"Stay still!" Charlie raised his voice slightly at Alex as he pulled the hairband out of the tiger's hair. She was sitting on the floor with her back against the mouse, and her eyes were glued to the TV, watching HBO's adaptation of the critically acclaimed PlayStation game, The Last of Us. She had invited Charlie and Tashi to come over and watch it with her, but Charlie wasn't as interested in it as she was. When he saw how much of a mess her hair was, the hairdresser couldn't help himself and had to fix it for her as she watched the show.

But the show was an emotional rollercoaster, and Alex went through groaning, giggling, and crying as she watched episode after episode. "My God, why did they have to make the show so much sadder than the game?" the tiger sniffled and rubbed the small pools of tears that had built up in her eyes as she squeezed the horse plushie in her arms. She paused the TV to stop it from playing the next episode as she continued to sniffle and sit there, feeling a little bit sad. She was so excited to start watching the show that she didn't even dry her hair properly. Her mouse friend ran a hairbrush through her slightly damp hair and was becoming increasingly disappointed in her the more he brushed through her hair. But he kept to himself and let her do her sniffling thing over something sad and depressing in the show while he did his best to brush out the knots in her hair that were a direct result of her not drying her hair fully before tying it up into a ponytail.

"So, it's a show based on a video game?" Charlie asked. "I don't play too many video games." The mouse chuckled as he brushed out the last bits of tangled locks in his tiger friend's hair. He then set the brush aside and grabbed the small spray bottle of hair oil that he had brought with him to use on his own hair. He sprayed a couple of squirts into his hand and rubbed his hands together to get the hair oil all over his little mousey fingers before he roughly combed his fingers through her hair to spread the hair product evenly throughout her locks.

Alex's sniffling stopped very suddenly when she heard Charlie's question. There were very few things worse than watching a movie or a show with a friend who seemed completely uninterested in it. While Charlie didn't pull his phone out of the pocket of his cheese-colored onesie, he did pull out his hair products, which left the tigress perplexed as to where he had them stored and whether or not he always had them on him for hair-related emergencies. He most definitely did. "Yeah! The original game came out on the PS3 back in 2013, then a remastered version came out in 2014, and a remake in 2022." Alex took the mouse directly into a deep dive into the game's release lore. The mouse's interest in the show had the tiger excited. "And now it's on PC, it's a buggy mess, but it's there, so if you want to play it, you have so many options as to where you can play it. You can even play it on my PS5! Do you want to play it?" Alex had gone from sniffling at the massive dose of depression from the show to yapping away about her favorite video game of all time like a puppy happy its owner came back after a short ten-minute walk to the store. If she were able to wag her tail, she probably would be doing so.

Charlie continued to comb his fingers through the tigress’s hair as she excitedly asked him if he wanted to play the game. But he shook his head, “Noooo, not yet, maybe after we have pizza?” He smiled, pulled his fingers out from her hair, and turned to the couch behind him to grab the hair tie that he had removed from Alex’s hair earlier. He put the hair tie into his mouth and held it with his buck teeth as he brought all of the tigress’s locks together to prepare her hair for the perfect silky hair ponytail. “Shpeaking hof pihzza… Wahare is Tashi?”

Alex was left puzzled by the sounds that came out of the mouse’s mouth. “What?” She furrowed her brow and turned her head to look over her shoulder at him. Charlie removed the hair tie from his mouth once Alex’s hair was ready, and he tied it up into a perfect and neat ponytail, or at least he thought so. As he let go of the hairband around Alex’s hair with a soft elastic snap, he repeated himself. “Where is Tashi? He’s been gone for three episodes now; it shouldn’t take that long to get pizza. Plus, he missed the Bill and Frank episode, and that’s gotta be one of the highlights.” The mouse shrugged his shoulders.

The mention of the episode that they had just watched made Alex turn to look back at the TV in front of her and let out a sad sigh. “Yeah…” It took her a couple more seconds to realize what Charlie had said, and when she did, she turned around to look at him again. Her sudden head-turn caused the hair tie that the mouse was still very lightly holding onto to slip free from her hair and ruin the ponytail that the rodent had spent so much time on.

“SO YOU WERE PAYING ATTENTION!!! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD, WHAT DID YOU THINK!!!!!” The tigress’s over-excitedness came over her again, and this time Charlie could have sworn he saw her tail wagging around behind her like a dog’s. Her sudden jittery and fast movements made sure her hair got all tangled up again. Charlie couldn’t help but let out another sigh as his work was ruined, but being the good friend that he was, he grabbed his brush, gathered the tigress’s hair, and started again.

Story continued on my Patreon and also my SubscribeStar!


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