Work Text:
When he woke up, it was with a splitting headache and the sour taste of sleep in his mouth. He took a minute to remember where he was, staring at the familiar stars shining dimly on his ceiling. He couldn’t remember getting home, but when he took stock of his skin to make sure he had no new bruises, his arms were clear, only the faint splotches of yellow from last week fading on his upper arms. He frowned, sitting up and holding his head gently, cool palms soothing the ache.
Vaguely, he remembered that it was a school day, a glance at his phone confirming this. He couldn’t remember going to school before, but he was sure he had at some point, or else there probably would’ve been consequences of some sort. He yawned, stretching like a cat, one arm extended above his head. Right on cue, his mom knocked on the door.
“Yuugi, are you awake? Don’t forget to shower, okay?” she called, not waiting for an answer before moving away. He frowned, patting his hair and grimacing when it came away sticky. He’d slept with his gel in again, it seems...
Yuugi stood up, rolling his neck and padding out the door to the linen closet, grabbing a couple of towels and tucking them under his arm, yawning again en route to the bathroom. He passed his grandpa in the hall, who gave him a kind of squinty look, but Yuugi just chalked it up to Grandpa not putting in his contacts yet.
--
After his shower, he felt a lot better. Lighter, without the gel weighing his hair down. It was as he was looking in the cabinet (standing on a stool, much to his eternal embarrassment) for some Q-tips when he found it and a jolt of something familiar struck him like lightning. He pulled out the tube, frowning slightly as he turned it over in his hands.
[“Hold still, ****! I’ll mess it up!”]
He didn’t know why, but......he wanted, no, needed, to put this on. He grabbed a handful of Q-tips and closed the cabinet, moving his stool over to the sink and climbing on again. He dropped the eyeliner on the counter, using the towel wrapped around his hair to gently pat his face dry before unscrewing the tube.
He leaned in close to the mirror, holding down his left eyelid and carefully drawing a thick line just above his eyelashes, twitching slightly at the chill. He finished with a thin point about two centimeters past the corner of his eye, waiting for a few minutes before repeating the process with his other eye. Moving almost on autopilot, he dipped the brush back into the eyeliner, pulling down his lower lid and starting to trace the waterline, with a thinner line this time. He didn’t extend this one, instead drawing an angled line from the tip of the wing to the outer edge of the line on his bottom lid.
Again, he repeated the process, letting it dry before looking in the mirror again and smiling. This.......felt nice, for some reason. He laughed softly, shaking his head and closing the tube, carefully putting it back where he found it. He’d give it a shot today, and maybe this afternoon, he could ask his mom to buy him some.
He dried his hair, shaking out the water and putting it up in a high ponytail, wrapping the discarded towel around his shoulders before returning to his room.
It wouldn’t hurt to try a new addition to his look, right?