screaming when I saw you--I, I was startled." Eclair apologized. "Um, yeah, understandable, sir..still.." She wiped her tears off, "I am also sorry for..being angry." Eclair looked at her. "No, you don't have to feel sorry for being angry. It is normal. And I can understand why." Eclair said, but as he noticed that the woman did not have any tissue or fabric to wipe her tears and makeups, he stood up and walked towards some desks. "Here," He picked a fabric. "Ohh thank you, sir-"
But before she could react, his hand was already on his cheek, and the other was wiping out the makeup and tears. "Eclair," He said, focusing on to wipe the makeups, completely ignoring the fact that her cheeks naturally went red after his act. "Sir..? I can wipe it myself?!" She asked. "O-Oh! Pardon me." Eclair stepped back, realizing what he did. He turned away, starting to sense that his cheeks also went red, much to his slight annoyance. "That was stupid.."
"..Mr. Eclair," "Yes.." "Are you overworked?" Eclair was silent for a few seconds, still turning away from the woman that brushed her tears off. "..I, I don't know honestly. Maybe, but, yeah I can live with it." He answered. But as the woman fell silent in return, he decided to ask her too, "How about you?"
"..Is it bad?" "What?" She paused, but returned with a mutter, "That I consider I am."
Eclair closed his eyes, letting out a small sigh. "No, it's not." He stated, "It's subjective but..it doesn't make you a bad person to dislike it." The woman shook her head. "No, Sir. I think I should live with it. Just like you do with yours." Eclair nodded. "That's true. Sometimes you can't escape it. But most of the time, you can feel it." "Feel it?" The woman asked. "Yes.." Eclair replied, "Feel just everything. And don't hold back. You're not a robot or a doll. You're a human. A sentient creature. Cry whenever you want to. And be angry whenever you want to."
It was until two seconds, another sobs were heard behind him. He closed his eyes, already figuring out that this would happen. And he was glad he got to know more about her. "I'm sorry, Sir.." She said, wiping her tears off with the fabric. "Yes, but are you going to wipe your tears with the same fabric?" "Eh..right. Oh! Anyway, Sir. You can turn back now."
"Finally," Eclair muttered his annoyance. It was just before he was frozen in place, too stunned to speak, and left him breathless. Almost like his first time meeting her. His jaw was left open. His heartbeat, instead, didn't stop--but went faster. However, this was his last word.
"Mawar?" "Ah..yes, that's me, Sir."
"Are you okay?" "Sir?!"
And there he fainted before his dear customer could pay for his help.
OMAGAH I LOVE THIS SO MUCHH
The storyline you choose for them are just perfect! Love the comedic tone of the otherwise serious topic this one-shot tackled
Thank you so much for writing this! Definitely one of the best birthday gift i got this year
















