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“Can you put this in the fridge?”
“Yeah,” The brunette replied, taking the carton of eggs held in Jay’s hand. He looked around in the bag for anything else before finding nothing. “Last one?” Kai asked, earning an affirmative nod from Jay.
He folded up the bag, looking around the counter before spotting a smaller one on the floor. “Wait– Nope. I lied.”
Picking up the bag, he reached in before a hand stopped him. Looking up, he was met face to face with a worried smile.
Jay smiled back, confusion evident in his expression. “That’s mine.” Kai explained minimally, nimble fingers extracting the bag straps from Jay’s hand.
“What’s in it?” He asked, hardly getting any words in before Kai silenced him with a quick kiss to the cheek. It proved effective, as Jay got no protests out as he watched the other man speed walk out, bag in tow.
What could that be about?
—
“No, ma, he’s not allergic to squash. I–” He started, cut off by his mother’s rambling. Despite not being related to them by blood, talking incessantly ran in the family.
He sighed, stopping in front of the bathroom door as he ran a hand through his hair. “Tumeric? No, I don’t think you can be allergic to turmeric.”
Jay let her continue listing off ingredients as he brought the phone away from his ear, the voice slightly muted. Moving his back to lean against the wall, he caught faint murmuring from…
The bathroom?
Stepping forward and pushing himself off the wall, he turned to the door.
There was a faint light emitting from the crack, and the murmur became clearer. It was beginning to sound panicked, so he turned back to his phone. Edna was still listing off groceries, so he smiled– despite her inability to see it– and finished for her.
“Hey ma? I gotta go. Kai’s gonna love it. Promise.”
He hung up, half listening to his mother’s lengthy goodbye. Pressing forward, the sound of running water covered the almost silent murmuring. The door clicked open, and he peeked in.
There he was. His boyfriend– in all his glory– muttering to himself incoherently as he stared down a paper of instructions somehow longer than the warnings on a birth control sheet. Before Jay could make his presence known, his eyes made their way up to his scalp.
Was that…
“Bleach??” He gaped, and at that the brunette– was he even brunette anymore?-- turned to look.
They stared at each other, Jay’s hand still on the knob. Kai lowered the directions, palms spread on the counter. “Hi!” He started intelligently, fingers migrating to his scalp.
He wasn’t even wearing gloves.
“What… What are you doing?” Jay began, stepping forward to inspect the damage. His roots were covered in bleach while the ends remained untouched.
Kai opened his mouth to explain but nothing came out. His lips inched into a smile to replace the lack of explanation, and a hand moved its way to Jay’s shoulders. “Dying my hair.”
“I..” Jay choked out, reaching out to touch the chemical sludge on Kai’s scalp.
He laughed, looking up in an effort to bleach. “It’ll look good.”
“You always look good.”
Attempting to flip his hair, he failed when absolutely nothing moved. The other just laughed, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “How long has that been in for?”
“I’d say…” He pursed his lips, checking his watch. “An hour?”
At that, Jay jumped back, hands covering his mouth in utter… Disbelief? Horror? He was too shocked to name a specific emotion. “Rinse that out.”
“Are you sure? I think it needs more time to–”
“Rinse. That. Out.”
Kai stared at him for a moment more, before pursing his lips and nodding. He grabbed the shower head, bending over in an effort not to get any chemicals on his shirt.
As he rinsed the bleach out with the water, Jay took a peek at the instructions. His eyes immediately darted to the processing time, breathing a sigh of relief when the instructions said 45 minutes.
Still 15 minutes off, but at least it wasn’t 30.
Kai reappeared beside him, reaching for the second box of bleach. Taking a moment to look at his hair, he stifled a laugh. The blonde looked back at him slightly offended, tilting his head.
“What?”
The laugh escaped him, and he stuck a finger in the wet mess of half dyed hair. “You look like you’re balding.”
Kai swatted his hand away, reaching for the other box while grumbling something about Jay’s inability to appreciate his hair. He opened the second box, not looking over the instructions.
“Are you not gonna read the rest?”
Shaking his head, he screwed the cap shut before shaking the mixture. “Nah, I think I’ve got it.”
He rolled his eyes, skimming over the instructions in an effort to catch any potential mistakes the other might make.
Kai opened the cap to check if it was mixed enough, and based on his reaction, it probably was. With a small nod of approval, he screwed the other cap on and began to slather it on the uncolored parts.
“Do you want me to help? …I uh.. I don't think the bleach is supposa overlap” Jay added , leaning forward before getting a whiff of the chemicals. He stepped back just as quickly, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
“I think I’ve got it..” Kai mumbled, massaging the chemicals into his hair.
Jay watched him in the quiet as he slathered the bleach on, his fingers moving through the sludge. “You didn’t want to wear gloves?”
“Gloves are for wimps.” Kai replied, finishing with the last section.
“Spoken like a true amateur." He mumbled, earning a scoff from the other.
“What was that?”
Jay looked over with a smug smile, repositioning himself against the counter. “Spoken like a true amateur." He repeated, making sure to annunciate every word.
Kai rolled his eyes, tossing the bottle in the trash once he was finished. “You’re one to talk.”
“I am, actually. Ma used to get me to touch up her grays when I was little.” He explained, motioning with his hands as he talked.
“Jack of all trades, huh?”
Clicking his tongue in amusement, he brushed a curl behind his ear. “And you love it!”
Kai rolled his eyes, lips quirking up in his own smirk. “You’re such a dork.”
“I bet you love that too,”
The other moved forward, pressing his lips against Jay’s. “I sure as hell do.”
Jay smiled, pressing another after another. “You should wash your hands,” He offered, mouth migrating to the corner of the other's mouth in an effort to ebb the kiss.
“Probably,” Kai murmured, vibrations traveling across his skin as Kai encased his lips in another kiss. “they’re starting to burn.”
Jay broke away completely, jerking his head back. “Kai!”
“Is this how you guys feel when I burn stuff?”
“Wash your hands.”
—
The brun– blonde pressed his face into the crook of Jay’s neck, humming something about the scones Zane had made for desert. He had every right to. Jay was starting to wonder if the nindroid's secret ingredient was cocaine.
“Why blonde?” Jay asked, cutting through the quiet as he ran his hands through freshly dyed hair.
Kai maneuvered out of his grasp, hovering above the boy as his chest lifted. “Do you remember when we got stuck in Prime Empire?”
Huffing in amusement, Jay grinned. “How could I forget?”
“Well..” He murmured, his smile morphing into something slyer. “Do you remember my avatar?”
A pair of hands snaked under the fabric of his suit jacket, kisses pressing themselves against the triangles— painted? Encoded?— on his skin.
“Shit—“ The blonde mumbled, lips migrating back to his nape. “—missed you”
All Jay could get out in response was a small whine, arching into the contact. “Missed you more,” He giggled, quickly shut up with another kiss.
Blueish hands made their way up to blonde, feeling the locks between his fingers slowly, like he was still processing the different appearance.
Kai paused in his fervor, knowing Jay was inevitably going to say something about it as he felt the rest of the strands connected to his scalp.
“I like the blonde. You look hot. Even if you spent all of your credits on it.”
The blonde scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Lloyd can’t be the only blonde around,” He offered, looking back at the garage. Everybody else had gone out to get food, because even when made of ones and zeros, pizza and fries were utterly necessary.
“Plus, you like it.”
“Do I?”
Kai huffed, bringing Jay's gaze back to his. “You do.”
“Oh.” He replied intelligently, earning a chuckle from the man above him.
“So…” Jay began again, pursing his lips together in a suppressed smile. “You did it ‘cause I told you I liked it?”
“That and..” Kai started, leaning down to press another kiss against Jay’s mouth. “That, and I agreed with you.”
It was Jay’s turn to laugh, and his fingers tangled themselves up in bleach blonde. He was right, the blonde looked good. Impossibly so. Jay had subconsciously expected the bleach to roughen the feeling of Kai’s soft locks, but he was immensely grateful to be wrong.
Kai pressed another series of kisses against his mouth, vibrations from his humming traveling across the paler man’s skin. “You should do somethin’ too,” He mumbled, lips migrating south.
Jay huffed, his hand traveling down as it refused to detach from the knot it was nesting in Kai’s hair. “Like?”
“You should get a suit like that. I liked it.”
He laughed again, nudging the blonde’s head back up so they were eye to eye. Studying the blonde's eyes, he reveled in the mischievous glint they shone down at him.
“I’ll consider it.”
—
Fixing the lapel for the millionth time, he looked at himself in the mirror.
He looked a little silly, but maybe that was because this was real life.
The blue that had covered his skin and hair was gone, the colors of his natural skin and hair replacing it. Jay wasn’t sure if he wanted to go show his boyfriend– as he had done more than just consider getting the suit– but it seemed like fate had different plans.
“Jay? Have you–”
At the intrusion, he turned slowly, praying that it was the older blonde. His prayers were answered even though they hadn’t been to anyone in particular, and he locked eyes with brown.
After a moment of silence– Jay knew it wasn’t disgust, more just like silent appreciation (it had taken him years to learn that)-- Kai’s mouth opened. Then closed, then opened.
Gaping like a fish, he took a hesitant step forward, gesturing weakly with his hands. “Woah,” He got out, like just seeing Jay in something shiny had short circuited his brain.
“You saw me like this hardly a month ago.” Jay replied, crossing his arms.
“A month too long, shit.”
He laughed as his boyfriend inched closer, approaching him like he was afraid he’d vanish with a simple touch. “Damn,”
“Are you gonna say anything else about it?”
Kai met his eyes, pupils dilated. Jay felt a barrage of butterflies in his stomach, despite being like this in front of Kai before.
Only this time, there were no other ninja or fans– that Kai had called cultists– to watch.
“How about I use my hands instead?” Kai asked sweetly, trying to prove innocent but failing as the impish nature of his eyes and smirk betraying him.
Jay slotted himself in Kai’s hands, smiling like an idiot as he guided them beneath his suit jacket as they had not too long ago. “I’d love that.”