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“Rise and shine, little brother!” Koyuki said to Hyoma as she leaned over the rail of his hospital bed. “How you feeling?”
Hyoma blinked as he tried to determine if he was still dreaming. “Onee-chan? What are you doing here? I thought you had finals?”
“Well, if you tell your professors your dear little brother is sick in the hospital, they’ll give you an extension! I got another 3 days with you here before I need to go back.”
“Oh, well, you didn’t need to come…sorry for the hassle…”
“Why would it be a hassle? I love having an excuse to come visit! Though I’m sorry it has to be like this. Besides, mom’s been worried sick about you. I told her to go home and take care of herself for once.”
“Well, thanks for that. I know she means well, but all her fussing over me is really annoying.”
“No doubt, though I can see why she’s worried about you.” Koyuki tilted her head to consider how much he had changed in the few months since she had last seen him. “You definitely don’t look like yourself. I mean, have you even looked in a mirror lately? How did you let your hair get to be such a mess?”
“I don’t see the need to bother, it’s just hair. I’ll cut it off eventually.”
“At least let me comb it. Honestly, with how long you’ve let it grow, you look like the lead singer of a heavy metal hair band who just got dumped.”
“I’ll admit to feeling hung over from the anesthesia. So how about you let me rest and not risk breaking your comb.”
“Hey, I’m not going to let someone look at my brother and think he’s a bum. Let me take care of it. You should be grateful that mom gave us both her beautiful hair. Tell her you appreciate what she’s given you by taking good care of it.”
Hyoma reflected on his sister’s words. He was grateful for all his mother had done -- all the encouragement she had given him to pursue soccer, and all the support she had given him, caring for him after his injury.
As Koyuki started working out his tangles, she became increasingly disgusted with how oily his hair was. “God, when was the last time you washed your hair?”
“I don’t know. I’m not allowed to take a bath or shower because the incision hasn’t healed yet.”
Koyuki looked at the bottle of dry shampoo on the hospital nightstand before tossing it aside. “Lucky for you, I packed my toiletries bag in my purse here. I’ll give you the salon experience!”
Helping herself to a pile of towels from the nursing station, Koyuki did her best to wash his hair using a bedside wash bucket. Though far from a salon experience, Hyoma appreciated how good it felt to have her hands massage his scalp. He enjoyed the strawberry scent of the shampoo; a smell that forever reminded him of his sister since it was her favorite. His recognition of the nostalgic scent made him realize how much he missed having her around to care for him.
Dwelling on the idea of strawberries, his mind came to Ichigo Kurosaki since his mother had brought some of his Bleach manga to keep him occupied. He hated to admit that one reason he liked the series was because he thought strawberry-boy-Ichigo was hot. He wondered when would be the right time to come out to his family that he was gay.
After blowdrying his hair, she combed through his locks. “Geez, how long has it been since you last cut it? You have split ends like I’ve never seen.”
“Like I said, why bother?”
“I’ll be sure to give you a trim once you get home.”
As Hyoma slumped back into his bed, hiding behind the curtain of his clean though untamed hair, Koyuki sighed with discouragement about how much her brother had changed since she left for college. He had always been more serious than other kids, and she was aware that he had become more reclusive after his injury, but he seemed downright depressed. Attempts at small talk went nowhere. She struggled to think of how to get him out of his blue state.
“How about we do something to keep the hair out of your eyes…” She considered that if he wasn’t able to hide behind his hair he might come out of his shell. Perhaps if he had more light on his face, his mood wouldn’t be so dark.
She set to work in braiding his hair, needing to take the elastic band that was holding her own hair back to finish it off.
“That’s better!” She said with pride as she showed him the mirror.
Hyoma grimaced as he saw the result. “What, are you trying to make me look like a girl? I’m not your little doll to play around with!”
He returned her hair tie and clawed the carefully crafted braid out of his hair. Returning to his hiding place behind the curtain of hair, he did not see the frown on his sister’s face from his rejection of her offer to help him.
With sadness turning into frustration, Koyuki huffed. “Well, if all you want to do is sulk and hide under that mop of yours, you’re welcome to. Anything else I can do for you?”
“I think visiting hours are almost over…” Hyoma said as an alternative to ‘get out’.
“I’ll take the hint,” Koyuki said with a sigh. “The plan is still for you to be discharged tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah,” Hyoma said with a tone of regret for rebuking his sister’s efforts to cheer him up.
“Ok, I’ll see you tomorrow then.” She kissed his forehead, or rather the hair covering it. “Rest up little brother.”
Hyoma picked up his Attack on Titan manga to read for the nth time, but put it down since his mind was too bothered to concentrate. Hyoma had always been doted upon by his older sister, who was endlessly proud of him, but in a way that wasn’t as cloying as his mother. She was the one to cut his hair and recommended what clothes to buy so that she could boast what an adorable little brother she had.
This stirred feelings of regret as he worried that he had spent too much time becoming who she wanted him to be rather than helping him discover for himself who he wanted to be. He had found some independence with soccer, but now that he was removed from that, who was he?
Returning home from the hospital the following day, Chigiri stepped through the front door on crutches. He was pleased that the first to greet him was Yoruichi, the family’s black cat, rubbing up against his left leg. Chigiri reached down to pet him. Scratching under his chin, he was rewarded with purr.
“Aw, somebody missed you!” Chigiri’s mother said as she scratched the cat’s back in kind. “Is there anything I can get for you? Something to eat?”
“Nah, I just want to….lay down.”
Upon entering his bedroom, Hyoma felt his stomach turn. Yes, his entire room was still a shrine to soccer: ribbons and awards on his dresser, soccer themed bedsheets from 3 birthdays ago, and posters of his soccer heroes pinned to the wall. It disgusted him. Why did he have so many reminders of a sport he was unlikely to play again? Who was he without soccer?
“Something I can help you with?” Koyuki asked, leaning against the door frame.
“Maybe… I think I need to…redecorate or something.”
“Why is that?”
“I feel like I’m living in a little kid’s room when I’m not a little kid anymore.”
“That’s certainly true.”
“And I just… I hate all the reminders of how much time I wasted playing a game I have no future in.
“I thought the doctors said that you’d be able to play again, once you heal up,” Koyuki questioned.
“Yeah, I can play until I re-injure it, and then I’ll be as good as useless. Even Mom has said it -- it’s probably time that I start thinking about something other than soccer. At the very least, my room still looks like it belongs to a 12 year old kid. There’s a bunch of stuff I should get rid of.”
“Anything you need me to do?”
“Umm…could you take down those posters?” Hyoma nodded his head to some of his heroes -- Harry Kane, Christiano Ronaldo, Eden Hazard.
“Why take them down? They’re pretty hunky,” she said with a wink.
Hyoma’s eyes widened. Did she already know that he was gay? Perhaps he gave off more of a gay aura that he previously suspected. Perhaps his family already knew, or at least, wouldn’t be surprised.
“Then keep them for yourself!” Hyoma said dismissively. It annoyed him that he and his sister had the same taste in men. It was one thing that made him question himself: looking at a guy and hearing her immediately say ‘oh, he’s hot’, with a wonder if that was his own thoughts or if he was merely taking on his sister’s thoughts. It was only since his sister left for college that he started accepting they were his own feelings.
Koyuki frowned to see how dejected he was. “Ok, maybe what we should do first is start with you and your hair. Let’s get you to the bathroom so I can cut all those nasty frayed ends off of you.”
She again gave him salon treatment as she tried to tame his messy heap of hair that had fallen back into a tangle after she left the hospital yesterday.
“How would you like it? Do you want to keep it long or cut it back to your usual?”
Considering that he didn’t want to keep looking like a 12 year old, he responded. “Go ahead and try a long style. If I don’t like it, then you can cut it shorter.”
As she started clipping, he voiced second thoughts. “Although, long hair isn’t very practical. Maybe I should just shave it all off.”
“You know, fashion is not strictly about functionality. It’s about how it makes you feel and pumps you up. You should have a style that suits you. Show people who you are.”
Once she had finished her trimmings, he was surprised that he needed to admit that the cut looked good on him. It was a unique style, not merely her crafting him into a miniature version of herself. If anything, she had turned him into a budding J-pop star.
“Umm, thanks…” Hyoma didn’t know what else to say as he examined her work.
Koyuki was pleased to see his approval. She knew that he would never want to admit that he had a strong interest in fashion since he was always wanting to be seen as an athlete, and she was pleased to see signs that he might be starting to grow into the glamorous guy she knew was hiding inside.
Running his fingers through his hair as he examined himself in the mirror, he began to consider if the style really suited him. “But, if I return to playing…I wouldn’t want my hair to get in the way.”
“Let me try a different style of braid.” Koyuki instructed him to sit back down on the make-shift salon chair.
The braid kept most of his hair away from his face and off his neck to keep him cool, but having some of the hair left down allowed for him to hide away if he wanted. If he ended up crying, he could just dip his head down, and no one would need to know.
Standing up to examine himself in the mirror again, he realized that he liked this version of himself.
“Do you think it makes me look a little too….gay?”
Koyuki raised an eyebrow. “Is it a problem if it does?”
Hyoma gave her a long look before looking at the severed hairs on the floor, the ragged hairs he had previously hidden behind. “I suppose I should stop trying to hide who I am…”
His big sister wrapped him up in a tight hug. She attempted to lean back to pick up off the floor as she had done when he was smaller, but now that he was taller the motion failed. Instead, she hopped a little to show her excitement.
“Is this my little brother finally coming out of the closet?”
“Finally?” He said with a choke before dismissing it. He was pleased that she seemed so accepting. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Good! I’m glad you are who you are, and that you don’t feel like you need to hide that anymore.”