At first she had been offended.

Though the request was simple and the unapologetic habits of the young man were well known far and wide, she couldn't help the indignation that ran its course through her at the thought he didn't find her competent enough to fix her own hair.

Soul had cast a wary glance, but didn't comment. Black Star laughed and blabbed some nonsense about how, as one who would surpass God after all, Maka should have come to him to fix her hair. Tsubaki had politely offered a small smile of comfort, and Patty didn't seem fazed in the slightest.

Though refusal danced on the end of her tongue, Liz's gentle whisper of encouragement struck her in the one place she was weakest- right in the pity.

So she had sighed in compliance, allowing the delighted gun-wielder to refashion her pig tails in a perfectly symmetrical fashion. Though it took a teeth-grinding twenty four minutes and made them late to class by ten, the jovial glance of approval he cast her way every now and again did not escape her notice.

When the request became reoccurring, she simply arrived with her hair down and two elastics in her pocket.

When they were late to class for the fifth time, she began waking up and arriving at the meeting place earlier.

When her sharp-toothed partner finally voiced his gruff dislike on the matter, she shrugged him off and insisted it was merely a necessity to keep the peace.

What began as an awkward compromise ever-so-subtly became more of a comfort. In the rough nightmare-ruined mornings, during the grueling missions, through emotional wreckage, the simple pause to tug admiringly at the sandy locks was a deeply-rooted constant that soothed them both.


As he ever so gently adjusted her hair into the style they both loved so much for the very last time, tears ran unashamedly asymmetrically down his face. He tucked her pig tails delicately to frame her face and ran his loving fingers over her closed eyes, her lifeless mouth, and the ring he'd placed on her finger a scant few years ago. Eyes never leaving his beloved's face, he drew their little one into his arms and watched with rapt attentions- as he had every single day, unfailingly since the first time his fingers touched her hair- as she was taken from his view.

His daughter never once wore her hair in pigtails.