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“Ou-ou-ouch!”
“Michael, you’re such a little wuss.” you teased, pinching his cheek. The whole “A Night at the Opera” album by Queen was blaring in the background. Despite this, you could still hear his little gasps when you tried pushing the needle into his cartilage.
Michael had told you that he wanted to start piercing his ears a while ago, to which you told him you’d pierce them for him. Did you know how to pierce anything? No. Was that going to stop you? Also no. From then on you started piercing his ears, starting with his first piercing, second piercing, and then all of a sudden he asked you to do his cartilage.
“What? You know that hurts like a motherfucker, right?” you questioned. “Yeah but, I think it would look good on me. You know with the whole mullet thing I got going-“ you cut him off, “I know, I know,” you paused and looked at his ear, “It’s going to hurt, a lot. Are you sure?” you asked. “Yeah, I’m sure! I’ll buy the jewelry.”
“Alright, just don’t come crying to me when you can’t sleep on one side of your body because your ear hurts so much.”
“Ouch! Ouch! Wait, wait, wait!” Michael hissed. You rolled your eyes, removing the needle from the surface of his cartilage. “Michael... we’ve been at this for thirty whole minutes and I haven’t even pierced you yet.” you said. He frowned. His ear was irritated from all the pressure you’ve been putting on it, and you haven’t even poked a tiny hole. “I’m going to get an ice cube to numb my ear, be right back.” he said, walking out of his room.
While he was gone, you took note of everything in his room. From the tossed-around gray tank tops on the ground to cd’s strangely arranged on his desk, it was clear that he didn’t clean much. You didn’t care though, a few dirty shirts on the floor never hurt anybody. You laid down on his bed and started looking at his ceiling. The smooth white color was almost blinding while the overhead light was turned on, so Michael usually relied on natural sunlight from his window to keep the room lit up. Speaking of Michael, where was he? Does it take that long to get an ice cube? You decided to take a peek outside of his room, to where you saw him holding a towel to his ear, presumably with the ice cube inside the towel.
He came back to his room and sat on his bed. “My ear is so fucking cold right now.” he said. As he removed the ice cube, you spotted that the top of his ear was bright red. Was it irritation or just dramatic drop in temperature? “All numb?” you asked. Michael nodded, so you sat next to him and pushed his hair back, lining up the needle with his ear. “Ready to not be a crybaby?” you teased. He sighed and nodded. You started pushing the needle in slow, just to make Michael comfortable. Then, you quickly pushed the needle through the remaining bit you had to pierce. This caused Michael to flinch, pull back, and cover his ear.
“Ouch! Ouch! Fuck!” he croaked, murmuring a bunch of other swears under his breath. He took his hand off of his ear and put it on his knee, looking like he was holding back tears. “Are you alright?” you asked. “I’m.. okay. That was a bit overwhelming though.” he explained. “It will be over soon, I just need to pierce one more hole and you’ll be good.” You said. Michael sprung up, “Okay, let’s get this over with.”
You examined his ear and found that blood was starting to gather around the needle, so you blotted it off with a damp paper towel. Pushing the needle to the next point you needed to pierce, Michael squirmed a bit. “Take a deep breath.” You requested. He did as you said. Right when you heard him finish inhaling, you pierced right through the last hole in a blink of an eye.
“FUCK!” Michael yelled. You can hear a faint, “Language!” from his father downstairs. You took out the needle and slid in the jewelry. Blood was gathering around the newly inserted bar quickly, so you got some soap and water on a q-tip and cleaned up the area. Michael hopped up from the bed to look at his newly-pierced cartilage in the mirror. He nearly jumped out of joy.
“Thank you so much! You did a great job!” He exclaimed. Michael had a big bright smile plastered across his face, so you couldn’t help but smile back. You loved seeing Michael happy. He pulled you into a warm embrace. You were careful not to go near his ear, so you just smiled into his shoulder.