p"What the fuck is that sound?"/p
pShinsou shoves the bottle of bleach he's shaking in the direction of the webcam of his laptop, which is perched precariously on the edge of his bathroom sink. On the screen Bakugou slouches on his couch, feet propped on his coffee table as he smashes buttons on a controller with tactical precision in whatever bloodbath of a game he's playing. When he doesn't bother to look at the screen, Shinsou rolls his eyes and expands on the explanation. "Time for a refresh on the purple."/p
p"And here I kept hoping you'd get over your purple people eater phase. FUCK YEAH!" Bakugou crows with victory at his game, finally turning to give Shinsou more than two percent of his attention. "Wait, you're doing that yourself?"/p
p"Uh." Shinsou feigns searching his empty apartment for other inhabitants. "That's the plan."/p
p"You're gonna fuck it up." Bakugou deadpans, scrolling idly through potential online opponents./p
p"Wow. Thanks for your undying support. I've only been doing this myself for the last decade or so."/p
p"Yeah, and you've been fucking it up for the last decade or so. You just haven't realized it cause you don't have to see the back of your damn head." Bakugou tosses the controller away to lean aggressively at his computer, finger jabbing at the camera. "Don't fucking touch it. I'll be there in fifteen."/p
p"Wha-" But the call goes dead as Bakugou slams his laptop shut. Shinsou isn't sure what the hell just happened, but he knows he's not interested in the shit that will rain down on him if he starts anything before Bakugou arrives, he's had enough wrathful Bakugou for a lifetime. Abandoning his plans for the time being he shuffles into the kitchen to put on tea, his only weapon against the storm that's about to descend on his otherwise peaceful Saturday. So much for a quiet day off./p
pPrecisely fifteen minutes later Bakugou explodes into his apartment like he lives there, kicking his shoes off in the genkan and pausing to greet Macavity, Shinsou's cat, with more affection than Shinsou has seen him direct at any living creature in all the years he's known him. Said cat is also the only thing Bakugou claims he's capable of tolerating in Shinsou's small one bedroom apartment, Shinsou doesn't bother pointing out he still ends up spending some portion of every weekend he has off here. It's probably because Bakugou enjoys how much it irritates Shinsou when he ruins his rare free weekends of blissful silence with terrible action flicks and violent video games. Definitely because of that, Shinsou amends./p
pBakugou snags a chair, default scowl in place as he drags it over to the windows where there's better light and points at the seat. "Sit. Where's your shit? Bathroom?" He doesn't wait for an answer as he stomps off in search of the requested products./p
p"Hey wow, nice to see you too. Yeah I'm free, come on over. Thanks for asking." Shinsou slumps sullenly in the chair, setting both cups of tea on the windowsill. Macavity hops up on the ledge, and Shinsou doesn't stop the cat from helping herself to some of Bakugou's tea. Revenge achieved. /p
pOr it would have been, except Bakugou pointedly grabs the other mug when he returns with the hair dye and bleach. "Your cat is a thief and an asshole."/p
p"I thought you liked her." Macavity mewls in protest as well and Bakugou gifts her with more scratches behind her black pointy ears./p
p"I do, that's emwhy/em I like her. Fucking sit up, god your posture is trash." Fingers pluck at Shinsou's shirt as he straightens in the chair, crossing his legs on the seat. "I'm ruining this shirt on fucking purpose. It's terrible."/p
p"Hey, it's a great shirt." Shinsou runs an affectionate hand over the picture of a cat reading a book with the phrase 'I'm not anti-social I'm anti-stupid' circling it. "Although apparently you didn't get the message, cause here you are in my apartment."/p
p"Ruining it." Bakugou reiterates, flicking open the bleach and eyeing the shirt with disgust./p
pAs he gets to work they settle into a comfortable silence and Shinsou takes advantage of the fact that he's the only one with free hands and a phone hooked to his bluetooth and picks music he hopes will annoy Bakugou, but not enough that he might cause permanent damage to his apartment. It's a risky move, and one he's miscalculated before and ended up losing a mug and three plates when Bakugou used them to smash the clock Shinsou had found at a garage sale that made different sounds every hour. Although the look on Bakugou's face after hour three of random animal noises was really worth the loss of dishes, so was it really even a mistake to begin with?/p
p"Are you fucking serious?" Bakugou complains as BTS blasts from the speakers, but nothing gets damaged and Shinsou marks that as a win in his books./p
pBeside them Macavity purrs contentedly on the windowsill, midnight fur soaking up the warm sunlight like a blackhole as she watches Bakugou's every movement with wide green eyes. Shinsou has explained to Macavity on many occasions that emhe/em is the one that feeds her and cares for her, takes her to the vet when she's sick and pays for all her toys, but she's a fickle creature and Shinsou's eighty percent sure from the way she's staring that Bakugou has cat treats in his pocket. Cheater./p
pShinsou watches Bakugou's reflection in the window with fascination as he carefully measures and mixes the bleach with the grace of experience. Something that even in the almost decade he's known him, he didn't realize was in his skill set. He supposes he really shouldn't be surprised that Bakugou knows exactly what he's doing, the man always was determined to excel at everything, but hair care wasn't exactly on the list of things Shinsou thought Bakugou would bother with. /p
pAfter they'd graduated from UA and moved on to the real world of adult life, Bakugou's look had remained the same. Sure his hero uniform had changed, streamlined with the advance of the tech and the maturity of age, but his personal style? Straight up high school Bakubro. Finally, after years of resisting all suggestions of a change from any of his friends, Bakugou had finally caved and gotten a simple buzzed undercut. One Shinsou had actually suggested, and then bullied him into the car, driven him to the salon, and forced him into a seat to get. Shinsou thought it suited him, made him look less like an angry dandelion and more like... well.. just angry. Despite cursing Shinsou out the entire time and then complaining about the change afterwards, here he was a year later still rocking the same style. Shinsou had earned a lot of points with the Bakusquad for that one. Mina had even declared him an official member and presented him with a stupid membership card. He still has it tucked in his wallet, far away from anywhere Bakugou might spot it and incinerate it. /p
p"Where'd you learn to do this anyways?" Shinsou asks, tilting his phone to take a snapchat of Bakugou as he starts to section off and apply bleach to his hair, manhandling his head left and right to see what he's doing. Bakugou flips off the camera but doesn't bother protesting, and Shinsou takes advantage of his compliance and sends the pic to Mina for future blackmail purposes./p
p"Eij." When he's met with confused silence Bakugou huffs in annoyance. "Back at UA, he'd freak any time he started seeing roots. I was so fucking done with it I helped him touch it up once. Shitty hair took it as an invitation to come back every time the dye started fading."/p
p"Ah." And because Shinsou is in the mood to piss off Bakugou, he adds, "that's very sweet of you."/p
p"Fuck you." Bakugou snaps and smears a glob of bleach along the shoulder of Shinsou's shirt./p
p"Hey!"/p
p"Don't piss off the person holding the bleach. Now fucking hold still grape boy or I'll dump the whole bottle on you."/p
p"Why are we friends again?" Shinsou complains, a statement that in the past would have earned him a tirade about how they aren't friends, despite all evidence to the contrary, but now just gets him a thwack on the head with the brush, years of sass apparently really does pay off./p
p"Because I'm the only person capable of tolerating your presence for more than thirty seconds." Macavity lodges another complaint at that and Bakugou amends his statement. "And your cat is cool as shit."/p
p"You can only dream of being as cool as her." Another blob of bleach rolls down the front of his shirt and Shinsou sighs dramatically, unlocking his phone to order a replacement shirt cause he emreally/em liked this one./p
p"I emam/em as cool as her, right Cav?" Bakugou bumps foreheads with Macavity and she lets out a delighted trill at all the attention. Shinsou glares at her, feeling very teamed up on, which is unfair cause it's emhis/em cat. Bakugou snaps a plastic shower cap over Shinsou's head and cracks a window in the face of the noxious fumes. "Twenty minutes and then we'll check it."/p
pThey spend fifteen of the next twenty minutes arguing over what to watch: zombies vs. stupid explosions and car chases. Zombies because who doesn't love a good metaphor for racial sublimation, atomic destruction, communism and the end of society as we know it, and explosions and car chases because Bakugou's an idiot who's easily entertained. Shinsou finally wins with Resident Evil when he points out that it's a video game too, and has a sufficient amount of action and violence for Bakugou's standards. The price of his victory is ordering the game for Bakugou, because he's been 'so helpful' today. As if Shinsou asked for help. /p
pBakugou aggressively scrubs the bleach out of Shinsou's hair to the sounds of Milla Jovovich exploding the heads of infected lab technicians, and they relocate to the living room, Bakugou on the sofa and Shinsou on the floor in front of him so he can start applying the 'disappointment of a color' to his hair. Bakugou vanishes momentarily and returns with a bag of snacks he must have picked up on the way, dropping them into Shinsou's lap before plopping back down behind him and popping the cap on the dye./p
p"Last chance to give up on your life long quest to look like Rattata."/p
p"I didn't peg you for a pcfs. Hey, this shit STAINS!" Shinsou squawks as Bakugou smacks his face with a dye covered brush. "Besides, if I was trying to look like any of them it'd obviously be Espeon."/p
p"The fact that you actually know that and have a preferred choice lowers my opinion of you considerably. And it was already in the negative to begin with." He shoves Shinsou's head forward to start applying dye to the base of his neck./p
p"You're the one that brought it up!" Shinsou points out, squirming at the cold dye until Bakugou sinks a clawed hand into his shoulder to hold him still. "At least I have an excuse. Eri is obsessed with Pokémon. It's all she talks about."/p
pBakugou grunts in response but doesn't take the bait on explaining exactly where his knowledge on small battle animals comes from. Shinsou makes a mental note to search Bakugou's apartment for merch the next time he stops by, or maybe he can text Izuku, if anyone knows about Bakugou's secret love of Pokémon, it has to be him. /p
pBecause Bakugou is a perfectionist asshole, he's still fussing over Shinsou's hair when the movie ends, touching up spots he thinks are subpar, so Shinsou turns on Resident Evil 2 and resigns himself to the manhandling. Finally, after Bakugou raids the kitchen for tinfoil for 'reasons' and wraps parts of his hair, the work is done and the shower cap is back on his head while they wait for the dye to set./p
pForty-five minutes later Shinsou is back under the tub faucet because apparently he can't be trusted with any stage of this process, but Bakugou seems satisfied with the results, and even damp Shinsou can tell the color looks better than it usually does. When he tries to hook up his hair dryer Bakugou commanders it, grumbling about ruining all his hard work without proper heat safe product and spends a solid chunk of time checking all of Shinsou's various hair products for sulfate and other ingredients he's deemed unacceptable. Which honestly, what the fuck, but ok? Luckily most make the cut and Shinsou isn't forced to make a run to the store with wet hair because a disgruntled Pomeranian is stealing his shit./p
pHair finally finished and air drying, they spend the rest of the afternoon, and a good chunk of the night binge watching the rest of the Resident Evil series now that Bakugou is hooked. They order takeout and inhale it sprawled on the floor because Shinsou likes his couch and he doesn't trust Bakugou to not be an asshole. At four in the morning when they're both barely watching the movie anymore, piled on the sofa, Macavity curled up in the crook of Bakugou's neck like the traitor she is, Shinsou finally calls it and turning the TV off he reclaims his cat and drops a blanket on Bakugou's head before retreating to his bed./p
pIt isn't until the next morning when, after an hour of searching he finally finds his hair dryer, in the emfreezer/em, and styles his hair that he notices the orange fucking swath of hair Bakugou has dyed at the base of Shinsou's neck. /p
pShinsou wakes Bakugou up with a pillow to the face and recites every swear word he knows, and then makes up a few for good measure because that's what this sort of betrayal calls for. Bakugou doesn't even have the decency to sound at all sorry as he's booted out of Shinsou's apartment, cackling like a madman, because apparently that's the kind of fucking friends Shinsou has. Infuriatingly, once his hair is back in its normal state of vertical chaos, it actually looks kind of cool, because Bakugou is an overachiever even when it comes to pranks. But that isn't the point and Shinsou would rather throw himself in front of a bus than admit that to him. So instead he calls Mina and starts plotting his revenge./p