Chapter 3: Sheelos

Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia or Scrabble, and I don't even know why those people would have Scrabble, but it's a fun game anyway. Oh, and I don't own any Dilbert jokes.

…it has to happen sooner or later. Zelos is attracted to Sheena because she's a puzzle that he can't solve, and Sheena is the only one who can control Zelos, which she probably thinks would be a great service to the world. Plus, I think she likes him, even if she does get mad at him sometimes.

Sheena made a trip to Meltokio every once-in-awhile. She would buy supplies that she couldn't get anywhere else, or fight in the coliseum, or both. Sometimes she talked to Lloyd and Colette, but usually they weren't home.

On one of her trips to Meltokio, she saw Zelos. He was looking at a shirt in a shop window.

Unfortunately, he saw her.

"Hey, Sheena! I feel like you've been avoiding me all these months."

"No, really? What gave you that idea? Was it the fact that we've only seen each other three times in over a year, or that I always pretend not to see you?"

"Well, you beating up my cutest hunny was sort of a clue."

"She had it coming to her. God, that voice… It's so annoying!"

"She can get kind of… edgy, but she means well."

"You don't get it, do you? You're completely ignoring the fact that I think you're complete slime."

"I know it, Sheena. I just don't want to admit it to myself."

One of his hunnies ran up to him. "Oh! Master Zelos! Would you like to go to dinner with me tonight?"

"No, I'm going out with Sheena here."

…The problem being, he hadn't told Sheena. "What! Zelos, you didn't –"

"Maybe some other time then, Zelos?"

"Yeah."

She walked away, smiling contentedly, almost idiotically. Zelos turned back to Sheena. "Why not? It'll be fun, just you and me! You can wear your old formal outfit!"

"I wouldn't wear that thing if you paid me."

"But I was planning to take you to a really nice restaurant. No one there will mind!"

"Yeah, but I will! Any girl who chooses to dress like that is a disgrace to women everywhere. Plus, I already have a nice formal dress."

"That thing looked uncomfortable. And hot. Way too hot for summer."

"Actually, I made a summer dress out of Magical Cloth. It looks pretty good on me."

"Then it's settled. We'll go to dinner together tonight!"

"Uh… okay. Nothing happens afterwards though, right?"

"Of course not. Not like you mean, anyway."

"Why, what are you trying to suggest?"

"Well, we might play some cards, or have Lloyd and Colette over…"

"Oh. That would be fine. Just nothing like you'd do with your hunnies."

"Of course not! I can't even get a date with you without making you come with me. I'd never be able to get you to do that."

"Okay."

It was actually a nice place. The guy who seated them looked surprised when he saw Sheena, but he did his job. When Sheena said that to Zelos, he laughed.

"I usually bring my hunnies here. You're wearing a normal dress, and you don't look happy to be with me, so of course you're getting weird looks!"

Sheena glared at him.

After the meal, they went back to Zelos' house and hung out. After awhile, there was a knock on the door.

Zelos turned to Sheena. "Now you'll see my wonderful planning skills."

The butler let Lloyd and Colette in as Zelos ran down the stairs. Sheena was still up on the top level, but she ran down when she saw them.

"Hey, guys! Sheena's here!"

Colette looked surprised. "Sheena? Really? I didn't think you liked Zelos, Sheena."

"I don't! He tricked me into it!"

"But you seem to be getting along just fine."

"Yeah, but if he pulls anything funny on me, I'm gonna stuff him into that vase over there."

Zelos spoke then, absolutely shocked. Or perhaps, just pretending to be. "What? You agreed to come over here! I thought we were friends!"

"I thought you knew me better than that. …And we are, kind of, to a point."

Zelos smiled. So did Colette.

"So, my little angel, what've you been up to?"

"Well… sometimes I polish the figurines… and I do all sorts of stuff. And Lloyd carves figurines, and does metalwork, and all sorts of stuff."

"Oh. Cool. I've gotta go up and get something, but I'll be right back, 'k?"

"Okay."

Zelos went up to his room, where he dug around in his desk for a certain ring. Finally he found it, pocketed it, checked that his hair gel was still in the same place on his desk (he remembered that Sheena had taken it from him before), and went back downstairs.

"Hey, Sheena! I forgot to give you this back after the journey! I found it a couple days ago, and I figured that you'd have a better use for it than me."

He tossed a small object to Sheena, who caught it.

"Hey! I was wondering where I'd put the Diamond! Thanks, Zelos!"

"Don't mention it. Now, Colette, Lloyd, what have you been doing with your house recently? Last I knew, you had curtains, a carpet, a bed, a table, and not much else."

"We have a big chair now! It's really soft!"

"Nice. I've been fighting monsters and helping people who want to go somewhere, but aren't good at fighting."

Sheena rolled her eyes. "Let me guess – most of the people you help are women."

"No, I'm mostly over that. Now that no one's really depending on me, I'm not as into my hunnies as I used to be."

"What about that one today?"

"She doesn't get it that I don't want her anymore. She's getting kind of desperate."

"Somehow, I don't believe you."

"Really! The only reason I acted happy was that all of Tethe'alla depended on me."

"…You call that acting happy?"

"Yeah. It took my mind off of everything bad that had happened in my life."

"Why don't we play a game?" Colette asked, changing the subject. "Let's play Scrabble."

Colette and Lloyd were on one team, Sheena and Zelos on the other. After the first game, it was girls against guys. That was more of an even match, even though it was mostly Sheena and Lloyd yelling at each other and Sheena and Zelos putting down the tiles. Sometimes Zelos would join in the arguing, and once Colette tried, but she was too sweet to yell purposefully, so she stopped.

Finally, "Hah! Zen, Z-E-N! There's nowhere else to put a word, we've made all the plurals we can, and the girls are triumphant!"

Zelos smiled.

"What? Why are you smiling like that?"

"Sheena, sweetie, think of what word ends in 'zen.'"

"Uh… Nothing that can be played. Colette, can you think of anything?"

"No."

Zelos just smiled and put down an F, and R, and an O. "You see, you forgot to factor in the four blocks of space and the letters that hadn't been exhausted."

Sheena knew that that couldn't be right, so she looked at the side of the board. There were two Fs in the game. She counted the ones on the board. Fact and Defend. There were already two Fs.

"You cheater! You took a piece from another Scrabble game!"

"Wha? No one's ever complained before!"

Sheena took out her Vajra card and cut off some of Zelos' hair.

"My hair! You cut… How could you?"

"No one's ever complained before."

"How could… My hair!"

"D'you want me to cauterize it with my Card of Fire?"

"You… My hair! My beautiful, precious hair!"

"Next time, play by the rules, okay?"

"You… you…"

"Would you like me to glue it back on?"

"No! No touchie my hair!"

"Wow, you sound like a little kid. Here's your hair, okay? You can have it."

"You cut off my curly lock! I loved that lock! It always stood out!"

"Does woogums want his mommy?"

"Don't talk about my mother, Sheena!" Zelos looked her in the eye, protective and fierce.

"Jeesh! Touchy!"

"Shut up. If you knew about my mother, you wouldn't have said that."

"Okay. Sorry."

Long silence.

"So, I guess you two win, then, I mean, seeing as how I took some tiles from a different box."

"Yeah."

"What do you want for your prize?"

"I want to keep your hair."

"What!"

"You heard me. It'll grow back. Now, give it!"

Zelos glared at her, the way that friends do, and shoved the bright red, twirly chunk of hair at a demonically smiling Sheena, who took it. Then she took off her hair ribbon and tied the hair together. Her just-below-shoulder-length hair fell down and she fluffed it out. Then she put the hair into her bag and returned to the game, where she counted out the right number of each letter to play with.

Later, everyone went home, except for Zelos, who already was home. Sheena showed the bright red lock to some of the kids in Mizuho, telling them the story about the board game and the idiot. She hoped it would become a fable.

.-..-..-.

A few weeks later, Sheena went back to Meltokio. She saw Zelos again and ducked into a shop, but he had either seen her or was going there anyway, because he followed her in. She hid behind a shelf and kept her head down, but he still saw her.

"Hi, Sheena."

She ignored him.

"Why are you ignoring me?"

""

"You already took a chunk of my hair. What more do you want?"

"Respect, maybe?"

"I respect you! I respect that you're a woman, and that you're a good fighter, and –"

"But you don't respect that I'm different from most women."

"Yeah I do. You're a puzzle. With most women, you smile at them, say something nice, and they're yours. But you're more complicated than that."

"So now I'm only a puzzle to you? That's the only reason why you're interested in me?"

"You know, you're making it really obvious that you have a crush on me."

"I don't!"

"Trust me, I've done that before, when I was thirteen. I'd pretend not to be interested in her, then when I thought she wasn't interested in me, I'd get really mad."

"Why are we talking about this in a shop?"

"Because you chose to come in here to try to avoid me. Actually, Sheena, if you want to know the truth, I like you that way, too."

"I thought you liked your brain-dead hunnies."

"Nah, they're not really that interesting. They're all exactly the same. I never know what you're going to do next, which is what makes you great."

"Uh…"

"So, do you want to go over to my house to talk about this?"

"So now you're my psychologist all of a sudden?"

"Only if you want me to be. That's the first thing I learned about women: you never know when they're going to start getting screechy and violent."

"Not now. If I were, you'd be in pain right now."

"Okay. Have you seen Colette or Lloyd recently?"

"I remember they said something about going on a vacation to Flanoir. Lloyd wants to try something with Celsius' Tear, and Raine wants some, so they're going to go to the Ice Dungeon."

"Oh. Okay. Just wondering. Do you want to go now?"

"Sure." They started walking towards Zelos, house.

"So, how long did they say they're going to stay in Flanoir?"

"I dunno. Maybe a couple weeks. They want to do some other stuff, too. And Genis and Raine should be in Gaoraccia now, if they're on schedule, which they're probably not. Raine wants to study the Sorcerer's Ring. To her, that means also studying the different forms of mana it shoots out. Apparently, she thinks she can invent some kind of machine that can capture all of those types of mana and shoot out any kind any time you want. I think they were going to see Lloyd and Colette in Flanoir for a couple days, but I'm not sure."

"Apparently, no one tells me anything anymore." Zelos opened the door of his house for Sheena and they walked upstairs.

"We never told you anything before, either. We just didn't hide much from you. If we didn't want you to know anything, we definitely could have kept it from you. We just didn't choose to."

"I feel so loved."

"That's how all the girls felt about you. You never really thought about who we were. So we ignored you. That's the secret plan we had. The guys just chose to play along."

"You're mean!"

"Yeah, you figured that out before. Remember my real name?"

"Oh, yeah! Evil Screaming Banshee!"

"Yup. You know, however stupid you may be, you have a good memory."

"Thanks."

"So… what have you been doing since the journey ended?"

"Not much different than before. I made sure there wasn't anyone selling exspheres on my land, then I came back here to continue my normal life, which can never really be considered normal because it's so screwed up. And I help out as a guide sometimes."

"Oh. I've started working on a town where half-elves, elves, and humans can trade and stay together. I think what Martel really wanted was for people to all get along, so I'm trying to start that. Some of my friends from Mizuho are helping me."

"Cool. Is it just me, or is everyone else doing some sort of charity or half-elf –friendly thing?"

"Regal's back at Altamira. Lloyd and Colette just make figurines. Presea, it's kind of predictable because Ozette is where she grew up. Raine and Genis have just gone back to living in Iselia, and Genis helps tutor the other kids when they need help. Most of us also provide protection services, because we can. Every once-in-awhile, the Sylvarant people donate to rebuild Luin. So do I, because I was there, too. You guys never went to Luin, did you?"

"No."

"Well, it got destroyed, and there's a person called Pietro working to rebuild it."

"Oh. Cool."

"Yeah. It's actually not looking that bad anymore."

"That's good."

"Yeah, some of us got together to kill that dragon in the Earth Temple a couple dozen times, and since we get 10,000 gald each time we kill it, we were able to give Pietro enough gald in not-too-long."

"Nice."

"Yeah."

"You gonna let me talk now?"

"Oh. Hehe… Sure."

They started up the stairs and went into Zelos' room and sat on his bed.

"Remember why we came here?"

Sheena blushed. "Yeah."

"Yeah. My first crush, I was thirteen. One of the noble girls. She had blue eyes and red-brown hair, and she was really pretty. So, to keep from seeming like I liked her, I'd pretend I didn't care about her whenever she talked to me. Then she'd act the same way to me, and I'd get mad at her for ignoring me. And she'd run off to giggle with all her girl friends."

"Really, I don't have a crush on you."

"Sure you don't. But if you don't have a crush on me, why did you act like I did?"

"Because I thought I was slightly more significant to you. I mean, we went on a journey to save the world together."

"Sheena, I know you like me." His voice was gentle now.

"And I'm telling you, I don't!"

"I can see it in your eyes."

"You don't know how lame you –"

He pulled her down across his lap, one arm around her waist and one hand around her head. She shrieked for half a second. He stared down at her, and she stared up at him. She was so surprised that she forgot to be angry.

"You see, Sheena, everyone else was a lie. An elaborate charade to fool myself into being happy."

"You…"

"Yeah. I love you, Sheena."

Zelos pulled her head up to his and kissed her, gently. Sheena was stunned into silence.

"I knew you'd be disgusted if I ever told you how I felt. That you'd think I just wanted another hunny. But… this isn't something that just passes. I still feel for you when you're across the world from me. I've tried to get you out of my head, because it's so depressing. Then the last time we met, there was something in your voice… Colette heard it too."

"…And before that, at the wedding, when you held my hands too tightly for me to get away from you…"

"You honestly believed my hands usually get clammy when I dance? I was nervous about giving something away, Sheena."

Just then, they heard the front door bang open. They split apart as they heard the person running up the stars, two or three at a time. Then the person, a man, slammed into Zelos' room.

"Zelos! Look what I – oh! Who's the chick?"

"Back off, Colin. She's mine."

"No, I'm not!"

Zelos turned to Sheena. "Whose side are you on?"

"Mine!"

Colin interrupted them. "Haha! Z! Is this that Sheena chick you keep going on about?"

"Just shut up while you're ahead, Colin."

"Ooh! Getting defensive, are we?"

"Shut up, Colin."

"You must really like her!"

Just when Sheena was ready to give Colin paper cuts in places he had never imagined he'd get them, Zelos stood up and punched him. Colin staggered, but stood back up.

Sheena, seeing how stupid their argument was about to become, left the room. She went outside and sat in front of the house on the rail-type-thing next to the stairs, one foot on a step, one dangling. After about half a minute, Colin stormed out of Zelos' house and turned to Sheena.

"You…!"

…But he never finished his sentence.

After that, Zelos came out and sat down next to Sheena.

"Sorry about that."

Long, very awkward silence.

"I'm not yours, you know."

"Right. Like I'm not yours. I'd throw myself off the edge of the earth if it made you smile, but I'm in no way yours."

"Zelos, don't make fun of me! You know what I mean."

"Yeah… Do you want to go back inside? It's freezing out here."

"I kind of like it. It's peaceful. I love the color of the sky right before sunset."

Zelos hugged Sheena close to him, and they watched the sun go down over the buildings, watched the clouds turn pink, watched the moon rise.

Finally, it was night, illuminated only by a thin sliver of moon.

"Do you want to go inside now, Sheena? It's nice and warm, and it's too late for you to go back to Mizuho."

"Okay. As long as I stay in your spare room and you stay in your room."

"Of course."

He smiled, and she smiled, and they went inside. Zelos sat next to Sheena for a minute after she got into the bed, then went back to his own room.

In the morning, she yawned, stretched, and walked downstairs.

"Hey, Sheena! You're finally up!"

"I always said you were cheery enough –"

"Cheery enough in the morning to make assassination seem fun," he chorused with her. "Yeah, I know. Once you have your tea, though, you'll be fine." Zelos guided her to a table where there was a cup of Mizuho tea. Sebastian walked up to them.

"What would you like for breakfast, Miss Sheena?"

"Uh… I dunno. Tea's good."

"She wants ramen. She's just not awake yet."

"Very good, miss Sheena."

Sebastian apparently knew what Zelos wanted, so he walked away. Sheena drank her tea. It was good, and by the time her breakfast came, she was awake. She thanked Sebastian and started eating. Zelos had an omelet. They didn't talk much.

After breakfast was over, they went for a walk.

"Sheena? Last night… I'm sorry about Colin."

"Who is he?"

"Colin? He's one of my friends."

"Some friend."

"Yeah, well usually he's okay."

Silence.

"So you told him you like me."

"Yeah. He thinks it's just like all my other hunnies."

"I don't blame him. That's what I'd think."

"If…?"

"If what?"

"You said that's what you would think, not that's what you think. Under which circumstances would you think that?"

"You're weird, Zelos, you know that?"

"Yes, I do. But I'd prefer if you wouldn't change the subject."

"Well, last night… if you wanted me as one of your hunnies, you wouldn't have treated me like that. And you wouldn't have been so protective… And you helped me piece it all together, so now I don't think you want me as a hunny."

"I'm glad you realize that."

"So… why do you think I'm such a puzzle?"

"Well, you aren't just a puzzle, you're also an adventure. I never know when you're going to get mad at me. You're different from anyone else because you… You're just different."

"You're starting to sound like Lloyd."

"See? That's exactly what I'm talking about! You always say something original! …And you always know exactly what's going on."

"No, I don't. I never know what's going on… Like that thing with Kuchinawa? I didn't have a clue that that was happening."

"Well, usually you know. And another thing: you always act like yourself. All my hunnies are so conformant that they lose their personalities. But you… whenever I talk about my hunnies you get mad, and whenever I hit on you, you get mad, and whenever I hit on anyone, you get mad. You know I won't fight back against you, and you take full advantage of that."

"Nah, I just say what I think. I have a short temper."

"Heh. Whatever you say, Sheena."

"Really! I would never take advantage of anyone!"

"Not willingly."

"You're almost as stubborn as I am."

"Is that a compliment or an insult?"

"I… dunno."

"Well, anyways, do you want to stay with me?"

"No. I should go back to Mizuho."

"Okay. Come back soon, Sheena."

"I will!"

She went back home to her house, her tatami mat, her lock of Zelos' hair taken from him by her Vajra card. She lay on her mat for awhile, thinking about the night before, and what it had meant.

.-..-..-.

A few months later, after several dates with Zelos, he sent her a letter. It said, Lloyd and Colette are home. I'm arranging for everyone else to come to my house and we'll have a big party.

-Zelos

She walked to Meltokio, fighting the few monsters she came across, and finally endin up at Zelos' door. She opened the door without knocking and shut it quietly. Only Regal wasn't there yet.

"Hey, everyone!"

She was greeted by several hellos.

"Colette! You're…?" She motioned to her stomach.

"Yes! I'm due in one and a half months. It's so exciting! Do you want to feel it?"

"Sure!" Sheena put her hand onto Colette's swollen belly and felt the baby inside kick.

"Wow! That kid is fierce! It should fit right in with Lloyd."

"Hey, Sheena!" Zelos walked up to her and kissed her, and she smiled. Then he turned to Colette. "Sheena and I are dating. She's finally come to her senses and realized how wonderful I am, so –"

"You sound just like your old self!"

"Heh. I guess I do. But you know I'm not."

Presea's soft voice interrupted them. "I thought you hated Zelos."

"Not anymore. See, I got a crush on him, and I found out he had a huge crush on me, and we figured we might as well try to do something together. So we started going out, and things just went on from there."

"Oh." Presea glanced at Genis, who she still felt sorry for, then Regal came in.

"I'm sorry I'm late. Something came up at Altamira, and I was delayed."

Zelos, as always, was enthusiastic. "It's okay! You're here now, so that's cool!"

"Did anything important happen yet?"

"Nah. You're not that late. Sheena just got here a little bit ago. Plus, we were waiting for everyone."

"That's good. What are we going to do?"

"I dunno. I thought we'd all just hang out, maybe play some cards, catch up on everything that's happened…"

"A reunion, then."

"Yeah. Now that everyone's back from everything they were doing, why not?"

They spent that afternoon, and a good amount of that night, playing cards and talking and joking. Then everyone went to bed, on the floor or the couches, or in one of the bedrooms. In the morning, they were all happy (Sheena after she had her tea) except for Colette, who felt extremely sick. She and Lloyd went back to their house until the afternoon, but when they heard that everyone was still at Zelos' house, they went back.

They all went home that day. Sheena stayed a little later, though, because Zelos said he had something special to give her.

After the last person had left, he reached into the pocket in his tailcoat and pulled out a golden ring with a Z and an S in it.

"It's an old style, I know. Kratos suggested it. But… do you…"

"Of course!" She flung her arms around the man she had come to love. He hugged her back, then they separated and he slid the ring onto her finger. Sheena hugged him again.

.-..-..-.

"No, remember? The knot goes like this, not like that."

"Oh. Yes. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I mean, it's been almost a year."

"Yes."

"By the way, you look great with your hair up like that."

"You said that while you were doing it, too."

"Hehe… Now I know how you felt, Colette."

"What? Oh, yes. Isn't it exciting?"

"Yeah… If someone had told me a year ago that I was going to marry Zelos, I would have sliced them through the head. But now, it's… real!"

"I know." They both knew that they couldn't describe that feeling, but they both knew what it was.

A soft voice cut through her thoughts. "There. Is this good?"

Sheena stared behind herself at the mirror. "Yeah. I dunno what I'd do without you, Presea. You're amazing."

"Thank you."

This time, Sheena had done proper Mizuho makeup, since they were getting married in Mizuho. Her face was white, her eyebrows appeared blotchy, she had painted small, red lips onto her face, and she had only the slightest amount of blush on her cheeks. Her hair had sticky wax in it to hold the loops that had been made.

"Wow. I look like a geisha!"

"A what?"

"Geisha are artists. Everything they do is graceful and… Well, I could never match them. But they're really beautiful. You know those actresses who model for those posters that are all over Meltokio?"

"Yeah?"

"Imagine them in this makeup, being about a hundred times as graceful as I am, walking in six-inch-high shoes… For special occasions, sometimes even higher."

"Wow… I'd fall down."

"You fall down anyway."

"Exactly!"

Sheena stepped into her six-inch-high shoes that she kept for special occasions and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked beautiful in a way that none of her female friends understood. But she did, and Zelos, being the cultured aristocrat that he was, would understand, too. Regal would, also. It was beauty in the eyes of Mizuho, the pale, original look that no one anywhere else in the world mimicked.

Finally, it was time for the wedding. She walked down the aisle of the Meltokio Church of Martel with the Chief of her village. She jingled slightly, because she was wearing Corinne's bell around her neck. It was on a red ribbon. She walked with her Grandfather and felt nervous and confidant at the same time. She didn't know how that worked.

All through the ceremony, Zelos beamed at her, and she smiled at him. Near the end, she started worrying that her makeup would smear when they kissed, but it didn't, and the whole thing went smoothly.

At the reception, she danced with her friends, and some of the nobles, but mostly with Zelos, and always with him for the slow dances. He seemed to do the same thing. They talked with their friends, laughed about parts of it that they couldn't have before, and Raine and Regal talked about her recent research. Presea gave some strange looks to Genis – almost scared – but when Sheena asked her about it, she acted like everything was normal.

She spent the night at Zelos' house, where she had to wash her face at least ten times to get all of her makeup off, and she washed her hair three times to get the wax out. Zelos helped her take off her outer layer of clothing, which she would never be able to take off without damaging her obi, but then he left the room. Sheena knew that he respected her and that he really wasn't the same Zelos as before.

Colette's baby was due in three weeks. She had wanted to help plan Sheena's wedding, but most days she felt sick until the afternoon, so she couldn't. Zelos and Regal had told her which nobles they had to invite for the sake of "alliances," and most of the rest of the people who came were Sheena's friends from Mizuho. Colin, the man who had made fun of her five months ago, hadn't come.

So she now lived in Zelos' house, in the rich district of Meltokio, instead of in Mizuho. As she cuddled next to Zelos that night, she asked him, "Today, my makeup… what did you think of it?"

"It was… well, I don't think I'm the right person to judge it. I mean, it's Mizuho makeup, right? I've lived in Meltokio my entire life."

"I'm not asking how good it was. I'm asking what you think of it."

"I think it looked good on you. Maybe it's just because I love looking at you, but I think it looked fine."

"Good. I didn't want you to hate my makeup on our wedding day."

"Makeup comes off. Even if you'd painted yourself orange and green, it's what happened today that counts, not how you looked. There's no way to capture how you looked."

"…And what about my hair? Did you like my hair?"

"When did you start caring about these things?"

"Well, the thing is, Mizuho makeup is an exacting art, and the hair… there was so much wax in it, it was almost like clay. It was a sculpture, of sorts. I like to know when my art looks good, and when it looks bad."

"It looked wonderful."

"I could do it on you sometime. Just wait – you'll wake up one morning, and all your hair will be spiked in weird patterns."

"I thought you loved me!"

"Not on an important day… Plus, you wash your hair every morning. You'd only have to wash it two more times."

"The stupid things girls do for beauty…"

"Guys do stupid things too. Like run until they're wet all over, and lift heavy stuff repeatedly, and… well, all sorts of stuff."

"Yeah, but you won't ever see a guy wearing a corset. Or a dress."

"So you agree that dresses, in the Meltokio fashion, are stupid?"

"Yeah. They're so complex, and they have about a million layers."

"They're complex because the details are what make them pretty. Like, if I tied a bow on my obi like I do with my sash every morning, it would look stupid. But instead I had Presea tie the special knot used for obis on special occasions, which makes it look more interesting and complex. Guy clothes do that too. You just don't notice because you're used to wearing them."

"Mmh."

"Exactly." She hugged him and he hugged her and she fell asleep.

-notes-

Sorry it took so long! I was gone for two weeks (hooray for the coast!) and I didn't even have a computer to write on, but now it's done. I wonder who I'll do for the next chapter?

We played Apples to Apples on vacation. My sister's friend Adam got some of the funniest green (verb) cards, probably because he didn't know anyone in my family very well except for my sister, so he had fewer green cards. I wrote them down:

Night 1:Courageous, Masculine, Sensual (from me with The Metric System, because once my sister's friend played it for Sexy, so I find it "pleasing" for sensual), Addictive, Silly, Wild

Night 2:Unforgettable, Fancy, Hot, Fragrant, Haunting, Irritating, Handsome, Calm

The "Hot" one also brings up vacation memories, because I started reading Fruits Basket (really good Manga series) and there's this guy called Kyo who's hot, like all manga guys should be, and there's this one part where he's wearing a sleeveless shirt, and his cousin Shigure (who my sister likes best) is like, "how can you go sleeveless in this weather?" and my sister was like, "Kyo doesn't get cold because he's so hot!" …And I burst out laughing. Shigure is… Zelos-ish, if you get my meaning. Like, Zelos in the game.