Momo Ayase/Relationships

* Anime
* Manga

## Family

### Seiko Ayase

Seiko is Momo's grandmother with whom she lives. When she was little, Momo had a difficult relationship with her grandmother in that she was furious with her for forcing her to perform a ritual that led to her being bullied by the boys around her whenever she went out in public. At some point, Momo reflected on how wrong she was to take her anger out on Seiko and realized how appreciative she was being raised by her. Up until Momo's teenage years, Seiko remained slightly bitter towards her granddaughter since she did not let this incident go but soon forgave her after Momo came around to make a sincere apology. While Seiko often gives Momo a hard time by teasing her, much to Momo's annoyance, the two deeply care for each other as a family.

## Love Interests

### Okarun

Aside from Miko and Kei-san being her closest female friends at school, Okarun is Momo's closest male friend in and outside of school. While on the lookout to retrieve Okarun's missing kintama, the two support each other when dealing with the paranormal. Due to her massive admiration for the actor Ken Takakura, Momo finds it difficult to refer to Takakura by his real name, as she becomes flustered every time it's mentioned. She came up with a solution was that she would give him the nickname "Okarun" since he is an occult fanatic.

Momo first met Okarun after she stepped in to protect him from being bullied by some of his classmates. She then wanted no further connections with him after this good deed but found herself competing with Okarun on whether spirits or aliens exist, which resulted in the spirit that she told him to investigate stealing his chinko. Upon offering to help him retrieve it, Momo learned from Okarun that he had wanted to be friends with her the moment they met since he had spent his entire life without one, but also heard from him that he had given up on this after concluding that they lived in two different worlds for this to happen. Momo did not agree and explained to him that his problem with making friends was that he always jumped to conclusions, believing that no one would like him, and proceeded to tell him that she was willing to get to know him more.

After the two worked together to successfully defeat the Turbo-Granny, Momo continued to associate herself with Okarun and saw him as the only person in school she could talk to about the paranormal, which she very eager to do once her class was finished. However, her friendship with him was almost short lived after getting into an accident where they exchanged insults in denial of having romantic feelings for each other after blindly bumped into each other and being caught by Miko and Kei-san who assumed so. During class, Momo continued to deny to her classmates that Okarun was her boyfriend and was too agitated to talk to him after he rushed over to her with an emergency concerning his kintama. Momo's behavior towards Okarun was noted by Miko to be rather out of character since she knew that she would have simply right off the situation as a joke if he was her friend. Later, Momo spotted Okarun with Aira and overheard her talking to her friends about how she used her charms to make a fool out of him, prompting her to use her powers to drop a basin on Aira's head to defend Okarun and snarking at her as she came over to Okarun's side wanting to walk home with him. The two then proceeded to forgive each other and made up afterwards.

Momo's friendship with Okarun once again became strained after she had caught him secretly with Aira at school. Having been lied to by Okarun earlier about him needing to write a report in private, Momo lost trust in him and walked off feeling too upset to hear him out or cooperate with him properly to defeat the Serpo. Their friendship soon rekindled after Okarun reassured Momo that the scene was an accident.

As her friend, Momo deeply cares for Okarun's well-being. During their conflict against the Evil Eye and the Tsuchinoko, Momo promised Okarun that she would come back to rescue him from being trapped beneath the Tsuchinoko pit once she dealt with the Tsuchinoko. After matters with the Kito Family, the Tsuchinoko, and the Evil Eye were settled, Momo immediately rushed to the Tsuchinoko pit to save Okarun and was in complete distress when she returned to see that the pit was filled with magma. After managing to save him with Chiquitita’s help, Momo hugged him in relief that he stayed alive. Her friendship with Okarun can be looked at as being special compared to her other friends. Ever since she said goodbye to him after his temporary stay at her house was over, Momo decided that they should take turns saying goodbye to each whenever he left her house.

As the series progressed, Momo gradually showed hints that she was developing feelings for Okarun from their time spent together. From the start of their friendship on, there had been various instances in which Momo started blushing whenever she was with Okarun or if matters concerned him. Despite believing that it would be unlikely for Okarun to associate himself with another girl other than herself, Momo was slightly concerned after picturing Aira in her head and had an unexplainable uneasiness that almost made her want to go check on him. After Okarun's incident with Aira, Momo felt deeply upset and depressed with the scene engraved into her head while sitting in class. During the fight against the Serpo, Okarun noticed that Momo was more bothered by the fact that he was seeing another girl behind her back rather than him being a liar, which Momo tried to deny. After defeating the Serpo, Momo became flustered upon learning from Okarun that he was training in private to impress her and found it hard to respond to him due to what she had to say caused her to be filled with emotion. This response was unfortunately cut by the sudden arrival of Miko and Kei-san. This moment may have also hinted to Momo that Okarun was also developing feelings for her as well, as she started to tease him about his reason for training. Upon seeing Okarun coming in on her first day of work as a waitress with Miko and Kei-san, Momo reacted with embarrassment being seen by him in her work uniform.

After the conflicting events involving the Kito Family, the Tsuchinoko, and the Evil Eye, Momo's growing feelings towards Okarun started to become more apparent in her actions. During the ride to check in on Jiji's parents at the hospital, Momo playfully touched Okarun's hand as she was placing it on top, having been unbothered by him accidentally touching her hand earlier. Later, after Okarun unexpectedly came to pick her up from work late at night, Momo held onto his hand as they walked together, telling him that it would help keep them warm in the cold atmosphere. The two would then go on to occasionally hold hands together without any sign of objection from either party. Momo also developed other physical tendencies, such as punching and poking Okarun whenever a situation with him gets her flustered. When it was time to stop the Kel from initiating their invasion, Momo left Okarun a plate of curry for when he woke up from his unconscious state and a note saying "love ya!" that she wrote on impulse.

Reiko Kashima's vendetta against Momo caused the latter to realize that deep down she has strong romantic feelings for Okarun. To lure her out of bed, Reiko Kashima imitated Okarun's voice and made a false love confession based on her spying and observation of Momo's special interactions with the young man, along with her heart glancing ability. This almost worked in her favor as Momo became tempted to see Okarun face-to-face to have him confess to her directly. Although she realized on time that it was a trap, Momo was left disappointed and baselessly angry at the real Okarun the next day. Despite harboring these feelings, Reiko Kashima noted that Momo had a problem of being straightforward and honest with herself. Rather than this, Momo was more eager to have Okarun take the initiative in admitting to her that he has romantic feelings towards her as well. After stopping the Kel invasion, Momo became flustered with embarrassment to had remembered the "love ya!" note she left for Okarun and was eager to have him bring up this subject.

## Friends and Allies

### Miko and Kei-san

Miko and Kei-san are two of Momo's closest friends at school prior to her friendship with Okarun and other schoolmates. As the ones Momo usually hangs around with at school, when not discussing paranormal matters with her colleagues, Miko and Kei-san know her very well and often look out for her, such as having warned her not to get involved with her crude ex-boyfriend and helped her to get a job at Moe Moe Kikoho. They also often enjoy teasing her, which occurred when they caught her accidentally locking lips with Okarun, presuming that he was her new boyfriend. After she got a job at Moe Moe Kikoho, Momo became mad with them for playfully taunting her as their server, especially for embarrassing her in front of Okarun after they dragged him there.

### Aira Shiratori

Momo shares a complicated relationship with the former school celebrity, Aira Shiratori. Initially, the two shared an antagonistic relationship, as Aira made it her mission to defeat Momo after first witnessing and interpreting the manifestation of her psychic power as her being an evil devil. However, by the Serpo Arc, the two have turned into allies that often bicker with each other, with Aira changing her perspective to seeing herself as the "leader" of Momo's small group that occasionally comes face to face with the paranormal.

Momo first met Aira at school where she saw her seemingly being friendly with Okarun. After overhearing her conversation with her friends on how she was simply playing with Okarun's feelings, Momo retaliated by using her powers to drop a basin on top of her head, along with making a sniping remark as she comes to Okarun's side. This action resulted in Momo exposing her powers to Aira, as the girl had recently awakened her spiritual awareness after picking up one of Okarun's kintama at the time. After seeing Momo's manifested power, Aira came to view her as an evil enemy that she must stop, with one of her tactics being to restrain and exorcise her at an abandoned warehouse, along with spreading a nasty rumor about her at school.

Following Acrobatic Silky's assault on Aira, Momo and Okarun try to protect Aira from the yokai and revive her after she was eaten by her. Momo then invited Aira to her house to apologize for dropping the basin on her head but demanded that she to apologize to Okarun for her ill intentions when they first met. Aira then told Momo that she didn’t hold a grudge against her for this action. Rather, she believed that she was meant to stop her from committing evil deeds as a savior. Having failed to get through to her, Momo played along by taking up Aira's challenge to see if she could defeat her.

Momo encountered Aira again after catching her with Okarun in a suspiciously sleazy situation in private, causing her to get upset. Later, after the Serpo appeared at their school to capture Okarun, the two had no other choice but to fight alongside each other to defeat the aliens. After defeating them and ended up being exposed at school, Aira came up with the idea of blaming the embarrassing scene on Momo. However, after feeling guilty for anonymously spreading the false rumor about Momo, Aira could not go through with her plan and, at the cost of her popularity, confessed to her classmates about being the one to spread the rumor about Momo. The two then met again after Momo had found Aira outside their school sulking alone, which indicated to her that Aira told the truth to her classmates.

Momo and Aira are shown to often have conflicts with each other, including comedically throwing insults. While finding her irritating to deal with, Momo can tolerate her to some extent since she sees her as someone she can rely on when in a distressing situation, with a great example being her asking Aira for help in preventing the Evil Eye from manifesting out of Jiji. She also knows that Aira is not completely antagonistic toward her, having figured out that she did not go through with badmouthing her to her classmates after the Serpo attack. It should also be noted that while she often clashes with Aira whenever she acts rude in some way, Momo talks to her casually without a hint of hostility in her voice and cares for her well-being, as she was stunned to see her taking a hit from Bamora in her enlarged kaiju suit.

Come the Kel's attempted invasion of Earth, Momo and Aira's dynamic with each other have shown signs of improvement to where they are on much friendly terms. Their occasional bickering seemed to have downgraded, and instead, the two have started to express more care and concern for one another. Along with Okarun and Jiji, Momo became distraught to find Aira badly injured at her house from being confronted by the Kel and was later relieved that she was okay enough to move again. After the Kel had been defeated, Momo tearfully hugged both Aira and Bamora in relief that they made it out of the battle alive. Momo also does not seem to mind that Aira started going on a first name basis with her, considering that the only people allowed are either her family or a close friend.

### Jiji

Jiji is Momo's childhood friend and first crush with whom she previously lost touch after he had moved away when they were little. They know each other personally quite well and often look out for each other.

Before the two parted ways, Momo's friendship with Jiji ended up being damaged after the latter included himself in being one of the boys who mocked her for performing Seiko's routine ritual, leaving Momo with the impression that he disliked her. By her high school year, Momo reunited with Jiji after Seiko agreed to have him stay at her house temporarily until an evil spirit that haunted his house got exorcised. Regretting his past mistake of making fun of her when they were kids, Jiji sincerely apologized to Momo for his past mistake and doubted to himself if he was ever that good of a friend to her back then. By the time his problems were solved, the two had managed to rekindle their friendship.

When he first came to the Ayase house's doorstep, Momo found Jiji's quirkiness to be irritating to deal with and was not yet back to being on friendly terms with him as they were in the past, as she objected to him staying at her house and felt uncomfortable being seated next to him at school. After spending some more time with him, Momo soon came to enjoy his company and has shown to care for his well-being, saving him from falling down the Tsuchinoko's lair and becoming worried that the Evil Eye was possessing him to harm people. To avoid awakening the Evil Eye within him, Momo supported him by agreeing to carry around hot water with her to suppress the yokai along with Okarun, Aira, and Seiko, and assisted in his training to control his ki. By the time Jiji's problem with the Evil Eye was solved, Momo had included Jiji in her small circle to find Okarun's missing kintama.