Luna basically threw a bottle of shampoo at him when he told them he’d be getting rid of his beanies. Nico promised to give him a detailed explanation of which products he had to use for what. And Pedro told him he’d be paying for his next trip to the salon to get a proper haircut. Simón didn’t necessarily think he didn’t have a proper haircut now but if that was what it took to make his friends stay his friends, then that was what he would do.

Once he got home, he took his time to read the instructions on the bottle carefully. After all, there was much that could go wrong. He didn’t tell his friends that he had never washed his hair before and only got it done for him at his trips to the salon. Because he still wasn’t satisfied with the instructions and needed to know how to really wash his hair, he googled it. Wikihow, his savior, his knight in a shining armor.

After he felt comfortable with his knowledge, he decided to try it out for himself. He went into the bathroom, undressed himself and stepped into the shower. He had almost put on a shower cap but had reminded himself just in time that he was actually gonna be washing his hair today.

He turned on the water and let it run for a few moments. Then he took a deep breath and let it go on his hair. He grabbed the bottle of shampoo Luna had thrown at him earlier and squirted some out of it. It smelled nice, he had to admit that. He slowly spread it on his hair, making sure that none of it got into his eyes. He massaged it into his hair and let it sit for about three minutes just as the articles had told him to.

After that time was over, he rinsed it out and stepped out of the shower. He got the blowdryer Ámbar had graciously lent him in order to make him throw away the beanies and started to dry his hair.

It looked terrible. Now why again had he agreed to do this? Right, he hadn’t wanted to lose all of him friends. That option honestly didn’t seem so bad right now. They had made him go through all of that for this? Sure, the shampoo smelled amazing and his hair was softer than it had been in weeks but this didn’t excuse the mess of a hairstyle that was on his head right now. It didn’t leave him with any other choice but to call Matteo who picked up after a few rings.

“Hello?”

“Uh, hi, it’s Simón. I was wondering if you could teach me how to do my hair?” Silence on the other hand. This was a terrible idea. He should’ve asked literally anyone else in the entire world besides Matteo Balsano.

“Don’t do anything. I’m gonna be there in five minutes.” And then Matteo hung up. Wait was he actually going to come over? It had sounded that way and Simón wouldn’t put it below Matteo, considering how much he cared about his hair.

His doorbell rang after exactly five minutes. Well, you could say what you wanted about him but he was true to his word.

“Oh my god. What did you do?” Matteo asked after dropping his stuff upon seeing Simón.

“I washed my hair:”

“I can see that. But how the fuck did it turn out like this? That’s somehow even worse than your usual hair and that’s already a disaster.” Normally, Simón would be offended but Matteo was right. It looked horrendous.

“I don’t know! I blowdried it and then it became like this.” The horror on Matteo’s face was unspeakable.

“You just blowdried it?! No wonder it looks like this,” Matteo took a deep breath, “ Okay, you know what, I can fix this. But only if you sit down and shut up.” Matteo’s offer sounded fair. They weren’t the best of friends but this was a necessity for Simón. He couldn’t go out like this so he just nodded.

Matteo told him to sit down and rummaged through the stuff he had brought with him only to groan in frustration.

“You don’t happen to have a spray bottle of water, do you?” Who had a spray bottle of water? No one. Not even Matteo Balsano owned one, Simón was sure.

“I forgot mine at home so we’ll have to work with what we have.” Simón had been wrong. Matteo Balsano was the one person on this earth that actually owned a spray bottle of water for his hair.

“We have two options here. You can either wash your hair again or I’ll have to turn it into a sticky mess using these babies,” Matteo said while shaking a can of hairspray and dry shampoo.

“Or I can just dump a bucket of water over your head. Your choice, really.” Simón chose washing his hair again. But Matteo insisted that he do it because there was apparently even more that could go wrong than Simón had originally thought. And since Simón wasn’t about to let Matteo watch him shower, they opted for the sink.

“Shit, the water’s way too hot,” Matteo cursed.

“No, it’s not! It’s nice,” Simón protested. Matteo looked at him like he was insane.

“You do realize that hot water will make your hair frizzy, don’t you?” Matteo was just staring at him in agony.

“Who cares?” Simón mumbled. He could’ve sworn he heard Matteo gasp.

“I care. And everyone else that has to look at your hair.” It was pointless to argue with him so Simón turned the water colder. After successfully washing his hair for the second time that day, Matteo and him moved to the living room. He was told to sit down by Matteo who was furiously going through his bags.

“Ah, here it is. Now sit still while I do this and don’t complain.” Simón did as he was told. He could feel Matteo coating his hair with something but he didn’t bother asking what it was. After that another product followed. And another. And another. According to Matteo they were all very important steps that could not be skipped in any case.

“See, this is why I don’t do this,” Simón complained.

“Oh shut up. What did I tell you five minutes ago? Don’t complain. And besides, you don’t do this because you suck at it.” Simón was aware of that, thank you very much. But he didn’t really see the point in Matteo doing his hair without Simón actually picking up on anything he was doing. Matteo both couldn’t and wouldn’t do his hair everyday. Matteo got his blowdryer and started blowdrying Simón’s hair.

“Now, the important part is to never blowdry your hair with your head upside down, no matter what anyone tells you. It’ll make you hair end up looking weird. So you have to angle your comb that way.” Simón slowly started to zone out.

“And then you have to – hey, are you listening?” Matteo asked with an annoyed expression on his face. Simón couldn’t really blame him for that since he wasn’t paying any attention at all.

“Uh, yeah, sure I am.”

“Oh really? Then what did I just tell you?”

“Something about blowdryers?”

“Something about blowdryers?” Matteo was close to exploding, Simón could feel it. “See, this is why you suck at this! It’s important to know how much you have to heat it up before you can use it. It makes a huge difference in how your hair will turn out. If you just start at full volume, your hair is gonna be a disaster again.” Simón honestly couldn’t care less and already missed his beanies. They were just so much easier to handle. All you had to do was put them on. They didn’t require fifty thousand steps, a lot of time and, most importantly, no Matteo Balsano.

“Matteo, are you going to kick me out of the window if I tell you that I think this was a dumb idea?”

“Hell yes I am. I’m almost done so stop complaining for five seconds and this will be over.” Matteo got a can of hairspray out of his bag and told Simón to close his eyes which he promptly did.

“Okay, I’m done,” Matteo said and Simón opened his eyes again and opened his mouth to speak but immediately started to cough. Why would anyone willingly do this to themselves? Matteo almost pulled Simón’s arm off while he was trying to get him to stand up as fast as possible because he really needed to see this. Simón had to admit gruntingly that it looked way better than what he had done to his hair

“God, I did a good job,” Matteo complimented himself. Simón could only shake his head at this. Sure, Matteo had handled his hair but he was the one that let him do it.

“Now go and show the world your new hair.” Matteo practically chased him out of the room and yelled at him that he was going to kill him if he dared to put on a beanie.

When Simón arrive at the Roller, Luna screamed.

“What did you do? Oh my god, you need to teach me.”

“Uhhhhh” Well, he couldn’t say that all of this was Matteo’s work, could he? He’d never hear the end of it. Thankfully, Nico arrived at this moment.

“Dude, your hair is awesome!” Simón really wasn’t used to comments about his hair in general so this was new terrain for him. So he quickly changed the topic and told Nico they had to practice and they went and looked for Pedro. After the three of them had rehearsed, they sat down at an empty table and Simón saw that Matteo had just entered the room.

“Oh Simón, nice hair by the way,” Pedro said.

“Thanks.”

Matteo grinned at him from across the room.