Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Ugh, not in my mouth, Chi,” Reki grumbles.

Nearly his entire face at this point is covered in chunky, sticky-looking glitter in all different shades, from purples to blues and silvers. There’s a dollop that’s been caught in his hair and matted into a thick and heavy strand, and a random pink smudged of it across his forehead that’s one sudden movement away from falling off with the weight of it.

Langa is loving every second of this.

He’s seated further away from the makeup-themed massacre, legs crossed and relaxed.

Chihiro and Nanaka are taking turns sticking their little chubby fingers into a children’s makeup palette that’s definitely seen better days, talking in babbled nonsense about turning their oldest sibling into a ‘pretty princess’. To be fair to Reki, he’s mostly taking it in stride. It’s clear that he’s used to the invasion of personal space, the grossness of it all, only complaining when Chihiro decides to give him some waxy purple lipstick and subsequently slips her finger past his lips and right onto his gums, from what Langa can tell from his seat of safety.

He’s gotten better at asserting his boundaries when it comes to the twins – he can appreciate them for the little people they are, and can appreciate the bond Reki has with all of his siblings, but activities like this are best left to the pros.

All throughout dinner, the twins had been jumping in their seats in excitement because Reki had begrudgingly agreed to indulge in their planned makeover; when they had set their sights on Langa as well, he immediately sputtered out an excuse about having sensitive skin. Nanaka had asked what that meant and Reki had come to his rescue with a playful scowl, telling them that Langa would break out in itchy red hives if he wore makeup.

He’s eternally grateful that they had taken that for an answer because now he can see that it’s quite a traumatic event.

Reki swipes his tongue across his front teeth and grimaces, smacking his lips together. “Tastes like watermelon. Guess it can’t be toxic if it’s for kids.”

Chihiro’s eyes light up and she dips into the same color again, sticking her tongue to the glob of it. Reki immediately chastises her.

“Nuh uh! That doesn’t mean eat.”

“But it’s watermelon…”

“It’s not food. And I think you two are done, I can barely open my eyes with this sh- stuff on.”

Langa catches the almost-swear and sends Reki an amused look, only to be met with poorly disguised panic. It’s kind of adorable how hard he tries to be a good role model, and with the way the twins are preoccupied with trying to determine all the other flavors of the lip products, they would’ve never caught on in the first place.

They do try to add some ‘finishing touches’ despite Reki’s protests, which Langa covertly captures with his phone’s camera as collateral for their next set of beefs.

They make their grand escape into Reki’s bedroom not long after. Langa curls up in his favorite spot on Reki’s bed, hugging a fluffy pillow to his chest.

He always hangs around for way longer than necessary after dinner and tonight is no exception. The energy in the Kyan household is just so chaotically warm that it feels weird when he makes the trek back home, especially when his mom works nights – she prefers it like this too, knowing that he’s got a full stomach and good company before going home to sleep alone.

It isn’t the ideal situation, but they’re making it work.

Reki usually plops down next to him, and they’ll watch videos or talk about school, or catch up on assignments. Tonight though, he stalks past the bed and digs around one of the drawers of his desk to find something. He pulls out a small blue packet and peels back the clear opening.

“What is that?” Langa asks.

He tries not to look directly at Reki’s face, afraid that he’ll laugh again. He’d held back his snide comments with the kids around, but it was fair game when they ran off screeching and left Reki and Langa to clean up the mess.

“Makeup wipes.”

“I think you’re going to need something more industrial. Maybe whatever Shadow uses-“

“Dude, I know. I might just stick my face into the sink and waterboard myself. Or shower. I wish I could explain to you the smells invading my nostrils right now. It’s like crayons mixed with artificial cherry and plastic.”

Langa chuckles at the description, pulling the pillow in his arms closer up to his face. It’s old and worn, but it smells like Reki’s cologne he’d gotten last Christmas and the scented candles he lights sometimes – a much better aroma in comparison.

“Go shower, then. I’ll be here still.”

“You sure you don’t mind?”

“Nah, I’ll be fine.”

Reki picks up his Switch from its place on a cluttered bookshelf and hands it to Langa before rummaging around for his clothes. It’s kind of funny, how he thinks he has to leave something to keep Langa preoccupied while he’s gone, as if Langa isn’t used to entertaining himself. He’s been an only child for his entire life, and Reki is constantly having to keep small children busy to get a moment of peace. It’s entirely too doting but cute at the same time.

While Reki is cleaning up, Langa does end up turning the Switch on and idly messing around in some Kirby game. He doesn’t know what the objective is or how to manage all the controls, but the colors and noises fill some of the space in his brain that would otherwise be drifting off.

Despite the distractions, some thoughts manage to slip through anyway; he thinks about the fact that Reki has makeup wipes on hand, and the fact that sometimes when he shows up to school, his lashes look a little longer. Occasionally, there’ll be a sharp flick of black elongating the shape of his eyes, accentuating the warmth of golden irises.

He’s known for a while now that Reki dabbles in makeup.

The thing, though, is that Langa is a clueless man when it comes to that stuff. He isn’t sure if there are other products Reki might wear, or if he would even notice a difference. He certainly never notices when his mom has any extra on – doesn’t know the difference between a blush and a bronzer.

He’s still thinking about it when Reki gets back from the bathroom with a towel piled onto his head and his cheeks reddened from the heat (and probably all the scrubbing he’d had to do).

“Hey, Reki?”

“Yeah?”

The towel slips off onto the floor as Reki bends over, shaking out his wild, wet hair with his hands. He stands up straight again and brushes through it with practiced motions, wincing when his fingers get caught up in tangles. Langa turns off the power on the Switch and tosses it further down onto the mattress.

“How did you learn to do makeup?”

The question seems to catch the boy off guard. He pauses in the midst of working some kind of product into his hair, scrunching it up at the roots and working it through the rest. Reki glances over at him, squinting his eyes.

“Uh, I just – kept trying over and over until I liked the way it looked, I guess. Watched a few tutorials when I was like fourteen, and then I was pretty much good to go. Why?”

Langa scoots further back against the bedframe, shrugging his shoulders. “Just wondering. What is it that you do all the time? Eyeliner?”

“Yeah. I know it’s kind of weird. It’s part of my style now, though, and once I started ignoring all the guys in class, they dropped the teasing. Do…do you think it’s weird?”

Reki grabs a brush from the end table and tilts his head over again to work through the messy strands, tugging it in a way that looks downright painful. Even without being able to see his face, it’s obvious that he’s doing that thing again. Getting shy about something so harmless, something that Langa never even considered he might be embarrassed about. He’s weird like that.

Langa tries to backtrack, feeling his heart twist a little – he wishes he could just transfer all of the ways he admires Reki straight to the guy’s brain.

“No. I think it’s cool. If I knew how to do it, I would.”

Reki sends him a quick look from underneath his bangs and his mouth slowly curls up into a grin.

“Really? You would?”

“I mean, I’d probably look closer to how you did before you showered, so I’d never try it on my own. You’ve seen my handwriting. My hands shake too bad.”

Speaking of shaking, Reki is figuratively trembling with excitement now. He hurries through the rest of his halfhearted hair routine, pushing it back from his forehead only for it to flop back over his face right after. He has that look on his face that he gets when he's desperately trying not to talk someone’s ear off about one of his interests. Langa has seen the way he glows when rambling about skating or drawing – he never expected that something like this would have the same effect.

And he never wants Reki to doubt his skills or feel bad about getting excited over the things he loves, so he decides at that moment. He has to treat this the same way.

Reki is clearly trying to simmer it down, shaking his head so vigorously that tiny droplets of moisture hit Langa right on the face. He plops onto the edge of the mattress.

“I could show you if you want. You can wipe it off right after if you hate it, it’s just eyeliner.”

Langa holds back a laugh at the repressed eagerness that bleeds through the pure speed the words are spoken, carefully nodding his head. He still has his own curiosity, though, a kind that isn’t going to budge with a simple line drawn over his eyelids.

“Do you have other makeup?” he asks.

He isn’t sure if it’s the idea of matching Reki, getting to experience those roughened hands on his face, or even the idea of being a little prettier that makes his heart race. He’s never cared before about his looks, so maybe not that third thing, but it’s intriguing for reasons he can’t explain. The only time he’s put anything on his face has been for Halloween back in Canada and that always turned out mediocre at best.

Reki’s eyes widen just a fraction with the question.

“I have mascara. And...um…lip gloss. Some concealer. Dude, I promise it’s not like that, I just grew up with a bunch of girls.”

Langa finds himself smiling. He shuffles around until his legs are lying atop Reki’s lap and he squeezes the pillow in his grasp.

“What do you mean, ‘like that’?”

“You know what I’m talking about. It’s not exactly ‘normal’, or whatever. I’m not-“

Langa stops him immediately.

“So? It doesn’t hurt anyone. It’s okay if you like it. I’m asking you to put it on me, I’m not judging.”

Reki lets out a huff. “Alright, fine. You want all of that stuff?”

“Yep!”

Langa kicks his feet a little, drumming his calves against Reki’s thighs in impatience. The more he thinks about it, the more he really wants to do it. He’ll have to think about what that means later, maybe.

They try at first to sit upright on the floor while Reki drags the eyeliner over his eyelids. It doesn’t work out well.

It’s way more ticklish than Langa had imagined, and he does a horrible job of keeping still. Reki chastises him over and over, having to use a wipe to start again each time Langa startles or blinks too aggressively until his skin actually starts to feel raw and burns at the corners of his eyes.

That’s how he ends up being pushed to lie down instead, given a stuffed animal from the floor to use as a makeshift pillow.

That should be fine, it should be more comfortable like this, but now it’s harder to keep his cool. Every time Reki’s breath hits his cheek he’s reminded of the fact that he’s practically leaned over top of him. His eyes are closed but the image is burned into his mind anyway, full of damp red hair and a concentrated expression with the tip of Reki’s tongue poking out of the side of his mouth.

He’s going to pass out.

Langa feels the eyeliner glide over his skin again and his cheek muscle involuntarily squeezes.

“I’m going to murder you,” Reki threatens right before the cold makeup wipe is pressed into his lashes again. “Keep. Your. Eyes. Relaxed.”

“I’m trying!”

“And you’re failing! You’re gonna look like I punched you in the face.”

Langa takes a deep breath and tries to focus on relaxing. It’s a difficult feat when he feels Reki’s knee budging into his side, the boy shuffling around to get the best angle.

There are a few moments of peace in which nothing happens, a moment free from the tickling sensation, and then Langa’s stomach swoops all of a sudden. Reki fully swings a leg over Langa’s, situating himself right above him. He can’t help but look, and that makes all of the progress of relaxing disappear into the void.

None of Reki’s weight is on him at all because he’s completely upright on his knees, but the view is anything but catastrophic for Langa’s well-being. He swallows harshly, blinking up at him. Reki’s face is settled into an expression of absolute concentration.

“Let me try one more time. Close.”

Langa does as he’s told, letting his eyes fall shut once more. He has to put one hundred percent of his brain power into not making a fool of himself now that his heart is racing, threatening to jump right out of his chest and abandon him. This is not what he thought he was signing up for.

Reki either doesn’t notice his gradual decline into insanity or is nice enough not to comment. He only leans down again, resting the heel of his hand on Langa’s temple to steady the movement of the eyeliner brush. This time, at least, Langa is able to hold still as a statue. He’s afraid to move any part of his body, frozen into complacency while Reki hums a tune above him.

It also takes longer than he’d imagined. Tiny little flicks of a wrist at the outer corner of his eye, fingers pulling his skin taut, another warm exhale that smells like the weird salt crystal toothpaste that Reki uses. Langa is sure that he doesn’t breathe until the small break between each eye.

“Okay, one down. One to go. You were being a baby, man, you see how easy it is not to squeeze your eyelids like that? Keep doing whatever you’re doing,” Reki instructs.

The other eye is somewhat faster now that he’s getting used to the intrusion of personal space. Reki uses his free hand to tilt his face to the side, gripping onto his chin in a way that makes Langa go even slacker, and shit, he is too gay for this. He presses his own hands to the floor to stop himself from doing something stupid.

Eventually, Reki leans back with a triumphant noise.

“A-ha! I am literally an artist. You had me doubting my skill for a minute, but we are so fuckin’ back,” he rambles, audibly capping the lid of the pen.

“Can I open my eyes now?”

“Mhm. You’re gonna kill me, though, because mascara is next and it’s arguably worse.”

In spite of the warning, Langa manages to survive the terrifying mascara wand and the next step, which is the concealer. He doesn’t really know what that part is for, but he genuinely enjoys the way Reki bounces a soft pink sponge against his face for a long stretch of time, dabbing it over his jaw and beneath his eyes. It’s less intrusive and more fun, and they both end up giggling when Reki has to shove the sponge into his skin to get the corners of his nostrils.

Thankfully it doesn’t smell like crayons or plastic, but it does sit sort of heavy on him. When he voices that thought, Reki just shrugs.

“Eh, you get used to it. After a while, you barely notice it’s there.”

“Wait, how often do you put this stuff on?”

“Um, usually only when I have to go somewhere in the morning after S. It’s good for hiding dark circles,” he says.

Langa frowns. “Maybe we should try to get back earlier, then, if you’re not getting enough sleep.”

In typical fashion, Reki pays no mind to the concern, disregarding it with a roll of his eyes. He’s close enough that Langa can actually see what he’s talking about, the faint purple half-moons that he might not have thought about previously. They’re not what he usually pays attention to when he’s got other things to look at – namely the freckles dotting that smooth skin, the faded scar above his lip, the chipped canine tooth from a skating incident that happened long before Langa ever showed up.

There are so many details to take in and memorize, and now he has a new one.

Reki tilts his head, looking down at him with a sigh.

“We’d miss all the good stuff if we left early. I’ll have time to sleep when I’m dead.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Sorry.”

Reki’s cheeks darken as he reaches back into his small pouch of supplies, retrieving a tiny black rectangular thing. He glances over it for half a second before a look of realization crosses his features.

“Oh, I forgot about this! Think I stole it from Koyomi. Here, close your eyes again.”

With absolutely no idea what he’s about to experience, Langa listens anyway, trying to keep up the trust he has that he isn’t going to get one of his eyes poked out. It didn’t look like anything particularly painful, but he had no idea what the thing was.

After a few seconds, he doesn’t feel any sort of tool at all. Instead, it’s Reki’s fingertip smoothing over his eyelids, a soft swipe that makes him tilt his head toward the touch. It doesn’t feel like there’s anything being put onto his face. He supposes there must be though, as that same fingertip then glides across each of his cheekbones in the same manner.

Reki laughs and he hears a plastic lid being snapped shut once more.

“Dude, you’re enjoying this way too much. Stop smilin’ like that,” he chastises.

Langa tries to school his features, having no idea what his face is doing without his permission. He’s glad for the concealer stuff because he can feel his own cheeks heating up at the acknowledgment. God. One day he’s going to slip up and do something unexplainable – Reki has that effect on him, unfortunately.

Cracking an eye open, he sees Reki leaning over to the side to find another product, this time something tube-shaped much like the mascara and eyeliner. When he unscrews the cap, however, it makes a weird popping noise as the applicator is pulled out. The stuff coating it is shimmery and light pink and Reki turns back to him with it pointing straight at his face.

“Okay. Last thing. I’m gonna ask again if you really want lip gloss, but you have to say yes because I really want to see it.”

Reki’s voice is firm, causing Langa to laugh again. It shakes both of them, as Reki has taken to finally settling some of his weight in Langa’s lap; he’s only aware of that fact because he was worried about Reki’s comfort previously when he was hovering. That’s the only reason. Obviously.

He tries really hard not to think about what Reki is saying and instead nods just as firmly.

“Yes.”

“You have no backbone,” Reki tuts, leaning forward for the final time.

He puts one hand on Langa’s chin and holds it in place, using the other to apply the lip gloss. It’s immediately just as cold as the concealer had been, making him shiver, and he can’t help but stare up at Reki’s focused expression the entire time. His bottom lip is caught between his teeth and that chipped tooth is on full display, distracting Langa from the foreign sensation of sticky gloss on his own mouth.

Reki nudges the applicator between the seam of his lips with a huff.

“Here, look. Do this,” he says, pursing his own lips into a kissy face.

Langa tries to copy it to the best of his ability, but he feels absolutely ridiculous the entire time.

As far as sensory stuff goes, this is definitely the worst of it. The product is thick and weird and has a scent not unlike the strong dessert-themed wax melts his mom used to have. When Reki is done, he smacks his lips together a few times to try to acclimate to it.

“It feels like I tried to eat Vaseline. How do you deal with that?” he asks.

Reki snorts and shoves the tube back into the pouch, zipping it up quickly. He clambers off of Langa’s lap, giving him full range to finally take a deep breath without feeling like he’s somehow moving too much.

“I don’t wear that. I’m already the school’s outcast, I don’t need to show up in pink glitter,” Reki grumbles.

The smile on his face completely contradicts the words, but then he’s offering a hand and pulling Langa up from the ground almost effortlessly. Langa keeps ahold of his arm after he gets balanced on his feet, tugging Reki closer.

“You’re so mean to yourself. Be nice to my best friend.”

“Okay, weirdo. Here, come check out your new look.”

“Not until you say you’re not an outcast.”

Reki pouts, so Langa simply holds onto his arm tighter to prove his point. He really doesn’t appreciate the self-degradation, even if he is trying to keep the mood light. Reki narrows his eyes.

“That’s not really my choice, Langa. They’re the ones who decided that.”

“Did they say that?”

“No, but you hear the shit they do say about me. I tell you all the time that your repetition would be the same by now if you didn’t look like a literal prince.”

“Well, they’re dumb, then. At least say that they’re dumb,” Langa bargains.

He would argue about the prince thing because he has ears and has certainly never heard another soul utter that other than Reki, but that’s a whole different subject. The attempts to distract him aren’t going to work.

Reki tries to stay stern, but he ends up barking out a laugh on his way to drag Langa to the mirror.

“Whatever, they’re dumb!”

The person in the mirror does not look like Langa. He realizes now, staring back at his reflection, that the stuff Reki had rubbed onto his eyelids and cheeks is something pale and shimmery, giving his skin a glow that it normally never has.

The eyeliner is the most prominent part, a thin black line that points out and up much like Reki’s usually does with sharp ends. His lashes are unnaturally black, too, a stark contrast to the blond wispy things he’s used to seeing. For a while, he doesn’t really notice the effect of the concealer, until he realizes that his acne scars are practically invisible from where they normally sit on each side of his jaw.

Damn. He knows Reki is quite literally an artist, but this is different. He looks, like, kind of pretty?

Definitely softer, more blurred around the edges. The pink lip gloss is the only part he still doesn’t enjoy. He thinks it would much better suit Reki’s face than his own. That has its own merits, too, though, at least covering up the chapped lips he’s gotten from too much time in the sun.

He reaches up to touch his cheek, turning his head back and forth to watch the pink-toned silver shimmer catch the light. That is until he catches Reki’s eyes on his face as well and he backs up, trying to cover how obvious it is that he’s enjoying it all.

“Too much?” Reki asks.

Langa shakes his head instantly. “It’s crazy, Reki. I didn’t know it would change my face so much.”

“What? Come on, you still look like you. Maybe an elevated, K-Pop version of you, but I didn’t do as much as I could have. You’ve just got a good face.”

“You think my face is good?” Langa questions, grinning.

His eyes are still flickering back and forth between the two of them. He keeps getting distracted by the way he can see the mascara in his field of vision every time he blinks.

Reki shoves his shoulder with a clearly unintentional roughness.

“Don’t suddenly get an ego just because you’re all dolled up.”

“Do you like it, Reki?” He asks.

He can’t help it. Suddenly it’s a dire matter whether the other boy thinks it’s good, too.

He tries to convince himself it’s not his fault when Reki flushes and shoves his own face into his hands, letting out a frustrated groan. When he peeks out from behind his fingers, Langa has already spun around to face him, causing him to stumble back a few steps.

“Yeah. It’s nice.”

“Then we should both wear it to school on Monday. Lip gloss too.”