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There was a loud thud on the front door.
Momo dropped the sweater she’d been holding in front of the mirror, then scrambled to pick it up and stash it in her closet. The one she was already wearing would have to do. It was fine — it was her favorite for a reason. She wouldn’t have even been fussing over her outfit if someone hadn’t been running late…
She thundered down the stairs and rushed to the door, but stopped herself just before turning the handle.
Okarun wouldn’t have knocked like that. It was possible someone — or something — else had come to the shrine, looking for help from her grandmother. The bell for spirits hadn’t chimed, but that didn’t mean whatever it was couldn’t be dangerous.
Momo switched on her aura sight. Just outside, she saw a bright twin flame of blue and red.
‘Of course,’ she thought, and yanked the door open, only to nearly get knocked over by a transformed Okarun falling flat on his face.
“Ow,” he groaned pitifully from the floor, unmoving.
Heart pounding, Momo kneeled down next to him. She tugged frantically at his clothes, looking for tears in the fabric or scrapes on his skin. His shoes were missing and his socks were ruined, which meant he’d been caught by surprise. Strangely, everything except his footwear seemed okay, if a bit disheveled.
“Okarun, what the hell?” Momo plucked a damp, brown leaf out of his hair. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” he answered in a disaffected monotone.
She pushed on his shoulder to roll him over and check his front, but stopped when he groaned. “Where are you hurt?”
“Momo-chan is worried about me. That’s nice.”
“Okarun!” she hollered impatiently.
“I’m not hurt.”
“Okay…” She sat back on her heels and hugged her knees. The urgency Momo had felt began to drain away, and irritation at his unhelpful answers crept in to fill the gaps. “So why are you on the ground?”
“Gravity.”
Momo pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. He must have bonked his head against the door and stayed leaning there until she’d opened it. That would explain the strange knock she’d heard.
“Whatever, Gloomkarun. Can you at least pull your legs inside?” Momo whined. “All the heat is getting out.”
“If Momo-chan wants me to move, I guess I have to. Bummer.”
“You do,” she griped, standing up. “You promised ‘Momo-chan’ you’d help her study, and you can’t do that like this.”
Okarun rolled onto his side obnoxiously slowly, and pulled his knees towards his chest until his feet were inside the house. Once the door was shut, Momo came back to squat next to him.
She poked his cheek, and he narrowed his red eyes at her in silent disapproval. “Dude, you’re such a drama queen like this. Why are you transformed anyway?”
“No reason.”
“You just felt like being a depressed lump?” She poked him again, and he let his eyes fall shut.
“No.”
Momo’s cheeks puffed as she let out a long, resigned exhale. “Okay, well if you aren’t hurt and nothing happened, let’s get you up, yeah?”
“Okay,” he agreed, but didn’t make any attempt to move.
Grumbling, Momo hooked an elbow under one of his armpits and tried to hoist him up. He was too heavy like this — pure, boneless dead weight — so she slung his arms over her shoulders and grabbed him all the way around his torso, pulling him towards her and adjusting her stance so that she could get them both to standing.
“Momo-chan is hugging me? That’s nice, too,” Okarun rumbled into her shoulder.
Heat rushed to her cheeks and she hurried to disentangle herself, holding him at arm’s length. “I am not! I was just getting you off the floor, you dumb lump.” She let go of his shoulders, and was relieved when he stayed standing
“Oh,” he said glumly. “Momo-chan doesn’t want to hug me.”
“That’s not—” she sputtered.
“If you just use your powers, you don’t have to touch me.”
“You idiot! You don’t understand anything.” Frustrated and flustered, Momo stomped off towards the kitchen. Before turning the corner, she looked over her shoulder. “Are you coming or what?”
Slowly, Okarun trudged after her. It was a start, she supposed.
Momo filled the kettle and pulled two mugs out of a cabinet. Okarun sat himself at the counter and placidly watched her go through the motions of making tea, as if he hadn’t just scared her half to death.
“So…” she drawled casually, “When did you transform?
“On the way here.”
She opened a second cabinet and pulled out the tea. “Why?”
“Because.”
“Did you come across an enemy?”
“No.”
“Were you trying to get here faster?” The tea tin was closed with perhaps more force than was necessary.
“No.” He looked up at her, crestfallen. “I should have thought of that, afterwards.”
It wasn’t Okarun’s fault that his personality sucked when he transformed, but right then it made her want to scream. With a tight voice, she asked, “Are you stuck like this?”
“I doubt it.” Okarun laid his head down on the counter.
The kettle clicked off, and Momo turned away to pour hot water into their mugs. “Why haven’t you turned back, then?”
“What would be the point?”
His response tore a jagged hole in Momo’s frustration, deflating it immediately.
She sat next to him, placing his cup on the counter in front of him and warming her hands around her own. Okarun’s eyes flitted up to meet hers. Despite often wishing he would make eye contact when he wasn’t transformed, the intensity of it made her self-conscious.
Momo forced herself to hold her own against his gaze. “You get really down like this. Doesn’t it wear on you?”
“Huh… Yeah. I guess I never thought about it.” His eyes drifted to the steam rising from his tea, and her nerves eased.
“So, change back?” Momo reached out and gently nudged his arm.
“Nah,” he said simply, and let his eyes drift shut.
Momo stared at him a moment, her mouth pressed in a hard line. Nothing she said or did seemed to help or open him up.
Despite being a glum lump, Okarun looked strangely peaceful. An urge to pet his head rose up from her chest.
A tussle outside of the kitchen window interrupted her thoughts before she could act on them — it sounded like small animals play-fighting, and when she peered outside, she saw a trio of juvenile byakko that had been hanging out around the shrine recently. Momo smiled excitedly; their timing couldn’t be more perfect.
“The lil’ cuties are back! Okarun, look out the window,” Momo called out as she rushed upstairs to her room.
She pulled a box of ribbons out of her closet and sifted through them until she found one she didn’t mind losing: long, thin, and baby blue, it was originally wrapped around a pajama set that her gran had bought her at the start of winter. Ribbon in hand, she hurried back down to the kitchen.
Back in the kitchen, Okarun was staring out the window with a death glare.
‘At least he moved,’ she thought.
Shoving him slightly off to the side, Momo slid the window open.
She dangled her ribbon out of the window, just above the byakko’s heads, pulling it up over and over while they danced and tried to grab it with their teeth. She giggled, delighting in playing with the pups, and squealed when they got just a little too close to securing their prize.
Pulling her head back into the kitchen, she offered the ribbon to Okarun. “Do you want to have a go?”
“You’re letting all the heat out,” he groused.
Momo leaned out the window and dangled the ribbon again. Just because he refused to have fun didn’t mean she couldn’t have any. “Dude, seriously, what got up your butt?”
“Have you given them ribbons before?” he asked, his voice edged sharp with steel.
“Hah?” Surprised, she turned to look at him. The byakko took advantage of her lapse in concentration and snatched the ribbon from her grasp; when she looked back they were already chasing each other into the woods with it.
Momo shut the window and returned her attention to Okarun’s hardened expression. “Dammit. I thought playing with them would cheer you up.”
“Momo-chan,” he admonished.
“Okarun, they’re just like silly little foxes, there’s no harm—” Momo cut herself off when his face fell to sadness, her heart aching with a need to comfort him. The urge to pet his head rose up again, and a new idea came to her. “Okay, that’s it. Come upstairs with me.”
Momo swiped her tea on her way out of the kitchen and went up the stairs without looking back, trusting he would follow eventually. She grabbed a zippered pouch off of her dresser, then sat on the edge of her bed and drank the last of her tea while she waited. It didn’t take too long before his slow, careful steps could be heard coming up the stairs. He stopped in her doorway, apprehensive and uncertain of whether or not to enter. Some things stayed the same no matter which form he was in.
“Come here,” she said, and pointed at the floor in front of her. “Sit down, facing away from me.”
Thankfully, he complied.
While he settled in, Momo rummaged through her pouch, pulling out a wide-toothed comb, a smoothing brush, and a packet of hair elastics.
“Scooch in a little further. You can lean against my legs, it’s okay.”
He shifted closer, and let her adjust his posture to her liking. “Momo-chan, are we not studying?”
She gathered his hair together as best she could, the spiritual energy of his transformation slightly resisting her efforts to redirect it. It felt cool and ethereal, but solid underneath. She wondered idly what it felt like for him, compared to when someone touched his normal hair. “Are you telling me you’re in a good mindset to help me with English verb conjugations right now?”
“I guess not. Bummer.”
Momo snorted. “That’s what I thought. So unless you wanna turn back to normal or tell me what’s going on with you, you get this.”
In contrast to her bossy tone, she combed through the bottom two inches of his hair with gentle drags. She shifted the comb slightly with each pass, claiming new strands and leaving old ones behind, the motions settling into a meditation.
Momo always loved it when Miko or Muko played with her hair. The brush’s pull diffused across hundreds of individual hairs and the paths traced against her scalp by deft fingers made the rest of the world melt away, leaving her feeling relaxed and safe. She hoped it would work the same magic for Okarun.
Working her way higher into his locks, she pulled slowly and carefully to avoid snagging painfully on any knots. He hummed, low and rumbly, and Momo felt it reverberate through her legs. Her heart turned into goo, and she let herself smile and revel in it, knowing that he couldn’t catch her in such brazen sappiness while he was turned away.
Once she made it all the way to the top she switched to the brush and started again, working her way up methodically. Finally, she smoothed everything out, lightly scraping the bristles against his scalp. His hair still flowed up and away from his head, but after using the brush it was poofier than a dandelion gone to seed. It looked very silly, but Momo managed not to laugh. She started running her fingers through it over and over, hoping to calm the frizz down and group the waves together again.
“That makes my head tingle,” Okarun said, breaking the long silence.
“Do you like it?” she paused to ask.
“Mmm,” he hummed again, and Momo’s smile spread wider.
Suddenly inspired, she started a small French braid along one side of his face. It would probably look a bit ratty with so many ends sticking out, but the challenge amused her. If she was lucky, maybe she could even braid a spiral all the way around and into the center.
The braid broke down just behind his ear, so tried again. When it happened a second time, she unraveled it and scrubbed her fingers back and forth quickly against his whole scalp, as if that would reset his head.
Momo frowned, annoyed at what she was starting to suspect. She picked up a section in the center and started braiding that, just to test it, and everything went fine until right about where his normal human hair eased from longer strands into a close fade. She could feel and manipulate the hair beyond that point, but as soon as her fingers worked their way lower than the end of his natural strands, it wriggled out of the braid in a frustrating cascade. She grunted; apparently the ethereal parts weren’t corporeal. She’d have to do something else.
Using the tapered handle of the fine-toothed comb, Momo parted Okarun’s hair horizontally just above where she estimated it got too short, then partitioned off several vertical sections of what she’d gathered up, securing them into loose ponytails one at a time. Starting with the leftmost section, she began braiding again.
“Momo-chan?” Okarun’s rumbly voice caught her by surprise; she’d become accustomed to the quiet.
“Have you gotten sick of this?” she asked sheepishly, winding the tail end of the braid into a tiny rosette and securing it with an elastic. “I can take it out. I don’t even know how long I’ve been messing with your hair.”
“Keep going. I like it.”
Suddenly Momo’s face flushed with heat. Not trusting her voice, she waited for him to say whatever it was he was going to before.
Halfway through the next braid, he finally spoke again. Plaintively, he asked, “Have those byakko run off with ribbons of yours before?”
Momo’s fingers stilled in his hair. He’d asked something similar in the kitchen, but it had felt more confrontational then, so she hadn’t really answered him.
“A couple, yeah,” she replied softly, and continued braiding.
“Was one of them red?”
“Yes,” she said, and something clicked into place. “Did you see them on your way here?”
“They were fighting over it. It looked like it was from your uniform.”
Okarun twisted until he was looking directly at Momo. The hand that was holding her progress in the braid got pulled along, so she was effectively cradling his head while he gazed up at her. The curse lines on his face — slightly faded and intersected by pleading eyes — looked like tear tracks.
“After I got it away from them, I could see it was different.” He looked down to pull a dirty and tattered grosgrain ribbon from his pocket. “But I was sure you’d been attacked.”
Okarun always said weird and depressing things when he transformed, but he usually seemed emotionally numb, or at worst, a soggy sock. Right then, staring morosely at a chewed up ribbon that had little in common with the one from her uniform beyond the color, he was brimming with sorrow.
Memories came to Momo in a chaotic litany; all the times she had feared for his life, the anguish at her inability to intervene, and the unforgettable, sharp pain that lanced her heart deeper every time he was hurt. The same pain that she felt when he fell through her door.
He was always so strong, though. She wasn’t thinking of his physicality, though he had transformed in more ways than one since they’d met. He was internally strong — always braver with his emotions than she was — but in that moment she realized that the pain of seeing her in danger must be just as difficult for him to bear as it was for her.
Sliding down from her bed, she sat next to him on the floor and released the half-done braid to pull him into a tight hug.
“Okarun,” Momo murmured, “I’m okay. I’m okay, and I’m so glad you’re okay, too.”
He let his head fall on her shoulder, his face towards her neck. His cold body began to warm in her hold.
For a moment his arms hovered around her as if he were scared to hug her back, but then she felt the tension in his muscles shift into a different kind of fear, and he held her as fiercely as she clung to him. She shut her eyes, allowing herself to simply feel.
His chest began to shake, and her neck felt damp. Momo didn’t have to open her eyes to know he’d transformed back. Without loosening her hold, she let the tension ease from her frame, melting from a vice grip to a comforting embrace. She breathed him in deeply, hoping to soothe them both.
“I can’t believe you think I’m so weak that I could be torn apart by a few little ghost foxes,” she grumbled.
Okarun laughed wetly. “Of course I don’t. I thought they grabbed the ribbon from wherever the fight had happened.” His voice thinned, and his shoulders clenched up again. “I thought— I thought the Serpo, or maybe the Subterraneans—”
“I’m right here, Okarun. With you. Everything's alright,” Momo cut off his spiral before it could get any deeper. She let the silence hang for a moment, then chuckled. “You went easy on ’em. If I’d been in your place, I would have torn those cute little things to pieces to find you.”
Okarun laughed again and tried to pull away, but Momo wasn’t ready to let go. She slid her arms down a little past his shoulders and grasped her elbows to secure her hold on him. “Momo-chan is hugging you! It’s nice!”
“Miss Ayase, please be careful! I’m going to get snot on your sweater!”
“Do it, coward. See what happens.” She shook him a bit just to spite him. As gross as it would be if he did get snot on her, it was worth it to hear him laughing.
“Miss Ayase!” he squealed.
“I said, do it, coward!” she cackled, “I’ll show you just how tough I am!”
“I know how tough you are, that’s why I don’t want to be your target!” Okarun did his best to push against her waist, but only succeeded in shifting their center of gravity and toppling them both over. Momo landed halfway on top of him, laughing hard at the absurdity of it all. After a moment, he couldn’t help but join her.
After they calmed down a bit, Momo pushed herself up, her hands braced against the floor, and looked down at her best friend. Her Okarun.
His eyes were pink and puffy, his black hair was half-braided with spiky ends poking out at each cross of the strands, and fat trails of phlegm oozed out from his nose.
“All that snot is disgusting,” she teased him.
“Gee, thanks,” he bit back, “I was only crying over you!”
She laughed, relieved to see his spark had returned. Sitting all the way up, she reached over to grab a box of tissues off of the table by her bed, and handed it to him with a glint in her eye. “Can you even breathe? It looks uncomfortable.”
“I wanted to do this earlier—” He cut himself off by blowing his nose.
“Nastyyyyyy, I can’t believe you almost got that on my favorite sweater!”
“It would have been your fault!”
He went through two more tissues, and Momo’s cheeks warmed as she watched. This was how things were meant to be. Her, pushing his buttons; him, getting riled up over technicalities; both of them safe and sound, doing normal teenage things. Happiness seeped deep into her bones, and she smiled earnestly, heedless of the warmth blooming in her chest.
Okarun, locked into bickering mode, looked at her sharply once his nose was clear but caught himself when he saw the look on her face. His indignation vanished in surprise, replaced by slight nervousness. “Miss Ayase?”
She giggled. “You look real stupid with your hair like that.”
A hand flew behind his head to feel the braids. “You’re the one who did this!”
“Are you gonna let me finish it?”
He paused and looked away, blushing, then grumbled, “I guess, if you really want to.”
“Oh hell yeah,” Momo hopped back up on her bed and patted the side of the mattress, inviting him back to his spot. “You can quiz me on verb conjugations while I do.”
“Regular or irregular first?” He asked, settling in place.
“Psh. Aren’t they all irregular?”
“Miss Ayase, that’s not even remotely true—” He started to turn around, but Momo reached out and stopped him.
“Hey dummy, keep your head straight or you’ll ruin it and I’ll have to start all over.”
“How am I the dummy? I’m helping you here.”
Momo laughed brightly, feeling lighter and happier than she had in a long time. Everything was the way things were supposed to be.