Denial, denial, denial
Momo didn't know why this had become part of their daily routines. She thought that playing with Nayeon that night was just a one-time thing and would never happen again. She never imagined that Nayeon would ask her to play with her again the next night, and the night after that, and the night after that.. until it suddenly became part of their routines and Nayeon didn't need to ask anymore.
Momo never closed the gates of her airport in Animal Crossing since the fifth night they played together. She did that so that Nayeon could visit her island anytime without Nayeon having to tell her first that she was coming. Every night after she finished studying and doing her assignments, she would start playing Animal Crossing and doing her daily tasks in that game. Usually about fifteen minutes after she started playing, she would get a notification that Nayeon was visiting her island. Momo would wait for her in front of the airport and Nayeon would come out to greet her.
After that, they would spend most of their time chatting while running mindlessly around the island. They would share stories about their day. Nayeon would talk about the 'dates' she went on with her clients while Momo would talk about anything interesting that happened in her classes. Sometimes Momo would talk about what she did with Sana on campus and sometimes Nayeon would talk about what she did with Sana while they were out together. They both always kept Sana in their minds.
That is the heartwarming part, but now here comes the funny part. As you can see, they did this every night just to talk to each other, but there is something funny about it. They actually couldn't understand each other that well. Momo couldn't understand most of what Nayeon was talking about and vice versa. Momo often found herself asking 'wait a minute, is this the same client you told me about at the beginning or have you moved on to another client?' when Nayeon was already talking about her third client and Nayeon often found herself asking 'wait a minute, who did what?' when Momo was telling a funny story that happened in her class. By the seventh night of doing this, they finally realized that they couldn't communicate very well, but strangely enough they always looked forward to this part of their daily routines.
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The night started out like any other night. Nayeon arrived on Momo's island about fifteen minutes after the latter started playing. They greeted each other before they started talking about their day. Just like the previous nights, they only understood about 50% of what they were talking about. Momo thought it would be the same as the previous nights (they would say goodbye to each other and stop playing after they finished talking about their day and whatever else was on their minds). However, something unexpected happened that night. After they had run out of things to talk about, Nayeon suddenly suggested that they do something they had never done before.
Nayeon: hey, do you wanna play another game?
Nayeon: do you have Overcooked 2?
Nayeon: let's play that if you have it
Momo: yeah i have, but how are we gonna play it?
Momo: that game doesn't have in-game voice chat
Momo: i don't think we'll be able to play it without talking..
Nayeon: 010-XXXX-XXXX
Nayeon: that's my number
Nayeon: i wonder why i never gave you my number this whole time lol
At that point, Momo felt like their friendship had gone to the next level. Having Nayeon’s number shouldn’t be anything special. They were already friends and it was only natural for them to have each other’s numbers. However, Momo couldn’t help but feel happy when she finally saw Nayeon’s name in her contacts.
Momo called Nayeon not long after she got the number. She didn’t know why she felt a little nervous. This wasn’t the first time she had talked to Nayeon on the phone. She remembered when Nayeon called Sana’s number and Momo was the one who answered the phone. She didn’t feel nervous at all back then, but why did she get nervous this time? Honestly, it was weird, but anything involving Nayeon was always weird (in a good way).
"Hi," Nayeon greeted after she finally picked up the phone. There was a hint of excitement in her voice.
"Uhm hi.." Momo replied nervously. She was fiddling with the hem of her oversized t-shirt while lowering her head.
"Have you started the game yet?"
"Yes, I have."
"Then, I'll invite you now."
.
.
.
Momo didn’t understand why Nayeon chose this game when she already knew how bad their communication was. This game requires good teamwork and communication skills. If you look at the reviews on the internet about this game, most of them said that they lost all their friends at the end of this game. It was a disaster. Nayeon kept yelling at Momo the whole time they were playing and she wouldn’t accept it if they only got one star. They spent hours playing it, but they only managed to complete one level with three stars.
"Hey, I’m sorry for yelling at you. I know I was being too much." Momo could hear Nayeon sigh on the other end of the line. "But I was hoping you’d still want to play with me again next time? I promise I’ll be more relaxed and less pushy about it." She could picture Nayeon tilting her head slightly and pursed her lips cutely.
Momo giggled as she fiddled with her own fingers. “I’d still like to play with you again next time. Don’t worry. I actually had a lot of fun tonight and I hold no hard feelings against you.”
"Okay, that's a relief. I thought I just lost my new gaming buddy."
"Is that all I am to you now? Your gaming buddy?" Momo chuckled.
"You're my gaming bestie. I've told you a lot about me and we talk every day. You're basically my bestie now."
"I'm flattered that you consider me your bestie."
"And I hope this isn't just one-sided? I want you to consider me your bestie too." Momo could imagine Nayeon pouting cutely as she said that.
"I do, I do. Don't worry." Momo giggled. She had long thought that Nayeon was someone she could confide in. After all, Nayeon had been keeping her biggest secret.
"So, do you want to play this again with me tomorrow?"
Momo hummed as she thought of something. "I was thinking we should play with Sana. I play this game with her sometimes and she's actually fun to play with."
"Oh, that's actually a great idea! Maybe I can come over to your place this weekend and hang out with you guys?"
"You obviously can, but you have to tell Sana first."
And then their routines changed again. They no longer played Animal Crossing every night because they had moved to texting to talk about their day. It started with Nayeon saying good morning via text and talking about her plans for the day. They had been talking ever since and it had become a new addition to their daily routines.
Not only did their daily routines change, but their weekly routines changed as well. Nayeon kept coming over to their place every weekend to hang out with them (she even knew the passcode to their apartment). Sana being there with Nayeon and Momo was actually a blessing. She became their go-between in talking. Momo and Nayeon were finally able to understand each other better and the three of them were able to clear more levels of Overcooked 2 with three stars.
(Momo really loved this arrangement they had and she didn't want to change anything about it. However, something was bound to change when her own feelings for a certain someone were slowly changing into something she didn’t dare to name yet.)
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"So, when are you going to ask her to be your girlfriend?" Jeongyeon asked without taking her eyes off the TV. At that time, she was playing Mario Kart with Nayeon in Jihyo's living room. Jihyo just sat on the sofa and watched them play. "Don't you want to make it official?" Jeongyeon added.
"It's not that I don't want to." Nayeon also didn't take her eyes off the TV. They were already in the last lap. So, she focused on staying in first place.
"But..?" Jeongyeon waited for Nayeon to continue speaking. Jihyo suddenly leaned forward so she could be closer to her two best friends who were sitting on the floor. She also seemed interested in hearing Nayeon's answer.
“It just hasn’t crossed my mind yet,” Nayeon continued before she suddenly let go of her pro controller and excitedly punched the air. She had won the race.
“Are you not serious about her?” Jihyo asked cautiously as she glanced at Nayeon. Somehow there was a hint of hope in her eyes.
“Wait, what?” Nayeon turned her head to face Jihyo. “I’m totally serious about her.” She furrowed her brows.
"Then why haven't you thought about asking her to be your girlfriend? You two have basically done everything except calling each other girlfriend." Jeongyeon finally finished the race in third place. She placed her pro controller on the table before turning to face Nayeon.
Nayeon suddenly became nervous as two pairs of eyes were on her. She gulped before she was ready to give her answer. "I'm just content with everything we have right now. That's why I haven't thought about asking her." She lowered her gaze. "But now that we're talking about it, I'm starting to think about when and how I should ask her."
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Mina finally had some free time to hang out with her best friends again. The project she was working on with Chaeyoung and Tzuyu was almost done. So, there wasn’t much else for her to do. She suggested to Sana and Momo that they have another movie night and they both agreed. However, there was something different about this movie night compared to the previous ones. This time, there was someone new joining them.
Mina had been aware of their new weekly thing they had been doing for weeks. She also knew that Momo had become friends with Nayeon, the girl Sana was seeing. However, she never imagined that Momo would be so friendly with that girl. All this time, she had imagined her best friend to be a little awkward with Nayeon. She thought Momo would keep Nayeon at arm's length just like she did with all of Sana's exes. But it turned out, she was wrong this whole time. Like really, really wrong.
When Mina arrived at their apartment, she only found Sana in the living room. She then asked where the others were and Sana said that Momo and Nayeon were cooking dinner for them in the kitchen. She then told Mina to ask Momo to introduce Nayeon to her.
Mina walked towards the kitchen after that while wondering why Sana left the two of them alone like that. She thought it must be really awkward. However, it turned out she was completely wrong. When Mina stepped foot in the kitchen, she didn't find any trace of awkwardness in the air. All she found was a friendly banter between Momo and Nayeon. It was a sight she never thought she would see.
“Oh, hey..” Mina said nervously. Just like Momo, she wasn’t really good at socializing with new people. “Sana told me you guys were here.”
"Mina!" Momo's face immediately lit up. She stopped cutting vegetables and turned to face her best friend. "You're finally here."
"Oh, hi!" Nayeon offered a polite smile. She stopped stirring the soup she was making and turned off the stove before she mirrored Momo's action. "Finally, I get to meet you. They both told me a lot about you."
"Mina, this is Nayeon. You know who she is, right?" Momo giggled as she put one of her hands on Nayeon's shoulder.
Nayeon offered her hand to Mina with a big smile. "Im Nayeon, at your service."
Mina reached for Nayeon's hand and shook it gently. "Myoui Mina. I'm glad to finally meet you." She gave a sheepish smile.
Mina spent time with the three of them after that and suddenly found a lot of strange things. She noticed that Nayeon was indeed a nice person like her two best friends had said, but she was surprised to see that they admired her that much. She often found their eyes on Nayeon and the way they looked at her was full of affection. She had never seen Sana look at anyone like that, except for Momo and she had never seen Momo look at anyone like that, except for Sana. Another strange thing was that Nayeon looked at both of them the same way. The three of them always had their eyes lingered for each other in the most affectionate way.
If Mina hadn’t spent so much time with Tzuyu, Chaeyoung, and Dahyun while working on the project, she probably wouldn’t have known where this was going. It only took her a few hours to figure out what was going on between Sana, Momo, and Nayeon. Mina was very smart and observant. She understood the meaning of all the lingering touches they gave to each other and that only meant one thing..
It meant Mina’s mission got more complicated from there.
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Sana was out on a 'date' with her client and Mina was finishing her project at Tzuyu and Chaeyoung's place. Momo had no one to hang out with and she was bored as hell. Her apartment had been so quiet for hours and she felt like she could die from loneliness at any moment. She thought about what she could do to kill her boredom and going to a cafe was the first thing that came to her mind. She ended up going to a nearby cafe to study.
At first, Momo thought it was a good decision. She wouldn’t feel lonely because there would always be people around her and she could do something productive like studying. However, she forgot one important fact about the cafe she went to. It was actually a popular date spot and that meant there was a possibility that she could meet Sana or Nayeon there. She forgot about that possibility until she unexpectedly saw Nayeon enter the cafe with an unknown man. Oh, her chest was tightened at that sight and she wondered why. It was just like how she reacted every time she accidentally saw Sana on a ‘date’ with her client. She could never get used to it even though she had seen it dozens of times.
Momo didn't want Nayeon to notice her so she pretended not to see her and went back to studying. She managed to do both of those things for the first half hour, but after that.. she couldn't take her eyes off Nayeon. She saw how attentive Nayeon was to her client. She saw the way Nayeon looked at her client. It was full of affection. She wondered how Nayeon faked it or maybe.. it was real all along. Her stomach twisted at that thought and her vision suddenly became blurry because of her tears.
"Hey, are you okay?" A waitress suddenly approached Momo.
"Oh, I'm okay. My eyes are just tired." Momo chuckled as she rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.
"You've been studying for a while. Maybe you should take a break. Let me get you a slice of chcolate cake. It's on the house." The waitress winked at Momo before walking away.
Momo felt better after that happened. The waitress turned out to be very caring and attentive to her. After she brought a slice of chocolate cake to the table, she occasionally checked on Momo and reminded her to take a break. Momo managed to take her eyes off Nayeon whenever the waitress came to her.
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Nayeon was aware that the waitress had been flirting with Momo for a while and she was also aware of how annoyed she was at the fact that Momo was really oblivious. She wanted so badly to stop all the flirting attempts by showing up at Momo's table, but she was still on a 'date' with her client. She had to deal with her client for another half hour before she could get to Momo and keep her company. She had never wished for any kind of time travel powers before, but this happened and suddenly she wished she was some kind of superhero who could travel to the future.
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Momo had expected Nayeon to at least say hi or wave to her before she left the cafe, but she never expected the girl to come and sit at her table. She was clearly surprised when she raised her head and found Nayeon sitting across from her. Nayeon didn't even say anything and just smiled like she was supposed to be there.
"What are you doing here?" Momo raised her eyebrows. Confusion was evident on her face.
"You looked like you needed someone to remind you to take a break so I came here to be that someone." Nayeon smiled as she tapped her index finger on the table. "You're okay with that, right?"
"Yeah." Momo lowered her head and pretended that the books she was looking at were interesting. "But are you sure you wanna stay here? Don't you wanna go home?"
Nayeon shook her head. "I don't have anything to do right now. So, I'll hang out with you. By 'hang out', I mean I'll just sit here and stare at you. You can keep studying without minding me."
“Or I can close my books and talk to you right now. You’ll get bored if you just stare at me.”
“Have you reached your study goal for today?”
“No, but I can continue this at home—”
“Then, you should go back to studying now so you can get some rest at home. I’ll watch some movie on my phone if you’re really worried about me getting bored.”
Momo didn’t like to argue with anyone. So, she eventually complied and went back to studying while Nayeon watched some rom-com movie on her phone. Momo tried her best not to look away from her books, but Nayeon had some kind of gravitational pull that made her eyes always fall on her. Momo saw the way Nayeon rested her chin on the table while holding her phone in front of her face. She thought it was really cute, but a little bit concerning (she was worried about Nayeon's back).
About forty-five minutes into the movie, Nayeon gradually drifted off to sleep and that made her grip on her phone slowly loosen. Her phone slipped out of her hand in the end and hit the table. Momo was startled by that and she raised her head in a hurry.
"Oh my god, see? You should have gone home earlier," Momo mumbled as she smiled gently. She stared at Nayeon for a few seconds before she moved her hand to Nayeon's face and brushed away some strands of hair. "Your back is going to hurt after this." She chukled as she slowly pulled her hand away.
"Are you done studying?" Nayeon suddenly grabbed Momo's hand and pulled it down onto the table. She then held it tightly as she slowly opened her eyes. Once her eyes fully adjusted to the light, they both locked eyes and froze in an instant.
There was suddenly a strange tension between them that made their hearts beat faster and their stomachs flip. It was all too familiar to them, but at the same time it was so foreign to them. It was really confusing because they knew these feelings, but they thought they shouldn't be feeling this way.
They ended up not saying anything after that brief eye contact because they were still confused about what was really going on between them. They brushed their feelings aside and pretended to feel nothing so they could move on to something else.
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Momo was sure that pretending was her forte because she had been pretending that she didn’t have feelings for Sana for years. However, Nayeon suddenly came into her life and made her doubt herself.
She once saw Sana coming home with a hickey on her neck. She was obviously heartbroken because she knew that Sana got it from someone, but then she was even more heartbroken when she realized that someone was definitely Nayeon. (Who else could have given it to Sana?)
From that day on, she could no longer pretend that there was nothing between her and Nayeon. She could no longer ignore these weird feelings she had for the latter.
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"Do you want to hear my thoughts?" Mina asked as she looked at Momo sympathetically. Momo was finally telling her everything. About her first meeting with Nayeon, about all their gaming sessions, and about all her feelings for Nayeon. She couldn't believe that out of her two best friends, Momo would be the first to open up to her.
"Of course, I do. That's why I'm telling you all this." Momo hoped that Mina would be the one who could talk some sense into her. She was sure that this was all in her head. There was no way she could feel that way about Nayeon, especially when she still had feelings for Sana.
"You like her, Momo. In a romantic way."
Shit.
“You’re kidding, right, Mina?” Momo chuckled nervously. She couldn’t believe that Mina was trying to convince her that her feelings for Nayeon were no longer platonic. Why would Mina do the exact opposite of what Momo wanted?
"I'm not, but if you still don't believe me, I have an idea on how to make you see something." Mina knew her idea was a little crazy, but she was sure it would snap Momo out of denial.
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There wasn't a day that went by that Nayeon didn't think about how to ask Sana to be her girlfriend. She had thought of all the romantic things she could do for Sana. But every time she started planning something, she thought of Momo. What would happen to Momo if she made it official with Sana? What would happen between her and Momo if Sana ended up being her girlfriend? Those questions always stopped her from planning anything. She knew she had to find the answers before she could ask Sana to be her girlfriend.
Hey, someone just booked you!
Nayeon didn’t think much of it when she saw the notification. Her thumb was on autopilot when she opened Rental Love. She read the first few lines of the message lazily because there was nothing she hadn’t seen before. They were just part of a template. But then, she got to the tenth line where her client’s name was written. Her heart instantly dropped to her stomach when she realized who her client was.
Hirai Momo
The first thought that came to Nayeon’s mind was that this had to be a mistake. There was no way Momo was asking her to be her rental girlfriend again. She had a vague idea why Momo did it the first time, but if she did it a second time, Nayeon couldn’t guess what she wanted. Nayeon was about to text Momo to get some answers, but then Momo beat her to it.
Momo:
Please don't cancel my booking
And don't ask why..
Just think of me as another client of yours
"Another client, my ass.." Nayeon snorted. There was no way she would think of Momo as just another client. Her feelings definitely wouldn't allow it.