The Color You Let Me Touch

Hong lets Nut dye his hair pink. What he doesn’t say is—he kind of wanted Nut’s hands on him all along.

It starts with a joke.

“You’d look good with pink,” Nut says one night, half-asleep on the floor, flipping through his phone while Hong scrolls beside him.

Hong doesn’t even look up. “You’d mess it up.”

Nut smirks. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“You failed art class.”

“That was about shading, not bleach.”

Hong raises an eyebrow, dry and skeptical. But he doesn’t say no. He never does, when Nut’s the one asking.

And a week later — on a slow Sunday night when the others are out and the bathroom mirror is foggy from a hot shower — Hong sits on the stool in front of Nut, draped in an old towel, a soft plastic bowl of bubblegum-pink dye between them.

Nut’s hands are steady.

He parts Hong’s gray hair gently, almost reverently. Works the dye in slow, careful strokes, fingers threading through soft strands like he’s afraid of hurting him.

Hong watches their reflections. Nut standing behind him, mouth slightly parted in focus, brows furrowed.

“I didn’t think you’d take this seriously,” Hong murmurs.

Nut doesn’t look up. “I always take you seriously.”

It slips out too fast. Too real.

Hong doesn’t answer. But he doesn’t move either. Just sits still and lets Nut touch him — lets him change him.

The timer goes off.

The water runs.

And Nut rinses the dye out with the same care he started with, combing through wet pink strands, watching the color bloom against Hong’s pale skin like something blooming in spring.

When it’s done, Hong towels his hair dry and stares into the mirror.

It’s bright. Unexpected. Soft. Ridiculous. Beautiful.

He tilts his head, lips twitching into a half-smile. “You actually didn’t ruin it.”

Nut leans on the sink beside him. “Told you.”

They stand like that for a moment — shoulder to shoulder, looking at Hong’s pink reflection. And then Nut says, quietly:

“I wanted to touch your hair before I had a reason to.”

Hong turns to him. The pink catches the warm light, glowing like cotton candy.

“And now that you have?” he asks.

Nut shrugs. “Now I want to touch more.”

That gets Hong’s attention. His smile fades, replaced by something else — quieter, deeper. Like a secret he’s ready to stop hiding.

He steps in, close. Close enough for Nut to see every wet strand sticking to his forehead, the pink dye staining his temple, the way his eyes never look away.

“You can,” Hong says.

And Nut does.

He reaches up, fingers threading through the freshly dyed pink hair, hand curving gently around the back of Hong’s neck.

When they kiss, it’s slow. Careful. Like the way Nut mixed the dye — intentional, messy, honest.

Later, Hong’s head will rest on Nut’s shoulder, the pink fading slightly into the fabric of Nut’s shirt.

And Nut will think:

This is how you change someone.

Gently.

Color by color.

Touch by touch.