Kairi stepped into the backroom and heaved a sigh of relief as the man finally exited her store. Ronan watched her with a frown, seated on one of the stools that decorated the backroom. “Are you okay Ri? That man...he wasn’t human.” Kairi nodded as she began to rummage through the cabinets for the first aid kit. “I know he wasn’t, I just can’t put my finger on what he is, exactly. I do know he was too curious for my liking; he kept demanding to know what I was. Said I wasn’t a vampire or zombie but it was clear he knew I wasn’t human either.” She grabbed the metal box and set it on the counter near Ronan and took his bandaged hand in her smaller ones.<br/><br/>Ronan frowned as she began to unwrap his sloppily bandaged hand. “That’s very worrying. I can add some protection to the store and your house. It won’t keep anything specific out, but at the very least will alert you when something that means to harm you has crossed the threshold.” Kairi sighed and nodded her head in agreement. “That would probably make me feel better, at the very least. By the way, what in the world did you do to your hand?” She asked, wincing as she got a look at the burned marks crisscrossing his hand.<br/><br/>“I’ll have to gather some ingredients and prepare the spell but I should have everything ready in a day or so,” Ronan said, giving a wince of his own as Kairi applied some burn cream. “I was being foolish and didn’t pay enough attention to a potion I was preparing. I added crushed wormwood instead of dried and the potion exploded. I’m lucky I still have a hand with which to be bandaged.” Kairi tsked at him as she re-bandaged his hand, this time doing a much better job. Ronan flexed his hand and stood, stooping to give Kairi a kiss on top of her head. “Thank Ri. As much as I would love to stick around and chat, I was just stopping in to check on you. I was on my way to a clients house. Bye Doll.” With a wink, Ronan blew Kairi a kiss and disappeared through the door.<br/><br/>The dragon shook her head and packed up the supplies, heading back to the counter. The rest of the day was normal in comparison to this morning and at 4:30 she was waving goodbye to James. At 6:00 she was locking up and flipping the sign to closed. She sighed, rubbing the back of her neck before she grabbed her phone. Scrolling through her playlist, she pressed play and headed to the backroom. Adding the books to the inventory was a tedious process and when she was done, she lugged them to the main area and began adding them to the shelves, her music playing in the background. Kairi had taken a few dance classes a couple of years back and it showed in the way she twirled and danced around the shop.<em>”Your laughter haunts me like a ringing in my ear. You left me long ago, you're still everywhere. I reach out for you, I'm desperate for your warmth. Can you tell me where we went wrong? At least tell me just to move on!”</em>She sang, a smile on her face as she moved her hips to the beat.<br/><br/>At 10:00 she had sorted through all the books and was locking up. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her jacket as she turned and began to head towards home.<br/>