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Whenever Masaru had rang Kemuri’s house phone, rarely did she ask “What for?” or “What are we going to do?” She just went with whatever he came up with. Masaru always called it “following the vibe”.
Earlier, they had been sitting in his bedroom, laying on the wooden floor in complete silence, before Masaru had suddenly screamed, and frantically shuffled underneath his bed, seemingly looking for something. He eventually pulled out a plastic box, filled with needles of various sizes, some body jewelry, and a scissor-shaped tool. Apparently, he was able to acquire it from his dad’s tattoo and piercing shop.
“His work buddy was the only guy there, and he doesn’t know me like that, so I was able to get it pretty easily!” Masaru explained as he looked up an article on his father's laptop regarding how to do your own piercings. All the words were written in English, so he mostly went off images, while picking up what few words he could. “I was originally just going to say hi to my dad, but I got distracted, but looks like things turned out okay, right?”
Kemuri nodded, she had a lot of trust in Masaru, so when he asked if she wanted a couple of free piercings, she enthusiastically agreed. Now they sat atop Masaru’s bed, waiting for him to finish reading the article’s instructions so they could proceed. He closed the laptop and stood up. “We have to clean the needles first, but you didn’t tell me what you wanted! So just like,” He inched towards the room door as he began instructed “Just find something you like and I can probably do it! The passcode is 1509.”
Jataro nodded, and Masaru left to find something to clean the needles off with.
Jataro pulled the laptop towards her, entered the password, and opened up a new tab in Yahoo. Kemuri, other than septums, didn’t know the names of many piercings, so it would be hard to know what to search for, but she did know someone who had a decent amount of piercings. She typed in “jojo the gallo” and clicked on the images tab. She ended up with 3 different photos just to make sure she could find all possible piercings the singer may have.
Masaru returned with a bag of cotton balls, and a half-empty bottle of rubbing alcohol. “Did you find something?” He asked as he sat on the mattress, looking at the other expectantly. Kemuri turned the laptop towards him, and Masaru analyzed the photos, tapping himself where he could see any jewelry, once on his eyebrow, another beneath his bottom lip, and another on his nose, one on each cheek. He looked through the photos once more just to make sure he didn’t miss anything, then twisted his nose and let a few seconds of silence pass. “Is he gay?” Daimon asked, beginning to clean off the needles that he thought were fit for the job.
“Ah… I don’t know.” Jataro answered. She stared at the case of various needles.
“Is it gay porn?” asked Masaru
“No?!” Jataro shouted.“It’s The Gallo..”
Masaru realized, a grin forming on his face due to his misconception.“Oh! It’s your band.”
Kemuri took a large deep breath in, and a deep breath out.
“Which one do you want first?” Masaru inquired.
“The one on his nose, no.. uhm.. The eyebrow one, if that one doesn’t hurt too much.” She decided, and Masaru picked up a hollow needle but was stopped by Jataro's indecisiveness. “Actually, maybe you should do the one that hurts the most first. Which one hurts the most?”
Before Daimon could answer, he already had another question on his plate. “Do you even think they’ll look good?” Kemuri asked, and Masaru only rolled his eyes and responded with a dramatic sigh. “Ohh MY!! …I’m doing what I want! Okay?” He put some alcohol on a cotton ball and rubbed it against Kemuri’s right eyebrow. Masaru pinched Jataro’s skin with a pair of Pennington clamps and marked the place where the needle would be going with a small, black marker. He put the marker aside and then scanned the room.
He got up and fished a lighter from underneath his bed, and put it against the tip of the needle.
“Eh?! Why are you doing that?” The girl asked, watching him fail at lighting it up over and over.
“You’re doing it wrong..”
“Shush!” He commanded, trying to focus on the tools in his hand. It took a few more attempts for a mediocre flame to appear. Masaru waited about 20 seconds before tossing it to the floor.
“It’s gonna hurt,” said Masaru
Jataro nodded in agreement.
“Whatever you do, don’t panic,” Daimon affirmed. Those words put a feeling of unease in Kemuri’s stomach, but she ignored it. “Don’t even worry though, I’m like, basically a professional. I’ve watched my dad do this five billion times after school,” the boy affirmed, but those words didn’t particularly make her feel any better, because it’s been very obvious throughout the years they’ve known each other that Masaru’s father was quite reckless and a little irresponsible. “It’ll probably be less excruciating if you lay down or something.”
Jataro followed the advice.
Masaru inched closer to her face, and once again pinched the marked area with the clamps. “Don’t move.” He said as a final warning, no emotion on his face, and put the burning needle against the black dot, and began to poke into Kemuri’s flesh.
Jataro squeezed her eyes shut and ground her teeth. It took a few pokes from a hot needle for the instrument to go through. It was agonizing and uncomfortable, in her opinion. Tears threatened to fall from her eyes as her uneasiness grew. She felt her body warm up, and her fingernails dug into the skin on her legs trying to not hit his hand, agitating a few scars. There was another pinch once the needle reached the other end, and Masaru took the clamp off of the other’s skin and looked for a ring. He left the needle in Kemuri’s flesh. Once Masaru was done fishing around beneath her skin, Kemuri opened her eyes, wiping any tears away.
Daimon pulled the needle from the receiving end. Jataro grunted in discomfort, but the sight of the blood on the needle was sort of cool in a way, and the small piece of skin that was on the needle was interesting. Somehow the aftermath felt worse than the feeling of Daimon originally drilling through her skin. He didn’t have anywhere to put the blood-covered needle, so he set it aside on his comforter, staining it, then took an alcohol-filled cotton ball to the wound, wiping off any blood. “You didn’t lose any feeling in your face right?” He asked. Jataro poked around her eyebrow with her pointer finger. She was able to feel the slight aching, so that must’ve meant that Masaru didn’t puncture a nerve. “No,” Kemuri answered “Am I supposed to?”
“No, that’s a good thing! I’ll just put the thingy in now..” Masaru picked up the piercing he found earlier, took it apart, and inserted one side into Jataro’s flesh, as much as possible so it could be seen from the receiving end. Once he saw the silver poke out of her flesh, Masaru screwed the other half on and shoved the midpoint of the jewelry back into her skin. Messing around with the wound made it bleed a little bit more, so Daimon took another alcohol-infused cotton ball to the wound to clean it off once more. “Freak yes, dude.” He said, verbally patting himself on the back.
“What? Are you done?” Kemuri asked, sitting up on her elbows, she touched the metal that rested around her eyebrow and wiggled it around a bit. Masaru took hold of her wrist and threw it aside. “Don’t do that! You’re gonna fuck it up… Also, we were done with that piercing but were like, not done with what you wanted. We have like, six more probably.”
“Six MORE?”