Share a plate

Mecha sat in the living room of his “hangar” — which was just an abandoned warehouse turned into a hangar.

He was deep in the first Warioland game on his recently acquired Ayn Thor, engrossed enough that he didn’t notice the side door opening or his muse saying “I’m here.”

Momo walked in. The smell of the ocean drifted through the retrofitted living space and testing ground of her favorite author. She smiled, then said “Mecha! Mecha!”

When he didn’t respond she pouted and went looking for him.

She found him on the second floor where most of his living space was. As she approached she could see him locked in on that emulation device he’d bought months ago but only recently received.

“Yah!” she said as she poked him.

Mecha looked up. Momo smiled. He noticed she was dressed like she was going somewhere — a nice blue dress that moved with her, emphasizing the natural curves and toned legs he loved.

“Umm — what’s going on?” he asked.

Momo rolled her eyes. “You’re not going to tell me how good I look?”

Mecha gave her a real once-over. “You look great, darling. What’s the occasion?”

Momo looked at her writer, slightly annoyed at his obliviousness. “Are we going to the launch party for Fanprose?”

Mecha paused his game. “Should I? I’m really tired and a bunch of people are gonna be there.”

“It’ll be fun. A bunch of authors you haven’t seen in a while will be there.”

“Really — like who?”

“Dch, Bluebird—”

Mecha perked up. “Nichuu?”

Momo searched her memory. “No, Nichuu’s been gone a while. Enter too.”

Mecha sighed. “Okay.” He stood and started to pace. Dch and Bluebird were two of his favorite writers, even if they’d mostly stopped posting. “I don’t know…”

“Come on — Leafo will be there too. You guys used to bond over your mutual love of Chaehyun,” Momo said, and felt the faint sting of finishing that sentence.

“You’re correct. But I’m pretty tired and going feels like being stiff and weird.”

Momo stepped closer. She reached out and let her fingers settle gently on his forearm, not coy — just warm, close. Her voice dropped just slightly. “I could always wake you up a bit. If you needed it.”

Mecha smiled. She leaned in and kissed him softly, unhurried.

“We could always stay in,” he offered.

Momo pulled back just enough to look at him. “But you love the community, right?”

“I do,” he said. “They can just be wildly exhausting sometimes.”

Momo nodded. She’d seen it — the requests, the expectations, people pulling him in five directions at once. She felt echoes of it in her own work. “I can see that. A bunch of artists with different styles, voices, and flows all trying not to trample each other.” She paused. “Which actually — I’ve been meaning to ask. How do you stay so positive about the space when you’re so isolated in it? Because in real life you’re kind of a dick.”

Mecha laughed. “Short answer: I take it personally, but I don’t let it change me. Long answer — I’m always trying to refine and retool my output to prove my worth. So every win and every loss hits me directly. But I also genuinely value other people’s voices and approaches, which is why I try to only say positive things about other authors and artists. Because they get it. There’s no worse feeling than watching something you’ve spent months on land to silence.”

“Tell me about it,” Momo said. “I’m still mad people aren’t clamoring to hear ‘Perfect World.’”

Mecha laughed again. “It’s my favorite of y’all’s — but that’s exactly my point. Effort doesn’t always come with adulation. So for every writer confident enough to post, I want to encourage them. I’m usually the first one to do it, even though sometimes it's been “to proactive”.”

Momo remembered something. “Isn’t that what got you in trouble originally?”

“Kind of. It all started with this one author — I wrote ‘Double Ds and Dungeon Crawls’ to drum up hype for my friends plus this new writer who had a cool Haseum fic I enjoyed, a couple of others. Then that same week the post drops, the author releases a fic about an underage girl.” He paused. “I pulled him from the mentions obviously, but the damage was done. It felt weird having to defend myself in the space, so I took a break. And honestly that’s been a consistent thread — me cosigning authors and then something going sideways.”

Momo listened, then asked quietly, “Is that why you quit the first time?”

“Yeah. Second time wasn’t really quitting — I got hacked, lost a bunch of stuff, had to rebrand.”

“Oh.” She took that in. “So you’ve really been going through it.”

“Yes,” Mecha said simply.

Momo nodded. “So going to the writers’ lounge might be stressful.”

Mecha nodded and got up.

Then she said the thing. “There will be rare photocards of me if you go.”

Mecha went still. His inner TCG brain screamed at him that this changed everything.

Momo twisted the knife. “There will also be phở.”

An exasperated “fine, I’ll go” and he started putting an outfit together.

Momo smiled. “Yay.” She slipped into his game room and came back with the tegasword and the Gozyu Tyranno ring. She held them out to him.

He looked at her.

She just smiled.

He scowled. Momo said, “Out of every author here, you’re the one known for loving this stuff — and for weaving it into your work. It’s how people know it’s you. If you don’t bring it, how do you expect them to recognize you?”

Mecha stared at his muse for a long moment. Then he took the tegasword, clipped it to his pants with a chain, and slid on a few extra rings to balance out the Gozyu Tyranno ring.

The outfit comes together well — blue bomber jacket over a yellow dashiki, blue slacks, yellow and blue shoes. The tegasword sits holstered on his right hip. The Gozyu Tyranno ring rides on his left fist alongside a couple of cobalt and gold rings on the finger beside it.

Momo smiles and gestures for him to follow.

Outside, she wraps both arms around his right one as they walk to the car. The grip isn’t “trophy wife” — it’s closer to this is my boy and you can’t have him. Halfway to the car her phone buzzes. She freezes for half a second. Mecha clocks it and says nothing.

They drive to the venue in relative silence, just the hum of the car between them. Momo keeps a possessive hold on his hand the whole way.

“Nervous?” Mecha asks.

“Worried,” she says.

“About what?”

Momo winces slightly. “There’s an author who will be there. One you don’t like.”

“Which one?”

She braces. “Boobertronian.”

Mecha shrugs. “Oh. Okay.”

Momo stares at him. His pulse had jumped at the name — she almost felt it — but it settled just as fast. “You’re not angry?”

“Nope. I was hurt to get ghosted — I thought we were cool, thought we’d meet up someday — but it is what it is. He still writes well. All love from me.”

Momo studied her author. This was the same man who once delivered a forty-five minute dissertation on how Star Wars would rue the day it pushed Finn out of the sequel trilogy.

“Really.”

“Look, there are much worse people in the scene. Hating someone for being cold to me feels like a waste of energy.”

“So you’re fine with it?” Momo asked.

“Absolutely not. It was hurtful and it was callous.” He paused. “But what can you do.”

Momo nodded slowly. “You’re better than me.”

Mecha laughed as they pulled up. “I’m really not.”

Walking in, the first thing Mecha spotted was a wide tub of photocards — just jumbled together — with a bright handwritten sign taped to the front that read TAKE ONE. Being the dork that he was, he dove in immediately, rifling through until he surfaced with a card of Momo’s face looking back at him. Found it faster than he expected.

Momo giggled watching him come up from the tub like he’d struck gold. He followed her into the lounge, card pocketed.

The space was massive. Easily fifteen hundred people moving through the halls.

Momo looked around and said, “This is a lot bigger than I expected.”

Mecha laughed.

She turned to him. “Okay — you go find the phở, I’ll go find my members.”

He waved her off. As she walked away, her toned legs carrying her into the crowd, he watched until she was gone and said quietly, mostly to himself, “Hate to see you go. Love to watch you leave.”

He was heading toward the food when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

He turned around. TWICE’s hyper-confident leader stood there, grinning at him.

“Well,” Jihyo said, “if it isn’t the Ancient Machine Dragon of Hatred, Ryugi. In the flesh.”

Mecha laughed. “Not the whole name and title?”

“What — it’s who you are, isn’t it?”

He shrugged, conceding the point. Jihyo gave him a thorough once-over.

“You look… different. Bigger. More present.”

Mecha squinted. “I hope that’s not your way of saying I’m fat and washed.”

Jihyo laughed. “Heavens no. If anything you’re leaner. Better than ever. Even your writing is cleaner.”

“Thanks.”

She gave him a thumbs up, then her expression softened a little. “I’m sorry about the hack. Losing all of that.”

Mecha shrugged in acknowledgment.

“Tzuyu is looking for you, by the way,” Jihyo added. “Did you come with anyone?”

“Momo.”

Jihyo paused and turned it over in her head. “…That actually kind of fits.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She waved it off. “I’ll explain later. Are you happy with her?”

“Elated.”

“Good. She could use an author as weird as you.” A beat. “Maybe she and Tzuyu can share you.”

“You know I’m a one-woman kind of guy.”

Jihyo gave him a look. “Ok! Mr. Eunbi and Sakura are gamers so I love and write them.”

Mecha laughed. “Touché.”

Jihyo’s smile settled into something quieter. “Boobertronian writes me mostly now.”

Mecha nodded. “Good for him. Good for you.”

Jihyo studied him for a moment. “That mask is on tight tonight.”

“It’s not a mask, Yo-yo. It’s just who I am once I’ve actually processed something.”

She laughed softly. “Okay. Fair enough.” Then, more gently: “Take care of yourself though.”

“You too, Yo-yo.”

Momo found him again not long after — sitting alone, watching the room.

“You okay?” she asked.

Mecha shrugged. “Tired. Overwhelmed.” He turned to look at her. “Your hair looks nice though.” he added

Momo smiled, then settled beside him. “If things had gone differently — do you think you’d be writing other idols?”

“No,” he said without much deliberation. “I know there’s no cosmic law explaining why writers pick their muses or vice versa. But I’ve seen it play out too many times to dismiss it. There’s a connection. It just happens.”

Momo tilted her head. “Give me an example. Not you.”

Mecha nodded toward a small cluster across the room where Dch held court with a handful of people around him.

“Anyone writing for Dreamcatcher ends up in monster fic. Horror. Dark mythology. Every time.”

Momo followed his eyeline, then he shifted it — to where Defmaybe stood with his collar on while Ryujin and Haewon dragged him through the crowd like an excitable puppy. “An eager, subby writer always ends up drawn to the biggest tomboys in their respective groups.”

Momo laughed.

“One more,” she said.

Mecha scanned the room slowly. “Okay — guess the idol and author.”

Momo narrowed her eyes. “Go.”

“Passionate. Says exactly what’s on their mind regardless of who’s in the room. All bluster on the surface — but surprisingly introspective. Tender underneath it when they let you see it.”

Momo scratched her head. “That sounds like Spren with Asa. Or Wonyoung.”

Mecha pointed at her. “Correct.”

Momo smiled and said, “Okay, fun party trick. Now we dance — I had the DJ queue something up for us. After that we get some food in you. So you can get some dick in me,”

Mecha laughed and followed her to the floor.

The first few bars hit and he stopped mid-step, turning to look at her. Momo’s expression was pure satisfaction. He shook his head — somewhere between of course and how did you even know that — and then let himself settle into it. He wasn’t a dancer by any stretch, but the song made it easy. He found the rhythm and stayed there, calm and unhurried.

They swayed and stepped together — nothing showy, nothing performed. Just two people who knew each other well enough to share a floor without overthinking it. Around them, a few people drifted closer without meaning to, pulled in by the quiet ease of it.

When it ended Momo was already smiling at him.

“You did well,” she said. “For a novice.”

Mecha smirked. “I try.”

“The song helped.”

“The song carried me and you know it.”

Momo laughed and looped her arm through his as they left the floor. “Come on. Phở.”

They were halfway across the room when two figures materialized out of the crowd — also apparently on a food mission. Chaewon clocked them first, then Okay registered beside her.

The four of them stopped.

Chaewon looked between Momo and Mecha with the mild expression of someone doing quiet math.

“Momo,” Okay said. There was a full paragraph living inside that one word.

“Okay,” Momo replied. Equally loaded. Equally contained.

A beat.

Mecha glanced at Chaewon. Chaewon glanced back at him with the composed, slightly exhausted look of someone who had been standing next to this tension for longer than tonight.

Nobody moved toward the phở.

The phở station was tucked into the far corner of the venue — a small folding table with a big pot, paper bowls, and a tray of garnishes that had clearly been picked over already. Most of the cilantro was gone.

Someone had taken all the jalapeños.

Mecha didn’t care. He filled his bowl and found a nearby table without ceremony.

The other three followed. Chaewon sat beside him. Momo and Okay ended up across from each other, which seemed to have happened to both of them before either could prevent it.

For a while there was just the sound of the room and four people eating.

Okay spoke first. “Is this from that local spot?”

“I don’t know,” Momo said. “It’s good though.”

“Yeah.”

Another stretch of silence.

Chaewon quietly added more bean sprouts to her bowl.

Mecha ate and said nothing, which was the correct choice.

“Are you still doing the radio thing?” Momo asked.

“Wrapped last month,” Okay said. “You?”

“Just wrapped a tour cycle.”

“I heard. It looked good.”

“It was fun.”

The conversation had the careful, measured quality of two people navigating a hallway that they both knew had furniture in it — moving slowly, hands slightly out.

Chaewon glanced at Mecha. Mecha looked back at her with an expression that said I am simply here for the phở.

Chaewon’s mouth curved just slightly.

“How’s the writing going?” Okay asked, and it took Mecha a half second to realize she was talking to him.

“Better lately,” he said.

“Momo talks about your work sometimes.”

Momo didn’t look up from her bowl.

“Good things I hope,” Mecha said.

“Mostly,” Okay said.

Momo finally looked up. “Mostly?”

“I said mostly.” There was no malice in it — just Okay, level and precise as ever.

Momo held her gaze for a moment then went back to her bowl. “Fair.”

Another silence, but a slightly softer one. Not resolved — just less sharp at the edges.

Chaewon reached over and stole a piece of Okay’s brisket without asking. He let it happen.

“Good phở,” she said simply.

“Yeah,” Mecha agreed.

Across the table, Momo and Okay were both looking at their bowls, not eating, in the particular way of two people who still had things to say and weren’t ready to say them yet.

After everyone was finished eating Momo and Mecha headed back to his “hanger”