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He first cut Sebastian’s hair back in January before testing. Sebastian had handed Charles the scissors and said, “I trust you,” with a smile that always made him comply with whatever Sebastian wanted. It wasn’t that Sebastian was influencing him in some sick, twisted way; this was just how Charles acted around Sebastian.
He guided Sebastian to sit down in front of the mirror in their bedroom. Charles ran his fingers through the soft curls on top of Sebastian’s head, gauging and measuring. He tensed one strand in his finger and started to cut, trying to remember what barbers do as he went on. He chopped one inch and winced as the strands fell, but marched on. Cut, snip, make sure everything’s the same length. Easier said than done.
“You can go shorter,” Sebastian’s voice cut through his concentration, and Charles looked up at the mirror to see Sebastian’s patient face. “Actually, you know what? Just cut it all off.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s just hair, Charles,” Sebastian said with a shrug. “It’ll grow back.”
So Charles complied, and snipped, snipped, and snipped, until he met the point where Sebastian’s hair thinned around the forehead and stopped. But Sebastian said keep going, and so Charles did. Charles was half-mortified, half-enchanted in the end, but Sebastian ran his fingers through the short strands and smiled, and all the worries Charles had disappeared.
“Perfect,” Sebastian said. “New team, new look, hm?”
Charles understood. It made sense to him, why Sebastian did this now. He never did something without a good reason, and Charles always wanted to follow in his footsteps in that way. He pressed his cheek against Sebastian’s and looked at him in the mirror. “It suits you,” he finally said, and Sebastian chuckled.
What he didn’t understand was the people’s reactions to it on social media. The subtle mockery and astonishment didn’t settle well with Charles, and he wasn’t even the one donning the haircut. Sebastian didn’t show that he was bothered by it, but Charles caught him fixing his cap whenever there were cameras around, and anger and guilt washed over him.
He glanced at Sebastian much more than usual that night, and Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “What’s it?”
Charles looked down at his lap. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.
He felt silly to apologize about something as small as this, but Sebastian’s fingers gently brushed his cheek and he looked up. “You did good, Charles. I wanted it that way,” said Sebastian, and of course he would comfort Charles when he was the one who’s being made fun of. “It’ll grow back, okay?”
“I’ll do better next time,” Charles promised. In his eyes, Sebastian always looked good, and it’s his job to make everyone else see that.
“I don’t doubt it,” Sebastian replied lightly, and his eyes crinkled as he smiled. “You always try your best. Now, can we go back to our dinner?”
Charles searched for tutorials on the internet, stealing time in between meetings and practices. He tried to do it on one section of his head, and the results were disastrous. He was lucky to have messy hair in the first place, so the short strands were hidden as they got blown away by the wind on track.
Sebastian only noticed at night, when he pressed his lips against him like usual and touched the short strands in the back of Charles’s head. Charles held his breath when Sebastian pulled away, confusion visible on his face. “Did you try to cut your own hair?” he asked.
“I was experimenting,” said Charles sheepishly. “It failed.”
At that, Sebastian shook his head with a chuckle and leaned in again.
Charles waited for the day that Sebastian’s hair was long enough, buying specialised scissors and an apron in the meantime. By Spain, Sebastian’s hair had grown quite considerably, the forehead now covered by a semi-thick stack of curls. He searched for a good cut this time but none of the images on the internet fitted Sebastian. Typing in ‘sebastian vettel hair’ brought news from January that he didn’t want to see, until he stopped at a picture from 2018.
He saved it to his phone, studied it, and compared it to tutorials on the internet. Charles practiced and imagined that it was hair he’s cutting and not the air in the garage as he’s waiting for his car to be fixed. He learned from his mistake and bought a mannequin this time after Pierre rejected his request to be Charles’s experimental rabbit. Turns out there were some things that your best friend wouldn’t do for you after all.
Coming home after France, Charles pulled Sebastian to their room and sat him down in the mirror once again. Sebastian tilted his head in astonishment, his hair now stacked unruly on top of his forehead. “What are you doing?” he asked, but his question was answered as Charles tied the apron around his neck. “Oh.”
This time, Charles applied all the things he’s learned from the past month; carefully tilting Sebastian’s head to get the perfect angle, cutting it short at first, holding his scissors vertically, et cetera. The strands fell on the newspaper-covered floor with every snipping sound. He wasn’t able to divide his concentration and talk with Sebastian like what a real barber does, but Sebastian seemed to not mind the quiet ambiance as well. They worked in comfortable silence; Charles cutting Sebastian’s hair, Sebastian calmly taking his race notes and flipping through the pages.
When he cut the last strand, Charles put down the scissors and brought a hand-mirror to the back of Sebastian’s head. “There,” he said, waiting for Sebastian’s reaction.
Sebastian’s fingers grazed through his hair. Charles could picture him on track clearly like this, hair ruffled up from taking his helmet off. “Charles,” said Sebastian, disbelief and amazement mixed in his tone.
Sebastian locked their eyes together in the mirror, his smile genuine and soft, and this time Charles knew that he did it right.