A Cut Above
Title: A Cut Above
Pairing: Baekhyun//Kyungsoo
Rating: PG
Warning: Baekhyun with scissors.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, written just for fun.
Summary: Baekhyun has never been this nervous about cutting someone's hair. But then again he's never been responsible for the hair care of his neighbor slash crush.
A/N: Originally for shiritori. I dreamed it, so I had to write it. Thanks to Adele for the title <3
Muted frustration seethes from Baekhyun’s swollen tongue into sharp tingles that prickle down the tips of his extremities. He digs his sparking fingers into the sharp pang radiating through his knee joint as he hobbles to answer the door. He hates getting woken up halfway through a REM cycle and he hates the collection of bruises he's accumulated from falling asleep in the death trap of furniture crowded into the corner of his dorm room and he hates biting his tongue when he's caught off guard and he ha--
"Hello," Kyungsoo says as soon as Baekhyun wrenches the squeaky hinges open.
"Hi," Baekhyun replies with a careful smile. He does not hate Kyungsoo, as much as it frustrates him that his across-the-hall neighbor considers mid-afternoon a perfectly normal hour for socializing. Today is not the first time he’s interrupted one of Baekhyun's daily cat naps before dinner in search of Sehun.
“Sehunnie’s at practice.” Baekhyun winces at the sound of his own voice, all scratchy with sleep.
"I am aware of Sehun’s schedule.” Kyungsoo eyes Baekhyun for a long, dry mouthed moment as Baekhyun swallows his nervousness back into the pit of his stomach.
“So I heard you cut hair." Kyungsoo blinks. His dark eyes look expectant, like he's waiting for Baekhyun to start in on a pitch for his amazing hairdressing skills and proficiency with a pair of shears.
"Where, uh, did you hear that?" Baekhyun watches Kyungsoo's fingers where they disappear into the side pockets of his jeans. His thumbs curl at precise, adjacent angles to one another. Baekhyun's T-shirt is hanging off one shoulder and his hair probably resembles an artistic interpretation of a bird's nest right now, which is not the way he envisioned his next face-to-face meeting with his selectively social neighbor. It’s not really a surprise though, considering he woke up in a yoga formation spread across three pieces of furniture with only the hem of his shirt dragging the ground.
"Just around," Kyungsoo says, though they both know Kyungsoo sat in the study lounge on Saturday and watched Baekhyun clip Joohyun's waist length hair into bouncy layers.
Baekhyun had watched Kyungsoo too, trading glimpses of the wet strands sliding through his fingers for peeks of his dorm mate balanced cross legged on a rolling chair at one of the computer stations.
Baekhyun glances over his shoulder at the pair of shears balanced on the edge of his bureau. The scissors are swallowed by the shadow of Chanyeol's flat screen TV but Kyungsoo has no doubt already spotted them with his keen gaze. Baekhyun licks his lips.
"How much do you charge?"
"Excuse me?"
"The cost?" Kyungsoo's arching brow matches the up-lilt of his voice but Baekhyun feels judged by the over-enunciated question. Or maybe it's the hard line of his mouth that makes Baekhyun want to slam the heavy door in his face and drag himself into bed for a real nap, this time.
"Five dollars?"
"Are you asking me to negotiate? Or is that the price?" Kyungsoo blinks again, only the second time in the duration of this conversation. The rate seems freakishly slow to Baekhyun, but maybe that's just because this interaction seems like it’s taking forever. Each word and twitch of Kyungsoo's pink mouth is stretching into a time warp where Baekhyun's heartbeat counts the milliseconds as his eyes catalogue each strand of hair falling in wavy locks across his neighbor's forehead.
"That's the price." Baekhyun nods once, a definitive seal to the deal. His mouth fills with a mixture of anticipation and dread as Kyungsoo returns the nod and steps over the threshold, because oh god, he is finally about to touch the soft black waves that taunt him in the hall, from the front row of Baekhyun’s Critical Theory lecture, and ahead of him in line at the cafeteria salad bar.
Hell, Baekhyun didn’t even eat anything that originated in such a dismal sounding location as “salad bar” until he discovered his neighbor frequented the line up of romaine lettuce and crudites. He’s learned to choke down imitation pineapple jello salad over the past month, solely on the virtue of being able to stand a few feet down the empty counter from Kyungsoo as the other loads his plate with green things.
It’s a work in progress, their coexistence at the deserted salad bar, but Baekhyun has high hopes. Kyungsoo even handed him the bleu cheese tongs with a polite eyebrow raise last Thursday. Baekhyun was so flattered and flustered by the touching gesture that he rained a generous snowstorm of the grayish cheese over his canned kidney beans and pineapple-coolwhip fluff, until Sehun reminded him loudly from the nearest table that he’s lactose intolerant.
Fortunately for Baekhyun, Kyungsoo had his back turned as he poked at the dinner rolls to find a relatively soft one and missed the whole fiasco. That doesn’t mean Baekhyun isn’t mentally reenacting the whole scene in a play-by-play breakdown, though, as Kyungsoo pads into the room in his sock feet.
He halts in the center of the room while Baekhyun continues backing towards the bureau to retrieve his scissors. Kyungsoo rests his hands on the waistband of his faded jeans, which hangs neatly from his hips. “Where do you want me?”
Spread eagle on my mattress! Baekhyun’s unhelpful brain provides in a perfect imitation of Sehun’s most annoying voice, but fortunately for Baekhyun, his roommate is still at lacrosse practice. Their shared room is empty of any other witnesses of his impending Death by Humiliation in Front of Crush.
“It’s easier to clean up if we do it in the bathroom,” Baekhyun says, stuttering to a halt when Kyungsoo’s mouth purses in amusement. “I-I mean! Clean up the trimmings! If I cut your...yeah.” He drops his hand halfway stretched out to brush the ends of Kyungsoo’s tousled fringe. He probably shouldn’t start petting his customer’s hair until he has the guy in a seat with a towel thrown over his shoulders and his trusty scissors in hand, Baekhyun reminds himself. Because professionalism, and all that.
Kyungsoo doesn’t try to hide his smirk as he heads for the bathroom connecting Baekhyun’s dorm with the other half of the suite. Baekhyun grabs Sehun’s desk chair and drags the heavy padded seat after him into the bathroom. It’s an obnoxious task trying to maneuver his own chair out of the corner. Besides, if nothing goes wrong he should be finished with the job before Sehun stumbles home to rinse off in the shower before dinner.
If Baekhyun’s skills fail him and the job doesn’t go so wonderfully...well, Baekhyun doesn’t want to even think about that possibility. He takes a deep breath and slips his fingers through the handles at the ends of the blades as Kyungsoo straddles the chair. One of his sockfeet is propped against the bottom of the shower door and his opposite elbow leans on the edge of the porcelain sink.
"So...what are we going for today? Just a trim?" Baekhyun lays a clean white towel over Kyungsoo's shoulders. He occupies his nervous fingers with arranging the terry cloth folds so they won't irritate the sensitive skin of Kyungsoo's neck.
"Could you take off two centimeters? That should be enough to get rid of the frizzled ends."
"Two centimeters?" Baekhyun squints at his fingertips as he pinches air between them, trying to visualize before he starts cutting. He wets a comb under the faucet and uses the saturated tines to slick Kyungsoo's hair back. His hair is as soft as Baekhyun has been fantasizing about for weeks now, ever since the tight lipped voice major joined his Theory seminar class and Baekhyun was blessed with a bi-weekly close-up view of the back of his neighbor's head.
"You should invest in a spray bottle," Kyungsoo says, "since you do this so often."
"I had one.” Baekhyun sucks in a shaky breath and takes a peek at the mirror. “But Sehun borrowed it for a chem lab thing and corroded the spritzy thingy with some kind of acid."
Kyungsoo's dark eyes widen in the spotted mirror glass. Baekhyun's gaze darts away and he licks his lips as he slips the tight plastic sheath off the folded blades of the shears.
"Ok, I'm gonna cut now," Baekhyun narrates aloud, and he clips into the first section of dripping hair pulled up through his comb.
Snip.
He watches the flutter of dark clumps drops to the tiles and the parallel brush of Kyungsoo's lashes against the swells of his cheeks. Baekhyun keeps going. The points of his scissors clip their way across the back of Kyungsoo's neck with determined precision.
Usually he makes small talk with the students who ask him for a cut, complimenting girls on their piercings or teasing his friends about accidentally snipping one of their ears off. Somehow he doesn't feel like Kyungsoo would take to those sort of comments too kindly, so Baekhyun's lips stay glued shut. He only opens his mouth to mutter aloud his actions as he transitions from trimming the length to layering the wisps above the curve of Kyungsoo's left ear.
"Where did you learn to cut hair?" Kyungsoo doesn't sound skeptical, like he doubts Baekhyun's inborn talents, but he does seem curious. He arches his neck a bit to meet Baekhyun's eyes in the mirror til Baekhyun has to remind him to keep his head still. "Sorry." Kyungsoo's lips pinch into a tiny pout as he leans back rigid against the chair.
Baekhyun smirks at the section of dark hair splayed between his fingers and notches in a precise staircase of layers marching forwards. "My mum owns a salon, so I come by it naturally. I don't actually have a professional license, though."
"Fair enough." Kyungsoo blinks in consideration but keeps his head motionless.
"How come you don't go to the salon in town?" Maybe Kyungsoo's a tightwad, but Baekhyun kind of assumed he'd be particular about his hair care. His ironed flannel shirts buttoned up to the collar and collection of expensive mechanical pencils scream uptight asshole, or at least that's how Yixing summarized his aura while drunk. But Baekhyun's never seen his neighbor act obnoxious or entitled. He's not a smiling idiot like the RA Chanyeol, but at least Kyungsoo is cordial.
"Sometimes I go there. But today I felt like asking you."
Baekhyun can feel Kyungsoo's gaze boring into his forehead, the look refracted and intensified by the reflection in the mirror glass. The fresh white of the towel is littered with clumps of trimmings as Baekhyun slides his fingers through the sections he's finished. He massages his fingertips into the base of Kyungsoo's scalp in an attempt to get him to loosen up a bit and tilt his head forward, but Baekhyun’s surprised gasp is even louder than the sound of Kyungsoo's soft moan.
"That feels really good," Kyungsoo mumbles as he eases his head forward just enough to let Baekhyun even out his hairline in the back. "If I paid you an extra five would you massage my shoulders, too?"
"Uh, I definitely do not have a license for massage therapy, either." Baekhyun looks away, pretending to compare the lengths of the layers framing the side of Kyungsoo's face. He doesn't want to think about how nice that would feel, sinking his fingers into the golden skin peeking from behind the crisp fold of Kyungsoo's collar.
"What if I gave you one in return?"
Baekhyun freezes halfway through maneuvering around the chair to comb through the front of Kyungsoo's shaggy fringe, one hip hanging over the edge of the wet sink. He saved the front parts for last and now he's regretting that because it means he has to face Kyungsoo now that he's apparently loosened up enough to start asking Baekhyun questions. Uncomfortable questions.
"Um?" Baekhyun’s fingers slide the blades forward in neat strokes as his brain atrophies in shock. Brains are muscles, right? They can totally atrophy, right? Because his brain is definitely shrinking into non-existence, some trippy sort of nirvana transformation complete with swirling rainbows and flower bursts behind his eyes.
"Hey, are you ok?" Kyungsoo wiggles his fingers at Baekhyun and Baekhyun almost topples out of his precarious seat lodged halfway in the sink basin.
"Yes? No? Wait, what?"
"Why do you think I entrusted a college student with no hairdressing license to give me a trim?" Kyungsoo's lips start to curl in a slow smile. His eyes remain pinpointed on Baekhyun's face and Baekhyun has to focus on breathing as he sets the scissors down next to the soap and grips the porcelain to steady himself with both hands.
"Because you saw me cutting Joohyun's hair and you noticed my skillz?" Baekhyun wets his lips again with swipe of his tongue but it doesn't really help. His mouth has gone dry under the heat of Kyungsoo's unwavering gaze.
"Well, yeah, that." Kyungsoo pulls the towel away from his neck, sending a cascade of dark trimmings to the floor as he straightens his shoulders. "But also because I noticed you've been staring at me for weeks now but are too chicken to do anything about it."
"I--!" Baekhyun clutches the ledge of the sink even tighter, until he can feel the grit of dried on toothpaste beneath his fingers. "I did do something! I started saying 'hi' to you, at least!"
"And stalking me at the salad bar?" The chair scrapes on the tile as Kyungsoo gets to his feet. His cute nose is only centimeters from Baekhyun's mouth now, and Baekhyun keeps his lips pressed firmly shut to avoid doing anything impulsive. "Not very smooth, Baekhyun. But it was rather cute." He reaches up to tweak the tip of Baekhyun's nose.
A thin squeak escapes through Baekhyun's lips and he claps a hand over his mouth as Kyungsoo leans in to leave a soft kiss against his cheek.
"Thanks for the trim. I'm going to go shower now, but I'll be back in twenty minutes or so if you'd like to officially accompany me to dinner?" Kyungsoo pulls a bill from his back pocket and slips it into Baekhyun's hand.
"Officially?" Baekhyun whispers, breathless and too distracted by the close up view of Kyungsoo's pretty eyes. "Does that mean...?"
"Yes," Kyungsoo affirms with a smile, and Baekhyun's fingertips rise to rub the kiss into his cheek of their own volition. "I want to ask you out, Baekhyun, but the first official date will have to wait til this weekend, I'm afraid. We both have choir practice in an hour, afterall. We'd better get a move on."
"Oh, oh yeah." Baekhyun forgot all about choir when Kyungsoo knocked on his door. He forgot about a lot of things, everything except the way Kyungsoo's shoulders make neat squared edges through the layer of towels and the way his eyes are steady black beacons in the soap streaked bathroom mirror. "How does Saturday at 7:00 sound for dinner, then?"
"Excellent." Kyungsoo nods, his freshly trimmed fringe waving against the curve of his forehead as it dries.
Baekhyun waits until Kyungsoo has crossed the hall back to his own room and the door is shut tight behind his back before he shrieks in triumph and does his victory dance. It's the one Sehun always makes fun of and calls his 'butt wiggle', but Baekhyun's system is still in overdrive, thrumming with too many excited chills to resist and Sehun isn't even here right now to be a spoilsport, anyway.
Baekhyun is still a tinge annoyed his sacred naptime got interrupted, but he doesn't really mind, not since he made an easy five dollars. And perhaps he’s made something even better as well--a new (boy)friend.
Pairing: Baekhyun//Kyungsoo
Rating: PG
Warning: Baekhyun with scissors.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, written just for fun.
Summary: Baekhyun has never been this nervous about cutting someone's hair. But then again he's never been responsible for the hair care of his neighbor slash crush.
A/N: Originally for shiritori. I dreamed it, so I had to write it. Thanks to Adele for the title <3
Muted frustration seethes from Baekhyun’s swollen tongue into sharp tingles that prickle down the tips of his extremities. He digs his sparking fingers into the sharp pang radiating through his knee joint as he hobbles to answer the door. He hates getting woken up halfway through a REM cycle and he hates the collection of bruises he's accumulated from falling asleep in the death trap of furniture crowded into the corner of his dorm room and he hates biting his tongue when he's caught off guard and he ha--
"Hello," Kyungsoo says as soon as Baekhyun wrenches the squeaky hinges open.
"Hi," Baekhyun replies with a careful smile. He does not hate Kyungsoo, as much as it frustrates him that his across-the-hall neighbor considers mid-afternoon a perfectly normal hour for socializing. Today is not the first time he’s interrupted one of Baekhyun's daily cat naps before dinner in search of Sehun.
“Sehunnie’s at practice.” Baekhyun winces at the sound of his own voice, all scratchy with sleep.
"I am aware of Sehun’s schedule.” Kyungsoo eyes Baekhyun for a long, dry mouthed moment as Baekhyun swallows his nervousness back into the pit of his stomach.
“So I heard you cut hair." Kyungsoo blinks. His dark eyes look expectant, like he's waiting for Baekhyun to start in on a pitch for his amazing hairdressing skills and proficiency with a pair of shears.
"Where, uh, did you hear that?" Baekhyun watches Kyungsoo's fingers where they disappear into the side pockets of his jeans. His thumbs curl at precise, adjacent angles to one another. Baekhyun's T-shirt is hanging off one shoulder and his hair probably resembles an artistic interpretation of a bird's nest right now, which is not the way he envisioned his next face-to-face meeting with his selectively social neighbor. It’s not really a surprise though, considering he woke up in a yoga formation spread across three pieces of furniture with only the hem of his shirt dragging the ground.
"Just around," Kyungsoo says, though they both know Kyungsoo sat in the study lounge on Saturday and watched Baekhyun clip Joohyun's waist length hair into bouncy layers.
Baekhyun had watched Kyungsoo too, trading glimpses of the wet strands sliding through his fingers for peeks of his dorm mate balanced cross legged on a rolling chair at one of the computer stations.
Baekhyun glances over his shoulder at the pair of shears balanced on the edge of his bureau. The scissors are swallowed by the shadow of Chanyeol's flat screen TV but Kyungsoo has no doubt already spotted them with his keen gaze. Baekhyun licks his lips.
"How much do you charge?"
"Excuse me?"
"The cost?" Kyungsoo's arching brow matches the up-lilt of his voice but Baekhyun feels judged by the over-enunciated question. Or maybe it's the hard line of his mouth that makes Baekhyun want to slam the heavy door in his face and drag himself into bed for a real nap, this time.
"Five dollars?"
"Are you asking me to negotiate? Or is that the price?" Kyungsoo blinks again, only the second time in the duration of this conversation. The rate seems freakishly slow to Baekhyun, but maybe that's just because this interaction seems like it’s taking forever. Each word and twitch of Kyungsoo's pink mouth is stretching into a time warp where Baekhyun's heartbeat counts the milliseconds as his eyes catalogue each strand of hair falling in wavy locks across his neighbor's forehead.
"That's the price." Baekhyun nods once, a definitive seal to the deal. His mouth fills with a mixture of anticipation and dread as Kyungsoo returns the nod and steps over the threshold, because oh god, he is finally about to touch the soft black waves that taunt him in the hall, from the front row of Baekhyun’s Critical Theory lecture, and ahead of him in line at the cafeteria salad bar.
Hell, Baekhyun didn’t even eat anything that originated in such a dismal sounding location as “salad bar” until he discovered his neighbor frequented the line up of romaine lettuce and crudites. He’s learned to choke down imitation pineapple jello salad over the past month, solely on the virtue of being able to stand a few feet down the empty counter from Kyungsoo as the other loads his plate with green things.
It’s a work in progress, their coexistence at the deserted salad bar, but Baekhyun has high hopes. Kyungsoo even handed him the bleu cheese tongs with a polite eyebrow raise last Thursday. Baekhyun was so flattered and flustered by the touching gesture that he rained a generous snowstorm of the grayish cheese over his canned kidney beans and pineapple-coolwhip fluff, until Sehun reminded him loudly from the nearest table that he’s lactose intolerant.
Fortunately for Baekhyun, Kyungsoo had his back turned as he poked at the dinner rolls to find a relatively soft one and missed the whole fiasco. That doesn’t mean Baekhyun isn’t mentally reenacting the whole scene in a play-by-play breakdown, though, as Kyungsoo pads into the room in his sock feet.
He halts in the center of the room while Baekhyun continues backing towards the bureau to retrieve his scissors. Kyungsoo rests his hands on the waistband of his faded jeans, which hangs neatly from his hips. “Where do you want me?”
Spread eagle on my mattress! Baekhyun’s unhelpful brain provides in a perfect imitation of Sehun’s most annoying voice, but fortunately for Baekhyun, his roommate is still at lacrosse practice. Their shared room is empty of any other witnesses of his impending Death by Humiliation in Front of Crush.
“It’s easier to clean up if we do it in the bathroom,” Baekhyun says, stuttering to a halt when Kyungsoo’s mouth purses in amusement. “I-I mean! Clean up the trimmings! If I cut your...yeah.” He drops his hand halfway stretched out to brush the ends of Kyungsoo’s tousled fringe. He probably shouldn’t start petting his customer’s hair until he has the guy in a seat with a towel thrown over his shoulders and his trusty scissors in hand, Baekhyun reminds himself. Because professionalism, and all that.
Kyungsoo doesn’t try to hide his smirk as he heads for the bathroom connecting Baekhyun’s dorm with the other half of the suite. Baekhyun grabs Sehun’s desk chair and drags the heavy padded seat after him into the bathroom. It’s an obnoxious task trying to maneuver his own chair out of the corner. Besides, if nothing goes wrong he should be finished with the job before Sehun stumbles home to rinse off in the shower before dinner.
If Baekhyun’s skills fail him and the job doesn’t go so wonderfully...well, Baekhyun doesn’t want to even think about that possibility. He takes a deep breath and slips his fingers through the handles at the ends of the blades as Kyungsoo straddles the chair. One of his sockfeet is propped against the bottom of the shower door and his opposite elbow leans on the edge of the porcelain sink.
"So...what are we going for today? Just a trim?" Baekhyun lays a clean white towel over Kyungsoo's shoulders. He occupies his nervous fingers with arranging the terry cloth folds so they won't irritate the sensitive skin of Kyungsoo's neck.
"Could you take off two centimeters? That should be enough to get rid of the frizzled ends."
"Two centimeters?" Baekhyun squints at his fingertips as he pinches air between them, trying to visualize before he starts cutting. He wets a comb under the faucet and uses the saturated tines to slick Kyungsoo's hair back. His hair is as soft as Baekhyun has been fantasizing about for weeks now, ever since the tight lipped voice major joined his Theory seminar class and Baekhyun was blessed with a bi-weekly close-up view of the back of his neighbor's head.
"You should invest in a spray bottle," Kyungsoo says, "since you do this so often."
"I had one.” Baekhyun sucks in a shaky breath and takes a peek at the mirror. “But Sehun borrowed it for a chem lab thing and corroded the spritzy thingy with some kind of acid."
Kyungsoo's dark eyes widen in the spotted mirror glass. Baekhyun's gaze darts away and he licks his lips as he slips the tight plastic sheath off the folded blades of the shears.
"Ok, I'm gonna cut now," Baekhyun narrates aloud, and he clips into the first section of dripping hair pulled up through his comb.
Snip.
He watches the flutter of dark clumps drops to the tiles and the parallel brush of Kyungsoo's lashes against the swells of his cheeks. Baekhyun keeps going. The points of his scissors clip their way across the back of Kyungsoo's neck with determined precision.
Usually he makes small talk with the students who ask him for a cut, complimenting girls on their piercings or teasing his friends about accidentally snipping one of their ears off. Somehow he doesn't feel like Kyungsoo would take to those sort of comments too kindly, so Baekhyun's lips stay glued shut. He only opens his mouth to mutter aloud his actions as he transitions from trimming the length to layering the wisps above the curve of Kyungsoo's left ear.
"Where did you learn to cut hair?" Kyungsoo doesn't sound skeptical, like he doubts Baekhyun's inborn talents, but he does seem curious. He arches his neck a bit to meet Baekhyun's eyes in the mirror til Baekhyun has to remind him to keep his head still. "Sorry." Kyungsoo's lips pinch into a tiny pout as he leans back rigid against the chair.
Baekhyun smirks at the section of dark hair splayed between his fingers and notches in a precise staircase of layers marching forwards. "My mum owns a salon, so I come by it naturally. I don't actually have a professional license, though."
"Fair enough." Kyungsoo blinks in consideration but keeps his head motionless.
"How come you don't go to the salon in town?" Maybe Kyungsoo's a tightwad, but Baekhyun kind of assumed he'd be particular about his hair care. His ironed flannel shirts buttoned up to the collar and collection of expensive mechanical pencils scream uptight asshole, or at least that's how Yixing summarized his aura while drunk. But Baekhyun's never seen his neighbor act obnoxious or entitled. He's not a smiling idiot like the RA Chanyeol, but at least Kyungsoo is cordial.
"Sometimes I go there. But today I felt like asking you."
Baekhyun can feel Kyungsoo's gaze boring into his forehead, the look refracted and intensified by the reflection in the mirror glass. The fresh white of the towel is littered with clumps of trimmings as Baekhyun slides his fingers through the sections he's finished. He massages his fingertips into the base of Kyungsoo's scalp in an attempt to get him to loosen up a bit and tilt his head forward, but Baekhyun’s surprised gasp is even louder than the sound of Kyungsoo's soft moan.
"That feels really good," Kyungsoo mumbles as he eases his head forward just enough to let Baekhyun even out his hairline in the back. "If I paid you an extra five would you massage my shoulders, too?"
"Uh, I definitely do not have a license for massage therapy, either." Baekhyun looks away, pretending to compare the lengths of the layers framing the side of Kyungsoo's face. He doesn't want to think about how nice that would feel, sinking his fingers into the golden skin peeking from behind the crisp fold of Kyungsoo's collar.
"What if I gave you one in return?"
Baekhyun freezes halfway through maneuvering around the chair to comb through the front of Kyungsoo's shaggy fringe, one hip hanging over the edge of the wet sink. He saved the front parts for last and now he's regretting that because it means he has to face Kyungsoo now that he's apparently loosened up enough to start asking Baekhyun questions. Uncomfortable questions.
"Um?" Baekhyun’s fingers slide the blades forward in neat strokes as his brain atrophies in shock. Brains are muscles, right? They can totally atrophy, right? Because his brain is definitely shrinking into non-existence, some trippy sort of nirvana transformation complete with swirling rainbows and flower bursts behind his eyes.
"Hey, are you ok?" Kyungsoo wiggles his fingers at Baekhyun and Baekhyun almost topples out of his precarious seat lodged halfway in the sink basin.
"Yes? No? Wait, what?"
"Why do you think I entrusted a college student with no hairdressing license to give me a trim?" Kyungsoo's lips start to curl in a slow smile. His eyes remain pinpointed on Baekhyun's face and Baekhyun has to focus on breathing as he sets the scissors down next to the soap and grips the porcelain to steady himself with both hands.
"Because you saw me cutting Joohyun's hair and you noticed my skillz?" Baekhyun wets his lips again with swipe of his tongue but it doesn't really help. His mouth has gone dry under the heat of Kyungsoo's unwavering gaze.
"Well, yeah, that." Kyungsoo pulls the towel away from his neck, sending a cascade of dark trimmings to the floor as he straightens his shoulders. "But also because I noticed you've been staring at me for weeks now but are too chicken to do anything about it."
"I--!" Baekhyun clutches the ledge of the sink even tighter, until he can feel the grit of dried on toothpaste beneath his fingers. "I did do something! I started saying 'hi' to you, at least!"
"And stalking me at the salad bar?" The chair scrapes on the tile as Kyungsoo gets to his feet. His cute nose is only centimeters from Baekhyun's mouth now, and Baekhyun keeps his lips pressed firmly shut to avoid doing anything impulsive. "Not very smooth, Baekhyun. But it was rather cute." He reaches up to tweak the tip of Baekhyun's nose.
A thin squeak escapes through Baekhyun's lips and he claps a hand over his mouth as Kyungsoo leans in to leave a soft kiss against his cheek.
"Thanks for the trim. I'm going to go shower now, but I'll be back in twenty minutes or so if you'd like to officially accompany me to dinner?" Kyungsoo pulls a bill from his back pocket and slips it into Baekhyun's hand.
"Officially?" Baekhyun whispers, breathless and too distracted by the close up view of Kyungsoo's pretty eyes. "Does that mean...?"
"Yes," Kyungsoo affirms with a smile, and Baekhyun's fingertips rise to rub the kiss into his cheek of their own volition. "I want to ask you out, Baekhyun, but the first official date will have to wait til this weekend, I'm afraid. We both have choir practice in an hour, afterall. We'd better get a move on."
"Oh, oh yeah." Baekhyun forgot all about choir when Kyungsoo knocked on his door. He forgot about a lot of things, everything except the way Kyungsoo's shoulders make neat squared edges through the layer of towels and the way his eyes are steady black beacons in the soap streaked bathroom mirror. "How does Saturday at 7:00 sound for dinner, then?"
"Excellent." Kyungsoo nods, his freshly trimmed fringe waving against the curve of his forehead as it dries.
Baekhyun waits until Kyungsoo has crossed the hall back to his own room and the door is shut tight behind his back before he shrieks in triumph and does his victory dance. It's the one Sehun always makes fun of and calls his 'butt wiggle', but Baekhyun's system is still in overdrive, thrumming with too many excited chills to resist and Sehun isn't even here right now to be a spoilsport, anyway.
Baekhyun is still a tinge annoyed his sacred naptime got interrupted, but he doesn't really mind, not since he made an easy five dollars. And perhaps he’s made something even better as well--a new (boy)friend.