Hands In The Stars

42. Connecting The Past

Ai put the golden hairdryer back into its original place, then looked himself over in the mirror once more. A small, disappointed sigh slipped between his lips. Feet dragging behind himself he made his way out of the bathroom and slowly over to the kitchen. His friend sat with tonight's third glass of horribly cheap white wine.
"Ethan!" Ai greeted him and forced a clearly faked, over-exaggerated smile. "I look like a homeless fucking crackhead now! Thanks." Nearly an entire fistful of hair wrapped stuck between Ai's fingers as he tried to comb them through his long, frizzy hair. The top of it was a pretty, very light, brown. The glowy, honey like shade drizzled all the way down to Ai's protruding shoulder blades. There, it suddenly turned into a spotty mess of all shades of black and brown. The split ends of Ai's thick mane remained frozen in its original ink black tone. Ethan looked Ai up and down, nodding slightly as he tried to think of something encouraging to say without displaying his disappointment. He couldn't come up with anything in time, the awkwardly surprised silence had already set in.

"We can just cut it all off, okay? That sounds nice." Ai suggested quietly, leaning against the door frame and Ethan tried to hide a small giggle.
"No! Come on now Ai it's not that bad! We can always just, uh, wait a bit for it to set in and then try again? Though, I think next time we are definitely going to need about three packs of bleach, and not just one. For your hair, that is!" Ethan finished off his glass and put it down onto the table, then waddled his way over to Ai to run his fingers through the mess with a small smirk. Ai just sighed in frustration. "It's- It's very original, and it's got a really cool effect. Surely not a single other person could have your hair now. I mean, it would be weird if they had your hair, right? Since it's on your head... You know what I mean." Ethan stuttered, playing a bit with the ends of Ai's hair. Ai had to fight the urge to give Ethan the side-eye.
"Ethan-" Ai put a hand up to his forehead. "-you're only saying that because you're too drunk to realize this, but it does actually looks like crap. Trust me when I say it does look like crap. You'll see tomorrow."

Ethan took a step away from Ai to admire him. Ai, on the other hand, walked over to one of the many drawers in the kitchen and pulled out a scissor.
"This! This is good! I'll just cut it off instead." He stated. Ethan quickly slid over to Ai and grabbed his hands from behind, holding them stuck together with a small smile.
"Alright now let's calm down, I'm not that drunk but if you want to so badly I'll help you cut your hair a little bit. Don't do that by yourself you'll get hurt." Ethan grabbed the scissor from Ai's smaller hand and held it away before letting go again.
"So it's better when you drunk cut my hair?" Ai asked with a raised brow.
"Absolutely what could go wrong." Ethan quickly chimed in with a reassuring tone.
"Well, I mean, it's not like it can get much worse than it already is either way. Gosh, Datui is going to get so shocked once he comes back, he'll think I look like a clown!"

* 

A loud groan escaped Ethan's lips and he put his hand up to his forehead as he laid spread wide across Datui's big, black couch in his living room. Being forced to listen to the loud buzzing of the vacuum cleaner as Ai tried his best to sort up the mess of hair from the floor did nothing to ease his throbbing headache. Ethan's eyes slowly landed on his phone. He reached a hand out, but the second his fingers touched the thick device, his heart fell. there was no use in checking, he already knew the message he was waiting for wouldn't be there. Zen would not have been found yet. He let his mind drift away, towards old memories of passion, and barely noticed when the loud buzzing suddenly turned into a calm silence.

Ai appeared right in front of him, sitting with his knees on the soft carpet, a glass of water in his hands. He held the liquid out to the other.
"Come on, drink something. And, uh, sorry for being so worked up." Ai seemed much calmer.
"No, no, it's fine." Ethan mumbled. He grabbed the glass and tried to take a sip. Though, the boy had miscalculated, completely forgotten that he laid flat on his back. With a shocked gasp of breathe he swung his body to the side as soon as the liquid splashed his face. Ethan barely noticed Ai's short, muffled laughter when he fished himself up into a sitting position.
"Uhm, if you haven't noticed, you can't really drink while laying down. I could explain it to you but basically, in short words, it's called gravity and-"
"Oh yeah, thanks Ai, I didn't know about that." Ethan rolled his eyes a bit, but a wide smile was still across his rosy cheeks. Ai put a hand against Ethan's forehead and stroke some of his now wet hair out of his face.
"Well, no more wine for you now. Oh, and I love your shirt by the way. I, uh, I love Sailor Moon." Ai smiled a bit as he moved to sit on the couch. Ethan looked between his shirt and Ai in somewhat surprise.
"Ah, really? Chibi Moon is my favourite. I actually got this shirt from Shun when w- Oh, I'm rambling, apologies." Ethan blushed a bit and covered his face, but Ai just smiled at him.
"Oh, Shun loved those shows, we'd watch them together all the time when I was younger."