Ocean Eyes (Otayuri)

Petal

Although Yuri was fatigued, he had nowhere to rest and fall asleep. And so he was forced to bear with his tiredness and stay awake; if he dozed off, there was a chance that he could crush the whole kingdom. His eyes kept drifting closed as if they had gold coins weighing them down, so he kept slapping his face harshly to try and keep them open. It worked somewhat as a short-term solution, but he couldn’t stave off sleep forever. He desperately needed a panacea, and fast.

The frigid temperature wasn’t helping either. Yuri unbraided his hair (he was rather sad to do so, recalling fondly how tenderly Otabek had woven the plaits), and wrapped it around himself like a thick blanket. It wasn’t enough to protect him from the bitter sea winds, but it did help a little.

Enveloped in his own silky locks, Yuri began to form an idea of how to fix this awful development. He was willing to bet that if he cut his hair off, he would shrink down again. It didn’t solve the hair problem, but at least he wouldn’t be larger than a mountain any longer. He quickly became stumped, given that there was nothing sharp that was vast enough to saw off his hair.

Yuri wished that he had scissors. Any old pair. Even those “magic” ones that he had tried to break the curse with before would do.

No sooner than he had thought that, he felt something heavy and metal materialize in his grasp. He raised the object and examined it in the dim light shining down from the firmament. In his hand rested a giant pair of shears, their chipped blades gleaming softly. The very ones that hadn’t been able to stop his hair from growing.

Yuri stared at them in shock, wondering if this was a cruel vision or a dream. But once he pinched himself and didn’t snap out of it or wake up, he knew that this was reality. Hadn’t the man who sold them to Otabek said that the scissors formed a bond with the person whose hair they’d last cut? Perhaps this is what that had meant, although Yuri could think of very few situations (aside from his present one) where teleporting scissors would be useful.

Still, this felt almost like a blessing. Yuri stepped as near to land as he could without crushing anything, then open and closed the scissors in the air experimentally a few times. Glaring determinedly, he took a deep breath and prepared himself for whatever happened next. He gathered up his hair, shivering from being exposed to the elements once more, then positioned the open blades around the golden tresses.

It took quite some time for him to ferociously chop off the tail, but eventually it was severed. At first, the rate of his getting smaller was almost unnoticeable. But then it quickly picked up speed at a dizzyingly rate. Looking up, he observed that the stars looked a lot farther off than before. Even though everything was spinning, he still attempted to walk closer to the shore during his descent.

Before he knew it, he was his own size again and treading water. He turned around and gaped at his hair, quickly sinking into the depths of the ocean. It was almost unfathomable that he had been so enormous. His truncated hair was massive enough to act as a shroud for his entire country, as well as the next one over. He lowered his gaze and saw that the scissors remained clutched in his hand. The water was so, so cold, and he shivered.

Out of nowhere, vertigo crashed down on him. He couldn’t keep his balance, and his head jerked forward. A tsunami of nausea rolled over him, and he vomited gastric acid into the ocean. Once his dry heaving had ceased, and he had regained a modicum of equilibrium, he splashed saltwater on his face to clean it.

He took the shears and gripped them in his teeth so that his hands were free to stroke through the water as he swam.

To Yuri’s despair, his hair was already growing at the same speed that it had been before. Back at square one. It was a struggle to stay afloat with all of the extra weight, nevertheless attempt to swim all the way to the shore (which seemed impossibly far away).