Ryuji's stomach dropped when he got the text from Taiga, panicked and confused. She was looking for her after something Kawashima had said sent her running from the room. He was confused too, but he had a sinking feeling he knew what was going on.

Ami found him walking towards the girls room.

"She's in the dining area. You need to talk to her," she commanded, again turning and refusing any explanation.

Ryuji finally did as she told him, walking at a brisk pace toward the cafeteria of the resort.

He found the same red-haired girl, now looking listfully out at the dark, wintry landscape.

"Hey."

"Hey," she replied, looking up to him standing over her.

"I'm sorry... for standing you up after everything I said."

"Hey, I mean... duty calls, right?" she chuckled half-heartedly.

"I guess so," he said, sitting down next to her.

After what felt to him like an eternity, she spoke again.

"I was there. I saw... everything," she said dreamily. "I'm really happy for you guys. I mean it. Taiga is... really lucky to have someone like you looking out for her."

"And... what you meant to say at Christmas... it's okay. I... don't think I'm meant to... see ghosts. I think that's for other people... and I'm just supposed to be strong on my own," she continued hesitantly. "But Taiga... She needs you. I think she needed you for a long time... and now you're there," she sighed. "So, yeah!" she concluded casually, some of her characteristic brightness returning to her weakly smiling face.

"Thanks, I guess. Still... I hope you find... whatever it is that you're looking for." he replied.

He wasn't sure what else to say to her at this point. He wasn't expecting to get rejected, especially for something he had stopped planning to say months ago... and still, it hurt. What was really surprising was that it didn't hurt him as he had expected, but rather that he was hurting for Kushieda. He felt slightly guilty, like he had gone down a path he would never turn back from and had opened some wounds in the process. The best he could hope to do is turn around just to heal the people he had hurt before he kept marching along on his path. Regardless, he was sure that he had made the right decision that night-whether through divine intervention, he had come to his senses and seen what had been right in front of him for who knows how long. He felt good.

"I guess I should say I told you so," Kushieda said, interrupting Ryuji's train of thought.

"Huh?" he asked, surprised and confused (which Taiga would have pointed out was his default state).

"At the beginning of the year. On the roof. I told you to take care of her. In the end I wasn't wrong, just ahead of the curve."

"Oh, yeah, I guess you were right," he admitted. "Are you gonna be okay?" he asked.

"I'll deal. I'm just gonna stay out here for a while."

"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow."

With that, he returned the way he had come.

And with that, Minori Kushieda resumed crying.

Taiga was still fuming with rage. Ami had returned--without Minorin--and assured her that everything would be okay, that she'd apologized and that Minorin was very understanding. Taiga didn't want to hear it.
"Where the hell do you get off, saying something like that to someone?!" she had screamed, totally indifferent to the rooms next door and they're sleeping occupants.
Truth be told, Taiga was uneasy. She had tried to write off everything that had happened, tried to ignore the feelings that she knew Minori had--she was her best friend after all--but still she knew it was a sham. She had been noticing the signs since the start of the new year, and it had become impossible for her to ignore any longer. She had tried so hard to set everything up perfectly because she was certain that her friend had feelings for Ryuji, and she had thrown it all out in one night with a tantrum. She felt like a selfish, spoiled child. She felt like a burden--after all, she was imposing herself even more on him and Ya-chan by moving all her junk out of her apartment, and still she was practically useless at everything.
"Somebody needed to say something, and nobody else was going to."
Ami.
It would be so easy to blame Ami. Just scream at her some more until she was satisfied or tired enough to go to sleep. Act like it was all her fault for starting this.
But that didn't hold up, did it? At the end of the day, if it was all Ami then nothing would have happened. Minori was tougher than that, she would never let some baseless story get to her. So it all came to one conclusion: Ami was right. Taiga was right, too. Ryuji had feelings for Minori, and those feelings were reciprocated. And Taiga was in the way of that. Because she had cried out for him, let him believe that she'd misinterpreted her friend's feelings so she could pretend she was the one he really wanted.
Her head was spinning. Her eyes were watering, and she felt like she would throw up. Thinking of losing him again was like getting punched in the stomach. She hated the idea of it so much, but she hated the idea of being a burden more. She hated the idea that she was in the way of her friends being happy, that, deep down, she was the cause of all this.
So Taiga, again, started to cry. As heavily as she had on Christmas, if not worse. And Ryuji wouldn't be there to pick her up.