Surely enough, his hair caused a big stir. In Reita's mind anyways.

It didn't help that when he got home, all his mother said to him was take his stupid wig off and get ready for dinner. When she realized it was his real hair, she laughed her head off. And his best friend wasn't helping at all.

"Seriously dude, I still think you look like one of them tropical birds!" Kouyou laughed as he punched Reita's shoulder lightly. Wednesday afternoons was soccer practice, but the pair was sitting on the bleachers, idly watching the others play. "What do you call them? Parrots? No, that's not it," Kouyou's face scrunched as he thought of the right species.

"Careful `Shima, you're brain might explode," Reita muttered. He could swear everyone's looking at his hair and judging him. He could almost feel their eyes burning at the back of his head. The coach has been looking at him funny too. "You've been at it since Monday, now shut up!"

"This is revenge for ditching me for your new girlfriend," Kouyou stuck out his tongue. "I can't believe you and Matsumoto even talk to each other, especially after you thought he --"

"Oi! I thought we agreed not to talk about that!" Reita hissed. "Besides, Ruki said he's got a new dog. He wants to take it to the park," he shrugged casually, trying hard not to cringe at what he just said. 

Kouyou's face was utterly deadpan. "First, you let him cut and style your hair like those Barbie things my sisters have," he raised his hand to stop Reita's cries of indignation. "And now you're ditching bowling with me for a doggie-walk in the park." He shook his head. "I hate to break it to you man, but pretty soon you two will share a parfait and talk about your periods." Kouyou ducked just in time to avoid Reita's palm, but not he wasn't quick enough for his friend's foot.

"Save it for the field, you two!" And with that, the coach broke their kicking war.

After a couple of minutes in the soccer field, with Reita scoring a spectacular goal, Kouyou shouted at him from his midfield position. "Cockatoo! Reita, you look like a freaking cockatoo!" He could only stare at his hysterically laughing friend with a scowl. 

Thursday afternoon rolled in, and Reita sat outside Ruki's stoop.

"Oh hey, let's go," Ruki suddenly appeared behind him. Reita could not see any dog with him at all.

"Wait, aren't we taking Koron with us?" He said, feeling very confused with this situation. Then he heard a small bark coming from Ruki's bag, which he now noticed was pink. 

"Ah, how could I forget! Rei, this is Koron-chan!" A small black head emerged from Ruki's bag, and gave Reita a high pitched yip as his hello. "He's a long-haired chihuahua. Isn't he adorable?" Ruki's face was positively glowing with pride that he could only nod his head and smile awkwardly. 

"Yeah he is, but hey. Can't we take him on a leash or something?" Reita pleaded.

"No way man, he just had a dog pedicure," he said he adjusted the bag on the crook of his arm "Besides, I got this bag off Juicy Couture and I wanna show it off." 

Reita shook his head. "Say, we're not going to stop for parfait, aren we?" He grimaced as Ruki pondered that idea.

"Sounds great. We'll stop by the cafe later." And with that, Ruki sauntered off to the direction of the park, with Reita forever mentally praying for someone to kill him now.