Kyouko walks into the living room of the ECFH, looking mildly nervous. "So, you're sure you know what you're doing, right Zo-nii?" She asks over her shoulder to Zoisite, who is presumably following her.
She's carrying one of the chairs from the dining room, which she sets down in the middle of the floor, and then turns around, hands goin to her hips. "I swear to god if you pull some kinda prank on me and make me look ridiculous.."
She doesn't really doubt that Zoisite knows what he's doing- it's all nerves. She hasn't had her hair cut in like five years. But she's determined to go through with it- this is a new chapter in her life and she wants to feel different and this is all part of that continuing campaign.
Zoisite laughs softly, in a way that conveys that he's not laughing so much at Kyouko as he's laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of the idea that he doesn't know what he's doing when it comes to cutting hair. Honestly.
Zoisite is actually busy laying down what looks like a drop sheet for painting on the floor, and he claims the chair after a moment, setting it square in the middle of the drop sheet. He has scissors, combs, an electric trimmer with guides, hair clips, and a squirt-waterbottle arrayed at hand, and a couple of elastics around a wrist. There's also a poncho, probably unfamiliar to Kyouko given how long it's been since she's had a hair cut. "Sit down, and I'll start. Yes, I know what I'm doing, and I'm going to make you look badass."
Kyouko looks at the array of tools with a mildly concerned frown. "I just want you to cut my hair, not perform surgery.." She says, sounding slightly doubtful, but she sits in the chair after another moment of hemming and hawing.
"I take exception ta that remark cuz it implies I don't already look badass." She huffs softly, fidgeting slightly.
"Sorry it's just been like.. I dunno, a long time since I changed my hair or got a haircut or anything. Y'know, it ain't exactly a priority when yer livin' on the street scrapin' for food and such.."
Zoisite grins. "The floor cloth is so we aren't finding tiny bits of hair absolutely everywhere, the poncho is going to keep your hair off of you- you're still going to want to shower after, though, bits always get under your clothes- and the other stuff is partly because you have so much hair." As he's explaining, he's taking down her hair from its usual ponytail and brushing it out with care, deftly drawing her hair into a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck. He braids that, then ties it off with an elastic. He wraps Kyouko in the poncho and snaps it up.
"Ready?" 'cause like it or not, the first step is taking off mass amounts of hair, just above the elastic at the start of the braid. He's careful and methodical, nearly as steady as Kunzite while he does this, and soon enough he has a large braid in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. He holds the braid out over Kyouko's shoulder, to show her. "Some places will donate this much hair to make a wig for kids with cancer, you know," he says offhand.
"Well, I guess that's fair.." Kyouko mutters, at the comment about so much hair. "Y'know, like I said, it's been a while. Even before I started livin' on my own an' stuff I had long hair. It's hadda long time to grow.." She lapses into silence as Zoisite gets to work, putting her hair back and braiding it. That's kinda soothing at least, in the way that having someone groom your hair is always kinda soothing.
Then he holds the braid over her shoulder and asks if she's ready. She takes a breath.. then gives a lopsided grin. "Donatin' it is probably a good idea. I was gonna put googly eyes on the end and hide it in Mamoru's bed so he thinks its a snake or somethin'." She says, snickering.
Then she closes her eyes and nods. "Do it."
Zoisite snickers at the comment about googly eyes. "I could probably find somewhere to donate it, but hiding it in Mamoru's bed with googly eyes would be funnier." Because being a Shitennou means being absolutely serious and mature one-hundred percent of the time, and Mamoru has been stressed with schoolwork recently.
Still, after that interlude, Zoisite sets the braid aside and fairly mauls Kyouko's hair with the spraybottle full of water, parting it down the center and trimming at what probably seems to be random to Kyouko.
There's a quiet focus while he works, something most people likely wouldn't associate readily with the second-youngest of the Shitennou, but it's there all the same. He's careful, but still efficient, as he trims her hair.
"Well, maybe one first and then the other.." Kyouko says, before actually wincing slightly when Zoisite cuts off the braid. It suddenly feels like her head is about three pounds lighter!
Well, the hard part is over anyway- there's no going back now. Well, at least until her hair grows back naturally, which it absolutely will. That's kind of reassuring too. At least if this is a huge mistake it's only a temporary one.
She doesn't say anything else as Zoisite gets to work with the less dramatic, but probably way more important part of the process- making it look like her hair wasn't hacked off in a knife-fight. Which honestly, with Kyouko, would be a fair assumption.
In the midst of the quiet focus, the door opens and closes again. Without the benefit of a warning from downstairs, or a knock. When a wild Naru appears, it's clear why there was no warning. She's already barefoot, and dressed down out of school uniform, and she's clearly been painting. At least to judge by the colourful specks on her hands and apron.
"Oh!" Naru stops as she arrives into the midst of a salon and she grins. "Oh /cool/!" She edges around the drop cloth and giggles softly. "I hope you're not finished, Zoi."
Zoisite pauses briefly at the subtle sounds of a door opening, and he tenses for the barest of moments, grip subtly adjusting on the scissors, all in the few moments before it's apparent exactly who walked in. The subtle tension and battle-readiness are gone in the same amount of time as it's obvious who came in, and Zoisite resumes working.
It's possible that having Chibiusa around the apartments occasionally still has him on edge, and training with Homura to deal with potential firearms certainly didn't help with putting a hair trigger on some reflexes.
Still, Zoisite's smile is normal for him, crooked and wry. "Nope, not yet, just getting to the 'making it look like a haircut and not a tragic accident in a brawl' phase," he offers airily.
Kyouko's eyes open as she hears the door as well, glancing over and smiling at Naru from the center of the 'salon', as it were. "Oh, hi Naru-chan-" she starts to say, until hearing the newcomer's words.
Her eyes widens lightly, and Zoisite can feel her fidget again on the chair, as if wanting to reach up and feel her hair but restraining herself through pure force of will. "W-why, does it look dumb?" She asks, sounding legitimately concerned.
Zoisite's off-handed comments don't help, but she still manages to stop herself from ripping off the poncho and running into the bathroom to check. "I swear to god, Zo-nii, if you screwed it up.." The look she gives Naru is begging for reassurance at this point.
"In the middle of it? Of course it looks dumb in the middle of it." Naru isn't much help, as she pauses a moment to consider.
"I looked like a weasel who had licked an electrical outlet halfway through my haircut, and it was /amazing/ when it was done. Faith, Kyouko. Have faith."
Naru's own haircut has grown out enough to need to be held back with a hairband again, still too short to be ponytailed yet, but soon. She's headed for the kitchen, to seek out coffee within.
"You also look like someone tried to drown you in that tragic brawling accident," says Mr. Not Helping. "But I'm sure Naru can talk at length about how any art project never looks great right in the middle of it." Probably helping more, there, adding some balm to the burn. He's still trimming at bits, slowly turning the haircut from 'tragic bar brawl/knife fight/drowning accident' combination into an adorable bob that frames Kyouko's face.
Even if her hair still is a soggy mess. Dealing with that comes last.
Kyouko makes a somewhat strangled sound at the 'reassurance' she's granted from her two 'friends', hunching her shoulders slightly but at least not actually trying to flee the scene.
"I ain't too good at faith. Remember who my father was." She grumbles faintly, before heaving a sigh. She did sort of make a committment to trust this new family of hers, which at least in Zoisite's case appears to include letting him near her head with sharp implements. Enjoy it, Zoisite, it's a privledge few enjoy.
"Naruuu-chan, bring me a snaaack." She whines petulantly from the chair as she sees Naru heading into the kitchen.
"It's good for you!" Naru grins at Kyouko's grumbling and just barely manages not to tease her further, although she sends Zoisite a wink as she vanishes into the kitchen.
"It'll be /awesome/. I promise. I'll let /you/ cut my hair if it sucks, okay Kyouko?" Naru calls back from the kitchen as she putters around, finding herself and Kyouko a snack and putting the kettle on. Cause there is no pot of coffee going, oh the humanity!
Zoisite snorts. "I'm not good at faith either, Kyouko." Still, there's something to be said for the kind of 'faith' that lets one paranoid fighter allow another to get close to her head with snippy bits- she isn't even flinching when he's close to her ears, which is better than some people he's seen at commercial salons.
It doesn't take all that long for Zoisite to finish this part, and that's when the blowdryer nation attacks! He's even making it a point to go after clumps of hair on her neck, with a towel he'd stashed somewhere and then the blow dryer. Now she looks like she got into a fight with a windstorm, and Zoi takes a good minute to tame her hair back down and put the finishing trim job on it. "Nice thing about the way I'm cutting it is that even looking kind of bedheaded won't look that bad on you," he offers.
"Look, I bet I could cut hair pretty good. I got a way with sharp implements." Kyouko calls after Naru while the other girl is in the kitchen.
Then Zoisite is blowdrying her hair, and she sways slightly with the blasts of air, her expression rather hilarious for anyone who ever wanted to see Kyouko looking distinctly uncomfortable. "Dude, this is more attention than I've paid to my hair in the past five years combined." She mutters, her fingers twitching underneath the poncho again.
"I'm not gonna have to like.. do anything to keep it looking good, am I?" She suddenly asks, as if this is only now occuring to her. She has been all-too-used to occasionally washing it and just tying it back in a giant ponytail. Grooming herself is not one of her fortes.
"I've seen what the bad guys look like after you've sharp implemented them." Naru points out dryly as she emerges with a pear for Kyouko and one for herself and a third to wait on the table to see if Zoi has an urge for fruit. She stands to watch, pointedly not watching the kettle. Boil. Faster. Dammit. "And I don't want my hair ending up in tattered ribbons of dead, hmm?"
A bite of her pear as Naru watches the blowdrying and then grins as Kyouko realizes that she might have to level up in 'girl', specialization of 'hair products'.
"There's a unicorn-blood serum you have to rub in at an exact time during the exact right star sign, which I'll have Neph tell you all about," Zoisite says, tone so utterly dry that it has to be a joke. After a moment, he snickers. "But seriously, no, just brush your hair. I might beat you with the braid of old hair if I ever have to cut a mat that didn't happen because we had bigger things to worry about," he says. After a couple more judicious snips, he unclips the poncho from around Kyouko's neck.
And presents her with a mirror. "Go look at yourself in the bathroom mirror," he suggests.
"How are you better at girl-stuff than I am? That's so not fair." Kyouko mutters at Zoisite, Naru's grin reminding her once again that 'learning to be feminine' was not included in her 'trying not to starve on the streets' early teens.
But then Zoisite is removing the poncho and handing her a mirror. She glances in it.. then stands up and dashes into the bathroom. She grabs the pear on the way.
A moment later she returns, her expression hard to read as she fidgets with the hand mirror. She eyes both Naru and Zoisite , one hand reaching up to run through her newly-shortened locks. "So.. you're sure it doesn't look silly, right?"
Then she grins. "Cause I actually really like it." She skips over and gives Zoisite a hug. Just a short one, because still Kyouko, but still.
Naru tries to coax her face into considering the new look, gesturing for Kyouko to turn around so she can see all of it, but that stoic doesn't last.
"Eee!" Naru beams and squeaks in delight that she doesn't often express without Usagi prodding. "It looks /fantastic/! I loved having it short. And if you /do/ put goop in it, you can do all sorts of things with it, but it looks /fine/ just tousled with your fingers after a shower."
"Because you often had more pressing concerns on your mind?" Zoisite calls after Kyouko. He starts cleaning up while Kyouko is running to the bathroom, smiling crookedly.
"If I thought it looked silly I wouldn't have told you to look at yourself, dork." When she hugs him, he ruffles her hair thoroughly with a grin.
Ruffling her newly-cut hair probably just results in shedding little red hair-fragments all over everything, including herself, but Kyouko is pleased enough at the moment to let him get away with it.
After pulling away from the hug, Kyouko sticks her tongue out at Zoisite. "Well forgive me for not always takin' everything you say at face value." She returns, then laughs. "Seriously though, thanks. I don't think I could have survived going to an actual salon or anything. I wouldn't know what to say."
She tosses her head, and nothing much happens, causing her to look momentarily startled. "This is going to take some getting used to, though.."
She takes a bite of pear, then eyes Naru. "I ain't gonna put goop in it."
"But you /could/." Naru points out with a grin and then she hears the most magical sound ever. The click of the kettle.
Naru takes herself back into the kitchen to make herself a hot beverage, of the coffee variety more than likely. "Want anything to drink?" She offers as she climbs the counter to get herself a mug.
"You could," Zoi agrees. At Naru's offer, he shakes his head a bit, still puttering at cleaning up from cutting Kyouko's hair.
"Hey, Kyouko, do you have some googly eyes?" He asks. The fact that Naru doesn't know what they were talking about when it came to the googly eyes amuses him a bit.
Kyouko chomps some more on the pear, soon reducing it to just a core. She doesn't eat this, because she vaugely remembers hearing somewhere that pear cores are poisonous? Maybe that was peaches. She's not sure. She doesn't know it's safe like an apple core, so for once she doesn't eat it but consigns it to the compost.
"I'll take some tea, Naru-chan." She says as the offer comes from the kitchen, before moving over towards Zoisite. "Here, let me help, it's my hair after all." She begins helping with the sweeping and clearing up of the various hair-implements and guards.
"No, I don't have googly eyes. Why would I have googly eyes?" She asks, eyeing him.
"So, no making the braid into a weird googly-eyed snake to stare at people?" Zoisite says with a laugh. He doesn't argue with the additional hands; after all, there's still going to be some vacuuming to get up all the hair.
He's pointedly not cleaning up the braid, though. That's Kyouko's to decide what to do with. "You could always beat people with it, it's pretty big..."
"What do you need googly eyes for?" Naru asks curiously and then its answered for her and she giggles softly. "Oh! I could draw you eyes to cut out of paper, if you wanted."
"Tea for Kyouko. Zoi? Want anything?" She adds a second mug to the first and starts pouring hot water over coffee grounds in the melitta and over a tea bag for Kyouko.
Kyouko glances up from bundling up the drop-cloth. "Naru-chan, if you draw me eyes on paper they're gonna actually start lookin' around, so I think we'd best leave well enough alone for now." She grins.
"I always kinda wanted to braid it and put like a blade at the end of it and whip my head around as a weapon." Kyouko comments as she picks up the thick, severed braid, peering at it.. then shrugging. "I guess I should donate it. It'd be good to know it might help somebody out instead of just throwin' it away."
Kyouko doesn't like to waste stuff.
"Donating it is probably the best idea, if not the funniest," Zoisite comments. "And no, I don't want anything, thanks though."
"They don't /have/ to!" Naru protests as she brings mugs out. No tray, because she is a heathen. Clearly. "I can draw things that are just normal boring drawings. I've been practicing."
The fact that she has to /practice/ not making them move is perhaps a touch odd, but such is life around ECFH.
"Then some kid with cancer will get to look like a bad ass redhead." Naru points out with a smile as she offers Kyouko her tea.
"I do like the thought of helpin' somebody look badass." Kyouko says, with a grin, as she accepts the mug from Naru, before turning again to Zoisite.
"Anyway, Zo-nii.. thanks again. It looks good and it feels good. Feels like I'm movin' forward, y'know? Making a new me. That's somethin' I've been tryin' real hard to do. All of you," She includes Naru with a gesture of her arm, "Are helpin' me with that, and it really means a lot. So thanks."
She smiles, and then hides her face in her tea.