the roommate contract - todomomo

twenty-five \\ "your boyfriend sounds mean"

Momo had been searching for an actual job for far too long for it to be acceptable, but she'd finally found someone who was willing to hire her. Someone who actually turned out to be her bio professor.

His name was Shouta Aizawa, a tired man with perpetual bags under his eyes and inky black hair that was ever untamed. He was a perfectly nice guy when you got past his meanness, disagreeableness, and general animosity to the world for waking him up to early (or at all). He was annoyed with the world in a way that Momo could only describe as everlasting and the only thing that really seemed to bring him any joy was watching his students suffer the week before finals. Well, that was almost the only thing. The only other thing in the world that made him smile was his family. And that's where Momo came in.

Kids had always love Momo and she couldn't imagine why. In reality, it was becuase she smiled a lot and she didn't' talk to them like they were stupid. Look, once you reached the age of five, you officially had ideas about the world and could be a sentient being. And Momo recognized that. She was also really good at playing games like hide-and-seek and dress-up and make-believe, and her ease with children coupled with her ingrained sense of responsibility made her the near-perfect babysitter.

And Shouta Aizawa was not blind to this, which is why Momo now sat on the couch watching New Girl with a twelve-year-old while she braided the girl's long pearly-white hair.

The snow was coming down in sheets so heavy that it'd be a pain to drive through outside and the sky was painted with gray, which is why they hadn't been able to do their original plan of getting french fries and milkshakes, and instead were forced to settle for inside activities. But Eri Aizawa was a flexible kid, so she was perfectly fine with hot chocolate and New Girl in the place of tag and snowball fights.

Eri thought Momo was exceptionally pretty which is why she delighted in doing Momo's hair, which was currently tied into numerous sloppily executed braids that all lead to a messy side bun being held in place by multicolored ribbons. It would be a pain to brush out later, but Eri had taken such care in doing it and looked so happy at her achievement, so Momo didn't complain.

Momo, however, was quite skilled in the art of braiding hair because her friend Mina also took much pleasure in giving people makeovers (whether wanted or not). So she had picked it up naturally from watching her work.

"Good, I never liked Russel anyway. Nick and Jess belong together," Eri fake fainted back onto Momo's lap, effectively messing up the fishtail braid Momo had spent half-an-hour working on. But Momo just nodded in fake sadness, going along with the act. Eri had quite a flair for the dramatic and, much to Momo's relief, actually seemed quite comfortable with her despite this only being the first time Momo had actually babysat her.

"People are blind to love sometimes, Eri. You'll understand when you grow up and fall in love," Momo giggled s Eri suddenly popped up at the mention of love. If there was one thing Eri loved more than anything else, it was romance. Eri, much like Momo, was a true romantic who was soft for love stories and cheesy clichés. She wasn't that much into dressup or board games or toys, but she loved romance movies and listening to people reading her stories. It was one of her favorite things.

"Have you ever been in love? Are you in love with someone" She asked without warning, catching Momo off-guard for the quickest of seconds as she turned away from the TV to look at Momo. The raven-haired girl faltered a bit, not knowing how to answer that. Had she? She had never known herself to be in love. There were times when something certainly felt a lot like it, but she'd always assumed that those must not be the real thing. Because when you really fall in love with someone, you know, right?

"Hmmm... well, I can't say that I do, Eri," Momo smiled softly, trying not to read too much into the twelve-year-old's questions. Love had never been a big factor in Momo's life. I mean, it had, but not her love. She loved romance books and movies and she thought the idea of love was absolutely wonderful, but she had always just accepted the fact that it wouldn't really ever be part of her existence.

"Well then do you like someone?" The pearly-haired girl asked, eys still keen and clearly not giving up on this subject without a fight.

"I'm not sure about that one," Momo's words came out on a laugh before she could stop them and she suddenly found herself faltering to the point where she had to remind herself that she didn't like the one person that popped to mind. She didn't. Uncontracted: did not. And she really couldn't take this line of questioning anymore because it was making to room dreadfully hot, so she turned the tables and asked, "Do you like anyone?"

"Well, there's a boy named Kota in my class and he's really cute, but..." Eri snuggled into Momo's side, the chill of January causing goodbumps to rise on her skin. "I don't think he likes me..." She said so sadly that it almost broke Momo's heart. She imagined romance when applying to her own life must've been a very new idea for Eri considering she was only twelve. First crushes were a big deal. "He always runs away from me at recess...I think he's scared of me."

"Hmm, well maybe it's just becuase he doesn't know how to talk to you," Momo suggested. She couldn't imagine that someone actually found Eri intimidating. She was too sweet and friendly for that.

"Maybe..." Eri murmured, trailing off as she adjusted herself so that her head was resting against Momo's shoulder and her legs were across Momo's lap. The silence that followed effectively ended the conversation as they both focused back in on the TV. "Nick is so mean to Jess..." She muttered, pouting at the TV as if that would change that simple fact.

"Sometimes friends are mean to each other, especially boy friends," Momo joked, nudging Eri in the side and eliciting a bright giggle from the prealy-haired girl who seemed to become more energized at her statement in a way that worried Momo. The raven-haired girl could only assume she was in for another interrogation.

"Is anyone mean to you?" Eri frowned, concerned, and Momo couldn't help but be warmed by the girl's worry for her. Eri was such an empathetic child compared to some of the kid's Momo had babysat for in the past. A lot of times, all they wanted to do was force Momo to play games or watch TV, which Momo was also perfectly fine with, but Eri was something else.

"Well, there is one person who's mean to me sometimes, but he never tries to be mean. He just doesn't understand sometimes," Momo was purposely as vague as possible because she didn't need to loop Eri into all of her and Shouto's personal drama (which there was a lot of, let me tell you). Plus, how would she even explain hald the things she and her roommate argued about?

"Your boyfriend sounds mean," Eri grumped and Momo stopped short, almost choking on nothing at the sound of the word 'boyfriend' coming out of Eri's mouth. Had Momo called him her boyfriend? She didn't, right? The raven-haired girl seemed to have suddenly lost the ability to remember what happened three minutes ago as her face heated up with a bright red blush.

"B-Boyfriend? Um, I didn't say I had a boyfriend?" Momo faltered, trying to regain her composure after being caught completely off-guard by the child she was babysitting. She silently thanked the universe for the fact that Shouto would (hopefully) never come into contact with Eri. Becuase holy shit, there would be hell to pay for something like this.

"Yeah you did, you said that friends can be mean, especially boyfriends," The pearly-haired girl quoted, a finger on her bottom lip pensively as she jogged Momo's memory of her exact wording and sent a wave of relief cascading through Momo.

"Oh! Oh, hahah, I meant boy friends. Like, with a space between the words. Friends who are boys," Momo giggled in relief. Good, so she hadn't actually called her roommate who she might kind of have a crush on her boyfriend. That would be one of the things she would've ended up obsessing over way too late at night or when she was supposed to be studying or having a conversation with someone.

"Oh, so you don't have a boyfriend?" Eri looked mildly disappointed despite Momo's clearly relieved smile. Momo hated to let her down, but at the same time...

"Sadly, no. But you wouldn't want to know if I did anyway. I'm not very good at choosing them," She joked for Eri's sake as she sat the girl on her lap to continue the fishtail braid that she had never finished and that was now a mess of tangles. "My last boyfriend was an accountant," It was a little white lie, but the way she whispered it made Eri giggle, so it was worth it.

"Accountants are boring!"

»—————————–✄ ~à suivre