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It’s not a decision Momo makes, not even a thought she has, no inkling, no inspiration.
It’s just that that night, a Friday, when everyone else has gone to bed, her feet start moving.
She isn’t sure why -
(- she could find out, of course. She isn’t stupid.
It would take but one moment in which she really, truly looks inside and accepts what she can see there, and she would know what is driving her steps. She has been so close to it so many times, her fingertips brushing across the surface of the pulsing, writhing, heated certainty that has been occupying her chest for months now; she had pulled them back each time.
Because as soon as she knows, as soon as she acknowledges it, accepts it, it’ll be reality. And that will change everything.
Because once she knows, she will have to do something about it.
Because Momo Ayase is a lot of things, but she is no coward, and she does not stand still.
Even if sometimes, she desperately wants to.)
- but she’s still unable to stop.
It isn’t a curse, no weird alien beam meant to drag her forward, so there is no need to alert Seiko, to take precautions.
Instead, Momo takes a breath and… just allows it.
Her feet stumble, momentarily surprised by her acceptance, then carry her through her room, hesitating a second in front of the door, before they take her further. Through the hallway and down the stairs, stopping just long enough for her to shrug on a jacket and slip into her shoes, so they can bring her to the door, making her step through it the moment it has opened.
Autumn has come quickly, so outside, the air is crisp and cold, and it only takes a few minutes of walking until Momo is clutching her jacket tighter around herself, popping up the collar to stave off the chill.
She should have brought a scarf, maybe even gloves, and yet, although she thinks about it, she doesn’t turn to head back inside.
How could she, when something within her is itching, is beckoning her to follow, and she knows what it is, and she can’t, and she shouldn’t, and she will.
As she walks, the rice field next to to the street whispers with the wind, its meaning lost to the sky, which might be for the best; Momo has always been wary of these things, but never as much as she is now. This night is the wrong one – or worse even: the right one – for it, and there are things that should be left unspoken, no matter by whom.
Instead of listening, she lets her footsteps lull her into what might be a trance, the sound of her soles against the soft ground.
Like this, they sound almost lonely, Momo catches herself thinking, like there is something missing next to them. Another beat, another rhythm, another -
She stops herself before she can continue; it’s one thing to know and another to give it… what? A word? Meaning? A place in her mind? Her heart?
Before long, the ground beneath her feet turns into concrete, the rice and the trees and the bushes have made way for houses, and said heart quickens in Momo’s chest, because she knows the way, and wants to forget that she does the very next moment.
And yet she walks on, one step after another, steady in a way she does not feel.
When she turns the next corner, there’s the poster she always makes fun of when they walk past, because the model selling extra strong deodorant looks just a bit too much like Aira; a few metres ahead, the window behind which two cats are sometimes perched, watching them; once she has passed underneath the bridge, the bench they sometimes shared ice cream on in the summer.
They are everywhere Momo looks, like they have seeped into the buildings, the structures, the very path she walks on. It makes something in her sing, makes the very same thing clench so painfully she’s unsure if she will ever be able to unravel it again.
Sweetness on her tongue, the threat of tears burning behind her eyelids when she blinks.
And then, as suddenly as she had started walking, she arrives.
Momo has known where she was going, it would have been impossible to miss, and yet the surprise forces the breath from her lungs like the touch of cold water on a sweltering summer’s day.
The door doesn’t look familiar – she’s only been here twice, it’s usually the other way around – but it feels familiar still, like she has been standing here a thousand times in her mind already.
A moment, in which she doesn’t commit the scene to memory, doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t touch her fingertips to the wood and doesn’t pretend she can feel the warmth from the life within seeping through; in which she doesn’t yearn and doesn’t ache and doesn’t fear.
And then, she knocks.
The sound rings through the night so loudly that Momo fears she will have woken up the neighbours; a second passes, and another, and another, and -
- he must be asleep already, what was she thinking; she doesn’t even know how late it is; tomorrow, when he tells her about the strange noise that woke him, she will laugh and pretend -
- the door opens.
Okarun is looking at her with bleary eyes that widen, brighten at the sight of her, his hair a mess and his frame looking frail, delicate under the soft sweater that is clinging to his shoulders.
On his cheek, bunched up fabric has left an imprint on soft, warm skin, and Momo swallows, mouth suddenly dry.
“M-Miss Ayase!”, he stutters out, voice pitched high and sweet, and Momo wants to hug him, wants to pinch him just as much.
She does neither, just marvels at the fact that everything is so much easier once Okarun is around.
It’s like Momo can feel it in the air, in the way sound vibrates through her, the sharpness of the colours and the bite of the wind.
Nothing has changed, and yet it is better, because he is there, standing in the middle of it.
“Couldn’t sleep”, she mumbles, bringing one hand up to rub her sleeve against her cheek, pretending she can feel the imprint of his pillow there before she can stop herself. “Did I wake you up?”
He wants to deny it at first, Momo can see it in his face, but then he thinks better of it.
“I only fell asleep on the couch. It is no bother at all.”
There is a dusting of pink on his cheeks, and Momo just nods in response, because she isn’t sure what will spill from her lips otherwise.
“Do- do you want to come inside?”, Okarun asks, tugging on his sweatshirt like it might hide the ink stain on his pyjama pants, and Momo nods again.
“Mm. It’s cold outside.”
He steps aside to let Momo in, and there is a rush of warm air, the faint scent of lavender, and it’s not coming home, because Momo has a house and a home and a grandma, but it’s something still. It’s sweetness and it’s fear and it’s hope, and Momo toes her shoes off and follows Okarun into the living room.
“Should I make some tea?”, comes another question, and he looks back at her, even as he makes his way to the kitchen. There is something written in the way Okarun doesn’t need her answer to be spoken before he knows it; Momo is too afraid to look close enough to make out the characters.
And what difference would it make anyway? She wants the tea, wants to curl up next to Okarun on the sofa and find out which of the cushions has kissed his cheek to leave a mark, wants to rest her fingers there.
So, Momo leans back against the kitchen counters and watches as Okarun puts the kettle on, lets her eyes linger as he rummages around for the tea.
Like this, he looks small, but not in a weak, in a frail way, instead like he belongs here so much that he fits into the nooks and crevices.
Like there is no reason to puff up his chest and fight, not here.
Not with her.
Momo aches.
A little sound comes from him, letting her know that he has found his treasure, and as Okarun starts to measure out the tea leaves, Momo is struck by how easy it would be to just… get closer.
It wouldn’t take more than a few steps to cross the distance between them and she would be right there behind him, so close that she’d be able to smell the detergent his father uses for their clothes, the tartness of his shampoo. Her skin is still chilled from the outside, so she would feel his warmth even without touching, just the glow of it, and Momo knows without knowing that it would heat her up more quickly than any cup of tea could.
Or, if that wasn’t even enough, if she dared to, she could step closer still and press her chest against his back, feel the line of his spine and the press of his shoulder blades. They fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, Momo knows that from the few times they have hugged, so surely, she’d be able to melt her body right against his. Perhaps even sneak her arms around his waist – slender, even where it is hidden underneath his sweatshirt – and hold onto him.
Hook her chin over his shoulder and feel his hair tickle the side of her face. He would blush, and she’d be able to smell him there, his shower gel and his shampoo and maybe then, if she’d just turn her head a little, she’d -
With a jolt, Momo shakes her head, shakes the thoughts out of it.
Of course, she won’t do any of those things.
She doesn’t… she shouldn’t even think them, because that’s not how they are, is it?
Not who they are.
Just a flight of fancy from her restless mind, nothing more. And yet, Momo can feel the blood rushing to her cheeks, heating them up like she imagined Okarun’s skin to do, and the thought only makes it worse.
She wants to slap herself, force the conjured-up image out of her head, but then Okarun turns around with two cups of tea in his hands, and Momo forces herself to forget about everything in the blink of an eye.
What else is there to do?
“Thank you”, she mumbles, and doesn’t notice at all how their fingers brush when she takes one of the mugs, blowing on it to give her mouth something to do.
The scent of jasmine wafts up, steam kissing her skin, and Okarun does the same, pink lips pursing; Momo looks at him and doesn’t feel anything at all.
A few seconds pass like this, between small sips of tea and half-suppressed yawns, and then Okarun asks, “Do you want to sit down?”
Again, Momo nods, again, she follows, and has to grit her teeth against how strange it feels. Not to follow, at least not Okarun, but to only do so.
To let her feet carry her here, to wait for Okarun to ask her inside and to make her tea and lead her to the sofa, whose mark he still wears faintly.
It must be this night, Momo decides as she settles down, one hand wandering across the cushions, tracing their creases, feeling for a hint.
The lines on Okarun’s cheek look almost like a lightening strike, but she cannot find their counterpart where she is sitting.
“Miss Ayase…”, Okarun asks into his tea, voice still soft, as if he isn’t sure how to continue. “Is there anything you wanted to talk about?”
Perhaps, he sounds a little hopeful, but perhaps it’s just Momo’s imagination, which she knows cannot be trusted tonight.
“No”, she replies. But then, there is the chance that it wasn’t just her mind, but that Okarun wants her to have come for a reason that is more than this, so… “I just couldn’t sleep and I thought that I would rather not sleep here than at home.”
Here, with you, is what she doesn’t say, but still hopes he understands.
“Oh. If it’s just that, you can come here anytime that happens”, Okarun tells her, blows on his tea once more, and Momo knows that.
Has known it.
Otherwise she wouldn’t be here.
And yet, it feels like a promise.
Almost like a confession.
“Mm.” Momo takes a sip, almost burns her tongue, both with the tea and the answers she cannot give. “You can come over to my place anytime as well.”
“I already do”, Okarun replies, and for the first time since he opened the door, he smiles. It’s the same smile he wears every time Momo thinks of him. “If you couldn’t sleep, do you maybe want to watch something on TV? There is a documentary on the Fresno Nightcrawlers I just started, and sometimes, when I cannot – that is, if you want to sleep. Here.”
Here, with me, he doesn’t say, but Momo hears it anyway.
There is pink dusting his cheeks, his eyes resting somewhere above her shoulder, and maybe, if Momo just put her head on his lap and curled up close, maybe she could fall asleep so easily.
Maybe, if Okarun brushed his fingers through her hair, and -
“Let’s do that”, she says before her mind can come up with anything else, anything worse. Anything better. “But if I fall asleep and I start snoring, you’re not allowed to tell me. Promise me.”
“Miss Ayase!” A choked off exclamation, the pink deepening, then, “I promise. I wouldn’t.”
“Good.” Momo puts her cup down so she can cross her arms, keeping her hands to herself, and settles back into the couch. “Show me the crawlers.”
“Nightcrawlers”, Okarun mutters to himself, but he reaches for the remote, and Momo relaxes.
This, she can do. This is familiar, this is safe.
“Where are they crawling?”, she asks, a little to fill the silence, a little because she wants to know. “Or is it everywhere there is night? Are they nocturnal? Like bats? Do they have echolocation?”
For a moment, Okarun looks like he wants to say something, one of the lectures where his voice is pitched just a little higher, his brows drawn tight, and his eyes alight with excitement, but then he just presses a few buttons and sits back.
Close, but not close enough.
“They’re in America. No echolocation. You’ll see.”
The documentary starts playing, ominous music and an even more ominous voice speaking over it, and Momo wants to pay attention, she does.
She likes these things, at least now that she knows they are true.
But tonight is strange and unpredictable and confusing, and the words just wash over her, unheard, unnoticed.
Because one of Okarun’s hands is still holding the tea cup, but the other is resting in the space between them, fingers splayed out on the cushions. His fingers are just a little shorter than Momo’s own, the nails cut short and the cuticles bitten bloody on several fingers.
It would be so easy to take it in hers.
And she has done it before, sort of, in the car. Running her fingers down the tendons of the back of it, across Okarun’s knuckles, dipping in the grooves between them.
And Okarun hadn’t minded, had he?
At least, he hadn’t pulled his hand away.
So maybe, she could do it again?
Just for a moment. A little while.
Until she can stop thinking about it again.
It’s not a choice, but it’s not involuntary either; she just reaches out, and her fingers slot between his so easily, it feels like she has done nothing but hold his hand since she was born, like she has a hand for this alone.
She cannot tear her eyes away either, not when Okarun’s fingers stiffen between hers, not even when he shifts and Momo knows he is looking at her, eyes surely wide and confused, the blush back on his cheeks.
“M-Miss Ayase”, comes a whisper, barely audible over the sound of the TV; there is everything in his voice, much more than Momo knows what to do with. “Is this the same game again? I still don’t know the rules.”
She should ignore it, just like the last time, or make up a game on the spot just to say something, but Okarun’s fingers twitch almost imperceptibly, and it isn’t a game, is it?
Hasn’t been a game, maybe ever since he ran after her to show her his magazines.
It feels like they have both lived a lifetime since then.
“Do you want it to be a game?”, she asks, knows that her voice is just as quiet as Okarun’s had been. Hopes that it is for the same reason.
For a few moments, there is nothing but the distant sound of the TV, then Okarun shifts again, his fingers tightening around Momo’s; her heart beats differently now, faster, harder, for another reason.
“No, Miss Ayase”, he replies, and all of a sudden, Momo can breathe again. “Do you?”
Momo still cannot look up from where their fingers are tangled, but she shakes her head, runs her thumb across the length of Okarun’s finger. It shakes beneath her touch, just the slightest bit, and Momo’s heart shakes with it, her breath, her soul.
“If it’s not a game, Miss Ayase, then what is it?”
It’s not a whisper anymore, but his voice is still so soft, an Momo wants to curl up in it and not think about what the words themselves mean.
Because she knows, could know, what it means, but even like this, on Okarun’s couch, the taste of the tea he brewed on her tongue, and his hand in hers, the thought is terrifying.
Because Momo likes how things are now.
They’re good, great even, and if she sometimes looks at Okarun’s lips for too long, if she dreams about hugging him, all but holds his hand in the back of a car, then isn’t that a good price for the certainty that she cannot screw this up?
That she gets to keep this?
Her eyes flutter to Okarun’s face for what feels like the first time in forever, and there is everything in his expression as well.
He looks terrified and he looks hopeful; he looks like a new beginning and like the end to all she has ever known; he looks like he would die for Momo and he looks like Momo would die for him.
“I don’t know”, she says before she can think, before she can make a decision. Her fingers tighten around Okarun’s, holding on for dear life; her heart is hammering against her ribs like it is trying to escape. “Do you?”
“Yes. For me. I know it for me. But – but if it’s different for you, Miss Ayase, then I won’t mind.”
His bottom lip is trembling too, just like his hand, and something cracks open in Momo’s chest, floods the space between her ribs until it drowns her heart in the warmth of it, the terror, the affection. The thing she knows and yet will not name.
A moment stretches into millennia between them, feels endless, until Okarun’s fingers between hers twitch and start to pull away.
And maybe it doesn’t need a name, not yet, maybe things can change and still be kept, maybe Momo has to try, because Okarun’s eyes dim in the glow of the TV and he has got it all wrong, all wrong, all wrong.
Because although she didn’t want to at first, now, Momo knows it too.
Before Okarun’s fingers have slipped away, she tightens her hold on them, wishing for a wild, irrational moment that she could keep them intertwined with hers forever.
“Miss Ayase-”, he starts, but the spark is gone from his voice as well, and how could Momo not know, when all she wants it for him to say her name?
Call her Momo.
Call her something else entirely.
“It’s not”, she stutters out, grips Okarun’s fingers so hard it has to hurt. “It’s – it’s not different. It’s the same. For me.”
Another pause, tense and hopeful and everything in between, and Momo is still holding onto his hand like life itself, like he will try to pull away if she gives him the chance.
“Oh”, Okarun eventually breathes out, tries to reach up and fix his glasses with the hand still holding his cup, but fails. “Are you sure?”
He’s holding his breath, Momo knows it because she is too, and because she doesn’t know what to say, she reaches up and pushes the bridge of his glasses up the way she has seen him do a hundred times before.
His eyes have regained their sparkle, and her finger lingers for a moment, half touching cool metal, half touching warm skin.
“Mm.” It’s not enough, not for this, not for him. “Yes.”
Her finger travels down the bridge of his nose, moving just like her feet did before, unbidden but with a clear goal in mind; when they both release the breath they have been holding, Okarun’s fans out across the space of her palm, warming the skin.
Deep down, Momo is still terrified, of having him and losing him and finding out that maybe what is between them only works in one way and not another; and she is still hoping she can have him and keep him and that they can find out that they fit together in every way there is, some better, some worse.
“Are you?”, Momo asks, just so she can hear the answer.
“Yes.”
And finally, she lets go of his fingers, because she doesn’t need to hold onto him anymore; he’ll stay with her even without her keeping, just because he wants to.
Because Momo wants him to.
“Good”, she says simply, slides her fingers into Okarun’s soft, soft hair, until her palms are bracketing his face. He shivers underneath her touch, but this time, for all the right reasons. “That’s really good.”
And she kisses him, tasting jasmine tea on both their lips, and it is soft and sweet and certain enough for now.
Kisses him, because Okarun wants her to.
And because Momo now knows that she wants it just as much.