Archive of Our Own ^beta

When your joys are of the sweetest

And your heart is light and free;

When your griefs are skimming fleetest,

Love, one moment think of me.

“A Wish” by Joshua Henry Jones Jr.

“Hey, Okarun?” Jiji’s normally boisterous and goofy voice is soft and concerned, and it throws Ken off enough that he looks up from the sketch he’s engrossed in. He’s been having the strangest dreams lately; aliens and spirits and monsters from his wildest imaginations chasing him as he runs full tilt at a speed too fast to be normal, the desire to keep someone(?) safe burning through his veins like magma.

Ken shakes the memories of the dreams away like they have physical weight and focuses on Jiji. “What’s up?”

“Momo’s been trying to get your attention for a while now.” Jiji’s expression is complicated, but if Ken were to put a name on it, he’d call it sad.

“Momo? Who’s Momo?”

Ever since exiting the Danmara and becoming the size of a small doll, Momo's been struggling. At first, things are alright, or as alright as things can be when you're only a couple of inches tall. Everything is fresh and new, and Momo focuses at the start on the novelty of things when you’re small. Food is huge, and she’s full after a few morsels. She’s wearing Aira’s doll clothing, which would be more fun if Aira were less annoying about it. She can still be seen by the others, and she usually rides along on one of the ever-expanding group’s shoulders, holding onto their collars or a couple of strands of hair to avoid getting thrown off by sudden movements.

In some cases, like Okarun’s, Momo is content to be held in his hands, even if they are sweaty and shaky. He did confess to her before she turned small, and that’s got to count for something, right? Momo personally wants to wait for things to be sorted and for herself to go back to normal size before she returns his confession properly, but she does try to make her stance clear by telling Okarun he can’t go cheating on her. Does he get it? Who knows?

However, Momo has been noticing a strange pattern recently. One by one, it seems like the others are forgetting her. It seems like it’s the least spiritually sensitive among them that goes first.

It's getting worse. Ken’s pretty sure that Vamola and Kinta have forgotten Momo now. He thinks Rin has also forgotten Momo at this point, while Mai just seems to be ignoring her on purpose. He hopes his own yokai powers will help him remember Momo for long enough to help her return to normal again, but he can feel things getting hazy sometimes.

Ken thinks he can see Momo more clearly when he's transformed, but maintaining the transformation outside of battle is exhausting. Still, he tries his best. He can't forget Momo.

Momo almost gets stepped on one too many times, so she insists on being held. But that doesn't stop her from steadily being forgotten. Even Seiko says things are getting fuzzy for her, with an unfamiliar pinch to her brow. They all step carefully when they can remember to, and remind each other when they can't.

Now that she’s small and starting to be forgotten, Momo decides she has to survive on her own and try to make herself known to the people she cares about. As the frequency of her meals becomes less as the others slowly forget her, Momo resorts to stealing food off their plates. She desperately hopes they notice, but it doesn’t do much; she’s full after a couple of grains of rice anyway, so the amount stolen isn’t enough for someone who isn’t paying attention to notice.

So Momo painstakingly uses her powers to lift herself to the top of a doorway. From her vantage point, she drops random items she finds onto the unsuspecting heads of her friends. Aira, who gets a shoe dropped on her, tells Momo she's an undignified demon. Okarun, who gets the other shoe, squawks in alarm before sheepishly swearing to remember Momo from now on, but she's got this sinking feeling in her gut as he does so.

The last straw comes when Momo dumps a small bowl of water on Kinta’s head. He immediately splutters and blames a nearby Jiji, suspecting him of being a prankster, while Jiji blanches and futilely tries to explain that Momo is small now and being forgotten, and he's sure a cutie like her has her reasons for dumping water on a cutie like Kinny, but Kinta doesn't buy it.

Momo feels the slow coil of dread in her stomach; Jiji is one of the few who has yet to forget her, probably because of his high spiritual awareness. It's unjust that he should take the blame. Momo swings down from the doorway onto Jiji’s shoulder.

“I'm sorry, Jiji. I didn't realize Kinta would blame you.” She flounders for a bit. “It's just so…it's just…”

Jiji’s eyes are soft. He waits patiently for Momo to find her words, not interrupting.

“It's just so unfair!” Momo blurts out. She's not sure if she means Kinta blaming Jiji for pranking him, or the whole “becoming small and forgotten” thing.

But Jiji, bless him, understands. “It'll be okay, Momo. We’ll find a way to turn you back, and everyone will remember you again.” His bright eyes are alight with determination. “There's gotta be a way.”

In the meantime, Momo continues trying to get the attention of the others. Her spirit hands, which are still normal-sized, thank the gods for small mercies, come into play as she decides to move onto poltergeist territory.

Momo rattles windows on still days. She snaps the curtains open and shut. She (gently) knocks things over and rolls them around in unpredictable ways. She turns the unused TV on and off. It's always with an audience, as unaware of her presence as they may be, since there would be no point otherwise.

But they don't seem to put two and two together. Momo’s friends comment on the unnatural movements and even start thinking there's a naughty ghost or yokai haunting them, but they don't see her.

Despair begins dogging at Momo’s metaphorical heels, but she tries her best to shake it off. Then she watches her Granny make a meal for two while alone, possibly out of habit. Seiko pauses for a bit before striking up a cigarette for a smoke. She pensively puts the second portion into the fridge, ostensibly saving it for later.

Mumbling a bit around the cigarette, Seiko murmurs, “Now, why did I do that? Nobody else is here.”

Dread drops like a stone into the still waters of Momo’s soul, and she starts yelling at her Granny to please look at her, see her, remember her. Momo yells until her tiny voice goes raw. The tears she doesn’t let fall are nothing to the silence that does. Seiko doesn't so much as look in her direction.

Discouraged by the fact that nobody remembers her except Jiji, Momo decides to focus on getting Okarun’s attention. She can’t bear to think that her best friend – and hopefully someday, something more than friend – could have forgotten her for good. Granny can’t see her, either, but Momo isn’t going to touch that for now. There’s only so much defeat she can take.

Momo starts out by arduously climbing a tree. Her plan is genius, if she does say so herself. She’s going to use a leaf to parachute past Okarun’s face and get his attention that way. It’s going to go great!

It does not go well. The leaf, once plucked from the tree, proves to be too flimsy and small to hold even her meager weight. She falls, screaming and flailing. Okarun does not even glance at her. Dignity bruised, Momo moves on to another way of getting his attention.

While Okarun draws one day, Momo picks up one of her makeup compacts (huge, at her size) and pops it open to reveal the mirror inside. She tries to angle the glare of the sunlight at Okarun’s concentrated (and awfully cute) face.

Unfortunately, she gets distracted looking at what Okarun is doodling. It’s a giant crab, chasing small humanoid figures. Excited now, she wonders: what does Okarun remember? He doesn't seem to remember her, but does seem to remember some of the things they went through. But then her mirror attracts a flock of angry crows, which attack her for the shiny object.

Ken is so absorbed in his drawing that he only looks up when he hears a violent squabble and various squawking noises. He looks over his shoulder to find that several crows are fighting over a mirror in a makeup compact, probably because it’s shiny. Strange.

But he decides to pay it no mind. He’s got to focus: the hazy memories he’s trying to capture are fading even as he draws them into reality. It must have been a dream; after all, giant murderous crabs don’t exist. But the memory feels so real. There are just all these holes where it seems like something or someone else should be.

His memories look like a film strip with parts burned away. He knows he was cursed, that he can transform, but he can’t remember why he was in Turbo Granny’s domain in the first place. He remembers the spirit crab, and he remembers running faster than humanly possible through the streets of Shono, but he feels like the memory is missing something. Or someone: he isn’t sure.

Momo’s running out of ideas and getting desperate as defeat sets in. Feeling childish, she decides to pluck a dandelion and make a wish. Pulling it from the ground is difficult, but not impossible. The stalk is taller than she is. It’s the perfect dandelion, with a spherical puff of seeds catching the evening rays of the sun. She remembers plucking them with ease as a child with Jiji, the two of them holding dandelions and running through fields to spread the seeds.

Holding the dandelion between her clasped palms, Momo mumbles to herself, “I wish Okarun could see me.” But before she can fill her lungs to blow on the seeds, the wind picks up and blows the dandelion, and before she can react, her along with it, on a path past Okarun’s face.

Her initial panic at being carried away fades into excitement. “This is the perfect opportunity!” Momo exclaims, using one hand to wave madly while the other clings to the stalk of the dandelion. She starts yelling in her small voice, “Okarun! Okaruuuuuuun!”

Ken realizes that his memories, whatever they’re missing, are clearer when he’s transformed. He thinks it has something to do with his spiritual sense being heightened by the yokai form. He sits in his transformed state, despite the toll it takes on his body, pondering the fragments of memories he has.

Was he abducted by aliens? That could explain some things. But not all of them. The memories aren’t being erased, just selectively eaten away at. Some kind of regressive hypnosis, perhaps?

“What am I missing?” He murmurs, staring at his empty hands. “...Who am I missing?”

As he ponders in his yokai form, Ken notices an odd dandelion floating through the breeze. As it drifts by, he thinks he hears a small voice calling a name he vaguely recognizes: “Okarun!” Jiji calls him Okarun. It feels like Ken should know why, but far be it from him to explain whatever Jiji does. Still, the name resonates with something deep inside him, like a ripple through his muddled thoughts.

Focusing on the dandelion more, he notices a small person hanging onto the dandelion for dear life. A girl. A girl that looks…familiar? A girl he feels like he should know…

In a flash, the flood of memories comes pouring in. Like a veil of mist and fog lifting from a valley at dawn's approach, the haze that he had been traversing, lost, in his mind fades. The missing fragments slot into the gaps of his memory, finally making things make sense.

The blanks have been filled in, but the flash of memory is overwhelming. It freezes Ken in place. The deluge is a flood, a rampage. How could he have forgotten her? He loves her. He tries to burn the film of his memory into his mind, so he’ll never forget her again.

Gathering himself, Ken makes a grab for the dandelion, but the wind picks up, and it's moving too fast. The small voice calls out, stronger now, “Okarun!”

He dashes after her at an urgent pace. He won’t lose her again. Reaching out his hand towards her, he shouts the name that was once a foreign entity but is now something he’s sure he can’t live without: “Momo!”

“You can see me!” Momo cheers.

“I can see you! I can remember you!”

Their celebratory moment was short-lived. Momo’s situation is deteriorating fast. The seeds of the dandelion are dropping off one by one in the gusting wind, and she’s losing buoyancy as a result. And still the dandelion carries her towards the edge of town, towards a steep ledge.

Without hesitation, Ken makes a flying leap over the edge of the cliff just as the seeds of the dandelion run out, and Momo starts free-falling. As he flies over the cliff, arms outstretched towards Momo, the city is sprawled out beneath them, painted in vivid technicolor by the golden hour light, blurring and smearing because all he can focus on, all he can think is Momo, Momo, Momo, because he’ll be damned, cursed again, before he forgets her again.

Ignoring everything else, his hands finally manage to catch her falling form, the light catching onto her as she glows in the rays of the sun. In Ken’s eyes, Momo is the brightest thing in the world, and he has to keep her safe. Finally, clutching Momo close to his chest, he braces for impact, but lucky for him, Momo is a genius. She uses her spirit hands to slow their descent enough that they land almost gracefully. The hands flare out from behind Ken as the pair falls together through the evening sky.

Upon landing, there are a few tumbles and scrapes, but the important thing is that Momo and Ken are together, safe and sound. Lying sprawled on the floor, Ken shucks the transformation and holds Momo’s tiny form gently with one hand while brushing away his own tears with the other. He blubbers out apologies of guilt and relief that she’s okay. How could he have forgotten Momo, the one who brought color and happiness into his desolate, gray life?

“Miss Ayase, I…I can’t believe…I’m so sorry!”

Momo has tears in her eyes, too, but they don’t fall. She’s always been stronger than him, his Momo.

Momo, in her turn, shushes him gently. “It wasn’t your fault, Okarun.”

“But Jiji tried to remind me! And I had forgotten you completely! Even after I confessed!”

“Even Granny forgot me, Okarun. It’s not your fault, and I don’t blame you for anything.”

“Miss Ayase…” Ken’s voice is almost a whine, which he is not proud of, but Momo has always accepted all of him, even the unmanly parts. “I don’t deserve you.” At that, Momo tries to protest, but he shakes his head to stop her. “I don’t deserve you, but I love you anyway, and I’ll fight for you until the end. You brought color and warmth and friendship into my life, and I pray to everything that I never forget you.”

At that, Momo’s happy tears overflow. “Okarun…I…” The words stick in her throat, which is clogged with emotion. “I wanted to wait until I returned to my normal size again to tell you, but…”

“Miss Ayase, it’s okay –”

“No, I have to say it! I don’t know if you might forget me again, and even if this isn’t exactly the way I wanted things to be, I just have to say…” Momo takes a big breath and looks Ken in the eyes, the light of determination on her tiny face. “I love you, too.”

With Momo’s confession, there’s a bright flash of light. Blinded, Ken blinks a few times before realizing that Momo’s no longer in his hands. Instead, she’s lying on his chest, back to her normal size.

“MISS AYASE?”

“OKARUN!”

“You’re…you’re normal again!”

“I am? Oh, I am!” They dissolve into a fit of giggles together, touching noses.

“I wonder how that happened,” Ken murmurs when their laughter has died down.

“Well, I wasn’t about to question it, but…maybe it has something to do with me finally confessing to you.”

“You think so?”

“Like in fairytales. True love’s first kiss and all that.”

Ken splutters. “But…we haven’t kissed yet!”

“Yet.” Momo’s eyes are full of mischievous laughter. It’s infectious, and Ken finds the joy in him bubbling up in response.

They lean in close, bumping noses while Ken’s glasses get in the way, but they find a way to make it work. They don’t even clack teeth this time. They kiss once, twice, a few more times, further dissolving into one another with each tenderly clumsy press of lips to lips.

Later, they’ll find their friends and Seiko and make their happy announcements. But for now, it’s just the two of them, under the twilight sky, stars winking into existence as the night approaches, the quiet city furled out around them.