I knew Toriko was shocked, so I held up my hand in a “hold on” gesture.
“Hear me out. I want to talk about this properly.”
“O-Okay.”
“You need to sit down?”
“Yeah...” Toriko, who had been on her feet this whole time, took a seat. Not in the chair opposite mine, but in the one beside me this time. I turned to face her again, and spoke.
“First, I want to acknowledge that what you said is right. I knew how you felt all along, but didn’t want to make things romantic, so I played dumb, and dodged the issue. I think that was blatantly obvious to you, though.”
“You can’t have known all along.”
“Huh?”
“I bet you only figured it out recently... You were genuinely clueless, Sorawo.”
“Y-You think?”
“Yeah. I sure do.”
I averted my eyes from her stare, continuing on regardless. “S-So, anyway? As we were talking, it occurred to me that maybe the things I was dissatisfied about and what you were thinking are pretty similar.”
“Hmm...?”
“We each thought that the other person was planning to bring a stop to our relationship, right?”
“Maybe you could say that.”
“But that wasn’t true at all, right?”
“I don’t think I was, at least. How about you, Sorawo?”
“I don’t think I was either... Probably,” I said hesitantly. Toriko looked at me with her brow furrowed.
“See. There you go, refusing to make me feel secure again.”
“No... Urgh, hold on. Just let me move forward a bit at a time.”
Maybe seeing me look so anxious was funny to her, because Toriko smiled a little.
“Okay, I’ll let you finish,” Toriko said even though she must have been beside herself with worry. No matter where my twisted mess of emotions led me, I felt I needed to respond to the trust she’d placed in me.
“Like you sensed, I may have been using the word accomplices to dodge some issue and avoid thinking about it. But I have no doubt it was an incredibly important relationship to me. So I don’t think I was entirely mistaken about everything.”
“I don’t think that either.”
“I put some thought into why being accomplices was ‘the closest relationship in the world.’ I think it’s probably because of a shared secret.”
“A secret?”
“And since we’re being called accomplices, there’s something shady about it. Something no one else must know. A thing we can’t tell anyone about...”
“Like violating the Firearm and Sword Possession Control Law?”
“That one’s a one-way ticket to jail if we get caught.”
We looked at one another and laughed.
“Are you feeling this too, Toriko?”
“Yeah, I get you. It’s a real thrill.”
“Thank goodness. There’s obvious crimes like that one, or course—but I think we’re ‘accomplices’ when it comes to the Otherside too. I don’t want to tell anyone, and don’t want them involved. You and I are the only ones who need to know.”
“I think you feel that more strongly than I do, Sorawo.”
“Originally, I wanted a world all to myself. When we first met, I thought you were in the way.”
“I thought you were acting pretty harsh for a girl who fell in love with me at first sight. I thought you were trying to hide it. It was cute.”
“Oh, yeah? I don’t care about that, but...basically, what I’m getting at is that our relationship as accomplices lasts as long as we share a secret. It never goes away. That’s why it’s so strong and intimate. Lovers break up, married couples get divorced, and even families fall apart. But accomplices? Even if they grow to hate one another, they’re still inseparable. If they really want to end the relationship, killing each other’s probably the only way out.”
“Sorawo-sensei, I’m just asking for my own reference, and it’s not that I want to do this, but...”
“Yes? What is it, Toriko-san?”
“In general, if one of the accomplices spills her guts, and sells her partner to the cops, does the relationship still continue?”
“If that happens, then you chose the wrong person to be your accomplice, wouldn’t you say?”
“In the movies, they sell each other out when their family gets taken hostage.”
“The problem there is that they made a family.”
“You sure are something sometimes, Sorawo.”
“Can I take that as a compliment?”
“Nah. This time I’m bad-mouthing you.”
“To give a more serious answer... That’s the end, isn’t it? If they no longer have secrets they can share, then the relationship is finished, no matter how strong it was.”
“Sorawo, you told Akari and Natsumi about the other world, right?”
“...”
“How’s that figure into this?”
“That was... Well, that.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Wait, did that bother you more than I thought, Toriko?”
“I was thinking, doesn’t that go against what she was just saying?”
“I didn’t spill the secret because I wanted to... It’s just, since they already got involved, I felt I needed to take responsibility for that...”
“Fine, I get it. But in that case, I guess I want to ask what you think about taking responsibility when it comes to me?”
“I think that’s what we’re about to discuss.”
Toriko nodded. We’d gotten off track, but I was able to get back to the main topic.
“Out of all the relationships represented in the word accomplices, the one I treasured most was the idea that we could share a secret. So long as that’s still true, then even if what we call our relationship changes, I think I’ll be fine.”
“So, for example...you’d be fine with us being lovers, or family?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. Those just don’t click with me. I can’t help but feel that lovers stop getting along, then their hearts drift apart when they can’t tolerate each other anymore, and when it comes to family, you must know I don’t have a good impression of the concept.”
“I get that family is a lost cause with you, but maybe you’re just being prejudiced when it comes to lovers. There’s plenty of people whose romantic relationships are going well, and a lot of them keep on going for a long time. You and I have a lot of differences, but we’ve been fine together for this long, so... I think we’d get by just fine, don’t you?”
“I dunno... I just can’t imagine it. Maybe that’s because I’m too much of a child, though.” I always ended up mumbling when I talked about stuff like this. “Let me turn the question around, Toriko. When you say you want a romantic relationship with me, what is it that you’re imagining? What would change if we went out?”
“Well...” Toriko lowered her eyes bashfully.
“If we know what that is, maybe you can still have that sort of relationship even without us labeling ourselves as lovers? What is it you want us to do if we go out?”
“I want to have...with you.”
“Huh? Have what?”
I leaned in closer, thinking I hadn’t heard her. Toriko raised her face, and said it clearly this time. “I want to have sex with you.”
“Uh...”
As I sat there speechless, Toriko looked straight into my eyes and went on. “I want to touch you, kiss you, hold you a whole lot. If you say no at this point, I’ll give up. But if I’m being forthright, that’s what I want to do with you.”
“O-Oh, I see.”
That was all I managed to choke out. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see this coming. I’d long since figured out that Toriko was a closet perv from all the things she’d said and done before now. But because of that, I didn’t expect her to come right out and say it.
Normally, Toriko wouldn’t talk like this. I’d never initiated a conversation on the topic before either. It must have taken an incredible amount of courage.
“What do you think? How about you, Sorawo?”
I was at a loss for how to answer her earnest question. I lacked the words. That being the case, I just said what I was thinking.
“To be honest with you, I don’t really know.”
“Does being told that make you feel uncomfortable at all?”
“I dunno... It did surprise me.”
“Just checking, but does it feel wrong because we’re both women?”
“That doesn’t really matter at this point...”
“I figured.” Toriko nodded knowingly. I’m sure some people would get really hung up on that detail. But we were well past the point where it made sense to bring that up. It was the first time either of us voiced the question, and only for confirmation’s sake, but it was over in a moment without it ever becoming an issue.
If anything, the problem we—no, I had may have come even before that. I was too much of a child to talk about sex...