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azikarue · 10 months

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Life in Color : Chapter 22 : Cover Art

Ming-Ming | FFN Rating: T | FFN Link ❖ Ming-Ming thought that everyone must feel this way in the beginning.

When your life changed so much in a short period of time, it was natural to feel some discomfort alongside the excitement. After all, stylists and photoshoots and glitz were about as far as you could get from biking half an hour to a rinky-dink restaurant job. Of course it felt like her stomach was curling in on itself. That was normal. This was all normal.

“We’re going to have to do something about that.”

She blinked, tuning back into the conversation around her. Her hairstylist and makeup artist were currently working in tandem to craft her a new, signature look. From what she understood, the goal was to look like a classic, cutesy pop princess during concerts with her band, but a cutthroat femme fatale when she was blading.

So far she’d only seen concept sketches, but they were all beautiful; lots of pink tulle, silky white ribbons, and heart patterns, with notes like “candyfloss and arsenic” scribbled in the margins. She’d been dying to see how everything would come together until her hair and makeup session turned into an opportunity for strangers to pick apart her looks. Things she hadn’t even thought a person could be insecure about were suddenly the center of attention as they discussed whether it was easier to cover over them or let the photographers retouch them afterward.

She braced herself to hear it again.

“What is it this time?” her makeup artist grumbled. He’d been grumpy ever since the struggle to find a foundation that matched her skin tone. It was only worse now that her hairstylist had decided it was time to figure out the front of her hairdo and elbowed him out of the way.

“Her ears are too big to pull all this hair back. I’ll have to leave some down.”

Ming-Ming took a deep breath and added it to the list. Ears, skin, forehead, hairline – they’d fixed the latter two by cutting a fringe that she knew would take some getting used to.

“Oh, so now you’re eating up more of my canvas?”

“Maybe we can make it work for both of us.”

Ming-Ming let herself zone out again while they talked about how they could curl some hair at the front and use it to hide her ears and disguise her baby face when she was her tougher, beyblading version of herself. It was like she was their doll or an art project, instead of a living, breathing human being. She bit the inside of her cheek and forced herself not to listen.

Not once did they ask her opinion on what she thought, or even let her sneak a peek. Instead they took dozens of pictures so they could send them off for approval and replicate the look when they needed to. They also neglected to tell her when they were done. She assumed she was allowed to move when they both disappeared – one to find her dress and the other to have a cigarette.

Steeling herself again, Ming-Ming wiped her sweaty palms on her robe and twisted around in her chair to look in the mirror.

The first thing she thought was that she looked so much older than she was. Her face was contoured almost beyond recognition, her features sharpened. She had to give credit to her hairstylist, too – her curls rested right over the roundest parts of her cheeks, further enhancing the effect. She knew the person looking back at her in the mirror would be considered attractive, but right now she just looked pale underneath all the makeup.

Exhaling shakily, she closed her eyes. After a few even breaths, she opened them again and used whatever acting chops she could muster to shoot a challenging glare at her reflection. It didn’t look quite right. She tried again, this time curling her lips up into a sultry smirk at the same time. And there was the femme fatale they wanted. She would take just as much getting used to as the bangs.

“Is that our little Ming-Ming? Why, I hardly recognize her.”

She knew it was Boris’s voice even before he appeared in the mirror beside her. He had a smile on his face, clearly pleased with her makeover. Ming-Ming met his eyes in the mirror, before dropping hers to the floor instead.

“I don’t either,” she said with a laugh that fell flat. She turned back around in her chair, but ducked her head. She didn’t want to see the disappointment on Boris’s face or give him any opportunity to see how uneasy she felt and change his mind about her.

“You will,” Boris said, leaving no room for argument. He curled one finger under her chin and lifted her face towards him. She held his gaze, despite the inexplicable, foreboding shiver it sent down her spine. “At BEGA we believe in the talent of our champions. All we ask is that you let us hone that talent and help craft you an image that will make it most effective.”

“I’m not trying to be ungrateful,” Ming-Ming said, forcing herself to perk up. “I’m not used to seeing myself so glammed up, that’s all. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”

Just to sell her point, she turned to the mirror again, the curls in her hair spinning in a fragrant arc above her shoulders. Staring at herself this time, she imagined standing in the center of a beyblading arena, an opponent on their knees across from her, and a crowd of people cheering her name.

If that had to be her reality in order for her singing career to take off, then so be it. She wanted to sing. BEGA was going to give her that. She’d just have to fake the confidence until she felt it for real.

She giggled and winked at herself in the mirror.

Boris chuckled. “Save it for the album’s cover art,” he advised, laying a heavy hand on her shoulder. “In the stadium, you’ll be a fierce competitor who’s not to be trifled with.”

She craned her neck to meet his eyes. There was a strange sort of hunger in them that she couldn’t quite place, but it unnerved her. Luckily it was gone in a flash when her stylists returned with a garment bag. Her makeup artist whipped out his phone to show Boris the pictures and explain the look, effectively distracting him.

Ming-Ming was distracted enough herself by the thought of what her outfit might look like. All the fabric swatches she’d seen had been positively dreamy and she hoped the dress wasn’t a letdown like the hair and makeup session had turned out to be.

“Well, come get dressed,” her hairstylist said, the barest hint of a smile on her features as Ming-Ming excitedly hopped down from her chair and grabbed the garment bag. The older woman motioned to a screen in the corner, indicating that she should dress behind there. “I’ll be right out here if you need help.”

Ming-Ming had a feeling she was supposed to help her, but wanted to be able to talk to Boris about how Ming-Ming’s ears had nearly ruined her hairdo. She didn’t care. As much as it would make her feel like a proper pop star to have her glam squad dress her, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what any of them thought about the rest of her body.

Behind the screen, Ming-Ming finally unzipped the bag. Inside there was another bag labeled “accessories” that she set aside in favor of getting to the dress sooner. To her surprise, quite a few of the fluffier fabrics and sketches hadn't been used – they were probably saving them for her pop star alter ego – but she actually liked what they'd come up with and hurried to pull it on. Then came the accessories; socks, gloves, choker, armband, and shoes. She did a little spin in the mirror when she was finished, tried the smirk again. Yes. She could work with this.

More confident than she’d felt all day, she stepped out from behind the screen in a black mini dress adorned with pink hearts.

“What do you think?” she asked, letting some of her glee bleed into her voice. She knew this was the outfit she was meant to beyblade in, but she couldn’t help but want to belt out a power ballad – or a vengeful pop/punk earworm aimed at an ex-lover – with it on.

Ming-Ming loved all music, but she’d sing what they told her to if it meant she finally had an audience to listen.

In front of her, the three adults stopped conversing and surveyed her outfit. The silence made her feel a tad uneasy; she tried the smirk again, paired with a haughty indifference this time, to hide it. She wouldn’t let them have any doubts that she was the one they needed.

After a full minute, her makeup artist motioned for her to spin, so she did. When she finished, he said, “We’re going to need to contour her legs. They ruin the illusion.”

It was a fight to keep her shoulders from slumping, but she managed. Not that he would have noticed; he was already buried in his makeup case, hunting for the appropriate product. Looking at herself again, she could admit that her legs weren’t shapely enough to match the rest of her. Not with the makeup making her look so much older.

“I’m no designer,” her hairstylist chimed in, “but what if we brought up the hemline another couple inches? That would help, too.”

If the dress was any shorter, she wouldn’t be able to bend over in it, but nobody else seemed to care about that as they nodded along. With a snap of Boris’s fingers, a seamstress appeared to pin up her dress while her makeup artist knelt at her feet and began giving her legs enough contour to match her defined cheekbones.

All they wanted was their desired image, she reminded herself. If she fit that image, they’d let her sing and all the criticism would be worth it. Besides, she’d need to have a thick skin in show business. This was the perfect practice.

“Tomorrow you’ll be fitted for your in-ear monitors and your pop star outfit,” Boris said with a grin that demanded excitement. Thankfully, the thought of customized in-ear monitors was enough to rekindle Ming-Ming’s enthusiasm and her answering smile was genuine. “Your microphone is also on its way and will double as a beyblade launcher. Our engineers are working out the kinks as we speak.”

“How exciting!” she gushed as the swarm of people dispersed and a photographer moved in to immortalize their femme fatale’s test run. She tried out a few poses that had previously only been seen by her bedroom mirror, not even caring if she looked silly when her wildest dreams were coming true right before her eyes.

“Exciting indeed,” Boris chuckled, eyes gleaming as he turned away to leave the photographer to it.

If there was something sinister about his expression in that moment, Ming-Ming convinced herself it was because she was blinded by the light of the camera flash. Of course she was. That was normal. This was all normal.

#beyblade #this was such an artist's prompt and I s t r u g g l e d #but there's a mention of cover art buried way in there so my work here is done #yes I'm still working on these #too many good ideas #mayblade 2023 #azrfic #azikarue #azikarue394

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