Momo's leg bounces under her desk, teeth worrying at her bottom lip as she glares at the clock in the classroom. The teacher’s entire lesson just sounds like warbling to her; her brain marking everything in the world as a distraction save one.
Seeing Okarun as soon as school ended.
The further she gets into the school year and the more misadventures they rack up, the more she resents the fact that they’re in different classes.
The teacher hasn’t even reacted to the first chime for the end of the school day before Momo’s out of the room, skidding on the flat of her shoes to cut the sharpest turn possible and run down the hallway, her bag hanging as loose as an afterthought from her shoulder.
For all that screaming, running and fighting scary yokai and aliens had become a natural part of her day-to-day, the three most terrifying moments of her life had been set pretty solid in her mind: seeing Vamola get skewered by the globalists, her first meeting with the Serpos, and coming home to see Mr. Shrimp sitting over three people laid out and bloodied; and thinking that the one covered like a corpse had been Okarun.
She’d been forced to reevaluate after last weekend.
Because watching her best friend crumple and fall like a soaked sandbag after taking a hit to the head-a hit that’d been meant for her-and not move afterward had been even worse than finding out he’d been hurt when she wasn’t around to help him. It’d ripped something out of her soul, turned her blood to ice and crushed all the air from her lungs.
“OKARUN!”
She never wants to experience that feeling again.
After shoulder checking several startled students moving at far more leisurely paces, she catches the door jamb and yanks herself to a stop in front of his classroom.
There are other kids around his desk obstructing her view, but save the thick bandaging wrapped around his head, he’s not in any visible pain she can see. People who Momo bet wouldn't have talked to him before are asking questions about his head injury; Kinta’s just lapping up the attention by proxy, Vamola looks too stressed to be much help, and Okarun being Okarun, he’s too polite to tell them to piss off so he can rest.
“Hey.”
So, she does it for him; announcing herself to the room and walking in even while she’s catching her breath from the short sprint through the halls. He turns to her with a half-second delay compared to everyone else; a consequence of his concussion, probably.
She can see exact moment he recognizes her, though; those already-warm brown eyes turn impossibly warmer.
“Ayase-san.” He says softly.
Fuck, she loves him so damn much.
“C’mon,” she says, shoving past the onlookers to reach him and take his arm in a gentle grip. “Let's go.”
He immediately pushes his chair back to stand; a little too fast for his bruised brain, but she just tightens her hold on him to keep him steady so he can get his bag. She doesn’t let go even after the four of them have left the classroom, helping him navigate the crowded hallways.
“Takakura~!”
Aira and Jiji are waiting at the lockers by the front entrance; the former immediately gets a little too close to Okarun’s opposite arm.
“Don’t crowd him, skank.” Momo mutters without much heat or feeling behind it; as fun as riling up Aira is, she’s not really in the mood for it today.
The other girl ignores her in favor of simpering over Okarun. She must not be feeling up to it either.
“How ya holding up, buddy?” Jiji asks as they all walk out.
“I’m all right,” Okarun says. He readjusts his glasses. “It’s not as bad as”
“Don’t downplay it.” Momo cuts him off, with a bit more bite than she means to; still, she can’t stand him trying to brush this off, and she’s never been shy about letting people know when she’s irritated.
Okarun ducks his head a little, avoiding her eyes like he often does when he’s being scolded.
“Luckily it’s still Monday,” he says, changing the subject and nodding at Jiji. “I’ll rest as soon as I’m home so I’m ready for tomorrow.”
Momo tilts her head; it takes her a second to realize what he’s talking about. Tomorrow’s Tuesday. She clenches her jaw.
“If Evil Eye wants to fight you, he’ll go through me first,” she almost growls. She rounds on Okarun again, glaring. “And you’re not going home, mister; you’re coming with me!”
She can feel eyes drawing in on their group, her in particular; she may have been a little louder than she thought. She’s certain people will be talking about them again tomorrow, but she couldn’t give less of a shit about rumors right now.
Okarun’s more important.
—————
Okarun doesn’t put up much resistance to her insistence that he’s going to stay at her place. Momo might not know all the specifics of his home life, but the fact that it’s never even come up despite that he’s left the Ayase household in borrowed clothes, bruises and bandages multiple times just reinforces her belief that she can take better care of him than what he’d get at home.
That said…
“Uh, A-Ayase-san…”
He makes a little fuss after dinner, when Momo makes clear that he’s not shacking up in the guest room. Despite all they’ve been through, and the fact that he’s been here multiple times, he still hesitates a bit at the doorway to her bedroom. Normally, Momo finds it kind of endearing that he’s such a gentleman, but worry makes her impatient, and she’s not above bullying him a little until he complies, even if he’s hurt.
“Move it, dork,” she says, shoving him inside; he goes more easily than he usually would, but thankfully manages to keep his feet. She points around the room. “Sleep clothes are in my closet. You know where the bathroom is; red toothbrush is the spare. I’ll be right back.”
She walks back downstairs to give him time to change and get a couple water bottles from the kitchen. She vaguely remembers that hydration’s important in handling injuries, but she’s not sure that applies to blows to the head, let alone ones that have long stopped bleeding. Still, it can’t hurt to have them on hand in case Okarun wakes up thirsty.
She’s idling and trying to think of anything else he might need when her grandmother catches her.
“Hey, Momo. If you’re gonna put four-eyes in your bed, better not let me find out about it.”
She hears Turbo Granny gagging in another room.
“Don’t say shit like that just after I’ve eaten!”
Momo glares at them, stomping out of the kitchen toward the stairs and shouting as she goes.
“As if I’d do anything to a patient!”
She willfully ignores the heat blooming up from her neck.
Momo wants Okarun as close as possible because she’s concerned; her unreasonably massive crush on the guy is totally irrelevant!
Well… mostly irrelevant.
Fuck, now she’s thinking about it.
“Dammit, granny.” She mutters, standing in the hall outside her door.
“Ayase-san?”
Okarun’s voice, muffled on the other side of the door, calls to her. She shakes her head and wills her blush to go down.
“Yeah,” she says, one hand on the door. “You decent?”
“Y-yes!” He answers in that nervous way that she knows means he’s adjusting his glasses; not because he needs to, just to hide his face.
He looks… distractingly soft. He’s worn her clothes before, and she his a few times, but that’d been mostly out of necessity and in situations when other urgent stuff had been on her mind. Her oversized shirts don’t quite swallow him up like they used to when they first met, but it still gives him the sight-feel of someone she’d really enjoy cuddling.
And his natural curls are already pretty destructive on that front by themselves.
“Ayase-san?” He asks, pink dusting over his nose and cheeks from the fact she’s been staring at him for eight uninterrupted seconds.
Startled, she hucks the water bottles at him and stages a tactical retreat into the bathroom; with the excuse that she’s getting herself ready for bed, though mostly to keep herself from doing something stupid.
Like smooshing his face between her hands and gushing about how fucking cute he is.
“Dammit granny.” She mutters again.
—————
“What’re you doing?”
After changing, brushing, and internally debating whether or not she’d suffer through wearing a bra to bed–she trusts Okarun far too much to bother, which just means she’ll have to make sure she wakes up before he does–she steps out of the bathroom to find him still on the floor, a futon halfway unrolled.
He blinks at her.
“Preparing a futon…?” He says, with an intonation that makes it sound like a question. “Am I not sleeping in here?”
“Yeah, not on the floor,” she says. “You’re in bed with me.”
She can hear the gears in his head stutter. His whole face erupts in red.
“Wh-wh-what?! Ayase-san, I can’t–that’s not–!”
“Not what, huh? You got a problem?”
“It’s not proper! I don’t–!”
“I don’t give a shit about proper! What, you don’t want to?”
“Why do you want me in your bed?!”
The argument, as sometimes happened with him, had emboldened Okarun; he never would’ve been able to ask that sort of question normally.
Momo snaps at him.
“Because I’m still mad at you!”
Okarun’s mouth opens, but no retort comes out. The tension in his shoulders deflate, and he’s left standing there blinking at her.
It’s not how Momo envisioned the night going, but it’s the truth. Between finishing the fight and making sure he was okay, and the wave of relief that followed, she never really got the chance to be upset.
But they’re alone now, and that lidded frustration is boiling over. She stomps over to her bed and hurls back the covers; folds her arms and glares at him.
“Bed.”
His eye flickers toward the mattress before falling back on her. He’s still reluctant; the state he’s in, she could easily wrangle him with her powers, but she really wants him to choose to join her.
She breathes a shaky sigh; forces herself to keep eye contact even as her toes curl.
“It’s not just cause I’m mad,” she says, going for honesty a little more naked than she’s used to. “I want you here… please.”
Her ears burn, but she holds her gaze steady. She doesn’t want him to misunderstand this as teasing or something he has to endure because she’s upset. Her Okarun has always been the first to apologize; at times, she thinks he’d apologize for his very existence if it meant he could keep his friends, if it meant he doesn’t have to go back to being lonely and ignored.
She needs this sweet boy to understand how much he matters to her, whether or not she’s angry with him.
Okarun ducks his head, shrinking in one himself a bit but shuffling over to her bed nonetheless. He gingerly sits on the edge, hands clenched over his shirt like he’s trying to avoid touching her bed as much as possible.
Momo can’t help rolling her eyes at his hangups; she puts her kneed on the bed, such that her calf is pressing against his thigh. He nearly jumps back up; if not for her hand on his shoulder, he might have.
“C’mon, scooch.”
Finally, he puts his hands on the bed, pushing himself back to the side facing the wall; he looks up at her with wide eyes. A face Momo hopes reflects anxiety, if not anticipation, rather than wariness. She wants him to listen to her, not get scared or stressed out.
Momo leans forward and reaches a hand out to his face; slowly, giving him plenty of time to react or otherwise say no, she touches the frame of his glasses.
She feels his nervous breath on her wrist; she’s glad she typically wears long sleeves to bed that can hide her goosebumps. Gently, she lifts his glasses off his face.
She tilts her head, taking him in. He’s not any less handsome with the glasses on, but the novelty of seeing him without them is striking.
It occurs to her, then, how little they’ve talked today despite her all but cuffing him to her all afternoon and evening. Shit, she hopes the silence on his end isn’t related to his injury.
“You look different without your glasses,” she says, struck by an impulse to try reclaiming their usual rhythm. Okarun ducks his head, and she quickly adds. “Not in a bad way.”
He peeks up at her through his lashes, a tiny smile on his face that threatens to push her into cardiac arrest. She tears her eyes away, carefully folding the arms of his glasses and stretching to place them on her bedside table and turn off the light.
“Lie down.” She says, tugging the covers out from under his feet and holding them up.
He slides onto his side, canting back until his head rests on her pillows. He immediately looks back at her again, as if waiting for a cue; lying too stiffly to possibly be comfortable. The moonlight peeking through her curtain reflects off the bandaging around his head, giving her slight illumination to see his face even in the dark.
His curls look even softer in the dim light, practically begging her to touch them.
So, she does, running her fingertips over Okarun’s forehead and carding them through his hair; careful that she doesn’t apply any pressure that might aggravate his injury.
“That was a bonehead stunt you pulled.” She says quietly but firmly.
She feels Okarun shiver as she lightly scratches his scalp.
“Is that why you’re angry?” He asks in a small voice.
She tugs on a bouncy lock in reply.
“You really scared me, dumbass.”
“… I’m sorry.”
Momo frowns. She knows he’s apologizing for scaring her, not for taking the hit. Because he’s Okarun, too kind for his own good.
She sighs.
“Does it still hurt?”
Okarun doesn’t answer right away; his eyes are already half-lidded, head sinking into her pillows.
“Not… at all.”
Whether or not he’s just saying what she wants to hear, he’s clearly more fatigued than he otherwise would be; his voice barely more than a whisper, humming a little when she brushes his bangs back from his forehead.
Momo stretches out beside him; she’d prefer to hug him, but he might actually implode if she does that and he needs the rest. She settles for finding his hand and taking it in hers under the covers.
She closes her eyes, tracing the lines of his palm with her nails and forming a mental picture. His hands are unexpectedly soft for the most part, but there are a few small, rough calluses developing on the pads of his fingers; a result of his strength training, one of several. She’s caught him performing on par, if not better than, most of the school’s runners when his class takes P.E. outside. And she’s not the only one who’s noticed.
Between Vamola’s transfer and his sudden athleticism, Okarun’s no longer the invisible otaku in school. Momo’s glad he isn’t being ignored, but annoyed that they’re only paying attention to such a great guy for such superficial reasons.
She knew how cool her Okarun is back when he didn’t have any stamina to speak of; even then, she trusted him to have her back.
The fact that some of the attention on him comes from girls also chafes at a less-than-pretty part of her that she doesn’t want to admit to, let alone examine.
Momo cracks her eyes open, peeking at Okarun’s sleeping face; listening to his breathing, feeling the slow and steady pulse in his wrist. She soaks in his presence, the tension she’s been holding since he got hurt finally settling.
Three short words are sitting on the tip of her tongue, threatening to spill over the next time she opens her mouth; it’s not the first time. The note she left with the curry had been the closest she’s gotten to saying them, but they’ve been there for a long time.
She won’t wake him up to say them; not after she just scolded him for being a reckless, self-sacrificing moron. She tamps them down, stemming her overflowing affection by lacing her fingers together with his; turning his hand up so his knuckles are facing her. His knuckles littered with small scars that he gathered in a short time, because he had to learn how to fight suddenly and quickly. Fight to survive; fight to save people.
Fight to protect her.
Momo brushes her lips over Okarun’s hand; the dark lending her courage, she murmurs into the warmth of his skin.
“Don’t get hurt for me, okay?”
She thinks, as she begins to drift off, that maybe she’ll greet him in the morning with those three words she’s been holding onto.
Imagining his reaction makes her smile.
