“Utterly inexcusable.” Veritas muttered as he stepped through the front door, brushing a hand through his hair with a visible scowl. “One would expect basic record keeping from an establishment that calls itself elite.”

You could already tell, his day had been thrown off balance.

Dr. Ratio, a man known for his precision in both intellect and appearance, had a high profile photoshoot scheduled in just a few hours. He had planned everything in advance, as always. But when his usual barber, already inconveniently closed all week, had also forgotten to log his appointment, it had sent the entire schedule into disarray.

“They claimed it was their first day back and were overbooked.” he said, climbing the stairs, voice tight with restrained frustration. “As if that absolves the sheer lack of professionalism.”

He stopped in the doorway of the bathroom, still dressed in his teaching attire, hair slightly tousled from the breeze outside. “Now I must walk into a photoshoot looking like this, disheveled, unprepared, like some self important novelist with no sense of grooming.” He wasn’t angry at you, of course. Ratio’s ire was reserved strictly for the incompetence of others.

As he stood in front of the mirror, brushing through the strands with practiced precision, his lips tightened into a familiar frown, the kind that formed when he was deep in thought but refused to show vulnerability. His hair was indeed longer than usual, brushing just past the collar of his shirt now.

You moved closer, gently gathering the strands at the back of his neck. “A ponytail?” he repeated, eyebrows lifting. “You can’t be serious. It’s not that long.” His eyes met yours in the mirror, skeptical, but not dismissive.