Haircut day was, according to Mob, one of the best days of the month.
She used to cut her own hair, in that brief window of time between Mom leaving and her becoming friends with Minegishi. Those hadn't been good times, but they had gotten better, so much better after Minegishi had shown up. She'd had someone else to cut her bangs for her, which wasn't even the best part. The best part was that she got to spend time with her best friend in the whole world!
It felt like forever since they'd spent time together. A lifetime at least.
"Ok, now I'm ready said Mob as she brushed her bangs out to their full length. They almost completely covered her eyes when they were like this. She could barely see herself in the mirror. She would have brushed them out of the way but then they would have been uneven when Minegishi cut them and she'd have to wait a whole other month to get them even again…that is unless she wanted them to be very short.
But she didn't look good like that, not good at all.
"Hold still, that is unless you want me to blind you." said Minegishi with a sigh. They really didn't need to do anything to their hair right now, they had just touched up their roots, but haircut day was the best day to have a deep, heart to heart, conversation with Mob. Well, it was either that or they went to the bathhouse together again.
But this way was better. More clothing was involved.
"I'm holding still." Said Mob as the cutting started. First she heard the sound and then, slowly, the world came into view. She kept her eyes trained on herself in the mirror. Her hair fell down like black snow. She didn't care move her head, though, not unless she wanted to really mess up her hair. She liked her hair, she decided, even if Minori hadn't. If it hadn't been the way it was then she never would have gotten to hang out with Minegishi like this.
She couldn't think of too many things better than spending time with her best friend.
"Good…and…done." Said Minegishi as they put their scissors down on the bathroom counter. That had been way too fast. They hadn't even started talking about…what they needed to talk about. This was just a conversation that they really didn't want to have. Mob's love life was not something that should have existed, anyone with half a mind could have seen that, but it was there and it was happening and it was, like every other facet of Mob's life, weird.
Extremely weird.
"I can see myself again." Said Mob as she brushed her bangs upwards. A little higher than she would have liked, actually. She could see part of her forehead, the angry red craters on it. She hadn't been taking care of her skin like she should have. She brushed her bangs back down. She knew that she had been busy but, really, there was no excuse for not taking care of her skin like Minegishi had shown her.
They were probably mad at her.
"You look fine, Mob, now switch with me. I've got to touch up my roots." Said Minegishi with a sigh. Mob stopped rubbing her forehead and immediately jumped down from the stool. Maybe a skincare day would have been better…no. Mob would have been more inclined to just get up and leave during a skincare day. She loved doing Minegishi's hair, though, and the long dying process would give them plenty of time to talk…they ran a hand through their hair.
RIP their roots.
"Can I help?" asked Mob
"That's why you're here. You remember what to do, right? First you-" said Minegishi
"Get the bleach…but, wait, don't you want to get it first?" asked Mob
"No. I think you're old enough that I can trust you with this." Sighed Minegishi. At best they were going to mess their roots up and at worst they had bleach burns to look forward to. Well, they did have Fukuda, but then getting healed by him would have involved breathing the same oxygen as him…
The things they did for Mob
"Really?" asked Mob. Minegishi nodded. She immediately ran Minegishi's shelf and got all the things they would need. This was going great! It was the one thing in her life going great but…but that just made it all the more great. Sure, her Dad had fired her, her boyfriend was always busy with Fukuda, her little sister was off visiting her friends at the Seventh Division, and all her little brother wanted to do was plan out how they were going to save the world even though it would involve fighting their dad and maybe even having him leave them too which would have made them orphans and she didn't want to be an orphan and-
-and she mixed the bleach up.
The smell burned her nose and made her eyes water. She couldn't believe that Minegishi regularly put this stuff on their head, in their hair, but this was the price they had to pay to be pretty. She had heard it before that beauty was suffering and Minegishi was beautiful. Not like normal, of course, but in their own way. They looked good even though they wore baggy clothes all the time and their skin was always really clear and they looked good with colored hair, Mob had tried red hair before and looking back she decided that maybe it hadn't worked for her as well as she had thought that it had. Minegishi was so pretty…Mob needed to tell them that more often.
Why not now?
"Minegishi, you're so pretty." Said Mob as she mixed up the bleach and brought it over. She needed to say nice things to her best friend more often. She knew what it was like to have a best friend who was mean to you, it wasn't a good feeling. She wasn't ever going to make Minegishi feel the way Minori had made her feel. Not now, not ever.
That wasn't the way to treat your best friend at all.
"Thanks, I guess." said Minegishi with a shrug. The picked up the tin foil and started isolating the parts of their hair that didn't need bleaching. They hardly had any roots to touch up…but it was what it was. Mob was obviously trying to butter them up. That was never a good sign. Maybe it was about the Serizawa thing or maybe something else, something far worse, that Mob was going to drop onto their head and leave them to clean up.
So pretty much a normal day for them.
"Really, you are. I don't tell you that enough, nice things about yourself, and…and that makes me kind of a bad friend." Said Mob
"You're not a bad friend….because you don't compliment me enough. You're not a bad friend at all. You're just…a lot, sometimes, Mob. But that's ok. You're only thirteen." Said Minegishi as Mob put down the bleach and helped them with the tinfoil.
"I'm almost fourteen." Said Mob as she finished the tinfoil step. Next they needed the black bleached out of their roots and then the color painted in, that was the best part, but what was even better was when they needed to do the color a few times to get it the right kind of purple. But what was even better than that was when they accidentally used the wrong shampoo and all the color got stripped out so they had to retouch everything. Those were the days where they were locked in the bathroom together all day. Then they could hang out and…and it had been so long. Even before the dreamworld it had been a while because…because of what Mob had done…
But that was over now, they'd both agreed to move past it, and anyway Mob had a boyfriend who Minegishi could sleep with if they wanted to so that way everything would be even.
"Yeah, I know, you're almost fourteen. That's still really young, you know." said Minegishi
"I guess compared to you. You're almost as old as my Dad." Said Mob
"He's in his thirties, Mob, I'm in my forties." Said Minegishi
"But you both have white hair…that was a joke." Said Mob as she started putting the bleach in. It had taken her a moment to realize that what she had said might have been mean. She had been spending too much time with Minori, her meanness was starting to rub off, and that wasn't good at all.
"I get it, Mob, and it was pretty funny…but there's something that I have to talk to you about." Said Minegishi
"Ok. We never talk anymore, I mean it feels like a while, but I know it hasn't been." Said Mob
"Yeah, we just had one of our big talks back in the inn…and this is going to be kind of like that." Said Minegishi. Mob stopped painting bleach into their hair, which wouldn't have been a problem normally, but her hand was still very close to their scalp.
"Mob, if you want to stand there in shock that's fine but I can really do without the chemical burns." Said Minegishi
"Oh! Sorry! I was just thinking about…about what had happened. That something could have happened to you." said Mob as she got back to work.
"Mob, we just got back, what could have possibly happened to me?" asked Minegishi
"The spirit could have come back here looking for revenge and then possessed you and then you could have been caught in a terrible dreamworld too where everything was grey and there were bugs crawling around all over the place and also the people you knew were mean and didn't like you." said Mob quickly. She tried not to shake as she worked, both her hands and her powers. The thought of something like that happening to Minegishi…she kept on working. Thinking about it would only make her lose control and she couldn't do that. Not now, not ever.
She didn't want to hurt anyone, especially her friend.
"That's not something that I'm worried about." Said Minegishi
"You should be. It's a very evil spirit and you're not as strong as I am and also you're life hasn't been as happy as mine." Said Mob. Minegishi turned around and stared at her.
"You really think that your life is going better than mine?" asked Minegishi incredulously. She had actually said…they didn't know how to feel about that. Mob's life was a issuesshow and had been since the day she'd been born to the maniac known as Suzuki Touichirou. Minegishi, for all the problems their parents had created for them, had still at least lived in the world with people. Mob lived in this bubble. This crazy, chaotic, upside down, bubble.
Minegishi, at least when they had been a kid, had been born with some kind of chance.
"I think so. I mean, not to be mean, but you had to live in a group home and people were mean to you and they hit you and also your girlfriend that you had once and used to love a lot broke up with you. That's a lot of very bad things to happen to one person…sorry." Said Mob
"Mob, at least I…you know what? I don't think that this is a contest that either of us want to win. Alright?" said Minegishi
"Alright." Said Mob. They had a good point there. She didn't want to have a worse life than theirs and she didn't want them to have had a worse life than her. Why couldn't everyone just have good lives? Well, when she took control of Claw she would do everything in her power to make sure that her friends all had good lives. Better lives than the ones they were living now.
"That's not what I wanted to discuss with you anyway." Said Minegishi
"Um…you said 'discuss' and nothing good comes when you say that you want to discuss things with me." said Mob softly, her hands falling to her sides for a moment before she got back to work. She needed to get this all done at about the same time so she could start the timer and not give them chemical burns. She'd never had a chemical burn before but she had burnt herself cooking a couple of times and it had been horrible.
"You're right, this isn't going to be good, or easy, but this is something that we have to talk about. Ok?" asked Minegishi
"Um…ok." Said Mob
"Good. Ok…I know about Serizawa." Said Minegishi
"What about him?" asked Mob as she finished. She sat down on the side of the bathtub as Minegishi sighed and pinched the bridge of their nose.
"I know that you kissed him, alright? He told us all when he was out of his mind on Xanax so…yeah. I know, everyone knows, and it's something that we need to talk about." Said Minegishi
"Ok…but I don't know why. He loves me, I love him, and he's my boyfriend now. All I ever wanted was for someone to love me and he does so I'm not sure what there is to discuss…oh! You can sleep with him if you want, that way we can be even." Said Mob. Minegishi did a full body shudder like they did when they got brain freeze. She didn't know why, it wasn't even cold in there and they weren't eating anything cold anyway.
"I'm going to have to pass on that, Mob." Said Minegishi with a shudder. Sex with Serizawa…no. Just…no.
"Why? Then we can be even." Said Mob as they sighed.
"Because I'm not attracted to him, Mob, that's why and also I don't give a fuck about us being even." Said Minegishi. This was going…well, actually. They expected Mob to start denying things because she knew how they felt about all of this. But she was being honest…and why wouldn't she have? She was Mob. It wasn't like Minegishi could do anything besides try to talk her into dating guys her own age like a normal thirteen going on fourteen year old girl.
"Oh…but things would be easier if we were even and also you did kiss him that one time when we were all in New York." Said Mob
"That was a moment of weakness that's never going to happen again, ok? I'm not interested in him and, honestly, you shouldn't be either." Said Minegishi
"But…why? I mean he's kind of a fixer upper but you can fix a fixer upper up with a little bit of love." Said Mob. Minegishi groaned. She didn't know why, it made sense. They had fixed Shimazaki up with their love and now he was a lot nicer…or…better? He had admitted that he was in love with them, that was better than when they'd started.
"Yes, Mob, I'm familiar with Frozen…but you know that's just a movie, right? It's not a way of life. You can't fix a person up, people aren't houses, and anyway Serizawa has so many problems that if he had been a house it would have made more sense to condemn him than to fix him." said Minegishi
"But you can fix a fixer upper up with a little bit of love, you fixed up Shimazaki. Now he's really open about his feelings and he tells you all the time that he loves you and, before, he used to say that he didn't want to be in a relationship and now he says that you're the love of his life." said Mob
"Ryou and I…are not…we were talking about you, Mob, ok? Serizawa is my age, he's got a lot of problems, and…and I don't even think that you ran this by him. Does he know that he's your boyfriend? Did you even talk to him about this? It's not a good feeling, Mob, to wake up in a relationship that you didn't agree to." Said Minegishi. They were bringing their own issues into this, they could see it, but it was just so hard to separate their issues from the issues that Mob was bringing up.
"He loves me, he said so, and also he said that he would help me take Claw from Dad. That's not something you just do for someone for no reason." Said Mob. She wished that she could have taken it back as soon as she had finished saying it. That was something that she knew she should have been more careful in bringing up, especially since she had wanted them to help her with this. Fukuda, as much as she disliked him, had a point when he brought up the terrible things that Dad did to the people who betrayed him or tried to leave Claw.
Terrible things…so terrible….
"Mob…am I hearing you right or did you get bleach in my ears and this is me losing my hearing and/or mind?" asked Minegishi as they cleaned their ears out with their pinkies. This was…this was them finally losing their mind. Mob had NOT just spoken, out loud, and in plain Japanese what they thought she had just said. It wasn't possible…it wasn't….this was…this was…
This was Mob. She didn't even know the meaning of the word coup.
"I was going to ask you later…" said Mob
"Ask me what?" asked Minegishi
"Dad…Dad shouldn't run Claw. He's mean, he hurts people, and….and all my life he's told me that he made Claw to make the world a better place. He said that Claw was there to make sure that nobody felt as alone as he did when he was growing up but I think that this might just be one big excuse for him to boss people around and hurt them and…and he's not a good leader and…and I have all of this power so I might as well do something with it because I'm nothing without it so…so why shouldn't I just do something useful and good and-and-and-" said Mob
"Because, Mob, what you're talking about is a coup and your Father, while I don't know the man intimately, doesn't seem like he'd be alright with that. I mean we do have a lot of people rotting in holes that have committed FAR lesser crimes, you know." said Minegishi as they got up and stood over her. They were bigger, they were older, and they might not have been stronger but they were still going to protect her from herself goddamn it! They hadn't been able to save her from the spirit but they could save her from this insanity!
"The traitor holes are why I need to be the one in charge. I'm not going to let Dad do this anymore. If he rules the world then…then everything with be like Claw and I can't let that happen." Said Mob as Minegishi stood up. They were close to her…they hadn't been this close to her in a while. They could see eye to eye now. Mob hadn't realized it but they were finally just about the same height. But that didn't matter. Mob was stronger than them and she needed to protect them. She knew that Dad had made them do some bad things for Claw in the past but it stopped here. Her best friend shouldn't have had to do those things. Nobody should have ever had to do those things.
"And if you lose, if your Dad takes over the world and stops you, then you're going to be in one of those holes…or worse. Did you ever stop and think of that? Of what he could, and would, do to you in the event of, you know, your coup crashing and burning?" asked Minegishi
"I have, and that's why I need help. I know that I'm probably going to have to fight Dad and win, and maybe even hurt him, and…and I don't want to but if it's for the people I love then I have to. I'm going to do this, Minegishi, I'm going to use my powers for good for once and…and I'm going to live my life for once." Said Mob. She had just gone along with everything Minori had told her to do because she had been nothing because she had been so desperate for friendship and love that she had allowed herself to be turned into one of her dolls, she had let someone else run her life for her…but that wasn't going to happen. She was going to live her life and she was going to use her powers for good and nobody was going to stop her.
She had to do this. She had no other choice.
Minegishi was looking right into her eyes. She looked right into theirs. They had such pretty eyes even if they didn't have eyebrows. The space there their eyebrows should have been was furled. Their aura was showing and the bathroom ferns were growing spiky vines. She knew that they were mad but she wasn't going to give in, to give up. This was something that was going to happen with or without Minegishi's help.
Though, of course, she would have preferred to have her best friend there at her side.
"…fine. I'll help you…now shut up and finish my hair." Said Minegishi as they sat down. They knew Mob, they knew how stubborn she could be, and they knew that she could be just as reckless. They had no idea how they were going to help but they knew that they couldn't leave her on her own. When she was on her own she did things like this. She was just so…so reckless…so reckless that Minegishi wished that she had just been messing around with older former shut-ins with poor personal hygiene and the emotional maturity of middle schoolers…but now, she just had to go and take it the one step too far, didn't she?
Well fine. Minegishi was going to have to take that step with her then, weren't they?
"Oh Minegishi! Thank you!" said Mob as she got back to work. She had expected Minegishi to fight with her, to even yell at her maybe, but no. They could see that Mob was going to do the right thing. They could see that she knew what she was doing. They could see that Mob…Mob was right. They could finally see her as the adult she was, and they could finally trust her too! Not only with their hair but to run her own life, too!
Haircut day was truly the best day out of the entire month.