Work Text:
Riyo’s grip is iron-strong around Zanka’s wrist as she drags him down the halls to god knows where. Begrudgingly, he allows himself to get hauled, Riyo’s scissors in one hand, his hand in the other.
These days, Zanka’s been doing this lately— giving into the whims of his friends.
Zanka’s hair had been getting long, especially his bangs, and he had been playing with them in the common room. He hadn’t had his hair cut in a while, and his usual barber at the local corner barbershop was out of town. Riyo had sauntered in, and heard him call them fugly under his breath, and all of a sudden, Riyo told him she’d “make him look prettier”. Whatever that’s supposed to mean. And he didn’t think anything of it at first, but now, Riyo’s excitement’s gotten him a little nervous.
He’s come to understand Riyo’s excitement, after a couple years of sticking by her side. There’s two kinds of upbeat tones in her voice: a saccharine, sickly sweet one, only used to deflect, and a genuine one, that’s less quiet and more visual, big smiles and eyes squinted in amusement.
As Riyo walks, her grip never changes— she points her scissors downwards, fist wrapped around the blades. Zanka remembers early on, when they had first met, Riyo would always walk with her blades pointed upwards, and it would freak him out a lot. He might come from a family better-off financially, but he wasn’t a stranger to crafting and working: even he knew not to point any kind of scissors upwards in hallways. Zanka had assumed that she was never used to walking around while being in proximity of others, so he didn’t want to point it out, fearful of upsetting his co-worker, not even a couple months into his new job. Workplace politics and all that.
Eventually, Riyo had clocked his uneasiness around her, and she had assumed it was because he didn’t like her. He had awkwardly pointed at her scissors, and muttered something about workplace safety. Riyo had laughed at him and apologized for her bad habit.
Riyo was just like that. Overly familiar, boisterous, and uncaring of norms. She did what she wanted to, and she didn’t care what others thought about her. Riyo’s carefree in every way he wished he was. It’s one of her most admirable qualities, her passion for anything and everything she loves.
Riyo comes to a stop. Zanka falters at the doorstep of her room.
Carefully, he takes a peek inside through the open doorframe. Nothing in her room’s really changed since the last time he’s walked by it. She’s put white curtains over her windows, and her room is decorated with trinkets and strange knick-knacks from all over the world. She’s got an old TV and a coffee table, sofa placed against the side of her bed. Her desk looks eerily empty— save for the stationary and a comb. There’s a lot of storage. Tall shelves, boxes, binders, and a modest minifridge. There’s a white takeout bag on her bedside table, and there’s takeout boxes on the coffee table as well. Everything else has been shoved in a wall of filing cabinets, which it seems Riyo has repurposed as a dresser. Her clothes and cosmetics are slightly spilling out of the open ones. Surprisingly, her bed is neatly made.
Riyo tugs on his hand, but his feet are frozen in place.
“What,” Riyo snickers, “never been in a girl’s room before?”
He goes red.
His inaction kind of speaks for itself. Zanka’s not a schoolboy, for god’s sake. This is the first time he’s ever really been inside Riyo’s room, and yeah, he’s never been in a girl’s room before, but so what. Besides, he’s just trying to be respectful. Back at the academy, it wasn’t like he was unpopular— he was well liked, love letters and date invitations being shoved in his locker everyday after training. It’s not like he was living in a secluded training dojo with only his siblings. He’s socially-adept.
Riyo ends up dragging him in anyways, despite his reluctance. Again, Riyo’s just kind of like that. Riyo’s the kind of girl who’d walk around naked if she could. He remembers the first time he had left a package outside her doorstep and she had walked out in a tank and boxers. He had been a little taken aback, but Riyo just really didn’t give a fuck about modesty. Today, she’s sporting baggy pants and another white cotton tank top. This one’s got a v neck, and her baggy pants are dark green. She’s hooked her tools onto a carabiner hook, and her hair’s been put up into a messy bun held together by a single clip.
Zanka drags his feet as he lets Riyo direct him to the couch. “Oh, Zanka,” Riyo sighs mockingly, “you’re such a kid,” she teases, despite being younger than him. “Come on. We’re friends!”
Zanka invites himself in further. He doesn’t move until Riyo beckons him forward with her hand. “Sit,” she orders. Zanka hums and obediently takes a seat on the floor, back against the foot of the couch. “Are you facing straight?” Riyo asks. He nods. “Are you sure?”
He doesn’t remember haircuts being this much of a hassle back home. Riyo raises an eyebrow.
Back home, he explains to her, his sister would sit him down in front of the bathroom mirror, and she’d trim his hair carefully. They were always a little tense around each other, but during these moments, everything felt awfully soft between them. Kyouka was tender in a way she didn’t usually allow herself to be. He remembers her fingers would always be warm against the nape of his neck, holding him in place carefully while looking for split ends.
Eager to be independent, secretly, he’d keep the front of what he could see always trimmed appropriately, so that Kyouka would only have to fix up the back of his hair. If Kyouka ever noticed, she never said anything about it. In exchange for cutting his hair, he’d help Kyouka with her rebellious hair dye— help her touch up the spots she missed with the brush.
Now that Zanka looks back on it, she didn’t really need his help. Maybe that was Kyouka’s attempt to connect with him— after all, they both shared an interest in cosmetics— Zanka with his earrings (it was a family tradition for the women in the family to get their ears pierced at a certain age, but Zanka had wanted to match with his mother and sister, so he pierced his ears himself with a sewing needle), Kyouka with her bold makeup and hair dye.
Everyone was just as upset with his piercings as they were with Kyouka’s hair dye, but they were both the top of their respective classes, and Kyouka had protected Zanka’s reckless behavior from behind the scenes— and no one was crazy enough to go against her word. They had both shared a love for eccentric or bold designs and colors. Well, it’s not like he’s complaining, if it really was Kyouka’s attempt to spend time with him. He’d take dying hair over shotgun bullet dodgeball as a bonding activity any day.
As much as Kyouka tried to hide it, Zanka always had a faint idea that he was Kyouka’s favorite in a way. She babied Zanka, as their other family members had complained and made snide remarks about. She had turned a blind eye to lots of his antics, letting him move as he pleased. It was more leeway than what Kyouka or any other of his siblings had ever gotten. Their relationship wasn’t soft nor perfect, and there was a lot of miscommunication on both ends.
But that was that. And while Zanka was still deathly scared of her, he’ll always be grateful that he had the opportunity to walk away from the Hell Guard- something Kyouka herself was never allowed at his age.
Riyo doesn’t comment on his spiel down memory lane, so Zanka lets the conversation dwindle out from there. Riyo gets down on her knees and positions herself to get ready to cut his hair, but after Zanka’s bitching and nagging about it being bad for her back posture (you don’t want your back to look like mine, do you?), she sits up properly, legs crossed over each other, awkwardly hovering over Zanka.
“Do you trust me?” Riyo asks.
Zanka laughs. “Fuck no,” he says, amused, but he doesn’t protest when Riyo starts patting his fringe, sorting his hair, and brandishing her scissors so close to his face without hesitation. He should be at least a little concerned, letting Riyo swing around something so sharp near his face, but he trusts her to do as she pleases.
With careful precision, she’s able to try to cut his fringe at an angle Zanka likes. There’s no mirror big enough for him to look at his hair properly in the room, so they end up using a tiny compact mirror to go back and forth with each other. He closes his eyes as Riyo takes a section of his bangs in her fingers and makes the first cut. He opens his eyes during her second and third cuts, the sounds of scissors snipping quickly in the air. “Dude,” Riyo chides, flustered, her empty hand coming to close his eyes manually. “Either close them or keep them away.” It makes both of them laugh.
Zanka looks in the mirror and they get into an argument over the length of his hair. Riyo thinks his hair is too long. Zanka points out that hers is just as long, if not longer, but she says that she styles her bangs to the side, so it’s okay. Riyo argues that she’s worried it’ll get in his face during training, and well, Zanka is weak, receptive, even, to that kind of careful, delicate consideration.
“Just an inch,” Zanka protests. “Nothing more and nothing less, okay?”
Riyo mock salutes in response.
Once Riyo’s satisfied with his bangs, she goes onto feathering out his side pieces with a razor. She holds the strands of his hair in place, and occasionally uses her fingers to manoeuvre his face by the chin. Her small fingers are warm against his skin. He allows himself a moment of tenderness and leans into the touch. Zanka closes his eyes.
She hits him on the back and pushes at him to turn him around, and as he faces his back against Riyo’s front, he listens to the sound of blades and hair clashing against each other quietly. The sun seeps through the areas the half-heartedly closed curtains fail to conceal.
Distantly, he’s a little scared that his hair’s gonna be fucked up from the back, since he can’t see it, but Riyo’s humming and working dutifully, and he doesn’t want to interrupt her flow. They can look at the back of his hair with a bigger mirror— maybe they’ll stop by August’s workshop and ask if they can use the full-body mirror he has in there to get a hair three-sixty. Riyo’s fingers work deftly through the back of his hair, and her fingertips brush against the nape of his neck. Distantly, he’s reminded of his sister again.
It’s hard for Zanka to believe that the same hands that tend over his hair so carefully and lovingly, are capable of such immense violence. Zanka can get so overly sentimental sometimes, despite how hard he tries to hide it. Sometimes it scares him. His tenderness seeps through the cracks of his nonchalant facade. It’s apparent in his love for his family, his love for Lovely Assistaff, and his love for the cleaners.
(“Seven gunshots?” Zanka had asked, bewildered at the thought of Riyo going that far. For him.
Riyo had looked away. Then: laughter. She always did that; avoiding eye contact when talking about things she didn’t want to, her overly enthusiastic voice making up for her avoidant body language.
“Yeah, man, seven. Shot him like no tomorrow.”
Riyo had strayed at the edge of his bed. Her posture was slumped and he couldn’t discern the look on her face, but she looked so sad. A pang of— something had hit him in the chest, and Zanka wanted to jump over there, Eisha’s reminders over resting his body be damned, and just drag her hand into his. Say something stupid, like: don’t frown so much, you’ll get wrinkles, or, don’t be like that.
He had stayed still.
Riyo had continued talking: “And you know, at the time, I don’t really remember how it happened— I just saw you slumped over on the ground, and every bone in my body immediately shot up before my mind could even process what was happening. I was ready to fight before I knew it. And in that moment, I wasn’t thinking about Enjin’s rules or my original goal on the mission— all I knew was that you were on the ground, all bloodied and unmoving, and cold, and the only thing on my mind was keeping you safe, and I just— well.” At that, Riyo had smiled softly, almost sadly.)
After a long time, Riyo suddenly jolts upright, and makes a noise of celebration. He turns around, bewildered, and Riyo beams. “Ta da,” she cheers, carefully adjusting the sides of his hair. “I’ve finished!” She grabs the compact mirror and chucks it in Zanka’s direction. He catches it and opens it up, just a little fearful of his new haircut. Surprisingly, when he looks at his reflection, his hair looks… really good. “So?” Riyo asks eagerly.
“Way better than anything I could ever do,” Zanka nods in response.
Riyo pauses suddenly, and Zanka freezes. “What,” Zanka mutters, half self-conscious, half concerned over Riyo’s sudden change in demeanor.
In response, Riyo grabs his face and pokes at the space under his eyes. “Waw,” Riyo blinks, “look at these dark eyes. You need to sleep better!”
Zanka scowls, but it’s all in an endearing manner. Riyo is still clinging onto him.
He stands up and makes his way towards the door. “Okay, party’s over,” he sings, “I’ve got sent on a ‘very important’ task— gotta go and fetch Semiu’s mags again before the end of the day. Don’t know when I’ll be home but I’ll try to make it quick.”
“Come back home quickly,” Riyo nods, waving and pushing him out of the door, “Enjin’s making skewers for a late lunch!”