Work Text:
It was 7:00 with just half an hour to make it to the train station. She had a fifteen minute walk to get there that she could push into a ten minute run and not miss the train. That left twenty minutes to get ready, and she needed to shower since she’d been too tired to do so last night after staying up too late working on her babies.
Rushing to get ready, Hatsume Mei took a ten minute shower, grabbed her school bag, a breakfast bar, and rushed out the door before getting two minutes into her run to remember she’d left her homework and blueprints on her desk, so she hurried back to get her paperwork, clutching it closely in her hands as she ran back in the direction of the train station.
She clenched her teeth in frustration as she kept bumping into people, turning too quick to avoid the person she suddenly came across around the corner. It only added to her frustration from waking up late, so by the time she got to the train station, she was fuming at herself, going on a spiel about how awful staying up late and waking up late and school and everything else was. She ignored any glances she got from nearby people at her incoherent muttering.
As the train pulled into the station, she inched closer to the train, eager to sit down despite knowing she hadn’t missed her train. Soon, she was seated and pushing down her frustrated feelings at herself, comforting herself that things had alright. By the time she got off the train forty-five minutes later, she’d calmed down and was smiling again, now eager to get to class. In her rush off the train, she bumped into someone and felt a tingle go up her spine, ignoring the strange occurrence in favour of getting to the school workshop sooner.
Within fifteen minutes, Mei was dumping her bag into her seat and pulling on a workshop apron, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. Something was strange about it today, but she couldn’t figure it out in five seconds so she chose to ignore it and work on her current baby instead.
It was later, during roll call, that Mei realized what was wrong. Power Loader Sensei called her name, and looked at her weirdly when she responded in the affirmative.
“Are you really sure you’re Hatsume Mei, and not someone trying to sneak in as her?” Power Loader Sensei asked. Mei thought it a silly question, since her teacher and classmates all know who she is. She responded accordingly.
“Of course it’s me, Sensei! Anyone else would’ve destroyed my babies by now and I would’ve beat them for it!” Sensi looked relieved, but still unsure. He stared at her a moment longer, making Mei worried. What was wrong? Looking around, she realized all her classmates were giving her strange looks too. The silence was broken by Sensei.
“What did you do to your hair?” Mei looked back at Sensei, trying to understand what the big deal was. Her hair was in a ponytail, just like every morning since she worked on her babies first thing upon getting to school. Still, the question prompted her hand to move to touch her hair, pulling it out of the ponytail as she replied.
“I didn’t do anything to it, Sensei. It’s just in…” she trailed off, staring at her hair as she held it away from her head. It was straight?
Mei blinked in surprise, staring at her hair as if it had offended her. It was straight, out of the curls she’d been putting them in for years. It was as straight as it had been the day she had been born with pink hair, soft as a cloud, and straight as a line.
She thinks it really might be offending her. Maybe she’s just in shock, but she really hasn’t seen her natural hair for years. She’d been putting it in curlers for so long she’d forgotten it was straight. She blinked a few times, looked at Sensei, looked back at her, took a deep breath she exhaled on a sigh, and forced down the surprise and shock as she let go of her hair, ignoring the strange sensation of straight hair against her neck instead of her usual curly hair.
“I have no idea what has happened to my hair, but that’s not important right now. Please, continue with the roll call.” She spoke in a tight voice, blinking several times as she tried to distract herself from the situation; she kinda wanted to cry, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. Thankfully, Sensei accepted her answer and continued with roll call, class going on as normal except for a few glances thrown her way several times throughout the day.
At the end of classes, Mei was called back by Power Loader Sensei to talk to him. Naturally, it was about her unnaturally but naturally straight hair that naturally was still straight. She’d come to terms with having straight hair again, but she was annoyed by it. It had taken her years to make the curls stay even if she forgot to put curls in for a month, and now it was all unnaturally gone in one morning. She was a bit upset with the universe.
“Hatsume, you didn’t seem to realize you had straight hair until I asked about it during roll call. It threw everyone for a loop; you look like a different person so we weren’t sure what was going on, though you didn’t seem to either at the time. I informed your other teachers so they wouldn’t worry, but it’s been several hours now. Do you have any idea what happened?” Ahh, the golden question she’d pondered ever since accepting her hair was straight about twenty minutes after realizing the phenomenon. Mei did, in fact, have an idea what happened. An idea she was also annoyed at.
“When I got off the train this morning, I bumped into someone and felt a tingle up my back. I think I got hit by a quirk, so now I have to reteach my hair to curl if the quirk doesn’t have a time limit. I can do it, but it’ll be annoying.” She shrugged, trying to push down her negative feelings she didn’t want to confront. If she had just stopped to talk to the person, she could’ve learned whether there was a time limit or not. She could possibly even not be in this predicament if they’d been able to cancel the quirk effects. She was thoroughly annoyed with herself at the moment, and wasn’t ready yet to let that go.
“Do you remember anything about the person? We could ask Nedzu to track them down for quirk details.” Power Loader Sensei asked, and honestly? Mei didn’t understand why they’d go so far for a simple hair style change. She might look like someone else, but that would only be for as long as she didn’t put curlers in, and even if her hair stayed straight, it shouldn’t take long to get used to her new look. It wouldn’t be that much of a safety hazard. So she denied the proposal. A little more talking, and soon she was walking home.
Mei let her stay for the night, too depressed by the change to put it into curlers. The next morning, her hair had returned to its curly state, and Mei smiled with relief to see her familiar curls. This time, she was careful to not bump into anyone on her journey to school. Once at school, she checked to make sure her hair was still curly, and then got back to work on her babies.
She checked her hair several times throughout the day, worried the quirk would relapse and make her hair straight again. For several days afterwards, Mei was extra careful around people with unknown quirks, and took care to make sure her hair was still curly. The nerves wore off by the second week, and she was back to being herself.
But that first day of having her curls back, homeroom class consisted of taking roll, announcing anything important, and Sensei asking about her hair yesterday, and if she found out what had happened.
“I think the quirk I was hit with just restored my hair to its natural form,” she shrugged. This prompted a discussion with the class, which led to Mei revealing her hair styling challenges throughout her life, which was as follows:
“I’ve always liked inventing, but my hair would get in the way and increase danger to me, so my mom tried to find a hair style I liked that worked. We tried short hair first, but Mom says I hated it so much that I tried to destroy all the scissors in the house, so we tried other hair styles. Buns, pigtails, ponytails, braids, etc. And they worked, until one of Dad’s inventions was getting tested just as Mom entered the workshop and hit her, putting her in the hospital for a week.
“I was ten, and devastated. I worked on babies to keep from crying, but realized about halfway through the week that I couldn’t fix my own hair, since my mom had been doing it since I was born. Dad couldn’t either, and my uncle was just as much a lost cause.
“I realized that I needed to be able to fix my own hair, so when Mom came back, she taught me to put it into curlers since I couldn’t figure out braiding. That worked quite well and kept the hair out of my face even when in a ponytail, so I started putting my hair in curlers. I’ve been doing that for years, but I’ll forget sometimes and go days without curlers. Since it’s been in curlers for so long though, it’s still as though I put it in curlers. I’d honestly forgotten my hair is naturally straight until I was hit with that quirk.”
The class had stared at her in silence as she finished, the bell interrupting them before anyone could ask any questions. She’d get them later, and requests for baby pictures with the hair styles (especially by her classmates who were experimenting with their own hair styles), and a couple more classmates willing to give working with her a try. It was a surprising response to the incident, but not a bad one. Mei was happy, and eventually decided she wasn’t so annoyed with the straight hair incident as she’d initially thought.