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“You should go…”
The words came out quietly in that low voice he always adopted when transformed. They were always with him, always echoed in his mind every waking second of every day. They had done so for the last year. Over a year, at this point.
They had practically escaped the realm of pure audio, too. He didn’t literally see them, but with their endless cacophony, his vision seemed blunted. Certainly the bright lights in his view were duller than they were before, even against the backdrop of the night.
It wasn’t just color, either. Food was worse. Bland. Flavorless. Even his fingers didn’t seem to sense things as readily as they used to, like there was a veil of numbness covering them at all times. All of his senses yielded to the ache of that sentence, that damnable, terrible sentence that haunted his life more persistently than any yokai or alien that he had ever faced.
His one solace was that he was accountable to it. He knew those words were his fault, all his fault. They had come about for a reason, a reason he knew, or at least used to know, was valid. The pain was immense. But the tiny shred of pride that he was doing the right thing by owning his decision blunted it by just enough for him. Just enough to…
“Hey, Okarun?” asked Jiji from behind him.
“What’s up?” Okarun returned, not looking at the taller boy.
“I was wondering where you were. Thought you’d gone out for a quick bite or something. Should’ve figured you were up here again.”
“Yeah. Sorry. I shoulda said something,” Okarun muttered.
“‘S all good, my dude!” Jiji said cheerfully. Perhaps too cheerfully. “Anytime bro wants some fresh air above the noise of the city is absolutely okay! So, uh,” he hesitated, “what’s the deal with the mask and stuff? You fight an alien or something?”
“Nah. Just kinda happened.” Okarun’s tone was neutral. Perhaps too neutral.
“Right. Totally get it. Hundred percentamundo.” Jiji kept his smile on as he added, “But, uh, maybe you could shut it off? If there’s nothin’ scary nearby?”
“Dunno,” Okarun replied quietly. “Might be the thing for now.”
“Yeah. Sure. Just…” Jiji’s expression wilted by the slightest amount. “Maybe I’m misremembering — you know me, active imagination — I thought we talked a bit about this? About you not being transformed that much anymore? Unless there was a threat?”
“Hnh,” Okarun grunted.
Silence fell. Jiji’s smile faded further. In a soft tone, he asked, “Can you back away from the ledge, at least? I know you’re strong enough that the height wouldn’t, um…” He gulped. “But anyway, it would be a big favor to your broski if you could just come talk to me face to face.”
Jiji watched as Okarun contemplated this for a few seconds. Then, slowly, Okarun turned around. As he approached, his mask dissolved, his skin reverted from its deathly gray pallor, and his hair darkened to its natural black. “I’m sorry, Jiji,” he said in his normal but still flat voice. “Sorry I made you worry again. I wasn’t going to…”
Jiji cut him off, energy returned to his tone. “Nah, nah, you’re good! I know you got this, you’re kicking this thing’s ass one day at a time. I’m just, y’know, a fan of face to face, human to human talk. So thanks.” He grinned. “Thanks for helping a bro out.”
Okarun wanted to put on a smile for him, even a small one, but couldn’t muster sufficient effort towards it. “No problem,” he uttered. “We can head back to the dorm.”
“Cool. I’ll, uh, I’ll catch up in a sec. Think I want a bit more night air.” As Okarun headed through the doorway back into the building, Jiji let out a big long breath. His posture slumped slightly, as if he had been carrying something heavy. Pulling out his phone, he opened his messaging app, opened the group thread, and typed, “Found him. He was on the roof again. He’s okay. Well, not worse than before, at least.”
Such was the genre of message it hadn’t been uncommon for Jiji to send in the last several months. He wasn’t tired of his duty to keep an eye on his friend by any means. But as the situation continued, his worry that it might not ever revert or at least be ameliorated to some degree approaching normalcy grew.
He knew Okarun talked to someone regularly, someone professional. He got Okarun to make attempts at socialization at a minimum. Hell, Jiji set him up on dates a few times. That was part of being a good bro, wasn’t it? Talk up what a great guy his buddy was to some cutie, assure her he’s more fit than he looks in pictures and awesome once he gets over his shyness?
But the dates never went anywhere, of course. Deep down, Jiji knew they never would. Not when the specter of her lingered over him. And it seemed she would for the foreseeable future.
He wished desperately he could help his best friend. It pained him dearly to see him in this state, day after day, week after week, month after month. But what could he do? Jiji was strong, but not enough to wrangle the universe for his own ends. So his only option was to watch, and worry, and care for Okarun in the ways he could.
And Jiji knew the pain he felt for him was nothing compared to what Okarun himself was enduring. He just hoped a light would appear at the end of this tunnel eventually, if not soon.
Okarun pushed the door to his dorm open, entered, and let it close quietly. He felt awful. More than usual. Not only was the fog hanging over him, the fog that had become his normality, now he had made Jiji worry in a pretty severe way. And it wasn’t the first time. Okarun knew when Jiji’s bombastic energy was real, or at least grounded in positivity, and when it was a cover for darkness. Okarun felt bad — worse — that Jiji felt he needed to cover Okarun’s darkness.
Okarun wasn’t going to do anything on the roof, of course. He wasn’t. He just wanted a view of the street adjacent to campus from above. Zoom out for some perspective. That was all.
He wouldn’t do anything else. He wouldn’t.
He was so selfish. Truly a self-centered manchild. He only ever thought about himself and his own pain. If he didn’t, he would be out of this funk and supporting his friends like he used to. Giving back what they so generously gave to him without expectation of reward. Like he did before… then.
Unceremoniously, he flopped into his bed. With the darkness of his room, the lack of even blunted stimulation around him, the thoughts started to come. The words, those words that had brought about his involuntary transformation, were amplified tenfold by his brain in the silence.
He felt another transformation coming on. He needed to stop it, lest he worry Jiji again, violate the promise he had made to remain human whenever possible. The words of his therapist came to him. He had to catch himself now, before he spiraled out of control, and so retreated into his mantra. Let the thoughts come. Thoughts are just thoughts. They are not me. I am the thing that houses the thoughts, not the thoughts themselves.
He counted the seconds as he breathed. Inhale for two, exhale for four. Three in, six out. Four in, eight out. Let the thoughts have their moment. Acknowledge them without judgment and let them pass. Put them on a lilypad on a gentle creek and watch them drift away.
But he had already pulled out his phone. Opened the thread. The thread with her. Saw the last message between them. It was his. It was always his. It would never not be his. And those two stupid words would never be anything else besides, “Good morning.”
He never thought two simple words like that would give him such anguish, but in this context, that’s all they ever did. They had become so embedded in his psyche that hearing them even in innocuous contexts reminded him of this one. How pathetic was he that his mind could be punctured by a basic greeting?
Yet he couldn’t stop himself. Couldn’t look away. They were so painful, like staring into the sun, but somehow it was easier than just letting it be. As though if he thought about them long enough, hard enough, carefully enough, he would gain some insight that would change things. That would make her come back. Back to him.
This was foolishness, he knew; damn it, he knew it in his conscious mind. It didn’t matter how many times he reread the conversation. It didn’t matter how many times he thought about those other words that had ignited this whole thing. Nothing would change. Nothing would ever change. But still, his stupid, egotistical, narcissistic, dumbass brain thought there was a way out. There was always a way out, wasn’t there?
…
After minutes of beaming pain directly into his retinas, he finally turned off his phone and rolled over on his side. Consciousness was a burden. That was the one beneficial thing that had come of this. So desperate was he for escape that he let himself fall asleep early whenever he could. Tonight had been one of the periodic exceptions, one of those times when things got too hard to escape with slumber.
Mostly, though, he slept, and in that sleep found some respite. In his dreams, he saw her. Still saw her. And she still talked to him. Like the old days. Before the three words and the two words. Before everything was worse with no way out. They were the best dreams he ever had.
The bitter cold of reality sobered him up every morning. And once the haze of early wakefulness wore off, it was back to hell. His personal hell, of which he was the sole architect.
“Ayase-san…” he whispered.
Finally, merciful unconsciousness took him.
“So, you went to the roof again.”
“Yeah,” Okarun affirmed quietly. His therapist sat across from him, cross legged, fingertips pressed together.
“Were you in your ‘dark state?’”
“I was.” Okarun had taken to calling his yokai form that with his therapist. It was easier than trying to prove that spirits were real, that he had harnessed the power of one of them, and that it changed his personality for the worse when he activated it.
“You’ve said you can control whether you’re in this state. Did you do that this time?”
He shook his head. “No. This time it just kind of happened.”
“You’ve also mentioned the state is tied to your negative emotions. I take it that means you felt those strongly last night.”
“I did,” said Okarun with a nod. “I felt… really bad.” Understatement of the millennium.
“Now, you know I have to ask this. Were you a danger to yourself or others?”
Okarun sighed. He would be honest — at least, he thought he would — but it wasn’t like he had a choice. The alternative was getting thrown in an institution, and he desperately didn’t want that. “No. I wasn’t.”
“But your friend was worried that you were. To yourself, anyway.”
“Yeah. That just made me feel worse.”
“Can you tell me how it began? It might help us trace the process so you can catch it earlier next time.”
He sighed again. “It wasn’t anything special. Just another night of thinking about… it.”
“About her, you mean? About Momo?”
Okarun flinched at the direct use of her name. Quietly, he replied, “Yes. About… about Ayase-san.” It was even harder to get it out of his mouth, even having retreated from her given to her family name long ago.
“What in particular were you thinking about?”
“The same things as ever,” Okarun said with a shrug. “The thing I said. Why I said it. Why it had to be like that.”
The therapist leaned forward. “You know, you’ve always alluded to your reasons, but you’ve never told me. I want to hear them, but I won’t force you to say them. All I will ask is that you ask yourself, do those reasons still hold up?”
Okarun wrestled with this for a moment. “I… I don’t know anymore.”
With a nod, the therapist said, “I see. Let’s put it another way. If you could go back to that moment, what would you tell your past self?”
The words came to him in a flash. He knew what he would say. Had known for ages, even before he sent that last message. But he also knew it was the wrong thing to say. It was just what his dumb, selfish, narcissistic brain wanted him to say to save him all this pain. “I don’t know,” he replied quietly.
“Perhaps you don’t,” the therapist acknowledged. “Or perhaps some part of you does and you’re scared that’s the wrong part of you to listen to.”
Okarun averted his gaze. That was right on the money. “Maybe…” he whispered.
“Well, for a goal this week, I would say try to give that part of you a little more time with the microphone. You don’t have to follow its orders. But just hear it out. Give it a try. It’s really good that you told me you went up on the roof right away. I think that’s progress.”
It sure as hell didn’t feel like it. “Okay.”
“By the way, last week you said you were going on a date. Your friend Jiji had set it up. How did that go?”
“Meh,” said Okarun. “Same as ever. We didn’t really hit it off.”
“Personality differences?”
Okarun was well aware he had only been half-present during the date, had done yet another disservice to someone, a stranger this time. “Yeah,” he replied simply. “I got into one of my usual rants about cryptids and she… she didn’t really like it. Not like…”
“Like Momo?” asked the therapist, helpfully but annoyingly. “She liked it when you talked about these things, didn’t she?”
Talking about his special interest was one of the few coping mechanisms he had left. But every time he engaged in it, its halting power diminished just by a bit. He hadn’t realized until it was too late, but it had become tied to the memory of his all too brief relationship. Now it would always be.
“She did,” he replied. She seemed to like everything about the way he talked to her. Until…
“Maybe it’s still a little too early to get back into the scene still.”
“Probably.”
“It’s okay to take some time to yourself. But you do need to keep socializing. That’s important. The brain is a machine that doesn’t just feed on calories. It feeds on relationships with people, too.”
His brain had been addicted to one relationship. Now it was in withdrawal. Severe withdrawal, worse than that of any opiate. “I’ll try,” he said halfheartedly.
Okarun walked the streets with a plodding gait that had become all too usual. He didn’t feel better after his session. He never did. But he had promised Jiji and the others he would talk to someone and he didn’t want to break his promise. Not another one.
If anything, the session had caused his more troublesome thoughts to stir. In a flash, it was time for visual pain again. The thread was opened in a second. This isn’t good for you, Ken. You know that. Stop hurting yourself! The addition of that thought was fairly recent. Maybe he had made some progress after all. Still, he didn't stop himself from gazing on it, knowing it would never change.
But then, like a meteor falling before his feet, the conversation moved. His last message, so long a static monument to his failure, slid up. Its slot was replaced with a typing bubble. On her side.
Okarun’s eyes widened to saucer size. This couldn’t be happening. No way. He was hallucinating; his brain had broken too much to live in reality even while conscious. It had to be that. Why else would he be seeing this now?
The message came in. One word. Three letters. “Hey.”
He began to hyperventilate. The world spun around him. Oh god, it was real. It was happening. What did it mean? Had someone hijacked her number? Was someone playing a cruel prank on him? What should he do? Let it sit for a bit, see if anything else comes? Yeah, maybe. But wait! What if she took it as a sign of indifference and cut him off again?
No. No more sitting doing nothing. He had to be strong. He had been weak for over a year; now was the time for his power to return.
With hands trembling like he had nerve damage, he typed out, “Hey.” He didn’t know what else to say. What was okay to say. What was right to say at this point. Heart pounding, he hit send.
And then he waited. For minutes. Long, long minutes. So long he thought he might start tearing his hair out if they went much longer.
She had changed her mind. It was the only explanation. She had let an intrusive thought win and that message was the result. Now she had regained control over her impulses and thought better of her regrettable actions. Now she was gone from him again. He just knew it.
But damn it, he didn’t care.
He had been starving; he felt it every day, but now, fed this tiny morsel, the yawning chasm of want within him needed more. For too long he had been left with nothing, forced to devour his own insides to calm the hunger by the slightest amount. Now it was time to feast. And so, ignoring all his fears for the first time in over a year, he added, “Isn’t it late where you are?”
He had done it. One last shot for glory. One last message that he knew would become his new fix whenever his pain addiction would yank on his brain. That was it. It was over, now. Again.
Then the reply came in. “Yeah. Can’t sleep. Got to thinking about stuff.”
His heart rate jumped to a level that would make a cardiologist shit their pants. Stuff? What kind of stuff? “What kind of stuff?” What the hell kind of stuff!?
The typing bubble appeared. Then it disappeared. Then it reappeared. It did this a few more times before the message came: “I’m visiting in a few days. I thought it would be cool if you wanted to hang out.”
A philharmonic choir sang the biblical word of gratitude in an immaculate harmony at the top of their voices in his mind. The light of God shone through the clouds above. The sea of unshed tears within him parted, yielding the first spot of dry land within the last half year. She cared. She wanted to see him. See him. Again. After everything.
“That would be good.” Just before he hit send, he caught himself. If he left it at that, it would be too passive. He couldn’t afford to be passive here. Not like he had been in the past. And so he appended to the message, “A friend of Jiji’s is throwing a party on Friday. Maybe you could come if you’re here by then and we’ll see each other there?” He paused for a second before deleting the last six words. Then he hit send.
Within a few seconds, she answered, “Sure. Sounds good.”
His blood ran hot in his veins, his pulse at the rate of an Olympic sprinter hitting a world record. “Cool. See you there.”
“See you,” she replied.
He thought about asking her how she was doing. How things were with her. To catch up on the last half year of radio silence. But broaching that topic, of the period of dead communication between them, was beyond his capabilities. So instead he stared at her final message. Two words. Two glorious, new, wonderful words.
Over the next few days, he clung to those words for dear life. A swarm of butterflies refused to calm their wings in his stomach as he thought about the end of the week. He thought about what he would do, what he would say, how he would act during the promised time. But he had basically no information to pull from to know what was right. What would she do and say? How would she act? If he estimated poorly, he knew he would be as good as cooked.
So all he could think of was to trust in himself. In the him that had mourned the lack of her for over a year, lamented the silence between them for half of one. In the him she knew before all of this. Maybe that version of him still had some place in her heart, even just the tiniest amount.
At the party, he stood awkwardly holding a cup of fruit punch. He didn’t know anyone here except Jiji and had initially only planned on coming because of Jiji’s and his therapist’s request for him to socialize more. Now, of course, he had an entirely different goal, but the dense crowd and blaring music were still intimidating.
He wandered through the crowd, looking for any sign of her. Round after round he made, yet he could not seem to find her. Worry crept into his heart. Maybe she wasn’t coming. Maybe she had changed her mind. Because of him. Because she realized she had made a sleep-deprived mistake and her only course of action was silent reneging. Damn it, he should have seen it co—
Wait. His eyes flew open. I forgot to tell her where the party is! So consumed had he been with the existence of any communication from her whatsoever, so afraid had he been of damaging it with excess words, that he had completely neglected to divulge the necessary details. Shit, shit, shit! He pulled out his phone at lightning speed, hoping with the desperate hope of a man on death row that he could still tell her and she would still make it.
But before he could begin typing, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her. Her.
Momo.
It took him a second for his tunnel vision to widen and recognize that she was chatting with Jiji. They were both smiling as they spoke. God, her smile was as radiant as ever. Maybe even more so now. Especially since he hadn’t seen it in so long.
What if he broke that smile again? What if he fucked things up even harder than he had before? Now that she was in front of him, he felt ice in his blood. He wanted nothing more than to run to her, spill all his feelings and apologies to her, pull his heart out of her chest and show how it still beat for her and her alone.
Actually doing it was another story. Fear gripped his mind. Fear of failure, worse than it had ever been, even worse than the start of their friendship when he wasn’t even sure she considered him a real friend. Maybe he should retreat for now. Tell her he must have missed her, then use that to lay more groundwork for reestablishment of further communication. Yeah, that sounded good. Less immediately scary, anyway.
But then she looked at him. Right into his eyes.
He thought he might cry.
Her expression showed surprise. Not that he was there, no, at something else. He blushed under the blessed warmth of her gaze. The lights were dim, so he didn’t know if she blushed too. He could make no movement before her, before this goddess that had reincarnated right in front of him.
Mercifully, she moved. She smiled. A tiny, barely visible smile. But an honest one. Then her hand rose and she gave him an equally tiny but unmistakable wave. Hand shaking, he returned the gesture.
Jiji noticed and looked the same direction as Momo with curiosity. He beamed immediately when he saw Okarun and waved him over with gusto.
Okarun stupidly pointed to himself as if to say, “Me?”
Jiji’s expression turned incredulous and he nodded, clearly saying, “Obviously, dude!”
With a gulp and unsteady feet, Okarun walked over. The distance felt like that of a marathon and the time it took to cross it felt like an eternity. But then he was there. In front of her. Not too close. But close enough.
“Yo, Okarun, check it out, it’s Momo!” said Jiji with palpable delight. Of course he didn’t need to say that. Style wise, she looked the same. Same haircut, same big green earrings. Same everything, except she was a thousand times more beautiful. Ten thousand times.
“H-Hey, Ayase-san,” he said with as much confidence as he could muster, which was basically none.
“Hey,” she replied just as gently.
Music filled the room to an almost obnoxious degree, but the silence that manifested between them felt suffocating. Jiji glanced back and forth between each of his friends for a minute. Eventually, he put his hand over his brow as if to block the sun while looking into the distance and said, “Oh, hey, there’s Akiko from my calc class! I’m gonna go see if she’ll help me study. Catch ya later!”
Okarun wanted to strangle him for abandoning him in the wilderness like this, but made no move to stop him. Now he was in the lion’s den, facing down the queen of the pride. She looked away for a few seconds, then back at him before saying, “So…”
“Yeah…” he muttered awkwardly. Then he felt a buzzing in his pocket. He figured it was just a pointless notification from one of the dumb apps on his phone and ignored it. But then another buzz came, and another, in rhythm. “Ah, sorry,” he said, “I’m getting a call.”
“No worries,” said Momo.
Okarun put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“Pretend like your dad called you,” said Jiji on the receiver in as deathly serious a voice as Okarun had ever heard. For a moment he wondered if Evil Eye was in control, but his speech style didn’t match.
“Uh, hey dad,” Okarun replied, hoping his miserable acting skills would suffice.
Jiji spoke urgently, “Listen. She doesn’t hate you, okay? That’s all I’ve got for you for now. Wake up the old Okarun. I’m not talking about last year, either. The one from before even that. He’ll know what to do. Now pretend to tell your dad you’re at a party and you’ve gotta hang up.”
“S-sorry, dad, I’m at a party right now, I can’t talk.”
“Alright. You got this, bro. Godspeed.”
“Love you too, bye.” Okarun pressed end on the call. “Sorry about that,” he told Momo.
“What?” she asked, cupping her ear with one hand. The volume of the music had increased.
“I said, sorry about that!” he said louder.
“What!?” she said again.
“Sorry! About! That!” he yelled.
“It’s hard for me to hear you,” she replied. “Let’s go somewhere quieter.”
His heart thumped. Go somewhere? Alone? Just the two of them? He would explode. If he went somewhere with her, he would explode into a million pieces right in front of her.
Wake up the old Okarun.
Maybe the current him would explode. But the one before? Who was brave and fought for her, literally and metaphorically? Maybe that was the part his therapist said he should try listening to. And damn it, now seemed like the moment to try. “Follow me,” he said, waving for her to come with him.
In short order, he left the dorm, with her following. Once the door was closed behind her, Momo said, “Phew. Kinda crazy in there. Like fire hazard-level of packed.”
“Yeah,” he replied with ease that shocked him. “I don’t like when the music’s that loud; my voice gets drowned out easily.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? You liked when the Hayasii jammed out, though, didn’t you?”
“That’s different. There’s no talking there, only headbanging.”
“Fair enough.”
Another silence followed. But with the wellspring of conversation having flowed just the tiniest amount, he didn’t feel so limited in options. “You want to go up to the roof?” he offered.
“Sure,” she said pleasantly.
Their journey to the top of the building was quiet. When they stepped out onto it, he said, “Here it is.”
“Not bad,” said Momo.
“Oh, do you judge a lot of roofs?” he asked facetiously.
“Maybe a few here and there,” she said with a smirk.
That smirk was so goddamn gorgeous. He wanted to frame it and hang it on the ceiling above his bed. “Well, glad it could meet your standards.”
She laughed a bit at this. Her laughter was so musical. Even that time she laughed at him for his missing balls was a sweet ballad in his memory. “So,” she said, “how’ve you been?”
Terrible. Awful. The worst anyone has ever been in the history of the universe. Nonstop self-loathing and misery. “Ah, I’ve been all right,” he said simply.
“Classes and stuff going okay?”
“Yeah. Classes and stuff are fine,” he replied carefully. “I bet it’s easier here than it is for you.”
“It’s pretty tough,” she acknowledged. With a wide smile, she added, “But I’m a genius, so I have no problems.”
“That you are,” he said. “How have you been? Any trouble with aliens or yokai overseas?”
“Nah,” said Momo. “Seems that MIT has enough weird shit going on in its labs that aliens don’t wanna mess with it. I went to New Jersey and thought I’d see the Jersey Devil there but he didn’t show up.”
Okarun was floored that she still remembered a cryptid he’d ranted to her about once. As calmly as he could, he merely replied, “Good, good.”
“What about you?”
“Just the odd Serpo attack here and there. Once they realized you were gone, though, I think they lost interest.”
“Dumbass Serpos,” she said with a bit of bitterness.
A quiet moment passed. Okarun wanted to continue the conversation, take it somewhere, anywhere so long as it just kept going. That was all he wanted. “So…” he said softly.
“Are you seeing anyone?”
The question hit him like a truck carrying a nuclear bomb with a thousand knives tied to the end of it. In all the guessing he had done in the last few days about what this would be like, that was nowhere near the realm of possibility to him. “N…” His throat was dry; he cleared it as best he could. “No. I’ve been on a few dates, but they haven’t gone anywhere.”
“I see.”
He felt the expectation to return her question on his shoulders. To ask about her romantic entanglements. But he desperately did not want the answer to that question. At best, she would say no, and things would be the same, but at worst he would find out she had replaced him with some American who probably made her very happy and also made her damn near forget about Okarun.
Thankfully, she spoke again. “Um, I’m a bit cold.”
“Oh. Do you want to go back to the party?” he asked, dismayed that his moment alone with her would come to an end.
“Not really,” she admitted.
“Then do you want to go to a cafe or something?”
Briefly, she rolled her eyes. “Can you show me your dorm?”
His stomach flipped. “Oh…” he said distantly, as if being too present would somehow make her withdraw her request. “Sure…”
With a level of calm that did not betray the depth of panic inside him, he led her to the suite he and Jiji stayed in. “Well, here it is,” he said quietly.
“Cool,” said Momo as she took in the sights. “You and Jiji live together, right?”
“Ah, yeah,” he replied. Then a sinking feeling emerged. “So, you and Jiji talk, huh?”
“A bit. He’s the one who told me when and where the party was since someone forgot to.”
“Sorry,” Okarun said with embarrassment. Inside, he felt a font of unwelcome jealousy at his close friend and one-time romantic rival, that he was deemed special enough to enjoy the privilege of her communication. He did his best to hide it as he said, “I completely spaced on that.” Gesturing at the furniture, he added, “You can sit anywhere you like.”
“Hmm,” said Momo. “Actually, I wanna see your room,” she said with an odd lilt to her voice.
“R-really?” he asked with more shock than he intended to let into his voice.
“Uh-huh. I wanna know what the Okarun cave is like.”
“Then, uh, come on in,” he said as he opened the door.
“Cool,” she said, following him in.
And then she was in his room. His room. The room with his bed and everything in it. She was inside it. He couldn’t believe it. “What do you think?” he asked.
“Not too shabby,” she said, looking around at the walls. “Nice poster,” she noted, nodding towards a hanging picture of a UFO.
“Th-thanks,” he replied.
Without any preamble, she sat herself down on his bed. Only after a moment did she say, “Cool if I sit?”
“You don’t need my permission.”
She grinned. “Thanks.” He stood in front of her awkwardly for a second until she patted the space next to her. Then, nervously, he sat down. “So,” she said with a pleasant lilt. “Here we are.”
“Here… we are…” he repeated warily.
“Kinda reminds me of the old days.”
He gulped. “Those were… good days…”
“Sure were.”
Her invocation of their history, their history before all of this had happened, stirred something in him. In the wordless void that followed, he whispered, “Why did you text me all of a sudden?”
Now, with the light of the dormitory, he could see her blush. “I… I was visiting,” she said simply.
Her guardedness, unexpected to him, compelled him further. “Yeah, but… why me? Now?”
She looked away. “Do I need a reason?”
The last year of their communication, truncated over the last six months, came crashing into his mind like a tsunami into a thatched-roofed beachfront hut. At first it had been pleasant. Simple. Like they cared about each other. Like he thought they did. They made sure to text each other good night when it was morning in their time zone and vice versa. They asked each other how their days were. They gave each other updates.
But then it slowed. Bit by bit, for reasons Okarun couldn’t fathom, the updates grew thinner. Sparser. Less rich with information. Soon they grew so infrequent that a day would pass between texts. Then two. Eventually, she stopped responding. That, until this week, was where she had left his last message. Last two messages. “Good morning” and, from the previous day, “Good night.”
He’d hoped she was just busy. The week after, that was what he clung to. But then it passed. One week became two. Two weeks became three. He started to suspect the reason why. The real reason.
And on the month anniversary of his double text, he felt it deep within his soul. She was gone. For good.
Or so he thought.
“Yeah, you kinda do,” he answered her, feeling some amount of emotional release from this honesty.
She looked for a moment like his mild insistence had driven her into a corner. Then she closed her eyes and took a breath. When she opened them again, she looked less fearful. “I’ve been… having a bit of trouble at college, actually.”
“You have?”
“Yeah. It’s hard for me to make friends there.”
“Really? A social butterfly like you?”
Momo shrugged. “Americans can be really mean. I’m lousy at English; lord knows how my application essay got me in there. People make fun of me for it. And, you know me, I can have a temper so I lash out. Some guys are nice to me but it’s clear they just wanna fuck the cute Japanese chick. I have no patience for that kind of asshole.”
He smiled softly. “You never did.”
“And it makes classes harder too. I still do well, but only because I study really hard to make sure I understand the material. Look up videos in Japanese online. Plus, America’s more expensive than I thought; the scholarship isn’t enough for everything. I have to work a shitty job on campus where more people make fun of me to make up the difference. It’s worse than the maid cafe.”
“I see. Sorry to hear that,” said Okarun earnestly. “But that… doesn’t answer my question.” He couldn’t let it go. Not when the truth was so close.
Momo took another long breath. “Lately I’ve just been so lonely and stressed that I keep thinking about when things were good. When I had a lot of friends nearby and had fun every day. And I realized… it feels so shitty that I’m not on good terms with someone I really, really cared about.” She paused. Her eyes met his again. “Someone I still care about.”
His heart skipped a beat. Idly, he felt himself lean towards her. “I thought you stopped caring a while ago,” he whispered. “I thought that’s why you didn’t want to talk to me anymore.”
“That wasn’t the reason,” she said quickly. “That was never the reason.”
He was caught between wanting to say two things. One was a request for her to clarify. But the other felt more important. “I care about you too.”
“You do?” she asked softly.
How could she ask such a thing? How could she possibly even entertain any idea to the contrary? It was more ridiculous than believing the earth was flat. “Ayase-san, you’re…” He steadied himself. For these crucial words, he would be strong. “You’re in my head constantly. I hear your voice, your laughter. I see your smile. It hurts. All the time. But I never want it to stop. Those remnants of you… no matter how much they sting, they feel like the only good thing in my mind.”
Her eyes widened. In a tiny voice, she replied, “I thought you didn’t think of me like that anymore.”
“No,” he said with the reassuring tone of a doctor telling a patient they would survive terrible disease. “I can’t imagine feeling any other way.”
They were close now. Closer than he had realized. Their gazes locked. Instinctively, he knew what to do. It was what he had wanted to do but couldn’t for the last year. With utmost gentleness, he took her face in his hands. Her eyelids slowly fell until they were fully closed. Then he tilted his head, approached, and planted his lips on hers.
For a moment, they didn’t move. Their physical connection had gone unrenewed for so long, it needed a second to reignite. But it did, and she pressed back against him. This reciprocation lit a fire in Okarun. She was here. Blessing him with permission to kiss her again. Wanting it from him, no less.
He couldn’t stop. He kissed her again, more forcefully, in the way that she liked, that he knew she liked, the way he had memorized through countless attempts in the time before disaster tore them asunder. The heat of it vanquished the cold in his soul.
She whimpered softly; her breath hitched when he pulled her face in harder. “Okarun…” she muttered into the tiny gap he left between them when he pulled back.
Hearing that voice again, so blatantly full of desire, made him cast away all his fear. He dove in again, unleashing a kiss so passionate it made her release a throaty moan. More and more did his mouth pleasure her, more and more did he feel alive, like he had been drowning for the past year and could finally come up for glorious air.
As his mouth stimulated hers, his hand traveled to the top button of her blouse. His fingers slowly undid it. Then the next one.
But then, as he reached the third, her hand suddenly grasped his. She put her other hand on his chest and pushed. Her head moved away from him. Her eyes opened. “Wait,” she said urgently.
His look grew concerned. “What?”
“We can’t do this,” she told him.
“But… but you want to, don’t you?” he asked, the all too brief warmth in his heart ebbing.
“I can’t. I just… I can’t.” she said, looking away from him.
As his eyes shot wide, despair took his heart. The world fell away, leaving only a void where all too briefly happiness had previously resided. “Oh…” he uttered, voice completely absent of any tone. “Okay…” He felt numb, but further, that numbness was shielding him from an apocalyptic level of heartbreak that would dwarf what he felt in the last year. “E-excuse me,” he said, suddenly jolting from the bed.
Before he could take a step, however, he felt Momo’s power around him. “Listen,” she said with urgency. “Just listen, okay?”
“Okay…” He needed to hear a reason, any reason besides the one his mind had concluded, just as he needed to draw breath.
“What happens after?” She looked at him plaintively. “We have a good time, sure, but then I have to leave, and then you’re gone again, and then what? Just back to the way things have been?”
“It doesn’t have to be,” he said, desperation taking the place of courage. “We can go back to before all that happened. We can try again.”
“We can’t!” she insisted. “You were the one who decided that!”
“You were the one who stopped texting me!” he returned, his voice louder than he meant. All this time, he had put himself in the position of aggressor and her his unsuspecting victim so that he wouldn’t be mad at her. But now, the outrage he’d kept bottled up had come uncorked and began to spill everywhere. “I texted you every day and every night! I wanted to talk to you all the time, but you froze me out little by little until there was nothing but icy silence! That’s a pretty awful thing to do to someone you supposedly care about, Ayase-san!”
“That was after you broke it off!” came her retort. “After you told me it would be ‘too hard’ to have a long-distance relationship! If you wanted to stay connected to me, why the fuck would you push me away like that!?”
“Because…” The moment he’d done it, the moment the path he’d pushed them down became inescapable, flew into his mind. He knew what he felt back then. He knew the logic that came with it, that which he held onto so tightly.
And so he prepared to test its edge. “Because I didn’t want to tie you down. I didn’t want to be an absent boyfriend who was only really there through a phone. You know America is out of range of Turbo Granny’s electric teleportation from here and there’s no way I could keep up the focus long enough to cross the ocean in a nanoskin jet. I almost drowned the last time I tried and I didn’t even make it ten percent of the way! But I wanted us to still be friends, I told you that! That’s why I said we should still text each other!”
“And you thought I could just live with that?” she asked incredulously. “Live with the hollowed out corpse of our relationship, watch it shamble around like it was still alive but know it was dead and rotting inside? Even though I still loved hearing from you, still loved every single message you sent, each one was like a slap in the face, reminding me that you didn’t love me enough to at least try to make it work!”
This stopped his outrage. He didn’t think she had been hurting like this. The way he had hurt all this time. “Ayase-san…”
“And that’s why I stopped texting you,” she said, her tears beginning to flow. She took in a few shaky breaths. “Because I couldn’t bear to have you, Okarun, my Okarun, just be the words ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’ and never ‘I love you.’ I couldn’t live with just that shadow of you anymore.”
For a few seconds, he watched, mouth open, as she broke down into heaving sobs. Seeing the pain she’d held, held because of him, gave him a sudden immense guilt. But he couldn’t deny it: that most selfish, most egotistical part of him felt some relief. His pain, his longing, hadn’t just been his own. She hadn’t stopped caring like he thought.
“I… I’m sorry,” he said in a hushed tone.
“No you’re not!” she replied furiously through her weeping. “You’re sorry it ended up like this! You’re not sorry about making it happen! You’re not sorry about telling me, ‘You should go!’”
That truly struck him. Those damned three words that had plagued his thoughts since the moment they escaped the confines of his lips. “I… I never wanted to say it…” he whispered.
“Then why the fuck did you!?” she shrieked.
“Because…” He searched for the words. Three more came to mind. “Because I love you, Ayase-san.”
She gave him a look of pure disbelief. “What? What the fuck are you saying? You love me, so you pushed me away, all the way to another country on the other side of the world!?”
“Yes!” he insisted. “You got into MIT! That’s a world-famous institution! People who graduate from there go on to have incredible careers! And you got in on a scholarship! You managed to grab a future, a real future that would be as amazing as you deserved! How could I tell you not to go? How could I be so selfish as to deny you your destiny just so that I would feel better? I would be a terrible boyfriend if I did that!”
Momo’s face still showed incredulity. Then it turned to… something else. Disappointment, mixed with resignation. “You still don’t get it.” She threw up her hands in exasperation. “All this time, everything we’ve been through, everything I’ve ever said and done with you, and you’re still too fucking dense to get it.”
“Get what?”
She stared into his eyes with fury. “Okarun! You were everything to me! My world, my cosmos, my whole universe! You were the destiny I wanted!” Fresh tears began to fall. In a quieter voice, she added, “And damn it, you still are…”
He gaped at her. All this time, he thought he was lost from her heart. All this time spent agonizing about the amputated part of his soul, the phantom limb that ached constantly…
“So no,” she said as she turned away, her tone envenomed with bitterness, “we can’t do this. We can’t do it ever again. It’s just too painful.”
Finally, her psychic hold on him loosened. Eyes still on her, he sat. “Momo…” he uttered quietly.
“What?” she asked, her tone still rough.
“You… you could have pushed back.”
She laughed a dark laugh. “Yeah. Right. My boyfriend tells me to leave him and I’m supposed to say ‘no, I want to stay?’”
“I don’t know, maybe!”
Once more she looked at him in scowling disbelief. “Fuck you, Okarun. You know how much your words matter to me. How much they always have. You goddamn know.”
“I don’t control your actions!” he protested.
“My heart broke that day!” she bellowed. “Shattered into a million itty-bitty pieces, each as sharp as glass! Before you even told me we should break it off, just the fact that you thought I should ever be away from you for such a long time destroyed me! And you just want to sit there and act like you’re an innocent bystander? Fuck. You.”
He could feel it. His logic, so tightly clutched as the only solace for his pain over the last year, crumbled at last. “I… I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I just… I wanted what was best for you. I still do.”
“Do you know how many nights I spent looking at my phone? At pictures of you, of us? At our text thread?” The words spilled out of her at a breakneck pace. “How many times I cried my eyes out from the effort of resisting calling you in the middle of the night, knowing it wouldn’t bring your love for me back? Is that what was best for me?”
He let out a long breath. “No. I suppose it’s not. But… you never needed to bring my love back,” he offered softly. “It was always there.”
“Don’t fucking bother,” she replied. “Don’t waste your time. You’re already lodged in my soul. You don’t need to push yourself in more.”
Silently, he thought about what he could possibly say to that. He had no idea. Only one thing came to mind. In a gentle tone, he said, “I… I talk to a therapist, you know.”
“Goodie for you,” she replied sarcastically.
He supposed he deserved that. “He asked me what I would say if I could tell my past self something. I didn’t know what that could be. At least, I thought I didn’t. But… part of me did. A part of me I haven’t listened to because I thought it was wrong to be so selfish.”
This seemed to touch something in her, by the smallest amount. After a moment, she quietly asked, “What is it?”
He reached out to grasp her hand. Surprisingly, she didn’t pull away. Instead, she looked at him, into his eyes, curiosity plain in her gaze. “I would tell my past self to hold on to you,” he said. “I would tell him to never let you go. That if he didn’t, the pain would nearly kill him. I would say to do everything in his power to keep you around because the alternative is an inescapable hell.”
Her heart thumped. The remnants of anger in her expression began to dissolve. “Okarun…”
“I’m so sorry I said those things, Momo. I’m sorry, unbelievably sorry I pushed you away. I shouldn’t have underestimated how much our love mattered to you. I wish I could take it back. I wish this year had never happened. I wish…” His expression turned to one of raw, unfiltered yearning. “I wish I could be with you forever.”
Momo began to cry again. He tilted her chin up until her lips were parallel to his. Once more, he approached. Once more, she let him.
Until, suddenly, she turned away. “We can’t,” she said again.
“Please, Momo,” he begged.
“We can’t,” she reiterated.
“But you want to. I know you do.”
“I-I don’t!”
“Then why did we leave the party together?”
“It was too loud!”
He moved closer to her. “Why did you ask me if I was single?”
Her eyes darted back and forth. “I was just curious! Making conversation!” she asserted.
“Why did you insist we come to my dorm? To my room?”
She struggled for a moment. “I just…”
“Why did you kiss me back?”
“Because…” She closed her eyes. “Because I’m weak, okay!?”
He took this in. “What?”
“Because for a bit, for just a stupid little bit, I wanted to live in a fucking fantasy world where I could be with my loving boyfriend again, be in the happiest time of my life, and forget about the shitshow it is now!”
“Momo…”
She glowered at him. “The real thing I was looking forward to on this trip wasn’t seeing my granny, or any of my friends, or my hometown again, it was just seeing you! There! I said it! I’m weak, pathetic, and obsessed with the past! Obsessed with you! Is that what you wanted to fucking hear?!”
“Then…” His voice became quiet. “Then why did you stop?”
She looked away. In a softer voice, she said, “Because when you kissed me… and it was as good as I remembered — better than I remembered — and you still knew just the right way to touch me…” She choked back more tears. “I realized if we kept going… I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. And I know that leaving again after that would break me.”
He brought his hand to her cheek. She jolted, as if reflexively recoiling from it, but managed not to move away. “Momo… don’t stop yourself.”
She swallowed a sob. “It’ll just hurt us more…” she muttered.
“I can’t be hurt more than I have been the past year,” he said plainly. “And if I can, I’d rather be hurt with a better memory of you than the last one. Leaving you the first time was like cutting off my own hand. But right now? I’d cut off both just to have you again.”
She drew in a shuddering breath as she contemplated his proposal. In an equally unsteady voice, she replied, “I… I hate this…” She looked into his eyes with a fierce glare. “I hate you!”
“You don’t,” he told her with more confidence than he’d felt in over a year. “I know you don’t. You love me.”
“No, I hate you!” She began to pound her clenched fists against his chest. “I hate you for putting us in this situation! I hate you for throwing me away and pretending like it was for my own fucking good! I hate you for causing me so much pain!” With each sentence, she dropped a fist onto his pectorals.
“Momo…” He seized her wrists, impeding her strikes.
“I hate you so much…” she sobbed, struggling weakly against his grasp. “But the thing I hate most of all, more than anything…is that even now, even after everything you’ve done to me…” The helplessness in her teary eyes was palpable as she ceased her struggle. “I still want you.”
Without another word, he brought his lips to hers. On contact, he immediately felt the tension dissipate from her body. His relief was immeasurable as she reciprocated his force. Once more, he unleashed his skill at pleasuring her, so enormous with just this level of intimacy; this time, her responses were even greater.
As he released her wrists, she brought her hand to the back of his head and raked her fingernails across his scalp. She moaned into his mouth, opening enough for his tongue to dart past her lips and claim her as he once had so long ago. She moaned again as his tongue danced with hers.
“God, Okarun, you’re like a drug to me…” she whispered as they parted. “I’m addicted to you… I hated going cold turkey…”
“Have as much of me as you want,” he replied just as softly.
“Mm… Kill my pain, Okarun,” she murmured with a world-weary tone. “Just for tonight.” As they kissed more, her hands traveled to his chest, savoring the feeling of the tight muscles of which she had been deprived for so long, and drew them down his torso with languor. As she did, he left her lips, planting his own on her jaw, then her throat, then down her neck. Her breath hitched as he made contact with those special spots, leaving marks of heat that stoked the flame of her year-long desire.
As he left the trail of kisses, his hands undid the rest of the buttons on her blouse with deft haste. Once they were all open, he pulled the cloth away from her; she gasped from the urgency of it. God, she’d forgotten how forceful he could be, how much she loved it when he was.
With just as much speed, his hands reached behind her and unclasped her bra. Idly, he noticed something about the underwear. “This is pretty lacy,” he noted. “Did you intend for me to see it tonight?” In the past, she’d only ever worn lingerie on special occasions with him…
“Mmm,” she groaned. “I told you, I’m weak…”
The bra fell away, revealing her magnificent breasts. His hands were on them immediately, his fingers sinking into the soft flesh with ease. So clear was his memory of them that he could tell they had grown a bit in the intervening year.
As he gave them a hard squeeze, Momo moaned, “Ahn!” His digits pressed in on them the way he knew she liked, the way he’d ached to do again for all this time. “Ohhh, Okarun,” she groaned. “You remember… you really do remember how to touch me…”
“I could never forget,” he returned confidently. “Pleasuring you is something I’ve lived for since we first got together.”
“Mmm,” she said with a husky tone. Memories of the effort he put in to make her feel good flooded her mind as comfort, not pain, for the first time in so long.
“And I remember you like this.” He took her nipples between his fingers and gave them a firm pinch.
“Fuck,” she choked out. “Keep going.”
He eagerly complied, teasing the sensitive nubs more and more. As he worked, he felt her hand brush his erection. “Momo?”
“I want this,” she said softly. “I want to touch you too.”
He gulped. “Do as you wish.”
She began to stroke his bulge as he continued to stimulate her tits, kneading them and pulling on her oh-so sensitive nipples. “Ohhh, I missed you, Okarun,” she mewled. “I missed you so bad.”
“I missed you like I’d miss my own heart.”
She moaned from his loving declaration. Withdrawing her hand from his cock, she chose instead to press her hips against his, feeling his tip push beneath her skirt, up against her drenched panties.
He gasped in response. “Momo…”
“Please,” she begged softly. “I haven’t had it in so long. No one’s touched me since you. I can’t stand the idea of anyone else touching me.”
His eyes widened. Some of his lingering anxiety vanished at her words. “You’re the only one I want to touch like this,” he replied.
“Then do it. Please.” She looked into his eyes with a look of pure imploring. “Please, fuck me, Okarun. Fuck me like you used to.”
At those words, he knew he had no choice but to oblige her. “As you wish, Momo.” After taking a moment to strip off his outerwear, he pushed her down onto the mattress. Quickly yet delicately, he removed her skirt, then took hold of the waist of her panties — idly, he noted they matched her lacy bra — and pulled them down, revealing the soaking glory of her pussy.
It was like staring into the face of God for him. His index finger, as if it had a mind of its own, pressed lightly between her lips, causing her to gasp. “You’re already this wet?” he asked in awe.
“How could I not be?” she asked incredulously. “You’re the only thing in my fantasies, Okarun. You’re the only thing I think about when I touch myself. The memories of our fucking are some of the most precious to me. Now I have the chance to live them out again and you think I could be anything but turned the fuck on right away?” She brought her hand to his cheek. “Please… make my fantasies come true again.”
Overwhelmed by her admission, he could do naught but nod. “I’ll give you what you need, my love.”
With haste, he pulled down his boxers and the full length of his erection sprang free. Momo’s eyes widened at the sight of it; she felt a surge of heat run through her body, pooling between her legs. Then he brought it to her entrance and, with earnest care that made her yet more desirous of him, asked, “Ready?” She gave an eager nod. With unyielding force, he plunged himself inside her.
“Aaahh, fuck!” she cried out as she felt him enter, felt him invade her most sacred place. “God, I forgot how big you are,” she said in a strangled voice. “I don’t know if I can take it still…”
“Just try,” he told her. “You’ll try for me, won’t you? We’ll take it at your pace.”
She nodded once more. “Make my body yours again, Okarun. Show me how I belong to you.”
His cock throbbed at this request. Pulling back for just a second, he grasped her hips, clenched his muscles and thrust slowly but deeply into her.
Momo threw her head back as she felt him impale her inch by inch and choked out, “Fuck, that’s so good!” Another steady thrust forced a hard moan out of her. “Ohhh, yes, yes, yes! You can go faster…” His pace began to increase steadily. “That’s it — ahn! — fuck me, Okarun!”
He needed no further invitation. “God, Momo, you’re so tight,” he growled. “It feels even better than I remember!”
“Really?” she breathed, “I’m — oh, oh, yes, ohhh! — I’m so gla-aaad!” His admiration augmented her arousal; she loved hearing his praise as she felt her pussy adapt to him, felt her inner walls stretch to mold themselves to him. She wanted nothing in this moment but to be a vessel for his pleasure, like she used to be, like she always wanted to be when they fucked.
As he pounded her pussy harder and harder like a heavy machinery piston revving up, she cried out, “I love you!” The words spilled from her uncontrollably as she bucked her hips against his, matching his accelerating rhythm. “I don’t hate you — ahh, aaahhhh! — I’m sorry — fuck, fuck, fuck me — I’m sorry I said that. I love you, Okarun!”
“I know, Momo. I know,” he replied in a low voice.
“Say you love me too. Please — mm, mm, oohhh gaaawd — I need to hear it again.” She sounded desperate, as though she were begging for food on the verge of death from starvation.
“I love you, Momo,” he said easily. “You’re the love of my life. I’ve always loved you and I always will.”
“Oh fuck,” she groaned. “I’m gonna cum…” She hadn’t realized how this emotional reconciliation would affect her arousal. “God, I’m gonna cum!”
One hand still holding her hip, he brought the other to one of hers and interlaced their fingers, grunting, “Cum for me, Momo!”
“Fuck me!” she cried. “Show me how much you love me and fuck me!” He slammed his hips into her at a breakneck speed over and over. The impact of his body against hers, the feeling of his cock ramming into her unrelentingly, overwhelmed her. She felt the coil inside her tighten until she could bear it no longer. It snapped with sudden violence, sending her hurtling over the edge. Throwing her head back, she screamed, “I’m cumming, I’m cumming, I’m cummiiiinnng!”
As her pussy clenched around his cock, he continued to fuck her hard, pulling shrieks of absolute ecstasy from her. “I love you, Momo!” Okarun roared. “I love you!”
His cock twitched; hot, sticky seed erupted from it and began to paint her insides. The feeling of it on top of his declaration and the continuous brutal fucking he gave her elevated Momo’s climax to a divine level. For a brief moment, she forgot the stress and loneliness of her life. She forgot the pain of the last year. She forgot that she had ever been apart from this man and only knew that she would give anything to be with him for the rest of her life.
Tears spilled fresh from her eyes, out of joy for the first time this evening, nay, this year. She could not verbalize her feelings, so lost was she to the madness of erotic euphoria; she hoped her wordless moans and shrieks would convey everything this moment and every moment she had ever shared with him meant to her.
Mutually, they slowed their pace bit by bit, until finally, they were still, sweaty and panting from the immense exertion. He lay on top of her, still clutching her hand tightly, giving her neck soft kisses that were like heaven to her in the afterglow. His weight and warmth only added to the comfort of their coupling, enforcing to her that he was here, still, with her.
Eventually, he pulled himself out of her; she couldn’t stop the pang of disappointment that came with the absence within her as he rolled over to lay beside her. She could bear no moment without his touch right now and so hurried to rest on his chest, loving how his salty sweat mixed with hers. His arm wrapped around her and pulled her tightly to him.
They basked together in this embrace, both cherishing this ultimate reunion like it was the only drop of water in a vast desert. He kissed the top of her head softly and she nuzzled his firm pectoral muscles in turn.
But after a time, he heard her draw in breath in a way that was decidedly not positive. “Momo?” he asked with concern.
“I don’t want this to end,” she replied, her voice small and miserable. “I want this to go on forever. But it’s gonna be over soon, just like I said.”
“Don’t think about that now,” he told her softly.
“How can’t I? When I leave here, all I’ll have is this memory. And then it’s back to…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
He thought for a moment. “Maybe… we can try long distance after all.”
“Maybe…” she granted halfheartedly. “But I still want to see you. Hear you.”
“We can do video chat for that. I’ll do it no matter how late it is.”
“It’s not the same. And… I want to feel you too. Just like this. Just like we are right now.” She choked back tears. “It’s so cold without you, Okarun.”
He had no response except, “I’m sorry, Momo.”
A long silence passed over them. He stroked her back gently, imparting as much tender love as he could to comfort her bereft sorrow. After a while more, Momo spoke up quietly, “What would you think if I transferred?”
He felt his heart thump at this. “You mean… from MIT?”
“Yeah. I’ve got good grades. I could probably get into the University of Tokyo pretty easily.” He didn’t respond. She gazed up at him. “Tell me your thoughts?”
Okarun sighed. “I’ve… I’ve got two. From two parts of me.”
“I’m listening.”
“The first thought comes from the part of me that, in most cases, I think I should listen to. The responsible part. The part that knows that it’s important to think long-term and not go for instant gratification. The part that told you to go.”
“Okay…”
“It thinks…” He gulped. “It thinks throwing away such a prestigious education for your high school boyfriend is foolish. That you’ll resent me and maybe yourself years, or even just months, after you do it, because you’ll realize this thing we have isn’t worth the loss of an amazing future. And that I can’t ask you to abandon that just for my needs.”
“I see…” said Momo in a shrunken voice. She turned her gaze to look at him. “What about the other part?”
“That part…” He took a moment to consider it. “It’s selfish. It’s egotistical. Narcissistic. It’s the one I mentioned before. It doesn’t think about what would be better for others, only for me.”
“What does it say?”
He closed his eyes, preparing to divulge that which he had ignored for over twelve lonely months. “It says to do it.”
Momo’s lips parted as she took this in. “Okarun…”
“It says I want you back more than anything in this world.” He spoke with increasing urgency. “That I’m not just your high school boyfriend. I’m your soulmate. And you’re mine. We’re destined to be together. And if you come back, I’ll promise to make it worth it. I’ll give you everything you could ever want. I’ll celebrate every day with you like it’s your birthday. I’ll make sure you’re always happy, as much as possible, and always be there for you in those times where I fail. I’ll do whatever I have to to keep you in my life. It says… I’ll be dead on my feet without you, Momo. I know because I already have been.”
Her eyes widened. At this confession, she was rendered speechless.
“I know what I want, Momo,” he continued. “I shouldn’t put it above what’s best for you. I shouldn’t put myself before anyone else. But what I want, what I really want, what I’ve wanted since the day you told me you got in and I told you those terrible, awful words…” His voice became gentle. “Is for you to come home.” He met her gaze, eyes raw with honest need. “Come home to me, Momo. Please.”
A blush, a blush like those she’d had before they’d first gotten together, crept onto her cheeks. Averting her gaze, she said, “You think it’s selfish to say what you want… but hiding that is kinda selfish too, y’know?” He didn’t reply, his face showing mild surprise. “I think… I think there’s stuff we still have to work out, from the last year. But…”
She looked at him once more. “I don’t have to make a decision yet. The transfer application deadline isn’t for a while.” Before he could say anything, she added, “Yes, I’ve looked it up before. You didn’t fuck this idea into my brain. You just helped it get heavier.”
“I see…”
“Y’know,” she said with a nonchalant tone, “mental health plays a big role in academic performance. I’ve seen research about it in my psych class. Isolation and stress can have a pretty negative effect on grades, even for a genius like me. I could lose my scholarship. And if I fail out due to that, that would have a pretty huge impact on my career, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” he replied quietly.
“And it’s not like the University of Tokyo is some C-tier community college. It’s pretty prestigious in its own right. It has great science programs.” She nestled closer to him. “Just saying.”
“Momo… I really do want this, I swear. Just please, promise me, promise me, when the time comes, that you won’t only consider my feelings.”
“Your feelings…” she muttered. “Aren’t mine important too?”
“O-of course,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean—”
“I promise,” she cut him off. “I promise that I’ll think really hard about what to do. I’ll make the decision that I honestly think is best for me in the long run. But…” She paused. “If you only think in the long term, you might not ever get to enjoy the short term before it gets there. Sometimes it’s good to listen to the part of you that wants dessert before dinner.”
He couldn’t stop his heart from swelling at her words. “I love you, Momo.”
“And I love you, Okarun.”
Of course, she had already made her decision. Even as the night went on and the endorphins from their incredible sex wore off, her view remained clear. It would until the transfer deadline came and went.
“So she’s coming back?”
“Yeah,” Okarun told his therapist. “She just told me last night.”
“Well, that must have been a good surprise.”
He nodded. “It was. Even though she had told me how she was leaning beforehand, I didn’t want to get my hopes up until it was confirmed.”
“I’m quite happy for you, Ken. You already look much better than the last several times we spoke.”
“I feel a lot better,” he said emphatically. “She really is… everything to me.”
“So, I feel I should ask. Do you want to keep having sessions?”
He thought for a moment. “Yeah. I’m overjoyed she’s coming back, and I was always happy when she was around before, but… The past year doesn’t just get erased from history. We still have to work some things out. I have to work things out, both with her and for myself. I don’t have to tell you what a wreck I was without her; you saw it. I need to be able to stand on my own two feet, not just lean on her.”
His therapist nodded. “I think that’s a mature view, Ken. We can keep working on those things you’ve felt over the past year. I think that will be very good for you.”
Everyone was happy for Okarun when they heard the news. Jiji got him in the most affectionate of headlocks and gave him the most affectionate of noogies. He also informed Okarun that he’d be happy to “find other places to sleep” in the near future, which made Okarun turn beet red.
When Momo finally arrived, she vanquished any doubts on her decision from his mind. The light in his life, which had for so long vanished from his world, leaving only a glimpse of it on their last shared night, returned in full. Colors were brighter. Food tasted good again. And his hands felt every bit of her skin he could touch at maximum intensity.
Momo was elated too. She became a star at the University of Tokyo, easily achieving excellent grades, even in her weaker subjects. She did this despite spending most of her free time with her boyfriend, always reminding him of her academic performance when he worried about distracting her too much. And he did like distracting her quite a bit…
Okarun continued to work on himself. The three words and the two words, though they no longer signified a miserable status quo, still held some power over him, still made him flinch when he heard them. But he was aware of it, and fought hard to diminish their grip on him.
He knew that if he let his old self run the show, there stood a chance that he would cast both him and Momo into darkness once more. Improving himself like this wouldn’t just be for his own benefit. It would make him a better boyfriend for her. And for that, he would do any amount of work, no matter how hard.
In time, Momo told him three different words enough that they became the main refrain of his mindscape. And once they graduated, plus a few years beyond, he asked her a question. The two words that came in response were the only pair he cared about after that.