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1.
In their dorm, on Sana's ratty, stained mattress, Momo's pot of half-cooked ramen sitting on their barely-there shelf.
Sana's teeth knock against Momo's, and that's the first thing Momo thinks about. That Sana has such big teeth, and Sana's big hands are sliding up her back, and Sana is tilting her head awkwardly, and Momo isn't following.
And there is something about first kisses, Momo thinks. She had an idea that they were meant to be more romantic, somehow, not while one person was sick and the other person had just tried and failed to make her some food that would comfort her. She'd thought about doing it, once, when Sana came back dripping wet, a box of the newest Barbie figurine tucked under her arm. That would have been romantic. But instead she'd just smiled and hugged her tight. Now, Momo is smiling, despite herself, into the kiss. Wrapping her arms around Sana's waist, and it feels...
"Isn't it irresponsible to do that while you're sick?" Momo hears herself say, when Sana pulls back. But Sana must understand, somehow, the look on her face, because she smiles too, in that way that she does sometimes across the practice room, where Momo's gotten yet another compliment from their dance trainer.
That Momo isn't scared, and she doesn't dislike it, and that it feels for some reason like she's taking a long, steadying breath after coming up from where she was underwater.
"Anemia isn't contagious, Momorin," Sana says, gently, and her hands are ghosting up to Momo's jaw again, and Momo wishes somehow that there was some way to show Sana the song her heart was singing so loudly. A symphony just for her.
2.
Kyoto is colder this time of the year.
The plane ride was long, and Hana's incessant questioning on the ride to their apartment started to wear thin on them, even as Sana answered with so much enthusiasm that Momo thought that they were back in their first interview, the director's eyes on Sana, her fingers wrapped steady around Momo's thumb.
Here, Sana's hand is warm against her waist, ghosting at the hem of her crop top. A breeze blows in through Momo's unlatched window. And most of all - the light, slicing across Sana's face. Her round cheeks and brown eyes, her big teeth peeking out as she yaps away about the stores they passed by in the taxi on the way to their apartment.
Momo kisses her first.
"You know, I always thought you'd be the bold one," Momo says, finally, when she pulls back to catch her breath, and Sana is still standing half-still, stiff against Momo's hold.
I am, Momo expects to hear, in Sana's overwhelming exuberance. In a whine. Expects Sana to look up, defiant, and return it tenfold. Instead, Sana is looking down at their feet - Momo's white shoes and Sana's black ones, filched from a shady online store that Momo found while she was looking for a limited edition antique tamagotchi for Mina.
"You didn't even wait until we sat down," Sana says, and it comes out in a disbelieving laugh. "I'm starting to think you like me a bit too much, Momorin," Sana says, mouth twisting into a smile, and Momo blushes. Slips a hand into Sana's open one, the two of them standing in the middle of her bedroom like they're waking from a midsummer's dream.
She should explain.
"I felt giddy," Momo says. Watches Sana's eyes widen in confusion, and then settle into something like - was it fondness? Momo wishes she could put a name to the way Sana looked at her, like a distant star she was trying to name. "We walked in here and then you closed the door, and then I thought about how I wanted to kiss you at the airport and didn't, and then I felt giddy when I looked back at you, because the light in this room is really nice, and then I thought about the watermelons we would go down to buy later at the supermarket, and -"
Sana leans back in.
3.
In the corner of a park, both of their eyes still swollen with tears.
"I would have blamed you forever," Sana says, sounding a bit like she's about to sob again. Momo thinks it's glorious that that footage will be out there forever. Her, looking hideous onstage, crying into Sana's shoulder, because there's equal footage of Sana doing the same. They'll laugh, sometime in the future, when the wounds aren't so fresh anymore. Sana is frowning in that way she does when she's trying not to cry, and Momo feels something warm balloon in her chest. "For leaving me alone."
Momo bristles even as she starts to smile. "We've talked about your dramatics," Momo says, and watches Sana's face flicker with something inexplicable, shadowed under the dim glow of the lamppost. Momo's thumb brushes the curve of Sana's cheek, and she laughs when it comes away wet.
"Somehow I feel like I should be the one crying."
"Well, I'm irrational," Sana shoots back, quickly, even as her hands find Momo's nestled in her lap. A tethering of sorts, ever since they'd first seen each other, Sana talking Momo's ear off on the plane, their small feet tucked under the seats in front of them. Momo thought a lot of things, in that moment. Whether Sana would be lost to her forever, only hers over the phone and in moments of rest that Sana should be spending with more important people. More successful people.
"I came back to you in the end, didn't I?" She says, finally, because Sana has started to tear up in that angry way again, rubbing at her eyes like she wants to stop crying but doesn't know how to.
"You took an awful long time," Sana says, and Momo can't help the laugh that she lets out. Brings a hand up to cup Sana's jaw softly, their bodies at awkward angles on the park bench. The sleeves of Momo's hoodies are faded from the soda Sana had spilled on them when they'd run out to this same park months ago, before all of this.
"May I?" Momo asks, even if she hasn't needed permission in years. Sana has certainly never asked - not out loud, at least.
"No," Sana says. Crosses her legs on the bench so she's facing the bush in front of them, making Momo lean over to find purchase on Sana's jaw.
The streelights are starting to go off now. Momo presses her lips to the slope of Sana's neck as one flickers out, and Sana smiles, giving in so easily - and of course she does, Momo thinks, giggling into her neck.
"Thank you," Sana says, eyes softer than Momo remembers seeing in a while when she turns back to look at her. Unfolds her legs from underneath her and presses careful fingers to Momo's jaw, thumb drifting across Momo's cheek. Soft lips on Momo's own, finally, finally. You may. You'll be with me, always. "For coming back to me."
4.
In a hotel room, inching towards midnight.
Momo's already tired - from laughing, from trying to stop Jeongyeon from ordering the entire room service menu. From the concert earlier in the day which she's already almost forgotten about, Sana's laugh cutting through everything else. Sana's pink robe has started to loosen around her shoulders, and Momo reaches out to pull them back up only to be met with a blush and Sana's hands on her own.
"Not tonight," Sana says, in a rush, and Momo's eyes widen. Oh.
"I wasn't thinking about that."
"Oh," Sana says, and turns beet red. It's almost as if she's the one that's been drinking.
"I mean, if you want -"
"No, no," Sana waves her hands around in front of her, and Momo wonders why they're still shy around each other, after all this. There must be a science to it, she thinks, why she still blushes when Sana presses a kiss to her cheek, even if she's never been scholastic enough to figure out the exact reason. Why she still gets giddy.
"Okay. Well," Momo says, shuffling closer to the door.
"Well," Sana says, leaning closer. Momo makes for the handle, but Sana's fingers slide around her wrist before she can.
"Goodnight," Sana says, crowding into Momo's space. The strap around her waist loosens even more.
"You said not tonight," Momo says, softly. Hand listing down the side of Sana's waist.
Sana presses her forehead into Momo's shoulder. Her laugh sends a vibration down Momo's side, and it takes all of her willpower not to tremble along.
"I know."
"Then I'm gonna -"
"Do you want to just - sleep here, anyway?"
Momo smiles. Rolls her eyes for the fun of it. "Sometimes I think you only want me for my body."
Sana's smile is soft under the light, her hands careful as they reach for Momo's own. The kiss is gentle and a little afraid, almost, even if Momo can't figure out why, but she keens into it all the same until Sana pulls away, blonde baby hairs falling across her face.
"Sometimes I think I want you too much," Sana says, instead, the pads of her fingertips soft on the backs of her hands, and Momo feels the heat creep up her nape.
5.
Under a palm tree in Hawaii, Momo's ring catching onto Sana's when she reaches out to hold her hand. Momo's stowed her phones safely into Sana's bag because they've gone missing too many times for her to be careless with them, and Sana's smiling serenely at something in front of her, so Momo turns to look:
A little boy, kicking up dunes in the sand before falling onto them and crushing them whole. Momo just sits like that, watching Sana's face every time the little boy falls down. Memorizing the shape of her laughter. The feeling of their hands intertwined in the space between them, Momo's palm pressed to the asphalt.
Maybe it was something of an inevitability, after all. In the morning, Momo had woken up first, and Sana's face had been right there in front of her, warm under the Hawaiian moonlight. And Momo - I think you're the other half of my heart, Momo's brain had conjured up, without warning.
Sana laughs, again, as the little boy's rooted his feet into the sand so they come up to his ankles, pretending that he's fighting against quicksand. It feels like something Sana would do, if she were given the freedom, and the thought rises again, unbidden. Hanging over her head.
The other half of my heart.
It startles her, even if it doesn't frighten her.
"Your breath stank this morning," Momo says, abruptly, and Sana turns to her, eyes wide with amused disbelief.
"How long have you been holding that in?"
"When you kissed me," Momo says, looking out at the sunset. "Your breath stank, and I still kissed back. And I even held on to your waist because you asked for a romantic movie moment."
Sana laughs, her head thrown back.
"I'm flattered."
"I love you," Momo says, and Sana stops laughing. "I thought that, last night. When I woke up, and you were there, and I thought to myself that you always will be. So I kissed you back even though your breath stank."
Sana's eyes are wet when she looks at her, and Momo feels like this moment should be heavier, too. But it never is, with Sana. Bold declaration of love and holding hands in the dark - all of it becomes easier with her presence.
"Your breath stank too," Sana says, softly.
Then she reaches out to tuck Momo's hair behind her ear, haloed in the light of the setting sun.