On Monday, We Clean, On Tuesday…Revenge.

Let us pretend that Mattel's Barbie™ dolls are still around in AC 196, shall we? And that everyone is still vaguely familiar with Aqua's song 'Barbie Girl.'

'I'm a Barbie Boy.'

Zechs' eyes went wide, his jaw went slack and he stared, dumbfounded and not a little incensed at the pale pink T-shirt in his hands. In truth, he would have thought his sister would have been the one to receive such a thing, considering her penchant for pink.

But then, she had been doing some redecorating lately. Still…

He didn't have any clue who would dare to send him something like this – though Maxwell was a good possibility. Making a mental note to try to keep track of who got who with what, Zechs frowned down at the shirt in his hands. "What does this mean?" he asked of the ether.

The ether, of course, did not answer. His wife, however, did.

"You have long, blond hair, Zechs. It was only a matter of time before someone commented on it," Noin informed him as she washed the grime from her hands. They'd just finished moving into their married housing in the Preventers barracks and were in the midst of cleaning everything of stray carpet fibers, paint chips and wood shavings when the package containing Zechs' newest item of apparel had arrived.

"I'm not the only man in the Earth Sphere with long hair," Zechs objected. His normally free platinum blond locks were currently tucked underneath a painter's cap to keep them reasonably dust free, but they still hung to his waist.

Smiling at her husband, Lucrezia Noin-Merquise said, "No, you're not, but Maxwell keeps his out of the way in a braid. You don't even put yours up in a ponytail. From behind, you look like your sister."

"I'm several inches taller than her," Zechs grumbled, but knew his wife had a point. Maybe when piloting Tallgeese, it didn't matter if his hair was down, since there were no breezes, but now that he was Agent Wind, he'd have to do something about his hair. Cutting it was out of the question – he'd grown fond of the length – and so was wearing it in a braid, for obvious reasons.

"I suppose I'll have to start wearing it in a ponytail," he conceded. "But I still don't think there was cause to send this to me. Having long blond hair isn't enough!" with that, he wadded up the T-shirt and shoved it into the bucket of cleaning supplies underneath the sink. It would make a fine cleaning rag.

"True," Noin agree. "But just think what might have happened if Dorothy Catalonia was the one who received it."

Remembering the woman – who, despite her strangely forked eyebrows, also looked like his sister from behind – Zechs shivered. The woman was fierce, malicious and just a downright scary bitch. He shuddered to even think what might happen if she got hit in this little insult war.

A slow smile came over his face. Of course, if he could shift the blame off onto someone else…

And he could just sit back and enjoy the fireworks.