Their school shoes slapped against the wet pavement as they approached their estate. It consisted of several apartments. However, as it started a long time ago, there was a mixture of ancient and modern flats. If you were to take a look at the whole area from a bird's eye view, you may mistake yourself looking into an unkempt lego fortress.

Len and Lily walked past the main gate, neither bothered to stop by the guard's post. Though the sound of pattering raindrops were getting harder and louder, they could clearly hear the grouchy old guard snoring away inside.

By then, the rain was getting up to their ankles. Len could feel his feet getting soggy and wet as the water clanged onto his socks.

They did not have much distance left to cover. Within moments, they entered the sheltered lobby where they could put down Lily's umbrella. Lily shut the umbrella and ran her thin fingers through her blond locks.

"Oh no... My hair is in a complete tangle!" she whined. "Here Lennie, hold this for me yeah?" she added, pushing the umbrella into his arms.

He took it, using the rear end to stab the lift button while Lily fumbled with her hair.

"How did your hair even become like that anyway?" Len asked, rather intrigued.

Rolling her eyes, she batted off that comment.

"It's a girl's thing; you wouldn't understand."

"Is it because you had gym today and the perspiration got into your hair?" Len tried.

It seemed that he got it right.

Lily sighed.

"Something like that. How'd you know, hm?" she started to ramble as the lift creaked its doors open upon reaching the lobby. "Looking at pretty girls do cartwheels? I bet that- aughhhhh!"

Lily just got her hair into a worse situation.

Len quietly pushed the button that would take them up to the top level. The lift creaked in response as it rattled upwards. He leaned the umbrella against one of the walls and headed over to Lily, cupping the ball of hair in his hands.

Lily began to grumble moodily about a curse being thrown at her hair. Whilst doing so, Len tried to undo the knots made in her hair.

When the lift finally reached the fourteenth floor, he realized the inevitable.

Forgetting that Len was touching her hair, Lily stormed outside, forcing Len to tumble after her, his hands still tangled with the strands.

"Wait, Lily, the umbre-"

The doors clanged shut. The duo whisked around to witness the lift gleaming at them as it descended.

Lily cursed.

"First, my hair. Next, the umbrella!" she started to shout.

"Shh..."

Len peered around them. Though their neighbours' doors seemed to be completely deserted and silent, he could sense the cranky residents watching them with the evil eye from behind the door. Nobody emerged to confront them on the racket they were making.

"Lily, please hold on!" Len urged her, weaving his fingers out of her hair.

Once he did, he rushed back to the lift door and punched the button again.

Lily caught him before he actually began to wait.

"Don't Len, forget the wretched umbrella."

"But it could be stolen!"

Lily blinked at her brother, and tossed her head to laugh. Len could just be too innocent and cute at times, she thought to herself.

She walked over to him and gave him a big hug.

Uh... Len thought. Why does Lily have to be so random at times?

"It doesn't matter, Lennie-kins," she said standing up. "I don't want you to find yourself getting into anything bad." She added, glaring at their neighbours' doors.

She went to unlock their door.

Len stood, dumbfounded for a moment, then trailed after his sister. He made a mental note to get another umbrella soon.

They walked into their home and immediately smelt a strange odour.

Lily gasped.

"Oh my gosh!" she exclaimed, dropping the keys into Len's outstretched hand and running towards her room.

Len locked the door after them and slipped the keys into Lily's school bag, putting his bag down as well.

He called out, "Is everything okay?"

"Is everything OKAY!?"

He guessed not.

He kicked his shoes off and headed up to his own room. The familiar creak of his door greeted him as he stepped in. Immediately, he heard the scurrying of wheels. He slung his bag on the doorknob and sat himself on his favorite desk chair, propping his elbows up on his table.

"Hello, Truffle," he murmured to his yellow/blue pudding hamster, running his finger up and down the metal rails that surrounded the cage.

His finger found the latch to the his pet's door and flipped it open. The fluffy year-old hamster eagerly toddled towards his outstretched hand. Len's hands turned into a mini obstacle course; making Truffle crawl up and down his hands like a never-ending staircase. Feeling its fur made Len feel a wave of calm wash over him like a bubble bath. After a while, he led Truffle to his bed. It was simple, neat and clean. Not a crease could be spotted. He sat cross-legged on his yellow carpet, eyes on his hamster as it went for an underground expedition under his blanket.

Fifteen minutes later, Lily stuck her head in, her hand on her hair.

"Uh, Len. Could you please come into my room please?" she asked outwardly.

"Okay."

He placed Truffle back into its cage and walked into her room, only to be hit by a foul odor.

"Lily!? What is this smell?" he gagged, hand over his nose and mouth.

His sister was sitting on her desk chair. It was draped with her school jersey for volleyball. She had a scrunched up face as she looked at herself in the mirror.

"I have split ends," she wailed, holding the ends of her hair up for Len to see.

Indeed did she have split ends. As Len ran his fingers through her hair, they felt rough and flimsy, not to mention all knotted up in a real mess. He reached out for the handle of her wardrobe.

"Where are your scissors?"

"I... Lost them," she quietly said.

His hand froze, with just the tip of his finger on the frame of the handle. Lily grabbed his other hand gently.

"I'm really sorry Len, could you please use her scissors please? Only you have the other pair."

"How can you lose it?" Len said dryly.

"I promise I'll find it later!" she promised him guiltily.

He left her room in sharp silence and went to his room to retrieve his treasured possession. A dull ache egged his heart as he pulled out his drawer to take out a shiny, transparent, long rectangular box. How could Lily have misplaced such an important item?

His fingernails lightly danced all over the top of the container, eyeing his pair of scissors with a sense of reluctance. He had not opened the box for years, ever since...

He clicked the lid open and his mind hurtled hurtfully back to seven years ago.

He was in the same room, just seven years younger. He was not sitting on his chair, but standing behind it, his littler fingers weaving their way around silky and soft long yellow locks. They practically glowed under the light coming from his bedroom light.

Delicately, while he held a lock of hair, he reached out for the same pair of scissors that he placed on a high stool next to him and carefully snipped away a few inches of it.

"You're doing well, Len," his mother praised him.

Len continued to, as quiet as a mouse, gather more of her hair and clip them up so proceed cutting another layer of hair. Her soft and smooth hand wrapped around his before he got to put the clip on.

With her other hand, she guided him to keep her hair up in a more efficient way. Len watched intently as she did so, storing this useful information in his young mind.

After twisting her hair up in a bun, she released her hold and allowed him to continue styling her hair. As the minutes ticked by, the floor was blanketed with snippets of her hair.

"You could be a hair stylist someday," his mother mused.

"Hm," Len sounded.

He stepped back to examine his work.

"Really. You really can style my hair brilliantly, you could try Lily's hair sometime, and your father stops going down the the barber's because you can trim his hair just as well."

"No..."

Len took a big brush and brushed at his mother's hair, blowing away any excess hair left. Afterwards, he took a small mirror and reflected her hair to his mother, who saw it by looking at the larger mirror propped on his desk table.

"Very well done, Len. Thank you so much!"

Len smiled beside her sweet smile.

"You are welcome!" he responded proudly, glad to have done a good job on his mother's hair.

She twirled a lock of her wave hair and swirled it around slowly, her eyes were staring emptily into the mirror. Her mouth was slightly agape, as though she was in deep thought. She sighed, closing her eyes and rubbing her temple.

"Ma?" Len asked worriedly as he stood by her side, his hand clutching onto her arm. "Are you okay?"

She tilted her head down and panted, heaving in and out and gulping excessively. Her arms began to quiver and her knees knocked against each other.

"I..." she whispered.

After she let out a heavy sigh, she looked back up and steadied herself.

"I need you to help me with one last thing, Len," she lisped. Her lip began to pale.

Quivering himself, Len listened dutifully to her, her words knocking against one another in his ears. He picked up the scissors from the stool again, for one last time, and deliberately snipped off her hair, lock by lock. They fell on the ground like boulders. He tried to prevent the crystals that were forming on his eyes from cascading down. The final snip of the scissors was his last for the next seven years.

When he finished, a little massive heap of yellow-golden hair was what covered their feet. He could not help but let those crystals when both he and his mother saw herself in the mirror. What was a beautifully crafted hairdo minutes ago was now a stubby crop of pins. By this time, his mother's face became ghostly white; you could see veins through the near-transparent skin.

"Ma? Ma-Ma? Wh-What's happening?" Len stammered, shocked at her extremely pale state.

She shook her head slowly.

"Nothing, nothing."

Then she fainted. Len did the next thing he thought of- he slowly waded his way out of the pile, leaving it untouched as he ran for his father.

"Pa! Pa?! Ma has fainted!"

"Oh Lord, what?"

Everything came forward in a flurry, flashes of him, his father and Lily helping his mother into the car while she was unconscious, he and Lily waiting on the sofa til late at night, his father coming back with red eyes, them all attending her funeral- she had died from an illness Len did not know about.

The following events came slowly again, with his father suddenly staying away from their house as much as possible and Lily leaving the house early and coming back late, looking like a wreck.

The memories were too sorrowful for Len to delve deeper into anymore. He then realized he was crying on his precious scissors. He scrambled to wipe his tears off with his school blazer.

He groggily got up and walked back to Lily's room.

"You took a long time Lennie-kun," Lily commented, only to stop speaking when she saw her little brother standing, hunched up with red, swollen eyes just like their father's. His hands held their mother's scissors as though they carried water.

She turned back to her mirror- not the one their mother had, but the one that their grandmother bestowed to her. She was mute as Len trimmed her hair.

"Arigato," she whispered when he let go of her hair. It was as good as she having just went to the hair stylist's for a hair cut.

"Hn."

"Hey," Lily started, getting out of her chair and kneeling down in front of Len. "We can go back if you want. To see her mirror." she continued, staring at Len's fringe that was covering his eyes.

His head stayed still. But she knew he heard her.

So she stood up and left her room. "I'll prepare dinner."

While she got out some ingredients from the food cupboard, she made a silent vow to make sure she takes him to see the mirror properly one day,

soon.

Author's note: I try not to add notes to this story because I don't like to interrupt your reading, but I have to thank you for reading up to this chapter for whatever reasons you have. I am sorry if the story is a bit choppy; this is my very first story. But I will like to thank you all for favouriting and following this story which I hold special to my heart.