When Winter Came

chapter five

Dom awoke surprised to find the clock read 11:30. Guess it was a day off, considering no alarm had destroyed his ears in the morning. So he slowly got out of bed and put on his comfiest clothes, a jumper with his normal jacket. He reached for his phone to find Tamara had already texted.

Timtam: Hey I need to go to the local market to get an image for this ink this guy wants. If you wanna hang out meet me here at 11. Ill buy doughnuts if you get here on time.

He did a deep melodious rumble, clutching his forehead. There was no reason to wake up before 11 on a off day? Why did she have to make one? Tossing his salt aside, he grabbed some shoes and stuffed his pockets (picking up his camera for once), walked to the local train stop and rode all the way to the local market. The local market was simply the nearby snow village, was the closest this place could get to a market in the winter anyway.

The snow village was a pastel coloured shopping market painted in purples and blues. Cute stuffed toy animals lined shops and expensive snowboarding gear shone from rental shops. It was littered with snow-hounds from all around, some settling around the closest warm spot while others looked longingly at $2000 snowboards and skis.

Dom spotted Tamara in her usual black attire and tattoos looking into a busy café, a 7/11 coffee in her hand. As she spotted him she simply took a sip of her drink. "I'm surprised you came."

"I had time, so what do you wanna checkout?" he asked her, eyeing her coffee.

She slugged the remains of the bitter drink back, "this guy wants a piece inspired by this snowboard artist Leon, thing is- his art is near impossible to find. Nothing online."

"Not even on someone's Instagram?" Dom was really craving coffee now.

She shrugged as they walked away from the café, she chucked her coffee cup out along the way. "I thought there would be but no. It's an underground guy who wants to continue pandering to hipsters by not giving away his shit."

"Relax, we'll find something. Maybe he said the name wrong." He shrugged it off, "besides 'Leon' might just be some guy he met here, people do custom paint jobs."

"Well damn," they stopped near a pizza place which was already bustling. Pepperoni and Hawaiian pizzas being thrown left and right, the smell of alcohol wafted from the door. They took two seats outside and sat. Each ordering a warm drink and relaxing.

He took a drink of his Guinness, enjoying the sweetness. "Did the guy give you a picture or something?"

"Well... yeah," she opened up her phone to get a photo of a complex cross-hatched mountain, a deep sigh exited her mouth as she turned her phone around to Dom.

His eyes widened as he saw the image, "shit. Image searched it yet?"

"Yup, all I got was one Pinterest post and the name Leon but this guy has no way to contact him. Which is odd." She shrugged, grumbling. Drinking her Bailey's back in frustration finishing half the cup in one go.

They sat in mutual annoyance for a moment.

"Can you use the mountains as a tattoo or use it as a reference?" he put the drink down, leaning back onto his chair. Snowboarders glided nearby trailing to the nearby pubs and restaurants.

She scrunched her eyebrows, "I want to but I tried to recreate this guy's style onto the new design and I just can't do it. Giving someone a shitty tattoo will make it harder to get clients here anyway."

Annoyed, cold and tired, he silently grabbed the design and took a photo of it. He reverse image searched it to see three results- on of which being a Chinese website and the other being Pinterest with stock tattoo images. He clicked the link to Pinterest, logged in and found the image again, tapped on it and was sent to an emo website with ravens and snowboards. On the top it said 'L3ON', he grumbled at her way then sent his phone over. "Did you just look on Instagram and call it day?"