i don't know who needs to hear this but you deserve as many flat irons as you can plug in

[scubatankfilledwithfarts]

thanks in part to this

They ask me how I handle the customers so easily. How I’m such a well-rounded employee.

“They don’t—there is no they.” Chimes in a murderous, treacherous little voice above him.

The secret is professionalism plain and simple. The tight retail smile that pinches your face until it hurts, chasing down customers for tips on blistering summer days, one shoe on. It takes a real stylist, a real cutting edge warrior, to stick with it.

“Don’t you have more playing to do? You’ve been on the floor a long time. Stop monologuing, wasting time is wasting money!” Dai Bo slams a feathered fist across his desk with feeling but is careful not to jostle the stack of crisp bills next to him. He has to rub those against his body later.

Seven still doesn’t move, only stares up at the ceiling and counts the watermarks on the tiles. I’m lying, he thinks. Cola called his name and when he went to answer she shot him right in the throat with a nerf gun. The would-be assassin hasn’t felt motivated to get up from where she felled him since. She hadn’t even needed to touch him. Seven has failed, and his throat kind of hurts too…

Cola clearly isn’t done with him, either. The instant a familiar redhead walks in she guides him over to Seven’s work station and begins opening drawers, clattering around until she finds what she wants.

“I saw something really cool online—here, look! Did you bring the stuff I asked for after you flirted with your girlfriend at work? During work hours. Unprofessional,” the young girl tuts, but shoots him a wink anyway as she sets up. Then plugs in Seven’s flat iron.

Ichiro of the Spring Wind balks, red as his hair, and hands over the plastic bag of groceries.

“I wasn’t flirt—You’re not the boss of me-- …You told me I was getting a free spa treatment.” The whine at the end is very becoming of a reformed professional killer.

Dai Bo sits up like a bolt of lightning has struck him—“Free? Free my fluffy butt! There will be no freebies here, I don’t care how many rats you found in the bathroom.”

Cola only waves a hand at him, doesn’t even spare a glance as she snaps the flat iron open and closed.

“This isn’t about freebies, this is about business! If this is successful you could serve more than just beef offal.”

Those beady little eyes practically shine behind Dai Bo’s sunglasses as he pauses. “Go on.”

Their current benefactor takes a piece of uncooked bacon and lays it across the hot metal, shuts it, listens to the crisp sizzle that hits the air, mesmerized. Ichiro leans in, Dai Bo hums; they can’t dispute how good that smells.

The smell rouses Seven from the grave [again]. He wobbles to his feet, lined eyes snapping open as he screams in horror,

“Nnnoooooo, my flat iron!” He rushes forward, arm outstretched to save his faithful companion in this indignity. Death by grease and deliciously cooked meat.

Cola touches a fingertip to his nose, stopping him in his tracks.

“Relaaaax, chill out, ssshhh.” She soothes, voice gentle but not for her poisonous ideas.

“But my flat iron! How am I supposed to do amazing blowouts now?” Seven truly does whine, and if he could, his lower lip would be all wibbling due to the [very manly!] pout. He can only move his eyeballs, though.

“First of all, you never did any amazing blowouts, the first and last one set someone’s head on fire.”

A point he cannot refute.

“Second, this is going to be a hit! You can get breakfast and hairdos.” Seven huffs something about their noodles under his breath, but Cola goes right for the throat, again—

“I’ll buy you whatever flat iron you want if you just let me do this.”

Seven straightens, joins their little curious circle.

“We have to do it, for our GHD platinum professional hair styler ceramic flat iron. I mean rent. All inventors break a couple eggs—ah, sorry, Dai Bo.”

Ichiro coughs something that sounds a lot like sell out but that’s neither here nor there. He’s just here because he has nothing better to do after his shift and he knows it.

After a few more torturous moments Cola plucks the ropey bacon from the iron where it wags between her fingers, wet with grease but healthily red. She shoves it under Ichiro’s nose.

“Here, try it while I work on the egg.” She doesn’t bother, once again, to hear of any protest, only opens the carton of eggs and cracks it over the newspaper Dai Bo had been reading.

Ichiro isn’t as reassured as Seven had been. Only holds the bacon like it’s going to turn into a serpent [it practically is], looking a little green.

“But who knows whose hair has been on this iron…and not to mention the bacon doesn’t look—”

Seven snatches the food from him only to shove it into Ichiro’s open, gawking mouth.

“Down the hatch! We’ll put ‘risqué’ on your gravestone when you die.” His girlfriend would love to tell her friends her dead boyfriend was like that, right? Seven wouldn’t know, but it sounds right.

While Ichiro writhes uselessly on the floor, hands at his throat, the remaining daring inventors crowd around the egg that sizzles and spits clenched between the iron. It pops and makes a lot of vaguely threatening noises.

“Hey Seven, what was the warranty on this thing again?” Dai Bo utters almost dreamily, the cooking of the egg is both hypnotizing and traumatizing all at the same time.

“What’s a warranty?” Seven asks at the precise moment the yolk pops, runs down the cord, and begins to spark from the overloaded wall socket in the corner. What follows is a fight for their lives, friendships are broken and forged in flame and burnt eggs.

And Seven never did get his new iron.