Hair and mumble-rants

Shinji had once told him that his hair looked bloody. It had been on a day very much like today, when the two boys had been forced to walk home in the rain. The rain had irritated Shinji, sparking off another one of his mumble-rants. Shinji’s mumble-rants were half amusing, and half annoying, in Kamio’s opinion. He was normally completely quiet – almost like an expressionless doll – until something set him off. Once one thing got him sufficiently irritated, everything that had been bothering him since his last mumble-rant came pouring out in a stream of incessant complaints. Shinji had mentioned his hair, once, in one of those pissed-off rants. It had slipped in next to grip tape, rain, and maths teachers. It was still bugging Kamio. It was still bugging him because Kamio couldn’t quite figure out whether Shinji was annoyed by his hair or not. True, it was mentioned in one of his mumble-rants, but all he’d said was “Kamio’s hair looks bloody.” That . . . wasn’t really negative in itself, was it? And Shinji was known to mention things related to whatever was in his mumble-rant in the rant itself, even if they didn’t annoy him. Except he couldn’t figure out what his hair colour had been related to. Kamio stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, and felt like whacking his head on the glass surface. It had been raining when they walked home – which was what had reminded him of the last mumble-rant – and his hair was plastered to his face. Wetted down, it looked closer to brown than red, water darkening the fine strands. Kamio wasn’t so much looking at his reflection, however, as remembering what it looked like normally. His hair wasn’t that bad, was it? Frowning, Kamio stomped out of the room, making his way downstairs to where Shinji was exploring his kitchen. With Shinji, there was nothing else you could do but ask him flat-out what he meant and hope you got a straight answer, so that was what Kamio was going to do! . . . even if he didn’t quite know why what Shinji thought of his hair felt so important. Shinji was crouched down by the cupboards to the left of the door when he entered, and mumbling. “. . . don’t like the rain. It makes me cold and makes my clothes smell, and I don’t like that. It makes Kamio smell, too. And you can’t play tennis in the rain, though I’ve told Tachibana-san I can control the ball well enough. He won’t let me play anyway.” Kamio took a deep breath. “Shinji—” “—And rain makes Kamio’s hair look brown. I don’t like that. It looks bloody when it’s dry. That’s pretty. Rain makes you smell bad and look bad. And you can’t play tennis. I don’t like rain. I heard Echizen played a game in the rain. Tachibana-san would yell at him for that. He yells at me. And Echizen still owes me that grip tape.” Kamio abruptly deflated, staring at Shinji. The other second year was still mumbling, staring into the depths of the cupboard, but none of it registered. Oh. So . . . his hair wasn’t an irritation, at all. Shinji looked up, and blinked slowly at him. “Kamio,” he said, and fell silent. “. . . bathroom’s free,” Kamio told him.

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