Word Count: 1,841

"Princess."

"What is it, Kyo?"

"You have a visitor."

Momo frowned slightly, then turned to face her best friend, the bodyguard Jirou Kyouka, standing in the doorway. "That's strange. I'm not expecting anyone."

Kyouka looked uneasy, which made Momo nervous. "Well, I hope your expectations aren't rising because it's probably not anyone you'd be expecting. I told him to wait in a tea room."

"Him?" Momo cried, starting to panic now. "I already told my parents suitors were off the table now! I'm not ready to court anyone at the moment."

"Relax, Yaomomo," Kyouka assured her, slipping out of her professional persona for a moment. "He's not here for that."

"Then what is he here for? And how do you know he's not here for that? Do you know him?"

Kyouka looked to the side and pursed her lips. "Mmmmm that's classified information, m'lady," she said almost playfully.

Momo was very tempted to throw a pillow at her bodyguard, but alas, there were none in her study, so she settled for a sigh. She ejected herself from her desk and marched over to Kyouka. "Tell meeeee."

"You'll just have to find out for yourself, princess~" Kyouka half sang, half teased. "Just remember you can't run any further than home."

Momo furrowed her brow as she followed her friend to meet with this mystery man. "What are you talking about, Kyo?"

"Don't worry about it," the bodyguard easily replied, holding in a snicker as she held the door open for the princess. "I'll leave you to it. Try not to avoid this one."

"I still don't know what you're talking about," Momo said, partly to herself, but mostly to the door.

"Momo?" The girl in question froze at the sound of his voice, the voice she hadn't heard in months now, not since she came back from studying abroad. "Is that really you?"

Momo couldn't even fake a smile, her expression was so deeply trapped in disbelief. She turned around slowly to face the one person she thought she'd never see again: Todoroki Shoto.

He was just sitting there with mismatched eyes wide as the moon, a cup of faintly steaming tea in his hand that honestly looked closer to getting dropped than to his mouth.

"Todoroki-san," she replied none too easily, her throat strangely dry. A hand, which had been clutching her arm, fell limply to her side. "You found me."

Immediately, Todoroki blinked and appeared to shy away from her. "I'm sorry, did you not want to see me?"

Momo sighed and made her way over to him. After all, it would be rude of her to tell him the truth: "I'm sorry, I fell in love with you, got scared, and ran home without telling you because I was scared of you and your feelings, of myself and my feelings." That just simply wouldn't do, so instead she said, "No, no. It's fine. I… I just—"

He stared at her, concern written all over his once permanently expressionless face, as she struggled to choke out any combination of words that would make sense. He seemed to notice her struggling and so spoke up in her stead:

"You guys left without warning. Nobody knew where you went, so when I got the opportunity to come here I took it. I apologize if I frightened you."

Momo took a deep, calming breath, then let it out silently as she composed herself once again. With as much grace as her trembling legs would give her, she joined him by the window for tea.

To say the silence that followed was awkward was an understatement, to say the least.

"I'm sorry," Momo said at last, staring down at her untouched tea. There was a soft clicking of fine china as Todoroki put his cup down, rattling the table ever so slightly and forming ripples in her own. "I realized I was forgetting my duty as a princess to my country, distracted by studying abroad so I— I got scared. And I ran back home." She sighed, pushing, fighting the urge to blurt the truth right then and there. "Kyouka or I, one of us should have said something. About leaving, about who we were— it doesn't matter. I apologize for leaving you all so soon. I didn't think it would have affected you all so profoundly."

She could feel Todoroki staring at her intently, could sense the gears clicking and turning in his head as he processed the information, processed the sight before him. Allowed the fact to sink in that she, Momo Yaoyorozu, had lied to him.

She peeked up at him through her bangs.

He caught her gaze, then shifted away from her, sucking on the silver spoon given to him almost sheepishly as he averted his eyes. "I think it's more of a shock to find out you're a princess than to see you leave," he said, a little too aloof to be natural.

Momo allowed herself a wan smile. Her heart was aching; he didn't know, didn't realize it yet. She was just a few short months away from turning eighteen and becoming queen. "So, Todoroki-san," she said, feeling just well enough to take a tiny sip of her tea, "I suppose you have a valid reason for being here? The guards don't let just anyone in, you know."

"Ah," Todoroki said, letting the spoon slip from his mouth and fall into his hand. "Fuyumi-nee, you know all the connections she has, she sent me here with coffee for an old friend who works here, I think. Kyouka was the one who let me in, though."

That much seems true, Momo thought as she eyed the little paper bag sitting by his feet with the Todoroki name stamped upon its side. But not enough to get on a plane, and not enough to come see her without delivering it first. "I see," she said carefully, guilty that she would have to leave her tea unfinished. "It was nice seeing you, Todoroki-san."

She pretended not to notice how quickly he turned to look at her, focusing solely on excusing herself, when he spoke up again.

"Wait," was all, but she found herself frozen to the spot all the same. "There's more to it than just that."

To the beat of her heart, she wished it still, for she knew not if she could take it. To the sting in her eye, she wished it cease, for she wanted not to cry. To the hope in her soul, she wished it fade, for she desired nothing more than to move on. To be trapped in the past, ever-longing, always dreaming of a time gone by, she had seen what that did to a person.

"I have a duty to fulfill, not just to my sister, but to myself." To my heart, she heard the words unspoken. Momo closed her eyes and held her breath, allowed her lashes to brush away her tears. "I—" Todoroki began, but he faltered, his breath stopping all at once. They both let it out, letting their feelings flutter fresh in their chests before he started anew.

"I like you," he said, and Momo would have given anything to be able to move again, to see his face as he told her. Was he crying too? There was that little something she had never heard in his voice before. "And it took time and losing you to know, and there's nothing that could ever come of my telling you, but I…" he trailed off, swallowed thickly, and continued valiantly on. "I had to in order to move on. So please, Momo." She could hear the pleading bleeding through the cracks in his voice. "Would you look at me again?"

She could hear his breathing through the silence, afraid to move from fear of snuffing it out. When at last she regained herself and turned to him, her head had sunk low, the tears her lashes had held back falling freely to her feet. She could hear his breath choke, but just barely, for it was overshadowed by the echoing click-clack of her heels on the cold, tile floor.

His face was blurry when she looked at him again, but it wasn't for long anyway. Her eyes fell shut when she pulled him down by the collar of his shirt and smashed her lips against his, pouring her every repressed thought and emotion into the action. He stiffened against her, likely frightened by the touch, and there he remained for all of seven seconds as his silver spoon clattered to the floor. But just as she began to pull away, he picked up on the cue, leaning in and pushing back as if her kiss was all he needed to fall through a portal into her world.

(But he couldn't, that was impossible, he'd never be allowed into life in that way, not when every second of it had been so meticulously planned from the moment she was born.)

Oh, simple coffee shop boy.

Their tears mingled as they rolled down her cheeks, down her neck, her back and chest, cooling the heat rising between them just a little.

Had he (had she?) ever thought this would happen when he found her back then, on her first day in the country, lost and huddled beneath a bus stop? When he offered her his own umbrella, insisting on walking home alone in the rain, only to find her moved into the apartment next door?

She pulled away first, the instinct to breathe winning her over just long enough, and she stared at his face, flushed cherry red like her own as one hand slipped out of her hair, the other sliding back down her back, both falling back to their places by his side. Momo, too, loosened her grip on him, half-heartedly straightening and smoothing her clothes back out.

Todoroki blinked as she took a tiny step back, the tears already slowing on both of their faces. Momo bit her tongue as she looked at him, really paid attention to the way he looked standing there in the dim tea room, the only source of light a window on a cloudy day. She took another step back, fighting the urge to reach out and touch him again with every screaming fiber of her being, then another, and another, and before she knew it, she had run out the door without a goodbye.

"Princess?" Kyouka said as she left, but Momo could barely hear it, so lost and afraid was she.

You can't run any farther than home.

The soft breeze of the evening air caressed her cheek as she lay in bed, the heat of their flame still cooling in her heart. Dying slowly, slowly…

Author's Note i. I meant for this to be a drabble but oh no things got out of hand. Originally pitched this about a month ago, when episode twelve of tada-kun wa koi wo shinai came out and I just had a MIGHTY NEED to write an au of it. Ofc I don't have the time for a full multi-chapter, but I got this and the follow-up happy ending chapter out in a day soo. I guess. i'll publish that next week.

That being said I think my ego is getting too inflated please roast me in the reviews. Thank you for reading; I hope you have a greaaat daaaayyyy~~