Of Choice in University

"You're lying!" Flora proclaimed.

"I most certainly am not," huffed Luke, "Tell her, Professor! Tell her about how you used to have really puffy hair when you were younger."

Layton chuckled at this most unusual of arguments that the two children were having, taking a sip of his tea before answering, "Luke is quite correct, my dear. During my teenage years I did indeed have quite the afro. It was… more acceptable in those days to have one than it is now."

"See? I told you so," said Luke, spitting his tongue out.

"A gentleman does not taunt a lady, Luke," Layton scolded.

"Sorry…" mumbled Luke, head drooping.

"I can't imagine you with hair like that," Flora commented, staring at his head, "Really, it's hard to think of you sporting anything other than your top hat."

This got another affectionate laugh from Layton.

"As strange as it may sound, an afro wasn't even the strangest style that I've tried over the years," he admitted.

"Really?" asked Luke, his eyes widening in curiosity, "What could possibly be stranger than that?"

"I'm surprised that your father hasn't told you," Layton answered, "You see, by the time I became a student in Gressenheller and first met him, afros were going quite out of style. We were both young men who wanted to make an impression, so our styles reflected what we thought looked best at the time."

"That was when dad started to grow his beard, wasn't it?" Luke checked, taking a seat on the floor beside Layton's armchair. Flora joined him, also interested to see where this story was going.

"Indeed it was," confirmed Layton, "We planned to be the finest looking young men that the university had ever seen. So, your father began to grow his beard and I chose to try out a moustache."

"A moustache?" both children gaped.

Layton looked slightly embarrassed; "Yes. At the time it seemed like a wonderful idea. But looking back, it wasn't really one of my smartest moves."

"So did you grow a big, droopy moustache like Inspector Chelmey?" questioned Luke.

"Don't be silly. He would have had a long, sticky-out one like Don Paolo has," Flora insisted.

"Actually, my own attempt wasn't quite as elaborate as either of those. It was little more than enough to cover my upper lip," Layton admitted.

"Cor, I can just imagine you and dad walking around Gressenheller like that," murmured Luke, vaguely in awe.

"We did think that we were the bee's knees," Layton confirmed.

"So what made you decide to shave it off?" said Flora.

"Well, that particular reason came down to a young lady I was interested in at the time," Layton replied. He didn't feel entirely comfortable talking directly about Claire to the children, so he tended to refer to her using vague terms; "She… didn't like it very much. Without a doubt, she was a very headstrong young woman and she associated moustaches with the sort of high society that she disapproved of."

"And you shaved off your moustache so you could be with her? That's so romantic!" Flora sighed, dreamily.

"Romantic isn't the term that I would use," Layton admitted, "As a matter of fact, I ended up with several cuts above my lip and she thought I looked very silly."

She still kissed me though, he added to himself. Maybe she was laughing, but she kissed me all the same.

"That's horrible!" gasped Luke, "When I get older, I'm going to grow a really huge moustache and no girl's going to tell me to shave it off."

"I'm sure we shall see, my boy," hummed Layton. He had a feeling that as soon as he met the right person, that Luke would be eating those words.

"I think it shows what a gentleman the Professor is that he'd do that to make a lady happy," retorted Flora.

Luke frowned; "In that case, you can go around asking boys to shave off their moustaches and I'll bet they just ignore you."

"That's not fair! Just because you're a rude little boy it doesn't mean that everyone is," she replied.

"I'm not rude, I'm a future gentleman. Even if I don't want to shave off my moustache it doesn't mean I'm not a gentleman. Some girls might like them," Luke insisted.

"You don't even have a moustache yet!" shot Flora, "Professor, please tell him!"

"I think that this is a matter you two would do best to sort out between yourselves," said Layton, getting up to take his empty tea cup back through to the kitchen. Really, doing so was just an excuse to get out of the line of fire.

"See? The Professor thinks that you're being so unreasonable that he won't even give you a response," Flora said to Luke.

"No, he thinks that there's nothing wrong with moustaches, so he doesn't want to stop me from growing one," argued Luke, "He just won't tell you that because a gentleman doesn't correct a lady."

"You'll never be a gentleman if you keep arguing with me like that."

Layton shut the living room door to drown out the noise. Really, the two of them would argue about the smallest of things.

At least he was fortunate in that it had distracted them enough that they hadn't asked to see any photos. He still had a few around the house somewhere, but he'd rather they didn't see the light of day.

Idly taking his wallet out of his pocket, he flipped to the one photo from that time that he really didn't mind – a shot of him standing with Claire, his lip covered in white specks of tissue to stop the bleeding from where he'd shaved the moustache off. They were both smiling. Despite the pain and embarrassment, that had been one of the happiest days of his life.

Putting the wallet away, Layton continued through to the kitchen, merrily beginning to wash the dishes to the tune of Luke and Flora arguing in the distance.

All was well in the Layton household.