another deleted scene because i promised jenni i'd post this

this scene would've occured in chapter 13 (after the photoshoot and before hunhan getting together) and for reasons i couldn't even tell you anymore i left this out like i literally shocked myself i don't know what i was thinking

—∞—

                “Hey guys.”

                “Hey Cha—DA ?!”

                Jongin instinctively looks up from where he’s finishing a paper at Baekhyun’s borrowed office space after hearing Luhan screech, and promptly chokes on his own spit. “Holy , that is one hell of a haircut,” he blurts out.

                “Yeah, I kind of needed one,” Chanyeol chuckles good-naturedly as he makes his way towards his prized coffee table. His long, ginger-coloured locks—which were just starting to brush his shoulders as of just two days ago—are completely gone, traded out for a buzz cut that glows its natural pitch-black colour and, for the first time, shows off the way his ears stuck out a little bit. And since it's kind of cut into the shape of a widow’s peak at the front, it makes him look a lot like…

                “Spock,” Jongin says aloud, before he could catch himself.

                Jongdae bursts out laughing, nearly falling out of his chair. “Oh my God, he does!” he screeches out between guffaws, clutching his stomach.

                “Wait, really?” Chanyeol hurriedly pulled his phone out of his pocket so that he could use the camera to look at himself. “Huh. It kind of does, doesn’t it?”

                “Dude, you look like an even bigger derp than you did before,” Luhan chuckles, still eyeing the haircut in disbelief. “What does Baekhyun has to say about that?”

                “Nothing much, but then again he’s actually hiding out at home right now because his own haircut came out kind of disastrously.”

                “You guys go for your haircuts together?” Minseok stares.

                “Uh, yeah?”

                “Sup motherfu—”

                Kris stops dead in his tracks two steps past the doorway, and as he and Chanyeol lock eyes everyone else in the room freezes wordlessly, instinctively holding their breath out of sheer terror, because Kris is currently standing three feet away from Chanyeol and sporting the exact same midnight-black buzz cut that’s replaced his own long, dyed-blond hair.

                Chanyeol reacts first. “Seriously? Are you ting me right now?” he burst out, eyes going comically wide.

                “That’s actually kind of impressive,” Minseok remarks, tilting his head to one side. “They’re literally identical in every aspect. How’d you guys swing it? Do you guys go for couple haircut outings too?”

                “We didn’t plan this, asshat,” Kris snaps, glowering at Minseok. “What the , Chanyeol. I don’t ing do Mary Kate and Ashley.”

                “Why are you blaming me for this? How is this my fault?! If anything I probably got mine cut before you did!”

                “Lies, this is probably some twisted payback cause you’re still cheesed about me being two centimetres taller than you.”

                “You are not two centimetres taller than me, and how the does matching you benefit me?”

                “How should I know? Just go back and shave it off so I don’t have to look at it.”

                “Why should I be the one to change?! You do it!”

                “Forget it, punk-, I’m not doing .”

                They both blink at each other in the middle of their staring, and then all at once they both turn to direct their intense gazes at Jongin, who flinches back at the unexpected attack. “What?” he stammers.

                “Who looks better?” Kris demands.

                “What?”

                “Last I checked that wasn’t my name,” Chanyeol says pointedly, giving Jongin a hard look.

                “W-What?” Jongin kind of cowers in his seat a little, because two centimetres difference or not in the end both of them are taller than Jongin and the fact that they’re standing and he’s sitting only helped him to remember this little tidbit of information, and they’re both wearing these matching dark expressions as they start drawing closer, and quite frankly if death had a face these two would be it.

                “For god’s sake, man, aren’t you supposed to be the team Twinkie? You speak English or what?” Kris snaps.

                “What?”

                Kris suddenly slams his hands down on top of the desk, making Jongin flinch again. “ENGLISH, MOTHERER, DO YOU SPEAK IT?”

                “Jesus Christ, yes!” Jongin flails, jumping out of his seat and walking backwards in an attempt to put some distance between him and Kris and Chanyeol, but they just keep stalking him with every step he takes.

                “SO WHO LOOKS BETTER?”

                “I don’t ing know! Why are you only ganging up on me?!”

                “Yo.” Sehun walks in then and drops his bag lazily next to his beanbag before looking up, at which point he stops and does a double take. “Nice cuts,” he snickers. “I didn’t know you two were into playing twinsies.”

                “Shut the up, Sehun, or I will find you and crawl into your room in the night and paint your hair with all the colours of the wind.”

                Sehun snorts. “You guys are here pretty early,” he comments, weaving his way past Kris and Chanyeol as the two resume pressing in on Jongin, not looking all too concerned as he approached the coffee table.

                “So are you. More importantly, you came all the way out to the school on a day when you have no classes. Again,” Minseok remarks.

                “This place is good for thinking,” Sehun yawns as he pours coffee into the mug he’d brought from home.

                “Your thinking processes are equivalent to a drug addict’s, if you haven’t noticed.”

                “Quit harping already, the questions I ask are perfectly valid and I don’t see why you need to—” Sehun stops short as his eyes zone in on something sitting next to Luhan’s desk. “Is that apple pie?”

                Luhan looks up and glances at the Tupperware container holding his pie. “Why yes, indeed it is.”

                “Guys,” Jongin whines, as he backs up uselessly into a corner, with Chanyeol and Kris approaching fast. “A little help here?”

                “Can I have some?” Sehun continues.

                “No.”

                “But why? I always share my food!”

                “Oh my God, please,” Jongin begs, sliding down the walls while the two giants tower over him.

                “Because it’s my ing share of pie that I brought from my apartment. Kyungsoo baked it for me, it’s my pie, and—hey, what’re—oof!” Luhan grunts as Sehun walks over and abruptly sits down on top of him unceremoniously. “What the hell are you doing?!”

                “Yixing’s in his seat today,” Sehun says, pointing at Yixing’s occupied desk.

                “But why the hell did you have to sit on me?!”

                “Because now you’re trapped here until you share the pie.”

                Luhan gapes up at him. “You’re seriously not going to move, are you?”

                “Nope.”

                Luhan curses under his breath, and Sehun laughs. “My ear is like five inches away from your mouth, I can hear you.”

                “Take it, then, you little .”

                “Thanks!” Sehun grabs the container with the pie in it and shoves a huge bite into his mouth, still sitting atop of a scowling Luhan. “So what were we talking about?”

                “Well—”

                “SAY WHAT AGAIN!” Kris hollers just then, who seems to have magically conjured a staple gun into his hand and is now holding it two inches away from Jongin’s face. “SAY WHAT AGAIN, AND I SWEAR TO YOU ON JESUS’ ING BEARD THAT THEY WILL BE CALLING YOU FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST WHEN THIS GUN IS FINISHED WITH YOUR FACE!”

                Sehun frowns. “I still don’t get it.”

                “They’re busy grilling Jongin over who’s wearing the buzz cut better,” Jongdae says disinterestedly, placing a gum wrapper between the pages of his novel to serve as a bookmark.

                “Actually, shouldn’t you be concerned? He’s your friend, isn’t he?” Minseok asks, watching as Jongin continues to shrivel up in his corner and starts spewing up all manners of half-garbled responses in an attempt to avoid the question.

                “Huh. Maybe you’re right.” Sehun clears his throat then, and, putting on a shrill voice, he fake-wails, “Isn’t there another way?! He’s just a boy!”

                Jongdae snorts. “You are one mad sadistic er.”

                “Yeah, but he secretly likes it.”

                Luhan rolls his eyes. “Yo asstards,” he calls out just then. “Can’t you just dye your hair different colours the way you did before?”

                This causes both Kris and Chanyeol to look over, staring at Luhan for a few seconds before Chanyeol regards Kris’ haircut and his head to one side. “You’d look good in brown, actually,” he remarks calmly, all of the previous malicious intent completely washed from his features.

                “You think so?” Kris runs his hand through his hair and lowers the arm still pointing the staple gun at Jongin, who uses their distraction to promptly slip out of his corner, practically reduced to sniffles by this point. “Well, that would solve things.”

                Sehun studies Kris’ hair seriously. “Nah, I think it’d look better with a dark auburn or something.”

                “Hey, you know what colour you’d look good in?” Luhan says suddenly, going back to his sulky state and throwing a moody glare up at Sehun.

                Sehun looks down at him. “Uh, no?”

                “The colour of your blood after I slit your throat for stealing my pie.”

                Sehun scowls and promptly shoves a forkful of pie into Luhan’s face, smearing it across his mouth before Luhan finally gets the bright idea to eat it. “I thought you were gonna eat it?” Luhan asks, looking skeptical.

                “I asked for some of it, I didn’t say I’d eat all of it.” Sehun offers him another bite, this time without trying to paint Luhan’s face with it, and Luhan only hesitates for a moment out of a sour grudge for his stolen pie before giving in and allowing Sehun to shove the fork into his mouth.

                “Ugh, I can’t believe I’m having my own pie being fed back to me,” Luhan growls, wiping apple sauce off his face with the back of his hand. “This is the worst form of humiliation ever.”

                “Pretty ingenious, huh?” Sehun gloats, continuing to feed Luhan in between his own bites.

                “Wow. Guys. Can you not,” Minseok says, glaring at Sehun and Luhan. “I’m gonna hurl.”

                “If you’b god a pwobwem wibit den shuddup an’ don’ look,” Sehun slurs over his mouthful of pie.

                “That might’ve been possible if you’d told me that coherently.”

                “Hey everyone,” Kyungsoo calls cheerfully as he walks into the room, although the smile fades a bit when he sees that Jongin is currently half-hidden underneath Minseok’s desk in an attempt to camouflage into the tangle of computer wires, and that Kris and Chanyeol are wordlessly examining each other’s identical haircuts with the utmost concentration. “Um, dare I ask?”

                “You know, you have this really uncanny ability to show up at the weirdest moments,” Jongdae says thoughtfully, tilting his head to one side. “But whatever, since you’re here could you remove your puppy from underneath the desk please?”

                “I’m not a puppy,” Jongin spits out from underneath the desk. “And God knows I’m not coming out of hiding until those two leave. I refuse to be subject to that kind of trauma again over a couple of ing haircuts.”

                Kyungsoo laughs. “Aw, did they ask you to pick out who wore it better?” he asks sympathetically, before extending a beckoning hand. “Come on, let’s go get Häagen Dazs bars to make you feel better.”

                Jongin, clearly looking equal parts embarrassed to have been found cowering under Minseok’s desk and tempted at the offer of Häagen Dazs, sits there for a couple of moments, looking conflicted, before slowly crawling out from underneath the desk, glancing nervously in Kris and Chanyeol’s direction a few times as he did so, until he had completely emerged. He pauses for a brief moment before scurrying forward, latching onto Kyungsoo’s arm as soon as he reaches him.

                Jongdae stares. “I feel like I just watched a National Geographic or something. That was pretty impressive, Kyungsoo.”

                Sehun breaks out into a loud and deliberate coughing fit, in which he poorly disguises a single “Whipped” smack in the middle of it.

                Jongin makes sure to kick his foot out and shove Sehun’s elbow so that his next bite of pie ends halfway up his nose before getting dragged out by Kyungsoo.