Heya, Baldy!

“That’d look nice…” She has the kind of face for anything, really, but she’d never believe him if he said it. Those freckled cheeks would look good no matter what. He hands her back the hair ties that he’d slipped around his wrist, should she want them.

He knows the look: when she is about to overflow with something. When she has spent so long not saying something that it has built up and bubbled over, and her cheeks turn red with the shame of feeling something.

“H–” He can barely grapple with the swooning sensation he feels when she asks, can barely get a word out, before she clonks their heads together. Though it doesn’t hurt, though it was a cute gesture, he decides to be dramatic and holds his hands to his forehead and staggers away. “Ow! S’that how ya ask such an important question!?” It is, because it’s her, and maybe he wouldn’t want it some other way. Any other way wouldn’t be his Hiyori.

He frowns and rubs at his forehead for a second, but then he grins.

“I’d like that,” he says. He approaches her again, on his knees before her where she sits, and he places his hands on her slim hips. “I’d love that.” He bites his lip, then, looking to the side, playing with the soft fabric of her sweatshirt while he decides how to say it. “Would…would ya come back? With me?”

--- He breaks the terrible tension that nauseates her with tell-tale dramatics, and she loves him for it. It makes things a little easier, to see him acting silly, even though he acknowledges how important this moment had been. Between the lines; how much courage it had taken for her to even propose it. 

      She watches him with big brown eyes, waiting for her answer, but his manner gives it away. The wide, happy grin. Had he been waiting for her to ask him? She supposes that would not be too strange, for him to let her lead. Especially since she had brushed off any attempt at reconciling this one point of friction in their relationship. He had ceased to try to even bring it up. Maybe it’s orchestrated. He knows her well enough. He could have just let her simmer in her stubbornness until the situation became too much to bear for both of them. Like it was her decision all along.

       When he returns to her she finds something to fiddle with in his tie as it drapes down in front of her. She bundles up the fabric, rolls it, scrunches it. Is this one she had given him? It was soft and silky.. It didn’t crease as she played with it. The hands on her hips ground her firmly in reality. They’re really doing this..?

“I ain’t ruinin’ it! God…” How easily they slip back into their old ways. It feels no different, now, to bicker, because Shinji has come to realize that the affection was always there. His snark, his little pranks, they formed a protective shell around something soft and sweet. 

He combs it through again once the second section is trimmed. Bending down, with a keen eye, he snips at anything he might have left behind.

“Want me t’do yer fringe?” he asks casually, though he listens. Their conversation always seems to be a blend of this. The serious kind of talk that changes their lives, combined with simple things. Do ya want sugar in yer coffee? I’m in love with you. Shit like that.

“Yer gettin’ ahead a’ yerself,” he gently accuses. “Already yer imaginin’ me gettin’ tired of ya.” He kisses the top of her head. “Done.” He slips the scissors into his belt just in case she does indeed want her bangs trimmed, then rounds her, leaning down with his hands on her shoulders, their foreheads pressed together. “I already can’t get rid of ya, Hiyori,” he says. “’cause I don’t wanna, okay? N’ ya know I ain’t one for gettin’ married, but that don’t mean it’s not somethin’ permanent.” He leaves a fear unspoken: that maybe one day she’ll tire of him, instead. 

--- “I dunno.. Maybe I’ll grow it out.” Maybe she’ll grow all her hair out after this. Try for that long, pretty hair all the good-looking girls have. Maybe if she frames her face just so it won’t look as round and dumpling-like.. She makes no move to put her pigtails back in. He likes when her hair is down, right? 

     If she is imagining his getting tired of her it is only because it is inevitable. How many first loves has he had, exactly? Doesn’t he famously get bored easily? To be fair to Shinji, though, she doesn’t think their feelings for one another can be compared to anything like that, but still she retains some of that fearfulness. But you will, she thinks, you’ll want to get rid of me, you just don’t know it yet. She does not counter his words with her thoughts, choosing not to share them for once. She’s accepted that future, and though she has sunk her little claws into him pretty deep, determined not to let go without at least a little bit of fight, she’ll probably expel him at her own leisure, just to protect against those feelings of abandonment.

      It is easy to think about this future when she is alone in her bed in the warehouse during the week. And especially so when he cannot make it on the weekend, and one week stretches to two, sometimes three. Sometimes she asks herself the question, too. Does she want this to be permanent? She’d always come to the same conclusion; not like this.

He listens as he straightens out her hair, getting the knots out the best he can. He wets the comb in the sink and pulls it through so he can cut it evenly. He gets lost as he wets it down, combing through the wheaty blonde, enjoying the thickness, the texture. Her hair is nothing like his. Hers is stubborn and full. He puts the comb down and whips out the scissors, pulling her hair through two fingers until near the ends, then begins to carefully snip.

“Hm…” He knows, really, that she’s afraid. It’s not like, in the way people usually mean it, he’s not afraid, too. Getting married, shit like that, he’s just never imagined himself doing. But there’s no version of commitment, not for him and Hiyori, that looks anything like tradition. They live in two separate worlds. Were it up to him, maybe they wouldn’t. But that still doesn’t make them any less unique.

He lets the scraps of her hair fall to the floor and shakes the rest loose, then moves on to another section.

“What scares ya about it? Is a life with me really so intimidiatin’?” He chuckles, trying to keep the conversation from circling some sort of drain. Far be it from him to make Hiyori upset when there are scissors around. Snip. Snip. He almost cuts his finger, and curses. “…Almost done.”

--- Maybe she imagines it. The way her head feels so much lighter with every snip of the scissors. It’s not like he is cutting off a ton of her hair.. Definitely not enough to feel like there’s several pounds of weight gone there. Maybe it’s the conversation, then. Their agreement on this matter, even if for different reasons. “Boo, don’t flatter yerself!” She counters, momentarily shaken from her melancholic state. “Ya couldn’t intimidate me, baldy!” They both know that’s not strictly true. He’d made her fluster and blush more times than she can name, but she doesn’t think that counts ! “And ya better not ruin my hair or bleed on me!” She adds, when he cusses.

      She settles back into her chair a bit more, slumping some after having been activated by Shinji’s joke. She wants to give him a serious answer, too. An explanation. She wanted to get married when she was younger. She wanted to get the nice husband { someone Hikifune would approve of }, and a nice place to live with a nice garden and maybe a nice cat. But then.. All kinds of things started happening, and she began thinking that maybe having all of those things was just setting her up for heartbreak again. Having things meant you could easily lose them.

--- "Do I?" She asks, the question on whether this is because he's done something stupid and therefore she needs new, sturdy weapons is already on her tongue, but he is ahead of her with that joke { though a slightly different variation of it }.

She grins at him despite of it. The box is clutched against her little frame as he takes her face into his hands, squishing her chubby, freckled cheeks. Her lips purse. The question is rhetoric, she thinks, but even if it hadn't been, she probably wouldn't even know the answer. "Too long." She jabs, because that comes so much easier than the sappy drivel she actually wants to verbalize, deep from within her tiny, quickly-beating heart.

--- "Only a slice?" She complains "Stingy, baldy ! Where's the rest?!" In the kitchen, no doubt. Smells like Kensei's doing. She still greedily takes the plate, and starts to break off pieces to stuff into her mouth, getting her fingers all sticky.

When presented with an actual gift, though, she licks her fingers clean of frosting { as clean as they can be }, and wipes them off on her trackpants. She offers Shinji a snaggletoothed grin. "Ya really providin' me with th'instruments of yer own demise, huh?" She joked. But.. The flipflops he got her were very nice. Durable looking. She could definitely see herself flinging one or two at his head for being a dumbass in the future.. For now though, he was safe. It was her birthday after all.

He reaches up, pinching at one of the ties that keep her hair up. Carefully, he pulls at it so as not to hurt her, freeing her from the pigtails, one after the other. He snorts, because her hair’s all bent from the pressure, all wild and puffy. He runs his fingers through it.

“Sit down, c’mon…” he says softly, leading her to a chair. He digs through the drawers for some scissors and a comb. “Kinda a silly thing, ain’t it? Everyone on TV and in movies talkin’ about commitment. Like we either gotta feel afraid of it, or we gotta crave it. Sometimes…” He lifts the scissors out of the drawer and clips them open and closed, as if he has to make sure they work. “Ya just feel a way about someone. Right?”

--- Her eyes close when his fingers run through her hair. His fingers feel like no other. They make her want to drop the subject entirely. Just have him play with her hair and give her a haircut. Play hairdresser like they were kids.. But he continues the conversation, and she chews the inside of her lip, opening her eyes but keeping them trained on the floor as she is guided into a chair. She watched her feet swinging, not quite reaching the floor as she worked up the courage to reply.

@sarugakisan​ : But is it close enough? She doesn’t think so. His skinny arms wrapped around her soothe that little, angry fire in her core. She softens, nuzzling against his chest and breathing him in. “’m serious..” She insists petulantly. It’d be something if he truly would stay for once..

“Ain’t we talked about this?” he asks, quiet, gentle as he can. He doesn’t want to have the same fight they always seem to fall into. Sometimes he wonders if she wants the conflict, to get him to say ‘no’ once and for all, so she’ll have an excuse to dump him and have it not hurt anymore. He can’t really blame her. “I’m here all weekend, n’ I got lotsa plans for the two of us.” He hopes the cheery shift in tone will get them off the hook. He loosens his grip on her so that he can look at her face. “You still got that cute lil’ swimsuit? It’s a perfect day for the beach…”

--- They have talked. They keep talking. Again and again and again and again. Round and round. They always end up in the same place. She gets tired of being angry. Sometimes she even wants to kick him out in those moments. even though she wanted the exact opposite. Wasn’t that obvious enough? She wanted him to stay. She even { though she would never admit this } had entertained the thought of getting over herself and going to live with him.

It looked a lot worse than he had expected. YEAH, he had been prepared for it to look absolutely terrible - but somehow it looked even worse than that. His eyes were still red and sore from the crying, and he was dealing with a thundering headache. He had emerged from the bathroom, and he knew he looked just as much of a mess as he felt. The attempt to pull himself together so that he wouldn’t appear that broken in front of the others... It wasn’t completely successful. His new haircut definitely wasn’t helping. Some of the chopped off strands were still sticking to his uniform, and the fresh cut in his shoulder was accenting it all with a brighter red. He didn’t want to be a MESS. He didn’t want any of them to see that he was broken. Especially not Hiyori. He had to be strong for her.

    He had hoped the others would be asleep, so that he could just.. Lay down and not have to talk to anyone. A few hours of sleep would maybe help reduce the proof of the heavy crying he had been doing. Alas - Hiyori was still awake. She was staring at him, and? Could he blame her? It almost made him feel a little better, to know that she was most likely staring at him because of his ruined hair, rather than with BLAME. Surely she WOULD eventually look at him like that? She had to know that this was all his fault. The hair was just a temporary distraction.

    A skinny hand pushed through the choppy haircut, as if he wasn’t sure what she was referring to. He hadn’t had short hair for... Hundreds of years. It was VERY strange. It somehow made his head feel lighter ( but that was kind of nullified by the weight on his shoulders ). Shinji’s hair had been one of his trademarks. He had grown it out and felt like it made him look better. Rather than being the guy with the big teeth, he had been the guy with the beautiful golden hair. Yeah, he had been proud of it, and on several occasions he had bragged. It had been soft and shiny. Like actual gold. Now it was just a choppy MESS. A little greasy too. It was a sorry sight. At least Shinji couldn’t feel that lingering touch in his hair anymore. THAT was what he had wanted to get rid of, and also... In the aftermath, he truly felt like he didn’t deserve to wear that beautiful hair anymore.

    He had almost expected ( or maybe, rather, hoped ) that Hiyori would just laugh at him for his new, incredibly ugly haircut. She didn’t laugh though. She just looked at him with horror, while she asked him what he had done. Shinji really wasn’t... Ready to talk to anyone. He rubbed the back of his head to buy himself some time. He obviously couldn’t talk to her about WHY he had needed to cut his hair. He didn’t want to talk about it either. Didn’t want to talk to anyone. Not yet. But SHE didn’t need any more troubles. He didn’t want to worry her. She was the one person he had ALWAYS wanted to protect.

    ❝ Huh, ya don’t like it? ❞ Shinji cracked a gin. It hurt. It hurt and his chest felt tight. ❝ I’m kiddin’. I know it looks like shit. I’mma get Rose ‘ta fix it. Turns out I... ❞ SHIT. Talking was harder than he thought. His voice was trembling, and he knew she would notice. He would never cry in front of her! She didn’t need to see that. He swallowed and forced his grin to widen. ❝ I’m real bad at cuttin’ hair. I was thinkin’ - new life, new hairstyle, ya know? ❞ Keeping the grin was so painful he thought he’d have another breakdown. Hands were shaking just slightly, and he had noticed just how thick his voice had gotten while he struggled to hold back another crying-fit that was pushing itself onto him. Not in front of her. Never in front of her.

--- His hair had been the first thing she had noticed, but now, looking closer, there were so many things wrong here. It struck her little, mistreated heart to see Shinji like this. He had been crying { and yeah, maybe she had heard the muffled sobs coming from the bathroom, but somehow, when she had not seen the proof of it, she could pretend it hadn’t happened }. He was bleeding. She looked even more bewildered now that she let her eyes survey the whole of him. He looked.. Assaulted. Hiyori swore to herself that she would make those traitors pay for what they had done to them; to Shinji.. A man that had always been the epitome of carefree, sophisticated leadership to her. He could be lazy, and a pain in the ass, and he certainly wasn’t perfect, but.. He was true and sharp and everything always seemed to glide off him like water off a duck. Hiyori could not say the same about herself. Betrayal and anger clung to her like static. But here Shinji was now.. Obviously affected. It shook her to her core to see him like this, and the traitors.. Well, they had to pay.

      He joked.. Of course he did. But it fell flat. New life, new hairstyle? New life?? She knows that they should accept that they cannot go back, but.. Why does it coming from his mouth sound so definitive. Like secretly the two of them would have hatched a plan to make it all better, but now that has been called off and they find themselves simply throwing in the towel. She cannot have him give up. Not him. He’s not allowed to break down, she thinks selfishly. Because.. She needs him. How is she expected to be strong if he can’t keep it together? 

      Her lower lip juts out and her small, freckled face pinches into a scowl. She has to hold on to that fire in her belly; that anger. Because if she doesn’t, other emotions will take hold of her, and she’ll be damned if she ends up a bawling mess, too. But.. Her lip is trembling too, when she hears the quiver in his voice. To find Shinji so broken breaks something in her, too. She had thought she was already in enough tiny little pieces on the inside, nothing left to still be shattered, but perhaps it won’t stop until she is ground to dust.. It is painful every time. Hikifune.. Kisuke.. .....Shinji. Why did she have to get attached to begin with? All it did was set her up for heartbreak.

“I know it’s cold out, but these shoes complete the look. I reserve the right t’ complain about my feet bein’ cold. N’ yer one to talk, Miss Flip Flops.”

@sarugakisan​