Chapter 1: The Decision
No matter what I do… I can't stop myself… from loving Ryuuji.
Those words played over and over in his head as they made their way up the hill.
"Oiiiiii!" he heard the voice yelling faintly in the distance. He looked around, trying to find his way. It was so dark.
"OIIIIIII!" it was Kitamura. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, waving his arms around frantically at the top of the hill.
They had finally made it back.
Kitamura disappeared briefly, and then he came back with a couple of people. It looked as though they were paramedics. They came down to where Ryuuji and Taiga were and helped them up. Immediately they started looking over Taiga, checking her vitals, examining her injury.
"Taiga! He shouted. They were taking her away.
"Hey, Takasu!" Kitamura said, snapping him out of it. "Are you ok?"
"What?" he said, startled. He was only thinking of her. "Yeah, I'm… I'm fine."
"Are you sure?" Kitamura said, looking him over. "You dragged her all the way up here in this blizzard." Over near the ambulance, the paramedics had set Taiga up on the gurney. The first one started to strap her in, while the second came over to talk to Ryuuji. He checked his vitals, and made sure that he wasn't injured. Ryuuji tried to help him as much as possible by giving all the information he could. Kitamura pitched in as well to fill in some details.
Ryuuji looked really out of it. It seemed strange to Kitamura; he seemed to be in some kind of shock. Something beyond the feeling of worrying about his injured friend.
"What happened out there, Takasu?" Kitamura asked.
"She…" What could he say to Kitamura, whom Taiga thought she had been confessing all of this too? Should he tell Kitamura about it? Maybe he could ask Kitamura to say that he was the one who saved her.
That idiot. All this time… she's… he fought back the tears. She felt that way, and even then she risked her life to go and get that stupid hair pin. Stupid stupid stupid.
"Takasu?"
The paramedic was leaving him now, telling Kitamura to keep an eye on Ryuuji, and to take him to the hospital if he got sick.
They were going to take her away.
Take her to the hospital, where she'd lie in a bed, alone.
She's been alone all this time, he thought. All this time, he'd been going along as usual, while all of this was bubbling up in her and she was keeping it to herself. But that wasn't quite right, was it? had he been going along as usual? Lately, it seemed like his heart and brain were splitting off into all sorts of different directions.
No, he thought. I won't let her be alone. Never again.
He started walking towards the ambulance.
"Hey, Ryuuji, where are you going?" Kitamura said, surprised. Ryuuji ignored him. he walked right up to the ambulance and climbed in the back.
"Hey!" one of the paramedics said. "What are you—" but Ryuuji just ignored him. he got all the way into the ambulance and sat down on the bench near Taiga's head, watching over her wordlessly.
"Hey kid!" the first paramedic continued. "Come on, you can't be in here. We've got a job to do here." Ryuuji just continued watching over Taiga.
"I'm serious! If you don't get out, we'll have—" he was cut off by the second paramedic placing a hand on his shoulder. They both observed the look on Ryuuji's face.
The first paramedic sighed. He got up and went to the door of the ambulance, where a stunned Kitamura was staring at the scene. He closed the doors.
"You can stay, alright kid?" Ryuuji looked up at him. "I get it, alright? Just… look. Just move down a little, yeah? We still have to keep an eye on her."
Ryuuji shifted down and let the paramedic take the spot he had been occupying.
"Thanks" he said to them quietly. The second paramedic patted him on the back.
"It's going to be ok."
They drove through the blizzard towards the hospital, through the dark night in the winding mountains, as Ryuuji stared at the face of Taiga. He didn't know what would happen next; he was certain that he had just thrown away the only chance either of them had to pretend that any of this was all in their minds.
But he didn't care. The only thing he was certain of was that he was never going to leave her alone again.