Holymon

Ken hadn't really given his name much thought before. It was just... a thing, a word imposed on him, and it had never held that much importance. That was, until he'd stumbled across someone that, for whatever reason, hadn't wanted to say it. It had bothered him at the time, and even now, something about her not calling him by it rankled in the back of his mind, somewhere deep, deep down, where he threw all thoughts and emotions he didn't want to inspect too closely.

This wasn't to say he didn't appreciate the nickname she had given him, because he did. It was without a doubt, the first thing genuinely given to him by another person, and he treasured it dearly; it had meaning, power behind it, and whenever anyone called him by it now, it reminded him instantly of her. Not that he needed it to be reminded of her though. Momo Ayase was never far from the forefront of his mind now a days, and he often found himself thinking stray thoughts that had never occurred to him before came along and catapulted herself into his life.

Thoughts like, oh, she'd like this, or oh, she'd absolutely despise this other thing. More than once, he'd found himself squirreling away a shiny rock he'd found that reminded him of her earrings, a small piece of candy with an alien themed wrapper, or even entire magazines on the single notion that she'd like them, and he should thus, of course, present them to her. Never once had he actually gone through it; not once had he actually scrunched up the courage to actually give her the thing he'd secreted away for her, much too self conscious to do so when the notion actually caught up with him. He liked to think it was the intention that matter, and that he just needed a push, and maybe some day soon he'd manage.

Despite what some people thought, Ken was not an idiot; far from it, in his personal opinion. It'd taken him his first journey into her room, back when they were still trying to figure out what to do about Turbo Granny that first day, to realize exactly why she hadn't been able to say his name out loud, and he hadn't taken it out on her. Despite being slightly naive about many things, he wasn't exactly slow, and what he lacked in wisdom, he made up for in other ways. He was, perhaps, not as sharp as Ayase herself in the heat of the moment, but he was no slouch.

Still he'd decided to make no comment on the elephant in the room at the time. He'd not brought it up, and had kept his mouth shut. In a way, he'd come to adopt the nickname like it was his first name, and he'd just felt grateful for it. Even so... it still poked at a small, insecure part of him, deep, deep down in his soul, that she wouldn't say it, even when he didn't want to admit to it out loud.

It was perhaps, some small part of those feelings that slipped through when he was transformed. He couldn't really say.

She'd asked him several times what if felt like when he transformed, and he couldn't quite put it into words correctly. Did he go anywhere? Was it still him in there, fully? Did something else take over? And... no, nothing took over. It was just him, but, maybe... more. It was like his feelings were enhanced, not just his senses, but his actual emotions (and God, what did that say about him, that depression was the one in the wheel house? He didn't really want to poke that thought too much, given what it said about him). He'd noticed he was prone to be much more honest with his feelings and surroundings in that form, like there was no filter between brain and his mouth, and what he felt, he just blurted out.

Emotion fueled that form, at the end of the day.

The first few times he'd slipped into that form unbidden, it had been rage fueling it. Rage unlike anything he'd felt before that had sparked change into existence. He'd never been a particularly angry or argumentative kid; he'd never really fought back against bullies. Has never really tried to, never thought it was worth it to do so. Ken figured it had to be something about Ayase that brought it out of him, because he distinctly recalled clapping back at her several times that day, in a way he'd never thought of doing to his bullies. She'd just been worth it, from the very start.

She'd asked him why he called her by her first name in that form, and truth was, he'd wanted to do so since the first day, honestly, but he'd not been able to. He hadn't hadn't found the courage to do so. Afraid of being inadequate, of just not being enough, and in his defense, this was all just new to him. There wasn't a book to drive him through the very real messy process of actually having a friend.

And again, Ken wasn't stupid. He wasn't an idiot. He may have been awkward, and he may have been new at the whole friendship thing, but he smart enough to have realized after a while that some of the thoughts he held for her were not exactly in the friendship department. He hadn't even begun to untangle that mess, and he wasn't ready to poke and prod at it, but he wasn't stupid. He knew himself at least.

Something about that form however, just seemed to destroy most inhibition, and thus, the name just slipped out, time and time again. It wasn't that he didn't want to say it; he very much did. Ken didn't think he could help it, as much as he couldn't help the strangely spindly arms and anatomy he gained, or his hair from changing color.

It was just a thing, and he'd had to get used to it. It was what it was.

Specially because anger wasn't exactly the only emotion that could trigger a transformation. Fear was just as capable of it as well.

He'd found out the hard way, when a particularly loud sound had crashed through her temple one day when she'd gone outside to fetch something. She'd left him in her room, promising she'd be back as soon as possible, and to make himself comfortable. Ken had sat himself on the floor and had been admiring the organized chaos of the room, and the certain lack of posters he could remember from the first day there, when the sound had caught his attention. Metal like, loud and in his fear hazed mind, entirely out of place.

He'd been up on his feet, transformed and zooming outside her room faster than he'd been able to react or even process thought in a coherent manner. The burst of speed enough that he was outside and in front of her before the sound had even stopped reverberating across the premises. The fear that something had happened while he'd been upstairs and she outside had been visceral, and when he found her looking owlishly at him, with pipes around her (clearly the source of the sound), the relief had been just as visceral, "Momo..."

Demonstrating once more that innate sharpness, the girl took one look at him, and somehow managed to read him in the space of time it too him to process that she was fine, and that they were, in fact, not under attack, "Ah," it was a soft sound of understanding as she took her eyes off of him and turned to look at the pipes scattered on the stone floor at her feet, "Sorry. I noticed them over there, and figured I'd get them moved for grandma behind the main shrine before she had to do so later. They're not heavy for me now, given circumstances," as if to emphasize this, she made a small grabby motion with her hands, and the pipes lifted into the air as if by themselves, "But... I got distracted by something and dropped them, my bad," she left the obvious unsaid; she hadn't meant to scare and startle him, and he was grateful to her for not pointing it out.

"Momoooo..." The gratefulness for her continued safety seeped through him like a cold bath, and he found himself taking a step forward and flopping his head in an almost boneless fashion against her shoulder. His forehead was resting against her body, his posture hunched slightly over her, and by the time he'd done so, he couldn't be arsed to move away; she'd push him away anyways, it didn't matter. Nothing really mattered anyways.

To her credit, rather than do that, after a just a moment, Momo's hand went up and patted the top of his head, "There, there, you big idiot, it's fine, see? Everything's fine," he hadn't told her, back when she'd let him use her lap to nap, but that was likely the first time someone not blood related had offered him any sort of physical comfort. He wasn't used to touching. He wasn't used to any of this, which, granted, didn't mean he didn't want it, just... that he was unsure when it was okay to ask for it, or if it was out of the question to do it back. The strange thought processes of his transformation made it very muddy and he seemed to rely on her body language to read what was and wasn't okay to do, "Feeling better?"

Ken took the moment to catalogue his feelings and well, "Still bummed," he said, head remaining pressed against her, and Momo let out a sigh, her hand lowering from his hair to rub his back in a comforting, circular motion.

"Yeah, that about tracks," she said, "I meant more along the lines of if you've calmed down now."

He offered a small nod against her shoulder, his vision entirely blocked by body, what with his forehead pressed against it, allowing at least one sense to be muted.

"Cool, 'kay," after a few more seconds, she lifted her hand and tapped his side slightly in poke poke poke fashion, a movement that seemed to indicate without words or a push that she wanted him to move, and thus he did. Ken lifted his head off her shoulder and watched her through near unblinking eyes, "Help me move these pipes to where I was gonna take them, and then we'll figure out... this" she gestured to him, head to toe, and again, because she asked, he did exactly what she wanted without protest. He scooped up the few pipes she wasn't carrying with her powers and followed her to the back of the main shrine, where he'd spent that first night.

He was quite sure she could have, at this point in time, asked him to fetch her the moon and stars, and despite the impossibility of it, Ken was sure he would have given it his best try regardless.

"Right, okay, lesee," the moment they had gotten rid of the pipes, Momo had turned to gaze at him, looking him up, then down, and then back up again, "You stayin' like that then?" he had no idea what to tell her, and just watched her, which was apparently enough for her to roll her eyes, "Right, always forget you get super weird like this. So... tell me. What do you think would help?"

Well, Ken wasn't exactly sure what would help in this state. Maybe nothing would. Everything felt so... useless when he was like this, like nothing quite mattered either way, and thinking about it was stressing him out further.

Something about his expression, which he hadn't figured had shifted whatsoever, seemed to indicate enough to her that she rolled her eyes, "Stop overthinking everything, dummy. What do you think would help at this precise moment. What do you need?"

Well, need was a strong word. He didn't need anything, but he figured there was something he wanted. The moment the notion flashed through his mind, his mouth opened, and out it came, absolutely no filter, "Can I hold you?" It was immediately clear from the way she looked at him, absolutely flabbergast, that out of all the things she had expected him to say, this one was nowhere on the list. Her mouth opened and closed two times without sound before Ken decided that honestly, nothing mattered anyways. In for a penny, in for a pound, "Just need a moment to calm down, and last time, when we were running, having you close helped."

She blinked owlishly for another two to three seconds, looked away from him in thought and seemed to come to a conclusion. Like with everything Momo did, when she turned back to look at him, she'd planted her feet and looked determined, clearly not about to back down anymore, "Sure, 'kay, let's do that," and she spread her arms in an awkward initiation of a hug.

Having gotten permission, he angled his body not to hug her, but to pick her up off the ground like one would have a small pet animal, eliciting a startled yelp out of the girl. He then allowed himself to flop on the ground, setting her on the ground in front of him and processed to wrap himself in a near boneless fashion around her, his upper hand leaned over her shoulder, legs spread out in front of him, and instantly... things were marginally better.

"Okarun!" Momo had found her voice again, and though she did not squirm out of her position, did reach out to give his head a light smack, eliciting a huff out of him, "A little warning next time!"

"You said I could though."

"I was expecting to be held, not to be picked up swaddled by your limbs!" despite her words, there was no real anger in her voice, and she slowly relaxed her back to lean against his chest, "You're lucky it's hot as fuck out and you're cold," this was said in a murmur, which was dumb, in his opinion. After all, if she didn't want him to hear her, murmuring near his ear was not exactly the best course of action.

Silence fell and for a good amount of time, during which he closed his eyes and took in the signs she was alive (her scent, her heartbeat, the way her chest expanded each time she took in breath), he moved not an inch.

"Better?" it was reminiscent of the question she'd asked him a bit earlier, and he offered, well... not a nod, but a simile of it, his whole cranium flopping over like it was too heavy for his neck to hold. Momo's response was a sigh as she once again patted his head, once twice before her arm fell back upon her lap, "Good."

Ken expected her to poke him, tell him enough was enough, push away even, but the girl did no such thing. He opened an eye to watch her slide hers shut, and thus, following her example, he did so too.