Something's been bugging my mind for days now. I saw something on TV, about this pretty woman freaking out so much over something on her face, and I could only turn my head sideways to think harder why she doesn't think she's pretty.

Then there's this flesh colored tube designed princess-y and the girl covers the thing, and she smiles so wide as if she inhaled a new life.

Why does she feel like that?

What does covering that small thing on her face do to her?

I asked about it over breakfast this morning over my plate of bacon and pancakes.

"You wouldn't know that, Steph. You're too young for makeup anyway," Michelle explains to me, her orange juice past her lips.

"Makeup? What's that?" I ask again.

"It's a gift from heaven, ugh," She says around her yawn, and then she looks at the mirror on her phone, looking at her face. She s the purse on the table and holds a small pink tube in her hands.

"It's that one! That's what I saw on TV!" I point to Michelle's hand, dropping my fork.

Michelle flits her eyes to me and smiles, "This, Steph, is makeup. It helps make you look pretty, see?" And she takes a small amount, rubbing it at the back of her hand. The flesh color spreads around her hand. "See here? You can't see the lines on my hand because it conceals it."

It does look nicer than before, but...

"I don't think it changes anything," I comment.

Michelle laughs good-naturedly, patting my head when she passes me. "It does wonders, Stephi. Mom wears it all the time too."

"Mom? She does? Really?"

"Yup. I'm sure she wore it when she first saw Dad back then too."

And so now this leads to a very secret adventure I'm on journeying on with Taeyeon.

Well, not so secretive.

"Hey Taetae, does your mom also wear makeup?" I ask my best friend the moment we saw each other inside her house.

Taetae's busy playing Rising Force on the laptop, pushing keys like a mad woman. "Makeup? What's that?"

I drop my bag on the floor and hurry to her side, seeing her avatar move around fighting enemies. "Michelle says it's something girls wear to look pretty. Like, they put the stuff on their faces to be beautiful?" I play around my words hoping to get the facts right. It sounds like that to me anyway.

"Ahhhh, makeup," Taetae repeats the word after she defeats everyone in the field. She moves her hand out of the keyboard (a rare moment, whoa) to take me somewhere else.

"Hey, where're we going?"

Eventually, Taetae takes me to a room I've never been to before. It's the master bedroom, Mr and Mrs Kim's! We stop at the tall desk on the side of the room. Taetae releases my hand, goes up on the big chair and then she pulls me up with her. Now we're both sitting in front of the desk, a mirror in plain view with our reflections staring right back at us.

"Welcome to Umma's wonderland!" Taetae exclaims beside me with her big cheeky dimpled smile.

I look closer at the objects on the table, wondering if Mrs Kim uses all of them everyday. "There's so many! Wow, haha!"

Taetae gets a black piece of block. She uncaps the thing and a dark red shade moves up and down when she twists it. "I think this is called lipstick..."

"Why?"

Taetae turns to me, "because, Pany-ah..."

"Because...?"

"Oi, smile for me, would you?"

"U-Um, okay---" When I do so, she taps the tip of the thing on me and moves it around my lips. "Ohhhh so that's why! Hahahaha!!"

"Y-Yah, Pany-ah you moved. Now you look weird hahaha!"

Taetae's complaints doesn't bring me down though because I'm still laughing at how easy the meaning was. Ugh, dumb me.

When I look at the mirror I see that the red marks are all over my lips and got all the way to my chin.

"I look like a vampire, this is soooo cool!" I squeak.

"Hm, you do look like one. High five, me! Yeah!"

"Taetae, let me use it this time!" I bounce in my seat in excitement. She gives me the lipstick and I poise my finger to my lips, thinking of a design for her. When I decide on one I leaned over and smeared the lipstick round her lips, then do it again and again until it became a big circle on her lower face.

"Wha-" Taetae snaps open and stops my hand, taking in her sight at the mirror. She looks like she has a whirlpool leading to her red-lipped mouth and I laugh so much when she opens because I can imagine the food going down there.

"What did you do to my face?! Yah, Pany-ah!!!!"

"Hahahahahahaha, hey, it's creative, right? Don't you like it, Taetae?"

"Don't I like it..." She narrows her eyes. I sense an evil plan brewing in her mind, uh oh. "How about powder, Pany-ah? Do you know powder?"

"Of course!" I answer right away. "It looks like flour, right?"

"Right," she nods, taking a thin compact case, opening it. "And do you know what angels should look like?"

"Uh... white?"

As soon as I answer, Taetae has smacked a puff of the powder on my cheek.

"Y-Yah! Taetae what are you-"

Smack! She does it again on the other side and I squirm on my seat trying to avoid her hand but she has me in place while she's slowly giggling to herself! This dork, really.

"Take this! And that! And this! Also this! HAHAHAHA-"

Two can play this game. I get a big rectangle box and flip open to get one of the many shades of colors set inside and then flick it on her face.

"What the-"

"Who's funny now, huh? Huhhhh?!" Over and over, I get a new color and try to draw it on her face.

We have a hard time jabbing at each other's skin with all the leaning away and gliding we could do in the limited space.

But it's fun. It's a nice feeling, being painted on by someone on the face (even though we're just playing now---I'm sure Mrs Kim would kill us for using her makeup like crayons haha) and trusting them to make it pretty.

I think I somehow get Michelle now. I hope, haha.

"Aya, what are you kids doing in this room---"

Aaaand looks like we're done for.

"Kim Taeyeon! Hwang Miyoung!"

Taetae and I stop, hesitant to look at her mom. We hide our makeshift weapons and cower in the seat together.

"I went out for just a moment and then I hear you two laughing in this room---and you're playing with my makeup---oh dear..."

For once I am very afraid of being scolded by a mother other than mine. Taetae and I hold hands in hopes of getting through the oncoming sermon-

"Next time, please tell me when you want to use it, okay?"

Our eyesight moves over to Mrs Kim, who looks like she is tired but is smiling anyway. And that eases me up because she's not...

"You're not mad, Mrs Kim?" I ask it out loud.

Her smiles widens a bit and she laughs a short moment. "Oh dear, no, I'm not mad at you for using my makeup, you're free to use it all you want anyway."

Oh.

"But! You both should have asked for my permission to use it first."

Ohhhh.

"Understand?"

"Yes, we understand," Taetae and I simultaneously answer. "We're sorry." We say again.

Mrs Kim walks to our side and messes both our hairs. "Apology accepted. Now, why are you both playing with this and not with your computer games?"

"Well Pany-ah wanted to know if you use makeup like her Umma always does too so I led her here to introduce her to your collection and-"

"And then she used your lipstick on me so I also used it on her in return-"

"But she went overboard and drew freely on my face-"

"You put all that flour thingy on me after though!" I direct my conversation to Taeyeon.

"Well you started it by swirling the lipstick around my mouth-"

"What about those eyeshadows then?" Mrs Kim's voice cuts our explanation.

"What? Oh, so those are for the eyes?" I ask Mrs Kim while pointing at Taetae's face with the stick I drew it with.

"Yes," both answer in return.

Okay. Okay.

"And then we're finally here." I explain the last bit with a shrug.

Taeyeon blinks for a second, and then she shouts "THE END!" with a spread of her arms and her cheeky smile.

Dork.

Mrs Kim laughs at our story in the end anyway and ushers us out of the chair. "Well, you both need to wash off those makeup before I let you both eat dinner later-"

"But makeup makes us pretty!" I in.

"Yeah! That's what she said..." Taetae agrees as an afterthought, hooking her arm around my neck.

We both smile widely at Mrs Kim.

"If you say so, dearies, if you say so," she shakes her head with a smile on her face. "Oh! Stay right here first." Mrs Kim walks away.

"Where's she going?" I ask Taeyeon.

"I don't know~" she singsongs.

Mrs Kim comes back with a stylish camera on-hand. "I need to picture this moment for the both of you little girls, haha. Makeup does make a person prettier, if you say so."

In an instant, Taetae pulls me closer to her with her hanging arm around my neck, and I circle mine around her waist, beaming my best smile.

"Say kimchi!"

"Kimchi!"

"Cheese!" I counter Taetae, because I'm used to saying "cheese" all the time.

The flash flickers twice on our eyesight. I'm momentarily blinded, but get my vision right away after.

Mrs Kim waves two photos on her hand, and I see the dark surface go whiter until it colors and then becomes the picture of us.

"Here then, one for Taetae," she gives it to her, "and one for Fany."

I take my picture in awe of the fast release but much more of the scene Mrs Kim snapped for us. I do admit, our makeup here does not make us normally pretty, but what I see more is the smile on our faces. We're happy.

Happy girls are pretty girls. That's what this is to me.