Chapter 44: Shouko Nishimiya #2

"You want to cut your hair?"

Hachiman Hikigaya sounded a bit uncertain. Some of it had to do with the fact that he was using sign language to communicate with Shouko Nishimiya and some of it had to do with the fact that the mind of a woman, any woman, even a deaf woman who had gone through emotional stress, physical abuse and mental trauma from an early age still managed to baffle him sometimes with its child like behaviour.

He thought men were the ones who matured late, but apparently not. Or perhaps he was being a jerk about it and not understanding her situation correctly. It could be either. But for now, he just wanted to know whether he was right and understood her okay or not. After all he had been practicing sign language for more than a month now. His efforts should get some results right, he thought.

But Shouko Nishimiya shook her head.

"Oh, you don't want to cut your hair?"

Hachiman asked. Perhaps it wasn't all that bad. He might have been off by one word. It was a pretty important word, based on how it changed the whole meaning of the sentence, but still it was just one word.

Then his hard work had bore fruits. He now understood sign language, more or less. He felt elated. Now he could communicate with her better. Shouko Nishimiya was an interesting person, he liked her, he wanted to protect her and for some reason he wouldn't let a pesky barrier like difficulty to communicate in another language stop them from having these heart to heart chats.

Shouko Nishimiya bit her lips and very gently shook her head. Hachiman Hikigaya looked at her for a second and tried not to feel disheartened. Perhaps he needed more work than he thought. After all, learning a new language, especially one as difficult as sign language can be rather difficult. But not to worry, he was pretty sure she would help him get it right one day.

"Did what you say have anything to do with hair?" Hachiman asked in a last ditch effort.

And to his amazement she nodded her head.

"Yes!" Hachiman Hikigaya punched his fist in the air, nursing a somewhat exaggerated notion of victory. But who cares, he got something right. He should feel proud about his accomplishment, even though it was small in scale. But he shouldn't go to ahead of himself. "Okay, what about your hair?"

Shouko Nishimiya bit her lips and signed with much less enthusiasm as before. In fact now that he thought about it she hadn't looked happy since they met up to have this chat. It wasn't his fault was it, he thought. Perhaps she was unhappy with the progress he was making in learning sign language. Maybe she thought teaching him was a waste of time.

Or maybe Shouya Ishida had slithered his way back into her life after he was discharged from the hospital. Hachiman Hikigaya felt restless all of a sudden. No, it wouldn't do any good thinking about it. He was just another student here in the campus, one lost soul in a sea of thousands. He wouldn't cause any more trouble. And she should know better than to associate with him. It was worse that she had accepted his fractured hand of friendship. Hachiman didn't want it to be anything more than that.

But for now he focused on what she was trying to communicate by using sign language. Huh, this is strange. Let's see. I. Need. To. – Wait! –

"You need to cut your hair?" Hachiman asked, confused.

Shouko Nishimiya gave the tiniest of nods.

Hachiman Hikigaya didn't understand what she was trying to do. Okay, he had messed up a little between two words, 'want' and 'need', but he pretty much understood the gist of what she was trying to say. Then he said what she was trying to say using his own words and okay, he replaced 'need' with 'want', but c'mon, they were talking about her getting a haircut. It wasn't like they were discussing something vital and life altering like contemporary history or new world studies.

Hachiman decided to be honest. He might hurt her feelings a little, but this was something he really wanted to know. Was Shouko Nishimiya really nitpicky about words and vocabulary, because if she was, well then the two of them would have found something else they had in common. But it would also be rather troublesome to learn sign language from her.

However, this didn't make sense. He had been interacting with her for over a month now and this has never happened before. She rarely made a fuss over his shortcomings when it came to not knowing the language she used to communicate. So, what was this all about, he wondered.

"Okay, what about your hair?" Hachiman tried.

"I need to get a haircut." Shouko repeated.

"I get that. You said it already." Hachiman Hikigaya tried not to be impatient, but maybe some of it came out. Not, in the sign language he was using mind you, no that would become total gibberish. But it was his facial expressions which probably gave her a clue.

She turned meek and silent and dropped her hands to her lap. Hachiman felt like he was a right bastard. There she was trying to teach him something, and here he was giving her his rotten attitude. He could do better than that, she deserved better than this.

"Hey, Nishimiya." he tried to get her attention. "I'm sorry. It's just, it's really frustrating. I want to know you better. Shit!" He cursed out loud.

Shouko Nishimiya blushed. Hachiman Hikigaya waved his hands around like a lunatic. He started signing with fresh gusto."I didn't mean that. I mean, I didn't mean it in a weird way. What I'm trying to say, is that I want to understand you better." He tried for a smile. "Now what is this about a haircut?"

Shouko Nishimiya tried for a smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. She took out her phone, instead. In her phone there was a special app, which can be used to communicate better without resorting to sign language. It was a text-to-voice system and the artificial voice sounded much like Siri.

During her classes or with her roommates, she used this to communicate with everyone. However, when Hachiman decided to learn sign language from her, he had forbidden her to use it to talk to her. But this time, it would be rather difficult. She wanted him to understand what was going on and so she used the app in her phone.

"I need to get a haircut." Shouko said. "Mother said so."

Hachiman frowned. Then he looked at her, especially her forehead which was covered by her bangs. She held her breath. What would he say, she thought.

The app had a voice-to-text system as well. Shouko held her phone towards him, but Hachiman decided to communicate with her using sign language instead. She smiled at his stubbornness. It was something the two of them had in common.

"Why is your mother telling you to cut your hair?" Hachiman said. "I mean, your hair is not that long."

Shouko shrugged. "It's just the way it is. Mother likes me to have short hair." She didn't say much else. However as expected he asked it anyway.

"Why?"

Shouko Nishimiya didn't know what to tell him. There was a story, there was a psychological complex, there was history and there was pain. It was the same reason her little sister pretended to be a boy when the two of them were young and tried her best to protect her, the older sister from bullies.

After what happened with Ishida, she thought, reminiscing, accidentally scratching the old scar in her ear, the one without a hearing aid, the one with which she heard absolutely nothing.

"It's the way things has been." Shouko said. "Mother wanted me to be strong, mother wanted me to not be a handicap, a cripple, just another deaf person who relied on others to go about their day. It happened just after…" she trailed off, thinking it was best not to mention Ishida or the incident that happened back in there elementary schools. Now she knew he had a temper, had she known it before, she wouldn't have told him half the things that happened with her life. But then what would they talk about in these sessions when he came to her to learn sign language.

"Go on." Hachiman said.

Shouko got the feeling he was internalizing everything. Perhaps, he connected the dots and came to the realization which need not be said out loud. Yes, she was bullied, yes, what Shouya Ishida did was horrible, but now, after all these years she wanted to move on. She wanted to spend her life with new people, people like him, Hachiman Hikigaya, who was really someone close to her heart.

But now was not a time to dwell on that. She was telling him about her mother.

"Mom wanted me to be strong." Shouko repeated. "She wanted me to stand up for myself. And that's why she took me to a salon," Which was owned by Ishida's mother of all people, but he didn't need to know that. "And she had my hair cut really short. I didn't want it, but she said, I had no use for long hair. Long hair is feminine."

"But, you are a woman." Hachiman said, confused.

Shouko Nishimiya smiled. "My mother didn't want me to be a woman. My mother wanted me to be strong." She repeated it like a mantra. "Anything feminine, like having long hair, it wasn't meant for me. It wouldn't help me one bit. It was of no use. It would get in the way, it would make me look pretty, cute, yes, but it would also make me vulnerable and weak, a victim of circumstances, a helpless woman, and my mother didn't want me to be any of those things." She closed the app and used her own voice to say the last words. "She wanted me to be strong."

Hachiman had been quiet for a while. He had been listening to her words and all he could say about it was –

"Bullshit!"

He didn't know how to sign it, but he was pretty sure she read his lips because she lowered her face and tried not to scold him. She didn't like curse words, he picked that up rather early on. After all, there was no curse, no slur, no type of petty name calling she hadn't heard – scratch that, faced or found written on her desk back in elementary school. Those type of things stuck to her, even though she didn't want it to.

It was a part of her now, her past, which was shaping her present and determining her future. Did she have a choice, she wanted to ask.

"You don't need to cut your hair." Hachiman said out loud.

Shouko read his lips. They were awfully close. Sometimes, she wanted to be closer, but she didn't want to ruin what they already had. However, he didn't understand the situation. How could he, she thought. He hadn't lived her life and she wouldn't wish it upon him to lead it.

But still, how could she go against her. She was her mother. She had done so much for her, sacrificed so much for her, been the best parent she could wish for given the unfortunate circumstances of their upbringing.

And so Shouko Nishimiya couldn't be selfish.

"You look better with long hair."

Shouko Nishimiya blushed. Damn him. He was doing it on purpose and now he made her curse internally. She wanted to push him away, but the need to be close to him was stronger. This is the difference between want and need. She hoped he understood that, if not today then sometime in the future.

"What about mother?" Shouko asked.

Hachiman thought about it for a minute. "She wants photographic evidence right?"

Shouko nodded. There was no way she could come all the way here to check up on her. This was one of the reasons why Shouko decided to enroll in Neo Tokyo University. It was in a different city and quite far from home and though she didn't want to admit it, she really did want to go away and see the rest of the world.

This was the closest she was gonna get and she planned to make the most of it by having an enriching campus life.

"Okay, then. How about you take a picture wearing a wig?"

Shouko Nishimiya blinked. Lying to her own mother about cutting her hair by wearing a wig, there was no way she could have thought of that on her own. Her mind would never arrive on such a solution. But then again, it was not a solution. She was just hiding the truth. But maybe that's all she could manage for now.

Shouko nodded. She interlocked her thumb and index finger and said, "Okay."

Hachiman smiled. "You know, you are really feminine, right?"

Shouko blushed and tried to cover her face. Then she thought better and started using sign language really, really fast. What did she say in such a rush, Hachiman would never know. It was all for the best, Shouko thought.

Because if he knew, she couldn't handle it.

A/N: Who would have thought? Shouko Nishimiya beat Ai Hayasaka. It was close. She won by only five votes.

Now here are the options for the next chapter:

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