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Homura got dressed in the dark. It was easier that way. She knew all of her clothes just to touch them and to see their vague shape in the dimness. They were pretty clothes, if a little less than colourful, and she liked them. But if she kept the lights off in the morning while she dressed, there was less of a chance she’d catch sight of herself in the mirror.
She even kept them off when she settled at the edge of her bed and started the laborious process of braiding her hair. Her fingers moved mechanically, with no mistakes.
The shoes she selected did not have enormously high heels, but they were sharp. She liked the look of heels; and besides, you never knew when you would need to step on someone's foot, or at least put the fear into them. She'd always been underfoot in high school—often unseen and unheard until she actually squeaked upon being stepped upon—so she'd had to find some way to adapt.
After she placed her chosen shoes by the front door, she made tea. Homura liked to make tea more than she actually liked to drink it. The process enabled her to divide up her morning into discrete slices. The kettle took about three minutes to boil. The tea took two minutes to steep and an additional four to cool. Drinking it would take another twenty.
During those twenty-nine minutes, give or take another one, all she had to focus on was what she was doing. Today, while she waited for her tea to cool, she painted her nails a dull purple.
Once it was dried and the last dregs of tea in the cup were cold, she put her small, bare apartment behind her. No breakfast. It had never settled well in her stomach, especially when she had so much stress stirring her up. It was better to take all precautions, really, to avoid any potential distractions or—
She was hardly three steps out of her apartment building before she tripped over the curb. Homura looked around quickly to be sure that no one had seen that; most of the curtains in her building were drawn closed. It was still early enough that the shadows were long. This was by design; she wanted to get through the city without fumbling her way past several thousand people on the sidewalks who had some real sense of purpose and direction in mind.
Everything in this city was so shiny-sleek it hurt to look at, but so large and enveloping that she couldn't look away. She still didn’t know the bus routes well, and the subway was a mystery to her. She didn’t like being closed in with so many people so far underground. Tomorrow, she’d have to start trying to get used to it. She’d moved here for her first real job, and she couldn’t afford to get lost on her way to her first day of work. She’d dedicated tomorrow to exploring the subway system. Today’s expedition was on foot.
They’d told her she would need to steel herself for this work, and for life in the city. They’d said she would need to be hard, merciless, cold. She felt she could manage this, but it never came across. There was steel in her, and she knew it, but it was dull. Her clothing was an attempt to at least look somewhat crisp and cool and calm. Maybe if that was the impression she gave, she’d have something to live up to.
The way her heels clacked on the pavement was reassuring (though it had taken her weeks to get used to them). They left some strong, punctuating mark on the audible atmosphere so that she didn’t lose track of herself as she wound between the clusters of people already out on the city sidewalks. They sounded firm, and strong, and—
A boy she passed laughed and said something to his friend that she didn’t catch. Homura’s hand lifted self-consciously to her right braid as if to reassure herself it was still there. It wasn’t as if she was nursing some memory of having her braids dipped in inkwells. She’d never been bullied, really. She’d just never been noticed at all. All her teachers had ever written on her report cards was ‘too timid,’ ‘lacks initiative,’ ‘should speak up more in class.’ Her marks hadn’t been good, but they hadn’t been bad. Homura strayed about at the middle of any given pack. She'd always instinctively found it safer, but it did mean it was harder to see what was happening around her.
Which was why this job was so important in the first place. It was just a clerk position, right at the bottom of the ladder, but if she could just focus, if she could just grab some attention, she could climb.
Her eyes strayed to a young woman out on the sidewalk a little ways ahead, talking cheerfully with an older woman. They were just stepping out of some business or another. The girl’s hair was beautiful—light pink, like—like—
Cotton candy?
Homura mentally excised ‘competent with the handling of language’ from her resume.
Focus, remember, she told herself. If I can’t focus, I can’t…
It wasn’t just the girl’s hair, either. Her eyes, too, were pink—not a searing bright shade, but something softer, gentler. Like her voice. If someone had described to Homura a young woman with pink hair, Homura would have assigned her a bubbly, energetic voice. But this, this here as she wished the other woman a good day, this was the most calming sound imaginable. It felt like falling asleep.
The clicking of Homura’s heels ceased without her noticing. All of a sudden her rush seemed ridiculous. There was nowhere to be. She was just exploring. Why not explore, say, this street? Or this—she flicked her gaze up to the sign—this hairdressers’ salon? That should count. It wasn’t as if her employers were going to ask her tomorrow where she had been the day before. Besides, maybe a haircut would be oh god the girl was looking at her it was time to get out of here.
“Are you here for a cut?”, the girl asked. Homura hadn’t thought she’d strayed into wet cement, let alone stood there until it dried, but here she was—utterly fixed to the sidewalk. She meant to say, ‘No, thank you,’ and continue briskly on. Instead she just stared. “Oh, but your hair’s so beautiful as it is… It would only be a few inches off, right? It doesn’t need much at all.”
She looked so earnestly concerned that Homura was able to overpower the tremor of the thought, ‘Is my hair really getting so ratty that strangers on the street are offering to cut it?’
“I don’t have an appointment,” she said, because there was no commitment there. It was the sort of phrase that could get you out of anything, if you let it, and if the person you were talking to was willing to let you.
“Oh! You don’t need one—we don’t have anyone in right now. Here, I’ll cut it myself. I'll be careful with it.” Homura fidgeted for a moment on the sidewalk before she followed the other young woman into the shop. It was a clean place; it smelled like hairspray and steam. A girl with blue hair was sweeping up a few curls of hair beneath one of the chairs. The pink-haired girl led Homura to one near the back of the shop and asked her to sit. Homura did so without fuss.
“I’m Madoka, by the way,” her captor said as she selected an apron from the counter and flung it across Homura.
“Ah,” Homura said, distracted by the way Madoka’s fingers brushed against the back of her neck as she fastened the apron. Homura caught herself looking at the hairdresser in the mirror the chair faced. She cast her gaze down at the crumpled expanse of the apron. Her face burned.
It burned even more when Madoka asked, “What’s yours?”, after a humiliatingly long pause.
“I—um. Homura.”
“Ahh…that’s so pretty.”
She ran her fingers across Homura’s bangs as if to get a sense of the weight and thickness of them. She arranged her hair with such gentle, supple movements of her fingers and wrists—like she was handling a living thing. As she lifted Homura’s hair out from beneath the apron, the braids raised goosebumps behind them where they touched Homura’s back.
“You can lean back now,” Madoka said, as if Homura had been sitting rigidly upright in order to be helpful, and not because she was tenser than a bowstring. Homura tilted back stiffly against the chair. She could still feel Madoka’s hands on her hair.
“Do you braid these yourself? They’re really lovely…”
When Madoka moved around in front, Homura twisted the hem of her skirt in both hands, blushed furiously, and shut her eyes. There was something about the way those little feathers of pink hair brushed against the nape of Madoka’s neck—something about how her neck itself curved—and Homura did not want to stare. She already had such a difficult time socializing. She did not need ‘creepy’ to be added to the list along with ‘fumbling’ and ‘awkward.’
“I do,” she said. And now she was thinking about white lace and wedding cake and this was all just grossly inappropriate and she wanted to go back to sleep.
She kept her eyes shut as long as she could. She’d always felt strange getting her hair cut, especially when the hairdresser stood in front and reached over her. Something about having strange women’s breasts right in her face had always felt rude, as if she were intruding on something even though she was a paying customer. Adding this absurd instant attraction to the mix would just cause problems.
But as Madoka unwound her braids—untying the purple ribbons Homura had selected, unsnaring each twist carefully—Homura found that her breathing settled to a more natural rhythm. When the comb slid through Homura’s hair, the knot of tension in her lower back loosened. This wasn’t as bad as she remembered. Really, getting a haircut was a good idea right before starting a new job. Maybe it would give a sense of finality to all her usual (hopefully, former) timidity, and maybe it would make her look more professional.
When fingertips grazed her jaw, lifting her chin slightly, Homura’s eyes popped open.
“Falling asleep, there?”, Madoka asked.
“No,” Homura blurted, but she settled again when she saw Madoka’s expression. She was smiling, not in the manner of someone making fun of another person, but in the manner of someone about to prescribe a healthier sleep schedule or offer a cup of bracing tea.
“Good… I’m going to need your input. I’d hate to give you something you don’t like.”
So Homura kept her eyes open, even as Madoka worked on that most treacherous bit of the hair: the bangs. Homura had never been so relieved to see a woman wearing a shirt that wasn't low-cut. It helped with her concentration. She was able to give out responses as often as she was asked for them—even when the conversation strayed from her hair towards her personal life. Normally in situations like this she would give answers as brief as they were vague, but it was easier here. Maybe it was because Madoka’s approach was so gentle and earnest. Homura lived somewhat in awe of the energetic and the sociable; she respected people like that in the uncomprehending way one respected a magician, but always felt a bit like a volunteer called up to be sawed in half when she had to actually deal with them.
It was different here. Madoka was different.
And I am getting too attached to my hairdresser, Homura thought grimly. She looked at her reflection to take her mind off it. The ends of her hair dropped far out of view, but her bangs were much neater than they’d been; they looked so much more cared-for, and Madoka had hardly touched them at all.
“Do you want me to put them back in?”
Homura looked at Madoka’s reflection and found her holding the two purple ribbons that had tied off Homura’s braids.
“Oh—no, thank you, it’s alright.” She replayed the sentence in her head, looking for the wobble. There wasn’t one. “It’s done already?”
Madoka nodded proudly.
“I didn’t want to take too much off unless that was what you were asking for. So just a trim, for right now. But you can always come back if you want more off.” While she spoke she swept the hair from Homura’s apron, and then divested her of the heavy article itself. “Oh!” Homura looked down and wasn’t sure what to expect; but it was just herself, totally free of spiders or anything of that nature. “Your nail polish goes so well with these—actually you’re just… You’re really well put-together, wow… I have a hard time with it sometimes. Picking what to wear. But everything looks so good on you!” She held the ribbons forward again. “Here, you should keep these.” Homura accepted the ribbons. “If you just go to the counter, Mami will ring you through.”
Homura did so; it was surprisingly inexpensive. Once she’d paid she turned on one sharp heel, fully intending to get out of there before she could have any further thoughts about her hostess’s hair or eyes or hands—”
Madoka drifted into her path.
“You can—you can have this,” she said, pushing a card into Homura’s hands. “Really—don’t hesitate to call.” Homura nodded; she slipped the card and the ribbons into her purse and made her escape.
Madoka continued to watch the bright golden rectangle of the doorway for a long while after Homura disappeared from it.
“Do you think she’s gay?”, she asked absently as Sayaka came to stand beside her.
“Gay or bi or pan—she’s got a raging crush on you.”
“You think so?”
Sayaka snorted and resumed sweeping.
“You do too, or I don’t think you’d’ve given her that.”
Homura stared at the card for a long while after she returned to her apartment that night. Tomoe Salon and Hairstyling, it said. Homura had spent the rest of the day out in the city, trying to remember the quickest routes between important stopping points, and storefronts she liked the look of, and restaurants she thought she should try in case she ever had to take her bosses out for lunch. Despite herself, she’d kept the salon’s location marked firmly on her mental map, circled and blinking red.
But red had not been the colour on her mind as she’d nosed around the city streets and stopped for dinner; red had not been the colour she kept straying back to as she'd climbed the stairs to her apartment and turned the key in the lock.
Pink, like…the strands in the clouds at sunset, like…the most beautiful…
Just thinking it made her squirm with embarrassment. She tossed the card down on her dresser and folded her hands over her face. With her eyes covered like that, she of course did not see that when the card landed on the dresser, the reverse was revealed. A series of ten digits was scratched on the back of it in big, loopy numbers—a series of ten digits that did not match the salon’s telephone number on the front of the card.
She went to have a shower right after, and didn’t give the card another glance or thought.
Homura had a dream in which she visited Tomoe Salon and Hairstyling many times, always asking for just a few inches more to be taken off. Eventually Madoka was in tears about it—crying something about Homura’s hair, it was so beautiful, why did she want it gone—so Homura took the scissors from her and chopped it herself.
It wasn’t exactly a bad dream, but it wasn’t exactly good; she woke up to a dark room, with her alarm clock glaring 3:39 at her. She resolved not to visit the salon over-often, even if she did think it was a shame she wouldn’t get to see Madoka again for a long while. Then she rolled over, found a part of her pillow where the slope was just right, and fell back asleep.
The next morning, still clad in her boxer-shorts and a too-big t-shirt, Homura padded barefoot across the cold floor of her bedroom and flicked the light on. She stood before the mirror with her hair tangled and her eyes bleary. One hand drifted upwards; her fingers traced along one slender twist of hair that fell in front of her shoulder. It was soft beneath her fingertips.
“Lovely…?”, she murmured. She brushed it smooth, brushed it until it shone like glass, and then ran her fingers through it just for the sake of the touch. She resolved to leave her hair unbraided for today, to see if she continued to like the way it fell once the wind had been at it and the memory of Madoka wasn't quite so vivid.
She had to admit, choosing an outfit with the lights on was easier than doing it in the murk. Her colour choice was much the same as always, but they did seem a bit brighter with the light from overhead shining on them—and all the more so when, fully dressed, she drew back the curtains.
Homura made tea and still didn’t like it, but it still made a neat, impermeable little block of scripted time; it still gave her time to paint her nails. With the sunlight in the room it was easier to see that the purple wasn’t, in the end, all that dull.
Today was the day she braved the subway system, so she selected a jacket and scarf even though the weather could barely be described as cool. It would give her an added buffer. She might still need armour, after all, and weapons. Again she chose shoes with heels.
When she ventured out onto the street she tripped again over the curb, but the stuttering moment of suspension didn’t linger with her this time quite so much. She had a transit system to conquer today; there was no time for this.
The subway was as crowded as she had expected. Homura felt she was in everyone’s way at once; she bunched into herself as much as possible. She found her own reflection in the subway window and watched it, because at least there was a gaze she could hold without fear of awkwardness.
The tracks took a turn, and everyone in the car swayed along naturally and kept their balance.
Everyone except for one young woman, who pitched sideways into Homura. Homura caught her instinctively by the elbows so that she didn't slide down onto the dirty floor of the subway.
“Oh!”, the woman said. Staring up at Homura was a pair of large, wide, brilliantly pink eyes. “Homura…?”
Homura blinked. For a moment she considered just disbelieving this entirely and pretending she didn’t recognize Madoka—but then Madoka’s name was tumbling out of her mouth embarrassingly, and Madoka was giving her another one of those gentle smiles that seemed to be lit up with some sort of internal light source, and—
“I want to get my hair cut again,” Homura declared in what she hoped as a confident voice. It wavered a little at the end when she realized how ridiculous this was. No more ridiculous than holding to promises I made to myself at four in the morning. She was fully conscious now, and she was fully capable of making her own decisions and to hell with it, she didn't care about her hair anyway—“As short as it needs to go,” she added, and reddened when she heard that this had been out loud.
“Ohh…” Homura set Madoka on her feet but did not take her hands from her arms. She didn’t want to, and Madoka didn’t seem to want her to, so it seemed correct. When the subway car swayed again, it meant Homura didn't have to be nervous of watching her fall again. “Alright. I’ve seen a lot of really pretty short haircuts lately. I know they’d look amazing on you. I think most things would, really.” She dipped her head for a moment and came back up with a level of focus and determination that Homura had honestly not expected on a face composed of such mild curves.
“Sayaka said—she said I should be more forward,” Madoka said. Actually Sayaka had said something about Homura looking like the sort of woman who wouldn't know what she wanted if it pressed its boobs to her face, so Madoka should give her a nudge. “So I think…if you wanted to see me, it doesn’t have to be when I’m cutting your hair. Where are you going now?"
"Nowhere," Homura said.
"We could get lunch. Or coffee, or…there’s this really cute ice cream place not far from the next stop.”
“Ice cream,” Homura said, because it was the most recent item offered and because it seemed to be especially endeared to Madoka. She wasn’t really thinking about that at all. Her first thought was that maybe this city wasn't as sleek and barren as she'd thought—that that warmth she'd felt yesterday didn't have to be quite so transitory.
Her second thought, as the subway car shifted and a nearby man stepped on Madoka's foot without apologizing, was that she was glad she'd chosen these shoes.