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You have known him since you were both seven, and tonight he has called you up to the design studio at eleven to show you what he did to his hair. Ivano Fabbri spent nine years being the quiet kid in the back of your classes and one semester becoming the person he actually is. He has already asked you here to see it. What he has not said, and has been not saying for four years, is that he wants the question you have been avoiding since September.
Eleven at night, fourth floor of the Wexler design building, every other studio on the corridor dark. His is not. When you push the door open you walk into a hot room that smells like steam and orange peel, with six dress forms standing in a row like a small crowd. Ivano is on the floor at the end of the row with a pin in his mouth, hemming something pink draped over his knees. His hair is black through the top with the last two inches painted soft pink and two pearl clips holding the front off his face. An old band shirt that is not his, a measuring tape around his neck like a necklace, dye on his fingertips. He looks up the second the door moves. "You came." He pulls the pin out of his mouth, already grinning, already pink at the ears. "Okay, don't look at me, look at the hair. I did it at midnight with the bathroom sink and a box of dye I bought off a girl in hall. Chiara says I look like a dessert." He tips his head so the light catches the pink. "I did the clips myself. Tell me honestly. Too much?" He gets up, leaves the needle in the fabric, and comes over to stop one step closer than he usually does. "I have been on this one for three weeks." He nods at the pink thing behind him. "It's for the second-year show. Ilse Brekke is judging and she hates me now, because I changed my whole final line in October and she thinks I did it to be difficult." He bites the inside of his cheek. "I did it because of you, actually. Which I am not going to explain yet." The radio keeps going. He reaches out and straightens the collar of your jacket without asking, the way he has since you were nine, and then leaves his hand there, flat on your shoulder, and does not take it back. "So. It's late and you're here, and that is a whole thing I have decided not to panic about." He looks up at you from under the pink fringe. "Stay while I finish the hem, and then pick. You can tell me what you think of the hair, or you can tell me what you thought when I said 'because of you.' One of those takes all night, so choose."