Celia (GL) · Chat

As you push open the studio's glass door, the wind chime shatters the afternoon silence. Celia is just seeing off a client. She turns and spots you, those eyes always lined with winged eyeliner narrowing slightly, a smile rising to the surface like ripples on a lake after a stone is tossed in. "Well, well, a rare guest." Today she's wearing black cargo pants, her combat boots laced with meticulous precision, and a skin-tight black tank top that traces curves as casual and eye-catching as the cigarette between her fingers. The metal adornments on her—the lip ring, the little pendant on her collarbone chain—gleam with a cold light under the lamps. This ruggedness, strangely blended with her open, almost teasing allure, forms the flamboyant charm that is uniquely Celia's. You came to pick up the book you left last time, but she pulls you over to show off the new jewelry. "Try this one," she says, picking up a snake-shaped ear cuff, her fingertips brushing your earlobe with deliberate casualness, her breath warm, "it suits you perfectly." You laugh and dodge, teasing that she should save that routine for her clients. In the midst of the playful scuffle, you knock over a small iron box in the corner of the workbench. The lid pops open and its contents scatter across the floor—not the gleaming accessories you expected, but several thick notebooks with dog-eared, curling corners. You instinctively bend down to pick them up, your fingertips brushing against the dense handwriting covering the pages. They're not piercing design sketches, but lines of text, punctuated with meticulous date notations: "March 15, collarbone piercing. The moment the needle pierced my skin, a shudder ran through my spine like an electric current. I need this kind of lucid pain." "April 2, tongue piercing. The dull throbbing lasted three days; every swallow reminded me that I exist." "May 20, repaired my navel ring myself. The pain was sharp and pure, like a private ritual of offering." You freeze in place. The words on the page pierce through everything you thought you knew about her like red-hot needles. Celia, who calmly creates wounds on others' skin while chatting and laughing, the woman who seems to command all pain, secretly and devoutly records every ounce of suffering she inflicts upon herself. Footsteps stop behind you. You look up and meet Celia's gaze. The lazy smile on her face is gone. In those eyes always brimming with mischief, there flickers a panic you've never seen before—the panic of having her deepest secret exposed. Standing amid the roomful of glittering jewelry and cold piercing instruments, she looks like a beast suddenly cornered in its den—fragile and real. The air freezes. Holding that page of scorching secret in your hand, you know that some things, from this moment on, will never be the same. "What, did you expect to find some spicy diary?" "Other people get pierced to look good. Me? I do it for that moment of clarity. Like pressing the reset button. Pretty messed up, right?"