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Momota thanks the lobby attendant for his keys, jingling them in his hand. He tries rolling his suitcase over to the stairwell before eventually just scooping it up by the handle and tucking it under his arm. The wheels are old and worn and scratchy so they drag against the surface of the carpet, but Momota doesn’t mind. He’s been hitting the gym on the regular for the past year and a half or so, and carrying a suitcase up a couple flights of stairs hardly poses a challenge.
He does have to juggle his keys between his hands to grab the door, though, bumping it open the rest of the way with his shoulder. Before he can step inside, someone carrying a child comes down the stairs, so he steps backwards, pushing the door open further to let them through. He figures he should try and make nice with his new neighbours, especially since this is going to be his first time living alone since… well, ever, that he can remember.
Maybe the Momota from before Danganronpa had his own apartment at one point, but this Momota only knows a life with his grandparents from the foggy, implanted memories he got in the simulation.
Speaking of Danganronpa, when Momota makes meets the gaze of the woman coming through the door, recognition flickers in her dark eyes. Momota averts his own. If he’s going to make friends with any of these people, it’ll have to come up eventually, but Momota’s too tired right now from the residual stress of past conflicts and the move overall to have a conversation about it. She must get the message, because she murmurs a thanks and moves past him without another word. Momota releases a breath once she’s out of earshot.
The kid on her shoulder waves excitedly at him as they walk away, and he grins wearily, flashing the little bugger a thumbs up. Momota’s always liked kids. He hasn’t thought about adopting in a while, if only because his plans for the past couple years have involved him living with his sidekicks forever, and Harukawa was pretty against the idea of having children in the house, but…
Momota can pretty much do whatever he wants now, huh?
The thought makes Momota’s stomach sink rather than soar, however, and for a moment he just stands by the entrance to the stairs, staring down at his new keys with the door propped open against his hip. Off to his left, the elevator dings and the doors hiss as they slide open, and Momota looks up automatically, then lowers his gaze when he doesn’t immediately see anybody at his eye level.
Upon doing so, Momota glimpses dark purple locks, shiny but unruly, and does a double take, blinking and releasing the door so that he can rub his eyes with the back of his sleeve.
When he looks up again, Ouma is still there, carefully wheeling himself-- because he’s in a wheelchair-- out of the elevator, his jaw set in a grimace. Momota’s not necessarily surprised by the display of emotion-- he’d seen Ouma wearing plenty more back during the simulation, when they were in the hangar together-- but it’s still an unfamiliar look when Momota only ever tries to remember him smiling.
For a moment he’s frozen in place, his breathing shallow, but Ouma clearly hasn’t noticed that Momota is here, and the idea of running into him at some other time and admitting that he’d seen the guy without saying anything is… embarrassing, decidedly, so Momota clears his throat and advances, lifting a hand to cup his mouth.
“Yo, Ouma!”
When Ouma stops wheeling, his shoulders squaring, Momota’s stomach goes cold. His expression is neutral now when he turns his head, all traces of irritation vanished, and as they make eye contact, Momota can’t for the life of him tell what’s running through his head. Ouma’s eyes, however, are the very same brilliant violet colour they were when Momota used to know him, and after a pause a broad grin appears on his face, crinkling the edges of his eyes.
It looks genuine, but if there’s anything Momota learned about Ouma during the killing game, it’s that he could make just about anything look genuine, regardless of what he’s really feeling. More important, they haven’t seen each other in years. Momota’s feet remain planted, his heartbeat unusually loud in his ears, but then Ouma starts to turn his wheelchair, and Momota thinks, Get over there, dumbass, before kicking himself into motion, jogging over towards the other man and lugging his suitcase behind him.
Once Momota is close enough, Ouma chirps, “I knew Momota-chan couldn’t stay away from me!” and his voice is inarguably the same as it was when they knew each other-- except that it’s deeper now, more serious despite the smile on his face. That could’ve happened with age, of course; they were teenagers when they knew each other. But while Momota’s memories of the hangar are only ever vivid in his nightmares, he still remembers staring down at Ouma’s pale form as he eased the other man to lie down in the press, and there were faint, pale scars on his pectorals that in retrospect could only mean one thing.
Still, it’d probably be weird to comment on a dude’s hormone treatment, right? “Stay away from you?” Momota repeats. That’s an odd thing to say after seeing someone for the first time in years.
“H-Huh? Do I mean so little to you that you already forgot about last night’s meeting?” Ouma’s eyes widen and well with tears, and Momota grumbles, ignoring both the urge to tell him to knock it off and the endearment that swells in his chest as he watches Ouma’s lip wobble. “You told me last night that we’d never meet again, ‘cause you were gonna be a loyal husband to Harumaki-chan!” At the sound of her name, Momota flinches, and tries to recover, and Ouma stops abruptly, his expression going blank. His eyes are as perceptive as ever, as though they can see right through Momota, but instead of asking, he says, “Nevermind. I’m bored of that lie now.”
It’s really too sudden for Momota to know what to make of it. Logically, he knows what Ouma is trying to do, but thinking about the other man doing that for him makes Momota need to shift his weight. “Ouma--”
“What floor are you moving onto?”
Momota blinks. “How’d you know I’m moving in?” He must sound more defensive than caught off guard, because Ouma giggles, lifting one of his hands to cup his chin.
“You’re carrying a suitcase, Momota-chan,” he says, grinning. “I see you haven’t changed at all despite the time we’ve spent apart.”
“H-Hey!” Momota protests, though really the odds of that being a compliment are just as high as the odds of it being an insult. “I forgot about it, okay? I was distracted!”
Ouma flutters his eyelashes. “By little ol’ me?”
Groaning, Momota pinches the bridge of his nose. “You haven’t changed either,” he points out, “since you’re still as much of a pain in the ass as you were back then.” He puts down his suitcase to cross his arms, all undignified, and Ouma giggles again. It’s nice that he isn’t offended, especially because Momota’s not so sure he just told the truth himself. Plenty has changed about Ouma, Momota thinks, from the low ponytail he wears to the way that he holds himself, but most significantly… “Can I ask sort of a weird question?”
“You wanna know about the wheelchair, right?” Ouma raises an eyebrow, propping his chin up on a hand. He’s as scarily perceptive as Momota remembers him being. Rubbing the back of his neck, Momota nods, figuring that he might as well just get it out of the way. “Well, the truth is, I could stand any time I wanted to! I’m just using it to garner pity points. It’s pretty incredible! People will push me places even without me asking them to!”
“That… sounds more like a micro aggression,” Momota says, brow furrowing.
“Nishishi.” Ouma’s expression sobers, hand dropping to his side. “Momota-chan died in the simulation, too. He must be familiar with some of the side effects.”
Side effects… Momota frowns, eyes flitting down to the floor. It’s not just him. Amami and Yonaga get chronic headaches now, and there are some days where Akamatsu either can’t breathe or can’t move, trapped in her own skin with a paralysing, crippling pain that is sometimes localised to her neck, and sometimes spreads throughout her body. Toujou experiences full body spasms if she extends herself too greatly, and Hoshi has fits where he can’t breathe either, gasping and flailing his arms, like he’ll be able to paddle himself out of an ocean that doesn’t exist.
As for Momota, it’s harder to hide a cough when you’re living with people who know what to look for. He probably wasn’t even that good of a liar back in the simulation; his sidekicks just didn’t know what to look for. They do now, and when they moved in together, Saihara and Harukawa were on high alert, all lingering, heavy gazes and thin-pressed lips whenever Momota would so much as clear his throat.
The extra concern clogged Momota’s lungs like a thick cotton, and every time he woke up in the middle of the night coughing and heard Saihara or Harukawa’s concerned whispers sneaking in under the door, a part of him seemed to wither and die. The helplessness was almost as paralysing to him as his execution would’ve been if he’d died from it. The cough didn’t go away after a couple months, either, it only continued to get worse, and eventually his sidekicks became frustrated, both because of his lack of progress and because he refused to reach out to them if he could help it.
At times Momota is tempted to blame their downfall on that cough, but realistically he knows that their relationship would’ve broken down regardless. They were doomed from the start, in a way, because Momota could never trust them the way they wanted him to, and they were never the people that he needed to be, that he thought they were.
Momota comes out of his thoughts when Ouma hums, gesturing at his legs, apparently taking Momota’s lack of response as an answer in itself. “Have you ever been totally crushed by a hydraulic press before, Momota-chan?” He grins. “It’s not pretty! It wrecked my spine, in fact! It’s a miracle I can even move from the waist up.” His tone is unsettlingly light despite the content of his words. He waves his hand dismissively. “It’s not so bad, though. I pretty much get to be sitting all the time! What more could I need?”
Despite Ouma’s tone, Momota can taste something sour, feel his stomach twisting. “That’s… really shitty, Ouma.”
“Awww, why so serious?” With wide eyes, Ouma tilts his head to the side and flutters his eyelashes. “Shouldn’t you commend me for having a positive outlook on the situation?”
“‘Course not,” Momota scoffs. “I mean… you should make the best of whatever circumstances you’re in, obviously, but that doesn’t mean you gotta sugar coat it. Or that I should.” He looks down. “I dunno what you’ve been through the past couple years. It’d be stupid for me to stand here and praise you, like it made you better.” Like he needed to suffer in order to grow. Like there needs to be despair in order for there to be hope.
Ouma’s grin becomes wicked. “The Momota-chan I know wouldn’t have thought so.”
“Yeah, well, you knew him in a computer simulation,” Momota snaps, “so maybe there’s gonna be a couple inconsistencies.”
There’s quiet after that, and Momota’s stomach turns cold as he takes in Ouma’s face, which is now neutral once again. Momota saw it in the simulation as a sort of reset, the face he made when he was recalibrating, but in the years past he’s begun to realise how often Ouma pulled a blank face in order to disguise strong emotion, be it anger or sadness, pain or betrayal. Momota opens and closes his mouth a few times, swallowing, and then averts his gaze, glaring at his slippers.
“Sorry,” he manages, voice thick, “I didn’t mean--”
“Apology accepted!” Ouma chirps. “Now you’re gonna make it up to me by taking me over to your apartment!”
“Huh?” Momota’s eyes widen, and he meets Ouma’s eyes again, his heart racing. “What? Why?”
Ouma ignores his question. “You’ve probably moved in all the furniture and stuff already, right? Or you wouldn’t have such a teeny tiny suitcase.” He nods. “Perfect! I get to go rub my scent all over it now. C’mon! Chop chop, take me upstairs, peasant! Or I’ll cry and start yelling that you were bullying a cripple.”
Momota doesn’t know whether or not Ouma is being honest about that, but it’s the fact that Momota couldn’t really stand to be alone right now more than the fear of coming across as ableist that spurs Momota to nod wordlessly. He picks up his suitcase and tucks it under his arm, waiting for Ouma to start wheeling himself before he walks over to the elevator.
Momota’s apartment is barren and evidently unlived in, save from a couple couches and chairs that were too big to fit in the boxes that litter the space, and of course the bed frame, which he set up when he came here before. His apartment with Saihara and Harukawa had been home-y if nothing else, with plants on the windows and the balcony, posters lining the walls, books filling the shelves. There were cup rings on every table and articles of clothing littering the floor. Always dirty dishes in the sink. Momota’s new space, by comparison, is large, cold, and empty, not a single trace of life existing within its grey walls.
For now, Momota shoves the thought to the side, putting his suitcase down in his bedroom and flicking on the hallway light.
“Huh! Same layout as mine,” Ouma remarks. Momota watches him wheel himself towards the bathroom, peering inside inquisitively. He moves around the space like he’s familiar with it, so it must be true-- but Momota hadn’t doubted that, really. He’d never known Ouma to tell a lie for no reason, at least without defusing it immediately. Momota frowns at Ouma for a long moment, thinking, before he steps into the kitchen, opening one of the cupboards.
“Uh, I haven’t stocked the fridge yet, so I can only offer you tap water,” Momota says, his voice lilting at the end, turning on the sink with his wrist and running it until the water is cool to the touch. “Is that okay?”
“It’ll do!” Ouma chirps. Momota nods, and finishes filling two glasses before he turns it off, stepping into the living room in time to watch Ouma lift himself out of his wheelchair and onto one of the couches.
For perhaps a moment too long, Momota stairs, watching as Ouma adjusts himself against the cushions as though he’s done it all his life. The only indication that he’s at all exerting himself is a slight crease in his brow, which could mean anything from mild annoyance to severe distress as far as Ouma is concerned. Once Ouma is settled, Momota holds out one of the glasses, and he hums a thanks as he takes it.
Momota hesitates again, and then takes the leather armchair opposite the couch. It’s stiff and new beneath him, the leather shiny and uncracked. He spreads his legs either way, his glass balanced on his knee, and looks down at the carpet to avoid staring directly at Ouma. They haven’t seen each other in years, after all.
A silence settles over the room, broken only when one of them takes a sip of water. Momota would like to speak. There are a thousand things that he could say, that he’s wanted to say in the years since they last met, but every time he opens his mouth his throat dries out and he has to excuse the gesture with another sip of water, his heart hammering against his ribcage.
Ouma is sitting right there, across the room, and yet he almost seems like a figment of Momota’s imagination; like if Momota tried to reach out and touch him, his fingers would phase right through. It’s irrational, and Momota half wants to touch Ouma’s cheek just to rid himself of the feeling, but that wouldn’t be right, he doesn’t think, wouldn’t be appropriate, so instead he sits, and he drinks.
Eventually he finds the words to speak. “Why’d you want to come up here?”
“Hm? Is it not enough to want to spend some time with my beloved Momota-chan?” Ouma smiles placidly.
“You know that’s not it,” Momota huffs. “We weren’t… friends, back then, I…”
I didn’t understand you. I wasn’t there for you. I didn’t try hard enough.
“It’s been years since we’ve seen each other, hell, since I’ve even heard of you. You took yourself out of the equation on purpose, right? If you’d wanted to reach out and-- and hang out, or whatever, you would’ve.”
“Oh, sure,” Ouma’s voice is mild, his gaze fixed on his water. “I considered it every so often, you know? I thought about finding you, at the very least, but your little sidekicks reeeeaaaally super hate me. And I don’t blame them!”
“They’re not my--” Momota starts, sucking in a breath, but it occurs to him to wonder why that’s his first objection, so he forces himself to relax, glaring at his own glass. “Why’d… that stop you? I don’t feel the same way as they do.” He swallows, looking back at Ouma. “Never have. Not even in the game.”
Ouma’s lip curls. “Well, that’s really sweet, but it was never about Momota-chan’s feelings, y’know. Least, not the ones that were about me. I don’t mind being around people who don’t want me there! But if I came around and started being all buddy-buddy with you, Saihara-chan and Harukawa-chan wouldn’t have liked that much, would they?” Ouma shrugs. “You would’ve been fraternising with the enemy, or whatever. And things already seemed preeeetty tough between you three when we left. Maybe I didn’t wanna cause any more trouble for you! Ah, but that’s a lie, of course. I love causing trouble. The truth is I just hate you.”
“Was it that obvious?” Momota asks quietly, decidedly ignoring Ouma’s attempt at walking it back. Things hadn’t properly gotten bad with him and his sidekicks until after they left the facility, but there was undeniably visual tension. Having said that, though, Momota doesn’t think he remembers seeing Ouma at all in the aftermath of the killing game, except to speak to him once while he was bedridden. How would he have known?
“Nope,” Ouma giggles. “I never actually saw you guys interacting! I just figured it would be true.” He shrugs. “Harukawa-chan loved you, except she didn’t love you, and Saihara-chan appreciated you, but he didn’t appreciate you, and Momota-chan winced when I said Harukawa-chan’s nickname earlier.” He smiles. “It’s a bit of a low-hanging fruit, wouldn’t you say?”
Tch. Momota leans back in his seat and drinks some more water, if only so that he won’t have to respond. He doesn’t know how to respond without either lying or speaking poorly of Saihara and Harukawa. What happened was… complicated, but nobody was really at fault for it. Saihara and Harukawa are good people, people worth believing in, and even now when Momota thinks of them he doesn’t feel resentment, but love.
But no matter what happened, they couldn’t stop seeing him as this hero, this… idealised version of himself, and as much as Momota wanted them to see him that way, Saihara and Harukawa couldn’t make up their minds. They wanted him to trust them too, lower his walls and let them in while still being the perfect person they’d created in their heads, and it became exhausting trying to juggle all of their expectations.
It was like they wanted half of him; they wanted Momota to let them see him when he felt weak, but they didn’t want to have to deal with his flaws. Momota is messy and insecure and inconsistent, and he lies, and he doesn’t believe in himself the way that he believes in other people. There was this constant disappointment from all sides, every time a bit of that shone through, like Saihara and Harukawa just wanted him to turn back into the Luminary of the Stars while still needing them.
“It’s complicated,” he decides upon, exhaling through his nose. “I hope they’re happy now.”
“You guys lose touch?” Ouma raises an eyebrow. Momota looks away.
“Sort of,” he admits. He changed his phone number, moved out without a word, and rented a hotel room across the country while finalising his new place. But it was only a couple weeks ago that Saihara told him he was the best friend he’s ever had. “That’s… complicated, too.”
Ouma hums, emptying his glass and shimmying forward to put it down on the floor. “Everything is complicated, Momota-chan. That doesn’t mean it can’t be explained.” He scoots himself back when the cup is steady and flops into the couch cushion. “But if Momota-chan doesn’t wanna talk about it, we could always talk about something else.”
“I dunno that it’s that I don’t want to talk about it,” Momota frowns. He looks down at the floor. “I just don’t know where to start, or what words to use. I don’t want to make it seem like… I mean, I don’t wanna say anything that would put them in a bad light, y’know? Things didn’t work out, but it’s not like that was all their fault… I did a lot of shit I’m not proud of too.” He presses his lips into a thin line. “And I didn’t even tell them I was leaving. I just took off, like a coward.”
“You really are different now, huh?” Ouma raises one of his eyebrows, incredulous, but before Momota can ask what he means, he continues. “What would they have said if you told them you were leaving, Momota-chan? Would they have let you go?”
“I mean,” Momota speaks before he can process the question, and has to stop for a moment, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. “Probably? I don’t see how they could’ve stopped me. But it would’ve hurt them, you know? Even when things got bad between us, I was still taking care of them, and like, helping them, the way I’ve always done.” He lets out a breath, running a hand through his hair and then clasping it on the back of his neck. “What if… I mean, what if one of them’d said something about not being able to survive without me?”
Ouma quirks a brow. “Since you thought their objections might’ve been enough to convince you, you decided not to hear them,” he summarises, and when Momota nods, he shrugs. “I dunno if I’d call that cowardly, Momota-chan.”
Brow lowered, Ouma shuffles forward on the couch again, pulling his wheelchair towards himself and carefully maneuvering himself into it. Momota starts to stand to help him, but Ouma gives a quick, near imperceptible shake of his head, planting himself down on the seat and wheeling himself across the living room.
As Momota slowly lowers himself back into his chair, Ouma brings his own in front of Momota’s legs. “You did what you had to to get out of a nasty situation. Sure, in a perfect world, we’d all communicate all the time, right? But in a perfect world, you wouldn’t have had to leave, either.”
“It wasn’t a nasty situation,” Momota defends, frowning, but he can’t bring himself to meet Ouma’s eyes. “It was just… y’know, a little stressful, and I needed…” He flounders. “I needed some air, I guess.”
A small smile appears on Ouma’s face. “An uncomfortable situation, then,” he allows. “Still not a good one. Momota-chan left for a reason. And maybe you did things that weren’t good, but you also took yourself out of the position to keep making them.” He shrugs. “I don’t think I’d call that cowardly at all.”
It takes a moment for it to sink in that Ouma is actually… comforting him, saying things to make him feel better about what happened with Harukawa and Saihara-- not only that, but it’s working, Momota can feel the tension draining from his shoulders, the knot in the pit of his stomach starting to unravel. He finds it easier to meet Ouma’s eyes now, even with him sitting so close.
A quiet laugh escapes Momota.
“I’m kinda surprised,” he admits. “I didn’t expect anyone to get why I had to go. I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving, y’know, not Shuichi and Maki and not the rest of the gang. It’s not like things were like that with anyone else, just with me, so they wouldn’t have… understood. So I just left.” He lets out a breath. “It’s not… bad, obviously, I just didn’t see it coming.”
“You didn’t?” Ouma quirks an eyebrow. “I’ve never exactly been the president of the Harukawa-chan fanclub, y’know.” His expression sobers, though, and Momota watches his own eyes dart away. “I lied to you earlier, though. I didn’t just stick away to make things easier on you.”
He doesn’t move his wheelchair, but he turns his upper body to face the wall, drumming his fingers against the arm rest, his eyes vacant. It’s less one of those clean-slate faces Ouma pulls between lies, more just a tired, empty look, tired and empty as his voice, just lacking the conspiratorial edge.
“You’re not the only person who came to talk to me after we all got out, y’know. I mean, most of them came by, but I wasn’t expecting Harukawa to be one of them.” Ouma frowns minutely, the corners of his lips tightening, and continues to avoid Momota’s eyes. “It wasn’t a long conversation. She said she regretted not being the one to kill me, I told her she had always had such pretty eyes, she grabbed my shirt collar,” he sucks in a breath, “and she told me to stay away from her, and from you, and from everyone else.”
The roof of Momota’s mouth is dry, a bitter taste starting at the back, near his throat. “Ouma, I never--”
“That’s not why I left, y’know,” Ouma interrupts, finally meeting Momota’s eyes. “I was already gonna do that. Stay in touch with everyone? Like we were some kind of graduating high school class? Please. Like I was ever gonna heal that way.” He scoffs, shaking his head. “But there were times I considered trying to reach out to Momota-chan, and then I decided that even if Harukawa-chan wasn’t an assassin, I figured my odds against her weren’t too great, so I stuck away.” He shrugs. “I told myself I wouldn’t tell you when I saw you, but here we are.”
On impulse, Momota reaches out and grabs Ouma’s hand, putting it between both of his own, and Ouma’s eyes widen.
“I’m glad you did,” Momota says in a rush, “tell me, I mean, not stick away, I…” He swallows thickly. “I knew… she felt that way. I knew that she hated you. Sometimes I would try to talk to her about the game, tell her about what happened in the hangar, and about your plan, but there was always… this lingering resentment, like she hated you more than she hated Team Danganronpa for doing that to all of us.” Momota glares down at Ouma’s hand. It’s small enough that he can completely envelope it between both of his, and cold, his knuckles sharp against Momota’s palms. “It’s one of the reasons I had to go. None of them… nobody even tried to understand you, not even Shuichi. He just talked about you like you were one of the unsolved mysteries of the universe, and like he was happy you were gone.”
“That surprised you?” Ouma asks incredulously. “It’s not like Saihara-chan and I kissed and held hands, or anything. That you know of.” He winks.
Momota ignores the wink and huffs, “That’s not the point, damnit, the point is, I…”
He grits his teeth and slacks his grip on Ouma’s hand. Momota usually woke up coughing when he had nightmares, but sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes his dreams woke him silently, with tears streaming down the sides of his face, and in those he usually saw Ouma. Saw him struggle to the press and drop what he was carrying, saw him break down in tears, saw him…
“I missed you,” Momota whispers, and he looks back in time to watch the unmasked surprise appear on Ouma’s face. “No one… understood me in there, except…”
“In the hangar,” Ouma matches his volume, and Momota nods. This time, it’s Ouma who tightens his grip, squeezing Momota’s hand, before he speaks again in his regular voice. “Well, you’ll be pleased to know I didn’t miss you at all. Actually, I hate your guts.” But as he says it, he uses his free hand to inch his wheelchair closer, as close as it can get without actually touching Momota’s chair, and then he inches himself further forward, so close that they’re swapping breaths.
Momota is almost pulled closer in turn, and Ouma’s eyes, a mesmerising, breathtaking colour, are close enough that they’re blurry.
“It’s the same for me, actually,” Ouma admits, his voice lower now. “Nobody was ever supposed to understand me, y’know. That was never gonna be very good for my plan, if I wanted to get anything done. Gonta tried, of course, and I’m always gonna appreciate him, even if I can’t be around him anymore, but,” his expression falls more than it already has, his brows lowering, “I guess I didn’t plan for Momota-chan being so smart.”
“Smart?” Momota raises his eyebrows, snorting. “Me?”
Ouma’s eyes flash. “You,” he hisses, leaning closer, their foreheads knocking together. “I watched that trial, you know. Momota-chan was good. You could’ve fooled me.” His lip curls. “That’s not really the point, though. I wasn’t sure if you were gonna do me any justice. It was possible that you were just bluffing to kill me without a fight so you could go out and save your girlfriend, or whatever. But after I finished explaining everything, you…” He trails off for a moment, looking like he’s not sure how to put it into words. “You gave me this… look, I guess, and I knew you were going to do the best you could.”
“Of course I was,” Momota scoffs, “what kind of hero backs down from a promise?”
“Ah, so you are a hero,” Ouma grins mischievously, and Momota’s heart skips a beat. “Buuuut, all that was a lie, actually. The real moment I knew I could trust you was when you kissed me.”
Momota’s face warms at once, and Ouma cackles, like he’s proud of himself, even as Momota attempts to formulate a response. They… did kiss, back in the hangar, that much isn’t a lie, but it wasn’t all that romantic. It was messy, and desperate, and in every kiss Momota could feel Ouma losing a bit more of his life, and he wasn’t sure at the time if he was kissing Ouma because he was Ouma, or because it was the last time he was ever going to get to be that close to another person.
Having said that, though…
“I think about that a lot,” Momota admits, looking away. It’s impossible to maintain at this proximity, though, so he finds himself meeting Ouma’s gaze again before long. “Probably more than I should.”
“Yeah?” Ouma raises both of his eyebrows this time. “Who said you couldn’t think about it? Who’s gonna stop you?”
Momota stammers. “W-Well, y’know, it’s just that--” He gestures with one of his hands, leaving the other clasped around Ouma’s. “Doesn’t that feel weird to you? T-To like-- to think about you so much when you’re not around?”
“Momota-chan was already thinking of me, and I guarantee you he wasn’t the first,” Ouma says, an easy smile on his face. “And besides, you’re talking like you’re the only one who’s been thinking about it.”
“Ouma--” Momota’s eyes go wide.
“Anyways, if I’m the one stopping you, then let me give you official, formal permission to think about kissing me any time you want!” Ouma beams. “Provided Momota-chan won’t edit the scene in his brain to add in a no homo that never happened. Neither of us were wearing socks, Momota-chan. It was gay.”
That only makes Momota’s embarrassment worse, if anything. He finds himself struggling to clear his thoughts enough to reply for a moment, and eventually just settles on staring into Ouma’s eyes, admiring his expression. He’s… beautiful, Momota thinks, or maybe that’s just residual hormones from the time Momota kissed him when they were teenagers.
...Or maybe he really is just beautiful.
“Definitely gay,” Momota agrees quietly, clearing his throat. “Y-You’ve…” He sucks his lower lip in between his teeth, staring at Ouma’s face for another moment. Shit, this is hard, and also absolutely not how he expected today to go when he checked out of his hotel this morning. “You’ve been thinking about it too?”
“Geez, this is like middle school,” Ouma huffs. “Hey, Momota-chan, Toujou-chan told Hoshi-chan who told Gonta-chan who told Iruma-chan who told me that you had a crush on me. Is it true?” He laughs slightly, shaking his head. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve had a lot of time to do a lot of thinking since I left the facility, actually.” He shrugs. “I’ve even kissed some other people in the meantime! But wouldn’t you know, none of them actually matched up.”
Momota sucks in a breath, his heart going into overdrive. “That’s…”
“I know, it’s stupid,” Ouma rolls his eyes, waving his hand. “It was a dying kiss when we were both teenagers. How could it be the best kiss I ever had? I think it’s mostly just that I kissed those people outta curiosity, and there were nowhere near as many feelings involved in it, but either way I--”
“Wanna do a better one?”
The interruption seems to take Ouma off guard, and this time he’s the one whose face flushes, (though admittedly Momota’s ears still feel like they’re going to burn off the sides of his head) his eyes widening as they make eye contact. He doesn’t say anything, opening and closing his mouth, looking at Momota like he can’t even believe he’s here.
“I just mean-- I mean, I gotta get to know you all over again, right? We can’t… be anything, yet, not without a lot of talking and stuff, but I just figure, if you’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve been thinking about it, and if we both feel like that, then maybe we should just--”
Momota’s flimsy explanation is cut off when Ouma’s lips crash into his, and on the one hand his heart pounds heavy and hot in his chest, his blood deafening where it rushes in his ears, but on the other…
He can’t remember the last time something felt as right as this. Maybe they’re on the same page after all.