Title: Quick Reset
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 800 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Fuu & Umi, post-canon
Summary: “If I cut my hair in Cephiro and then didn’t like it, I could grow it back, right?”


oOo





“If I cut my hair in Cephiro and then didn’t like it, I could grow it back, right?”

Fuu paused combing her hair and turned to look at Umi. “…You could probably grow it back in Cephiro,” she said, slowly. “But I do not think that would necessarily mean it was long again here. Would it?”

Sat on Fuu’s bed, Umi was fiddling with the ends of her hair where it hit the covers. It had grown a few more inches since they’d first met, and aside from the occasional braid to get it out of the way, Umi left it down. Fuu, meanwhile, had grown hers out to below her shoulders, decided she preferred it short, and taken it back up to chin-level.

“But if I cut it in Cephiro. So I came from here with long hair, went short, hated it. I could grow it back out with willpower so that none of our friends there knew, and then when we came back to earth I’d go back to the hair length I left with. Don’t you think?”

“Possibly?” Setting the comb down, Fuu turned to face Umi properly. “It would be logical. However, I suppose whether you want to try will depend on how upset you would be if your hair did not come back.”

Umi pulled a face, and flopped back on the bed. “Ugh. I guess that depends on how weird it looks. It’s just – it’s boring.”

“…Your hair?”

“I never do anything with it, because I don’t have the patience for that! I don’t know how you have the patience to keep the curl in yours, either. If I cut it off then that’s something different, right? But if it’s rubbish then it’ll take years to grow out, and I don’t have the patience for that, either!”

“So you want to experiment risk-free.”

“Yes!”

“In which case, who are you planning on asking to cut your hair, in Cephiro?” Fuu grinned at Umi’s blink. “If you do not have someone with some skill do it, then it is likely to look odd. And depending on how you want it shaped-“

“I just want to take it off in a straight line! That can’t be so hard. I was going to-“ Umi bit her lip, and flushed slightly. “I was just going to take a pair of scissors to it,” she admitted.

“The very thing you accused Clef of doing not a month ago?” Fuu enquired, amused, especially when Umi’s flush deepened as she nodded. “That you said must be the reason his hair constantly looks like it was chewed off by some kind of ruminant?”

“But his hair curls, mine’s straight!” Umi protested. “That must make it easier, right? I think he just hacks it off diagonally anyway.”

“Was that why you got the idea to try cutting your own hair while we visit?”

“…Yes,” Umi admitted, then brightened, sitting up and looking at Fuu. “Oh! You could-“

“I’m not cutting hair for the first time by practicing on you when we do not know if it will be reversed,” Fuu told her, firmly, ignoring the fact that she cut her own fringe – that didn’t count, it was just one little layer of hair, and it just got long enough to get stuck behind her glasses and in her eyes before it was time to go to the hairdresser again. For that matter, she couldn’t imagine that Umi hadn’t fixed her own fringe, on occasion. It was still different to taking three feet of length off someone’s entire hair.

“Fuu-“

“If you want to experiment, I will help you find a hairdresser in Cephiro who knows how to do a professional job of it,” Fuu continued. “But otherwise you won’t be able to resolve your dilemma – not if you don’t know whether it’s the way it’s cut or the length itself that you either like or dislike.”

Sighing, Umi flopped back on the bed. “I guess,” she muttered, grudgingly.

It wasn’t as though Fuu could imagine Umi looking bad, but a sudden change to your image could be… startling.

“Come on, then,” she said, standing and reaching for her handbag. “Lets head out. The earlier we get to Cephiro, the longer we have to find a hairdresser who can fit you in.” And she swept a startled-looking Umi out of the room, grinning at the protests that Umi hadn’t meant today, probably, though she’d been thinking about it for a while, and did Fuu think it would look okay?

“Of course it will.” And by this time tomorrow it would probably be undone by the strange magic of their portal back home.

Using Cephiro to experiment without worry. That was an idea she was going to have to consider herself.