AN: The prompt was 'lipstick', so I decided to use a girl I never see wear any.
More Than Just Make-Up
The tube contained a deep, waxy red substance. Haruhi never thought such a colour suited her; her features were too small and too pointed. When the Zuka club had exuberantly pinned her down and smeared her face with all kinds of luxurious, designer products, the only thing she could think of was that she looked like a little girl traipsing around the stage at a school play. All oversized shoes and Rapunzel hair and a dress too ostentatious to be of any real use.
She gently screwed the bottom until the point of the lipstick appeared at the top, and rubbed it with her fingertip, experimentally. It was every bit as sticky and oily as it looked, although it didn't smell as much like crayons as she'd imagined. Haruhi hadn't ever been that little girl who'd wanted to try on her mother's shoes and put on her make-up and pretend she was a grown up. After her mother had died, she'd never quite felt like it was a good idea to start doing it, then, even if she'd wanted to. It seemed blasphemous, somehow, as if she hadn't quite earned the right to be a grown-up, yet. Haruhi was far too sensible to think that anything karmic would happen, even as a child. But she knew that there was more to following in her mother's footsteps than high-heels and pretty make-up.
Later, her father, with an enthusiasm for make-up (amongst other things), himself, had tried to teach her how to do it. She'd obliged with a little lipgloss and eyeliner, but that was it. He'd fluttered, told her how pretty she was and how all the boys probably loved her and she'd waved him away and told him to get ready for work.
She was currently dressed in an immaculately tailored boy's school uniform that skimmed over her breasts and disguised her hips (not that there was an awful lot to hide in either case, she had to admit). The smear of lipstick on her index finger suddenly seemed incongruous. She imagined her mother as she remembered her, in a crisp suit and perfect hair and make-up that was just so on her way to work. Dressed up, for a company dinner, in a shimmering dress, glossy curls and red lips.
Haruhi screwed the lid back on the tube of lipstick and put it back on the table. She had no idea who it belonged to, anyway. Tamaki had probably put it there as a not-so-subtle hint that she should get closer to her feminine side. But she wasn't there, yet, although she was on her way.