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“I stepped into the bathroom earlier.”
Rohan looked up from his book. “Thank you for sharing?”
Jotaro grunted and set his cup of coffee down on the dresser. Black, in a blue mug that read World’s Most Mediocre Dad. “When you were still in the shower.”
At that, the book closed and Rohan frowned. His hair was still damp from the shower and his bangs fell in his eyes. He hadn’t even bothered to get dressed either, instead wearing nothing but boxer shorts. It was a lazy day, which he didn’t have often and he hated to have when they arrived. They made his body itch. But the day was gray and dreary and moving from his bed to the shower back to his bed oozed together in a sluggish blend. He hadn’t even had breakfast. Maybe Jotaro would make him toast if he asked.
“I didn’t see you.”
“Well, you wouldn’t,” said Jotaro. “Too busy eating the shampoo.”
Rohan paused. “What?”
“Shampoo. In your mouth.”
Rohan thought back to his shower, having already forgotten. Again, it had all been such a blur in his mind. Rohan was a groggy, grumpy individual in the morning. Typically a shower and some coffee woke him up just fine but the weather today really bogged him down, he couldn’t even get up to make himself a cup. Just attempting to make the connection between himself and shampoo made his eyes droop. Then he remembered the bitter taste lingering in his mouth and the memory flooded back with ease.
The water was so hot it fogged up the glass because that was the only way to wake himself up though this time it made him feel dizzy and sick without breakfast first. The steam made his head hurt too. He had the shampoo running through his fingers like a child playing with slime and he squished it against his skin. One thing led to another and the shampoo was suddenly in his mouth, slimy, thick and tongue-shriveling. He let it slosh around then spat it out and watched it go down the drain.
“Oh, yes.” Rohan turned back to his book as he stifled a small yawn.
Jotaro looked like he wanted to roll his eyes. “Forgot my hat in there. I walked in to grab it and saw you through the glass like this—” He brought his palm up to his mouth and stuck out his tongue, staring at Rohan who looked up again because Jotaro kept talking. Blankly, he was unfazed by the description given.
“I did do that,” he said and tried to go back to reading, propping himself up against the multitude of pillows thrown at the head of the bed. “Hey, can you make me some toast? With the cinnamon like last time.”
Jotaro scoffed. “I think you already had breakfast.”
Now Rohan set the book face down on the covers of the bed. He gave Jotaro a look as he straightened up again. “It’s not eating if you don’t swallow it. Besides, I didn’t do it simply because I could. I needed it for something.”
Jotaro rose an eyebrow, but he waited for Rohan to continue. Rohan did love to be dramatic about even the littlest of things he did, always so intense — though eating shampoo didn’t seem little. It seemed like a hospital visit waiting to happen, and Jotaro wasn’t going to pay that bill.
“If, at some point, I wanted to draw a bottle of shampoo in my story, how would I properly know how to do it without first understanding it at its core?” Rohan said, leaning forward as he spoke, “What sort of artist am I if I overlook even one detail of my story? The reality would crumble before my readers’ eyes, I’d become a joke!” His eyes squinted. “Can you really draw Jasmine and Ylang Ylang until you’ve swirled it around your mouth like a shampoo sommelier? Can you?”
Then Rohan shot that raised eyebrow right back at Jotaro as if he’d just shared the Gospel and Jotaro was an ignorant non-believer.
A silence hung in the air.
“So you just did it because you could,” Jotaro said finally.
“Maybe.”
Jotaro nodded. “I’ll make you toast.”