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“... Jamison.” Astra deadpans. She says it with the enthusiasm of someone who would like to spout plenty of not-so-nice words and is hardly holding them back.
“I know,” Phoenix goes, “I know, I know, ‘Fia, I know, but hear me out—”
“—Jamie, I’m not doing no walk-in’s. I’m not running no salon ‘round here, you see this?” She gestures around her bedroom, at all four purple walls, at the lilac carpeting, at the white dresser with old framed photos and an aromatherapy diffuser spewing what looks like steam the way a volcano spews magma sitting atop it. “This look like a salon to you, Babylon?”
“I know,” He pleads again, and steps forward, gently taking both of her hands into his own. The desperation glistens like diamonds in his eyes, “I know. It’s short notice, ‘m real sorry ‘bout that, mate, truly, honestly —but you’ve gotta help me. Sun and I’re going out tonight, and I can’t let her see me looking like this…!”
And he had a point. After she’d rolled her eyes and sighed, gaze drifting back to the thick head of hair atop his crown, Efia knew that he absolutely had a point.
His hair was a frizzy mess, a disarray of matted curls and flyaway strands sticking out here and there as if he had a tumbleweed growing out of that scalp. You could hide a body in all of that muddle. She’d never, in a million years, leave her room with her hair as tangled and tousled as that, let alone go on a date without fixing it as best as she could. She’d be horrified, self-conscious and embarrassed out of her mind. In fact, she’d rather go out in her underwear—maybe even in nothing at all—than let anyone see her hair a hot mess.
Maybe that’s exactly why Phoenix knows to come to her too; he knows how empathetic she is, how she’s imagining herself in his very shoes and feeling a fraction of that very same desperation. She has half a mind to hit him upside the head with one of her pillows, but given that she is now responsible for the hair on it, she swallows down the urge.
“... You owe me,” She huffs, “You owe me big time, ‘nd I ain’t gonna let you forget that.”
Phoenix nearly jumps out of his skin with joy. A smile crosses his face in an instant. “Thank you, fam—! For real, I appreciate you, so, so much…”
She sucks her teeth and pivots around, walking to her bed. Crouching to the floor and reaching underneath the frame, she slides out a grand plastic storage container in grape purple. As she pops it open, the aroma of shea and cocoa, of coconut and peppermint, of so many sweet things hits their noses. Jamie recognizes every item inside that container instantly; the sight of circular gel packagings and cylindrical detangler sprays, brushes and combs—the full arsenal of hair care, the first aid kit of curls.
“Find a seat somewhere,” Efia sets the container up on the bed while she herself plops down next to it, bouncing slightly with the reflexes of the mattress, “And we’re watching my show, you got that? I’m’ bout to miss my show for this, and I’m not ‘bout to miss my show for this!”
Phoenix knows there’s hardly room to argue in the matter. He’s in debt to her after all, and this is her room, where everyone knows she’s gotta catch her episodes of, ‘Rifts of Romance,’ every week; some ultra-dramatic (and clearly scripted) reality show she found online a while ago, with love triangles and affairs, the sort of thing Jamie had never been into himself but his biological mother had been, back home.
That’s partly why he doesn’t protest against it.
Not only because he’s the one interrupting plans he knew Astra would have, plans that everyone knows she has, in the safety and comfort of her room where she should be allowed to do as she pleases, but because in all truth, it feels as natural as can be.
All of this feels as natural as can be.
All of it is just one blink away from being sent back home to Europe, to the UK, to that spotless living room his mothers prided themselves on decorating so well, and to him begging his mama to neaten up that unruly head of jumbled hair for him.
He can’t remember the name of it now, but there was some reality show that came on television in the evenings that she loved to watch. She always recorded the episodes so she could laugh, cry, and holler at every betrayal as many times as she pleased. She had such a loud laugh too, such a powerful cry, such a belting holler that could startle a pack of wolves back into hiding, so the entire house would know when she was in the middle of one of her viewings. It was the sort of thing he’d tease her about growing up, but in an affectionate way. If anything, the house got too quiet if she wasn’t around to make such a fuss.
He remembers one particular evening after dinner when she was preparing to watch her show after all the dishes had been washed and every stomach in the house had been filled with a warm meal to minimize any interruptions. She’d made her jollof rice recipe that evening, he remembers that too, because he loves the smell, and loves the taste, and loves her, and that’s why he’ll never stop insisting the Nigerian preparation of it is leagues better than the Ghanian—but the point is, his mother had been the exact mirrored image of Efia right now;
She’d changed out of her work attire; ditched the neat suit jacket and matching skirt and ironed blouse for a magenta night robe tied around her form and emerald slippers on her feet, softer than clouds in the skies, like little pillows designed for her soles. At the time, his mother wore her hair in long brunette box braids that flowed past her shoulders and down her back the way tablecloth draped over a desk’s edges.
It’s a protective style, meant to help her hair grow healthy and strong, and she usually did her hair herself too. To preserve her mane at night, she wore a silk scarf around her head, wrapped neatly and snugly around her scalp similarly to a headband, and secured with a steady bow tied into it.
Even before she went to sleep, she usually put it on as soon as she settled, and that was her way of letting the others know she was in her rest-mode for the night. She’d told Jamie a million times before, ‘Soon as this scarf is on, I’m not going nowhere. We’re not taking no late-night drives, not picking up no food, not hanging with no friends or doing no drop-offs—Once this scarf is on, it stays on, and I’m staying home.’
And honestly? Even if he did feel like protesting the matter (which he usually didn’t), she spoke with so much conviction he felt no place to argue unless he wanted that tongue of his snatched right out his mouth. So he never, ever, ever protested the matter.
But being frank, he never took such upkeep for his own hair as seriously.
He knew why people like him, people who bore that head of tightly weaved coils out of their scalps, wore scarves or bonnets or durags to rest—their curlier, thicker texture of hair needed protection more. His tight curls are pretty high maintenance, in all truth, and these colorful scarves, these flouncy bonnets, these silk durags help lock in the moisture his hair needs, and lessen the chances of matted coils or tangled knots, and kept all the gels and oils in his curls and out of his pillows at night.
And that’s great, that’s all lovely and dandy, but he always forgot to wear his scarf growing up.
There were plenty of other things to fuss over. From friends, to grades, to singing and acting lessons, to school musical tryouts, and becoming a fire-creating covert ops superhero, his life could be pretty busy, and caring for his hair just wasn’t always at the top of his priority list.
Never really is most nights, and he’d just gotten home from a less-than-savory outing in the Caribbean where Killjoy had almost lost an arm, and Skye gained herself several new scars across nearly every limb, and Jamie had to be brought back to life altogether—and that’s why making sure his hair was as perfect as could be for his date tonight had slipped his mind. He’s on a timer, his arms are sore, his heart is racing, his mind is flooding with thoughts; he’s just trying to keep himself barely sewn together at the bursting seams to enjoy a wonderful night with a wonderful girl who definitely deserves more than to see him looking like he’d just fallen down 5 sets of staircases.
He’s done this once before. On that night his mother made jollof rice with their dinner, and had gotten settled down to watch her show. Only, that time it had nothing to do with covert ops missions or first dates with lovely air-bending girls, and everything to do with an upcoming picture day at his middle school the very next morning.
He’d fallen asleep without his scarf on repeatedly that week, and let the growing tangles on his head accumulate until it was a horrid mess of imperfection tousled around inadequacy and blemished ravel, and he had to take school photos for his ID and yearbook the very next morning.
Photos that would haunt him for the entirety of the school year.
Months worth of an impression, that he had less than 24 hours to prepare for. Between the school sports, musical preparations, acting classes, and general teenage debauchery, making sure every curl was in place just hadn’t been a priority. He typically would not have let it get this bad, but time really had gotten away from him, the days had truly begun to all blend and mush together, and before he knew it, it was the eve of that dreaded picture day.
And he looked like his hair had been in a blender, tossed around like a salad, tangled like greenery and wild shrubs, and this would certainly not do for a yearbook or school ID photo. Not at all. Not if he wanted to be able to face anyone at school again, anyway.
It’s nothing new for his mothers to be the ones to fuss over his looks. They were always far more concerned with him keeping sharp, brushing every spec of dust and dirt off his clothes, insistently wiping his mouth if he got even one little peck of a crumb on his chin growing up, and for whatever reason, all that insistent hounding over presentable appearances just never got inherited to him.
Or maybe it did, and it was some sort of super gene that only kicked in to care about his impressionable looks at the very last few moments he still had to tidy himself up. Get mad at him all you want for his procrastination, but he swore the last time he had a free moment to himself, there was still a solid week left before picture day. But that week had also included extracurriculars and tests and hangouts with friends, so time really had just slipped out from his grasp and beyond his reach.
His last hope was to beg his mother to tidy his crown up the night before picture day, which meant interrupting one of her sacred sessions of watching her TV show. The reality show of ridiculous relationship antics and unnecessary fights, that everyone in the house knew she watched at the same time every week. It was as natural to him as making time for all 3 meals everyday; it was a routine he and both of his mothers had been in the know of for over a month now.
So yeah, in hindsight, it was pretty disrespectful of him to barge in on her time, when he knew she’d be busy and knew she’d been looking forward to it.
And, in insight, it was pretty disrespectful of him to barge in on Astra’s time, when he knew she’d be busy, and she’d been looking forward to a new episode of, ‘Rifts of Romance,’ which he’d known she’d be watching, because she’d been talking about it for weeks.
He was such a rude little punk back then, thinking the world just had to stop for his problems, and it’s a moment like this where he really feels he’s grown no further from that point. It hurts to think about, and it hurts to think not only of how frustrated Astra must feel, but what she must be thinking of him for disrespecting her alone time like this.
But he’s desperate. Just as desperate as he was back then.
He’s so desperate to fix this, to mend this mess on his scalp, to look even half-presentable so he can see Sunwoo smile.
So he can hold her hand, and kiss her cheek, and hear her laugh, hear that beautiful laugh, that sounds like a harp played straight from the apex of the heavens and makes the gemstones she has for eyes dazzle under moonlight. He’s so desperate to make this evening perfect for her.
He’s so desperate to make it undeniably clear that he’s serious about this relationship, and he’s seriously head over heels for his wind girl. That he seriously wants to be her pretty boy until…
Forever.
He doesn’t want to imagine a future where they don’t have each other around. That’s how serious this is. That’s how desperate he feels.
And when he’d been back in middle school, when he’d rushed in front of the television for his mother’s attention, pleading for her help, he’d been desperate too. Desperate to not make an absolute fool of himself in front of his classmates. Desperate not to leave behind a permanent mark in his school’s records of a shitty photo of a kid whose hair looked like it’d barely survived a tornado torn through it.
Desperate not to be the laughing stock of an entire school building like he is for an entire protocol of elite international agents.
(... That digs a little too deep though, doesn’t it? He doesn’t like that thought. Hurts a little too much. Let’s not dwell on that any longer.)
That desperation called for desperate measures; for sacred watchings of scripted shows interrupted for his benefit—to fix his hair, at the price of upsetting someone dear to him, for showing such a clear disregard for their time and their peace. His mother had torn him a new one after it, yelling his ear off, scolding him left and right as she eventually did his hair that evening.
Astra didn’t do any of that.
She huffed once or twice, sure. Frowned a little, but quickly covered it up with a small smile. Quickly masked that dull face with a foundation of joy and a highlight of comfort, and contouring of assurance that she’d help (at the price of subjecting him to one of her rubbish episodes). She’d so very clearly been hurt by his actions and disappointed by this intrusion of her space and privacy, but she let him in all the same.
She’s a good friend like that.
Jamie loves her, but he’s not really feeling like he’s being a good friend in return.
Even with how polite she’s been. Even as she neatens up his hair right now, even as she’s sprayed it thoroughly with detangler and begun to brush through it so delicately from the tips to the roots, being gentle like she’s handling a mere infant in her arms. She’s being so relaxed and refined with her efforts that it almost makes him forget the guilt stabbing him in his chest enough to be distracted by the (again, obviously scripted and ridiculously dramatic) banter on the big screen against the wall over her dresser.
Everything up until now had felt pretty similar to his biological mother doing his hair when he was younger. The desperate plea for help, the shit taste in late-night entertainment, the guilt eating him alive—all of it was an exact mirror of 11-year-old Jamie Adeyemi begging his mother to help him.
All of it except this peace.
Except this calm.
The calmness that Astra conducts herself with, fingers floating like feathers between strands of hair, brushing every section from the bottom-upwards, detangling and wettening every part of that crown of curls until she can glide a brush or comb through it with the ease a fish swims downstream a forest’s river.
When she needs him to move, she gently nudges his head to different angles, even muttering an apology for having to do so. When her brush gets caught on a stubborn set of tangles, she says sorry for any pain it may be causing as she tries to unravel it.
When Jamie came to her for help, sure, she huffed and puffed, but she let him in and let him get comfortable, and has let him sit in relative peace this entire time, in the eye of this storm of emotions flooding him full.
This is entirely foreign to him. Scarily so. He is half-convinced he’s died and been sent to heaven (or hell. Being part of a covert ops mission like this is probably a one-way ticket to hell, isn’t it? But again, unrelated—that’s a deep dive of a debate for another time).
His mother was never calm like this. Not once. Not ever, especially not if he’d upset her, like if he’d so selfishly disrupted her evening’s regularly scheduled reality show airing for his hair, which he probably should have asked her to do the day or two before.
She complained the entire time. Cursed up a storm (not at him, but definitely because of him), fussed at every little knot in his curls that she came across, and she certainly was not gentle with his hair at all.
Dry hair generally meant tangled hair. Matted hair. Painful-to-brush-through hair. Like trying to ride a bike down a broken, haphazardly carved path of pebbles, stones, and cracks in the asphalt, it could hurt. It wasn’t ideal. It was dangerous, it was a poor idea, frankly, and certainly not the best course of action one could go for if you wanted comfort.
Not efficiency. Comfort.
If you ride your bike at full speed down that hill, you’ll still make it to your destination. You’ll still reach your goal, having traveled the miles you need to. It’s just that you create a needlessly bumpy, rough, unsafe guide for yourself to follow, choosing to dash full speed down a route that has at least 20 different ways to trip you over and land you right on your face.
But you’ll still make it to your destination.
Combing through dry hair, especially the way his mother did, forcing that brush from the scalp down to the tips, was soaring a bike down that ragged, asphalt road. It’s giving little care to comfort, little concern for consolation.
The brush got caught on tangles and tumbleweeds on its way, and rather than use a detangler to ease them all loose, his mother would keep forcing her way through that mess. Even if it felt like those curls were being yanked right from his scalp, even if it felt like the entire top layer of his head may just get yanked off, that was her method. He always debated if it was punishment for upsetting her or just the way she did hair in general, but he could assure you after that evening, he was insistent to entrust his hair care to his local barber from then on. He was never subjecting himself to that pain again.
And what made it even worse was the way she’d deny it all.
She insisted she wasn’t being rough. She insisted it wasn’t a big deal, that he was being dramatic, that he should just sit still and listen and keep his whining muted to a minimum. She downplayed it at every opportunity. Every little whine or grunt of discomfort from him was a gateway to, “Oh, you’re fine,” or, “Suck it up,” or some other variant of, ‘Get over yourself. You’re not a baby.’
How could she look at him, at his squirming, at his frowning, at his insistent whines that he was not okay, and swear up and down that he was?
Mind you, this was the same woman who would stop him at the front door before he left for school to individually pluck stray lint off his clothes every morning. The same woman who left lipstick marks on his forehead when she kissed him there, even if he whined and whined, she’d laugh and laugh, and secretly he’d enjoy this attention from her. He knew she wasn’t an unlovable or callous woman by any means—but she could definitely be… Rough around the edges, when she wanted to be.
Again, maybe he deserved it. He was the one disrupting her alone time after all, so yeah, he did eventually suck it up because he did still feel that weight of guilt crushing his chest like barbells on his ribs.
But it still hurt.
Yet, it doesn’t hurt right now. This haircare, this styling, it isn’t hurting right now, with Astra at the helm. It hasn’t hurt one bit. (Emotionally, it has felt like being hit by a freight train—but physically, physically it has felt amazing! There’s been a few stray stings here and there, but nothing as bad as the tears at his scalp in his youth.)
And Astra’s still being so calm with him, so kind towards him. When her comb does catch onto a rebellious bundle of tangles and she’s worried it may hurt him even a little, she’s already shushing him with, “Sorry, Chale,”’s and, “My bad, my bad, fam, forgive me…”’s before she continues.
He really, truly didn’t deserve the amount of compassion she was showing to him, and yet here he was, being given a surplus of it. Because she’s a good friend, and this is the sort of thing good friends do. Because this is the sort of thing good people do, and Astra’s a gem. She’s a radiant star from the highest shelves of the heavens, and one of the protocol’s signature morale boosters alongside Jamie himself. She’d have never been so mean to hurt him, or even tell him no at his request to tidy his hair up, because she’s a good friend, and this is the sort of thing good friends do.
As guilty as he feels, Jamie can’t deny how heavenly this is. This level of serenity and calm, this moment that’s like a gentle breeze rolling in over a summer afternoon under the sunlight, that’s like a tide teasing the shore in waves; this natural sense of tranquility that has otherwise been unknown to him, unless he was in Sunwoo’s company.
This type of blissfulness has been scarce and limited, and that’s how he can pin the exact feeling now. He knows it when he feels it; Equanimity, even if mixed with solemnity and shame.
Even if he feels this unshakable need to apologize to Astra, one of the few people here who has never seen him as a joke, nor laughed at his misfortunes (looking at you, Viper). She, Sunwoo, and Tayane are perhaps some of the few people here who really get him.
He knows the others don’t trust him fully, or see his youth as his downfall, his pride as his setback, his mistakes as his only memorable contributions (and bad ones, at that).
But Astra has never been like that. Efia has never been like that. Efia, Tayane, Sunwoo, hell— Nicole—even Ryo and Klara have come around to be so kind to him. He treasures them more than diamonds and gold.
And he’s testing the boundaries of one of those treasured relationships, because he needs his hair done, so he can focus on another. He’s intruding on Astra’s beloved private time, selfishly soaking in her compassion along the way, for his own benefit. All just so he can impress Sunwoo and look his absolute best for their date.
Yeah. Despite being a man of fire and theatrics, he’s not feeling too hot or flashy right now. In fact, he feels more like the sullen, gooey remnants of a spent candle, or the gross, lifeless ash of a used match. Something along those lines—nothing good. That’s for sure.
He wonders if Astra feels the same way.
It isn’t too long before he gets his answer.
Blinking free from those heavy thoughts, he realizes he doesn’t feel the glide of that brush in his hair anymore. He doesn’t feel any hands massaging at his scalp, or the wet kiss of detangler spritzed into his mane anymore either.
In fact, all he feels are two gentle palms cradling his head by the sides and carefully leaning him back to meet that astral guardian’s beautiful eyes, the color of vanilla extract.
“Jamie, fam?” She asks, brows furrowed at her forehead in concern, “You good? I been calling you for, like, a minute now.”
Had she? He doesn’t remember hearing his name even once in the last 15, 20 minutes of sitting here. However long it had been since he’d come in.
“Sorry, ‘Fia,” He manages in something of a mumble. It ends up coming out more exhausted than he intended, far more not-okay than he’d wanted her to think he was. He tries to lighten it up with a, “‘M fine, though. Thanks.”
But Astra’s not an idiot. She picks up on these sorts of moods, these sorts of changes. She and Sage, they’re very in-tune with emotions like that.
“... Nervous ‘bout your date?” She asks.
Jamie finally sighs, relaxing into her palms (one hard-as-gold, the other soft-as-pillows). His shoulders droop too, tension he didn’t realize had been in the blades sheathing gradually with an exhale. His eyes fall shut.
“Nah, nah. I mean, kinda? Like– ‘Course I am, Sun’s amazing, I really don’t wanna mess this up,” He admits, but the real confession comes after: “Nah, though, that’s not just it.”
“Then what’s eating at you, chale?” And her voice is still so sweet, so caring, so welcoming to hear. She’s such a kind person, always worried about those around her. “This mopin’, this droopin’ about like a plant with no water—’s not like you, Jamie.”
It really is unlike him to let his spirit be so weighed down, on such an exciting evening no less, but there’s too many different things on his mind. Luckily for him, Astra is always willing to help him through anything.
His eyes slowly open again, meeting that vanilla extract gaze once more before he answers.
“... ‘M sorry,” His voice is so quiet, but so genuine. So soft. “I know this is last minute, and you’ve got your show to watch, and—”
“Jamie, that damn show’s not more important than you, c’mon now!” There’s that fire he always knew her for, that undeniable conviction she always spoke with. “Babylon, we’re fam! We’re family, Jamie! And you know what family do?” She asks, less like a question, more like an invitation into further discussion.
Jamie’s already feeling a gentle smile pull at his lips again. It’s hard to fight against it when talking to someone as passionate as Efia. “What do family do, fam? Tell me.”
She squishes his cheeks a little between that one-gold and one-skin palm, beaming down at him. “They look out for each other. Even if you make me wanna pop you right in that big mouth sometimes, I’mma always look out for you, ‘cos that’s what family should do.”
He can’t help but snicker. “ ‘My big mouth?’ Really?”
“Really.” Astra chuckles too, under her breath but audibly all the same, delicately beginning to move his head upright again so she can resume her work. “You oughta talk my ears off one of these days, always raving ‘bout this and that, never doing nothing, though. All bite, no bark. Mad love to you, though.”
He laughs, a full, bright laugh this time. “Ouch, fam! Damn, I love you too, but ouch! ‘All bite, no bark?’ Really?”
“I’ll take it back when you deserve it,” She resumes brushing his hair, gliding those sleek lilac bristles between coils and curls. “For now, though, lemme know if I can ease your mind a bit. I don’t want you stressing. You should just be thinking about you, and your Sunshine, and the great night the two of you are ‘bout to have together.”
See? There she goes, being so kind and compassionate. There she goes, offering the warmth he’d always wished his mother had given him. The warmth that, all this time, made him push off getting his hair done even more because he was always worried about the wrath that usually came with it.
But this time, all that’d come with his hair appointment was the usual kind energy and bright vibes he expected of Astra. Granted, with poor entertainment up on the screen, blaring arguments between two women (characters? Do you even call reality TV casts members, ‘characters?’ ) that he was almost certain had been rehearsed before the cameras rolled.
He isn’t really sure what else to say about it. It isn’t like it’s the type of dive he usually does, the type of feelings he usually delves deep into, especially on the day of a far more important event…
… But he can at least drink in this comfort a little while longer. Just until he feels he’s ready to open up a little more. It’s definitely new, but it’s lovely. It’s welcome. It’s immaculate, even. And he’s not ready to throw this vibe off by the slightest inch. He’s got to enjoy this moment while he can, because growing up, hair days as serene as these could never happen.
“... Thanks, Efia. I’ll let you know.”