wild and evil things.

[lovebalance]

fandom: twice
pairing: sana/momo
tags: alternate universe, second chances, unreliable narrator, murder mystery (but not really), non-linear narrative vibes.
rating: m (for depictions of violence, although vague.)

notes: this story has a murder in it. but it's not about that murder. it's about love.

There was a dead body on the third floor. 

Everybody knows because the sound of the ambulance and police sirens won’t stop. The morning sun looks down as groups of people are directed out of the building, confused and groggy, while loud voices tell them to remain calm and cross the street in an orderly fashion. Workers on their morning commute slow down as they come close, people in their pajamas, robes, and clothes from last night, chat among themselves. Who wouldn’t stop, with the sound of the siren loud and present? 

Those sirens are really fucking loud.

It’s made worse because she currently has a piercing headache. Maybe Momo shouldn’t have drank so much last night, or perhaps she should’ve popped a few ibuprofen in between glasses. But it was all so sudden; Mina had come over, dressed in sparkling reds and pinks. “Come on girl,” Mina has tugged her off the couch, into her bedroom. Dressed her up in something Momo even forgot she owned, before Momo changed her outfit again to black slacks and a blazer combination. “You need to get out of the house this week, at least a little.” 

And maybe Mina had been convincing, maybe the music playing was full of songs that Momo hadn’t heard in a long time, maybe the drinks were sweeter than normal. It could’ve been the effect of the girl across the room, staring at Momo with playful, flirty eyes, neither of them bothering to approach each other. No matter how she approached it, Momo knew that she let herself feel freer than she had in months. So now, as the sirens scream, it makes her raise her hand to her forehead and rub the skin, hoping it can soothe her even a little.

Anyways, there’s a dead body on the third floor. 

“Hirai,” a voice calls out, sharp and reserved. Momo rubs her fingers over her skin as she opens her eyes, looking toward the left. Sana walks up to her, adjusting the blue rubber gloves she’s put on, hair tied back. Some strands move against her face, but Sana doesn’t seem to mind or even care as she crosses the pavement to where Momo stands. 

When Sana gets near, she studies Momo’s face, eyes quick as they scan her features, before her mouth curls down, just a bit. Disapproval, Momo thinks, or maybe frustration. Most people would’ve missed it, the subtle change in expression, but not Momo. 

Sana says, “You look like shit.”

Momo replies, “I feel like it too.”

Momo can’t help but think for a quick moment that a while ago, Sana would’ve given her a humorous chuckle, changed her expression into one of amusement. All Sana does now is narrow her eyes just a bit, holding out another pair of gloves for Momo to take. 

As she takes them, Momo doesn’t search for anything on Sana’s face. There’s nothing to find. 

“Warning,” Sana speaks again as they both stand in the elevator, the lights flickering just a bit. Momo looks over as Sana rubs a finger on her scalp for a quick second, then the elevator dings. The doors slide open, and Sana looks at her for a quick second. “It’s a fucking disaster in there.” 

Momo smells it before she sees it. 

Some other workers walk by, discussing amongst themselves, as Momo nods to the man standing in front of the yellow tape. Nodding back, he lifts up the tape so Momo and Sana can crouch through. 

Momo scrunches up her nose a bit as the smell of iron and oil hits her senses. She really wishes she had taken a pain reliever, but she gently shakes her head as she adjusts to the room.

Blood covers the wooden floor, the walls. There’s a thick puddle of it when they walk into the main living room, just under the body of the dead woman on the floor. 

“It was like a horror show when I got here,” Jihyo walks up, tapping her fingers against the camera she holds. “Most of the guys didn’t even want to come in this room at first, it was fucking bad.”

Momo nods, eyes moving to Jihyo’s face. Jihyo has a pained expression on her face before she opens her camera screen up and tilts it so both women can see. “Most of the blood is in here, but there are traces in the bedroom and laundry room.” 

Momo watches the pictures change, getting redder and redder, and her eyes glance over to Sana. The woman has fingers pressed against her mouth, jaw clenched, eyes trying to follow the screen. 

Sana hates blood, she hates too much blood. Momo knows this. Nobody else will know this but her. 

In another moment, Momo would’ve pulled her aside for a second. She would’ve said, “Look at me, okay? I’m here. If it becomes too much, just look at me. Sana.” And Sana would. Even when Momo would’ve run her fingers gently over her face, her thumbs over Sana’s eyelids to bring them to a close, Sana would’ve looked.

Momo wants to tell her now, as Sana starts blinking faster, trying to stay focused, that she’s here. That she can look, Momo’s here, it’s okay to take a minute.

Sana glances up towards Momo, Momo looks away just as quickly. Jihyo inhales, shaking her head in disbelief, to calm her nerves maybe. “Let me know when you have everything you need,” Momo says to Jihyo, and Jihyo nods, exhaling sharply again before turning away. 

Sana still has her fingers pressed firmly against her lips, eyes still focusing, and Momo places a hand on her shoulder. 

Sana glances at her, reactive, and she doesn’t know what to say. So Momo squeezes her shoulder, hoping it provides something. 

That’s all Momo can do.

___

The woman was named Bae Suji, she was twenty-nine, and she was just engaged. Someone out of the country, it seems like, maybe on a trip, maybe there forever. Her ring, which had cost over twenty-thousand USD, was found in a cabinet drawer, buried under old pictures and notes. There were so many people in all of them, faces of people smiling while dressed up, people looking at each other on beaches and at events.

Bae Suji was only in one of them, and she was alone.

Momo runs her thumb across the photo, the woman smiling as the sun goes down in the distance. The ring sits on her finger, bright and large. Momo doesn’t know how anyone could miss it.

There’s the sound of paper moving along with the smell of pepperoni, and Momo glances up to see Sana slide a brown bag in front of Momo’s view. It smells delicious, the grease stain on the bottom of the bag ever-present, and Momo sets down the picture with the rest on the table. 

“You’ve been here all night,” Sana says simply, not looking at Momo, instead she’s looking at her own notepad she left on the table. It’s true, Momo thinks. Her brown leather jacket is sitting in the corner, balled up as a makeshift pillow, and her jeans are the same as yesterday. 

She knew she would get some glances the night before, people commenting on how hard she worked before going home, wrapping themselves in a reality that wasn’t here. Mina had texted her at four in the morning, worrying and nagging, so Momo had only sent a smiling face back. 

Momo slides the bag closer to her, stomach suddenly empty, hungry, her eyes looking at Sana’s back. Momo had watched Sana leave last night. Sana had watched her stay.

“You should go home, into a bed,” Sana told her in the past. “Into a warm bed. C’mon, you know how you are.” Momo remembers. She remembers the feeling of Sana’s fingers intertwining with hers, the soft pull into the night. Momo looked at Sana as Sana wrote down something, clicking her pen in thought. 

Momo remembers the feeling of Sana pressing her lips to her forehead, her mouth, and her stomach. “Go home Momo,” she whispered then. “You should always take a chance to go home.” Momo had kissed her silly. Had kissed her all over, she recalls. 

There wasn’t a place within Sana that Momo didn’t know.

Home.

Momo thinks, and there’s only one home she knows. The home that stands in front of her now. 

“Thank you,” Momo speaks after a moment, her throat dry and voice rough. She clears her throat and tries again. “You didn’t have to, you know. Thank you.”

Sana clicks her pen again before she turns her gaze up. The lights are suddenly too bright, Momo can’t see Sana’s eyes. But she hears her.

“I know how you are.”

___

Let’s start over.

There is a woman. Her name is Hirai Momo. She is twenty-three, turning twenty-four. She’s been here for way too long, so long it feels like forever. She has tried many paths, has tried medicine, has tried art, has tried history. She thinks, “Maybe it’s not meant to be.” She doesn't like anything. 

And then she does.

There is a woman. Her name is Minatozaki Sana. She is twenty-three, turning twenty-four. She’s been here for too long, but not long enough. She likes too many things, likes psychology, likes literature, likes pictures. This woman likes it all. She sees Hirai Momo, and she likes her too. 

“There’s nothing to like,” Woman One tells Woman Two over dinner. The lights are warm, the drinks are cold, and Woman One can’t stop looking at Woman Two. Woman Two looks at Woman One. She really looks at her.

She smiles.

“I think there’s so much to like,” She says. She places her lips on her knuckles. Sweet. Romantic. New.

She says, “I don’t think I can even imagine how much there is.”

There’s a moment. Then there’s another. Then there’s a question, “Can I walk with you?”

Then another.

“Can I kiss you?”

Another. 

“Can I kiss you now?”

Another.

“Can I take you home?”

More. 

“Will you stay the night? Just the night.”

There was one woman. Now there are two.

___

She gets lost somewhere. Momo can’t help but think about this. She stares at her phone, thumb hitting the side, and the thought comes. “I fucked up somewhere.”

Momo took too many chances, that’s what Mina tells her. Mina says this in a softer way, of course. Momo had been denying the sadness, the dread, but Mina had still let her know. “It’s not too much to tell you right? I think you messed up.”

Momo took too many chances. Jihyo tells her this. Bluntly, but not with any malice. “You fucked up,” Jihyo nods to herself like that’s the only correct way to say it. “I’ve known you since university. You both. You fucked up, you did.” Momo hadn’t reacted then, not at those words.

If she dwells on it now, it was only a moment after.

“Not just you,” Jihyo had spoken up again, sliding her hand across the table and squeezing Momo’s fingers. “Both of you. Momo and Sana, together,” Jihyo laughs only a little. “My two-little fuck ups.” 

Then Momo cried. 

She cried because Jihyo was wrong. She cried because Sana would not text her, she cried because she imagined Sana, imagined her crying. This wasn’t her fault. It was Momo’s own.

She was scared. Fuck, she was. 

She found the ring, small, but there. She had tried to not feel the fear, but when Sana came home, the woman held Momo’s face, and she kissed her.

Momo liked Sana. Likes Sana. Loves her.

She loved her so much that it terrified her. Terrifies her. 

As Momo speaks to the other members, Jihyo, Dahyun, Tzuyu, and Sana, it hits her. As she drags her finger across the board -- Momo points at the ring and says “The victim was in love.” -- it hits her. She taps her finger twice on the picture of the ring. 

“I can’t, Sana, I can’t,” she lied. “I don’t think I like you enough to give you what you want, I don’t think I ever did. Ever could.”

Momo lied. She lied, lied when she shouldn’t. She should’ve just stopped. She’s made her point, hasn’t she? Sana was already crying, face flushed red in humiliation and anger.

“There was someone who was so in love they went crazy with it. Killed for it.”

Fingers run down Momo’s face. Sana drops her hands. “Then we’re done.”

“I think that’s the scariest part,” Dahyun whispers, only towards Tzuyu though. But everyone is listening; Jihyo who clicks around on her computer, Sana who keeps clicking her pen, and Momo who is so aware of everything Sana does at this moment that she feels overwhelmed with it. “Loving someone so much that it turns to pain.”

___

It takes a week. Jihyo argues it took longer. She’s right, Momo could say, but feels like it’s only just a week. Like everything was bubbling up over and over, then someone just opened the lid. 

(So maybe, it was longer. Too long.)

It was there as they sat in the dim light of the computer screen. Momo had been tapping against her chin in thought, trying to remain in the moment. The names and places kept mixing together, Bae Suji’s smile flashing in her head and disappearing. She reads the location in Peru, a name attached there, and almost feels herself slipping away.

Then, there’s something. The press of a head onto her shoulder, fingers tangled in her hair, pressed against her scalp.

”Take a second.”

The words hung in the air. Momo had waited, maybe Sana would lean away. Maybe Sana had forgotten herself, forgotten who Momo is. She’d pull away, leave the dim light of the computer screen and Momo behind. 

She hadn’t.

And something about that made Momo feel brave. “You know I get paid for working until my eyes burn.”

It was a joke between them, back in university. Back when they first started this thing, whatever it was, together. 

Sana stayed where she was, in Momo’s space, and gave an amused huff. “Yeah, you and me both.”

Just like she always said.

It followed them both out of the building, stood, and watched them in the street. The sky was turning into the color of the morning blue, the sun in the distance. Momo hadn’t lingered on the sun, or the time. She turned back towards it and looked at Sana head-on.

And Momo missed this, but it was there. Momo wasn’t aware of how the sunlight hugged her face, her eyes tired, hair messy and greasy, packed into a horrible attempt at a ponytail. 

(Sana had seen something. In Momo’s eyes, which lit up even after all this time when she looked at Sana, smile tired but big.)

“You getting home okay?”

Momo is reminded of the past, in the dim mornings like this, a night of drinks, Sana giggling at her. She couldn’t help it, the question left her mouth before she could stop it. 

Sana looked at her, just looked at Momo, even when there was a chilled breeze that made strands of hair fly in front of her eyes, Momo’s eyes too.

Someone moved, Sana’s fingers brushed the strands off Momo’s face, behind her ears.

“Yeah, I think I’ll be ok.”

They stare. Momo’s heart felt like it was in every single part of her body. 

“See you in a bit?”

“Yeah.”

And when Momo got back to her apartment, she shut off all the lights and shut all the curtains. She got in her bed, stared up at the ceiling, and thought of Sana. 

“See you in a bit?”

“See you later?”

“See you tonight?”

“See you at home?”

“See you?”

And she had slept. She remembered the sight of Sana in her gray sweatpants and hood, walking away into the morning, the sky bright, blue, and she slept.

___

Let’s start again.

There is a woman, and she is dead. Her name is Bae Suji, she is twenty-nine, and she will never get to become thirty. She was slashed across the stomach, but she did not fight.

She did not fight because she was in love. It probably went like this: Suji let the person in, a woman. It was tense and awful, but Suji still let the woman in. 

Suji asked, “Do you want water?”

The woman looked back at her. Hair a mess, eyes red, rimmed with tears. Then there was yelling, or that's what witnesses said. Crying, maybe.

A thud. A choked breath.

An apology. 

“I’m sorry.”

A confession.

“I love you so much. I forgive you.”

Silence.

Then there was blood everywhere, and there was a fake ring and a man who waited in another place for a woman who wouldn’t come.

For a woman who hadn’t loved him, even in her final moments.

And a woman so angry with love, she ruined it all.

___

Momo needs a moment. Maybe she needed more than a moment, a day, a decade, forever. She should’ve left when she felt the knot in her throat as the woman cried. Sana had been looking at her, maybe but Momo couldn’t look anywhere else. The woman still has blood under her fingertips, tears running down her cheeks, and she cried.

When the story ends, Jihyo is rubbing her chin in thought. Momo couldn’t hold back. 

“I’m sure she wasn’t lying,” Momo says despite the silence of everyone else. The woman looks at her, her eyes shining in surprise. “I’m sure she loved you until the end.”

Her voice wavers, it shakes. Momo inhales through her nose, sharp before she notices her vision is blurry. She nods, more to herself, calm down Momo, and turns to walk out. 

Her ears feel submerged, faces blurring into colors that look the same. She keeps thinking about Sana, the ring, and her lie. 

“Then we’re done.”

The crisp air hits her face as the back door of the building opens, but she doesn’t get far. Someone is firmly holding her arm, stopping her. 

“Momo, please just, wait!”

Momo swallows, heart loud, as the grip on her arm tightens a bit, holding her in place. She looks down at the pavement as Sana moves in front of her, slowly, like Sana might scare her away if she’s too sudden.

Neither of them says anything, the sounds of distant car horns filling the space. 

“Momo-“

“It’s just heartbreaking,” Momo looks up. Her tears felt hot against her skin, ears red, embarrassed. Sana should be laughing at her, she thinks, or maybe even annoyed.

Momo, crying about heartbreak? What a joke.

“You know? It’s heartbreaking.”

But Sana doesn’t laugh. There are so many emotions in her eyes, but anger isn’t any of them. She’s crying too. (They both always cry, mainly in front of each other. It’s unstoppable.)

“It is,” Sana whispers, voice shaking. “I know Momo. It is.”

She can’t help it. Sana opens her arms, tears on her face, and Momo takes the chance.

She wraps herself in Sana’s arms. She allows herself to feel it: the heartbreak.

___

It’s like the breaking of a stalemate.

There’s a sent text. It’s a picture of a random person outside, a street performer. They hold a guitar, their eyes closed, and people watch. 

It’s followed with a ‘This reminded me of the songs you like.’

Then the response is a heart. A smile.

Then there’s more. Pictures of pets, random objects, or songs. 

Then there’s a branch. It’s extended, soft, and kind. 

‘Can we meet?’

___

Perhaps the story can move like this.

Woman One waits for Woman Two in a restaurant. The waitress is sweet as she greets her, and pours her two free drinks. “To help with the nerves.” 

The nerves were all over her face.

So, Woman One who is very aware of her nerves, feels them intensify as Woman Two walks in. Feels them all over her face as Woman Two sits across from her, and grins. It’s a test, a soft grin with affection, an offering. She takes it. Gives her back a smile that’s too wide and silly, full of teeth.

There’s a small chat, topics about pets and work, and the dead body on the third floor. Then there’s laughter.

Then Woman One opens her mouth. She confesses, “There’s so much to like about you.”

Woman Two replies, “There’s not much.”

“That’s not true, there’s so much to like,” She feels winded as she extends a hand onto the table, holds her fingers, and rubs her thumb against the back of her skin. “I can’t even imagine how much there is to like about you.” 

There’s a question, “Can I walk with you?”

Another one.

“Can I take you home?”

Another one.

“Will you stay? Just for now.”

And she does.

(“I want to kiss you,” someone whispers to the other, face in between her hands, feeling stupid and silly and hopeful. 

“What’s stopping you? Do it.”)