《Integration》79 : Cleans Up Damn Well
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Saya's first instinct is to belt out a hard laugh at how Lan's hair was sticking up around his face, uncombed and wet. It happens whether she wanted it to or not, slapping her hand over her mouth to hold back more. It's only when her eyes drop down does her laugh fall away and her cheeks almost glow red.
He wasn't ripped, but Lan didn't have much of a reason to wear a shirt, either. Despite the fact that he had a slight beer belly, the rest of him was rather toned, angled and sleek, and like most Asians, even Halfs, very little body hair – swimmer, she thinks briefly before she realizes she's staring and spins quickly back around towards the window.
“S.. sorry, I didn't.. see anything, really.” She pulls the sundress up to her face, rolling her eyes even though they're closed.
He sighs and stands up straight once she turns back around, reaching up with a hand and pushing his springy, clean hair back towards his scalp, which does nothing with how tangled it is. “I just forgot to bring the box into the bathroom.” Lan holds the towel with one hand, making sure it's secure as he picks up the box with the other.
“G-got it, I'll just keep.. this.. way,” Saya stutters out in her reply, speaking into the fabric of her new dress. Lan was the most embarrassed of the two, knowing he had let the alcohol make him gain weight. Quit, remember, back to the pool, immediately, he swears to himself as he steps back into the shower area, placing the box on the covered bath.
--
As she hears the door close behind her, Saya risks a peek behind her and then exhales and thumps down into the chair again, resting the dress in her lap. What are you, a teenager? Get a grip, she chides herself, hearing Lan rustle with the box and his clothes in the shower – the only private place in this open layout of a room.
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But still, another voice chimes in, the devil on her shoulder: he isn't the stereotypical alcoholic, is he? Quite the difference between him and Gregg.
Saya tries to shake her head clear of both sides of the internal argument, pinching her thigh hard enough to make her wince, and it was enough – for a moment.
And that hair, what the hell! She grins, biting her lower lip at how it was just this pale face surrounded in a circle with outlandishly stuck up, tangled black hair. That was enough to distract her from being embarrassed for now, looking over her dress again.
That is, until she remembers that the situation would be reversed shortly, since she also wanted a shower. Saya makes a mental note to bring the box and everything she may need with her at least in arms reach of the shower.
--
Before dressing, Lan sits on the plastic stool next to the bath, rubbing his forehead. “Well that was.. fucking awful,” he mutters to himself, sliding his hand up over his hair and grabbing his bag of toiletries, fishing out a comb.
He winces as he starts combing out his hair, most with long hair would care about tangles at the end, Lan wasn't one of them. It turns out straight either way, as he finally gets through all the knots to have a flat, straight, wet hair draped around his face.
Lan looks up at the ceiling and shakes his head, starting to pull the comb backwards over his scalp. The hair dryer was outside, but he rarely used them, and it wasn't getting any less humid in this shower.
Finishing the rest of his grooming routine, he opens the box and looks down at it, sighing. Fucking Reo..
He pulls the items out and places them on the towel rack with the clothes hanger, dropping his towel and wiping up the tile. Getting dressed with someone in the next room was awkward, getting dressed in a still-wet shower was even more so.
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Making do with what he can, leaving his feet bare, he turns to the mirror in the shower and wipes his hand along it, down to his waist, looking at himself.
God, you look like both of them.
--
The shower door wooshes open as he places the box beside the sink, now looking at himself at a waist-up mirror, grumbling at his own reflection at the thought of how he had let himself go, turning to the side before turning away from the mirror completely at the image it gave him.
Looking down in the box, he picks up a pair of white gloves, rolling his eyes at his stepbrother's stupid preference, simply tossing them in the trash can under the sink. Reo wouldn't want them because they wouldn't fit, and Lan didn't have the patience to return them.
Shortly after it went the tie, because fuck ties forever, he thinks. All that was left were socks, which he puts in his back pocket for now, folding up the large box and placing it in the trash.
--
“Right, ah.. the shower's all yours, if you wanted.” Saya hears from behind her, and, having calmed down herself, she stands up and lays the dress over her forearm, turning and facing Lan – eyes down to begin with after the last encounter.
Her eyes start with bare? feet on the room's carpet, long, black slacks held with a brown belt, a white button-up tucked into them, no tie, but a dark blue blazer, unbuttoned. Lan was in the process of grumbling at buttoning his wrist cuffs. His hair was no longer unkempt, slicked back, exactly like Reo.
Saya's first thought was oh my god, he's yakuza. But quickly dismisses that idea, having met his family – affluent as they may be – just one night before.
That little voice pipes up again, this time with no opposition. He cleans up damn well, doesn't he? it whispers to her, and she didn't disagree.
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