Dark Places | S. Tendou

FLASHBACK*

[TW REMINDER: Contains themes of bullying and verbal abuse. Please skip if you'd prefer to avoid this type of content, thanks!]

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Maeko didn't know what came over her. Her parents sent her to the store for a couple of small items, like toilet paper for the bathroom and a new bottle of dish soap, and she used the little money leftover to buy a box of dark blue hair dye.

The girl on the front of the box looked so beautiful with bright, coloured hair. Maeko held it up beside her face in the mirror, admiring it, wondering if it would make her beautiful too.

A store clerk walked by and complimented Maeko's choice, telling her it would look amazing.

Flustered, Maeko thanked the store clerk. Perhaps it was just their job to say stuff like that to customers to push merchandise, but it was exactly the push she needed to add it to her cart in the off chance they actually meant it.

As soon as Maeko got home, she locked herself in the bathroom and ripped open the box. She decided to test it out first on a small strip of her bangs just in case she didn't like it.

Thirty minutes later, the dye was washed out and Maeko was staring at her reflection with stars in her eyes. It was a mesmerizing dark shade of blue. She thought it complimented her green eyes and pale skin a lot nicer than the blonde.

But then there was a knock on the door.

"Maeko, what's taking so long in there? I hope you're not wasting water." It was her father, and he sounded angry.

Maeko couldn't open the door. What was she thinking? Her parents were going to throw a fit when they saw what she'd done to her hair.

"Open this door, Maeko!" Her father's voice was getting louder and more hostile.

Maeko wrapped her hair in a towel in a rush to hide the blue strip of hair and then tentatively opened the door.

Her father scrutinized her carefully. After a tense moment of silence, he pressed his finger against the towel near her forehead. Maeko held her breath when she saw the hint of blue dye staining his finger.

"What have you done to this towel? It's ruined."

He roughly grabbed the towel and yanked it off Maeko's head. Her long hair cascaded around her face with the blue strip in plain sight.

"Your hair, Maeko. Why is it blue?"

Maeko opened her mouth to answer, but she was given no time.

"Honey, come take a look at this!"

"What is it?" Maeko's mother rounded the corner and gasped. "Oh goodness. Why on earth would you do this to your hair?" She softly grabbed a hold of the blue stand, holding it pinched between two fingers midair as if it was poisonous.

Maeko struggled to explain herself. "I thought it would look nice. I thought—"

"You thought wrong." Her father cut in. "Wash it out at once."

"I can't." Maeko answered, barely above a whisper.

"Excuse me?"

She lifted her eyes to her father's, wincing at his facial expression. "I can't wash it out. It's permanent dye."

"Well isn't that lovely." Her mother chimed in with a sarcastic sigh. Without another word, she spun on her heel and returned to the kitchen.

"Now you'll permanently look ridiculous. It's a good thing you've got Ayume or else the middle schoolers would sink their teeth into you. Why can't you be more like her?"

Each sentence delivered its own unique blow.

"Go to your room and finish your homework. You'll be called when dinner is ready." Her father said with finality, grumbling incoherently to himself as he followed Maeko's mother into the kitchen.

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Maeko walked into school that morning with her hood pulled over her head. She tried everything she could think of to make the blue strip of hair look nice, but her parents' scolding had her convinced that she looked terrible and made a mistake. If she could get to classes early and beg the teachers to let her keep her hood on, then hopefully—

Someone tugged Maeko's hood down from behind. "What are you hiding?"

The person circled Maeko like a vulture, eyes widening as soon as her blue strip of hair came into sight. "You dyed your hair? Why did you only dye one strip? Of course it'll look embarrassing if you do it like that."

Maeko's tormentor raised their voice, gesturing some of their friends closer. "Come take a look at this, everyone!"

She was surrounded in the blink of an eye. Maeko shrunk beneath their stares, her ears filled with the sound of laughter at her expense. It was elementary school all over again. She'd never felt smaller.

"Back off!"

It really was elementary school all over again because the same girl was coming to her rescue.

Ayume scoffed, glaring at their turned backs as they went back to whatever they were doing before attention was called to Maeko. "Seriously, do none of you have anything better to do with your lives?"

She was still muttering profanities under her breath as she whipped around to face Maeko. She used her hand to lift Maeko's chin, looking from her eyes to the blue strip of hair hanging in her face.

"Thanks, Ayume." Maeko said weakly. She was feeling too embarrassed to say anything more meaningful than that.

Ayume made a tsk sound with her tongue, disappointed. "For a person who hates to be the center of attention, you really know how to draw a lot of it to yourself, don't you?"

Ayume tucked the blue strand behind Maeko's ear, trying to make it blend into the rest of her blonde locks. "If you don't want people to laugh at you than you can't go around dying your hair and then being too afraid to own it while you walk the halls. Make more careful decisions, okay? As much as I want to be, I can't always be here to hold your hand."

With a small smile probably meant to be encouraging, Ayume left Maeko's side to head to her first class.

Maeko knew that Ayume meant well but, for some reason, her advice was no less painful than the bullying. She made it sound like it was the easiest thing in the world to do with no real consideration for why it might've been difficult in the first place.

At times like this, Maeko caught herself quietly loathing Ayume's confidence. Especially after her father compared the two of them and all but wished out loud for a different daughter.

Maeko heard a group of girls laughing somewhere nearby. She shrank into her hoodie and then rushed down the hall to class, immediately assuming it had something to do with her.