She rushes from room to room, cursing under her breath, nearly gives up before remembering her roommate, comes up with no positive results, and finally gives it up as a lost cause. She returns dejectedly to her own room, her own dressing table and mirror, but her energy isn't gone for long. She puts her hands together in a series of handsigns and turns herself into a slim, willowy, Oriental-Asian female with long, shiny, black, stick-straight hair. No makeup adorns her transformation's face, for even if she is found out, makeup stays, and still disguises. She keeps the pale skin, but adds a slightly yellowed undertone to it. Her eyes become thinner without a crease in the upper eyelid, and the irises turn a brown so dark it may as well be black. Her nose is no longer sharp, aristocratic, and her lips have become a dark pink, very full and plump. She smiles, exposing white, straight teeth.
With practiced ease, she picks up a black eye pencil, applying it carefully, thickly, on her right eye's top eyelid in efforts to get it show. She repeats the process on the other eye. On the bottom lids, she applies a much thinner line, the end result being that her slightly slanted eyes are rimmed completely, not too thinly, not too thickly, in black.
Scowling for a brief moment at the inconvenience, she reaches into her makeup bag and retrieves two sticks of bright lipliner, her last resort after being unable to find that perfect lip gloss. She applies the two slightly differing shades to either of her dry lips, made perfect by an illusion. She attempts to rub her lips together, hoping to blend the two colors. When it fails, she scowls again and applies a touch of water. It goes smoother this time, and she allows the crinkling of her forehead to smooth out.
Reaching back into the pouch, she pulls out a tube of lipstick, a slightly translucent color too dark by itself but just right for toning down and deepening the artificial color the liner provides. She rubs her lips again, and separates them with a 'pop.'
Rooting around in her bag one last time, she pulls out a tube of hot pink, shimmering lip gloss, the only lip gloss she actually owns, despite speculation by her comrades about her supposed 'massive cosmetic supply.' Thinking on said comrades, and focusing in on the name of the shade, "Sparkling Strawberry," she thinks for a moment about a girl she once knew with hair a shade lighter than the sticky liquid in the plastic container.
She remembers many years prior, learning about how these kinds of activities, strategies worked, and proclaiming her pink-haired friend would always be infinitely better than her own self at this type of task. Whether that was a compliment or not was to be debated over, but that argument had not taken place before she was sent on her first mission of the aforementioned kind. She remembers the initial outburst, refusal at the offer, and before she can suppress it, she feels a pang in her heart with a flash of a wavering, dusky silhouette and an empty bag of chips, lying forgotten, left behind under a cloudy sky. And then she remembers how she is now the best in her field, but instead of accomplishment, feels a slight touch of sadness. But enough of that.
Shaking herself out of her reverie, she puts the eyeliner, lipliner, lipstick and lip gloss away just as the buzzer sounds, alerting her to the presence of a visitor. She stands, and hurriedly smooths down the dress, the satiny black dress that contrasts so well with her new identity's pale skin, contrasts just as boldly as the black hair, deep red lips, and black-rimmed, piercing eyes.
She opens the door, smiling warmly at the man who was behind it only moments earlier.
"Hello, Kimura-san," he greets.
She answers back, "Just call me Junko, please, no need to be so formal." She's still smiling gently on the outside, but on the inside, she's smirking wryly at the fact that her guise's name means "obedient, genuine, pure," and that she is none of those things. The character she's playing is anything but genuine, her real self is never obedient, and her soul is tainted, far from pure. She's none of those things, her real self under the henge, the henge under a layer of makeup. Henge and makeup, masks of differing types, but masks all the same. Masks with different components that conceal reality.
Such as those ruby-red lips.
"Welcome, Hideaki-san," she finally greets, warm words spilling out as she allows him to step inside. She shuts and locks the door behind him. Cranberry lips transform into a predatory, feral grin.
Welcome to your death.
But as she relishes outwardly in every spill of a secret, in every spill of blood, in every scream that resonates in the soundproofed room, as she smirks outwardly when the target is finally dead, on the inside, she knows it's not fun, it's not okay.
She knows that a part of her died as soon as she picked up that eyeliner, and that her fate was sealed even before she put down the lip gloss.
But she ignores her knowledge and instead presents her mind with lies.
It'll end soon. She knows it won't until she's dead, and she doesn't intend on that happening anytime soon.
It's simply a routine. She doesn't know what scares her the most, the fact that this has become routine, the realization that she has to resort to lying to herself to keep herself in some semblance of stability, or what her next thought happens to be.
It's all just a game.
And as if to confirm the cruel statement, scarlet, perfect lips speak them aloud.
"It's just a game."
Because even though it's harsh, and brutal, it's better than the truth she is sure of.
So for at least a while longer, she'll keep herself in the dark.
For now, she'll ignore the facts, such as that the difference between life and death is this series of costumes, this endless masquerade. Because it's just a game.
Right?
As if on cue, a knocking on the door brings her away from her musings.
"Are you all right in there, Kimura-san?" a voice asks.
Cherry lips stretch wide in a phony, ghoulish leer, while pale, seemingly perfect, seemingly unstained, yet bloody hands clench and unclench spasmodically.
"Perfectly fine," she answers through gritted teeth, but allowing no sign of her internal battle to slip into her voice.
"Apologies for disturbing you, Kimura-san." Footsteps signal that the voice's owner has retreated, but she remains tense, not because of the individual beginning to descend the stairs, but because of the man now entering through the window, with hair tied up in a ponytail, shadowed by a much larger man. For a moment, her heart is filled with hope.
"Are you really okay?" the closer male asks.
But it's the wrong voice, and it sets off yet another scene in her head. Once again, the shadow and the empty bag come back to her, the shadow now disappearing in the darkness and the bag being carried away by wind under the brusque, uncaring light of the crimson moon.
"Yes," she replies, back still turned, face still in the shade, expression hidden.
"Then let's go," the man says.
Her dirty hands unclench, but the blood-red lips remain open, wide, stretched into a painful, fake, half-deranged smile as she follows the two men out, away.
Because, after all, none of this really matters, you see.
It's all just a game.