Paula Rouco is sitting on the floor of her room, preparing the contents of her suitcase.
Severo Laris came in from doing the dishes and saw the trash can full of bottles and jars and several lipsticks.
Severo Laris sat down next to her and picked up a jar of moisturizer from the garbage can, a little quizzical: “Expired?”.
Paula Rouco snatched the bottle of water from his hand and tossed it back into the garbage can. “It’s not expired, he just wants it thrown away.”
“They piss you off?” Severo Laris smiled weakly.
Paula Rouco frowned, all those things Buena had used in intimacy, including the lipstick and other things, and now that she’d had a fight with Buena, she felt bad and wanted to get rid of them all.
“Severo, do you think I’m too wasteful if I’m throwing things away?”
“It is a little.”
Paula Rouco elbowed him in the little mouth, “I didn’t mean to.”
Severo Laris rubbed her little head and didn’t scold her, some reason she must have had for losing so many things at once.
“What do you use when you’ve lost everything?”
Paula Rouco narrowed her eyes wide and said jokingly, “So, my boyfriend, for me or not?”
Severo Laris raised an eyebrow and actually said, “To buy.”
The response was very dry.
“Do you really buy it?”
Severo Laris couldn’t help but laugh at her surprised look, “I’ll buy it tomorrow, pack my bags, shower and go to bed.”
It wasn’t until Paula Rouco ran into the bathroom to shower, clutching her pajamas, that Severo Laris looked at the open suitcase on the floor.
In the luggage, clothes and books piled haphazardly.
Severo Laris’ thin lips curved slightly and he shook his head faintly.
Then, bending down, he took out the contents of his suitcase one by one and put them in order.
When Paula Rouco came out of the bathroom with wet hair, Severo Laris took her directly in his arms, took the towel from her hand and rubbed her wet little head.
“Will you help me unpack?”
Severo Laris said, “Leave it there messy, partner Paula, I have OCD.”
Paula Rouco smiled sweetly, “I am so messy that living with me for a long time should cure Lin of her OCD.”
Severo Laris pinched her little face.
…
The next day, Paula Rouco returned to the Imperial neighborhood after class and as soon as she walked in she saw several gift boxes of skin care brands in the lobby.
Paula Rouco froze and glanced at the branded paper bag, which contained so many skin care products and lipsticks.
“Severo? Are you back?”
Grabbing the large paper bag of skin care products, she ran to the studio where Severo Laris was indeed working.
“Is this for me?” Paula Rouco narrowed her eyes and smiled sweetly at him.
Severo Laris looked up from his laptop screen, his body, which had been sitting upright at work, leaned back slightly in the seat to look at her with some relaxation.
“Open it up and see if it fits. I bought them according to the posters you threw away yesterday.”
Paula Rouco, as she rummaged through those branded paper bags, said, “You bought all the ones I wear, but you bought so many, you spent a lot of money, didn’t you?”
Severo Laris emitted a faint “hmm,” not really caring.
Paula Rouco appeared with a bunch of lipsticks, different brands, different shades, “You picked out all these shades of lipstick?”
“The counter suggested it, I’m not very good at picking them out, I don’t know what colors you like.”
Paula Rouco switched to a shade that was Death Barbie pink.
“Severo you’ve been had.”
“Hmm?”
“The salesman at the counter sold you the hardest shade to sell.”
Severo Laris frowned slightly and took the one she was handing him, opening the package and unscrewing the lipstick, pink: “Isn’t it pretty?”.
Paula Rouco: “… Where does this look good, so dead.”
Severo Laris drew her into his arms and sat her down, “Paint it for me.”
Paula Rouco applied it to her mouth, tasted the color and turned her head to show it to Severo Laris: “Look, isn’t it dead?”.
“Isn’t it pretty?”
Applied to his lips, they’re so pink and soft they look, well, like you’d want to bite them.
“…”
The Death Barbie powders, which only a great white skin like Paula Rouco could handle, she only put them on once in front of Severo Laris and hasn’t used them again.
When Severo Laris asked about it, Paula Rouco said she had bought it, so she had to treasure it and couldn’t wear it.
Backstage, she complains to Susana about Severo Laris’ overly direct choice of lipstick.
…
After Paula Rouco moved in with Severo Laris in the Imperial neighborhood, their relationship skyrocketed.
Severo Laris adored her with each passing day, and she became increasingly arrogant and capricious with Severo Laris.
Severo Laris raises his girlfriend as a child.
Right now, for example, Severo Laris is working, flipping through papers with one hand, while the other is held and touched by Paula Rouco.
The girl pulled up his shirt sleeve to show the man’s beautifully defined, slender little arm, took a black marker and drew circles on the inside of his left arm.
Severo Laris was so focused on his work that he felt only a slight itch on his left arm, but he thought nothing of it.
When he looked up again, all he could see was the drawing of a small candy on the inside of his left arm, drawn by someone.
Severo Laris frowned slightly, his dark eyes fixed on the small candy, and asked, “Are you stamping on me?”
A certain person held a pen in one hand and held his chin with the other, smiling smugly with bright eyes and white teeth, “Isn’t my drawing very vivid and beautiful?”
“Why do you draw candy?” Severo Laris looked deeply into the eyes of the little thing beside him.
Someone justified, “Candy means me, and now you have candy painted on your arm, which means you are mine.”
Severo Laris took a long look at her, left the paper in her hand and, with both hands free, took her on his lap, lowered his head, kissed her little ear with his thin lips and spoke softly in her ear, “Even without the seal, I am yours, and no one can take it away from you.”
Someone is so happy that he leaves.
…
The next day, Severo Laris left work at the law firm.
Passing by a tattoo parlor.
The little piece of candy that Paula Rouco drew on the inside of his left arm last night is still there.
Severo Laris, God forbid, stopped the car and entered the tattoo parlor.
When the tattooist took a look at Severo Laris’ ascetic and exalted appearance, he sensed that something was odd, probably because a man of his temperament didn’t look like someone who would come to get a tattoo.
The tattooist smiled and asked, “What design would the gentleman like?”
Severo Laris rolled up his shirt sleeve, exposing his left arm, and said, “Tattoo him with this design.”
The tattooist took one look, smiled with special meaning and said, “It is rare for a customer to come in for a candy tattoo, at the risk of asking, does this candy have any special meaning to you?”
Severo Laris, who was never one to talk to strangers, looked at the tiny candy drawing on the inside of his left arm with a frown and said two words in a soft voice, “I like it.”
“Yes, then we’ll make you a tattoo according to this drawing, does it need to be painted?”
“Warm orange, please.”
“Okay.”
An hour later, Severo Laris was walking out of the tattoo parlor, looking at the small candy design they had just tattooed on the inside of his left arm, his thin lips slightly hooked in satisfaction.
Later, even after the breakup, Severo Laris never bothered to wash the tattoo.
That little caramel drawing remained tattooed on his skin, in his flesh and blood, never to be torn off again, reluctantly, with affection, with love, with affection.