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His hair was getting longer again.
Shouto looks in the mirror, his wild bedhead highlighting the length a bit more obvious than before. It’s getting long enough to put into a low ponytail, the tips of his hair just about reaching his shoulders. Shouto reaches up to rub a few strands of white and red between his fingers.
It doesn’t feel right.
“Mommy, I want a haircut.”
Shouto tugs on her mother’s dress, wide eyes staring up at her expectantly. Her two-toned hair was braided down her back with a few flowers here and there, care of Fuyumi. Her own dress was wrinkly and bunched up at the hems. Her leggings were splattered with a bit of mud and grass stains were all over it.
Mommy was more concerned about her dress.
Shouto throws on an oversized hoodie and nearly slams the bathroom door shut behind him as he exits. He was expecting to be alone in the apartment today. He was expecting to just order takeout and make his call to his preferred barber during lunch time. He was expecting to avoid all the mirrors in the house, maybe go and camp out in the living, keep the TV on so that he doesn’t catch himself in the reflection after a commercial break.
He could feel the tips of his hair brush at his neck. His skin crawls and Shouto grabs a random headband from the nightstand just to keep that feeling from coming back. The plush fabric pushes at his sideburns, which aren’t as squared out as they were a few months ago.
Then, he gets a text from his usual barber saying they’re booked for the entire week. That means Shouto has to wait.
Shouto doesn’t want to wait.
“Shouto, what did you do?” Mommy picks Shouto up, fussing over how dirty her pretty outfit is but Shouto squirms in her hold. She doesn’t care about her dress. She didn’t want to wear it in the first place but daddy insisted that they dress up nice for church. She wanted to wear her favorite overalls but mommy put her in this uncomfy sun dress.
“Mommy, I want a haircut.” Shouto repeats while still trying to wriggle out of her mother’s hold. Mommy looks up from trying to smooth down the wrinkles on her dress with a furrowed brow.
“A haircut? But your hair is so pretty, baby.” She tries to emphasize her point by gently finger combing the knots out of Shouto’s hair. “So long and smooth. Why would you want to cut it?”
Shouto shrugs. “‘S too long.”
Just as Shouto was about to go on a deep dive research for another LGBT friendly barber shop, the door to the apartment opens. He sees his boyfriend there, headphones in, taking his shoes off at the genkan with a bag of groceries nestled in the crook of his arm. His hair was getting longer too but Katsuki’s hair never grew out soft and flowy like Shouto’s does. It’s a little more rough and it fluffs up at certain times. But it’s exactly how Katsuki likes his hair.
Shouto wishes he could will his own hair to grow the way he wants it to.
“I’m home!” Katsuki calls out, not yet noticing that Shouto is already in the living room. “They ran out of tortillas at the supermarket so we might just do taco salad instead tonight. Would that be okay?”
“Do you want to cut it to shoulder length, maybe? Like a little bob?”
Shouto purses her lips, deep in thought. In reality, Shouto wants her hair much shorter than shoulder length. She doesn’t want to feel her hair drenched in sweat at her neck every time she goes out to play. She doesn’t like the feeling of mommy braiding her hair or tying up into a ponytail. It’s all way too much work.
But somehow, even in her five year old brain, she knew she couldn’t ask for that much.
“Yeah,” She eventually ends up saying. “Yeah, shoulder length is good.”
The next day, Shouto gets her hair cut to up her shoulders.
It still doesn’t feel right.
“Katsuki, could you cut my hair?”
He says it before he could stop himself. It doesn’t stop his own hand from covering his mouth after he says it though. Katsuki stops in his tracks at the question, an unreadable expression on his face. With his cheeks burning with embarrassment and shame, he starts to backtrack.
“I-I’m sorry. Forget I said that—”
But then Katsuki says something Shouto’s never heard before.
“I don’t have the right tools for it.”
The rest of Shouto’s sentence dies in his throat and he blinks at Katsuki in confusion. “What?”
“If you let me buy a razor and some proper scissors, I could probably do it.” Katsuki shrugs, disappearing a bit into the kitchen to place the groceries on the kitchen island. Shouto wordlessly follows him a second later, worried that if he takes his eyes off of Katsuki for too long he might disappear. The hairs on the back of his neck barely sting as he watches Katsuki carefully put away the groceries. It’s a sight so casual and domestic, he could hardly believe that Katsuki basically said the one thing that saved him from spiraling tonight.
Katsuki spots him a few minutes in and gives him a small smile. “By the way, you gotta show me some fuckin’ references and video tutorials. I don’t wanna mess it up and make your hair look like something you don’t want.”
I don’t wanna mess it up.
He walks forward to place his hands on the kitchen counter, grounding himself in this reality where the only boy he’s ever loved wants to learn how to cut hair for him. A reality where his boyfriend doesn’t even think twice about the request and immediately enumerates the steps he needs to take so that he doesn’t make the wrong choices.
How did he end up in such a reality?
“Katsuki?” He says, voice barely above a whisper. But Katsuki hears him – he always does. He stops putting the groceries away and turns around to give Shouto his undivided attention.
“Yeah?”
Shouto smiles, eyes brimming with tears, and reaches over to hold Katsuki’s hands in his. “Thank you.”
Katsuki just brings his hands up to kiss them. Shouto’s smile widens like a goddamn idiot. “Thank you for trusting me.”
From that day onward, Katsuki took it upon himself to learn exactly how Shouto likes his hair to look.
And it always felt right.