Giving it All for Charity

“There’s really nothing I can do at this point.”

Hannah replayed that moment in her head, as she had done over and over the week since. Her hairdresser had finally given her the talk. After years of dying her hair bright colors that were constantly changing, it was beyond saving. Hannah knew it was true. She had only gone one day without her usual hour-long hair care ritual and it already felt awful, like a cheap costume wig that had been used one too many times.

Her hair was a reflection of her career. A few years ago she had been a massively popular streamer, known as Bananicorn, playing the most popular video games in front of massive amounts of viewers. Her trademark look was her long, brightly colored hair. She was always changing the color. One week teal, the next week silver, the next week tangerine, thought she didn’t use tangerines. Somewhere along the line, though, she just couldn’t keep it up. She went stagnant as an entertainer and viewers moved on as quickly as they had found her. Instead of playing popular games, Hannah had been stuck playing whatever crappy, pay-to-win mobile games her agent could find that still had interest in sponsoring her. She had dropped the frequency of her color changes to once a month, then two months, and nobody seemed to notice. Now it was a shade of dark brown not too different from what it would have been in the first place.

It was 7:55 in the morning, 5 minutes until she went online. Her gaming chair had been swapped out for different furniture today. It was a leather barber’s chair, and it had not been easy to transport from the rented van into her home studio.

Hannah would be doing a fundraiser today for the local children’s hospital, a charity which had been selected because it was the least likely to start a political fight in her comments. For the next 4 hours, for every $1,000 her fans donated, she would chop off an inch of her hair. At 22 inches long, her hair could potentially fetch up to $22,000 for charity. Her heart beat faster and faster as the timer ticked down. The truth was, she was terrified. Not that she would have to chop off all her hair, but that she wouldn’t. Most of the hair was going to have to go anyway. It was be a complete humiliation if she had to chop her hair the rest of the way down to a pixie for free. If that happened, it would really mean to her that the dream was over. She was back to being a regular person that nobody would recognize at the airport and ask for an awkward picture.

Hannah had brought her friend Tina along today to do the cutting. Well, maybe more of a friend of a friend, Tina was Hannah’s former roommate’s little sister. More importantly, though, she was willing to work for free in exchange for Hannah promoting her Twitch channel, which had less than a tenth as many views. She glanced at Tina’s hair with jealousy. It was jet black, with subtle streaks of magenta on each side. Shiny, very slightly curled and hanging evenly down to her shoulders, it was the hair she could have had if she’d taken better care of it, the hair she hoped to have again one day.

Behind the camera, Chris gave the signal that she’d be online in 60 seconds. Chris was Hannah’s cameraman, producer and husband. He’d been with her every second of her career, supporting her all the way, even though Hannah rarely acknowledged his existence on stream. They’d both decided that was for the best, because her fans had a tendency to get upset when they were reminded that she wasn’t single. This fundraiser had been his idea. Hannah had been an inconsolable wreck until they found a way to spin some positive publicity from the inevitable destruction of her locks.

Tina threw a cape over Hannah’s shoulders and she started this morning’s stream. First she gave a shoutout to Tina and her channel, spending 63 seconds, which was 3 seconds more than she had promised. Then Tina threw the plastic cape over her shoulders.

The viewership numbers were better than usual today. It only took 10 minutes to reach $1000, and Tina had barely finished hacking off an inch of carefully-measured hair when then next milestone was reached, and she had to do it again. Hannah smiled as she won the match she had been playing. She looked at the clock and did the math in her head. These things always start strong and then taper off. The goal she had set for herself was to lose 16 inches of hair, since that was the minimum she’d need to cut off anyway. The rest was probably salvageable. At the pace she was on, she’d be bald in a little over three hours, but it wasn’t likely to keep up.

That didn’t stop the commenters on her channel from reminding her of what she said yesterday. When asked whether or not she would have her head shaved with a razor if the full $22,000 was raised, she not only said yes, but promised to do it herself. At the time she thought it was wishful thinking. She looked at the number of viewers on her stream. It kept going up and up. Maybe it wasn’t. Before she knew it, Tina was ridding her of the fifth inch of hair and it wasn’t even the half hour mark yet.

The viewer count surpassed 5000, more than Hannah had gotten in a long time, but still far below her heyday. Tina, on the other hand, was giddy as she saw the numbers go up. She had never been seen by this many people before.

Tina got more efficient with she shears, and she had to. The donations were rolling in. By the hour mark, they were over $12,000 and more than half of Hannah’s hair had become ragged scraps of trash scattered around the plastic sheet on the floor. The snipping never stopped. 17,000, 18, 19, 20. Hannah now had nothing left but short, messy strands sticking in every which direction. So much for salvaging the last six inches. Tina tried to start the clippers at $21,000, but before she even figured out how to turn them on, there was a dingdingding sound, and the $22,000 goal was hit.

“Alright folks, we’re going to take a quick break to get ready, and I’m going to give you what you asked for.”

The feed went to a commercial break, and Hannah got up and hugged Chris. She hadn’t even taken the cape off.

“Will I still be pretty when I’m bald?”

“Babe, you’re the most beautiful woman in the world to me no matter how much or how little hair you have. Besides, even what you’ve got now doesn’t look as bad as that one time you went that weird color of green. It’ll look even better once you uhh… clean it up.”

She kissed him. “I love you… Wait did you mean the lime green or the Victory green?”

“I love you too… and both.”

Hannah made sure her make up still looked perfect before going back on stream. Her face during the next part would undoubtedly be the thumbnail of her next YouTube video. She picked up the clippers and gazed into the camera above her screen.

“I’m back! I see some of you thought I was going to back out. You know I’d never let you folks down like that. Not after you raised so much money for people in need. It just means… it means so much to me. So without further adieu…”

She flicked the clippers on, then off. She popped off the plastic guard and casually discarded it behind her.

“No point using a guard.” she chuckled.

Hannah pushed the bare clippers slowly down the middle of her scalp. She showed a wide range of emotions as she made good on her promise. She took her time pushing the buzzing clippers through her hair again and again while watching the stream comments go nuts and the viewer numbers keep rising. Once she had buzzed all the hair off the top and sides of her head, she had Tina hold up a mirror so she could get everything in the back.

She tossed the cape to the ground and wrapped her head in a hot towel for a few minutes, before spreading shaving foam over it. Meanwhile, she casually chatted with the commenters, giggling and teasing her fans as she only answered comments that were completely unrelated to the fact that she was casually shaving her head to the skin with a disposable razor. There was one thing the comments kept asking for, but Hannah was careful not to acknowledge it. Once there was nothing left, she finally rubbed her scalp and took in the feeling.

“Ooh… I like that” Her face looked ecstatic as she took in the smooth feeling, and it was a pure, genuine reaction.

The stream went on break again.

Hannah hugged Chris tightly as they shared a kiss.

“I actually kinda love it!” She exclaimed.

“Bald looks so good on you babe, you have the perfect face for it.” he complimented.

Hannah turned to Tina and shook her hand. “Thank you so much for your help. Hope you got a lot of new subscribers today. And uhh… as for all those comments, you can just ignore…”

“I’ll do it!” she grinned.

“You’ll do it? Wait, you mean…”

“Yeah, the like 5000 comments asking if ‘that Asian girl’ will cut her hair off too if they donate more money. A few of them even remembered my name! Hell yeah I’ll do it. I’m so jealous of how cute you look right now. I’ve always wanted to shave my head. ”

When the stream returned from break, Tina was sitting in the barber chair holding her hair to a tape measure. Hannah stood behind her, holding a pair of shears while occasionally reaching up to touch her bald head.

“Hey, it’s ya girl xXTinaGirl05 and I saw what you were all asking for. I’m in. I’ll do it. Lets keep those donations coming. Looks like I’ve got 12 inches of hair, so for every thousand you folks donate to a really great cause, Bananicorn will cut off an inch of my hair. Payback. And yep, if we can raise another $12,000, which would bring the total raised to $34,000, I’ll go just as bald as her. Don’t forget to subscribe to my channel!” she addressed the viewers, using her and Hannah’s gamer tags.

She pointed to the name and logo on her t-shirt and held it for the camera.

“Ok, open the fundraiser back up.” Hannah cued Chris.

“It’s uhh… it’s been open the whole time. We never stopped accepting donations while Hannah was shaving her head”

“Oh, did you hear that everyone, looks like you got a head start.” Tina smiled and chuckled. “So how much have we raised so far?”

“Well uhh… I’ll just put it back on the screen.”

The number popped back up into the corner where it had been before. $42,765.

“Wait, so you mean…” Tina gasped and looked directly into the camera “I’m going to be COMPLETLY BALD?”

Hannah recognized it as a blatant attempt to get a thumbnail face for her next YouTube video, but she was in not position to judge. She just wanted to make sure Tina wasn’t stealing too much of the spotlight, that’s why she insisted on being the barberette, rather than letting Tina shave herself.

“Well, guess I won’t be needing these then.” Hannah said as she put down the shears with an exaggerated motion and picked up the clippers. They were still warm from rendering her own scalp hairless.

Hannah started right down the middle. Unlike her own haircut, she was not slowing down for dramatic effect. She made quick, almost violent motions that pulled Tina’s head back. Tina reacted to every pass of the clippers like she had just watched someone make a 1 in a million head shot in a video game, and Hannah matched her energy. At first they were both trying to be the main character, but by the time all of Tina’s hair had joined Hannah’s in the pile on the floor, they were both having fun.

Hannah was surprised by how much she enjoyed the feeling of shaving another girl’s head. The tactile sensation was better when she was shaving her own head, but the razor was so much easier to maneuver when it was someone else’s. By the time she had made enough passes to get all the shaving cream off, Tina’s scalp was much smoother than her own.

What an experience that had been. During a five minute break, Hannah and Chris had a discussion while Tina stared at herself in the mirror and rubbed her scalp. The fundraiser was scheduled to go on for another hour and a half, so Hannah sat down and interacted with commenters while Tina occasionally chimed in from the background. The donations continued to trickle in, but at a much slower pace. One of the comments had a suggestion that Hannah found interesting.

“Hmm, DonkeyBoy420 had an interesting suggestion… ‘What if you agree to give up the next inches you grow if we keep donating?’ What would that even mean?” Hannah inquired.

A commenter quickly answered “You could agree to shave all your hair off when it gets to an inch long for every thousand.” while another one said “You could keep your head shaved for as long as it would take that many inches to grow back.”

Hannah was intrigued. Shaving her head felt great, and she had already made the decision that she wanted to keep shaving it. When she told Chris, he was completely supportive, even excited. What might feel even better than keeping it shaved, though, would be to grow it out a little first so there would be something to shave off each time. Both options sounded amazing, but would she really want to commit to doing that for however long her fans could raise the money. She paused for a moment while she thought about it.

Tina broke the silence. “If you don’t do it, I will.”

Hannah didn’t really have a choice now. “Oh I’m in for sure, lets raise some more money for those kids. I’m just thinking about the rules for how this would actually work. So, since there are two of us, the price is double. It will be one inch for every $2,000 raised. And we’ll only count money donated after we start. So, if you donate another $2,000 before the end of the stream, when my hair gets to an inch long, I’ll shave it off again, smooth, just like it is now. For every additional $2,000, I’ll do it again.”

Hannah realized that this meant she could go back to dying her hair a different bright color every week. She wouldn’t need to worry about long term damage to her hair if her hair wouldn’t be there long term. This was accidentally a great idea. Why hadn’t she thought of this sooner?

As Hannah paused to think about it, Tina chimed in. “And I’ll keep my head shaved for as long as it takes her to do that!”

Tina didn’t tell people this, but three times when she was in high school, she had begged her parents permission to get her head shaved, on multiple occasions. The answer had been the same every time. ‘You can do whatever you want with your hair once you turn 18 and move out of my house.’ Well, she had done that, but then she started chasing her dreams of being a professional video game streamer and assumed that long, perfect hair was a requirement. She had been checking her phone over and over again today, though. Since sitting down in the chair to have her head shaved, the number of subscribers to her channel had more than doubled. That means more people subscribed to her channel when she was bald than had done so when she had hair. The feeling of a bare scalp was everything she thought it would be, and she loved the way she looked. She felt that committing to a few more months of baldness was nothing to her, since she probably would have stayed bald for a month or two anyway before growing it back.

Chris reset the donation counter and Hannah went back to interacting with her comments. Though the moderators had to ban a few unkind comments, it was mostly praise. Every time the donations his a milestone, they erupted. After the excitement at $6,000, Tina made a comment about how it would probably take Hannah 2 or 3 months to grow 3 more inches. As people tend to do when you state an incorrect fact on the internet, the comments all tripped over themselves to be the first to correct her.

“Actually, hair grows about half an inch per month.”

It would be closer to 6 months with just the money raised already. There were 35 minutes to go, and the viewer numbers kept going up.

In the end, they raised $32,000 in additional donations. The next sixteen times Hannah’s hair grew to an inch long, she would have to shave it all off and start over again. Meanwhile, Tina would have to keep her scalp smooth until Hannah had completed all that, which would probably mean she’d be old enough to drink before she’d even start growing any hair back. It was a lot more than either Hannah or Tina had bargained for, but then people started buying 32 month subscriptions to both of them. Of course, that would all go away if either of them backed out of the deal, but neither had any intention of doing so. It was all worth it.

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