Clutter dominates Momo's room, flotsam and jetsam – along with other stuff and junk – just vomited everywhere, filling up corners and shoved into piles of clothing and detritus, tucked into any free space under her bed and tables, just to clear a path to the door so she can slog her way out in the mornings.
She has no desire to live in a pigsty.
She's not a slob by nature.
Really, she isn't.
Heck, she can't allow herself to be or discarded bottles would pile up throughout the house and every piece of furniture would probably be covered in a film of ash from Gran's smokes. Training over the last few weeks has been grueling, though, leaving her with a brutal migraine like a white hot fire poker jammed through her temple and out the other side with spiderwebs of somehow throbbing electric current coursing through the meat of her brain.
The fire poker would probably be more fun, actually, since she would, you know, be dead and not laying around in agony.
Plus, there's just not enough time in the day when she has school, and embarks on all those missions to fight fucking space invaders and grapple with the warped spirits of the deceased.
There are way too many, cropping up everywhere. It's a fucking country jamboree of assholes and the shit that they've done, leaving behind obsessive echos, and it stinks, without a doubt.
So some of it has spilled out into Momo's personal life in the form of disorganized collectible merch, stained and grime-shaded pink leopard print curtains and carpets clashing with reams of stuffies chucked haphazardly about her bedroom. Manga and blu rays spill out from her bookshelves and pile up on top of her small bedside table, a half dozen stacked precariously on the always-on-the-fritz cathode-ray-tube antique TV-VCR combo (probably about as old as Gran, they're both fossils, but one of them is necessary since too many Ken Takakura films haven't been released on DVD, let alone 4K) next to the head of her bed.
But not the carefully preserved collection of VHS tapes. Those are fine. Their spines are dusted regularly, on the topmost shelf. Deep Blue Sea (Ken's first appearance), Station, Abashiri Prison, and other gems are all tucked away. You've got to protect the important things.
It's a three-day weekend, Sports Day during an unseasonably warm early October, and Gran was out late on Friday night, supposedly conducting an exorcism, but probably bar hopping, even if she's an unsociable old hag and tends not to need the excuse of company to get her drinking in. She was tipsy by the time she sauntered in at one AM.
Based on Momo's estimate since she was finally able to breathe and turn in after berating the witch for hanging out so late, Gran had probably been sloshed by three.
That means she's sleeping to noon.
No training today, which leaves Momo's mental muscles crying out with relief. If her synapses and grey matter were capable of shedding grateful tears, not to Gran, but to alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems, they would be balling.
There's time to rip through the mess like a chainsaw.
The entire morning is devoted to a thorough, deep clean, satisfying in its own way, if time-consuming. Bags of junk fill up, stuffed with haphazardly discarded candybar wrappers, dust, old scrap paper used to work on assignments she can't remember, a couple amazon boxes, and other assorted trash.
Used clothes that she takes a whiff of, just to see if they're fit for reuse or need to get chucked into the laundry hamper, are sorted.
A good dusting of shelves, desktops, and the upper edges of window frames, making sure to tackle the cobwebs in the corners, follows.
The carpets get two washes using the cleaner, which screams and chugs its way through the job, screw Gran's sleep because it's eleven AM by that point and she needs to start waking up anyways.
Every wall receive a thorough scrubbing by hand, the sudsy water in her wash bucket turned black by the end of the morning.
She even detaches her Ken Takakura poster, peeling the corners gently to avoid crinkling the glossy paper while making sure that the gummy blu tack doesn't rip little jagged holes in the paint.
It's covering up an old stain.
Momo doesn't remember it being there, let alone where it comes from, but she scours away at it, just the same, until it's gone, just like the memory.
When she's done, she sits on her bed, picking absently at the blu tack at the corners of her Ken poster and mulling over the possibility of rooting about in her desk for some fresh stuff. The shot of his face, rugged and stoic, the very ideal of manhood, despite having been stuck up on her wall for years now, is still trying to roll up. It falls back into shape naturally, so she has to fight it as she gives it a delicate clean, too, using a cloth to wipe way a patina of dust before she hangs it back up.
Looking at it while laying on her bed facing the headboard, she thinks that it's cockeyed, not quite level.
When she takes it down again, just as gently, she's surprised to find, looking up, that the blank wall doesn't look desolate or bland.
It just looks kind of ...
Fresh.
Just clean and open.
Huh.
Gran wasn't bothered enough by the carpet cleaner to get up at 11:30, or even 12:00.
Momo leaves her door half open along with her window because an unseasonably warm cross breeze is nice. Smelling of earthy moist leaves and petrichor from recent rains, it clears out the acrid artificial pine of cleaning solvent.
Air things out a bit after all the dusting.
With her curtains spread wide, bunched up in the corners of the window frame, a wide swath of sunlight cuts across her waist as she lays there in her bed, staring at the blank spot on the wall.
Clopping along the hall, probably half in the bag already even if it's only 1:00 PM because she's got bottles stashed in her room, Gran passes by. There's a clatter and strangled grunt like a really wimpy stuck boar bellowing in the distance, and then another shuffle of feet, before the door creaks open all the way, causing Momo to arch her head backwards.
Gran's in the doorway, upside down and wide eyed, slightly flushed in the cheeks and down her throat. She's wearing panties and a loose tank top that's probably in need of a wash because she doesn't give a fuck. One arm hangs limp at her side, the cigarette clutched between her dangling fingers sending up a curling trail of smoke that causes Momo's nose to scrunch.
"What happened to that shitty old poster?" Gran, brow pinched with confusion, makes a vague sweep with her floppy cigarette-holding hand, the stink wafting into Momo's room, and just when she had spent so much time scrubbing and scouring away.
"The hell you care, you old hag?" Thumbing her chin at the hag is kind of tough when her head's twisted and arched back, but moving feels like it would be conceding the point, so Momo settles for looking kind of stupid, probably. Gran doesn't get to ask that kind of question; her face is heating up with the audacity of it. She didn't ask questions, didn't want to know, so where did Gran get off?
"Whatever," Gran sighs. "It's my day off." Her shoulders roll and she pinches the bridge of her nose like she's trying to break it. "And I've got a hangover, brat. If you're possessed or something, save any really weird shit for tomorrow, okay?"
Without waiting for a response, she slouches off, leaving Momo rolling her eyes at the empty space in the doorway.
A moment later, Turbo Granny pokes her head around the corner, catching the tail end of the obstinate and exaggerated scoff, and a flicker of gran being flipped off.
They stare at each other, the little Maneki Neko doll given life like Chucky, paws drumming along the door frame and smug grin on her lips like she's about to start cackling.
"You need something, Granny?" Momo challenges, still not getting up off her back because she's tired as a general fact of life, which is all tests, all the time, early morning classes that stretch from eight to around three because she's gummy-eyed and foggy throughout the day, and late night firefights with alien perverts.
Turbo granny just scoffs, giving her an eye roll right back.
"Kids!" Pushing off from the wall, she waddles across the doorway, tracking Gran down the hall and steeling herself for the climb down the stairs. "Disrespectful dumbasses, all of you."
Fuck.
She has to get out of this place before she ends up a weird rusty and useless old battleaxe like these two.
Granted, that doesn't exactly happen over night. She's only sixteen, and maybe the superpowers would let her survive well enough, because, heck, she could parley them into a job in construction or just ask to get paid for exorcisms and rescuing damsels in distress, getting plucked up by UAPs, but what a fucking hassle that would be.
She's got homework to do, though, and that's what they're trying to tackle in her freshly cleaned bedroom right now, a two person study group of Okarun and -
"Miss Ayase?"
When she turns at the waist, resting her elbow on the back of her chair to glance at Okarun, she sees him looking up from the math textbook and sheets of loose-leaf spread out on the floor in front of him. His eyes are locked on the bare spot above Momo's shelf, still occupied by her alarm clock and a smattering of framed photographs. The collection has grown to include group shots with Jin, Aira, her, and Okarun himself; one of Gran, puffing smoke, another of Turbo Granny playing solitaire; one more of Gran and Momo herself bickering because Aira snapped it on her cell and started showing it off while crowing, side-eyeing Momo, you're the spitting image of your grandmother, Ayase!
Momo shows it off to spite her.
No way did she get under her skin.
There's one of Okarun, too, sitting under the shade of a tree in the yard beyond their shrine, sun filtering through to dapple his cheeks. His youthful, slack face upturned as a breeze ruffles his hair, and all the tension that stoops his shoulders has bled away so that he looks like he's halfway to falling asleep.
"Yeah, Okarun?" she asks, leaning towards him.
He turns his head towards her, brow raised inquisitively.
"What happened to your poster?" he asks as if befuddled, maybe slightly concerned.
"Oh." She fiddles with her pen, clicking the cam rhythmically, almost keeping steady time with it. "That old thing was getting kind of tatty. It's in my closet."
She doesn't like it when Okarun looks like that, an ambiguous expression passing over his face that's distinctly thoughtful and partially absent, like his mind is starting to churn up for a long-distance run. A marathon at breakneck speed because he has to catch up to himself, always outpaced, when he can only go full-throttle for a few minutes at most, even with all of the training that's honed his body, had him fill out so that his uniform strains, and falls slack, in all the right places.
So she chucks an eraser at him, landing it square above the bridge of his nose.
Building up a head of steam as he rubs at the spot on his forehead as if he's suffered a mortal wound and she laughs about his poor wittle boo-boo even if she does feel her face heating when she wonders aloud if he needs someone to kiss it better, is a way better look.
It's a Ken Takakura poster.
That's what the label on the rolled up, plastic-foil-wrapped tube that Okarun has deposited in her hands informs her.
A foot into her room, having just whipped the thing out and given it over, he's standing there before her, hand to the back of his head, fingers tight in his scruffy hair like a little kid who has just handed a flower to teacher.
"Uh, I saw this in – in a store," he explains in a wobbly voice, digging his sock-clad foot into Momo's carpet. "I was looking for - for some new UAP magazines, and, since it was on sale, I thought - you know, that you might like it."
"Okarun." Whoa. Her voice shouldn't sound so sappy-rough. Something is caught in her throat. She coughs into her fist to try to clear it, but it's not dislodging.
Furtive, like a puppy that's a little uncertain about a new environment, working up his courage to go exploring after being brought home, Okarun flicks his eyes upwards, assessing.
"Yes, Miss Ayase?" he asks, fiddling with the rims of his glasses like they just don't fit right on his nose.
His blush blooms all the way across it when she ducks in and, before she can think or think better of it, plants a swift peck to the apple of his cheek. His skin is warm and soft against her lips, lingering there, but there's a little quiver in her chest, something tugging at her heart as it kicks, like a horse-hoof in her face, into turbo, at the faint bristle of stubble and she realizes that Okarun probably shaves his beard every day, even if it's probably scraggly and patchy.
When she pulls back after an infinite instant, she finds him with his lips pursed and hands fisted into his pant legs, creasing up the material.
She's got it.
"Thanks," she explains simply, probably looking like a dope because she can feel her cheeks dimpling under yhe force of a grin.
One that he mirrors, and that's just a little bit too adorable a sight, and fluttery-in-the belly a feeling, for her to stand it for very long.
And got it bad.
So she grabs fresh blu tack and, standing on a chair, puts up Ken Takakura's poster – not above her bed, but to the side of her room between her door and dresser.
When she wakes up in the morning, it will probably be one of the first things that she sees.
And she'll think of him whenever she sees it.
Of course she will.
For no reason at all, a dozen of Okarun's photographs (him napping with his back to the trunk of a tree, her own shoulder just in frame, after a rough training day; Okarun's flushed face as he holds up a magazine, jabbing an aggressive finger at a nonsense article about some American churches that claim that UAPs are demons; a sneaky, dutch angle shot from her cell phone of his broadening back from behind, the boy slouched over homework at Momo's desk; and a half-dozen more) are tacked to the wall.
They surround Ken Takakura's poster like a constellation of stars.