Heidi's Haircut
To say that Heidi Lili Zwingli loved her brother would be an understatement. Vash Zwingli was Heidi's best friend and Heidi's role model. She was the only one who knew about Vash's soft side, and the only one that he never raised his voice at.
Vash wasn't Heidi's biological brother though; when Heidi was only 4 years old and still named Lili, [as her parents had baptized her as] her parents died in an unforeseen house fire. Frightened, Lili had fled her home when the firefighters arrived, scared of the big men with scary looking masks. She had lived on the streets for a couple of weeks, resorting to rummaging around in garbage cans for food to eat and sleeping in alleys in the cold harsh winters.
Vash had found her one faithful November day. That particular night it had been snowing particularly hard and Vash was walking under an umbrella, preferring to walk than taking a bus since walking was cheaper. As he passed an alleyway nearby a fancy French restaurant he heard a little whimpering.
Thinking that perhaps it had come from a cat [Vash always had a soft spot for animals, never being allowed to own one as a child], Vash decided to explore further. Venturing into the alleyway he found a little girl huddled in a dark corner.
"Who are you?" Vash asked the little girl, who stared up at him with her soulful turquoise eyes. She seemed frightened, he realized. "Are you alright?"
The girl shook her head, motioning to her left hand. Vash came a little closer and realized that the poor girl's hand was bleeding, a disgusting looking yellow pus surrounding the wound. Knowing that if she stayed outside in this weather for any longer her wound would become infected Vash cautiously approached the girl and when she didn't resist, put down his umbrella and lifted her up in his arms. The girl shyly took the umbrella before it fell to the ground and lifted it over their heads, shielding them from the rain. Vash then turned around and jogged out of the alleyway heading towards the nearest hospital.
Because Lili's parents were dead and had no living relatives, Vash took it as his responsibility to take care of the little girl, adopting her as his sister [being only 22 she would hardly look like his daughter]. Thus began a slow process in gaining the little girl's trust.
For the first year of living with Vash, Lili stayed silent, too scared to actually talk to her new caretaker. Vash, unable to figure out the little girl's name decided to just call her Heidi, the name of his beloved grandmother who had passed away the year before.
Vash was never good with children. In fact, he hated the little nuisances. They were always running around and yelling and messing around with his work. But Heidi was different. She was sweet and gentle and would never run around and yell on the top of her lungs. Vash grew to have a sort of affection towards the little girl in his own gruff way, never talking too loudly to her and never being rude to her. Slowly but surely Heidi began to trust him enough to talk to him. Her first word to him was 'brother'.
It had been Vash who had raised her, Vash who had enrolled her to school, Vash who had dealt with her bullies, Vash who had loved her. And it had also been Vash who insisted that Heidi keep her beautiful brown hair long. Heidi liked her long hair – it was long and it felt nice when the wind flew through it… but she wanted to get it cut. She wanted to get it cut so it was as short as Vash's. She rather liked Vash's hair – it wasn't too short, it wasn't too long and it was nice and pretty and just like her brother's. Heidi wanted her hair to be just like his. She wanted to be just like him.
"Are you sure you want to do this sweetie?" Elizaveta asked, turning to the younger girl sitting in the passenger seat. Elizaveta, the Zwinglis' Hungarian next door neighbour was the one who was Lili's mother/sister-like figure. Unable to have children herself, she and her musician husband [who Vash constantly argued with] doted on Heidi, treating her like the daughter they never could have. It was Elizaveta who Heidi went to with her boy problems, body issues and the like.
"Yes," Heidi said nodding, determination in her turquoise eyes.
"You have such beautiful hair though," Elizaveta said wistfully, reaching over and touching a strand of the girl's brown hair. "It would be such a waste to cut it all off."
"But I want to cut my hair Elizaveta," Heidi said opening her door. "Come on!"
Elizaveta sighed. She hoped Vash wouldn't be too furious with them once Heidi went home with her new haircut.
As they walked into the strip mall, Heidi looked around with interest. "Where are we? This isn't where we usually go," Heidi said to the older woman.
Elizaveta nodded. "Yes I know. Remember the nice Italian boy I told you about who used to live with Roderich and me? Feliciano? He was the one who suggested it. He said the hairdressers are all very nice – he goes here all the time. I figured for your first haircut ever we should go to a place with a good reputation."
"Yes I remember him. He was very nice. He let me have some of his pasta. How is he?" Heidi asked as they neared the salon.
"He's living with his German boyfriend a block away actually. They're so cute together!" Elizaveta cooed, making Heidi laugh. Elizaveta always did seem to love gay couples – must've been from her years serving as a bartender in a gay bar.
As they neared the salon, Heidi seemed to walk slower, walking so that she was behind Elizaveta. Suddenly the haircut didn't seem like such a good idea…
"You know if you're having second thoughts on this we could always drive home…" Elizaveta said, sensing the young girl's sudden mood change. Heidi mentally shook herself.
"No. I want to do this," Heidi said determinedly and Elizaveta grinned walking towards the receptionist.
"Hello! How make we help you?" the woman said cheerfully, dimples appearing on both sides of her wide smile. Heidi glanced at Elizaveta.
"Hello, we'd like to get a haircut for her," Elizaveta said to the woman confidently. Heidi watched with wide eyes. She had never been good at talking to strangers. She wished she could be like Elizaveta one day, confident enough to talk to total strangers without any fear whatsoever.
The woman nodded. "Ok. Mei!" she called for another woman before yelling something out in rapid Chinese [or was it Korean, Japanese or something else? Heidi wasn't sure].
A younger looking Oriental Asian woman with long silky black hair that both Elizaveta and Heidi envied and large almond eyes walked up to them as she adjusted a pale pink-orange flower in her hair.
"Here come with me," she said, motioning to them with a smile. "We'll need to wash your hair first."
Heidi glanced at Elizaveta, who had sat down and reached for a magazine to look at. Elizaveta gave her a reassuring smile. The smile was all it took. Heidi nodded and turned back to the woman, Mei, and followed her towards the back of the salon. There wasn't many people in the salon save for a furious little boy getting a haircut and his father who was gently pleading, "Peter, please don't throw a tantrum in here or I won't buy you that power ranger action figure you wanted."
Mei pulled back a chair in front of a sink, brandishing a towel and motioning for Heidi to sit down. As Heidi sit down pensively Mei put the towel around her, gently pushing Heidi's head to rest at the edge of the sink, her long brown hair flowing into the sink.
And then she put the water on. Heidi could hear a gush of water hitting her hair, making it heavier. Heidi's neck began to hurt as Mei scrubbed shampoo into her head, massaging her scalp and making sure the shampoo covered all parts of her hair. Heidi closed her eyes. This was actually kind of comfortable. Her mind began to wander, imagining what her brother would say when she came home with hair similar to his. She hoped he'd like it. She really did.
In what seemed like minutes after Mei instructed for Heidi to sit up straight, holding up her hair and squeezing the excess water out of the hair before wrapping it up in a towel and placing it on Heidi's head. Mei then told Heidi to follow her to a chair in front of a mirror.
As Heidi sat down and Mei pulled out a pair of small silver scissors, the butterflies in Heidi's stomach began to flutter. Elizaveta decided at this time to join the two women at the mirror to hold Heidi's hand.
"How would you like your hair to be cut?" Mei asked her. Heidi used her free hand to pull out a small picture from her pocket.
"Like this please," she said as Mei took the picture and stared at it.
"This is a boys' cut," Mei remarked, her dark eyes narrowing in confusion.
"Yes about that…" Elizaveta interjected before Heidi could say anything, leaning in and whispering something to the Asian woman, pointing at the picture. Mei nodded.
"I can do that, no worries," Mei said smiling. Heidi closed her eyes as Mei put a strand of her hair in between the blades of the scissors. She didn't want to see the very first piece of her hair cut.
Snip, snip Heidi could feel the lightness as her hair was snipped off to the ends of her chin. The stray strands from her bangs tickled her and she wrinkled her nose to keep from sneezing. She could hear Elizaveta chuckle, squeezing her hand tighter.
"You can open your eyes now sweetie," Elizaveta said into her ear a few minutes later. Heidi's heart leapt. It was over. Heidi opened her right eye pensively.
She looked… different. But in a good way. Heidi noticed that while although she looked more like her brother now, the haircut still looked feminine. She would have to thank Elizaveta for that.
After paying the receptionist and giving Mei a good tip Elizaveta turned to Heidi, who was patting her hair, still in total awe. "You ready to go home?" Heidi nodded wordlessly and proceeded to follow Elizaveta to the car. The butterflies in her stomach returned – what if Vash didn't like the haircut? What if he got mad at her for cutting the long locks of brown hair that Vash loved? What if he got mad at Elizaveta? Heidi wrung her hands as she stared out of the window and watched the buildings and people fly by.
Within minutes they were pulling up at her driveway; Heidi could see that her brother was already at home. The butterflies flew around even faster in her stomach. Heidi gripped the car door handle tightly, her knuckles going white. Elizaveta glanced at the younger girl.
"Don't worry Heidi – he's going to love it. He's not going to be mad at you – at your age you should be able to make your own decisions," Elizaveta said reassuringly.
"But what if he doesn't?" Heidi whispered, staring into Elizaveta's green eyes with worry. Elizaveta smiled, reaching over and squeezing the younger girl's hand comfortingly.
"He won't. You can be sure of that. And if he doesn't…" Elizaveta's green eyes gleamed wickedly, "he'll be meeting with my frying pan."
Despite her worry, Heidi giggled. Elizaveta let go of her hand and pulled the key out of the ignition. "Come on," she said, getting out of the car. Heidi followed, the butterflies in her stomach now flying faster than ever imaginable.
Elizaveta knocked on the door and the two of them waited for Vash to open the door.
"Where were you? I called your stupid husband and he said you and Heidi had gone shopping or something an hour ago! You never even bother to tell me – I was so worried!" Vash fumed at Elizaveta before his eyes flickered towards Heidi.
"Hello brother," Heidi said tentatively. Vash stared at her, not understanding.
"What…?" he said in shock, surveying Heidi's hair. He reached out with his left hand to touch a strand before pulling away. "What happened to your hair?"
"I cut it brother. I wanted to look more like you," Heidi replied. Her response was met with a blush from Vash.
"I'd better check up on Roderich," Elizaveta said quietly. "I'll see you tomorrow." And with that she walked away, leaving the two siblings alone.
"Why…?" Vash said, still not getting over Heidi's new haircut.
"I wanted to look more like you. I wanted to look like your sister," Heidi replied softly. Vash swallowed thickly.
"Oh," he said. He didn't say anything more. He turned and walked into the house, Heidi trailing behind him quietly.
Heidi didn't know what to think. Did he like it? Or did he not…?
"Come here," Vash called out from his bedroom, startling Heidi from her rather depressing thoughts. Heidi blinked and walked into her brother's room.
"Yes?" Heidi said tentatively.
"Here," Vash said, shoving a purple ribbon into the girl's hands, "you can tie your hair up with this."
Heidi broke into a smile. "Thank you brother! Does this mean… does this mean you like my haircut?" she asked nervously. Vash blushed, never being one to talk about his feelings.
"Yes. You look… beautiful," Vash muttered, blush deepening. Heidi took this as her cue to exit her brother's room, beaming.
Her brother loved her haircut!
The End.
A/N: Yea... fail ending. Aha, this was the offspring of my visit to the hair salon today. I got my hair cut! ^^
And yes, to anyone who was wondering, Finland and Sealand make a cameo and this and Mei is Taiwan. :)
Reviews get you a free haircut from Mei!