Work Text:
Zhao squinted as he daintily brushed the base coat onto Saeko’s right ring finger. He picked something daring for today: a bright red with a hint of orange that reminded him of chili shrimp. It had been a few weeks since they were able to slip away like this. Sometimes, if Survive was too rowdy for either of them, they went through their ritual of slinking off to You Tian where the only noise they’d need to talk over was a sizzling wok.
“You don’t think this color is a little too...tart?” Saeko asked.
“Nonsense! It matches your fiery personality, Sa-chan.”
“I’m so jealous of your steady hands with this. Every time I do my own nails I paint my entire finger, or I chip them the same day if I pay to get them done. I just end up putting extra into my hair.”
“You pay to get your hair done?”
“You don’t ?”
“I’ve been doing it all myself since I was a teenager. My father didn’t want me going to the salons because he was strict and old-fashioned. He thought if I was gossiping with all the aunties I’d be too soft of a leader. Well joke’s on him, that was all his fault.” He let out one of those foxlike chittering laughs, the ones that unnerved her when they fought against him but amused her when in his friendly company. She might have been in the minority as Adachi and Nanba got the shivers whenever they were aimed at him. “It’s therapeutic, anyway, to fill in the space between the lines, and to just make others feel good about themselves.”
She hummed in satisfaction as he screwed the cap on the red polish and reached for the clear top coat he brought.
“You know, one time Kasuga-kun let me paint his nails,” he mused.
“Really?”
“He’s hard to keep still, like a fussy baby! He wanted his nails to be electric blue with these little faces drawn on them.”
She groaned. “Oh hell, he wanted Dragon Quest nails, didn’t he?”
“He got through one hand before getting too antsy! He doesn’t appreciate cosmetic arts the same way you do.”
“I appreciate a lot of things about you though.”
Another one of his playful laughs, but it seemed almost nervous. “Talking about my cooking is cheating, Sa-chan.”
“Who said I was going to?”
He finished her left pinky before looking at her with a raised eyebrow and cheshire smile. “Care to indulge me?”
“Am I going to regret it?”
“I bet part of you already does.”
“Okay fine, I do like your cooking but you’re so good at it! Everything you make tastes heavenly.” Her eyes twinkled as she watched the top coat elevate her nails to a glossier, candy apple tint. “And I like your style! It’s very trendy. Better than any of the other guys in the group.”
Zhao wasn’t going to disagree with her. His competition was a man who was in jail for two decades, the elderly, the homeless, and a man who thought “black garbage bag coat” was the height of utility fashion. “You don’t think it’s too much?”
Saeko spent a lot of time thinking about that question while watching him brush back and forth, her eyes darting with his strokes like a tennis match.
“Nope. It fits you. It’s sexy.”
Zhao needed to set the nail polish down. He tried to cough or laugh, or anything to keep his cool but squeaked and for the first time in years was on the bad end of that flustering feeling he loved to bring out in everyone else. “I guess you do go for pretty boys, from what Joon-gi said.”
“Hey, this isn’t about him, it’s about you!”
“I’ll give you that. I look fantastic,” he said while resuming his painting, hoping she didn’t notice the slight jitter in his hands now. Too much of his pride was at stake to make a mistake this late into the process. “I think of it like those bugs that have shining shells and colorful wings, but underneath they’re the most poisonous.”
“I don’t think you believe that.”
“Then that makes you a lot better than most people.” With one more small brushstroke he finished coating her nails, and pushed the bottles to the side. In one of his heavily-decorated hands he took one of hers by the palm, careful not to smudge his handiwork, and placed a light kiss atop. His facial hair tickled her skin soft with the jasmine hand cream she massaged in before some of their skirmishes with the worst Yokohama had to offer. Her cheeks were as flush as the nail polish he just added. Well, this was a new and exciting addition to their little escapes.
“Should we head back to Survive and see if we need to rescue our boys’ livers?” Saeko asked shakily, her face turned away from him.
“Before we go,” Zhao said, pocketing the two bottles of polish and rushing to one of the low fridges in the kitchen. He pulled out a glass bowl of almond jelly topped with juicy lychee and meticulously cubed mango. Saeko’s gasped and her smile widened, her punchy-colored lipstick framing it perfectly with a shine as captivating as his rings.
“You remembered that one was my favorite!”
“What can I say? I like making a lady feel pampered.”