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One of the first things Floyd had wanted to do after getting settled into school was get his ears pierced. It wasn’t uncommon to see merpeople with piercings, but with Floyd and his twin having fins for ears instead of the usual kind, it was near impossible to get a clean piercing that way.
One day, Jade noticed a drop of blood on the floor of his dorm. No one else regularly visited there except Floyd, and Jade certainly hadn’t cut himself recently. This wasn’t good. Floyd never hid anything from him-he was too smart for that-and the thought that he could be hurt and not tell Jade was unsettling to him.
Floyd barely came to class that day. When Jade found him in his room after 5th period, his face was soaked with blood and tears.
“Don’t patronize me, Jade...I looked up some guides to piercing your ears by hand on the internet and I...I...messed up…” Floyd struggled to let it all out, tears forming on his face again. There was a giant cut across his earlobe, only just barely covered by tissues. Jade sighed and steeled himself.
“Floyd, you could have just told me or Azul about this.” Jade said, removing the tissues, which made Floyd even more frantic.
“I didn’t want to admit that I couldn’t do it all by myself…” Floyd started whining again. Jade simply remained silent and treated his wound.
It seemed that Floyd had tried to use a lemon and a nail to puncture his ear. Dangerous at best, could have given him an infection at worst. But, he did give himself a hole all the way through his earlobe. Floyd decided to keep it. He wasn’t exactly prepared for all the disinfecting and preparing he’d have to do, but Kalim helped him through the next couple of weeks. However, Floyd only managed to haphazardly pierce his right ear, and adamantly refused to go through the pain of doing the other one by himself. So, he kept his asymmetrical look.
His first earring was a tiny pearl salvaged from the ocean. But after the twins grew their hair out a bit, it was hard to see Floyd’s tiny earrings. He decided he wanted a big, dangly one like Kalim’s.
“Won’t it look pretty?” Floyd said one night.
“Of course.” Jade said, even though he didn’t care much about looking pretty.
Floyd saved up his Mostro Lounge salary for a month to buy a handmade pair of earrings made out of sea glass. They were put together with wire and a few bits of glass from the shore. Even if he had to get used to the weight, he still loved wearing it, to the point he would forget to take it out at night. But the second earring in the pair left unused.
As much as Jade didn’t care about looking pretty, he liked to match with Floyd. Azul had given them matching uniforms and all, but the long, sparkling earring made them stand out from each other a lot. Too much.
The two of them went into town, a very rare occurrence. Getting around outside of school wasn’t Octavinelle’s specialty. But everyone agreed that going to an actual professional would be better than having Floyd stick a nail in Jade’s ear. The piercing was mostly painless (Jade had been fighting off sharks since he was a kid, after all) and Floyd was a little jealous he didn’t need to go through having such a painful cut.
“Jade, why’d you pierce your left ear?” Floyd asked after they were back in the dorm. He, too, would have the problem of his lock of black hair covering the earring.
“So the second sea glass earring wouldn’t go to waste.” Jade replied. Floyd wasn’t expecting that.
“You remembered.” he said in one of the most endearing and delightful ways Jade had ever heard.
“Of course. What kind of brother would I be, if I couldn’t even do that?” Jade gave a wry smile.
From that day forward, Jade always wore the other sea glass earring in his left ear. The look suited them perfectly: beautiful and inseparable, just like them.