“There was another studio before, but Z got kicked out because something about ‘zoning laws’”, Mel said with finger quotes. “So obviously we had to call it new Z-land.”

“Obviously,” Hunter agreed. “Uh… what kind of studio is this exactly?”

He looked out across the large, mostly bare room. There was a metal tripod and an array of lights pointed at a big white sheet held upright by two stands, with the bottom of it draping down and continuing forward a few feet across the floor. Just off to the side of the sheet, there was a crate full of a grab bag of items; he saw green tubes and foam swords and belts and little cloth pouches, among other things. Beyond that stood several wheeled racks crammed with clothes of every conceivable shape and color, and a shelf full of different wigs carefully arranged on mannequin heads.. Diagonally across from that was a large desk holding a laptop, a printer, a mini fridge, and a coffee maker. Next to that was a vanity, with a wide mirror surrounded by big spherical lights, and in front of that were two chairs. One was an abnormally tall director’s chair with various added attachments, while the other looked like a standard hair salon chair.

“It’s a beauty slash cosplay slash photography studio,” Z said. “I cosplay, or I help other people with their cosplays, and then I take photos.”

“Huh.” Hunter said. “Neat.”

“You want any drinks?” Z asked. “We have water, Mountain Dew, coffee, and yerba mate.”

Hunter had no idea what yerba mate was. “Uh, I’ll take some Dew?”

“Of course you will,” Mel said. “Gamer juice. Uh, I’ll take one too, Z.”

Z opened the mini fridge and tossed each of them a bottle. “Mel’s the only reason I even have this stuff,” they said. “I would never put that much high fructose corn syrup in my body. I’ll stick to being addicted to coffee and mate for my caffeine fix, thank you very much.”

“Hey, at least I’m not an average Monster enjoyer,” Mel said. “Besides, Dew isn’t that bad for you. It has orange juice in it or something.”

Finally, Hunter saw an opportunity to organically enter the conversation. “Did you know orange juice is apparently a lie?”

“What? Oh no,” Mel said. “I drink so much orange juice. What do you mean by a lie?”

“Oh, I’ve heard about this. Basically, the juice sits in tanks so long that it turns gray and loses all its flavor, so they have to add color and flavoring back in,” Z said.

“What? How can it say 100% real juice on the bottle then?”

Hunter piped up. “The color and flavor additives are also derived for oranges, so technically it’s all orange.”

“Damn. Can’t believe my whole life has been a lie, smh. Ah well, I already cram my body full of processed shit. One more thing ain’t gonna kill me.”

“This is why I only drink fresh, cold-pressed juice,” Z said.

“Z, you bougie bitch, not everyone has rich parents,” Mel said. She poked Z and they both laughed.

“Anyway, Hunter, sit in that chair whenever you’re ready and we can start on makeup.” Z pointed to the spinny salon chair.

Hunter meekly did so, unscrewing the top of his Dew and taking several swigs.

“Alright, gonna have to take that for now,” Z said as they grabbed the bottle and put it over on the table. “I need clear access to your face.”

“Man, I wonder what knowing how to do makeup is like.” Mel laughed.

“Mel, I keep telling you I’ll teach you if you want,” Z said as they extracted a large box from the drawer of the vanity and sat down in the director’s chair. “Try and hold still, please, Hunter.”

“Nah, I’m good. Even if I knew how I’m too lazy to actually do it, lol. Oh, Hunter, you want me to put on music or a podcast or anything? Little more exciting than just sittin’ there.”

“Uh, there was a video about the world record history for Mario Kart? Maybe we could listen to that.”

“Okay, nerd.” She stuck her tongue out at Hunter. “I might just be over here reading stuff on my phone while it plays. Already watched that vid.”

Hunter sat, listening as the community discovered more and more ridiculous skips and glitches, and trying not to glance at the mirror too often. He kinda wanted the final look to be a surprise.

Finally, when the video had gotten up to 2016, Z stopped fussing around his face. After spraying it with one last blast of a product, they spun the chair around. “Et voila!”

Hunter stared in the mirror, reaching out instinctively to touch his face before realizing he might smear the makeup. He looked… different.

Like don’t get me wrong, you can still kinda tell it’s me. But my skin looks so smooth and stuff! And I swear my nose is bigger than that, and my eyes are smaller.

He was shaken out of his thoughts by Z asking him something.

“I have the ear prosthetics here, but those can wait until after you pull the top on. Did you want to do blue contacts to match the character, or just go with your natural eye color?”

“Uh…” One thing Hunter had always kind of hated about himself was his indecisiveness. How was he supposed to know what the best choice would be when he hadn’t seen all the possible outcomes? “I’ll leave it up to the expert?”

“Alright, in that case… do you have experience putting in contacts?”

“Um, yeah. I tried them for a little bit before switching back to glasses. Kinda don’t like things touching my eyeball.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if you need any help, alright?” With that, Z went off to make a pot of coffee and look at something on their computer.