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“If you’d like--” He clears his throat and coughs. Easier said than done to approach someone with a glare like that.
“I could...get rid of it for you. The split ends.” It isn’t like he hasn’t seen them before. And by that he meant Riri, whose windblown, subtle waves would awkwardly peel on themselves at the tips. The difference was that she never noticed, let alone complained. It was always him who’d mention it, usually in the morning when neither of them were in their usual hyperdrive to get the daily activities done.
Minami quirked an elegant eyebrow and he could feel her eyes crawling up from his feet to the top of his head in scrutiny. In an instant the tachi felt ashamed for being in such dirt-ridden, tattered clothes from the battle they’d ended moments earlier, especially compared to how her own clothing was far less affected by their enemy encounter.
Just when he thought she would turn him down, she suddenly raised her chin sharply and nodded.
“Alright. We’ll be having dinner over at your place anyway--” Her index finger with its glossy, manicured nail twirled a strand of hair away from her ear.
“--so just get what you need to do done. But don’t take too long.” She starts to walk past him, her posture ever indomitable.
“I heard Kae’s getting better with Nagasone’s lessons. ”
He heard about Kuga Minami first from Riri.
Five years her junior and attended the same secondary school. Good marks for schoolwork, had an odd fixation for her berries in the academy greenhouse, and had the student body split almost completely in half by those who were annoyed by her and those who were terrified of her.
Besides her reputation--and he was unsure of how deserved it was--of being a Class-A bitch, she was still a remarkable person. Her sharp tongue did hold truth in its ridicule of the person or situation, and she was always among the first--if not THE first--to act when something was off. Despite the perfectly spread, faded camellia powder that highlighted her eyelids and that she slipped out a portable round compact from her pocket almost every half hour, she waited for no one.
“Something off?” Riri blinked when he rose to his feet to check the mirror that hung from the wall. She was used to him just thanking her and taking off again to resume whatever he had left to do for the day, so to see him linger--especially in front of a mirror--was an oddity.
“...N-nothing.” Ookanehira coughed while straightening his collar a little too roughly and turning towards the door. Of course this was about how he felt intimidated from seeing Minami sitting in perfect seiza in the reception room while he was on his way to repairs. It was kind of annoying to think that he was this worried about being presentable in front of someone he barely knew, but for some reason he felt like all hell would break loose if he didn’t.
His saniwa tilted her head to the side just as he slid the door open, the lacquer toolbox sitting beside her knees with its lid propped open.
“Don’t worry about her too much. She’s not as scary as you think.”
His shoulders stiffened. What was it about every woman he’d met so far being able to read his mind?!
“Of course not--”
He shuts the door abruptly, flustered at the thought that he could picture her sweet smile at his back.
He gives her time to change into one of Riri’s spare kimono as he finds the scissors in the master bathroom. He was about to utter that she didn’t need to, but Minami was intent enough on doing so by how swiftly she’d asked where she could find Rinne’s spare clothes. Maybe it was just too personal of a request, but the way she looked at him so dead straight in the eyes caused him to stutter its location on the third floor. And, as if sensing his imminent worry on the matter, she replied that it would be washed and sent back as soon as possible, while leaving promptly for the door to the hallway.
Luckily he doesn’t have to wait too long. The braid that adorned her head like a crown, along with one her less massive hairpins that she actually wore had been removed.
Ookanehira gulps a little when he realizes that her hair dangled too low for him to possibly cut it precisely without squatting in an uncomfortable position. Naturally that meant inconveniencing her, by making her stand and all instead of relaxing by sitting.
The words are caught in his throat and he feels the cold sweat forming at the back of his neck the more he stares at the length of golden hair. He wanted to get it right so bad. But he didn’t want to suggest something that could blow his chance either. Riri’s hair wasn’t this long, and he’d never needed to offer anything like this to Juzumaru, whose river of ebony and silvery white seemed inhumanly perfect whenever he saw it.
“...Ah, right.”
As if by some act of a god the chair shifted backwards a few inches, and she rose to her feet, shaking her head slightly in both directions to let her hair sway.
“This happens a lot, no worries.” Minami waved her hand dismissively while fixating herself on the sink’s large mirror, her movements as if by routine.
“...”
Should he thank her? For saving his worried ass from stuttering and possibly ruining this somehow. Just somehow, screwing it up and letting it fall to pieces.
His slacked jaw eventually closes when he hears the two halves of the scissors start to snip off the unsightly ends, feeling his mind revert to a state of relative ease.
“So do you like it here?”
She asks suddenly, while he’s near the middle of her hair, one side trimmed and the other still untrimmed.
He blinks at how casual the question is considering all the nerve-wracking preparations she’d caused him to undergo--whether it was intentional or not.
“...Yes.” Ookanehira knows his surprise shouldn’t keep him from answering for too long, or else he knew she’d prompt the question again in with more of an annoyed edge in her voice, like she did when Yamanbagiri denied being hungry during their onigiri break earlier.
“Probably ‘cause of Riri, huh.” Instead her tone is different. Playful. And somehow he just can’t bring himself to like that , either. She said it in a way that, had they been facing one another while sitting on a table, Minami would have leaned a bit forward while intertwining her fingers and letting her elbows drag on the surface, matched with an uncomfortably knowing smile.
“...Yes--” He clears his throat. The snipped-off ends look like
“She makes me feel useful.” Probably more of an honest answer than he planned, but again. He didn’t want to let her wait on an answer for too long.
“...I guess that’s the sign of a good master.” She notes, and would’ve nodded had she not been compelled to stay still.
“Does she let you do this often?”
“Um...now and then.” His saniwa was someone who could tread the fields tirelessly throughout the afternoon and never denied a rematch during their sparring sessions; something as minute as hair in need of trimming was never her priority. And he was completely fine with having to bring it up himself, because he felt so damn good doing it--and accomplished when finishing it.
“Figures.” Minami snorts and rolls her eyes. Years may have passed since their days at school, but she not so-subconsciously still grouped the older girl as part of the athlete’s clique.
“It’s always just down or in braids, right.”
The snipped-off ends looked like wisps of brittle rope scattered on the floor around her feet.
“She likes it that way…” He’d learned that when it came to his aruji, the simpler the better.
“You could always do more with it.” It isn’t hard to tell how enchanted he was with cutting hair. Minami herself hadn’t been to a salon since she left her hometown of Tokyo to join the war effort, and while her former classmate’s bathroom lacked atmosphere (though the black marble was a nice touch), it was the closest she’s experienced by far.
“I guess I could…” The redhead mutters as he fetches the hairbrush and lets it glide through her newly-treated locks.
“But only if she wants it.”
(She thinks that the fact that he puts consent first means he’s good boyfriend material).
“...Well.” Minami slyly let her gaze shift to the side, one eye at a time, purposely letting her coming proposal hang long enough for him to grab onto.
“If it’s something you know she likes, you’d know she wouldn’t mind.”
The implication is lost on the prideful tachi as he eyes her to the side of her head, trying to catch her expression on the mirror for a clue on what she could’ve possibly meant.
Of course he doesn’t get it.
“Wanna try fixing my hair the way I always do it?” Her index finger points at the top of her head. Although she knew that for the sake of being practical, it would always be better to have it in a taut ponytail, Minami couldn’t bring herself to not show off her long blonde tresses, and she secretly relished the idea of having it smack against the enemy’s sorry-ass faces in the heat of battle.
Ookanehira’s silvery-eyes slowly grow in size as he realizes it, and the picture he has of Rinne with her hair half-up in a braid ultimately ends all prior worries he originally had about the matter.
“Yosh--! I’ll do my best.”
“But first.” The fabric of her sleeves relaxes as she lets her arms stretch lazily to the side.
“Get me that chair.”