The trip to Okinawa went smoothly. Momo and Ayaka were used to traveling on airplanes, unlike Jirō, who was terrified the entire time, from takeoff to landing. She had never been on a plane before; all of her trips were made by bus or car.
Today was one of the few times that Ayaka had seen Jirō pray, she was never a very religious person. Her fear would be made fun of for a long time, Ayaka knew that making fun of her friend could have violent consequences but it was worth it.
When the flying coffin finally landed, Jirō had never felt so relieved in her entire life. "Thank God, I thought I was going to die in there. I'm never flying on a plane again." Her voice was tired and raspy.
"You do realize we still have to go back home?" Ayaka remarked with a mocking tone
"Live in the moment my dear friend, live in the moment. I'll leave those problems for future Jirō." A phrase commonly said by those who don't plan ahead of time.
The students disembarked from the plane, collected their luggage, and then headed directly to their hotels. The place they were staying was fitting of the prestige of their high school, it was a fancy hotel with spacious rooms, which unfortunately meant that a greater quantity of students could be in one. There were a total of four teens per room, leaving no opportunity for the girlfriends to be alone, and if that wasn't enough, they got put in separate rooms.
Momo got put in a room with 3 girls from her class, so it wasn't so bad, and Ayaka was with 2 girls she was unfamiliar with, and one that she was friends with, an invisible girl called Toru Hagakure.
The girl had been a member of the botany club for her first year, joining the photography club this year. Ayaka liked the girl, she was bubbly, easygoing, and cheery, so she was well-liked at school, but Ayaka had to admit that Toru did not have an ounce of talent in taking care of plants.
Everything the girl touched almost died. She overwatered the plants, put the ones that grew with low sunlight for hours directly under the sun, and vice versa. So even though Ayaka was fond of her, her leaving the club wasn't all bad.
When they got to their rooms, Ayaka's group chose the beds they'd sleep in and organized their belongings. The girls started talking about their own lives and asking about each other, trying to get acquainted with their new roommates.
Making a circle around the bed, they all sat down and started talking. First, they introduced themselves, surprisingly, all of them knew who Ayaka was due to the two instances of her acting like a hero. But she had no idea who those girls were.
The first one was a petite girl with white hair, Ayaka didn't pay much attention to her name, something Intelli. Ayaka wasn't one to dismiss people like that, but ever since they met, she felt that this girl was honestly kind of a bitch. To be fair, she wasn't that bad, Ayaka didn't like her mostly because of the way she acted high and mighty as if she were the smartest person in the world.
The other girl was Reiki Tsubasa, she was nice, but Ayaka felt like they'd never meet again.
"So… how are you guys doing?" Hagakure was the first one to speak. "Let's start with you Intelli-san, you seem like an interesting person."
The petite girl seemed to like the idea. Her introduction was mostly boasting about her achievements, dreams, and how incredible her quirk—IQ— was.
It was hard to argue that the quirk wasn't good. While it wasn't suited for combat, the vast majority of things and prestigious positions can be earned without fighting, utilizing your wits and brains.
Hagakure's introduction revealed a lot of information about her, most of it could be inferred from talking to her briefly. Her cheery personality, is very sociable, loves to talk about their friends' love lives and etc.
Now, the time Ayaka dreaded had come. Toru turned to Ayaka and said, "Hanabusa-san, it's your turn now. It's been a while since we've talked to each other at school, so I'm curious about how you've been." Her friend showed genuine interest in Ayaka's life, unfortunately for her, she didn't feel like sharing at all.
Ayaka was never one to share much about her life, especially with people she wasn't friends with. This was a behavior she wanted to change, so even though she didn't want to, she tried making an effort.
She hesitated, thinking about what she would answer. "I've been doing great. As you might already know, my mother passed a few months ago, it took me some time to recover from that, but I'm much better now. I started dating someone three months ago too, and we're very happy together. There's not much else to say."
The room turned silent, and the girls kept in mind that there could be bad news from any of them, but they didn't expect something like this. Although, the good news of her thriving love life did offset the blow, they were at a loss for words.
Toru gave Ayaka a heartfelt hug and comforted her friend, "I'm so sorry, it's good that you're feeling better now. I assume you don't want to talk about this anymore, so if you want, you can tell us about who you're going out with." She was good at reading situations, so Hagakure tried to move past the grim subject as quickly as possible.
Before she could answer, her phone buzzed, it was a text from Momo. A sudden invitation for them to talk in the lobby, which usually meant a bad thing, but Ayaka found it unlikely due to how good their relationship was.
"Oh, they're calling me to the lobby, I'll be back in a while." Saved by the bell, Ayaka rushed off and quickly met Momo.
In another room, 20 minutes before the text. Momo was talking with her friends about their love lives, sharing their crushes, and complaining about their ex-boyfriends. This quickly made her realize that Ayaka was an amazing girlfriend. The girls told each other about how badly their partners treated them, ignored them, and sometimes hit on other people.
The focus of the talk turned to Momo, the one who didn't say anything about her own love life.
"What about you Yaoyorozu, do you have someone you like?" The green-haired girl named Setsuna Tokage asked in a curious tone.
Momo wasn't sure what to answer. What she wanted to do was show them pictures of Ayaka and boast about her, but she knew that her girlfriend wasn't a fan of sharing about herself with strangers.
"I am currently in a commitment relationship, but we haven't talked about making it public. I need to talk with them first." Both Momo and Ayaka referred to each other with neutral pronouns, to avoid outing themselves to unwanted people.
The couple wasn't sure of how people felt about same sex couples, In this day and age, people were born with blatantly different physical characteristics, some with dog-like heads, or with chainsaws on their foreheads, so women dating each other didn't seem far-fetched at all. However, Japan was still a very conservative country, and even though a lot of people didn't care at all, some had strong opinions about that. So they ultimately decided to be careful about it for the time being.
Momo sent a text to Ayaka and met at the lobby. They stood next to each other and Momo explained why she called her.
"Sorry for calling you here out of nowhere. I was talking to my friends about our love lives, and when they asked about mine, I wasn't sure if you'd be comfortable with ours being public."
"I guess we really didn't talk about telling others… I don't like sharing much about my personal life with people, but…" Ayaka paused and thought. She would prefer to keep it between close friends and family, but would Momo be hurt or even think that she isn't serious about her if she keeps it a secret?
Isn't it fair to do something you don't like to make your partner happy? Is that how relationships work? The more Ayaka thought about it, the more sense it made. She tried putting things on the scale, doing something Ayaka isn't heavily opposed to, which they will have to do eventually anyway, or risk upsetting her girlfriend and possibly getting into a fight. The answer was obvious.
The long pause Ayaka did, made Momo anxious, "Listen, if you don't want to, we don't have to tell anyone. I don't mind it." She put her hands on Ayaka's shoulder and caressed it.
Ayaka touched her hand and pulled Momo into a hug, before completing her sentence. "I want to brag to everyone I know about how much I love you and about our relationship, but you know how hard it is for me to do that. However, if it makes you happy, I'm willing to compromise on anything. So, if you want to tell people, I'm fine with it." It seemed like light was shining from Momo, her words did make her girlfriend cheerful.
"Thank you! Then can you kiss me right now?" Her tone was teasing, Momo knew that people could see them, but she wanted to push Ayaka a little, for fun of course.
Ayaka laughed, "Don't push your luck too much, I'll tickle you in your sleep." That weird threat made Momo settle down. The last time Ayaka did that, she got kicked in the head and stomped down, so she knew her weak spots.
She pouted and turned around, preparing to leave, when her hand was pulled back and Ayaka kissed her on the cheek. "Once we go out, I'll give you some more. Now go back to your room and get ready, don't forget we'll all go to the beach in an hour."
They both got back to their respective rooms and opened up to their friends, Momo showed them pictures of Ayaka and shared details about how they met, confessed, and their relationship in general. Ayaka also did her best at sharing, which surprisingly made her happy, maybe because she knew that this was something Momo wanted to do.
The sun shone brightly today, it wasn't too windy and although sunny, the heat was very manageable, creating the perfect atmosphere for going to the beach.
The vast majority of the second years were at the ocean, and Ayaka as the great swimmer she is, was obviously in there too. Momo on the other hand, was never much of a swimming person, so she wasn't very confident in open waters, ultimately asking Ayaka to hold her hand on water.
"Do not let me go! Do you want me to die?!" Not only did she not want her girlfriend to die, she didn't even show signs of letting her go.
"Ayaka! There's something on my leg!" It was just a seaweed.
These were some of the miniature panic attacks that Momo had while getting used to the sea. It took some time, but eventually she was able to swim by herself.
"This is way easier than I thought. I can't even remember what I was so worried about." That carefree state didn't last for long. A small crab somehow managed to get a hold of the knot in Momo's top. When she realize the presence of the crustacean, she panicked and moved around quickly, making an embarrassing and funny scene, unfortunately for her, her peace and dignity weren't the only thing the crab took with it.
Momo jumped towards Ayaka and hugged her back, but something felt off this time. The feeling of clothing that should've been there simply wasn't, instead, all she could feel was skin and something else.
"Ayaka… the crab took the top of my bikini…"
That was when she realized what was pressing against her, making her entire body turn red. She look around and saw a white top floating a few meters from them.
"D-don't worry I'll get it for you." To not risk losing the piece, Ayaka quickly summoned a vine from her hand and yanked the top from underwater, so no one could see it. "Got it. I'll block the view so no one can see you."
The awkwardly moved around and found a position where no one could see Momo's front when she unclung from Ayaka, except the girl herself. They were facing each other, Momo's front being completely covered by Ayaka's body, the moment they stopped touching she would see her bosom, which is something they only realized now.
With her face red, Momo whispered, "Close your eyes, and make sure no one sees me."
"How am I supposed to make sure no one sees you, if my eyes are closed? You have your back to the shore where everyone is, you don't have to worry."
"I still want you to close your eyes." She was very adamant about it, so being respectful of her wishes, Ayaka closed her eyes. "You can't see them yet, it needs to be a special occasion."
Ayaka blushed even more, and added with an embarrassed tone. "O-okay." She sounded a bit disappointed. What Momo didn't know, was the at some point, Ayaka accidentally caught a glimpse of them.
'I'm never eating crab again…'