Of Mascara and Blushes
Ringo sat patiently at his vanity table, coating his eyelashes in mascara, when he felt someone staring at him. Knowing who it was and where said person was the last time he looked, Ringo put the brush back into the mascara tube and turned to look at the bed. "What is it, Haruka?"
Haruka, who had been kneeling on the bed with the covers bunched around her waste, blushed slightly at being caught staring, but refused to stop despite that. "I was just thinking how amazing make-up is," she replied shyly.
"How so?" asked Ringo with a brow artfully curled upwards.
"Well, it just takes a wig and some make-up, and you look so different," Haruka said, referring to Ringo's masculine form.
Ringo giggled slightly, brushing a few strands of fake pink hair out of his eyes. "Yes, well, I guess you could say make-up is similar to magic. The make-up artist is rather like the fairy godmother in Cinderella, then, huh?"
At this, Haruka finally looked down at her lap, shyness overcoming her. Not knowing what brought this on, Ringo frowned and furrowed his brows. Anxious, Ringo thought desperately to find a way to bring Haruka back out of the shell he'd spent over a year forcing her out of—the shell that had made it so incredibly difficult to win her over and had made his conquest of her fail horribly until only a month ago. Ringo had to get her out of that shell, absolutely had to.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to him, and he immediately knew both what had made her shrink into her shell and how to get her out of it. Smiling, he put the mascara down on the vanity table and moved over to the bed, standing tall above her.
"Haruka," he called out softly. "Look up at me."
Haruka fidgeted a moment before shyly looking up at Ringo through her bangs. Ringo grabbed at the chance and reached down to hold her face there. He soon leaned forward so that their noses brushed but their lips were a couple of inches apart.
"Haruka," he repeated, "that doesn't necessarily make you ugly underneath if you wear make-up. If so, I'd be hideously ugly, and I most certainly am not." Ringo huffed this remark out, his breath sweeping across Haruka's face, causing her to blush a little more darkly. "Besides," he continued, "you look great without make-up—you're bound to look like a goddess with it."
"Ah…" Haruka mumbled under her breath. "I only ever use lip-gloss or lipstick, though…" she admitted.
A slight smirk grew across Ringo's face at this. "It's as good a place as any to start, I guess." He pressed his nose firmly against hers. "Now then, let's spread some of my lip-gloss onto you to begin, shall we?"
Haruka's eyes widened in shock and her cheeks flushed in embarrassment as his words sunk in, but before she had the chance to protest in any way, Ringo slipped his nose to the side and pressed his lips against hers. Quickly, he began attempts to coax responses from the lips of the girl beneath him. Several moments later, Haruka found her way out of her shock and began to softly press her lips back against this.
Feeling this, Ringo prevented a groan from slipping out his throat and rested a palm on each side of Haruka's body, preventing her escape. He opened his lips slightly, licking hers, asking her to open her own. She complied after a moment's hesitation, and Ringo had to grip the covers tightly in his hands in order to ensure he did not go any farther than just moving his mouth against hers, regardless of how sensually. It was hard to remind himself at times, but Haruka was completely innocent, both in matters of the heart and in matters of the body. And he would not cross boundaries she was not ready to.
A minute or two of sensual kissing later, Ringo pulled away. He opened the eyes he had unwittingly closed and noted that hers had closed as well. When finally her eyes opened, they were filled with a combination of emotions that told Ringo that she had to tell him something. He raised his brows and smiled in invitation.
"You…" she started, "didn't… put on the lip-gloss yet."
Ringo's smile quickly turned into a smirk as he raised himself off of the bed. "It appears I didn't," he said lightly before he walked back to the vanity table. Before sitting down again, he looked over his shoulder at the blushing girl, winked, and made one more remark. "Worth it, though."
Though he could not see it, he knew she had nearly tipped over from embarrassment and had to force himself not to laugh. Then, a though came to him and he had to restrain himself from frowning, as she could see his face through the mirror.
She really does need a little more self-confidence, doesn't she?
He sighed before going back to his make-up, with a beet-red girl watching not quite as intensely as before as her mind was otherwise occupied.
Honestly, he'd seen so many different talented girls while he was teaching. That he had chosen Haruka out of all of them should have been enough to boost her measly ego… Still, he would never say this out loud, as there was the probability that she would only grasp onto the thought that he had been her teacher less than a year ago and would fall into her shell once again, ruining all his hard work. And that was unacceptable.
Besides, maybe if she had even a slightly bigger ego, she'd be in his bed in the morning for more scandalous reasons not because she'd fallen asleep while they were watching movies on it. A sly smirk grew across his face at the thought. Ah, how he adored his imagination. And Haruka. Especially Haruka.