Robert's POV:

"So, where are we going?" Ross asks, confused.

"You'll see. It's gonna be cool, promise." I answer, giving Roy a nudge on the shoulder and chuckling.

Yesterday I was doing a little browsing on the internet and found a place that'll pierce anything for a good price. So I asked Roy if he'd help chip in for Ross to get his helix pierced, since he's been wanting to do it for a while. Roy agreed on the terms that I'd pay him back and he'd be allowed to come and record Ross while he gets the piercing.

And just in case the place asks for an adult to be present, me and Roy asked (begged) Kevin to come along, to which he kindly agreed (had to pay him). So here we are in Kevin's car being driven to the mall where the place is.

I don't really remember the name of it but I'm sure I'll recognize it when I see it. It has a very distinct style that's easy to remember; pink, purple, girly, childish. It was the only place I could find so I'm sure Ross won't mind all the girly stuff, as long as he gets his piercing it should be fine.

Finally we all see the mall in view and me and Roy start chuckling.

"The mall?" Ross questions as he looks over at me and Roy.

"Yup." Roy answers with a smirk.

"Why, we never come here unless there's a game you want that's not at the Everything Store."

"Stop asking questions you'll see when we get there!" Roy shouts, annoyed at Ross' questions.

Kevin looks at Roy through his mirror and squints his eyes. "Don't yell in my car." he hisses.

Roy frowns and crosses his arms, he would've told him off but has no place doing so now. Ross looks at him kind of stunned that he didn't complain but leans his head back into the car seat.

Kevin parks his car and Roy immediately steps out from his side, slamming the door shut behind him. I step out on my side and hold the door open for Ross as he steps out. I close the door behind him and we chuckle.

"Why thank you sir." Ross jokes.

"Oh you're quite welcome." I joke back.

We hold hands and make our way to the entrance of the mall, listening to Kevin yell at Roy for slamming the door.

"You're lucky I'm meeting up with some people here, otherwise I would've turned my car around and dropped your asses home!" he complains.

Roy sticks his tongue out at him and turns around so he could walk next to me and Ross.

We finally make it inside and locate a map to help us get to the place. I tell Ross to stay with Kevin as me and Roy look at the map.

"Isn't this the place?" Roy asks, pointing to a label on the map.

I look at where Roy is pointing to and immediately recognize the label. Even the name is girly.

"Yep that's it!" I confirmed. "Alright so we're here, so we should go..."

I start to map out a route to get to the place and when I finish I nod at Roy then turn back to Ross and Kevin, who were actually conversating.

"Guys we got it figured out, let's go!" I shout.

We all start walking to the place, it's kinda far from where we are which kinda sucks. As we were walking I saw Streber, Rick, and... Radford?! Damn it, why is he here? I told mom I was going to be at the Everything store and he was there when I said that! He wouldn't snitch on me, right?

I try to hide behind Ross and we quickly pass them, Kevin stopped to say hi to them and that he'd be back which made me freak out a little.

At last, we finally reach the place and I read the label at the top to make sure we were really at the right place:

Claire's

Ross looks at me with a confused look. "Claire's? Why are we here? Isn't this a girls' store?" he asks.

"Yeah, but they do piercings here so we brought you to get your helix done!" I excitedly respond while shaking my hands.

Ross immediately gasps. "Really!? Oh my god finally!" he beams out.

He pulls me into a hug and the four of us make our way into the store. Kevin looked like he wanted to say something but didn't, hm.

We walk to the counter and are greeted by a young girl probably around our age. Don't you have to be 16 to get a job, how'd she get a job here?

"Hello, can I help you?" she says as she chews obnoxiously on her gum.

"Yeah, he wants to get his helix pierced!" I answer.

"Alright, are you the parent?" she asks, pointing to Kevin.

"Huh? N-"

"Yes! That's our.. Dad!" Roy shouts, cutting Kevin off.

Kevin scowls at him but looks back at the lady.

"Okay, I'm gonna like, need some ID and then you both need to sign these forms." she says as she hands Kevin some papers and a pen.

Kevin gives the girl his ID and starts signing the papers. When he finishes he hands the papers and pen to Ross so he could sign his part. Ross quickly signs and hands the stuff back to the girl. She gives Kevin back his ID and puts the papers in a drawer as she gets the price for the piercing.

"Your total is forty-five ninety- nine (45.99)." she says.

Me and Roy pull money out from our pockets and place it on the counter. The girl counts it then puts it in the register.

"Alright, you can follow me." she says.

"I'll be at the food court." Kevin says as he starts walking off. I could've sworn I heard him whisper "Good luck" but I just ignored it.

We follow the lady to a chair, to which she tells Ross to sit on.

"Oh my god I can't believe this is happeni-"

Ross notices Roy pull out his phone and point it towards him, making him frown.

"What are you doing?" he asks, annoyed.

"What does it look like? I'm recording." he answers, with a smirk.

Ross was about to say something but was cut off by the girl, whose name I figured out was Ashley, instructing Ross on how to take care of the piercing after.

"So you're gonna like, use this spray two times a day on your helix and use a q-tip to like, wipe around it. And you have to twist the earring throughout the day, got it?" she lectures.

"Yup." Ross answers.

"Alright, let's get started! Left or right?" she asks as she grabs a wipe and marker from her pocket.

"Um, right."

Ashley then wipes Ross' right ear with the wipe then makes a mark on his helix with the marker. She hands Ross a mirror so he could check the placement.

"How's that?" she asks.

"Perfect." he answers.

"Alright, here we go," she says as she goes into a drawer and pulls out I think a piercing gun and an earring. "Don't move."

"Wait!" Ross suddenly shouts.

He looks at me and gestures for me to sit next to him.

"What happened?" I ask, sitting down in a chair next to him.

"Support, let me squeeze your hand." he says as he grabs my hand, making me laugh.

"Ugh, gays man." Roy scoffs.

"Roy!" I yell at him.

"What?" he responds, grinning.

Me and Ross roll our eyes at him then Ashley sets the gun up near Ross' ear.

"Ready?" she asks.

"Yeah-"

Roy starts recording with the flash on to annoy us. Ross gives him a death stare but it just makes Roy laugh.

"Okay, don't move." Ashley instructs.

Ross immediately squeezes my hand and shuts his eyes, the adrenaline already kicking in. I squeeze his hand back and rub the top of it with my thumb reassuringly, making him slightly smile. I'm not the one getting pierced but my adrenaline is going crazy right now.

Ashley gets the gun in a good position and starts counting down.

"3..

"2..

1!"

She presses the trigger on the gun and Ross hisses, squeezing my hand tighter than before. Roy laughs at him and puts his phone into his pocket, satisfied with his video.

"All do-"

I look over at Ashley and notice she still has the gun in Ross' ear.

"Uh, aren't you supposed to take the gun out now?" I ask, starting to get worried.

"Um.. yeah let me just-"

She tries pulling the gun out of Ross' ear, but only gets another hiss of pain from Ross as the gun stays in his ear.

"Wh- What's going on?!" Ross asks.

Ross opens his eyes and looks at the gun through the mirror. Ashley lets go of it and then it hits us all—the gun is stuck in his ear.

"OH MY FUCKING GOD!" Roy yells, staring at the gun stuck in Ross' ear.

Me and Ross start panicking.

"What did you do?!" Ross yells at Ashley.

"I- I don't know! I did what they told me in training!" she yells back.

"Oh my god, is this your first time piercing someone!?" I ask, but not expecting to get the answer I receive from Ashley:

"I- uh- Yeah?"

I look at her in shock. How could the people here let her, a 13-15 year old that's not even legally allowed to have a job, pierce someone without making sure she's ready?!

"I'm gonna get Kevin!" Roy shouts, making his way out.

"Wait no! Radford is-!"

Before I could finish Roy was long gone. Crap bow Radford is gonna come over here.

I look at Ross and realize he's full on panicking. He looks like he might even cry.

"Oh my god, I'm so dead! My mom is going to find out, my ear is gonna get infected, what am I going to do?!" he starts rambling.

I look at Ashley in anger, I can't believe I'm about to say this. "Go get your manager!" I demand angrily, kinda embarrassed at what I just said. Hope I didn't sound like a Karen..

Ashley quickly nods and runs into the employee's only room.

I look at Ross' ear and frown, it looks swollen and red. Damn it, I just wanted Ross to get his dream piercing, why'd it have to turn out like this?

Ross squeezes my hand and I look at him.

"Thanks for- tss- taking me to get my helix pierced. Even though the gun is stuck in my ear." he says through the pain.

I give him a hug, making sure not to bump into his ear, and give him a quick kiss on the cheek before pulling away.

"I'm sorry it turned out like this. When I saw how young that girl was it should've immediately been a red flag that we should go somewhere else." I apologize.

He chuckles. "I should've seen that red flag too. I guess I was just really desperate to get my helix pierced." he adds.

We smile at each other until he winces again in pain.

"Ugh, this really hurts. What's taking her so long?" he complains.

And almost as if on cue, the manager and Ashley approach. Ashley looked like she had been crying and maybe I would've felt bad if she didn't get a piercing gun stuck in my boyfriend's damn ear.

"Boys, I'm very, very, sorry about this. Y'see-"

"Robert?!" a familiar voice yelled from the entrance.

We all looked in sync at the entrance and saw Roy with Kevin, Radford, Rick, and Streber. When they saw us they immediately rushed towards us. Kevin spoke to the manager and Streber gave Ashley a whole lecture about what she did and what she should've done. Radford approached me and Ross with crossed arms.

"Oh, hey Radford- what's up?" I ask him awkwardly.

He glares at us, wanting to tell us off but doesn't knowing that we're already pretty stressed out.

After Kevin and the manager are done talking they approach.

"So boys, again I sincerely apologize for this. We'll refund you full price." the manager says.

"What are you going to do about the gun that's stuck in my ear!" Ross yells.

"Right about that, um- Well we don't know how to remove it."

"What?!" we all yell in sync.

"Yeah, we're gonna have to call a professional in to have them remove it. Again, I'm so sorry about this inconvenience."

"No fuck that. Where's there a sink?" Streber asks.

Ashley leads him to a sink in the employees room so he could wash his hands then he comes back, puts some gloves on, and examines Ross' ear. He starts mumbling some stuff to himself but eventually does some stuff to the gun and pulls it off.

"Ow.." Ross hisses.

Streber then takes a wipe from a drawer next to him and wipes down Ross' ear to clean it.

"Ow!" Ross hisses again.

"There, that should do it." Streber says, throwing the wipe and gloves away.

Ross gets up from his chair then gives me a hug and Roy surprisingly joins in as well.

"Let's get out of here." Radford groans.

The manager hands Roy our refund and we all begin to exit the store as the manager stares at Streber in shock.

As we walk to the car Streber lectures me, Ross, and Roy about how Claire's, Icing, and anywhere else that uses a piercing gun is not the place to go get pierced and should be done professionally with a needle. He also recommended a piercing spot for us to go to next time which was pretty cool.

"Think you still wanna get your helix pierced?" I ask Ross.

"No, I'm traumatized. I'll stick with the clip-on you gave me." he answers as he takes the clip-on that he'd put in his pocket and puts it on his left ear because the right one still hurt.

I smile at him and wrap an arm around his shoulder as we continue to walk to the car.

"I'll buy you a snack and drink to make up for this. And I'll ask my mom if I could stay at yours so I could help make the pain go away from your ear." I insist.

"Aww, you're so sweet. Love you." Ross responds as he gives me a kiss on the cheek and grasps our hands together.

But the moment was ruined when Streber told us that there was a 50% chance Ross' helix would get infected.

Bonus: It did and Streber helped Ross take care of it and talk Jaune out of grounding him 👍