Sundance

10. Sundance (Tobirama)

The new place was amazing.

Most people wouldn't agree, but I didn't care. I hadn't become the most successful student at MIT by agreeing with people. And I turned out just fine, didn't I?

Scratch that.

But I loved it. We were in a ginormous gravel parking lot that we had hired, our trailer park and all three tents (for storage, for practice, for performance) in one space which was unusual. We were surrounded by dirty old apartment complexes with broken windows covered in electrical cords that probably didn't work. Several of the houses had visible pipelines. Together with the grey sky running towards dusk and our circus, the entire scene was whimsically eerie.

I walked towards the shiny, black bread-toaster looking trailer of Madara, and knocked. He opened, his hair up in a towel, wearing loose trousers and nothing on top, brushing his teeth. I raised my eyebrows at his bare chest. His entire face softened when he saw it was me.

"I need to ask you a favour", I said.

"Www?" he said, mouth full of toothpaste.

He went in to spit in his kitchen sink. I followed in behind him, lifting up the tube of toothpaste on his kitchen table. I didn't recognise it as any of the conventional toothpaste brands you could buy at the super market.

"Fluoride free? What kind of new age shit is this?"

"Fuck you", he said.

"No, thank you. You're gonna destroy your teeth."

"My teeth are fine, actually, and- Wait, did you just say 'no, thank you'?!"

"Your teeth are fine now because you're young and hot. Wait a few years."

I loved our bantering jargon, the playfulness between us. He smiled at me, came and gave me his toothbrush.

"I dare you."

I put some of the toothpaste on Madara's toothbrush and put it in my mouth. The toothpaste was disgusting. If Madara was surprised I had actually used his toothbrush, he didn't let it show. He acted as though it was completely normal.

"That's enough, that's two minutes", he said and I spit out in relief, rinsing my mouth with water from the tap. "What did you need help with?"

"I need another technician to take over for me tonight."

He looked at me, confused.

"Why?"

I just looked at him, raising one eyebrow.

Then, when he understood, he smiled.

I wasn't much for casual dressing up. For work, I'd had an arsenal of suits and shirts and ties to choose from. I never attended parties, at the time believing I just wasn't the type but now realising I'd been too depressed, so I only had my training clothes I wore to go to the arena to swim aside from my working clothes.

I stood in front of my wardrobe, uncertain what was normal to wear for an occasion like this. I settled for a pair of good black suit pants from Filippa K, balancing it out with a soft, grey sweater that was a bit oversized from Zara. My hair was freshly washed, so I took some wax to tousle it up a bit. The roots were now dark brown but I didn't hate it; I didn't feel the need to immediately bleach it like I normally did. I put on a silver chain around my neck, then hesitated... I really liked it when...