Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

tanjiro stares at your makeup with interest for the second time that day. he’s always had a weird interest for it, not that you ever really minded, but it started to get concerning whenever he would sniff at the air and then squint at it.

“tanjiro, love,” you call from next to him, “why do you keep looking at my makeup?”

he flinches a tad, but let’s out a chuckle at the realization that he’s been caught, “it has an interesting scent, that’s all. the colors are very pretty as well.”

you consider your next words carefully, “okay, well, do you want to go by the store to get foundation and concealer in your skin tone and then come back to do your makeup here?”

his eyes are wide with excitement. it’s like he’s been waiting for you to ask him about this.

the trip to the store takes 30 minutes due to tanjiro’s facsination with the products. he asked about almost everything he came across, and while it was endearing, it was also time consuming. luckily, finding his skin tone didn’t take much time at all.

now he sits at your vanity with you, paying close attention to how you rearrange everything on the surface. you pick up a beauty blender along with the newly bought foundation, bringing it close to your nose to smell it.

“it smells good,” tanjiro’s almost bouncing at this point. you have to put a hand on him.

you squirt the foundation onto the back of your hand, dabbing it onto the beauty blender squished in your hand.

“i’m not gonna cover up your scar, okay,” your statement is more of a question.

“okay,” he nods, “should i close my eyes?”

“you can if you want to,” you shrug, dabbing the sponge onto his cheeks and browbones.

he closes his eyes and starts to talk animatedly, telling you about the stupid thing that zenitsu and inosuke had done during school that week. he tells you about nezuko and how she has a crush on zenitsu, and how she’s planning to confess to him.

you respond immediately whenever he waits for your input, wiping concealer onto his face and then blending it.

“maybe she should bake him something with a confession on it,” you suggest, taking his jaw gently into your hands and turning it gently to the side.

“he might die though,” tanjiro seems genuinely concerned, but knowing zenitsu you can’t really blame him.

“true,” you hum, dipping your brush into your bronzer, “heartfelt letter with a bag of cookies? tuck in your cheeks really quick.”

he answers after you're done with the bronzer, “as long as he’s not around her, it could work.”

“do you want a certain color for your eyeshadow,” you twist your brow pencil between your fingers before you lean towards his face.

“green please,” he says, “should i be still?”

“unless you want crooked eyebrows, then yes,” you laugh, putting your forearm on the top of his head and holding the pencil to his brow.

“they’re that bad,” he exclaims as soon as your arm hits the top of his head.

“no, it’s just to help keep my hand steady,” a kiss on his brow bone before you start to draw.

he hums in acknowledgment, eyes shyly fluttering open to stare at your concentrated face.

“why’d you open your eyes?”

“you just look cute whenever you’re focused,” his smile is wide and his eyes almost remind you of a puppy’s.

you ignore the heat that spreads on your cheeks, deciding to keep quiet and to grip the pencil tighter in your hands. you work on his brows in silence, struggling to ignore the way tanjiro’s big eyes stare at you.

he starts bouncing again whenever he sees you grab your eyeshadow pallet. you laugh at how he tries to get a look closer whenever you actually open it up. you choose a forest green for the base, deciding that you’d go back and top it off with a layer of glitter of the same color.

he leans forward whenever you start to tap the excess off of the brush. you gently start spreading the makeup across his eyelid, tongue poking out of the corner of your mouth. you do the same to the other eye. swiftly grabbing another, more, flat brush, you dip it into the shiny green and then tap off the excess. you brush it against the corner of his eyes, slowly blending it to mix pleasantly with the base.

“open,” you say, his eyes flutter open.

“do you want eyelashes,” you start to look around for your eyeliner.

“sure,” he says giddily, once against closing his eyes when you inch towards him.

neither of you speak while applying the eyeliner, you can’t afford to mess this up. luck seems to be on your side, considering the nice neat wing that tanjiro has on his eye. whenever you do his other eye, it looks a little wonky, but not enough to be noticeable. i mean—it was if you looked closely.

he watches you apply glue to the thin and long eyelashes, hands struggling to stay still.

“do i look pretty,” his question makes you snicker.

“of course, baby,” you coo and carefully stick the eyelash onto his eye.

“you know,” he starts, “tengen once did mine, zenitsu, and inosuke’s makeup.”

you snort while trying to apply the other eyelash, “did it look good?”

“according to the women around us, not at all,” he flutters his eyelashes again, this time a lot faster than before.

“these are heavy,” he frowns and blinks.

“heavy?”

“i feel like i’m fighting to keep them open,” you notice that his eyes are starting to water.

you can’t even lie and say you haven’t been there. you hand him mascara to put on.

“well, you’re all done now,” you clap and then stretch your arms up.

“can we go out? i wanna show off your work,” tanjiro really does look good with the makeup on.

“yea, where do you wanna go?”

“to get food.”

ah. now you have to make sure he doesn’t ruin his foundation.

Chapter Text

as much as you love and adore zenitsu, his staring and hovering is becoming annoying. you’ve been doing your makeup for the past hour since the two of you had plans to go to the park later on. but with the feeling of his eyes on you nonstop makes you uncomfortable.

you pause and stare at him through the mirror.

“babe.” you raise an eyebrow, “do you want me to do your makeup?”

this causes an uproar, “w-whaaaaa?! why would you assume i want my makeup done?!”

“you’ve been staring the whole time!!” you shout, eye twitching.

he goes quiet and his face turns serious, “in that case, yes.”

you sigh and bring up a chair for him to sit on. he plops down giggling, childishly kicking his feet back and forth against the tatami flooring. somehow, you manage to find a foundation in zenitsu’s skin tone, mostly because you bought it for him because of how much he stares. you almost want to get up and dance because knowing zenitsu, he’d make a big deal about running to the store.

giggling, he says, “i’m going to be as pretty as you, (name)! or at least at the same level!”

you smile while starting to apply the foundation around his face, “thank you.”

“don’t thank me for being truthful,” he exclaims obnoxiously. it takes all of your strength not to smack him upside the head.

while you’re applying the foundation, he starts to gossip about the people in your grade as well as friend group.

“you know, inosuke’s always blushing around tanjiro for some reason… maybe he’s… you know,” you roll your eyes. he might be a tad late.

“so you think he’s crushing on tanjiro?”

“definitely! he’s always so brash and aggressive towards me and everybody besides tanjiro! either tanjiro is secretly terrifying, or inosuke has a crush,” he explains, rolling his eyes while he does so.

“what about tanjiro?”

he pauses, “i can’t tell. he never mumbles to himself about anything and i’m not a mind reader. he’s also really friendly to kanao!”

“didn’t he call inosuke pretty whenever we all first met though,” you start blending in his concealer.

“oh my god! do you think they’re dating?!”

“zenitsu,” you frown, “ask them. i’m not their best friend.”

he blows a raspberry, “yeah, like i’m their best friend!”

you choose to ignore his comment, finding yourself secretly happy that you’ve gotten to his bronzer. now he can’t speak. but as soon as you’re done with it, he’s rambling again.

but about you.

“you looked so pretty today, (name)! i mean—the prettiest! when i saw you walk into school today, i thought i was dead and was meeting an angel! would you be my angel?!”

your face is basically on fire at this point, the flattery from zenitsu doesn’t even stop there.

“we’re already dating,” you grumble while filling in his brows.

“so let’s get married!” he yells unexpectedly, unaware of how far you flinch back.

“we’re still in school.”

“and?! we could die any day now!!!”

sighing, you say, “we’re still in school, zenitsu! if i ever say yes to your proposal, i want it to be when we’ve graduated.”

“so you’ll marry me?!”

“i never said that!!”

for the next fifteen minutes, you’re trying to convince zenitsu out of engagement for now while doing his eyeshadow. blending in a yellow-orange with a lemon yellow. you pick up white eyeliner, gripping at the pen to keep it still as you drag it across zenitsu’s eyelid.

for extra measure, you add a small bolt of lightning on his bottom eyelids. it adds more zenitsu charm to the whole look, not that zenitsu will know until he looks in the mirror.

“we’ll give you some falsies too,” your chirping throws zenitsu for a loop.

“f-falsies?!”

“false eyelashes,” you point to the ones that you’re wearing.

you reached up to them, amused at how zenitsu stares in astonishment. you pinch the minuscule hairs between your fingers.

“no, no, no!” he swats his hands, “you’re gonna tear off your real eyelashes!!!”

you snort and rip off the eyelashes. zenitsu’s gasp sounds like the air in his chest was vacuumed out. immediately, his clammy hands are squishing your cheeks together and he’s shouting in your face.

“ARE YOU OKAY?!!?!!! please tell me you’re alright!! you’re too pretty to get hurt,” his screeching sounds more like he’s singing. and not only singing, it sounds like he’s singing really bad opera.

“zenitsu, open your eyes,” you yell back, ears aching from his high pitched screaming.

he shrinks away and curls his hands to his chest, as if you’d hit him.

“i’m sorry i scared you,” you snort a tad, “but you can't scream in my face like that, it scared me too. now can i put some lashes on you?”

he sniffles and you sigh in relief at the realization that almost all of your products. his nod is hesitant, and you’re feeling guilty.

“i’m sorry too,” his voice is watery and you fan your hand in dismissal.

“it’s alright, babe!” you give him a smooch on his lips, which immediately brightens his downcast mood.

“you’re so sweet! could i get a kiss after this?!” he goes rigid when he sees your hand approaching his eyes with lashes.

“yea,” you hum, holding onto your wrist to keep your hand steady.

he continues to chatter through this whole ordeal, even whenever you apply some lipgloss—after you put plumper on him because he asked.

whenever you’re done, he immediately looks at himself in the mirror in admiration. he’s stuck between looking at himself or at you, babbling excitedly at how he almost looks just as pretty as you do.

you shower his face in kisses, mostly trying to get him to shut his mouth because his compliments are starting to send you into overdrive.

you only begin to regret it when you look in the mirror to see blotches of his foundation on your skin.