Chapter Text
When Kojiro and Kaoru had first met in elementary school, Kaoru’s hair was already long. It was more than just “long” Though, it was long . When they very first met, running into each other and knocking one another over on the street as Kaoru skated straight into him, the golden-eyed boy’s hair was already halfway down his back.
Kojiro had stared at it. Of course he was a dumb 7 year old though and had called him ‘miss’ when he said sorry, which got the green-haired boy a punch in the gut.
“I am not a ‘miss’ !!” the pink-haired child huffed, face red with fury.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!! I didn’t mean to jeez!!” Kojiro had puffed, holding his stomach slightly. His eyes fell to the skateboard that had been upturned in their initial collision. “Hey can you use that thing?”
The boy’s eyes stopped glaring a moment and went wide, following Kojiro’s gaze. He kicked lightly at the thing, one of the wheels spinning. “Kinda…” His voice was shy and quiet, a stark contrast to his yelling.
In hindsight, this was the moment Kojiro had decided he wanted to be this boy’s friend. For years, he would say that it was only after he’d seen Kaoru skate that he wanted to be his friend, but there was no other explanation for the way Kojiro had actively sought out the pink haired boy on his street before that moment.
“Can you show me??” Kojiro had asked, eyes bright.
The boy glared at him and turned his nose up. “No way, you called me a girl!!”
Kojiro’s eyes went wide. “B-but! That’s what you look like!!” It was now his turn for his face to go red. “Your hair is too long and pink to look like a boy!! It’s not my fault!!”
The boy gaped and kicked Kojiro in the shin. “Is not!! My hair is the coolest, you’re just a dumb idiot!!”
“Am not, I did the whole math test faster than everyone!!”
“Are too!!”
“No!!”
“Ya-huh!!”
“You’re the meanest girl I’ve met ever!!”
“ I’m not a girl !!! I’ll hit you with my skateboard if you call me a girl again, so you better stop!!”
“SKATER KID’S A GIRL~!! SKATER KID’S A GIRL~!! SKATER-”
Kojiro did indeed get hit on the head with a skateboard that day. He didn’t even see when Kaoru had skated away, but when he looked up from his small tears of pain, the pink haired boy was gone.
They had become friends after that, somehow. And maybe someone could figure out how it had happened if they had the time, but for now all that mattered was that the two were inseparable.
Kojiro had come to learn that Kaoru’s hair was important to him. Very much so. By the time they were both in fifth grade, the boy hadn’t cut it once and it was down to his waist now. He never did much with it, but every once in a while he showed up with it in a tight braid- a clear sign his mother had woken up on time that morning. Once or twice his hair looked like Kaoru himself had tried to braid it, clearly not knowing how to.
And the last thing to know was that Kaoru was bullied. Constantly . His long pink hair, big black frames, quiet but spiney exterior, and his skateboarding all somehow had painted a huge target on the kid’s back. Kojiro never understood it; he loved Kaoru’s hair- knew how much it meant to Kaoru- and he thought his big glasses made him look smart, his snappy personality made him interesting and his skateboarding was just the coolest Kojiro had ever seen.
But nonetheless, Kaoru was bullied.
And it was one day in particular that Kojiro would never quite forget.
He couldn’t find Kaoru in the courtyard like normal that morning, so he went looking in the bathrooms- Kaoru liked to hide there when the bullying was really bad. And he had found him, crying in the last stall.
“Kaoru? It’s me, Kojiro.” He had called. By now they were both 10. Well, Kojiro was 10, Kaoru was still a few months away from his birthday.
“G-go away!!” Kaoru had hiccoughed out.
“Kaoru, you’re crying...I don’t want to leave you alone. That would be mean.”
“I d-don’t ca-hare!!”
“What did they do to you, Kaoru? Who was it?”
There was a pause now, only filled with sniffling. “S-stupid T-t-tamaki and hi-is dumb fri-hends…”
Kojiro took note of the names and promised himself he’d confront them later. “What happened?”
Kojiro heard Kaoru’s breath quicken and he started crying harder.
“Kaoru, did they hurt you?”
“N-no!!” The response was choked, but it didn’t sound like a lie.
“I’m gonna come in, Kaoru, okay?”
Kaoru let out a panicked noise. “NO!!!” He screamed and slammed his body against the stall door, even though Kojiro could still crawl under. “You can’t see me!!!” His words were desperate, but Kojiro was too now. Whatever had happened was a lot worse than anything else.
“Kaoru, I won’t be angry I promise!” He said, pressing up against the door too. The bell rang.
“Yo-ou’re gonna b-be late fo-hor clas-s, Koji.”
“I don’t care about that! I care about you! Can you please let me in?”
Kaoru hesitated. “Y-you promi-ise you won’t lau-gh?” His voice was getting quieter and sadder. It made Kojiro sad too.
“I promise, Kaoru!! If I laugh you can…” Kojiro thought for a moment. “You can scribble all over my skateboard!!” He said confidently. That should be a reasonable thing to risk.
“Oh-kay…” Kaoru breathed, stepping away from the door. Kojiro stepped back as well and let his best friend swing the large plastic sheet open.
Kojiro could only stare for a long moment.
Kaoru’s eyes and face were blotchy and red, tears still rolling over his lightly freckled cheeks, his glasses a little foggy from his hot breath and face. But that wasn’t even the half of it, oh it was far from the half of it.
Kaoru’s long hair was all but destroyed in 31 different flavors. A section was unevenly hacked off the bottom and frayed from the less than properly sharp safety scissors that had probably been used on the locks. There was tape and glue stuck in the mass too, tangling and catching and mussing up the strands. There were a few gross pieces of now dried up gum smashed into the strawberry stuff right above his shoulders and there were sections of reds greens and yellows that looked like they had been painted on. There was a piece of paper crumpled in the corner of the stall and a staple with a small ripped chuck still stuck to it that pressed it’s way through the hem of Kaoru’s blue sweater, and something black was smudged across his cheek, the smear running wetly with his tears.
“Kaoru…”
Kaoru burst into tears again, and fell forward into Kojiro’s arms. It was the first time they had ever really hugged - since of course hugging was for babies and prissy girls- but that was hardly what was on Kojiro’s mind as his best friend sobbed into his shoulder.
“T-th-the-ey cu-c-cut my h-hai-air!!!” He wept. “An-nd I ca-han’t g-get t-this stu-upi-id gunk ou-out!!!” He cried harder and buried his head further into Kojiro’s shoulder. “I’m go-onna k-kill em, Koh-ojiro!! I’ll kill em a-hall!!”
Kojiro was at a loss for what to do for the first time ever. Usually, Kaoru would calm down after a little while and the two of them would spend recess or the next morning standing up for themselves- or with Kaoru in Kojiro’s case.
Now it’s important to say that at this point, Kojiro had been inspired by his friend’s long hair and had refused to let his mother cut it even once in the past three years. It was long enough now that he could bunch it up into a short ponytail that made the back of his head look like a mini broomstick. He liked it though and so did Kaoru.
And that’s when Kojiro had an idea.
“Hey, Kaoru. What if…” He paused, biting his lip. It was a risk, but maybe… “What if, because I don’t think we can fix your hair, what if instead we...we cut it?”
Kaoru’s breath hitched and he pulled away from Kojiro. “C-cut it?! B-but wh-what if- what if w-we can actu-uly still save i-it!!”
Kojiro looked down, not wanting to see his friend so upset. “They cut off part of your hair already-”
“I-it wasn’t too much!!”
“-And you have glue and gum stuck-”
“There must be ways to get that stuff out!!”
“-And that paint looks like it’ll stain-”
“S-s-so wh-what!!! May-haybe it’ll look co-ool!!”
“-But I don’t want you to just cut it alone-”
“H-huh?”
“-So I’ll cut my hair too.”
Now it was Kaoru’s turn to balk. “Kojiro!! You can’t cut your hair!! You love it like that and it didn’t even get messed up like mine!!”
Kojiro puffed out his cheeks. “But it’s not fair that you have to cut your hair and I get to keep mine, all cause some dumb kids were dumb!!” He turned to his backpack which had been discarded on the floor, sifting through it for what he needed.
“Kojiro, you do-hon’t have to!! I-I’ll cut my ha-air a-and the-en we-e’ll-” Kaoru had started getting choked up again at the now inevitable prospect of having to cut his hair.
Kojiro found the ‘adult’ scissors he had taken with him to school (He took them because his mom said that safety scissors were dumb and never got the job done) and turned back.
“Kaoru I don’t want you to do this by yourself!” He said confidently. “You’re not alone, you know.”
Kaoru seemed to stare at him for a long while, his eyes still dripping tears without his consent before his face twisted into half a glare, half a smile. “Idiot. Fine. We’ll cut our hair together or whatever.” Kojiro smiled back and held up his scissors.
They stood up and walked to the sinks where they stood at awkward angles so Kojiro had access to the defaced locks.
It was the first time Kojiro had felt his friend’s hair other than having the strands flutter past him while skating. It was such a shame it was under these circumstances.
“Hold on, wait I need to do something first!” Kojiro said, an important thought coming to his mind.
“What-?” Before Kaoru could even ask a full question, Kojiro had snapped a picture with his little flip-phone. “Why’d you do that?! I don’t wanna remember this!!” Kaoru cried.
Kojiro pocketed his phone again. “So that your parents know why we had to cut it. Don’t want them getting angry.”
“Oh...Thanks.”
Finally, Kojiro held the scissors to the pink mess. “Ready?”
Kaoru took a deep breath, his eyes squeezing shut. “Just...Do it quick.”
The quiet sound of blades meeting silken strands consumed that bathroom.
And soon, the deed was done.
It was a little jagged and uneven, but it was better than the mess it had been before, the locks of hair reaching just barely above Kaoru’s shoulders. Kojiro was silently glad that the topmost part of his head had been virtually untouched, save for a small piece of tape that was easily- however painfully- removed.
Kaoru stared at himself in the mirror for what seemed like ages. Touching his hair and running his hands through it until it fell away as it tumbled across the edge of where the strands ended.
Finally, Kaoru turned back to Kojiro, his golden eyes no longer swimming with hurt, but rather they were hard. Not quite cold, but determined. “Alright. Your turn, Koji.”
They switched places and Kojiro felt Kaoru’s hands brush against his neck slightly, the cold skin making him shiver.
But Kaoru hesitated. “I...I don’t know how to do this…” He said quietly.
“Hey, it’s okay! Just cut off the ponytail!” Kojiro cheered him on. “It’s not like I really knew what I was doing, either. And I won’t be mad if it looks ugly, cause I also messed up your hair a bit.”
Kaoru paused and when Kojiro glanced behind him, he could see Kaoru palming his new, choppy hair again. “Alright.” He said, confidence back. “Let’s do it.”
And once again, a quiet Swip, swip, swip was the melody of the tiled room.
And yeah.
Kojiro looked awful.
But so did Kaoru.
And they also looked far happier for it.
The bathroom was littered in green and pink flossy clumps and their teacher had chewed them out for being late when they arrived, the dumb kids who had commited the crimes against Kaoru’s hair were dumbfounded.
When the bathroom was discovered, the two of them were made to stay after school to clean it up and Kaoru’s mother had been in hysterics, had screamed and cried and yelled- mostly at Kojiro- until Kojiro had shown her the picture of what it had been like before. Kojiro’s mother was better, but he didn’t have a picture or much of a story to back up his decision.
The next day, the two of them got taken out together to get their hair properly fixed by a barber. Kojiro’s hair had finished sooner than Kaoru’s so he got to watch as the hairdresser snipped away Kojiro’s less than adequate handiwork.
By the time they were both done, Kojiro had a close cut generic look and Kaoru had a pretty, neat bob with the front ends hanging lower than the rest, framing his pale face.
He looked cute.
Someone could say he still looked like a pretty girl, now tending to tie half his hair back into the tiniest of ponytails.
But Kojiro would never say he looked like a girl ever again.
To Kojiro, Kaoru looked like a prince.