Work Text:
Momoko folded her arms, but didn’t try to stop Ichigo as she crowded closer.
‟Come on, Momoko. . .” Ichigo pouted at her, looking rather like a puppy - a slightly ill-kempt puppy, as always - and Momoko pursed her lips, raising her eyebrows and tilting her head. ‟Please? Please? It’s only because it’s so important to me. . . Because you are, hime. . .”
Momoko hummed, tilting her head back the other way as Ichigo edged closer, nudging into her. ‟Oh. . . All right.” She put out her hand, beckoning.
Ichigo beamed, scrambling to hand over the fall of lurid silk, and Momoko rolled her eyes, taking the coat and pursing her lips again to hide a smile as it pulled at her lips. Ichigo didn’t appear to notice, and Momoko sniffed as she settled down with her embroidery box. Fondly.
Ichigo dropped down beside her in a messy sprawl - not exactly graceless, but certainly not composed, Momoko thought wryly, not that Ichigo ever was - and propped her head on one hand, grinning at Momoko as she began sorting through thread. The pale yellow-orange was easy, but while Momoko had many pinks in a range of tones. . . She hummed, tapping a fingertip against one of her finer needles while she considered, looking at the rich purple of Ichigo’s coat.
Perhaps she should gentle the colour in any case, with that contrast, but on the other hand. . .
Momoko eyed Ichigo, still grinning up at her, and-
No. Gaudy it was, Momoko thought, and picked out an eye-searing pink that she must have purchased in a fit of insanity.
Momoko tucked her legs up neatly on the cushion, Ichigo’s coat a familiar blanket over her lap, gleaming with so many of her own stitches. She smiled at it almost as fondly as she did at Ichigo herself . . . Ichigo who, sprawling at her side, promptly began to recount improbable stories with excessive emotion and abrupt jolts in both her narrative and her gestures.
Momoko smoothed the coat out again, considering, then chose her place and began stitching as Ichigo rolled around on the floor beside her, expounding on the chosen topic. Momoko let it wash over her with far less irritation than she had once; perhaps it was simply that it was easy to let Ichigo’s endless words just pass her by when she had her hands and her mind full of the contented thrum of embroidering. And perhaps it was more than that.
Ichigo flipped onto her back, raising her arm and staring up at it, and Momoko looked over, though she didn’t need to refresh her memory - Ichigo’s soulmark was emblazoned in her mind, and she wasn’t trying for an exact copy anyway.
. . .and, because she could. . .
Momoko finished out the last of the frilly petals with a deeper pink border and hummed at her own work contemplatively. Then she stuck the needle through the lace at her cuff to hold it as she turned back to her threads, looking for a shimmery almost-white she knew she’d stashed in here - wrapped up in a bit of spare handkerchief to keep it clean - and her very brightest yellow. And . . . yes, there, a bright, cheery red, as well. She’d been embroidering cherries with it last time, but she had more than enough left for this.
‟What are you doing?” Ichigo asked as Momoko began placing the small, half-hidden strawberry with its tiny, spilling flowers, tucked half beneath a curled petal of the largest peach blossom. ‟Are you almost done?”
‟It takes the time it takes.” Momoko said primly, though she was.
‟Yeah, but you’re fast!” Ichigo sat up beside her. ‟You’re the best!” She laughed. ‟Himiko’s daughter, a legend’s legacy. . .”
Momoko giggled, shaking her head, and stroked a fingertip along the little strawberry and its flowers, then put aside her needle and picked up her tiniest scissors. She cleaned up her stray ends, brushing her fingers over the completed piece - smooth and neat, as it should be; stitches too tight to snag easily, either - then shook the coat out over her legs before turning it over to Ichigo.
‟Here. Is that what you wanted?” Momoko asked, sniffing.
Ichigo grinned, bunching the coat in both fists and pulling it close. ‟Yah!” She let it fall over one arm and lunged, dragging Momoko into a rough hug, and she laughed before she could catch it back, crushed comfortably against Ichigo’s slender, hard figure. ‟It’s beautiful.” she said, nuzzling Momoko’s ear, and she hummed, smoothing a hand over Ichigo’s shoulder and back. ‟Just like you.”
‟It doesn’t quite fit with the general aesthetic of your coat.” Momoko observed, and Ichigo eased her hold a little, settling back.
‟It’s the best.” Ichigo said, clasping Momoko’s hand and bringing it up to kiss her palm, nuzzling up towards her wrist and the bright, cheery, grease-stained strawberry there. Momoko no longer hid the mark under the ruffle of a high lacy glove or an embroidered band, always urged to smile as her eyes fell on it . . . even the battered wrench - which Momoko had become increasingly sure was smeared with blood, not strawberry, as she spent more time with Ichigo - propped up against the tiny flowers. ‟And so are you.” Ichigo said, eyes painfully earnest and bright grin lopsided. ‟Thank you, sweetheart.”
‟Hm.” Momoko reached up, neatening her hair, then cupped Ichigo’s face. ‟Show me.” she ordered, pointing imperiously, and Ichigo blinked, then hopped up, shrugging into the long coat as Momoko rose as well, inspecting her. Momoko smoothed the coat over her shoulders and fiddled with the collar as she leaned in obligingly, smiling with blatantly giddy delight as she always did beneath Momoko’s hands.
Momoko had put the requested peach blossoms - and the impish little strawberry - near Ichigo’s collar on the left side, over her heart; very blatant.
Well, Ichigo was very blatant, Momoko thought wryly. She had begged for Momoko to add the representation to her coat, it was so important, she could have it blazoned somewhere impossible to miss.
Not that she expected Ichigo would complain; Ichigo, on the whole, didn’t grasp any kind of subtlety.
‟Now it’s perfect!” Ichigo said, sweeping Momoko into an embrace again, then right off her feet, whirling her around. Momoko squeaked as she was abruptly brought airborne, catching hold of Ichigo’s shoulders, but. . . Well, this wasn’t entirely new . . . and Momoko couldn’t exactly say she disliked it, either, she thought with a laugh as Ichigo brought her back down and kissed her hard.
Momoko hummed, nestling against Ichigo’s solid frame and toying with her horribly fried, tousled hair.
‟Not enough to have me on your skin forever,” Momoko teased against her mouth, ‟I must be on your coat as well?”
‟Everything important should be on my coat!” Ichigo said staunchly, giving a firm nod. ‟You know that.” She pouted a little again, and she was really not good at it, ridiculous creature. ‟It’s my heart and soul! Besides, this way it shows when my mark doesn't.” She lifted her arm, where her sleeve did indeed hide the winter peach and its lace-edged blossoms, the gleaming needle of her soulmark. ‟But now it’s perfect!”
Until the next time something flitted across Ichigo’s mind, Momoko thought with wry fondness that was far softer, far warmer than Momoko had ever thought she could be, perhaps with anyone. Much less with someone like. . .
Well. Her yankee sweetheart, Momoko thought, stifling a giggle.
‟You’re welcome, then.” Momoko said, pursing her lips. She tugged, and Ichigo’s arm curled more securely around her waist as she obligingly returned for another kiss, hot and a little too eager, as always. Momoko bit her sharply and grinned as she yelped . . . but didn’t pull away.