Chapter 206 – Changing up the groupings

Once the group successfully finished their shopping trip and got some tights and hair care products, the girls went over to the couple’s mansion to relax while enjoying the heated floors' warmth there. While they were at it, Anna also wanted to see Sophia’s most recent invention that might be able to save her from the bane of having ridiculously fluffy hair during the cold seasons. Winter fur/hair was no joke for the royal tigers, after all.

“Tongs…?” The princess was looking at the blonde’s prototype of a hair straightening iron from her old world.

“It’s an early design. Very early.”

“I can see that.” She stared at it some more. “How does it work?”

“I found out that you can form hair with heat. Don’t ask how, kinda complicated.”

“Okay…” Judging by her somewhat concerned expression, Anna was imagining some sort of fire incident. “What do you mean by forming, though…?”

“For example, if you curl your hair with something round and apply heat for long enough, it stays curled up for a good while after that.”

“My hair’s curly enough right now! I don’t need more of that!” The princess didn’t like the idea.

“If you can curl straight hair by using a round shape, what do you think happens with already curly hair when you press it between flat surfaces?” The blonde played around with the modified tongs while saying so.

“Really…?” She looked more than a little dubious. “Does that really work…?”

“That’s how I made this.” Sophia held up the straight strand of hair from her bangs. “In theory, it absolutely works.”

“Ohh!” The princess sounded excited again.

“It needs a lot of tweaking, though… This stupid strand took like 20 minutes alone…”

“Ah…” Anna glanced at her own, much, much longer hair. “I’ll be busy for a week…”

“It also only lasts, at best, until you take a shower or bath, soo…”

“Seriously…?” She didn’t like the sound of that.

“Yeah…” Sophia nodded. “That’s why I bought all that stuff earlier. To dramatically decrease the time needed. If it only takes 15-30 minutes each day, I think that’s some time we can spare to deal with this mess…” She looked at the princess’ hair while holding up her own.

“Absolutely!” Anna nodded.  “Why the shampoo and conditioner stuff, though? It doesn’t work on us, after all.”

“It doesn’t hurt, either, does it? It helps to prepare your hair as best as possible for the heat treatment. Also, who knows, maybe once it gets a bit straightened out, the products work better, too?”

“I see. That does make sense. And the desert hairspray or whatever that was?”

“The more heat, the faster you can straighten out your hair. Roughly speaking… It took me 20 minutes for that strand of hair because I couldn’t keep the temperature high enough. The higher, the faster your hair takes damage, too, though… We don’t want that, do we?”

“No.”

“If that spray on stuff protects our hair from getting damaged, I might be able to increase the temperature a bit more.”

“Makes sense. Kind of...” Anna tilted her head. “You sure come up with some weird stuff.”

“Ahaha…” Naturally, Sophia couldn’t explain why and only laughed it off. “Want to experiment together with me?”

“Yes!” She wanted to see if it really could straighten her hair.

“Once again, hurray for naturally smooth hair, huh?” Maya glanced at the jaguar while the two tigers were getting excited.

“Very much so.”

“Hmm… Ari, do you like to play around with hair, too?” The cat-girl wasn’t done yet.

“As much as anyone, I guess?” She tilted her head. “It’s quite enjoyable to test out some different styles, I would say. Though, with the pattern in my hair, it tends to look weird if I tie mine together…”

“That’s true. That seems to be quite the challenge.” The cat-girl focused on the jaguar’s hair. “Could be fun, though. Want to try out a few styles with me? I wanted to change mine, too, and I could use some help. Our idiots might be busy for a while, anyway.”

“Hey!” The idiots in question complained about their treatment.

“I wanted to get to know you better, too.” Maya ignored the two. “Most of the time, you’re with Sophia while I’m with Anna. Let’s swap for today!”

“That’s true.” Ari nodded. “We really haven’t done all that much, if anything, together, even though we’re so close to them, huh?” She glanced at the tigers. “Okay, yes, let’s do it. Do you already have a new style for you in mind?”

“I’ve got an idea, yeah.” While saying so, Maya changed places with the princess so both groups could focus on their plans with each other.

“Only platonic playing with each other’s hair, okay?!” Anna wasn’t quite sure how to feel about this arrangement yet. "No funny business!"

“You and Sophia are going to do the same, though?” Maya looked at her. “And you two even have a history.”

“…” The princess turned silent after that.

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Once the girls had changed up their usual grouping, and Anna finished being silently jealous, they started doing what they planned to.

“First, let’s replace those tongs… their shape wasn’t the best for the plan.” Sophia wasn’t happy with her prototype.

“Why tongs in the first place…?”

“They’re easy to grip, and the handle is far enough away that you don’t burn your hands on the heating pads to straighten your hair.”

“Oho, I see.” The princess nodded. “It does make kind of sense when putting it that way.”

“The problem is, precisely because you can’t touch the hot area directly all the time, it cools down too quick… There’s isn’t much of the heating ore in the small area to absorb your magic, after all…”

“Hmm… Wasn’t there a different magic ore thing, too…? The one that transports magic? Like the stuff that’s used to remotely power heaters?”

“Ah!” Sophia’s face lit up, and she put a hand into her storage. “I have some of that! If we use that to connect the handle part with the upper area where the heating ore is, we could charge it while using.”

“Sounds like a plan!”

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While the tigers were trying to improve Sophia’s straightening iron while being quite loud, the other two had a much more relaxing conversation.

“Something like this, maybe?” They had gotten a mirror from the entrance hall and put it against a wall in the living room because it was cozier there. While also having put a stool in front of it, Maya sat down there while Ari held the cat-girl’s hair behind her back and formed two twintails by using her fists as temporary ties.

“Hmm…” The cat-girl moved her head around a bit in front of the mirror. “Could you hold it together a little differently? Right below my shoulders, maybe?”

“Right here?” The jaguar adjusted her grip. “Oh, this does look cuter.”

“Yeah, I like it. Though…” Maya stared at herself in the mirror for a moment longer. “It doesn’t look that different when looking from the front, does it?”

“Do you want a bigger change?” Ari let go of the cat-girl’s hair and circled around her.

“Yes!” She nodded. “I do like the idea of twintails, though…”

“I see… What a difficult customer.” The jaguar was enjoying the situation.

“Ahaha.”

“What about this?” Saying so, Ari got behind her and grabbed all of Maya’s hair. Afterward, she parted it in the middle, revealing her nape, and threw it over her shoulders so that it covered her chest and stomach.

“Okay…?” She looked a bit confused.

“I’m not done.” Continuing, the jaguar grabbed her parted hair again and held it together near the cat-girl’s collar bones with her hands.

“Wearing the twintails in the front, huh?” Maya looked at it in the mirror for a moment. “That’s so cute! I love it!”

“Ehehe.” She was happy that her idea was received so well.

“Still… I’m not exactly sure about a bare nape when the weather’s getting windy and cold…”

“Ah, I hadn’t thought about that…” Ari paused for a moment. “Well, the cold is easy to deal with if you wear a scarf, but if it’s too warm for that, but the weather’s still somewhat nasty… Oh, do you have some scrunchies or tie-able ribbons?”

“We have tons of those in our bedrooms. Do you have an idea? Let’s go get them!” Saying so, the two left the living room together to get some hair accessories.

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“Ari has surprisingly little hesitation to enter the personal space of others, huh?” The other duo had been watching them every now and then, and Sophia had to share an observation she had made.

“Yeah…” The princess weakly nodded. “And you should know better than anyone after she played with your hair and even fed you. Then there’s the time when you were sick, and she let you sleep with-”

“Ahaha…” The blonde interrupted her. “Jealous?”

"A-Ah.” She instantly stopped talking. “I-It’s just because Ari wasn’t like that before you came along. She always had her moments, but she’s changed a lot ever since you got close to her and helped her understand that her odd hair is actually amazing…”

“Is that so?” The blonde tilted her head. “The prim and proper jaguar’s great, and her scolding works really well on me, but the playful side of her is amazing, too. If I took part in that, and helped her jump over her shadow, that would be amazing.”

“Yes… Even so…” Anna almost glared at her. “I know I asked you to help, and I’m happy, but I also wanted to be the one to help her get over it…”

“Again, jealous?”

“Yes!” The princess simply blurted it out. “She’s mine, after all! M-My childhood f-friend, I mean!” Noticing what she just said, she somehow tried to cover it up.

“…” Sophia only stared at her for a while without saying anything.

“W-What…?” Anna couldn’t bear it anymore and had to avert her face to hide the blush that was growing on her cheeks.

“Nah, it’s nothing.” She’d seen everything she wanted to already. “Should we continue with our experiment?”

“Y-Yes!” Anna was happy that the blonde didn’t push the topic any further. Afterward, the two concentrated together, and tried their best to improve the straightening iron in the hope that it would be able to tame their unruly hair.