A Hate Story Hard To Sell

The bathroom of the BOYZ5 group house looked like a salon had exploded mid-existential crisis.

Dye boxes. Gloves. Towels. One mirror already fogged up from someone forgetting to turn off the hot water. And seated defiantly in the middle of it all, like a cat that accidentally agreed to a bath, was Damen.

They had originally planned on starting the hair-saviour session in the backyard but when it’s almost mid-morning and mid of June it becomes more of a heat torture than a hotness retrieval process.

“I’m only doing this because Perth said the pink would 'match the spring concept’,” Damen muttered, arms crossed as Josh tugged on plastic gloves. “And because Neo wouldn’t stop tweeting polls about it.”

“Sure,” Josh smirked, popping the cap off the dye bottle. “You definitely did not volunteer. Loudly. After Neo reposted a fan edit of you in strawberry pink bangs and 20K people said you looked ‘dangerously edible.’”

“I volunteered for the group,” Damen corrected, looking at his reflection like it had personally betrayed him. “It’s marketing. Not vanity.”

“Of course,” Josh deadpanned. “This has nothing to do with you stalling for ten minutes in front of the mirror yesterday and muttering, ‘I could pull it off.’”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I heard you say that.”

“You weren’t even in the room.”

Josh leaned over, just close enough that his breath grazed Damen’s cheek. “I was in the hallway. Thin walls, pretty boy.”

Damen went quiet.

He always did when Josh got too close — not that Josh ever pointed it out. But it was in the way Damen’s shoulders stopped their usual lazy slouch. The way he blinked slower, like rebooting. The way he suddenly had nothing to say, which for Damen, was suspiciously loud silence.

Josh pretended not to notice as he tilted Damen’s chin slightly with one gloved finger, pushing his bangs away.

“Hold still. I don’t want to accidentally dye your soul pink too.”

“Bold of you to assume I have one.”

Josh smiled to himself. There it was — the usual rhythm.

“I’m starting with the roots,” he said, brushing the bleach across Damen’s scalp with more gentleness than necessary. “Because your hair is so tragically golden it’s practically begging for a redemption arc.”

Damen smirked, looking forward. “You talk a lot.”

“I’m literally doing your hair.”

“You’d be talking even if you weren’t.”

Josh hummed, applying more bleach. “You’re just mad I’m right most of the time.”

“I’m mad you think that’s something to brag about.”

“Better than bottling all your emotions and acting like an aloof anime protagonist.”

“I’m not aloof,” Damen said, eyes narrowing. “I just don’t believe in oversharing my trauma to sell records.”

Josh paused, blinking. “That was...actually kind of deep.”

“Yeah well, don’t get used to it.”

For a moment, the room was quiet, save for the soft slick of dye and the distant hum of the washing machine across the hall. The kind of domestic silence that felt almost intimate.

Josh dipped the brush again, this time with the soft pink dye.

“You’re not gonna back out now, right?” he asked. “Because once this goes on, there’s no turning back. You’ll be reborn. Like a strawberry phoenix.”

“I’m already committed,” Damen nodded with his eyes closed. “Might as well match the chaos aesthetic Neo’s curated for me.”

Josh leaned down again to start on the back of his head, his fingers brushing the nape of Damen’s neck.

Damen tensed — not a lot. Just enough for Josh to feel it. Like a wire pulled taut beneath cool skin.

Josh didn’t say anything. He kept working, but his voice was lower when he spoke next.

“You’re quiet.”

“I’m always quiet.”

“You’re extra quiet.”

“Maybe because someone’s practically breathing on my neck like a vampire with pink dye.”

“Would you prefer I leave you with half your head unpainted?” Josh teased, letting his voice get just a little closer. “You’d look like a half-eaten macaron.”

“I’d still look better than you when you tried silver that one time.”

“That was for art. And your exact words were, ‘weirdly hot, like a K-pop ghost.’”

“I was delirious from tour fatigue.”

“You liked it,” Josh said with a grin. “You’re just scared I’d out-hot you.”

“I’m not scared of anything.”

“Oh?” Josh stepped around to the front again, now facing him directly. “Not even fan cams of us going viral every time we accidentally breathe in the same room?”

Damen flinched — not visibly, but Josh caught it. That little tick in his brow. That subtle twitch of his lip.

“I don’t care about that stuff,” Damen muttered.

“Right. That’s why you deleted the tweet where Neo tagged us in a ‘soulmates’ meme.”

“I deleted it because Neo spelled ‘soulmates’ as ‘solemeats.’”

Josh snorted. “Admit it. You’re embarrassed.”

“I’m annoyed.”

“You get quiet when you’re shy.”

“I get quiet when people get too close.”

Josh blinked. He hadn’t expected Damen to just...say that. Not without a sarcastic buffer or a dodge disguised as apathy.

Their eyes met. The moment thinned like stretched sugar — fragile, glittering, just a touch too warm.

Josh swallowed. He meant to pull back. Meant to laugh it off.

But Josh didn’t move.

Neither of them did.

Josh’s hand, still gloved, was hovering just under Damen’s jaw. Pink dye clung to his fingertips like something inevitable. Damen’s hair was half-processed, messy and soft and glowing under the yellow light.

“You know,” Josh said, voice lower now, quieter, “this whole ‘we hate each other’ thing? It’s getting hard to sell.”

Damen tilted his head slightly. “Then stop trying to sell it.”

Josh’s breath caught.

There was a heartbeat — his or Damen’s, he didn’t know — that echoed so loud he swore it rattled the bathroom tiles. The air crackled. The silence was a storm surge.

Their faces were inches apart now.

Not accidental. Not incidental.

Just a fraction deliberate.

Josh’s fingers brushed Damen’s jawline as if daring him to pull away. Damen didn’t. His eyes flicked to Josh’s mouth. Once. Twice. A blink too long, a breath too deep.

Neither of them moved forward.

But neither of them moved back.

The heat in the room wasn’t from the dye.

It was from the words they weren’t saying. From every moment like this that they’d laughed off, every ship name they pretended not to hear, every charged argument they’d used to hide the thing boiling beneath their skin.

Josh leaned in just a little more. “If we do this, I’m still going to argue with you.”

Damen’s voice was husky. “Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

There was a pause.

One second longer, and they would have crossed it — that line they danced around with every breath.

But fate — being the petty gremlin it is — had other plans.

KNOCK KNOCK.

“Hey!” Neo’s voice. Too loud, too chipper. “You guys still alive in there? Perth says if Damen comes out with a blotchy dye job he’s quitting the group.”

Josh jumped back like he’d been electrocuted. Damen blinked, the spell broken, suddenly blinking hard like he was trying to reboot his cool.

Josh cleared his throat, voice too high. “We’re fine! Almost done!”

Damen said nothing. He just stared forward, cheeks slightly pinker than his dye.

Josh hesitated, hand still mid-air.

“You okay?” he asked, quieter now.

Damen finally looked up at him, that unreadable expression back in place.

“Yeah,” he said. “Just... don’t miss any spots.”

Josh smiled, small and real. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”