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The first time Momo brings it up is during their third year at UA.
“Kyouka,” she says, folding her hands in her lap as she sits on Kyouka’s bed while Kyouka absently plucks at some strings on her bass beside her.
Kyouka looks up at her name, muting the strings by pressing her palm flat to them.
“I got an offer to study abroad after graduation,” Momo says, and the words weigh heavy in the air. “In America. I know… that heroes don’t usually go to college, because they get internships, but with my Quirk… furthering my education could help shape me into the hero I want to be.”
After she swallows thickly, Kyouka sets the bass back into its case. “For how long?” she asks, watching Momo wring her hands together.
“Two years,” Momo answers.
Kyouka pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. “Oh,” she says. She feels as if there’s a rock in her stomach. Nonetheless, she says, “That’s a great opportunity, Momo. You should go for it.”
“You think so?” Momo looks up at Kyouka with hopeful eyes, and Kyouka nods firmly.
“Of course,” she says, forcing a smile. “You’re so smart, and I bet you can kick all those Americans’ asses.”
Momo lets out a chuckle and replies, “I don’t think there’ll be any of that…”
They’re quiet, for a few passing moments. Momo sweeps her gaze over Kyouka’s room.
“I’ll miss you,” Momo says, her gaze landing and sticking on Kyouka.
Kyouka blushes red. “Don’t say something like that all of the sudden,” she mutters, and Momo grins at her, but it’s twinged with sadness.
“I will, though. You know that, right?”
“I’ll miss you, too,” Kyouka says, and she lets out a sigh. “But that’s a long way away, still. It’s still months until graduation. Let’s… We can talk about it later.”
Momo purses her lips, looking as if she wants to disagree, but then she just nods. Kyouka leans over to press a kiss to Momo’s cheek, and Momo relaxes at the touch.
—
But they don’t talk about it later, not really. They dance around the subject like they’ll catch something from it if they mention it, and before they even realize it, a freshly graduated Momo is packing her bags while Kyouka lies face-up on Momo’s bed, staring at the ceiling.
“You’ll call?” Kyouka inquires to the ceiling, twirling one of her earphone jacks around her finger absently.
“Of course I’ll call, Kyouka. As often as you want. We can video chat, too.”
Kyouka blinks. She hasn’t cried yet, but the feeling is there, sitting heavy behind her eyes and tightening her throat.
“If you can figure out how to work Skype,” Kyouka teases to keep from crying, sitting up onto her elbows to look at Momo on the floor with suitcases spread around her.
“It can’t be that hard,” Momo replies, and then she lets out a sigh after folding another shirt and placing it in her suitcase. “Plus, you already showed me how to use it. Do you think that lowly of me, Kyouka?”
Kyouka lets out a laugh. “If there’s one thing I’ll never do, it’s think lowly of you.”
Momo’s hands still where she’d been smoothing her clothes in a suitcase, and she looks up at Kyouka on the bed. “You mean that?”
“I mean it,” Kyouka assures, reaching her hand out to ruffle Momo’s hair. Then, she smooths it out with her palms and combs her fingers through it, sliding off of the bed to sit on the floor behind Momo. Momo’s hair tapers off just below her shoulder blades, and once she reaches the bottom, Kyouka lifts her hands to tuck Momo’s hair behind her ears.
Momo leans into the touches, tilting her head accordingly.
If this is what Kyouka can do to distract Momo from packing, to get Momo to spend a little more time with her before she gets on that plane tomorrow, then she’ll do it.
—
Kyouka doesn’t cry at the airport, but Momo does. Her eyes well up as she hugs her mother, her father, and then Kyouka, the tears rolling over and down her cheeks. Kyouka aches to lift her hands to Momo’s face, to rub her thumbs gently across her cheeks and wipe away the tears, but Momo’s father beats her to it, and Kyouka just looks on with a smile she hopes doesn’t reveal how dismal she’s really feeling.
They’ve been sitting together at the airport for a few hours, now. They arrived early, at six in the morning, but Momo’s flight had been delayed. Her parents sat by their terminal while Momo and Kyouka went to go buy some overpriced, gross airport food, and that had been the only time Kyouka had with Momo alone the entire day. She’d taken the chance to intertwine their fingers, their arms swinging between them.
But now, Momo’s lifting her hands to her face to rub away her unrelenting stream of tears, the skin underneath her eyes turning red as she says her farewells before boarding. Her parents croon at her while Kyouka stands off just slightly to the side, mouth dry despite the blue slushy she’d just downed against her better judgment, complementary to Momo’s red one.
The intercom speaks, though Kyouka doesn’t register the words. Momo takes a deep breath, pressing her hand to her chest in an attempt to calm down. She casts a glance over to Kyouka, her eyes swollen and lips pulled into a shaky, wet smile.
Kyouka caves. She takes the few steps over to Momo and throws her arms over Momo’s shoulders, burying her face into her neck. She squeezes, and Momo squeezes back. They pull apart too soon, and on a whim, Kyouka leans forward to press a kiss to Momo’s lips, and then one to each cheek. The kisses are salty, having mingled with Momo’s abundance of tears, but Kyouka wouldn’t have missed them for the world.
“Call me as soon as you get to America, yeah?” Kyouka says, voice small. She clears her throat, offering Momo a hopeful smile.
“Yeah,” Momo responds, lifting a hand to rub at her eye again. “Keep your phone close tonight.”
“I will,” Kyouka promises.
—
Kyouka sobs on the train back to her apartment. Strangers keep asking her if she’s okay or if she needs anything, and she keeps telling them that everything’s fine, even though it’s obviously not.
She’s sure that Momo will be fine in America—in fact, she’ll prosper. Kyouka’s certain of it. But America is so far away, and the timezones will be rough to work with. It’s selfish of Kyouka to think it, but she almost wishes that Momo had gotten an offer to study somewhere closer. Like, preferably Tokyo.
Her three years of hero training have taught her that there’s no use in dwelling on the past or in wishful thinking, but it’s still hard to accept that when Kyouka wakes up tomorrow morning and heads over to her regular coffee shop, she won’t be buying two lattes. She won’t be detouring to Momo’s house to deliver her coffee so they can spend a bit of time together before Kyouka heads off to her internship.
When it’s morning for Kyouka in Japan, it’ll be night of the previous day for Momo in America. Kyouka can count the opportunities they’ll have to talk each day on one hand, and that just makes her cry harder.
The train reaches her stop and stumbles off of the train with tear-blurred vision, sitting down onto a bench at the train station until she can calm down enough to walk to her apartment. It takes a few minutes until she’s satisfactorily composed, albeit just a guise.
As soon as she walks in her apartment, the door swinging shut behind her, she collapses back against the door and her eyes well again.
She’ll miss Momo, of course she will, but at least she knows Momo will miss her, too.
—
The phone rings at just past midnight, and Kyouka answers before it can even let out the full first ring. She’s been lying in bed, staring at the screen and perusing social media platforms in wait for this very call.
“Hello?” she answers, sitting up in her bed. Her back presses to her pillows.
“Kyouka,” Momo greets, tone relieved, “I’m—I’m here, in America. It’s…” she trails, “I just got to my dorm room. It’s—uh, different. From Japan. From UA.”
“Of course it’s different,” Kyouka comments, tone light. “What’s your dorm like?” she follows up, genuinely curious. She’s glad to be hearing Momo’s voice.
“It’s, hm. It’s… American, I’ll say. I can send you pictures.” She pauses, then clicks her tongue to the top of her mouth. “I have a roommate, but she’s not in right now. Did you know it’s eleven in the morning here?”
Suddenly, Kyouka’s wondering: “Did you get any sleep on the plane?”
“A few odd naps here and there,” Momo says, “I’m… I should try to stay awake for awhile, though. Jetlag and all.”
“Take it easy,” Kyouka responds, because she knows that Momo’s bound to be frazzled. “Your classes don’t start for a few days, right? So don’t worry too much.”
Momo hums into the receiver, and the noise is welcome in Kyouka’s ear. She wants to lean further into it, to let Momo’s soft voice envelop her, but there’s only so much closer she can get to a phone that's squished against her face.
“Eat something, too, okay?” Kyouka suggests, knowing that the airtight food packages they serve on airplanes can’t be very filling. “Like… an authentic… cheeseburger, or something. Something with a lotta grease. Take a picture of it for me.”
She laughs, and it twinkles even from so far away. Kyouka lets out a breath, revelling in Momo’s quiet laughter.
“Okay, I’ll do that,” Momo agrees, “But you’d better get some sleep.”
Reluctantly, and after some complaining, Kyouka agrees to let Momo go get something to eat, and in turn to catch a wink herself. They both decide that they’ll call again tomorrow, whenever their schedules align.
Kyouka falls asleep feeling much more content than she had been all day, and her last coherent thought is that no matter how this goes, how it all pans out, she knows that she and Momo will be okay.
—
When Kyouka wakes the following morning, it’s to three pictures of Momo’s dorm, one picture of a greasy looking cheeseburger, and one picture of a smiling Momo.
She clutches her phone to her chest, and she thinks that yeah, no matter what, they’ll be okay.