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The bathroom tiles are supposed to be white, but they're sort of dingy and pale sage. I'll get to that, well, soon, in the broadest sense of the word.
But I'm cold— irritatingly so.
"Mate," I shudder, bare shoulders raising to my cheeks, "It's freezing."
"I'm not apologising," I watch him say, distorted in the mirror, "You asked me for this."
I examine myself first.
Harshly, red gunk is slathered on the length of my hair, the wispy parts flittering against my neck and shoulders, leaving a burgundy trail.
I'm not sure what anyone else'd think but— I look great. At this point, my makeup is about eleven hours old and looks it; it's clinging darkly to my lashes and under-eye, glistening pink still on the usually flushed parts.
He, on the other hand, is absurdly focused, bare hands (he refused to wear latex gloves) scooping and smothering the dye onto, now, my roots.
I've never really had a good look at the guy. Boredom calls for desperate measures.
Pale in the yellow light, I'm not sure he looks how you'd expect after listening to his music. Confident converts to gangly and on-trend converts to the certain eccentric manner in which he presents himself. There's something youthful, illustrated by perhaps his shifting stance, his manic expressions, his over-arching gestures, or all of the above.
Despite my profuse begging, his soot black curls have been untimely massacred, roughly shaved into a choppy line over his skull leaving only a thinly jagged coat of hair across the rest of his head.
Plainly put, it's a mohawk.
Some'd call that cliche. Not me; I'd never— not to his face anyhow.
Per usual, his clothes act as a vehicle; they display, quite simply, the thing that everybody is going for: 'unbothered', 'mysterious', 'dark'. What this means, however, is that all he wears are black t-shirts, preferably short sleeved to portray his recent tattoo craze, and black skinny jeans. It's not ground-breaking, is it?
"Let's have a deep conversation," I speak, almost slyly, as I absentmindedly rap my nails against the yellowing sink basin.
"Really?" he grins, shifting his weight and glancing at me through the mirror, "I can't be a hairdresser and a therapist at the same time."
"You saying I have issues?"
"Yes," he grunts, another chill spiralling from my scalp, "I am. You do."
Wincing somewhat, I groan longly, beginning to examine my cuticles instead. They're looking particularly ragged and sore— the curse of an addiction to nail-picking.
"Go on, then." he quite suddenly prompts, resisting a reflex to run his stained hand through his hair, instead flinching before inspecting his palm.
"Right," my chest puffs, sitting bolt upright and quite intensely watching him through the mirror's dust, "Do you... erm... what's your biggest fear?"
My sentence finishes embarrassingly weakly, confidence diminished.
"My biggest fear?" he scoffs, "I thought you had a cool topic, like Epicurean philosophy or, I don't know, Marxism."
"I said a deep topic not a pretentious topic." I laugh, observing the last of my hair dissolving into a glorious red, "Set a timer for half an hour."
He scrunches his nose, clicking his mobile open briefly, "No— just remember it comes out at eight thirty. So," he pauses, humming lightly, "My biggest fear..."
"You have to be serious, for once." I spout, sternly, propping my knees up on the little stool.
"My biggest fear is becoming Sting."
"Matty."
"No, actually," he projects, "Imagine— if I got super famous and whiney and Tom York-like— It'd be terrible."
"I thought you were whiney?" I twist my head around to properly meet his glance, for the first time in a while.
Shoving past me and his hands into the sink, he narrows his eyes down at me "Ha. Ha."
I think everyone should be a little whiney, though. Whiney people achieve things— they complain and, surprisingly, people respect it, falling to every whim they utter.
Yet, I don't say this. That'd be whiney.
Flowing, maroon barrels around the sink in a swishing, Coriolis swirl.
Bluntly, "It'll never come off." I state.
"I'm too cool for gloves," he sighs, "I'll bear the stains like battle scars."
"Maybe if the battle were a fun, exciting experience with your best friend!" I retort, falsely jovial.
"So many things to correct; I'm not sure where to start." He huffs, grinning and wiping his hands on a crumpled towel.
Smiling, I peer at my arms crossing through the reflection, "Are you gonna ask what my biggest fear is?"
"I am," he speaks lowly, half sitting half leaning against the counter to face me, "What's it gonna be, Dee?"
"Well, actually I'm not sure," Puffing, I avoid his figure with my glance, "Fuck. I don't know, stop, I'm thinking."
"Coward."
"I'm not—" I bargain, partly with myself, "I'm just confused, there's a difference."
He pushes from the counter, sauntering through the ribs of the doorway, only just turning back to utter "Coward." mock-disappointment apparent in his narrowed eyes and funnily thinned snarl.
I smile and follow him.
Practically skidding over the oak boards, I eventually capture his attention in my sad little kitchenette.
"I have two," I dictate, quite clearly, "Either living a life untrue to my morals, no room for amendment, or living a life untrue to my feelings, millions of things bottled up."
"Sounds like a PR answer." he snorts, whipping his head around to brew the kettle.
My brows ever so lightly furrow at this, as my gaze drifts to watch his working hands. How familiar.
Slowly, though, he turns to watch me once more, minuscule lines forming on his forehead. For once, it isn't overly dramatic, performative, built to be analysed by the back row— I'm not entirely sure what it is.
"Seriously though," he queries, "Why is that?"
Quietness fills the gap.
I've always liked, not exactly silence, but the dimness of noise. In a primitive way, it's intimate.
"I think that," I mutter, almost huskily, "I just have morals worth standing by, and things worth saying."
Of course, I classify half-truths as innocent enough. A full truth is asking for a lot— you'll be wanting my dignity, next, won't you?
Nobody can force me to tell the debilitating truth, not even myself. If he thinks he has a chance, he clearly doesn't know me.
Instead, he forces nothing. If anything, he nods, docile, and fades his bobbing eye-line back towards the water in the kettle, now bubbling vigorously, angrily.
And, quite simply, he makes tea.