Beauty, Beast by naqaashi

Beauty, Beast

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.

A/N: This fic is an entry for Tangerine Dream's Annual Fanfiction Tournament. Please vote for me if you feel my fic is good enough to make it to the fifth round! Summerbirdy is my partner for this round, so please read her fic also, and then decide who you will vote for!

Our prompt for this round was PILGARLIC (Bald-headed man).

Here are the contest rules - 

http://www.dokuga.com/forum/29-challenges/64798-second-annual-fanfiction-tournament

Many, many thanks to Yabou, for acting as emergency beta at the very last minute - literally! 

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“This one cannot comprehend such carelessness, Snip. One would think you had nothing but contempt for yourself.”

And then he was gone, in a swirl of shimmering hair and pristine silk, leaving his casual, careless cruelty hovering around her like an unwelcome aunt.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A natural progression of logic would dictate that a powerful, wealthy, beautiful, fit, intelligent and influential person would also be – whether the abovementioned qualities were a product of hard work, genetics, luck or a mixture of all three – an immensely vain person.  

Unless, of course, the logician in question happened to be a Disney Princess or Oliver Twist or simply – naïve and a frantic believer in the existence of basic goodness. Then the abovementioned paragon would have no vanity, just a set of silk-feathered wings and a halo.

The girl who stood behind the barbershop counter had no such illusions. As she watched the man climb into a sleek automobile and drive off to his day’s next appointment, she asked herself for the umpteenth time, why she allowed him back into her saloon. Perhaps it was habit – he would walk in with his long, silver hair bound tightly at the nape of his neck and demand her attention. She would spend a delightful half-hour – the most delightful of the week – massaging shampoo and conditioner through the strands; a further 20 minutes drying it carefully with a warm, soft towel; and then she would present the bill. Occasionally, he would request a trim, or a change of style.

She never dared to snip off more than a centimetre from the ends, displaying her trademark bold flair for hairstyling only at the bangs that framed his face. Snip-snip-snip, her scissors would go, shaving through the strands, bringing shape and volume to them. With a few snips here, and a few snips there, she could make someone look young, mature, stern, playful, sensual, prim – you name it. To them all, she was the strange-yet-brilliant hairdresser who dealt out cheap makeovers from the homey little barbershop tucked away near the ancient shrine. To him, she had been many things – insignificant, all of them – but ever since he had appointed himself a regular customer, she was just one word.

“Hurry up now, Snip. This Sesshoumaru has a meeting in an hour.”

Well, not even a word, really. A sound would be more accurate. The rhythmic sound of her scissors as she took away his hair.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Twenty-five years, five months, seventeen days and 3 hours before Sesshoumaru walked out of the little barbershop, the shrine next to it had worn and aura of joy and excitement. After four generations of sons, the Higurashis, the family that owned and ran the shrine, had finally been blessed with the birth of twin daughters.

The girls had never been doppelgangers, the way some twins are. Kikyo stood tall and straight as an arrow, serious and quiet in disposition. Her appearance matched her personality – even as a child, she wore her straight black hair in tight pigtails, and her brown eyes were direct, yet prim. In freakish contrast, Kagome was never still for a moment, flitting from person to toy to tree to kitten, much like a curious kitten herself. Loud and charming, her bright blue eyes had a habit of looking right through a person, to some fantasy world beyond. Like her twin, she too was raven-haired, but following the rule of opposites, hers was forever a gnarled mess, hanging about her shoulders like a veil.

Since her own locks proved rebellious, the little girl would console her vanity by making her sister’s hair as pretty as pretty could be. After all, she thought optimistically, they were twins, so if Kikyo looked pretty, people would know that she, Kagome, was pretty too! Wouldn’t they?

Naturally, they didn’t.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first time Kagome heard an adult disparage her looks was when she was five. A friend of her father’s, from work, had dropped by with his wife. The visitors had been delighted with the tour of the ancient shrine and cooed appropriately over the twin heiresses-in-training who were dressed alike in miniature priestess garb. When they left, little Kagome followed them out to their car and accidentally heard the words that would shape the rest of her life: “They’re a very nice family dear, but those children! One so pretty, and the other – the blue-eyed one…so unkempt!”

When Mrs. Higurashi was tucking the twins into bed, one of them asked her what “unkempt” meant. The answer left the little girl wide eyed, mute and sleepless for the rest of the night.

The next morning, Kagome took the previous evening’s lesson to heart. Her own hair responded to even the most vigorous brushing by looking even more like rat’s nest. But there was her sister – hair damp from the bath, frowning at the array of pretty hair ties on their dresser. With a determined scowl on her little mouth, Kagome snatched up her brush and began her lifelong obsession with making her sister the prettiest girl in town.

It would not be until they were 14, lithe and on the cusp of puberty, that she first heard the word “ugly.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Kagome-chan, Kagome-chan! We’ll be late if you don’t run faster!”

Obediently, Kagome picked up the pace. She knew how much Kikyo hated not being on time. She would have told her to go ahead without her, but the studious girl was protective and wouldn’t hear of leaving her behind and alone. 

They made it to the classroom flushed and disheveled, with barely a second to spare, but Kagome was still fumbling with her indoor shoes when Kikyo had already taken her seat. The ensuing scolding and disapproving frowns from the teacher were to be expected and endured, but Kagome comforted herself with the thought that the teacher didn’t make a point of cribbing about her hair again. After all, the beautifully braided French pigtails she had done for Kikyo earlier – the cause of their tardiness – must have paid off! The teacher must have assumed that if Kagome had had the time, she too, would have come with hair neat and pretty and the very definition of schoolyard chic!

And what did it matter, really, when they were twins and looked so much the same?  A little bit of imagination – replace the brown eyes and prim expression on her pretty sister with blue eyes and a big smile, and they’d sure already know what she would look like too!

Apparently, it mattered to the boy who shared her desk. As Kagome sank into her seat, sweaty with exertion, he turned to her with a sneer. She glared back. Two hours later, during break, he told the class at large that “no way could those Higurashi twins be, like, identical! Because, don’t you all see? Kikyo’s so pretty and Kagome’s so freaking ugly!”

Kagome heard every word.

Over the next years, the twins channeled their talents into separate paths of life. While Kikyo took the archery club firmly in hand and slowly became a walking encyclopaedia on Shinto lore and shrine traditions, Kagome swallowed the bitter pill of every failed archery class with an extreme makeover for yet another fashion victim among the thronging female population of the school. When the Higurashis denuded their brown-eyed girl with lavish praise for carrying their hopes and shouldering the responsibility of a shrine maiden, Kagome made up for the silence regarding her nonexistent mysticism and bad aim by reliving the voluble thanks of her latest hairstyling guinea pig. By the end of junior year, they were known by many monikers, very few of them completely kind. Kikyo never referred to them, afraid of hurting her sister’s feelings. Kagome went through the list, decided Beauty and the Beast was her favourite, and returned to her scissors.

Despite the widening gap in their status, the twins remained close. Yet, for all four years of high school two things remained constant. The first was that each new student per semester suffered a massive shock, followed by bouts of hilarity on being informed that the two mismatched girls who always ate lunch together were twins – or in fact even related. The second was that even as her talent with hair grew into a solidified, reputed genius, Kagome kept the promise she had made to herself that day in the corridor outside the class, and never once allowed her sister to leave the house without her hair looking less than absolutely perfect.

Until Kikyo’s wedding day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 As a matter of course, Kagome was in love with the groom.

To an outside observer, Kagome would have been the perfect profile for an obsessive semi-stalker. To someone who knew Kagome well, which was no one, it made perfect sense that she would fall for her sister’s man. After all, she mused, they were twins, so a man capable of falling for Kikyo could just as easily have fallen for the woman who looked just like her, wouldn’t he?

She denied her mirror’s irrefutable proof of that fantasy never coming true by simply having the offending object removed from her room after she overheard some family friends gossiping to the effect that “it’s such a pity Kagome-chan will never be able to catch a man like Inuyasha! Such an upright, handsome couple they make….Kikyo looks as if she was made for him! And so much in love!”

But Inuyasha was far unlike any other man Kagome had ever seen, and it didn’t help that she’d met him first. Dressed in traditional red and white as she ran some quick tours around the shrine – Kikyo had taken over the rites entirely, so there wasn’t much else that Kagome was allowed to do – she had found herself blushing and horribly nervous when the tall, rugged young man with unusual white-blonde hair and hazel eyes requested to buy a charm for good times.

She had forgotten that her sister was manning the charm booth that day. And thus, when love blossomed, as simply and naturally as a rose, she could only watch, and dream, and hope against hope that someday, he would notice her.

And now they were getting married – the heiress to an ancient shrine and the scion of a modern corporate empire. Kagome wouldn’t have minded as much as she did, except that Kikyo had requested her to be her hairdresser for the ceremony, eschewing a bevy of renowned stylists in favour of her twin.

As the guests piled into the hotel and the clock ticked on, Kikyo sat patiently in her underwear, waiting for her sister to work magic on her gleaming tresses. For the first time in her life, as she observed the graceful sweep of her twin’s shoulders and neck, Kagome felt something alien, something extraordinary creeping up her soul. It took her a quarter of an hour to recognize the emotion as pure, loathsome rebellion.

She wondered how long Kikyo would stay mad at her if she took up the scissors, and slashed them diagonally, ruinously across the long, fine hair that graced the bride’s scalp.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Panicking, Kagome dropped her tools and backed away. “I think my brain’s in a wedding funk,” she blurted.

“It’s okay, dear, take as long as you want. It’s just the rehearsal dinner tonight. I don’t need to look extra special.” Kikyo’s understanding smile was reflected back at her through the mirror. Kagome found that she couldn’t take it and turned to flee.

Only to be halted by a pair of slim arms that snaked around her waist and cuddled her close to a soft, perfumed body. “I’m going to miss you too, you know!” Kikyo mumbled into her ear, tears evident in her voice.

Kagome tried to cry, discovered an overwhelming urge to scream, and took a third option. She fled.

But her newfound diabolism had come to germinate, and it didn’t leave her till she had managed to get her sister to down a cup of warm herbal tea later that night, laced with a sleeping pill.   

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The night wore on, and yet Kagome sat hunched over her tools. Her mind ran in feverish circles, mumbling whattodo, whattodo, whattodo like a broken record.

Technically, the twenty-year-old knew exactly what to do. Getting up the guts to do it was another matter. That, and betraying the vow of a lifetime. But if it was to be done, then it had to be done now. Not a minute later, and any sooner would be physically impossible, but now was a very good time. She gave up trying to think things through rationally, gave in to pure teenage meanness, and stole up the corridor to her sister’s room. Praying that she would be sleeping there instead of her fiancé’s room, she walked in and heaved a sigh of relief.

The bed was occupied.

Thank you, God.

Now please, please, please let her not wake up, because if she doesn’t wake up I swear I’ll never do a bad thing in my life again, but I have to do this and she’ll understand, if she ever finds out it’s me, but please, please – the soft whirr of an electric razor filled the room as Kagome put it to good use. One, maybe two quick strokes – and I’ll swear I’ll convert to Christianity and go into a nunnery for a decade if that’s what it takes to repent, but pleaaaase – “Oh dear God…NO!”

The tall, furious angel in the bed was most definitely not her sister.

His eyes were pure gold – and merciless.

What was left of his hair was long, silvery blonde and spun silk.

He wasn’t Inuyasha. And he wasn’t her sister.

Kagome did the easy thing and fainted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When she came to, there was a half-bald angel hovering over her, his lips set in stern fury. Kagome swallowed and wondered if he had been waiting long for her to return to lucidity.

“Another minute more and this one was going to throw you into the pool,” he announced.

Yes, Kagome decided, he’d been waiting long enough. And he talked funny.

She decided, also, to remain mute until this shorn angel had determined her sentence. But the seconds passed and he mirrored her silence. She chanced a peek up at him and found him gazing contemplatively at her.

He broke the silence with a curt statement. “Funny. You don’t look like you detest your sister.”

She gave a half-hearted shrug. The mention of Kikyo had just reminded her of her terrible loss – the bride remained intact, and the wedding would march on. She would lose the man she loved.

Simple as that. She wondered if her heart was beginning to crack.

“Why did you do it? Destroying a bride’s beauty on her day?”

Silence reigned once more, as Kagome sorted through emotions as tangled as her mane of hair. Finally, the answer came to her, as the brittle illusion she had maintained since the age of five finally dissolved.

Somewhere, she knew, she had always known. She just hadn’t wanted to accept it.

“Why’s she the pretty one?” The question that tore from her lips wasn’t an answer, not quite, but for the man standing before her, it was even less.

Large, manicured hands firmly pulled the shrubbery back from her face and peered uncomprehendingly into her blue eyes. She stared back, startled, then stunned, when he replied with the question that had tormented her all her life.

“This Sesshoumaru does not understand. You are twins, are you not?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And that was how Kagome bagged her most prestigious customer.

It took a bit more planning that that, however. The first thing he did was demand that she finish the job.

“I…what?!”

“You heard me, wench. Finish what you started.”

“B-but…”

“This Sesshoumaru refuses to attend his brother’s wedding looking like a half-plucked chicken.”

She wanted to point out that looking like a fully plucked chicken was hardly any better, but accepted the punishment and replaced the razor against his skin. Five minutes later, a round, pink, shiny ball of scalp stared back at her with a vague devilry.

She should have listened t her instincts and run, but she couldn’t. Not with all that silvery silk pooled around her feet, brought there by her own hand.  Killing herself would have been an easier thing to do – the most beautiful hair she had ever seen, ever touched. And she had stolen it, ripped it from its owner with as much finesse as a hungry urchin at a dinner table.

Perhaps she was a monster. Perhaps she wasn’t. All she knew for certain was that she had destroyed the very beauty that she craved and worshipped and envied and would never have – and she was terrified that he would shout it to the world.

He didn’t.

But he did have a price.

“I hear you’re very talented with hair,” he remarked after introductions were over – he knew who she was, she now knew that he was Inuyasha’s older brother – and she was cleaning the aftermath of the disaster. She probed his voice and found just a touch of well-deserved sarcasm. She gave another half-hearted shrug in answer.

“You have a salon?”

She nodded, wondering if he was seeking an estimate of her worth. Next week’s mail would probably bring her a lawsuit…

He seemed to pick up on the direction of her thoughts. “Don’t worry, this one can see no practical value in a lawsuit.”

She turned away from the devil he had become and continued sweeping.

“You will fix this.” It was an order.

She blinked up at him. Fix it? How? She wasn’t a plastic surgeon, nor was she Father Time!

“It will grow back out, will it not? Having seen to it that this Sesshoumaru looks like a boiled egg, you will in future see to the opposite of it.”

Understanding dawned on her, followed quickly by regret, then elation. To have the chance to work with that hair again – to shape it, give it body and flair and panache! It was a dream come true.

Swiftly, she agreed, and they went their separate ways. The wedding continued, the best man’s brand new hairdo – or lack of it – was commented upon and explained away with the lift of a haughty eyebrow, the bride looked stunning, and the bride’s hair looked prettiest of all.

Life went on. But once a week, every week, Kagome’s little barbershop opened its doors to a tall young man with growing silvery hair and bright gold eyes. For one hour, he commandeered the salon and its owner. Occasionally he brought a friend.

It took four years for his hair to grow out to its previous glory. Kagome feared that he would stop coming.

He didn’t.

It took another year of weekly snipping for Kagome to realise, mid-snip, that she had fallen in love with this customer. It took two more snips to recall that he called her “Snip,” that he rarely had a kind word for her even if he always had the right word, that he never saw her socially, that he was beautiful and she was still the Ugly Sister, that he likely had nothing but scorn for her, and that of course, he would never love her back.

And that he would never stop coming, and she had not the right to refuse him.

It was a nightmare come true.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now she stood, peering dully out the window. He had gone, but he would be back next week, she knew.

She sat in the chair he had just vacated, and swiveled, thinking.

Why do I love him?

She didn’t know. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that, despite his disparagement of her appearance, he was the only person she knew who never saw her as the uglier twin of a beautiful woman.

To Sesshoumaru, she and Kikyo had always looked the same. He remember his confused question from years before – “You are twins, are you not?”

Yes, Sesshoumaru had never seen her as anything but a twin. Not ugly twin, not clumsy twin, not relatively twin, not how-did-they-manage-to-be-twins twin.

Just a twin.

And then, just his hairdresser.

And then, just the strange, unsocial-yet-moderately-cheery girl who loved her cat and loved hair and loved fashion and loved beauty but never had any for herself, no matter how much he berated her for it.

Just the sound of the scissors which she never used to make herself pretty.

Just Snip.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She decided to end it. She gave him three last weeks, and savoured each with painful, dubious pleasure. Then she made the announcement.

He gaped at her for full five minutes. She’d never seen him gape at anything before – he was always either composed, or composedly irritated.

“Selling?” he croaked.

She nodded firmly.

“Leaving?”

Another nod, even firmer.

“Paris?” Now he was practically squeaking.

She didn’t find it remotely funny, but she nodded again.

He stared at her some more, a calculative gleam entering his eye.

“Very well.” Just like that.

She almost cried then. She had known he wouldn’t care much, beyond losing his precious hairstylist, but getting proof still hurt.

“It’s a good idea. Paris might benefit you more than you thought. Heaven knows you could use a little attention yourself. They’ll never let you survive there unless you don’t shape up.” There was a satisfied sheen to his words, almost as if he couldn’t wait for it.

It was breaking her heart.

It was also infuriating her. “Why don’t you just call me ugly to my face instead of hinting about it? No amount of anything will fix me – you think I haven’t tried?!”

He didn’t reply, but something warmed in his eyes. She ignored it in favour of continuing her rant.

“I might not look like a Parisian – I don’t look like a Tokyoite, but it doesn’t stop them from walking in my doors, does it? So the Parisians can - ”

“The Parisians can take it, or leave it,” he finished softly. “When do we leave?”

She looked at him, wordless and near brainless.

“You didn’t think I would let you go alone, did you?”

She had thought that actually.

“And when did I ever call you ugly?”

She noticed that he wasn’t talking funny anymore.

“Careless, yes. As for ugly, I suggest you cut that ridiculous bird’s nest off your head.”  

She didn’t quite get it.

“Like this- ” – he picked up her scissors and hacked it through the untamable mass of her hair.

She couldn’t resist looking into the mirror.

It was horrifying, but she could fix it.

And miracle of miracles, she could see her face without enlisting the aid of a bandana and a rubberband first.

“So, when do we leave?”

He was smirking openly at her now, and slowly, strangely, she found herself remembering his question.

“Are you not twins?”

He took her hand, and she knew.

And she smiled back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Have I always been so silly?” They were seated in the swivel chairs of the barbershop. She was busy fixing the scarecrow effect he had pulled on her hair, and he was listening to her relate her life story.

He completely agreed with her assessment of silliness, but this time she understood the harshness for what it was – concern and irritation that she made so little of herself when she could make much more. It made her smile, in bitter recognition of her own stupidity.

“The best offbeat hairstylist in all of Tokyo, and I couldn’t see what works for myself…”

He held a finger to her lips, halting the snipping of her scissors as she layered the short curls for a pixielike effect. “You never saw yourself with the right eyes. Perhaps you were never allowed to.”

“That’s no excuse, is it?”

He considered that, then went for the truth. “No, it isn’t.”

“You’ve always known what to do, haven’t you?” She quirked her eyebrows at him. Not waiting for an answer, she ploughed on, a little angry. “Why did you wait five years to do it? You could have done it the first time we met. You could have done this…anytime you liked. But all you really did was be mean to me! And I don’t care how much you call it “encouragement” or “hints!” Why did you…wait?”

He leveled a flat glare at her. “This Sesshoumaru was hoping you’d see the light on your own.”

She couldn’t find a suitable retort for that, so she settled for a question. “Say…Sesshoumaru?”

“Hn?”

“What…eyes did I need? All these years?”

He didn’t reply. She was almost done with the renovation. When she had finished, he did not allow her to admire herself in the mirror too long, but cupped her face in his palms and leaned in till his nose was brushing against hers.

“Hmmm?” She felt just a little bit dizzy, and very curious. Anticipation curled in the pit of her belly.

Somehow, she had the feeling she was going to like his answer very much.

“With eyes that love you, you little fool. With eyes that simply adore you.”

She was right.  

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