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It’s a dress rehearsal.
Ochako would never be able to understand how ballerinas could tie their shoes so flawlessly. It seems almost like an art—move, move, knot, move move, knot. And then to stand directly on one’s toes—she can’t even begin to imagine how much that hurts, at first. But she also can’t imagine how exciting it must be to start being en pointe when someone’s basically been preparing for it their whole life. She distantly recalls when her parents signed her up for lessons as well, before Ochako decided to quit so they wouldn’t have to pay for them. She remembers her instructor—despite only having said instructor for about three weeks—always had to tie her slippers for her.
Stage makeup is very different than day-to-day makeup. Day-to-day makeup is simple, easy—the only lighting that matters is typically the sun, because the makeup isn’t meant to be seen from who knows how many meters away. Show makeup, on the other hand, is very dramatic. Ochako is convinced it’s good practice though, so when Izuku told her about this opportunity to paint some stranger’s faces for extra cash… Well, Ochako’s never been a liar. Cash means supporting herself, and supporting herself means less of a strain on her parents and their wallets.
Her current client—a boy with white and red-dyed hair, the red side shaven so his hair is an undercut—is very good at keeping still as she applies his foundation on. “Do you cover up the scar?” Ochako hums. Her client seems shocked at the question, and his different-colored eyes meet hers as he parts his lips to answer:
“Can you… not cover up? Most makeup artists cover it up automatically. You’d be the first to ask,” he admits. Ochako lets out a noise of acknowledgement. The Yuuei Dance Company, from her experience, was very loose in sense of appearance for its dancers. Ochako’s seen larger dancers here than she has at the few other dance companies she had worked for. She carefully makes sure to avoid painting the scar with the pale foundation, and smiles at the boy.
“You’re very good at staying still,” Ochako comments, grabbing eyeliner and tentatively dragging it across his eyelid. She wings it gently, and goes back to the corner of his eye and makes the line thicker. She moves to the other side, and tries her very best to make them look the same. She bites her lip—the one on the left looks nicer but she has more pressing issues to deal with. She dusts more bronzer and highlighter on his face, and she adds a bit (a lot) of eyeshadow around his eyes. “Done!” Ochako smiles.
The dancer nods at her. “Thank you.”
He leaves the vicinity, and the breath nearly escapes Ochako’s entire body when a very pretty girl walks through the door. She’s short—shorter than Ochako—and in her opinion, much prettier. Her hair is a dark green, and it reminds her a lot of Izuku. “Hello,” the girl says. “The other makeup artist waved me off. Are you Angel Face?” she asks, tilting her head. Adorably, Ochako mentally adds.
“A-Angel Face?” She knows that’s what Bakugou calls her, but hearing this pretty girl call her that makes it sound more like a compliment than a half-assed insult. “Yeah, that’s me. Bakugou calls me that,” she scrunches up her nose. “Want to sit down?”
The girl moves quickly, placing herself down on the stool. The lights make her skin glow, the deeply tanned skin looking gold. “Oh,” Ochako murmurs. “You’re very pretty. I don’t think I can do much, otherwise the makeup will overpower your natural beauty,” she says to herself. Izuku is really rubbing off on her. She blinks silently, before feeling a hot flush fill her cheeks. “Um…!” she shuts her eyes.
“Oh,” the girl doesn’t look bothered. “You’re also very pretty. I like your blush.”
Ochako thought she managed to calm herself down. After the girl said that, she really wasn’t calm. “Uraraka Ochako,” she introduces. The girl quirks a smile.
“Asui Tsuyu. But please, call me Tsuyu. How long have you been doing stage makeup?”
“Almost as long as I’ve been going to school,” she says, moving to dust Tsuyu’s face with powder. “I only did ballet myself for a very short amount of time, but it was enough time to see how the grown-ups did their makeup and how… dramatic it looked. I really liked it as much as any six year old would, so I would sneak into my mother’s makeup supply and make a mess of myself. I slowly got better at it, and I really liked it so I went to school for it,” Ochako says. Tsuyu hums.
“I’ve been doing dance for a very long time,” Tsuyu says. “I learned how to tie a ballet slipper before I learned to speak. I didn’t learn how to speak until I was five,” she sounds nostalgic. “Ballet is what I’ve been doing the most, but I know different kinds of styles, as I think most dancers should. If you love to dance, dancing as a job can be taxing. Other types of dance can be something theraputic, you know? I can do tap, swing, and ballroom, and I’m learning contemporary right now,” she says. Her voice is steady but Ochako can hear the pride in her voice.
“Where did you learn?” she asks, brushing heavy bronzer onto Tsuyu’s cheekbones. She has very nice cheekbones.
“Right here,” Tsuyu responds.
“Oh,” Ochako says dumbly. “I thought Yuuei was a ballet school…?”
“No, no—Yuuei’s academy is most famously a ballet school, but it houses a whole bunch of different dance styles, plus the training for stage crew and behind the scenes people. You know Bakugou—he does breakdance and hip hop and he doubles as a makeup artist. Midoriya-chan does every single dance department he managed to get into, which is ballet, swing, tap, contemporary, and tango. It’s kind of scary,” Tsuyu smiles. “He loves to dance, doesn’t he?”
Talking about Izuku always makes Ochako’s tummy feel funny. She loves him, he’s her best friend and they went through everything together. “He loves to love, I think,” Ochako breathes out. She switches out the bronzer for intense highlighter, lightly tipping it on Tsuyu’s cute little nose. “He loves to love to dance. Growing up, he wanted to be just like All Might, the best dancer in the entire world. Not because he wanted to be famous, but because he loves to dance. So when he met All Might at his beat, run-down studio where the AC is broken and floor is so worn down it creaks… it was a dream come true. And All Might chose him, out of all the studios he scouted, he chose Izuku. He’s juicing his opportunity while he still can. I don’t think he thinks it’s real, you know—the fact he got in on a scholarship from All Might, dancer supreme.”
“I understand,” Tsuyu says. “I’m a self-taught dancer, mostly, so auditions were really scary. My parents were always working, so I had to be home a lot to take care of my little brother and sister. But I passed, so here I am,” she pauses. “Why don’t you come here? You’re very good at the stage makeup,” Tsuyu asks. Ochako’s hand is shaking a little.
“My parents don’t have a lot of money,” Ochako says. “I do these little jobs for different companies—I’m usually just a backup makeup artist. We’re only seventeen, so as a means to make myself useful, I do stage makeup. Though, this is first time I’ve done it for Yuuei, and to people my age.”
Tsuyu flutters her eyes shut as Ochako dusts her eyelids in green. Green to match her tutu, green to match her shoes—
“How do you tie ballet slippers?” Ochako blurts out. Tsuyu tries to open her eyes in shock, but only manages to open one since Ochako’s eyeshadow brush is still pressed to her eyelid. Tsuyu lets out a very cute giggle that kind of sounds like a ribbit if you thought to much about it.
A very distracting smile makes itself known on Tsuyu’s lips. “Meet me at the ice cream shop on down the street, and I’ll teach you.”
If Ochako wasn’t so careful, she would’ve dropped her brush and the eyeliner pen currently held in her mouth. She stares at Tsuyu for a good few seconds, before coughing into her hand, moving the brush away and taking the eyeliner out of her mouth.
“I… I think I’d like that,” Ochako says, and Tsuyu beams. Tsuyu grabs the eyeliner from Ochako’s hand, uncaps it gently, and scrawls out a series of numbers on Ochako’s wrist. Oh, Ochako realizes dumbly. It’s her phone number.
Ochako stares at Tsuyu, jaw dropped slightly, and only remembers to close it when Tsuyu presses her fingers to Ochako’s chin. “See you there, then.” Tsuyu says softly. Ochako smile at her, and finishes up Tsuyu’s makeup, dropping pearls of questions here and there. Another smile makes its way on her face once Tsuyu leaves, her hair bouncing about behind her, ballet slippers still in hand, waiting to be tied.
She can’t wait to learn how to tie ballet slippers.