The school Disciplinary committee member Aomine Chiyu with her long plaits did not have much friends but envied the gyarus who were much kinder than the disciplinary committee.
One day, during the last day before summer break, the disciplinary committee were checking out on the students, Chiyu was also present.
As she was checking, the gyaru came and she stopped them for wearing loose socks and unbuttoned shirt .
"Chill Chiyu-Chan, take a break, it's last day of school, you need to take a rest" said Akami, one of the gyarus
" Yes, but it's school rules"
" Chill Chiyu-Chan, here I got you something that you cheer you for all the help you had tutor us during the exams." Akami said as she pulled a stuffed toy she took from the claw machine in the arcade.
"Here, I knew you like Cats, so I got you one" said Akami as she saw the smile from Chiyu's face
" Hey, if you really get bored, you can spend time with us just as friends and talk as what friends do" said Chiyu as others agreed with her as they too have some gifts to keep her happy and excuse them.
Just as they were talking, Chiyu recieved a slap from her president of the school Disciplinary committee.
"What do you think you are doing?"
" Umm .."
"Excuse me, we're her friends, you don't have rights to slap her" shouted Akami
"Friends.... Who would be friends with losers like you, you don't care about school. You're just lucky Chiyu helpt you get save from repeating this year"
" It's thanks to her, her kindness. We were lost as we want to enjoy school life and Chiyu-Chan here brought us to light"
"Humph... typical Chiyu, always helping the weak" says the president as she hands her hand to which Chiyu gets puzzled
" Your band"
" My band?"
" I said to you before you joined, if you disobey the disciplinary committee rules, three strikes, you are to removed from the committee" she said
" But I love being in the committee, I always dream of doing this and helping others"
" Then you heard wrong" said the president as she ripped her band from her hand." You're out"
The president left leaving Chiyu all alone.Akami wanted to console her but she ran as fast as she could making them sad.
As holidays started, Chiyu went back to her town in Shibuya, where she helped her grandmother who lives there. As they went to the shrine visit. As she went to ask for good luck thinking about what happened in school, her eyes were about to drip when she heard the Wooden Sandle and turned as she saw the Kejoro walking past the shrine with her parasol.
" Oh, you caught your eyes on her" said her grandmother
" Who's she" asked Chiyu
" She's a hairdresser, She may look young but she looks at her 30's. it's strange when she told to me that she was the daughter of the one who did my hair when I was at your age and I was getting married, her grandmother dressed me up and her daughter did your mother's when she was schooling. Three had the same face and same personality but it's hard to know both look alike." laughed her grandmother
As they left, Chiyu was curious to know about the Kejoro. She laid down in her room, when suddenly a text message came. As she checked, it was Akami who texted whether she was okay. She wept as she came to know what were friends and thought something that came in her mind.
The next day, Chiyu walked inside the forest to the saloon where her grandmother had instructe and climbed the hill with help of the steps and found the bamboo built shop. She saw the Kejoro washing the tools as she turned her head.
" Please excuse me, are you here to get your hair done?" asked the woman
" Uh .... yes"
" Then, please wait for five minutes at the counter and I will be there" said the woman as she took out the tray back into the shop.
Chiyu the entered the shop, apprehensive about what lay ahead. Her long black hair needed a light trim as she was tired of the hot summer and due to the incident she wanted some relaxation. As she waited, the woman came with her black kimono as she bowed as greeting.
"To the Winds of flower, to the stream of the river, Katsumi Kejoro at your service" The woman that greeted her was strikingly beautiful, her face perfect in its high cheekboned androgyny. Her pale white skin glowed.
"Hello my name is Aomine Chiyu, my grandmother and my mother used to come here"
"I see,So what may I be in service?" she asked as she looked with her red eyes.
"I'm really not sure about a shorter cut," Chiyu said, brushing her fingers through her long plated mane of hair. "I'm pretty attached to it and besides it's so thick and healthy."
"You're correct Misd," the Kejoro replied, "but that would just make the shorter cut look better."
"Please, just a trim,I have been in disciplinary and want to keep that look" said Chiyu which The Kejoro agreed as it's the customers wish and trimmed off an inch off the ends of her locks.
"If you reconsider," said The woman , her red eyes seeming to burn into her, "come back and I'll really turn you into something special."
Chiyu smiled nervously and nodded, thinking how exquisite she was. The thought of returning for a more drastic change intrigued her, but she shook it away.
She left the shop feeling happy with the results and went home to take care of some chores around the house, but the thought wouldn't leave her head Did she really want this life and be a friendless girl without frienss? Was she helping her to change? Eventually, she couldn't help returning to the Kejoro , the curiosity was just too much. The next day, she slowly slide the door as the woman was tending another client. She sat patiently and wairws for her turn. The Kejoro finished and escorted the client and turned to her.
"Have you decided Miss, Ready to give something shorter a try?" she asked. Chiyu bit her lip.
"I– I'm just curious, what kind of style did you have in mind?" she asked.
"I'm not to judge, I appreciate the customer's wish" she replied, "if you let me the permission to decide, it's just going to have to be a surprise."
Much to Chiyu's shock, she found herself saying, "Alright, well if you won't tell me there's only one way to find out."
"Certainly Misd" she said and motioned for her to sit in the chair. She sat looking down at her own hair, which hung loose about her in thick masses of dark waves. The Kejoro lifted the heavy tresses expertly as she swept a cape around her before setting about dampening and sectioning her mane.
The Woman did her work with the efficiency of long practice and she knew she was in good hands even as she turned her away from the mirror.
"Umm.... Actually I have a request as she lend her ear to the woman"
" If that you want, Its my customer's wish" she said as she brought a scissor and comb as she sprinkle her hair.
The woman began to snip. Great swaths of dark hair fell with a swish to the floor and she felt the strange sensation of the breeze from the air conditioning tickling the back of her neck as she cut. Her stomach twisted into knots of anxiety, but there was no turning back now. Her hair would be short and there was no getting around it.
Once the length was gone, she could feel the ends of her hair brushing against her jaw. It was terrifying and yet the vulnerability under the Kejoro's graceful hands was strangely erotic. The lady let down the top section and her hair again touched the floor as she sat. Her tresses were so thick that it probably looked as if nothing had happened but then came the metallic "snick" of the scissors and that sensation of tension and release as the blades closed and several feet of hair fell onto the tiled floor, gone, irretrievable.
The Kejoro resectioned her hair and continued to cut, shorter locks falling now, measuring in inches or even millimetres rather than feet. Still, her hair was already so short! the woman layered her hair expertly, cutting it to shape before she put the scissors down and went to mix the colour which she had requested when lending her ear to the woman.
She didn't dare peep. It felt as if she knew what she was dound. She clung knuckled to the chair. She wept as she had done a wrong thing. She had cared dutifully for it every day, brushing and conditioning, braiding it carefully before bed every night. How would she look without it. But this has to change, she needed a change and wiped her tears as she knew the smell when The woman came back.
"Is that it?" she thought, "So I'm going to change the color? How light is she going to go?"
The woman applied the creamy concoction that would strip the pigment from her hair. So it was not merely length she would lose today, but the very molecules of melanin that had given her hair its rich black coffee shade as well.
"I can't believe I'm doing this!" she thought,
She felt as if she were in a dream as she waited under the heat lamp to process. Next came the rinse, toner, deep conditioner, and then little metal clips and a perfumed solution.
After finished, she looked at herself as now she had a long Bob with curls and had brownish hair with honey highlights. Her head was so light now without the weight of all that hair. When it was dry she carefully removed the clips and brushed out the resulting tight curls, shaping them with her graceful hands until they formed soft gleaming waves. When she'd finished she asked if this was alright.
She gasped, she hardly recognized herself. Chiyu who looked plain before found she had been transformed into a vision, Her hair was short, She found her eyes welling with tears.
"How is it, Miss ?" The Kejoro bowed as she asked.
She was speechless, catching sight of the massive pile of dark hair on the floor. It seemed practically a mountain to her. "All that was mine?" she thought in shock. She felt as if she were floating away from her body, or as if this were some strange dream. That face in the mirror simply couldn't be hers. It was a trick.
"Oh my God, it's beautiful!" she exclaimed, "but… but I don't look like me anymore."
"You look like yourself, you true self"The lady said
"But…" she said, her voice trailing off, "I feel so different."
She had never thought herself this kind of beautiful. Before she had been more real and yet less carnal somehow.
"I don't know how to feel," she said, looking to the woman as if she could tell her.
"I can't tell you how to feel about it, but I think you were meant to end up here, to be made into this."
She thanked the lady and went home to show to her parents who were shocked leaving her mother in scream.
The next semester, As Akami walked to school thinking of Chiyu, a hand touched her and smwhem she turned, it was Chiyu now with short brown curls and she now wore stockings.
"Chiyu-Chan, is that really you?" Akami gasped
" Do you like it, I needed a change and since I'm not in the disciplinary committee. I was thinking about that time you talked about karaoke when I was tutoring, I was thinking perhaps I can accompany you and the other gals"
" Certainly" said Akami as she hugged Chiyu and both joined the other gyaru as the president scuffed, " Ridiculous" as she walked when a crow pooped at her hair which brought her screams.
Seven years later, Chiyu was going to get married, and she came to the shop to get a new style. She opened the door as the Kejoro greeted
"To the Winds of flower, to the stream of the river, Katsumi Kejoro at your service"