Kim tries to steal a diamond

The lock slid open and Kim crouched into the vault. In front of her was a ring crowned by a big and shiny diamond. It was surely worth enough to cover the rest of the apartment’s price.

Kim swiped the ring unseen. The perfect crime. She tried to tiptoe away but something pushed her into the floor. “What the-?” There was a weird black tendril thing grabbing her ankle, it belonged to “Harako! What are you doing here?”

“…My job. …Security, remember?”

“T-t-this isn’t what it looks like! I was, sent here to polish the ring!”

“…No …If you were doing your job they would have told you that the Ring of Evanescence can’t come into contact with a human.”

“What do you mean it can’t?” The diamond vibrated intensely and then it broke into a million pieces. A shrill sound came out from the walls, an alarm! From the ether emerged a statuesque man clad in a toga. “M-m-m-Morpheus?”

Morpheus took a gander at the room and furrowed his brows. “You tried to steal the Ring of Evanescence, didn’t you Kim?” He sighed. “A shame. You were one of my favorite employees, but in the end it seems like you are nothing more than a petty thief.”

Morpheus' eyes sparkled with electricity and anger. “No! This is a misunderstanding! I was trying to polish it! For you?! It was dirty! Eeep! Mercy!” Kim kneeled and bowed down on the floor.

“I’ve shown you mercy before. Not anymore, I’ll do what I should have done when I caught you stealing the first time.”

“Wait!” Harako cried out, putting herself between the two. “… She isn’t lying. …She really tried to polish the gem, I saw her with my own eyes.” Kim lifted her head. Was Harako covering for her?

Morpheus stared at the ghost, then at Kim, and the ghost again. “Harako, are you sure? Do you know what you are saying? What it means?”

Harako nodded her head solemnly.

“Very well. I demote you again. Both you and Kim will work to pay for the ring she broke. This time there will be no preferential treatment. No vetoed jobs, not looking the other way when you “borrow” towels, no double desserts on the cafeteria.” Before Morpheus walked away, he spared a last side glance to Kim. “I like you two, but there will be no third time, understand?”

Harako breathed a sigh of relief, she forgot how scary her boss can be sometimes. She looked down at the human kneeling on the ground, Kim was sniffling and looking at her with puppy eyes. “Harie! You do care about me!” The ghost didn’t answer. “That’s ok, no need for words. I guess we are stuck together again, eh partner?”

Kim tried to go for a hug, but Harako’s foot placed her down on the ground once more. “Huh?”

“…No. ...No more “partner”, “besties” or anything like that! …You bring nothing but problems …We’ll work together, but nothing more. ...I don’t want to talk to you ever again.”

“W-w-w-what? Come Harie, don’t be like that. Ok sure, maybe I roped you into another extraordinarily high mountain of debt that you’ll have to pay by working the worst jobs around, but that’s what friends do, right? …Hey, don’t give me the silent treatment! Harie!”

Uh-oh. Seemed liked Kim screwed the pooch big time. She took the biggest breath of her life. Kim knew how to make it better, to do the right thing, but it was just so hard! “You know what? You are right, this is all my fault, and you shouldn’t be dragged into my mess. I’ll work the jobs on my own.”

“ …You will?”

“S-sure. It’s not fair for you to go through this all again because of me. You can, I don’t know, take a vacation or something while I work to pay off our debt. How hard can it be?” Kim knew the answer, but she’d rather not think about it to stay positive.

“…Thanks! …You are a good friend, Kim.” Well, that’s the nicest thing Kim ever heard the ghost say. Her eyes got teary again. “… But maybe …There is another way.”

Kim perked up immediately. “Really? What’s that?”

“…If I pool the wages I have stored and you sell your apartment, car and everything you bought ... Between the two of us …it just might be enough to pay for the ring.”

“Sell? My apartment? My car? My Jacuzzi? I can’t do that! I worked hard for all that. No way I’m going back to sleeping on a single bed and bathing in a shower like a peasant!”

“…Your choice …You can either sell everything or work to earn the money from scratch.”

Kim weighed her options, could she do it all over again? If she did, she would be well on her way to be the laughingstock of both the magical and human realm. But the alternative was to sell all her hard-earned assets...

It’s not like she was going to lose everything and go destitute, she could go back to her old roommate and work as a delivery-girl again, but it still stung a lot. Right, the decision was obvious. The choice was clear.