“Yeah.” Ryuuji didn’t hesitate as he looked at Taiga with resolve he could not take back. “That’s right. It’s here.”
I don’t know why or how, but that’s just how it is. I’ve decided. The faint sherbet snow melted and collected at his feet in loose layers. He noticed the guardrail of the bridge had also collected a thin layer of ice and bumps of snow. So had Taiga’s hair.
If she didn’t want this, she probably would have kicked him, punched him, headbutted him, or run away or something. Though she was palmtop sized, she was still a tiger. Even as he thought that, though, he didn’t want her to get away. So he executed a feint. Ryuuji took off the scarf and cocked his head to the side, pretending he was putting it around his neck. Then he took a giant step forward.
They weren’t father and daughter. They weren’t big brother and little sister or big sister and little brother. They weren’t friends. They weren’t landlord and freeloader. They weren’t just classmates, or schoolmates, or neighbors. They weren’t master and servant, or pseudo-family, or the best friends of each other’s unrequited loves. He knew those flimsy relationships would be broken by this, and he knew they would lose the comfortable, convenient cushion that had separated them. But regardless of that, he wanted to touch her.
Ryuuji wanted to kiss Taiga.
Time, which ticked by one second, then two seconds, was the same as the falling snow. At the same rate that time progressed, the distance between them shrank.
Lips touched lips.
Taiga hadn’t noticed Ryuuji’s approach until they made contact, and in that moment, her warm breath leapt slightly. Ryuuji grabbed the back of Taiga’s head with his right hand. He pushed his mouth harder into hers.
He did it in order to make sure she didn’t get away, in order to make sure their lips didn’t part.
His spine quivered. He knew anyone could kiss like this, but did it feel like this for everyone? It was terrifyingly soft, and hot, and the feeling of their lips was too acute. Only the sensation exchanged by their lips, so vivid it was sweet, ran through his brain and made him feel as though he were melting. He was at the point that the pulsing of his heart couldn’t keep up, and lances of electricity seemed to pierce through his skin from the inside out. Just as science class had taught him, touch really did come from electrical impulses. His cranial nerves were sparked by a rush of lightning, and blooming flames scattered in the back of his eyes.
Humans were capable of doing something as amazing as this.
It made him feel…
“We ki—”
…keenly aware it couldn’t last.
“—we kissed?”
Taiga took just a single step away from him and, like a beast, looked at Ryuuji with glistening, brightly shining eyes. She covered her lips with both her hands, like they were a treasure. Her hair fluttered.
“We did…”
They had.
“W-w-w-we did…?”
“We did, we did, we did!”
They had, they really had.
Nodding so hard he shook, Ryuuji also covered his lips with a hand. There was no way this could be normal. Was it because it was just intense the first time? Was this something people just got used to eventually, too? If he tried to do it again, maybe it would go a little better. No—it might be even more amazing.
He took a step back. It felt he was being torn in two, but he didn’t want to test it any further. And yet, he wanted to see where this path went. Don’t go, you fool, he thought as he took a second step back. At the third step, he shook his head. He couldn’t let himself fall into his bottomless desires.
Tottered perilously, as though he were drunk, he wandered back till he felt the hard shape of the bridge’s rail at his back. Ryuuji clung to the snow-covered rail. He saw Taiga’s boots coming his way, entering into his wavering vision.
“W-w-wait! Stop, stop, stop! Don’t come near me!” he yelled with desperation that Taiga probably couldn’t comprehend. He climbed up onto the base of the railing, which was shaped like a concrete step. The upper half of his body tilted, and he groaned. Ryuuji bit his lip firmly. He needed to forget about the sensation that felt as though it were melting his brain in that moment, or he wouldn’t be able to do anything anymore.
Remember. The adults were trying to rob him of the place where he had decided he belonged. He and Taiga had closed the distance that separated them. They had directly touched each other’s skin. But even so, the adults were trying to tear them apart.
No. He didn’t want that. Ever. He grabbed his hair in both his hands. It was cold enough that the snow that had dampened it had refrozen. The smell from the dark, flowing river nearly two meters below his feet was cold to his nose. What was he supposed to do? How could he push through this? Where was their way out?
“ERGAAAAAAAAAAH!” Taiga roared.
“BWAH!” Taken by surprise, Ryuuji was nearly blown off the railing as he staggered. He tried to cling to the rail with both his hands, but—
“J-j-j-just how much of an i-i-i-i-id-id-id-idi-idi—” Taiga grabbed Ryuuji’s collar with one hand.
“Wh-wh-wha, wait, ahhh!”
“You idiot! Idiot! Idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot! Idiotidiotidiotidiotidiot!” Balling up her fists, she hit him. Slap! Bash! Thud! Thump!
“Stop…really…ow…ahhh…”
“Just how! Much of an idiot! Are you?!”
“Calm down, really, you’re…GAH!”
“I’m sorry for slapping you and stuff!” Taiga’s voice was hoarse. “But the hand I slapped you with hurts more than the slaps!”
“That’s not even close to true?! Whoa…!” Ryuuji repelled her right hand as it came back to slap him.
“Just you try to jump to your death again! Definitely not ever, ever, ever…”
“Gweeeeh…?!”
Taiga’s hands locked mercilessly onto Ryuuji’s collar to strangle him. She quivered with the genuine brute strength of a growling beast. “Never! I’ll kill you if you do…!”
He couldn’t avert his eyes from her ferocity any longer. Blood rushed into Taiga’s cheeks, which had been cold and pale. The savagery of her hot, white breath blew at the tip of Ryuuji’s nose.
“I’ve thought it would be better if I never existed! I have…more than once! Ugh…” Taiga’s voice leapt, and then her tears finally overflowed, streaming down rosy cheeks. Her soft lips quivered and contorted. The pale hand gripping Ryuuji’s collar wouldn’t stop shaking. “But I’m alive…and that’s…!”
Ryuuji finally understood the misunderstanding that had caused Taiga to rampage, but he couldn’t console or rectify her when she was strangling him. Besides, just how stupid could Taiga be, really? How klutzy and rash and violent could even she be? How bad was she at listening to others? The only thing certain about her was that she was strong, and—
“That’s because you’re here!”
And just how honest was she?
Taiga didn’t turn her eyes away from him. Her face was a mess as she hit him with the genuine, real truth.
She bet her life on love.
“Because I care about you!” Taiga roared.
Like fire. Like a dart. Like a tiger. Like a bullet. Like light. Taiga’s voice struck Ryuuji’s heart like all of that. It pierced through him and then lit him on fire. It was painful and hot and difficult—and—
“Are you trying to kill me…?!” Ryuuji shouted as loudly as he could.
“Maybe I should! That’s right—I’ve been so mad at you all this time! What was that just now?! What was that you just told Ya-chan?!”
“Th-that was—”
“No making excuses, you idiot!” She shook his collar, which was still grasped in her hands. Vertigo on the verge of forming into a concussion made Ryuuji feel dizzy. “Don’t you dare ever say that again! I won’t forgive you if you do! I need you to be here! I was fine with you liking whoever you wanted and living out the rest of your life with whoever you chose! The only reason I’m here is because I wanted to see you, Takasu Ryuuji! That’s all! I didn’t care if I didn’t mean anything to you, I was fine just living near you… That was all it was! But…but then you kissed me, so I…because of that! I want to be by your side! I decided that I would be! So! S-s-so now…! You have to understand…!”
Her violent fingers pulled away from Ryuuji’s down jacket. Ryuuji reached out as if to hug her, but the moment that he took a step forward—
“WHOA?!” Through what could only be called bad luck, the bottom of his sneakers slipped on the loose snow, and…
“Hey! So do you get it now?!”
“I—”
Taiga jumped at him. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to cling to him or punch him, but given the timing, Ryuuji could only think it was dispensation from heaven. They ran into each other and Ryuuji’s body weight shifted all at once to the left. When his slipping soles couldn’t support him, he reached out to the railing, but his hand slipped on the cold sherbet snow, which yielded zero resistance. Then Taiga also slipped and fell to the ground, and her swinging arms dealt the decisive blow. She hit the back of Ryuuji’s neck and sent him flying with a lariat move.
“AHHHHHHhhhhh!”
Ryuuji went over the railing.
This really must be divine punishment.
No, maybe it’s karma.
As he fell for what seemed like eternity, Ryuuji thought he glimpsed the face of Kannon, the deity of compassion, weeping. And then he sank back-first into the freezing river. He saw a column of water splash up. His breath stopped in that pitch dark, and a hush settled on him.