The bathroom was silent except for the hum of the clippers and the quiet hiss of Leah’s focused breathing. She stood behind her girlfriend, comb in one hand, clippers in the other, tongue poking out in concentration as she tried to remember what the tutorial said about “soft blending.”

She’d been so confident. So determined. So very wrong.

It happened in a blur—one small miscalculation, One wrong pass—just one—and now her girlfriend had a very distinct, very tragic bowl cut. What started as a confident attempt at a simple trim spiraled into chaos in mere minutes. Leah had tried to blend, to taper, to fix the blunt line, but every effort only made it worse. The end result: a perfectly round, undeniably bold helmet of hair.

She stared at the back of her girlfriend’s head, heart sinking. “I… I can fix this,” she whispered, knowing full well she could not.

Her girlfriend looked up at the mirror. For a long moment, she was silent.

Then she spoke.

Not in English.

A string of alien syllables burst from her lips—somewhere between a chant and a warning siren. Leah blinked. “What? Was that bad?! You’re scaring me.”

Still silent, her girlfriend reached up and gently touched her new bangs, turning her head side to side with growing awe. “Zekra volin ai ka'thetra,” she whispered, almost reverently.

Leah winced. “Is that, like… good? Bad? Help me out here.”

Then her girlfriend turned, beaming like she’d just discovered a sacred treasure. “It means transcendent. Leah, I look like a warrior-poet from the seventh moon of Haravon.”

“You look like a background character from a 90s cereal commercial.”

“Exactly,” she said with complete sincerity. “It’s perfect.”

Leah groaned. “I gave my alien girlfriend a bowl cut and now she thinks she’s royalty.”

“Royalty,” her girlfriend confirmed proudly.

Leah dropped the clippers. “I’m burning these.”