Work Text:
The whole stupid mess of it starts on a summer evening at a restaurant that isn’t above his paygrade but is definitely nicer than he usually visits.
Katsuki hates the winter and the cold because it makes it harder to activate his quirk and work up enough of a sweat to do anything with, but he reserves a solid amount of ire for summer too, when he can fire off without any runup but he’s constantly fighting a war against soaking through his clothes on top of it. The sleeves of his black button-up are rolled up in futile resistance against the inevitable, but at least dark fabric doesn’t show the damp that badly and the restaurant has air conditioning.
Across the table, Momo nervously turns a wine glass in her hands, the liquid a perfect match to the deep red of her blouse. He’s got nothing but water on his side, less because they’re on call, more because he’s not supposed to be drinking on his heart medication, but she hasn’t exactly been drinking either—just toying with it, like she’s trying to work herself up to something.
Which bodes well for this meeting. Their entire class is friendly, but Katsuki can’t say that he and the peerless Yaoyorozu are close; he’s an unlikeable asshole, and she’s warm-hearted and generous, so they’re not exactly a good fit. He’d taken her up on her dinner invitation halfway expecting Shouto or Kyouka to be here too, but it’s just the two of them and the stretch of white tablecloth between them, Momo’s nail polish catching the light as she turns her glass again, and again, and again.
Right, he thinks as their waiter gets out of earshot, he’s been patient enough.
“So, Ponytail, you gonna tell me why you called me out here or what?” he asks, brows raised as he sips his water and watches her flush a little as she sits up straighter.
“Sorry, Bakugou,” she says, offering him one of those small, nervous smiles she has outside of the steady professionalism she wears when working. “I didn’t mean to inconvenience you, it’s just… somewhat embarrassing to discuss.”
“Then stop inconveniencing me,” he says, eyebrows still raised, and his customary rudeness makes her laugh and the tension in her shoulders relaxes.
What pops out of her mouth next is so beyond what he expected, Katsuki supposes he has to make allowances for the nerves. “Forgive me for asking, Bakugou, but you’re single, aren’t you?”
He blinks, wide eyed, then buys himself some time with another sip of his water. His notorious inability to keep sidekicks—because he’s an domineering and ruthless taskmaster with them, and none of them are brave enough to push back—extends to the friendships he can’t manage to maintain outside of his classmates, because he’s got high standards for everyone but especially himself. It takes a certain kind of personality to deal with his personality, a willingness to bend instead of break and most importantly, a willingness to force him to give way instead. Most people don’t manage to get over the first hurdle before giving up.
So he is absolutely single, and has not once felt any urge to change that fact.
“Why are you asking?” he finally settles on, because it’s not her style to be nosy for no reason (unlike some of his friends) and she wouldn’t be asking him at a restaurant this nice if she was just curious. That’s a text at most.
Momo takes a few deep breaths, tucking her hair behind one ear. “I don’t know how much attention you pay to the media—”
“I don’t.”
“—but there has been some speculation and discussion of some of our classmates and,” her fingers linger at the shell of her ear, dark eyes darting away, “some criticism in regards to the perceived availability of some of us.”
It’s a politician’s answer, or more to the point, the kind of thing that three years of media lessons have drilled into the heads of hero-hopefuls that may or may not have a management team to write their interview answers for them. Which tells him exactly how nervous she is about this, and also tells him exactly who’s been hammering this in as a problem for her.
For her, because Dynamight is the center of media shitstorms for any number of reasons, but Creati is an exceptional hero that no one could find fault with—except in the design of her costume and the things people have assumed time and time again over the years because of the nature of her quirk.
“You’re getting the bullshit about not being family friendly again?” he asks, and the way Momo nods miserably sparks a small flame of outrage in his chest.
“It’s not strictly that I’m not family friendly,” she clarifies, twisting her fingers in a lock of her hair, the black mass of it unbound and flowing down over her shoulders. “It’s that there is some speculation about why I haven’t settled down, given the rumors, and some… inappropriate assumptions made about my character because of that.”
He runs that through his mental filter for public relations bullshit, and the burn of outrage grows a little brighter. “Who made a fucking pass? You need me to kill ‘em?”
A smile flickers over her face, hair still twisted around her fingers, and Momo says with less nerves and more humor, “You really shouldn’t say things like that in public, Bakugou. I’ve been able to handle the inappropriate behavior in private, but the media speculation is a problem, and I would like to reduce that. Within reason.”
“Fine, but how the fuck am I supposed to fix that?” Katsuki asks, because the one thing no one can claim is that he’s good in front of a camera.
“Well,” she says, still a little pink, “how would you feel about an artificial relationship?”
What. “What.”
“A fake relationship,” she clarifies, like he was questioning the word ‘artificial’ and not the intention behind it. “For the sake of public appearances, both for the media and for any events where we’re both required to attend. I understand that it’s a rather big favor to ask, and I won’t be upset if you say no, but…”
She falters there, and Katsuki can guess that the rest of it is going to be something like ‘you’re the only person I could think to ask’, and he can’t really blame her for that. Her prospects in their class aren’t terrible, but it’s an awkward proposal no matter who she asks, and he’s pretty sure he’s the only unattached guy in their class who hasn’t expressed any interest in her or dating as a whole.
“If you’re worried about media attention, am I really the person to ask for this?” he asks, because that’s really the sticking point. Katsuki is not exactly a darling of the press, and he can’t see his existence helping hers in any way.
“I think you have admirable qualities, Bakugou,” she protests, “and I don’t think your reputation is that bad. You can do… decently… with some preparation before interviews…”
“Thanks,” he says dryly.
“You don’t have to say yes,” she adds, pulling her fingers from her hair and resting her hands on the table. “Please think on it as long as you need to, or tell me no. I won’t be upset.”
“I’m not saying no, I’m just…” Katsuki sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah. Let me think on it. The fuck have you been up to the last couple weeks? S’been a minute since we’ve all gotten together.”
Momo takes the conversational out with grace, outlining an initiative she’s working with for outfitting search and rescue heroes with situational gear, using her own experience in the field to inform her suggestions. Katsuki offers opinions about it, and about their friends as the topic drifts, but his attention is only half on the conversation. He keeps coming back to the idea that he’s her first choice (because this shit would have spread through the class groupchat in an instant if she’d approached anyone else except maybe Shouto, where it would’ve shown up in his DMs instead.)
They got on well enough in the band, and she’d been the target he was aiming to beat in academics every year, never once managing it. She’s intelligent, ethical, generous, the kind of person that inspires people to do better and be better by virtue of existing as herself, and if she occasionally stumbles over the nuances of social etiquette by virtue of being too damn rich for her own good, she’s never malicious about it.
According to basically everyone ever asked, she’s attractive, and Katsuki can see it in the way her hair curves around her pale cheeks, in the shape of her eyelashes when she glances down and away, in the way the firm muscle in her arms is softened until she looks touchable instead. Like always, he sees it, but it doesn’t inspire anything in him except the absent aesthetic appreciation that years of living under his mother have given him for true beauty. After meeting enough models from her old career, Katsuki had lost any interest in the idea of beautiful women.
But he doesn’t dislike her, and it’s rare for her to ask him for a favor. So as dinner wraps up, Momo’s glass of wine barely touched and his own glass of water emptied for the third fucking time because he hates summer, he says, “This fake dating thing. What kind of limits do you want to set up around it?”
She blinks, then quietly claps her hands together as a relieved smile spreads over her face. “Whatever you’re comfortable with, Bakugo. Some level of public affection, of course, but I don’t want to make you regret it, and we can call things off if you ever grow uncomfortable.”
“Kissing and hand holding and shit?” he clarifies, reaching for his wallet only to have her wave a hand at him in dismissal.
“I asked you out, it’s my treat,” Momo says, tugging a purse up and pulling cash out. “Hand holding and hugging, but I think it’s better if we keep kissing to closed mouth, please. And nothing beyond that.”
“Well, fucking obviously.” Katsuki rolls his eyes, pushing up from the table and offering her a hand that she takes graciously. She’s in heels, which puts her several centimeters taller than him, something he mostly notices in passing as they head for the elevator down to the entrance. “You want me to give you a ride home?”
“Please,” she agrees, obviously relieved by the offer, and her fingers are resting lightly on his arm when they step out into the muggy evening air.
He’s parked less than a block away, but his attention snaps immediately to the nondescript but still out of place sedan parked a little further down the street. His battle sense wasn’t developed to hunt out paparazzi, but survival means adapting, and Katsuki can spot them coming now. This isn’t the aftermath of a fight, where he has to stay behind to liaise with the cops no matter who shoves a camera in his face, which means that he can just fucking leave the second the asshole gets out of their car, but—
He glances at Momo, whose attention is turned towards her purse as she trusts him to steer her towards the car.
“Hey,” he says, tugging her to a stop right by the door, one hand catching her wrist as his other reaches for the handle. “You wanna make this official? Lean into me real quick.”
“Why?” Momo asks, though she bends down just enough that he doesn’t have to go up on his toes to reach her now, and she makes a noise of surprise when his lips press to hers, gentle and chaste.
There’s no way to hear it from here, but Katsuki could swear there’s the deafening snap of a camera shutter.
“There you go,” he says, pulling away and opening the door for her as she blushes a little. “Photog across the way caught that shit in HD. If tomorrow’s a slow news day, we might even get a proper half-page spread.”
“Oh,” she says, still faintly pink as she lets him get her settled in the passenger seat. “Thank you, I think?”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he says with a grin. “You gotta figure out what we’re gonna tell our friends, Ponytail, I’m not going to be the one getting the fourth degree.
“Oh,” she repeats, audibly regretting it already, and Katsuki laughs as he shuts the door.
His hero office is a two-room agency tucked in a bigger building amidst various more mundane professions, staffed by exactly one admin and himself. If he could keep a sidekick for longer than a month, he might bother upgrading their workspace, but none of them have withstood the gauntlet of his personality and he can’t stop himself from being thrifty at this point. Not that he’s hurting for money, but fuck it, habits die hard.
Aoko, his admin, is the only person who has managed to tolerate him long enough to merit a devoted workspace. She handles most of the paperwork that isn’t directly tied to the investigations he’s working on, including following up with the Commission on his payouts for cases solved and the hiring paperwork of every sidekick that inevitably quits within two weeks, and if she has exactly one fault, it’s that she’s even less aware of how to navigate the nightmare that is public relations than he does. But she’s dedicated, she’s good at her job, and she’s just as evil as he is in ways that mesh well with his particular brand of professionalism.
“The fuck are you reading,” he asks as he comes in for his morning review of emails and whatever she’s put in his inbox, already dressed up for his patrol later.
“Is this true?” she asks, staring down at the cheap newspaper she has spread out over her desk, her eyes wide behind her glasses and her pinkies carefully up so she’s not touching the newsprint with all five fingers. “You and Creati? Creati? Can’t she do better?”
“Fuck off,” he says, bracing his own hand on the corner of her desk to peer at it upside down. It’s not a bad shot of them, his car the lower bound of the image, Momo’s flushed surprise visible even if his face is mostly hidden behind the spikes of his hair because of the angle. It’s very obvious who the fuck they are, even in civvies.
Katsuki should text Momo and find out how much they’re telling their friends, he thinks. Sooner rather than later.
“Yeah, we’re dating,” he says, shoving back off and heading for his office. “Don’t fucking gossip about that shit though, Momo and I are keeping that under wraps. Or we were.”
“Momo?” Aoko whispers, half-lifting a hand to her mouth as she stares after him. “It’s fucking true? How did you manage that?!”
“Fuck off!” he shouts over his shoulder, but there’s a sense of satisfaction welling up over her obvious surprise but not disbelief. That kiss had looked natural as fuck.
If his admin is paying attention to this shit—something she’s not actually paid to do, because every time he tries to pay her for it she gets mad at him for expanding her duties—then he knows that the rest of the country is too. He texts Momo, a quick conversation where they agree to keep the facade up around their friends and come to an agreement about catching dinner together later in the week, then goes on patrol with half his attention on his phone and the notifications spamming it.
It doesn’t feel great lying to the people closest to them but there’s the simple fact that some people can be trusted to hold their fucking tongues, and some of them… can’t. It wouldn’t be malicious, either; it’s just that some of his friends like to gossip, and even if they never go to the media about it, they aren’t always watching their volume or their audience. The whole point of this is for the ruse to be believable, and that means absolutely no one can catch so much as a breath of falsehood about their relationship.
Still. He frowns down at his phone while perched on a rooftop, fighting with the touch recognition through his thick gloves, and fumbles out a reply to a text Eijirou shot his way. There’s no reproof in it, not even hurt over not being the one to be told first, but Katsuki can’t help but feel a little guilty about it—Eijirou is the one person who’s known everything about him, other than Izuku, and at least most of what Eijirou hears if from Katsuki himself. It’s out of character not to tell him the truth.
It’s not forever, though. He pockets his phone again, silently promising his best friend that he will talk to him about this shit someday. Eventually, the heat will be off Momo, or she’ll meet someone she actually wants a relationship with and they’ll stage a breakup, and after—after, he’ll tell Eijirou the truth.
Two dates in as many days is laying it on a little thick, but he doesn’t wait until next week to touch base with Momo and plan out a second one. They need to do a proper strategy meeting too, one that isn’t watched over by potential moles, no matter how discreet or polite the staff are. So he texts her to wait outside her agency for him, and she agrees but with a puzzled question about where they’re going to eat and whether she should stop at home to get better clothes, and he doesn’t bother to answer her at all before pulling up to the curb outside her building.
It’s a nice fucking building. He’s been here once or twice, usually on larger group missions where they’ve needed some firepower and Shouto is either unavailable or otherwise occupied, but those have always been brief visits to the conference room on the third floor before heading out to whatever raid they were planning.
Unlike him, most of the people in their class that have debuted have actually managed to retain staff, and he’s pretty sure that Momo’s got one of the biggest agencies out of them all. Katsuki can’t imagine what the difference between their approaches might be.
She’s wearing khaki shorts and a ruffled blouse, pretty as a picture, and is very clearly not entirely sure if this is the right outfit for the situation. It makes him grin as he leans over the console to pop the door open, the air conditioning in the car blasting as hard as it can to keep him from sticking to anything.
“You never answered my text,” she says with mild reproach, setting her bag in the footwell as she slips into the chair and gently shuts the door behind her. Unlike the fucking animals she calls friends, Momo seems willing to understand that this is an expensive ass car and deserves to be treated as such. “Where are we going for dinner?”
“My place,” he says, flicking his blinker and pulling back onto the road, fingers tapping lightly on the steering wheel as he smoothly rejoins the flow of traffic. “Figured I’d make us dinner, and that way we’re not on a time limit while we try and work out the details of this thing.”
This thing has way more details to work out than the absolute basics they’d established earlier, and the exhausted sigh that she lets out says that his generally unapproachable demeanor has been serving him well the last couple days. His admin might be needling at him every ten minutes or so, but it’s not as if Katsuki hasn’t managed worse from her, and at least it’s only the one person.
“I’ve been telling people that we were trying to keep it on the down low but not much else,” he adds. From the corner of his eye, he can see how she pulls her phone out to check her messages, frowning slightly at the content of them.
“I said much of the same,” she tells him, absently. “The girls were more insistent about details, but I told them I would have to talk to you first before breaching our privacy like that, which seems to have worked. I confess, I… didn’t think about the level of interest our friends would have.”
Katsuki grins again, unable to help it. In so many ways, she’s the smartest person he’s ever met, and in so many others, she’s such a goddamn innocent sometimes. “Yeah, well. Yours are gossip hogs the way mine are, so you’re forgiven for it, I think. Problem is that everyone’s been waiting for Izuku and Cheeks to get together and they’re still playing footsie, so I guess we’re the exciting side show for that.”
“Ochaco and Midoriya?” Momo asks, a little surprised. “I didn’t realize—Mina and Kyouka have talked about it, but I didn’t know they were actually still interested in each other.”
“Fucking apparently,” he says, because he hadn’t known there was a ‘still’ to be interested in until Izuku was blowing up his phone asking about date night outfits as if Katsuki had any fucking experience with that shit. “Except that Izuku’s a goddamn coward still, so that’s going slow.”
“Poor Ochaco,” Momo murmurs, sounding more amused than disappointed. “Well, I suppose they have time. Maybe they’re just the type to take things slow.”
“If he hasn’t asked her to stay the night properly by Christmas, I’m gonna lock them in a room together and melt the door closed,” he says, barking out a laugh when Momo hisses his name in scandalized reproof. “He’s just overthinking this shit, the way he always does. I think if we put them in a survival scenario, it’ll work out better.”
“A survival scenario?” she repeats, and when he glances over at her, she’s covering her mouth in a way that doesn’t quite hide the humor in her eyes.
“I’ll unplug the heat too.” His grin widens. “The element of danger will really fucking help the mood, I bet.”
“Katsuki,” she says, unable to stop the laughter bubbling up around the edges of it. It’s nice, hearing her say his name. It sounds sweet, in her voice.
His apartment, like his office, is in a relatively unassuming part of town, in a building with great security (to handle entirely too enthusiastic press) but a modest facade. Unlike the high quality but otherwise subtle sedans that he drives past in the gated parking garage, his car wears its pricetag openly, and he has no compunctions about pulling into the best, and most expensive, spot close to the doors, which he’s owned since he moved into the place.
“This is a nice building,” Momo says as she steps out, her bag up over her shoulder again and her head craning around curiously as she follows him in and towards the elevators. “You’ve never invited the class over, so I’ve been wondering.”
“What, you thought Dipshit and pals were right about my shoebox?” he asks, punching in his floor and waving his fob in front of the scanner.
“I have been to your office,” she reminds him, and he cracks out a bark of laughter as the doors shut behind her and the elevator smoothly climbs up towards the top of the building.
It’s not a penthouse by any means, and it’s relatively small compared to some of the other units in the building. Only the two bedrooms, one for guests and the master suite for himself, with a luxurious bathroom and an open plan for the main area. His furniture is all simple and easy to clean, because he doesn’t like people in his space so he’s not about to invest in the kind of shit that looks good and takes ages to get polished and dusted, and it means none of it takes away from the sweeping views from the windows that line the entirety of one wall.
“Got any objections to katsudon?” he asks as he shoves his feet into his house slippers and sets a pair down for her as well, heading straight for the kitchen.
“No, that sounds fine. It’s a lovely view, Katsuki. You should have friends over more often.” Momo doesn’t immediately rush to start prying into his shit, the way his dumbasses usually would. She drifts instead to the windows, obviously curious but not in a way that shows a disregard for his privacy, before turning and heading to the kitchen island to sit at it and watch him cook.
“What, and have to deal with them when I can’t just leave when I’m done? Pass.” He’s smiling as he says it though. “We just usually go out—it’s more fun for everyone that way. And there’s a game system at Eijirou’s place, so…”
“That makes sense, I suppose.” Unlike his usual audience, Momo isn’t trying to sneak past him to steal bites of food or get him to make mistakes for a laugh, and it’s surprisingly restful cooking for both of them without either of those factors in play. He likes his friends, he likes being able to sink into the constant flood of energy and enthusiasm without worrying about his attitude bringing down the vibe, but—they are fucking exhausting, sometimes.
It’s been, what, six years since he cooked for her? Seven? He tries to do the math in his head, something that’s not especially difficult but still complicated by the fact that he’d been too crippled to use his arm for most of his final two years of highschool, the slow campaign to regain his strength and dexterity leaving less room for him to help cook communal meals whenever it was nominally his turn. They’d shared that duty along with the rest of the chores, but there’s the before, when dorms were mandatory, and there’s the after, where people had chosen to stay or not at their own discretion and he’d been gently but firmly set on light duty for everything.
They don’t look at him like that anymore—like at any moment, he’ll drop dead of heart failure if he tries to lift a trash bag that’s too heavy—but everyone had scattered to the four winds once they’d graduated, and all of their class reunions have happened at bars and restaurants, the occasional party to celebrate at someone’s place but with takeout in the place of home-cooked dishes. There’s none of that enforced domesticity, which is odd to think about now, halfway through his twenties.
Maybe he should invite people over more often. He’s a bit adrift without revision to Izuku’s suit to review and approve, deposit thresholds to meet, research to help with—he’d split his attention between his work and getting Izuku back into hero work, but without the latter to focus on, he’s the kind of person to start working late hours just to have something to do. So maybe Momo is right. Maybe he does need to let his idiots into his space every so often.
When he turns back towards the counter with bowls in each hand, Momo is frowning thoughtfully down at her phone, clearly reviewing some kind of proposal from her management team and jotting notes down on a small notebook she either pulled out of her purse or her arm while he was daydreaming and cooking. He sets her katsudon just within reach, his own at a spot nearby, then retrieves chopsticks for them both.
“I got water and tea, which do you want?” he asks, filling a glass for himself.
That catches her attention immediately, and she sets both phone and notebook out of the way as she smiles. “What kind of tea? I do tend to prefer a good, strong oolong, but I’m more than happy with whatever you have on hand.”
He blinks, then checks the box tucked away near his kettle. “Uh. Like, a regular green tea, I think?”
“That’s fine,” she says, but he can all but see the desire to explain the ins and outs of tea vibrating through her, just barely held in check. He’d forgotten that about her.
Once he has a steaming cup set in front of her, he takes his seat too, making a mental note to pick Shouto or Kyouka’s brains about that shit. Not that he couldn’t do his own research, but if he’s going to be hosting her at any length, he ought to find out what the two of them know about Momo’s preferences there. “So, now that you’ve seen how everyone’s reacting to you getting a boyfriend, are we tweaking the plan at all?”
Intentional or not, she’d sat on his good side, so he doesn’t have to turn his head to see her grimace a little before taking a bite of her food. “I hadn’t anticipated just how much attention would be on us from our friends, but… no, I think this was still a good idea. My marketing team says that there’s been a jump in searches on us both, and now the first thing that comes up are tabloids about us rather than speculation about my costume.”
“You’ve got it rough,” he says, from the serenely ignorant position of never googling himself anymore, not since he dropped from fourth in the rankings. “I kinda sprung that kiss on you in front of the reporter though, so—do we wanna be more clear about that shit? Didn’t think about it ‘til after, but I should’ve communicated that one better.”
“That’s remarkably mature of you, Katsuki,” she says with a smile to take the sting out of the gentle ribbing.
“Fuck off and die,” he says mildly.
“I didn’t mind it,” she adds, a faint smear of pink over her cheeks even if she’s trying to remain professional about it. “And I did tell you that moderate displays of public affection were allowable. Had I been upset, I would have told you long before now, I assure you.”
“Figured I should touch base with you anyways,” he says with a shrug. “We should probably plan some more regular public outings, and figure out what our play is going to be around our friends. And maybe a timeline, if they keep prying.”
“True.” A faint furrow forms between her brows, head tipping back as she thinks. “I don’t want to pretend like we’ve been dating for too long, I don’t think. It just won’t be believable. But I would like to imply that we’ve been dating for longer than a week, too, lest anyone try and uncover the ruse to begin with.”
“Alright, well. Put it a month out or something. Say we started talking more after that big get together at the beginning of summer.” Katsuki considers the timeline, then nods to himself as he shovels food into his mouth. “I’ve had more free time recently, and it’s not like there’s anyone who can say I haven’t been talking to you. You’ll know better how your friends will take it—I’m not that sociable.”
“You’re not unsociable,” she demurs, reaching for her tea. “But I think—yes, a month wouldn’t be terrible. We started talking more, and we’ve been trying to get a feeling for this without an audience, which is why we didn’t tell anyone…? Although—did you ask me out, or should I have been the one to ask you?”
“You asked me out. Closer to reality, and no one would believe it if we claimed I was suddenly making moves on people out of the blue.”
Momo makes a noise of acquiescence, but doesn’t say anything else for a moment. Which means she’s probably about to— “If it wouldn’t be rude to ask, is there a reason why you’ve never been interested in anyone before?”
He’s used to this question. He’s gotten this question a lot. He wishes he had a better answer for it than the reality, which is that he’s a goal oriented man who’s never had time to let extras into his life, that all of the friends he’s managed to get were incidental until he didn’t know what he would do without them, and that whatever it is that makes people lose their minds and chase after someone they don’t know has never existed in him. It’s not that he hasn’t thought about it before, because Denki’s the kind of person who talks about women all the fucking time, and Eijirou has been quietly dating Mina since their third year, and fuck knows that when he and Shouto were being chased all over creation by girls in highschool, just picking one and letting her play guard dog would have been easier than trying to use Tenya as a meat shield—
But it’s the kind of effort that he’s never wanted to put into something that isn’t in service of what he does want to do. He’s not like Momo, hounded by the double standards imposed on women in the industry, and he’s never cared what people say about him for being perpetually single. They’ve said worse about him for his actual faults more than once.
“It just…” He drags a hand through his hair, glancing away before turning to look at her again. Her expression is soft, curious, but not judgmental. Momo hasn’t exactly been on the dating scene either. “It never felt fair to set someone else up like that for no reason, y’know? I wasn’t going to be a good boyfriend to someone who just liked me for my looks or whatever, and I wasn’t gonna put in the effort to be better. So I just told people no when they asked, ‘cuz all of ‘em were just faces in a crowd to me anyways.”
“You don’t believe in love at first sight?” she asks, though from her tone, she doesn’t either.
“Well, that’s pretty much what happened with my mom,” he says, jerking a thumb back behind himself, vaguely in the direction his parents’ home could be. “She saw my dad, decided that was the man she wanted for the rest of her life, and committed to that shit. But it’s never happened for me, and I figure it never will, so no point in dealing with all the hurt feelings I’d cause if I lead someone on about it.”
“That’s a little cynical,” Momo says, but it’s a gentle critique at worst. “You could be kinder to yourself, Katsuki.”
He makes a noise of disagreement, then asks what he’s been wondering this whole time. “What about you, though? You’ve got a better personality than I do, and fuck knows there’s people lining up to ask you out, right?”
“This is silly but…” Momo’s attention shifts back to her bowl, the rice and egg at the bottom of it stirred around in idle, absent motions. “I don’t know. I suppose I do believe in love at first sight, maybe. The idea that I’d meet someone and know that they’re the one, and then we’d be together after—obviously it would take work, any good relationship does, but I just…”
She trails off, a sad, distant look on her face. The kind of look he’d punch Eijirou and drag him to gym over, because it would mean he was lost somewhere in his head and Katsuki needed to get him back out again. Since he’s not about to punch his pseudo-girlfriend, Katsuki runs his knuckles over the soft skin of her arm and says, “You were waiting for the right person, and then everyone else decided to have an opinion about that.”
It pulls a faltering smile to her face, one that firms up after a second as she looks at him again. “Yes, exactly. I’ve met people before that I thought were quite lovely, but none of them were the one, so I suppose I never wanted to try what I thought was doomed to failure. I appreciate your willingness to carry on this ruse for my sake, Katsuki. You are very kind, when you feel like it.”
“I’m only nice when people deserve it, and most people don’t,” he says, rapping his knuckles to her wrist just to make her laugh a little at his rudeness. “Next time we have a class reunion, can I kiss you in front of the group? I have some money to win on it.”
That gets him an honest laugh, a little scandalized and a lot delighted, Momo’s delicate hand lifting to cover her mouth. “You’re terrible,” she says, which isn’t a no, and there’s a smile in her eyes again when she goes back to eating.
It makes a soft warmth bloom in his chest, but he doesn’t pay any attention to it. Sometimes his heart just skips beats for no reason, after all. Momo’s smile has nothing to do with it, not even when he’s the one putting it on her face.
Dating is easy, when the most strenuous part of it is figuring out when to make public appearances to keep up the act. They go out to restaurants together a few more times, get photographed outside of Momo’s agency in costume when she pauses to talk to him briefly about a case before he goes back on patrol, win money off Hanta and Denki both when she lets him brush a gentle kiss over her lips at a group dinner to celebrate Eijirou’s first month in the black while running his own agency. It’s never anything more than hand holding or her fingers resting gently on his arm, but Momo doesn’t complain about how often his hands are slightly too warm and damp, and he lets her lean against him in situations where he usually pretends to hate it, an outward sign of affection that his friends recognize for what it is.
It’s easy, because outside of that, he doesn’t have to do the parts that have always seemed hardest. In private, without an audience to perform for, he can stick to things he’s good at—making food for them both as they compare notes on the case she’d brought him in on, reading the research papers that come out of the support division of her agency and then asking her pointed questions about the engineering behind them to show that he means it when he asks her to explain them, giving her a solid, if indifferent, foundation of support for when she needs to vent some of her frustrations about the press to a brick wall that breathes. Katsuki’s never been good at emotion, and he’s even worse at communication and open displays of affection, but he can be a friend around those parts. He can make her dinner and pick her brain about subjects he’s always been in second place on, and it means he gets to see her smile a little more frequently than he did back in school, when they’d been classmates and little better.
His mom rips into him for not telling her that he was seeing someone, with an ample number of insults about his personality that he turns into barbs directed at her in turn, but she sounds happy. Despite the fact that he’s a fucking war hero, Katsuki’s getting the impression from the people in his life that Momo is out of his league, and not the other way around.
Not that he disagrees with them. He just wishes they’d be a little less obvious about it.
Most of Japan seems to think that she’s a good influence on him, though. Katsuki’s not entirely sure if he’s done anything good for her reputation, but this is the happiest anyone’s been with him since he debuted, especially since he’s managed to dodge basically every impromptu interview that’s been thrown at him since the first picture came out.
Things are good, he thinks, texting Momo a reminder about their dinner plans for the next night before pocketing his phone again so he can focus on their gym time. When he looks up, Eijirou is watching him, and a twinge of guilt lurches through his gut again.
“C’mere and spot me,” he says instead of apologizing for his moment of inattention, and Eijirou huffs out a laugh before pushing up off the floor and making his way to the bench.
“Paying an awful lot of attention to your phone, dude,” Eijirou teases, checking the weights before taking his position as Katsuki lays back and fits his hands around the bar. The back brace fitted tight around his middle is so familiar that he barely notices it anymore, here at the gym or when he’s kitted up in costume to do real work, but he tries to never go without it when he’s doing anything with weight to it. No point in taking risks where they won’t matter.
“Had something I needed to send to Momo,” he says, gripping tight before focusing instead on making sure he doesn’t do something stupid and crush his own fucking ribs in while bench pressing three times his weight.
Eijirou keeps his peace until he’s hefted the weights up one final time, making sure the bar sits securely before he heaves himself upright. His muscles burn, but not in the way that says he’s injured anything, and he’s soaked through with sweat, but Eijirou’s got that look in his eyes that says he really wants to have a heartfelt conversation about their feelings, so this is as good a time as any.
“Alright,” he says, pushing his palm into his bad shoulder and turning towards Eijirou. “You’ve got something to say, so let’s hear it.”
“Mina says I’m overthinking it,” Eijirou says, before laughing and correcting himself, “She says she didn’t get it either, but you’ve got that bad boy good girl thing going on, so she’d hate to play the stereotype and tell you to break up.”
“I’m a bad boy?” Katsuki asks, perking up. He’d thought he’d lost that reputation within about three weeks their first year—nice to know he's still got it.
“I pointed that out and she said that you’re close enough to pass in the dark,” Eijirou tells him, grinning at the noise of disgust Katsuki makes. “But I worry about you, man. I know, I know, I don’t have to, you’re obviously fine right now but—you’re doing this because you want to, right?”
Lying to him has never felt worse. Katsuki knows why he’s asking, because Eijirou knows him. He’d told Momo that he couldn’t be bothered with the tedious parts of dating, the parts where he has to be a good partner even if he’s getting nothing out of it, but Eijirou knows the other half: that Katsuki doesn’t have whatever it is that makes other people run right. He doesn’t get the thing where he sees someone and wants them, not the way everyone else in the world does.
He used to think he was just better at focusing on what was important, but it’s never been a skill—it’s been a fundamental lack of something in him, one he’s never been motivated to correct. And it’s not right to put the burden of that, of his missing pieces, on someone else who got into things expecting to have something more, not less, once they were dating him.
“Momo’s not asking for anything more than I can give,” he says, trying to wipe his face off on his arm and grimacing when that just smears the sweat worse. “We’re good, Ei. She gets me, even if no one else does.”
It’s the truth, but not the whole truth, and he can see that Eijirou knows he’s not being entirely honest. But instead of pushing the issue, his best friend just says, “As long as you’re happy, dude. That’s all I care about.”
“I’m happy,” Katsuki promises him.
Momo’s apartment is in a much nicer part of town than his, with wealth dripping off the towering buildings. He’s been here a time or two, at her first housewarming party a couple years ago, then again for Kyouka’s birthday, but always in a big group with the excuse of a party to justify it. Most of the time, it’s easier for them to do dinner back at his place, but for once, he’d had time ot spare and offered to pick her up for this dumb charity ball they were both invited to attend.
The apartment itself is surprisingly elegant, despite the fact that it reeks money. Unlike the tales he’s heard of her dorm room, the space is actually sized properly for the gradious furnishings, marble floors and gauzy curtains over the massive windows to match the curls of pale wood and gold inlays. It’s not like he’s unused to money—his family home might be more subtle than this, but his parents haven’t been shy about buying only the best, and Katsuki goes through it like water whenever he feels like indulging—but there’s a difference between being comfortable with money and absolutely drowning in it the way Momo does whenever she forgets herself.
Not that he really minds. It’s a nice reminder that no one’s perfect.
“Sorry,” she says breathlessly as she emerges from the hallway towards her bedroom at speed, flats dangling from one hand. They’re oddly plain, a nice white leather but lacking in ornamentation, unlike the froth of ruffles that make up her skirts, delicate crystals worked into the hems and down the bodice of her dress. “I had shoes picked out for this evening, but realized at the last minute they weren’t entirely appropriate, so—”
“Back up,” Katsuki says, tearing his gaze away from the way the cut of the top shapes the curves of her chest and her shoulders in a way that makes her look touchable. “How the fuck can shoes be inappropriate? It’s not like you were wearing sneakers or anything, right?”
“Well, no.” Her cheeks are flushed, either with exertion or embarrassment, and she cups her face in her free hand as she glances away. “But they do have rather impressive heels, and I’ve seen a few unflattering comments about the two of us next to each other on social media, so if I can avert that if possible—”
“Wait, you don’t want to wear heels because people make fun of me for being shorter than you?” Katsuki can’t help the way he laughs, clapping a hand over his mouth and fighting to keep his composure. “Fuck, sorry, fuck. Wear the fuckin’ heels, who gives a shit, anyone making comments is just jealous they aren’t beside you instead.”
“If you’re sure…” she says, wavering for only a moment more before she breaks and turns around. “I’ll be right back!”
It’s… cute. It’s cute, and she’s cute, something that catches him off guard as he presses his hand more firmly over his mouth and feels the heat of a flush on his own skin.
What the fuck.
He manages to get himself calmed down from whatever the hell that was by the time Momo comes back, and he understands immediately why she was fretting over her shoes. The ones she wears now are still pale leather to match the cream of her dress, but the straps glitter with more crystals, and the tall heels look like white-gold even if he’s pretty sure that’s just gilt paint, not actual metal. She looks stunning in them, the perfect addition to an already incredible dress, and if it means she conveniently matches his red and gold suit, he’s not about to complain.
“Ready?” he asks, offering her his arm, and she beams at him as she scoops up a designer clutch and lets him escort her out the door.
It’s the first proper event they’ll be attending since they started this ruse. Everything else has been planned for the public eye, sure, but it’s at least had the impression of being candid shots captured on the sly, a stealthy relationship that no one else was supposed to know about. This is going to be as close to an announcement in the papers as it’s possible to get, and he figures that it should lock up all the worries that Momo has about the impression she makes to the media.
Not that it’s going to hurt his reputation either. Usually, he can’t stand shit like this, so he doesn’t bother to attend—there’s only so much entertainment that his friends can promise without actively ruining things for other people, and since it’s a charity event, that kind of defeats the purpose. Katsuki will happily dump a chunk of change on a promising organization and keep himself anonymous for it, but he doesn’t like the spectacle of this shit, and he never has. It does mean that for once, he’ll be ending up in some hero news rag for a reason that isn’t yelling at someone on camera, at least.
Momo sparkles like a diamond as he opens the passenger door for her, helping her in, and he tells himself to stop getting distracted by something as basic as a nice dress as he heads for the driver’s side.
“Shouto’s supposed to be there,” Momo says as she rifles through her clutch for a compact, checking her makeup and tucking her hair behind her ears with delicate, careful motions. Her nails are red, he notices absently, forcing his attention back to the road when he realizes he’s looking at all. “I believe Tenya will be too, though I don’t know about anyone else. The timing’s a bit…”
“Shitty,” he suggests, giving her a crooked grin when she corrects him with a scolding ‘inconvenient’ instead. “Yeah, I think my dumbasses are all busy with that investigation in Osaka. I offered to help, but apparently I’m ‘too loud’ and ‘really bad at stealth, dude’.”
“That’s—only mostly true,” she temporizes, rather than lying, and he snorts softly. “I’m hoping that we’ll get to see them at the end of the month, though, there’s a gala hosted by the Commision then. It should be mostly heroes, I believe.”
“And costumes, not formal wear,” Katsuki says dryly. The oppressive heat of summer has finally started to fade, but the evening is still plenty warm, and he’s not wearing a jacket for a reason. “Which is a bonus, since I don’t think half our friends actually own the suits they have to borrow for anything fancy.”
“You look rather handsome, even though you never attend these,” Momo says, flipping her compact shut and smiling at him. “Hidden depths, Katsuki?”
“Fashion designer parents.” He rolls his eyes at her soft gasp of delight. “Don’t get too excited, the old man doesn’t do couture and my mom’s been a housewife since she had me. But it means I’ve got some nice shit in the back of my closet for formal occasions, so…”
“That still counts as a hidden depth.” Her smile warms a little more, and he pretends not to notice the way his face warms with it. There’s something fucking wrong with him tonight, but he’s not about to renege on their deal and stand her up, not after talking such big game about showing up together.
There’s a valet waiting outside the event hall, and Katsuki tosses the man his keys on the way around to open Momo’s door, making dire threats about the state he expects to find his car in when he gets back. The bastard has the audacity to look bored by the whole display, and Katsuki contemplates getting genuinely annoyed about that before Momo sets her hand on his arm and steers him away instead, and he lets the moment of irritation fade as he offers her his elbow properly and escorts her inside.
“Oh good, there’s Shouto,” Momo says almost as soon as they’re in the door, her attention fixed on a distant spot of white and red that’s impossible to miss once Katsuki looks for it. It means she’s not paying attention to the people who look at the two of them in surprise, including no few of their acquaintances in the heroism sphere, but Katsuki is. He offers one particularly annoying one a wide, shit-eating grin, then lets his girlfriend lead him deeper into the crowd of well dressed people with time and money to burn.
Nevermind, this was a great idea. Forget whatever reasons Momo had, Katsuki’s going to be riding the high of those expressions for weeks, the dumbfounded and incredulous looks of disbelief from people who had the audacity to think they deserved her instead of him. And he didn’t even have to cause a public incident to earn their ire either.
There’s no joy quite like pissing people off without repercussion, and he’s still grinning when they finally find Shouto inspecting a canape with an expression of deep concern.
“Half-and-half, it’s not going to bite you,” Katsuki says, absently shaking his head when a server offers him champagne.
“Of course not,” Shouto says, before pausing for a very long and suspicious moment and adding, “Would you like to try it, Katsuki? Congratulations, by the way. I’m very happy for you both.”
He accepts the canape since Shouto’s being a huge baby about it, and beside him Momo blushes and beams as she says, “Thank you, Shouto. Have you been here long?”
“Only twenty minutes, maybe.” He’s got that slightly distant look in his mismatched eyes, like he’s trying to remember if anything important happened in the intervening time, but the smile on his face is gentle and fond. “I never appreciate how slowly time can pass until I’m attending something like this. It’s very boring without friends.”
“We’ll be here for at least an hour, so we can at least keep you company—oh! One moment, I need to talk to Mizuki-san, I’ll be right back.” She brushes her fingers over Shouto’s arm in a gentle reassurance, squeezing Katsuki’s once before letting go, and like that, she’s gone, disappearing into the crowd after someone Katsuki can’t even see. He’d be annoyed, but it’s not like she abandoned him on his own.
“This kind of tastes like garbage,” Katsuki says, as he swallows the dubious food Shouto had given him, and gets a careful, pensive nod in return.
“I had my concerns,” Shouto agrees gravely, before smiling wide. “Which is why I gave it to you. You’d never turn down a challenge.”
Since he’s pretty sure there aren’t any cameras on him right now, Katsuki takes a risk and gives Shouto the finger, then asks, “You come to these often? This is the first time I’ve bothered.”
“A few. I always come alone, though, unless I’m escorting Fuyumi or my mother to something.” Shouto looks surprisingly at ease in the setting, and Katsuki thinks again about the fact that Momo came to him first, instead of her other friends. Not that he thinks he was a bad choice, it’s just—
Shouto would have been good too, probably. He doesn’t know why the idea makes him annoyed, when Shouto’s fine and a better friend than Katsuki is, most of the time.
“Do we do anything, or just stand around like assholes talking unless we get lucky and someone tries to rob the joint?”
“I believe there is dancing, if you’re capable,” Shouto says, smiling wider when Katsuki makes another rude gesture. “Otherwise yes, we ‘stand around like assholes’; I’m afraid that I’ve never been attacked at one of these events, so you’ll have to live without the threat of violence to see you through.”
“Fucking typical,” Katsuki sighs, shoving his hands in his pockets and slouching as much as he can in a tailored outfit designed to keep him from doing exactly that. “What’s got you so happy, anyways?”
“You,” Shouto says, and when Katsuki stares at him, he turns to find Momo in the crowd, his expression soft. “Both of you, I guess. I like when my friends are happy, and I’m glad the two of you are together.”
It’s a weird contrast to the disbelief that he’s gotten from basically everyone else in his life, well-meaning or otherwise, and Katsuki can’t help but ask, “What, you don’t think it’s weird?”
“No. You’re both very smart and very dedicated people who’ve put others ahead of yourselves for years now,” Shouto says, head tipped slightly like he’s working through to a conclusion he’ll be tested on later. “I know you’ve been fine on your own, but I think you’re happier with someone in your life. And I’m glad that Momo has a boyfriend that respects her as much as you do. So I’m happy for you.”
“That’s…” It’s a lie. It’s a fucking lie, but Shouto is looking at him with those gentle eyes, and Katsuki doesn’t know how to tell him that it’s a lie. “Fucking weird. Don’t say shit like that.”
“I’m sorry, Katsuki, I know you’re allergic to sincerity,” Shouto apologizes, and the motherfucker is definitely laughing at him when he does it. “I’ll try and be ruder in the future.”
“You’re rude as fuck as is,” Katsuki complains, but it’s a step away from the raw nerve that Shouto inadvertently peeled the protective casing off of, leaving him exposed and vulnerable. It gives him a little space to breathe around the sudden tightness in his chest, another symptom of whatever bullshit cold or whatever he’s coming down with.
“You should ask Momo to dance,” Shouto tells him, before patting his shoulder and walking off to join Tenya where he stands near the door when Katsuki twists around to figure out why he’s leaving.
A second later, the gentle press of Momo’s fingers on his arm catches his attention again, her eyes bright but puzzled as she asks, “Sorry, that took a moment longer than I thought it would. Did Shouto…?”
“Went to talk to Glasses over there, but we can catch up to him later,” Katsuki says, trying not to stare at her. Under the lights of the chandeliers above, she shines more than anyone else in the room, and the faint blush on her cheeks only makes her look more like something spun of glitter and dreams, a hint of imperfection that renders her real and touchable. “There’s supposed to be dancing or some shit?”
“Oh!” Momo’s smile is warm and delighted, her fingers slipping between his when Katsuki lifts his hand to hold hers properly. “Would you like to? I wasn’t sure if it would be overstepping to ask, but I think it would be fun.”
“It’s not like there’s anything better to do, let’s fuckin’ dance.” His heart skips a beat as she tugs him along to the dance floor, her unbound hair fluttering behind her like dark ribbons with a diamond-studded hair clip keeping the bangs out of her face. What is wrong with him? Is he fucking diseased? Is that the reason why her hand is too-warm in his own, and he can’t tear his eyes off her, and the honest joy on her face when she turns back to him and lets him properly rest a hand at her waist makes him—
Oh, he thinks as the next song starts and Momo lets him take the lead. Oh, fucking hell.
The deal was that they did this until he wanted to call it off, with the understanding that neither of them would be hurt by that or too attached to let go. When he’d agreed to it, he’d expected the whole mess to be tedious at worst, but ultimately not a major impact on his life. He had not expected whatever shit was broken in his brain to fix itself exclusively for Momo, in the context of a relationship that no one knows is fake, where every chaste kiss or careful handhold had been done with the knowledge of a camera behind it.
So it’s pretty fucking hard to figure out what the protocol for this should be.
It’s not that he’s uncomfortable, except in the ways he’s hyperaware of how he should be uncomfortable, but worse than that, he doesn’t want to call things off. He wants to keep making her dinner and taking her out on dates, likes the idea of the jealousy in the eyes of everyone who gets to see her with him, wants to feel the gentle brush of her fingers over his arm, his jaw, his chest, at all the places where he’s never wanted anyone else to touch him like that before.
Katsuki had known she was beautiful in an abstract sort of way before, but now he knows it, can see it in the shy curve of her smile and in the modest clothes she prefers when she’s not working, in how she tucks her hair behind her ears when its down and ties it back and out of the way in a fight instead of cutting it short. He finally understands why people would do the stupidest shit imaginable in highschool in the pursuit of a relationship, and it’s terrible because he’s technically in one.
But he’s changing the rules of the deal just by noticing her in ways he never has and that’s—not fair. It’s not fair to her, the way it’s never been fair to anyone else before her that wanted him to notice them when he couldn’t. He doesn’t know what changed between then and now inside him, but it has changed, and Katsuki’s a man of his word. He’s not going to keep the ruse going just to take advantage of her, not when he knows she’s looking for that perfect someone she wants forever.
He texts her an offer to make her dinner, and she accepts the way she always has. Because he doesn’t want to blindside her with this shit, he adds that he needs to talk to her about something, and ominously, she agrees that she’s had something on her mind recently too.
Which could be nothing, of course. Or he could be a huge shitbag and she’s figured that out right as he’s figured out that he likes her, so his whole world could be ending also.
This is why he doesn’t do relationships.
There’s no point in working himself up into a fit before she even gets here, and it’s the one day a week he allows himself to take off, so Katsuki cleans his house instead, top to bottom. Clean sheets, swept floors, the kitchen gleaming by the time he’s done with it. It gives him something to do, a way to burn the nervous energy out, and it means he’s something almost approaching calm when she rings the doorbell, looking plenty nervous for the both of them as he waves her inside.
“You want something to drink?” he asks, because she’s clutching the straps of her purse like she’s afraid of it leaping off her shoulder if she lets go, and Momo takes a deep breath and carefully lets it out again as she relaxes her grip.
“No, thank you. At least, not yet.” The smile she offers him a little wan, but at least it isn’t the worried expression she was wearing seconds ago. “I think maybe we should talk first, and then decide if we’re still doing dinner.”
Oh, good, fantastic. They’re jumping right into it, then. He’s so fucked.
“I know what I wanted to bring up,” Katsuki says, taking the coward’s way out in a conversation he can’t have with his fists for once, “so do you wanna go first instead? Sounds like this has been weighing on you for a bit.”
“It…” Momo goes silent, then visibly steels herself as she meets his eyes. “I want to apologize first, Katsuki. This was a very big favor to ask of you, and the agreement we had was stipulated on the fact that the circumstances of our friendship would not change. I want you to know that I never intended to go back on that, but… This has been on my mind for a few weeks now. And it’s only fair that you hear the truth.”
He’s so fucked. He’s so fucked. “The truth being…?”
Pink slowly fills her cheeks, her determination to keep meeting his eyes at war with the way she very clearly wants to fidget and look away. “I have—romantic feelings for you, Katsuki. Which was not the case when I first asked you to date me, I want to be very clear about that, but as our relationship progressed, it seems I’ve—I’ve grown to enjoy it too much. And it would be unkind and manipulative to continue our ruse when—Katsuki?”
There’s a faint ringing in his ears, and he only realizes that he’s sat down on the back of his sofa when he hears her say his name in concern. His hands are shaking when he drags them over his face, but he can’t help the nervy, slightly manic laugh that spills from his lips when he looks up into her concerned face. “Holy shit. Okay. Okay, yeah, that makes this easier.”
“Makes this easier…?” she asks, clearly confused and worried both now as he waves for her to come closer.
“Okay, first off: single most terrifying way to tell someone you like them, princess, let me just say that,” Katsuki says, taking her hands in his once she’s close enough. Her skin is soft and delicate under the rough edges of his calluses, his thumbs dragging over her knuckles like a worry stone. “Second, you don’t need to apologize. Alright? Even if I didn’t feel the same way, it’s not like you fuckin’ went into this expecting to fall in love or whatever, so don’t tell me you’re sorry.”
Momo is smart, and her eyes widen after a second as she repeats, “Even if you didn’t feel the same way?”
“Yeah.” Fuck, he’s so stupid. So lucky. “But that’s what I wanted to tell you, so that works out. The… whatever it is about you that’s different from everyone else, I dunno, but I like you. I like this. If we wanted to make it real, I’d want that.”
“Oh.” Momo’s face floods with red this time, her fingers tightening around his. “You want to—you don’t want to break up?”
He pushes himself back up to his feet, pulls her a little closer, and it’s almost like that first time on the sidewalk, her confused and him all too aware of the paparazzi watching them—but this time, it’s real. This time, when he leans up to kiss her, her lips part a little under his as she gasps, her mouth sweet with promise when he finally pulls away.
His heart is pounding like he’s about to pass out, but it’s not because he’s sick. It’s because he likes her, and she likes him back, and it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him.
“I want to make it real,” he repeats, meeting her eyes, and the smile he gets as a reward leaves him warm with promise. “You wanna go out, Momo?”
“I would love to,” she tells him as she pulls him into a kiss that’s all the better because it’s real.
“Then in that case,” he says when they separate again, his hands finally letting hers drop, “I’ve gotta make my girlfriend dinner. We’re doing a date night tonight.”
“Does she know?” Momo asks, smiling softly as she lets him go, her hands pressing to her cheeks like they might cool them, her eyes bright and happy.
“She’s a smart girl,” he calls over his shoulder as he heads for the kitchen. “She’ll figure it out.”
The sound of her laugh follows him, warming him all the way through, and he’s smiling as he goes to open the fridge. It’s not a lie anymore.
He’s happy.