Since it turns out there isn't a hair salon in this shopping center, we have to hop on a shuttle to another one nearby where we can find what we're looking for. When we go inside, there are a number women in chairs, other women behind them, working on their hair.

One lady at the front greets us. She looks over everyone and asks who's here to see a stylist. I raise a hand slightly. “That's me.”

“Alright, right over here, miss.”

Once I'm in the chair, a brunette woman approaches. “Aww, what a cutie,” she coos. “What are you here for, hun?”

“A... trim?” I don't know, she seems nice, but it's making me kind of anxious anyway.

“Sounds good, let's take a look.” She sweeps forward, and I flinch a little, only now realizing that to cut my hair, I have to let this complete stranger touch me. No no no, Leona is right here, and the lady is a professional, she's just here to cut my hair. I keep breathing and try to calm my racing heart.

“You have such pretty hair, I love the color. Is it natural or dyed?” She circles around me as she speaks.

“Natural.” Mom's is silver and Dad's is brown. Mine ended up somewhere in between at a sort of platinum blond.

“Alright,” she chirps, and I can feel her starting to touch my hair from behind. There's a lump in my throat, but so far, she's fine. She's only touching my hair. I like people touching my hair, I remind myself.

“Looks kind of damaged at the ends, you definitely need a trim. It doesn't look styled at all, did you have anything in mind?” I don't even know what that means, so I just shake my head no.

“Hmmm, in that case, how about something cute?”

“Cute?”

“Umm...” Jen suddenly speaks from the side. “I'm sorry, could you do something low maintenance with subtle layers? No bangs and not too much face framing?” The stylist raises a brow at the sudden request.

“I'm not sure how that would look, and it would be a waste of her potential...” She turns to look at me, like she wants my opinion. I mean, I am the customer, but I have no idea what they're talking about.

No, that doesn't matter. They each have an opinion on what would look best. The question is, do I go with the recommendation of the hair stylist, or Jen? Do I believe Jen would make a better decision than a professional? No, not really. What does she even know about hair?

Then why did she make the recommendation? She wouldn't without a reason, right? Do I trust her enough to follow her word blindly?

...No. Not anymore.

“I'll... go with your recommendation,” I tell the stylist. “You said something cute?” Jen's entire frame shrinks as she steps away, and I want to be sick. Why does seeing her like that have to hurt so much, even after what she did...?

“Alright then, I'll get to it.” The stylist wraps a big black thing around me. I feel anxious and enclosed at first, but I can tell just by looking at it that it's for keeping cut hair from getting all over my clothes.

“You have fine, straight hair, so I'm thinking a wavy up-braid would help with volume and fringe bangs would compliment the shape of your face. What do you think?”

“Umm, I'm sorry. Honestly, I don't really know. I've never had my hair done before,” I admit. Maybe she'll explain things a little better if she knows I don't understand.

However- “Ah, then just leave everything to me. I'll make you the cutest girl in your class.” She gives me a big, confident grin, but her words finally click on my head. My eyes flick to Jen, biting her lip and wringing her hands, like she's about to cry.

“U-umm, wait, sorry, I uh, I changed my mind! Could you do it like she said please?” I wave a hand in Jen's direction from under the big black cover in panic. If she made my hair that cute and girly, as much as I'm sure I'd love it, there's no way I could possibly hide it at school. Everyone would see!

That's why Jen said what she did. Because she knew the stylist would make me look too good.

“Really?” the woman scoffs, irritated after I suddenly change my mind like that. “It would be such a waste!”

“I'm sorry, that's what I want.” Even as I cringe, I try not to cry under her harsh gaze.

“Fine, fine. I can't guarantee the results though.”

“That's ok...”

The woman huffs, but gets to her job, washing and trimming my hair with practiced, careful hands. At first I'm a little stiff and nervous, but the professional air soon helps me relax and let her work. She blow dries it, which takes some time, before applying more hair product and snipping here and there with her scissors. It takes a surprisingly long time, with her turning me in the stiff, rotating chair.

When she finally seems satisfied, she rinses and blow dries my hair one last time, before putting me in front of a mirror.

“Ooohhh...” I turn in place as I look myself over. My hair is kind of... fluffier than before. It feels strangely airy as I turn and it flows around my neck and back. It isn't a huge change though, so it shouldn't cause any big trouble at school either.

It does feel wonderful to run my fingers through, even more than usual, and I don't get any snags at the ends either. She didn't even take off all that much. It's around the bottoms of my shoulder blades again, but it still feels long and amazing and feminine. I love my hair...

“Thanks, this is nice.”

“Ehh, if you say so,” the stylist sighs, clearly disappointed. A small part of me is too, I know she could have made me even prettier, but I just can't right now.

“...Can I see...?” Jen comes in hesitantly, keeping a few steps back.

“Sure.” Again, she knew exactly what I needed. Just like she always has...

Jen slowly comes closer, stepping carefully around me without intruding on my little bubble of personal space. While she's hovering, awkward and conflicted are emotions playing over her face. I think how it's thanks to her that my first haircut didn't turn into a disaster.

My words come out low and tremulous. “You... can touch it...” Hardly more than a whisper. Her eyes go wide and she roots herself to the ground, a little in front of me and to my right. I can't get myself to look directly at her. Jen's shaking hand rises, hesitating. She reaches out, and I don't even know what I'm feeling anymore as her fingers stretch toward me.

Then she stops. Then she draws her hand back. Jen holds it clutched tightly in her other hand, scowling down at it, at herself. “No, I...” She shakes her head and doesn't say any more. She doesn't have to, the guilt is written all over her.

So, Jen can't forgive herself either...

The stylist keeps eyeing us as I pay and we leave. When we hop on a shuttle back to Pilkton Square, I sit up against Leona, hoping it will cheer me up somehow. Gon is on my other side, coming a little close for comfort. Jen's off on the other side of the shuttle, while he leans in and speaks quietly. “I don't want to pry, but... what happened?”

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“Jen did something really bad.” I really don't want to get into this now. “I can't blame her for it, but I also can't forgive her. I don't think she can either.”

“Ooh, that bad?” he mutters back with a pained grimace.

I stare at the floor between my feet. “Whatever you're imagining, it's worse.” I don't want to think about this anymore. “We're going clothes shopping next,” I make it clear I'm changing topics. “Please help me choose good fabrics? Also, what should I do about my uniforms?”

“Sure, I'll help,” he agrees. “You can put an order in with the uniform manufacturer if you need them made out of different fabric. They need a letter from a doctor to prove it's necessary for you though. Given your weird skin condition, the school doctor should help you out.”

“Oh.” They'll do that? I blink a few times. “How do you know all that?” I ask in wonder.

With another awkward expression, he looks away and just says, “I clicked around their site a bit and noticed they had the option.” We're pulling up to our stop, so I remind Gon to text me what sort of materials I should request later, then we get off.

It's a short trip across the shopping plaza to arrive at the clothing store. But before we even start, Leona pushes me into the changing room and tells me to change into my new underwear. She doesn't have to tell me twice. The bra isn't too big of a change, but getting out of my scratchy boxers and into the soft and comfortable panties I bought is an enormous improvement.

When I leave the changing room, Gon is already looking through racks of clothing. I notice the look of concentration as I approach, it's the same way he looked earlier when he really thought about the fabric for my underwear. I guess he gets like that when he's really immersed in a task...

Not wanting to disturb him in his element, I head to another rack of shirts. I don't know what I'm looking for like he does, but there is one thing only I can do. I run my arm down the whole line of shirts, grabbing any that actually feel good to the touch. Not too long after, Gon comes out of his trance, arms full of shirts for me to try.

Once more his usual shy self, he passes off the stack, and I run a hand across to test them quickly. About half fail and I hand them back immediately. He looks each one over, taking note of the fabrics involved and nodding.

I bring the other half over into the changing room, quickly trying them one after another to determine which types I think feel the best, and show him. “Alright, it's pretty much what I expected. Blends with mixes of cotton, polyester, modal, rayon, lyocell, nylon, and spandex.” Gon nods a few times. Then he tells me to pick out whichever ones I want while he goes to look for something.

I do that, searching through the pile of comfortable ones and selecting a few shirts in colors I like, and that don't have bad pictures or patterns on them. Like, there's one that feels really nice, but it has 'You should see my ass' printed across the chest in big letters. Just... ugh...

After I'm done, I see Gon is tapping through the store's catalog at a console, before he searches around the shop, selecting one particular shirt and coming back. It's a pastel pink with a kind of low cut v-shaped neck, but other than that, it looks like a pretty ordinary short sleeve shirt.

“Try these. I'd like to know how they compare,” and he extends a second shirt in his other hand, I didn't notice before. It's similar in style, but pale green. I'm assuming they're made of different materials?

“Sure.” Just holding them in my hands, I can already tell that they feel different from the others. I take them back to the changing room, wiggling into the pink one first.

Oh, wow. It's so soft and clingy, it feels like a second skin. It's amazing but... As I turn around with it on, there's one issue. It's kind of... restricting? Stiff? It's weird. It feels so soft and smooth against my skin, yet it restricts my movement at the same time. I'm not even sure how that's possible, it seems contradictory. Compared to the absurd comfiness, it's not much of an inconvenience, but it's still really weird.

After taking some time to just rub the shirt all over my body, I replace it with the green one. It's also somewhat more comfortable than the other stuff I've tried on. Still not as good as the pink, but also missing the odd stiffness. Once I'm done testing them, I go out and report my findings to Gon. I wonder what he's looking for with these?

“Mainly, I wanted to know whether there really was an improvement with mechanically processed bamboo fibers compared to viscose and rayon. It sounds like it's a trade off. I guess they still haven't perfected the the manufacturing process, or maybe the amount of stiffness isn't something normal people would notice. Or it could be the weave, or it could even disappear after a few washes. Hard to say.” I didn't follow any of that, but I nod along anyway. He really does know a lot about this, doesn't he...?

Still, “Umm, normal people?” It feels uncomfortable when he says it like that...

“Oh,” he stiffens up. “I meant it in a good way! Like, your skin condition makes you kind of special. You can feel the minute differences in cloth people like me can't. Like, a mini-superpower or something?”

“Hahh...” It sounds cool said like that, but it's mostly just been troublesome so far.

“Well, anyway, here are the types of fabric that we'll focus on, alright?” He shows me a list he's made up on his mobile of specific materials, and I scan it while he goes on. “These should work for all your different clothes. For styles...” He glances around. “I don't know, that mostly depends on what you like.”

I consider that for a moment, until Leona comes over. “Seiko, remember that you need to buy two sets of clothing. You don't want your only wearable clothes to be exclusively male or female styles.

“Ahh, that's right...” I grimace when I look over into the men's section. I have to get more of those...? I always hated shopping when I was younger, guy clothes were always just... bleh. It was a blessing I never outgrew anything so I never needed to go shopping for new clothes...

“Fine...” I pout.

We split up, searching through the whole place, everyone piling up a wide variety of clothing for me, to the obvious confusion of the couple employees wandering the store. On one hand, it seems like a lot, but on the other... it really isn't.

I quickly discover that the material compositions Gon put together for what I'm actually able to wear are apparently pretty stringent. My skin is really sensitive now, huh? It isn't a huge issue with women's clothes, but as I'd kind of expected, the pickings from the men's section are slim. Because men's clothes suck. They just... aren't made as soft and comfortable as women's clothes. Because men are all supposed to be tough and not care about stuff like that, if my dad's old words are anything to go by.

“Ugh...” I scowl faintly as I step out of the changing room in another guy shirt. It's big and baggy and hangs off of me because even though the smallest clothing mostly fits me, anything too tight will show my breasts. So instead, All my guy clothes are a few sizes too large.

“It's... fine,” I grunt. Despite being a specific cotton-poly blend, the exact same composition as a good number of the girl shirts I've found, it's thicker, more rigid, and the weave just isn't as soft or as comfortable. I know exactly what Gon was talking about about that now that I've felt the difference for myself.

The worst have to be the jeans. Damn near all of the guys' jeans are one hundred percent cotton. Not even good cotton. They feel atrocious. I only find one type of wearable men's jeans, so I end up grabbing like a half dozen of them. Screw guy clothes, no one notices how guys dress anyway. No one will even notice they're all the exact same pair and I don't have the mental energy to fight with this anymore.

On the completely opposite side of the coin, going through the women's clothes is exciting. There are different colors instead of the endless blue-gray-black of men's. Different styles, with every other shirt having different necklines, sleeve styles, hems, weights, just... everything. I try on dozens of different shirts, pants, leggings, even skirts!

I step out of the changing room with a soothing, pastel green top tucked into a short black skirt, turning back and forth for the others to look. They feel so luxurious against my skin too, they definitely have a good amount of rayon in the blend. I'm surprised how fast I'm picking up telling things like that by feel alone. The texture makes me just want to rub them against myself in pure bliss.

Giggling, I do a spin. The skirt spins with me. It feels so flowy and spinny, I swirl around again, grinning and blushing and wobbling when I lose my balance. My heart is pounding. This is amazing! I turn to look at the others, each with very different expressions, but all of their eyes on the same place.

Leona looks amused, Jen's uncomfortable, and Gon is red from ear to ear. Why are they looking at my skirt though? I spin a little more, and now that I'm looking, I see how it flairs straight out when I move like that. Oh, they can totally see my underwear...

About the same time that registers, Leona steps up to stop me. “Seiko, I don't think Gon-san can take much more,” she warns, her amused grin faintly strained. Meanwhile, Gon is shielding his lower regions and covertly shuffling behind the racks of clothes to hide.

My cheeks rapidly heat even as I try to stay calm. Leona and Jen have seen a lot, so that's one thing, but I totally just flashed Gon! Not freaking out, not freaking out...

I'm totally freaking out! The best I can do is retreat into the changing room for a while to cool off and change again.

Note to self, skirts, while spinny and fun, have hidden dangers...

The shopping trip continues for quite a while, but I do eventually get everything I need. Tops, pants, jackets, and yes, a few skirts. Everything, in all different assortments of colors and styles, both men's and women's. It's really hard, but I greatly cull the women's clothing from my selection before we head up to pay, only keeping my favorites. After all, I still have to wear guy clothes like ninety percent of the time on campus.

Even with the absurd pay from psi-ops, replacing my entire wardrobe in one shot, exclusively with high-quality clothes that won't drive me crazy, well, I do take a substantial chunk out of my savings this time. The sticker shock would probably put me on my ass if not for my new pay...

With everything loaded up into massive clothing bags, Leona has me carry them, since the weight will help me burn off energy. And it does, the bags are fucking heavy. With a much better atmosphere than earlier, we make our way back to the transport terminal, ready to return to campus.