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“Mai Zenin, just call me Mai.”
Momo stared at her. It wouldn’t be surprising for a Zenin to have this hostile look on her face. She heard those rumours about the family, the whispers of certain twins being a disgrace to their name.
“Momo Nishimiya. Second year.” She couldn’t help but to fire a similar expression to her, not daring to look intimidated by her. Momo held out a hand, internally cringing when Mai looked at it for a few seconds as if she was already judging hard on a senior that was smaller than her.
But Mai surprisingly took it, and they shook hands, Momo making sure to have that firm grip on her fingers.
“There’s another first year that will be joining us today, she’ll be here soon,” said Momo.
“Yeah..” The green-haired girl only held a flat face, painfully looking uninterested.
As the very senior of the only girls in the Kyoto Tech, Momo wanted them to get along. The blue haired Miwa had been easily great to her, yet for Mai, Momo wasn’t sure if that warming up would be quick.
—
Just one final stretch of reading that one page, and it would be all over her. But her eyes were getting blurry and droopy. Maybe getting some food might help, Miwa might even be in the kitchen. Momo walked out of her room to the hallways and upon passing by Mai’s door, she heard a scream erupted from the girl’s room.
Momo wasted no time in sliding the door open, and saw Mai: wide-eyed, tears sliding down on her cheeks, gasping for air, and sitting up on her bed with both of her hands clutching into her hair.
In less than a month, Momo saw that, what she assumed, a resting bitch face of hers fell apart for a night.
“Are you okay?” Momo asked.
It took time for Mai to sink in, tilting her head to hide her face from her.
“You didn’t knock,” Mai said, her tone being between the line of anger and relief like she was trying to build back that ironed frontier Momo had been seeing for weeks now.
“Well, hearing someone scream bloody murder and then knocking on their door only happens in movies.” Momo tried to lighten the mood, but Mai only started rubbing her chest and pounding on it, whispering for it to stop.
“Was it a nightmare?” Momo slowly approached her bed like she was walking on eggshells.
“It’s nothing,” spat Mai, heavy breaths weighing on her. “You can leave me alone now.” And no, it wasn’t a nightmare, just… somewhat.
Mai had sweat a lot, dampening her shirt collar, back, and armpits. She bit her lips. Embarrassing. That ‘till today she wasn’t over it, the night terrors of her childhood, always waking up crying in the middle of night. And now it turned into nightmares, a heavy reminder of the same images happening over and over again inside those walls at that cursed thing called ‘home.’ She hated it, especially when Maki was always there after it happened.
Tears start to welled up in her eyes, a sob wanting to erupt from her, like a volcano that could blow up anytime soon. She tilted her head, she didn't want Momo to look at her this way.
With her clouded eyes, she saw a yellow towel being offered to her. Then she grabbed onto it, tightening her fist. Her arms began to shake and then she sobbed, crying hard for the very first time in front of a person from outside of her house.
Embarrassing.
But Momo was still around the sweat soaked Mai, caressing her damp hair and letting Mai have her for a while. It must have been hard. She knew how hard being a girl was in the jujutsu world, and how more difficult would it be being a bad mouthed as a woman inside a clan.
She let Mai rest her forehead on her. They were stuck like that for half an hour, and when their bodies started to get sore, Mai eventually tried to recover, sniffing and blowing out her nose that seemed to never end.
“I can go with you to the bathroom after this,” offered Momo, eyeing those sweat stains on Mai’s shirt.
“Why?” Mai wiped her nose. “Are you gonna shower me?”
Momo looked up,a brow arched, and she saw Mai, who had been ugly sobbing seconds ago, with a tiny curve on her lips and brows slightly furrowed.
“Just kidding…” Mai shook her, her voice trailing off.
“I-I’ll meet you at the kitchen then.” Momo stepped off aways from her.
They both walked together down the hallways, separating ways by the very end
Mai had quickly showered and soon joined Momo at the Kitchen who was shifting through the white fridge to look for some food.
“We could just steal her food, you know.”
Momo had suddenly jumped up from the suddenness of voice from behind her, slamming the fridge in front of her. “You scared me.” She turned to meet the green-haired first year..
Mai faced her with her arms crossed. Some of her damp hair strands, still sticking on her neck. She leaned in, proceeding to open the fridge and grabbed the container of edamame in the furthest corner of the shelf. The big bold red ‘Miwa Kasumi’ marked on the side was forgotten. “Seems like the only food around here,” murmured Mai. “Let’s dig in.” She smirked and popped the lid off.
Momo didn’t hesitate as both of them shamelessly ate the midnight edamame that Miwa would probably get suspicious on.
They didn’t say much, so Momo took a deep breath, gathering all her confidence. “About the food, Miwa and I are thinking of probably buying groceries. If you want you could come with us.”
“That, I guess…” started Mai.
‘Please say yes’ repeated all across Momo’s head as she braced herself for Mai’s answer.
“That sounds nice.”
She sighed in relief.
“If you don’t mind,” Mai added as she tucked her hair behind her ear, “I’d be waking you up again just to grab midnight snacks.”
“You mean a partner-in-crime to steal Miwa’s food?” Momo shot for another attempt at a joke.
A toothy grin revealed from Mai’s lips. “Yeah.”
—
“It’s food, Kasumi,” urged Mai, nudging her. “You don’t want to be cheap around food.”
“B-but my savings!” The blue haired girl tried to reason.
“C’mon now!” Mai hooked an arm around Miwa’s elbows, also pulling Momo along with her. “I’ll pay the whole thing for you.”
The girls had just shopped for their necessities, the very first planned outing for the Kyoto Tech’s girl and so far, it was running smoothly as Mai even insisted them in trying out this all-you-can eat buffet.
“Wait, there’s no way you haven’t tried french fries before,” exclaimed Miwa when they stopped at the deep fried section of the buffet. The golden brown colors of such dishes being such an eye catching thing to Mai when she was used to greenery.
Mai shook her head.
“Not even McDonalds?” Miwa asked, her mouth agape.
“Family was annoyingly vegetarian.”
Momo only chuckled when Miwa had filled more fried food dishes on Mai’s plate while Momo specifically contributed chicken tenders to it.
Miwa and Momo were first to witness the bewildered reaction Mai had in sinking in her teeth on such oil filled foods, a low satisfied moan as she chewed and swallowed it with a thoughtful expression on her face.
“Woah, that’s not bad, actually.”
“So the Zenins are vegetarian?” blurted Miwa, a nudge and a glare from Momo.
“No, it’s okay,” Mai said. “You probably heard all the rumours, but yeah, they’re shit.” She tried to look unbothered and be as stoned faced as possible. “So enough about them, let’s stuff our faces with more food!”
Momo looked at her, and she thought that they were probably the reason she cried last night. Those permanent bruises were probably still on her skin and marred scars too.
—
“About my family…” Mai began. It was one of those nights where she and Momo woke up for midnight adventures.
Momo leaned in, preparing to listen to what she had to say.
“I have a sister, a twin sister, and when you live in that madhouse, where everything is absolute shit, you just…only have each other to survive back there.” She breathed in, not a perfect time to erupt into sobs again. “But she’s gone now and left to Tokyo, talking about some things I don’t get, and I just- god, I fucking hate her.
Momo stayed silent, listening.
“Sorry, that was really random of me to say.”
“No, it’s fine.” Momo shook her head. “I get what you’re saying.”
“You do?” Light shone in Mai’s eyes.
“It’s hard already being a woman inside a jujutsu clan, and you just keep on looking for something to hold onto everyday. For you, it’s your sister.”
“ Was ,” scoffed Mai.
“And in Kyoto Tech, I hope you find a sense of family with us.”
“Thanks,” Mai held a smile, “that really means a lot to me.”