There was something he was hung up on. This long, complex equation had been wrong from the outset, and the wrongness of blindly obeying it stuck in his craw. Ryuuji felt like plunging his finger down his throat and throwing it all up, but he couldn’t even do that.
“According to what you guys said earlier, her mother’s going to take Aisaka away, right?” said Kitamura. “Even though Aisaka doesn’t want to go—Aisaka said she was going to be kidnapped right before our eyes. In that case, this isn’t just you guys’ problem anymore. Aisaka is our friend, too. I can’t just stand by while she’s in trouble. And you’re also my friend. If a friend is being torn away from a friend he cares for, then I’ll do anything to help them both.”
He had no hesitation, no indecision, no pretensions.
“There’s something you and Aisaka finally, actually, really figured out too, right?”
Ryuuji nodded, because he wanted to answer Kitamura’s words with the truth. Even though it wasn’t all within his grasp yet, he wanted to convey everything that he could see in his heart as words. “I don’t want to leave Taiga’s side…”
He pushed up his hair, which had stuck coldly to his cheek from the shower, and awkwardly and earnestly moved his lips.
“Because I love her.”
He realized that his toes, which had just finally warmed up, were starting to get cold. He stooped over to put on his socks. His body staggered stiffly. It hadn’t been easy to get to where he was now.
Kitamura must have understood that, too.
The feelings Taiga had once had for Kitamura absolutely weren’t fake. And the unreachable feelings within Ryuuji that shook his heart so intensely, the times he’d wished for things to go well between Taiga and Kitamura—and the times he’d wished they wouldn’t—weren’t fake, either. The feelings that continually drew him closer to Kushieda Minori weren’t fake. Not a single one of those feelings had been wrong. They’d been real, and they’d lived in all the moments that had passed with as much power as they could.
They’d lived, and survived, and finally made it here, but it hadn’t been an easy path. They were bruised and battered all over, but they were still moving toward the future, Ryuuji thought.
And for the foreseeable future, his feelings were dedicated to Taiga.
“Then don’t let her go.” Kitamura said curtly in his resonant voice, putting his silver-framed glasses firmly back on his face. “Fight to protect her with everything you’ve got.”
He was certain Kitamura was his fellow in arms, but the worry clouding Ryuuji’s heart still swirled darkly. He had pulled his friend into his own battlefield, and he still didn’t know whether that was right or wrong.
“It’s just,” he said, “I kind of feel like…there’s something wrong with the way I’m fighting.”
“Just think it through,” said Kitamura. “I’m definitely going to be here for you.”
Ryuuji finished drying his hair while Kitamura waited in silence. His face, reflected in the mirror, looked strangely firm and tense. He looked like a frightened member of the yakuza on the run—no, he looked like a scared little animal.
He stuck his feet into his wet sneakers. They locked the main house with the key they had borrowed and then headed to Ami’s room on the second floor. When they knocked, Ami’s voice called to them: “It’s open, come in!”
They went inside.
“Well, this is practically a rock. This is too hard to be considered food.”
“What did you put in it? What’re you trying to do?”
“That’s weird… I just melted them and let them set…”
“That’s some miraculous chemistry you’ve accomplished. The cacao must be surprised, too.”
“This stuff is practically a weapon now. You could assassinate two or three people with this.”
“That’s so weird, why’d they turn out like this?”
The three girls had buried themselves deep under the blanketed and heated kotatsu, and were in a heated discussion over the homemade chocolates Taiga had made and given to Ami. Ryuuji could see three sets of teeth marks standing out on the sweets.
Turning to Ryuuji and Kitamura, Minori’s forehead wrinkled as she said, “This is kind of ridiculous. I wanted something sweet, so I tried biting into one, but none of our teeth are a match for them. They’re confections unfit for consumption. No, that’s not quite right; they’re consumptions unfit for confection.”
Ami continued after her, “Ugh! Takasu-kun, you’ve got river stink! That river’s definitely dirty~!”
“Of course it’s dirty. It’s stagnant if you look at it in the daylight. Ah, my twenty-four thousand yen is still sunk, too…” Taiga looked cute in a velour tracksuit that she probably borrowed from Ami. “If I had just put some effort into it, I wonder if I could have found it?”
“What are you… What an idiotic thing to say… Actually, what’re you doing going off and borrowing nice clothes?!”
“Well, I think they’d be too small for you, Ryuuji.”
“I’m fine without them! What happened to the clothes you were wearing?!”
They’re right there. Shoulder deep in the heated table, Taiga used her chin to gesture to a corner of the room. Her coat was at least on a hanger, but the rest of her clothes were stuffed into a plastic bag and still wet.
“Ahhhh…!” Surging waves of reality drowned Ryuuji. The wet clothes Taiga had taken off and cast aside would gradually rot with the certain flow of time. Time, that was ticking even now.
“Don’t just stand there. Get under the table. You, too, Yuusaku. You can get in if you sit next to each other, can’t you?” Ami pulled up the open side of the table blanket for them.
Most of the furniture in the room was made up of steel racks, piled recklessly with all kinds of things—a small TV, a heap of magazines, a stereo for an iPod, and even brand-name bags. Ami’s room felt like a temporary rental.
“Where…do you sleep? You don’t have a bed.”
“I have a foldable futon. When I bring out the heated table, I put it away in the closet where it’s supposed to go.”
“You don’t even have a desk to study at.”
“Of course I do, it’s this one here.”
Still snugly buried in the kotatsu, Ami hit its surface with the palm of her hand. For having no bed or desk, I’m surprised she always looks so put together, Ryuuji thought. “It’s fine. My parents’ house is actually really nice—wait, she’s already asleep.”
Next to her, Taiga was burrowed in all the way, curled up with the top of her head pushed against Minori’s hip, and snoring.
“She must be exhausted. Just leave her alone for a while.”
At Kitamura’s words, Ami pulled away her hands, which had been just about to shake Taiga’s shoulders. They all ended up silent for a while, listening to Taiga’s breathing as she slept. Eventually, Minori opened her mouth first.
“So, I didn’t get to ask this when Taiga was talking just earlier, but…” Voice lowered, she fidgeted with the cord of her parka, staring at the discarded peel of a mandarin that someone had eaten and left on top of the table. “Why is the situation with Taiga’s mom so hostile? Does Taiga not like the person her mom married? We’re sure that Taiga doesn’t like her mom…right?”
“Well, of course.” Giving Minori’s profile a sidelong glance, Ami answered in Taiga’s place. “First off, she stuck by her dad after the divorce. No matter whose fault the divorce was, girls would normally follow their moms, wouldn’t they? But that didn’t happen—you say you’re her best friend, but it looks like you don’t actually know much about Tiger.”
“It’s because I once… I once got in a fight with Taiga about that guy. About her dad. Even after we made up, I didn’t feel like I could really bring up her family.”
Ryuuji remembered something odd. During Christmas, Taiga had declared she would be a good girl and sent her father and his new wife presents, but now that he thought about it, he didn’t remember there being anything addressed to her mom. She hadn’t even known her mother was pregnant. And even when she had been horribly betrayed by her father at the culture festival, even after she attacked Kanou Sumire and got suspended, Taiga had never asked her mother for help. Even when she got hurt during the school trip, she never asked for her mom to come.
He didn’t know whether she didn’t want to ask for help or just hadn’t been able to ask, but regardless, the rift in their mother-daughter relationship might have been much, much, much deeper than he originally thought.
“So basically, Tiger’s running away so she won’t be separated from Takasu-kun. If she goes with her mom, she’ll be taken from him. I’ll only say this because she’s asleep, but…” Ami took a quick glance at the unmoving back of Taiga’s head and lowered her voice. “Things turned out this way because you decided to do this too, Takasu-kun, but to be blunt… Don’t think what you’re trying to do is that realistic.”