As of the release of House of Korba, the timeline placement for this short story isn't too important. The only detail worth noting is that Sang lives at Nathan's house at this point.

I found a magazine in a box I forgot to unpack when I made the move from my house to Nathan's. It was one of Marie's magazines, or maybe it belonged to Danielle and got left there. How it managed to get into my belongings, I wasn't quite sure, but returning it would be a bit awkward. Too much time has passed, and Marie probably did not want to see me anyways. So I decided to look through it, mainly out of curiosity. This is something normal teenage girls do while waiting for laundry to tumble dry, right?

Inside were full page advertisements for wild fragrances, bright fashion clothing lines, jewelry I had no interest in ever wearing, and all sorts of makeup. Without counting, I guessed there to be more advertisement pages devoted to the magazine than there were actual articles. I didn't understand why the "latest picks" had crumbled cakes and spilled smears of makeup over the white page surface. That seemed wasteful. The prices next to these messy smears made the blood drain out of my face. Maybe that's why girls like to wear make up all the time, to hide the pale shock on how much they were spending on their looks.

My eyes were drawn to a particular model on an ad for mascara.

"Gabriel?" I called out. He was the one keeping me company while everyone else was out doing Academy things or diner shifts.

"What did you do this time, Trouble?" he answered from the living room couch with his nose buried into his phone.

I rolled my eyes. I didn't get into that much trouble, did I? "Get over here, Meanie. I want to ask you something."

He leapt up from the leather couch and cha cha'd over to the dining room table where I was sitting with the magazine. He leaned over from behind me and planted his chin onto my shoulder. "Whatcha need?"

I pointed to the model's eyes. "Does mascara really make eyelashes that long?" I tried to turn my head and look at him, and my nose was a breath away from squishing into his cheek. Hopefully my blush did not go noticed.

Gabriel shook his head back and forth, effectively squishing his cheek into my nose a few times in a row anyway. "Nuh uh. Those lashes are fake and glued on. There is no way mascara can get anyone's lashes an inch long like that." His face pulled back and he stared straight into my eyes. "You're not going to start putting on that shit, are you?"

"Uh..."

"No!" he exploded, jumping up and marching back and forth in front of the table. "You don't need to put that crap on your face. You're beautiful, both inside and out, and it doesn't matter if you're caked in mud, it still shines through." He suddenly lunged at me, grabbing my face in between his palms and licked a trail from the tip of my nose all the way to the top of my forehead. I couldn't hold back my squeal. "I can't do that to you if your face is hidden behind all that fake shit. It's mine now. I forbid it!"

"But... I mean..."

"I said no!" His hand waved in the air to punctuate his words. "If you want some fucking compliments, just say so and I'll fucking compliment you!"

I sighed in defeat. "I just wanted to know. I've never really put any on before other than to cover up bruises, so I really don't know."

Gabriel's face dropped like someone just drowned a kitten in front of him. "Oh my fucking god." He pulled out a chair from the table and plopped down into it, his face falling until his forehead smacked against the tabletop. "I'm depriving you of the makeover experience. Doesn't every girl need to have one of those her in lifetime? And I'm the asshole telling you no."

"No! That's not what I meant," I pleaded in an attempt to comfort him. "I really have no interest in make up at all. I was just curious."

He grunted and sat up. "Now that I think about it, we probably need to do this anyway. I'm sure there will come sometime where you need to get all gussied up for some formal affair, and I don't want to have to go into that without knowing what looks good on you. I can't have you going to a ball looking like a clown."

His cell phone whipped out and he tapped at it. "Luke's about to clock out at the diner. We'll meet up with him there and go get what we need."

"But..."

"Come on, already! Get your ass moving!"