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“Sir, that highlighter is a thousand times brighter than the future my ex had to offer.”
Suna quietly snickers off camera. Miwa only grins and looks straight at it.
“Hello everyone! Welcome back on KageyaMUA, I’m Kageyama Miwa and today we're taking a trip down memory lane with a very special guest who’s joining our Foundation no concealer series … Olympic star Suna Rintarou!”
“Your brother’s one, not me,” Suna finally speaks up before joining Miwa to perch on the stool left for him. “Hi, there,” he adds for the camera with a lopsided smile.
“And my audience knows my brother and volleyball because I talk about them, but they know you for being DIX-SEPT ’s new ambassador. Congratulations and thank you for the new toys,” Miwa says with a delighted grin as she brings a few products in front of her face to show the camera.
“Sure, but with the mean bags under my eyes I wish you’d let me use concealer.”
“Yeah sorry about that, but that’s the point of a makeup challenge, love,” she tells him, not sorry at all, and then speaks for the camera again. “Because today, Rintarou is walking me through his makeup story without using any concealer, literally and metaphorically while we both follow a tutorial you chose for us in the comment section of my last video. Ready?”
Suna takes a deep breath as discreetly as possible. He might as well be…
“Do you want to do me or should I do you?” Miwa asks a few minutes later.
“I want to live, so please rephrase that before your brother makes an attempt on my life during the next Olympics,” Suna answers with a sly grin.
“Tobio will have to suck it up, I’m not letting you walk out of here without doing my eyeliner,” she explains before grabbing two different bottles of foundation.
“You’re doing it on purpose,” Suna points out, having fun nonetheless.
“Absolutely. Never heard of all the drama in the beauty community? I have to up my game to keep an audience and being at the center of a national scandal involving famous athletes clearly is starting somewhere,” she teases. “And speaking of,” she adds for the camera. “Without further ado, we’re starting with foundation. So tell me, Rintarou. What was your first contact with makeup?”
Miwa is a fantastic host. She’s clearly talking for the camera when needed, but Suna feels listened to. She’s interested in what he has to say and the moments she breaks eye contact to look into the lens are actually a good way to gather his own wits. That woman is as fast as he is and he needs it.
Suna’s plunges in between different makeup supplies and reaches for the older polaroid piled on the table in front of them. It’s also one of the rare pictures that's a real polaroid and not a later print. Gin bought it to school when they were 15.
“Well, I couldn’t remember the first time I poked my eyeball with my mom’s kohl pen and I was too discreet for it to be an event so the most relevant one has to be this.”
As he speaks, Suna shows the picture to the camera. Six teenagers are portrayed on it, Suna almost at the center, an arm thrown around Osamu’s shoulders, his hanging hand showing black nail polish that is wearing off. His other painted hand tries to push Atsumu away. Gin, Akagi and Aran are there too. Everyone is laughing.
He has such fond memories of it; Suna can’t help but stare fondly at it for a second. Miwa breaks the spell when she exchanges it for some primer to get a look at it. Suna chuckles and proceeds to open the product and start applying it over his forehead.
“You were all so ad- oh my god! The Miyas’ hair!” Miwa teases. “That hellish dye job… Oh.”
She taps the picture where Suna stands and he nods before rubbing the primer into his skin.
“Yeah. Oh. It’s the oldest picture I could find of me wearing nail polish. Low maintenance. Like, real fucking low,” he explains, before wriggling his fingers covered in slick black nail polish for the camera. “You know what it’s like… volleyball, being an insecure teenage boy, the teachers and coach glaring at it enough to make it crack...”
“I can imagine,” Miwa says and this time there’s not an ounce of malice – she sounds encouraging as she mimics him and preps her skin.
Suna feels his stomach do a slight somersault at the idea of what he’s about to do. He’s never really talked about his affinity with makeup. In the end, coming to terms with it lacked one last step, and he realizes he’s taking it now. That’s why Suna is glad he can slap some fair foundation on his cheeks and nose when he goes on despite his face heating up.
“I’d say when I finally took that step, everything worked against me trying to experiment with makeup and nail polish as much as I wanted to, apart from… well. Them. I wanted to experiment and mostly could because my friends never judged me. The twins even painted their nails for a week to help me avoid suspension. So really… I’m proud I took that step, but the team had a big part in it.”
Miwa stops tapping her face with her sponge to look at him, lips parting and Suna definitely is grateful for the foundation. And they’re just starting.
“I’m gonna cut myself on those,” Miwa says, deeply focused as she strokes her brush to Suna’s cheekbones.
“Said that for my jaw already,” he comments, closing his eyes when she swipes the tip along the bridge of his nose.
“It’s not my fault you came armed to the teeth. I’m almost done with that sick highlighter. Care to show us the next picture?”
Suna gropes around the table and brings a new polaroid to his face, opening his eyes and grinning at the sight.
“Oh god. Talk about highlights,” he says as he offers the picture to the camera then Miwa.
Seventeen years-old Suna and the twins are in a dark, cramped room holding mics, wearing dashing outfits Atsumu picked for them. He’s the one taking the picture although he’s half cut from the angle. Suna, however is there, eyes avoiding the camera at all cost but clearly showing faint traces of eyeliner and mascara. Nothing much and he remembers why with a little pang to his chest.
“That’s my not really proud debut in wearing makeup in public. The twins enabled that too. I can’t look into the camera because I think I’m trying really hard not to cry from the attention and how overwhelmed I felt.”
“What happened? Do I need to take one to hit the other?” Miwa asks while gently applying more bright powder on Suna’s cheekbones.
“Not this time. See, there was that new karaoke they wanted to try. And we started dressing up when Atsumu said I should really gear up. The week before I confessed I had tried makeup when I went back to my parents for some vacations. Took a solid thirty minutes of wrestling and those two... “
Suna’s throat closes up a little at the vivid memory. He brushes it off with a foxy grin but his eyes are shinier than before.
“They went on a little crusade back then and gave me that grand speech – you know, dramatic Miya style…”
“I heard,” Miwa acknowledges quietly, visibly aware Suna is just trying to tone down his own emotion.
“About how I shouldn’t feel ashamed and they’d be there for me if I wanted to experiment further. Long story short I messed up the kohl because I kept tearing up and went out with makeup on in public for the first time.”
“They really cared for you.”
Suna looks into the mirror to check the highlighter and can’t even look at the camera when he whispers back:
“They still do. They’ve been with me all the way through.”
“You said earlier your friends were there for you a lot during that whole process of appropriation, but I believe you’ve done the same for someone else, haven’t you?” Miwa says a little later as she shifts on her stool to sit straight in front of Suna.
She’s obviously trying to remain calm, but she hasn’t stopped wriggling in her seat since they brought out the eyeliner and mascara, almost messing up the beautiful fiery red eyeshadow on her left eye.
“True. Actually you’re lucky I did. Otherwise I’m not sure I could pull those wings on anyone else but me, but…” Suna draws another picture closer then shows it to the camera.
This one shows Suna taking a selfie in the mirror of his studio bathroom with his phone in one hand, the other holding the cap of an eyeliner pen.
He’s eighteen-something there, which means Ritsuka is thirteen. His little sister is standing before him, kind of tucked under his chin and the resemblance between them is striking in this picture – one of Suna’s absolute favorites.
She looks deeply focused on drawing her eyeliner wings, tongue peeking out from between her teeth. Suna has one eye done flawlessly, the other a little messed up since he let her practice on him first with shaky but determined hands.
Yeah… Really his favorite picture.
“She was so tiny,” he sighs. “Edit that out, though, or she’ll gouge my eyes out and no more eyeliner for me.”
“No can do,” Miwa counters. “Good luck with that, she looks even fiercer than you and she was what…”
“A baby. Honestly I think my sister was thirteen there.”
“I’d call her adorable, but I treasure my own eyes,” Miwa snickers.
“Right? She was adorable though, no matter what she says. She looked so shy when she asked if I could help with the makeup…”
Suna is glad he can face away from the camera to apply the white and black eyeliner in turn on Miwa’s eyelids because that really is a sensitive subject.
“Why was she shy?”
Before answering, he draws the first wing with expert hands, aware too late he’s mimicking Ritsuka’s tongue move as he concentrates.
“For my parents, their son wearing makeup wasn’t the problem. Their teenagers focusing on futile things like that was. They didn’t give us the hardest time, but I think Ritsuka felt more free experimenting with me than at home.”
He doesn’t want to speak on her behalf, especially so publicly, but she told him once that back then, her first experience with her own femininity were more connected to him than to their mother and Rintarou always feels proud he could give her that, then.
Still, that’s something too intimate and personal so he doesn’t dwell on it, simply finishing the last touch up to Miwa’s second eye who then turns toward the mirror.
She’s perceptive, and in a glance, Suna knows she won’t pry and will even redirect the attention. Pretty effectively.
"Holy sh– !” Beep!
"So we've confirmed no one can pull eyeliner wings like you do but what about lips?" Miwa inquires before puckering her lips for Suna.
"Funny you'd say that…"
"Or ingeniously planned, others would say."
"But my next story just happens to be about colorful lips," Suna speaks over her while showing the next picture.
He's twenty by the time it's been taken. Twenty and adorning a black eye emphasized with smudged makeup, twenty with a split lip barely patched up; mouth a vivid patchwork of red and pink.
Komori is taking a selfie that shows Washio handing Suna some tissues in the background as they all sit in the waiting area of the ER. They're all dressed fancy for the night they planned to spend clubbing in Tokyo.
“This should be a bad memory. Heard more slurs that night than in the entire years I’ve been going out with makeup on. Dudes insecure about their sexuality can really be dangerous,” Suna says, but he has no trouble smiling as he paints Miwa’s lips with the prettiest burgundy. “Still an important memory.”
“Because your friends were there for you?” Miwa tries to articulate around the lipstick.
“Yeah that,” Suna agrees. “But mostly because I learned not to be ashamed of who I am and no one should. There will be zealots and idiots on the way, though. Sure, if you can,” and he looks back at the camera when he says that. “Take a stance against them. Or let your friends do it for you if you can’t. But don’t blame yourself if you can’t do much. They might stay the same disappointing idiots, but you’ll get stronger.”
Miwa’s eyes go soft as she looks straight at him and Suna feels terribly appeased despite the pretty violent memory.
“But guess the idiots learned a thing or two, too.”
She arches an eyebrow. Suna’s grin widens as he does the finitions.
“Like not to mess with a professional athlete no matter the amount of girly makeup there’s on his face. There! Mean lips for a sweet girl.”
“Now time to set the records straight and apply our setting spray!” Miwa tells the camera with a wink.
Their faces full of red, burgundy, gold and white strikes and touches are sick, if Suna’s honest. They really did an awesome job. However…
“Right. No one’s straight here though, and I’ve done nothing but tell you my truth. But here’s some more. Some… Simple Suna Rintarou.”
“Natural Suna Rintarou?” Miwa inquires as he draws the last picture, on his phone this time ; a selfie of him, without makeup, heavy bags under his eyes as he smiles serenely for the picture in the middle of a giant airport.
“Nope. Simple. I wear makeup in my natural habitat too, so I don’t want to call this natural or normal.”
“What’s there to see apart from you flexing with and without eyeliner?”
“Well… This was taken yesterday while I was coming back from a game and on my way to sign a new contract with a makeup brand while not wearing any. I used to think that putting on makeup or not would define me and even after I started doing it, I still wasn’t super confident. It took me some time… But eventually I realized the Suna who’s smiling here can be happy no matter what he’s wearing because I’m proud of who I am now.”
“So, natural Suna Rintarou is just a confident guy who learned to be comfortable with his image and body?”
Suna’s smirk is fierce, unapologetic as he looks straight into the lense.
“Natural Suna Rintarou is just a guy who doesn’t give a f – ” Beep!