"It's okay, you know," she says nonchalantly, with a little smile. "You can look at the hair if it's new to you. Kind of half the point of dyeing it that."

Noriko is not a shy person under any definition of the word. "Mint usually is--dunno about lemon, I've never tried that combination," she says, looking over. "You could probably do okay with a distraction, though. If you're stressed." She lifts the ball she's playing with in one hand, with a rattle as the bearing inside falls off the track and rests at the base of the sphere.

"Want to try?"