But I’m here, Ryuuji thought as he watched Ami’s expression, though he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth. He existed because Yasuko actually had done something unrealistic in the past. Yasuko had gotten pregnant, run away from home, had him, and cut off all contact with her parents for the next eighteen years, raising Ryuuji alone.
High school student or not, if someone set their heart on running away, it could be done. Ryuuji’s existence itself was proof of that.
Ami, of course, didn’t know that. She continued to speak.
“Even if you actually got away and got married, is that really going to be happily ever after? Takasu-kun, it’s nice that you and Tiger have decided to live together, but—how do I put this? You keep saying you’re adults, but you’re kind of throwing the actual adults to the wolves? Like—are you really going to cut ties with Taiga’s mother forever? Isn’t that kind of childish? It’s like you’re saying that as long as things go your way, you’ve won.”
Unable to retort, Ryuuji dropped his eyes to his own fingertips. She had a point. Still, he couldn’t help but recall his life with Yasuko. She regretted the things she’d done, and she was trying to use Ryuuji to salve her own conscience. Was it so wrong for him to want to run from that?
Maybe everything would have been fine if he’d just kept in mind what was convenient for everyone else, swallowed his own desires, and behaved how the people surrounding him expected him to. But the adults in his life had manipulated him for their own convenience, and once he realized that, it became difficult to answer to their expectations. He didn’t want to just cut ties with them like Ami said, of course, but he didn’t want them to control him, either. If he and Taiga didn’t break free of their grip, they’d never be able to live as they wished.
He knew this meant they might end up having to quit school and find jobs. He might never see Yasuko again. He didn’t want that to happen, but he knew it was wrong to expect her to feed two mouths.
“If Takasu and Aisaka are prepared to go through with this, I’ll support them with everything I’ve got. I’ll do anything for them,” Kitamura muttered.
Since the table was cramped and had become uncomfortably hot, he had moved away to sit on Ami’s exercise ball. His eyes met with Ryuuji’s, and Kitamura shrugged, trying to hide his embarrassment.
“When you said you’d figure out a way to get married, it made me genuinely happy. This definitely isn’t how it usually goes, and you’re moving too fast according to how the world works, but who cares?!” Kitamura grandiosely raised both arms in the air without so much as wobbling on the exercise ball. “Kushieda said that she’d choose her own happiness for herself, didn’t she? I’m going to do the same. I’m going to choose my own happiness. Takasu, Aisaka, you just have to go for it! Even if you’re beat and have no idea what’s coming next, even if things are a mess, it’s fine! You just need to be happy!”
“That’s not a majority vote,” Ami said, raising the pointer fingers on both her hands. “One nay. One yay. Kushieda, this is the decisive vote. What do you think?”
Minori, who had been fidgeting with the mandarin skin, stopped for a moment. She put the palm of her hand in front of Ami’s face, trying to say, wait a sec. With her other hand, she hid her own lowered face.
“Kushieda…” Ryuuji looked at her. Maybe even Minori couldn’t find the words when she was cornered like this. Ami pouted her lips slightly and, like Ryuuji, stooped to look up at Minori’s face.
“Bwah ha!”
“Bwah haaa!”
The two of them burst out laughing.
“Sah-rry…it hwas too bwhig…” Minori had stuck the whole peeled mandarin into her mouth. Orange fruit juice dripped down her chin as she tried to desperately to swallow. “Hwai a sec, hwai a sec.”
Like a snake swallowing a mouse whole, her neck writhed painfully, and then finally, the mandarin descended.
“Ahhh, that was a shock… My mouth’s way smaller than I thought…”
She drank some tea and steadied her breath. Then, as though she had decided what she wanted to say way earlier…
“Anyway,” she said as she looked at Taiga, who was fast asleep. “I think it’s absurd for Taiga to be taken away against her will. I can’t accept that. I don’t want to be separated from Taiga. I don’t want Taiga to be sad. I don’t want Takasu-kun to be sad, either. I don’t want that—but I don’t think that’s right, either. I don’t think there’s anything in this world that’s right. I don’t think we can decide what’s absolutely right or wrong for someone else to do. It’s just that I want my friends whom I care about and who mean so much to me, Taiga and Takasu-kun, not to suffer. So, that’s what I choose. I agree that they should escape.”
“I can’t believe you’re phrasing it like that!” Flustered, Ami raised her voice. “It’s not like I wouldn’t be sad about Tiger disappearing! I want to do something about it! But, but, I just end up thinking about whether that’s the best thing for the future! Aren’t you thinking about that?!”
“I know what you want to say, Ahmin, but there’s one thing you don’t know. Taiga’s parents are, at their core—”
—terrible.
That was probably what she wanted to say, Ryuuji thought as he watched Minori’s mouth while she faltered momentarily. She’d hesitated at the last minute to condemn her best friend’s parents, which might have been the correct decision.
Taiga’s small shoulders emerged from under the table blanket, though they weren’t sure when she had woken up. She combed out her soft hair, which was so long it tangled around her face and shoulders, with her fingers as she got up.
“Minorin… Don’t finish that thought.”
Just like all the times they’d horsed around and messed with each other, Taiga rubbed her head into Minori’s shoulder. As if taking her temperature, Minori held her hand to her own forehead and bit her lip for a moment, looking regretful. Eventually, she nodded slightly.
I’m sorry, really. Her whisper reached Ryuuji’s ears.
“I get why Dimhuahua is worried about us.” Taiga’s face was bright red from the heat of the table. Even the rims of her eyes were dyed red. “And also, my mo…that hag…that woman…my mother came here to help me, I know. I think she’s trying to go through with her responsibilities as a parent. But when my mom divorced my dad, she left me behind and went to that man. I can’t forget that. She’s going to have a baby with a guy she loves whom she got to choose, and I’m just some guy’s kid who didn’t need a mother… I can’t ever expect her to love me the way that I want, even if she came to help me, because if I expect anything from her, she’ll leave me. I’ve learned that from it happening over and over—that I’ll never have the things I want. I’ve been trained and broken in with all that word implies, I think. But—”
Despite the painful words, Taiga smiled slightly. She looked at Ami, Kitamura, and Minori, and then her gaze met with Ryuuji’s.
“…you fall in love with a certain boy. You like that he’s kind and understands you, and being with him is fun, and you can’t leave him—it’s like an addiction. He’s kind of weird, but you like his voice and the way he talks, the way he opens his mouth when he eats. You like his hands and his fingers and his lips… Actually, who cares about all of that?”
You really don’t care, Minori teased. Yeah, who cares, Taiga nodded. Kitamura went silent, and wrinkles appeared on Ami’s forehead.
“But I wanted to always see him. I aaaalways wanted to remember him and this whooole time just seeing him would make my heart race, but I’d still look. When I was near him, the inside of my head would feel like—bam—like it was exploding and everything would go white… I don’t know when it started to be like that, but I just couldn’t help it. I thought I needed it to stop. I had to stop because that guy liked someone else. And then it was also because that girl also liked that guy. I pretended it was out of friendship and loyalty, but the real reason I wanted to turn my eyes away was because I thought that I wasn’t allowed to want things. If I wanted something, it would break. Ryuuji didn’t like me, and I didn’t want to be jealous of Minorin, and if I reached out to grab it, I thought that everything would magically go to ruin—it’s kind of stupid, but I really thought that.” Taiga spoke all at once, still breathing shallowly. “I still kind of think that, even now. Since I couldn’t stop and tried to actually get Ryuuji, maybe I caused the Aisaka family’s ruin. I wonder if it’s my fault?”
“’Course not!”
“Like it would be!”
“Of course it ain’t!”
“Are you an idiot?!”