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“I don’t get it,” he hears Shouyou say around the crunch of a half-eaten stick of pocky. “If you’ve got all this money, why don’t you have it professionally done?”
“Too much effort.”
“Really?” Another crunch, then a bit of rustling as he digs through the box for a second stick. “It seems like it’d be more effort to do it yourself. Don’t you think?”
Kenma keeps his back to him, head bowed to avoid catching his reflection in the bathroom mirror, and shrugs. “Maybe. But this way I don’t have to make small talk with the stranger doing it.”
“Hah! That sounds like you.”
Outside, the sun starts to set on what should be an otherwise inconspicuous Tuesday in June. A bit of chatter from the neighborhood birds filters in through the open window. Kenma listens to them, letting their familiar chirping fill the silence until he finds it in himself to say, “I’m used to it. Kuro helped me a few times when we were in high school, but I don’t mind doing it by myself anymore. It’s not hard or anything.”
He reaches for the bottle of developer sitting on the sink counter and unscrews the cap at the same time Shouyou asks, “Well, since I’m here, can I help?”
There’s a loud thud and a smaller clatter that causes Kenma to flinch. He looks down at his empty, slightly shaky hands, then to the bottle and cap resting in the sink basin. “Huh,” he doesn’t mean to say aloud.
A little louder, he adds, “You don’t have to.”
“I think it would be fun!” Shouyou replies, unfazed. He pushes himself up from where he’d been sitting on the edge of the bathtub, leaving the box of pocky behind, and goes to join Kenma by the sink. “I could at least do the mixing, if you want?”
“It’s really not that interesting.” He pauses to retrieve the developer and its cap from the basin and sets them both back on the counter. “But I guess I could show you how to do it.”
The celebratory sound this pulls out of Shouyou prompts Kenma to finally turn and face him. He’s glowing—eyes alight, cheeks bathed in a rosy shade of pink. There’s an aura about him, a certain radiance made brighter by the last rays of light still streaming in through the bathroom window, that draws Kenma in. Like a halo befitting a god he doesn’t believe in.
He looks away and mumbles, “The ratio’s important. Make sure you read the directions on each of the bottles before you pour anything in.”
“Lead the way, Kenma-sama!”
On principle, Kenma rolls his eyes at the honorific, but does nothing to stop the private, almost-smile from creeping onto his face at the thought of teaching Shouyou how to do something as insignificant as bleaching a few strands of hair. And when he turns back to him and says, “You’re going to pour that into the bowl,” he realizes it’s still there, mocking him. An indelible mark no longer meant for him alone.
Huh, he thinks, not for the first time.
He points from the bottle of developer to the plastic bowl on the other half of the sink counter to divert Shouyou’s attention away from whatever incriminating expression remains on his face, then adds, evenly, “No more than 100 milliliters. But if you just start pouring, I’ll tell you when to stop. Then you’re going to add two spoonfuls of bleaching powder.”
“Yes, Boss!”
Kenma steps aside to let Shouyou pour the ingredients into the plastic bowl before handing him the brush to mix everything together with. “Be careful. I don’t want to have to clean up a mess.”
Despite the warning, Shouyou meets him with a bout of laughter and a second, “Yes, Boss!” as he continues to diligently stir the powder with the developer. “Then what?”
“I need to section off my hair.”
“Oooh, can I do that part too?”
“Uh.” Kenma feels something in his chest tighten. “I guess. I mean, if it’s bad, I’ll just re-do it.”
Shouyou beams at him, body surging forward with an excitement that nearly causes him to drop the bowl and brush held precariously in his hands. He recovers quickly, then sets down both on the counter. “You don’t have to worry about me disappointing you! I’ve done Natsu’s hair enough times that I’m basically a pro.”
Kenma doesn’t bother disputing his claim. He walks to the other side of the bathroom to find a comb and a few hair-ties. “I usually section it into threes,” he says on the return, handing everything to Shouyou. “Two in the front, one in the back.”
“Got it!”
They move in tandem over to the bathtub so that Kenma can take a seat on the edge. He reaches for the unfinished box of pocky Shouyou had left behind and pulls out a stick for himself before setting it down beside him, then brings his shoulders back in an attempt at keeping his posture as straight as possible. It’s a feat—one made worse by the encroaching realization that Kuroo had been right to chastise him for the hours spent hunched over one of his consoles, or contorting his body to optimize comfort in his gaming chair. He’s paying the price for years of negligence now.
Whatever, he doesn’t say aloud.
This is his bed to lie in.
He bites down on the pocky with a loud crunch and lets the chocolate coating distract him from the effort it takes to keep his body like this.
To his credit, Shouyou pays his silent commiseration no mind. He takes a step closer, enough that his knee presses into Kenma’s sweatpant-covered thigh, and gives a cheery, “Hold still!” before bringing the comb up to begin parting his hair.
Kenma has to stop himself from letting out an involuntary sigh in response.
Because, the thing is, Shouyou’s gentle. Not hasty or overzealous in the way he guides the comb through Kenma’s hair, but careful. He works with a quiet efficiency so unlike the boisterous force that had barged through the front door some two hours before, a plastic shopping bag full of snacks hanging off his arm and a, “Your place was closer and cheaper than trying to catch a train back home. Mind if I stay the night?” barely out of his mouth before he’d found a piece of furniture to flop onto.
“As long as you clean up your mess,” Kenma had said, already reaching for the bag of snacks to arrange them around the low table in the center of the room (and knowing that, even without an excuse, he would have let Shouyou in).
Now, Kenma leans into his touch like a cat angling its head to let a passerby scratch between its ears, welcoming the feel of Shouyou’s hands as they switch from combing out any stray tangles to gathering up loose strands to twist into three sections. He hums while he works, and when Kenma catches their reflections in the mirror, he notices that Shouyou’s tongue is poking out. The same way it does on the volleyball court during moments of necessary concentration.
This causes something in Kenma’s chest to tighten, too.
He reaches for another stick of pocky, then startles a moment later at the sound of Shouyou announcing, “There! Now can I add the bleach?”
“No offense, Shouyou,” Kenma says, recovering quickly. He stands and walks back over to the sink to scoop up the brush and plastic bowl. “But I don’t want to have to shave my head if you mess it up.”
Shouyou makes a face at him, but resigns himself to taking Kenma’s place teetering on the edge of the bathtub. He grabs the box of pocky and pulls out another stick. “Do you ever think about letting your roots grow out permanently?” he asks in between bites.
“Maybe.” Kenma shrugs. “Why?”
“Just wondering.”
They lapse into a short-lived silence Shouyou breaks the moment Kenma brings the brush up to begin applying the bleach to his roots. He watches him through the mirror: Shouyou hopping up from the bathtub, bounding over to hover behind him, an unfinished stick of pocky held between his lips. There’s something about him—the way he runs a tongue over his bottom lip after finishing the pocky, how his eyes study Kenma like he’s the most interesting thing in the world—that causes Kenma to falter.
He sets the bowl down, then the brush. “Shouyou,” he says with his back still to him.
“Hm?”
“You’re too close.”
“GWAH!” Shouyou takes a step back. “Sorry. I’ve just never seen you do this before—it’s so cool!”
Kenma ducks his head and mumbles, “It’s not that cool.”
“Well, I think it is! Everything you do is cool.”
If a meteor had struck Earth at that precise moment, Kenma’s not sure he would have noticed. For him, there’s only this: the slow turn of his body, moving on its own to face Shouyou. The expectant grin waiting for him on his friend’s face when he does. There’s the lump in his throat and the erratic thumping of his heart in his chest. Locked and chained and begging for release.
He watches Shouyou step towards him.
You’re too close, he wants to say again.
Instead, what comes out is an unbearably lame, strangled-sounding, “What are you doing?”
Then, there’s this: Shouyou’s lips, gentle on his own.
The kiss is short, chaste. A quiet brushing of lips that’s over before Kenma can fully register the gravity of what they’ve just done. He stands there in the aftermath, disoriented and dizzy, left to watch as Shouyou pulls back just enough to let him study every sun-kissed freckle dotting his nose—and the way the last traces of light catch the brown in his eyes.
For a moment after, they do nothing more than stare at one another like this, trapped in the liminal space they’ve let the bathroom become. Words die on Kenma’s tongue. He feels the bleach start to burn his scalp, but any attempt at turning around—at grabbing the bowl and the brush to finish applying more to his hair—is ruined by the small smile he watches spread across Shouyou’s face, and the earnestness in his voice when he asks, “Was that okay?”
Kenma can’t help the laugh he lets out in response.
It’s freeing, to be doubled over like this—full body laughing in his bathroom after one of the most important people in his life kissed him, then asked if it was okay. He feels the ache in his cheeks and the tiny tears that gather in the corners of his eyes, ones he's careful to wipe away before he says, “Stay interesting, Shouyou.”
“Does that mean… if I did it again…”
Kenma doesn’t bother letting him finish. He turns around, making sure Shouyou catches his smirk in the mirror’s reflection, and tells him, “Later. First, you have to help me finish my hair.”