the roommate contract - todomomo

thirty-five \\ "you thief!"

The problem with summer, Momo found, was that it got hot during the day, but then it stayed hot at night. And even though Momo wasn't really one to overheat or anything, she often spent many summer nights awake because it still felt like she should be awake. Summer had the unique ability to give Momo far too much energy for her own good, and currently, it had nowhere to go, which is why she was standing in the hallway outside of her roommate's bedroom, contemplating whether or not to knock and risk waking him up, assuming he was even asleep. Which there was a high likely hood that he wasn't. 

And that's the only reason she knocked. At least that's what she told herself. She told herself it was because he was the only person who would have any chance of being awake at such an ungodly hour. Because he was the only person who would realistically want to go get ice cream from a gas station with her at two in the morning. That's what she told herself. A cute little lie. 

You see, everyone falls in love differently. Despite what traditional media may lead you to believe, not everyone goes through what Shouto went through. Not everyone suddenly has a moment where they realize they're screwed. Not everyone gets so lucky. 

And I say lucky because falling in love slowly was hard. It was hard because it wasn't just a matter of putting a name to the feeling. Because those feelings snowballed over time until she couldn't stop pretending she didn't have them. Because falling in love slowly meant that she had a hundred chances to tell him and lacked the courage to admit it to herself even once. 

She was startled by her own knock, a reflexive action that happened whenever she was at a closed door, and in the few seconds before it swung open she found herself doubting everything she'd ever done in her life. She wondered what choices could've been made to avoid the situation she was in. She had always wanted to experience fairytale love like this...She guessed, she'd just always assumed she'd be allowed to act on it. 

"Peaches?" Shouto silently cursed himself when he saw her standing there with her hair down, her eyes wide open and staring only at him. He swallowed a lump in his throat. His control was slipping faster than he had a chance to comprehend. But then again, it was always slipping around Momo. It was when she leaned her head on his shoulder or hugged him. It was when she said his name or tugged on his hand. And it had been completely lost on him the night she- "What's up?" He provided himself momentary relief by forcing the half-assed greeting out. 

"I can't sleep." Was her simple answer that made his mind scream "tell her to go back to bed." But of course, he reacted to her before the rational portion of his brain could, already damning himself with the words,

"Neither can I." 

-

And that's how they ended up at a gas station at two-thirty in the morning eating ice cream and talking about...well, really the only way to describe it was everything. Because that was really the only thing you were allowed to talk about when the stars were so beautiful and you were sitting next to the only person in the world who really mattered. 

Everything. 

But it was dangerous. It was dangerous because getting high off midnight summer air and sickly sweet ice cream led to talking and talking led to expressing and expressing meant emotions and the tricky thing about emotions was that they seemed to present themselves at just about the worst times. 

And it was dangerous because there were questions on the tip of Momo's tongue, questions that begged to be answered and overtook her mind. They bubbled up in her throat before she could stop them, chasing the sweet high of knowing every secret Shouto was hiding from her. She wanted to know for the purely selfish reason of wanting to fall deeper in love with him. Because she couldn't say it, but she was too far in to try and reverse it. So fuck it, right? Just screw trying to hold onto sanity.