Tzuyu’s only half dressed when she hears the excruciatingly loud bangs signifying the presence of someone at her door. Muttering under her breath in rushed Chinese, Tzuyu pulls the rest of her shirt on while stumbling towards the increasingly loud knocker.

Who the hell, besides her, would even be awake this early in the morning?

She fumbles with the doorknob (not even she is immune to morning sluggishness) finally manages to wrench it open as the knocks reach a jackhammer intensity that makes Tzuyu’s temples throb.

A catlike grin greets her and Tzuyu can already feel the prospect of a nice, uninterrupted day slipping from her grasp little by little.

Momo stares back at her, looking way too good at early-as-balls AM (and ridiculously buzzed for someone who usually snoozed her way to the afternoon) that Tzuyu could barely stand it.

It’s been nearly a year, goddammit, but nope. Still charming and, dare she say it, pretty h--

“Hey Chewy,” Momo says, her voice both chipper and laced with a purr. A purr. “Good morning.” A grin stretches over pink lips and it looks almost predatory if it weren’t for the fact that Tzuyu is pretty much calling bull on everything before 7 AM.

(Tzuyu swears to herself that she likes dogs, sweet and loyal and fun canines, not pretty cats with lovely smiles, ulterior motives and whatever the Momo thinks she could sway over her. Never gonna happen.)

Tzuyu tightens her grip on the doorknob and her palm feels awfully sweaty. She half-scowls, raising an eyebrow at the dancer before her.

“Yes?” Tzuyu winces at the roughness of the normally saccharine voice. Wow. Way to go, Chou. She clears , feeling her ears heat up. “What do you want?” she tries again, voice sounding less like she's gargling gravel and more like the sweet teenager on the overdone MVs. Better.

Her ears take on a great impression of a tomato as Momo’s Cheshire grin widens at Tzuyu's question, the older girl stepping forward and really encroaching on Tzuyu’s personal space.

Had this girl any shame?

Momo reaches up to pat Tzuyu’s cheek gently and the taller of two only stares dryly at the other. Of course, how could she even think otherwise? It’s Momo.

The dancer’s only more blatant in her advances now however, keeping her hand on Tzuyu’s cheek and okay her hand is soft and no wait this wasn’t in the game plan.

Tzuyu semi-irritatedly brushes Momo’s hand off, only for it to reapper elsewhere, poking her in the stomach.

Luckily, she's blowtorched all the butterflies in them. At least it’s what she tells herself. But hey, it helps. Sort of.

Tzuyu finally steps back into the safety of her room, clearing again before she can keep being awkward. “Okay, seriously Momo, what do you want?” Did that squeak just come from her? it. “Dude it’s like,” she glances at the blurry red numbers of her bedside alarm clock, “5:30 in the morning.”

Also when she probably looked like a ing train wreck while Momo, as usual, rocked everything. She looks at her feet, mumbling something about hair and runs a hand through her new, dark blue locks. What is she, a Smurf? She tugs at a handful anxiously as she raises her gaze to observe the now-brunette dancer leaning casually on her doorframe, arms crossed. Every time she’s seen Momo these past weeks, hell, months, she’s been a right wreck. Some if it could be due to stress and as Mina had deftly coined it, pop music industry hell, but she’s willing to attribute it to the fact that for some reason--

Momo had suddenly gotten a ton more attractive. Not the appreciative “oh she’s pretty” attractive. The “ I’m gay” attractive. Or whatever.

She was probably just tired, hormonal, but she’s surrounded by other girls who are just as cute and aren’t a big ball of potential trouble like Momo.

(Chaeyoung is literally a better choice. Or Dahyun. Or Sana. Anyone. Not unless she wanted to count out Chaeng emerging from a room with a flushed face and a satisfied-looking Mina following behind. Cross off Chaeyoung from her list then.)

Oh god. It better not be Feelings™ or she’s going to move somewhere else and change her name or something even more drastic because why the not. She’s an idol. Momo’s an idol. They’re a rising star rookie group and she isn’t willing to subject them all and herself to the horror that is Knet. Eugh. 

Momo shrugs in reply to her earlier question, her grin becoming more toned down and her arms falling to her sides. “I’m bored and Jeongyeon kicked me out of bed. Besides, you’re like, my favorite person in this group.”

Tzuyu barely registers the last bit. “Your favorite in being annoying to,” she snaps back instinctively, managing to control the creeping flush up her neck and ears. Shameless flatterer too, this stupidly charming girl. “Also, aren’t you usually the one kicking Jeongyeon out of bed?”

Momo rolls her eyes ( she looks great) and she mutters something in Japanese before settling her sights back on Tzuyu. “I tried. But the mushroom wasn’t having it, so it was me and my face that ended up on the floor.”

For some odd reason Tzuyu suddenly feels vulnerable under Momo’s gaze. Ugh, she sounds like a romance novel. How about like a mouse that was about to be devoured by a cat? Yeah. That works.

Momo winks. “You wanna kiss it better?”

Tzuyu chokes on her own saliva. Kiss it better my . She would rather color her currently blue hair in technicolor dipdye. Which would look absolutely horrifying, hence her point.

The maknae can hear a faint chuckle from Momo and she swears to every deity she knows she will strangle the dancer. Or push her while they were onstage. She didn’t deserve this pile of bull.

She hears the older girl pad towards her silently and she takes a deep breath.

This gorgeous pile of bull, she meant. Ugh. It’s okay, Chou Tzuyu. You got this. You are not going to lose your .

Tzuyu decides to throw all her cards at Lady Luck and looks up. And there’s Momo, a slight, beautiful, brunette figure, cat’s grin replaced with a more subdued, shier smile.

The pep talk gets shoved right out of the proverbial window as Tzuyu’s mouth dries up faster than Mina’s humor. , why is she so pretty? What is she even doing, standing here gaping like a ? How was she even able to maintain her composure in front of the camera whenever Momo decided to play touchy-touchy-mess-with-Tzuyu? WHY IS THIS EVEN HAPPENING?

Lady Luck cackles nastily and chucks all her bad cards stamped with “I’m probably gay for Hirai Momo” back at her still slack face.

The maknae gulps, snapping shut and now overly aware of how warm her face and ears are. Momo’s expression is distinctly smug and Tzuyu really wants to wipe it off. With her fist. Preferably enough to knock her out.

Momo stifles another giggle behind her hand as she very easily invades Tzuyu’s space yet again and tucks a strand of hair behind her still-warm ear. Oh . “Jeez Chewy, relax. I don’t bite.” Her grin is back. God. Dammit. “Unless you’re into it?”

Tzuyu swallows heavily and attempts to play off an air of nonchalance because what is she even supposed to say? “No, but I’d rather you bite a chew toy or something because I’m not one.”

“… That was lame.”

“Ugh, well whatever you’re implying, I’m not nervous.” This is like, one of her bigger understatements. Really, leave it to Chou ing Tzuyu to completely undermine the severity of some situations. It was like her telling her groupmates in a relatively sullen tone that some dip was “harassing” her over the internet—only to find that it had become a potential political minefield because of some 53 year-old wit with a bad ego and a penchant for picking on kids at least a decade younger.

She shudders. The horror of Knet and its army of anonymous screw-overs. Seriously, them. Plus that guy who also screwed her over. him too.

Tzuyu takes a deep breath. Nope. Nope nope nope. She is going to keep her cool and not do anything rash and impulsive because as salty as she is, she doesn’t just… do things. Rash and impulsive is the sphere of either Sana or Dahyun but NOT her.

“Chewy?”

The said girl’s head snaps back up, a fresh blush making its way over her ears and neck and sheesh did it always have to happen? Momo’s fingers aren’t lingering on Tzuyu’s face anymore, thank god, but she is standing a tad bit closer.

The first thing Tzuyu notices is how close her lips are and ughhhh, no. What the actual , Tzuyu. No.

“Are you alright?” Oh , there’s the purr. Tzuyu blinks dumbly, and realizes that the dryness of ’s pretty much spread to her brain and there are no snappish words left for her to throw at Momo.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

“Y-yeah! I’m okay! I’m great. Fantastic.”

“Mhm. Sure. Whatever you say.”

Momo smiles up at her and somehow despite being the tree of the pack she feels as if someone’s chopped her down to a stump. Oh and she kinda smells nice. Tzuyu’s a er for that and she sincerely hopes it extends to just that. And? Um? She’s staring. Oh .

Tzuyu laughs a little too hard, wringing her hands and ducking out of Momo’s way. Which didn’t help at all, considering that her eyes are still trained on the maknae’s every move and it’s utterly nerve-wracking. Like, holy there are better things to stare at. Outside the room! Yeah! Better things to stare at!

Momo suddenly moves forward however, and Tzuyu nearly trips over her own feet stumbling backwards, cutting retort ready—only to flush even redder in embarrassment as Momo instead diverts her attention towards her clock.

That stupid, stupid smug grin is even wider than the last and Tzuyu is about ready to kick her.

“It’s 6.”

… What?

“Girl, you just wasted like, 30 minutes of your life being skittish and all that .” Momo sighs dramatically. The grin remains. “Tragic.”

Tzuyu only stands there in flummoxed bewilderment until she remembers what today was supposed to be.

A nice, uninterrupted break day free of smiling dancers that liked to fluster her. Provided, said smiling, teasing dancer wasn’t too cruel and did give Tzuyu a break every now and then.

Tzuyu considers this and weighs her pros and cons.

Cons, there’s a thing that comes to mind and it doesn’t really bode well for her. Or it could be the greatest thing that’s ever happened. Switch that to pros, I guess.

She hopes it’s not that. Mostly because for all her salty spite she really does like Momo. At least when she’s trying to sort out being openly hostile to showing just how easily riled-up she is. Also she’s actually really hot right now and she didn’t want that rubbed in.

Pros, Momo is, again, hot. And a pretty decent person as cunning cats go. She’s nice, to everyone and to Tzuyu and there are times when Tzuyu doesn’t mind whatever shenanigans Momo’s come up with.

…

God is definitely testing her.

“You wanna go get some breakfast or you just gonna stand there?”

“Momo you are so full of—“

“Yeah yeah, but daaaamn, us getting breakfast. It’s so domestic!”

Tzuyu twitches. “We live in the same dorm, you moron,” she hisses. “We’re all domestic. We eat together.”

“No one’s up yet though.”

“Are you seriously messing with me because,” Tzuyu glances down at her wrist, though she doesn’t wear a wristwatch. She never has, and it’s more a nervous habit than anything else and hopes Momo doesn’t notice anything amiss. “It isn’t even 7 yet and I don’t have the emotional capacity to deal with everyone being a ." 

Momo laughs, a full bell-like laugh this time, and Tzuyu is caught off-guard. Because it’s adorable. And no, she can’t be gay now. Was she even in the first place? I mean, really?

She breathes several insults through in Chinese, muttering 'breakfast' in Korean for Momo's benefit before rushing past her through the door.

She doesn't try to control the ensuing blush however.