“Okay, in the one-in-a-million chance we get stopped and asked, ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in school?!’ we tell them that we’re late and heading over right now… Taiga?!”
“…”
“Taiga! You can’t just check out like that!”
“Huh…”
Ryuuji stretched out his hand to Taiga’s shoulder where she was running next to him and gave her a small poke. Her eyes didn’t focus as she simply moved her legs.
“That hurt?!” She returned the poke with the same force, mostly unconsciously. “Well, I’m trying not to think much about anything right now.”
“Why?!”
“When I think too hard about things, I end up getting really clumsy and doing things like pushing you over into a river or something. That’s why I was thinking of just going into a trance. All I’ve got to do is stick by you and avoid tripping or getting lost. Make sure you do a good job guiding me to Dimhuahua’s villa, got it?”
“You can’t do that! You need to actually be thinking, too! Actually, we’re about to be in big trouble—no, we already are in big trouble.”
Ryuuji grabbed Taiga’s elbow and steered them into a narrow alleyway. The truth was, he’d already settled on an escape route. They wouldn’t use the nearest station but would make their way to the villa changing trains and taking a roundabout route to get there. And as for their destination, that was—
“A problem?! What problem?!”
“When I got home yesterday, Yasuko had run away from home!”
She didn’t respond. When he checked Taiga’s face to see if she was back in her trance, he saw she was so startled she was at a loss for words. Her eyes and mouth were wide open as she looked back at Ryuuji, and she stopped running. She grabbed Ryuuji firmly by the elbow.
“Wait…a second.”
Her eyelashes fluttered in confusion, and she kept blinking. Wait a second, she groaned, repeating herself. She rubbed her pale forehead furiously with the back of her hand.
“Ya-chan ran away from home? And she did it…because she felt hurt from what you said yesterday?”
“I think so.”
“Y-you think so?! We’re trying to run away right now, you know! If Ya-chan is running, then…you might never see her again…”
“I might not.”
“I don’t want that to happen!” Ryuuji watched quietly as Taiga raised her voice. “I decided that I would live with you, just the two of us, but that doesn’t mean that I want to hurt Ya-chan or abandon her! I know we just made a break for it, but after we run, even Ya-chan…if Ya-chan wants it, then I want her to be with us, too! I thought that’s how things would end up, but us trying to run away… I know we’re trying to run away from home like this… But…”
Taiga was practically in shock. Now that things hadn’t gone as she expected, she dropped her gaze. She was frightened.
“Wh-what should we do…?!”
She might have understood for the first time what it was she was actually trying to do.
“What do you want to do?” Ryuuji asked Taiga, grabbing her hand. Taiga might have been surprised by the firmness in his voice. She lifted her eyes and peered into Ryuuji’s face, searching for something. She started to look anxious, like she was thinking that if she answered incorrectly, she would end up being left behind. “There’s no wrong answer, so think it over. What’s the number one thing you want to do?”
“That’s—that’s obvious, isn’t it? I want to be with you! I want to be happy with you, but I want Ya-chan to be happy, too! I know what I’m saying is stupid, b-but you know—”
“I do. I get it now. I’m not going to give up on either—on either living with you or on Yasuko. In order to do that, we need to do something. There’s a place that we need to go, and it’s not Kawashima’s villa. Will you come with me?”
Taiga nodded without so much as hesitating. “Of course I’ll go! If you say you’re going, I’ll believe in you and go!”