*shows up six months late with iced coffee*. Ayo.
So this chapter was like, WEIRDLY hard for me to write. I used to be a model (yes like the one you see on runways and photoshoots), but the thing about modeling is that you LITERALLY show up as a blank piece to the show. They sew you into the clothing and do your own makeup. As a model you're the canvas, not the masterpiece. Showing up with anything more then light makeup and a tank top and jeans is considered a major faux paus. SPECIFICALLY in the higher level stuff. The designers who you model for are supposed to be in charge of everything, INCLUDING makeup. I've seen some girls get turned away from big name cast callings because they wore too heavy of makeup and the designers wanted a certain "look" to work with.
Obviously this may not be such a big thing now as traditional modeling is becoming less lucrative as influencer culture and instagram follower count gains more traction (Plus I've been "retired" for almost 4 years now), but I was born and raised into traditional late 2000's modeling pre-influencer culture and I stick to my ways, GODDAMNIT. *shakes cane* get off my lawn!
Anyways, so although there's all these beautiful photos of me with wild ass makeup I actually barely know how to do the "bare minimum" of makeup, much less do something so advanced as cover up scar tissue. So this chapter required a lot of research before I was like "Yaknow what, fuck it!" and tried my best. It doesn't help that I don't do makeup on a daily basis as I don't vibe with it. But I do know how important makeup can be for other people, so that's what I tried to convey in this particular chapter.
Todoroki's hair would have been the most talked-about subject among the students of class 1-A if it was not for Deku's disappearance.
It was sudden, unexpected. Just like Todoroki's hair, dyed just to match his brother's.
Mina's own copy of her letter was neatly folded and sitting on the corner of her dresser. She only read it once. Her particular copy had a place where the ink ran with water, making two kanji completely unreadable. Her classmates had similar mistakes in their own copies.
She could only imagine Deku silently crying as he wrote these out by hand, one after another, carefully blowing his tears off the paper and getting frustrated when the ink ran. The handwriting was messy and sloppy, as if he wrote it with his non-dominant hand. Ochako recognized that handwriting instantly, as she had watched Deku timelessly perfect his writing with his left hand to become something legible.
Mina wasn't thinking about her letter. She didn't care about One for All or any of the things Deku spoke of. She just wanted her friend back, and for everyone to smile again.
So she was sitting in her room definitely NOT thinking about anything of that subject, as she couldn't leave the dorms because of the evacuated civilians, and she was NOT thinking about Bakugou's wrapped up torso with visible seepage and Todoroki's hair and Kyoka's burns. She was NOT thinking about finding Midnight's body, broken and bloodied, and NOT thinking about anything but the raindrops making shapes on her windowsill.
And then Todoroki himself knocked on her door.
She opened it, expecting perhaps a wild Yaomomo or Kyoka, but not an uncomfortable looking Todoroki with his bangs pinned out of his eyes and his cheeks having a dusting of red, as if he rubbed them raw.
"I have asked for assistance from Kirishima, and he directed me towards you, master."
He bowed. Mina vaguely noticed that he was holding an armful of makeup. Expensive things, like entire color pallets and different shades of bronzer that someone with his skin tone would never need or use, mascara and eyeliner and even a tube of lipstick.
Master?
"Uh, what's all this?" She asked, carefully. His hair clip had a butterfly on it. "How did you even get this stuff? We aren't allowed off campus grounds."
"I work very hard." He says in lieu of a reply.
She devoted about three more seconds of thinking before deciding that it wasn't important. "Why didja call me master?"
Todoroki held out his pile of makeup. "Because Kirishima told me you were the boss lady of makeup around here. He said once you gave him really manly cat eyes. I do not know what a cat eye is, but I would like it. After I am able to cover up this-"
He pointed to his birthmark.
"Oh, you want a makeover!" Instantly, Mina's mood brightened. She clasped her hands together. "Come on in, Todoroki! I'll make you beautiful."
Todoroki bowed his head. "Thank you," he whispered, ever so softly. She grabbed the color pallet and a few other tubes from his hands and skipped inside, carefully depositing his items on the rug, before quickly catching the powders and other things Todoroki attempted to unceremoniously dump onto the floor.
"Careful!" She scolded. "This stuff had to cost like, so much! Don't just drop it, it'll break the powder cakes."
Todoroki pauses. "My apologies. I did not know that they were that fragile."
"It's alright!." Mina inspects the color pallet, and holds up one of the several skin-colored cakes to Todoroki's skin, before tossing it aside and picking up another. This process repeated three times, until Mina was supposedly satisfied.
"Okay, first thing first. Wash your face with this-" She produced a disposable towelette from seemingly nowhere. "-And focus a lot on the nose and under the eyes. That's where most oils on the skin gather."
"I attempted to wash my face with soap just now." Todoroki said as he rubbed the towelette on his cheeks. "It got into my eye and it stung. This is so much gentler."
"Oof. Yeah, don't use hand soap on your face. Use something designed to go on your face, like face soap." Mina winced in sympathy. "'Specially since it can get into your eyes. And god forbid if you have acne or something."
Todoroki set the towelette down and folded his hands in his lap, looking expectantly at Mina. She took that as permission to start.
She first opened one of the little bottles of liquid she chose for Todoroki's base, and held it up. "You know what this is, correct?"
"Liquid foundation?" He read off the label.
"Yeah, it's like, lotion? Sort of? But skin colored." Mina shakes up the bottle before snapping it open and pouring a generous amount onto the back of her hand. "It makes sure your face doesn't get oily or dirty while you're wearing it. It also works as like, a clean base? To apply the rest of the stuff."
He closes his eyes as she works the liquid into his skin. "You got really high quality stuff. Seriously, this stuff is supposed to be waterproof."
Todoroki worryingly opens one eye. "How will I take it off then? I read that wearing makeup to bed can age your face quite badly. I am unsure what exactly that means, but I do wish to avoid it if possible."
"Just use the same towelettes I just gave you. And scrub extra hard in the shower, I guess." Mina stiffened a giggle. Guys were just so dang clueless sometimes.
She starts to apply light amounts of concealer over his brow and under his eye with her thumb and pointer finger. It would be cleaner to use a brush, but fingers were easier and this was delicate work. Todoroki's eyes stayed closed. Trusting.
She explained what she was doing as she was doing it, pausing occasionally to wait for Todoroki's hum of understanding before continuing. She switched to a powder and a brush soon after, dusting Todoroki's nose with it and making him sneeze.
"Hey, why do you want to cover up your birthmark anyway? A lot of girls think it's really unique." She hums. "Birthmarks are really cool looking too. Wouldn't that be a more marketable trait when everything gets back to normal? Like for merch and stuff?"
Todoroki considered this. "I guess I assumed my hair would be more marketable for that type of thing." He said. "But I never really thought it would be appealing to anyone anyway."
"It's your choice!" Mina smiled. "Like it's your body and stuff, right? So if you want to cover it up, it's fine and I'll help you."
MIna takes a shaky breath, smile wavering. "I understand, y'know? When you have something that's unique to everyone else, 'specially on your face, you want to hide it. It feels more open than your quirk or hair."
She touches the ends of her curly ringlets. "When I was young, some bullies teased me for my pink skin. I was the only transmutation-skin type quirk in the whole school at the time, so I felt like I really stuck out. Obviously those guys stopped messin' with me after I melted their homework, but still."
"Their words cut deep?" Todoroki said, his eyes remaining closed.
"Yeah." She nodded. "So although most people won't give a damn, or think it's weird, I understand. This is your body and face. You have a right to decide how you want to look."
She took a moment to admire her handiwork. Todoroki's birthmark was all but reduced to a light shadow that would easily be obscured by his long bangs. He was missing an eyebrow, but that was fixable. Mina took out a brush-pen. A pair of wings would draw the eye away from the lingering discoloration.
Mina probably understands wanting to cover up flaws then anyone else in class 2A right now. She was the only one in the whole school with pink skin. Not to mention the weird eyes and her horns. Even after she melted those bully's backpacks she begged her parents to let her get skin lightening cream, contact lenses, file down her horns, anything .
"Kirishima said he dyed his hair to imitate you." Todoroki stated. "To boost his confidence and his manly spirit."
"Ah, so he finally admitted it?" She teased. "I figured it out the moment he showed up to school with horns. It's sweet. I don't mind."
"I think…" Todoroki trailed off. "I think you two are similar that way. You both choose your appearance. The one that makes you feel the best. I think that's what I want to do, too. I want to feel like myself."
"That's the best thing you can be. Yourself, I mean." Mina replies easily. Todoroki's eyelids barely fluttered as she finished his wings.
"Open your eye, for a second. Gotta see if I messed up anywhere." Mina says. She's absent-mindedly rubbing the area where his eyebrow should be with her thumb, trying to detect any hair she could work with to give him perfectly sculpted eyebrows.
And then he opens his eyes. And suddenly so many pieces of the puzzle drop into place.
His eye is unseeing. White pupil. Milky iris. With the skin around it poreless and hairless. Easy to cover up with makeup. Oil-less and unmoisturized. Like a scar. Like a burn.
"Todoroki," Mina says softly. The brush she's holding drops to her lap, spilling black ink on her pajama pants. "This isn't a birthmark I'm covering up, is it?"
Todoroki blinked. Mina spoke enough Todoroki-ese to understand the gentle "No" where there wasn't one.
"What hap-" She breathed, before closing her eyes and cutting herself off. She can imagine what happened. Anyone with a hint of his heritage could.
His brother, a mad glint in his eye. Fist full of blue flames that burned hotter than the sun.
Then she shook the image from her head when she remembered Todoroki's newly dyed hair. She replaced it instead with a picture of his father, standing over a young Todoroki with a fist full of flames and an entire hero persona to hide his crimes. If she imagined hard enough she could even imagine a young Dabi sporting similar scars.
"I'm sorry." She said, trying to pour as much genuine emotion into that simple sentence as she could. "That's- This-"
Her grip tightened around Todoroki's cheek, thumb under his eye.
"It's fine." Todoroki whispered, bringing his hand to cover hers. "It was a long time ago. I've forgiven-"
"You shouldn't have to!" She snapped. "How could he do this to his own family?!"
She realized halfway through her sentence that she wasn't just talking about Endeavor, but about Dabi as well. How could anyone raise a hand against the people they love?
"I don't know." A tear falls from Todoroki's healthy eye. A sniffle shuddered through his chest. She realized with a cold start that the tear duct on the other one was burned shut. "I don't know why he did this. He- They both did a lot of things I still don't understand. I felt like I finally had the pieces of the puzzle, finally understood everything. And then Touya is alive, after all this time."
Mina shoves Todoroki against her chest, head on his shoulder and hands locked behind his back. He seemed to tense up, if only for a moment, and that broke Mina's heart more than anything the past five minutes or so had revealed.
"I'll get makeup on your pajamas," he shuddered, his voice rising in pitch. Nevertheless he all but melted into the hug, bonelessly slumping against her while she patted his back.
"It's waterproof." She says. She knows that's not how waterproofed makeup works, but she doesn't care. She'll rather be comforting her friend, right now.
He clings to her, tight as sobs rock his body. She never realized it before, but his frame was almost freakishly small compared to her other male classmates. Powerful and lithe, yes, but all that strength seemed fragile now he was in her arms. Like ice. Brittle.
She knows that he's one of the most powerful students in her class, if not the number one. She's seen him do some amazing things. Taking on entire opponents by himself and coming out on top. But it's hard to picture that when she's patting his back reassuringly as he begins to calm, like she calms her little sister when she gets a nightmare or a knee scrape.
He pulls back after a long few minutes, tear stains down his cheeks and his nose red under the powder.
"I'm sorry," he says. His voice shudders. "I ruined your hard work."
He wonders what came over him. He hasn't cried in months, much less the sharp snot faced crying he just dumped onto Mina's shoulder. Maybe it was the lack of emotional closure from the past month or so. Maybe it was his mother's face smiling softly in the mirror across from him. Maybe it was the thought of finally, finally, looking like himself. Does that type of body dysphoria come with facial scarring? Has he really not felt comfortable in his own body after all this time?
Mina smiles sadly, before reaching for a box of Kleenex. "That's the thing about makeup." She says as he blows his nose into one. "At the end of the day, it all comes off."
They try again, once all tears have been shed and the sun starts to peak through Mina's closed blinds.
Mina brushed something soft over his nose, and he held his hand out for her to stop, and sneezed. The powder was itchy and dusty. He did not like this part. He held still for the rest of it, trusting Mina to make him pretty.
She smeared something across his lips that felt like chapstick, and told him to press his lips together. She had a thinner brush that felt like a paintbrush and did something to his only eyebrow, before tracing where his other eyebrow would be if it wasn't for his burn.
Then, ever so delicately, she put something on his eyelids. It wasn't like the liquid stuff from before that dried cold, but something powdery instead.
"Okay, I'm done."
Todoroki opens his eyes. Mina held a hand mirror that he delicately took and held up to his face.
The sun draws across his face in lines from the closed blinds. The skin still has some texture of the burn, but it isn't the same shiny burnt skin he associates with his face. He has an eyebrow now, drawn on in some dark color. There was a grey color on his eyelids that somehow made both of his eyes look muted and grey.
He blinked.
The person in the mirror blinked back.
"I went for more muted and natural colors." Mina explained. "Grey eyes with grey eyeshadow looks great always, but if you use grey eyeshadow over blue eyes then they also become grey."
"I like it." Todoroki says with a smile. "You did a fantastic job."
They don't mention the rubbed powder on Mina's shoulder.
"The first time you wear makeup should always look the best." Mina shrugged. "Plus, this was fun for me. I hardly ever get to do someone else's makeup now that I don't live with my little sister."
"Thank you," Todoroki says. His eyes feel like they might let out tears again, so he blinks rapidly to hold them back. No need to destroy Mina's work a second time. "You made it seem a lot easier than the videos I watched. They seemed so confident. I'm glad its just something you can mold to your personality."
"Will you try to do this again? Covering up your scar, I mean?"
Todoroki fingers the hem of his shirt. "Maybe. It'll take some practice, but I might."
Mina suddenly smiled, a mischievous glint in her eye. "Want to try it on me?"
That morning at breakfast Mina had uneven wings, brightly colored blush that barely matched her skin tone, visible freckles, and thick brown eyebrows. The concealer was uneven and had faint streaks under the powder Todoroki applied. Luckily the brightly colored lipstick had, for the most part, rubbed off. Kyoka only raised an eyebrow in her direction before seeing Todoroki next to her, and instead grinned at the two.
She never felt more beautiful.