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It happened so fast his body registered it even before his mind.
There was a sudden breeze, the window opening, and the unmistakable sound of his feet touching the ground. It didn’t matter if there were many saying his steps didn’t produce any sound, saying he resembled more a ghost than a person. Vil heard his footsteps. Vil learnt to recognize the creak sound of Rook’s worn-out boots on the marble, the dull thud of his soles on the refined carpets of Pomefiore’s dorm. Vil learnt to perceive him, maybe in a way that was solely fabricated by his mind.
He still felt Rook was there.
“I wonder if you’re some kind of an expert in the art of cutting someone’s hair.”
Rook jumped in his room passing through the window, and Vil thought on how much he was lucky, that none of his roommates were present at the moment. If the dorm discovered the presence of a Savanaclaw student between its wall, little time would have passed for the entirety of Pomefiore to cease its existence. Not that Vil cared. After all, Rook didn’t possess a single pound of the arrogance of that dorm’s members. There was no need for his dormmates to lose their minds over Rook.
Vil turned a little, abandoning his studies. If his roommates had plenty of time to adjust to magic, as their powers awakened at an early stage, Vil discovered them later. That world, for him, was completely new, and vast somehow. He struggled a bit in not falling behind, but luckily enough he didn’t have to sacrifice precious hours of sleep to study. He seemed, according to the professors, that magic came natural to him as it was breathing.
However, Vil didn’t intend to slack off because of their praises, otherwise his reputation would’ve been affected in an irreparable way.
“I’m not an expert to the point I would trust myself with my own hair” Vil started saying. He moved the chair a little to look at Rook. Even thought the colors of the Savanaclaw uniform were so bright and warm in comparison to Pomefiore’s furniture, Rook seemed to him more at ease in the dorm than Pomefiore’s student directly selected by the Dark Mirror. Rook didn’t posses a single trace of fear in his eyes. There was only pure audacity, and maybe a bit of recklessness. Could there be someone without any glimpse of fear in his heart?
“But I’m quite good at cutting other’s hair for sure.”
“Merveilleux!”
Rook got closer to him, and Vil caught him unrolling the page of a magazine hidden in his jeans’ pocket. But Vil got distracted by Rook’s scent. It was strong and stinging. Rook wasn’t really accustomed to perfumes, yet his scent seemed to mingle with the environment he immersed himself in. Rook smelled of musk, now. Of earth. Of rain. Which was bizarre, as in the campus rain wasn’t frequent. Especially in Savanaclaw. Vil came to know that the weather was controlled by a special barrier placed all around the school; rain, as snow too, was annoying to many, but the headmaster didn’t want them to forget the natural course of seasons, or something similar.
Vil would never forget that scent. Rook seemed to bathe in those perfumes who knew where, even if his dorm was known for the dry climate typical of the savanna.
Maybe it was, again, a joke of his own mind.
“How do you believe I would look with this haircut?”
Rook showed him the model’s profile printed in the page. The model’s hair was styled in a short bob, the effect simple but elegant. Near the main photo there was another one, with the haircut before the bob; the model had been completely transformed, as if he was under some kind of spell.
Vil’s eyes moved from the magazine to Rook, his mind trying to capture how the young man would’ve looked like with the new style.
How unfortunate, he caught himself thinking. Vil had, at least, the decency to not speaking his mind out loud. Rook’s hair was a disaster, burnt because of the sun and the lack of care. This didn’t mean his hair was ugly, though. Rook’s hair was the color of the mature wheat, of the sun; it exuded warmth and strength together, even though everything appeared to the eye as a messy nest made by a distracted bird. Vil didn’t have any doubt; with the right care, Rook’s hair would’ve shined more than a diamond.
So, when Rook had proposed the new cut to him, Vil couldn’t help but thinking it.
How unfortunate.
Thinking it, not saying it out loud. Not allowing his thoughts to gain a voice.
“I believe it would work fine” Vil found himself answering, in a cautious tone. Not to ruin Rook’s excitement, no. It seemed it was more to handle himself, actually.
“But it’s a very radical change. Are you sure?”
Rook was about to start jumping from joy. It was as if Vil’s next words missed his mind completely. Rook focused on his approval only, and Vil didn’t quite grasp why that excitement of Rook made him feel uncomfortable. He thought…no, it wasn’t a matter of importance. Vil silenced those words in his head, and came back to Rook.
“However, we will need a private space for the haircut. I can’t do it here, nor we can’t in your dorm. Only the Seven know how those beasts of your dormmates would react. I’m going to book the alchemy lab. You’re kindly requested to not being late.”
But he didn’t even have time to finish his sentences that Rook already vanished from the window, the door opening only to reveal one his roommates coming in. In the place once stood Rook, there was now a freshly picked rose. Vil collected the flower before someone could see it.
Professor Crewel was always delighted to leave the laboratory in the hand of a capable Pomefiore student, but he seemed even more pleased if Vil was the one asking for it. If that was for Vil’s reputation as a model or for his brilliant talent in alchemy, the boy couldn’t tell. He didn’t even care about it, actually. Vil only wanted to find a place to complete his task without interruptions.
Now, Rook sat diligently in front of a mirror, waiting patiently for Vil to start his work. They left the magazine’s photo on a stand so Vil could check it whenever he needed to.
Vil felt agitated, but he knew he needed to calm himself, or Rook would’ve noticed it. Rook would notice his tension, that indecision of his, as if it was Vil the one under the scissors’ razors, and not Rook that was happy enough to sing a little tune.
“Why this decision so suddenly?” Vil asked in order to distract himself, to cover the sound of the scissors cutting the first lock. A bunch of frizzy hair fell to the ground, and Vil was almost scared to look at it. Why was he behaving in a such odd manner?
“Is it perhaps related to that scrappy idea of yours to change dorm?”
Rook talked about it to Vil before winter break. It had been a surreal conversation, ended in Rook filling the air with his laugh.
Wouldn’t you love to have me as one of your dormmates? he asked with eyes shining fearless, eyes who belonged to someone who knew what he wanted, who knew how to obtain it even if it meant fighting an ancient magical artifact like the Dark Mirror.
No, Vil had answered, perplexed by Rook’s idea of following him in Pomefiore.
Rook then laughed, laughed against Vil’s eyes becoming more confuse, lost. For what reason you want to transfer to Pomefiore? Vil tormented himself with that question day and night long. You won’t like being too much near me.
That, he had never said it. Vil didn’t dare giving that thought a voice not even in his own dreams. Rook was the first person after a long time with whom created a sort of bond, if their talking, looking out for each other could’ve been defined like that. Rook was the first peer that didn’t stutter in his own words while talking to him, or that didn’t look at him with haughtiness, as if to protect himself from a light Vil was unable to see.
Damn, even Pomefiore prefect seemed uneasy every time Vil talked to him. Rook had never had any problems with him.
But they knew each other so little-Vil didn’t know every thing about Rook, and Rook didn’t know every thing about Vil- and Vil thought, subconsciously, that it was supposed to be like that, to stay like that. That if Rook would dare to get too much closer to Vil, he would’ve discovered Vil’s light was actually an enormous expanse of darkness. Vil felt uncomfortable because Rook’s unpredictability made him uncomfortable. In a world where he managed to contain himself and his emotions, Rook made him derail from his tracks without leaving Vil the time to collect himself again.
“That is not the only reason, I must admit it” that was Rook’s answer. The young man lowered his head without protesting when Vil pushed it abruptly.
“I believe I need a change of style. To hunt better, to enjoy the landscape during my walks, to change dorm. For myself.”
“For yourself” Vil echoed, perplexed. He doubted Rook was doing it solely for himself, but decided to not stress it.
“I honestly fail to imagine how my prefect would react” Vil kept going, in that plan of his to make Rook desist on his transfer. The headmaster, despite the initial shock, gave his approval, and Savanaclaw seemed ready to launch a party anytime soon after the news. Vil was left alone in that battle of persuading Rook to simply give up. To let Rook know that Vil wasn’t very enthusiastic about his transfer.
However, Rook was able to read Vil’s heart more than Vil was.
“These are not problems that concern me” Rook commented with eyes closed as Vil was fixing his bangs. They would turn out shorter than they were in the magazine, but time would’ve helped in letting them grow at the wanted length.
“They’re gonna hate you a lot” Vil kept saying.
You’re gonna hate me a lot, were the words stuck in his throat.
“I’ll survive” Rook laughed. For a brief moment, Vil felt that the sound of the scissors stopped burdening his heart.
A lot of time had passed since the day Vil fixed Rook’s hair. His overblot, then S.T.Y.X., and then again the Malleus’s thing got in between their ritual, and Vil felt the desperate need to resume that. Vil cancelled the club’s activities -it was a Friday, and the weather was nice enough to organize a little trip to the beach- and then called Rook in his own room to have him all for himself.
Rook now sat in front of his desk mirror, with Vil checking for the haircut to turn out correctly.
From the balcony they came sounds of birds chipping, and the soft warmth of summer approaching.
“If we continue like that, you won’t be able to see a thing” Vil said. Rook kept himself still under Vil’s expert movements in the bangs fixing. They were now so long they passed the line of Rook’s eyebrows.
Rook cared about his hair.
Rook cared in particular about that cut, but in the last months they let theirselves go a bit too much, and that was now the time to react.
When Vil finished his work, they stared at each other from the mirror.
He reminisced the first time he saw Rook’s face becoming so light because of the new haircut. It had been a strange feeling. Rook had always been beautiful, but something, in Vil, suggested him that was wrong, that Rook wasn’t the one he came to know in a bench near Sam’s store. Now, the mirror reflection returned to him an image of Rook Vil learnt to know, to love. An image of Rook that belonged to him, to his daily life like the sound of Rook’s light footsteps, or the sound of his kisses.
Vil dived his face in Rook’s hair, and hugged Rook from behind.
“Mon amour” Rook laughed, clinging to his hands.
“Is everything okay?”
Vil found himself slowly nodding, breathing in the scent of Rook’s hair, of Rook. He still smelled of musk, earth, and rain. How did he do without using perfumes was still a mystery to Vil. Perhaps, Vil simply associated those scents to Rook.
“Can we stay like this a little bit longer?” Vil asked. Maybe it was stupid, but he didn’t want to move. Not from that nice place, not from that hold, not from his room in where Rook sat on a stool and looked at him with a gentle smile.
The emerald eyes looking at him were the same of that day.
“As long as you wish, my beautiful Vil.”
Those eyes had always loved him.