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There are boundaries set in this town that Momo should never cross. In that quiet superstition, signposts that say turn back and she will.
It comes from her own theory: those who leave this town will never come back, either in flesh or memory. All these identical roads are spreading like river deltas, made as if to measure the world, like they are always going to lead somewhere but they never do.
✦ ✦ ✦
The school bell rings, rippling sound tides across the pavement. Five of them are kneeling on the entrance porch, hands raised while the teacher counts the time.
Momo is late for the sixth time and Mina for the first time.
The punishment is running three lapses around the dirt field. The punishment is not for first timers.
Mina should have said something. Momo notices the way she trembles to speak but still stays quiet until the end. Her knuckles are blotched with markers, of scrambled equations.
The morning air creates a screen of fine dust.
Three boys are jogging off into a curve until their backs disappear, towels swung over their nape. By this time, they should’ve crossed the final lap. But Momo stays behind, four unrhythmic footfalls against the ground. She tries to stay in tandem, because finishing the course isn’t the prime objective.
It’s hard not to worry when Mina is clumping forward like a dying fish hurdling back to water, her thighs swaying every time her knees bend, her breathing unbridled with too much inhaling and too little exhaling.
This reminds Momo of her first time running.
It takes another ten minutes, then the second bell rings and everyone disperses like wild molecules and subconsciously Momo knows they’ll be watching from the windows. Two slow beetles orbiting a field.
When they’ve reached the final touchline, Mina slumps and hits the ground.
✦ ✦ ✦
No, they don't speak again. Realistically, when you meet a stranger you don’t expect to be lovers right off the bat.
Momo carries her to the infirmary and she doesn’t come back like a proud savior, she just kind of forgets.
After school, the sky bruises three shades darker, the clouds stitching together like sopping cotton. Momo always never brings an umbrella even when she knows it’ll rain. Because she likes running through the puddles. Because there’s always a slight thrill from doing something a little mischievous.
Momo's aware of a few things in her life. Like how there are only two things that matter most to her: her bicycle and her sneakers, ones that she partially owns. The rest are budget money stolen from her piggy bank or the rare lucky pennies she’d find gleaming on the linoleum floor.
Today's supposed to be a good day. For a Scorpio. She was reading the daily horoscope in a school magazine. It was stashed away in the bin.
Momo tries her luck.
There’s a vending machine beside a wooden bench, just under the roof of the porch. The lights don’t work anymore, the inner clockworks only buzz in a feeble din.
Inside the change slot she finds a 100 yen coin. Her heart does a tiny flip. She reads the price tag, all the drinks cost at least 130 yen. Her heart flops back to its place.
“Not enough for anything?”
Tilting away, Momo sees Mina for the first time, crouching beside the vending machine with her back pressing against the wall. She’s not looking at her, not in that impolite way when you'd avoid someone. She rather looks inconsolable, with all her limbs curling into the core of her body.
“I have some change,” Mina produces a 50 yen from her breast pocket, only briefly lifting her head.
Momo thumbs the coin into the slot, taps the number and presses the necessary buttons. There’s a crash and a canned soda rolls out the mouth of the machine. She picks it up, pockets the change and hovers there for a while.
Mina is still watching the ground, now tracing invisible shapes with her finger.
Then with one bolt of lightning, Momo bows a quick nod to nobody and dashes into the rain.
Two thunders later Momo is running back through the mist.
Running, running, running. She’s always been good at running. Not making people wait.
Her footsteps are muted from the rain, the drink in one hand and an umbrella in the other.
Mina is there, her eyes lifted, and lips parted to say something a possible-friend would. But then, before there's a chance for conversation, Momo tosses the umbrella over to Mina and swiftly hops onto her bike to rush back home.
Another relay race. Pass the baton. Make the run. Eye contact isn’t necessary. Instincts, Momo, is what you need.
Down the road, Momo never stops cycling. One hand on the handlebar, and the other clutching the sweat-dripping canned soda closer to her heart.
✦ ✦ ✦
Momo keeps replaying the scene in her head, rolling the tape above equations on the blackboard of the classroom. She can’t help it.
Tossing the umbrella. Blushing.
It’s a tiny heroic thing that she feels a little proud of doing.
Dismissal hours, Momo leaves the class like there’s someone waiting, but the hallway is the same rowdy imbalance of bumping shoulders and identical faces with blurred features.
Usually it’d take a while until the noises dissipate. Only when it's quiet she would walk down the stairs but not to leave the school grounds. Momo would run several laps around the field for respite.
It wasn’t easy the first time she was late: the sun frying down her back, her heart pumping like tachycardia, sweat sticking to her shirt and body in an anxious hug.
And then the second week, enter the runner’s high. Consecutive lateness streaks later, it becomes a routine. A little private affair.
The school would be empty. The chest against her tracksuit beats like waves on a shoreline. Footfalls are silent like tapping on sand. The path ahead promises a certain clarity.
Everything gets easier once you’re familiar with it, like friends.
Tipping towards dusk, there’s a dying golden glow slurring past everything in widening angles. It’s not raining when she’s back on the porch, but the sky still leaks with petrichor. There are voices of her classmates leaving, their keychains jangling happily.
Momo unknots the shoelace that ties her bicycle around the pole of the bike rack. Then she swings her leg over, backpedaling away.
She halts. The wheel hits a sudden cushion-brake.
Turning around, Momo finds Mina with her hand curling on the backseat. Not surprised, but Momo looks away almost instantly.
There's an awkward pause for a few seconds until she feels a slant weight on the rear wheel.
Mina is sitting on the backseat.
Momo stares at her knuckles turning white.
“Where do you live?” She asks without looking back.
Her soles crunch against the gravel, one feet on the pedal.
Someone laughs, someone starts running.
“How much do you know about this town,” is supposed to sound friendly, but Mina's voice is a little too solemn. Too deep to make a hint of any zeal.
“Uhm.” Her town is the only map she knows.
“Take me to the nearest gas station, then I’ll show you from there.”
Here's one thing that she knows to be true. In this small town, there's only one average mall, several blinking motels, and pubs that always puff out smoke. A pet shop that sells clownfish and turtles. But there’s a lot more gas stations, so Momo takes her to the nearest one.
✦ ✦ ✦
The welcome bell chimes as they push through the door.
This is not a gas station.
Momo is supposed to take Mina home but the girl insists on stopping by the convenience store.
Momo doesn't know how to regret this in the right way, if this is even going to be worthwhile for either of them. Being too suspicious would be offensive, being too glad sounds a little too pathetic. She can’t be sure if this is that symbolic jostle she needs in her life. That proverbial turning point.
Mina is fiddling with a bicycle lock when Momo finds her.
It’s barely repressed when she asks, "do you like cycling?" Momo sounds like a little kid.
She has always fantasized about it, having friends or people you half-know that love the same things you do. Maybe being friends is asking a bit too much, but if Mina loves cycling, and Momo loves cycling—
“No.”
Another chime from the door, a strange shuffling. Momo pats her hips but this tracksuit has no side-pockets.
“Using the shoelace isn’t really. You know, safe.” Mina says, her voice is shy as if guilty.
This time Momo is the one looking, and Mina not looking.
They take it to the counter and Mina slips out some cash from a pink wallet. Momo has never had anyone buy her something with their own money, let alone a stranger. Her standards of a morally virtuous person is understandably simple. Anyone who adds into the list of her possessions. Mina is a saint.
Outside, Momo hangs the plastic bag around her wrist like a noose. Mina is sitting on the backseat as if they’ve been here before.
Somehow, Momo is still standing above the welcome carpet. She looks down on the hanging plastic bag and takes out the lock. It’s heavy and shaped like a stiff leash. She tries to unpuzzle the coil but it won’t unlatch.
“You need to turn it. The combinations.” Mina is standing beside her, still cautiously distant. The bike is leaning against that lamppost with a broken sodium lamp.
Momo scratches her chin, “combinations?” She’s careful not to let her breath touch Mina’s cheeks.
“These numbers,” her fingers assist to turn the rings — combinations — until the mouth pops off the tail. “You just have to tie it around the rack, and then through the wheels.” Mina pads her palm across her shirt.
A plane flutters across the sky.
They can only look at each other for two seconds max.
When Momo takes her home, the plastic bag sways like a pendulum. Then Momo imagines it, from a pedestrian sight, how Mina’s hair will braid with the wind, her face that is watching Momo’s back.
✦ ✦ ✦
She parks on the concrete ramp of Mina’s house, one that's modernized like any other real estates she’d seen in magazines.
The weight releases off the back.
“So uhm.” Mina mutters. “You’re Momo. Right?”
The name doesn’t sound familiar. It’s not often someone calls her directly. This is a recent first and Momo is as new as a stranger’s name.
“Uhm. Yeah, I am.” Momo doesn’t ask for her name because she already knows. The monthly scoring board is consistent with her name at the very top, and some people like to point at faces when they gossip. But Momo isn’t sure how Mina knows, her name is further below and it’s not like Momo sounds any special, it’s just a peach.
“So, we’re friends now. Okay?” Mina is pleading, a little. Something about the way she plays with her feet makes Momo swell.
This new formality doesn’t make sense to her, even if she’s always polite. She thinks friends just become friends out of pure mental agreement. At some point, maybe, they’ve shared t-shirts and lipstick shades and now it’s there, tangling their wrists together in a band of friendship. She doesn’t remember suggesting a pact to be one of them.
“Okay,” which means thank you.
Something warm is festering in her belly but Momo's head is bowed so it won’t show. It doesn’t take much to make her blush. That night, they become two friends that don’t look at each other when they speak. It’s kind of sweet.
The gate unlatches with Mina dwindling behind the bars. Watching her go, Momo quickly lets go of her bike, lets it tumble to the ground and leans her head against the steel rods.
“Mina?”
Mina is standing in front of her door, her face orange-lit from the light of the house. Momo can’t see clearly but she thinks Mina is looking back. “I want to say thank you.” There is sweat in her palms.
“Ah,” it’s barely there.
“And...see you tomorrow?” Momo clamps her eyes shut, bites her lip because this is new. A different anticipation, not like running, quite like diving. Something she’s never been good at.
“Okay,”
She waits until the door clicks shut.
There is something different about this night, something untamed. When she looks across the street, even through the rush of her bike, there are two cats mewling at each other, licking paws. She can't understand them, but every two creatures alone at night must be friends. Whatever they talk about.
✦ ✦ ✦
After school, Momo sees a black-polished car in front of the gates. She’s grown unusually perceptive. It’s a self-trained practice because Mina is good at everything, like hiding in plain sight. And right now, Mina isn’t here.
Momo finds her in the field, sitting down on the asphalt, her legs extending across the dirt. There are two cans of coke beside her hand.
She slots so easily into Momo’s world, as if all those times the empty spaces are always meant for her.
Momo sits, not looking at the drink. She clears her throat, “can I—”
“It’s for you.” Mina looks at her, rehearsed.
“What is?”
“The drink.” Mina nudges the can with her knuckle.
“Oh,” Momo takes it, peels the pull-tab open and listens to the slow fizz. “Actually, it’s—can I ask you a question.” She takes a gulp, hides the smile.
Mina doesn’t say anything, only bites her lower lip. Her slight teeth glimpsing in bright enamel. “Of course.”
Momo wipes her chin, “I saw a black car outside.” She shoots a thumb over her shoulder, then regrets it. “In front of the school."
Mina shrinks a little, breathes in and suspends it inside before letting it out. “It’s a convertible.”
“A convertible.”
“It’s mine.”
She rewinds the image, the convertible. Momo has never seen anything cooler than her bike, so slick and thin. She wonders how fast it can go. If she can have a race and match its speed.
“It’s just a car,” Mina says pitifully.
There have been many sports cars in the magazine too. At first she didn’t know they were real, they don’t look boxy enough like the buses she’d pass in the morning.
“Oh, but it looks really cool and uhm—” the formalities still confuse her. “Well. The bike is the most precious thing that I have.” Momo says meekly. “And then my sneakers,” she mirrors Mina, extending her legs until her calves are flecked with dirt. “They’re not completely mine, actually. My sister gave it to me.” Momo laughs, more like a huff. "Yeah, I just wanted to tell you."
Mina hums, in a way that doesn't mean she cares, but only for the sake of making a sound. “Do you know the price of the bicycle lock that I bought you?”
Momo scratches her nape, “uhm. 130 yen?”
Like a snap, Mina starts to laugh. Tiny like a mistake. Her eyes crumple in a way that makes a slight wrinkle. Happiness is usually infectious, so Momo lets herself smile.
“What if...” Mina drawls, clearly having fun. “That lock is as expensive as my car. Or even more?”
Momo turns wide-eyed. “Wait, that's way too cheap—”
Then Mina laughs and laughs and laughs, unravelling like ripples down a fountain.
“You’re very strange.” Mina says and means it.
The sun is falling and bleeding crimson across the field.
Their palms are spread out on the same ground, little gaps, little spaces. The sun ripening makes their hands look red, like blushing. And it should be okay for friends to have their pinkies touching.
When Mina folds her legs and wraps her arms around them, she lays her head on the knees, and Momo can’t believe they’re looking at each other.
“Momo,” there’s golden light dancing off her nose, trembling from the shadows of her lashes. Her eyes are liquid.
Momo's heart does a hiccup.
“Take me home.”
✦ ✦ ✦
It's true that they only meet after school, and Momo will take her home.
“You’re not running today?” Mina is sitting with her knees pressed to her chest.
This flat dessert feels like a territory they have. Their unmarked spots on the dirt ground where Mina will sit, the bridge of two soft drinks and then Momo, who’s always sweating.
“You don't mind waiting for me?”
“Not really.”
So Momo runs, this time she reduces it to thirty minutes because she can’t focus when someone’s watching.
Then they walk to the bike rack, one of them dripping in cold sweat and the other with clean perfume.
On the way home, Momo would brake according to traffic lights and Mina would slump forward. These small instances, with little nudges closer.
The robin sky is blushing together, a tint red. Momo wouldn’t mind if Mina’s hands are wrapping around her waist.
✦ ✦ ✦
Sometimes they share the field.
A group of boys are playing soccer, the ball oscillating between one foot to the other in a scribbled pattern.
They’re sitting on the heat-baked cobblestone steps, where Mina is revising her notes for a presentation.
Her study glasses make her look strict. When it slides down, Momo imagines herself pushing it up. Then Momo imagines herself sifting through the boys like a ghost player, all the running and the chasing, with her cleats flapping off the soles.
“You’re not running?” Mina doesn’t look up from her notes.
“It's too crowded.” Momo scratches a mosquito-bitten bulb around her ankle.
“You can just run on the outskirts,” Mina highlights a phrase in neon.
“It’s okay, I prefer it like this.”
There's a sudden halt from the whisk of the highlighter. Mina always interacts with people like she’s trying to solve a puzzle. “Like what?”
Momo stabs her nail into the bump of the skin, making a cross. “Like this, being alone with you,” she mumbles, thickening the shape. A plus sign, not a cross. “Not completely alone, actually." She scoffs. The boys are howling with a kickoff. "But this is still nice.”
It’s too quiet. Momo turns to her but Mina lets the silence hang, like fresh humid air.
✦ ✦ ✦
She learns that familiarity takes time, like smoothing driftwood with sandpaper. Beginnings are always stiff and rough, but soon that would turn malleable, the scraps and splinters are small talks dusting away with the wind.
One day they decide on a change. A grave mistake, Momo thinks, but Mina is behind her. Sharp chin against her shoulder blade, muttering directions close like an earpiece.
Turn right, left, up, and around.
Right there.
They arrive at a hillock near an abandoned shrine, it’s a small clearing in a stubble of a forest. The bike leans against a tree, forming a mute bond. Mina takes out a walkman from her sling bag, then a thermos of chocolate milk and a container of sliced peach.
“So it’s a picnic.” Momo teases, but it gets to her first.
“What does it look like?” Mina hums. She's oddly calm.
Unclasping the lid, Mina pours liquid brown into two ceramic mugs with sailor moon prints.
“What do you listen to?”
The rare goldenrods scatter around the roots of the tree, swivelling in thin air.
Mina hands over the mug, warm and tiny even in Momo’s hands. She blows the steam, her reflection trembles on the surface.
A headphone bud is suddenly plugged into her ear, surprising Momo with a head lift. Mina is mid-crouching, one hand hovering like she wants to do it again. Touch her ear again.
Half of her is listening to the wind, and half is—
“Classical music?”
The piano glides in a small sound. Mina plugs her own other bud.
“It’s a Nocturne.” Mina’s voice is even softer, but with this instrument she makes a compatible harmony. “Chopin.”
Watching Mina give a pale porcelain smile, Momo feels her chest tightening. Beads of cold sweat down her back. There's something about this, so delicate and tender.
“Momo,” her face turns serious. “I’ve never been good with words, so I want you to know me through the things I love.”
Things I love. Mina in the field, face freckled gold, waiting for Momo.
"This is one of them."
Momo wishes that she's capable of assembling words through music. To understand Mina through this invisible language, to be able to see what exactly she was offering, and if it was her heart.
"It's nice."
They ride back home with their earphones tangled, a walkman in the pocket of their hearts. Expressionless buildings light in a blue glow. Mina lets her fingers clutch the cloth above Momo’s belly, cheek resting on her spine.
✦ ✦ ✦
Back at home she’s singing a kind-of melody she remembers. She wants to learn the piece.
What can she say? Strange things have been happening lately.
Momo would arrive at school five minutes earlier, catching Mina strolling by the hallway. In the class, the faint lull of silence is replaced with a Nocturne.
Some evening later Mina would be in her field, and Momo is humming false melodies. Worlds colliding, where the ocean meets the sun.
Back at home, Momo is buttoning up her school shirt. To make up for the loss of presence, she imagines another girl in a school uniform sitting on a field, highlighting invisible lines through a book, a characteristic frown, a paleness across her lips. The spot of neon right beside her knuckle.
A memory to compensate for this longing.
When Momo can't sleep, she travels through time. Generally when you think of the past, you focus only at the most important part, the focal point. And Mina always, always remains as center.
✦ ✦ ✦
This morning, Momo scans the scoring board. Usually, she won’t have to look hard because Mina always stays at the top. This time, it takes a mild second.
In the field, they’re sitting side by side, no bridges now. They’re both drinking sprites so they can sit closer. Their shadows are larger across the dirt. The sun is slowly being swallowed into the crust.
“Not running again?” It might be the same question Mina asks her over and over again.
“I will, maybe, when it’s—”
“Hey, uhm.” Mina turns to her, it’s her first time looking so eager. “Why do you like running?”
“Because it feels good,” is the easier answer, but Momo thinks she’ll have to be more specific. “And, it lets all the stress out.”
Mina mulls over it, and that expression is not too different than the one Momo knows. She always looks like she’s mulling over something.
After a while, Mina sets her drink on the gap between them. Then she stares ahead. Mina always looks like she’s not ready for the real world.
When Mina stands, she puts one foot over the touchline. Then she keeps walking forward until she begins to run. Watching this, Momo starts running too.
“Are you stressed out?” Momo asks through steady breathing.
Mina doesn’t turn to her when she says: “all my life, I’ve always wanted to escape something.” Takes a breath, her shoulders slack. “Do you know what that is?” And now Momo sees Mina's eyes closing, like hiding away.
“No,”
In all manners of breathing she can tell Mina feels trapped.
Before there's an answer, Mina is already sprinting ahead of her.
✦ ✦ ✦
It starts raining again, sometime in the evening. The curtains are drawn so they can turn on the lights in the classroom. The rain patters against the pane like a million clapping hands.
There’s the black car in front of the gate.
Momo zips up her windbreaker before heading to the field. Under the awning, Mina sits on the watery steps, a textbook on her lap. Little grey dots sprinkled on the page.
Momo thinks back to the first time they met. Digging into her pocket, she tries to find a lucky coin. “I can get us an—”
“No, it’s okay.” Mina looks over her shoulder, then pats the space beside her. “We can wait.” And we means the two of them.
There’s a kind of digression in this silence. A different comfort settling down. They’re close together, knees almost touching. From the side, Momo looks at Mina the way she’d look through a window.
"Can we talk about yesterday?" Why there's a black car waiting in front of the gate, always, and yet you're here. Why you’re never home. Why you've never looked happy at all, and why—
"No."
The tips of her sneakers are wet.
After a while: "sorry."
"It's okay,” Momo reties her shoelaces.
Another silence. A motorbike honks from the street.
“Should we...do something?” Mina asks, maybe she feels the same kind of terrible.
Momo takes her to a lake when the rain has subsided. Wet hair clinging with moist air, flying through the streets on Momo’s bike.
When they arrive, they hang their feet from the fishing dock, dangling ankles like earthworm-baits taunting for sharks. Like a painting, the willows bracket them in an arc. There are slow murmurs from the shrubs. And the water that almost reflects their faces.
“Do you know how I got my bike?” Momo drags a knifehand across the plank, raining sawdust into the water.
“You...bought it?”
“Actually, I found it in this lake,” she points down at the moss-green water, “if you jump in for a swim it’s not actually that deep.” Every time she talks about swimming she thinks about everything she can’t do. “I found it so I fixed it.”
“So it wasn’t yours.”
“Yeah, but I made it mine. In my own way.”
“You stole it.” It’s her first time knowing this side of Mina. And maybe they're at that stage when you begin to discover the uglier sides of one another.
“Mina, it was thrown away and I don’t think that—nothing in this world should be useless.”
A pigeon darts across a twig.
Mina hangs her head, “I’m sorry.”
Momo keeps looking at her, those knuckles still blotched with markers. A fading math equation.
“It sounded like we’re going to fight,” Mina says.
Are friends supposed to fight? “We’re never going to fight.” Momo shrugs off the windbreaker, folds it above a plank. “Let’s go for a swim.”
Momo hops off the ledge and dips into the shallows. The calm surface of the water shatters. Buoying up, she watches Mina taking off her uniform and underneath is a thin singlet. She dives in perfect form and the water trembles a slow tide.
“Hey,” gurgles Mina when she’s up, floating only an elbow away. She's kind of smiling.
But the extent of Momo’s levity ends at this moment, because she's sinking but Mina is quick to grip her arm, hoisting her up. “You act like you can swim, when you can’t even float for five minutes.” She laughs in bubbles.
“It’s nice—” Momo’s chest feels pressed, “to be reckless.” Mina is holding her tightly, pressing four indents into her bicep. She’s magically still even with the water pulling her down.
After a while, they find a stone ledge in the water, sheltered under the dock. Momo plants both feet there.
Mina picks up a moss-pebble found in the slip of her toes. “I feel like all this time I’ve been running away from something everybody wants.” She says, too casually, like she’s afraid if she sounds serious Momo would start thinking it’s serious.
Momo thinks of an answer. “Everybody wants different things. I guess. My dream is to be a hoarder, because imagine all the things you can have.”
When Momo would say something like this, she reminds Mina of a child, not just any but one that still believes in simplicity. A newborn in the first breath of life. I am Momo who only has two things in this world, a bicycle and a pair of sneakers, and you are Mina who gives me more. And more. An innocence that they call naïve but Mina finds beautiful.
“You don’t sound too happy," Momo says. Water stained faces always seem more natural and pale. If Mina is being honest, she needs a hug. So she leans in with a chin hanging above water and Momo's shoulder, then says, “I’m kind of glad to have you.”
✦ ✦ ✦
They will find each other again, eventually, in the same field.
Some things don't change, the two cans of coke and the setting sun. There’s a kite flying in the sky. From underneath it seems like a free thing, with only colors visible from the ground. But you never see the string binding it down.
The song is still stuck in her mind, even without the walkman.
Mina likes to lean on Momo's shoulder, and closing her eyes.
I’m kind of glad to have you.
They don’t have to look down to know their hands are touching. It’s a blind instinct, like buttoning your shirt.
Sometimes Momo can feel Mina's fingers growing tense.
Then something starts to shift. The tips of Mina’s fingers are suddenly cold, and it takes Momo a moment until she realizes the breath against her cheek and neck. She looks at her shoulder and their noses are a pinch apart.
“Mina,” breaths are kissing. “What’s happening?”
“You tell me.”
And for whatever reason, she’s choking up.
It has been there for some time, a shrapnel seed where her flesh meets the dagger. A hurt that doesn't mean pain, not exactly. There’s no explanation in the textbooks, or in the coordinates of a town’s map, or in any streetlamp brochures. But she’s holding a fisted heart.
“There’s this...thing.” They allow space, only so they can face each other. “I don’t know what to do with this. But it did something to me. Because of it I haven’t been late once. And I don’t run for the sake of running anymore. I don’t know if it’s because you keep giving me things but—this is so confusing, there’s no point of reference I can come back to and say this is where it starts, this thing—”
Momo is wiping her eyes. She looks like a kid. She always has.
“Why are you crying?” Mina asks gently, like a mother would even when she knows exactly.
“I don’t know, it’s kind of upsetting.” Momo blinks a few times.
“Momo,"
"Huh?"
"I think I know that feeling.”
Momo sniffs. “You do?”
“I do,” she smiles.
“Then. What—do we have to do something about this?”
Mina pretends to think. “I don’t think so.”
✦ ✦ ✦
On a Monday, Momo parks her bike in front of Mina’s house.
Halfway to school, Mina winds her arms around Momo’s waist, wrapping like a strap, a safety belt. Then she feels the gentle tap of Mina’s head against her back. Her heart trips into her stomach, the memory of yesterday swells fresh and Momo stops breathing.
“Are you nervous?” Comes from the back.
Momo keeps pedaling forward.
Now, they’re two people that don’t know they’re in love.
✦ ✦ ✦
On a Tuesday, you don’t see it happening but the buses function on a constant tight schedule, early at dawn, at daybreak. Routes that become rules.
It’s that kind of perseverance that Mina wants. Waiting for Momo in the field is a constant, persistent routine. Buying two cans of coke is a reminder that one should never be left over. And watching Momo run the field, with the same calm she fixes through every step. Those are some little beats of life she doesn’t want to change.
“You should try competing,” Mina dabs a towel across Momo’s neck. “In the nationals I mean. Or somewhere.”
Momo grimaces, “I get anxious.”
Mina pads her forehead, then her cheeks. “You don’t look anxious when you run.”
“Because I don’t have that pressure to outrun someone. It’s different.”
Then it hits her, knowing what Momo knows.
“Sometimes I have a feeling that you never wanted it.”
Mina pretends Momo is not watching. She busies herself with the towel until Momo holds her wrist.
“I only have a few things in this world, not enough to make me important. But you've given me a lot more, by which I mean time, company, and a friend.” She smiles weakly. “I don’t know what it’s like to have everything, but looking at you everything sounds heavy.”
A sudden weight presses against her, then it's gone. At that time, it feels like the first time she ever lets go of her breath. When all we ever have in mind is to look forward, for a better future in a better world. All those great ambitions, so cunning and powerful. Yet we’re still so ancient. Hundreds of decades old and unaging, unchanging, still living like the apes, still lonely like the first blink of humankind. That’s the constant that we are. And Momo is one single person that understands, how important it is not to feel alone.
Mina slumps to crouch when her legs give out.
“Do you...want me to hug you?” Momo lowers herself to the ground. She puts her hand above Mina’s hair, combing it gently.
Mina sniffs, wiping her eyes. “I think I might need it.”
So she wraps her arms around the girl. Mina's head tucked underneath Momo’s chin. She always thinks intimacy will run out of its magic after some time. Will turn tedious and redundant but this kind of comfort is the one that endures.
Maybe one day Mina would have to leave for a greater cause and that chain of familiarity would eventually break. But there would be a selfish kind of assurance, to know that Momo would still be somewhere running the field, counting on luck to find a change in the coin slot, crossing puddles when it rains. This small bubble. A kind of sameness Mina will keep coming back for.
✦ ✦ ✦
On a Wednesday, Mina points a finger on the town’s map Momo’s been keeping in her backpack. Her nail jabs at the white space beside the thoroughfare. It’s a non-particular location, not important enough to have a name.
They start in the evening. Mina carries a daypack like they’re about to go hiking. Momo doesn’t question it.
To find the place, Momo has to cycle slowly, scouring through each passing outlet and shop signs. Mina whispers directions, tickling her ear. They arrive at dusk.
The place has clear intention to remain hidden, with efficient mercury lamps hanging from wires under the roof eaves, a low shoe rack just by the entrance, an empty rocking chair for smoking.
When they enter, there’s a long bar with small sushi plates. Momo realizes this isn’t a house, but a restaurant built like one. The kind of place you couldn’t find anywhere else. The kind of place you wouldn’t want to leave.
“Take off your shoes,” Mina says, already taking off hers.
They settle on a dinette corner, even if there’s only one other couple sitting by the bar. No music, just the faint sounds of outside.
“How did you find this place?” Momo asks.
The daypack is slid beside Mina. “I got lost when I was twelve, and I ended up here. They gave me free food and lent me a couch in the empty room.”
“You got lost.” Momo parrots.
“Yes, when I was twelve. And this is a house actually, if you can’t tell. Homemade recipes and all. They sleep upstairs.” She points up instinctively like what you’d do when you tell the bathroom is in that corner to a friend visiting your house for the first time.
The menu is lamented onto the wooden slab, less than ten options inked with what seemed like a ballpoint pen. Freshly written. Mina orders for them, knowing exactly what is best.
Two bowls of ramen come steaming. A tonkotsu with pork meat, chopped scallions, and marinated soft boiled eggs. Golden broth, and carefully sliced meat. An ordinary sight.
Thirty minutes later, they end up with seconds, with foreheads and necks shining with sweat. The skinhead chef smiles from the bar, filleting fresh salmon.
When they’re back outside, stomachs full and droopy eyes, they sit on the bike but remain still. Mina’s hands wrap automatically around Momo, her cheek against clothed skin.
“Okay, let’s go home,” then Momo kicks the pedal up, then pushes her weight down and starts the same cycle.
“Momo, can you keep going forward,” Mina says after a distance. There’s supposed to be one last intersection before Mina’s house would pop into plain sight.
Momo nods, barely. And she keeps going forward.
The same calm when she’s running.
✦ ✦ ✦
For the last time, there are boundaries set in this town that Momo should never cross. In that quiet superstition: signposts that say turn back and she will. Here, Mina says further when they pass the gas station, so Momo doesn’t stop even when every car is going against her.
They’ve reached an overpass.
Momo clasps the handlebars until her knuckles turn white.
She’s never felt so out of breath while cycling.
“Thank you for not asking.” Mina's voice is soft even with the harsh wind. “You know. The obvious question.”
The city blinks in dizzying spotlights.
“We will come back here. Maybe.” Mina’s voice wanes in friction with each screen of air they snip through. Her hands are sweat-smeared, wrinkling Momo’s shirt. "Someday, when it's better."
If they promise to return in winter, the snow will sieve down like diamond dust. Their footprints would have lodged into the dirt field like tyre tracks that remain in the moon forever.
Up ahead are the beginning towers of the bridge Momo should’ve never seen.
Mina has her face kissing Momo’s back.
And for the last time, she will remember the town, with one average mall, several blinking motels, and pubs that always puff out smoke. A pet shop that sells clownfish and turtles. A convenience store they have once visited. A restaurant; briefly a home.
They leave everything behind.
And everything would be fine. Teenagers always run away at some point of their lives.
“There’s a movie that I want to watch,” Mina says. “In the city, I think we can have that.”
"Did you forget the walkman."
"Of course not."
Here's a new world to be familiar with. Here's a new start.