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The hallway is lit a brilliant, synthesised white, the colour, or rather lack thereof, reflecting off of almost every other visible surface. Kaede resolves to keep her eyes focused on refreshingly dark tiles, the pure whites bleaching her surroundings far too searing to her blown pupils despite weeks having passed with her inhabiting the same suffocating space.
The day itself is coloured far brighter than most others, however, because unlike most dulled afternoons, there’s purpose skittering in the shuffling of her steps. There’s only so many holes cocooned away from the rest of the ward to duck into, and at this point Kaede can say with certainty that she’d uncovered them all. Lost in thought, she almost passes by her likeliest destination all together.
Her shoes give a last, elongated squeak as she skids to halt in front of the washing room. Peeling in through the door, her eyes immediately flit about in their purposeful search, and, sure as the uncertainty crackling away at her nerves, Shirogane sits slumped against the wall in the corner of the dank room, hands threading twine through cloth lazily, re-stitching whatever torn garment she’d gotten ahold of. Ever-present, her camera lies gently tucked into her side.
A small window - little more than a flimsy panel of glass - is set in the wall opposite that which Shirogane reclines against, allowing the slightest ray of sunshine to beam through, blinking against the glass lenses Shirogane views the world through. It’s a cold sight, really; Shirogane huddled up into the shadows, tucked away from an brutally unyielding reality. It’s not an uncommon one though, Kaede’s certain.
They don’t speak to each other. (They don’t really speak at all.) They don’t communicate. (Not really; not beyond the needle-tipped touch of fidgeting fingers and elbows hooked too far out brushing as they pass one another in the corridors.) Not since the day Shirogane’d been desperate enough for a secluded space beyond ill-lit corners that she’d wandered beyond the boundaries of the usual sliding doors that encased her, effectively trespassing into Kaede’s own. She doesn’t really mind, though. Shirogane’s unapologetically icy presence was something new, and god knows any change in her world is appreciated. It didn’t mean anything. Not really, she tells herself. Two strangers sharing a bench isn’t exactly a sure sign of intimacy. And when her mind whispers of her tongues sudden laxity then, of Shirogane’s odd almost-apology for her supposedly unapologetic chill’s bite, of Shirogane’s cold, cold hand grasping at her own, of a sense of realism a doll reanimated had no right to feel, she brushes it off as nothing at all. Strangers make small talk from time to time. (Strangers don’t reach out for the most miniscule of touches whilst slipping passed one another, she doesn’t acknowledge.)
“Hey, Shirogane-san. You’re looking…well,” Kaede says, injecting as much cheer into the words as she possibly can, despite faltering at the very last second at the sight of Shirogane’s eyes - finally flitting up to meet Kaede’s own - glassy, and misted by sleep deprivation. She looks as if someone’d drained the very last lingering droplets of life from her body, and Kaede isn’t entirely sure why she even cares enough for her voice to hitch and stutter. Maybe it’s that little voice crooning in her ear, tempting her to be a good person, but she isn’t quite sure how to be a person at all when the weight of a life stitched from clustered plot conveniences is the only she’s left with any clarity on.
But, her body’s sculpted from flesh and blood, and the heart rattling in her ribcage is a human’s nonetheless. She’s a person, even if her true identity is yet to be known. Kaede grits her teeth and settles her eyes on Shirogane, expectant stare still going unanswered.
“Good to see you, Akamatsu-san,” Shirogane finally chokes out. Her hand’s dutiful weaving finally brought to a halt, she moves to stand up on unsteady legs, numbed by time spent lounging on the floor. “Can I help you with anything?”
Kaede clears her throat, face cracking into a seemingly natural smile half-fuelled by determination without even giving it any thought. “Yes, actually. I have a favour to ask.” Shirogane nods, the silent gesture urging her to go on. “I want you to cut my hair.”
Kaede waits. Shirogane’s lips purse. Kaede nearly giggles at the irony of asking someone who’d likely stitched Kaede’s design together herself to ruin it. Despite the near poetic irony of it all, Kaede presses on. “Please,” she lilts in a softer tone, a surprising amount of vulnerability she herself hadn’t expected lacing throughout her dimmed tone.
“Okay,” Shirogane breathes, slipping a rare, usually restricted, pair of stainless steel scissors from her out of her sewing kit. “I plainly can’t say that this is my something that I’m familiar with, but is there a, uh, specific style you want?”
It’s sweet how she fumbles, trying so desperately to be something she’s not, to be anything at all. She’s trying, but her fingers still slip to her camera, trailing across the lens cap. No matter how hard Shirogane tries, she’d always resort to seeing the world through a viewpoint not truly hers, always prefer film over skin. “Nothing in particular. I just want it to look… different.” The soft upturn of her lips tightens slightly.
“Okay,” Shirogane says, face setting into a grim mask. Kaede pulls up an emptied basket from the corner, then goes about settling atop the makeshift stool. She faces the door, not once glancing behind her to see whether or not Shirogane is following. Her eyes catch on the surveillance camera in the corner closest to the door, and her forehead furrows in response to the unwanted reminder that her movements remain filmed. Kaede can’t help but prefer Shirogane’s mildly more restricted capturing of light, but at the same time she’s certain that it must be infuriating having gone from knowing every detail that’s to be filmed, to only being able to catch the lingering light left by unknown events with the lens of a camera older than the hands carrying it.
The steady fingers of an experienced seamstress drop to her shoulders, an unsteady voice accompanying them. “Are you sure don’t want a sheet or something to cover your torso with so the hair doesn’t stick to your clothes?”
“No,” Kaede shakes her head, and her thoughts off along with it. “It’s alright. I just want this done, please.”
Shirogane doesn’t reply, not by way of words, at least. There’s a flickering pull at Kaede’s hair, near intangible. The sound of metal layer upon metal layer flitting up against another whistles passed her ear. Kaede barely registers the scatter of fine gold strands, only acknowledging their fluttering descent as they cling to her shirt. She can’t really bring herself to care too much about the worsening appearance of her shirt either, because the instant sense of weightlessness each well-measured snip brings. Kaede grins, knowing that there’s more reason than the most superficial behind her asking Shirogane - Kaede’s trust in her precise hand definitely one of them.
There’s a moment where Shirogane shifts to stand in front of Kaede, adjusting her position for ease of access, then plucking out the neat scattering of wire clips keeping her fringe in position. Kaede shuts her eyes, wondering if doing so is the best choice whilst Shirogane hovers mere centimetres away with a sharp object in relative closeness to her throat. Kaede gulps down her paranoia, blatant distrust clearly not leading her anywhere in this sort of situation.
Shirogane’s fingertips skitter across Kaede’s nape fleetingly, the brief contact nearly as cold as the tempered metal of the blades snipping at the overhang of pale locks. She’s nearly finished, the piling heaps of hair say as much, as does the slowing of Shirogane’s cuts. And then, with delicately placed fingers, she gives Kaede’s hair a lingering ruffle, shaking the almost unnoticeably uneven strands into place. As quick and fleeting as her previous touch, Shirogane removes herself away from the boundaries of Kaede’s personal space as soon as possible.
“I’m afraid that I don’t have a mirror for you to check,” Shirogane says, handing Kaede a dented chrome glasses case in which she can just barely make out her reflection in.
Her hair’s short, to the point that it hardly skims passed her neck. Without the bent metal clips hooking her fringe into position, it falls loosely into her face, allowing her the freedom to part it away into whichever direction she pleases. Most noticeably, however, much to her dismay and frustration, is the remaining tuft of hair sticking up stubbornly, holding more commercial value than hair in itself had any right to.
Watching Kaede’s curiously excited eyes harden and her hand flying up to pluck at the unyielding hair tuft poking upwards, Shirogane shuffles somewhere behind her, rummaging through her pockets. If Shirogane understands anything about her, Kaede’s sure it’s desperately trying to be something she isn’t anymore, perhaps never even had been.
Lightly, almost apologetically, Shirogane pins down a fictional character’s iconic hair tuft with a previously discarded clip. Kaede turns to face her, smile wide and eyes grateful.
“Thank you,” Kaede chirps, getting up to dust off the scattered hair from her pants.
Shirogane nods, and with a voice strained and tired despite not often being used says, “No problem.”
Kaede lets her lie slip, because sometimes it’s best to, really. That begrudging acceptance comes naturally at this point. “Should we notify one of the cleaners?”
“I will,” Shirogane says, already packing away her sewing kit and discarded project, slings her camera over her arm, and then slumps into her corner from before Kaede’s broken the dank silence of the washing room.
Kaede hums in response, dusts off the emptied basket used as her temporary stool, sets it back into its original position, and finally, turns to face Shirogane once more. “Really, thank you,” is breathed into Shirogane’s ear before Kaede leaves a lasting peck on her cheek.
Shirogane doesn’t ask what exactly she’s thanking her for; the haircut, or her cutting apart a detail she herself had written out. Kaede offers no unasked answer, hoping that by now it’d become clear enough.
Without another word, Kaede slips out of the door, leaving Shirogane with the half-grasped promise of her clipped thanks, and a pool of flaxen hair clippings to catch whatever dulled sunlight may leak into a room otherwise shrouded in shaded doubt.