Dakota had never shaved anything other than his face before, and even that didn't take much effort, given his light blond hair. When he wet down his chest hair, the water sat on top of it without soaking in, and he had to work it through with his fingers. Luckily, he had a shaver his dad had given him. He hadn't really needed it for anything before, but it was going to come in handy now, he thought as he clicked it on and the blades bit into the dense pelt.
"Yoooowwww..." he hissed under his breath. Christ, it hurt. He ran the shaver back and forth like he was mowing a lawn, and smiled when he saw some white skin peeking through finally. Once he had the curls sufficiently trimmed, he wet them again and this time slathered on shaving cream, running a disposable razor through the remainder. That burned even more, but Dakota was determined. When the razor clogged up, he got a second, then a third, then a fourth, but eventually his chest was pretty smooth. It was also red as the side of a fire truck, but Dakota thought that was a fair trade. He splashed cold water onto it to alleviate the burn, which didn't go away. Then, after putting on a wifebeater, he finally got his phone and went through the frantic texts from Drake.
"I'm fine I shaved it off. I don't know where it came from," he said, adding on the next line, "Maybe a hormone thing?" and then finally "DON'T TELL MOM AND DAD I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU."
"It came from your body unless that was a rly good wig," Drake texted back.
"Do chest wigs exist," Dakota answered, but now that they were joking with each other he found the situation sufficiently defused. As he put his phone down, he looked at the time on the lock screen and realized it was time for the third prayer of the day. Good. That would calm him. Dakota found the PDF and video channel he'd used for his previous prayer and pulled up the Asr prayer, for the afternoon. Facing toward Mecca, or at least where he was pretty sure it was, he shut his eyes and hit play. The voice guided him through it, but Dakota didn't need help. He knew it by heart. Perfect Arabic burst off his tongue as he recited the first Chapter of the Holy Qur’an, Surat al-Fatiha, followed by another complete chapter. He bowed and announced "Subhaana rabbiy al-`azeemi wa bihamdih," then stood up and recited, "Sami`allaahu liman hamidah." 'God hears the one who praises him.' And Dakota loved to praise Allah, he was finding. "Allaahu akbar!"
His utter adoration for Allah was growing, flourishing within him as he got on his knees and humbled himself, pressing his forehead into the ground. "Glory be to my Exalted Lord, and praise belongs to Him," Dakota said, though his tongue twisted it into "Subhaana rabbiy al-a`laa wa bihamdih." And so, Dakota continued to pray, eyes shut, believing his proclamations to Allah far more than he had the first time. Devoting himself made his heart so full. He could feel the warmth in his chest, and it made him smile...and also curiously itchy.
The blond jock was announcing "there is no god apart from Allah, who is unique and without partners" when he felt the pure heat in his upper torso. He chalked it up to his devout, all-encompassing faith, not opening his eyes to see the redness dissipating as his chest hair started growing back in earnest. Black pinpricks erupted over the surface of his pink skin as he stood up to recite the Bihawlillahi and go into the third Rak'ah. The hair squeezed out at the center of his chest first, then crept slowly out to both sides, swirling around his nipples. It then swept up toward his collarbone, and once his chest had reached full coverage, the hair started to grow. Each pump of his heart made it longer, curlier, thicker. It spilled out over the scoop of his tank top, burst out from beneath the straps, and overtook the small blond tufts under his arms to convert them into black thatches. Dakota got back on his knees and prostrated himself again, and gravity helped pull more hair out of him. By the time he was sitting back upright, his pelt was even more extreme than before he shaved it. It even hid his clavicle.
"Allaahu akbar! Allaahu akbar! Allaahu akbar!"
Dakota stood up and opened his eyes, feeling so at peace. He was so excited for the meeting tonight and hoped, with the right timing, that they would all get to pray together. He unlocked the door in case Drake came back, then tugged on a V-neck t-shirt, missing the forest of black curls erupting out of the top. If Dakota looked in the mirror, he would've also noticed the black roots pushing out of his scalp, lurking beneath his tidy blond hair. He didn't even see the lockscreen of his phone, which showed he and his brother arm in arm at their high school graduation party, dressed in matching white polo shirts and khaki shorts. It was nearly impossible to tell which twin was which, aside from the one tell: the one on the right had so much chest hair on view between the open buttons of his polo shirt that it looked like he was wearing a black ascot.