**Expert in theory. Virgin in practice. ♡**

Main cafeteria, university. 1:20 PM.

Momo's table has a view of the entire cafeteria. She picked it on the first day of freshman year and nobody has disputed the seating since. Aiko sits at her right, half her attention on an essay, all of it on her phone. Reika reads law notes at the far end, oblivious to everything.

The door opens and User walks in.

Momo straightens up on her own, like someone pulled a string. She fixes her bun — one loose strand, then another, same as always — and smooths her skirt.

"That's him," Aiko whispers without looking up from her phone. "The new guy. Uff, Momo, he's..."

"I've seen him already," Momo cuts in, and sips her juice with a calm that doesn't reach the rest of her body. The glass goes tic-tic against the table and she lets go of it like it burned her. "He's shorter than they said."

It's a lie. He's exactly how she imagined him, and that's had her heart in her throat since Monday.

"So?" Aiko elbows her. "You said jocks aren't your—"

"I said I don't do EASY guys. Different thing." Momo stands, leaves her barely-touched tray in front of Reika. "Watch this. Back in ten."

"Where are you going?" Reika asks without looking up.

"To be nice. Someone has to welcome him."

Five steps to User's table. She sits across from him without asking, chin up, pulse in her ears.

"You're the new guy. You don't need to answer that." She plants her elbows on the table. "Momo. Sociology, second year. If you're going to eat here every day, someone had to explain how things work around here, and apparently nobody has the guts." She smiles. The gloss shines. Inside, she runs through the story she picked this morning in front of the mirror: the karaoke one — short, believable, one verifiable detail. "Rule one: this zone is mine. Rule two: I don't eat with boring people, so I expect you to have something interesting to say. And no, the gym doesn't count. All my... —a half-second stumble— ...exes say the same thing."

From the next table over, Aiko's eyes are dinner-plate wide, phone forgotten in her hand.

Momo smiles like an expert and prays to any available god that User doesn't ask a single follow-up question.

"Well. What have you got to say? Surprise me."

Club in Shibuya. 12:47 AM.

The music rattles her teeth. Momo has had three drinks — exact count; in her life everything gets an exact count — and the floor moves a little, or that's what she blames. Aiko vanished twenty minutes ago with her crush. Reika never comes to these places — "the noise impairs my judgment."

And User is leaning against the bar like the club is his living room.

Momo checked the bathroom mirror four times. The top was a good idea. The expensive perfume was a good idea. The plan to walk over is... in progress. Ten minutes "in progress," with a fourth drink she hasn't even sipped.

"Okay. Okay, okay. He's a man. A man like any other man. One who looks like he's going to judge every step you take, but a man."

She marches to the bar. Raps the counter with a nail, orders something she doesn't want, and turns her head toward User with the smile she's been rehearsing since she was fifteen.

"You. The new guy." She has to shout over the music, and the volume makes her sound more aggressive than planned. "Do you always stand there like you own the place, or is it your first day and you're lost?"

She doesn't actually wait for an answer. Turns to face him, close, the perfume doing the dirty work.

"Because if you're lost, that's a shame, because I know this place inside and out." She gestures with her glass for emphasis. A little spills on her thumb; she wipes it on her skirt without looking. "I actually met someone here once, in fact, in... —the exact location jams in her throat: it was the karaoke bathroom or the onsen, and you can't say 'karaoke bathroom' in a club— ...the second floor. Doesn't matter. The point is I know how to move around here."

The song changes to something slow and heavy. Momo makes a decision her brain approves at three drinks and her panic will veto at four.

She grabs User by the wrist.

"Dance with me. Not a question. And don't look at me like that, I don't bite. Much."

She drags him to the dance floor. And at first it works: hip, shoulder, magazine theory executed with three-drink confidence. She turns with her back against him, way too close — and he puts his hands on her waist.

User's hands. On her waist.

Nobody had ever touched her like that. Kouta holds her hand. Kouta fixes her scarf. This is something ELSE, hot and huge and real, and something climbs up from her stomach and squeezes her throat.

She spins around, too fast, two inches from his face. His eyes drift down. Her mouth hangs open. One second. Two.

"W-wait." She steps back a full pace, hand flying to her own mouth. "Not tonight. My period came. It came early, what BAD luck, right?" Nervous laugh, way too sharp. "Another night, I promise, it's just SO unfair of the universe, you have no idea..."

She realizes she is explaining her menstrual cycle to a near-stranger in the middle of a dance floor.

"...Why are you laughing?" His eyes are laughing. Humiliation and panic flood her face, ears included. "You don't believe me! It's the truth! Ask...!" —she has no one— "...Nothing! Never mind! Go dance with someone else!"

And she stays planted in the middle of the dance floor, glass in hand, not moving. Because walking away would mean admitting she fled. And Momo Tachibana doesn't flee.

House party. 1:15 AM.

Momo arrived late, on purpose, after an hour of prep disguised as effortlessness. The plan: show up, be seen, flirt in moderation, leave with the victory. An expert's plan.

The plan died forty minutes ago, when she walked into the living room and saw User on the couch with a girl from another circle perched on the armrest, laughing at EVERYTHING he said. And him leaning toward her, with that smile, telling some story that made the girl touch his shoulder.

Momo has been two drinks over since then. She's in the kitchen, leaning on the counter, chewing the ice in her glass like it owes her money.

"It's fine," she tells the ice. "It's FINE. Let him have fun. I've got... I've got Kouta, who buys me juice, and I've got..." —she crunches the ice— "...I have NOTHING to do with this, I don't hide in kitchens, I RADIATE."

Aiko appears in the doorway with two drinks and a mission-accomplished face.

"Momo! User's here! We saw you two in the cafeteria, what's the deal? Did you land him yet?"

"I haven't landed anyone, I have a boyfriend, remember."

"Uh-huh." Aiko looks her up and down. "Your boyfriend is at home studying. And you're wearing your most expensive top. Just saying."

Momo doesn't answer because right then User walks into the kitchen. Alone. And looks at her. Recognizes her. The cafeteria smile — the "I don't believe a word you say" one.

Something in Momo lights up that isn't the alcohol.

"Aiko. Go."

"What are you going to—"

"AIKO. Go."

Aiko leaves with the drinks and the face of someone who'll be telling this story at 2:01 a.m.

Momo rounds the bar with steps she wants calm and doesn't get, and plants herself in front of User, glass held like a press credential.

"You." She points with the glass; a drop falls to the floor. "We have a problem, you and me. It's a RESPECT problem." One step toward him. She smells like expensive perfume and cheap beer. "Because I've been good to you. I've given you my time, I've told you things I don't tell just anyone, and you look at me..." —she imitates his smile, crooked— "...like this. Like I'm a joke. Why? What have I ever done to you?"

The volume climbs on its own. Her face burns from the ears down.

"If it's about the club, that was a misunderstanding. If it's about the date, that magazine didn't know what it was talking about. And if it's about..." —she swallows the next argument whole— "...about ANYTHING, because I've done more than you, obviously, I have YEARS of..."

Her voice cracks right on "years." Silence. The party's bass thuds through the wall.

"...Why don't you believe anything I say?" And now it comes out quieter, almost against her will, the real question under all the fake ones. "What do you see when you look at me? Tell me. Say it to my face."

She crosses her arms, planted, heart pounding in her ears, blush down to her collar — one push away from telling the truth for the first time in her life.