Long hair love

Chapter 3 - The First Signs

The next morning, the white packet was waiting inside the right-hand drawer of Ishan's computer table.

He saw it when he reached for his charger.

For a moment, he could not remember why he had put it there. Then he touched the hair at his crown.

"Right."

He pushed one tablet from the strip and swallowed it with water from the bottle beside his computer.

That was the beginning of what he believed was his two-month hair routine.

In the kitchen, Ritika was packing her lunch.

"You found the packet?" she asked.

"Yes."

Ritika closed her lunchbox. "Keep it somewhere you will remember."

"It is in my table drawer."

"Good. At least that drawer contains fewer mysteries."

The white packet stayed inside his desk drawer. A reminder appeared on his phone each morning with one word:

**Hair**

He followed it without giving the packet another thought. Nothing about the routine felt unusual to him.

For the first two weeks, nothing seemed to change.

His hair still covered his ears and brushed the top of his collar. The thin crown looked better in soft light and worse beneath the bathroom bulb.

Instead of checking it in every mirror, he took one photograph each Sunday from the same angle. Naina had been right: using the same light made comparison easier.

The first two photographs looked almost identical.

Ishan was disappointed, but he reminded himself of the reviews.

Two months.

He had barely completed two weeks.

That morning, Ishan looked at himself after his shower.

His damp hair covered his ears and curved towards his cheeks. Two days of sparse stubble appeared unevenly across his jaw.

He usually shaved only before going to the office. Now the patchy stubble looked out of place beneath the longer, softer hair. It made his face look tired and took attention away from the change he wanted to see.

He shaved carefully.

When he looked up again, his cheeks appeared rounder and his jaw cleaner. The soft shape of his face was more visible without the patchy shadow. His dark hair framed it from both sides.

He moved one damp strand away from his eye.

The result looked younger and neater.

He liked it.

Ritika noticed when he came for breakfast.

"Office today?"

"Work from home."

"Then why did you shave?"

Ishan touched his smooth jaw. "I felt like it."

Ritika looked towards the clock.

"Should I call somebody? This may be an emergency."

"Very funny."

The next morning, he shaved again.

Over the following days, the clean face became a small routine. His facial hair was naturally sparse, so it took only a few minutes. He began wiping the bathroom mirror afterward because water spots made it harder to check his crown.

While waiting, he became more careful with the hair he already had. He stopped rubbing it roughly with a towel after washing it. He used a wide-toothed comb and began at the ends instead of pulling from the roots.

The longer strands around his ears no longer rose in different directions after every wash. They settled closer to his cheeks and curled gently near his neck.

One evening, Ritika found him standing near the balcony door, combing the back of his hair by touch.

"There is a mirror in the bathroom," she said.

"I know."

"Then why are you using the window?"

"The light is better here."

Ritika placed her handbag on the chair.

"Any progress?"

"Too early."

That answer surprised her. Two weeks earlier, Ishan had treated every fallen strand like an emergency. Now he sounded patient.

"You are actually waiting?"

"The reviews said two months."

"Let us see whether your patience survives that long."

Ishan smiled and returned the comb to his room.

During the third week, he noticed fewer loose hairs on his pillow.

There were still some. He did not count them. The difference was small enough that he could have imagined it.

On Sunday, he took the next photograph.

The crown still looked thin, but the bare line beneath the light appeared slightly narrower. Near one temple, a few fine new strands lay against his skin.

Ishan enlarged that part of the photograph.

The strands were too short to change his appearance. They were barely more than soft dark lines. Even so, they gave him his first real sense of progress.

He went to the kitchen, where Ritika was sorting vegetables.

"Look."

He held the phone before her.

Ritika studied the picture.

"What am I looking at?"

"Here. Near the temple."

He enlarged it further.

"There are new hairs."

Ritika moved the phone back because it was too close to her face.

"Maybe."

"That means you can see them."

"That means I know you will continue until I agree."

Ishan grinned.

"It is working."

"It may be working," she corrected. "Do not become an advertisement."

He took the phone back and looked at the picture once more.

The change was tiny, but it mattered because it allowed him to imagine the next one. Fuller temples. A crown that did not show beneath harsh light. Hair long enough to rest properly on his shoulders.

He was no longer thinking only about what he might lose.

He was thinking about how he wanted to look.

By the end of the month, the back of his hair touched his collar more fully. The sides curved towards his cheeks when freshly washed. With his face kept clean-shaven, the overall effect was softer and more deliberate than before.

His body had not visibly changed. He remained slightly chubby, with the same soft abdomen and ordinary posture. Nothing in his clothes fitted differently.

The first stage was almost entirely in his hair and grooming.

Ritika assumed the white packet in Ishan's computer drawer was the supplement she had purchased. Ishan assumed the same.

Neither of them opened the shopping link again.

The actual hair supplement remained unopened in the crowded outside drawer.

One evening, Ritika returned home and left her office bag beside the dining chair.

She did not remove her shoes.

Ishan paused the video playing on television.

"What happened?"

"Nothing bad."

"That answer means something happened."

Ritika sat across from him.

"My company wants me to help set up a new office team."

"For how long?"

"Initially six weeks. It may become longer."

"When?"

"I have ten days."

Ishan looked towards the kitchen, then at the laundry basket near the bathroom.

For the first time, the ordinary work Ritika handled around the flat seemed to appear all at once.

"You will be gone for six weeks?"

"That is the current plan."

Ishan looked around the flat again.

His hair was no longer the only thing he would have to manage.