Momo and Mina turn fourteen and they begin high school, facing new challenges - good and bad. With every year they grow older they find more and more responsibilities upon them, and their schedule and timetables become filled with other, temporary pursuits and requirements. Mina opts to take on advanced biology and mathematics (Momo calls her crazy. She promptly gets swatted with a textbook thicker than her arm.) and continues to take guitar lessons, and in Momo’s humble opinion she was really quite good by now. Mina would argue otherwise, but the way the guitar settled so easily in her lax grip seemed so natural Momo was sure Mina had been doing this since forever.

  She also really liked the lazy afternoons, when she’d say she was too tired to practice, and she’d lay on the grass in her back garden and listen to the soft strumming coming from a nearby window. Mina had a penchant for love songs, so Momo looked up to the sky while imagining how it would feel to have a love like the ones Mina told with her fingertips and an old guitar.

(What an idiot. )

  Momo maintains her spot on the football team, and though she has given up on her childish dreams to go professional she loves the sport all the same and intends to play it for as long as she can. Training eats away at her free time though, but she makes friends with a handful of girls in the squad - including star striker Minatozaki Sana. The girl was as talented as she was beautiful, and Momo understood the phrase “heart skipped a beat” as soon as she laid eyes on her.

  Sana is breathtaking , but Momo never saw her in the way that half of the student populace did. She thinks this is why Sana jumps her in the locker room one day, inviting her to a local diner for milkshakes (on her) after practice - and Momo would have been a fool to say no, really. She talks to the girl for a while, fighting the urge to reply to the multitude of buzzes coming from the phone in her pocket because jeez, the girl had bought her food -  she wasn’t going to be rude and look at her phone.

  However she gets pinned by knowing eyes, understanding and teasing at the same time.

  “Someone important wants your attention?” She phrased it as a simple question, heavy implacture laced in every word and the mischief in her eyes as she sipped her milkshake confirmed she had caught on. Momo fidgeted on her barstool, feet dangling off the floor.

  “Yeah.” Momo said, playing with the straw in her empty glass. “Someone important.”

  Sana grinned, every mannerism positively feline in nature as she stretched, grin turning into a smirk as she eyed Momo.

  “Well don’t let me stop you.” She took another sip, eyebrows waggling. “You’ve been dying to respond since we sat down like half an hour ago. I won't mind.”

   Momo tried not to race to check her phone, eyes widening comically at the barrage of texts flooding her notifications.

YouMinaLotToMe: why did i take advanced biology

YouMinaLotToMe: put me out of my misery

YouMinaLotToMe: you should have stopped me i trusted you

YouMinaLotToMe: im gonna become a stripper. i dont care.

YouMinaLotToMe: wait i take that back

YouMinaLotToMe: i’m just gonna sit back and play some guitar

YouMinaLotToMe: WldYouBeSoKind.mp4

YouMinaLotToMe: yay or nae? :p

YouMinaLotToMe: momoriiiiiiiiing you finished practice like an hour ago (T⌓T)

  There were more, Momo flicking through them all trying to stifle her laughter and ultimately failing. Sana leaned over curiously, laughing at the sheer amount of spam she had been sent. She let out a low, appreciative whistle.

  “This Mina must really like you.” She mused, waggling those damn eyebrows at Momo again. Her fingers fumbled, botching her reply to Mina.

NoHoMo: holy crap im just at the diner witn safkskcjs

  She avoided the eyes boring holes into her.

  “It’s not like that.” She mumbled.

  Impeccable eyebrows arched in disbelief, piercing gaze not once leaving Momo’s face.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  She looked down at the phone buzzing in her hand, ignoring the growing ache that had settled in her stomach a while back.

YouMinaLotToMe: wow safkskcjs, that’s a cool name never heard that one before

  “Yeah.” She locked her phone and avoided looking at it for the rest of her time out with Sana. She also ignored the pool of emotions that had been gnawing at her insides for -

(A while. It’s been a while.)

   Sana very quickly integrated herself with both Momo and Mina. It turned out that Sana and Mina took advanced maths together (Momo couldn’t believe that both of her friends loved to torture themselves like that) and Sana quickly learned that Momo and Mina were a steadfast package deal. You could never invite just the one to somewhere, unless the other was too busy to come, lest you get a repeat of the first time Sana took Momo to the diner. Even if you did, they would just spent the entire time waiting til they could talk to the other again. It was a little endearing, in Sana’s mind at least, that neither of them had a single ing idea about this thing between them.

  She elected to ignore it, and just let nature run its course.

  Besides, Sana enjoyed being the friend that wasn’t involved in some convoluted love story for once. It was refreshing to be the outside perspective, the third wheel as it were - not that it stopped people from trying to get with her. She had an undisputed degree in the fine art of curving people at this point, and she intended to get through the entirety of high school with just Momo and Mina at her side. She could trust them, they liked her for her, as wild as that sounds.

  Sana and Momo had football practice after school on Mondays and Wednesdays. Every Monday and Wednesday, like clockwork when they finished at 5:30pm, Momo would make her way to the bleachers to a girl with either her guitar or thick text book in hand. Momo would help her carry her stuff, despite the familiar protests that erupted every time, and a hand would slide out to hold the others with a final rebuttal of “How can you carry this if you don’t have a hand to spare?” Mina would stamp her feet in faux protest before disguising her blush in the folds of the thick football hoodie with HIRAI emblazoned across the back she had at some point commandeered from Momo’s wardrobe. Sometimes Sana would be invited to go with them, to hang at the arcade or grab milkshakes from Moe’s or just sit in the park and listen to Mina strum a simple tune while they pointed at the clouds in the sky.

  It was nice, and even when she couldn’t go with the girls she was content enough to watch an age old story play out before her eyes, stifling the roll of her eyes everytime that adorable blush rose on Mina’s face. Honestly, how could they not know?

  It was nice, but Sana saw the way people’s eyes tracked the connected hands hanging between the two girls, or how that boy from class 2a’s lips sneer every time he catches sight of them together. It was a dangerous game the two were playing, and she wasn’t even sure they were aware they were active participants.

  It wasn’t so nice when everything erupted one day, Momo being shoved harshly to the floor by a firm shoulder. Everything in her grip clattered noisily across the corridor, and the hallway went silent as all eyes trained on the three bodies in the centre. Mina bent down immediately, pulling Momo to her feet before rough hands pushed her shoulders against the lockers, metal clanging noisily as she fell with a cry. The guy, the same one who looked at the two with a permanent sneer on his face, leered over them aggressively, poison barbs dripping from his lips with every word he spat at the two. His words were harsh and cruel, using slurs and insults they’d never even heard before at the age of fifteen, and Sana arrived just in time to see the boy surge forward, hand reaching to grab at Momo’s face.

  Sana reacted before she thought, seeing her friends cowering on the floor and the tears forming in Momo’s eyes (though she wasn’t sure if they were from anger or fear) and the trembling grip Mina had maintained with Momo’s hand the entire time. The schools star striker barrelled straight into the boy, sending him sprawling against the opposite row of lockers in surprise. She heard the gasps of shock from the crowd, but she didn’t care because rage and fear were crawling up with every passing second and she just reacted instinctively. She pushed him again, and suddenly they were both on the floor with Sana holding the boy down and spitting words just as toxic and acidic as his back at him.

  “If you ever, ever go anywhere near my friends again I will ing end you, do you ing hear me?” She seethed, teeth gritted as both her fists formed a choking grip at his collar. His head nodded frantically in fright, and she let him go, head smacking to the floor at the sudden action and she surveyed the crowd.

  “What the  are you all looking at?”

  The crowd murmured and dispersed, throwing fanciful glances (mostly of fear) back at the lone figure watching them leave. Adrenaline shook Sana’s body, as well as the inevitable drop of fear and anger at doing what she did, and she turned to see Momo and Mina both standing, hands clasped tightly