Momo was standing there, having just closed the door to her room. The other girl in the room held her attention completely. Sae was curiously looking around at the room, completely unashamed in her snooping. "You cleaned it." She said, looking Momo questioningly. "...Momo? Hey, Earth to Momo: Sae calling."
"Uh, ahahaha. Sorry." Momo said, shaking her head just a bit and walking over to sit down on the bed next to where Sae was standing and looking down at her hands.
"You're so funny some times." Sae said indulgently. "Let me guess, you're all flustered because you have to tell me about this little crush of yours. That's so cute."
Momo looked up at her kind of helplessly and their eyes met. "I um, yeah something like that." She said.
"So, just tell me already. Jeeze, you'd think you were talking to him and not me or something." She waved off rather irritably as she sat down on the floor facing her friend.
That brought Momo's attention right back to Sae's eyes in surprise. "...I am." She said simply, all her planning on what to say forgotten.
"You're what?" Momo asked. So far clueless.
"Talking to the boy I've got a crush on. Right now." Momo said rather helplessly.
"Um, you're doing what now?" Sae asked. "Momo, I'm..." But realization was perhaps starting to dawn a little. "Me?" She asked.
Momo nodded. "I'm so in love with you Sae, it's not even funny." She admitted with a sort of hopeless smile.
"This... You're not joking about this, are you?" Sae questioned, getting up and on her knees so she was a little closer.
"No, I'm really not." Momo said, getting down onto the floor too and sitting against her bed letting Sae fall back into a full sitting position across from her.
Sae just looked into her eyes like she was trying to puzzle something out. Momo's heart started to beat faster and faster and she couldn't move.
"Say something." Momo whispered. "Please."
"I um..." Sae started. "I..." She was looking deeply confused for a moment. Then she started to laugh, the kind of nervous laugh you laugh when the world has suddenly skewed and it for some reason strikes you that you should laugh. "I mean, Momo, I had no idea you.... You're really in love with me, you're not just saying it?" She asked, a little skepticism in her voice.
Momo just nodded and moved forward, getting to her knees and reaching out a hand to reverently touch Sae's face. Sae sat transfixed by the action, only blinking a few times as Momo's eyes held her and her lips came closer to her. She saw the kiss coming a mile away, but the sensation of Momo's soft lips brushing hers just lightly at first was still unexpected and confusing. When Momo moved forward just a little more and kissed her seriously, Sae felt like she was going to faint. Her eyes fluttered closed and her body seemed to feel everything all at once. Momo's hands were on her face, and her shoulder, warm fingers tracing over her skin, through her hair a little. Before she knew it though, the kiss was over and Momo's lips were gone. She felt a small whine of a noise come from her lips at the loss.
"I'm not making it up." Momo whispered to her, taking one of her hands in her own.
Sae blinked her eyes open and tried to catch her breath.
Momo watched her with eyes that were longing and scared. Sae felt feelings well up within her and she didn't know what to do with them. And so she did the only thing she could think to do. "I have to go." She said, getting herself up off the floor and making a hasty retreat from the room.
"Sae, wait!" Momo called, getting up and going after her to the door of her room, seeing Sae disappear down the stairs and hearing the door close behind her.
Momo held her hands to her chest and tried to breathe. She'd done it, she'd told Sae how she felt and... Momo started to cry. [She ran away...]
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Sae had at first run, then started to walk as she got farther from Momo's house. Her mind just kept going over and over it trying to deny what had just happened. "Momo loves me. I'm the boy. Me." She said out loud, laughing almost hysterically at the absurdity of that statement. She obviously wasn't a boy after all.
Sae slowed her pace even more as her thoughts started to clear and she really was able to think about it. Her mind analyzed the past, purposely ignoring anything about the present for the moment. She thought of the first time she'd seen Momo. Sae's family had just moved to the area and Sae had been sent to a new school where she hadn't known anyone and had no social standing at all. Not that she had been especially noticed in her old school of course. She'd just been a normal girl with normal friends that she was able to keep by her side by putting on a convincing act.
Sae remembered, she'd tried unsuccessfully a few times to insinuate herself into groups around the new school for the first few days. This one girl had taken a liking to her and let her join their group for lunch and let her hang around with them. They hadn't been really nice to her though, they'd been kind of nasty actually. All back handed insults sometimes dressed as flattery and sometimes not. Sae hadn't taken it personally though, she'd seen how that's how they treated everyone, even each other sometimes. But they accepted her and she could play their game, so she went along. It was just, one day she'd seen those girls as she'd entered the lunch hall, ganging up on this tall girl with orange hair. Momo, that was her name. Sae had remembered seeing her around, always with a smile on her face and seeming so at ease around everyone. It had made her jealous somehow, actually. Kinuye, the leader of their little clique had gotten up into Momo's face and was sneeringly saying something to her. Momo said something back and Kinuye pushed her. Momo went off on her, yelling how she was just a petty girl who didn't know anything and that she should just mind her own business. Kinuye tried to push her again, but Momo moved away that time and Kinuye fell having lost her balance. Sae had expected Momo to just let her fall, but the other girl hadn't done that. She'd caught her. Something about that just stayed with Sae for the rest of the day.
Oh, she'd gone over to her 'friends' and listened to them go on about things during lunch, talking about first Momo, saying how pathetic she was, then moving on to other topics and it had all just seemed to blur together for Sae. She just couldn't care about what they said anymore.
That night she'd gone home thinking about the brave girl with the orange-blonde hair who showed such kindness even when she was being attacked like that. By the next morning, she'd made up her mind that Momo was going to be her friend no matter what.
As it turned out it had been just about the easiest thing to achieve she'd ever had to try. By the next day they were almost inseparable. Kinuye and the others had seen this and of course none too politely made it clear she wasn't welcome with them any more. Sae had absolutely delighted in telling them off and saying that that was fine, she didn't want to hang around such stupid and boring people anyway.
Over the next weeks it had been like she'd really started to live more than she had sense she was little. Momo was so different than anyone she'd met before. So different than the friends she'd had before, so different than her family. She was kind but not meek, her life wasn't close to perfect like Sae had thought it was at first, but she seemed to have this uncanny ability to be happy with it all anyway. She'd had this weird hang up about getting into the water again, and wearing sunblock, but Sae had gotten her to forget about that silliness soon enough. It was weird too, no matter what Sae said or did, Momo still liked her. Sometimes she couldn't figure out why. She didn't actually consider herself to be a very likable person really. She wanted people to think she was of course, but she knew in her heart she wasn't. But with Momo around, she actually had started to feel like maybe she really was.
Sae stopped in her walking and sat down on a bench. She sat with her legs together, her arms crossed over her knees, and her back hunched over a little so her gaze was focused on her arms and the ground. [How did this happen?] She wondered. [How did Momo fall in love with me?]
She thought about the last few days. Momo taking her out to the fair like that, going to the arcade and stuff. It had been almost like they'd been dating, she considered. Surprised by how much that idea was starting to intrigue her. She felt like laughing again. Thinking about how she'd felt that day when she'd caught Momo looking so intently at that boy like that. She went over it and she'd realized, she'd felt threatened by him. Somewhere inside, she'd needed Momo to tell her it wasn't true. That she still belonged to her and only her... [Well, now I know.] Sae told herself. Momo was definitely hers. More than she'd ever even considered, Momo was hers now. The only question was [What am I going to do with her?]
This time she really did laugh. [And why not?] She told herself, sitting up straighter. [Why shouldn't she be mine? It's not like I have any better offers.] She sat back on the bench seat and relaxed her pose a little. [Yeah. This could be a good thing.] She told herself. Thinking of what it would be like. Visions of that kiss going through her mind like temping little flickers of pleasure. Her lips tingled at the thought of having Momo kiss her again like that. That led her mind to take things further. She imagined what it would be like, to be with another girl like that. To be with Momo like that. To really make her hers completely. She knew Momo was safe now. That she'd be safe with her.... And the more she thought about it the more she wanted it, the more she wanted to possess that feeling, to have her friend and hold her heart in the palm of her hands as it were.
Sae picked herself up, a determined look in her yes. "You want me Momo, you've got me." She told the wind.
Her mind made plans and her imagination filled with ideas as she walked. She imagined being in bed with Momo, those eyes looking down on her, their lips meeting again. Their hands moving and touching... The more she thought about it, the more she quickened her pace. [Momo, you're mine.] She thought to herself giddily as she went back along the way to Momo's house, imagining the look on her friend's face when she saw her again.
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Momo lay in her bed, curled up on her side again. This time though her thoughts were not peaceful or hopeful at all. She was still love sick, but this time it was a woeful despairing kind of love sick. [She probably hates me now.] Her mind told her not for the first time... Her stomach hurt and she felt like she was going to die and a part of her wished it would just happen so it wouldn't hurt so much.
The look in Sae's eyes after she'd kissed her came to her mind's eye again. She tried to tell what it meant again, and again she didn't have any answers. The kiss though, that kiss had been everything she'd imagined it would be and more. Her first kiss. In that moment when her lips had first brushed up against Sae's, she felt like she had been coming home at last. And when they'd kissed, it was like her world had been turned on it's ends and everything she'd ever wondered about herself had come into clear focus. But now that was all over... She couldn't stand it if Sae never wanted to see her again. She was sure she wouldn't be able to survive it if that were true. It just hurt so, so much and it wasn't getting any better.
In the midst of this deep and spiraling despair, though, a doorbell rang.
Momo had first thought maybe she was imagining it, but it rang again. Opening her eyes, Momo stared blankly for a moment as hope seemed to bring her back to life again. "Sae?" She whispered to herself, somehow absolutely sure it was her at the door. She got up out of bed, tripping and fumbling over the rumpled sheets so she almost fell on her face, she yet managed to get herself up and race to the door of her room and down the stairs, wiping off her tears along the way. "Sae. It's you, I know it is." She said to herself as she cleared the bottom of the staircase and breathlessly flung open the door to see Sae's smiling face looking back up at her.
"Aw. You poor thing." Sae said as she walked in past Momo without asking if she could or not. "You've really been crying over me, haven't you?" She asked. Somehow the thought of that made her insanely pleased with herself.
"You came back." Momo said, her voice broken from crying. Hope lighting up in her eyes now even more.
Sae nodded. "And I've made up my mind, too."
"Um, you have?"
"Yeah." Sae said, stepping forward so their bodies were just inches apart, her hands resting on Momo's waist. "And I want you to kiss me again." She told her.
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See you next time...