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When Marker entered the hotel apartment of his team, he tried to ignore the overwhelming silence and emptiness that surrounded him. Black Hole had been taking care of the crack in the sky day and night; while Fanny spent most of her time at Two’s room, always taking with her an enormous whiteboard where she wrote gibberish nonsense all the time. All he wanted was to spend fun time with the whole team, but for one reason or another, no one listened. Marker wouldn’t consider himself a hater, but he hated silence, he hated tension and he hated to be on a loose rope when thinking about his place on the group. The only one who didn’t completely ignore him or the team was Tree, but Marker didn’t know where he could find him either.
Well, that’s until he heard noise from the bathroom. There, he saw Tree get out, his abundant green hair completely soaked as he tidied up the casual clothing he was wearing.
“Tree! There you are!” Marker waved his arm joyfully at him.
“Good to see you too, buddy,” Tree chuckled, greeting back.
Marker only smiled back. Recently, he and Tree started implementing the second part of the P.A.C.T: Creating Trust; but he only completely experimented it in first person last episode, when Tree trusted him with the token Pin gifted him. Moved by this wish to create trust between his teammates, he wanted to spend some time with the evergreen. If anyone wanted to bother him saying he wanted to do it just because Tree became his closest friend, he could argue there was no one else to do this with anyways.
By the time he came with an idea to spend time together, Tree was already attempting to untangle his abundant green hair. Emphasize on ‘attempting’. The brush gave him no respite as he slowly untangled everything strand by strand.
“Need some help?” Marker asked him, pointing at the brush to prove his point.
“You can’t be seriously asking” Tree huffed, clearly unamused.
“Aren’t you having a hard time with it though?” He asked with some hint of childish curiosity.
“Well, yeah.”
“So don’t you want some help with that?”
“Uh-huh, but-”
“Then why didn’t you say so!” Marker concluded.
He took the brush from Tree’s hand and signaled him to turn around, that he’d brush his hair now.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Tree opposed weakly.
Marker nodded. “Just tell me if it hurts, okay?”
Tree nodded, signaling him to go ahead. To this, Marker delicately took the ends of the thick hair and passed the brush throughout the surface, making sure to untangle anything with great care. Needless to say, it did take him some time to go from the tips to the middle.
“Ow… Ouch.”
“Sorry.”
Always taking Tree’s well-being in mind, Marker put his best effort to make the evergreen feel at ease with the task, so after that, he tried to go more gently with the duty. Later than sooner, the brush began reaching the roots.
“Do you mind if I finish it myself?”
“Sure.”
Tree, now with the brush back in hand, eventually concluded the task by letting the brush untangle the wet roots and give his hair a finished look.
“Did I do it wrong?” Marker inquired with guilt.
“Of course not, but I thought the roots would be more difficult for you,” Tree explained. “Now, I also need to dry it, you can help with that if you want,” he proposed. “I can trust you with it.”
“Okay!”
When he said that, the guilt vanished. Marker enthusiastically ran in the search for the hair dryer; helping out his teammate with a mundane task like this filled him with joy. Nothing like creating trust and taking care of his dear friend, who trusted him with it. Once he found the device, he ran back to where he left Tree and plugged it on a nearby outlet. Tree, on his part, got closer to Marker
“Alright, here we go!” Marker exclaimed.
The hair dryer made an effusive blowing noise, as it threw hot air all over Tree’s head. All while Marker gave it shape and warmth, brushing the hair with his fingers and blowing air respectively. Tree, on the other side, sighed satisfied as he let the heat from the device soothe him. The caring touch from the capped one dragged him back to earth and comforted him, making the evergreen feel sleepy from how much calm their bonding time brought to him.
After a while, Marker turned off the hair dryer, and the sudden cold made Tree shiver.
“Are you sure it’s dry enough?” Tree tried to excuse himself for making Marker stay longer.
“It’s not?” Marker lamented.
“Just wondering.”
“Fine, I’ll keep drying.”
The ticking noise of the electrodomestic getting turned on then gave Tree the relieving increase of temperature he craved. Marker kept doing the chore, though now getting discouraged, but of course he would not dare to say a word about it; he hated to take part in conflicts and never really wanted to be the reason anything bad happened between the two. But hearing Tree’s clear discontent and questioning about the things he put effort in doing gave the capped one an upsetting discomfort. One he should be open about, and not ignore. He knew friends always have to speak up when those happened, he’s always heard that. Maybe Tree had that mindset too?
“Uhm, Tree?”
“What?”
“Am I doing something wrong?” Marker demanded.
Tree frowned in confusion, turning around to face the capped one. “Of course not, why’s that?”
“I don’t know, you asked if the hair was dry enough and didn’t sound happy,” Marker explained in a low tone
“If I’m honest with you, I just wanted to get the hair dryer running for longer,” Tree chuckled. “Sorry if I gave you that impression.”
“But am I doing it right?”
Only there, Tree caught sight of how Marker really felt. He offered his bare hand in case Marker wanted to give him recurrent high-fives or any form of contact that could comfort him.
“Of course you are, who else could do it better?”
“Maybe…-”
“No, no one can. I said I trusted you with it, am I right?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Then you should know you’re doing great! You mean a lot to me, I appreciate every nice thing you do,” Tree complimented as softly as he could.
Marker gave him a smile. He adored knowing what he just heard, feeling a comforting pressure on the inside of his stomach. He gave Tree a more animated high-five and a warm bear hug that almost took the air out of Tree’s squeezed lungs. Resolving misunderstandings and a newfound concept Tree had on him, to know the evergreen trusted him and cared deeply about him; everything soothed the capped boy.
“Now that you said you trust me, I think your hair could do some glow-up!” Marker beamed with whimsy.
“What kind of glow-up are we exactly talking about?” Tree inquired, his voice quivering slightly.
“You know, a new hairstyle- no scissors though. But hair clips and braids always do,” Marker disclosed.
“Well, I guess a braid or two won’t hurt,” Tree conceded.
“Go sit on the floor, while I’ll bring everything I need for a perfect glow up,” Marker requested, while running to his room.
Tree eagerly followed the command. Being responsible for making Marker feel guilty dragged his mood down, so he tried to not be too negative on him. Although he didn’t know how much he could stretch that, he had to give it a try, and try for Marker. The anticipation of what idea Marker had still rushed over Tree, hoping that trusting him would be a good idea.
“I’m back!” Marker exclaimed with excitement, raising high the materials he would use.
He brought a wide variety of materials, going from colorful elastic hair ties to hair clips of all types and sizes, along with a large comb and a hair brush. He wondered where he got those from. But all that wondering had to be left for later, because Marker was already separating strands of hair into sections with the comb.
“Do you have a reference in mind to know what to do?” Tree asked, half in curiosity and half with fear.
“Not really,” Marker thought out loud. “But don’t worry, it won't take long.”
Then, Marker prepared everything to make braids. One by one, step by step. With secure movement, the first braid began taking shape, interlocking strands and trying to make it look as clean as possible. However, the task demanded time and concentration, so he stayed silent as he did.
“Need help?” Tree chuckled when seeing Marker’s blank expression.
“I’m fine.”
“Alright, I’ll leave you to it.”
As the braids reached the first half of the head, Marker continued crossing over until the two braids could dangle to the back without falling over to the left and right sides. Tree was left surprised at the speed he handled.
“Okay, we’re half-way through,” Marker announced. He grinned widely when glancing at the hair clips. “The fun part!”
“What do we have in hand?” Tree asked, following along.
“We can use green because you are green, but we’ll need darker tones,” Marker explained. “We can also use earth tones, and blue.”
“Why blue?”
“For Death P.A.C.T!
“Ohh, right, right.”
After that, both separated the materials depending on their colors: anything that didn’t have blue or earth tones would be discarded for today. Some clips were flat and overall plain, while others had different shapes, like small flowers and butterflies. Once they finished, Tree’s fluffy hair began getting adorned by them.
“This one would look nice,” Tree suggested, holding a small beige butterfly and giving it to Marker.
The capped one hummed, thoughtful.
“If you say so. Where would you like it?”
Tree pointed to the right of his hair. “Here.”
“Okay!”
Once Marker secured the clip in the spot Tree told him, he realized he missed something: the braids weren’t secured! He fixed the problem as fast as he could, tying them with elastic hair ties to make sure they wouldn’t get disassembled. After making a faint ‘phew’ noise, he continued examining the progress and adding things up as he went. Brushing Tree’s hair and decorating it in hopes the botanist liked it, turned out to be something relaxing to Marker. He made more and smaller braids, struggling to keep them tidy due to the size.
“Oh, Marker, would you mind getting me a mirror?” Tree requested. “I really want to see how it’s going.”
“Just one second…” Marker hummed. “Done. Be right back.”
He got up after securing another braid and ran to the bathroom. He looked over drawers, doors, anywhere that could hide a mirror; until he found a circular mirror with a blue frame lying on the vanitory. Silly Marker, how did he not see it before? He ran back to the spot where Tree remained sitting and handed the mirror to him. When Tree saw his reflection in the mirror, his eyes widened slightly to see the braids and the rest of the hair brushed back, but still looked delighted by it.
At some point, Marker had to turn on the lights because the apartment began darkening and none of them could see comfortably anymore. Tree adored the light brushing and gentle touches, but as the time passed, he focused on keeping his eyes open or else he’d fall asleep right on the spot. Though, sometimes he’d mutter some pained noises when Marker pulled his hair too much ーwhich happened more often than notー, which kept him alert the whole time.
“Nearly there!” Marker celebrated.
“You’ve been doing this for too long, don’t worry about it,” Tree tried to dissuade Marker from overexerting himself.
“It’s fine.”
Although childish, Tree adored the part of the result he could see reflected in the mirror.
“What do you think of this one?” Tree proposed, handing the capped one a small brown and yellow flower clip.
“This one would look perfect on you!” Marker complimented. He put it on the left side of his head, almost leaving the roots and getting further into collecting the middles.
“I’d put it more high up, but if you say so,” Tree commented, wearing a proud smile at Marker’s creation.
“I thought that too, but if I did, I wouldn’t have space for this.” And he placed one last invisible hair clip that flattened the upper right side of his head.
“Aaand done,” Marker crowed triumphantly
Now with everything finished, Tree sighed with satisfaction. Thin but messy braids tied up the upper part of his head and fell gracefully to the back, while the rest of the hair remained decorated with either clips, braids or simply loose. The volume gave the hairstyle an outstanding result.
“Do you like it?” Marker grinned.
“Of course I do, I like how you did it,” Tree approved, pleased.
“Good, now for step two: photo time,” he revealed with a cheeky grin.
“Great,” Tree complained, feigning annoyance.
“No escape now!” Marker laughed mischievously
He rolled his eyes playfully as Marker took a small and well-decorated analog camera from somewhere he didn’t see where. Marker only pointed the camera and signaled him to pose, which Tree followed along. A flashing light hit Tree, which made him instantly flinch and close his eyes.
“Ouch.”
“I forgot to quit the flash,” Marker lamented.
Tree shook his head negatively but amused. “It’s alright, try again.”
Marker nodded, turned off the flash and tried again, this time getting successfully a nice bunch of photos with Tree as the protagonist.
“Got it!”
“Can I see?”
Instead of doing as Tree requested, Marker pointed the lens towards himself. He pressed the shutter many times, making funny faces and enjoying himself as he instantly got a good amount of photos.
“Um, Marker?”
The capped one only signaled him with one hand to wait, as he shot more pictures. Once done, he checked them one by one, paying his whole attention to the photos.
“Marker!” Tree exclaimed, impatience seeping through his words. “Can I see?”
“Oh, right.”
Marker kneeled next to Tree and handed him the camera. Both observed all the photos taken by the marker, taking comments and compliments for each picture. Well, except the ones Marker took of him, which were all either blurred or just photos of him sticking his tongue out; where they just laughed at them.
“Now, that’s a good take,” Tree added on a particularly good photo of himself. “We should take one together, don’t you think?”
“Sounds good to me!”
Marker made the camera get out of the gallery, and in seconds the lens began capturing. He pointed the lens towards the duo and both posed for the camera. He pressed the shutter and got a photo, and another, and another. It became almost addicting to see each other so happy together and enjoying seeing how they looked in every photo. Tree asked Marker if he could lend him the camera, and took a bunch of nice photos for the latter.
“See? That’s a good photo,” Tree bragged, watching Marker amazed by the results.
“Yeah, but there’s something you don’t know,” Marker replied.
He snatched the camera and took one fast photo of Tree, where he looked shocked and blurred because of the movement.
“Come on! That doesn’t look right!”
“Agree to disagree, it’s the fun that counts,” Marker shared his wisdom.
Tree just crossed his arms and rolled his eyes to the response. Marker just laughed apologetically.
“Okay, okay,” I’ll delete it later,” Marker acceded. “I’m so glad we could spend time together,” he celebrated while giving Tree a side hug, being careful to not mess with his work.
Marker knew about Tree’s fondness for touch, so he appealed to that as a tool to make him feel wanted and give him affection. Marker had no idea how much Tree appreciated the time they spent together as well. He wore a weak but proud smile at the gesture, his energy, everything Marker did to spend their time together and “create trust”, as both called it.
Hoping this message could get as clear as possible to the capped one, Tree clung onto the chubby arm that held him, and hugged back.