Chapter 3: New
The door to his room opened with a sound that was less a click and more a sigh of finality.
Ren stood in the threshold, one hand raised in a gesture of exhausted surrender. His face was pale, a stark canvas under the hall light. He looked like a man walking to his own execution, if the executioner wore avant-garde eyeliner and owned a glue gun for rhinestones.
“Fine,” he said, the word thin and brittle. “You win. Just… turn the internet back on after.”
For a heartbeat, Yuna simply stared, her professional composure flickering. Then, a noise burst from her—a sharp, unvarnished squeal of pure triumph. She crossed the distance in two swift steps and threw her arms around him, squeezing so tightly he felt the sequins on her top imprint through his t-shirt.
“I knew it! I knew you’d see reason!” she chirped into his shoulder.
He stood stiff, arms at his sides, face a mask of profound annoyance. “Reason. Right. This is reason. Get off me, you maniac. The clock’s ticking, isn’t it?”
She released him, bouncing back on the balls of her feet. Her eyes were alight with a frightening, kinetic energy. “Sixty-three minutes! We have to move. Move!”
What followed was less a makeover and more a controlled demolition of his identity. He was shoved onto the stool before her vanity, a lighthouse ringed by a dozen blinding bulbs. The mirror showed a tired, angry young man with too-pretty features. It was the last time he would see that face for a while.
Yuna’s hands, usually so precise when sketching designs, became a whirlwind. Cold cream wiped away the grumpy pallor. A moisturizer that smelled of cucumbers was slapped on. He endured it all with his eyes closed, retreating into a mental sanctuary of pixelated battlefields that grew fainter by the second.
“Hold still.”
“I am holding still.”
“You’re breathing too aggressively. It messes with the foundation.”
He tried to breathe less. It was harder than it sounded.
He felt the whisper-soft dab of brushes, the sticky drag of primer, the cool, liquid spread of foundation. Yuna worked in absolute silence now, her breath a faint, focused rhythm against his temple. He heard the rattle of palettes, the soft thwick of a blade cutting tape for sharp eyeliner edges. The scents were layered: waxy pencil, powdered pigment, the alcoholic bite of setting spray.
Time lost meaning. It was measured in the clicks of compact cases and the soft scratch of bristles on his skin.
“Eyes open.”
He opened them. And flinched.
The person in the mirror was a stranger. A beautiful, ethereal stranger with eyes like shards of polished jade, highlighted and shaded to look even larger, even more luminous. His brows had been subtly shaped, a faint sweep of rose-gold shadow dusted across his lids, a perfect wing of black liner extending toward his temple. His lips were a soft, blurred pink, making his natural pout look deliberate, artistic.
The makeup didn’t make him look like a girl wearing makeup. It made him look like… more. A hyper-realized version of himself. The androgyny was no longer a quirk; it was the entire thesis statement.
A hot, confusing wave of blood rushed to his cheeks, painting a flush of real pink over the expertly applied blush. He looked… pretty. Objectively, undeniably pretty. The realization was a visceral shock, a jarring disconnect between his internal screaming and the serene beauty reflected back.
“Oh, stop that,” Yuna murmured, tilting his chin with a finger to inspect her work. “The blush is perfect as it was. You’re ruining the color story.”
“I look…” he began, his voice strangely hoarse.
“Like a million yen,” she finished, her smirk evident in her tone. “Like a trending topic. Like our missing fourth member.” She spun the stool around to face her, her critical gaze sweeping over him. “Now, the name. We need a name. It has to be cute, memorable, and vaguely plausible.”
Ren blinked, the heavy fake lashes feeling alien. “My name is Ren.”
“Boring. Rejected. This is a persona.” She tapped a glitter-dusted nail against her teeth. “Himari? Too common. Riko? Sounds like a side character. An…?” She paced, a general strategizing. “It needs a hint of mystery. A edge.”
He watched her, the surrealism of the situation wrapping around him like the synthetic fog he knew they’d use on stage. He was going to have to do this. He was going to have to go out there. A new, more profound panic began to seep in, cold and liquid. He needed something. Anything to grasp onto, a shred of control.
“Rena,” he said, the word leaving his mouth before he’d fully thought it through.
Yuna stopped pacing. She turned slowly. “What?”
“Rena.” He said it again, firmer. It was close. Too close. It was a surrender, but it felt like a tiny, secret rebellion—a way to cling to a ghost of himself. “Just… call me Rena. It’s fast. It’s simple. You don’t have to explain anything. It’s practically my name already.”
She stared at him, her sharp eyes narrowing, then widening in dawning, delighted comprehension. She saw it. The pathetic, clever little loophole he was carving for his sanity. And she adored it.
“Rena,” she repeated, tasting the word. She grinned, a flash of white in her glossed lips. “It’s perfect. It’s lazy. It’s literally just adding a vowel. It’s so you. And it’s utterly, completely believable.” She clapped her hands once, a sound like a starting pistol. “Rena it is. Now, up. The dress awaits, Rena-chan.”
The use of the honorific, so casually attached to the new-old name, sent another jolt through him. She turned to the ghost costume on the rack, the one with the silver dice.
The moment of brittle stillness shattered. The adrenaline-fueled clock was ticking again, louder than ever. He was no longer Ren Matsumoto, unemployed god of a silent PC. He was Rena. And Rena had a stage to get to.