A Beautiful Girl Confessed Her Love to Me as a Punishment Game, but After We Started Dating, She Started Getting More and More Obsessive - Chapter 6

With the 20,000 yen I begged from my mother in my pocket, I had arrived in front of the hair salon.

I had a vague image of the salon being the first step up the ladder to adulthood. It seemed like a place where cheerful college students or beautiful women walking around the city would go.

I hesitated to enter, even for a relatively affordable 1,000 yen haircut. Although it was a salon where I needed to prepare my appearance to go out with Kiryu-san, I was also anxious about being a practice model for an apprentice. At that moment, I felt more unsure if someone like me should even enter this place.

What should I do? I borrowed a piece of clothing from my mother’s wardrobe that could barely pass as a men’s outfit, but would they think it looked strange? Well, I couldn’t just wear my worn-out tracksuit.

While I was hesitating to enter and wandering around in front of the store, a woman came out from the salon and approached me.

“Could it be…um…you were confessed to by Kirino—”

“Nu, Numata!”

“I knew it.”

The person who spoke to me was Minami-san, a gal from the Fujisaki group.

“What are you doing in front of the store? You looked really suspicious.”

“Ah, um…sorry.”

“Are you here for something at home? A reservation?”

“Ah, um…yeah. I think I have a reservation.”

“I see. Then you might as well go inside?”

“Ah, yeah.”

I was surprised to unexpectedly run into a classmate. I wondered why she was here. Oh, maybe she was just working part-time?

I felt a bit awkward being seen by a classmate in a place like this. They might think I was just chosen by Kiryu-san out of elimination and that I was trying too hard.

I wondered if they would think my outfit was lame.

I glanced at Minami-san’s expression, but she seemed completely uninterested. That indifference was somewhat relieving.

“Ma…manager, we have a customer.”

“Usually it’s Mama, but what happened? …Ah, is that child perhaps your friend?”

“Not really, it’s just that we’re classmates.”

“Ufu, welcome. May I have your name?”

The manager, who Minami-san referred to as Mama, had a calm and mature vibe, but her dyed hair and features were very similar to Minami-san.

Minami-san looked annoyed at the manager’s teasing laughter.

“Um, it’s Numata.”

“Oh, from Hibari-chan’s place. Hiyori-chan, this is the child who will be your practice model.”

“Eh, ah…”

Minami-san looked a bit awkward as she glanced at me.

“It’s the first time I’m doing someone’s hair, but I’ve practiced properly on models until now, so I’ve judged that it’ll be fine to show in front of others, so you can relax about that.”

“Ah, okay.”

“Hiyori-chan can be surprisingly shy despite how she looks, so I was worried she might not be able to do it as she practiced due to nerves, but since you’re classmates, it seems fine.”

“I’m not really friends with her; we just happen to be classmates…”

Minami-san, with an embarrassed face, pushed the manager, who had started talking animatedly, away and curtly said, “I’ll prepare right away, so please sit over there.”

“Hey, Hiyori-chan, be more friendly to the customer! I always tell you that, right?”

“B-But the manager is making the customers wait too.”

“Oh dear, that’s true. Well then, do your best~”

Saying that, the manager happily walked towards a middle-aged woman wearing a shampoo hat.

“You and your mom get along well, huh?”

“If you spread this around, I won’t forgive you…”

“Ah, um, of course.”

I didn’t have anyone to tell about this.

“But, I had thought that Minami-san seemed a little scary at first, but now you seem more approachable…”

“That’s creepy.”

“S-Sorry.”

I must have gone too far.

“So, what kind of hairstyle do you want?”

“Um…I don’t really know about hairstyles, so I just want it to look good.”

“That means I can do whatever I like, right?”

“Yeah, well, since you’re stylish, I thought it would be better to leave it to you rather than give you weird requests.”

“I see. Then I’ll take care of it.”

Minami-san relaxed her cheeks and snorted.

Then she wet my hair with a spray bottle and started combing it. It was hard to believe this was her first time doing someone else’s hair. The manager’s endorsement wasn’t just favoritism.

“…I don’t imagine you coming to places like this often. Is this your first time?”

“Yeah, it’s my first time.”

“Is that because you started dating Kirino?”

“Yeah, well…”

I wondered if they thought I was trying too hard or being overly romantic.

“Um, actually, I’m going out with Kiryu-san tomorrow…”

“A date?”

“No, she just invited me to eat cake together…”

“That’s definitely a date.”

“Is it?”

“Of course! So, who asked first?”

“Kiryu-san invited me first…”

“I see. So it was Kirino who asked.”

Suddenly, she went from being really hard to approach to intensely questioning me as soon as Kiryu-san came up in conversation.

“So, did you come here all fired up?”

“Well, sort of. Um, since Kiryu-san is really beautiful, I would feel bad if I showed up in strange clothes and made her look bad too. So I wanted to at least tidy myself up a bit.”

“Wow…you sound really noble, but most people would groom themselves a little regardless of whether it’s Kirino or not.”

“Uh, well, you have a point…By the way, do many people in our class go to salons?”

“Some people use ours, but more people get their hair done at salons.”

“I see.”

I thought I had taken a step up the ladder to adulthood, but the reality was that I was just on the same level as everyone else.

“Well, I’ll make sure you look good in front of Kirino.”

Minami-san looked surprisingly capable for someone who was doing this for the first time.