She should have said no, really.

  This train of thought runs through her head every time, mind you - a blaring repetition in a perfect imitation of Mina’s voice telling her over and over that yeah, she definitely should have said no.

  She’s never really paused to take it in and really think about why the default voice in her head becomes the younger girl whenever she scolds herself, or tries to reason with herself. It could be her brain’s last ditch attempt to actually get her to listen. Disappointing Mina was something she avoided at all costs, knowing the younger girl only ever wanted the best for both her and Momo, and would actively discourage their self-discovery fueled escapades if she knew about them.

  “ I just want you two to be safe.” It’s a phrase she’s heard a lot, words laced with transparent concern and usually murmured after a drawn out, resigned sigh. Guilt floods through her body every time, knows that the pair of them cause their self-professed baby far more stress and worry than should be possible for a seventeen year old girl who’s just trying to make sure her friends don’t end up hurt, or in jail.

  Mina’s voice in her head sounds so far away when Momo pulls on her hand impatiently at her daydreaming though, tugging the two of them excitedly across the empty, poorly lit parking lot just past midnight, and the concept of safety disappeared the moment Momo’s big, pleading eyes appeared in the corner of Sana’s window about twenty minutes ago.

  It’s an old habit, one developed from long summer nights where the sun only started to set long past bedtime, and Sana and Momo were both thrumming with far too much energy to even think about sleep when they could play together a little longer. There’s an old drain pipe that runs just along the wall outside Sana’s window, and Momo learned the not so hard way that it was actually very easy to climb.

  Firm knuckles rapping on her window jolted her from the beginnings of sleep. She couldn’t even find it in herself to be irritated; not when Momo’s waving at her with a dorky grin and gesturing for the window to be unlocked, Sana complying with a stifled eye roll and wincing when the older girl rolls into her room with a loud thud.

  She has the audacity to tell Sana to shush afterwards, finger pressed to her lips as they both wait there with baited breath for footsteps that never come, as though it was Sana who collapsed onto the floor with all the grace and tact of a newborn foal trying to stand for the first time. They wait another minute just to make sure; the only answer is her father’s soft, rumbling snores down the hallway, and the sound of the wind in the trees outside, and Momo’s breathing slowly returning to normal.

  “Come on.” Her whisper floats across the room, stepping on careful tippy toes (the floorboards creak, she makes sure to avoid the third one from the right) over to latch onto Sana’s wrist.

  “What do you mean ‘come on’?” She whispers back, knowing full well what Momo meant. All these years meant precious insight to each others inner thoughts and feelings, and knowing reactions and intentions before each other even knew what they were going to say or do.

  Momo’s inner thought process was one of the most fascinating things Sana had ever seen. She was entirely transparent - if she wanted to do something, she did it. No hidden intentions or misguided notions. Sana was no stranger to a hand slipping into her own wordlessly, or a sleepy body crawling into her lap and dragging her hand into her hair expecting to be petted. Momo was gestures and actions, was never very good at explaining her feelings with her words if Sana was entirely honest, but the arm loosely wrapped around her waist when they walked side by side said a lot more than words ever could.

  The older girl flicks her on the forehead, slapping a hand over at the sharp squeak that escapes as she does so and her head whips towards the door so fast Sana can’t help but giggle behind the hand against . All Sana can focus on is the smell of Momo’s favourite shower gel as she breathes, mixed with something old and a little metallic and it hits her suddenly that the hand over had been wrapped around that grimy old drain pipe only a few moments before.

  She pushes the older girl away and rubs at her lips desperately, fighting the urge to stick her tongue out at the knowing smirk on her face when she realises.

  Momo takes careful steps towards her wardrobe as she tries futilely to feel clean again, easing the door open as carefully as possible before rummaging through the hangers. Sana doesn’t bother to catch her favourite, old blue hoodie as Momo flings it across the room, letting it dangle on her shoulder as a pair of socks follow shortly after.

  “Come on,” Momo says again, now rummaging through her drawer and tossing a pair of shorts at her impatiently, making her way over to the shoe rack by her bedroom door as Sana just watches her incredulously, “You can’t go out in your PJ’s.”

  Defiance flares up in her chest.

  “Who says I’m going out at all?”

  Momo barely bothers to give her a dignified response, just raises an eyebrow as she picks up a pair of black converse from the rack. It’s all comfortable and easy clothing she’s picked, though Sana isn’t sure that a lot of thought went into this outfit choice for her - decisions inspired more by Momo’s natural excitement and eagerness to go wherever it is she wanted to take her.

  She is dressed similarly though; in the faded, purple hoodie Sana had let her borrow three summers ago and had never gotten back, and a pair of sneakers and wearing the distressed jean shorts she’s pretty certain have a hole in the front but she can’t tell with the way the hoodie dwarfs Momo’s frame.

  “Look outside the window.”

  Sana does as she’s told, treading lightly until she’s looking out at her backyard. She can faintly make out Momo’s rucksack in the moonlight, clearly containing something related to the girl’s impromptu plan and waiting for it’s owner to return.

  “Are you gonna get changed or not?” Momo’s getting impatient now, arms folded stiffly and face set in a tiny frown, hardly noticeable if not for the little furrow that appears between her brows, staring at Sana expectantly.

  Momo is simultaneously the biggest constant in her life and also the most unpredictable. In that, Sana knows everything about her - her favourite food, the fact that she wants to move into the city when she grows up and share an apartment with someone new and unexpected, and that it takes her at least seven minutes after she wakes up to hold any sort of conversation.

  But she’s also an uncontrollable spark in Sana’s chest, setting off fireworks and streaking explosive colours across the sky whenever she grabs Sana’s hand and expects her to follow, dragging her to anywhere and nowhere with little more than a stray thought and the desire to share the moment with her.

  Just her.

  She’s a powder keg ready to explode, impulsivity wrapped intimately inside a deceptively tiny frame that leaks out at the most unpredictable times and coats everything around her in a thick layer of excitement and anticipation.

  (Which always includes Sana.)

  The fuse is getting shorter, and Momo crosses the room and the distance between them and starts tugging Sana’s pajamas off of her herself, throwing the oversized t-shirt somewhere near the laundry basket in the corner and pulling the hoodie over her head none too kindly. She doesn’t pause to think about how readily she accepted her fate, even lifting her arms up so the older girl could pull them into her sleeves easier. Momo plucks the shorts up next but Sana snatches them from her hands too fast to be playful, feeling heat rise to her cheeks as the older girl looks at her curiously.

  “I can do this myself.” She mumbles quietly, ignoring the grin of victory that spreads all the way up to Momo’s eyes until they disappear, sliding the pair of shorts over her legs and tugging them into place around her hips to fasten the button.

  “I’ll be waiting outside.” Momo whispers cheerfully, clambering out the window a lot more carefully than she’d came in, until Sana could only hear the dull ring of shoes scuffing against the drain pipe and the clink of something metallic shifting in Momo’s bag when she slings it onto her back.

  So she’d tied her shoes quickly, grabbed her phone from her bedside table and set an extra alarm just in case the first one didn’t wake her up in the morning and ignored Momo’s outstretched arms promising to catch her in favour of shimmying down the pipe instead.

  It had barely been a second since her foot found purchase on the ground and her hands detached from the pipe before Momo’s tiny, slender fingers interlaced easily with her own, clasping her hand tightly and already pulling her excitedly to wherever the night wanted to take them.

  And now she was here, halfway across the town in the dead of night with the moonlight guiding them, slipping down shortcuts Sana didn’t even know existed and parts of town she’d never even been to before. All she has is Momo’s fingers between her own as reassurance, but that’s all she’s ever needed.

  Their footsteps are loud in the silence of the night, thudding mutedly against the asphalt fast enough to match the rhythm of her heart beating in her chest. She wonders where it is Momo’s taking her that has her this excited. It must be important if they haven’t slowed their pace since they started, jogging hardheartedly across empty roads and skipping along the sidewalk.

  The grip on her hand doesn’t falter throughout, squeezing tightly at the car alarm that goes off a few streets away that makes them both jump in surprise.

  A constant inconsistent. Yeah, that was Momo.

  Summer’s coming to an end, the night’s drawing in much earlier than Sana would like but the air is still warm and pleasant, wrapping around her bare legs familiarly as she takes long strides to try and keep up with Momo’s fluctuating steps. There are fewer street lights the further they go, mostly relying on the ever present hazy glow of a town that never sleeps and the moonlight to guide them.

  They must be close now, for Momo turns around to flash an infectiously excitable smile at Sana, the light from the moon barely illuminating the part of her face that her hood doesn’t cover and casting deep, dark shadows on the rest. It’s enough that she can see the light reflected in her eyes though, can see the unmistakable exhilaration shining back at her. She doesn’t know if it’s from the thrill of being out after curfew; from sneaking away from home and traipsing down dark alleys like a hometown vigilante on some all important mission, or even if it was just from the comforting heat of Momo’s hand in her own and the upbeat tune she was humming under her breath as they jumped over empty train tracks together (she thinks it might be Britney, wouldn’t be surprised).

  But Sana feels it too. The same, genuine wonder at not knowing where she’s being led to, and she knows this is the closest she’s ever going to get to seeing the world through Momo’s eyes.

  She would give anything to wear a pair of Momo tinted glasses, just for a day - just to gain the smallest bit of insight as to how the girl she’s known since she was nine and new to the neighbourhood with a big ol’ gap where her front teeth should have been saw the world. Everything was big, and wonderful - she saw even the smallest of events and happenings as something to be remembered and cherished, and brushed off bad news and misfortunes as nothing more than a tiny blip on whichever path she took.

  There were a lot of paths, all new and different and every one just as exciting as the last. Nothing stayed the same - except the minor detail of Sana always being by her side.

  She couldn’t help but wonder...

  The street lights had completely ended by now, and the buildings in the area were few and far between, spaced out and looking a little worse for the ware. If it had been anyone other than Momo leading her here she’d probably be halfway back to home now, would have doubted their intentions (and probably their sanity) for even considering going to somewhere so derelict this late at night.

  But it’s Momo.

  Whatever’s inside Momo’s bag has been an insistent accompanying theme tune or sorts as they’ve moved, the repetitive shift and clank entirely off key to the disney song Momo had now moved onto humming. It was oddly soothing all the same, focusing on the rhythm of their shoes hitting sidewalk and the clink of metal with every step. Sana thinks she has a vague idea of what they’re about to do; she thinks it stems from a conversation they’d had a few nights ago, where they’d talked about anything and everything while falling asleep on Sana’s couch watching Momo’s favourite movie for the hundredth time.

  It was just sleep talk, really. A mumbled hidden desire to do something kind of bad just once , while they still had the guise of being young and could blame any bad behaviour on a desperate need for teenage rebellion. She hadn’t thought Momo was listening, too busy mouthing the exchange on screen line for line as Mike and Sully discuss what to do about Boo, complete with facial expressions and gestures as big as she could with her arms wrapped around Sana’s waist.

  Clearly she had been, Sana watching as the older girl pulls herself up a thin, rickety fire escape on the side of an abandoned block of apartments, falling over the railings and landing safely in a jumbled heap of limbs on the floor. It’s barely been a moment before she’s back on her feet again, brushing herself off and fiddling with the catch release that would let the ladder drop to the ground.

  Sana winces at the grating metallic sound as Momo succeeds, the not-entirely-safe looking ladder screeching down with a resounding clang as descends a few feet in front of her. She eyes it dubiously. Looks up and can barely make out her favourite smile on the older girl’s face as she looks down at her expectantly.

  “Come on!”

  Her eyes flit from the heavily rusted rungs that had clearly seen better days to the wide, infectious grin waiting at the top.

  “You brought me here to kill me?”

  “Don’t be dramatic,” She can feel the eye roll more than she can see it, hears the exasperation in her voice as she taps on the metal bars impatiently, “If you climbed up maybe you’d see why we came here.”

  She makes a noise of disagreement, a sceptical hum low in .

  “Or you could just tell me before I fall off this rusty old ladder and snap my leg.”

  “As if I’d let that happen,” Momo snorts, “I’d catch you if you fell.”

  “What if you weren’t close enough to grab me?”

  “I’d find a way to throw myself down and cushion the fall.”

  Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. There was no possible way for anyone to react that quickly, and yet Sana still felt something warm up inside her chest at the silly (yet entirely sincere) statement.

  Somehow, Momo made the impossible seem entirely possible.

  Slender fingers wrap around cool metal, cringing at the paint and rust that flaked off in her hands as she tugged on them experimentally. She places a foot on the bottom rung, pushes herself up just to test if it could take her weight, and she hasn’t fallen flat on her yet so she presumes it’s safe.

  “This had better be worth dragging me across the entire town at this time of night.” She grumbles, words lacking any sort of bite that the older girl would take seriously as she pulls herself up slowly.

  She counts the steps; twelve, unnecessary, fear inducing steps that have her in a breath every time she moves her foot away to climb another rung, liking the sound of her shoes scuffing against metal and the warm air filling up her lungs. And liking the feel of Momo’s fingers tugging at her hoodie as soon as her head appears at the top of the ladder, insistent and impatient and endearingly cute in the same way she’d find a puppy begging to go out and play. The comparison is entirely too fitting as Momo looks down with bright, wide eyes and a toothy grin, hauling the younger girl up the last few rungs onto the flat metal bars with a grunt.

  The fingers are tugging at her clothes again, pulling until she rises to her feet before slipping naturally into the space between her own. It’s a tight grip, Momo doesn’t do anything hardheartedly. It’s always everything she can give and not a single ounce of eff