The Girl Who Had Everything

I am Nanao, and this is a story about my friend Hinamori Momo. This really happened, although most of the people who saw it couldn't really believe their eyes either. I suppose it started back in fifth grade, when Asano Keigo bought Momo a fake ruby ring and in front of a large group of our giggling classmates, asked her rather seriously to marry him.

That was the thing about Hinamori Momo. Even in fifth grade, when boys treated girls like zoo animals, it was different for her. She had something. I am not entirely sure what it was, but it caused normally shy and awkward eleven-year-old boys to make utter idiots of themselves just for her.

Anyway, she looked at the ring, and then looked at Keigo, who was four inches shorter than she was and as skinny as a twig, and said thoughtfully, "I can't promise to marry you Keigo, but we can be engaged if you want."

Everyone clapped and cheered and Keigo was grinning from ear to ear. Momo slipped on the ring and then held out her hand to see what looked like, and she liked it, a lot. I don't think she said another two words to Keigo after that day but she wore the ring for months after that.

To say that Momo had something was putting it mildly. Momo had everything. I just didn't realize it until we were older and I began to see the differences between the two of us. By then we had been friends for years so I guess we just stayed that way out of habit rather than common interests.

She wasn't drop dead gorgeous in a movie star sense, but she had an aura of self-confidence that made you believe she was. She had raven hair and dark brown eyes and something happened to boys when they looked into those eyes. At school, we learned that Medusa used her eyes to turn men into stone, Momo's eyes turned boys into pools of jelly.

She was an only child and her parents thought she was the greatest thing since sliced cheese. Her mother never spoke about Momo. It was always our Momo. Her dad always called her his 'little princess' and I was very impressed by that in my younger years. When I asked my dad why he never called me princess, he had looked at me as if I was crazy and commented dryly, "We come from a long line of commoners." I was not impressed.

Therefore, I guess there was something about Momo that was different from the rest of us 'commoners'. It was something a person acquires from growing up being called 'princess' that isn't the same as if they grow up being called 'Hun'.

It goes without saying that Momo got whatever she wanted and it didn't hurt that her parents were rich. Spoiled? Yes, I guess you could say that Momo was spoiled in a sense that she was used to always getting her way and whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it.

In fifth and sixth grade, the boys were all Momo crazy, but Momo didn't turn boy crazy until she hit seventh grade. Until then she had always been content to float around and was completely oblivious to the many admirers she had. She also took for granted the bustle of boys who wanted to sit next to her at the lunch table. There were also a lot who would buy her numerous chocolate bars.

In addition, you and I might have gotten horrible skin from eating multiple chocolate bars, but not Momo. Her skin remained like a weather forecast in heaven. Clear and eternal, zits were not part of Momo's destiny.

Anyway, as I was saying, Momo remained oblivious until seventh grade, and then suddenly Momo fell in love. She fell in love with Kira Izuru.

And Aizen Souske.

And Abarai Renji.

And Kurosaki Ichigo.

And Kuchiki Byakuya.

And Sado Yastora.

Not all at once of course, but knowing Momo, she probably could have handled that too.

First it was Kira Izuru, he sat next to her in English, and she had prattled on for an entire afternoon over whether or not he liked her too. The next day she sat down next to him, turned on the full force of those brown eyes, and said to him softly, "Oh Kira, I don't have a pen."

Kira gave her his pen. To keep. That may have been the moment that Momo realized no boy could resist those brown eyes of hers. In any case, she went out with Kira and she was the first one of us who went anywhere with anyone. Now that we were in the beginnings of high school we were long past the chocolate bar stage and Kira bought her gifts, which were actually rather cool, I thought. He bought her a large Snoopy that she kept on her bed, a gold locket in the shape of a heart and of course the pen, which Momo said didn't count.

However, after three weeks with Kira, Momo got bored and broke up with him. Barely a minute later had she fallen in love with Aizen Souske and he wasn't too bad on the gift department either. Therefore, it went on, through most of high school. Momo loved and left them. I don't know if they were any wiser once she had, but they were definitely sadder.

Momo switched boyfriends on an average of every three to six weeks. "You have a very short attention span." I had told her one day. "You get tired of your boyfriends so fast, is it supposed to be like that?"

She looked at me surprised, her brown eyes widened, and she giggled. "Well of course! Imagine if they got tired of me first?"

Considering how fickle she was, you would think that she would have been tired of me by now, especially since being popular took up so much of her time. Cheerleading alone (yes of course she was a cheerleader, did you think for one second that she wouldn't be) took countless hours every week. There were plays to star in, clubs to run, and boards to govern, so what did she need me for?

To talk to.

Momo was a wonderful and nonstop talker. Yes, she talked almost exclusively about herself. However, was there any other more fascinating topic to talk about? Watching her talk was like attending a course on how to talk to boys. She could make a trip to the dentist, studying geometry or even baking cookies sound like the dramatic story of the century. Her listeners by this stage would have their jaws unhinged and would be leaning forward hooked on her every word. They were, by all means enchanted by her.

However, she talked to me differently than she did to everyone else. The topic was by all means the same, herself as usual, but the nature was different. I was there to listen to her troubles, soothe any self-doubt, and fix any problems. You think Momo didn't have any of these. Well, you would probably be right but Momo seemed to think she did and that was all that mattered.

"I don't think that Toushirou likes me anymore. Maybe I shouldn't have told him about sleeping with Snoopy. I mean, I was just trying to be funny but maybe he thinks I am childish now? He also hasn't phoned me since yesterday. I don't understand it, last week he said the eyes were the mirror to our souls and that my eyes were so beautiful that my soul must be beautiful too. Isn't that just the most beautiful thing you have ever heard?"

"Beautiful." I agreed. Not original, but beautiful.

"Now how can he say something like that and be tired of me already? I mean, he hasn't even mentioned senior prom and you would think that if he liked me he would have mentioned it."

"Momo, that is five months away, you will probably be tired of him by then and be dating someone else."

"But what if he is tired of me? I don't want him to break up with me! When I see him on the basketball field–"

"Court."

"– and he knows I am cheering for him and he is scoring points for me, and I don't want to lose him!"

"Especially at the height of the basketball season."

"You're right, that would be really bad." She cried tearfully. "And you know, I just can't seem to get my cart wheel right, I look horrible! Do you think they will kick me off the squad for not being able to do a proper cartwheel?"

And so on…. All the time.

Somehow, I never really got tired of hearing Momo talk about Momo. Maybe it was because I was on the outside looking in and I would never actually be the girl who got everything. Was I jealous?

Well, yes, a little bit. It is hard not to envy someone who gets everything she wants, and whose biggest problem was doing a perfect cartwheel. On the other hand, I didn't want the same things Momo wanted and if I didn't get them I didn't really care. Besides, Momo did care about me, as much as she could care about someone who wasn't herself, and occasionally we would talk about me.

For instance. "Why don't we do something about your hair?" Or "Why don't I ask Toushirou to fix you up with one of his friends for that New Year's party?" Or "Have you ever thought about contact lenses? Apparently you can get very nice soft ones these days."

Momo's agonizing about Toushirou was short lived and he phoned her barely an hour later and they spoke for ages, or rather, she spoke for ages. Momo was really crazy about Toushirou, and she had gone out with him for longer than she had gone out with anyone else. I kept waiting for the regular symptoms of restlessness to appear, especially since the basketball season was over. After all, she had dropped Abarai Renji as soon as he had hung up his shoulder pads after the football season. She had said the excitement had somehow gone out of the relationship.

The symptoms never came, Momo had finally had a boyfriend for longer than six weeks, and she declared she was eternally in love with Hitsugaya Toushirou. She said it was because he was such a good conversationalist. "We just talk for hours and hours. We never seem to run out of things to talk about."

What – I was dying to say – we?

So one Saturday one of Toushirou's friends was having a party and Momo insisted that I come along. She said it didn't matter if I came alone and she would get one of Toushirou's friends for me. Momo and Toushirou picked me up at seven pm sharp and it turned out that Momo was right. This party was just what I needed.

Everything was going perfectly until ten thirty, because Momo was the center of attention until then, and as usual flocked with boys. Toushirou remained close by for the first hour while Momo flirted and chatted with all the boys and gave her usual rendition of 'Momo goes to the dentist'. At ten thirty Momo went to the bathroom to make sure her lipstick hadn't smudged and her hair still looked fabulous. She took me with her.

When we got back to the party Momo began to walk towards to spot where she had left Toushirou. She stopped and looked puzzled. "Where is he?" She asked.

"Maybe he has gone to the bathroom." I said reassuringly.

"But were just in the bathroom, he wasn't there."

"Maybe there is another bathroom."

Then Momo's fingers dug into my arm and I winced. "Look!"

I looked. Toushirou was sitting on the floor talking to a tomboy like girl with a jet-black bob and grey eyes. She was cheerfully joining in the conversation and he had moved in closer so she could hear him more clearly over the loud music. They were clearly talking about a mutual interest, and they were really adsorbed in it whatever it was.

"What is he doing?" Momo hissed at me and I rolled my eyes.

"He is just talking to her Momo."

"But to her? Kurosaki Karin? Why?"

"There is nothing to worry about Momo. You talk to other guys all the time. Why are you making a big deal out of this?"

"That is different!"

And she was right, it was different. She walked over and sat down on the floor beside Toshirou. "Oh, here you are, I was looking for you. I didn't think that it was possible for someone to disappear like that." She smiled and turned on the power of those brown eyes on Toshirou. "But you were just here talking to Karin."

"Right." Toushirou turned to Momo and gave her a strange look before he turned back to talk to Karin.

Toushirou drove us home, Momo, me, and Karin who needed a lift too. Since Karin lived the farthest away, he dropped us off first. I was sleeping over at Momo's and she had barely reached her room before she had flung herself onto her bed and begun to throw a tantrum.

"I can't believe that Kurosaki is stealing my boyfriend! They humiliated me in front of everyone!" She wailed.

"Yes."

"I am going to die. I love him, how can he do this to me? He can't love her, maybe he is just interested in her?"

"I don't know."

"He was definitely interested in that soccer loving tomboy!"

"Well…"

"He must have talked to her for two hours! Two hours! She doesn't know how to talk to boys!"

"Maybe she doesn't have to."

"What do you mean? What does she have that I don't?"

"Maybe she knows how to listen."

"I don't care! How can a guy like Toushirou leave me for a girl like Karin! I don't understand it!"

"Yes, I know you don't." I told her gently.

Neither did anyone else, and the fact that Toushirou had dropped Momo, the most popular girl in school for Kurosaki Karin was the number one gossip topic for weeks. Because he did drop her, the very next day, and started dating Karin because he said she wasn't superficial like Momo.

I don't know if she was more devastated by losing Toushirou or from the public humiliation. It was after all the first time she had ever been dumped and the first time in recorded history that Momo didn't get her own way. That was probably just as traumatic as losing the so-called love of her life and I tried to console her.

"Momo, it happens to everyone."

"Not to me it doesn't!"

Which was true up until then, but it did happen. Even people who saw it couldn't understand it or figure out why. Did I feel sorry for Momo? She was my friend after all and I knew she was suffering even if no one else cared. Believe me, I had to listen to her damn suffering, day and night, for two weeks!

But did I feel sorry for Momo?

Yes, and no.

I did feel sorry for Momo, but on the other hand I was super happy for Kurosaki Karin.