He'd spent the last two months, day and night, with Ohtori Choutarou. He had been disgraced and tossed from the team and yet the gangly boy had agreed to help him. Not just agreed, had pushed him and challenged him to do better. He dogged him with a determination that he hadn't known resided beneath his humble exterior.
He had moved through their intensive training with single minded purpose. For the chance to regain his lost honour. Honour that he'd lost long before losing the game to Tachibana. It was only now at the moment of his reprieve that he wondered who this boy really was and what he might want in return for all his help.
Atobe had been right. Cutting his hair off had been a calculated move. An artful act of contrition. He was standing before the mirror in Ohtori's bathroom when he felt the loss. The act may have been calculated, but the meaning was true. He was shorn. Stripped back so he could start again.
And ugly.
His hair stood up unevenly, some patches cut shorter than others, a few long hairs remaining here and there. He pulled the plasters from his face and hands, revealing the concealed bruises and cuts. He'd done it voluntarily, but still he mourned the loss. If he'd looked this way in first year Tatsuki would never have chosen him.
The door slid back and Ohtori quietly slipped through. 'Found them,' he smiled raising the clippers in his hand. He didn't really want to get a clipper cut, but there wasn't much of a choice, he couldn't leave it as it was. Ohtori looked at his expression in the mirror and laughed. 'Don't look so worried. I'll be careful.'
The strong hands felt foreign on his shoulders as Ohtori pressed him down into the chair he set up and tucked a towel around the collar of his shirt. 'You'll have to trust me. We're partners now.'
He looked into Ohtori's gaze, reflected in the mirror. 'I've never played doubles,' he spoke.
'Me neither,' he shrugged. 'We can work together.' Ohtori ran a hand through the top of his hair. Shishido nodded, luxuriating in the feeling of his soft touch. He had been so rarely touched since Tatsuki left him. Today he was too tired to resist the warmth.
At Ohtori's command he leant his head forward. The clippers whirred to life. He shivered as Ohtori's fingers trailed softly against the back of his neck, a place where only the brush of his hair had recently known. Fingers ran against the grain of his hair lifting and smoothing back before being followed by the cool touch of the clippers.
He wished it had lasted longer.
He didn't remember closing his eyes, but at some point he must have.
'It looks good… what do you think?' Ohtori asked nervously.
Opening his heavy eyes, he saw himself. Short haired and battered. This would be his new reflection, his new self. He nodded sleepily. Missing Ohtori's indulgent smile. 'Feels strange at the back of my neck. Feels naked.'
'I'll give you one of my caps. I hardly wear them.'
He woke up on Ohtori's bed. The boy looking over at him while he sat by the bed. 'You were tired.'
Shishido nodded listening to the beat of his heart thrum through his veins. 'Why did you do it?' he asked.
'Do what?'
'Why did you offer up your place for mine?' He couldn't understand it. Why, on such a slim thread of connection Ohtori was willing to give everything away to help him. He knew now that if he'd waited long enough, Ohtori might have told him why, but he was impatient then. 'I wouldn't have done it for you.'
'I wouldn't have wanted you too,' he replied.