Ryuji Takasu was running down the street, trying to make it back to the school to meet his crush of over a year so he could finally confess his feelings to her. He figured the Christmas party was probably already finished, but if Taiga were telling the truth it wouldn't matter as long as he made it there in time. Meeting Kushieda was almost all he cared about right then, but still something made him stop, feeling something sinking in his stomach. His pace slowed, and he stopped in place.
Dammit. He was only just rounding the corner of his and Taiga's street. If he kept a pace like this, Kushieda would be waiting there for ages, and by the time he got there...
He was interrupted.
"Ryuji!"
It was a unique voice. Fragile, small, almost a match for her tiny body, yet with something forceful in it that matched her demeanor.
Somehow Taiga Aisaka had found a new way to strike him down that didn't even involve violence. Bravo, he thought. All the trouble she went to for him to meet Kushieda, and here she was about to bother him again.
The cry repeated and this time he recognized the fragility and the passion within it. Not thinking, he turned and ran back towards her. Something inside him just knew he had to go to her side. Maybe... maybe it had always known.
The cry came again, louder and more pained than each of the times before, but this time it was matched.
"Taiga."
He reached around her shoulders and embraced her for the second time that night. Her eyes, once screwed tightly shut and saturated with tears, relaxed and then reopened. Moments passed, what felt like hours, the two of them just in each other's presence, in the cold street in front of the two apartments. Taiga's place of residence, and Taiga's home.
"Ryuji..."
Her voice was shaking now.
"It's okay, I'm here now, I've got you Taiga-"
She suddenly turned around, wrapping her arms around Ryuji and burying her face in his chest.
"Have I got you, Ryuji?"
He paused, not knowing what to say, even though he'd already said it.
"Of course. I love you."
Something had taken hold of the marionette strings he'd been hanging from all his life and was guiding him. He would have felt possessed, but he knew it was true, that it was right, and that he meant it. It was him, afterall. He'd said it, and it felt natural to tell this tiny girl he'd thrown his arms around.
"You idiot..." Taiga almost whispered into his chest as her face flushed from embarrassment.
They stayed like that again for God knows how long, before Ryuji Takasu broke the comfortable silence.
"If your plan is to catch a cold, you'd better not do it over me. Let me take you inside."
"O-Okay..."
Ryuji picked her up, a bridal carry, and brought her up the steps into his own apartment. Her real home, not that stupid gilded cage she'd spent her high school years in.