Archive of Our Own

“I am going to look so badass.” Naoya thought as he stood in the powder room, he had a bad from the drugstore sitting on the counter containing a single box of a hair bleaching kit.

He was so tired of blending into through, even though he was a Zen’in, and the family were sticklers for tradition, he needed something bold and different. After all that Satoru Gojo that everyone seemed to trip over their dicks to appease and obsess over, he stood out not only because of his strength and power but also his white hair and blue eyes. It wasn’t Naoya’s fault that he wasn’t born with some kind of super special feature or appearance. But there was no shame in setting one’s appearance via artificial means-- that would just mean he’s had to struggle and is building some character.

Naoya ripped open the top of the box of hair dye and dumped the contents of the box onto the counter top. The bottle of activator, the little foil pack of bleach, and thin plastic gloves fell into the sink. The paper directions fluttered to the floor. He gave a quick glance at the directions and were they were sitting on the white tile floor. He didn’t bother to pick them up though, he didn’t need those stupid things anyways. How hard was it to bleach your own hair? Plenty of women did it themselves, and Naoya was absolutely positive that he was smarter than some bleached blonde bimbo.

He quickly twisted off the lip of the bottle of activator, tore open the foil pack of bleach and haphazardly dumped the contents of the packet into the bottle. Naoya replaced the lid on the bottle and squeezed the contents of the bottle onto the top of his head, no parting or anything. There was a moment of panic where the concoction started to slip down into his forehead. He squenched his eyes closed, knowing at least that one shouldn’t get bleach into their eyes and groped around for the flimsy plastic gloves.

Finishing the gloves he awkwardly slipped open the first glove and pulled it onto his hand. The first was successful, however when it came to the second glove it tore along the seam. “Shit” he muttered under his breath. He didn’t have time to panic, he needed to prevent himself from being blinded by the chemical cream.

Naoya reached up with hier plastic encased hand and pressed the palm of his hand against his forehead and slid the product back and into his hairline. He took the glove enclosed fingers and flexed his finger tips into his scalp. “What the fuck?” he said just above a whisper, “why isn’t this making bubbles?”

Whatever he’d worry about that later. He continued to spread the product throughout his hair. Once satisfied that he had spread into throughout his hair he sat himself on top of the counter. He let out a sigh and fished out his phone to waste time on a mobile game while he waited for his hair to complete its lightening up.

Naoya waited for about fifteen minutes before deciding that that was enough time. For the color to have lifted enough. He waddled his way into the adjacent wet room, stripped off his kimono and hakama, then went to work washing out the bleach from his head. Once he had rinsed away all of the residual product from his scalp he turned off the tap and grabbed a towel drying off his hair.

He clicked his tongue against his teeth noticing there was a spot on the collar of his black kimono that bleach must have gotten onto. He let out a sigh, deciding that there was nothing to be done about it now. It was something he could easily blame on one of the maids of the household. They had a habit of being incompetant from time to time.

Naoya wrapped a towel around his waist for modesty and made his way to his room. Halfway down the hallway he heard a soft giggle from behind him. He whipped his head around to see Ogi’s useless daughter standing there, and the curse-energy-less little brat, Maki, was standing there laughing at him.

“What’s wrong with you?” he snapped.

She covered her mouth with one hand. It took a couple of moments for her to get herself together to the point where she could answer him. “What’s wrong with your head.”

He puffed up his chest. Naoya wasn’t about to let this little bitch talk to him like that so he half marched down the hallway and shoved her into the wall. That would surely teach her to say something so disrespectful to him. He stomped his way the rest of the way to his room. As he entered the tatami mat floored chamber, Naoya caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

Well that would explain why that brat had laughed at him. His hair wasn’t the golden he was aiming for but a patch work of messy, brassy browns, and black was all over his head. Different sections where different colors however the roots at the crown where he had dumped the mixed product onto his scalp initially was much lighter than the rest of his hair. How the fuck could he have done this badly if dumb females were able to bleach their own hair without issue?

Maybe it just needs to dry Naoya thought removing the towel from around his waist and frantically began to rub the terrycloth against his head. After a few minutes of that he was left with less damp, frizzy, still extremely patchy hair.

The mess upon his head simply wouldn’t do. Naoya quickly got dressed again, and tore his room up looking for some kind of hat he could wear to hide his shame. One of the lowest member of the family having already seen him and made fun of him. He couldn’t have anyone else, especially someone who actually mattered seeing what he had done to his hair. Once he had located a hat, he shoved his head into it and headed out to the drug store to pick up another dye kit.

When Naoya returned back to the Zen’in estate he made his way straight to his room, moving quickly and sneakily. He didn’t want anyone to catch a glimpse of him until he had remedied the hair situation.

Naoya figured that he must not have waited long enough before when he had bleached his hair the first time. He would apply what he had learned from the first go around and apply them to this attempt. He stripped off his kimono and undershirt and settled on to a cushion at the low table in his room. He’d damaged the fabric of his kimono on the previous attempt so he figured working shirtless was a better option. Once settled into his seat he opened the box and emptied the contents of the box on the table. More gingerly this time, he dumped the contents of the foil packet of bleach into the bottle (he didn’t spill any of the powder at all this time) affixed teh lid to the bottle again and shook it up.

When Naoya was satisfied with the bleach having been mixed into the activator enough he set the bottle on the table and went to putting the cheap supplied gloves on. Because he wasn’t in panic mode trying to avoid being blinded by chemicals he was able to put the gloves on more carefully. He still wasn’t happy enough the way his hands almost immediately began to sweat and the crinkling sound that they made, but it would have to do.

Instead of just dumping the entire squeeze bottle of product onto his head he poured a bit of the cream bleach into the palm of his gloved right hand and went to spreading it on his head. He worked little by little until his whole head was covered and the contents of the bottle had been depleted. He then took off the gloves and shoved them along with the empty box into the plastic bag that he had brought the second batch of bleach home in.

Naoya closed his eyes, the chemicals were making his eyes sting, and thus he needed to rest them while he waited for the 45 minutes to pass that the box had denoted. He had at least read that much of the directions this go-around.

Naoya opened his eyes slowly and looked around the room. He must have nodded off when he was trying to rest his eyes. He looked down at his phone, then a panic spread over his body, he had only meant to rest his eyes for a moment but he had managed to fall asleep for a whole three hours. He shot up from his seat and ran straight to the washroom, he needed to get this bleach out of his hair as soon as possible.

“shit, shit, shit.” he repeated to himself trying not to yell out his frustration as he shoved his head beneath the shower head. He didn’t even bother to take off his bottoms as he went to washing the product out of his hair. But strands upon strands of hair was coming out in almost melted clumps.

When the water began to run clear and there was no longer the cloudy residue of bleach mixed into the water, and it seemed no more hair was coming out of his scalp he turned off the tap, satisfied that he had gotten all of the bleach out. Standing up from the little plastic stool he slowly slumped into the powder room and looked into the mirror.

Before him he saw an absolutely horrific site in the mirror. His hair was lighter, there were no more of the dark brown patches. Instead the underlining color was a medium-light brassy color with his roots bright blonde. There was nothing even at all about the color and due to the chunks of hair that had come out the length was uneven without rhyme or reason to what sections were shorter than others. On top of his absolutely haggard appearance his whole entire scalp hurt and felt raw.

All Naoya could manage was a low growl of a “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.”

He’d really fucked it up this time.

The next day after everyone he had come across in the Zen’in clan had thoroughly teased him for the mess he had made of his hair, one of the maids, some wrinkly old bitch who looked at him with pity in her eyes (Naoya couldn’t stand the way that she looked at him as if he was some sort of idiot) sat him down on the veranda overlooking the back garden and with a pair of clippers shaved off his head leaving him with a millimeter if even of a patch work of brassy browns and platinum hair on his still sore scalp.

Maybe there were just things that women were able to do better then men after all.