#1.29.19

Shouta rises with a quiet sigh, pushing his hair back from his face. Weighed down with water, his hair hangs straight, stopping at his upper back, just between his shoulder blades. There’s a fading bruise on his left side, the mottled edges fading just over the curve of his shoulder and down around his ribs.

Toshinori sits up, reaching around Shouta for the conditioner. He bends his head to press a chaste kiss to the purpling bruise. He feels Shouta shiver as he pulls away. Toshinori works the conditioner into the bottom of Shouta’s hair carefully, letting it soak before he begins to card his fingers through the tangled ends.

“How was the newest class?”

Shouta sighs loudly, shoulders dropping to sink further into the water before he remembers the conditioner and sits up once again. “Annoying.”

Toshinori laughs softly. “You always say that.”

“They’re always annoying.”

“How were they really?”

Shouta is quiet for a long time, considering his answer. “They were okay,” he finally admits. He shrugs, wincing a moment later. Toshinori rubs a comforting hand over his arm. “I still expelled three of them. But they have some potential.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

“We met the one year I didn’t expel anyone, immediately, I’m still surprised you aren’t aghast every time I expel someone.”

“Well I trust your judgement. Now.” Toshinori can’t see him, but he’s almost positive Shouta rolls his eyes. He drops his hands back into the water. “You can rinse again.”

They leave the bath a few minutes later. They dry off. Toshinori lets his hair from the bun he put it in to keep it dry and drains the tub, while Shouta towels off his hair. If it was up to him, Shouta would simply leave the damp, wavy locks however they fall, but when Toshinori sits on the edge of the bed, placing a bottle of argan oil on the side table, he all but melts into his side.

“Hizashi and Nemuri would never let me live it down if they knew I had a hair-care routine.” Shouta complains, even as he shifts his position so Toshinori can work the oil into the ends of his hair, carefully combing out any last knots with deft fingers.

Toshinori laughs, leaning down to press a kiss to his temple. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“I only have this secret because of you,” he huffs, shifting to lean his head against Toshinori’s shoulder. “Somehow you tricked me into letting you pamper me, and I still haven’t quite figured out how it happened.”

Toshinori puts the oil aside, sitting back to rest against the headboard. One arm goes around Shouta’s waist, pulling him tighter against his chest. The other tucks damp hair behind his ear, so that he can leave chaste kisses just under it and along his jaw.

“I believe it happened some time between the second time you broke both your arms, and our class’s graduation,” Toshinori says against his skin. They had had a number of shared classes over the years, but there was only one they truly considered their class in a way so different from all the others. The only one Shouta stayed so deeply intertwined with even after they were no longer his first-years, but second- and third-years and eventually Pros. “And if I’m remembering correctly, it had something to do with my, what was it…’incredibly talented fingers,’ hm?”

Shouta scoffs loudly, even as he tilts his head to give Toshinori better access, eyes fluttering shut. “You’re definitely delusional, old man.”