Chapter Text
At 2:47 a.m., Ken hears the front door click open and Momo’s footsteps stumble through the door.
She mentioned after work she was catching up with Miko and Kei, but he knows better and waits up for her anyway because knowing them, they all probably got into some argument over drinks. And, well, historically, things got messy.
“Okaruuun…” she calls from across the hall.
Yeah, she’s definitely drunk.
He leaves his room to meet her in their living room, where she’s leaning against the open doorway, toeing off her shoes and beaming at him.
“You waited for me again?” she asks and loses her balance.
”Woah, okay,” he says, catching her. “You drank too much again, didn’t you?”
She hiccups. “No I didn’t.” Her face nuzzles his neck, and he almost drops her in surprise at the contact. She’s especially touchy when she drinks, which he already knows, but it still startles him every time. Mainly because she hardly seems to remember how friendly she was in the morning (or at least if she does, she hides it well). “They pissed me off,” she says, pouting.
He helps her to her room, where he sits her on the bed and rifles through her pile of clothes on the floor, grabbing a shirt from the Hayashii concert they went to last summer and a pair of shorts.
“Oh yeah? What did they say this time?” he asks, trying to entertain her.
“They were being annoying, so I told them that they were annoying, and we started yelling, and then they called me an ugly hag, and that maybe that’s the reason why you don’t like me,” she says and flops down on the bed face-first. “Do you think I’m ugly?”
Fuck, this again. Those shit-starter friends of hers always mess with her every once in a while about their arrangement. It made sense after high school to save some money and move to Kyoto together for university, since they’d gotten accepted into the same school anyway. Sure, he was hopelessly in love with her, but Ken just never had the courage in high school to say anything for fear of risking their friendship. So, separate rooms it was, and he was perfectly content with how things were. He’d tell her…eventually.
“Of course not,” he says.
“Then why don’t you like me?”
He chuckles. “Of course I like you,” he says, and he can only really say it to her face like this because she’s a little tipsy.
“But you don’t love me.”
Oh boy, does she not even know the half of it. But he’s not about to show all his cards when she might not even remember their conversation in the morning (or, more likely, pretend not to remember).
“I like you plenty,” he says, as nonchalant as he possibly can. “Here, you need to change.” He sticks out the hand with her clothes bunched together toward her.
She rolls on her side to face him, her eyes sparkling and her mouth turned up to one corner. “Undress me,” she says, and Ken almost loses it.
Did he mention she’s also kinda horny when she’s drunk, too?
“Come on, Momo, we’re not doing this again,” he says. Last time, her dress zipper got stuck and he had no choice but to help her. The whole ordeal of unzipping it and being so close to her bare back truly did a number on him, as hard as he tried not to go there.
“Fine. Don’t look,” she says, removing her coat in a huff.
He waits for her to change, staring at the wall and trying his damndest not to imagine what she might look like underneath all the layers. She unzips her jeans, and he hears them crumple to a pile on the floor.
“Are you done?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a shirt on?”
“Ugh, yes, okay?” He feels her arms wrap around him, and she is indeed wearing her shirt. “See?” she says, muffled against his back.
He turns around, face growing warm, and is met with her face just inches away from his. His eyes drift down toward her pale pink lips, and she looks up expectedly, with a look in her eyes that melts his heart. Despite having almost zero experience (except when one of his drunk classmates mistook him for someone else and kissed him at a party once — Momo was not happy), he’s thought over and over about what kissing her might feel like. His hand twitches with the familiar urge to reach up and brush her hair away from her eyes.
Not now, he thinks. She’s drunk — it definitely wouldn’t count, even if she’s priming him for it. Momo deserves better than that.
He gently pushes her shoulders away. “You should get some rest,” he says, looking down at the ground.
“You’re no fun,” she says, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
He makes his way out and puts his hand on the door handle. “Goodnight, Momo. Sleep well.”
Suddenly, she grabs his arm and looks like she has something she wants to say to him. Her mouth opens, “I— ” she starts, but she sobers up just for a second before letting go. “Goodnight, Okarun,” she says.
Sigh. Maybe he should just tell her how he feels, once and for all. All the different scenarios play in his head as he lays in bed awake for another hour or so. The sky changes color signaling the first few minutes of morning, and Ken pushes his thoughts away for the millionth time before he finally crashes.