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“Does that count as cheating?”
Ryo glanced up at Akira from his position at the overcrowded vanity before returning to the far more important task of tossing various makeup products into a flying saucer-printed tote bag. “I would hardly call it cheating,” he responds while considering a tube of….something vaguely the color of Ryo’s skin. Akira really didn’t know one way or another, but that was presumably the point of this endeavor. It must have met Ryo’s requirements because it joined its peers in the tote. “I want to at least give you a bit of a chance to do it well and I’m not going to tell you what anything is or how to use it. You’re still on your own there.”
Akira shifted his weight to lean against the doorway of their bedroom. They were just in here to gather the necessary supplies (powders? creams? cement?) for Ryo’s next video: the highly, highly requested “boyfriend does my makeup” challenge. Ryo had been begging him for the better part of a year to do it, but Akira had stood firm on his stance that they should save it for a special occasion. Ryo figured this was just because Akira was afraid to be seen on camera doing makeup, but that was not the problem. Akira had no issues with his masculinity and didn’t think putting things on one’s face should be considered gendered anyway. He watched Ryo do it all the time and even let Ryo put eyeliner on him on the rare occasions that they decided to go out instead of vegetating on their couch and watching conspiracy theory documentaries on TV. No, Akira’s fear had nothing to do with people on the internet thinking he was girly and entirely to do with Ryo’s possible reactions to Akira doing poorly and fucking up his face on camera. This fear was compounded by Ryo’s very much undiscussed with Akira beforehand promise to his followers that they would go out for dinner afterwards with Ryo wearing whatever face Akira gave him.
Akira was 94% sure Ryo wouldn’t kill him, but only 23% sure that he wouldn’t sulk for the rest of the night because Akira can’t do a cat-eye or something. Ryo promised him that he would remain in good humor no matter how it turned out and then promised again when Akira didn’t believe him. Akira still didn’t quite believe him, but 100,000 (100,000!) subscribers had already been promised the pleasure of watching Akira struggle and Ryo suffer. So here they were.
Akira was snapped out of his contemplation of his impending doom by Ryo walking up to him, rustling tote bag in hand and shit-eating grin on his face. “Time for the bloodbath!” he said before leaning down to peck Akira on the cheek and slink past him through the doorway and down the hall to the living room, where they do most of his filming. Akira took a moment in the bedroom doorway to glance up for divine protection - and down as well for good measure, one mustn’t make enemies if one doesn’t have to - before following his boyfriend.
Ryo gently emptied the contents of the bag onto the card table they had set up along with two folding chairs. Akira fiddled with the lights and got the camera focused and in position while Ryo sat at the table looking at his selection of products and fidgeting absentmindedly with his bracelet - an anniversary present that rarely left his person during waking hours. “I think we’re set,” Akira said with one last adjustment to the light before turning to face his boyfriend. “Anything else we need?”
Ryo considered the spread on the table before raising a “one moment” finger to Akira and dashing to the bathroom to return with a hand mirror, which he set face-down on the table. “For when you’re done,” he explained. “We’re good to go now!” After checking the camera one last time to ensure that they wouldn’t relive the rhinestone video incident, Akira joined him behind the table, shared a knowing look and nod of understanding with Ryo, and the pair began making weird poses for 8 seconds at a time while looking at the camera.
This was always Akira’s favorite part of being behind the camera. When he watched Ryo make a video for the first time, he was absolutely bewildered by Ryo’s prolonged period of silently making weird faces into the camera until Ryo caught him watching slack-jawed from across the living room of what was at the time just Ryo’s apartment. He laughingly explained that this was the easiest way to get a good thumbnail for his videos. He would just make a variety of faces at the very beginning of the video, pick out his favorite for the thumbnail, then edit the footage out. This was Akira’s first time engaging in this bizarre practice, though - usually if Ryo wanted him in the thumbnail, he would badly photoshop in the picture of him staring into space while holding a half-eaten burrito because “this image just really captures the Akira experience.” As noted, however, this video was a special occasion.
“Okay, we’re good,” Ryo said after seven different silly faces had been made. “Showtime.” Akira took a second to rearrange himself into a more natural position and Ryo turned back to the camera with a smile.
“Ladies, gentlemen, neither and other, welcome back to whatever this channel is. We have a very special, very highly requested, very long-awaited video in store for you today. About a year ago, you know, back when this was still an actual challenge that people were doing, I asked my dearest love here,” Ryo plopped his hand on Akira’s shoulder as Akira lazily saluted the camera, “to join me for the ‘boyfriend does my makeup challenge,’ and he told me that he would when I reached 100,000 subscribers. 47 videos, 2 misdemeanor charges, and 1 missed court date later, here we are. Thank you all so, so much for liking whatever the fuck content this is enough to come back and click the subscribe button. Y’all have been great and your support and wild speculations about my eyelashes in the comments are what keeps me going. Now to the actual good part: Akira here, my loving, patient, long-suffering boyfriend is going to try to do my makeup and when he’s done, we’re going out to dinner with me wearing his masterpiece on my face. It’s gonna be great.”
“Will it be great?”
“It will be survivable. Let’s get into it.”
------
Akira rummaged through the products on the table. “You know, they really ought to pick a theme and stick with it for makeup terminology.”
Ryo furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, face still bare and hands folded on his lap. “You’ve lost me, babe.”
“Well, I thought they were going with a construction metaphor, and the first step is foundation, right? Like the foundation of a house?” Ryo opened his mouth to reply, but Akira plowed on as he squeezed way too much of a clear balm from a tube onto his fingertips. “But this is called primer and I know for a fact I’ve seen you put this on before anything else. But primer isn’t a construction thing. It’s a painting thing. And not even a like, masterpiece Mona Lisa painting thing, but a wall-painting thing. Which I guess could also be considered to be within a construction metaphor, but you can’t have walls to paint without a foundation first, so that really doesn’t make sense.” With that, he began smearing the absurd amount of silicone onto Ryo’s face and Ryo was forced once more into silence lest he make up for Akira’s excess by eating the primer. When Ryo’s entire face was coated and Akira couldn’t rub it in because there was so much product still on his hands, his face fell. “I’ve fucked up already, haven’t I.”
“Not necessarily….that was just a lot. Maybe wipe it off your hands and a little bit off my face before you try to continue.” Akira wiped his hands off on one of the makeup wipes that Ryo had thankfully thought to put out on the table and proceeded to wipe almost all of the primer off of Ryo’s face. Between the rules of the challenge and his own early-game loss of hope, Ryo didn’t bother saying anything about it. “Okay. What are you gonna gracefully smear on me next?”
---
Ryo had his right eyebrow done (kind of - Akira took one look at the pencil and announced “that is just too much” and just used the spooli to brush through them) when a resounding “thwump” came from the couch.
“What’s up, John?” Ryo asked the 14 year-old pit bull mix as he shuffled his way over to flop at his owner’s feet. Ryo continued to hold his head still as Akira brushed through his left eyebrow but dropped a hand from his lap to dangle by his side. John dutifully raised his head to snuffle against Ryo’s hand and flopped back down with a world-weary sigh.
“Two questions: is this glitter safe for eyes and did you feed him this morning?” Ryo returned his attention to Akira to see him admiring a tube of holographic loose glitter with what can only be described as religious awe.
Wincing at the knowledge that while that glitter was meant for eyes, it wouldn’t adhere correctly without a glitter primer, and telling Akira this was against the rules so Ryo was guaranteed to end up with random glitter flecks all over his face, he responded, “One, yes, that’s fine for eyes, and two, I put food in his bowl but I don’t really know why I bother to continue feeding a dead dog in the first place.” Perhaps in response to his owner’s running joke that he was already dead, John heaved another sigh.
“Stop telling people he’s dead. He’s still, like, 17% alive. Besides, at this point, no one's gonna believe you when he actually does croak. Haven’t you ever heard of the boy who cried wolf?” Ryo didn’t get a chance to respond because Akira was already determinedly trying to put glitter on his eyes and it took all of his concentration to not end up with glitter in his mouth. “Was I supposed to do something else? This isn’t working.” Akira leaned back to assess the situation in full. Ryo was sitting stock-still, one hand in his lap, the other on his questionably-deceased dog, with a face like a man resigned to his tragic fate. “There is glitter everywhere but your eyes.”
Carefully, so as to not swallow the glitter that he could feel on his lips, Ryo responded, “You’re supposed to use a primer for glitter. Like glue when you’re using glitter in crafts.”
“More primer?”
“A different kind of primer.”
“.....there are different kinds?”
“Let’s just accept the glitter for what it is. It’s never coming off. I’m gonna be buried like this. I’m gonna meet Jesus with glitter on my face.”
“Pretty bold of you to assume that you’re not going to Hell and I’m pretty sure Jesus already knows you’re gay so it would be fine anyway.”
“Both points are valid.”
---
“Fuck, how am I supposed to put mascara on you?”
Beneath layers of questionably blended foundation, misplaced contour powder, and holographic glitter flakes, Ryo’s face paled. “Oh, chafing fuck, I never thought about that. Um. Shit.”
Akira held the mascara wand like a knight’s lance. This didn’t make Ryo feel any better about his eyes’ fate. “I’m just gonna…...go in?”
“‘IN’ IS NOT A GOOD WORD WITH MASCARA.”
“Well fuck dude, I don’t know! Try looking up?” Ryo did as he was told. “Oh no. That’s worse. That won’t work. Look down?” Ryo complied once more and Akira gently went in with the wand. So gently it didn’t even connect with his lashes, which was quite a feat considering how long Ryo’s were. Akira took a deep breath, held it, and went in once more to graze the very tips of his boyfriend’s lashes. “Okay, fuck it, that’s it. That’s all you get. I’m not getting any closer to your eyeballs. I like them too much to ruin.”
Even as ridiculous as he knew he looked, Ryo wisely decided to cut his losses before they included his eyesight.
---
“Where’s the spray stuff?” Akira asked while desperately sorting through the products on the table.
“What spray stuff?” Ryo hoped if he played dumb, Akira might abandon the idea of using Ryo’s very expensive setting spray.
“You usually spray yourself in the face with something afterwards. That was the one thing I was looking forward to!” Akira turned back to face Ryo again and he couldn’t bring himself to deny Akira the simple joy of wasting Ryo’s products when he looked that goddamned adorable and hung up on the idea.
“It’s still on my vanity. Do you want to go get it?” Akira nodded excitedly before bolting out of the room. Ryo took the opportunity to face the camera.
“While we’re waiting for him, talk amongst yourselves. The topic: the delicious taste of an ice cold Pepsi, who is not sponsoring this video, but they should be. My email address is in the description.”
“I FOUND IT!” Akira ran back in and flung himself back into his chair with glee. Ryo leaned back in his chair, ready for his fate.
“Go ahead, then.”
Akira held the bottle 4 inches from Ryo’s face and unleashed roughly a third of its contents onto him. When the mist finally settled enough for Ryo to open his eyes, Akira’s face was like that of a child who had just drawn on the wall but hadn’t been caught by his parents yet: he clearly knew that what he had done was wrong, but he had enjoyed the act of doing it way too much to regret it unless he was confronted with severe consequences.
“That’s it! I’m done! You can look now.” Akira handed him the hand mirror with a flourish. Ryo accepted it, crossed himself, and looked at his face.
His entire face was soaked with setting spray, which had caused what little mascara Akira had gotten on his lashes to smudge sad grey circles around his eyes, which were mostly bare despite Akira’s valiant attempt to put glitter on them. Said glitter was spread haphazardly around the rest of his face instead, but this actually helped to distract from the fact that he had unblended contour powder directly on top of his cheekbones. Akira had forgotten that blush was a thing that existed, but made up for it by putting an irresponsible amount of highlight on the apples of his cheeks and down the bridge of his nose. It was all tied together with a metallic blue liquid lipstick that was very much not within Ryo’s natural lipline and Ryo’s undone eyebrows did very little to combat the bottom-heavy nature of the look. All in all, Ryo looked more like an abandoned disco ball than a person with thoughts and opinions about cosmetics.
“What do you think?”
“I would say it’s a special occasion kind of look.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“Getting high and fighting a raccoon over a half-eaten roast beef sandwich in an Arby’s parking lot.”
“Is that where you want to go for dinner? Arby’s? Or just the parking lot?”
“No, I’ll go inside the Arby’s. You worked hard on this look and the employees aren’t paid enough to care what I look like.” Ryo turned back towards the camera. “Alright folks, that was the ‘boyfriend does my makeup challenge.’ Hopefully this glitter will wash off but if it doesn’t, at least my outside matches the inside now. As per usual, the outtakes and the vlog from dinner will go up on Akira’s channel at some point in the next week after I remind him four times. Remember to like, comment, and subscribe down below and to go over the my brother Michael’s channel and leave a comment describing your worst post-Taco Bell experience. Be graphic! Bye!”
With that, Akira rose to turn off the camera and lights while Ryo swept the products off the table back into the tote bag. John, sensing that he was about to be displaced from his comfy position on Ryo’s feet, huffed and shuffled back over to his bed by the couch. The lights, table, and chairs were folded and put back in their place in the corner of the living room and the tote bag and camera were dropped back onto Ryo’s vanity to be dealt with later.
“Ready to go show off your new look?” Akira asked from the door of their apartment as Ryo emerged from the bedroom, 90s windbreaker thrown on over his “Mothman is REAL” t-shirt and acid-washed jeans. Akira, in his typical all-black muscle tee and skinny jeans ensemble, offered Ryo his arm.
Ryo tucked their vlogging camera into his jacket pocket and took the proffered arm. “The question is, is Arby’s ready?”