Inception

Chapter 50: Hair Wash

She fidgeted. She did desperately want the mucous out of her hair, at least before she had to smell it again. She was avoiding breathing through her nose just for that purpose.

"Can't I just take a bath?" she croaked.

"I figured you'd want your hair clean now. Gigi's not going to let you near the tub until you've eaten."

Lena scrunched up her nose at just the thought of having to eat with vomit in her hair.

"Okay."

And since she didn't really know what it was, she let him do it. He pulled up all her hair before strapping it so that it aligned with her hairline. It made her feel like a UFO attached to a human body.

He set some bottles, supposedly shampoo and conditioner, next to her, then went back inside. When she heard him come back out, he had an extra bucket full of steaming water that couldn't have been easy to carry and a towel which he wrapped around her shoulder.

"You're in for a treat, my darling nerd. Not everyone gets a visit to Sho-Sho's Salon for the rich and beautiful."

An unwitting smile curved her mouth.

The first touch of warm water on her scalp made her shiver. Tension automatically uncoiled from her neck and shoulders.

Bamboo tapped somewhere. The water of the stream made a relaxing background sound to the occasional tink of the glass windchimes. Birds occasionally twittered, but no sound of traffic interrupted the peace.

Lena let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She closed her eyes.

She expected him to chatter the entire time. Hoshina was a talker, and he had to have questions. But, to her surprise and relief, he was quiet as he worked in the shampoo so gently she didn't realize what he was doing until she felt his short nails against her scalp. Only a single drop of water managed to make it to her neck.

When she dared to breathe through her nose, the open, fresh smell of water on stone and hibiscus drifted through. On the edge she smelled Hoshina: a faint, summer afternoon.

More warm water to rinse out the shampoo made her melt even further.

This...this was nice.

"There we go," said Hoshina softly. "You just relax."

The hibiscus must have been the shampoo, she thought, as when he popped open the conditioner the smell got stronger. The gentle scratch of his nails against her scalp made her eyelids flutter. When was the last time she'd even gone to a salon? It had to have been before it was just her and Leno. She'd hadn't the time. Had it felt this good?

Before she knew it, he was unsnapping the bamboo disk from her head.

"Don't worry, we're just going to rinse you out good now. Can I have you lay your neck on this towel?"

The towel in question was rolled up on the edge of the porch so her hair would be hanging off it. Seeing what he meant, she did so, for once not thinking that she was basically going with his whims without a fight.

He'd just gotten off the porch and gotten the end of her long hair in the bucket of now slightly sudsy water when the shoji door suddenly slammed open.

Lena jumped a foot in the air, flinging water everywhere.

"Le—" her vocal chords snapped painfully, throwing her into a coughing fit.

She didn't hear whatever was said just then through the racket of trying to breathe, but when she looked up Hoshina was just dragging Leno back into the medical room.

"We'll be a moment," he told her cheerfully, but his smile had that plastic look.

The door shut, and Lena was there wet, confused, and glad to know her brother was well enough to be slamming doors.

He, after all, had been running around in 60 year old Russian suit with a broken, after-market interior cooling system...and fighting numbered kaiju...and watching a kaiju turn into his sister...

Lena's hands clenched. She wondered when her body had started to tremble or when it started getting hard to breathe again.

Desperate for something to distract herself, she got off the porch and tried rinsing the conditioner out of her hair herself. She ended up just soaking the simple cotton top she'd been wearing and some of the pants as well. She stood for longer than made sense in a column of her soaping hair, wondering just how messed up her life had become.

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I should demand my husband wash my hair tonight. Romantic obligation. He'll probably roll his eyes and agree, because I am a very direct person about what I want. "PET MY BUTT!" "Yes, wife." "CALL ME CUTE!" "You're utterly adorable." "TOUCH MY FOOT!" "Alright, alright."