"It still counts as a sleep-over even if we live in the same place now," Momo said diligently, as if she was discussing some irrefutable law about sleep-overs, "we'll just close the door and won't open it for anyone!"

"If you say so, Kisaragi."

"Actually, no, we'll open it for Mary. But only if it's an emergency, like a major emergency. "

"Only emergencies," Kido affirmed, her head propped up on her arm on the counter, leaning against the palm of her hand, as she watched Momo bounce around the kitchen, making vague but excited gestures void of interpretable meaning.

"Okay! So we'll buy ice cream, and then have a sleep-over. I'll bring movies and snacks and we can paint our nails and talk about… things? It's going to be so fun!" Her statement was punctuated by two fists in the air, claiming triumph over those lesser sleep-overs.

"Sounds like a plan."

"Thank you soooooo much for doing this for me!" Momo wrapped Kido in a large hug. Kido wondered if she'd come to regret this favor, but seeing Momo this excited seemed worth it.

Kido's nails looked as if their palette stemmed from a young child with the attention span of a rock, completed with a different color on each finger, all managing to clash with one another. On the end of Kido's last clean nail, Momo meticulously layered a bright shade of yellow on, with precise, small brush strokes. Her tongue poked out the side of her mouth as the girl focused on her task at hand, bottles of nail polish lay scattered around the bed.

Kido kept on her eyes on Momo's face instead of the mess that was her own hands. She couldn't find it in her heart to tell Momo how atrocious her inability to choose a color looked, because her look of determination was too precious.

"Done!" Momo held up the hand, wet paint glittering under the light.

Momo scooted forward, her knees prodding the side of Kido's thigh, as Kido leaned against the bed's headboard, legs outstretched. She leaned in close, holding Kido's hands lightly within her own.

"Did you know that each of these colors symbolizes something? Like I was reading about it somewhere — see this green here means that…"

Kido watched the girl explain the deep backstory of each of the colors with amusement and curiosity, but her voice soon began to fade into background noise. She noticed a small streak of blue paint slide down the girl's cheek — god only knows how it ended up there of all places — finding it's way down the soft skin of her neck, settling down on the white fabric of her t-shirt's neckline. Kido's T-Shirt's neckline, that is, as Momo had forgotten that all her pajamas were still left at the house she shared with Shintaro, and asked to borrow one of Kido's spare shirts. The shirt was tight on Momo, clinging desperately to her skin, and long enough to which she insisted she didn't need pants. Kido had offered to find another shirt, but Momo had settled on this one, because it "smelled nice". Whatever.

While she was slightly irritated at Momo's stubbornness to find something that fit better at first, now she found Momo in her shirt appealing. Only her shirt. The same fabric that clung to Momo had once been on Kido. It was strange to her how different it looked on someone else, as a shirt, that to Kido felt boringly generic, managed to look good on Momo.

"…Isn't that cool?" Momo looked up excitedly, eyes wide like a puppy looking for recognition.

"Yeah, really cool."

"What do you want to do now? I've never really had… a sleepover before."

"Me neither, really. Hanging out with those two doesn't really count in my book," Kido laughed, "What do you want to do?"

"I know! We could watch a movie or…"

"…Or?"

"Have you ever thought about doing something fancy with your hair? It's soooooo pretty!" Momo had completely forgotten her last train of thought as she twirled her finger around a green strand.

"Not really?" A wave of a heat flushed Kido's face, suddenly feeling self-conscious with Momo's eyes on her.

"Can I?"

"Sure."

Momo placed one leg over Kido's and suited herself on Kido's lap, stretching out her back and raising her head barely above Kido's to get a good view. She ran both hands through her hair, pulling the green tresses back behind her head. Kido leaned her head forward in response, but kept the rest of her body stiff — paralyzed by how the distance between their two bodies slowly closed. Unsure of what to do, it didn't help that Momo seemed oblivious to how close their faces were, or how less than an inch of air rested between their chests, or how Kido could practically feel the soft rhythmic rise and fall of the shorter girl's breathing — Momo sat focused on the task at hand, as she fumbled her hands through Kido's long hair.

Kido sat alone in her horror, dumbstruck by Kisaragi's impulsive actions, which never seemed to be backed by any string of followable logic. Unsure of where to look or what to do, Kido's eyes seemed to mindlessly settle on Momo's lips, slightly parted, right in front of her. The girl's biggest fear hindering her movement was that if she drew attention to the situation, and move back.

As each second drew longer, Kido grew more and more unbearably aware of Momo and the urgency that built up with the tight proximity between them. The urgency to do something. She couldn't help but think that if she tilted her head slightly, that if she arched her body a different way, that if she could just move her hands then maybe…

"You're so pretty, Kido!" Momo smiled, her nose scrunched, and her fingers still tangled in Kido's hair.

She couldn't take it.

Kido's heart felt like a hardened rock, bouncing against the bones of her ribcage, as she angled her face towards Momo's. She brushed only the ghost of her lips against the shorter girl's.

"I'm sorry, that was — I didn't mean to, it was an accident." Kido slunk back immediately, very aware of her mistake. If it wasn't for the fact that Momo was still touching her, her image would have disappeared in a instant.

Momo drew her hands back, pooling them in front of her, and peered at Kido with wide eyes, before laughing. "It's okay!"

"It's okay?"

"Yeah, it's okay!"

"Oh." Kido regained her posture — she never really lost it, entirely. She might have been terrified, with fingers dowsed in drastic, unforgiving colors, but she remained poised. Carefully, Kido cupped her hands — Momo's hard work with the colors smudged — around Momo's face, closing the distance between them entirely, and slowly kissed her. Returning the kiss, Momo moved her hands forward to tickle Kido's belly, to see if she could jeopardize Kido's perfect posture.

She could.

Momo pulled away slowly, her smile nervous. "I'm sorry, I'm horrible at this sleep-over thing. We didn't even get to watch my favorite movie yet, but I'm really sleepy."

"No, you're fine."

"You sure?" Momo yawned, and laid her head down on Kido's shoulder. She curled her body up like a small kitten, and within minutes, was sound asleep. Once again, Kido found herself afraid to move, lest she disturb her.

"Weird, Kido isn't up yet. I'll go check on her."

After a couple ignored knocks, Kano slowly pushed her door open, a concerned Seto trailing behind him. Kano had to stifle his laughter under his hand, after he found Kido laying relatively straight, only one hand deviating from her posture to sit securely on Momo's back. Momo, on the other hand, seemed to take the bed by storm, with one leg dangling off the side, and another arm stretched diagonally across a pillow, her head resting on Kido's shoulder.

"On second thought, I think she needs her rest. I'll cook breakfast today!"

"But, Kano, you can't cook…"