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His hands are warm under her thighs. He carries her like he hadn't just been fighting for his life. Like he hadn't just been stabbed through the shoulder. Like he hadn't just bled and bruised.
For her.
Their way to her house (which he knows already, of course) is pleasantly empty, though they do draw the occasional questioning eye. Momo doesn't really have it in her to be embarrassed. After all, right now, all of her mental space is to devoted to one person.
The person that can bleed for her, and then carry her home without complaint. Hands sturdy, shoulders straight, no wavering in his step. He won't drop her, even if he is hurt. She knows he won't.
Knows, even if she doesn't know.
This boy, this Okarun, has been… so confusing. So hard to understand, and yet she does, implicitly. Trusting him is easy, where it shouldn't be. Everything is so scary and hard to follow, but it all feels less daunting when he's around.
He feels safe. Too safe. In a way that is at once wholly new and achingly familiar.
And he just walks along, as though her world hasn't been upended. As if he isn't even hurt.
She just learned aliens exist, and yet, somehow, it's harder for her to wrap her head around this fuckin' guy than actual goddamn space aliens.
"Okarun?" She speaks without willing. It's as if her voice works off its own desire. Desire to be heard.
"Hm?"
"Y-You really don't gotta carry me," she says, her fingers threading the front of his shirt. "I'm okay, now. I could walk."
A lie. The adrenaline has left her depleted and exhausted. But still, she can't let herself take advantage-
"You're lying, aren't you?"
Her face burns, because of course he could tell. He knows her. Or, at least, he knew her.
With a grunt of effort, he hoists her up a bit, hands remaining at their spot, never wavering. Even the way he carries her is gentlemanly, hands always staying at just the right point to give a good enough grip for the piggyback, but never going higher. She knows a lot of guys that would "accidentally" reach just a bit further north from where the boy's hands are now.
She doesn't respond to his question, because what is there to say? Instead, she asks the very thing that's been lodged in her mind since he mentioned it earlier.
"You, um. You said you're used to carryin' me like this," she begins. "Why's that?"
He stalls a bit in his answer. She plays with the button on his shirt, absentmindedly.
"We've been through a lot, together," he says, his voice soft. "I know you don't remember, a-and a lot of it is a story for another day, but… we've helped each other a lot. And, w-well… sometimes, I've had to carry you like this."
There's a lot he's leaving out, she can tell. A lot he wants to say, but doesn't. "'Kay. That's good, I guess. Nice to know I've helped you too, that it ain't always been you savin' my useless ass."
"Don't say that," he says, hands squeezing her legs in protest. She wonders if he even realizes he's doing it. "Actually, really, you tend to be the one saving me. You've never been useless."
"Hard for me to believe," she grumbles, eyes turning towards the setting sun, hues of orange and red painted across the sky. "Feels pretty shitty, makin' ya carry me after you got all cut up." For me, she doesn't say.
"Ayase-san…" he sounds sad, and she doesn't really blame him. Whoever she'd been to him, she's sure that there has to be some degree of disappointment towards whatever's left of her.
"Sorry," she says, before he can really reply. "Shouldn't be puttin' my feelin's on you."
"I want you to."
His voice is heavier, laden with something she can't really place. Her hands still on his chest. She wants to respond, but she can't find the words, doesn't have the words to respond with, not anymore.
"I want you to burden me, you know," he continues. "And rely on me. I know it might be hard to trust me right now," it isn't, "but… please believe me when I say that I owe a lot to you."
"Huh? 'Cause I saved ya?"
He lets out a sound that might have been a laugh, and she tries not to look at the upward tilt on the side of his face that's visible to her.
"Yeah. Because you saved me."
The words drip with meaning unknown to her. It should bother her, but it doesn't. She trusts him. Trusts that whatever he's leaving unsaid has purpose.
When the hell did trust become this easy?
They continue on in silence for a moment. She rests her chin on his shoulder. She feels like she should be embarrassed to do so, but she really isn't. It feels like the most natural thing in the world, to her. He's warm, under her hands. Even through his shirt, now bled through.
Bloodied. For her.
Her mind keeps coming back to it. He bled for her, for her, even after she went and-
"I'm sorry," she says. She clears her throat, hating how delicate her voice sounds. "Um. For forgetting you. I'm sorry for that."
"Don't apologize," he admonishes gently. Everything he does is gentle, she's noticed. "It's not like you chose to. You're suffering more for it than anyone else, the last thing you should be worried about is me- OW!"
She continues pinching his cheek harshly, puffing out her own in a pout. "Don't say that, dumbass! You're out here bleedin' for what's basically a stranger, just to say I shouldn't be worried about you?"
"Stranger?!" He jerks his face away from her pinching fingers, turning back to her with a hard look in his eyes. "What do you mean, 'stranger'?"
"I mean, I-… I just-" frustration overwhelms, for a moment. "I know we were close. I get that. But I just don't remember. So much of my memories are just gone, ya know? Six months, dude."
"And I know that's a lot," he says, sympathetically, "but how does that make you a stranger?"
She sighs, returning her chin to his shoulder, looking everywhere but the one big brown eye she can see. Her arms, hesitantly, wrap around his neck. She isn't sure why. It just brings her comfort.
"I forgot you," she begins. "A-And I wanna… ya know, remember. I think… I think I'd like bein' as close to ya as people said we were. But… I guess I just…" she takes in a breath, turning her face to look at him, cheek smushed against his frame. "I dunno. What if I'm not me, anymore?"
"You are," he says instantly. "You stayed and helped me after I told you to run away. Only Ayase-san could be that stubborn, and that selfless."
"Shut up," she whines, face flushing at the undo praise. "Look, of course I wasn't gonna abandon you, but that doesn't mean that I'm not… that I'm not different. That I won't be different."
She stops herself from saying more. From telling him how deeply this has been gnawing at her. The idea of everyone around her mourning the version of her that's gone, left with this Momo-shaped vessel that could never be their Momo. All the people around her, left with only the memory of a person, and a facade pretending to be her.
"I don't think that's true," Okarun's voice is soft again. His thumb swipes against her leg, almost certainly an unconscious motion. She doesn't acknowledge it. She doesn't want the soothing motion to stop.
"What if it is, though?"
He doesn't respond for some time, the only sound being his breath, his footsteps, her heartbeat against his back.
Finally, he shrugs. "Is it… is it that big of a deal? If you are different?"
She gawks at him, mouth agape. "HAH?! The hell you mean, 'is it that big of a deal', of course it's that big of a deal!"
"Why?"
Of all the-
Is he dense?
Is her boyfriend-not-a-boyfriend an actual idiot?
"Because- I mean- what if the person that you knew, that you loved is gone? What if, no matter how much time passes, I can never… be that person again? What then?"
"Ayase-san…" he turns to her, a grin on his face that she could only decribe as shit-eating. "You're worried about not being the person I love anymore? Sounds like you've come around to believing everything I told you."
"Oh my God I'm going to kill you," she seethes, trying to ignore the fire creeping up her throat, over her cheeks. "I'm actually going to kill you. You're missing the entire-"
"Momo." Her name, soft and sweet. Gentle, yet again. He turns to her, that smile on his face that's almost reverent. A smile she knows she's dreamed of. "Whatever version of you you'll be is the version of you I'll want to know, and to… to l-love. Because… even if you're different, you still came back for me. You still saved me. Despite everything, it's still you."
She blinks. The fire on her face has become something near molten, a magma of red blush. She chews on the inside of her lip, understanding now that maybe he'd been right, earlier. Maybe he'd been right when he said she likes him too.
The memories are gone. But he isn't.
Still. It isn't fair to him, right? It's not fair to… to let him think that she'll be the same. That they'll be the same.
"But… But I'll be different. I can almost promise you, I'll be different somehow."
When she looks back at his face, the look in his eyes silences her. No one has ever… ever looked at her like that. No one.
She understands all at once. Understands what she has always understood.
She always loved him, before. And now, memory gone, she just-
"Okay," he says. "Then I'll fall in love with you all over again."