The Perils of Paint, Part 3
Disclaimer: Familiar characters, settings, events, and concepts all belong to Takeshi Konomi.
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The paint thinner took a while to work and they had to use more than Oishi actually felt was safe. A good hour after they started he was convinced he felt a bit dizzy, Fuji had the literature homework completed, and Eiji's hair was still something of a disaster, although the paint was out for the most part.
"Now what?!" Eiji leaned close to the bathroom mirror. He was a little afraid to touch his hair, which still reeked of paint thinner. It was wet and slimy and clumpy. It had bleached lighter, chunks of it an unnatural, nasty orange color. It was the kind of hair you took a picture of for an entry in the Ugliest Hair Contest, right before shaving it all off. Definitely not the sort of hair that belonged on Kikumaru-sama's head!! Disaster! "We have to fix it! Right now!"
"You should probably start rinsing it right away, Eiji," Oishi suggested while scrubbing his hands and arms up to the elbows. He was quite sure he had a headache. Paint thinner had to be bad for you. He hoped Fuji's mother wouldn't come up and think they'd been trying to breathe in the fumes or some other horrible thing. How did he get into these kinds of things?!
"Yes! Definitely!" Eiji knelt next to the bathtub, turning on both taps. Shampoo would help. It had to. "Do you have shampoo, Fuji?" He grabbed a bottle in the shower rack. "Can I use this?"
"No, that's Yuuta's." Fuji took the bottle and placed it back in the rack, then opened the cupboard under the sink. He handed a coral pink bottle to Eiji. "Here, try this. It's supposed to be hydrating."
Eiji plunged his head under the faucet and shampooed his hair three times and he still wasn't even remotely satisfied with the results. Every time he rinsed it out it still felt so wrong – and this was all because of that stupid cursed racket! His poor, poor hair. In the middle of the fourth shampoo he almost wanted to bang his head against the side of the tub in frustration and distress. "We have to fix it, Oishi! This isn't working!"
"Just rinse it out and then condition it," Oishi instructed. His headache was coming back. He hadn't even started his homework. But Eiji definitely needed his and Fuji's help. "That will help."
"You're sure Yumiko-san won't mind if we use this stuff, Fuji?" Eiji looked unsure several minutes later, holding a bottle of Fuji's sister's hair conditioner. "My sisters would kill me if I used any of theirs. Well, not really, but they'd get really mad."
"She won't mind," Fuji assured him, smiling.
So then Eiji promptly conditioned his hair twice. "See?" Oishi sounded hopeful when he'd finished, smiling tentatively. "It's a lot better."
And it was – it didn't stink like a chemical spill anymore and it actually felt like hair again. But the color was nasty! Eiji peeked at his reflection in the mirror and peered at the wet strands. "We need to dye it back. Right now."
"Can't that wait until tomorrow?" Oishi asked, already knowing that the answer would be no.
"Oishi, are you crazy? I can't go to school like this! I can't even go home like this!" Eiji pulled at his hair, holding up a drippy lock for Oishi to see. "We have to go get dye right now!"
It took a good fifteen minutes to put all of the paint removal supplies back where they belonged, and after that there was Eiji's frantic search through Fuji's room for something to cover his disastrous hair with. Eventually Oishi found himself hurrying with Fuji and Eiji in the rain towards the nearby convenience store. It was already dark. His homework still wasn't even started. His fish, not to mention his family, were probably wondering where he was.
But it wasn't like he could leave now, right?