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The Wishing Tree (2) : Your wish is only said to come true if you grant the wish of someone else; when you write your wish, you must also take one off of the tree and do your best to grant it. What wish do you pull off, and how do you intend to âgrantâ it? Do you work with someone else to grant this wish, or do you work alone? You may get approval from another player to use the wish their character hung up, but no names are attached so your character may not ever know who wrote it!
One thing that Kiyoshi could not deny, even if heâd wanted to: LiĂĄnlĂ has a very good home setup for making digestible, disposable internet âcontent,â and better yet, he knew how to use it. Which all perfectly stood to reason, honestly. Considering that âcontentâ seemed to be one of his primary sources of incomeâsomething he had more than once agreed to with a smile and his typical amount of sunshiny optimismâit wouldâve been stranger for LiĂĄnlĂ not to have his home-filming game more or less figured out.
Even so, as Kiyoshi sat at a fairly vintage-looking desk with a vanity mirror, primping Magdalene Yotsuya Wildeâs wig and doing a last makeup check under one of LiĂĄnlĂâs ring-lights with a couple fans blowing nearby to prevent him from overheating in all his drag, everything about this enterprise still feltâŠâŠdeeply ******** wrong.
By all rights, it shouldnât have felt any kind of wrong. Theyâd been at this s**t all morning, and now, for most of the afternoon. Kiyoshi had already changed his hair, face, and outfit up twice already (though all his looks had more or less followed the same theme), then gone through shooting in different places. The staircase. An area of one room that LiĂĄnlĂ had fashioned to look like a stage for reasons or something, Kiyoshi guessed. The âwe donât rightly know what this is but it sure functions well as a dancing poleâ that LiĂĄnlĂ had in his basement for equally mysterious reasons.
One problem with the argument about how long theyâd been at work on this shoot: all of this had felt deeply ******** wrong from the start, too.
Which was, Kiyoshi realized, incredibly stupid and unnecessary. Plenty of drag artists did exactly what Kiyoshi was preparing to do: get into character as Magdalene, vamp his way through a song he liked (Chappell Roanâs âPink Pony Clubâ had been Speaking to him lately) while LiĂĄnlĂ filmed him on a cellphone camera from different angles, and then edit the footage down into something they could post on TikTok and Youtube Shorts. Several of the drag artists Kiyoshi had in mind were quite famous for it too. Sure, most of the artists in question had actually gotten famous from being on Drag Race or Dragula. But a distinctly non-zero number of those artists had instead started on social media before getting onto either of the reality shows in question.
Kiyoshi just didnât understand why they chose to live like this. He didnât get why anybody would ever live like this.
Undeniably, heâd put a series of cute looks together today. As a tribute to Chappell, heâd painted his face up with vampire white powder like she did. Skilled and well practiced from painting himself with dragged up versions of onryo, kabuki, oiran, or âall of the aboveâ makeup over the years, heâd contoured this specific version of the look with a mix of blues, lilacs, and grays, crafting an effect that both gave the illusion of the dramatic facial structure he wanted Magdalene to have, and made Kiyoshi look both at least somewhat undead. Miss Sayuri had never shied away from working horror influences or some kind of monster drag into one of her performancesâgiven the sheer number of blatantly onryo-inspired numbers Kiyoshi had done back then, avoiding horror influence had never been in the cardsâbut amping that up felt like a good way to help establish Magdalene as someone differentâŠâŠto at least make it so she didnât seem too similar to Sayuri in peopleâs minds.
The undead effect wouldâve been more complete if heâd put the white foundation on his neck and collarbone, the way he usually did with his oiran-inspired makeup. But Chappell Roan only painted the stark white or extremely pale foundation on her face, at least when she felt like doing one of those looks, and the makeup today had to be a mix of her style and Kiyoshiâs own. He wasnât going to just straight up copy her lewks like a stan going to a concert, but splitting the difference between how Chappell painted her face and how he preferred to paint his own, leaving his neck and collarbone visibly brown seemed like the most effective compromise.
Besides, Kiyoshi told himself as he checked over his cheeks and eyes in his little mirror that best magnified and reflected details, the juxtaposition between his white, white face and his brown, brown neck and hands really heightened the uncanniness in this look. Hopefully, his intent here read as well on camera as it did in his head. Kiyoshi felt like it would. If heâd painted his neck and collarbone but not his hands or legsâor if heâd painted his face, neck, and collarbone plus tossed on opaque white tights but left his hands and wrists aloneâit might have looked like laziness. But leaving his legs bare, his neck and collarbone still brown and only treated with enough foundation to not reflect ring-light everywhere, and his face painted white, it looked like a deliberate artistic choice.
Fans of Chappell would probably clock the intended tribute. Hopefully, anyone in the audience would also clock Kiyoshiâs intent of playing a Magdalene who desperately clung to the fantasy life sheâd constructed for herself. A live audience wouldâve settled his nerves so much more, as Kiyoshi could have gauged their reactions in real time and adjusted aspects of his performance as necessary to compensate for anything he might have missed in crafting the look, butâŠâŠoh, well. Right now, his options were âmake this ******** content without the energy and feedback of a live audienceâ and âdonât do drag at all until he could get back into a bar.â
For several reasons, the latter wasnât really an option. Oh, not at all.
Chappellâs signature massive smattering of hot pink blush had proven pretty easy for Kiyoshi to balance with the way he typically painted his oiran makeup. Sure, Chappellâs makeup went bigger than traditional oiran makeup (mostly because she probably wasnât trying to invoke that image at all), but hey, so did Kiyoshiâs because additional Muchness was part and parcel of his whole approach to the art of Drag. Even painting this final look so that his face seemed sunken with undeathâlike, yes, beautiful and glamorous, but nevertheless undead and not trying to hide itâthe hot pink blush had worked out well. If anything, Kiyoshi felt it enhanced the undead appearance, making Magdaleneâs pretensions of being alive even more transparently false.
Lipstick, likewise, hadnât been too difficult. Chappellâs usual visual inspiration seemed to come more from Clara Bow and similar kinds of vintage Hollywood starlets with wide eyes and pouty lips, but Kiyoshiâs typical amount of exaggeration in painting on oiran lips blended pretty well with that. The shapes were slightly different, but the overall effect was similar. Kiyoshi differed from both of his style inspirations by using a thin coat of lash glue to put blood red glitter on his likewise blood red lips, but that was okay. Draw more attention to the fact that Magdalene was unalive and trying to pretend otherwise.
Balancing between his own vision and Chappellâs had proven more difficult with the eyes. For one thing, she didnât have to work around monolids. For another, though, the wide-eyed innocence look that she wore in the âPink Pony Clubâ video didnât work with the undead oiran stylings. For a third, significantly more important thingâŠâŠgoddamn did Chappell Roan love herself some eyeshadow up to the ******** brow (with her stage-brows often painted higher and thinner than her natural ones).
Under other circumstances, Kiyoshi absolutely felt her on that. He wouldâve loved to paint himself with absolute garage doors of eyeshadow (or at least a look that only avoided being an absolute garage door by virtue of having more than one color). For this specific look, though, Kiyoshi was deviating from tradition enough already by adding lashes and more dramatic liner. He couldnât also refuse to paint the corners of his eyes with pink and red while leaving most of his lids alone. White foundation, the blue-lilac-and-gray contouring, some sheer glitter because everyone could stand to have a little extra sparkle, but a proper oiran kept the eyelids bare and so would Kiyoshi.
He did exaggerate the pink and red shadows that he painted on around the outer corners of his eyes. Bigger, more dramatic, always consummately Too Much and not to mention, glittered like his lids and lips. Nevertheless, identifiable as the oiranâs distinctive styling (or at least very strongly inspired by them).
Finally, heâd gone with a series of red wigs today. Not one of his normal choices for hair color, but when Chappell Roanâs red hair was such a huge part of her image, not doing red hair felt wrong. This final one had history, too. When the Haus of Disobedience-and-Poppins had done family-friendly shows and/or drag storytime hours, Kiyoshi had done Merida-adjacent cosplay a distinctly non-zero amount of times. Miss Sayuri K. Disobedience would likely always be better known for her âLet It Go,â her âSurface Pressure,â and for doing Dolores Madrigalâs part in âWe Donât Talk About BrunoââŠâŠbut the trusty old Merida wig had been sitting around in his drag-and-crafts room, unused for quite some time. After heâd cleaned it up and done a bit of restyling, both the color and the curly texture had fit with the Chappell Roan vibes pretty well.
Maybe shooting âcontentâ at HuanLiâs place would have felt less deeply ******** wrong with an audience consisting of someone other than LiĂĄnlĂ? However, as Kiyoshi had learned to his sorrow when putting LiĂĄnlĂ up in femme drag for his âOne Of Your Girlsâ cover video, he wasnât entirely likely to get that audience. LiĂĄnlĂâs brother-of-choice had some personal hang-ups about the femme drag of it all, and considering Dewey was a long-survivor senshi from space, Kiyoshi felt it better not to ask about that. For all he knew, Deweyâs hang-ups were related to some very serious space-trauma and it needed to be on Dewey whether to share that or not.
Huanxi might or might not have come out to watch anything. Generally, he seemed to take more of an interest when LiĂĄnlĂ was the star and Kiyoshi the helper rather than the other way around, which made sense. After all, Huanxi was only âthe one who knows the melody of my soulâ to one of them, and last Kiyoshi had checked, it wasnât him. Forget about being Huanxiâs partner in any romantic sense. On one hand, he wasnât Kiyoshiâs type. On the other, Kiyoshi was still desperately trying to farm enough Huanxi approval by doing Friend Things with LiĂĄnlĂ to unlock the achievement âMade Friends With A One-Person Cat While Not His One Person.â
At least Huanxi didnât have claws to turn on Kiyoshi like all of Aunt Satomiâs cats had. The worst he ever mightâve done was, like, refuse to dignify Kiyoshi with a response and make it crystal clear that Kiyoshi was being ignored. Or maybe heâd say something unnecessarily harsh; Kiyoshi suspected that Huanxi could throw some marvelous shade with a little bit of education in the art. Still, stony silence that smacked like âIâm ignoring you because you are not worth my timeâ felt like the likelier outcome with Huanxi. More his style, on the whole.
ButâŠâŠwhatever. Magdalene Yotsuya Wilde could do this âperforming without a live audience presentâ thing. She had to do it, Kiyoshi reminded himself as he rifled around in one of his drag bags for his setting spray. The other optionânot enduring the torture of making this horrific internet âcontentâ until such time as he could get back into Scandals, where he good and goddamn well belongedâdidnât deserve acknowledgment because it, point blank period, was *NOT* a real option.
Even if Kiyoshi had found it harder and harder to dance through this songâs chorus without crying because the lines âOn the stage in my heels, itâs where I belong, down at the Pink Pony Clubâ reminded him how much he missed being in his proper place.
Even if, instead of setting spray, Kiyoshiâs hand first fumbled onto a slip of paper. In the moment, swept away in thoughts about how much better it was to perform live and why would any drag artist ever willingly choose to live like this, he forgot what the paper in question was. It didnât have the right texture to be some long-forgotten tip that had wound up in his makeup bag after a Scandals patron had shoved it down his bra during a number. That mightâve made him smile, but since it couldnât be the case and he couldnât think of what he had crinkling beneath his fingers, Kiyoshi pulled it out.
As soon as he saw the pink paper, he sighed. Unfurling it, the memory rushed right back: Kiyoshi had swung by the wishing tree on his walk over to Dewey and HuanLiâs place. Heâd grabbed a couple actual wishesâall of them, heâd put into his cute little skirtâs pocket with his wallet and phoneâand while perusing the selection, heâd stumbled across some all too familiar handwriting. Same as heâd done last year, Kiyoshi had caught his little drag brother in the act of using the Star Festival wishing tree in an attempt at soliciting intimate hookups with divorced dads going through midlife crises, preferably at least a little chubby.
Kiyoshi had gotten halfway through typing out a text message to chide Elijah for disrespecting the spirit of the wishing tree before he remembered that he couldnât send it. Because he had a new number, thanks to Yuki figuring out everything with Kiyoshi and Kyoyaâs stupid phones, one that Elijah wouldnât recognize. If they ran into each other now, Elijah wouldnât recognize Kiyoshi, either. He might recognize some of his big sisterâs handmade outfits more easily than he would Kiyoshi, who would look like a stranger.
If Yuki and Keiran had experienced any kind of mental dissonance about getting to know Kiyoshi when theyâd both met Reiki, neither of them had really said anything. Kiyoshi didnât know if Elijah would feel that dissonance, or how it would affect him if he did, or any of it. Would he even be able to make Elijah believe him about Kiyoshi and Reiki being the same person in a slightly different color?
Better not to risk it. At least, not yet. Kiyoshi knew damn well how much danger he risked putting Elijah in by trying to get back in his life like that.
Still, as he stared down at his little brotherâs messy scribble of âI wish that a hot divorced dad would have a midlife crisis by sweeping me off my feet and coming back to my apartment,â tucked in next to a blue star charm that heâd found, Kiyoshi really ******** wanted to text Elijah and ask him what the in Hell heâd been thinking. He didnâtânot least because LiĂĄnlĂ currently had his phoneâbut damn if Kiyoshi didnât want to.
Damn if looking down at that scribble didnât make Kiyoshi swallow thickly and make the songâs chorus start playing in his head again: God, what have you done? Youâre a pink pony girl, and you dance at the club. Oh, Mama, Iâm just having fun on the stage in my heels, itâs where I belongâ
Kiyoshi inhaled deeply. Shook his head and felt the wigâs mass of violently red curls swish against the back of his neck. His hand found his setting spray, and he closed his eyes and tilted his face, leaning into the stream. And calling on the spirit of Saint FreddieââInside, my heart is aching. My makeup may be flaking, but my smile, still, stays onââKiyoshi reminded himself that the show must go on. If nothing else, then at least this was the last leg of shooting for today. He could get through one more round of filming without having a sobbing meltdown all over LiĂĄnlĂâs couch (or worse, all over LiĂĄnlĂ himself, who very much occupied the category of People Kiyoshi Did Not Want To See Him Cry).
When he opened his eyes again, when he turned them toward the vanity mirror, Kiyoshi sighed. He was Magdalene Yotsuya Wilde now, and he was gonna keep on dancinâ at the Pink Pony Club in his mind. As long as what he gave sold the fantasy to Youtube and TikTok, that was all it needed to do.