DISCLAIMER: I don't own Tales of Symphonia.

This fic is courtesy of my sister's randomness. Enjoy.

"No, no, Richter! Not like that!"

Richter turned to face Aster. He had halted in the middle of the road, feet planted, hands on hips. The shorter man was glaring up at his taller friend reprovingly.

"What are you talking about, Aster? Not like what?" Richter had learned a long time ago that it was best to address an issue as soon as possible with Aster. His crazy friend did not handle being ignored well. He would continue to try to invent new and increasingly irritating methods of attracting attention until he got it. This Richter unfortunately knew from experience. Much experience.

"What do you mean, 'like what'? How can you not notice?!" Aster exclaimed. He grabbed Richter's arms, shaking him. "How can you remain ignorant to what you're doing?!"

Richter grabbed Aster's hands, removing them from the vice grip they had on his upper arms. He backed away from the blonde. "What are you talking about?"

"Your hair-flipping, Richter!" Aster cried, throwing up his arms and nearly backhanding a passerby. "It's so...lacklustre!"

Richter blinked. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Closed it. Shook his head. "Aster, I thought I told you to stay away from caffeine. You know it affects you badly every time you have it."

"I didn't have anything with caffeine in it today! Anyways, stop trying to divert my attention! Your hair-flipping is severely lacking in substance!" Aster countered. "It's way too quick and unemotional! It goes so fast I can barely see it!"

"I don't flip my hair." Richter protested. He absolutely did not flip his hair. Hair-flipping was unmanly; not to say that he was the epitome of masculinity, but he did take some pride in his manliness.

"Yes you do! See! You did it again!" Aster pointed accusingly at Richter's face.

"I did not!"

"You did too! I just saw you do it!" Aster grabbed a nearby passerby. "Hey, excuse me! You just saw this man flip his hair, didn't you?" The girl looked rather weirded-out, but nodded nonetheless. Aster released her, grinning smugly at his friend. "Told you!"

"Well, even if I do flip my hair, which I'm not saying I do, what are you trying to say about it?" Richter asked, arms crossed.

"I'm saying that your hair-flipping needs..." Aster mimed a hair-flip. Richter swore he saw sparkles. "Pizzazz."

"Pi—what?" Richter raised a sceptical eyebrow.

"Pizzazz. Your hair-flipping needs life, colour, sparkles." Okay, now Richter was sure that he had seen sparkles.

"Aster, hair-flipping doesn't need 'pizzazz'" Richter made imaginary quotes around the word pizzazz. "It's just an action. It's done and then it's over with. No one's going to notice if you add 'pizzazz' to your hair-flipping."

Aster shook his head, tsking. "Richter, Richter, Richter. You poor man, you've been lied to all these years. Pizzazz is vitally important in anything you do in life. Allow me to demonstrate." Aster walked next to two women who had stopped at the side of the road to chat. He casually leaned his weight back on one leg and flipped his hair. Multi-coloured sparkles flew out from his hair, landing onto the unsuspecting women. They both turned to Aster, giving him smiles.

Richter stared unbelievingly at Aster. Had he really just seen that? What the hell had just happened?!

Aster walked back over to him, looking satisfied.

Richter smacked his forehead with his hand. He was never going to win this, was he?

Richter's mentioned that Aster had a few screws missing from his head, but he never mentioned how many screws exactly were missing.

I would hazard a guess and say a lot.

Richter's so used to flipping his hair that it's become a reflex for him. He doesn't even notice that he does it.