Chapter Text
Ken was pretty sure he was going to lose his mind soon. Or possibly just finally snap and lose it on one of his friends.
Momo had been back to her normal size for months now, but every time he had tried to confess to her again, something had happened. A few times he forgot it was Tuesday, meaning Evil Eye interrupted. Three times now Aira had 'forgotten' something and interrupted them. Jiji kept insisting they all hang out. Vamola and Seiko interrupted to offer food. Rin and Kouki had interrupted once about something Ken couldn't even remember now. Even Zuma had interrupted a few times, though Ken was pretty sure Zuma wasn't doing it on purpose. He wasn't so sure about the others.
Ken grumbled to himself as he thought, glaring into the fire in front of him. Momo had insisted they all go camp out at the beach, and everyone had been game for it (well, Zuma still felt a little out of sorts with everyone, but Momo had talked him into coming anyway). Ken had thought it would create the perfect opportunity - the warm campfire, the stars actually being visible - but there were just too many of their friends demanding too much of their attention.
Zuma took a seat beside Ken, and looked him up and down a few times. "I can run interference," Zuma finally offered, never taking his eyes off the fire.
"Huh?"
"You like her, right?" Zuma used the bottle of ramune he was nursing to indicate Momo, who was animatedly chatting away with Vamola and Rin on the other side of the fire. Ken tensed up. Momo was the only one who really knew Zuma, but she had vouched for him and said he was a good guy. All that Ken had seen of him seemed to confirm that. But it was a little frustrating that Zuma had figured out how Ken felt after knowing him for such a short time.
"Am I that obvious?"
Zuma chuckled. "Don't know, man. You are to me. But I can stop the asshole and the airhead from interrupting."
"Jiji isn't a bad guy, I don't get why you two don't get along-"
"Don't worry about it," Zuma brushed the implied question off without answering it. "Point is, you're doing this now. YO!" Momo turned around to look. "Takakura needs your help with something. Go on, both of you-"
"I'd be glad to help Takakura-" Aira started, but Zuma stood up and stood in between her and Jiji.
"Nope. I need your help with stuff," Zuma insisted.
"What kind of stuff?" Jiji asked. Ken looked back and forth between Zuma and Jiji. There was always such negative energy between the two. Ken liked both of them, so he hated seeing them get along so poorly. But right now Zuma was helping him out, and he'd be damned if he was going to let yet another opportunity pass him by.
Ken slunk around the camp fire and put a gentle hand on Momo's shoulder, guiding her away from the others.
"Come back soon!" Jiji called after them - a little anxiously, Ken thought.
"What d'ya need help for, Okarun?" Momo asked as she allowed him to guide her further and further away from the campfire.
"We're not there yet," He glanced behind. The others were still clearly visible, so he figured he hadn't gone far enough. He and Momo kept going until the others all just looked like specs on the horizon. "This should be far enough."
"Dude, you're being totes weird right now. What is --" Momo suddenly stood straighter, her hands clenching into fists. She knew what this was. It was what she had been waiting to hear for so long. She tried to keep her breathing under control, tried not to let the enormous smile crack on her face. She kept twitching between frowning and smiling as she tried to keep herself under control.
"Miss Ayase!" Ken took a deep breath. "We keep getting interrupted, but I know you know what I'm going to say. Miss Ayase, I lo-"
He didn't get to finish. What looked like a small meteor fell out of the sky, first bonking him on the head then bouncing off his head and hitting her.
"What the hell?! A meteor?"
"Meteorite," Ken corrected, adjusting his glasses. "If it survives and hits the ground it's a meteorite, not a meteor."
"Still, that kinda hurt. ...Shouldn't that have like, killed us?"
"Guess it wasn't going fast enough."
"Huh." Momo let out a wry chuckle. "Seems like the universe itself doesn't want you to get those words out."
"Don't joke about that, Miss Ayase," Ken shook his head. The idea had occurred to him before, and he didn't like it. "I'd like to get back to what we were talking about before - but I do want to take the meteorite home with me. It might have some interesting composition and maybe Mr. Mantis Shrimp could-"
"Okarun!" Momo interrupted, "Focus. The others will only let us be gone so long before they come looking for us."
"Right. Right!" Ken took another deep breath and reached for Momo's hand.
Only....while their hands did connect, both felt a jolt run through their entire bodies. They released hands, jumping away from each other at the pain.
"What the hell was that? That hurt like hell!" Momo looked at the palm of her right hand, which had turned almost lobster red. It still stung now, even though the pain was receding. Ken checked his hand to find it matched in color.
"That was weird," Ken admitted. "But I would like to get back to what I was saying, if that's okay? The pain seems to be going away, and the color's coming back to our hands."
"Yeah. I mean, um...go ahead."
"Right. Miss Ayase, I lo-" he was trying to be romantic in sweeping the hair out of her face as he talked. But instead, once again there was that shock of pain in both of their bodies that forced them to step away from each other. "Miss Ayase?"
"What?" Momo snapped. She had been waiting for months to hear these words and instead of hearing "I love you" she kept getting jolted with what felt like painful lightning in her skin.
"I think something in that meteorite made it so that we can't touch each other without pain..."
"No! Not again, I am not dealing with this bullshit again!" Momo moved to kick the offending thing into the ocean, but Ken swooped in and grabbed it.
"We may need to look more closely at it to figure out how it caused this," he carefully put it in his pocket and sighed. "I guess we should get back to the others. See if this affects them as well."
Momo crossed her arms. "Fine. I guess we can go back to them. This sucks, though."
"Agreed."
"So you can't touch Takakura at all?" Aira's smile was chesire cat like after Momo and Ken had explained to everyone what happened.
"Does that mean you can't touch any cyooties?" Jiji asked, his face falling. "I can't imagine anything so sad!"
"For now, we just know it affects me and Okarun," Momo explained. She glanced at Ken. "I guess we probably should see if it affects us with anyone else, huh?" She glanced at Aira. "Just this once. But only do it long enough to see if you get hurt or not."
Aira glomped onto Ken's arm. "Nothing but the sparks from our intense relationship here!" Aira reported, gloating. Ken tried to wriggle out of her hold, but she had a constrictor's grip on him.
"I think that's enough, Miss Shiratori-" Ken started to say, even as Momo was saying "That's enough, skank!"
"Probably best to check both of you with everyone," Rin suggested. "Maybe there's some sort of reason to who you can and cannot touch."
Jiji grabbed Momo into a hug and lifted her up off the ground. "I can still do this to you, right? I'm not hurt, are you hurting?"
"No, but you're gonna be hurt if you don't put me back down on the ground. You're holding a little too tight." Jiji returned her to the ground, but pumped his arm triumphantly.
"I can still touch Momo!"
"Don't say that so loud, it sounds like we're doing something perverted!" Momo hissed, aiming a kick at the back of Jiji's leg. He jumped out of the way before she could connect.
"My turn next, if I must," Kinta said, his glasses gleaming in the firelight.
"It better be quick or you will be dead, Pervert," Momo warned. Figuring it was safest, Kinta reached out and poked Momo on the hand. "Okay. No pain from you. Zuma?"
Zuma gave her a fist bump. Next, Momo went through all the girls while Ken made his way through everyone. Once their experiment was complete, both Ken and Momo sunk down in front of the campfire.
"It's just us," Momo groaned. "I can't touch Okarun."
"I can't touch Miss Ayase," Ken groaned. They both nearly slouched into each other before they caught themselves and sat up.
"This is a big problem," Jiji crossed his arms. "You two touch a lot."
"No we don't," Momo insisted.
"You two hold hands a lot," Jiji ticked what he was saying on his fingers, one by one, "In fights Okarun ends up carrying you some times and sometimes when we do these big sleep overs when we wake up you two are holding each other."
"We do not!" Momo hissed, turning bright red. In response, Jiji pulled out his phone and went to his photo gallery. An image of Momo and Ken fast asleep and curled up to each other, her arm around him like a teddy bear was on Jiji's screen.
"But it's going to be okay," Jiji said, "Because Momo, you can just touch me when you would have touched Okarun!"
"Why are you making this sound so perverted?!" Momo buried her face in her hands.
"It's not like you two need to touch," Aira smirked. "Jiji's right. If you really need to touch someone, you have him, and Takakura has me."
"But that's not what I want," Ken complained. Which just opened everyone up to talking over each other as they tried to figure out a solution. Kinta was arguing he could make them both mecha suits so they could touch through them as Vamola was suggesting they keep touching until they got used to the pain even as Jiji and Aira practically chanted their willingness to be a substitute for being touched.
Zuma whistled until everyone shut up and stared at him. He gave a small smile - the tricks running his gang of friends seemed to work with these guys as well, and that was a relief. "Look, you both touched that meteor-"
"Meteorite," Momo and Ken corrected in unison.
"Ite. Whatever. Point is, you guys said you know an alien. Let's take it to him in the morning and see if he can sort things out. The rest of us should probably not touch that rock, to be safe. Everyone got it?"
Jiji looked like he wanted to argue, but seemed to think better of it. Everyone else nodded their assent.
"We should get some beauty sleep," Jiji suggested, laying down on his sleeping bag.
"Speak for yourself," Aira snipped, "If I get any more beautiful it will only cause problems."
Ken laid down on his own sleeping bag, the one next to Momo's. She laid down, facing him. They stared at each other for a while, both of them longing to get closer but knowing they couldn't.
"We'll figure this out, Miss Ayase," Ken whispered to her. "Then I'll confess for real. Okay?"
"Okay," she whispered back. The others kept talking around them, but Ken and Momo ignored it, only staring back at each other, unspoken words hanging heavily between them. Ken had to stop himself from reaching for her hand a few times. He noticed her hand twitched a few times before going still, and figured she also wanted to hold hands, too.
I'll fix this, Ken thought to himself. Nothing is going to stand in my way this time. I promise, Miss Ayase.