Imagine a white poodle.
Imagine the same white poodle, except with it growing out of somebody's head.
If nightmares could come to life then Hyejin reckoned she was living one right now. As someone who was just looking at it, she was already absolutely horrified; she couldn't even begin to imagine how the poor fellow with the poodle on his head must have been feeling. If she was in his shoes, she might have just leapt off a building.
"Ok..." she muttered, still a little shell-shocked.
"Please, just do whatever you need to, I can't live another second like this," the man begged. A look of anguish flashed across his eyes as he stared at his own reflection in the mirror. The poodle on his head seemed to be mocking him, white curls bouncing up and down with every slightest movement he made.
Hyejin took a couple of steps forward and picked up the scissors that she had thrown at him. "Fine, but you do realise that this is a neighbourhood barber shop and there's only so much I can do with what I have. Would you be alright if I—"
"Just do it!" the guy screeched.
"Ok ok! I'll do it!" Hyejin yelled back. If she didn't do something right this instant, she thought he might just yank out all his hair with his bare hands.
Taking a deep breath, she gave one last assessment of the train wreck she was faced with and decided that there was no other way about it. She put down her scissors and picked up the razor instead.
The man closed his eyes, not willing to take another look at the poodle. No matter what she did to his hair now, it couldn't possibly get worse. He didn't even know how he managed to be convinced to walk the red carpet with that mop of cotton candy on his head. His hairstylist had said that this was the latest trend in France and it would put him on the front cover of every magazine and newspaper. Within minutes after he made his appearance, his photos hit every social media platform, except it was for all the wrong reasons. He could still see the captions and headlines in his mind right now, each one more critical and damning than the one before.
"This might seem a little rude, so you don't have to answer me if you don't want to, but what on earth possessed you to do this to your hair?" Hyejin asked. It was the first time, and hopefully last time, she had witnessed such an unfortunate sight.
"I didn't do this to my hair. Some moron did," he sighed. "I don't want to talk about it."
"People nowadays like to do all sorts of strange things to their hair. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I once saw a guy on the street who had bright blue hair and he looked absolutely fantastic, somewhat like a comic book superhero, but then there was this huge biker with his Harley Davidson who had the exact same shade of blue and his just made him look like... a mouse that got dunked in blue dye. It was unfortunate."
"I did blue once, wasn't so bad."
"I see," Hyejin replied, her hands still moving swiftly across his head. Bits of white fluff slowly drifted down towards the floor, creating somewhat of a snowy effect. "So what brings you to a place like this? You seem like the sort who likes to do fancy things to your hair. A barber shop hardly seems like the right sort of place for you."
"You don't recognise me?"
Was she supposed to? Hyejin stopped what she was doing for a second, peering curiously at the man's reflection in the mirror. He did look awfully familiar, but she couldn't quite place where she had seen him before. Her father always said she had a memory like a sieve—this person had likely been sieved out.
Seeing the look of confusion on her face, he decided to put her out of her misery. "My grandmother used to bring me to this barber shop for my haircuts when I was a kid. Back then it was a friendly pot-bellied man who always cut my hair for me. His daughter always sat behind the counter doodling, though she always refused to show me what she was drawing, isn't that right, Hyejin?"
Hyejin blinked. He knows my name? All of a sudden she felt a little embarrassed that she had no recollection of who he was whatsoever.
"I'm really sorry, but I'm afraid I can't really remember you," she said apologetically. "My memory has always been a bit like a goldfish's."
"It's alright, it's been a long time. Your father was the best, he always gave me a lollipop whenever I came round just so I would sit quietly and let my hair be cut. I used to be terrified of the razor." It was funny how time changed things. Now the low hum of the razor in the background actually helped calm him down and give him peace of mind.
At the mention of the lollipop, something clicked in Hyejin's mind. "Oh right! You're the lollipop boy! My dad always kept a jar full of lollipops in the drawer just for you," she exclaimed. "Hwang Minhyun!"
"It's been a long time since someone has called me by that name," Ares murmured. In fact, his grandmother had been the last person who used to call him Minhyun. Ever since she passed away, the only name that the world knew him by was Ares—Ares Hwang.
A hard slap on his right shoulder immediately made him snap out of his melancholy. "It's really you! The crybaby who refused to get his hair cut all the time. It's been such a long time, where have you been all this while? The last we heard from the neighbours was that your family moved away and that was it. Where did you move to?"
"You don't know?" Ares raised an eyebrow. Hyejin looked genuinely surprised to see him, as if she had just met a long-lost friend she hadn't seen in years. How was it possible that she didn't recognise Ares Hwang though? Everyone knew who he was.
"Am I supposed to? Dude, we haven't seen each other in ten years? Fifteen years? Wow, if we bumped into each other on the streets I would totally not have recognised you."
Hyejin switched the razor on once more and continued with her job. This was a rather unexpected encounter. If not for trying to avoid her brother, she might not have been at the shop at this hour of night and she would perhaps never have met this old acquaintance once more. It was strange how these things worked.
"How have you been?" Ares asked. "I wasn't expecting to find you here. Have you taken over your father's barber shop?"
"He's getting on with age now and his knees aren't doing so well. He can't stand all day in the shop anymore, so someone's got to take over I suppose," she replied. It should have been her brother, but he was hopeless.
"I see. Are you planning to continue like this for long? Barber shops like these probably don't get much business these days, with all these new and modern salons popping up everywhere. People nowadays go for more edgy, creative looks." He glanced around the shop—everything looked exactly as he remembered, and that was almost fifteen years ago. "Ever thought of upgrading the shop?"
"My dad won't allow it. Says it's family tradition and we should keep the shop how it's been ever since it first started," Hyejin said. "But you're right, business isn't so good nowadays. It's a good thing we own the shop and we don't need to pay rent, else we might have closed down a long time ago."
Ares murmured something in acknowledgement, though he had slowly begun to drift off to sleep. The sound of the razor was like a quiet lullaby and Hyejin's voice was soothing enough to match. It had been a long day and he had gone through more than he had been expecting to. Here in a familiar environment from his childhood where there weren't any bright lights and gossipmongers to give him hell, he felt like he could finally take a breather.
"You mind if I try something new with your hair?" Hyejin suddenly asked. "I mean, you don't seem like you're headed for the army and you seem like the kind who wouldn't mind doing something experimental..."
The thought had struck her a while ago while she was getting rid of the white mop, but it wasn't until she found out he was someone she knew that she plucked up the courage to ask. After giving army boys boring buzz cuts for years, she was dying to try out something different that wouldn't get her customer into trouble with military police.
She thought she heard him mumble something in reply, though it was barely audible. She took it as permission to proceed.
When Ares woke up from his short nap about fifteen minutes later, Hyejin was already done and sweeping up white fluffballs from the floor. Stretching his arms out with a yawn, Ares took a couple of seconds to gather his thoughts and come back to reality. When he did, he looked into the mirror and froze.
"Oh my God..."
"What? Is it that bad? I thought anything would be an improvement from what it was like before," Hyejin remarked. "I'm sorry it had to be so short, but they almost permed your hair down to the roots so if I didn't snip it all off you would have looked like you had white mould growing out of your head."
"No, not at all," he said quickly. "It's just... It's not what I expected that's all."
All these years spent at Gongja barber shop had made Hyejin an expert in crew cuts, buzz cuts, burr cuts and any style that would be acceptable by Korean military standards. This time round, she hadn't deviated much from what she was familiar with, giving Ares a standard crew cut that was short enough to leave no sign of the previous poodle-do behind. What she had experimented with though, was a little styling on the right side of his head where she had carefully shaved the design of two lightning bolts.
Without the distracting white curls covering half his forehead, Ares's features had become more distinct and his natural good looks had been accentuated. White was actually a rather good colour for him, given the way it contrasted with his tanned skin. Taking a second look, Hyejin had to admit that Ares had grown up rather well.
"If you don't like it I can just shave the sides a little shorter and then it'll look a little more normal," Hyejin said, picking up her razor once again.
"No!" Ares called out, stepping out of the chair. "No, there's no need for that. The haircut is great, it really is. I was just a little surprised that's all. It's been a while since I've had my hair so short, but I quite like it."
"Really?" Hyejin looked at him, unconvinced.
He nodded and smiled. "Thanks, Hyejin. It definitely looks a great deal better than what it used to be." He glanced down ruefully at the pile of white fluff in her dustpan, glad to be rid of the hair disaster. "I better be going then," he said. Looking up at the signboard, he fished out a couple of bills from his wallet and placed it on the counter. "I'll see you around soon?"
"Uh yeah sure. Bye," she said awkwardly.
The doorbell jingled as he pushed open the door and stepped out into the night. After he vanished down the street, Hyejin continued tidying up the shop, wondering what to make of this encounter. In a night's work, she had rescued a distressed customer from hair hell and he turned out to be someone she had known from her childhood. She had been a little grumpy tonight, but after that, her mood had lifted considerably.
Whistling a cheery tune, she decided that maybe today wasn't all that bad after all.
#
While she could avoid her brother for one day, she couldn't avoid him forever.
The next morning, Hyejin emerged from her room to find brother dearest sitting in the living room beyond himself with laughter as he watched some stupid variety programme on the television. One year out at sea evidently hadn't done anything to change him at all—he was exactly as she remembered, loud, obnoxious and annoying.
"Hey little sis!" he called out, wiping the tears of laughter away from his eyes. "Where have you been? We waited all night for you but you didn't show. Did you meet some guy and..." He gave her a kinky wink that made her want to give him a good, hard kick.
She rolled her eyes. "No. I went back to the barbershop to tidy up after dinner so I came back a little late." She quickly walked into the kitchen, not wanting to engage in extended conversation with Hyukjin. Their father had already prepared breakfast for them, and there was piping hot soup and rice on the stove.
"Are you getting breakfast? Could you bring out a set for me too?" Hyukjin called out.
Still as lazy as ever, Hyejin thought to herself. He had obviously been awake and watching television for a while now, yet he hadn't bothered to move his lazy ass to the kitchen to fetch his own breakfast. "What am I? Your slave?" she muttered as she scooped out two bowls of rice and two bowls of soup.
Carrying their breakfast out on a tray, she dumped everything on the floor with a loud clang. Picking up her own bowl and spoon, she began shovelling food into her mouth. There was no time to waste, she needed to be at the shop in half an hour to open it.
"So, how have you been this past year? Anything exciting happen in your life?" Hyukjin asked, slurping at his bowl of soup.
"No."
For someone who was pushing thirty, Hyukjin still looked fairly good. In fact, it was as if he hadn't aged since he was eighteen, which seemed rather unfair to Hyejin since someone as irresponsible and irritating as her brother shouldn't have been blessed with such good genes. The worst part of it was that brother and sister did share somewhat of a family resemblance and there was no way anyone would have been unable to tell that they were blood-related. It was regretful.
"Oh," he replied. "You really should start paying more attention to the way you dress, else you won't be able to find a man to marry you. I don't suppose you want to cling on to ol' dad for the rest of your life do you?"
"The way I dress is perfectly fine thank you," Hyejin retorted. Besides, the one clinging on to dad is you.
"Are you still pissed off with me for what happened long ago? It's been such a long time, quit holding a grudge! I'll earn enough money to pay you back one day, so stop sulking. It's unbecoming of a young lady to wear a sour face all the time. Besides, we're family, we're supposed to help one another out in times of need right?"
Hyejin slammed her chopsticks down. "Look, just stop talking about it will you? The more you talk about it the harder it'll be for me to forget. How long are you going to be back here for?"
Shrugging his shoulders, Hyukjin said, "No idea. Maybe a month, maybe a year. Depends when they ring me up another trip out to sea. You know how these things are. No job is permanent nowadays. They give me work on an ad-hoc basis."
"A year?" Hyejin's voice went up an octave. "So what happens if they never call you? What are you going to do in-between jobs?"
"Quit being such a worrywart. I promise no matter what I do, I won't be a burden to you, alright? You can just continue doing what you've been doing and cutting hair at the barber shop and I'll just stay out of your way. Kiddo, we grew up together. I don't want our relationship to be like this for the rest of our lives. Truce?"
Hyejin didn't trust her brother to keep a promise. He was an expert at making promises and absolute rubbish at keeping them.
"Come on, you don't want dad to be upset because of us right?" Hyukjin added, tugging at her sleeve.
He knew that once he played the daddy card he would definitely win. Despite the persistent tension between Hyejin and her brother, she would never do anything to break her father's heart; that was why she had agreed to stay behind and look after the barber shop despite having to give up her dream of going to vocational school.
"Just shut up and eat your breakfast," Hyejin muttered. She turned her attention towards the television, hoping that her brother would take the hint and give her some peace.
The TV set was rolling the ending credits to the variety programme that Hyukjin had been watching, and minutes later the morning's entertainment news came on.
"This morning on Entertainment Daily, we bring you breaking news of the hundred and eight-degree turnaround of idol star Ares Hwang after his humiliation on the red carpet just last night. I'm sure everyone must have seen pictures from last night's award ceremony where Ares appeared with what has been touted to be the worst hairstyle of the century. No one would have guessed that in a night's work, all that has become history! This morning, our reporters have captured images of Ares rocking a hot new hairstyle that has been making waves all across the entertainment industry. Since 9am this morning, Ares's new hairstyle has been the number one trending topic on Twitter and pictures of him have been splashed all over the world's entertainment sites. From hair disaster to hair extraordinaire—how did he do it? Our reporter Kim Sooyeon brings you the latest report."
Hyejin really wasn't paying attention to what the TV presenter was saying. She was just chomping at her rice, staring blankly at the screen just so she wouldn't need to entertain her brother. She finished gobbling everything down in a record time of five minutes and began clearing up her empty crockery.
Just then, a familiar face flashed across the TV screen, complete with two lightning bolts that she remembered from once upon a rainy night.
"What the hell..."
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