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noriko ashida

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Noriko swings into the bar still on her crutches, but dressed nicely enough in a blazer jacket over a silky sequin camisole and metallic gold shorts. Her cast is still bulky and still decorated, but her attention is more taken at the moment by the clippers she's digging out of her backpack; it was the only particularly convenient way to carry things with both hands occupied. She had designs on doing something different with her hair, which is what led to her being parked in front of a mirror, methodically giving herself a deep side undercut. It left half her head fuzzy black and the rest its usual bright blue, touching her shoulders (shoulder?) now.

Feel free to wonder exactly what she's doing, or why.

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Bodhi comes out of the kitchen carrying a tray of honey cakes.

"Hey." He offers her a cake while they're still warm. "New look?"

"Yeah, it is. I figured I'd do something new, maybe exciting."

It's something to kill time now that she's unBound, and with Remy in New Orleans with her and doing things. And it'll make all the thirsty girls that flit around him mad. "You make these?" she asks, taking a bite of the cake.

"Testing recipes for the wedding." he nods, waiting for her reaction to the cakes.

"It looks good on you. I should tidy my hair up too. I've gotten scruffy. I use to keep my hair undercut on the sides but I've let it grow out since I got here."

She lifts the cake slice she's eating, and nods. "It's really good. This is great cake."

As she scrubs a hand over her shaved side, she considers his hair. "Well, you want it cut back in? I mean, the cast might be a pain in the ass to work around, but I can probably get to you."

He beams, nodding his thanks.

"I'd like that. If you don't mind. I can always move to where you need me, if it's hard for you to reach."

"Nah, I don't mind, I'm always down to help," she says, readjusting so he can sit in front of her, and she can reach his head.

"You ever considered braiding this top bit?" Noriko asks.

He sits as instructed, folding his long legs under him to keep out of the way. "I've never really thought about it. I've never done much with my hair, other than keeping it pulled back. Do you think it would look good braided?"

"I think it'd look cool," Nori said, nodding. "I mean, braids rarely look bad."

"Do you mind if we try? I mean, would you teach me how?"

"What, how to braid?" she asks. "Sure, I could teach you. I mean, I'd braid yours now too."

"I use to help with my sisters' hair but I was never very good at it. And mostly it was just to keep it up and out of the way under their veils."

"Eh, veils," she says, pulling a face. "Not my style. But yeah, I can braid it, I mean...I used to do my own in braids all the time as a kid. Kept it out of the way for baseball."

"It wasn't a religious choice, it was a practical one. My sisters inherited my grandmother's pale skin and violet eyes. They had to be careful to protect themselves from the sun."

He tilts his head to the right angle to give her access to his hair.

"You guys don't have sunblock?" she asks, easily dividing his hair to braid it into a lace braid that follows one side of his undercut. The long tail of his hair she winds into a knot at the back of his head, asking a rat to give her a small pack of hair pins to fasten it.

"You like your hair up or down?"

"There were blockers but we couldn't afford it. Fabric was cheaper than medicine."

He tilts his head. "I usually wear it up but I don't mind playing with different looks."

"Well, one pretty easy style I can do for you, other than this one, is a rope braid. You could leave the tail of it loose and it'd look neat."

Noriko undoes the braid, running her fingers carefully through Bodhi's hair to undo any tangles, and quickly twists it into a french rope braid, fastening it with an elastic. "What do you think?"

"I like that. It's not too fussy?" He tilts his head from one side to the other to look at it.

"Nah, not too fussy," she says. "Just looks like you put some effort into it, that's all."

"I better put in some effort." Bodhi chuckles, "I am getting married after all. I still have no idea what I'm going to wear."

"Oh, I can do something super fancy for the wedding if you want me to," Noriko says, letting her hands fall to her lap. "I mean...as far as clothes, white is the traditional color on Earth where I live, though it's not in my home country. What do you normally wear, or did you normally wear on your home planet? Colors or anything that were special?"

"Could you? I'd really like that."

He considers, shrugging. "Red is... it's the colour of enlightenment, the colour of devotion on my world but I'm not a believer. Galen is, but I'm not. I guess greys and browns and blacks are the main colours I wear but I guess just because that's what I've always worn."

"Maybe you could mix the two? Wear light gray and something red for him," she says.

Bodhi nods, smiling. "I like that."

"And I need to finish his gift. The only tradition from my home we're keeping to is making each other a special gift, just for that person."

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