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“You are a woman. Skin and bones. Veins and nerves. Hair and sweat.
You are not made of metaphors. Not apologies. Not excuses.” - Sarah Kay, The Type
When the bell that signals the end of lunch rings, Hope’s eyes are red and swollen.
It’s Valentines Day, her least favourite day of the year, and there’s eyeliner all down her face. And really, she shouldn’t be surprised. Because Jimin’s always said that she makes a “shit girl”, because she’s never been able to apply makeup, and she can’t flirt to save herself, and she’ll choose to goof off with Namjoon and Jungkook at lunch any day rather than sit with Jimin and the other girls.
But, dammit, today she really wants people to see her as a girl. She wants people to see that she’s not just ‘one of the guys’ and that she has real, actual feelings, and, fuck, she wants to feel desired. Which is exactly why she’s snuck her older sister’s makeup bag to school today. Because even though she has, like, zero makeup application skills, she really wants to try it. She wants to make her face look as smooth and shiny as Jimin’s. And, like, yeah, she could have asked for Jimin’s help. Jimin is far, far more experienced in the world of makeup. But, really, that would just be embarrassing. She doesn’t want Jimin treating her like a fucking charity case.
But if she did ask Jimin for help, she admits, she wouldn’t be where she is now: locked in one of the cubicles in the toilet, some weird, pale foundation shit smeared all over her hands and face and neck (and she’s managed to get it all in her eyebrows and hairline and eyelashes, for fucks sake), and teary eyeliner is leaking down her face like a fucking waterfall, and she looks like a hot mess.
And she’s crying. And that shouldn’t be a surprise either. Because despite the fact that she’s been nicknamed ‘Literal-Sunshine-Jung-Hope’ by the entire school, it really doesn’t take much to make her cry. She tries to wipe at her tears before they smear the makeup even more, but they keep fucking flowing now, and she’s pretty sure that she could audition for the part of a monster in a horror movie now, and get the part.
She’s just weighing up her options (1. Call Dawon and get her to pick her up before anyone sees the mess that she’s made of her face, 2. Hide in the bathroom all day and escape when everyone’s gone home, 3. just. die. like, just keel over and die of embarrassment) when she hears someone clear their throat right outside the cubicle.
“Hurry the fuck up in there!” the voice sounds, and it’s a low, scratchy voice that Hope’s never heard before. “I need to take a dump and that toilet’s the only one that fucking flushes.”
Hope debates just not answering the disembodied voice, pretending that she’s deaf and can’t actually hear them. But she decides against it, because who is she to deny someone their dump-taking rights? She gathers up all of the makeup into it’s bag, zipping it closed as fast as she can, ready to sprint into the next cubicle to hide her face. She slides open the lock and lets the door creak open slowly.
And Jesus fucking Christ. The girl at the door is the last person she wants to see. Min Yoongi. One of the shortest and most scary girls Hope has ever seen in her life. Min Yoongi is notorious around campus. She doesn’t really speak much, but when she does, and usually it’s to threaten someone’s life or spit some insult sent straight from hell, everyone listens. She’s pale and petite, with a shock of alien bleached blonde hair that hangs to her chin. She’ all pointy bones, and pink lips, and thick black eyeliner and Hope is fucking scared.
Yoongi looks right into Hope’s eyes (and Hope wants to cry because Yoongi’s eyes are so pretty for someone so scary) and wrinkles her (very cute and very scary) nose, “what the fuck did you do to your face?”
Fuck. It’s so embarrassing. So fucking embarrassing. Because Yoongi’s makeup is perfect, and she has these long, pointy red nails, and she just looks kind of gorgeous, and Hope looks like she’s been dragged through a hedge backwards. She lets out a sniffle and says in a quivering voice (and it’s quivering because she’s holding back sobs but also because Yoongi is really, really cute scary), “I tried to put on makeup but it turns out that I’m just a really shit girl.”
Part of her regrets saying this immediately, because Yoongi is cute scary and she’s fucking embarrassing herself in front of her, but at the same time she’s way past giving two shits because she already looks an absolute state.
And she expects Yoongi to laugh at her, to make fun of her like she makes fun of everyone else, but actually Yoongi looks kind of amused and kind of sad and kind of soft and cuddly oh my god.
“Hope-ah,” she says, and her voice is so, so pretty, like starry nights and foggy mornings, “that is your name, right?”
“Y-Yeah,” she stutters back, and she’s actually really surprised that Min-Hardass-Yoongi knows her name, “that’s me.”
“Hope-ah, come out of the cubicle and we’ll get that shit off your face.”
And somehow she ends up perched on top of the sink, Min fucking Yoongi standing between her legs, dabbing at her face with “Super Sensitive, Baby Soft, Makeup Remover Wipes” (there’s something amusing about Min Yoongi carrying “super sensitive” makeup wipes in her purse). And Yoongi’s really close to her face right now, as she swipes the wipe across her face gently, and Hope’s heart’s beating really fast, and she just really hopes that those huge headphones that she always sees Yoongi wearing have damaged her hearing enough that she can’t hear it. She’s awkward, and she isn’t really sure what she’s supposed to say to Yoongi, so she gets a bit of a fright when the older girl speaks.
“So why were you putting this shit on your face, anyway?” Yoongi’s voice is much gentler than Hope has ever imagined. It’s, like, pillow soft.
“Uh ... well ... I don’t know? I wanted to stop being such a shit girl?”
“A shit girl? How can anyone be a shit girl? Girls are awesome!”
Hope laughs. “You know what I mean.”
Yoongi pulls back and she looks confused. “No. I don’t. What do you mean?”
Hope looks down uncomfortably, and she starts to play with her fingers in her lap. “Well ... you know. Girl’s are ... girls are pretty.”
“And you’re not?”
“No,” she confirms. “I’m not.”
Yoongi is quiet for a second or two, and the air seems really tense all of a sudden. And then Hope’s eyes are widening, because there’s a hand under her chin, pulling her face up so that she’ll meet Yoongi’s eyes. “Hope-ah. You’re beautiful. So beautiful. And you don’t need makeup to prove it.”
“But ...”
“No buts,” and Yoongi’s voice and eyes are cute fierce. “Listen to me, Hope-ah. Yeah, makeup’s awesome. But you should never feel obligated to wear it just to be pretty. You’re beautiful the way you are.”
And now Hope’s been rendered speechless, because, fuck, suddenly she feels really pretty. Like, really, really fucking pretty. If not in anyone else’s eyes, then in Yoongi’s, and in her own. Because Yoongi’s looking at her like an art critic looks at the fucking roof of the Sistine Chapel: like she’s the most beautiful thing in the world.
And then Yoongi’s stepping away from between her legs, throwing the makeup wipe in the trash can. “That’s you done. Congratulations, you no longer look like a circus clown.”
Hope barely manages out a “th-thanks!” before Yoongi has marched out the door, apparently having forgotten about having to take a dump (Hope learns later that Yoongi just really hates blushing in front of people, which is unfortunate because she blushes really easily- part of the reason she doesn’t really talk to people much).
And when Hope finally get to class (“Jung Hope, you better have a good excuse for turning up to class fifteen minutes late, looking like a deer caught in the headlights”), her cheeks are pink, and she’s smiling, and she wants to giggle, and she’s never felt so beautiful before.
(The next Valentines Day, Yoongi buys Hope a giant box of chocolates, and roses, and teaches her how to put on makeup properly. Hope doesn’t really care for the makeup, because Yoongi thinks she’s pretty, and she thinks Yoongi’s pretty, and she feels so happy that she thinks her heart might just burst.)