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Wan Tong starts smirking about halfway into watching Ding Rong help Wang Zhi get ready, a fact which is not exactly comforting. It’s worse when Ding Rong himself gets a little bit of a mirthful glimmer in his eyes, though Wang Zhi isn’t totally sure whether it’s humor or Ding Rong’s general fondness that he’s seeing.
Wang Zhi grabs the wrist of the hand hovering over his face, frowning. “What’s so funny?”
Ding Rong’s brow furrows and he tilts his head, confused.
Standing over by the doorway, in front of the bulletin where various reminders are pinned, Wan Tong insists, “You look great,” but he also holds up his phone a moment later and takes a quick photo, the shutter clicking loudly in the dressing room.
Ding Rong whirls around. “Shouldn’t you be starting your shift?” he barks, and Wan Tong straightens up at the scolding, adjusting his cape and pulling a face that seems unwise, given the number of times Ding Rong has come back from work to report that Wan Tong’s mustache had fallen off again.
“And what are you doing?” he retorts, but whirls around and scurries out of the dressing room before he can receive a response.
Ding Rong rolls his eyes and turns back to Wang Zhi, who’s been watching the exchange, his uncertainty evaporating. It isn’t that Ding Rong is doing a poor job with his makeup, Wang Zhi realizes. It’s just that Wan Tong is an ass.
“Are you nearly finished?” Wang Zhi asks as Ding Rong leans forward to resume applying his eye makeup.
Ding Rong doesn’t even blink as he carefully pencils in a wing along the slant of Wang Zhi’s eye. “Don’t worry,” he murmurs, “Sui lao-ban knows it takes rookies a little longer to get ready.”
It’s not that, Wang Zhi wants to say. His curiosity is about to kill him.
But he sits still for Ding Rong, watching how Ding Rong’s eyes, already lined dramatically for the dim lighting of their section, dart back and forth while he hovers in front of Wang Zhi. The tip of Ding Rong’s tongues starts to stick out a little between his lips as he works, not unlike it does when he’s concentrating on a script at home.
Wang Zhi wonders sometimes if Ding Rong knows he does this, but he’ll never ask. He forces a down laugh, not wanting to interrupt Ding Rong’s focus, and folds his hands in his lap, examining the texture of Ding Rong’s skin under his makeup. Tracing the curves of his face with his eyes.
Eventually, Ding Rong leans back and nods, tongue disappearing back into his mouth as he finally allows himself to blink his eyes, which have started to take on reddish, glazed-over quality.
“Alright,” he declares.
Wang Zhi sits up in the makeup chair. “Done?”
The corners of Ding Rong’s mouth curve up, but he reaches out, grabbing onto the armrests of the chair and trapping Wang Zhi into the seat, not allowing him to turn toward the mirror just yet.
“Do you want to see yourself, Wang du-gong?” he says, teasing.
Wang Zhi crosses his arms. “Will you let me, Ding”—he hesitates, trying to remember if Ding Rong’s character has an official title—“x-xiansheng?”
The amusement that always creeps into Ding Rong’s expression slowly bursts into a full grin. He spins Wang Zhi’s chair around, finally letting him see what he’s done.
“Duang,” Ding Rong sings quietly, which Wang Zhi finds far more intriguing than anything he could ever see in the mirror.
His eyes go first to the reflection of Ding Rong standing over his shoulder, looking on with a satisfied expression. Then his gaze drops down, following Ding Rong’s gaze to his own face.
It’s funny, he thinks. He’s used to seeing Ding Rong’s makeup—the powder-white face and slanted brows—the fierce eyes. He’d met Ding Rong in full makeup, before they even ran into each other on campus. The theatre-level makeup looks more or less normal on Ding Rong, as far as Wang Zhi is concerned.
It looks strange on him, though. He looks like someone else. Not bad—just different. Like a character on television, on one of those CCTV channels that broadcast reruns of old opera recordings.
His look is a little different from Ding Rong’s—less devious, more radiant. Wang Zhi wants to object—if he’s the Commander of the Western Depot, shouldn’t he look scary, too? But then he remembers that Ding Rong didn’t just invent the makeup pattern himself. This is what the patrons want.
Anyway, the blended rouge on his cheeks matches the red of the costume he still needs to put on, whereas the harsh, grim lines of Ding Rong’s face pairs well with the plum robes of the calculating Deputy Commander of the Western Depot.
“You didn’t do my lips yet,” Wang Zhi notes after a moment.
Ding Rong’s hand closes on the back of his neck, squeezing lightly. “That’s last,” he says.
Wang Zhi hunches his shoulders, a shiver attempting to crawl through him at Ding Rong’s touch. “What else is there to do?” he asks. During the job training, Yang Fu had said that it was always hair, makeup, and then costume.
“Come on.” Ding Rong pulls Wang Zhi up to go put on the red robes hanging up on the rack under the label ‘WESTERN DEPOT COMMANDER—WANG ZHI’.
Beside it is Yang Fu’s version of the costume, hung up crooked on its hanger. Wang Zhi raises his eyebrows at the disarray, and at the fact that he can see some wear and tear in the silk embroidery. He won’t be letting his costume fall to disrepair any time soon.
Ding Rong helps Wang Zhi into the robes, fastening the sash around his waist and straightening the fold across his chest.
“Are you ready?” he asks, turning and plucking Wang Zhi’s hat off the high shelf he would have had to stretch for on his own.
“Of course,” Wang Zhi says at once.
“Training is one thing,” Ding Rong reminds him, placing the hat on Wang Zhi’s head and producing several pins, seemingly from thin air. “Do you think you’ll need these?”
Wang Zhi turns his head one way and then the other, and the hat remains atop his head, no sign of toppling off.
Ding Rong slips the hairpins back into the pocket of his skirt and Wang Zhi is impressed. He hadn’t realised there were pockets in these costumes, and he checks along his own skirt, only to find that there are no openings.
Disappointing. He can’t keep his phone on his person, then, he supposes.
He smooths his palms down the front of his costume. “Should we head out?” he asks.
“Your makeup isn’t done yet,” Ding Rong reminds him.
He frowns and starts to ask, “And why”—but then he sees Ding Rong’s eyes flick past him, toward where the doorway that stands over his shoulder.
They flick back, and then Wang Zhi knows what Ding Rong is about to do even before he feels the hands on his hips.
“Ah,” he says, and ruins the first kiss Ding Rong tries to give him by smiling too widely. He can’t help but be amused by it all.
Lips meeting Wang Zhi’s teeth, Ding Rong makes an affronted noise and starts to step back.
Wang Zhi grabs the utility straps hanging off Ding Rong’s belt, reeling him in again at once, greedily snatching back what had been offered to him.
Ding Rong’s lips are warm and familiar against his, mouth still tasting slightly of the chrysanthemum-mint gum he’d only spit out once he’d finished taping back parts of Wang Zhi’s face and had helped him put on his wig.
Wang Zhi cups the back of Ding Rong’s neck, pulling him down closer even as he tips up on his toes to meet him. He’s careful about not touching Ding Rong’s face, but he tilts his head to find a better angle to kiss Ding Rong at—one where their noses would brush together.
And while Wang Zhi knows the clock is ticking as he licks into Ding Rong’s mouth, brushing his tongue over the inside of his lip, who is he to deny Ding Rong something that he has clearly planned for?
“I see,” Wang Zhi says when they part. “Is that why you didn’t paint my lips?”
“Yes.” Ding Rong doesn’t go far, arms staying looped around Wang Zhi. The careful line between the red of his painted lips and the white of his face is blurred around his mouth, particularly around his lower lip.
“Your makeup is smudged,” Wang Zhi informs him, and wonders whether it has smudged off on him. He pulls away, turning around to find a mirror and check.
“Easier to fix my own than yours,” Ding Rong says, following Wang Zhi back to the makeup chair.
Wang Zhi supposes that must be true. Ding Rong has been working here longer than the few weeks he has been doing job training before opening time. Ding Rong must be a quick hand at covering any mistakes by now. Anyway, all said and done, the kiss hadn’t smeared much of anything on Wang Zhi’s face, something Ding Rong surely took into consideration before he made any decisions..
He leans close to the mirror and sees that he’s merely picked up some of the tint of Ding Rong’s lips. Then he checks his teeth. Ah. There’s some more dark red there.
Wang Zhi rubs it away with a finger. “Bit of a hassle, don’t you think?” he says, settling back into the makeup chair without needing to be told.
Ding Rong picks up a little tube from the rows of brushes and palettes that occupies the space in front of the mirror.
Staring up at him, Wang Zhi leers. “You just wanted to kiss me in character, didn’t you?”
There’s a little bit of a smile on Ding Rong’s face as he nears Wang Zhi and he darts forward, giving him another peck but ducking away before Wang Zhi can do anything back.
“Sit still,” Ding Rong says, uncapping the tube of—lipstick, Wang Zhi guesses, though there is a brush inside and it doesn’t look anything like his mother’s lipstick.
He freezes obediently, pursing his lips for Ding Rong, even though he senses that it isn’t wholly necessary.
“A kiss for luck, then?” Wang Zhi concludes after Ding Rong straightens up but still hasn’t responded to his earlier remark. “Is it that you’ve become superstitious, or do you just think I won’t perform well? ‘Training is one thing’, after all.”
“Of course you’ll do well,” Ding Rong says at once. He’s already turning to check his own reflection, picking up a package of wipes and carefully cleaning away the smudged lipstick around his mouth, preparing to cover up all traces of their kiss. He meets Wang Zhi’s gaze in the mirror and pauses. “But a little more luck can’t hurt, even if it’s only from me.”
Wang Zhi rolls his eyes. “Only,” he repeats. “Don’t be self-deprecating, Ding Rong. It makes you look like a liar.”
Ding Rong snorts and Wang Zhi climbs out of the makeup chair. He checks his appearance once more, reminding himself that he is the commander of a secret police force now.
Everyone is a dirt beneath my feet.
He stands up straighter.
I have no friends and trust nobody.
He hunches over again a little, and then glances at Ding Rong, who is still reapplying parts of his look, his hand moving quickly and steadily.
“Go on,” he says softly. “I’ll see you out there.”
“Try not to act too in love with me,” Wang Zhi jokes, and sees Ding Rong’s eyes dart up, eyebrows visibly lifting even through the heavy makeup, or perhaps especially because of it.
“Patrons will start to make up story lines,” Wang Zhi smirks. And Yang Fu won’t be very happy about that. He and A’lasi, Ding Rong’s alternate, hate each other passionately, from what Wang Zhi understands.
Before Ding Rong can respond, the dressing room door bursts open and Tang Fan scrambles inside, half in costume but also wearing a puffy coat that says he’s just arrived.
“Help me!” he wails to nobody in particular, already throwing his coat off.
Smirking, Wang Zhi heads for the exit, shrugging helplessly at Tang Fan as he passes. Ding Rong can take care of it, or call over someone else to help on the radios that all the hosts carry.
Wang Zhi looks over his shoulder when he reaches the door, though, and catches Ding Rong’s eye just as he turns around, putting down the palette box in his hand.
“I’ll be in Huanyi Lou first,” he says, and Ding Rong nods.
Wang Zhi smiles and blows a kiss, and sees Ding Rong starting to frown as pushes open the door with his back.
“For luck,” he says, though he’s not sure if Ding Rong hears it. He lets his smile drop as he turns, pulling on the mask of Commander of the Western Depot. He steps into the dark corridor beyond the dressing room, and back in time six hundred years.