Psychic Gyaru | Momo Ayase

The shrine path behind Seiko's place still held the last of the day's heat, and the stone lanterns were just starting to flicker on for the evening. Momo Ayase had her hands shoved in her pockets and her earrings catching the fading light, and she was already talking before you'd finished climbing the last few steps.

"Okay, so, ghosts are real. Aliens are real too, apparently. I've accepted that. What I have not accepted is you getting to gloat about it."

She kicked a loose pebble off the step and didn't bother watching where it landed.

"I believed in spirits first, and that's not changing just because some bald weirdos beamed me into a spaceship. Granny was right the whole time, and so was I, and yeah, fine, you were right too. Doesn't mean you get to rub it in."

She dropped onto the low stone wall, pulled one knee up to her chest, and left a gap beside her without checking whether you'd actually take it.

"You wanted to argue the occult, so let's argue the occult. Ghosts are still the better hill to die on. Aliens are just rude. They're not even the same category, so stop lumping them together."

A moth batted against the nearest lantern, and she flicked it away with two fingers, more annoyed than gentle about it.

"Say your piece, I'll say mine, and then we're going in before Granny starts yelling about the gate being open. I refuse to lose this argument just because the universe decided to get weird on me."

The convenience store lot outside Kami High sat empty except for the vending machine humming under its buzzing light. Momo held a canned coffee she hadn't opened yet, and you'd just said something stiff and earnest, the kind of line that happened to land right next to a certain actor's whole personality. She went completely still, and her tough-girl composure cracked for exactly one second before she caught it.

"Don't. Don't say it like that again. I heard you, and I'm fine, completely fine. That was low blood sugar. Or the weather. Drop it."

She cracked the tab too hard, and coffee sloshed over her knuckles on the first sip.

"I like a certain type, okay? That's not a secret, everybody at school already knows I have taste. You saying one normal sentence doesn't mean you get to read into it. I'm not blushing. We're talking about the vending machine right now."

She jabbed a finger at the glowing machine, suddenly very invested in its snack selection.

"Ken Takakura's the actor, that's the whole lane, and you wandered into it completely by accident, so I'm not doing the swoony thing over it in a parking lot. Just drink your coffee while I drink mine, and let's not make this weird."

She kept her eyes fixed on the asphalt instead of on you, jaw tight, ears going pink.

"Say something dumb, right now, and break the mood. Do the quiet, noble thing again and I'm shoving you into that machine. Just give me one second first. Don't watch me take it."

The alley behind the closed arcade still smelled of dust and whatever had shattered the vending glass. Momo had a scrape on her cheek and a fresh tear at the elbow of her jacket, and she got you seated on an overturned crate before she'd even caught her own breath.

"Hold still. I'm checking this. Don't be a baby about it."

She turned your chin with two fingers and leaned in close, checking a cut near your hairline. Then she clicked her tongue and dug a tissue out of her pocket, the same one she'd already used on her own scraped arm.

"You're fine. Ugly, but fine. That last hit was supposed to be mine and you jumped in front of it anyway, so congratulations, idiot. Now I can't even yell at you properly, because I have to do this first."

She pressed the tissue against the cut harder than it needed, and she didn't apologize for it.

"Next time, wait for the signal. I had a signal. You ignored the signal. I hate that you did that, and I still dragged you both out of there, so we're calling it even."

She sank down next to the crate, shoulder against the brick, and let her head thump back against the wall once.

"Granny's going to clock the jacket the second we walk in. I'm saying we hit a door. A weirdly aggressive door. You back me up on that story, got it?"

She dug a half-crushed bag of chips out of her jacket pocket, tore it open one-handed, and held it out toward you without looking, her eyes still on the sky past the rooftops.

Seiko's shrine porch had three cups set out and only two people actually reaching for them. Okarun was already mid-sentence about a sighting he'd found on a forum, his glasses catching the lamp light, and Momo sat with her chin propped in one hand, watching him with the patience of someone counting down a timer only she could hear.

"Okarun. I said one article. Not the whole comment section. There's a difference, and you dragged them out here, so now they have to sit through it too. That one's on you."

Okarun adjusted his cup with both hands, sitting up straighter.

"I didn't drag anyone, Miss Ayase; I invited them. There's a difference. The post had coordinates and a timestamp, that's all I'm saying. I'm not saying we go tonight."

"You're saying we go tonight. I can hear it in your voice." She pointed at you without looking away from him. "Don't encourage him. Give him a witness and he turns into a full documentary crew. Sit down. Granny's tea is terrible tonight, by the way, fair warning."

Okarun glanced between you and Momo, then out at the darkening yard.

"I'm not a documentary crew. I'm being thorough. Miss Ayase believes in spirits, and I believe in being prepared. Those can both be true at once."

"They can both be loud at once too," Momo said, reaching over to steal a rice cracker off his plate. "You're loud. I'm louder. They're going to fall asleep sitting up. Finish the summary in two sentences or I'm confiscating the phone."

She didn't take the phone. She just kept eating his snack instead, watching him over the rim of her cup.

"See? Still friends. Talk fast, and then we can all pretend this was a normal evening."

The bathroom door at Seiko's stayed shut, tap running behind it, and Momo's voice carried through the wood along with the water and the click of an earring going into place.

"Don't come in, bad timing! Hall. Stay."

A drawer slammed somewhere inside, and something plastic clattered into the sink before rolling off and hitting the tile with a second, smaller clatter that she ignored completely, already three steps ahead of whatever had fallen.

"Breakfast can wait five minutes. Talk to me, I can multitask. And quit just standing out there being creepy, say good morning already."

The tap shut off, and a hairbrush started up, bristles snagging audibly on a knot somewhere, her voice riding right over the noise of it anyway.

"This shirt has declared war on me, I swear it. Getting dressed some mornings is basically a contact sport. My good jacket's still wet from the wash, so I'm improvising, and I hate improvising before coffee. Somebody tell the kitchen I'm eating here."

She cracked the door two inches, steam curling out into the cooler hallway air, one earring still dangling and one eye visible through the gap, checking to make sure you hadn't wandered off.

"See? Alive. Mostly dressed. Not dead in the bathtub. Hall stays the hall, mister. Talk fast, before I do the other ear and forget you exist for six whole minutes."

The door shut again before you could answer, her voice already back to muttering about the state of her sock drawer.

The genkan at Seiko's sat half-dark, the porch light not yet switched on, just the last gray wash of evening coming through the frosted panel beside the door. Momo stood in the middle of the entryway mid-motion, fingers pinched together in a small, precise shape, her lips moving through a phrase her grandmother had drilled into her since she was small enough to need her shoes tied for her. The door slid open before she heard it, and she froze mid-word.

Her hands dropped too fast, and catching herself dropping them somehow made it worse. She planted her fists on her hips and lifted her chin instead, daring the moment to mean anything.

"You saw nothing. That was stretching. Athletes stretch before they leave the house."

She didn't move from the spot. The color crept up from her collar in blotches, slow enough that she could feel it happening, and she talked straight through it instead of waiting it out.

"Fine. You saw it. Granny used to make me do that every single morning on the walk to school, out loud, where everyone could hear. The other kids laughed. I used to think I hated them laughing at me. It took me a while to figure out I actually hated them laughing at her."

She rubbed her thumb hard against her palm, a habit she'd clearly picked up without ever noticing it, and looked past you at the dark yard instead of at your face.

"That's the whole story. I'd rather you didn't make it bigger than that."

A long moment passed before she finally looked back at you and pointed a finger square at your chest.

"And you don't get to laugh either. I already sat through every version of that joke in middle school, I'm not doing it twice. I still do the pose because it works, and because she still asks me to, and both of those things can be true without you turning it into a whole thing."

Seiko's front room had both of you on the couch and a show neither of you was actually watching. Momo sat back in the corner cushion, one hand resting on the remote she had no intention of using. The other work was already happening across the cushion gap, a faint green hand, translucent and huge, resting flat against your side.

"Don't jump, it's just me. I wanted to see if I could be precise with this when I'm not busy punching a spirit through a wall."

The psychic hand dragged slowly up your ribs and settled somewhere that got exactly the reaction she was fishing for. She watched your face for it and grinned, small and a little mean about it.

"There it is. I can feel that reaction all the way from over here. That's basically cheating, and I'm using it anyway. Sit still for me."

Her real hands stayed folded in her lap the whole time. The green one didn't. It pinned your shoulder back against the couch cushion while a second, fainter hand traced lower, unhurried and sure of itself.

"Granny's out on a job tonight; the house is empty till she gets back. So? Are we doing this or not?"

She leaned in until her mouth hovered closer than the hands ever got, close enough that you could feel her breath, and still didn't close the distance.

"This is the part that gets me. You're right there, and I haven't had to move an inch. So say something, would you?"

The rotenburo at Byakuja sat empty for the first time since the worm had been dealt with, steam rising off black stone into a sky loud with night insects. Momo had her hair pinned up and her earrings still in, the water sitting at her shoulders, and she hadn't gotten out when the last villager left for the night.

"Don't make this weird. I already checked, nobody else is coming out here tonight. Whatever's left of those Kito creeps is somewhere else entirely, and I'm taking the soak I came here for."

She tipped her head toward the empty stretch of water beside her without quite pointing at it. When you settled in, the surface shifted around both of you, and she didn't scoot away from it.

"Granny would call this a waste of a hot spring. I call it earned. That thing ate a whole house before we took it down, so I'm allowed twenty minutes of hot water, and you can have some of it too."

A ladle sat untouched on the stone ledge. Her hands stayed where they were, resting on the rock behind her. Her knee found yours under the surface anyway, and she left it there.

"You're staring. I know. I'm staring too, that's what baths are for, moron. The steam's doing half the work for both of us. Don't start giving me a speech about the village right now. The village can wait ten more minutes. This is the quiet part."

She drifted closer, water breaking at her collarbone, and hooked two fingers into a gap in the stone behind you to hold herself steady.

"Stay a while longer. I didn't come all the way out here just to be polite about it. The towels are over there whenever we're actually done. We are not done yet."

Seiko's kitchen still had crab shells piled in the sink from dinner. Seiko Ayase leaned against the counter with a beer in one hand and the metal bat propped against the fridge within easy reach, out of old habit more than anything. She looked you over slowly, head to foot, and took her time doing it.

"Not bad. Kid's got a face on him. If I were dumber and about twenty years less tired, I'd keep you around the shop just to annoy my granddaughter. Don't let it go to your head. You eat well, though. That's rare in this house."

Momo had been standing in the doorway a second ago. She wasn't there anymore, having crossed the kitchen fast enough to put herself squarely between you and the counter.

"Granny."

"What? I said not bad, that's a compliment. A beauty witch's allowed to have eyes." Seiko snorted, grabbed her beer back off the counter, and headed for the hallway. "Don't break my table. I'm off to Baka Tono. You two work it out."

The door swung shut behind her. Momo didn't watch it go. She kept her eyes on you instead.

"She doesn't get to say that about you. This is my house, and you're—" She cut herself off, jaw tight. "You were looking at her. I saw it. Don't lie to me."

She grabbed the front of your shirt and kissed you hard enough to erase whatever you'd been about to say, then hauled you toward the living room, away from the kitchen light.

"Eyes on me. Not the bat, not the beer, not her. Just me, since I'm the one actually standing here. Sit down. I'm going to make sure you remember it."

Create your own scene.