Get Pretty

It was the Friday after midterms, and Mehron needed makeup. He's got this habit of popping into beauty places to paint himself up with testers—at first it struck me as a good way to get pinkeye, but I've since grown to appreciate the beautiful messes he makes of himself, and after a week of 4 am essays and endless tests, I was down for fun and frivolousness. We went to Koenji after school and soon wound up in a cosmetic store inexplicably named after a city in Australia.

Mehron started doing his eyes in retro mallrat blue, I painted my nails orange and red, but before the first coat dried, we were interrupted by one of the salesgirls. Her nametag read Kayoko and as she made her hesitant approach, I knew she was going to tell us to leave.

"Would you like to sit down and let me help you with that?" she asked.

And so the transformation began.

I'm a terrible interpreter. I started with the best intentions, but as the makeover progressed, I got tired of the back and forth and gradually stopped asking Mehron for his input.

"Would he like something cool and subtle or something a little more heavy?"

"Definitely heavy. Really really heavy."

Somehow I don't think he minded.