“Hold still.”

“I am holding still,” you mumbled.

“Then why is your head moving like you’re dodging bullets?”

You scrunched your nose but didn’t argue. The stool beneath you wobbled slightly as you adjusted your seat. His hands, gentle but awkward, worked through the tangles in your hair with more focus than most villains ever got from him.

He had no idea what he was doing.

But you’d asked. For the first time.

And that was enough.

Behind you, your little bedroom was a chaos of comfort—soft things and safer memories. The walls were lined with a few faded crayon drawings. Stick figures. Some cats. One messy attempt at drawing him. (You’d insisted it was just “a very tired bird.”)

Plushies lined your bed and spilled into the corners of the room. All colors. All kinds. There was even a capture-scarf-shaped one he didn’t remember buying—but you’d stuck googly eyes on it, so now it had a name and apparently its own bedtime routine.

Pictures framed the desk, some of them blurry. Most of them taken by him. The day you got a snowcone. The day you beat him at Uno. The first time you’d smiled without being told to.

You hadn’t said much the first few weeks. He’d learned early not to push. Just to be present. Just to exist beside you in the same room without asking too many questions.

Now, months later, you’d started trailing behind him when he brewed his tea. Sat at the table during the news. Waited by the front door when he came home—eyes peeking over a plushy barricade like you weren’t spying.

You still didn’t talk a lot. But when you did, you always called him “Shouta.” Never Dad. Never anything else.

He didn’t mind.

Not yet.

⸻

“Ow.”

“Didn’t even pull.”

“You thought about pulling.”

“…You can read my mind now?”

“Maybe.”

“Scary.”

You giggled.

And that—that sound—was enough to make him pause mid-braid.

Just a few months ago, he wasn’t even sure you’d ever laugh near him. But now?

Now you sat still (sort of) on a wobbly stool in your warm little fortress of plushies and pastel blankets, trusting him with your hair.

He cleared his throat. Looped another section. Tried again.

“Alright,” he muttered. “Loop. Twist. Tug. That’s the order, right?”

“That’s what the internet said.”

He snorted. “What happened to doing it yourself?”

You tilted your head. “I can. But I wanted you to try.”

That quiet pause again.

Then: “Okay.”

You glanced up into the mirror on your desk. His face behind you—tired eyes, messy hair, an expression halfway between deep concentration and ‘what the hell am I doing.’

You smiled at the reflection.

It was small.

But it was real.

And he saw it. Didn’t comment on it. Just kept working.

“…Is it okay if I take a picture when I’m done?” he asked suddenly, eyes still on the braid.

You blinked. “Why?”

“Because this’ll be my first successful attempt.”

“…You think it’s gonna be successful?”

“…Don’t ruin my moment.”

You snickered again.

And when he finally tied off the braid—crooked, a little loose, with a small pink elastic he found in the bathroom drawer—he set his hands on your shoulders and looked at you in the mirror.

“There,” he said, deadpan. “Salon quality.”

You examined yourself dramatically. Tilted your head. Squinted like you were judging an art piece.

But his hands didn’t leave your shoulders. Not for a long moment.

And in the corner of the mirror, just behind your head, you caught the faintest flicker of a smile.