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Mark couldn’t help the visceral reaction of his body. The stomach lurching, breaths seizing, pulse heightening kind of hate that made his knuckles blanche with the force of his tightened grip on his drink. Even his birthday party around him, music thumping and people cheering and lights flashing, was unregistrable through the seething anger that seemed to coat every inch of him.
Jinyoung’s hand was running up the side of his head, beanie hanging loosely in the other that he’d just removed to show the finished product. “What do you think?” he asked, lopsided little grin stretching tight across his mouth.
Mark felt a twitch in his eye. Pregnant silence speaking so much louder than any reason. His expression placid, if only to keep himself from glaring.
Jinyoung’s brows twinged together, grinning wider now as a huff of nervous laughter sunk his chest in, “Why are you looking at me like that, Mark?”
He swallowed, trying to blink himself back into functioning. “Wh-what,” he stuttered, gathering himself and trying again. “What prompted this? If I may ask?”
The man’s shoulders shrugged, hands messing with the beanie in his hands like he was contemplating covering it up again. “A friend and I had a bet,” he said, like it was an apology. “He won.”
Mark’s eyes narrowed, “What kind of bet?”
Jinyoung rolled his eyes, “It’s just hair, Mark. It will grow back in a month, two maybe.”
He kept staring, flabbergast. Dizzy with disgust. “I need to piss,” he muttered, passing by him with nothing but a brush of his shoulder as he moved deeper into the apartment. He kept his eyes down, reeling until he found Youngjae standing by the balcony talking to a girl from his Wednesday Vinyasa class. “Excuse us,” he smiled tightly as he grabbed his friend's arm, pulling him away.
Mark shut them both in the bathroom together. He slumped down onto the edge of the tub, “My plan is ruined.”
“Which plan?”
“My marrying Jinyoung and having his babies and having neighboring graves plan.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe I missed something.”
“I was supposed to profess my love for him tonight. Tell him that for once in my lackluster life, the sex has only been half as amazing as the conversation and the chemistry. And that I want him to be more than the stupidly hot personal trainer who watches my classes from the window before buying me a smoothie, walking me back to my apartment, and giving me my daily dose of cardio.”
“The gym guy came tonight? You invited him?”
“Yes!” he nearly screamed. “And he showed up looking incredible out of gym clothes and proceeded to take his beanie off to reveal a freshly clipped buzzcut.”
Youngjae’s face contorted, “And I’m lost again.”
“He shaved his head,” Mark gaped. “Like all of it. All of his beautiful, perfect raven black hair and-”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“I mean the only logical conclusion is that the man is completely nuts,” his eyes widened. “What kind of lunatic shaves his head? Did I mention he did it on a dare?”
“Seriously?” his friend cocked a brow. “What right do you have to dictate what he does with his body?”
“I don’t care what he does,” Mark protested. “I just…” he faltered, trying to wrap his head around it. “I mean. Buzzcuts are for snot-nosed middle schoolers and fucking soldiers and villians in Bond films,” he scoffed, draining the rest of his drink before crunching the cup in his hand and tossing it into the tub behind him. “Does that sound like my type to you?”
“Are you drunk or stupid?”
“Neither,” he protested, though he wasn’t so sure about the former.
“This is a waste of my time,” Youngjae shook his head. “Listen, I don’t really care what you do with this guy. He sounds pretty great from what you’ve told me and if you don't snatch him up, I’m sure someone else will. So why don’t you just do those silly little breathing exercises you yoga teachers do and get over yourself, birthday boy.”
“Pranayama isn’t going to solve-”
The bathroom door slammed shut, leaving Mark alone under the blue toned lights of the bathroom, contemplating exactly how he was going to get out of this one.
In time, he slipped out of the room, trying to lay low and navigate through clusters of old college friends and regulars in his classes without being seen, greeted, boisterously wished Happy Birthday. Because the last thing he wanted to do right now was walk right back into Jinyoung and have to explain himself. He was lucky enough to make it to his room without being seen, crashing onto the bed in the darkness.
The bass thumped through the wall, reminding him of only a half an hour ago when it had stirred the butterflies in his stomach. Eager to see Jinyoung there, to play out the dialogue that he’d been practicing in his head. Something cliche about the gift he wanted most, but even reflecting on it now made him cringe with embarrassment. He laid face first into his pillow, tempted to scream.
He hadn’t been there long before there was a knock at his bedroom door. “Mark,” someone called. He raised his head, watching Jinyoung closing the door behind himself. That navy beanie securely back on his head.
“Are you okay?” the man asked, full of concern as he sat on the edge of the bed, hand reaching out to clutch Mark’s foot through the blanket.
“Yeah,” he replied, studying the stubble peeking out from under the brim of the hat for a moment before turning back into the pillow. “Just tired.”
“You sure?” Jinyoung asked.
“Mhm,” he hummed.
“If it’s about my hair,” he paused, like the words weren’t quite coming to him.
Mark dared to look back, meeting his eyes. Seeing just how perplexed he was. He felt the churn of guilt. “It’s not,” he sighed. “And it is.”
There were a few soft thunks as Jinyoung’s sneakers were kicked off before he crawled up beside Mark, getting under his covers without asking as he faced him in the bed. “I’m listening,” he said, settling into the pillow. “Judgment free.”
Mark’s fingers fidgeted with the edge of the comforter, finding it difficult to meet his eyes. “I just felt like… and maybe this is totally stupid,” he fought through the crushing shame. “I thought you would ask me about something like that. Or tell me before you did it? But maybe you wouldn’t, I don’t know.”
“And what would that have meant to you?” his warm voice rumbled, seeping deep into the crevices of Mark’s mind. Awakening familiar feelings through his body.
He swallowed tightly, trying to stave them off. “You’re kind of exceptional,” he admitted.
Jinyoung’s brows flicked a fraction higher, smile spreading slow across his face. “Am I?”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Like I would probably ruin my body and my career and bear your children if that was biologically possible.”
He laughed, “Are you drunk professing right now?”
“I wish. Buzzed at best. But, yes. Professing. And probably looking damn stupid doing it since you didn’t even tell me you were shaving your head. Which means you probably don’t care what I think and that I’m just your-” His words cut off at the warmth of Jinyoung’s hand on his face, sweeping down his jaw and tilting his mouth up to meet his. His shoulders caving in at the sensation, melting on command.
“You’re exceptional too,” Jinyoung murmured against his mouth. “You know that?”
Mark’s body leaned closer, curving into his warmth. “Are you drunk professing now?”
“No,” Jinyoung kissed him again. “I’m sober.”
Mark felt the euphoria rip through every dark feeling, rushing to action as he shifted himself into Jinyoung’s lap. He felt the man’s hands slipping under his shirt and grating nails against his skin as he clawed it off his frame. Giggling as Mark sloppily did the same to him. And as Jinyoung’s shirt slipped off, so did that beanie, leaving his buzzcut on full display again.
Mark stared at it a little longer, slowing the whole moment down as Jinyoung’s eyes watched him carefully. He reached for the man’s head, fingers brushing up against it and feeling the bristling coarseness grate against his fingers. So much more rough and exposed than Jinyoung’s old hair. It felt like static electricity sparking up him, igniting something more primal than he had expected he could feel.
Jinyoung didn’t wait for the prognosis this time, instead flipping Mark onto his back and sinking himself down between his legs. He fumbled with his button fly, tearing it apart as he mouthed at the outline of his cock.
Mark trembled, hand still on Jinyoung’s head, still experimentally running every soft pad against the surface and feeling it shudder up his arm till he could feel it tingle everywhere. And as his cock slid into Jinyoung’s mouth, some sort of crazed haptic loop ran through him until he was forcefully cradling the man’s head between his hands and arching hips up till he could feel the man gag.
Jinyoung didn’t seem deterred as he rose to meet Mark’s hostility, bruising strength on his hips to pin them down. To retake control in a way that wasn’t an unwilling fight, but good-spirited roughhousing. The kind you only did with someone who you knew could take it.
Jinyoung nuzzled into Mark’s inner thigh as he sucked, the side of his head grating into the sensitive skin and making Mark’s toes curl as he gasped from the overstimulation of Jinyoung’s deft fucking tongue writing an entire love letter on the length of his cock.
Mark didn’t lift like the other did, but he was limber from hours of demonstrating complicated positions and holding his own body weight on little but his fingertips. So grabbing Jinyoung by his prickly head and dragging him up to his face wasn’t as hard as it might have looked.
Jinyoung wasted no time, putting his hands to the back of Mark’s thighs and folding him in half as he kissed him, nipped at his lip, fumbled with pants and bottles for a moment before rubbing slick fingers against Mark’s hole while his other arm braced across the man, holding his knees past his chest. “Fuck,” he hissed, watching the whole wide scope of Mark’s body as his fingers twisted into him. “I always forget how wickedly flexible you are.”
Mark tried to arch up, only to get pushed down again. “And I forget how stupidly strong you are,” he smirked. “Now, make good use of it.”
“Damn, okay,” Jinyoung laughed, letting up for a moment as he entered him. So easily that it must have felt like he’d never left.
Mark planted his feet, letting the sensations work through him as he kept his breath steady. As he rocked up onto his heels to level his hips with Jinyoung’s, to let his body become one lateral plane. Not as impressive as other positions they’d tried, but the best one for Mark to reach up and draw Jinyoung’s face close again. Biting wantonly at the man’s lip as he skated his hands across the fine little hairs like it was a matchbook sparking his most sensitive synapses.
“Shit,” Jinyoung whimpered when his grip on Mark’s hips weakened. He let his slick hand swallow up Mark’s cock, working him tightly.
Mark slipped back into tricks he’d learned at the sex retreat he’d went to two summers ago, breathing deep and imagining it filling his lower body. Focusing all his passive thought on every heightened stimuli brushing up against the places their bodies met, their hands and hips and hovering mouths. And as he breathed deep, he felt Jinyoung mindlessly mimic it, slowing down each heady breath too.
That was the best thing yoga had ever taught him, that their climax wasn’t just an unstoppable end, held breaths and clenched tight muscles and running yourself off a cliff. But instead, it could be a steady ground that they both walked together, gazing down into dark waters and deciding wordlessly when to dive in together. It took nothing more than a solitary final slam of Jinyoung’s hips to have them both jumping, mouths drawn together and bodies intertwined as they coasted through something that felt impossibly long and intense.
Jinyoung collapsed beside him, breaths back to panting as he wiped the sweat from his brow. Nearly whimpering in lingering ecstasy, “Why are you so good at that?”
Mark was much more resilient, sitting up in his lap with a knowing smile on his face. “Baby, you’ve barely scratched the surface. Maybe next time, we can-”
“Next time?” Jinyoung looked up at him, raising a brow. He dragged Mark down over him, nuzzling the prickly hair against the softness of his cheek obnoxiously. “Does that mean you don’t hate my haircut?”
Mark laughed, pushing him away to see the complete picture. “No,” he admitted. “I actually kind of love it.”
Jinyoung smiled too. “I’m glad because…” he bit into his lips. “You know that friend I lost the bet to?”
“Mhm,” he hummed. “What about ‘em?”
“He kind of bet that I would fall in love with the cute yoga teacher at my gym I kept talking about,” he winced. “That’s how he won.”
Mark beamed, pulling him closer to kiss him once more, “Okay, I love it even more now.”
Jinyoung looked up at him, gaze glittering as it painted down his face. “You ready to go enjoy your birthday party?”
“Yeah,” Mark nodded, reaching up to feel the man’s hair one last time. Admiring what it seemed to symbolize. Nothing more to hide behind, everything laid out in the open. And it didn’t feel embarrassingly cliche that this was actually the gift he’d wanted more than anything. No, instead it felt right. “Yeah, I’m ready.”