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"Your hair really grew out, Agott!"
Agott didn't let it go past her shoulders, yet her hair has always been abundant, growing faster than she can realize it. Every month she'd have the ends trimmed, but amidst her rigorous studying for the third test, it slipped her mind this week.
Now she sits before a mirror, hair damp and clinging to her neck after a hot shower, debating whether letting Coco cut her hair was a good idea after all. Coco stands behind her with a pair of scissors and a smile too bright to be reassuring.
Usually, Qifrey would be up to the task. He'd done it once and it turned into a thing. But he's left for Kalhn this morning, and Agott doesn't trust Olruggio with not turning her hair into a stylish disaster. It would not go the way Agott wants.
"Why do you always keep your hair so short anyway? I think you'd look pretty cute if it was, well," Coco's finger trails a line down her back. It stops short of the strap of Agott's nightdress, and the touch leaves a ghost of warmth. "This length." She meets her eyes in the mirror. "Don't you think?"
"No. Keeping it long is a hassle," Agott argues, idly twirling a piece around her index, "it gets into my eyes when I'm studying. And taking care of it is a lot." Agott omits that looking in the mirror, with hair as long as Coco imagines, she sees her mother in her reflection. It's not exactly a comforting sight.
"Agotta say, that's a shame," Coco slowly combs through, once, twice. The teeth weave in the damp strands and tease Agott's nape with each swipe. The feeling's almost soothing. "I think your hair's very beautiful. It has the same shade as one ink I saw last time in Mr. Nolnoa's shop. What was the name again—?"
Agott bows her head with a groan. "Just get to it will you?"
Coco obeys with a small hum. The sound's tinged with humour, and it seems to make the room warmer.
Agott lets out a long exhale and peeks up at the girl starting to gather her hair. She gently sweeps away that falling over her eyes, touch so light Agott almost couldn't feel it. It's a bit ridiculous how careful she is with her, as if Agott was a new, unfamiliar spell she's mapping. Nevertheless, her grip on the comb and scissors is sure, and the way she parts and sections Agott's hair is natural, almost practiced.
Coco puts a finger to the shell of Agott's ear. "I should cut it to its usual length right?"
The latter nods stiffly and hopes the warmth of her skin isn't too noticeable. It is just the lingering heat of the shower, surely.
For a few moments, it's just the sound of brushing before the first snip fills the quiet. Coco starts at the back, holding curly locks between her fingers, and clipping them with a thick whump. Lets it go, shifts to the next part, and Agott's shoulders start loosen, as if Coco was easing off a weight she hadn't known she was carrying.
The metallic snip-snips gets thinner around smaller sections, then louder again, and it teases her ears when Coco snips around the edges. Her hands were too tiny around the large scissors, but she cut evenly. It was a far cry from Agott's own humiliating attempts at cutting her own hair. Her fingers might've been skilled with a pen, but they sure failed at the most practical tasks.
She still remembers the look of horror on Qifrey when she'd accidentally butchered her hair once.
At the memory, a small, sheepish frown settles on her face. It doesn't escape Coco's notice. She's been monitoring her expression, eyes flitting, with a worry that completely belies her confidence with the scissors. Her hands hover around Agott's head, now uncertain.
"Do you not like it?" she takes a step back to fully take in the back, "Is it too short?"
Agott bites the inside of her cheek, but her lips betray her with something between a smile and a grimace. It's just hair, no need to fuss so much. "It's fine, Coco." She replies, and she means it. It's definitely better than what she might've managed alone.
Coco clips the scissors twice, tongue poking out, head tilting the same way it does at complex spells, before reluctantly resuming her work.
Agott's gaze lingers, amused, before it trails back to her own reflection. Her eyes follow each strand that gathers at her lap and shoulders like tiny, black feathers. Then a fidget starts at her fingers, curling the hem of her nightdress between them. She finds herself suddenly curious.
"Where did you learn to do this?"
Coco has moved to her right, measuring a piece with another. She catches her eyes for moment before looking away and snipping more hair off. Agott's intrigued. Why the avoidance? She doesn't press, the cutting resumes, then quietly:
"…Back in my village, the neighbor's daughter used to come over at our house." She starts, and her hands stop for a moment, like it took her something to recall that memory. "She was like a little sister. I used to play with her, style her hair and dress her up with leftover pieces from my mother's shop."
"Oh, um, I see," then before she can stop herself, she adds. "Do you miss it? Those times?"
Agott regrets the words immediately, because Coco has taken a longer pause, and something impossibly fragile had cracked her face. A stupid question, really, though Coco doesn't hesitate to answer this time. "Of course I miss it, how could I not?" The smile that surfaces is wobbly. "Those days have never left me."
Agott's fingers curl tighter in her nightdress, and she wonders: Does it come for you at night too? Does it haunt you so?—the questions are at the tip of her tongue, but she swallows them, for the distant look in coco's eyes is enough of an answer. But then her gaze shifts back to her, and Agott feels suddenly exposed.
"What about you, Agott?"
"Mm?" Agott entertains the thought of sinking back into her chair, because the first instinct's to hide away. But Coco isn't pushing for an answer back. Instead of deflecting the way she usually does, Agott finds herself deflating without any presure, peeling back a layer of her own. She wants to blame it on the late hour, or the stupid way her chest constricts.
"I…neither have mine." The indigo eyed-girl stares through the mirror, past the girl looking back at her, to the ghost of a looming woman. "It's annoying, frustrating, and it just—" the words get stuck somewhere between her teeth, shy of leaving when her voice shook so. Memories resurfaced, low whispers and sharp rejections. The deep seated hunger for recognition, for praise that might ring hollow in face of everything—the life she's built away from the one person she'd looked up to most.
Her gaze falls, and with it loosens her posture, like a weary bird resting its wings after a long flight. "…It comes back at the worst times."
A beat, then coco's shoes shuffle, and she's standing between her and the vanity.
"I know," coco whispers above her, and she's brushing Agott's bangs to the side. The graze of her fingers tickles, and the sensation steals a startled breath from her lips. The scissors are put away with a quiet clink, and coco' leaning back now, voice softer. "I sometimes try to not think about it, but I also can't stop thinking about it. And I think," she exhales and turns her hands face up, spreading the calloused and ink-stained fingers beneath the lamplight, the same ones that have been irrevocably stained with the forbidden. "whether I'll ever have the chance to turn it all back to normal. Before this, and before…"
Agott can see the lump forming in Coco's throat, the sheen in her eyes that she's desperately blinking away. Agott's hands twitch once on her lap, hesitant, before they find Coco's in a gentle grip. She musters her best attempt of comfort, which comes as a soft, unsure swipe of her thumb across the girl's palms.
"Coco…The past is a closed chapter, but the pen—the ability to overwrite your mistakes— is in your hands now…and, well, what I'm trying to say is—don't let it hinder you," She manages, and internally winces. Because conveying what she feels into words suddenly has her tongue twisted, and the meaning gets lost in-between.
But the words are meant for her just as they are for coco, and Agott might not say the correct things sometimes, but that doesn't seem quite as scary with Coco. It is less unsettling than the girl's ability to see right through her, for she could pull her apart and reach for the truth the way someone unravels a puzzle—patient, stubborn, and too nice for her own good.
Coco looks at the rawest parts of her, graces her with a smile, and Agott almost feels envious of how bright she shines, of how easily she gives, even when she's just as torn on the inside.
Perhaps that is why Agott allows herself to bask in the light, to let it seep into the coldest, darkest corners, to cast it back with the same measure of warmth. Even if she's failing at it now, even if Coco holds her tighter and smiles anyway.
"Okay…I'll stay strong, if you pinky promise me the same." She quips with a wet laugh, and Agott wonders whether Coco realizes that she's always been her favorite. Or, maybe it had been plenty obvious, way before Agott's mind caught up with her heart.
She curls her pinky around Coco's, but can't resist adding under her breath. "...You're childish."
Coco's grin shows a glimpse of teeth. "And yet here you are."
"Mhm…" Agott rises from her seat, fetching a towel and racking it through her still damp hair. Even short it took forever to dry, thankfully they had the rings to warm up quickly. "Thank you for the haircut."
Coco draws a quick spell to sweep away the cut hair. "Of course. Anytime!"
"There—there won't be a next time!"
"Sure. My services are available anyway. Anytime."
Agott nudges her shoulder with Coco's, and they share a small laugh.
"Impossible…"
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