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Sua first notices Mizi for her pink hair. Well, not quite pink, but definitely at least dark with a pinkish hue. All Sua knows is that it's unnatural to have a colour like that. Black and brown are common, blond rarer, and this pink shade is unheard of. An anomaly.
At lunches, as Sua sits in the shade chewing on her cucumber sticks, she can't help but be pulled into that pink smearing a bold line in green, running around in the grass. It must be studied: How did it come to be? How does it glint unlike anyone else's hair? By cross referencing book covers, comics, and advertisements — does it mean that the girl with the pink hair comes from a work of fiction? Is she a princess from a land unknown?
One day, she approaches Sua, plopping down next to her in the shade. Sua looks at her, wide eyed that a princess would come greet her with her presence.
"How come you never come out to play?" Her Highness asks her. A strand of pink hair falls over her shoulder, curling and framing her face. From this close, Sua sees that she could never see from afar — that her hair isn't one cohesive colour, but streaked chaotically with more saturated pieces of pink mixed in. No, she isn't cartoon, with their blobs of solid colour cocooning their pale faces. This girl is something closer than she originally concluded.
"Um," Sua mutters, wringing her fingers. She's nervous, but she still really shouldn't fidget so much. Hia would scold her for it. Heeding her sister's words, her voice only grows more frail as she curls up her hands at her sides. "Mother doesn't like the school hats, so I don't have one."
"That’s no fair! You should play with us!"
"Sorry," Sua laments. She tucks her feet under her as the other girl scooches closer. She closes her eyes, anticipating a blow that never comes.
Instead, she hears her voice right in front of her face. "Don't close your eyes, they're so pretty."
Sua opens one eye, then another, and finds herself staring into yet another colour unseen before — an unlikely mix of yellow, green, and brown — hazel. "Pretty," Sua repeats back, the word leaving her without her realising it.
"I'm Mizi, by the way," she says, smiling widely. "Let's be friends."
There is no other reasonable conclusion other than the fact the girl in front of her, Mizi, is magic.
In the end, everything has its mundane reasons, including the secret behind Mizi's hair. Childish fantasy should remain as that — for children. Sua, old enough that her age is in the double digits, manages to beg Hia to let her spend a couple hours at Mizi's house, which she eventually agrees to when Sua promises not to ask her for anything else, and to not to speak back to her for the rest of the month. If anything, Hia should have requested more in return for distracting mother for an entire day, enough so that she wouldn't check on Sua, supposedly studying diligently in her room without the rest of her sisters.
Ridden with nerves with the taboo of sneaking out, Sua reaches for the doorbell, triple checking the numberplate of the house when she's left waiting for a second too long. When the door does open, she's greeted with Mizi's sheepish grin.
"I slept in, so I couldn't dye my hair this morning," Mizi explains at Sua's shocked stare, twirling a brown strand of hair around her finger. "Um, I can go do it right now, if you want."
But it's Sua who is wrong to have assumed that Mizi was an exception to the laws of nature. She fidgets again, the toe of her sandal kicking at the other heel. Her bad habits always seem to come out when she's around Mizi. She doesn't know what to think of that. "I want to see," she decides.
"Okay!"
As Sua steps inside, she's greeted by the legs of Mizi's intimidatingly tall mother. She coos over her, and picks her up, ruffling her dress and her hair. Sua's left flailing, but Mizi's already dragging her up and away to her bedroom as she comes to her senses. She glimpses a flash of the bright colours of Mizi's bedroom before stepping into the en suite, where Mizi holds out a neon pink jar.
"Here's the dye I use every morning," Mizi starts saying, twisting the lid open. "It takes some time to dye, but I really like pink, so…"
Sua nods. "You look good in pink. Like a pretty fairy."
"Thanks! Mum really likes it as well, so she bought me lots of dye to do it every day."
Mizi chatters as she sets herself up for dyeing, Sua watching closely as she puts on an old, pink stained shirt, splashes her hair with a bit of water, and dips her hand in the jar. She coats her hair in a layer of pink, and the clumsy, too loud girl turns into the recognisable image of her friend.
"Mum says she'll take me to actually dye my hair when I finish using the dyes she bought," Mizi whispers to her after she's done, and all dry again. "So, I'm trying to use it faster."
From next to her on her bed, Sua hums her reply, concentrated completely on braiding Mizi's slightly matted hair. She realises now that running around allows the wind to loosen the clumps the dye settles her hair into. It's just another mundane explanation to her wilfully imagined fairy tale reasoning. She should have known that miracles are made, not granted. Sua coaxes Mizi's hair like Hia's taught her to do for her sisters, and when her fingers finish their work, they come back tinted a light, artificial pink. She kisses the two braids for good measure. Artificial or not, Mizi's the prettiest girl she's ever seen.
Another mystery solves itself when Mizi comes running up to her when she's by the school gates, waving her arm so enthusiastically that Sua spots her instantly even from that distance. Just for a second, that nostalgic glint in her hair winks at her, and she blinks back in recognition. When Mizi approaches close enough to slide her hand in Sua's, she spies the culprit sitting innocently in her hair. Small, metal, star-shaped hairclips adorn Mizi's head like a crown. It acts exactly the same as the headband Sua wears: to hold back the hair that falls over her face. It pushes back Mizi's hair now, so it doesn't cover her new, round-framed glasses.
"How does it look?" Mizi poses for her, maybe a bit dramatically, all movement and no grace, drawing eyes from other students entering through the gates. Sua grabs her hand, and pulls her through and inside the gate, back and around the main school building to under the tree where they eat lunch together.
"…Cute," Sua finally replies, to which Mizi beams, a dusty red appearing on her sun kissed cheeks. The morning light reflects off her glasses, blinding Sua into wincing and squinting. Mizi notices it, but instead of apologising, she laughs and teases her by twisting her head around; the light catching on her glasses again, then the stars of her hairclips, then the pearly white of her teeth. It hurts, so Sua closes her eyes.
"Now I can see you clearly, no matter how far you are!"
"That's not how glasses work, Mizi," Sua scolds, but smiles anyway.
When Mizi has her hair properly bleached and dyed pink, the first person she goes and shows it off to is Sua. This time, it's her that waits for Sua by the flowers in the school garden where they've agreed to meet in the mornings. Sua's never seen her there early before, and blinks hazily at the pink mirage swimming in her eyes, sluggishly returning the hug that she's suddenly surrounded by.
"Good morning, Mizi," Sua greets, slightly muffled by Mizi's jacket. Mizi squeezes her once, tightly. Sua loses her breath to it.
"Sua! Sua! I can finally show you my hair!" she squeals. Sua feels her feet lifting off the ground, and her vision grows blurry again as Mizi swings her around in a circle.
"I can't see it when you're this close," Sua complains, pouting, and Mizi lets her go at those words. Sua takes in a full breath of morning's chill, and finds that no, the bright pink she saw was no mirage, but real, and right in front of her. If she thought Mizi's hair was colourful before, it's no comparison to how it is now, without a hint of her natural brown.
"Do you like it?" Mizi asks, with a smile as sweet as sugar, and hair as soft and malleable as fairy floss. Sua threads one finger through the curve of a curl, and marvels how it splits so easily around her. It must be so much easier to manage now, though she still gets caught on a knot near the end. Mizi winces, but keeps smiling as Sua brushes it through.
"Sorry," Sua apologises quietly. Then, louder, "I really like it. I can't believe it's finally real."
"Finally, right?"
Sua kneels down for a second to pluck a dandelion from the ground. Mizi's eyes sparkle knowingly, and she dips her head a little to allow Sua to tuck the stem behind her ear, like she's done time and time again. "You're perfect," she whispers, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
"Thanks," Mizi responds in an uncharacteristically small voice. Sua can't meet Mizi's eyes. Her head might explode if she thinks too hard about what she has just done. She probably looks the fool for acting out of turn.
A hand reaches out for hers, and Sua feels the warmth of Mizi's face under her palm as she holds her there. She shifts her eyes over to Mizi's, and is locked in place by what she sees.
"I did it for you."
Maybe they show up to class a minute too late, the smell of green grass fresh on their hands, and a blooming red new on their lips. Maybe Sua's weaved more flowers into Mizi's hair, then Mizi's tied one around Sua's finger like a promise. Maybe when they show up to their respective classes, everyone knows that they're entwined, stems tied around each other in a crown of nothing but colour.
Superstition has never helped Sua. She knows coincidence is just that — coincidence. But however much she tries to convince herself that her late alarm, her uncooperative hair that morning, the dark cloud beckoning rain all mean nothing, nothing at all, she starts to fear.
She tells herself that if she doesn't acknowledge it, it won't manifest into being, and it'll go away. Surely, it's a trick of the mind, and the nerves scratching under her skin is overreaction. Her anxiety laden thoughts have never been good for anything, anyway. It doesn’t mean anything to feel, only to do, physically, and to be, presently.
Sua looks to the objective. Weather is a natural phenomenon, as is rain. Chance is just an occurrence of a single event in a series of an infinite number of them. A bad day is regular, and happens to the average person more often then they'd like to admit. She, too, is a regular person subject to the occurrences of the natural world. She takes a slow breath in, then out, still as to not let the others know she is steeling herself against her own soft heart.
Her photoshoot that day drags on for too long. The assistant photographer is out on leave, and the camera shots shutter lethargically in the meanwhile. The time in between each flash of light crawls like she's anticipating a finish line, the sleepy movement of the second hand of a clock almost taunting her when she looks at it to check the time. When she realises it, Sua tries to empty her restless mind.
The muscles in her arms are tenser than usual. Mother touches her to correct her form during the break, and where before she would be pliant, she flinches.
"If you're deciding to be uncooperative today, I can always call on Yumi to model instead," her mother says to her, with the same cold tone she uses when she's caught Sua drifting asleep in the car, or wriggling her toes in her shoes, or when Sua touches the newly applied makeup on her face accidentally, or when her hands instinctively clasp together as she speaks the few words necessary to her. Sua tries not to shiver where the metal of one of mother's rings touches her skin. She tries not to move when mother uses a finger to tilt her head up, to the side, readjust how she's holding the doll in her arms. She tries to temper her aching body. She tries not to be anything not required of her.
Sua only allows her chest to rise and fall with the effort of her breathing when she steps outside, hoping the motion is caught within the falling rain. Her sister, Yumi, the closest to her in age, passes by her and replaces her inside the car with a smirk. She has always been too expressive for mother, and an ugly crier, too. Sua watches the car drive her away.
But all of that is meaningless, because it means she can go visit Mizi early. Line by line, she redacts it from the day. Today is special, not for the coincidental omens, not for her failure guided by her own trembling hands — today will be a Mizi day.
For some reason, Mizi won't come to the door when she rings the doorbell, and no one else answers either. She should be home. Dread ties itself around her larynx. Mizi's mother isn’t home, and hasn't been for half a month, Sua knows. She's up north to see the aurora borealis — Mizi didn't elaborate further. Mizi has tennis practice on Saturdays, and is free Sundays. She should be home. It's raining, and Mizi hates the rain. She should be home.
Faintly, Sua recalls the location of the spare key from when Mizi uses it when her mother's too busy with her friends to hear the doorbell. She grabs it, wet and muddy from under a flowerpot, and turns the lock.
The colourful wallpaper of Mizi's home is rendered dull by the lack of light from the windows. It feels more foreign than it ever has before. The subdued tone does not fit quite right within these walls, and for once, something can compete with the garish taste Mizi's mother has in decoration.
A faint light guides Sua up the spiral staircase, down the hallway, through Mizi's bedroom, and into her en suite, where Mizi revealed to Sua her temporary hair dye some years ago. The door is quietly ajar. Sua finds herself holding her breath as she peeks inside.
Pink hair lies on the floor in clumps. A pair of scissors has been thrown to the side. A figure sits in the middle of the mess, trembling and crying. Sua barely recognises who it is, even though she knows it with certainty.
Brilliant hazel looks up at her, a swirling whirlpool of green and yellow. The brown should have been erased long ago. A rasped whisper escapes a parched throat, "Sua."
Sua wants to leave. She shouldn't have witnessed this. Mizi, her Mizi, cut into pieces, laid unresponsive on cold bathroom tile. She wants to turn away, but her arms won't move. Her legs won't move. Her eyes, as always, are glued on shimmering, mesmerising pink.
"I'm sorry," the voice begs her. "It was just a spur of the moment, I just needed a change, just for myself. Sua, please don't look at me like that. I'm sorry, okay?"
Sua can cut sentences halfway, redacts them if she needs; she can tint things a prettier colour in her memory; she can correct the small things that Mizi does wrong, and forgive her for it belatedly; but she can't undo the permanence of physical reality. She can't do anything that matters.
"Sua, I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to, I'll grow it out again — hair grows back, yeah? This is just only temporary. Please- I'm sorry!"
Only the pink parts have been severed. The roots stay. Only the section of hair Sua brushed and braided has been surgically removed like a cancerous tumour. She's been cut off.
"Sua, please. Please, say something, anything. Look-" A smile pulls across skin. A cheap imitation. "I- I can still be cute, can't I? Pretty?"
"Oh, Mizi," Sua manages to say, though she can barely hear her own voice over the buzzing in her ears. Her head feels fuzzy. "Why are you so handsome?"