#some of u guys r legitimately so cool and id love to message u a hello n stuff

[flightlesscipher]

I totally recommend some of my very fav mutuals to add if ur an adult or not in ur intro/bio (truthfully, I won't judge lol). I like to think ur NOT a slimy 12 year old liking my posts in between math hw and hot cheeto snack time, but i could be proven wrong tbh haha. Whether u put ur exact age or age range or just minor/adult, a lot of people will definitely appreciate the openness. But again, it doesn't fully matter😆

[chanagun]

Soft Hearts Electric Souls

Fandom: Why R U the Series Pairing: Saifah/Zon

Summary:

The first time Zon ended up in the cramped tattoo parlor, it was because of his friends' oh-so-clever dare to get something pierced. The rest of his visits definitely didn’t have anything to do with the (handsome) piercing artist.

AO3 

——

Saifah actually heard the group before seeing them. 

Day was on desk duty for the hour, so Saifah had been upstairs, going back and forth between chairs and doing his best to crack jokes and distract the clients as Tutor and Hwahwa created artwork on their skin. 

Tutor had a regular client, adding another chunk to his growing sleeve and Hwahwa worked on a walk-in, her classic script stretching across the client’s collarbone. Saifah loved watching his friends in their element. 

Which was disrupted, as mentioned, by the sound of the chime on the door followed by what sounded like fifteen dudes all laughing and talking over each other. Saifah frowned slightly before excusing himself from Tutor’s booth to help Day with the assumed influx of customers. 

Their shop was an odd set up, being in a row of other squeezed-together buildings in a busy college town. Patrons were greeted immediately in the waiting room with pieces of tattered furniture they haven’t had the heart to replace and the reception desk against the stairs. The piercing station was a back office they gutted and converted. They didn't have a second floor as much as they had a loft that they macgyvered into the sterile tattoo booths, so everything was quite open; it wasn’t ideal but it was theirs. They put a lot of work into it and it was definitely a source of pride. 

The openness of their shop also helped with gaging the customers from afar.

To his surprise, as he walked down the wooden stairs, he found that the bold entrance noise came from only five men. All of them looked up expectantly at him as he heard Day explain that Saifah was their piercer while pointing up at him. 

Four of the guys looked at him with shit-eating grins and one looked at him with absolute terror. Saifah knew how he looked outwardly; he had a dozen holes in his ears and a few in his face and he had tattoos peeking out from everywhere his shirt didn’t quite reach. His favorite, a painted bat with wings outstretched ( Kerivoula picta , Tutor would remind him after spending diligent hours on it) decorated his neck with a shocking burst of color and a sharp snarl at anyone shorter than him. Saifah watched the one man visibly gulp when he finally joined Day at the counter and he couldn’t help the half smile form on his lips.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Saifah started, “I heard my services were needed?” The one man was not looking him in the eye, but instead directly at his throat. Saifah couldn’t tell for sure, but it seemed like he was shaking in his metaphorical boots. 

One of his friends slapped his shoulder, making him jump a mile, before saying “Our Zon here would like to get his ears pierced!” 

“Oi, Junior-“ the guy, Zon, snapped as he elbowed his friend in the gut. 

“Yeah, he looks super excited to do that,” Saifah replied easily.

“I am!” Zon quipped adamantly.

Saifah knew he was being a prick, but couldn’t help it as he raised an eyebrow and let out an unimpressed chuckle. “Sure. Anyone else getting stabbed today?” He asked the rest of the guys in the same cocky tone and received negative murmurs in response. “Righto, come on back Mr. Zon and I’ll set everything up.” To which he received a tight nod from Zon and stifled laughter from the rest. 

Saifah motioned Zon to follow him to his station but paused when the whole hoard of men started coming too. “Ah, the love fest is really cute but the room is not that big, guys,” Saifah explained.

“I can come by myself,” Zon said, and sent a sharp glare at each of his friends, “they just want to see me suffer anyway.” Saifah let out a chuckle, and continued to the back, now only being followed by one. Saifah motioned to the cushioned stool in the middle of the room and Zon sat obediently. 

“First things first Mr. Zon, we have to get some paperwork done,” Saifah explained, grabbing one of the clipboards, “and I hope you have your ID on you or else this’ll be pretty embarrassing.” 

“Of course I have my ID,” Zon huffed in response before pulling out his wallet. Saifah let Zon hold it up to his face as he recorded his necessary details on the paper.

“Alright, so you gotta read all these bullet points and initial each line on the left here,” Saifah told him, turning the clipboard around and handing him the pen, “let me know if you have any questions, but I’m going to get the station ready.” 

“This is a lot more … official than I thought,” Zon mumbed, making Saifah pause.

“It is surprising to some people that we are a legitimate business,” Saifah replied even though Hwahwa’s voice nagged in this head about not being so sarcastic with customers. Saifah risked a glance at the guy.

He was frowning, sitting the paperwork with his initials before saying, “That’s not what I meant, I just didn’t actually know what to expect.” He held out the clipboard to hand back to Saifah. 

He took it, but kept a strong gaze on Zon. “Why are you here, dude? You don’t seem well-informed, nor excited to be getting this done.” 

Zon cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “My friends dared me. I don’t want to seem weak or anything,” he explained in a huff. 

Saifah considered his words. He placed the clipboard back down and pulled up his own stool to sit right in front of Zon. The action seemed to unsettle Zon more, but that didn’t deter Saifah. “Are you sure you actually want to? Listen, the basis of this business is all ‘fight the man, rebell, mod your bod’ and everything but it’s about living for yourself, too. You think my parents wanted me to open a tattoo shop with my hooligan friends?” Zon laughed lightly at his statement, “I can scare your friends off if you really don’t want this, man. I’ve heard I’m intimidating.” 

Zon cocked his head to the side, a smile still faint on his lips. “Nah, you’re just tall,” he joked, “Clearly you’re a softie or else you would have just stabbed me and taken my money.” Saifah snorted at that. “And I… I still want the piercings. Not for my friends’ benefit, I’ve just actually wanted to get them for a while. Needles aren’t really my favorite thing but they look cool.”

“I bet I’m the coolest person you’ve ever seen then, huh?” Saifah asked, wiggling his eyebrows, which just made Zon roll his eyes. “So, studs or rings?” 

“What do you suggest?” 

Saifah hummed, “Studs. Rings are cool but it’s harder to heal when you’re pierced with rings. Also, in my opinion, captive beads suck.” 

“Studs it is then,” Zon replied. 

Saifah flashed a smile before turning back to his counter. He could feel that Zon was more at ease so he popped on some gloves and disinfected his tray. He collected his sterile supplies before turning back around. “I’m going to mark your ears and you can tell me if you like the placement.” Zon just nodded. 

The rest of the process came easily to Saifah, my muscle memory taking over. Zon gasped during the first but only winced for the second. 

“Already done! You did great.”

“Thanks,” Zon replied, smiling into the hand mirror. 

“You can head back up to the front desk and Day can ring you up. Pleasure doing business with you, Zon,” Saifah told him as he worked to clean his station up again. He couldn’t help but watch him go.

.

.

Zon took a deep breath. He could do this. He did it before and he could do it again. 

He stood outside the tattoo parlor, under the dark green awning to escape the blazing sun, pumping himself up to go inside. With no friends forcing him, it was taking longer than it should. 

He knew what to expect this time, and that was making it even harder than before. Not piercing pain wise, but tall, handsome piercer wise. That wasn’t why he was going back, obviously. He just kind of really dug his earrings and the piercer, Saifah, had had a really cool piercing in his eyebrow and Zon couldn’t seem to get it out of his head. 

He wanted to at least ask Saifah what he thought about getting one himself. His feet just weren’t cooperating. 

Zon jumped out of his train of thought when his phone chimed in his pocket. He let out a breath, glad to be out of his head when he pulled up the text. Zol had sent him a message asking him what he wanted for dinner, since she was going out shopping with their mom. He smiled typing out his reply and finally felt back in the right mindset to go inside.

He wasn’t expecting to see an upside-down Saifah laying (incorrectly) on the couch, strumming apparently absentmindedly on an acoustic guitar. 

“Um, hello?” 

Saifah glances towards the door, squinting his eyes at Zon. “Ah!” He exclaimed before placing the guitar next to him on the couch. “Welcome back.” Zon raised an eyebrow in surprise, not expecting the piercer to remember him at all. “Is everything healing okay?”

“Oh, um, yeah,” he replied, his hand instinctively going to his neck, just below his ear (where he’d learned to stop himself from touching and irritating his piercings). “I was actually wondering if I could get, like, a consultation for another.” 

Saifah raised his brow (Zon assumed, it was hard to tell from upside down) in surprise before somehow gracefully flipping over to stand (Zon pointedly tried not to look when his shirt rode up and- are those nipple piercings ?) and greeted Zon for real. “What were you thinking?”

Zon, who was definitely not flustered, swallowed hard and met his gaze, “I really like your…” he said, pointing at his own eyebrow.

“Ah,”Saifah smiled, “an eyebrow piercing. It was one of my first ones,” he reached a hand out towards Zon’s face but stopped short, “Do you mind if I?” Zon shook his head no, letting Saifah continue his movement. His fingers were gentle against Zon’s face, just lightly touching the skin above his brow, before giving him a little pinch. 

“Hey!” 

“Sorry! Just seeing if you can deal with the pain,” he explained.

“I wasn’t ready! And you know I don’t care if it hurts,” Zon huffed in response, making Saifah grin again. 

“Okay, okay,” he said with his hands up in surrender, “if you’re interested, I think you have the perfect browline for a horizontal instead of a vertical. I’ll knock some off the price if you let me do that instead,” he finished, punctuated with another toothy smile.

Zon bit his lip before answering, “Can you show me what that would look like?” 

Saifah nodded excitedly before leading Zon to the front desk and pulling both stools up to the laptop. They spent ten minutes, shoulder to shoulder, sitting at the desk, Saifah pulling up different images for Zon to consider. Within two minutes Zon had decided he loved it, but he couldn’t stop himself from watching Saifah excitedly find new ones to show him. 

“What do you think?” 

Zon looked up, met with Saifah’s bright eyes, and he couldn’t help smile. “Yeah, dude it looks sick. I’m down for it.” 

Saifah smiles so brightly in response, his eyes almost closed. And Zon could feel his heart in his throat, thinking cute , how was this man covered in tattoos and piercings ( including nipple piercings his mind supplied) so cute ?

Zon quickly found himself back on the same cushioned stool in the back room as his first visit, going through paperwork with Saifah. He felt more at ease the second time around. 

Like Saifah could read his mind, he stated, “you seem much more chill this time. Is it because you know what to expect or because your friends aren’t here this time?” he asked, voice light, presumably so Zon knew he was mostly joking around.

“A mix of both I guess. My friends are great, but… sometimes they’re not,” he chuckled. 

“I think that’s true for most friends,” Saifah agreed, “mine have been on lunch break for like two hours at this point,” he said while glancing at his wrist. His tone wasn’t unfriendly, rather it seemed fond. “Tutor has the day off, since he and his boyfriend work at the foodbank on Thursdays, but Hwahwa and Day, the other artists, think they’re so slick.”

Zon furrowed his brow, “you’re the only one here?” 

Saifah nodded, “they didn’t have any appointments scheduled until the evening so I’m sure they thought their sneaky secret date would go unnoticed. But I’ve got a keen eye.”

Zon chuckled at that, “the most keen eye if they thought you wouldn’t notice being left alone in the shop.”

“Oh, he’s cracking jokes! Careful, try and remember who is stabbing who today, my Zon.” Saifah teased. 

A sudden wave of heat hit Zon- from his neck to the tips of his ears. He scrambled, trying to  come up with a retort to hide his fluster, but Saifah took it in stride, turning to sanitize his station. He hummed a familiar tune that Zon couldn’t exactly place, but he was kind of mesmerized. Saifah was gentle and yet so diligent with his work.He’d done a bit more research for this visit and he read plenty of horror stories online about dirty shops and artists that didn’t care, so he was glad his friends just happened to stumble upon Saifah’s shop. 

“Ready?” Saifah asked, tone low, and genuine , Zon noted. 

He nodded, a lazy smile finding its place on his face. Saifah returned the grin and took the clean marker with a gloved hand. Zon relaxed at the familiar steps and let Saifah do what he clearly knew how to do best. 

Needless to say, it hurt quite a bit more than his ears.

“Tears are normal, you know,” Saifah reassured as he handed Zon a tissue,  “It’s close to your eye, so it’s a natural reaction. Just in case you were still worried about seeming weak or something, don’t be,” he clarified. “On a completely unrelated note, I cried like a baby when I got the tattoo on my neck,” he pointed at the (frankly terrifying) bat on his throat, “and when I got the one on my hip. And the one that wraps around my foot, oh my god-”

“Okay, okay,” Zon said, laughing lightly despite the well of tears in his eyes. He sniffed, “Thank you.” He wanted to say more; more about his kindness, more about toxic masculinity, more about anything but Saifah handed him the hand mirror then. “Wow.”

“Wow as in what a great job it looks fantastic or wow as in this is terrible and I’m going to slash your tires as soon as I’m out of here?”

“Has that happened?”

“Of course not! I’m very talented.” Zon laughed, still admiring the work. “Wow as in I didn’t think it would make me look this… hot?”

His sentiment seemed to tickle Saifah, causing him to let out a laugh too. “I can confirm, you definitely look hot.”

Zon coughed, seemingly choking on nothing before hurriedly asking, “so how much do I owe you?”

.

.

“We should start some sort of punch card system.” Saifah peeked up from his guitar, ready to shoot Tutor a skeptical look, but he continued, “I think your guy with the ‘eyebrows for days’ would appreciate it, since he’s back. Again.”

“What?”

Tutor didn’t answer, just smiled his devilish grin as the door chimed and a person came into the shop. Saifah whipped his attention to the door, cracking his neck in the process.

Zon let out a snort, “don’t hurt yourself, geez,” he joked. The midday sun glinted off the still somewhat fresh barbell in his eyebrow and Saifah could faint.  

“Welcome!” Tutor called from the desk, “how can we help you today?”

“Oh, um,” he faltered, eyes shifting from Tutor to Saifah, back to Tutor, “I wanted to get a piercing.”

“Ah, so Saifah and I are both certified for piercings-”

“Tutor, I can take care of him,” Saifah said, straining. Evil. His best friend was evil. Saifah quickly led Zon to the counter, glad to see that smile return to his face. “Didn’t Hwahwa say she may need some help with her back piece client?” 

“Oh how could I forget!” Tutor overdramatically replied before rushing to the base of the stairs, “and please consider those punch cards, dude!” he called as he took two steps at a time. 

“Is he… usually like that?”

“Unfortunately,” Saifah replied, immediately followed by a burst of laughter from Hwahwa and Tutor upstairs. He grimaced.

“Anyway! How are you?” Zon asked with a curious smile and (that goddamn) eyebrow quirked. 

“I’ve been pretty good,” Saifah started, “I was beginning to wonder if my favorite customer was ever going to show back up again, so I was slightly down in the dumps for a bit.” “Oh? So you do get regulars,” he paused, seemingly considering this, “Did they come around?” Saifah nodded excitedly, making Zon’s smile even brighter, “That’s great! What did they get done?”

“I don’t know. What were you looking to get done today?”

Saifah was met with the biggest eye roll he’s ever seen, so he laughed. “Seriously, what are you interested in?”

“Ah, I was actually going to see what you thought would look good,” he answered quickly, looking down at the counter. Saifah raised an eyebrow but he couldn’t help it. He also pointedly ignored the snickering from the top of the stairs.

“Wait, so you didn’t have anything in mind? You wanted to know… what I think would look good?”

“I find it hard to believe no one has ever asked for your professional opinion before, dude,” Zon said, tips of his ears turning pink. 

“I… I mean-“

“Anyway, I did do research, I know that dermals aren’t for me, but otherwise I wanted your expertise,” Zon babbled, as Saifah still didn't quite know what to say, “I’ve just really liked how I’ve looked recently and I like how I’ve been more confident and I think you have a bit to do with that, so ,” he took a breath, “what do you think?”

Saifah must have been gaping. He didn’t hear anything from upstairs either; he wasn’t sure what that meant. Zon still wasn’t looking at him. He closed his dumb mouth and cleared his throat. 

“Well, I guess, in my expert opinion,” he started, “I think… you had that confidence in you somewhere already. I just poked some holes in your already very nice looking face.” Saifah caught the edge of Zon’s smile, still mostly hidden from his view. “As for a recommendation, I’d say anything but a lip ring.”

“Oh?” Zon let his gaze drift back up, “why is that?”

“You can’t kiss anyone while it heals,” Saifah answered with a toothy grin. Zon responded by weakly punching him in the arm. 

“Do you always hit on your clients like this?”

“No, just my favorite one. I’m hoping it’ll make him stick around.”

“Tell him about the punch cards!” was yelled from the top of the stairs.

 Saifah ended up giving Zon a helix piercing somewhere in between chasing Tutor out of the building, buying Zon lunch, and a few kisses (sans lip ring).