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Ann’s place smelled like vanilla and hair spray. Futaba stood in the entrance with her backpack hanging off one shoulder and her hoodie sleeves half over her hands, looking up at the framed posters and trailing ivy like she’d stumbled into a parallel universe where everything was pink, clean, and color-coordinated.
"Hey 'taba! So glad you came!" Ann smiled, handing her a pair of fuzzy orange slippers.
“I brought my laptop. Your router’s a fossil.”
“Amazing! Put it over there.” Ann pointed not to the router, but to the vanity. It was huge, lit by a ring light that was set to a soft glow. The table around the mirror was a full of makeup pallets, brushes in geometric holders, and a glass tray of glitter that looked like drugs.
“That’s not a router.” Futaba didn’t move.
“It’s a different kind of upgrade,” Ann said, already taking the backpack off Futaba’s shoulder with the practiced kindness of someone who coaxed stray cats out from under cars. “Come sit.”
“What-you want to-Ann-ify me?” Futaba waved her arms “I don’t know about that, lady my skin’s like allergic to society.” Ann just nudged her gently into the velvet stool with a giggle
“Think of it as… field research. We’ll do something simple.”
“You say that,” Futaba muttered, eyeing the ring light like it might interrogate her for state secrets, “but that spray is literally called ‘Glitter Bomb.’”
“Is it?” Ann glanced down. Futaba leaned in and narrowed her eyes at it
“It has a warning label.” Ann made a “hmm” noise and twisted the ring light knob up a notch. The halo brightened. Futaba squinted. “You want to burn me with fake sunlight”
“Hydration first,” Ann said, ignoring her, already spritzing something that smelled like clouds and cucumbers across Futaba’s face. She patted it in with gentle fingers. “Close your eyes.” Futaba closed them and hissed like a feral cat.
“If you stab me, I will haunt you through your plumbing.” she sighed "And whatever that 'Glitter Bomb' is"
“Futaba I’m not going to stab you.”
“You are holding a knife.”
“This is a palette knife.”
“So it IS a knife! THE HORROR. THE BETRAYAL! I'M TEXTING AKIRA YOU'RE ABOUT TO STEAL MY EYES-”
Ann smiled in the mirror, the kind of smile that made you behave. “Deep breath.”
A minute later, Futaba’s cheeks were warm and bouncy. Ann smoothed a BB cream, tapped concealer under eyes, and quietly narrated as if she were teaching a class. “Your skin’s already great, but this brightens the center, see? We’ll keep it light. You like light, right?”
“Light is… fine,” Futaba said, suspicious, trying to peek without moving her head. “I exist as an under-desk gremlin. The sun is optional.”
“We’ll give you a moon then,” Ann laughed, dabbing a highlighter called "Moon Unicorn Dust" onto the high points of Futaba’s cheeks. “Okay, look.” Futaba blinked at herself. She still looked like Futaba, just… less ‘hasn’t slept since 2009.’
“Huh,” she said, then noticed Ann holding a eyeliner “This is a trap.”
“No trap,” Ann promised. “Tilt your chin, cutie.”
“Don’t call me things.” Futaba did, flustered.
“You’re cute,” Ann repeated “Now. Eyeliner.”
“Absolutely not.” Futaba grabbed the nearest thing to shield herself and held it in front of her face. It was a makeup sponge shaped like a strawberry. “Back, demon-”
“All I’m just going to do is a tiiiiiiiiny little baby wing.” Ann reached slowly around the strawberry with the pencil.
“Baby wings still make you airborne,” Futaba informed her, eyes wide.
“Shh-” Ann said soothingly, the tip of the pencil hovering. “Look down-no, not like that, with your eyes, not your whole head-”
“This is a lot of instructions for a thing that is millimeters from my eyeball.”
“You’ve fought gods.”
“Yeah, with a keyboard.” Ann laughed, hand steady. "Stand still or I really will stab you with the pallette knife."
“Blink… and theeere. First wing done.”
Futaba opened one eye. A sharp little black flick hugged her lash line. She made a strangled sound.
“I have been upgraded.”
“Just wait,” Ann said. “Other side.” They wrestled the second wing into existence through a chorus of “-don’t move” and “I’m not moving-” and Futaba had to admit,in her head, internally, where no one would ever hear it,that it was kind of badass. Her face had edges now. Ann set the pencil down, with a smile
“Perfect.”
Futaba stared in silence for a long two seconds, moving her face, admiring the slight silver glow of the highlit. Futaba’s gaze wandered to the ring light’s control panel.
“Ann,” she said sweetly, “can I…” She poked it.
The ring light cycled from warm gold to ice blue to ultraviolet rave in half a heartbeat.
“Fun!” she said.
“Fun,” Futaba echoed. “You are unbothered. Unrattled.”
“It takes more than LEDs to scare me,” Ann said, entirely truthful. “Close your eyes again.” She smoothed a metallic shadow across Futaba’s eyelid
“Just so you know,” Futaba hummed eyes closed, “this is how you die, you know. Slow creep of glitter. It never leaves.”
“I’ll risk it.”
Three brushstrokes later, Futaba sneezed. The glitter tray shivered. Half the pan fluffed into the air like a sparkle bomb detonating over Ann’s lap. Time slowed. Futaba froze, then very carefully tilted her head to look down at Ann’s pink rug, which now resembled the Milky Way.
“Huh.”
Ann glanced at the rug. Ann glanced at Futaba.
“We commit to the bit,” she shrugged, dipped her finger into the glitter, and swiped a star on Futaba’s cheek.
“You-you’re as deranged as me!” Futaba gaped.
“Don’t tell Makoto,” Ann said, eyes dancing. “She thinks I’m responsible.”
“You are responsible,” Futaba said weakly, even as Ann dotted tiny constellations under her eyes.
“Hold still,” Ann hummed, and then, because chaos begged to be fed, she picked up a tiny rhinestone sheet. “Choose your fighter: heart, star, or lightning bolt?”
“Lightning! ” Futaba said automatically, then did a double-take at herself when Ann pressed two microscopic bolts near her outer corners. “Oh my god. I could DDoS with a wink.”
“Lashes,” Ann announced, holding up a pair that looked like small feathery caterpillars.
Futaba recoiled. “Absolutely the hell not.”
“These are half-lashes,” Ann coaxed. “We’ll do outer corners only.”
“They’re antennae. My face will receive alien broadcasts”
“That’s the spirit,” Ann said. “Look down.”
Glue, tweezers, patience. Futaba tried very hard not to breathe in a way that would move her eyelids at all. When Ann lifted the tweezers away, Futaba opened her eyes and made the unforgivable mistake of fluttering them at herself.
The lashes lifted like delicate fans. Futaba gasped. “Who is she!?”
“Futaba 2.0,” Ann said.
“Version 2.7.3,” Futaba corrected on instinct. “Patch notes include: winged rendering, increased RAM for eyelash physics.”
“Okay, lips next. What are we feeling? Soft pink? Tint?”
Futaba stared at the neon lipstick on the table like it was a nuclear button. “What if we just..."she said, and tapped it with one finger, “-went like, full cyberpunk?”
Ann, who had been pretending this entire time to be normal, set the pink aside like it had never existed. She plucked up a metallic plum and a clear gloss with blue shimmer. “Say less.”
Futaba, mesmerized, puckered her lips at the mirror like a fish.
“This is illegal.”
“We are in my apartment,” Ann shrugged “Diplomatic immunity.”
“Turn the ring light to blue and call me an airship.” Ann laughed and twisted the dial. Blue washed the room. Futaba’s glitter constellations went supernova. The lashes cast tiny shadows that looked like fins.
“I have ascended,” she whispered. “I can hear 5G towers.” Ann leaned her chin into her hand,smiling at her
“We’re not done.”
Futaba’s eyes darted to the door. “We could be done ”
“Hair first” Ann said, and tugged a drawer and pulled out a hairbrush and a bag of silver star-shaped hairclips, Her fingers were already combing through Futaba’s bangs before she could argue. “Tilt your head.”
"I'm stealing these. The hairclips are coming home with me" Futaba decided
“You’re adorable,” Ann said, then paused and smirked. “Just one last thing tiiiny little thing.”
Futaba eyed the “one last thing.”
It was the "Glitter Bomb"setting spray.
“No.”
“Close your eyes.”
“Ann.”
“It seals the look.”
“Ann-”
Pssssssst
The mist fell in a fine galaxy. Futaba waved her hands uselessly as her face was sprayed. It smelled like fake candy.
“That’s it,” Ann whispered to the mirror, coming in over Futaba’s shoulder. “How do you feel?”
Futaba’s reflection looked back at her with wings and stars and teal streaks. She gulped.
“Like a sexy alien fish”
“Good. Now don’t touch your face for fifteen minutes, or it’ll crease.”
“I would rather die.”
"You won’t.” Ann smiled. Futaba hissed quietly like a kettle and jammed her hands under her legs.
“Fine. If I fail, avenge me.”
“I’ll avenge you with setting powder,” Ann promised, which, in Ann-speak, meant I’ll be here to fix it if it breaks. Ann flopped down next to her, crossing one leg over the other, nudging Futaba’s knee with hers. “Soooo-" she smirked “-worth trading your router upgrade for a face upgrade?” Futaba laughed
“Thanks, Ann.”
Ann bumped her shoulder against Futaba’s, easy as breathing.
“Anytime.”
The ring light hummed. The glitter didn’t leave. The world could wait.