The Hair of Another

Inspired by Tatsuya Nakadai (December 13, 1932 – November 8, 2025)

A kiss goodnight. That was all Kyoka gave to Josh. That was all she ever seemed to give him lately, before she curled up with some book about hyperfungated soil or whatever agricultural nonsense her job involved. It had barely even been on his lips tonight.

There was no two ways about it. Josh knew exactly why she refused to touch him lately. She could try to hide it, and Buddha knows she tried. The root of the problem was as clear as day.

Male pattern baldness.

She thought he was disgusting. Rightly so. Thirty-two years old, hairline already retreating further back every day. The crown thinning into nonexistence. A pathetic excuse for a man who didn’t deserve the sexual satisfaction of his perfect wife.

Her eyes flicked across the page; his across her. The sound of the pages rubbing together. That wretched sound. He could feel it in his toes. Hatred. That was all he could feel for this woman he’d shared a bed with for six years. Hated how beautiful she always looked. Hated how she always smiled when their eyes met. Hated how soft her skin was. Hated how good she looked naked.

She could be with any man she wanted. A Japanese man would never start balding in his thirties. Wouldn’t dream of it. It would bring too much shame to the hair of their ancestors. So many perfect heads of thick, luxurious raven hair waiting for her delicate, pure white fingers to run through. His dirty British hair wasn’t worthy of her, and it never would be. God forbid she ever touch him again, and they ended up having a baby. What if it was cursed with his family’s follicle failings? How would she cope with having to look at her bald baby every day? She wouldn’t. Next thing he’d be mopping up her intestines after her ritual suicide.

A kiss goodbye. That was all she gave to Josh. That's all she ever seemed to give him lately, before she left for work at seven to fill in spreadsheets about the ecofluctuality of the housing rental market or whatever nonsense her job involved. The kiss had barely even woken him up.

On the commute to work, he stood. He always stood. Couldn't risk sitting, someone standing over him on a busy train. Their eyes fixed on the top of his head. Standing was safe. He was always the tallest in the carriage. His height earned him respect and admiration from the Japanese. Their imperial overseer. From here, he could look down on them, all nodding off, all with faces lit by their screens.

The pre-school children in the classroom trembled and shook in fits, as if possessed by demons or yokai. Their laughter bounced off the walls. Smiles slashed across their faces whenever their bright, glistening eyes met his. Josh knew what they were thinking, knew what they were laughing at. Every time he leaned over to check their workbooks, help pack their bags, or put on their shoes, their gaze burned a hole into the dome of his skull. Who was the balding white monster they were looking upon?

Come the end of the day, while Josh was stacking chairs and wiping tables, his manager, Lucas, appeared. Fifteen years older, still blessed with a full, hazelnut mane. The kind of man who got more than a peck on the lips from his wife each night. The kind of man Kyoka probably lusted after. He put the man into manager.

"Josh, can I have a quick word?" Lucas said, poking his head through the door, Australian accent still thick after twenty years in Japan.

Josh nodded, careful not to dip his head too far. Lucas set his backpack on the freshly wiped table. He’d have to clean it again now. Lucas motioned for him to sit, though he himself stayed standing. Josh ran a hand through his thinning hair, pushing it back as far as he could.

“I’ll cut to the chase,” Lucas began. “I’ve heard from some of the Japanese teachers about you wearing a bandana in class. Now I see it’s true.”

"It's a headband. Not a bandana. My hair is getting long, and it keeps it out of my face."

“Whatever you call it, it’s not in the dress code. If we let you break the code, where does it end? Others will start bending the rules.”

Lucas kept talking. Josh’s attention slipped. A small insect crawled out from Lucas’s hair, inching down the side of his face, a thin trail of blood following its path.

"Are you listening, Josh?"

“Yeah, I can’t wear my headband, or whatever,” he said, running his palm down his face.

“You don’t wear it to keep hair out of your eyes.”

Josh looked up, brow furrowing.

“Your hair,” Lucas said. “I know you worry about it. Trying to hide your hairline. I know how you feel, Josh.”

“How could you?” Josh snorted. “You’ve got the hair of a Roman god.”

Lucas gripped his fringe with both hands. Slowly, he began to pull. Skin parted. The hairline peeled away. The sound was like a bandage tearing from scabbed skin.

Josh covered his mouth, holding in the scream, the vomit. “You’re a monster.”

“I’m a man, no different from you.” Lucas reached out his hand.

“Don’t say that. No man would wear a wig.”

“It’s not a wig. It’s a custom-made tupet.” The hairpiece hung halfway back across his head. Underneath, patches of wispy hair clung to his pale scalp. “I’ve known you eight years, and you never guessed. No one has. And I’m trusting you to keep this between us, because I think I can help you.”

“How?” Josh fought against his eyes, doing everything in his power to keep them from the hellscape atop Lucas’s head.

Lucas took a card from his wallet and slid it across the table. Josh hesitated, then picked it up, turning it over in his hands. The card was thick and velvety. Expensive.

“The Okuyama Clinic?” he said under his breath.

“Go there. Take my word for it. They will do more than fix your hair problem. They will turn you into a new man.”

A kiss to welcome him home. That was all his wife gave Josh. That was all she ever seemed to give him lately, before she launched into stories about the aerofluidity of Boeing plane wings or whatever nonsense she dealt with in her job. He had barely even taken his shoes off before her lips were on his face.

Josh had been late getting home after his talk with Lucas, but Kyoka still had dinner warm on the table. Grilled salmon, rice, miso soup, an assortment of vegetables. She was always making food like this for him. The message wasn’t lost on him. He was too fat for her, too. An eighty-four-kilogram, balding beast.

He sat at the kitchen table, pushing florets of sesame-coated broccoli into his mouth while Kyoka clunked about in the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" he said, his voice sharp.

"I thought the sink needs cleaning."

"Always trying to find ways to busy yourself. No interest in sitting with your husband and conversing, huh?"

“You’re right, Joshy.” She grabbed her cup of green tea and sat beside him, rubbing his thigh. “How was work today then? What are you teaching at the moment?”

Josh placed his chopsticks down and leaned back with a grin. "What am I teaching?" He stopped to laugh. "What can I teach them? What can they learn from me? Everything they learn from here on out will only serve to make their lives worse."

"Yeah? Isn't that pretty bleak for five-year-olds?"

“Bleak? What do you know of bleak?" He laughed again, not his usual laugh. "Kids live their lives as if they were in disguise. Wearing costumes, even elaborate hairpieces. No fear of judgment from the world."

"I think they're just being kids." She took her hand away from his thigh, moving the warmth of her cup into both hands.

"Is that what you think, is it? What does someone in disguise have to fear? There are no repercussions for those in a disguise. They can remove it at any point and become someone else."

"I guess it was a rough day, then." Kyoka sighed, standing up and kissing the top of his head.

Josh knew it was no more than a taunt. He'd show her.

The Okuyama Clinic was on the fourth floor of one of the indistinguishable glass towers in the centre of Nagoya. The elevator was a box of mirrors. Josh saw himself from every angle. Each one was worse than the last.

The reception was devoid of natural light, washed in total white. The floors, the walls, the ceiling. The whiteness swallowed everything. Sculptures of human heads were scattered throughout the room. Wood, clay, bronze, Asian, African, Greco-Roman.

Josh approached the reception desk; a man with thick, black-framed circular glasses and even thicker black hair sat straight waiting.

"Hey, I'd like to make an appointment."

"I'm afraid it doesn't work like that here, sir." The man adjusted his spectacles and looked Josh up and down. "You need to be referred by another client."

Josh pulled the business card out of the inner pocket of his Harrington jacket and pushed it towards the man. "Lucas Emerton referred me."

The man's mouth slowly curved up into a smile. "In that case, please go right on through. Someone will see you shortly."

Through the doors was a laboratory even whiter than the reception. The room was divided into two by a glass partition. On the glass were sketches of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, along with equations and religious scripture.

On the other side of the partition, a woman adjusted a large metal lamp in front of a reclining examination chair.

Josh wandered a few steps inside, hands stiff in his pockets. "Hi, I'm here about..."

The woman didn't stop what she was doing, but rather just put a long, slender finger to her lips.

Figuring this was all a mistake, Josh turned back for the doors, only to be greeted by the man from reception coming through, now in a white lab coat and a pair of thinner-framed glasses.

"Please sit, Mr Clarke," the man said, ushering Josh towards the seat.

"How do you know my name? I never..."

"Sit." His tone was much more commanding this time.

Josh obliged, leaning back in the chair, flashbacks to dental offices.

"I'm Dr. Okuyama." He tapped his hand against his chest before pointing to the woman. "This is Nurse Okuyama. No relation."

Dr Okuyama positioned himself at the head of Josh, the lamp warm against his skull. He took a firm hold of Josh's head, manipulating it in his hands.

"Mr Clarke, you have an exquisitely shaped skull. Yes, there is a lot we can do with a shape like this."

Josh smiled, thankful someone was finally giving his symmetrical skull the praise he thought it had always deserved.

Dr Okuyama returned to the foot of the chair, pushing the lever down to bring Josh back upright.

"You should know that these tupets don't come cheap. We don't use any synthetic material here. What we produce comes entirely from fresh human hair."

The nurse came behind Josh and began placing a series of varying hairpieces atop his head.

"The pieces we create come with their own personality. Because of this, you will see a shift in your own personality while you wear it. Even more importantly, you must never wear the piece for more than twelve hours. Beyond that point, the skin begins to suffocate. We wouldn't want that."

Dr Okuyama gave a nod to the nurse, satisfied with the current hairpiece clinging loosely to Josh. She placed the remaining pieces on the counter, picked up a clipboard, and stepped beside the doctor.

"Doctor, do you suppose he will use this as a disguise to seduce his wife?" She lifted the clipboard in front of her face to shield her words.

Josh cleared his throat. The nurse peeked over the top of the board, and the doctor turned toward him, scratching his eyebrow.

"Mr Clarke, this piece is for you to use as you see fit, although I am curious what you intend to use it for."

Josh laughed. Not his usual laugh.

A kiss to send him off. That was all the woman ever seemed to give him lately, before sending him on his weeklong business trip to Osaka, telling him she could even take time off from performing appendectomies or whatever nonsense she dealt with at work. She had barely even spent fifteen minutes trying to convince him they should turn it into a mini romantic getaway.

He knew what it really meant. She could not wait to have the place to herself.

He couldn't remember where she worked. She never spoke about her job. But he knew she always watched a classic film every Monday at five o'clock at the indie cinema in Fushimi, not far from the Okuyama clinic. This week Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo was screening.

The hairpiece clung warm to his scalp as he sat waiting in the lobby nursing a black coffee. Josh had never liked coffee, but the hair thirsted for it. Demanded it. He sat back, arm draped over the chair, legs spread wide, dominating the room. Eyes drifted toward him. The hair liked that. He ran a hand slowly through his new bangs, pleasing it.

The cinema was busier than he had anticipated, but he spotted Kyoka alone in the crowd, slipping into the small screening room. He tailed her, walking briskly, hair flowing back.

He managed to sit directly beside her. She had not noticed him. Her eyes were fixed on the screen from the moment the lights dimmed. His eyes were fixed on her. The movie barely registered. Something about a woman who did not appreciate the man who loved her. That was all he took from it. All he needed to.

Following her out, the crowd of cinemagoers melted into the evening darkness. Josh caught up behind her and tapped her shoulder. She turned. For a moment, he wondered if she recognised him.

“You dropped this.” He held out the ring he had taken from her drawer that morning.

She stared into his icy blue eyes, then at the thick black hair that blended into the night above him. “Thank you, it was my mum’s.”

“I saw you in the screening, actually.” The hair tightened against his scalp, nudging him forward. “I was wondering if you’d like to get a drink.”

It was midnight when they entered the love hotel designed like a white bell tower. From the selection of themed rooms, the hair had chosen the mirror room.

"I thought it would just be a mirror above the bed. Not a whole room of them. They’re kind of scary, don't you think?" she said, slipping off her shoes and into the provided slippers.

"Nothing to be scared of. The mirror reflects more than the exterior. It reveals the soul. What you see in this glass is the truth." He crept up behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders, both of them facing a wall of reflected light. "So tell me. Is it a man you see, or a monster?"

He buried his head into the side of her neck, his mouth wrapping around her white skin. Even in the dim light, the hair glistened, rolling back in black waves like an ocean of darkness.

Lying beneath fogged-up mirrors, the hairpiece sat heavier now, damp against his forehead, satisfied with itself. Traces of blood streaked the pillows and soaked into the sheets.

Josh sat up, watching Kyoka button her blouse in silence.

"We don't even know each other's names." The unfamiliar laugh returned. "That is all it took to get you to drop your pants. The very first chance."

As he rose to his feet, a dozen reflections rose with him, each one perfectly in sync. Every version of him dug its fingers into the front of its scalp. They all tore together, adhesive ripping free, real hairs coming with it. Two lines of blood slid down his cheeks.

"You think I didn't know it was you, Josh?" Kyoka was in tears now, staring at the army of half-scalped men around her. "I thought you just needed some fantasy to help with your impotence problems."

"You knew?" he said, half the hairpiece hanging off his head.

"How could you think I wouldn’t? You’re a blue-eyed white man in Nagoya." She pulled off her wedding ring and tossed it at him. It caught in the matted, bloody hair. "I thought you were doing this out of love. But you just wanted to trick me. You wanted to make me cheat."

She grabbed her bag and moved to the door.

"We can start again. It was a mistake. It can be the three of us." He scrambled across the bed, reaching for her like something crawling out of hell.

"The mirrors were right. You are a monster." She closed the door on him.

Josh lay sprawled across the sheets, staring at the mirror overhead. He watched the reflected version of himself rearrange the hairpiece and press it firmly into place, smoothing it with slow, deliberate strokes. The wedding ring pushed deeper, swallowed by glue and flesh.

A sharp crack.

Thin fractures spread across the sea of mirrors, veining outward. In the broken glass, his reflection smiled on.

The hair and the head were one.