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The landscape of her dream is darkness.It spans from her feet to the horizon, unfurling around her and blurring into one with the night sky. She doesn’t have the will to find out where it ends. She just sits—if she’s even sitting—and lets the gloom envelop her without a sound.The landscape of her dream is nowhere, and the gentle tap on her cheek is a jolt of life gently pulling her out to consciousness.“—Mo… Momo?”Her dream dissolves, and the darkness wavers. A wisp of light filters through her closed eyes, but she only hums.The voice chuckles. “Wake up, Mo.”“Mmm,” she sluggishly murmurs, and the finger is slowly joined by four others, cupping her cheek warmly as though giving her a permission to doze off.“The esteemed Vice President of Class 3-A is not allowed to sleep in this much, you know,” the voice teases, but the gentle caresses Momo’s unconsciously leaning into never quite cease.She slowly opens her eyes, and the sight of Jirou so close and smiling at her causes her to start smiling herself.Jirou’s smile grows.“Morning, you,” the purple-haired girl softly murmurs, moving to retract her hand. Momo gives a tiny shake of her head and lets out a dismayed plea,“Don’t.”Jirou pauses, eyebrows raised in confusion. “Don’t?”One of Momo’s hand reaches up under a blanket—since when is there a blanket?—and guides her retreating palm back to her cheek.Jirou’s expression softens, and Momo’s heart expands.“Good morning,” Momo says, smiling and feeling like she’s winning on life.How strange, the way simple things make her heart soar as though it’s as light as a single feather blown away by the wind.“You fell asleep on the couch,” Jirou says, thumb tenderly grazing the skin under Momo’s eye. “Researching again?”Momo lets out an affirmative hum, her mind recalling her works last night, eyes drifting towards the scattered papers covering the surface of the table near the couch. Exhaustion consumed her somewhere around midnight, forcing her to lie down, though she didn't plan to spend the next hours dreaming in the common room. She was gunning for a quick nap, not a full slumber.“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” she quietly admits.“Thank God your body knew better,” Jirou teases, leaning in to nuzzle her cheek.“Is the floor not cold?” Momo asks, closing her eyes as Jirou presses a kiss to the tip of her nose. The latter is sitting cross-legged in front of the couch, head resting on top of an arm half-hanging from the edge.“What are you going to do, propose for us to cuddle together in this couch?” Jirou asks, amused, and Momo merely hums.“Perhaps.”“That’s just evil,” Jirou chuckles, and Momo just loves that sound of happiness—she finds herself wishing she can keep it in a bottle, if only so she could bring it with her anywhere. “The couch’s not that big and it’s so old, it’s going to break with the two of us.”“I can make a bigger one,” Momo sleepily drones, and the warm palm shifts from her cheek to briefly pinch her nose.“I’m sure you can,” Jirou fondly says, fingers already going back to tracing comforting circles across Momo’s cheek. “But I’d like to stay like this for a while.”“Mmm.”She doesn’t open her eyes for a little while, only breathing in and out, sometimes holding in a breath when Jirou presses a kiss to her eyelids, or her jaw, or her ear—and she draws in nearer to where Jirou rests her head at the edge of the couch, if only to bask in the warmth no one but Jirou can give off.“You’ve been working so hard all week, Mo.”Jirou says it lightly, but the words are woven with concern.Momo smiles and cranes her neck to reach Jirou’s cheek blindly, pressing an apologetic kiss to the soft skin warm with life.“It’s just one of those days,” Momo murmurs, leaning back to the cushion. It’s just one of those days where I feel like I’m not enough.Jirou doesn’t tell her that it’s ridiculous, doesn’t tell her she’s a fool for thinking like that.She just leaves a wordless peck on Momo’s lips when Momo doesn’t add more words, and patiently waits for Momo to open her eyes.So she does.Jirou smiles at her slow blink. “Hey.”Momo smiles back, although her thoughts have already pulled her inside the growing pool of doubts. She hates it, but. “What do you see?”Jirou rolls her head to tilt the other way, humming. “Your eyes.”“Mmhm,” Momo says, shifting to curl nearer towards her, eyes never leaving her gaze. “Are these the eyes of someone you could love?”One of Jirou’s jacks stretches out to poke her on the nose. “One hundred percent.”“And if my eyes change colour?”Jirou pretends to ponder, only to smile wider a beat later.“I’ll learn to fall for them all over again.”Her confidence is flattering, and Momo wishes for it to please, never falter.“If it’s a colour you hate?” she breathes out, jokingly, but Jirou’s smile shifts, a flicker of emotion flitting across her expression before it softens once again.“Mo,” Jirou whispers, affection wafting off thickly from that one word that it threatens to overwhelm her entirely. “Your eyes hold so much more than just a colour. There’s warmth. There’re a burning determination, the depth of knowledge, a gentle comfort, a sincere honesty, a tender understanding—” she tucks a tuft of hair behind her ear and kisses her forehead.“There’s you.”Momo exhales slowly, eyes fluttering close as she leans in until their foreheads touch.“I’m scared,” she confesses.The encounters and confrontations with the league of villains are spiking up. They win some and lose some, and their losses slip by Momo’s fingers like a cold reminder that she can’t create them back to life to ease the hurt it has brought.Everyone can tell that the boiling point is near. Whether the world will tip off to their side or not—“Mmm.” Jirou squeezes their joined hands, and the suffocating thoughts begin to blur. “That’s okay. I’m scared, too. We can be scared together.”“What if my best is not enough?” Momo murmurs, her voice cracking.“We get up, plan better, and do it all over again,” Jirou says, reciting Momo’s own words back to her. She no longer remembers when she said it; it feels like it’s been a lifetime since she could manage to sound so confident in herself.She wants to ask, and if there’s no next time?But even she knows there’s a limit to Jirou’s own positivity, and she doesn’t want to be the one to cause the light in Jirou’s eyes to dim.“Isn’t it tiring?” she says instead, pulling back to create a distance that only serves to give her a taste of emptiness.She decides that she doesn’t like it.Jirou doesn’t inch near, letting the space between them to hang in the air. “Tiring?”“Piecing me back up,” she explains, swallowing when Jirou’s ever-present smile slowly turns into a frown.“You aren’t broken,” Jirou tells her, a jack slithering to poke her in the cheek. Jirou sighs, and shakes her head as though Momo is telling a terrible lie.“You aren’t a chore, Mo.”She feels like she is, though.Having to be convinced over and over to hold her head high—Even then, the flicker of doubt tugging her limbs never quite fades.The jack pokes her again, as though reading her mind.“I don’t mind you leaning on me,” Jirou murmurs, and this time she sways forward to kiss her fleetingly, like a fluttering wind.“In fact, please do; forever, if you’d like.”She would have called it a lie, herself.Who in their right mind wouldn’t mind hoisting up other’s load along with their own? Forever?But then—she thinks of Midoriya, approaching her with a sheepish expression and asking for advice on a group strategy he’s thought of. She thinks of Ashido, explaining the way her acid works and musing to her about keeping several loaded syringes to open the possibility of injecting them to villains. She thinks of Kouda, nervously signing to her his thoughts about equipping a small bug with either a transmitter or a wire, for infiltration means.She thinks of her classmates, her family, and the towering researches she’s been delving into to help lighten their loads and help them grow.She finds that she doesn’t mind.Them, depending on her, believing in her—She doesn’t mind one bit.Isn't it the same?Perhaps it isn't a lie?When her attention slowly refocuses to Jirou again, the latter is smiling, her fingers idly combing through Momo’s dark locks. Silent, comforting.Grounding.“Are you with me yet?” Jirou softly asks, and Momo gazes at her in wonderment. Jirou is waiting for her to pick apart her thoughts, patient and serene, as though she can do that forever.Forever.“Forever is a long time,” she says, and Jirou hums, agreeing.“But if you can do it, wouldn’t you?” Jirou returns, her eyes lighting up with something—not curiosity, more like—something akin to mirthful knowing.“Of course,” Momo whispers without missing a beat.Jirou stares at her for a moment, and it’s only when Jirou finally nods that it strikes her—she has said those two words with the same amount of certainty Jirou has possessed when she asked her to lean on her.The same amount of certainty that challenges anyone to tell her otherwise.Her mind finally catches up with Jirou's unwavering belief; that she has meant every word, just as Momo meant hers.A laugh escapes her lips, laced with incredulity directed to herself because really, she shouldn’t have been so surprised.Jirou always has a way to know her more than Momo knows herself.“There you go,” Jirou says, her tone endearingly triumphant. “Happiness looks good on you.”Momo leans in to catch Jirou’s lips in hers, and her quiet chuckle into their kiss lets her breathe.It doesn’t surprise her as much, this time.She’s always been her air. “Oh goodness, lovebirds! It’s too early for PDA!” END