Episode 8
Teresia’s white hair, faintly streaked with grey, was always wonderfully smooth and soft.
At the same time it had a certain firmness to it, and there was a good amount of volume.
She kept it trimmed to about shoulder length, though it tended to get fairly mussed first thing in the morning.
Especially during the journey, when there’d sometimes been no time at all to tend to it — watching her beautiful hair grow increasingly unkempt had honestly been hard to see.
She’d kept it reasonably clean using magic, but somehow it still felt like hair looked its best when cared for by hand.
“Alright, that’s why — here.”
I carried a chair to the middle of the room and told Teresia to sit.
Quite a bit of time had passed, but Teresia seemed to immediately understand what I was planning anyway, and gave an obedient “o-okay” as she sat down in the chair.
Once I confirmed she was settled, I pulled out the hairbrush I’d used for years and held it ready.
“Now then, Teresia. I’m going to fuss with your hair a bit, okay~”
“P-please be gentle with me…”
Swish, swish.
Sure enough, just as I’d expected, her hair felt a bit heavy somehow.
The strands seemed fairly tangled together.
No helping it — I decided to work through it slowly, starting from the tips.
No rushing allowed; the important thing was to handle it carefully.
“Takes me back. I used to do this for you all the time back in the day, didn’t I.”
“Yes… it does. Though at first, Yurina didn’t seem to know how to be gentle about it, and was fairly rough.”
“Huh, was I really?”
“You were. It hurt a fair amount sometimes.”
“S-sorry, I never noticed. You could’ve said something, though.”
“Ahaha. You were kind enough to do it for me at all — I could hardly complain.”
“I’d have rather you told me, for my own sake.”
Gradually the tangles began working loose, and the brush started gliding through more easily.
Feeling it pass through in a single smooth stroke was satisfying even for me, doing the brushing.
Once her hair had been thoroughly worked through, I set the brush down and said, “Now then, let me give your head a bit of a massage~,” and began pressing my fingertips gently against her scalp.
Teresia’s head was small.
Seen from above, her crown had a very neat little whorl.
Thinking such things, I kept working her scalp with gentle pressure.
“Mm. Mmh.”
“You okay? Is it too hard, does it hurt?”
“I’m — fine. It feels nice.”
“Good to hear. Mm, there we go.”
After massaging her head for a while, I asked, “So then, madam customer? What hairstyle would you like today~”
“Hoh? …Um, well. Today just gathering it into one is fine.”
“Aww. I wanted to play around with your hair more. Braids, maybe. I want to try one.”
“Ahaha. Let’s save that for another time, if we can.”
“Hmm.”
Even so, I did as she asked and gathered her hair, tying it back into a single bundle with a ribbon.
A low ponytail, essentially.
“There, all done.”
“Thank you, Yurina.”
Teresia stood from the chair and gave a little spin on the spot to show me the result.
“How is it?”
“Yeah. Suits you. I’d say I did good work, if I do say so myself.”
“Ahaha, self-praise?”
“Good materials to work with, that’s all — I figure anything I do to it turns out fine.”
Teresia’s a beautiful girl, after all; short of something truly disastrous, it’s basically impossible to make her look bad.
Beautiful girls really are the strongest.
I genuinely believe that.
“Now then, Yurina.”
“Mm~?”
“Go on, sit down?”
“Mm~”
“This time I’ll do your hair.”
“Mm~?”
“…You’re giving off a distinctly unwilling vibe right now.”
“Mm—”
I didn’t quite know how to respond.
No, it wasn’t that she was bad with her hands — if anything she was quite skilled.
It’s just that whenever she tried to style my hair, she always seemed to get carried away, and it invariably ended in some strange shape.
“Teresia, I need you to hear me out.”
“Y-yes.”
“Just brushing it through is fine. Really, truly.”
“No, that was my intention from the start, honestly…”
Well, if that’s the case, I suppose it’s fine.
Still a little uneasy, I sat down in the chair and closed my eyes.
“…Go ahead.”
Shh, shh — the sound of the brush moving through my hair.
My scalp being worked over felt very pleasant.
“Yurina’s hair is long, isn’t it…”
“You think? I think it’s just a bit longer than yours.”
“For being this long, it’s not tangled at all — that’s impressive.”
“Is that… so…”
Before I knew it I found myself dozing off.
Well, in fact I nearly drifted off to sleep several times, and each time Teresia shook me gently, saying “Yurina, wake up?”
And then, once that dreamy interlude had ended, I checked my own appearance in a hand mirror.
“……”
A single tuft of hair was sticking straight up from the top of my head.
“…Teresia.”
“I-isn’t it cute?”
“At the very least, I don’t think it suits me.”
I sighed and undid the ribbon, and Teresia’s expression turned thoroughly disappointed.
No, honestly, my usual hairstyle is fine as it is.