“Hey…are you okay? Wait.”
He left the living room light on and lent an ear for a moment to the other side of the sliding door. He felt like he could hear Yasuko gently breathing in her sleep.
“Hey, Ryuuji.”
“I’m going out for a bit.”
He put on his slip-on sandals and left the front door. He went down the stairs and started walking.
The sky turned dark before he realized it. It was night.
The asphalt took on a glassy glitter under the circular light of the streetlamps. A woman with a small dog breathed white as she passed by Ryuuji’s side. A salary man wearing a mask was talking in a loud voice as he overtook Ryuuji. He wasn’t talking to himself but on a cell phone.
Haah—the white cloud Ryuuji breathed out stuck around for a while as it went up above his face. When he moved his legs, he felt like he was following that breath.
That was why his eyes were clouded and he couldn’t see well.
He didn’t notice the incredibly loud footsteps following behind him, either.
“Hey, your coat?! You even forgot your keys and phone! And your eco bag!”
“Ah…huh?”
He staggered at the sudden impact from behind him. Taiga had run into him like she meant to jump onto his back. When he turned back around, she was breathing white like a runaway engine.
“Get back to your senses! You idiot!”
She thrust the down jacket that Ryuuji always wore at him. Then, for the first time, Ryuuji realized what he was wearing. He had taken off his school jacket and cardigan and was only wearing his school uniform’s shirt and slacks. He had put sandals on his bare feet. When he looked down, he was more surprised by the absurdity of it all than the cold.
“Seriously! Here, hurry and put this on!”
Taiga practically threw the jacket at Ryuuji’s chest. Then, she stuck out her hand at him. She was holding his usual eco bag, which she had probably thrown his cell phone and keys into. Taiga likely grabbed it as quickly as she could and was out of breath from running after him in the cold.
Then he noticed Taiga, whose nose was red.
“What’s…with your feet?”
“Huh? What!”
She wasn’t in a coat. She only wore her uniform with thick tights, and Yasuko’s slip-on sandals. Taiga looked down at her skinny-looking legs.
“I messed up!” she wailed in a low voice.
“You wear it.”
Ryuuji put the jacket he had just taken from Taiga’s hands right on her shoulders, but Taiga wriggled as though she didn’t want that.
“No! I’m fine! I’m going home, so you wear it!”
Her sandals clip-clopped as she jumped to the side and ran to the end of the road. No, you wear it, Ryuuji tried to say back, but he got caught on his words. He still had the jacket in his hand as he tried to get her to wear it, and then he stood stock-still as though he was spacing out.
He couldn’t get his voice to make a sound.
His throat was dry.
He was just dead tired from that day.
“Ryuuji…?”
He noticed Taiga looking up at him. Her hair moved with the sub-freezing northern wind, and she tilted her head ever so slightly as she opened her eyes wide and asked him how he was doing.
You wear this and go home first. I’ll make something for you for dinner. Thanks for bringing it, ’kay—he couldn’t even form those words with his mouth.
It was as though a lid sealed Ryuuji’s throat. He remained silent as he half-forcefully bundled Taiga in the jacket where she was standing along the wall. Then, without letting her say anything, he turned on his heel.
He had the eco bag in one hand as he walked through the town at night.
What would he buy? He looked at the time on his phone. It was still before eight. It was earlier than he thought. The supermarkets would still be open. He headed to the store-lined streets and looked down at his own toes, which were freezing. He could hear the clip-clop of slip-on sandals.
He knew that was Taiga without even turning around. Taiga had sneakily followed him.
She probably actually thought he hadn’t noticed her yet. When Ryuuji stopped at a crosswalk, Taiga hid herself behind an electric pole a short distance before the crossing. When the light turned green and he started walking, she waited a moment, and then he heard the clip-clop of her feet again.
I see right through you, just go home, he wanted to say, but the lid that covered Ryuuji’s throat was still holding back his heart. Ryuuji forged ahead, and Taiga acted like a spy. Like dunces, the two of them continued to walk through the town at night like neither of them noticed the other.
The reason why he couldn’t say anything was probably because once he started talking, he didn’t know what would come out. That was why he needed to keep his throat lidded.
You never bothered to notice me. Ryuuji wanted to repeat back the words Ami had yelled at him at the park during sunset. In that case, how do you know how I’m feeling right now? It’s not like you’d ever even try to find out.
That was because he would never let her know.
It was hard. It hurt. He couldn’t put that into words. Ryuuji didn’t want anyone to know. He wouldn’t tell anyone. He didn’t want anyone to figure it out. If someone did figure it out, that someone who asked him about it would—
“Achoo!”
That certain someone who cared about him would try to do something about it.
He stopped and turned around. He switched directions and finally managed to tell her, “Go home.” Taiga rubbed at her nose and opened her eyes wide, as though shocked. It seemed she really, genuinely thought he hadn’t figured out she was following him.
“Go home, really.”
“No!”
He repeated his words to her and pushed back at Taiga’s shoulders as though trying to have her go back the way she came. Even though Taiga was small, she was heavy, like she was made of steel, and he couldn’t push her back at all.
“No! You’re acting weird!”
She narrowed her eyes as though menacing him. She said it vehemently and stubbornly.
“Just go home!”
“I said no! I won’t talk to you! I won’t walk with you! I’ll just go with you! What’s so wrong with that?! It’s what I want to do!”
He didn’t want her to open her mouth anymore.
“You’re a nuisance! There’s nothing you can do, so just go home!”
He was fed up with people working so hard they collapsed for the sake of his future. Whether it was anemia or a serious disease, he didn’t want to feel like this ever again.
He didn’t want anyone to ruin their body for his sake—no one, not again, not ever again. He didn’t want to make anyone do that.
“I’m not going home! I’m going with you!”
“I said to go home!”
“I’m staying here! Let me go, you balding pig! Don’t touch me!”
They were at the street before the line of stores when Ryuuji and Taiga started having a pointless pushing match. When Taiga resisted him, Ryuuji half-seriously hit her shoulders and desperately bit his lip. You’re nosy, a nuisance, in the way, noisy, self-centered—all kinds of complaints came springing into his head, but he didn’t say them out loud. He was close to letting an actual shout slip out of his throat.
What am I supposed to do if she dies?!
Like an idiot, exactly like a kid, Ryuuji had jumped to that hasty conclusion and was actually seriously feeling that fear. He was close to yelling, desperately keeping his mouth closed as he bit too hard on his lip and split it open.
Forever ago, an eon ago, an incredibly long time ago—he was terrified. “What’ll I do if my mom dies?” That thought had been the root of his fear.
They had walked while holding each other’s hands in the moonlight, faced each other as they read picture books at night, swung on the swings in the sun as he sat in her lap. He’d been taken in by the words she repeated over and over again, “It’s going to be okay.”
He’d believed that it would be okay, but suddenly, the time when the spell’s effect wore off had come. Terrifying thoughts circled in Ryuuji’s head again and again and again.
“It’s fine. So just! Go home!”
“Ryuuji!”
He cut Taiga off and pushed her away. He ran away as fast as he could.
Like he was avoiding the light of the stores on the streets where people passed by, he ducked into a dark back path. He desperately escaped into the gaps between the dark houses he had seen from the school window, which looked like the crests of waves on the sea. He panted like a dog and swallowed back the whimper that would occasionally try to find its way out. No matter how he ran and ran, it felt as though the anxiety and fears of his childhood were following after him. If he kept like this, he would immediately be caught in its hands.