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“of all the fucking colours,” sakusa gripes, picking at the edge of one of his nails. the polish there is laid thickly and hasn’t dried yet, causing it to smear across the tip of his other nail in a disgusting, sticky clump. he seethes on the spot, scowling at his hands like it’ll cause the garish pink mess to dissipate into thin air. as if to spite him, it doesn’t.
“i’m coming,” you call from the hallway. “just a few more seconds.”
his frown deepens. it’s already felt like a billion seconds too long. he can feel the varnish drying on his nails; the odd sensation stretched over the tips of his fingers as the cool liquid hardens to a sticky, suffocating layer. it’s even on his cuticles and the surrounding skin. if possible, he would shed his hands like a lizard and skitter away, leaving you to clean up the discarded body parts off of your bedroom floor. but alas, sakusa kiyoomi is only human, and therefore incapable of limb regeneration.
“i’m back,” you say and his eyes flicker to the doorway at your reappearance. they land on the apologetic smile you wear before shifting downwards to the bottle of acetone and bag of cotton balls in your arms.
“hurry up,” he mutters, blowing a stray curl out of his face. god, he can’t even brush his own hair aside right now without wanting to launch himself out the second-storey window immediately after. the tragedy.
you kneel next to him and unscrew the bottle of nail polish remover, allowing the acrid smell of solvent to float through the air. he’s just far enough away from it that the scent is almost comforting. it signals the coming promise of cleanliness and cleanliness, sakusa recites in his mind, is next to godliness. whatever the latter means.
you hold out your hand, seeking permission, and he glances at it for a second like it might grow teeth and a tongue. maybe even a gullet and a consciousness, just so it can reach out and rip into him.
“i washed them before i got the stuff,” you say. to his surprise, there’s no bite of impatience. you don’t roll your eyes. and against every instinct he’s honed throughout the short span of his life, he believes you.
your hands are warm to the touch, skin softer than his own (he finds that mildly irritating; he doesn’t own a myriad of hand creams for nothing). the acetone sloshes in the bottle as you upend it and the cotton is wadded and wet against his skin, chilling him like ice water.
something inside him dies when he feels the drag of the fibres, clinging to the sticky ridges of polish half-dried. he shudders slightly, but your touch is gentle and patient and soon, he only feels the smooth glide of soaked cotton on nail. you’re careful to clean in the sides as well, meticulously rubbing into the divots as he watches with a keen eye.
“thank you, by the way,” you mumble, as you move onto his next hand. there’s a small pile of pinkish, wet nubs in your trash can now, all emanating the same burning scent of chemicals.
“for what?” he asks. his frown hasn’t let up, but he’s a shade away from being content with the state of his fingers for now.
“for letting her do that to you. especially since it’s her favourite colour,” you say. “pink, i mean.”
“i figured,” he says, his voice clipped. he recalls his ambush from a mere hour ago; your little sister had cornered him the moment he’d taken his shoes off at the door.
d’you want to see my new makeup, omi-san? she’d asked with a gap-toothed grin and just like that, sakusa had been taken prisoner. he was never good with kids, but it wasn’t like he could outright deny them either. after all, he wasn’t that much of a monster.
“she likes you a lot,” you say, squeezing his pinky gently as you work through the last of the fuchsia polish.
he only hums in response.
“i like you a lot,” you add, a bashful afterthought. it’s punctuated with the smallest of smiles and something dips in sakusa’s stomach. like nausea, but not quite. like discomfort, but not quite.
he hums again as you wipe the last of the paint from his skin.
“thank you,” he says finally. for what, he can’t quite translate into words just yet. but his hands are still in yours and there’s something in the way you look at him that tells him you get it.
take your time, it says.
i’ll be here.