There are things in this world that not a single person has witnessed.
“Oh…oh…oh…”
“In! I—In—Innn…In…Iiiinnn!”
“It’s tasty, huh? Right, right… You really are cute… Oh, hey, Inko-chan, stop that. It tickles.”
“Rin!”
In the morning light, the bird with the face like a bizarrely shaped rock nibbled at the skin on his hand. Takasu Ryuuji watched as the beak peeled off and consumed the skin around his thumbnail.
“Of joy—”
“Toy!”
“It’s great…!”
Ryuuji poked his ugly parakeet’s head with the tip of his finger to pet her as she rested on his wrist. Probably because she was enjoying it, Inko-chan drooled cloudy liquid. The whites of her eyes showed as she shivered.
Mm-hmm, good, good. He gave her head an absentminded kiss without thinking about it. As far as Ryuuji was concerned, Inko was his beloved pet, and so cute he wanted to eat her right up. Of course, he would no longer be human if he did that, so he ended their morning communication session there and put her back in the birdcage.
He looked at the clock, ready for a change of pace. It was 7:45.
“Oh no!”
He had thought it was still half past seven. He couldn’t let himself be late for the opening ceremony of his third year in high school!
“Wait, my head!”
Ryuuji leapt into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. “Urk!” Today, of all days, his bedhead was terrible. The back of his hair stuck up so intensely that it looked like he was wearing a beret—or a wig. He desperately combed it out with a brush and wet it with his fingers.
“Th-th-this won’t work…!”
He headed back to the living room in his sock-clad feet, pulled down a small box of Yasuko’s hair tools from their shelf, and looked for something that could fix his hair. He didn’t care whether the answer was a spray, mousse, or a cream—as long as it could help him.
“You looking for something?”
“My head! I need to fix my hair! I can’t go out looking like this!”
“Oh, that! The thing you’re holding right now is spray meant for fixing bedhead! Give it here, I’ll fix it up for you!” Yasuko, who was already awake, changed, and had eaten breakfast with Ryuuji, sprayed his head several times. She brushed his damp hair and held it down firmly as Ryuuji looked at the clock anxiously again.
“Crap, crap, crap… I might actually be late. What about you? When are you heading out?”
“I’m fine! I just need to get to the store before ten. Okay, now you just use a dryer on the wet parts.”
Ryuuji gave her a rushed reply and headed to the bathroom again. He pulled out the dryer in a fluster, and the plug rang out as it hit the polished sink. Everything okay? Yasuko peeked in at him.
Ever since she had chopped her heat-damaged hair to chin length, he thought she had started to look even more like Sonoko. Yasuko herself didn’t seem to like the haircut and declared at every opportunity she would be growing it out again.
Ever since that day, Sonoko had come to the rental three times and Seiji once. Ryuuji and Yasuko went back to Yasuko’s parent’s house once. After such emotional reunions, it was, of course, slightly difficult to go back to the independent, carefree rhythms of their everyday lives. The parents and former runaway daughter, after having been separated for so long, occasionally butted heads.
Yasuko had also retired from Bishamon Heaven at the end of March, though not because she was concerned about how her parents saw it. It had been the owner’s idea to install the number two, Shizuyo, as the new housemistress and to task Yasuko with opening a new store called “Okonomiyaki and Benzaiten Heaven.” She would be interviewing new employees starting that day.
“Did it work?”
“I give up!” Ryuuji held down his hair, which still looked exactly like a parakeet’s tuft, as he glared at his own face in the mirror. He would be a third-year high school student starting today. He scowled and decided that this was actually fine. There were things he needed to do, and he didn’t want to be late.
He ran into his room, which still had the curtains drawn, and tore apart the dry-cleaning bag. He reeled it in and thrust it into the trash. He put on his pressed school jacket.
A young married couple he still hadn’t gotten to know had moved into the bedroom of the condo that stood beyond the curtain. They always had the blinds closed, probably wanting privacy, and he almost never opened his curtains anymore. He didn’t really care. It wasn’t like sunlight would make its way into the room even if he did.
Ryuuji grabbed his phone, threw his tote bag over his shoulder, and then ran out of the room. “I’m heading out!”
“See yoooooooou! It’s fine, your hair looks greaaaaaaaat! You’re amazing, Ryuu-chan! You’re the coolest guy in the woooooooooorld!”
“…”
This was what the world could call killing with kindness.
Ryuuji almost tripped under the force of his mother’s torrent of loving praise as he stuck his feet into his shining loafers. He grabbed the cold doorknob and opened the front door, letting the blinding sunlight of spring bathe his whole body.
The shower of light was so intense he couldn’t open his eyes. There was a warm, spring breeze, surreptitiously laced with the smell of flowers. Standing under the bright blue sky, Ryuuji breathed in a lungful of air.
His shoes rang out as he ran down the stairs, almost giving his landlady a heart attack as she swept the front porch with a broom. “Good morning!”
“AH! Don’t just yell at me like that!”
A new school year. A new class. A new homeroom teacher. New friends. On this new morning, Ryuuji walked on, one step at a time. His legs swelled with power as he took a large step forward.
“Taiga…”
He threw out his chest.
“…how will you start walking forward?”
I’m boldly facing forward. I’m facing the same direction you are, and I know I can keep believing that this is the path that will lead me to you again.
So, you also need to—
“Guh?!”
“Ow!”
In this world, there’s something that no one has ever seen.
Something gentle and oh-so-sweet.
If anyone ever saw it, they’d surely want it for themselves.
But that’s precisely why no one’s ever seen it.
In order to keep it safe, the world hid it away.
But someday, someone will find it.
Only the one who was meant to have it will find it, in the end.
That’s how it’s meant to be.
“Ow…ouch…! Wh—”
“Wh-wh-wh-wh-!” Ryuuji’s quivering tongue had gone numb. Shock clouded his vision in an intense, halo-like white light. “Why?! Since when have you been here?! How did you get back?!”
It seemed that the girl before his eyes had no time for that. Taiga, who had landed on her butt from the collision, wore her usual uniform, though it looked oddly new. She held her head, which firmly conked into his when they ran into each other, and started to wail, unable to get back up.
“H-hey, wait…are you okay?!”
“I kind of feel dizzy… Wait! A! Sec…!”
Ryuuji saw murder fill the eyes under her two small hands as they opened wide and pinned him with a glare. A palmtop-sized tiger was still a tiger. She tensed her body as though she was about to pounce on him.
“I’ve been waiting here this whoooole morning! You’re so slow! We’re going to end up late! And you didn’t even notice me! And then you came barreling into me! Why didn’t you just—”
He used every ounce of strength in him to embrace the delicate body that readily clung to him with all her weight.
“—hug me from the start like this?!”
This shamelessness, this strength, this minuteness, this weight, this energy, this sense of lovingness—this was Taiga.
“I’m so…sorry.”
Taiga was always sudden.
She would suddenly appear, suddenly knock Ryuuji off his feet, suddenly carry off his heart. That was just how she was, and she’d always been that way. Ryuuji knew that everything would always end up in its proper place like this. They would hug each other and inhale deep breaths of each other. They would yell at the top of their lungs. Welcome home. Welcome home. I’m home. I’m home.
“Taiga. It’s you, it’s you, it’s really you… It’s you, Taiga!”
“It’s you, Ryuuji. It’s really you. My favorite Ryuuji.”
“How did you get back?!”
“So my mom rescinded the school withdrawal the day after and sent in an absence request instead. She wanted to make sure I would be able to come back to school if I wanted to, but it took a while for them to approve the request, and she didn’t want me to be confused, so she kept it secret. I didn’t find out until just recently.”
“What about your house?! Where are you living?! Actually…seriously! What’s with you?! Where were you up until now?! You never told me anything!”
“Well, of course, I couldn’t—” Taiga raised her slightly damp eyes and looked at the white condo that stood beside them. She continued to laugh at the back of her throat. “—go back there. But I’m close by. I’m right next to you. You have to come with everyone else! I’m really practically right next to you!”
“I definitely will.”
“I’m with my mom and my new dad, and also—I’ve got a little brother! He’s so cute! They rented out a house nearby for my sake! Well, actually, it was on the condition that I’d help out with taking care of my brother while my mom’s at work. And I’m pretty sure they’ll move out right after I’ve graduated. Seems about right, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Yup.”
Ryuuji painted the picture of a dream in his mind and was sure Taiga was picturing the same thing he was. At some point in the vast, endless future, he would marry Taiga and they would live together. Everyone they loved would be there. Ryuuji and Taiga would smile blissfully, their eyes squinting with joy, because they were headed toward that future together.
“I’m sure everyone will be surprised when I come to school. I haven’t told anyone yet—not Minorin or Dimhuahua or Kitamura-kun.”
“Let’s give them a surprise. Let’s go! We’re actually going to end up being late at this rate!”
“Yeah!”
Ryuuji easily grabbed the bag he dropped and turned around, and the two of them ran down the sidewalk on the usual Zelkova-lined path. Both moving at once, they grabbed each other’s hands and turned their faces to each other and smiled.
Their new days start once more from here.
THE END