“Do you know about the thing?” Momo mumbled against the back of Sana’s head, catching another whiff of the rosy fragrance Sana just had to her. Sana reached up with one of her arms, the other one still keeping her book upright, her thumb pressed against the paper to keep her page. She felt around blindly for a moment, a small smile gracing Momo’s lips when Sana had grabbed at air. Sana then found Momo’s face, poking at one of her cheeks before patting it softly and bringing her arm back down.

“I can’t know about the thing if you don’t tell me what the thing is,”  Sana mused, fingers picking at the corner of the page, turning it slowly.

Momo placed a gentle kiss on the back of Sana’s head before nestling her head in the crook of Sana’s neck, bringing her arms around Sana’s waist. “I had asked my grandmother about love when I was younger. I think I first did after an old friend had her parents divorce and I was just so baffled that two people who loved one another could just leave each other like that. She had explained to me that there are nine thousand things that make up a person. Personality, physical traits, likes, dislikes; just things that define a person, that makes that person… them. Say these nine thousand things, people use them to match up with each other to date and get married. Yet, there are cases where a dating couple could have five thousand things about them match up, but a married couple will only have one thousand things match up.”

“So those married couples that have little things match up are the ones that end up divorcing?” Sana questioned, finding herself engulfed with the concept.

“Exactly,”

“And what about the dating couples that know almost everything about each other and match up just about perfectly? Do they end up getting married in the end?”

“My grandmother never said, but I can assume they do.” Momo tilted her head in Sana’s more, soaking in the way Sana sighs into the small gesture.

“That’s nice, sort of a happy ending to those type of situations, right?”

“Right,”

Sana reminds Momo of catching a whiff of burnt marshmallows, a happiness that you only need to graze by you once to reside with you for the rest of the day. That’s the kind of happy Sana makes Momo feel.

-

They’re in the public library again, Sana there to check out more books and Momo there as accompaniment. It’s against the polished redwood floors where Sana brings it up again.

“You remember when you had told me about those nine thousand things to a person?” Sana recalled, skimming the pages of a thick hardcover book she had picked out from a shelf belonging to the realistic fiction section.

Momo nods as she leans against the railing of the second floor of the library, overlooking the entire first floor. She thumbs a small divot in the wooden railing, relaxing into Sana’s form as Sana steps beside her, the book still in hand.

“What about the people who are friends, but seem to know everything about each other?” Momo ponders the question for a second - not that it’s confusing, but rather analyzing the context in which the question was being asked.

“Well, I guess it’d be common sense for them to date if they’re such good matches for each other, but there are always things to learn about someone,” Momo answers, voice almost bubbling with wetness as she cleared , coughing into her fist.

Sana hums to herself.

“How much do you think you know about me, Momo?”

“I’d like to think I know a lot, but I think there are still things to find out. Everyone’s this complicated knot tied differently. Some may be complex knots that require years of working at to figure out and others may be a knot simple enough to pull at once and they’re unknotted.”

“The people who are hard to unknot are people who need to build a relationship based on trust before they can fully open up to someone,” Sana said, eyes following the hand Momo inched closer to her own, silently smiling to herself as Momo intertwined their pinkies.

“And those who are simple knots are the ones who act as open books to the entire world.”

“After the knots are untied?”

“Then we’re all just the same piece of string, same length, same material, same everything. There’s really no difference amongst any of us when you unravel everyone’s personalities.” Momo pauses for a second, biting the inside of her cheeks before blinking her thoughts and feelings away before inhaling. “Is realistic fiction your favorite genre?”

Sana chuckles and shakes her head, hair falling in front of her like a curtain. “Far from it,”

“So what is it then?” Momo raises an eyebrow as Sana sweeps her hair back and behind her ear.

“Bildungsroman,”

“Oh,”

They’re silent again for a while, basking in each other’s presence, even if it may be unbeknownst to each other.

“You know, you just learned one of the nine thousand things just now.” Sana points out, closing the cover to the book, making sure her pinky finger still remained intertwined with Momo’s.

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

Libraries remind Momo of Sana. The comfortable silence that resides within and pages upon pages of information and words that still have yet to be read. It’s almost calming to a point. Sana smells like an old book sometimes and those sometimes, Momo always finds the scent pleasant.

-

Momo finds her legs entangled with Sana’s one night as they lay underneath Momo’s skewed blanket sheets. Sana tugs on the back of Momo’s shirt, prompting the older girl to turn her body to face Sana. Momo admires the lights she had hung on the wall above her bed through Sana’s chocolate brown orbs and she can feel her own eyes sparkle as she watches the lights illuminate Sana’s.

Sana’s eyes sweep over Momo’s face. Momo doesn’t miss how they pause at her lips before flicking back up to Momo’s, her gaze almost burning.

Momo doesn’t break the eye contact even as Sana’s hands pull Momo’s from her sides and brings both of their hands up to chest level as she toys around with them. Sana lightly feels every crevice and line running up Momo’s palm and Momo bites back the need to pull back her hand because it tickles but remains lenient. When Sana finally separates their fingers, she brings her hand to Momo’s shoulder.

Sana runs her hand along the outline of Momo’s shoulder, moving it to feel the dip of Momo’s collarbone before resting it where Momo’s heart would be. Sana’s eyes trail downwards for a second and Momo does her best to control her breathing.

“About friends who match up well,” Momo starts, her tone low. “The type that should be dating -”

Momo isn’t given much time to answer because by the time her croaked whisper gets out Sana tilts her head back up and plants a light kiss on Momo’s lips that somehow manages to linger for another moment. The kind where Momo could just barely taste what Sana’s lips tasted like.

“Is that a yes?” Momo breathes out, eyeing Sana almost dubiously.

“Absolutely,”

A few more kisses turn into a dozen which turns into however more light, peppered kisses it took for them to finally fall asleep in each other’s arms, something completely different between the two of them.

It’s a nice feeling, Momo realizes.

-

“I think there are more than nine thousand things,” Sana voices out after several minutes of holding her hand up to the light just to see the different ways it bounced off her ring. She brings her hand to the pillow she was hugging with her free arm, eyeing Momo who was laid on the other side of the couch.

“More than nine thousand? I hate to admit it, but I don’t think there are more than nine thousand possibly interesting things about me.” Momo chuckles breathily as she reverses the VHS tape they had signed out from the library.

“I mean like maybe those nine thousand things are things that you initially have about yourself and when you find someone you love enough that you change for, you sort of discover more to yourself.”

Momo sets the remote on the table in front of the couch and begins to crawl on top of Sana, arms, and knees on either side of her. “Someone, you love enough as in me?” Momo pokes fun at Sana as she meets eye to eye with Sana, giddy smiles plastered on their faces.

“Of course,” Sana’s hand reaches up to caress Momo’s check, fingers ghosting over Momo’s skin. She presses a small kiss onto Momo’s nose, laughing silently as she pulls back. “Do you think I’ve changed you?”

“I don’t think it’s you that’s changed me, more so that because of you I’ve changed myself. All in good ways.”

“Well, that’s fortunate,” Sana giggles, thumb sliding across Momo’s chin. “Are you ready for the wedding?”

“I’m ready for eight months of wedding planning and stress that will come with it, but I can’t wait to see you walk down the aisle and I definitely can’t wait to call you my wife.” Momo dreamily sighs, prompting Sana to push away Momo’s face.

“Cheesy,” Sana’s forehead wrinkles “also who said I was walking down the aisle?” Momo gave Sana a lopsided smile as she lowered her head again.

“We’ll figure it out,” Momo whispers against Sana’s lips as they melt into each other, movie long forgotten, playing out in the background as white noise to the both of them.

-

ayo i finally got to update nice also my hopeless romantic wrote this after seeing a cute couple interact today hhhhhh i was so inspired... also i know gay marriage isn't legalized in sk and it's still very taboo down there so just like,,, imagine it's in the u.s or that gay marriage is a thing is sk okay