"Why are you laughing? There's nothing funny here!" Aruna snapped.
"You become more adorable when being angry like this."
"What do you want to say? Do I look like a clown to you?"
"No, I didn't mean it like that, oh God …"
Hearing that, Aruna threw a quick glance to her husband, then continued to brush her hair. With the furious fire still burning wild in her chest, she took out a hair tie and made a neat ponytail. Quite different from her usual style, as it was higher, showing her nape deliciously.
"I said I don't like it when you tie your hair like that," careful as he was, Hendra was still protesting.
"You always keep your appearance perfectly fine, why can't I?!" she grumbled loudly, voice raised too high for his liking, "This is perfect for me!"
A heavy sigh came out of Hendra's parted lips.
Aruna pulled out the drawer, taking out lipstick and trying to apply it to her lips. Lining it up as she usually was, a neat thin smear. But the, replaying the YouT*be u tutorial in her head, she took out another lipstick, smearing it on her lower lips. It was bad, as expected.
Her face scrunched up, soured even more at her failed attempt.
Hendra merely kept watching her from the sideline. He was waiting for her, and wanted to take her to campus. In effort to placate the burning jealousy. Actually, he thought it was cute of her.
Not stopping there, Aruna took out a too foreign object. She tried to curl her eyelashes.
He stared. Wide eyed and unconsciously holding his breath. He clamped his mouth shut, restraining the remark that most likely wouldn't end up in his favor. He wouldn't want to poke her when she was fuming like a grumpy lioness.
"This is so hard!" she slammed the object back to the drawer.
Hendra didn't dare to chuckle. He needed to be patient, watching her yet again. Glancing at the watch circling his wrist, he was startled by her sudden yelp.
His wife's eyelids were soiled with something dark while her hand was holding a thin brush. Hendra didn't know what happened. Only the damage. Which was a thick sharp line of black out of the corner of her eye.
"Hic!"
"What's that?" Aruna glared suspiciously through the mirror, catching his flushed face, "Are you laughing at me?!"
"No!" he quickly said, then biting his lower lip, hard. Trying to steady his breath as he might, another "Hic!" still escaped him.
Receiving another sharp glare, he hurriedly added, "It's hiccup," then taking a repeated deep breath to prove his alibi. Leaning down to her a little more, Hendra studied the object currently held on her fingers. Still holding his breath to prevent the laugh threatening to escape him.
_Oh, an eyeliner_
"Why are you so close now? Do you want to laugh at me again?!"
Cursing her poor anger management and negative thoughts in his mind, Hendra placated, "I just want to help you."
"I don't need your help!" she barked in response.
"I want to take you to campus, can you hurry a bit?" he slowly said in the softest voice he could manage.
Instead of replying to him, Aruna hastily took out a wet wipe and tried to clean the thick smear on the corner of her left eye. Obviously, that didn't do the trick. Instead of the desired effect, she made it worse. Now, she has a huge dark smear around her eye. Like a racoon. Or a panda.
Hendra holds his breath again.
Grumbling to herself, Aruna tried to clean all of the black smears around her eye. Once her eye was free of the dark stain, she tried to apply her eye make up once again. Starting with the eyelash curler for the second time, she let out another yelp. Groaning in frustration, she couldn't help the tears that build up at her irritated eyelids.
Feeling down, Aruna threw the eyelashes curler away, shoulders slumping down in defeat. But then, pumped with dissatisfaction, she grabbed her eyeliner again, gripping it tightly in both hands and tried to snap it.
Wide eyed, Hendra was stunned for a second before he leaned in and snatched the inoffensive eyeliner from her hands. Her sudden change of behavior completely perplexed him. It was the first time in almost two years that he saw his wife act this extreme.
Unnoticed by Hendra, it was the product of jealousy and her desire to be the number one in her husband's eyes. Which then prompted her to act abnormal. To be more precise, Aruna was showing out her unhindered emotions to Hendra.
Motioning the eyeliner on his hand, "Don't blame this," he said. Grabbing a sheet of tissue, he wiped her flowing tears, stopping her from using the sleeve of her shirt to wipe them herself.
Once the tears were cleared from her cheeks, he went to help her even more. Braving himself, Hendra picked the discarded face powder to apply it on his wife's face.
"Could you even do it?" she whined, a little sob escaped her.
Smiling placatingly, he dabbed her face with a layer of moisturizer, "I don't know."
"Then, don't! I don't want to be your guinea pig," she grumbled noisily.
"Calm down," he reapplied her makeup, dabbing lightly, lovingly. Then, he moved to her lips, smearing the lipstick a bit more with his pointer finger to smooth out the reddish color.
"Next time, buy a better brand," he suggested after reaching her mascara and reading the brand written there, "The result will be different."
"How do you know?"
"Tania told me so when she wanted me to buy her things like this," at Aruna's furrowed brows, Hendra quickly added, "You know Tania is my friend."
Playfully, he brought his pointer and forefinger between her furrowed brows. He parted his fingers, which in turn, drew her brows to relax.
"I don't want to go to class today," she said firmly.
"Oh? That's rare," he teased. He couldn't help it that she was more adorable when being jealous and angry like this, don't sue him.
"I want to hang out with Herry, so you have to go to work by yourself," she stated.
Applying the mascara, he was careful not to poke her in the eye, even holding his breath to steady his fingers, "Hang out?"
"I want to go shopping, taking full advantage of being Mahendra's wife," Aruna muttered, making her husband smile and bestowing his dimples to her.
"Now, close your eyes," Hendra said before delicately applying the eyeliner on the edge of her eyelids, "Am I not invited?"
"Nope!" she hastily retorted, "Even if I invite you, you'll choose your work anyway."
Hendra smiled at her correct utterance, unable to read what was on Aruna's mind.
_I'm going to the courthouse to withdraw the divorce case before the witches strike again_
Her husband's voice broke her out of her thought, "Now, look at the mirror."