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Nikolai doesn't like keeping his hair long. It gets in his face, on his clothes, weaves its way into the fabric of his blanket, and he hates having to maintain it. Yet, he always wore it long. He wore it long because his father hated it.
"You look like a girl," he'd say, "Is that what you want? To look like a fag?" He'd go red in the face and sometimes Nikolai's hair would turn red too. Nikolai couldn't care less. He knew who he liked. A fun woman, someone he could make laugh, someone who matched his chaotic energy; dark hair and a kind face, a soft one, exotic only in the sense that he's never seen a woman whose face didn't wear the weight of the world like they wore eyeshadow and lipstick.
Girls never really cared for his long hair. People thought he was a metalhead. He wasn't. Sure, he went to the shows because his mom didn't want him to. Sure, he drank the alcohol and did the drugs because his sister thought they were a bad influence. But he wasn't really a metalhead. He liked musical numbers, cabaret, circus-esque, something theatrical. He understood what the appeal was. The songs said it themselves. The world is fucked; people are angry but hold no power to change it right here and now, so song and dance it is.
Nikolai mourns the days when stealing from his dad's two-in-one was good enough and is always grateful to his girlfriend for teaching him how to take care of his long hair. Still, when Nikolai ventured off to Japan because of a criminal organization he joined on a whim, he was tempted to finally cut it. Finally get rid of this part of himself that he's clung onto for so long, just because it's not what is wanted from him.
He met Dostoyevsky before he made the decision. He learned that Dostoyevsky was rather fond of longer hair, especially hair as bright and light as Nikolai's-- almost white but still with a noticeable hint of blond. Nikolai still decides to cut his hair, just, maybe not all of it. He didn't cut about a third at the bottom of his head, the rest haphazardly cropped short. It messes with him. The elation of short hair with the bottom left long as a cruel reminder. How he still can't let go and the fact that he kept it because someone else likes it in the first place.
It's so out of character for Nikolai, but that's in character too. In a sense. He's unpredictable. That's what he had decided to be. So, it only makes sense for him to break his own rules, right? It only makes sense to have this one exception for no apparent reason. Except, there was a reason. One so clear, so obvious, so embarrassing that he opted to defy that too. He defied it by setting his mind to killing Dostoyevsky.
And now Dostoyevsky is dead. There's nothing keeping Nikolai in Japan. His girlfriend, soon-to-be, he hopes so soon-to-be, fiancée, couldn't care less if he cuts that extra piece off or not. She's not in love with his hair after all. He makes the choice. He'll cut his hair-- all of his hair, even the bit left long-- then go back to Russia, met up with his girlfriend-soon-to-be fiancée, and disappear to somewhere else in the world. Somewhere where neither of them are a familiar face. Somewhere new, where they can make themselves to be anyone they want to be and dip when things go south.
He thinks about the after, what they'll do in this new place. He knows they'll stay together this time; they'll be a package deal because him nearly dying over and over scared her. Maybe they'll be some circus act, he always liked that sort of environment. They could be acrobats together, throwing each other from bar to bar, platform to platform. And when each of their pasts inevitably catch up to them, they'll give those fuckers the middle finger and disappear yet again. However many times is necessary, however many times they can handle, however many times until they both give up and give in and die on the run. And neither of them will have long hair in the grave.