#i was gnna have to repost this eventually n yknow what tdov is the Perfect day to do so w this

[chstart]

kai only started putting on his now iconic war paint when he started running the shell killers & it was like a small way of having agency over himself, yes because his grandfather was massively controlling but also because kai??? trans. & he always felt like the only reason his grandfather "supported" him was because it was a gateway to molding kai into what soichirou wanted in an heir, an excuse to shove susumu even further out of the picture because kai could now be the perfect obedient son soichirou wanted. so while kai got to feel more comfortable in his skin because he had every resource for seamless transition, something always still felt wrong, like he didn't belong to himself anymore in any way.

so, in becoming the leader of the shell killers, he saw an excuse to fuck with his image. the war paint was something he knew his grandfather would never think of, so it was something entirely his, & putting it on gave him what felt like the closest thing to uncorrupted pleasure he'd ever had.

one time kai got into a massive fight with soichirou, ran off for two days, & came back with his fringe bleached to shit, & then kept bleaching it to shit because it gave him that little more sense of agency. years later, a while after rebelling against borg, he got into a fight with his father while forced to stay at his estate before being sent off to boarding school, a stupid screaming match over face paint not being part of the school's dress code, & he ran off again, for a week this time, & came back with both his ears pierced ( "nothing in that shitty dress code against earrings, was there??" ) . ( it was honestly a coin flip between the piercings, & just lying about his age & getting his war paint turned into face tattoos out of spite ) .